Surprise scenery

So the Royal Mail, in cahoots with HMRC, sent me one of their wonderful anonymised demands - I paraphrase - "There's a parcel from Cadia  Canada, if you give us £30ish, you can have it."

Eventually, curiosity overcame my reluctance to spend money. 

Here's the box on the table.  Oh, its a kickstarter.

Ah, now I remember !

More MDF than I can eat.  This much laser cut MDF has a smell.  Not a nice smell like when you walk past a Teriyaki bar and then Cinnabon and then into a coffee shop, but not unpleasant either, it's just a smell which tells you get building.

Hummm.  Well, just in case this piqued your interest, this is what it should look like when built:

Armistice Day Post.

Interestingly, perhaps, No1 daughter has hit the age where her Brownie Troop/Pack are going to parade on Sunday.  I'll have to find my beret and polish my shoes.

Now, there has recently been another anniversary.  2000AD has reached Prog (issue) 2000.  There is a comic shop (nicely hidden up an alleyway) in Banbury who nicely managed to source me one of the reprint copies, the first edition having all sold years before the event one imagines. 

This is part of my childhood.  A part of GB plc for forty years etc.  I started at prog 3 and carried on through to when I hit my tenaged years and lost interest in everything except goofing about and not washing.  My mum (gawd bless 'er) used to read it as well.  She wouldn't really try to engage her grunting son but did offer on which Judge Dredd storylines she approved or disapproved of in some effort to influence the much younger Zzzzz.

She also bought me my first couple of White Dwarf subscriptions.  I remember being slightly disapointed that there wasn't some nod to WD40 in WD40, but then, one can't have everything.  I also remember some of my more politically aware friends having quite earnest conversations about the 'Democracy' Judge Dredd storyline.  But I'd moved on by then to Kerrang and the NME.

Now the older me doesn't really have the inclination to buy 2000AD every week, but I can be persuaded to pick up the anthologies of collected strips.   John Day over at Fallen Princes often gives pointers to things to look out for (as well as beer recommendations - what's not to like ?) - Slaine, Judge Dredd and Rouge Trooper already grace my bookshelves - when these are complete I may well for others - the temptation is to collect the ones which I remember with fondness (Bad Company, ABC Warriors etc) but there is bound to be more good stuff which has happened in the intervening 35 years which I'm not aware of, but might be worth picking up.  Now I'm 48, I just sort of hope that I've got enough time to do all the things I want to do before I fall off the perch.

Oh, and that 2000AD collection of Prog 3 through to Prog 274 ?  It got thrown away whilst I was in the army....

Re-purposed devourer cultists

So you guys know that my predilection is to built proper sized military formations.  Obviously this comes with the problems of expense, building and painting resources and finally storage.  And realistically, for a lot of units in the future, I only need a handful of minis to depict the idea of a contribution to the campaign.  So here are a few of minis in the sort of numbers I'm likely to use going forward.

Today on the brick of scrutiny are the 3rd and 4th generation cultists from the Overkill boxed set/game (does anyone really buy these and play the game therein ? - more than once, I mean).

So the heads are from the Militant Tortoises set, both the SWAT masks and the berets.  As they are, each of them is still decorated with a cult symbol.  I'll chop off the dangly ones and cover over the others with, appropriately enough, purity seals.

The mining derived suits will give these guys a backstory, two small squads of seven supported by a guy lugging around a grenade launcher - it's obviously heavy; these are real humans not the super indoctrinated Cadians and Catachans who fling around military hardware like it's made of plastic....

And the autoguns give them a distinct look.  The beret decorated dudes look pretty cool.  Until I start painting them.  Speaking of which, I'm thinking of militarising their suits, not having them in industrial yellow or orange. Which is going to mean, probably, a mid military green instead.

The few with claws can be explained away as mechanical bits.  After all, who doesn't want prosthetic claws ?  Ermmm.  I have some Eisenkarn hands, which will always look good on conversions.  So shaving the claws off and adding some applique fingers shouldn't be too hard...

The rest of the cult - I've decided that I really don't want another army.  So the 'stealers and other more gribbly bits are on their way south, even as I type this.  By the time this is posted, hopefully they'll be happily ensconced in their new home.

Blood Pact Reduex.

You may remember these.

Some more have been done, this time by Raven's Nest Painting.

So as Slovak asked for of these, here they are.  Etogaur there in the centre.  Blood Mage with the sword trailing blue flames.  And a Platoon Commander with a bloodthirster sword (power weapon) and the other Platoon Commander is behind the Blood Mage.

Those three at the back are death brigade types.

The family portrait.

The guy with the bolter is a sergeant.  The type with the shield will be one of the Etogaur's body guards.

Death Brigade bloke at the front.

Sentinels.  Original lead sentinels from the 1980s.  More treasure from Devon.

Death Riders.  These are Blight Wheel Terror Birds.

So, these will soon (c'mon Reaper !) be joined by a trio of Victoria Lamb sledgehammers.

Other things I plan on getting some Curious Construct mortars: heavy trench mortars and the multi-barrelled type.   So the Blood Pact can be run using the DKK Siege List.

So the sentinels will have to be an allied unit - but when I saw them, even as a pile of unpainted bits, I just knew that this would be their destiny !  Bwaa ha ha ha.

And If you're Mad Max/Fury Road fan, get a load of this.  I'm not too sure if it's genius, a labour of love or some as yet un-diagnosed mental illness. But it is art.

It's not in any Codex ! You can't do that !

Balderdash,

GW had a long history of codexing units it then didn't produce models for.  "Codexing"  - so totes a wurd.

I've built a squad of jump 'zerkers.

 Lined up on the Brick of Scrutiny: Anvil and GW bits.

So, then tossing some ideas around for actually painting them - here's my quandary:

1. Classic mostly bright red with metallic detailing (like other 'Zerkers)
2. Brass (a bit like Minotaurs) A sort of Khornate Elite [Sanguinary] Guard
3. Black with red crosses on their shoulders and legs

I'm thinking of a sort of Sanguinary Guard.  Once they're painted, they will be virtually indistinguishable from blood for the blood god angels anyway.  But I am open to other suggestions.  

Blood for the blood Emperor an' all that.

And because they're wearing jump packs, they can be artfully arranged like a flower.  It's not all blood and death then.  Oh, wait...

Extra bonus Halloween post.

Do you ever get that thing where you suddenly get something that, once it clicks, seems blindingly obvious ?  You give a silent internal "Doh!" and hope that no one else notices your Homer Simpson moment ?

I've just figured out why it's "Zombtober" rather than "Julombie".

Teri and Jezza

 But anyway.  I've bought witches costumes and tacky plastic broomsticks in preparation for my role as Skellington King; shepherding little witches 'round the neighbourhood and still getting them home for bed at normal time (fingers crossed).

Don

 This pumpkin is huge, 2' across. the pattern is supposed to represent glasses, as drawn by No1 daughter, faithfully transposed by yours truely.  Whilst not immediately scarey looking, he's also not someone you'd let in to your house....

Madam Secretary

And displacing the brick of scrutiny, the scarey looking one.  Back to normal in the morning...

3* General Mentunfor

With the arrival of another Army Group, 4*General Zukhov finally gets what he’s been campaigning for, a fifth star and the formal title ‘Lord General’.  The Plennipotentiate who has been actually running the war, 3* Gen Sommonovic (Vostroya) Chief of Land Warfare, gets his forth star and becomes CinC of 72AG.  Gen Zukhov’s former Chief of Staff, 2* Gen Mentunfor (Krieg) Chief of the Imperial General Staff, is also promoted to fill Sommonovic’s vacant space. 

Muntenfor would privately acknowledge that in spite of actually being the best candidate for the position, his appointment has more to do with the 'Lord General' sending a message to Imperial forces on Devos IV by appointing a DKK officer to run the war.  

3* Gen Mentunfor's previous position as CIGS had enabled him to ensure that, with the exception of 'the Lord General's' immediate offices, the Head Quarters of of 72AG and it's constituent Corps are as professionally staffed and run as possible.  This role has been taken on by the newly promoted 2* Gen Samkon from the Kataan 4th Imperial Guard Regiment.

In his youth, Mentunfor found himself as one of two survivors of his regiment, he slipped through the gaps in the Adminisphere and spent three years driving a Cargo 8 for a company conducting logistics for the Imperial Navy on Feurenguanna in the Beephar System.  He then travelled for some time with a close companion until he found himself on Agripinna, where an opportunity presented itself for him to resume his career, he took it, rising to command of 44th Tank Regiment in a phenomenally quick time, largely due to the way the DKK wage war. 

In a career which rolled around the Segmentum Obscuras like a censor full of burning cordite, once even being marooned with the remains of his regiment on one world because the rest of the 'Guard formation commanders thought that the DKK's actions were criminal.  Mentunfor took this on board when he later attended the Staff College course at Agripinna.  

Since then, he and the very few other DKK officers like him have made a material difference to the integration of DKK units into more diverse 'Guard formations. He has trust issues, exemplified by the inclusion of DKK members of 72AG's pool of Liaison Officers. He still favours traditional DKK methods but is flexible enough to speak with and accommodate the views of others. 

As Chief of Land Warfare, he is now the 'Lord General's' plenipotentiary for running the war.  Where Sommonovic was only responsible for 72AG, Mentunfor also has 3422AG to worry about.  The 'Lord General's current instruction is for the capture Xyphonica, the former Capital City of the whole planet and last stronghold of the rebels.  Mentunfor's plan would be for a slowly moving, ever tightening noose.  However, he is painfully aware of the 'Lord General's predilection for the grand gesture; he can only watch on in frustration as the 'Lord General's ill informed staff manage the annihilation of almost an entire IG regiment. 

Fortunately, he is already on good terms with the other three plenipotentiates.