It's been awhile...

Like the title says, it's been awhile since my last post on here. Since October it's been kind of crazy with my job and life in general. I've sidelined the Astral Claws project for the moment, since I figured Forge World would come out with some more support for them since October. Well that has not happened for some reason, I figured at least some decal sheets or something. I have not worked on the Salamanders since I got back from the UK trip, I need to go in and complete them soon that way I can say they are complete up to 1,500 points at least.

We did get the Toys for Tots 2010 miniatures completed in time for the auction, my friend Jon & his son Jake did a really good job on the Tactical Squad I sent them. But I didn't get to see them in person before they went to California for the auction. I finished the other two Tactical Squads, two Rhinos, and two Dreadnoughts for the Ultramarine's Third Company. Once all the other miniatures from the Freebootaz Forum were received, they formed four Space Marine Company auctions and one for the scratch built Thunderhawk (which looked really good in the pictures). The auctions overall worked out really good and we raised a good bit of money for the Toys for Tots charity. And in the end I won back my Ultramarine Third Company miniatures, and received some very nice miniatures to go with it too. I was a really big fan of the Smurf Bastion and Papa Smurf Sergeant that freeboota "Crayolasmoker" converted and painted, he did a great job on them. Overall most of the miniatures were really great on their paint jobs, but a few of the miniatures seemed rushed and half of the vehicles had OK paint jobs.
So future plans for the Ultras is to redo some of the vehicles to make them so I can change out their setups for multiple use within the army, and try and bring all of the colors into one uniform color across all of the army. On the miniatures I'm going to redo the at least two of the squads and beef out some of them to fit into a ten man setup. And on the stuff I painted I'm going to finish doing the highlights and details that I rushed to get done. And on the Smurf Bastion, well I'm going to add another Smurf Bastion or terrain piece to complement it.

And this years Toys for Tots army is the Imperial Guard Cadians, and I think based on the sheer amount of Imperial Guard troops that it takes to flesh out an army this will be an amazing sight to see at auction. And given that this year the army was decided and announced before 2010 was done will hopefully bring a good amount of money to the Tots.

Whats on the desk at the moment?

As for what I'm currently working on, well being on the road and well over six hours from the house makes painting anything a pain in the butt. I was thinking of dragging my airbrushes and painting setup out to the apartment I'm renting, but I really don't have the room for it in a two bedroom apartment that I'm sharing with a guy I work with. So I really don't think it would be a good roommate to have my airbrush and painting setup out in the living room. So I can put together some plastic kits and try and get an army at least built and ready to start putting paint on them. And that army would be the Blood Angels that I collected bitz for there last year, and picked up one or two of the boxes that came out when their codex was released. Then here just a week or so ago I picked up some of the new releases for the Blood Angels, and have already learned some lessons on building them too.

Main Lesson: Just because it's a dreadnought doesn't mean the parts interchange without some modifications. The fronts for the Blood Angels Dreadnought kit will not fit right on the standard Space Marine Dreadnought body parts, and the back top piece on the standard Dread doesn't mate with the BA Dread fronts right way. With a few mods to the standard Dread body parts they will fit up really good, I worked fast to remove some things that were in the way and put the parts back together before the glue was dry. Good thing this was on the Death Company Dreadnought, and I can make some changes and shave some off the top to make it look good. I used the base Blood Angel Dreadnought parts to make a Furioso Libby Dread, so it turned out really nice and fit together with no problems.

So other then that I've been working on putting Assault Marines together, some Death Company Troops (like their details on the miniatures), and parts of a Stormraven. I'm thinking of making the Death Company guys with magnetic Jump Packs & Back Packs, so I can change them out for different load outs in armies. I was thinking of doing the same with the Assault Squads, but I don't think the standard Assault Marine torsos really go with a regular Back Pack. So I'm doing two 10 man Assault Squads with Jump Packs & one 10 man Assault Squad with Back Packs riding in a Rhino Transport. And I've got some more items coming hopefully if eBay and PayPal actually worked on my purchases and payments today.


Things I'm thinking of doing in the future:

1. Some kind of diorama with maybe two characters fighting a great battle, and hopefully If I do everything correctly I'll be able to use these two in armies of their own.
2. Complete my Dystopian Wars fleets (Prussian & Rising Suns) that I started late last year. I've already got two games in against Jon (FSE Fleet) & Jake (Britannia Fleet) at New Years, and was beat down for the most part (they understand the Spartan Games rule sets way better then me). I think they might be one of the next posts on the blog, once I get home and have time to snap some pictures of what I've got done so far. If you want to see some awesome Dystopian Wars stuff, then check out this link for Jon's FSE Fleet (they look awesome in person).
3. Grey Knights, can't wait to see what Games Workshop comes out with for the GK's. I'll have to see what the codex has for rules and figure out what I have to do to bring my previous GK army up to date with the new codex, and what cool new plastic kits they bring out. And to see if the new stuff will fit in with the old stuff, and I can foresee a Forge World order for some Grey Knight and Inquisitor stuff. And if the old fits in with the new, then I'm going to strip off all of the old paint and redo the whole army. If not then I might put them up on eBay or something to make room for new kits (I'm starting to run out of space at the house for my hobby stuff).
4. Display cases to put some finished items in and get out of the hobby room. So I'll have to put the woodworking skills to use, and finally use the equipment that I've been getting and buying over the years to use at the friends house (thank goodness he has a basement & a wife that doesn't mind the use or me, at some point I'll have a building just for our woodworking equipment). I would like to get one of the CNC 3D routers to do some symbols and icons within the Display Case wood. And being on the road all the time supplies the money to buy this, but the trade off is no time to use anything that I've bought.

Well until next time, keep the dice on the table.