The Beard Bunker

Dark Eldar are famous for many things: spikes, pain, spikes, topknots, spikes... the list goes on. What they are not famous for is being conducive to last-minute paint jobs. It’s all those smooth, crisp lines. Most experienced hobbyists would not, therefore, try to paint a squad of five of them and a six-man hive gang and a character model the night before they’re due to be used. To do something like that, you’d have to resemble the end of a bell. Konk, konk. I spent hours and hours on that bloody character development pack , and hours more on painting one of the agents participating in the Inq28 scenario. The other twelve models got an evening (and a good chunk of the next morning whilst waiting for everyone to arrive). The added challenge? The Dark Eldar were a secret. It’s not easy to keep a secret when you’re painting at the dining table and live with two of the people playing in the fudging scenario. Bless ’em, they did a fine job of looking the other way wh...

Aside from shooting stuff in the face with my shiny rusty new second hand ork fleet, I've primarily been preparing for a few role playing games. Specifically, I'm running a one-day Inquisitor scenario in the next few weeks. I say 'Inquisitor'... that's not technically true, in that we're not playing a narrative skirmish wargame. It's more like the 40K roleplaying game  Dark Heresy , in that the gamers are each playing an agent in the employ of an Imperial Inquisitor , but then... it's not Dark Heresy because whilst its production values and content are excellent, I find the game mechanics long-winded. Instead, we're using 20Eight (i.e. the barebones game engine I've been working on for the last year or so). I'm excited to use it in a futuristic context to see how well it holds up. We've hitherto played plenty of fantasy, and that's been great, but fantasy doesn't have guns, spaceships, and them funny-looking spehs ayliurr...

We’re not dead! Two and a half years of weekly posting followed by almost two months of total silence... it probably seemed a bit out of sorts. And, perhaps, that’s because things were out of sorts (we all have our moments). But don't worry, this post isn’t about deep emotional stuff, it’s about orcs, and paint, and, and... spaceships. Yeah that’s right. Spaceships. Some of you will never have heard of Battlefleet Gothic , whereas some of you will, quite rightly, know it as Games Workshop’s Most Awesome Game . There may be people with other opinions, but they’re wrong. It’s been years since I played BFG properly, mainly because there ain’t that many folks who realise that it’s the best game ever, and moreover it’s bloody hard to buy something that’s been out of print for ten years. That eBay still features over 160 listings for the game in the UK, though, speaks to its longevity. Anyway my housemate Jon and I have been checking it out. Overcome with enthusiasm,...

'Allo again Bunker dwellers! 'Tis I with more tales of Dwarfy derring-do and covert sneakiness. In part one we met the first, and most normal, half of Dwalin's Dirty Dozen. In part two we'll meet the slightly madder half in the form of the Odd Squad: Something of a theme running through the Odd Squad is that a lot of them are criminals. Now some of you will be saying "but Jeff, when a Dwarf disgraces themselves they can't stand it and become a trollslayer". To which I reply, ah-hah! But those are the good Dwarfs, the proper Dwarfs who follow societies laws. The Dwarfs of the army book backstory are the ideal of Dwarfkind. There will always be wonky people. Monocultures are boring, if ever single Dwarf behaves in the way described in the book then they would be awfully bland. Instead I grant license for Dwarfs to be as nasty, backstabbing, thieving and generally naer-do-welling as any other race. They're just rarer. I went through the backstory ...

Greetings bunker dwellers! Lordy, three months have passed since I last posted here. I’ve been focusing rather on the last bits of commission stuff I was working on (before wrapping up that whole thing) rather than my own hobby. Fortunately, even in the busiest times I can find space for a dwarf, or twelve…   This motley crew are an upgrade to my Dwarf Rangers, a sort of Impossible Mission Force. Remember last time when I was talking about fun things that develop during narrative campaigns? Well Stromni’s Wanderers – the name for the Rangers in my army – have grown far beyond their battlefield role. We’ve mentioned before how we’re mostly all roleplayers as well as wargamers and thus have fun doing small, story-driven missions where we can achieve goals that don’t belong on the field of battle. When I was trying to figure out which unit would be best for covert and highly secret intelligence gathering and concealed naughtiness against my allies (ahem) enemies, one gr...

Things I have done with Devlan Mud Sitting there, looking at a pile of 56 unpainted Skaven slaves; I'm thinking “I'm going to cherish and value each and every one of you and give you a paintjob fit for a prince of Slaneesh”. 2 rats in, the base coats are going on with a drybrush and I'm thinking “I want to get shot of you as quickly as possible and you’re going to get a paintjob fit for the dirty, useless, and expendable, 2 point shod that you are.” The redemption for these very poorly painted models was that they’d get a lovely coating of Citadel Devlan mud wash once the base colours were on and dry. Devlan Mud was splendid! It hid where I’d gone over the lines, did some shading, added definition to the model and even filled in the crevices - a la the old technique of black lining. It made everything look dirty and shonky and gave the illusion that I was a competent painter. It was my staple diet for rat painting and I thrived upon it. ...

Good day fellow hobbyists. Many moons ago during one of Charlie's scenery parties. Yes, that a party where we all get stuck into building and painting scenery, it's a really great way of getting a lot done in a short time and takes a lot of the tedium out of the process. Anyway, I had the honour(?) of painting a Skyshield landing pad. Whilst its a really good bit of kit, it's rather huge and I decided in my foolish youthfulness to paint the whole thing in the patented Jeff-Rust method ( PVP Workbench tutorial: rusting ). Well, doing that over the 500 square inches (I counted them!) of the surface it was definitely a labour of love. Now, Em and I are building our very own urban board and I really wanted to have a Skyshield of my own. They make great objectives and general scenery piece. Since times and paints have changed, here is an updated step by step of getting the same/similar effects in new money. Mobile users, this is going to be picture heavy. First thing, R...