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So I think I have figured out how I am going to host pictures......




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Awesome it worked. Some of the Veterans from the Astra Militarum are a fitting way to get this blog back on the road.

I will now be using wordpress and if I find the time I will even start to put a few random musings up there. But first to rebuild this blog.

Good to see you back on the horse, Archer!

No photos yet, life is just so hectic. But over the last month and a half (mainly working weekends only) I have managed almost 200 metres of fencing, sub framed the shed so it is divided in half and managed to clad it as well as paint the house to boot. But it is all worth it in the end. But I am sick to death of doing 12 hours a day 7 days a week so am looking forward to being able to down tools for a little while.

On the baby front things are looking pretty good still although my wife's auto immune condition is starting to flare again so that may require our little one to be born earlier than expected. But further testing will decide that for us.

On the hobby front I have been pretty productive considering how wrecked I have been over the last month. I have the Dwarf Warriors and Gyrocopter to show off still, am halfway into one of the engineers and I am about 25% of the way into 40 Necron Warriors. Hoping to get most of the dwarfs and Necron done before baby joins us. Oh and I have started to work on Leman Russ. Easily the most detailed Prumarch to boot.

Just wanted to pop in and keep the blog flowing. Hope to get some photos up soon. Maybe.

Damn, that sounds hectic! Well done for keeping with the hobby - if it were me it would have to take a back-burner, I'd only get annoyed with myself as a result of being too tired.

So after a whole month of no hobby I am back into it (I hope). My wife and I have now moved (although we still have a lot of unpacking and organizing to do) into our new home.

I have the shed progressing nicely, but due to a bit of ill health on my part I am a couple of weeks behind schedule.

Unfortunately my wife's auto-immune condition has flared in the final stages of pregnancy so we have been bouncing from doctor appointment to doctor appointment and it look like our bundle of joy may be joining us 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule due to medical needs.

But we are taking it in our stride so far and we are managing some nice relaxation time, which means I am soon to get a brush back onto a model. I had a great game last night of 40k 8th edition with my Eldar (sorry Aeldari) vs Imperial FIsts, ended as a draw as we needed to call it due to the late hour. Photos to follow on my opponents absolutely amazing gaming table.

It;s good to be back posting. I plan tonight to start repairing the damage done by the photobucket fiasco so I would appreciate over the next week if anyone notices any photos I missed on previous pages to give me a yell.

Thanks for reading.

Great to hear from you. Glad the move is going well. (your still moving until all the boxes are gone!)

Best wishes and hopes and prayers to your wife and bundle, thinking of you. I know this is impossible, but try to take heart in the wonders of modern science, so many of these hick-ups are no biggy to the Doctors nowadays. Please take care and my family and I send our love, and manly man hugs.

Great to see you back, mate! Best wishes to your wife and family and good health to you guys. We've had some pretty scary moments here recently with an unlucky situation that luckily became a near-miss, so I'm with you guys there.

Thanks for the well wishes. I appreciate you taking the time guys.

I have been steadily rebuilding the blog after the photobucket debacle and have managed to sort the first 6 and a bit pages. It is not too bad a process, the most tedious being getting the photos off Photobucket, as they seem to be blocking any attempt to download a full album in one go. So have to grab them individually.

I do have the originals of all the photos, but the ones on photobucket are already shrunk and have the same file name as the posts so it is really easy to match them up.

Hi all, my apologizes, but this is going to be an epic post as I have a lot that I would like to share. So if you are game, strap in and hopefully enjoy the ride.....

What a roller coaster life can be? I have obviously been fairly absent from the hobby community but I have been kept extremely busy by real life. So I am bursting with a lot to tell and not sure where to begin? Probably should start at the beginning? Well actually I will get the hobby business out of the way and then on to other things.

First of all, I have now managed to go back through the blog and repair the loss of my photos from the Photobucket debacle. What an amazingly short sighted business decision and this may be a little too venomous, but I hope their business goes down the drain fast and hard and the decision makers never find work again. I was fortunate to be able to correct the loss fairly easily, but others have lost a lot more than me and that is really low, especially with no warning to the users and demanding the highest level of membership to 3rd party host again. But my rant is over and I would appreciate if anyone notices an image I missed in the repair job let me know and I will sort it out.

Next point of business, I have some Dwarfs that I have yet to show. Believe me these were completed before we moved house (sorry still moving as I have a lot of boxes still to unpack.....) but I had not yet managed to get a moment to photograph them. But tonight has allowed me a chance to take some happy snaps and I learned that the light in our house is actually pretty poor so please forgive the harsh flash treatment from the camera. There is something to be said about "energy saving" light globes and their pretty poor light output.

But first up is the muscle of the Dwarf army that I have not touched for a little while now.


The first of my Dwarf Warrior units. The army has two units of 19 (20 once they are joined by a hero). I have obviously continued the green cloth theme and have three different coloured beards to add variety. There is a mix of monopose and multi part models in the unit as I have gathered them from far and wide to give them a new life.


Its a pretty simple paint scheme. Green clothes, silver armour and weapons with gold highlights, brown leather and then either yellow, brown or red beards. Again like the Thunderers the Champion is sporting a swish cloak to show he is the business.


You can see an old metal model in the front right corner of the unit. I received a few of the old metal dwarf warriors and I have spread them out among the units to add a little of that old dwarven charm.


This is the next unit of Warriors. Yup have managed all 38 warriors in the army which was a nice relief before the move. These guys were a little interesting as when I got them (second hand like most of my models these days) someone had done a pretty amazing job of having most of them holding a stein of dwarf ale. So I continued the theme and the banner shows where their allegiance is.


I kind of figure these guys have been roused from a quality drinking session and are a little bit tipsy and angry to have been interrupted. See the guy in the back left with the keg on the shoulder?


This unit has three older dwarf warriors as you can see down the side of the unit (the Scotsman at the front, armoured axeman behind him who used to be a musician and the pirate next in front of the Dwarf with the keg).


Since these guys have a stein in one hand and a weapon in the other I stuck their shileds on the back and I think it makes a really nice contrast to the other unit who are much more business.


The other unit I finished before the move was this little beauty. Took me a long time to track him down second hand, but I really like this model and wanted it in my army rather than the older two blade one and the new plastic one that I feel misses the mark of the dwarfs with the newer AoS aesthetic. So I was really pleased when I managed to secure one and very much enjoyed painting it.


Originally I only had green panels, but after finishing them I felt it really lacked interest so I added the different coloured patch jobs and I think it has helped lift it to the next level.


It is a fairly delicate model unfortunately and I will really be suss about its ability to travel as it is a really heavy piece of kit and it is actually a very large propeller that it has.


Which is why I pinned the thing together and it allows me to pull it apart for transport and storage. Yes the propeller has been pinned in such a way that it spins really nicely. Not that I really want to be doing that too often.


As a bit of a reminder, here is where my dwarf army sits at the moment. Three units of Thunderers, 2 units of Warriors and a Gyrocopter. It is a really cohesive force that I think fits the Dwarfs nicely.


Which leaves this pile of metal goodness. The rest of the army (almost) sits here having been stripped clean of the amazingly think lurid pink and purple paint job they had from ebay. Paint stripped really nicely so I have 2 Cannons, 1 Organ Gun, 1 Flame Cannon, 1 Bolt Thrower and 1 Grudgethrower and the crews lying in there. Plus the leaders of the army 2 Engineers, 1 Battle Standard Bearer and a Runelord. All in all I don't have that much more to paint for the dwarfs, maybe, just maybe I can finish them this year.

Now, I know that I have said I am meant to be working the Necron at the same time as the Dwarfs and that has kind of fallen flat and not something that I will try again. I just don't like the vibe of switching between the armies. But, I have been messing around with the Necron colour scheme still and would appreciate an opinion as to which people prefer......


Not much of a difference but the purple wash is to give it a little different feel than the standard metal. But with the bone am I going to far and that adds enough of a difference? Thoughts very welcome.

Next up I had another game of 8th edition 40k with my Eldar vs Imperial FIsts on an incredible board that I had know idea that my mate had hidden out the back. So have a look at these......


It is a beautiful board that can be configured in a great number of setups. That ravine is really something special. This is actually the first appearance of the Eldar on the tabletop as I have been loathe to run an army that has I think 16 psykers in it. But it went very smoothly and the game didn't seem to bog down in the psychic phase too much at all. Lessons to be learned about ranges of powers though often left my troops unsupported by the Warlocks and Farseers.


The crashed Wave Serpemt is one of the objectives. I do find it a little disturbing that my opponent has an Eldar army also painted in the green and purple (a little different than mine but what are the odds?)


Without being too stuck up, I really couldn't get over how awesome this game looked. You can see another objective in a wrecked tank. Not sure what it was (or even if it is a GW one). Some pesky Scouts infiltrated to sit right behind it for most of the game which was quite a pain. That Vindicator really worried me, but with the removal of templates I feel really has reduced its damage potential.


A nice shot of the Imperial Fists deployment. Such a beautifully painted army. You can just see a squad of Assault marines hiding in the ravine at the top of the photo. They were a royal pain that I just couldn't counter.


A wide shot before we began. This was the first game I have ever played using a flyer (a Hemlock Wraithfighter in this case). Was far and away the MVP on my side and it is an absolutely brutal weapon of war and very survivable.


Vibro Cannons, don't seem like they are that useful. Then they start shooting. Really good at keeping vehicles on their toes. BUt must be taken in lots of three to combine their fire.


See those Scouts in the tower? Horrible, nasty scouts with their sniper rifles. Both my opponent and i are very new to 8th edition so still lots of rule reading. What did we discover at the start of the game? SNiper rifles can freely target Characters. Where did I put my Warlord (one of my Farseers)? Front and centre to these guys. By pure and utter luck he survived with one wound and promptly hid behind a hill for the rest of the game......I did manage to sort them out with the Wraithfighter as its heavy D-Scythes don't roll to hit!


Nice shot of the ravine. If I had some Vypers they could have recreated the Death Star trench scene. That Falcon did a really stellar job of gunning Imperial Fists down until the Assault Squad braved charging it and hitting it with a Thunder Hammer. Although it did survive it played little part in the rest of the game.


I sent a unit of Guardian Defenders and a Farseer and 3 Warlocks down this flank to pressure the Vindicator. Took some horrendous casualties but slowed the Imperial Fist advance (or more precisely there were a couple of ring in squads of Blood Angels over there).


The Wraithfighter moves in to exact some revenge on the Scouts.


I have nightmares about Assault Marines.


My canny opponent moved a Rhino in to cover the Scouts as we headed towards the end of the game. You can see the ring in Blood Angels and I think Silver Skulls assisting their Imperial Fist brethren.


I managed to hold up the assault marines by feeding them two squads of Storm Guardians and a Defender Squad and a valiant Warlock. WIth a few power swords scattered around I did more damage than I thought I would and the Falcon lurked around hoping to help out somehow. But a fresh squad of Tactical Marines came in to reinforce the dwindling Assault Marines. The Captain was also in there too I think.


With the Scouts pretty much neutralized the Wraithfighter moved on to other targets. The Lascannon in this tactical squad did not successfully hit a single target all game. I think more shooting range practice is in order for that marine. The Wraithfighters ability to affect leadership (and a psychic power that also reduces leadership) really makes this a great unit to break the enemy advance.


The hour was getting late so we decided one more turn and we would call it so it was an all out advance from me. If I could clear the scouts and Rhino I may just manage to claim a victory. (The Vindicator was destroyed by this stage).

[img]I claimed the downed Wave Serpent and there is an Autarch in among the swirling melee that was another objective that was contested. Plus there was another objective down in the ravine that the Imperial Fists held all game. I should have raced the Falcon up to contest it, but I needed its firepower to clear out the Wave Serpent so I could claim it outright.

So all in all the game ended in a draw as I just couldn't clear the wrecked tank on my right flank so it ended an objective a piece and two contested. Both armies were still in a reasonable condition. He had a couple of Tactical squads in good condition and active rhinos. I was losing Troops, but my heavy hitters in 2 Falcons, Farseers and Wraithfighter were in good shape, so more turns would have been interesting. I am still looking for my first win against this opponent in any form of 40k, but I count a draw as one step closer.

We have also been diving into Kings of War. I have never played it before and found it a nice simple, clean ruleset and enjoyed running my Tomb Kings, sorry Kingdom of Dust against an Elf army. My Tomb Kings translated really well and although a couple of the rules took me by surprise I had a pretty good handle on things and will enjoy giving it another go. Will take some pictures next time.

Time for a little teaser, continuing on the ongoing gift for my brother, I have started to work on this guy.


Leman Russ is now washed, cleaned and assembled. He is still in sub assemblies for ease of painting. He is the current Primarch I think and the sculpt is really amazing, so dynamic, but so much detail it is kind of mind bending.


A lot of the detail on the back will be obscured by his wolf cloak, but like all of the previous Primarchs got to have a cape to show how bad ass you are.


Shocking photo, but even his head is actually two pieces......


I started with doing his head and I think it is shaping up nicely. I have also started on the body, but no photos yet.

Now, I have been allowing the hobby to distract me (it is my refuge from the real world after all). But we have had a major life changing event on the home front. As many of you know my wife has been expecting our first child. Coupled with her declining health due to her auto immune disease has had the medical boffins arguing back and forth (literally arguing professionally about the best course of action). But to cut to the chase on Thursday the 14th of September at 11:29am we welcomed our first child Thomas into the world via a planned Cesarean (best decision for baby and mums health). He was delivered ahead of schedule (again for the benefit of everyone) so only tipped the scales at 2.5kgs.

However, our joy was interrupted by the doctors as they had identified some concerns and we made the decision to have our little man transferred from Norwest Private to Westmead Children's Hospital where he entered the amazing care of the high dependency unit there. Without going into too many details our little guy has a minor heart issue (one of his valves is a little funny), the doctors are hopeful that it will self correct, but if it still looks like it is a problem they will operate to help him out. Also, he has a little premature fusing of an area at the back of his skull that will also need some surgery where they will literally crack his skull in that area so it won't affecting his proper brain development. This is likely to happen around 9 months of age.What the medical profession is capable of is truly astounding.

Now I would just like to highlight that although our little guy has one or two surgeries ahead of him, we have been reassured by the doctors that neither of the procedures are considered unusual and there is no urgency required either. Which is helpful. We have a road map as such for what will need to be done in the future. Although not ideal obviously, it is a blessing to have him in our lives as fertility and my wife's health was always going to be a potential impossibility. He has met all of his expected milestones and scores quite well on the basic new born health checks. He just has a couple of unusual (but apparently not uncommon) health complaints.

But with nothing urgent and the Doctors confidant that a wait and see approach is the right one we were allowed to bring him home with us and he (and us) are adjusting to life at home. The dogs and cat are a little off put by this funny screaming bundle of joy (yep he has found his voice). The birds and fish are as always oblivious, but mum and dad are actually enjoying our new family member, he is being very good and adopted a nice 3-4 hours sleep, feed me, change me, sleep cycle.

So thank you for sticking with what I believe is the longest post I have made to date and I do hope there are still some interested parties out there as my Crazy Army plan is getting back on track. Progress may be slower. But I am feeling good to be back.

Thanks for reading.

Dwarves look amazing, nice and green
Going to be an interesting batch to paint from here on.

Second Necron for me, got a better vibe.

Batrep is outstanding, such a beautiful table and armies. Most important, you had a good time.

Russ is fab, like the face so far, good start.

Personal news, very glad to hear Mum and Thomas doing OK, sending love and prayers to you all. Medicine is incredible these days and I am sure he will be fine, life throws curve balls alot, sounds like you are coping well with the situation.

Best wishes bud, and have a big manly man hug "Daddy", welcome to the party.

A. Beautiful models, I greatly enjoy the dwarves with tankards.
B. I would say the purple scheme on the Necrons looks absolutely fantastic.
C. Congrats on becoming a father!

Fantastic looking battle! Good to see progress on the armies again as well

Congratulations to you both, I'm very happy for you! Glad to hear everything is going to plan.

On the hobby front, that is a lovely board! That must be your mate's best kept secret. Gorgeous armies on either side too. Thanks for the update!

Hi all, thanks for the well wishes and continued activity on the blog. I know it's been pretty quiet around here. But I managed to set up my "indoor" painting setup last night. Indoor as in the actual house not out in my slowly evolving hobby space in the shed. It is a tray (read mobile) setup so I may move it around the house to suit my current needs.

I started with the super glue and the remaining dwarf war machines now they are out of the paint thinners. Want to think of if I am putting them on bases before I start to paint them. Then I will definitely do little dioramas for each machine. Sort of like what I have done for unit fillers in the past.

On a slightly unrelated note. One of my very good friends (we go way back to preschool) has asked if I would consider doing some commission work for him and do a 2,000 point Death Guard army. He wants to include Mortarion (not sure if he would be in the 2,000 or in addition to).

Anyone think I should or shouldn't do it? Not sure what I would charge maybe I could get the models for another army out of it......

Considering you are already painting two armies (And lamenting the decision, if I recall correctly), the choice is really yours. As for payment, it depends on what he's got. Getting you hands on Skiitari/CultMech now might be a worthy investment Before eighth edition Potentially removes them. Maybe Sisters. I dunno.

Also congrats on family!

Thanks everyone I really appreciate you all taking time to stop by and for your well wishes.

I can't seem to get settled in an "in the house" painting setup. Obviously the shed is shaping up as the main storage and activity centre for the hobby. But I still want to be able to engage in conversation with my wife in the evenings and keep an ear out for our son. But the layout of our new place is a little different and the table I used to paint on is in a different room to the main living area.

I tried some work on the lounge with my painting tray on the coffee table. Worked well enough and I managed to get all the dwarfs cleaned up after their thinners soaking and have glued them all back together. But did I learn how bad my posture must have been when I finished for the night.....

My wife has had an alternative suggestion which I hope to try this coming weekend. Still on the couch. But a much higher working platform which we will see if it forces me into a better position.

Stay tuned as I hope to have some painting progress finished this weekend.

Oh and I am meeting with my mate this Sunday (before he returns overseas) to discuss this painting commission. Is looking like either Tau or Deathguard. Very different aesthetics and not sure I have much of an opinion (although I think deathguard would be harder). Will see on Sunday if we reach a consensus on everything.


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I think the regretting of doing the two armies currently is I haven't managed to be faithful to the original idea of the challenge (get one army at a time finished completely before moving forward) and the fact I have failed miserably to keep them going at the same pace ie. all my attention has really been on the Dwarfs. So not really serious frustration. Just a valuable lesson I think.

Hey mate. Firstly congratulations to the two of you on the little one, and great to hear that his health prognosis is positive (you had me worried where the story was going as I was reading that).

The battle looks amazing visually, and like quite a lot of fun. KoW is also a great ruleset, though I have to admit I haven't played it at all in ages now myself.

As for the painting setup, I think you might need to find a small but permanent (for the next year or two, anyway) place inside the lounge room or wherever you spend time with your wife and son. Not the couch, but a small table/desk and a computer chair kinda thing. You're not going to want to be away from them for very long anytime soon, especially in the evenings, etc, so you and your wife might need to make the hard choice for a slight aesthetic bump so you can spend time closer together. After all, it's your house - so guests can like it, live with it, or leave!

(Yes my painting desk is in the middle of the open-plan living area, and the original plan was for it to be in a separate room. Instead, I hang out with her near the couch/tv and we have our office/computer space in there as well. It's not a showroom but it's a true "lving" room.)


As for the painting commission. I personally wouldn't do it. Money and friends is a bad combination, especially when you're doing the work and he may well have the expectation that you'll do it for next to nothing. If you go ahead with it, you definitely need to lay down some rules about expectations. I'd also ensure that you're doing a low-model count force, and also if you're expected to do the assembly and clipping models off the sprues, mould line cleanup, maybe drilling barrels, etc then you need to charge accordingly in some form. gak, I can barely manage to do that for my own models without tearing my hair out. Id have said Death Guard based on a smaller model count and the ability to do much of it (almost all of it, even) with washes (over white, even) and still have it look really good, but when you add Morty into the mix..

Painting an army for someone else by yourself is a much bigger undertaking, especially mentally, but also in terms of uneven time commitment than helping a friend build a fence or paint some rooms. Doing a model or six, a small unit, a tank/dragon/etc or a series of characters is much easier than a whole army.

Awesome to see you coming back man, congratulations on becoming a father!
Dwarves and Necrons look good, and I can't wait to see your finished version of Leman Russ!
Keep it up!

Hi all,

Been a little quiet on the hobbying front, although I have managed over the last two nights to get brush to model and I really enjoyed it. I have finished the silver on all the remaining Dwarf warmachines and crew (as well as the remaining Characters), so next step will be the green that is the army colour, although I am a little unsure whether I will get much green onto the war machines as they tend to be wood and metal and I am not sure I am interested in painting the wooden parts green. SO it may be up to the crew to tie them in with the other elements. I hope it will reveal itself when I start to put the paint on.

I have also managed to do a little more to Leman Russ and hope to have him finished for Christmas to give to my Brother. He will be the 7th primarch I have done.

My wife was also generous enough to mind the little one so I could go and get a game of 40k in with a friend. His Space Wolves are coming along nicely and we had about a 1,000 point game of 8th edition using Maelstrom of War objectives. I never used Maelstrom of War objectives in 7th edition and I really regret it now. Thoroughly enjoy the rolling objectives and the fact you can somewhat (sort of) ignore the enemy in favour of objectives.

A couple of pics from the game:


I picked up an almost fully painted realm of battle board cheap and it is a great way to transport a battlefield as neither of us have a "proper" sized gaming surface yet. Bulldog clips do a good job of holding it rigid.


I set up poorly and these two Grey Hunter packs devastated the poor Slugga boyz that were placed opposite them. Although the Orks morale is crazy in large mobs.


Things went better for me on the left flank, although the Rhino dropped off another Grey Hunter pack and these Shootas were slowly whittled down after being shot to pieces and then charged. Although they held the Wolves up long enough for my Mega Nobz to wander over and give everything a good kicking.
I managed through sheer luck on the objective draw to come away with a one point win, but it was my Dread that kept me in it. Although the poor guy blew sky high when he solo charged the Vindicator and it managed to hit with the demolisher on overwatch.......


My Nob with Waagh! Banner stayed close to the Dread to make sure it hit like a freight train. He eventually bought the Farm when the Wolf Guard Terminators showed up.


Early on my Warboss and the Dread were a good tag team, but I allowed the Terminators an opportunity to charge the Warboss on his own and they made short work of him. Giving slay the warlord and another maelstrom objective for knocking off the warlord....not a good result for me.


The Wolf Guard were valiant in holding up the dread, but some abysmal dice roles meant they only kknocked a few wounds off of it. They did fall back allowing the Vinidcator to have a good shot at taking out the Dread which was a very clever move.


This was I think turn two as the Slugga Mob was smashed by two Grey Hunter packs. I really stuffed up their deployment and the idea of charging into the teeth of 20 Space Wolves esoecially as they had flamers in all the packs meant the mob just sat there getting riddled with bolt rounds. Hopefully they will forgive me.

But all in all a tense game, I made bad mistakes (as always) early on, but with a lot of luck from the objectives ( got the secure objective 6 twice in succession as well as a special objective came up on objective 6 as well all in a row), meant that I was able to come home in a bolt and snatch an undeserved win.

Hopefully I will have some painting updates to show soon.....

Thanks for reading.

Brilliant little batrep. Really enjoyed that. Thanks.

So with things post baby birth slowly returning to normal and managing a little gaming and a little more painting, I have now agreed with my friend to do a Deathguard army for him.

I am also acting as his agent to source the models (I have better ideas where to source discounted models than he does). Looks like I am now 10 Pox Walkers short of the list he wants to have painted and I should be able to bring it together for about 70% retail which is nice.

Painting wise it's a 2 year process as per the agreement with regular payments based on progress.

I will be posting my progress if the army on here as I go. Next step. Figure out how to paint a Deathguard plague marine.

Well, good thing our friend Duncan Rhodes has several videos on how to paint Death Guard in various ways. Check out the Warhammer TV channel for some useful videos.

So it has been almost a month since my last activity. Having a new baby and all that is a lot more work than I had anticipated. He is a very easy baby though (or at least in my opinion). But damn do you lose the hours without even noticing it. But......I have been slowly managing to work on the painting. Although I am still wrestling with the Dwarves. Sorry, no Deathguard (or Necron) as yet. But I have some photos to show of where I am with the dwarfs and I am pretty happy at the results, although the photos are hideous as they were taken late at night out on our back deck so I apologise, but I didn't want to retake them.

I have continued the colours from the rest of the army (obvioulsy) although it is hard to find places that work to put green on a cannon........but I won't keep you in suspense as I am not here to waffle, ok, ok I am, I love a captive audience. That's why we have kids right?


The first of the war machines, a grudge thrower. As you can see I have based the Grudge Thrower, I decided to base all of the war machines as it just helped tie them into the rest of the army better. This is one of the older metal models. Not sure what edition it is from, but I couldn't resist a cheap used model from ebay.


I tried very hard to get a little bit of green onto each of the war machines, but I am pretty sure I put the top bar of the grudge thrower the wrong way around, but it resisted my gentle attempts to break it off to turn around so I have just left it as is.


The Grudge Thrower is a pretty simple model, but has enough little details to make it a nice little centre piece and the crew have a lot of the old dwarf character about them.


Next up is an organ gun, it is actually a pretty small war machine, but I am hoping it will be able to lock down a flank and put the hurt on any small skirmishing/light cavalry units.


I probably like the crew of this machine the most, the "boss" with his full face mask is a little ominous. Again this is an older metal model. Not sure what the new model looks like.


Here we have a flame cannon, it is pretty different to the rest of the war machines, being largely metal as opposed to the timber frames of the others. This is a big hunk of metal and weighs a fair bit, a lot like the metal Space Marine Dreadnoughts.


The crewman on the back of the machine turning the big wheel is a little different as all the other crew are loose. The Grudge Thrower and Flame Cannon are on the same size base as they are about twice the size of the others.


Here we have the Bolt Thrower. I think this is my favourite of the war machines. It's probably the old fashioned part of me not trusting this new fandangled gun powder.


They are nowhere near my best work, but as they are pretty simple models I think I have gotten away with the standard basecoat, wash, drybrush. I hope.


The first of my cannons. Yup I couldn't resist having a pair of them. Again, they are super simple as its a timber frame with a bronze cannon.


Again as all of the war machines this one is a metal model.


I tried so hard to vary the beard colours on the crew to add a bit of diversity. only to discover I had painted two of the cannon crew exactly the same. Damn it they must be twins.....


The basing of the war machines has made a huge difference to the overall look of them and I will definitely continue to do it for other armies.


Group Shot! I know, its a lot of war machines. But it should make for a couple of insane turns of carnage before the remaining enemy charge and wipe my brave dwarfs away.


I am really happy with how they have turned out. I think it will be a pretty nice looking army of bearded, stunties when I manage to finish.


So, with the completion of these six war machines I am now left with only 4 models to complete the army. Two Master Engineers, an Army Standard Bearer and the armies General a Rune Lord. I have already done the armour and gold work on all four of them and am onto the green cloth on one engineer. So, I am hoping that before Christmas I will have the Dwarfs finished and be able to get on to other things for the new year.

Thanks for reading and its good to be back posting.

So some exciting news. I have managed to get a great weekend of painting under my belt and it was a a very productive one at that. I love when you can just get in the zone and smash out some progress.

I won't take up too much of your time as I have a few things to get through........


The Lord and Hero of my Dwarf Throng. The Army Standard Bearer, two engineers and the Runelord. Pretty happy with them. Not award winning, but clean and effective.


The back view, I have obviously continued the army green. Pretty happy with the minor conversion on the two Engineers to make them look slightly different.


I also knocked up these two barricades. What could they be for you ask? Read on to find out.......


Well you see in 8th edition for every Master Engineer in the army, you can entrench one war machine. So to represent this I made these barricades that slip around the base of any of the war machines. This way it is going to be pretty hard for me to forget which machines have been dug in.


The war machine bases are all the same width, so the entrenchment markers will work on any of the six in the army.

So, with the completion of these 4 models and the barricades I have now finished the Dwarf army. I have to sort out some photos of the whole army, but I will get that done at some point tonight and you can see the Throng arrayed for war.

Thanks for reading and I will post again shortly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As promised, I have now finished the Dwarfs and as has become tradition, here is the final army shots.......


The Lord and master of the army is my Rune Lord. I figured he is probably the oldest in the army and as fits he has a brilliant white beard. It is the predominant feature of him and I hope it does mark him out as a pretty special model. Plus the fact he is the primary magical defense of the army.


The Heroes and supporting cast of the army. The two Master Engineers and the Thane with an army standard bearer. It is only a fairly simple conversion (at least with a dremel) to remove the handgun and give him a big axe. I think they look different enough that using the same model isn't too much of a sin. The Standard is pretty bold with the white, but it isn't quite as stark as my over exposed photo makes it look.

[img]https://mycrazyarmyplan.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/img_27931.jpg/img]
The valiant core of the army, the warriors will either be joined by the Rune Lord or Standard Bearer and the Thunderers will be arrayed between them to hopefully keep up a good rate of fire and lend a hand with a counter charge if needed.


The Special units of the army and what I hope will win me some games with a mass amount of heavy firepower. I will definitely be trying to castle up on a suitable hill if deployment permits.


The final units in the army the rare Flame Cannon and Organ gun. I figure these will be the anchors of the army and one will sit on each flank.


Here is my Dwarf Throng arrayed for battle, I am pretty damn happy with them. You may have noticed that the Elf army I already did and the Dwarfs are based the same way? Coincidence or maybe they will be coming to blows again?


So there you have my take on an Engineering based Dwarf army. It was a lot of fun to do actually and I maintained enthusiasm throughout which is a bit unusual for me as I tend to fade towards the end. It could be the hiatus I was on with the birth of our first child, but I am happy with how they have turned out and I think they are one of the best looking armies I have done to date.

So what next? Well I have sort of started on the Necron (which I was supposed to be running concurrently with the Dwarfs) so I will be giving them almost my full attention. Plus I also have all the models I need for that commission work on the Deathguard now, so I will be getting in to assembling and hopefully bang out a couple of test models for approval before I go too far with them.

Plus I also owe a Necron Monolith to Azazelx's painting challenge for the end of the year, so I will get onto that hopefully when I start my holiday break from work (even if it is very short).

I have a Kings of War game planned for tomorrow night where I am taking my Ogres out for a run, they convert from Warhammer to KoW quite nicely so we will see how I get on.

Thanks for reading and hope to hear from a few diehards that may still be following along with my army journey.

Great looking army and congrats on another army down!

The idea to plan out an army to a set size and with a cool theme is really great. You have inspired me to do something similar, at a much smaller scale, I am planning to create some small heavily themed side armies to my Kislev army. Nice to be able to add armies without going all out as I usually do (and will continue to do with my main army)

Thanks for looking in.

Sounds like a cool idea to add small elements to a larger force. Would be interested in seeing what you come up with. Kislev has always had such an awesome look to them.

That is one really nice army sir, beautiful.

Always good to get a good day at the hobby, great to see you kicking about.

Nice job Archer! They're looking great.

Hi all,

I would first of all like to wish a belated Merry Christmas to everyone and hope that you had a great time with family and friends. I would also like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and stay safe. So to bring in the New Year in style I have a few photos that I have been meaning to get up and on to the blog and just haven't had the time.....

I got in a game of Kings of War a few weeks ago with my regular opponent. I took to the field at the head of my Ogres this time. The Maneaters made appearances as a couple of different ogre units from KoW to add a little variety. All in all they transferred over top the different rule set pretty well.


The start of the battle. I really need to learn to deploy better. I need to learn that I don't need to stretch across the whole battlefield, especially if I am facing a large infantry based army. I would have been better off hunkering down and focusing on a smaller part of the enemy as Ogres are just utterly brutal up close.


The Rhinox and its catapult ( I brought two) was by far my star performers. The catapult is a bit average. But the Rhino is deadly and having two of them working in concert kept me in the game far deeper than I deserved.


KoW is about blocks of soldiers and this core of Spearmen and Archers are rock solid and really, really hard to break. My major stuff up in the game allowed the Spears to charge my big block of Ogre Warriros which really put me behind the eight ball. I should have played chicken and left them sitting in the middle of the board but I advanced them 2" forward thinking "yeah they can handle being charged" what a mistake that was.


My deployment, it was a great idea to set up the Rhinos together on one flank. It was not a good idea to set anything up directly opposite that enormous block of Spears......


I felt really confident that my Ogres could take the centre, little did I realize how many dice hordes of Spears and Archers can throw at me. Kudos to my opponent who did a great job of focusing on the biggest threat at the time.


For the first time I gave some of the magic items a go. I really like the way KoW handles magic items. It made the Gnoblars (I mean Red Goblins) actually quite a threat which was kind of amusing.


In KoW heroes are generally only there for support. Few of them are actually useful in combat. Apart from Ogres.....I perhaps didn't realise how good the Ogre Warlord was and unfortunately as you can see here he got roadblocked behind a unit of Maneaters (pretending to be Hunters I think). If he had managed to get into the fight earlier things on this flank could have gotten really interesting.


The Rhinos did a stellar job of clearing the Left flank driving off two units of light cavalry, small unit of spearmen and a large unit of archers before turning on a bolt thrower or two. Was good times for the ogres.


You can see from my crappy deployment I really cost the Warlord his chance to shine in a scrap. I did get lucky though and over a couple of turns finished off these spearmen, although the archers and bolt thrower managed to get some revenge.


In the dying stages of the fight my Warlord layed into some Palace Guard (Swordmasters) if the game had gone a turn longer he would have seen them off the board. The base behind them is a loot counter. We had four of them (I think) to try and control. It ended up being a 1 counter a piece draw. Which I am not sure i entirely deserved, but if I had paid more attention I could have seized a 2-1 win, but I had a Rhino charge the enemy rather than hang around on a counter.........lots of lessons learned and I am hoping I am soon to get me first ever win against this opponent in any game except of X-Wing.........

On the painting front I have made a little more progress. Sorry nothing worth showing on the Deathguard yet, although it is sitting heavily in the back of my mind that I REALLY need to get some work done on them. But I have been pottering about on the Necron and started playing around with the Monoliths for something a bit different only to run into a bit of a disaster.........

Seems one of the two Monoloths I picked up (and didn't bother checking them out until now) had 4 sides rather than the front back and two sides that it was supposed to have. I can't believe that I didn't pay any attention when they turned up in the first place. But my bad and I did touch base where I got them and they were very reasonable about the whole thing which was incredibly generous. But I struck luck on eBay with one of the various bits retailers selling just the wall sections that I needed. So I didn't pursue a refund from the original person as it was just as much my fault for not checking. So I eagerly await my replacement walls and forged on with getting the first one up and running.


Here you can see me starting to glue it all together. I cleaned all the parts and thought this kit is a piece of cake, it will go together in no time. How wrong was I? The Monolith kit is probably the crappest plastic kit I have assembled from GW. It was full of gaps and misalignment. I was at first tempted to undercoat it and see how bad it was. But I took a deep breath and got out the green stuff and set about scraping and filing it back to hopefully hide the issues. I will fortunately be forwarned about the second one and hope to do a better job initially.


Obviously I am continuing the scheme from the warriors that I have previously shown (bone and silver) so the white bits will be the silver once I have finished the bone base.


ALthough the guns will follow the warriors and be dark grey to give a point of interest. I think just looking at it at this stage the scheme should be quite nice and different to the norm.


I am getting keen to finish any of the Necron as I want to have a go at gluing in the green rods. I think it is an easy way to really add a point of interest without much effort. I think the monolith is going to be awesome.


Ultimately it is going to be a very simple scheme. But I think on a model as huge as a monolith it will work (they really are a huge model).


I have kept these parts seperate to make the rest of the model easier to paint. The big pylon will be silver as per the others and the door will be kept loose so I could technically put it over the green infinity gate as I think you meant to be able to have the Monolith "dormant".


Just a cheeky remionder of where I am with the Necron so far. I am about halfway through adding the silver to the Warriors and the Lord is at the right of the photo he is half silvered as well.


Here you can see the first wash on the Monolith. I decided that I wanted to try a simple "stone" effect as I have these large flat areas that as you can see look a little average after the wash. So I am contemplating either stippling with an old brush or sponging. I think the stippling I did on the stone for the primarch bases worked really well so I probably go that direction.


I think the fact I haven't done it on the Warriors (or intend to do it on any of the other models in the army) won't be too big a factor as the Monoliths are the only models with the enormous flat surfaces so I think it would probably be lost on the infantry anyway (well that is my excuse).


I did take the opportunity with a spare flying base and bit of acrylic rod to make a stand for the monolith, it will only be just off the playing surface. But I think it looks better than it sitting on the ground. Plus it may make it a little easier to position as it floats around.

So there you have it. My final post for 2017. It has been a hell of a year for me on a personal level, just a year into a new job in may, new house in June, our first child in September. I feel it has been a blessed year and the fact I have even managed to keep some hobby progress going is a bonus. Thanks to everyone that has been along for the ride and lets see what 2018 has in store for all of us.

I will start of next year with a look back at the goals I set 12 months ago and let's see how I did........

Thanks for reading.

So we have seen the calendar roll over and another year go past. For me 2017 really did go by in the proverbial blink of an eye and its still a blur that I am not sure I have come to terms with. I have gone back over the year that was and in regard to the hobby side of my life it was a pretty lean year compared to previous years. By my count I managed to paint 133 models which is a pretty big drop from the 300 of last year.

But I digress, I should have a look at the goals I set for myself during 2017. Looking back at these goals I wanted to achieve the following:

- Finish the Alpha Legion that I had started at the end of 2016.
- Paint 3 more armies (2 Fantasy, 1 40k)
- Grow the blog by six pages.
- Modular and mobile gaming board.
- Start 40k campaign and post progress within the blog.
- Get back to the NSW Northern Knights for some games.

Looking at the above I did ok considering the year. During 2017 I managed the following:

- Alpha Legion finished. Success.
- Paint 3 armies. Fail, I only managed the Dwarfs start to finish this year although I have made a good start on the Necron so should be able to get through them early in 2018.
- Blog grew by three pages. Half success.
- Acquired a part painted Realms of Battle gaming board by GW which in its bag is very mobile and with alligator clips it holds very nicely on a smaller table. So this is a success (even though I need to finish painting and flocking it).
- Start 40k campaign? Miserable fail, although I will hold that the D&D campaign we are running is taking the place of this campaign, so I will put it as a moral victory.
- Get back to the NSW Northern Knights. Fail, I only managed to make it there for an X-Wing tournament and no actual visits during the year. But with the house move I am a lot further away and have managed plenty of games in both 40k and Fantasy from other sources so that is good.

But my hobby slow down is only put in context if we look at what happened to me in real life. 2017 was a monumental year in the real world and I do feel justified that my hobby was less for a good reason.

- My wife and I bought a house of our very own up in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney NSW.
- The house has an extensive shed that I have been steadily working on to get the hobby side ready for me to inhabit. Photos will be up soon when I think it is worth showing off. I got a lot of work in it done during my brief holiday and I need to punch out a few shelves for the models.
- But the most momentous event was the birth of our first child. We welcomed our son into the world in September and he has been going from strength to strength although we still have a surgery ahead of him which is looking like it will be early March. So fingers crossed that all goes well.

So, we are now into 2018 and what goals do I have set to carry me through this year?

I would like to paint 3 armies. This does include the Death Guard that I have taken on as a commission (all 2,500 points of them roughly). So, Necron, Death Guard and a Fantasy army. We will see how I go, with our son older and a little more settled I should be able to get more hobby time in.
Finish the Realm of Battle board off. It really only needs a couple of tubs of flock.
Finish the hobby side of the shed (the other side is for tools and machines and stuff).
Keep up with the games and try to rack up my first win against my regular opponent outside the X-Wing campaign.......
Paint some more terrain, I am wondering about trying to do a couple of themed sets of terrain as I have a lot of half done terrain that only needs a rudimentary paint job to look effective.
Add 4 pages to the blog.

So I hopefully have set some achievable goals this year time will tell.

Thanks for reading and I hope you join me for another year of hobby activity.