Review: Dark Millennium Playing Cards

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

Games Workshop have re-released the Dark Millennium playing card set. This set was on a limited release previously and has now been made available again, but for how long they will be available is anybody's guess.
The card set (not to be confused with the old CCG of the same name) is a set of 52 cards, plus a pair of jokers, in four suits, are of standard bridge size, and come in a card box.
So far, so normal.


What makes these cards stand out is that each one features a unique piece of John Blanche 40k art, spread over the suits Imperium, Chaos, Adeptus Mechanicus and Xenos. The artwork is in Blanche's loose, line and wash concept sketch style and each piece was painted exclusively for this set.
Obviously, the desirability of this set depends entirely on what you feel about John Blanche's art, particularly this style, and there's no doubt his work is very divisive. Some love it, others not so much but, whatever your personal tastes regarding his art style, there's no denying the influence his work has had. Simply put, his work has defined the GW style for more than thirty years, and no-one has had more creative input in the look and feel of GW's products in that time. Personally, I'm a big fan of his work (my signed copy of Ratspike is still amongst my most treasured possessions...) I admit I prefer his fully-painted work, but this style appeals in a different way, showing individual inhabitants of the grimdark 40k universe. As pieces of art they are a worthwhile collection in their own right but they also serve a greater purpose as inspiration for miniature conversions, or even to inspire other artists to create their own characters.
Also, you can play card games with them.
I really like this set. I like the design, I like the artwork and I like the way that each suite has it's own typeface for the numbers.
There are some that may balk at paying £10 for a set of playing cards (after all, they are just standard playing cards, when it all comes down to it) and I have to admit it would have been nice if they'd taken the time to present a few 40k-style rules, even if they were for traditional card games, presented in a 40k fashion but, as a collectible, I don't think the price is over the top. This is a quality set of cards, on good stock and I recommend them to collectors and fans of John Blanche's art. Fingers crossed for a set of Imperial Tarot to follow along soon!

The Dark Millennium Playing Cards are available here, but I recommend you don't wait too long...

Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Painting Guide: Cadian Infantry Trooper

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

The other day, after a session of Die Rolling, Ollie (Nolus in the campaign) announced his interest in getting into Warhammer 40,000. I agreed that would be a thoroughly excellent idea. Two days later, he messaged me to say he'd bought a squad of Cadians and a Chimera. Not wasting any time, then...
I thought it would, therefore, be the perfect time to do up a quick painting guide, to help my friend get his models ready for playing...
This one's for you, Ollie!

CADIAN INFANTRY TROOPER

I've mostly stuck with the colours used in the Citadel Paint App, except I've used Wraithbone instead of Grey Seer for the primary basecoat as I think it'll be a better match for the predominantly sand and green colour scheme, and I've used Militarum Green, rather than Creed Camo, on the armour.
So, the colours you will need are:

Wraithbone Spray
Wraithbone
Grey Seer
Contrast Medium
Aggaros Dunes
Militarum Green
Apothecary White
Basilicanum Grey
Black Templar
Leadbelcher
Guilliman Flesh
Gore-Grunta Fur
Astrogranite
Abaddon Black


1. After priming the whole minature with Wraithbone Spray, all the fatigues were painted with a single coat of Aggaros Dunes. If you spill over to other areas, don't worry too much. Large spills can be lifted out by using a dry brush, smaller ones can be painted over later. The important thing is to make sure you get a good, even coverage over the whole area, with no missing spots as, with Contrast paints, it's really difficult to go back and get any bits you've missed, once they're dry.


2. The next stage is to paint all the armour areas with Militarum Green. I'd suggest adding a little bit of Contrast medium (maybe 5:1 paint:medium) to the paint here, as the darker Contrast Paints can be a little too opaque sometimes. You will need to be a little more careful that you don't get any paint on the bits you've already painted, as it'll be a right pain to correct any mistakes after. If you do need to correct any mistakes, re-apply the Wraithbone base using the Base Paint before re-applying the Aggaros Dunes.


3. Now you're going to want to put a coat of Grey Seer on all the bits that are going to be black, grey or white. This will give a better base for the following colours to work over. Paint a coat of Apothecary White over the insignia, Basilicanum Grey over the metal areas and Black Templar (again, you may want to add a touch of Contrast Medium to the paint) over the boots and belt. Metal areas are then given a coat of Leadbelcher.


4. To do the face and hands, you may need to re-establish the undercoat of Wraithbone using the Base paint. Once that has dried, paint over it with a coat of Guilliman Flesh, a coat of Gore Grunta Fur on his hair, and you're done.


5. Finally, to finish off, I've painted the base on this one with Astrogranite and edged it with Abaddon Black. I recommend giving the finished miniature a coat (or two) of varnish to protect the paintwork, as contrast paints rub off easily.

And there you have it. Just an hour, including assembly time, and he's done, ready to be used on the battlefield. It won't win any Golden Demons, but it's perfectly good to play games with. Only another 399 to do and you have the entirety of what remains of the Cadian Army ready to go...*

I have more painting guides planned and, if you have any other miniatures you'd like me to do a similar guide for (or more detailed guides), please let me know.
Thanks for reading!
-Stu



*Sorry, couldn't help myself...

Warcry Diary: Day 4

DAY 4: Friday 23rd August

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
FINALLY, with the completion of the last main pieces (and a couple of little ones I'd previously overlooked), the terrain is all assembled.


I have to say, having got this far, how impressed I am with the terrain pieces in this set. Pictures don't do justice to the level of detail, how the finished kits look, or just how much there is in the box. Never mind a good Warcry set up, there's nearly enough here for a good setup for a full-scale Age of Sigmar battle. Even unpainted, it looks awesome on the game board, and I can't wait for my first game.


However, it must be said that there is one big issue with this set. The instructions. They're rubbish. They don't give a complete guide to assembling all the pieces and they completely fail to mention that, for some of the missions in the book, you will need to use some of the pieces separately, when the instructions tell you to glue them. This is a huge oversight. This is a starter set, designed to bring new people in to the hobby, and be a standalone product. You should not need to go online and find video guides in order to find out how to pt the terrain pieces together. I'd have been absolutely furious if I'd stuck these pieces together right away, without knowing of the issues and the online solutions. This sort of error is not good enough if you're a new startup. In a product from the the world's most experienced manufacturer of this type of thing it's unforgivable. Slap on the wrists, GW.

Anyway, having got that off my chest, I am happy to report that all the terrain in the set, once assembled, fits neatly into the box. Excellent news for those (like me) who have limited storage space at home.
Right, on with the warbands!

Total time so far: 5 hours

Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Warcry Diary: Day 3

DAY 3: Tuesday 20th August

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
A slight variation from my usual Warcry entry today. Instead of reporting on my usual (lack of) progress I thought I'd mention a couple of Warcry-related products that arrived today. First up are these resin bases from Gladius Game Arts. There's two styles to choose from, and sets available for all the current warbands, as well as the chaos beasts from the starter set. I bought the ones for the Raptoryx and Furies, to see what they were like and I have to say I'm impressed. I'll be ordering a set for the Iron Golems and Untamed Beasts too, and I'll give a full review of them once I've got them painted. I wouldn't mind seeing a set for the scenery pieces too (subtle hint...). The current sets can be ordered here.



Garfy Etherington, he of Garfy's Get A Grips, Tale of Painters and regular contributor to the Warcry Facebook page I run, has released his latest product, the Initiative Tracker. This useful little gadget has slots for all the dice you need to play the game. As with all Garfy's designs, it is simple, elegant and does exactly what it says on the tin. The Tracker can be bought from here. I highly recommend his grips too, they're fantastic.

Okay, that's it for this supplemental entry. I'll be back soon, hopefully with all the terrain finished!
Thanks for reading-Stu

Warcry Diary: Day 2

DAY TWO Wednesday 14th August

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
Ugh, has it really been over a week? That sucks. Well, at least I managed to sneak an hour's worth of assembly in today, and got all the barricades and little loose pieces of scenery done. It's not much, I'll admit, but it's something and, honestly, with the last few weeks I've had, I'm glad for that something. Anyway, the plan is to try and get all the scenery put together by the end of the weekend, then get the figures stuck together by the end of the month so that The Better Half and I can get a game in on one of the rare occasions we get an evening off together. I'll leave you with some not entirely exciting pictures of the bits I did today...

Total time so far: 3 hours
Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Warcry Diary: Day 1

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

With everyone and their dog doing posts about Warcry, I was wondering what I could do to bring something different to the table. Then it occurred to me, there's all these posts by pros who got the set in advance of release, had days in which they could devote themselves to getting it all ready and built and painted and photographed, etc. etc. So I thought, "How about looking at it from the perspective of an everyday gamer, with limited hobby time, and how he/she would get on with getting the set ready for play." So that's what I'm going to do. And the thing is, I don't have to make anything up. I am an everyday gamer with limited hobby time. I genuinely bought Warcry as a way to get some proper gaming done with The Better Half, so I have real reasons to get in done as quickly as possible, but with only one or two hours some nights in order to do it. So I'm going to be documenting the build, from sprue to first game and beyond, in the form of my Warcry diary.
The Eightpoints beckon. Have at it!

DAY ONE Monday 5th August.
So, I bought Warcry on Saturday, and managed to have a good look at it and do a bit of an unboxing review of the contents, which you can see here. On Sunday I didn't manage to get any hobby time, due to Real World Stuff, but I have managed to get some done today. I decide I'd begin by assembling the terrain. I've never put together any terrain kits before, so I was really interested to see how this lot was going to go together. The first bits I tackled were the bell tower and the state. I utilised the guide to sticking the terrain together from Waywalker Studios and the video from Blackjack Legacy, to make sure I wasn't sticking any bits down that I shouldn't be. I left the skeletons from the alcoves in the bell tower unglued as well, for ease of painting later. A bit of Blu-Tak keeps them in place for now. As suggested, I've kept the steps on both, and the platform on the statue separate.
Total time spent: 2 hours.

The Best Laid Plans...

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
A word of advice. When planning new ventures (say, for instance, a radical reworking of your work blog...) it's a good idea to not do this around the time of a major change in your personal life. It's even less of an idea to do it when you have two such life-changing situations going on.
In my defence, when I decided to relaunch the blog and produce more regular content for it, I wasn't planning on changing my job within a month of doing so (although, with hindsight, the fact that I had applied for the new job and there was the possibility of the change happening was something I maybe could have factored in...) I certainly wasn't expecting to suddenly have to deal with all the implications of the death of my dad, and all that goes along with such an event. But, the simple fact is, life rarely goes as smoothly as you would expect (or hope). Certainly, I'd like to avoid anything like the kind of stress I've had to deal with over the last couple of months happening again any time soon, thank you very much.
Still, I have managed to maintain some level of ongoing posts here, which is something. Mostly this has been because it's not been something that I've had to think too hard about. My concentration and ability to focus on such things as sitting and painting for hours on end has been hopelessly lacking and, frankly, the blogging has been a comfortable way of at least feeling like I'm doing something constructive during the recent vicissitudes.
But it's all over now, aside from wrapping up dad's effects, moving stuff into storage and other tasks which, while needing to be done, aren't going to have quite the same impact on my time or focus. I can, at last, put all my energies into getting into a rhythm with the job and my work here in the shed. I can catch up with the huge backlog of work. There's painting to be done, reviews to be written, parcels to be sent...
I must just say a huge thank you for all your messages of support over the last few weeks, and for the understanding of those who are waiting for work that was supposed to be delivered ages ago. My idea of "Woop woop, nowI can get all caught up and make everybody happy!" went right out the window. I now need to get my head down and see what I can do about making all those very patient people happy.
I'll leave you with some pictures of Madge, from Hasslefree. The only miniature I've managed to finish to a decent standard in the last two months...


Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Some thoughts on Everchosen...

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

So, the first round of GW's new Everchosen painting competition has happened and I think it's fair to say it's been a success... but not an unqualified success. It seems there have been some teething troubles but, before we get to that, I'd like to offer my hearty and unqualified congratulations to everybody who got through the first round and will go on to represent their store in the next stage. I remember very well what an utter thrill it was to get through the local stages, back when Golden Demon had such a thing, and I'm sure all those winners will be feeling really proud right now.
But what about those teething troubles?
Well, after the first round of the competition was over, I started seeing a number of posts complaining bitterly about certain aspects of the competition. At first I put these down to standard internet whining or sore losery* but, it seems, at least some of the complaints have merit. I put out a request for opinions from those who had taken part and I got a really good response from Alex Murray, who was eminently qualified to comment, as he was one of the regional winners. His comments supported a lot of the complaints I'd seen online. While he was very positive about the fact that this was a global event, and therefore much more accessible for those who are unable to make the journey to Coventry (hell, I have trouble with that, and it's only five hours away for me...) he had some things to say about other aspects of the competition. I'll let him speak for himself:

Good things:
• An actual painting competition bigger than just a local store.
Great to see that this was made an event! I’d love to see the return of Golden Demon to not just the northern hemisphere, but if that’s not gonna happen, would love to see Everchosen expanded and made into even more of an event.
• Accessibility. I think a lot of people really gave it a good go, so the access to a worldwide painting comp for lots of people was good. Hopefully it inspired more people to improve their painting or paint not just for armies too.

Could be improved:
• Public voting ensures that it’s not always the best painted that goes through to the next round. There’s at least one store where an amazing entry that, in my opinion, would certainly be a contender for the overall sword missed out just because of where they entered and a good, but not quite as good entry won because of the votes.
This method isn’t necessarily going to give the best painted entry the prize, which as a painting competition, it should. I reckon it should be closed-judged in the first round, then public voted for the second round. This has all sorts of logistical challenges with having enough qualified & impartial judges available in each area though.
• Consistency. Rules for the Everchosen category need to be clearer. Things that would have been disqualified because of base sizes and interpretations of the rules in one store, appear to have been fine in another store.
If there’s a limit on base sizes, but display plinths are fine, make the distinction clearer and be more specific.
• Display of miniatures. Having the entries in a prominent, well lit position at eye level would have been much nicer.
As it was, in my local, they were on the bottom two shelves of a display cabinet which made it seem like an afterthought and not an event. Makes it hard for everyone to see all of the details too (eg- if the backs will never be seen, why bother painting them?) Another challenge, as you don’t want the public picking up the minis in case of accidental damage or theft, etc but you do want the mini as a whole to be judged.

These are all valid points and, the first and last ones at least, are going to be a real challenge for GW to fix. It doesn't matter how many edicts they lay down about how the entries are to be displayed, not all stores (some indie stores were also hosting the event) have the sort of space available to display large numbers of miniatures properly. Similarly, the public voting thing is a difficult one to solve without coming up with an entirely different method of judging the first round. When there's a public vote, there is always going to be a risk of it turning into a popularity contest. If Johnny brings along all his friends and family to vote for him...It's a complicated issue. Even the idea of having someone like the shop manager as an impartial judge is not infallible solution. It's something that GW need to think long and hard about for next time, and it will be very interesting to see how the next round of (online) public voting goes.
The consistency issue is something that GW can solve very easily though. The rules need to be much more hard and fast and all ambiguity needs to be removed. When you are dealing with dozens of individual stores and their staff, any opportunity for mis-interpreting the rules causes huge problems. If the rule says "no larger than 60mm base" and some shops stick to it, but others "allow a little leeway" then it makes the rule meaningless. GW need to make sure a rule like that is properly enforced. But they also need to look to themselves for a little housekeeping, too. Saying entries to the Everchosen category need to "be only Citadel Miniatures that are currently available on the Games Workshop.com website" sounds pretty unambiguous but it's still open to confusion. If they're not going to allow Forge World models, for instance (which that rule suggests) then they need to categorically say "no Forge World miniatures will be accepted" otherwise you're going to have situations where some shops will allow them and some won't. Hardly a level playing field.
These ambiguities could cause problems down the line, too. What if little Johnny's** Forge World Blood Bowl Minotaur got through the regionals, only to be disqualified at the next stage, when the bods at head office get to see the entries online? Does that mean whomever was in second place in the regional should get his place?
These issues need to be looked at because, modern internetting*** being the way it is, any perceived inconsistencies or injustices will be jumped upon from a great height.
And I really do hope they can sort these issues out, and they are just teething troubles, because Everschosen is a really great idea and I'd love to see it continue.****

One more thing. Graham Shirlie, of Painted By G, pointed out that, due to the fact that the information is in the sealed winners' envelopes, some winners might not be aware that they only have one week to post a photograph of their entry to the Everchosen global competition. He has kindly allowed me to post his photo of his golden ticket, in the hope that it might help some unfortunate avoid missing their chance. So, if you're reading this and you haven't retrieved your entry and winner's envelope from your local store yet, DO IT NOW!

So, it just remains for me to wish the very best of luck to all the regional winners in the next round, and I very much look forward to seeing all the entries come voting time.

Thanks for reading!

-Stu

*it's a perfectly cromulent word.
*yeah, him again. Maybe he entered in two different stores...
***again, utterly cromulent.
****(Partly because I'm hoping that, next time, The Real World won't drop such a heavy load on me just at the time when I should be working on my entry and I can get to have a go...)

When Contrast Met Conquest: Space Marine Scouts

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

When the list of Conquest issue contents came in, I bemoaned the fact that, amongst all the shiny new models that were being used in the set, they were including such older models such as Space Marine Scouts, Bikers, etc. These slots could easily have been filled with new models (a set of Rievers to replace the Scouts, for instance) especially as there have been recent releases (the new Vanguard Primaris, particularly) that would have been ideal to fill those slots. It just felt like a bit of a swizz to be using these old models  (and we're talking 20+ years old in some cases) alongside the new. So I'd pretty much written off the Bikers and Scouts, etc. and planned to dump them in the Crates of Unpainted Delights, to be used as conversion fodder or sold off on Ebay.
The Real Life happened.
Regular readers of this blog will know that, since the beginning of June (when I decided to make much more of the blog with all the new content) my painting output has been catastrophic. While I've managed to more or less keep up with blog posts in spare minutes here and there, a new job and family matters have meant I've fallen way behind on my commissions and personal projects.
"But what does this have to do with the Scouts?" I hear you ask.*
Well, as I was unwrapping the figures from the magazine an idea struck me. I had the upcoming evening free. The Better Half would be working overnight, and I like to use that time to get out to visit Eddie McSheddie.** I was wondering what I could do with that time. I really needed to catch up on my commission work. My competition pieces have gone out the window (apart from Eadbanger- there's still time for that...) and I really need to update on the projects that I started on the blog. Then I thought, what I really need was a bit of a palette-cleanser. Something I could bash out, start to finish, in one night, just to refresh the old brushes. If I'm honest, I could also use a bit of a soul-cleanser, too. The last few weeks, things have built up quite a bit, and have been taking a bit of an emotional toll on me. What I really needed was a bit of a night off, to just chill, and paint for fun. And I looked at the Scouts and thought, "Hmmm."***
So, I decided to get the Scouts and go from sprue to finished models in one evening. It's not entirely a cathartic exercise. I can use the models as part of a Kill Team and I can get an article for the blog out of it too. And it'll be a good little exercise in using the Contrast paints the way they were intended.
After looking through the Kill Team rulebook, and consulting the online forums, I realised that the shotguns and heavy bolter were not the ideal loadout for a Scout Kill Team. The generally accepted best loadout seems to be bolters or bolt pistol/knife combo, with a missile launcher. This put a bit of a crimp in my plans as a) the heavy weapon on the sprue is the heavy bolter and b) I really liked the idea of fitting them with shotguns, just for the look of it. then I realised that we'd be getting the missile launcher with the sniper sprue later in the collection, which solve problem a- I could simply paint up the missile launcher guy later, and use either/both as necessary. As for problem b? Rule of cool prevailed, I'm afraid. I wanted those shotguns and, if they turned out to be hopeless in-game then, well, i was never planning on playing competitively anyway and, again, I could always add a couple of bolter guys using the sniper sprue later.
the only thing left to decide on was the colour scheme. What chapter to do? And for this, I decided on Ultramarines. I know people say they're boring but the blue and grey (yes, I know Scout fatigues are supposed to be bone white, not grey white but grey looks better, so there...) colour scheme looks great on scouts and the Codex Discipline Chapter Tactic from Kill Team: Elites really appeals, and will work really well with Scouts, I think. Besides, it wasn't as if I was short of other Astartes to paint in different chapter colours. Plus, it meant there was no need to do any conversions to make them look more chapter-specific. I could do them straight from the sprue, which is what I wanted to do.
So, there we have it. An evening of free painting, five Scouts to blat through. Off we go.

I thought it would be fun to see exactly how long it took to get these guys from sprue to an acceptable tabletop standard (or "Battle Ready" as GW insist on calling it) so I'm going to time them closely and, to prove I'm not fudging the numbers, I'll photograph them next to the clock at each stage. So, here's the starting point, with the unpainted, unassembled sprues ready to go.

Okay, they're assembled and primed with Grey Seer spray. I've selected the colours to use (all Contrast):
Armour: Ultramarines Blue
Fatigues: Space Wolves Grey
Rubber, gun casings and metal: Black Templar (I'll use two coats on the hard gun casings to get a proper black)
Skin: Guilliman Flesh and Fyreslayer Flesh
Hair: Gore-Grunta Fur and Cygor Brown

Prepping these models for painting really shows their age. The edges of the armour plates are soft and rounded, sections merge into each other (this is particularly evident where the fatigues meet the pauldrons) and all the detail is soft, as if ever so slightly melted. And the mould lines are just awful. It's clear that the moulds for these models are well past their prime and this is a clear indication that these models need to be retired from the range. Compared to the clean, crisp castings of current ranges, these look like children's toys. As much as I'm glad that I've got these, so I can do what I'm doing, I have to again wonder why they were included in the collection. Anyway, just over two hours after I started (I'm calling it two hours dead, as there was a couple of minutes while I got an audiobook ready to listen to (I'm starting the Horus Heresy again) and there was a cat-related interruption...), they are ready for painting.

After a coffee break and a bit of fuss with the cat I started painting again at bang on midnight so what you are seeing here is the result of just shy of three hours painting with the colours mentioned above. Of course as with the previous batch of models I did with the Contrast paints, they don't stand up to close scrutiny but they are perfectly usable as tabletop miniatures, purely for gaming, and there would be no shame in stopping right there. That's the great thing about these new paints. They really do save a lot of time getting the models to this stage. With traditional paints, I'd have to have done a base coat (which would have taken longer than applying the Contrast paints, as traditional paints don't flow as well, meaning they take longer to apply, getting them into all the recesses and tight spots) and a wash to get them to this stage. At five hours from sprue to done, I'm not complaining.

Of course, I'm not going to stop there. At a later date (probably when we have the second set of Scouts from the collection) I will go back and finish them off with some highlights. But, for now, they'll do. They just need a coat of varnish and they can go away in the figure case until I need them. One issue down, 34 to go...



*Also, "Stop rambling and get to the point!" Was shouted from the back...
**It's growing on me, but I'd still like suggestions for a better name.
***No kidding, I actually stood in the kitchen, holding the sprue in my left hand, and stood in the thinking pose, right hand on my chin, my index finger tapping my top lip...

Monday's Random Stuff Post.

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

Well, it's time for the weekly WIP and, once again, it's a big hatful of nothing. For the second week in a row I've been unable to get anywhere near the painting desk. Unfortunately The Real World continues to throw challenges in my way. Once again, I hope things will settle down this week but you know what they say about hope, and good intentions...
Anyway, enough of that. Let's have a loo at a couple of things that have popped up in my feed this week.
Did you think that Firefly ended too abruptly?* Ever fancied writing your own adventures for Mal and the crew? Well, now's your chance. Gale Force Nine are offering a fantastic prize of loads of Firefly Adventures stuff. All you have to do is come up with a job for the crew. Head on over to their Facebook page for more information.
Fancy applying for something more permanent? Privateer Press are looking for entry level staff. Some of the biggest names in the industry started out in retail, warehousing and similar jobs. If you fancy a foot in the door of the industry, this could be the perfect opportunity for you.
I'm afraid that's all there is from me today. Hopefully, next week, I'll actually have some proper updates for you. If you want a bit more reading, there's an update on the Stuff Of Legends page. In the meantime I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of a well-known dwarf...


***UPDATE***

A couple of hours after I published this post originally, in the early hours of Monday morning, I received a phone call from the hospital telling me my dad had lost his battle with pneumonia and had passed away during the night. As you can imagine, because of this there's likely to be some disruption to my blogging schedule for the next couple of weeks. I ask you to please be patient with me, and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading!
-Stu






*What a stupid question...

Eldar Phantom Titan: A Bit Of Legwork

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

I thought it was a good idea to update on progress on the Phantom Titan. In the last post, I was talking about putting the base elements together. Now it was time to start work on the Titan itself...

Having got the main elements of the base in place, I was now able to start positioning the legs and feet. I knew that the right foot would be resting on the broken cannon arm and the angle of that cannon presented some difficulties. It would take a lot of fiddling, and a great deal of swearing and quite a lot of Blu-Tak to get the positioning right. The trouble is, there are so many parts in the feet and legs, an I couldn't risk gluing them until I was certain of the positioning,* hence the copious amounts of Blu-Tak. After quite a bit of adjustment, I managed to get the feet into a position where I could glue them together and a couple of pins** were inserted into the bottom of the feet, with corresponding holes drilled in the base, although the feet weren't glued to the base.

When it came to assembling the legs, pins were put through the hips into the groin section and through each side of the knee joints. The knees were also strengthened with pins from the knees into the upper and lower legs. Multiple pins were used to attach the legs to the foot assemblies. You can see, in the photographs, where the holes for the pins were filled with green stuff.

Finally, all was assembled and the whole thing was made secure. I then filled in the base with some ground-shaping using Das modelling clay, with some stones mixed in to give some texture.


The entire leg assembly is not fixed in place yet, for ease of painting later, and to make it easy to transport the finished model.

So, next job would be to put together the body sections. That'll be in the next instalment...
Thanks for reading!
-Stu

*I'd already made the mistake of gluing a couple of bits together, thinking that I could just pull them apart and reposition them. It turned out that the superglue I was using was remarkably effective, remarkably quickly...
**When I say pins, I actually used rivets, with the heads cut off. Strong, easy to clip to size, and easy to get hold of from your local hardware store...