The Beard Bunker

When Jeff announced the Beard Bunker’s Campaign back in January, we promised we'd keep you updated with our progress. Well, over the last few weeks I’ve begun to build some momentum. Now that I’ve put some finishing touches on ten archers, twelve flagellants, and a fifth member of the Silver Drakes’Inner Circle , I’m sitting pretty on an 800-point army. Behold:  Ha! In your face, looming deadline. I can beat you. It comes to my attention, however, that we've not heard anything from my fellow Beard Bunkerettes for some time. Emma? How’s your army looking? EMMA: After a very enthusiastic start on my Tzeentchian Chaos Warrior army back in the Spring when two units of malicious-looking meaty warriors and ten gangrenous warhounds came into being, my new-found hobby proceeded to take a back seat for the entire summer. Charlie and Maisey are entirely to blame for this as they are the ones who waved the Mass Effect game series in my face and sai...

Keen to reinvent the wheel as often as possible, I thought I’d try something a little different for the Beard Bunker’s third battle report. I’ve pretty much written a short story. With a narrative that, er, extends beyond the battle itself. Somewhat. I might’ve gotten carried away. It was fun, but very time consuming, so it won’t be happening again unless people are very vocally in favour of this sort of thing. Now, since the Beard Bunker is allegedly a hobby blog, as opposed to a place for fiction, there will occasionally be notes about the actual, you know, game in this thing. The notes are in green, and will be anecdotal or talking about the balance of the scenario (as described in my last post ). Why are these bits green? Well, if you find yourself getting immersed in the story, you can just skip the green parts and move on to the next bit in black so as not to break rhythm. A note on the setting/timeline: Oskar Brandt will, as previously mentioned, act as a sort of pr...

Before I get started on a Warhammer scenario whot I done wrote, I shall begin with an update on le campaign preparations. Given how enthusiastic my last post’s sign-off was about getting my Hochland army ready for the campaign, it’d be embarrassing if I’d since sat on my hands and tried, unsuccessfully, to twiddle my thumbs. Fortunately, over the weekend, here’s what I got done: - Assembled the warrior priest. - Assembled the final ten handgunners. There’s a blind man. No, it wasn’t a mistake. - Finished assembling the volley gun’s base/crew. - Started conversion work on the wizard. Right now, she looks... bald. The learning point? Hobby begets hobby. Painting Captain Brandt got me more fired up than a buffalo sitting on a Catherine Wheel. Speaking of Captain Newandshiny, Maisey and I pulled a fun little skirmish scenario out of our collective posterior, and it was a good time. I thought I’d share. If you happen to have an army of undead at your disposal, then yay....

Although I posted my last update on the Hochland army a month ago, I actually painted those models back in January. And then I thought: wait, when was the last time I actually painted something? Can’t’ve been that long; I write a hobby blog. People who write hobby blogs are doing hobby, like, all the time. Although, hmm, getting older subjectively speeds time right the fudge up. So, when was it? Three weeks ago? Something like that. +++Processing +++Processing Turns out I haven’t done any painting since Nerd Thunder III , which was in... June. Dear sweet Vishnu on a Fisher Price pogo stick. Now, okay , I was working hard on a novel, and I haven’t been entirely idle hobby-wise. Things have been built. A board was painted . But still... Jayyyyzuz. This needed to be rectified. Thus, over the last few days, I finally splurged paint all over Oskar . Now he looks like this: Oh god did I ever struggle with the colour scheme. Parts of him ended up getting re-painted...

Last week, in an optimistic spasm of idiocy, I said Maisey and I would finish refurbishing the Beard Bunker’s   tired old fail-fest of a Realm of Battleboard over the weekend. Pinning myself down to a deadline has previously resulted in my being late by over two months . I thought myself a fool. And yet, behold: This whole... on time thing is a bit off-colour for the Beard Bunker. It’s probably Maisey’s fault. He’s the organised one. I can’t even find my own elbow half the time. Anyway, in an emphatic departure from its predecessor, we’ve gone for a late summer look to the grass on this board. It’s a bit greener in the flesh than it is in these photos, but still, the overall effect we were aiming for was more dead and yellowy than your standard gaming board. I’m not going to go over the techniques we used in-depth; as mentioned in my previous post,  Battlesandbiscuits have solid tutorials on table painting and flocking . We’ve gone for a pretty conventiona...

I went to Games Day Today Yesterday, and I’m going to pop up a quick, disorganised and rambling post about my day. What I did at Games Day.   I met my friend Gareth shortly after opening, and we spent a considerable amount of the morning looking at the Armies on Parade and Golden Demon entries. After a curry, we went to the Forgeworld Stall where we queued for what must have been, literally, agonising, minutes. – The sales areas have been seriously sorted the hell out and are as slick as a Transocean drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico. Surprised at the lack of queuing pain, we had a bit of a mooch around the design studio stalls, and then went to Forgeworld where we had a decent old chat with several people and saw a lot of new stuff. Leaving the Forgeworld area, we had one last look at the Golden Demon stuff (including scoping the slayer sword winning zombie dragon) and then sat down for the awards. (Sorry about the photography, it is sporadic and a bit s...

The Beard Bunker’s oldest Realm of Battle board has been showing its age for some time. We bought it when they were first released, and I have several fond memories associated with it, my favourite of which was coming home from work to find Maisey sitting on the sofa, a pair of clippers in one hand, and a 2’x2’ tile in the other, surrounded (and I mean surrounded ) by mashed-up skull flakes. Skull flakes are not a breakfast cereal (for anyone except the inhabitants of the Imperium), but the byproduct of what happens when you remove the one thing about the RoB boards Maisey and I find a little, er, silly – that is, the ball pools made of skulls. Why the chap who sculpted said boards thought this was a good idea, I’ve no idea. Various theories as to their purpose abounded, although my favourite was that of a fellow hobbyist, who posited that the Old World was in fact a giant bean bag full of skulls. Anyway, Maisey and I (mostly Maisey) hacked and drilled those guys out to make...

Over eight months ago, Jeff posted his plans for the army he’d be using in the Beard Bunker’s campaign . Meanwhile, only a few days ago, Maisey said he felt like he’d dropped the ball in not getting a vampire painted for his skellingtons . That may be, but at least he’s painted a Necrononcer by the name of Mallick .* I haven’t even painted a single character yet. In fact, the best thing I’ve got is a Green Stuffed butt crack . There’s only four months left before I’m meant to have this army ship-shape and ass-kicky. Until now, my plan for my Hochlanders ran thusly: “Bimble along and paint things in green and red when you fancy it.” Well, yeah. That there ain’t enough beans for a stew, grandma. ... Turns out I’m almost as good at painting Hochlanders as I am at making up American-South-sounding metaphors. Ooooooh, self-buuuurn. Self-flagellation aside, I’d better get my posterior in gear. Put simply, I need a plan. When it comes to concocting a plan for a new army, ...