Kit-Bashin' Shootout

I got more work in over the weekend. Drilling rivet holes was starting to get tedious. In a strike of (bad?) luck I dropped my pin-vice and the drill bit broke. I didn’t have a backup handy, and I was getting bored drilling anyway. It was a good time to look through bits boxes and old sprues for kit-bashing materials.

I'm leaning towards Legio Mortis for my titan legion. That choice leaves plenty of options open for iconography, war banners, and such. I can use the Legio Mortis skull & portcullis insignia, the Eye of Horus markings, and the (obvious) mark of Nurgle.

Nurglings playing on the gantry. 

The right side of the gun has less detail since the titan torso will obscure most of it.

Eye of Horus to commemorate Legio Mortis joining the Sons of Horus 63rd expeditionary fleet.

The Plastic Anvil

I made more progress on the left arm cannon this week. Due to some persistent health issues I am behind schedule, but overall feeling good about things. 

The gun barrels were extended out a bit using empty pill bottles. Those are still a bit plain so I’ll need to add more rivets and detail. I haven’t undertaken a serious scratch-building project for a few years now, so my collection of interesting and useful bits has shrunk. That said, I do have a lot of plasticard laying around in various thicknesses. The thick stuff is better to work with, but also makes the model heavy.

I built this guy sturdy, so I think it can handle the extra weight. Though in the future we may need to make sure the game table can support it. I think my nightmare would be the titan falling over and landing on someone’s army!

I added some slanted armor panels to the front of the gun, hiding the shot-trap where the barrels attach. Seems to look better.

You can see a bit of the head and torso in some of these pics. They will need a lot of work. I was suffering from project burn-out when I started on those parts. The head was a source of much frustration.

I need to pick a titan legion for this guy. I was thinking Legio Mortis, though I could use some advice in that regard. I'd like to use it in both 30k and 40k games. The former may be a bit of a stretch since it's already so corrupted.

Although I could say it spent some time in the warp? And then showed up for the Siege of Terra? I'm mostly interested in any titan legions that fought alongside the Word Bearers since they're my principle legion.

Things are looking up.

Storm of Glue: The Reckoning

So let’s fish this half-finished Emperor titan out of the basement and see what’s left to do. There are some good bits, some bad. I see why it’s taken me so long to get back to this project. Much needs resolving.

There’s a place where wit meets work, and I admit I’ve been short on both these days. For now I’m happy with working on this arm cannon. What was it called? Lasma-fragolator? Twin-linked Hurrican-Boltinating-Melta Thing?

I want to replace or subdue a lot of the organic aspects of this titan. Or at least find a middle ground between Robotic and Slimy. I forgot to mention it's a CHAOS titan, hence the slime.

Today we have some detail work on the gantries. Diamond tread plates and handrails were a good place to start.

I underestimated how curious my kids would be once I started working on this. "Dad is working on a Thing! Come see!" 

Look at this little space marine running around. Having the time of his life. 

In that last pic this space marine is hiding from our kids (background). A moment after this picture was taken they set upon the scene like wolves. I'm glad they like this stuff.

Sometimes I feel useless because I don't have a trade. Yes, I have some art degrees, and a background in painting should have equipped me with basic carpentry and woodworking skills. Really, though, I never felt at ease in the wood-shop. Too many loud, exciting ways to lose fingers. So cross that off the resume.

What other skills might I press into service? I'm surprisingly buoyant. I once got a compliment in that regard while swimming at the Y. That's a good one. Floating is important.

The Penitence Crusade

Once a very long time ago there was a man, an engineer by trade. He designed things. Fascinating things. And he created free templates to serve the worldwide gaming community. His AutoCAD templates were for all sorts of wonderful models to be used with the Warhammer 40,000 game system. The most famous being his Warhound and Reaver titan STC’s. This man called himself Lack0fbettername.

I was blown away by the scope of his visions. I stalked him through his various project blogs and discovered he lived in the same city, and even frequented the local game store! I had to meet this man.

And so we embarked on an awesome journey. He was actually pretty cool to hang out with. I temporarily shelved my plans to eat his heart to gain his strength. And thus we began collaborating on new projects, setting the bar higher and higher as we went along.

On one fateful night of drunken boasts, we swore a pact to each build an Emperor titan. We would then play an epic game of Warhammer 40k, titan vs. titan. It would be awesome.

Lack0fbettername finished his Emperor titan years ago.

 I DID NOT COMPLETE MINE.

The time has come to atone for my failure.

 I WILL NOT FAIL THIS TIME.

Thus begins my Penitence Crusade...

--April 2nd, 2016--

I began construction of some external gantries on one of the titan's primary arm-mounted weapons.

Warhammer 40k is a tabletop miniatures game in 28mm scale. Titans are large bipedal machines that carry an over-the-top arsenal of doomsday weaponry. Due to their powerful abilities, these titans are often only used in large games where there will be teams of several players facing off.

Fun Fact: When we started working on our Emperor titan project, neither I nor Lack0fbettername had any children. Now that I've started my penitence crusade I have three kids, and he has two! So quite a lot has happened over the past few years.  

Fun Fact: The ubiquitous Space Marines, Warhammer 40k's most recognizable and iconic models, are celebrating their 30th birthday anniversary this month. I think I started collecting and painting these miniatures when I was in 9th grade.  

Fun Fact: As of this writing, Lack0fbettername and I are separated by 480 miles. We have made this exodus only a few times. Once he drove all the way up here with a trunk full of beer, a jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of bread to subsist on. This man is an Eagle Scout.

More Facts to Come.

Stylin'

It's funny what happens when you clean. Tonight I found my digital drawing tablet AND stylus. So just like the good old times I sketched up a quick doodle and decided to write a blog post. How lucky!

I end now though, because the muted murmur of the electronic garage door under my feet has alerted me to my family's arrival.

Things are looking up. Take care.

Snow-Day for Volksgrenadiers

It's been snowing all day today, and we've had to cancel our plans. It's ironic that my friend, Jake, and I were supposed to recreate the wintry Battle for Bastogne via a game of Flames of War,  which took place in similar weather conditions. So amateur historians take note: Bastogne has been postponed on account of snow! So what else to do but to sit by the window and reminisce? I stayed up late last night repainting my volksgrenadiers for our game. These were the first 15mm scale models I had ever purchased, so I've been feeling pretty nostalgic while reworking them.

I got into Flames of War in 2007. I had finished grad school the year before and had been struggling with work. Having been laid-off my job, and currently working as a temp (grading proficiency tests for public schools if you were curious), I wasn't exactly happy with the direction my life was going. In general it was good though. I had gotten married to the girl-of-my-dreams, and all that. We lived in an awesome townhouse in Grandview. Great friends. Furry cat. Things were: moderately good.

Man, oh man. Most of the guys in the front 2/3's of this pic are from the Old Glory - Command Decision line. Amazingly cheap miniatures, and lots of good detail on their backpacks and stuff like that. Love these little guys. My first WW2 models ever.

So this crappy temp job happened to be right next to Hobbyland, and I'd sneak over there during my lunch break to kill time. Historical models in general had been kind of boring to me, but Flames of War was a game that combined models with actual rules where you could recreate historically accurate battles. It got my attention. And then I saw the cost-prohibitive price of this game, and the models you needed to play it. Ouch. Nevermind.

I'd walk out of that store feeling bruised and financially estranged. The guy at the counter would shrug and say, "yep, this hobby is expensive. Golf is expensive too. Blah, blah, blah." then his head exploded, or something. (now is a good time to note I'm writing this post on strong pain medication. Reader beware!)

This is a sturm platoon from Battlefront's line that came out last year. Very good sculpts. They mix in "okay" with the Old Glory models. I wouldn't mix figures from both manufacturers on the same bases since the proportions are a bit different. 

Lacking stable income, I couldn't afford this hobby. My friend Allen was nice enough to turn me on to other "cheaper" model manufacturers at this time. He pointed out Old Glory - Command Decision via an online store called www.warweb.com. I was skeptical of this website. Despite featuring thousands of products from various manufacturers they had no pictures of anything! What decade was this? Regardless of this, I had a good feeling and ordered from them. For about half the cost of name-brand Flames of War models, I could still play the game.

It was a two or three week wait for them to cast-up my order and send it out. It seems crazy in our "have it now" culture that I was ordering stuff that I had never seen beforehand, and then supposed to wait for weeks. In hindsight this would be my first steps down the Dark Path of the Old Fogey...

My package arrived and I had my work cut out for me. Assembling and painting an army of little 15mm soldiers for the first time was daunting. As an Old Fogey hobby, there really was no accessible tutorial in 2007 on how to put any of this stuff together. I looked around the internet for direction, usually to no avail. 

The mystery of it continued to pester me, so I kept digging around. Finally, I figured out what I needed to do: how to correctly assemble equipment, how to paint historically accurate colors, and how to use the miniatures to play the game. (finding the rules: tricky! finding other people to play: even more tricky!)

Now it is January 2014, seven years later and I'm still into this hobby pretty heavy. It's a social game that gets you out with other people, it's a brilliant craft that teaches patience and technical skill, and it's great for learning about history. And I guess I'm kind of into it for the long haul.

I still appreciate the old off-brand models that got me started, even though I mostly buy the upper-end Flames of War stuff now. But a little shout-out to the "other guys" for getting me started. Thanks!

The Volksgrenadier Company with Schutzen Platoons 1 & 2 (OG) on the left & center, and Sturm Platoon (BF) on the right.

Grenadiers with Assault Rifles

I was having a rough day today. Had to leave work early due to an exacerbated hip injury, and spent the afternoon and evening in a medicated haze trying to manage the pain. My wife, my absolutely amazing partner in all things, once again jumped in to take care of me and the kids all day. She took our daughter to the doctor this morning because she was complaining of an ear ache. It turns out she has an ear infection. It's just been one thing after another in recent weeks, and I marvel at how we all manage to hang in there. The simple answer is lots of prayer, and just knowing Jesus is taking care of us.

Well anyway,

We're living in that transitional period between the house we're renting, and the new house we are about to inhabit. My modeling projects all got packed up and moved to the new place. I won't really have access to them until this weekend. With nothing "hands-on" to stimulate that art-hobby part of my brain I've been on edge these past few days. And even in my current heavily-medicated state I can't shake that drive to paint and make something.

I ended up hobbling into the office/studio at some point today, digging through the handful of small boxes that haven't been packed up yet. And Behold, I found a platoon of Flames of War Germans with assault rifles that I had never painted. These guys were like a life-line! Time to get to work!

Germans armed with STG-44 assault rifles ready to advance.

This platoon was put together using figures from the Begleit Assault Platoon (GE738) and a couple other random guys.

I haven't decided what to use these models for yet, but they will see a game soon.

Thanks to my wife for always supporting me in all her countless ways.