I have been trying out an Eyebrow Dormer window design and I think it looks pretty good.
I need to add the ridges to the top and around the dormer and then slap on some paint.
D-Day
Seventy-seven years on. A heavy price.
We had the Red Arrows fly overhead earlier today, on their way to the Midlands Air Show and then marking the anniversary at Ver-sur-Mer in France. A fantastic sight.
Updated Jump Gate
I have tweaked my Jump Gates for Billion Suns and added a clear perspex base.
This looks much better!
Stargrave Game
After 14 months of lockdown restrictions, I got to actually throw some dice and play a game a few days ago. We had plenty of games to choose from, during the last year, my small gaming group have picked up a few new rule books, mostly from Osprey.
We decided on the newest of these for our first game and kicked off 2021’s gaming year with Stargrave.
Stargrave does exactly what you expect, it is pretty much Frostgrave in space. As we like Frostgrave, it was no surprise that we liked Stargrave.
We played the first mission to keep it simple, three players coming on to grab some loot and cause a little bit of trouble.
I tried to pick as many of the model profiles as possible in my 400 Credits to see how they varied. I did seem to end up with far too many soldiers armed with just short ranged pistols, something to be rectified in the next game.
Whereas Frostgrave has its spells tied to schools of magic, the Captain (Wizard) and First Mate (Apprentice) have a “background” that gives them access to a list of abilities that can be cast during ther activations. Some abilities actually do physical damage to the character when activating them, which I think is a little odd, that is usualy the job of the person you are playing against…self inflicted wounds is not a good idea.
Stargrave is not without it’s shortcomings, the choice of weapons is incredibly small considering the detail the rest of the book goes into. I can only assume this is to encourage players to get into the campaign system and “find” more interesting weapons in the loot that gets collected. I would have preferred a larger list of weapon options for a starting crew, pistol and carbine is about as short as it can get.
Models move really slowly when carrying physical loot, they may prove quite vulnerable when trying to leg it off the table.
For a first game, it was was fun, which let’s face it, is the whole point. I am going to short through my pile of miscellaneous sci-fi figures and put together the next crew, with a different set of abilities for the chaps in charge
Even Older Terminators
Found a few of these old Terminator variants in the Loft Full Of Lead.
There are also some of the turtle Termies somewhere up there. I think I will eBay some of them and just keep one of each variant to make a five man squad of all the types I have.
Old Terminators
As I am in a Rogue Trader type of mood, I have built some old Terminators for my a new 40K Space Marine army.
I have a small squad of five of these, armed with various weapons. I was going to base them on 25mm round bases, but as they are likely to drop into am 8th Edition force, I went for 40mm bases…
Old Dreadnought
I don’t think this model has ever been put together, let alone painted, one of the original Dreadnoughts from the early days of Rogue Trader.
I have a few of these that are painted plain gun metal for use in other games, I may have to see about repurposing one or two of those as well back to an Oldhammer Rogue Trader Space Marine force.
I do remember the old Dreadnought adverts and buying the various combinations back in the days when you could order individual components from Games Workshop.
Finally, I thought it would be fun to point out how much a Dreadnought cost back in the 1980’s.
1987 Space Marines
Rather alarmingly, I have actually got a copy of the original Warhammer Rogue Trader rules, and equally as alarming, I have quite a lot of models that hail from those distant days.
Apart from the selection of nice old lead Space Marines that I have had kicking around for years, a friend left me with some of the original plastic beaky helmeted Marines from the mythical 1987 RTB01 box.
Although there is not a lot of variation in the model pose, basically, if a chap is carrying a Bolter then he goes together in pretty much one way, these are still iconic models from the era.
I have stripped most of the paint off, repositioned a few arms and these are the start of a proper Oldhammer unit. There are still more to do, I need to make a Sergeant up with a Power Fist and also see if there is a Missile Launcher in the pile somewhere.
I will give them an undercoat and decide how to paint them later. One thing is for sure, they will not be Blood Angels, I already have more than enough…
Will It Never End?
I am still adding cardboard tiles to Tudor buildings, this is another of the very early buildings I made ages ago that have had some of the random tile strips added.
New Airbrush
Up until now, I have been using a cheap airbrush mainly for undercoating, so I have decided to treat myself to an Iwata Eclipse CS.
This seems to be a popular airbrush in the modelling communitity and I was able to get it for what appears to be a reasonable price…sort of.
We have a three day weekend coming up here in the UK, so if it is not too cold, I will have a go at painting something.
