The Beard Bunker

One Peter Atkinson recently left a comment regarding a throwaway line in my recent interview with 40K newbie Drew . Quoth he: Could I please request a long tangent about how the sprawling, contradictory nature of 40K is both its biggest weakness but also one of its great strengths, maybe as a standalone article? Ask and you shall receive, Mr Atkinson.

The Primaris Apothecary is a gorgeous sculpt that I have been coveting since its release, so as soon as I had enough angry bald men standing on rocks, I ordered an angry bald man standing on his patient. The stock kit is pretty much a diorama on a base. Whilst that's very cool, I'm not a fan of my dudes conveying such a specific moment. It looks kinda weird to be standing over poor Brother Steve before the army's even taken any casualties. Besides, I like having unique characters. Here's how he turned out:

Any long term readers will have probably noticed the odd historical post cropping up from time to time. Mostly 1940's flavoured Bolt Action posts involving a lot of tanks and things. It is no secret that Jeff, Emma, and I are history nerds, amongst other things. With the seemingly never ending pandemic lockdown isolating Emma and I in our own home with nothing more than a Sharpe dvd boxset and Assassins Creed: Valhalla we started to stray into more historical pastures for our gaming needs. This was probably was also influenced by yet another new edition of 40k with yet another level of complexity being added to an already convoluted system. A system that I, personally, am finding harder and harder to maintain a grip of and keep an interest in. However, this is a rant for another time, this time it's all about one of my favourite things to do: line up little plastic soldiers in neat lines and roll dice at them. Napoleonic wargaming is possibly the ultimate in lining up little pl...

More additions for my Ikarran Necrons today.  This time around it is the turn of the various flavours of Necron that have succumbed during the long aeons of hibernation. So, to continue the telling of the origins of the Ikarrans and in order of age of the models: The Flesh Harvest Infected by some virus, these units now seek to recover all they lost through transference, thinking that if they can harvest sufficient biological matter from their victims they will somehow transform back into their previous selves.  A true terror to their foe, they inhabit pockets of a nether dimension and phase onto the battlefield where they are least expected. These are the old metal sculpts of the Flayed Ones, and they are absolutely fantastic, if horrifying.  It's not until you get really close that you see how the flesh is sculpted as if stretched over the skeletal frame underneath, and the way it hangs over the faces with the odd eye peering through is deeply disturbing (the close up p...

 It's once more time to get down and dirty with the poor deluded souls who think the Gods of Chaos will provide for them. Yep! Cultist O'Clock again folks! What? No, I don't have a problem, YOU have a problem! Ahem. On with the show...

I've seen a few people on social media suggesting that it's thematically inappropriate for Space Marines to have a defensive turret, and that therefore, the Firestrike Servo-Turret shouldn't exist. Since this is obviously the most important debate of our time, I'd better weigh in. My position is that those people are talking out of their butt trumpets. In the manner of any rigorous argument I should begin by declaring any biases that might affect my judgement. My biases are twofold. Firstly I like the overall look of the mini even if there are elements I find silly (more on that later). Secondly I like it thematically for my army, since visually it makes me think of a Roman ballista supporting their heavy infantry. Even with those two factors, I was still on the fence until I saw 40K Badcast host Campbell's paint job of it . Five minutes later I'd smacked the buy button. Which is weird, given that I've been much more minimalist with mine. I was very tempted...

Welcome, one and all, to a very special Tainted Thursday. For today we reveal the head of the snake, the great minds behind this Word Bearers army, the Lords of the Graven Star:

Today's instalment for the growing Ikarran dynasty are the Canoptek constructs, mindless automata whose sole purpose is the maintenance and protection of the "true" Necrontyr and their homeworlds.  By their very definition, these units can be a little dry or bland for the more narrative kind of experience I like, so with my apologies to fiction writers everywhere I plan to include a snippet of colour text that has been knocking around in my head that helps me bring them to life.  If nothing else, it'll give you all an insight into how I imagine these delightfully spooky constructs would act. First up are the Cryptothralls, or murder-barrels as I like to think of them (left and right, I'll cover the central Cryptek in a later post).  With their backwards angled blades, and extremely hunched poses these are glorious models.  The centralised glowing power orb (not really visible in the image below sadly) is a new feature that seems to be a common theme in the Canopte...