There's a problem...

So regular readers* will know that I have rules of acquisition.  The rule is that hobby expenditure is only allowed in order to complete existing projects.  It's always been a sort of 'if you want an excuse not to buy something' sort of thing.  Only with two small girls I ought to cut down my spending (after all the plastic crack mountain is huge already).

The rules took a shoe to the knackers when the Knights came out. 

Mastercrafted STuG hull without weapon. 

So for 2017 I was supposed to follow the rules more closely.  So let's see how I did:

When	What	How Much
17-Feb-17	Inferno !	89.6	GBP
13-Jan-17	1/35 E50 Deposit	10	USD
07-Jan-17	6x Vampyrum SAM conversions	294	USD
Jan-17	Gathering Storm Fall of Canada	30	GBP
11-Mar-17	3x Mastercrafted STuG	57.5	GBP
11-Mar-17	Red Tithe	18	GBP
03-May-17	3x Chimera Chassis	32	GBP
30-May-17	Track Guards and doors	95	USD
14-Aug-17	3x Chimera Chassis	32	GBP
25-Aug-17	Victoria Lamb bits	100	USD
25-Aug-17	Anvil Pouches	14	GBP
30-Aug-17	Blood Pact half tracks	204	GBP
23-Oct-17	Pig Iron pouches	21.28	GBP
09-Nov-17	3x M7th Chimera	140	USD
26-Dec-17	Shedu Gate	98.51	EUR
29-Dec-17	3x Thunder kits	75	GBP
29-Dec-17	Light box (Cheers Drax !)	6.99	GBP
2018 KS	3x Mortian MBT	154	EUR
		1471.88

Some people finance their hobby buy selling on armies that they are no longer using.  I'm not necessarily talking about the new army/net list phenomenon, either.  Although even that in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, the turn over of stuff putting money into 'the hobby' at several levels.  There are plenty of people who use the completion of one army to finance the new, but; I'm not one of them.  For a start none of my armies is ever 'finished' to my way of thinking - so that makes me a collector, rather than a player or a painter. 

I have had a go at thinning it all down, I have given chunks of armies away where I thought they might find a loving home.  I have thrown away what might have been ebay lots elsewhere.  But this not withstanding, there's still a way to go  to eat the plastic crack mountain I already have and I'm starting to run out of space in a double garage now...

Vampyrum SAM Launcher

So that's three new projects there; the SAM Launchers, the STuGs and the Mortian tanks (who knew he'd do a kickstarter ?).   But a grand and a half is still too much.  So next year following the rules will have to be a little tighter.  

The Mortian MBT

So take this as a statement of intent.  Expenditure to deliver existing projects is OK, but new stuff isn't.  Cue plastic sisters...

I think putting the spend in the little box on the blog has helped, publicly displaying the amounts, erm, invested, has kept the money haemorrhage in my mind at least. So that stays. 

*You can insert your own toilet humour - at 6 and 9, the sylabols 'bum' and 'poo', in any circumstance at all, produce fits of giggles and hours of tedium for adults as the smalls shout 'bum' and 'poo' at each other.  Such is my life.  I blame the parents; trying to teach them about humour.  

End of year round up.

The obligatory WTF post. Progress since this post here. 

And, because it is a work of art and deserves the bandwidth, here is a harlequin landraider.

Mad max post apoc scavvies
Post apoc war rig
DKK rifles                                               Done
DKK Engr, golliaths, Hades Drill               Engrs Done, rest is WIP. 
2 DKK Engr Chimera
DKK Gren                                               Built
DKK re-arms                                           Need to be un-built
DKK Hvy Wpns                                        Need to be un-built
DKK summer uniforms                             Done
Hrossy Yeomen                                       Done
Jornathi grunts                                       Built
Meridian Infantry Coy
Delaques                                                WIP
3 BP BFGs
BP BFG Crews
BP Bradley                                             Opened the box
Blood pacters                                         WIP
Last thunderer
Assorted civvies & pilgrims             WIP
7 BP Half tracks
4 Esienkarn APCs
2 Lynx HQ vehicles
1 Chimera HQ vehicle
Ad mech bodies 
Macrons                                                 Done
SAM launchers                                        WIP (two built so far)
2nd regt rebuilds
2 Chaos spawn (bones cthuloids)             1 built, 1 painted
4 Star Wars Vendettas
ARC 170 fighter bomber
2 Thunderhinds
=I= Gun Cutter (Millennium Falcon)          Needs more work
TGG Nuns with guns                                 Contracted out
And an entire Space Wolf army.

To be clear, the conversion (in case you hadn't noticed, those are bright lances, not imperial pattern laser cannons) and paint are by Jeff from PVP.  Gotta love a harlequin land raider; how else are you gonna move your webway gate around ? Lookin' forward to this spitting 30 harlies into someone's deployment zone...

Summer uniform DKK

Here's some DKK as a Christmas treat before you get too mince pied.  You'll remember these, who turned into these.  Well, I managed to splash some paint on them

Their trousers are DA green, straight out of the pot.  Wow, that's bright.  Who knew ? And the undercoat is khaki, not white, although the VL resin is much, much, much paler than the FW resin. So maybe a black base coat would have helped here ?  Oh well, as you can see from the picts, they only look bright green when there's a lot of light shining straight on.

Arrgh !  I've just seen the bronze splash on the Jnr Officer's helmet.  Bugger.  But I do like these guys.  I wouldn't say that I enjoyed painting them (in one batch of 30) but did feel a sense of satisfaction now that they are so nearly finished.

My normal trick of using tentacle pink as an undercoat for any red has worked nicely.  But.  On some of the boys, you can clearly see a pink edge to the red stripes.  Sigh.

Setting aside the bestial brown gloves and boots, there are three khaki colours on these boys.  Hopefully successfully modulated and held together through the medium of agrax earthshade and deluvian mud.  (see what I did there ?).

The firearms need a wash (nuln oil) and some of the masks may get a touch more.

Hopefully the (supposed to be dark) green theme will be reinforced by these boys.  This man, who's uniform was inspired by a WW1 Russian uniform, fits nicely and of course the Palladians wear a similar outfit.  Obviously there has to be a logical reason;

The textile manufacturers and garment makers on the Imperial continent of Acre have a contract with the DM to supply 72AG (and later 3422AG as well) are contractually bound to provide garments of a specified cut, in materials with specific performance characteristics, in a limited range of colours.  Ergo, the thematic colour schemes which then enable me as a painter and fluff nut to provide visual links across the army(ies).

So I suppose I could claim that every single one of these is lovingly and individually converted.  But I think that being Kreigers chopped in half and rebuilt with VL and Anvil Industry parts, they're more bitsa toy soldiers than super deliberate conversions.

Having said that, for rescued minis, they've turned out OK.

Hurrah !  Fur Den Kaiser !  as they say.

Mordian 7th Iron Guard

I treated myself to an early Christmas present.  Two M7th Chimera, especially obtained from the Coldmoon fabrication yards on Forge World Kolarada.

"That's great Zzzzz, but don't you have any black paint ?"

Why yes I do, but the whole point is that they have to match the others:

Aaah, it becomes clear; following the initial assaults on the outlying areas of Xyphonica, the reduced number of Mordians (& Palladians, who were in the same Division) could all be mounted.  So by the time the city is truly invested, the remaining Mordians are fully mechanised.

Because armoured infantry are you want in a siege.   Setting that peculiarity aside the remaining Mordian assets are folded into the Palladian units and as reinforcements for other formations within 17 Korps,

Here is the platoon temporarily attached to the 699ASL, to provide them with some extra fighting power as they find themselves deficient in infanteers towards the closing phases of the campaign.

G Section, Mordian rough riders, generally, these are deployed in as a recce screen to locate enemy assets and form an actual picture of their disposition for the unit commander.

The PCS (known as 'H Section'), which includes a medicae, vox op, standard bearer and veteran armed with a GL.

The AT Squad, I Section.

J Section, Sergeant, five riflemen, GL, Vox & ML

K Section, as before.

L Section, as before.

And a detail shot of the standard, which is a work of art. 

And a final group shot, the platoon ensuring the safety of the BoS.

Finishing up those loose ends

As previously mentioned, there were things left unfinished on the latest batch of DKK.  

The blue glow on the plasma guns. 

The dirt on the end of the mole mortar - it went on looking quite light (in colour) and as they are all on grey rubble and my boards are all urban; so the concrete dust look is actually appropriate, IMO.

The poor ol' QM.  Both his ankles are pinned.  He could have been pro painted, but he looks OK.  Certainly doesn't scream out as 'painted by someone with little skill who didn't give a toss'.  So good enough then.

And the mole mortar team now look like they belong in a war zone.  They both have FW las pistols.

I'm still putting more on the platoon standard....

The Macharian 203rd revisited.

The previous post about these boys was the most visited post ever to appear on Devos IV.  And that wasn't all me revisiting my own handiwork, either.  Maybe something to do with the French election which was on at the same time ?  Who knows...

So this is the end of the Macron mini-project.  There are the last of them put together and painted (Oooh, look, he's painted more minis - yeah, but the scheme is suspiciously like the DKK), like before many of them have VL arms. 

There are Pig Iron punches and backpacks on show here.

Some Anvil Industry arms and assault rifles.

Some VL heavy calibre semi automatic rifles (you can jam the sear on a SLR to make it fire on full auto, but you can't expect to aim it properly).

I pinched one of the previous batch out of the case to make sure they matched.

 

So do they match ?  Yes.

The whole lot of them. 

I still love this guy.

Their non-tactica imperialis Organisation.  Officer & three squads of ten, only one special weapon. 

Off you go, boys.

Housekeeping

There wasn't a lot of room left on the BoS.  The clean up was overdue.  Fortunately there is lot of slate in the garden to do the scraping with.