Spoils of War

A mate of mine occasionally asks me to sell his old hobby stuff online and as payment I get first dibs as well as the stuff that, to most people, is completely worthless.

Here’s the ‘junk’ I received today.

I’m taking some time off in May and I think I’ve just found my next scenery project 🙂

P.S. The quality items will appear on eBay soon, I think you’re going to like them…

Chaos Space Marine Predator

Finally, my Heralds of Desolation have some heavy support!

 

 

 

 

 

I’m fairly happy with this and I think I’ve managed to keep it consistent with the Rhino I finished a couple of months back.  Next up I’m going to try to finish my Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour then move on to either some cultists or return to my much-neglected Bretonians for a change of pace.

Chaos Predator – WIP 3

I promise this is the last work in progress update of anything involving a Rhino chassis for a long time but I thought I’d share this evening’s results.

Hopefully it’ll be done tomorrow, then I get to start on the lovely stuff I got for my birthday 🙂

Chaos Predator – WIP 2

A bit more progress this afternoon.

I’d love to say I’ll it be done tomorrow but knowing my abilities to obsess over the smallest detail it’ll probably take until the weekend!

Chaos Predator – WIP

And back to my tanks 🙂

 

 

I started this well over a month ago but I put it on hold as I was getting sick of painting blue.  Don’t think I’ll have it done for this week’s Miniature Monday but with a bit of luck I’ll have it done sometime this week.

Busy, busy, busy

This is why I love holidays, I’ve not been this productive in weeks. 🙂

At the start of today this was still mostly unassembled. I took some time off to finish the Khorne Berserkers I posted earlier this afternoon but now it’s on with the heavy support for the coming week. Hopefully I’ll get this done and make a start on my Forgefiend.

Hitting a Brick Wall

That’s it. I knew that this was going to happen eventually but I’m officially stuck. You see, today marks a dubious record for me as it’s been exactly four weeks since I’ve picked up a paintbrush, dice or craft knife and I’m not sure how to start again thanks to all the part-finished projects I’ve temporarily abandoned.

I’ll get my excuses out of the way. This summer has been extraordinarily busy, at work our annual audit took longer than expected not to mention I’m both breaking in new staff and have just finished a massive office relocation at incredibly short notice. At home my wife and I have had to complete her application for permanent settlement in the UK, believe it or not this has taken us over three months to finish, we only just posted it yesterday! There have also been weddings, a funeral, birthdays, the Edinburgh festivals, hospital appointments and this is just what I can remember. In truth I feel that my feet haven’t hit the ground since early June!

On the hobby front I have the following outstanding:

1. A half-painted Dark Eldar Venom
2. A half-painted Dark Eldar Wych Squad
3. An unpainted old metal Dark Eldar Wych Squad
4. A half-painted Finecast Commissar Yarrick
5. 20 Unassembled Imperial Sector sprues
6. An unpainted metal Dark Eldar Incubi Squad
7. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Archon
8. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Succubus
9. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Haemonculus
10. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Lhamaean
11. An unassembled Dark Eldar Razorwing
12. An unassembled Dark Eldar Ravager
13. A part-assembled Chaos Space Marine Predator
14. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Lord
15. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Squad
16. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Squad
17. A half-completed Assault on Black Reach Dreadnought I’m converting for my Chaos Marine army.
18. Two sprues of Battletech Battlemechs that I’ve had since 1996
19. 14 Inner Sphere Battletech Battlemechs I’d like to repaint
20. 18 unpainted Bretonnian Knights of The Realm
21. 15 unassembled Bretonnian Men-At-Arms
22. 40 unpainted Bretonnian Peasant Bowmen
23. 10 unpainted Bretonnian K nights Errant
24. 1 unassembled Bretonnian Lord with Great Weapon
25. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Paladin with Battle Standard
26. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Pegasus Knight
27. 1 half-painted Deathknell Watch

So, what do I do? Thus far I have always prided myself on my ability to not jump on the new army / game bandwagon every time something exciting is released, all my 40K armies have been gestating for many years (and I have the out of date Codexes to prove it!) but I think it’s obvious that my enthusiasm and ambition have slowly got the better of me.

I’ve attempted to prioritise my hobby time based on upcoming games but since most of my regular opponents have been similarly busy this really hasn’t been effective. It’s impossible to go with what I like the most since that’s part of what’s got me into this state in the first place!

I think that the best thing for me to do is to bloody finish something as soon as is humanly possible and luckily I have this coming Sunday free to do just that. But what do I attempt to finish?

Watch this space…

A Sad Sign of The Times

This evening me and a couple of friends travelled over the Forth to Kirkcaldy to pay our first and, most likely, last visit to Kingdom of Adventure.  If you click on the link you’ll see why.

If not this image below sums it up, look at the sign in the window.

The sad fact is that in this economy it’s harder than ever for independent hobby stores to stay afloat.  These guys tried really hard for a long, long time to keep their business going but despite it’s evident popularity there just wasn’t enough local support to keep it running.

We can point fingers all we like  but I think it is a genuine tragedy that so many local sources for our hobby community are rapidly disappearing.

I must say I felt somewhat bad picking over the dying embers of this business.  Yes, I found a couple of bargains (the Warhammer Fantasy Battle rulebook and a Chaos Predator cost me £55) but in truth I could have made a similar saving online.  Having seen too many friends businesses fail lately I went to easy their financial burden in whatever little way I could.

I guess the moral of this tale is fairly simple; if you are lucky enough to have a local gaming hub like this please support it.

If not, they may not be around much longer.