First Hammerhead..

Yes it seems that the 40k bug has firmly taken hold of me.. this isn't to say that my napoeonics project will suffer too much, although I have been wondering lately if I should re-base them for slightly higher level gaming (you know where one stand = a Battalion etc...) Sam Mustafa's next game Blucher promises to be good so... who knows.

Anyway, here's the Hammerhead. I'm pretty happy with it, although i think it looks better in real life than in my photos. I might do a little more weathering in the future but for now she'll do the trick.

First Tau squad complete...

Yep..here they are.

I'm going to make my own house decals for the wpns at some stage but these guys are ready to fight for the greater good!

FOW FOR SALE!

I'm selling these to fund another project.. hopefully I get some good interest..

Tau have messed up my painting desk...

So... back in the dark old days I used to play WH40k. I must admit that while I love the concepts and minis that GW have brought out, I am almost sickened by the price tag they slap onto everything. Regardless of all the arguments in terms of cost to create and market their toys, when you're looking at $45 AU for 12 plastic figures, it's not chicken feed.

Having said all that I've just started building a new Tau 40k army! Price be damned I say, I just want it! Not that I'm going to buy the army in one hit.. far too expensive, I'll just plod along with this as a side project to my 6mm Naps, which are still No1 in terms of priorities (I..have..to..finish..something.....).

Anyway, being that it's 40k, I thought I would create a Tau army based (loosely obviously) on a futuristic Tsuranni clan Acoma from the books written by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts. If you're not familiar with these books, they are based on the political mechanisms and upheavals in a fantasy society that is sort of a cross between ancient Roman and Dynastic Japanese. WHile the Tau themselves in the WH40k Universe are more into peace than there Tsuranni descendants (who in the above mentioned books where all about war and ritual suicide!), There's enough scope to play with the fluff... anyway that's the plan, and I think it will look pretty cool. The house symbol for House Acoma is a Shatara bird(?) which I would love to get some decals made in white for my Tau's armour, however, I have no idea if that is possible.

Anyway, I have painted a sample Fire Warrior which while he needs a little work (I really want to do squad markings but need to figure out a tidy way of doing it as I don't trust my free hand, and it would just annoy me to settle for less than perfect for them), I'm pretty happy with the colours etc... and the overall paint job I'll never win a painting comp!). It's not award winning, but it looks ok, and I can churn them out relatively quickly. Man it's such a huge change going from 6mm to 28mm..

Anyway it's never been my style on this blog to bore with wordy meanderings, so here's the first House Acoma Tau!


So there you have it... I have not worked out exactly what I'll have in my army, but I'm not particularly interested in any Kroot at this stage, I don't think they would fit the theme, however you never know as I will look at building up to about 3000pts so I can play the occasional big game.

And lastly, I am normally keen on a pretty tidy painting desk, but have let it go a little lately, so I'll throw a pic in there of that, as I know I'm always facinated to see people's painting/hobby spaces. Also, I'll throw in a few pics of where my Naps are up to. I think they are looking damned good, and am looking forward to getting a copy of Lasalle soon and having a game early in the new year. It really does look the part, so hopefully we can convince a few more Canberrans to have a go!

Timecast 6mm buildings..

I finally got around to painting my Timecast buildings, and I must say I am very impressed with them.

Not only are they excellent scale models, but they are very well cast with almost no flash or miscasts.

So here they are. Some of the pics have some of my Adler Russians marching up the street, and while the two brands don't scale together particularly well, I think the effect is fine in 6mm.



These are from the Napoleonic 6mm series, and I would highly recommend them to anyone.

Marcus

A little more progress..

Not a whole lot to report really, however I do now have a gaming table (pretty fundamental in terms of this actually being a gaming room!).

Also, I finally got my print on the wall.. and I must admit, it looks pretty dashing! The framing turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted it.

The other major thing is my glass cabinet is in. I think in the future I will likely need another couple of these.

I started a thread on The Miniatures Page in regards to how to actually do the gaming table top. While the table itself you can see in these pictures is temporary until I can put something better together (with storage etc...) I am actually pretty happy with the way the top of it turned out. All I did was die a white sheet of polar fleece brown, then spray paint it with beige, and two shades of green... I then added static grass in parts, and the odd area of rocks etc... hills were simply some left over polar fleece under the top-sheet, although it's still not stable enough yet in my opinion (those edges hanging over the sides look untidy too.. soon to be fixed though).

Here are some shots a bit closer up of the base cloth...



So over all things are looking a lot more like a gaming room. Still plenty to do though!

Marcus

The fun part....

Here we go.. the fun part!

As I said in my last post I still have a glass display cabinet coming that is in the same finish as the book shelves. I've also been looking out for a couple of nice chairs to go in the corner with a table... somewhere to relax whilst another commander takes his turn perhaps?

Still looks bare of course.. I have alot of things to go up on the walls yet. But all in good time. Still waiting on that Napleonic Print I ordered ..hmmm..

And of course, no table! I'll fix that this coming weekend... then I'm pretty much set...

I've got loads of room to paint, and the other workbench will be for the bigger jobs (such as cutting up tiles for modular terrain etc...).

I've still got a bunch of books to move outside too.. but as you can see it's taking shape!

Marcus

Carpet...

Yep.. they came early, and while I wasn't sure about the carpet we chose, I have to say it looks excellent!




So there you have it.

Essentially a blank canvas to fill with gaming goodness!

Lights, paint, not quite action....

So.. I wasn't sure if I should wait until the carpet went in to update my blog, however the idea behind the blog was to show people a step by step of how it was done..

Again not much to write as I think pictures are what people really want to see.

So here is where I am up to:

So there you have it. The green feature wall colour wasn't quite the shade we thought, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way it looks. I think the carpet (which goes in Thursday) will make the room come to life. I'm pretty happy with the lighting, although I might get some adjustable display lights put in later on when I know where everything is going to be sitting.

Overall pretty happy and rather excited. The whole family got involved with the painting and apart from a few touch-ups that are needed I think we did a good job. More importantly, we had a good family weekend together.

Alot has happened...

Well it's been a while since my last blog update as alot has happened for my family, and unfortunately it hasn't been good. On the 18th of July one of our daughters, Fiona, and my wife's Mum, Liz, were killed in a car accident. We are absolutely devastated and I don't think really quite coming to terms with it yet. All we can do, I guess, is carry on, and be thankful that our other two kids who were also in the car are still here with us and basically unharmed. But our hearts are broken; Flo was only 7, and Liz would have turned 55 yesterday.

Here's a picture of our two girls. Fiona (we called her Flo because when they were babies Jenna couldn't say Fiona so always called her Flona) is the one on the right, she was always in purple. The girls are twins, and Jen is also missing her sissy, certainly more so as they were twins.


So... I have just started getting more done in the shed, and without typing too much here's where I am up to in pictures.

The plasterer should be in either tomorrow or early next week, then we'll paint and the electrician will be in to finish his part of it. Then the fun part begins..furnishing! We also chose a carpet today and that will look really nice.

Lastly, I thout I would post some pics of my 6mm Naps. Obviously I haven't touched them in the last 4-5 weeks, but I will put some time in soon and try and double what I have done so far.






That's all for now. I might even look at learning how to do a better layout for the next entry.

Well things aren't moving as fast as I'd like (as in I wish I was finished and out there gaming or painting as opposed to trying to build walls etc!), but I am certainly getting there!

I thought I would include in this post not only where the gaming room is up to, but also a pic of my current sad excuse for a gaming space.
Plenty of room for painting but not much else. We all know you need SPACE to do things like make terrain, or play a large game on your 10 foot table!















So then, here is the shed in its current state.

I have ordered all the materials to build the internal walls and ceiling, and they should be delivered tomorrow.. hopefully.. also the eleco should be there tomorrow morning to do all the pre wiring. At this stage I am having 2 x double power points, and 4 x double luminous (bar) lights. I think that should be enough really, although I can reassess it when everything is set u, walls are painted etc... to see how it looks. I am going to have the ceiling follow the gable of the roof because it will help keep the room cooler in summer, and just give it more of a feeling of space.. although 6mx6m is really plenty of room for a personal gaming room!

Lastly, I thought I would throw in what is the start of my 6mm Napoleonic Russian Army based for ShakoII. Man these guys are small. They are all Adler minis which are the best on the market at the moment in my opinion. I'm actually pretty happy with how they have turned out. They will really look the part when there are a couple of divisions of them!



Well that's it for now. Hopefully I have there walls all up in the next 3 weeks or so as I think the finishing touches will be a little more exciting than the construction phase!

Marcus