Space Marines

Alex finished off a bunch of Space Marines over the weekend. First up is the Emperor's Champion. Apparently he should be painted like a Black Templar, but Alex did him like an Ultramarine to fit in with the rest of the army he is building.

Here are four photos of his Veteran Squad - focussing on different members of the squad each time. I need to get a tripod and remote release for the camera soon, so I can keep the shutter open for longer and thus get more in focus within each shot.

Alex has almost finished quite a few others; a starter squad of four identical marines with a heavy weapons specialist and a tactical squad. He also has a few other one-off minis likeTyrannid Hunters, a sergeant figure and a bike rider. It is his birthday soon, and he has requested one of the troop carriers, either a rhino or similar, to complement his army. I have to say, they do look rather good on the table.

Dragonewts

It took a while, but here are the Dragonewts I have had on the paint station for quite a while. I didn't paint up two of them (they are the riders of the terror birds I painted ages back), but the rest make a fearsome pack of foes at all life stages. Here are some early stage Dragonewts - a crested Dragonewt in the centre.

 Next up is a picture of the penultimate stage. I can't remember what he was called and I can't remember how many official life stages they have before becoming dragons. I will have to dig out my Glorantha source book for a read up.

Here's the final stage. He is sculpted as a left hander which is correct according to the canon, but I am not sure if it is just the final stage that is left handed or all stages.

Finally, here is a picture of them all together. The only one I didn't get an individual shot of is the beaked Dragonewt on the right of the picture; I couldn't get any depth on the photo due to him blending in with the trees and going all blurry.



I quite like these minis and they go well with those broo I painted up a little while back. I still have a centaur and those two terror bird riders to paint up and all my remaining Runequest minis are painted. I wish I had not sold off those ducks and baboons back in the day. Still, I am sure there are other manufacturers who sell them somewhere out there.

Next up for me should be those Early Eastern Empire Roman auxiliary spearmen. Alex changed his mind on those Bretonnians and painted up some Space Marines instead. I should be able to get the marines up on the blog tomorrow if all goes well, and the Romans maybe next weekend or just after. Hopefully I can then get those Rohan footmen started as well as some more odds and sods from my old lead pile.

10,000 page views

This total seems to have come along a little more quickly than my previous milestone of 5,000 page views. Readership has gone up but I think there has been a bit of an unusual spike over the last couple of weeks. The majority of these have been coming from the main Blogger site, so I am wondering if there is a bit of a glitch there in their software.

Anyway, I would like to say 'Thank you' to all my readers and send out a cordial 'Welcome' to my new followers over the last few months. Things have been a little slow on the site recently, but I have started up painting again and there should be lots more goodies to feast your eyes on over the next few weeks. I have maybe thirty or so metal minis to put the finishing touches to and then I will be back into Lord of the Rings territory again with my plastic Warriors of Rohan. Last year I tried to run a Summer Offensive to get all of the Rohan minis completed, but that proved a little too ambitious, so this year's Summer Offensive will just be to get the 36 Warriors of Rohan completed. These will be painted in the same style as the Riders of Rohan: block colours, wash/dip and matt varnish. Once I move onto the elites, I will try to up the ante and paint three-colour shading and for the heroes push the boat out for fully blended painting. We shall see how I cope when the time comes though I guess.

Broadside 2011

Alex and I went to the new show, called Broadside, put on by the Milton Hundred Wargames Club down in Sittingbourne, Kent, on Sunday. This is a new show on the calendar, and luckily just down the road from where I live. It is a small show, held in a leisure centre sports hall, but despite its small size it more than made up for in atmosphere, friendliness and variety of traders. There was a comforting buzz in the hall all day from the 300+ visitors they got through the doors. I will definitely be going again next year, and hopefully with a bit more cash in my pocket. It was only a few quid to get in so that was a major plus point too. I didn't actually get to buy anything there but saw lots that I may get hold of later on - some great scenery items are now on the agenda. Alex bought a pile of second hand Lord of the Rings minis for £1 each.

I was going to write this up yesterday, probably in a bit more detail, but I got a call to go visit my father in hospital almost as soon as I got in through the door. He was in for a routine heart operation that turned out to be a full double by-pass. He is recovering fine physically from the op but has developed a bit of an infection that is making him feel a bit paranoid (a common side effect of the drugs, infection and tiredness from the operation apparently). I had to go in to calm him down a little and explain to him what the doctors were unable. He should be out of hospital in a couple of days after a course of antibiotics and more rest.

I was able to put a bit of paint onto those Eastern Roman spearmen on Saturday, so they are half done now. I also finished off the Dragonewts at long last, who just need shading and varnishing to complete them. I was wondering what to start on next, and think I will get the Rohan footmen done - the ones I was unable to finish last year. There are 36 of them to go with the 24 Riders I painted last year. I also have many elites and heroes to add to them too - a decent sized army methinks. When they are done, I may start on some Norman Knights I bought a couple of years ago - I have about 30 of them to paint up from various manufacturers - and then the Gripping Beast Anglo-Saxons and Vikings to fight against them. Lots to do still, but it'll give me something to write about on the blog!

Alex's second Bretonnian archer unit

I haven't been feeling too good lately, so again I did not get any painting done. However, I was able to get the camera out and photograph Alex's second Bretonnnian archer unit. They have been painted to match the colours of one of his dukes and a future unit of men-at-arms.

Here is a front on view of the same unit.

Alex will be working on that unit of men-at-arms next, as well as a few other Bretonnian odds and sods. I still have those Runequest minis to finish as well as those Eastern Roman Empire spearmen (they are Western spearmen but will be painted in colours to match my eastern archers).

Being laid up for a few days though I have been able to read a fair bit of stuff. I have been going back through my old 2000AD collection and bagging/boarding/boxing them as I was going along. I have collected this comic since Prog 7, as well as most of the spin-offs like Starlord, Tornado, Crisis and the Judge Dredd Megazine in all its guises. I did sell a load off many years back, but since rebought them (well about 10 years ago I did), thus the re-read project. It is quite interesting reading these as an adult as I missed many of the adult themes when I was a kid. I am currently working my way through issues in the early 300s which equates to 1982/3, when the UK was in deep recession (rather much like the last few years). Many of the stories reflect the situation of the day. I think I sort of acknowledged it as a kid, because my father had long periods without work at this time, but I was pretty much shielded from it as my parents rarely talked about money matters in front of us kids. This is different to how things in my household are today, because we discuss our financial issues with the kids if it affects them directly.