It's Lieutenant WTF?!?

o/

BIG Games Workshop reveal yesterday! HUGE!! (if I'm honest...), was is it you ask: Yet another Primaris Lieutenant of course! 

Who'd a thunk it?

Its this year's cancelled con-exclusive mini. Making it available to everybody (for once) rather than just con-attendees and idiots with more dollars than sense who are willing to sell a kidney to buy one off of ebay, is pretty cool in my opinion. To be honest, my usual primaris ranting aside...I even like the model. 

This guy might even gallantly lead my Silver Drakes out of the case in which they're imprisoned! To my eyes he looks more like a captain than a mere Lt. given the iron halo gubbins. Thus I thought: what the hell let's order one...

yay.

I log onto GW's store, create a new acct. (can't put him in my cart without one) and I haven't ordered from them in so long that my old acct. has been deleted, and okay boom: I'm good to go! Back to the home page, I click to order (by 4/10/20). Orders over $65 get free shipping, however this won't be ready to ship till October, so anything you order with it ain't coming till then either. Skipping the free shipping I see that the cheapest shipping option is another $10, sigh.

Of course there's free shipping to your 'local store' for a convenient pick up. However my 'local' store is 122 miles away in Knoxville. When visiting Knoxville its always to visit family who live on the opposite side of town from my 'local' GW so nix that option.  

Adding to the $$$, GW's North American headquarters is inconveniently located in Memphis Tennessee (or 503 miles distant), meaning I get add some good ol' in-state sales tax for good measure resulting in a grand total of: 

Hence the blog title of Lt. WTF?!?

Yeah, no thanks. Kinda sucks too as I was (for a few minutes anyways) looking forward to splurging for this model.

So, is everybody all castled up?

With walls so low, ya gotta wonder why I even bothered...

Good. Sorry to say that those fortified walls won't do any actual good, but at least they make you feel better. 

My beloved Wolfy and I took the weekend off, spending it up in the mountains of North Carolina to celebrate our anniversary a little early (originally we were to see a now postponed show in Asheville). The ongoing zombie apocalypse made finding dinner a bit challenging, but we managed. With our actual anniversary a mere 10 days out, we figured movement restrictions would only be worse by then so kept our Airbnb reservation. We only came into contact with 1-person at a drive thru during the whole trip, so 'social distancing' was still achieved, lol.

Oi! Hoo yoo kallin' fugly?!?

It was an easy drive 1.5 hour drive, so after settling back in at home yesterday I gotta little bit of brush time in. I'd gotten the really rough/basic colors in on my new warboss  previously, and so added yet more color to bring him up to the next WIP stage going from 'fugly', now to 'still fugly'. He's slowly getting there though. 

With rain forecasted for the next three days and the slow breakdown of civil society an on-going thing, odds are we'll stay hunkered down and I'll be able to work some more on Da Noo Masta Cheef!

My Bolt Action motor pool has quadrupled!

o/

There's an excess of transport capacity, but not much in the way of firepower...

Expanding further on my minis for unplayed armies theme, my Vickers Light Tank Mk VIb, 15 CWT truck and tilly arrived for my Bolt Action Quar 'army'. All scale nicely with each other as well as my universal carrier which is always a concern when mixing manufacturers, even within the same scale. 

No flash, no warping? Hey Forgeworld, PAY ATTENTION!!!

I hack-sawed my last unpainted Quar in half to fit in the turret, and cut the gunner's hatch in two. I also added an antenna and the crew kit and stowage came from spare Quar bitz.

The tank is from Blitzkrieg Miniatures. This was my first purchase from them, and was both quick to arrive and flawlessly cast, I highly recommend them! It was a little pricey, but I'm okay with paying for quality products. 

Yeah there's print lines, but these are among the better end of my 3d printed mini collection so far, and light years better in quality than that wrecked dreadnought!

Going on the cheap however, I bought the truck and tilly from Rosa Miniatures and Games, an ebay seller with a large catalog of 3D printed vehicles, most of them for WWII. They worked with me as I only wanted one of each (they're normally sold in pairs, one canvas covered and the other with an open bed). Good communication, and good minis in my opinion. I'd buy from them again. 

It may have wide doors, but there's only room
for one pot-bellied Quar in that tiny cab!

The cab of the tilly seems a bit small for the pear-shaped Quar physique. Initially I was thinking it was too small for any use but then recalled looking in real life cars of the 1930s and 40s and thinking to myself 'there's no way I'd ever fit in there...' (I'm 6'6" tall and none too slim for those who don't know). Besides, in the 1940s, ergonomic crew comfort wasn't even a consideration for wartime production. 

So just the driver will ride in the cab I guess with my officers, or maybe the AT-rifle team riding in back (if anything at all...these two vehicles will likely serve as terrain more than they will as transports). 

The Quar infantry are COMPLETE!!!

All of them! Yes, the entire collection...sounds quite impressive doesn't it? Or, at least it does until I admit that I only have what is pictured above...and well, technically there are more Quonsets to paint...

The last batch of seven took me a bit longer than I intended, and they did require a trip to the FLGS as I had run out of whatever long oop GW brown wash I had used on the original minis. I opted for Seraphim Sepia and honestly can't tell the new from the old so it was a pretty good match.

Okay, so there's a slight difference...but ya really gotta look for it!

Like the other three, these Quar are crunching around in the fallen leaves of Autumn, be they on the 'ground' or hung up in the tufts of grass. Speaking of the tufts, I apparently got some glue for the flocking into the grass as well. Initially I was trying to remove the flock that stuck to it (largely resulting in the removal of the entire grass strands) but decided that (1) it just looked like a different type of weeds if left as-is and (2) it was much easier to leave 'em be. 

Their rucksacks are all the same barring that of the platoon cook. His has several unidentifiable gubbins on it which were a bit challenging to paint as I wasn't sure what they were. 

With my meager collection of Quar infantry painted, all I have left is the equally sparse remainder of the Quar motor pool. They're is still out in space somewhere, consisting of a Vickers light tank coming from Blitzkrieg minis, as well as a pair of 3D printed vehicles: a 15 CWT truck and a Tilly. The latter two were purchased off of ebay and can double as terrain as easily as they can be used in an army.

I do wonder at the value of unarmed, soft skinned transports in games of Bolt Action, although the question is largely academic I suppose. Locally the game is dead (currently), not that I'm a big of a fan of it to begin with and well...this collection shaping up to be more of a hodgepodge of early war and Home Guard units that I like, rather than any sort of proper force that would be worth a damn on the table top. 

For now though I'm not sure what to paint next...Battletech? Orks? 15mm infantry? Astral Claws? Black Templars? Dunno, will see when I next pic up a brush I guess.


Photos fixed...sure was nice of blogger to wreck almost all of them wasn't it?

Painting more minis for yet another game that I don't play...

o/

I say another game I don't play as I've been perusing the collective opinions of the blogosphere on the new 40k faq/errata updates more commonly known as the Iron Hands nerf. I haven't made it to an FLGS game night in about a year or so and I'm not at all involved with playing 40k at the moment...indeed my last game was back in June (wow, WTF?), and I haven't read any of the new current codexes. 

Thusly, I found myself oblivious to the new space marine codex 'doctrines' and equally perplexed by all of the wailing, crying, sudden ebaying of Iron Hands dreadnoughts, and gnashing of teeth mixed in with the simultaneous (and wide spread) thunderous applause from across teh interwebz. Honestly, my overall impression of all of this hoopla is this: 

Do I even play this game? 

Seems like I've only been paying attention to what folks are painting in my usual perusal of blogs, rather than what they're playing. Sure I check on rumors and all, but even then mainly to see what is coming out that I can't afford and (again) not bothering to read the associated rule previews for. 

Oh well whatever...so what the hell is it that I'm painting this time? My beloved Quar (and no Monkeychuka, they are still not Skeksis) lol.

Whilst only 6 are in this pic, I do have 7 in-progress. I forgot one back at my desk and....well, they're picturesque enough in their current state for a photo-redo. 

These are nominally my (weird War II but not Konflikt 47) Bolt Action British army. I use that term loosely as they total up to a mere 200+ points at the moment, and am still a squad short of a legal list (indeed, this is the only infantry squad I have). However army legality isn't really an issue as (1) they're anthropomorphized anteaters instead of humans, (2) Bolt action isn't really my cup of tea, and (3) most importantly, I don't know of anyone who is currently even playing it here locally.

As for the Quar themselves, I bought this bunch back in September and they've been sitting on my desk, glowering at me all the while in their dusty, bare metal state ever since. That made me sad, so I decided to give 'em some love following the completion of my Astral Claws tactical squad.  

Only having seven in total to paint I opted to do them all at once in a generally loathsome batch painting process. Luckily, painting 'em this way is going fairly quickly thus far and I'm not hating it. Maybe I'm finally coming 'round to the process...maybe. Once done, my little force will be fully painted barring their forthcoming tank. As such, with that as my (so-called) armor support these are very much in the early war, British Quar Expeditionary Force category.

Admittedly, it does look better than the original ginormous gun. 

Speaking of tanks, I regunned the universal carrier with it's original LMG. I removed the HUGE one as the LMGs that came with the model itself matches the squad carried LMG in both size and design (for the most part). I guess the need for a ridiculously over-sized 'big gun' back when I built it was due to my gamer upbringing in 40k.

Hopefully I'll have these finished up before the ol' hobby butterfly strikes again! 

Trains, (no planes) and Automobiles

For those who don't get the title reference click here.

Sadly, none of my terrain will ever look this good!

My Beloved Wolfy and I skipped town for a weekend to go and visit her sister and brother-in-law in Nashville, TN. Its an easy 5 hour drive (unless its pouring rain the whole time in which it was a miserable 7 hours back on Monday). They were nice enough to advance our birthday presents and put us up in a hotel suite that was well out of our price range (birthdays, anniversary, Christmas...and any other special occasion they want to lump in there is fine with me!). 

The 2020 Nissan Altima we rented for the weekend...yeah, could I afford one I'd buy it (and that's coming from a guy who's driven Dodge Rams for 20+ years).

On Saturday we spent most the day at their house just chatting about whatever, but eventually Wolfy and Mandy wanted some 'sister time' and so I accompanied Micheal down to his hobby room where he showed off his latest model train work-in-progress.  

Completely different from the last time we visited, and nearly twice the size (if not more), I was truly impressed! Indeed, I was drooling so much I took far too few pics (hell, should have taken some videos of the two separate switching stations in action). He also gave me a primer on the use of weathering powders which he is a big fan of and I've been meaning to try out. 

We also discussed the advances of 3D printed terrain, and swapped manufactures that we like for potential future purchases. Whilst discussing the hobbying points, I pointed out that his work station was too terribly organized and offered to destroy it to be more in line with mine. Curiously he declined the offer. 

So whilst the girls had their time we geeked out in the basement. Here's the few pics I did take:

As you can see, still a WIP.

The interior of the right most brick building in the previous photo. Note the light beyond the right door at the far end, it is on an engine that had just rolled out. 

This ought to have been a video of it rotating this engine to it's next track. 

Looking into the window of the building into the opposite side of the prior photo. 

This little scene was probably my favorite part of the whole setup. According to Micheal, it's everybody's. Something of which he's immensely proud (and rightly so!). 

On a different note...for several years now I've had a penchant for hiding minis in family members' homes. My grandparents had gotten the lion's share of these endeavors (it's good to keep em' on their toes), though my mother and father in-law have as well. Whilst my grandmother treats it as a game that she pretends to not like (whereas I'm pretty sure she does), Wolfy's folks have proudly displayed their mini since finding it a few years back. 

As such, I felt the need to leave behind a deep cover operative (the pink haired mini from that ill-fated project) in Nashville. I had hoped to hide it in the train set up, but was never able to be left alone with it, thus I found another location within the home. However given how immaculately clean their house is, I fret that she will be located all too quickly... 

My first Astral Claws Tactical Squad is complete!

o/

Curiously (or is it sadly?), these are the most marines of a single color scheme that I've had since my 30k Alpha Legionnaires (who in the end only clocked in at a whopping 13 minis total) and the most of any single squad going all the way back to my......Storm Wardens (circa 2013-14). 

The closest thing I could find to a whole Storm Wardens army shot on this blog...

Yeah, wow. Consistency, it's not my thing apparently. 

Anyways, back to the present.

The chapter icons went on well enough, though a few of the tactical arrows required considerable profanity to achieve proper adhesion... 

In the end, this squad was kinda fun to paint despite how much I normally dislike batch painting (even small batches of 3-4). At least at this point I'm not loathing the prospect of painting more of 'em. 

The squad's 'big guns'.

The squad's leg greaves are rather muddy meaning the squad at some point had to wade across a flooded trench, gully or the like which lead to the curiously dirty state of one battle brother in particular: 

Genetically enhanced or not
everybody falls in the mud!

We're not quite sure what exactly it was that caused brother Lucius to fall bodily into the muddy water.

Was it a hole unseen beneath the murk? Perhaps the shock wave of a nearby explosion? Or was it just an opportune shove delivered at just the right moment by one of his malicious brethren?

Its hard to say, but squad comms have been unusually quiet ever since the trench crossing...'incident'.

The battlefield debris on their bases is a bit inconsistent, but in the end won't really be noticeable. The first few had Eldar bits added to their bases as those were readily available without any effort required to sift through my pile o' spare bitz. That said, the Astral Claws were previously tasked with containing the Maelstrom's renegade and Xenos scourges meaning Eldar debris isn't too far off of the mark. Perhaps the Eldar were simply raiders or traders who mistakenly wandered into yet another Space Marine conflict

The Executioners' chapter Rhino door, partial hatch and helm are in line with the Badab war background. Whether or not they were friend or foe at this point is unknown. Executioners aside, the squad sergeant has a half buried helm of one of his fellow sergeants on his base and in true 40k form, human skulls are  sprinkled throughout.

Overall I'm quite happy with these guys (shitty photos aside), so keep an eye out for more Astral Claws in the future.