The Beard Bunker

I talked in the first episode of this series about the existential horror of the Genestealer Cult. The loss of free will and the corruption of the love for one's children. Well, I think there should be another layer of horror added in. The fact that humans make stupid, stupid choices and there will always be some who will willingly drink the Kool-Aid so to speak. When I was first thinking about GSC models, it was mostly for roleplay purposes. So I'd decided to have some brood brother type human allies along for the ride so as to increase the amount of genestealer in the cult gradually. The more I thought about it though, the stronger the desire to have some actual willing humans among the cult. They might be there because they are anti-imperial and the stealer cult gives them the best chance of sticking it to the man; or because they have convinced themselves that the stealers are some next step in mankind's evolution; or just because they're suicidal and want to g...

Thanks to the inestimable Gideon of  dicebard.com , we're going to MCM ComicCon in London this weekend to help him sell pretty polyhedral dice, and spread the word about our roleplaying game whilst we're at it. To paraphrase renowned bad boy Martin Lawrence, poop just got actual . Jeff revealed that we'd developed a Weird War II RPG back in October . The TLDR is this: it's 1941, and you play a government agent with strange abilities tasked with policing Britain's shadow society of supernatural people and creatures. Occupational hazards include sporadic fisticuffs with Himmler's Thule Society. Both Jeff and myself will be manning the Dicebard booth from Friday through to Sunday, so if you're going, you're very welcome to drop by and say hi! As per Dicebard's usual dapper vibe, Jeff and I will be shedding our usual stoner-hobo derelicte threads for waistcoats and other toffery, so that in itself is bloody weird. The current state of the game i...

So, it was my turn to do a post, which is why it's late. In fairness, it wasn’t my fault: Malal made me put it off. In short, this is my gang for the upcoming Necromunda campaign that we will run as soon as everyone finishes their gang. A quick note about the models: I used the cultist models that were originally released in the Dork Vengeance box set back in 2012.   (Yeah, I’m only just painting models I bought seven years ago. My pile of shame is a terrible thing to behold.) Anyway, the truly great thing about the models is that due to their excellent sculpts, they kind of write their own backstory for you, which is handy when you’re dealing with a small unit game like Necromunda as back story for these characters helps bring them to life.  Most of the models are stock, with a couple of head swaps from the Empire flagellants kit. The Psyker is from the Blackstone Fortress game. In general, I really like these models. The sculpts and the poses are ...

Last time we prowled around the surface levels of the House Ortag Refinery and Mineral Exploitation Plant. There we met some people with funny looking heads but nothing too weird... but now we're in the sub levels and things are getting... claw-ey... Yup, they're back and this time they brought grandpa... the Acolytes are the earlier generations of the cult, still more genestealer than person and more bestial in mind. They thus favour the close up rough and tumble over more considered shooting. Like all the rest of the Star-born Souls (hey, check it out! I named them!) these acolytes are dressed in the jury-rigged remains of the pressure suits and coveralls that the neophytes wear. So other than the skin colour, all other painting details remain the same... in which case, let's talk skin! This is another step down on the purple train towards genestealer. They start from pure genestealer purple and are highlighted up with Cadian Fleshtone. All the chitinous bits ar...

I'm not sure there's any more horrifying concept in the 40k universe than the Genestealer cult. Think about it, demons need a weakness in you to get in, to manipulate you. Mutation through chaos influence tends to be a reward or punishment for actually worshipping them. Capture and torture in the depths of Commorragh is at least against your will. No, the Genestealer cares nothing for that. A dark alleyway or the corridors of a ship, a noise from behind, glittering eyes... now you are the proud parent of a monster. A monster that you love, that your brain makes beautiful. Who you'd die to protect. Gods I love Genestealer Cults... So it might be a bit of a surprise it's taken this long to make one... Well, not really, see here's how it went: The new neophytes and acolytes turn up in Deathwatch Overkill. I'm immediately in love. The boxes come out and they're just as good. But the army's a smidge thin, I'm not sure I want to be collecting guardsme...

For my birthday this year I was a lucky boy indeed. I got given a 1/35 scale Churchill Tank. This was a pleasant surprise. I’m no stranger to building and painting armour. My history of Imperial Guard armies and Bolt Action will attest to this. However, I’ve never done anything in this scale, and damn she’s a big ol’ bucket. The Churchill was not a small tank by any means. It was designed with a First World War type of combat in mind. It was slow and heavily armoured to keep pace with, and support, infantry advances. It was also made very, very long to cross trenches and other obstacles. It turned out to be a very good base for special modifications including the ‘ Hobart's Funnies ’ and a whole range of bridging and engineering vehicles. It was also sometimes equipped with a flame thrower, so imagine the lovechild of the Hellhound and Leman Russ demolisher. You get the idea. This kit is from Tamiya and their build quality is second to none. This kit basically fell together w...

After a few games of Kill Team, I decided that life would be a lot quicker and easier if I had all the information I needed for my team on one piece of paper. All their weapons, stat lines, specialisms, tactics, faction special rules, everything. Turns out it's very doable. In today's post, I'm going to share the template document along with my own custom sheets for you to download and alter to suit your team. It's relatively basic - just a Word document - but hopefully it'll be of some use. It's certainly sped up my playing speed, as I haven't played this game enough to just remember everything. I'll also include pictures of my three Kill Teams, with a brief overview of their background. Before I dive in, I must give thanks to Jeff. Whilst we were preparing to run a Kill Team campaign (sadly put off due to scheduling conflicts) he made a Word document formatted to replicate 6 of the generic team member cards you get in the game. It was this origin...

From the depths of the Sejanus underhive come the first of many Necromunda gangs. I won the painting race! [editors note, this surprises no-one]. I love all of the Necromunda gang designs, choosing one was a hell of a task. But there is something about the Orlocks, their down to earth approach, the biker gang stylings, the low-tech weapons. Thus my first gang just had to be the House of Iron: The backstory for this band of ne'er-do-wells is that they are a legit Sons of Anarchy style biker gang holding territory for protection and doing some light gun-running and convoy-raiding on the side. Their legitimate front is the "Blood & Chrome Social Club" a dive bar attached to a mechanic's (see? Very Sons ) from which the gang takes its name and launders the proceeds of its illegal activities. The Blood & Chrome relates to the bonds of blood "we're all family" and the chrome of the bikes. Those blood red loincloths are the mark by which the initi...