Final Push to Astronomi-con Vancouver
Despite wishing to, I have not made much progress on my 40K army or on solving the many problems in my life. I continue to muddle onward with Astronomi-con Vancouver being the highlight of the 2009 tournament season for me and the Diseased Sons. There is actually another tournament in Vancouver two weeks before run by the U2KR folks, we'll have to see how well attended that is. GW is running less official tournaments so events like Astro and Adepticon are the future at least in North America. That is if video games don't finally kill off the hobby.
Others have been doing better than me. Malcolm was building an Imperial Guard army but his life may have gotten in the way. Vancouver Gamers is starting to serve as a central hub for all things gaming in Vancouver, well non-video non-gambling gaming. Zac soldiers on but I don't know if he'll be at Astro. Lots of Americans have registered including most recently Dave "Squig Brain" Handy who was an old time 40K lister. He'll be bringing one of his ork armies which isn't quite ready for 5th edition and the new codex but is easier and cheaper than making an entirely new army.
I continue to tell the uninitiated about Astro and as more and more people blog. I learned GW staff had a website while searching for an article by Owen Curtis, who has been back in BC for months and never dropped me a line. I went out to Richmond twice but both times I never made it to his shop in time... Frickin' Richmond.
I recently finished six more purple Nurgle Renegades. I've been updating my miniature painting blog and a thread over on the Bolter and Chainsword more frequently than this site. This site is all hand coded which really doesn't take me that much time for most things. But I want to change the menu to reflect the expanded focus, that will be a post-Astro project. Lots of things will be post Astro, but soon the CFA® exam will rear its head and this time there will be no prisoners. I eventually did manage to pass all three CFA exams.
These six models which you can see to the side are not likely to be at Astro. I want to take some non-Nurgle guys which I gotta get painting. I'm slowly finishing off the Diseased Sons and expanding into the rest of the codex. Gotta have more fun painting, also I have to cut corners and paint less detail. I think I have enough Nurgle stuff and unless I start playing Apocolypse I'm unlikely to paint more than a dozen more Diseased Sons. I plan to mostly paint fun models and rank and file. I also plan to make the rank and file less detailed so I can save my effort for the fun models. Forgeworld keeps releasing cool stuff and I stockpiled so many models over the years, it is time to start painting and stop buying for a year or so.
Hopefully I can finally get out of debt, but my job isn't secured and I could really make more money elsewhere, especially if I study hard. I'm actually off to a training course in a few weeks, I may be updating my resume sooner rather than later. As Astro approaches I'll try to paint and update this website or at least B&C and my blog. Hopefully Jason, Malcolm, and others start writing stuff. Malcolm set up this handy countdown clock.
About the models on the right
The first one has an autocannon as I'm pro-Autocannon especially after last years Astronomi-con Vancouver. It uses plastic bezerker bits, Plagemarine Havoc bits, regular Havoc bits, and my favourite thing about it is the eyes, though it probably looks more impressive from the side. The gun is very large and metal so this model tips over easily... He is added to Syphilis so they can be Nurgle Renegades and thus have a heavy weapon.
Next up is an Icon Bearer for my other purple squad. This allows them to be Nurgle Renegades or Havocs which will likely be their role as I still intend to paint more heavy and special weapons for this squad. This figure is mostly Nurgle Havoc bits plus the ever useful plastic Chaos Marauder sprew. The icon is from 2nd Edition and is undivided officially but with all the skulls I thought it was sufficiently Nurgle. I'm not sure where the backpack comes from, I tried to use similar backpacks for these guys. They also have similar blue flesh.
Third from the top is the overarmed Champion. He has both a plasma pistol and a powerfist. In 5th Edition, heck for the last several editions, players have used more and more powerfists. Sometimes I swear the squad exists just to get another powerfist on the field. The plasma pistol was better in 1st and 2nd Edition Warhammer 40,000. This model is not worth his points as rarely do you get to fire the Plasma Pistol. I built a model like this, as the Diseased Sons didn't have one. He may get used in really big games. His helmet ended up Bronze because I forgot to paint it purple. But the exposed brain is a really cool part though I don't know if it shows the best in this picture. Again parts from CSM, Nurgle Havocs, not too much OOP stuff on this fella.
This guy may be my favourite. I decided to paint him with a bag on his head. Imagine how ugly a model must be if they are a Plague Marine yet are still forced to wear a bag on their head? This uses Plague Marine Havoc bits which I bought ages ago for completion but still haven't used up. He has loyalist legs I think. Possibly from the third edition box set. If I ever do a loyalist army I have lots of bits, but no legs, but plenty of torsos. Luckily there is the Warstore and eBay. Though both can be frustrating if you still can't get the bit you want, sometimes you have to buy a whole boxset to get one key bit...
The next model is the most plain Jane of the bunch. I think the Plasma Gun is loyalist from one of the Veteran upgrade boxes. I've been stockpiling special weapons ever since my Ork ones started to run out. Now there are a lot more plastic bits. The model itself might be a 2nd Edition Plastic Chaos Spacemarine, ie the head is attached to the torso. The legs, I'm not so sure. I stripped some of my Diseased Sons over the years but I wouldn't think I had any more unassembled 2nd Edition Plastic Chaos guys, but maybe just the torso. He has a Death Guard shoulder pad which I have a tonne of. One day I'll have to sell some bits.
Last is the other champion. I paint a pretty good magical sword, but this one got a bit "whited out" in the photography stage. It isn't my best work, but it is better than the photo. The magical runes I did a pretty good job on too. The sword is Camo Green, Armor Wash, Rotting Flesh, Gryphon Sepia, Vallejo Green Grey and the runes are a bunch of different greens, mostly OOP. I tried out some Foundry paints on his bare arm. I didn't think it went light enough, but for speed painting the Foundry system is pretty good, though it is aimed mostly at historical army builders... I still used a wash on it. I've never found a good flesh wash I get better results making my own...