The Beard Bunker

When Krug was a young ork, a runtherd took him into Mek City to see the Goff Parade. He said, "Krug, when you grow up, will you be a really fighty Goff boy, a killer of our foes?" Krug said, "Yeah course." "Good lad." 'Parade' was doing some heavy lifting, as words go. Mostly it was a bunch of Stormboy yoofs marching down the road in lines in their silly polished boots, with onlooking orks lobbing stuff at them to see how distractible they were. But the best bit of the whole thing, as far as young Krug was concerned, was the energy of so many orks in one place. He'd come out of the ground way out beyond Vulcha Cliffs. There weren't a whole lot of ladz out that way. Being here, in the city, filled him with something. Something that needed to get out. And it did. Legend has it that Krug spontaneously vomited so much green energy out of his mouth that it torched a whole mob of Stormboyz, which inevitably prompted their mates to come over with ...

The thing about buying the massive  Leviathan box due to a rabid desire to paint the new Terminators as quickly as humanly possible is that, having painted said slabs , one is then confronted with a bunch of other models. Honestly I started painting the Ballistus Dreadnought before it ended up lurking in the bottom of a box for years, since the armless gun box on legs look is, to me, unintentionally hilarious. As is the case with so many silly GW designs, however, I've warmed to it during the painting process. Today's post will have a few quick notes on the heraldry decisions I made, but the bulk of this short post is a short story exploring this Dreadnought's rather brutal origins. Painting For the most part this follows the normal Cobalt Scions paint scheme . I did however go slightly off the usual track as I tried out Citadel's Retributor Armour base paint. Its coverage is very impressive, so perfect for anyone wanting a very bright, saturated gold. I rather like it,...

This is going to be one of those posts which is really four separate posts too small to exist on their own: How to quickly add a background image to your mini photos without having to have a physical background. Hint: it's technically similar to how they shot The Mandalorian  but infinitely cheaper and with almost no skill. Things I learned while kitbashing regular Intercessors with Assault Intercessors. Some notes on my latest attempt at a middle eastern skin tone. A short story about how Sergeant Oreas Cassander earned his thunder hammer. Adding background images to your photos This is comically simple: load a suitable image on your PC's monitor, put some scenery and your dudes in front of your PC monitor, and take a photo. Bonus points if you do a better job than me of matching the lighting levels of the minis versus the monitor. This essentially gives you infinite backgrounds, and in retrospect I've no idea why I didn't think of this sooner. Particularly given that ...

Today is the third and final short story covering an incursion into Imperial space by the Word Bearers. Part One covered the fleet engagement in Hasmides, Part Two covered the ensuing boarding action, and now, we have an Inquisitor talking to an imprisoned Heretic Astartes. This story references Joshua Reynolds' novel Apocalypse , although today's story doesn't contain any spoilers for Reynolds' effort. Inquisitor Eidan Drake of the Ordo Hereticus Side note: would I recommend Apocalypse ? Well, I enjoyed it. You get some fun insights into the conflicts within the Word Bearers, and the tensions between primaris and non-primaris Imperial marines. There's also some fun stuff about the Ecclesiarchy and some vigorously take-no-prisoners Sisters of Battle. In general I enjoyed the characters, although the cast was big enough that none of the characterisations have enough time to become all that deep. The title sounds like it's going to be wall-to-wall bolter porn, a...

Today's post is the second of three linked short stories. It follows on directly from the end of part one, The Battle of Hasmides , this time from the perspective of an Inquisition soldier. It's one of those times when the Inquisition has a chance to capture an extremely valuable enemy, so long as they move quickly and take horrifying risks. This week's story assumes familiarity with the 40K mythos, but it's not essential to have read the first story. Enjoy!

Today's post attempts to answer the question "what would it be like to be a junior officer in the strategium support staff of one of the Imperium's battleships... during a massive fleet engagement?" It's a question no-one asked me to answer, but I've answered it in prose form anyway, so nurr . I also appear to have illustrated it, because spaceships. The Battle of Hasmides Ensign Josselana Brannick was facing a test encountered by many Imperial citizens: keeping faith when confronted with mind-numbing dread. She glanced up from her work station and stared through the arched windows of the bridge. The spine of the battleship Dammerung stretched away for eleven kilometers. At regular intervals, lance turrets the size of hab-stacks protruded from the dorsal armour. Beyond that, the pinprick lights of the void. Those distant lights usually calmed her, but today, she knew that some of them were not stars. They were the flaring engines of an enemy fleet. Looking ba...