The Beard Bunker

Well folks, that is it, the Geek Week is over and time to inspect the spoils of the final days, first, I'll take a squint at my Dwarfs: As mentioned last time, I was rewarding myself with a Bolt Thrower. I'm really chuffed with figuring out a new wood method: Steel Legion Drab with Rakarth Flesh woodgrain all bound together with Agrax Earthshade wash. I don't hold with this new idea of Dwarfs only using metal. Kinda daft. Also in the vein of rewarding myself for a week of solid painting I thought I would add another rank of Slayers to the unit. These five are the pirate slayers to give them their nautical feel. Long Drong the pirate slayer captain will be the Giant Slayer of the unit and deserves a slightly closer look. Gotta love that Macaw on the shoulder, all the colours just balance the beard so, so nicely. Check real world references when painting animals as you will always, always forget important details. And finally, the first hero for the Dwarfs...

Shirley : Flatulence; moderate, gusting good. Jeff: Well, the festival of sweat-shop style painting, dubious humour and ill-advised dietary intake that we know as Geek Week continues. Maisey and I are still churning out models at our usual rate, and Charlie is doing something complicated with green stuff and optimism that he assures us will yield awesomeness any time now. So, on with the show; my Dwarfs have had a major boost to their numbers as the Ancient Mariners - Longbeard Warriors - are finished: I'm using the newer plastics as the Longbeards because, well, they've got longer beards. The older models look younger (go figure) so they will be the warriors. Sharp-eyed readers may well be wondering, "why the hell there is a kraken on the banner?" Well, the army is from Barak Varr - the Dwarf seaport - and the family in question are former shipping magnates. Thus I am using plenty of nautical imagery along with the sea green and foam white colour scheme to h...

Junk food! Filthy humour! Headache-inducing bouts of laughter! Geek Week is here, and we've got the pretty pictures to prove it. As I type this, the Beard Bunker's painting table looks like a cross between a sweatshop and the zombie apocalypse. I'll let Maisey explain why later on. The experience is as enjoyable and as humiliating as I expected it to be. So far, Maisey's painted 25 skeletons, based 20 zombies, and painted another thirty. Jeff's produced a unit of sixteen deeply charming Thunderers. And what have I got to show for myself? A finished volley gun that was already half-done when the week started. So. Frakking. Slow. In my (limp) defence, I've also mostly painted five handgunners and done some sculpting on Amelia (more on that project later in the week), but for now, here's a picture of the army's Helblaster: As with much of my stuff, I've tried to model the crew in such a way that you get a sense of their character. T...

Whilst most of us don’t even know if our  campaign armies will work on the tabletop, Maisey has forged ahead and played his first game with the 2,300 points he’s painted. And why isn’t he here to tell you about it himself? Because he and Emma are off to Wales for the next few days. I’m told there will be ponies. Now then, today’s post is going to talk about how to maximise your tactical learning from the first few games you play with a new army, and also to reveal some fairly awesome plans we’ve got for next week. This is the first time Maisey's painted a Warhammer Fantasy army to this size, although he's played a few large games of Fantasy before, and has played many smaller games with his Vampires. As he saw it, his biggest challenge came from the following rule: “Units with the Undead special rule cannot make march moves unless they are within 12" of the army General (or have the Vampiric special rule).” – Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts. Maisey was c...

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...