The Triumvirate of Watch-Fortress Rubicon

Triumvirates were an interesting thing I wish had survived into 40k 8^th edition. Those were nice box sets and I genuinely wonder what might have been achieved if we'd seen the idea continue. My own fantasy booking for them would be a Triumvirate Of Chaos with Abaddon, Zaraphiston and some sort of enormous new Daemon Prince (or Primarch Lorgar who I imagine would be smaller than Magnus and Mortarion).

Anyway, considering that I've now decided to fold in my Mechanicus with my Deathwatch I've decided to build a Triumvirate of my own to represent the different factions present at Rubicon Command.

First up will, of course, be the Deathwatch Watch-Master, commanding officer of the fortress. This model will absolutely just be straight out of the clampack with no conversions other than, maybe, a chapter shoulder pad because I absolutely adore the model.

Second will the leader of the Mechanicus delegation who will either be a converted Magos Dominus or a converted Belisarius Cawl. Whichever model I use I want to add xenotech components to it to represent the heresy that Stygies VIII keep getting in trouble for.

And finally, a model that I don't even know what I'll use as the base for conversion: the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor assigned to the fortress. Background has changed over the years so now the Deathwatch co-operate with the Ordo Xenos rather than being the ordo's chamber militant. I actually prefer this version of the background, if I'm being honest, but I definitely think the ordo would have some sort of presence even if only as a liaison officer. So my Xenos Inquisitor Laurento Hex, one of my oldest 40k characters, will find himself and his retinue assigned to Rubicon Command and incarnated in a brand new model.

I just have to work out what he's going to look like.

The Sprawl Addressed (finished models)

I looked at my hobby diary before writing this and it turns out I haven't finished a model since the 6^th of March. No wonder I needed a week of intensive hobbying to get myself back in the groove. Admittedly, I didn't get anywhere near finishing the small legion of models on the mantelpiece but plenty did get done. I started last week with thirty-one models and I finished sixteen. That is not bad, especially as one of them is a Lord Of War choice (admittedly one of the smaller ones, but still).

What's more they're all for the same project: the many headed beast of detachments that is my Deathwatch army.

First up we have Kill-Team “Omen” (Rubicon Command, Watch Company Primus, First Squad) under Sergeant Mori Pellos of the Star Phantoms:

 

The chapters, from left to right, are the Dark Hands, Star Phantoms, Exorcists, Black Dragons, Angels Sanguine and Marines Malevolent (the Marine Malevolent was already painted and is just joining his completed squad here). Basically, I wanted to make a team composed of some of the less trustworthy chapters in the Imperium simply because the shoulder pads in the official kit tend more towards the upstanding and heroic sorts (plus the Dark Angels). I particularly enjoyed the chance to include a mutated Space Marine in the form of the Black Dragon with his horned head (taken from the Chaos Space Marine Raptors kit, by the way).

For anyone wondering, the shoulder pads come from the online store of Shapeways trader POP Goes The Monkey. They're 3D-printed and require a little cleaning before painting (hence why the paint looks a little thick on these ones, I didn't know that when I started them). As you can see, the detail fidelity is fantastic even if some striations from the printing process remain visible through the paint.

Also for the main body of the Deathwatch detachment itself is Terminator Kill-Team “Gauntlet” (Watch Company Secundus, First Squad) under Sergeant Dane Ixion of the Minotaurs:

The chapters from the line-up, left to right, are: Red Hunters, Brazen Skulls, Dark Hunters, Minotaurs and Angels Of Redemption. Again, shoulder pads from POP.

I also finished the first unit for my Adeptus Mechanicus detachment which will operate as allies (...ish) to the Deathwatch of Rubicon Command.

I've painted these Sicarians in the red armour and black robes of Stygies VIII, a Forge World often censured by Mars for an unhealthy interest in xenotech. Rubicon Command uses them for technical analysis and fabrication and the Stygies mob use the Deathwatch to get their hands on all sorts of proscribed alien technology.

And, finally, the big fella: an Imperial Knight Armiger Waglaive from House Cadmus:

I'll be honest, the main reason I picked this colour scheme was because it was simple. I do like the House's background which mainly revolves around them being effectively mounted hunters more than mechanised heraldic knights but the fact I could use two principal colours (silver and camo green) with just a little yellow and black mixed in for variety. Whether I'll have them siding with the Mechanicus in my background or standing for good (… ish) Imperial values I've yet to decide. Cadmus aren't linked with Stygies VIII in the background, their local forge world is/was Gryphonne IV which is convenient since that world and an awful lot of Cadmus Knights fell to the Tyranids.

All in all, not a bad week's work.

Addressing the hobby sprawl

My works in progress are sprawling again. As I write this half-finished models occupy pretty much the entire length of the mantelpiece, a mismatched combination of Deathwatch, Mechanicus and one very lonely Necron. To be specific:

1x Deathwatch Librarian

1x Deathwatch Terminator Watch-Captain

5x Deathwatch Kill-Marines

6x Deathwatch Terminators

1x Necron Cryptek

1x Magos Dominus

10x Skitarii Vanguard

5x Sicarian Ruststalkers

1x Knight Armiger

That's too much. That's dispiritingly too much and just looking at it has been a roadblock on my hobby for the last couple of weeks. So, to address this: method and reward.

The method, going against a lifetime of habit, will be to concentrate on one thing at a time. Instead of trying to address the sprawl in its entirety or as a couple of units in one go I'm going to take one unit or character down at a time and concentrate on finishing that one thing before moving on to anything else.

As to reward: for every unit I finish between now and next Sunday, I get a “cheat” on my resolution to not buy any models until I've finished painting my Forgebane set.

Thirty-one models and seven days. Let's see how I do...

Reading Tea Leaves: Forge World discontinuations

The other day the hobby side of the internet exploded with the news that Forge World had shifted all their Horus Heresy Legion upgrade sets to Last Chance To Buy. To the look of it they've taking the entire range out of production including the extremely recent Space Wolves upgrades.

Oddly, this happened with not a word from Forge World.

I'm actually quite happy to say I find that odd now. Once upon a time this lack of communication was the norm for Games Workshop but they've got a lot better in recent years. Still, this is not a good look. We don't know what this means.

The most optimistic outlook would be that the main design studio are taking over the project and we're eventually going to get all these sets (or equivalents) in plastic. Its certainly possible but it seems odd to take it all out of production in one go. This is six pages of products all going Last Chance To Buy in one go, they represent almost every legion and effectively an entire game system of product. That's a big release schedule of upgrade sets for what is essentially a very large specialist game system and I'm not sure I see the logic of taking it all out of production in one go instead of staggering it to meet a plastic release schedule.

Then there's the pessimistic outlook: its the end of Horus Heresy as a supported system. Again, it could happen. If Fantasy can go then Horus Heresy can go. I'm not sure that I buy into that scenario, either. By all accounts its Forge World's biggest seller which is certainly supported by how much stuff they've released for it.

Then again, it might be a matter of cost. GW are not exactly unknown for pricing themselves out of the market. Even with the plastic Horus Heresy Space Marines a single unit of ten miniatures fully customised is extremely expensive. An upgrade set of ten torsos and ten shoulder pads comes in at £33 plus the price of the actual marines. Maybe its just that the sets themselves aren't selling.

Maybe its third parties. Forge World products are expensive and suffer from infamously poor quality control. Forge World resin is fragile, it takes ages to clean, and there is absolutely zero chance it won't arrive with at least a few parts distorted possibly even beyond use. Third party stuff, I'm sorry to say, usually has better quality control and that's just a fact.

So, maybe its a problem with Forge World itself losing out to third parties who provide the same parts with better quality control and no greater barrier of inconvenience since both involve ordering online. Maybe Forge World is just reducing its production base as they move more into the Specialist Games line.

Regardless of reason, however, its a shitty move not to communicate what's going on. This is a game system that, almost by necessity, involves a huge financial investment from the player as well as the sheer time-consuming inconvenience of working with FW resin. Making this huge reduction in range and not communicating to what extent the sky is falling is a dick move I thought Games Workshop had developed beyond, I really did.

Deathwatch Mission Tactics

I love the Deathwatch but one thing I've learnt through bitter, bitter experience is that they absolutely need to do as much damage at range as possible. Once your enemy closes with you and starts causing casualties its basically over for that unit. The battlefield efficiency of a Kill-Team drops drastically with the death of each and every marine.

There's been a lot of speculation the last few weeks on the Deathwatch Facebook group I'm a part of about how the new Codex might combat this. Top of the wish list for most were either better special issue ammunition or some sort of invulnerable save.

As it turns out there is at least one new special issue ammunition type available in the stratgems but the big idea the design team has had is Mission Tactics.

The basic idea here is to choose a type of unit (Troops, Fast Attack and so on) and for the duration of the game most everything in the army (infantry, bikes and Dreadnoughts) re-rolls 1s to wound against the type. There is a Warlord Trait and an item that allow you to change the Mission Tactic mid-game.

Obviously, I'll have to see how it works in game but this is probably the best solution to the problem. Deathwatch excel in shooting and have a slight weakness in combat because of their small numbers (more in the taking casualties area than the number of attacks area, obviously). This boosts the shooting and helps out with the combat problem, making them better at the thing they're meant to be amazing at and papers over one of the few real the army has.

I am very much looking forward to road testing this codex.

Hobby Goals for May

One

Build Forgebane

I definitely need to build these models. I've been painting the first of the Armigers and the Cryptek for the last week and its lit a fire under me to work on these factions. Unfortunately, those aren't just the only models I've been painting they're the only ones from the set I've even built.

Time to get a little construction going.

Two

Decide what I want to do for Necrons

Between my own Forgebane and the Necron half I bought cheap off a friend who just wanted the Mechanicus models, I have the basis for a decent size Necron army. I just need to make a few decisions. My own colour tests having failed I've fallen back on the utterly gorgeous Novokh Dynasty colour scheme so that's decided (and oh so easy to paint).

For a start I need to decide what to do with all those multi-purpose kits. Two units of Immortals with different weapons load outs or one of Immortals and one of Deathmarks? Triarch Praetorians or Lychguard or both?

So, I need to go through the Codex to see what the Novokh background suggests and how their bespoke faction rules work and prepare an army list.

Three

Finish something for the Deathwatch

I have a lot of things just sitting half-finished for my Deathwatch and there's a new Codex on the way. It would be nice to have a thing or two battle ready when that drops.

This Week's Project: Baldrick 40,000

I said before that I was going to clear the backlog a bit by not buying any new models umtil I'd painted the contents of Forgebane. In my defence I have been a good boy and held to that. The case for the prosecution is that so far my progress on Forgebane has been to basecoat the Cryptek. The bugger of it all is that as soon as I swore off buying new models I found myself really, really inspired towards the Deathwatch and now I desperately want to buy more Kill-Teams.

So I need to make headway on Forgebane. This week's project, therefore, is to build and paint one of the Knight Armigers aka the models I bought this set for in the first place.

As to colour scheme: I spent a while trying to come up with my own colour scheme but, ultimately, nothing I scribbled down appealed to me as much as the deep forest green of House Cadmus:

I know I'm usually one for bold, bright colour schemes but I like the moody shade of green and how it contrasts both with the black and the brighter yellow. I just like green in general, really, and it'll make a nice change from the endless sea of black and red I've been painting recently.

I also like their background. Their homeworld of Raisa is infested with Beastmen and every year the Knights gather together, get into their war machines and engage in a huge cull. The knight who makes the most kills becomes the leader of the household for the next year. They also have a convenient xenos-related grudge having lost the better part of their fighting strength during the Tyranid invasion of Gryphonne IV which is useful for a force that will be allied to my Deathwatch, at least for the moment.

This will also be the first Lord Of War I've ever painted, a whole part of the game that I've been ignoring for editions opening up to me. Fun times.

Random catch-up musings (featuring Wrestlemania and Takeover spoilers)

Okay, its been a while so what we got?

Well, Wrestlemania happened and so did Takeover: New Orleans. One of these shows was better than the other. I was very down on Wrestlemania this year. The disappointment started early with Asuka losing her match and her undefeated streak. I genuinely thought they were going to have her win and do the Brock Lesnar thing and hold the title Wrestlemania to Wrestlemania and have her drop it to... oh, probably Bailey.

Instead they had Asuka lose to Charlotte and (to quote a favourite sentiment of Jim Cornette) I don't see where the money is in this? They have spent so much time investing Asuka's undefeated streak with the proper weight and mystique, they allowed it to run so long it long ago beat Bill Goldberg's all time record.

And then she loses on her first big-time match on main roster.

Where's the money? Where's the money in breaking her record for Charlotte who is already over, already respected and a multiple time title holder? It doesn't make sense to me.

And the hits kept on coming. Brock Lesnar's interminable part-time Universal Championship run lumbers on for reasons we discovered the next evening when Lashley made his triumphant return to Raw. I can only hope the rumours are wrong and Lesnar is going to drop at the Greatest Royal Rumble instead of making us wait for SummerSlam. Nakamura/Styles was somehow a lot less interesting than the famous match they had at Wrestle Kingdom a couple years back just before they jumped ship to WWE. I really thought that was going to be an all-time classic.

And I just cannot get over the whole bizarre scenario of hiring the most famous female combat athlete in the world and having her debut in a match against a semi-trained 41 year old mother of two featuring two semi-retired old men. Really, Triple H and Angle should have been their own nostalgia match and at least let Rousey's first match be all-women.

To be honest, the highlights of the night for me were Xavier Woods playing the Dragonzord theme and the Bludgeon Brothers winning the tag belts less because I love the Bludgeon Brothers (though I do) but because it finally ends the wretched and over-extended Usos/New Day feud.

Takeover, meanwhile, could not have been better. Worth the money I didn't pay for it (we use my housemate's Network account) for Gargano vs. Ciampa which ran just over half an hour and was amazingly intense. The Six-Man Ladder Match for the North American Championship was amazing and I swear I have never expected be so hyped for the introduction of a mid-card title.

*****

On a happier note: Paige is the new General Manager of Smackdown Live! A female authority figure for Steph to bump up against. I know they want Rousey to be the female Stone Cold but I really think someone in a management position needs to exist who can stand up to her.

I also really hope this isn't just a stunt appointment for market Paige's biopic. I mean, obviously they're going to use it like that but I hope it outlasts the movie's release.

*****

DC finally made announcements about the post-Metal Justice League comics beyond the No Justice stuff they already announced. There's a new Justice League Dark with Wonder Woman and Zatanna which is interesting but the real news for me is Justice League Odyssey which not only has Cyborg leading a team featuring Jessica Cruz and Starfire but its going to be drawn by Stjepan Sejic, the amazing artist of Sunstone and a recent really good run on Aquaman.

*****

Roseanne came back and every time they interview John Goodman he looks like one of those hostages assuring their family they're fine and being fed and everyone is bein provided proper medical assistance. I grew up with that show and didn't know any of the stuff about Roseanne herself going a bit made and tyrannical towards the end of the original and now she's a bloody Pizzagate truther!

Oh, well, not like I'm starved for television I want to watch and keep not finding time for between the Arrowverse shows, the Marvel-Netflix stuff, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and that Lost In Space reboot.

*****

So, the solo Flash movie that became a Flashpoint movie is now a solo Flash movie again because DC figured if they were going to make another shit movie they might as well make the version of it that doesn't basically require expensive guest stars.

*****

I have developed a visceral hatred of Sam Ovens, a man who hawks business webinars in YouTube ads. Somehow I manage to get one of his ads on every video I watch and I watch a lot of stuff on YouTube. My only respite from his voice is the strange banjo accompanied adverts for toilet nowl nightlights.

*****

Marvel's upcoming Death of the Inhumans event is coming in July. I don't care. I genuinely do not give a shit. I have tried to care about the Inhumans since Inhumans vs. X-Men. I read Royals, which was okay, and Black Bolt, which was great but as a larger concept I can't say they grab me at all. “The X-Men but even more uncomfortably eugenic” isn't that good a pitch and I can't say I'm surprised we've reached this point.

However...

If this latest bullshit event has any negative consequences for Kamala Khan words will be had.

*****

Donald Trump has decided to pick a fight with the US Post Office because he doesn't understand that Amazon's free delivery isn't free to Amazon. He genuinely seems to believe that Amazon just declares they aren't paying postage and gets away with it. Don't get me wrong, Amazon is pretty evil and I don't doubt this is something they'd try if they thought they had he chance but the simple reality that should be apparent to anyone with a functional reasoning brain (or a White House full of functional reasoning brains they can consult at any hour of the day or night) that Amazon pays the postage fees out of their profit on the sale.

And that's the only Donald Trump news I want to do in this one because its Trump and there's a scandal a day with that guy.

Hopefully he'll be impeached or do something to terminally disappoint his personality cult of heavily armed, emotionally unstable racial supremacists some of whom, I'm told, are very fine people.

Weekly War Report #7

This week I didn't have a chance to set up the gaming table and the scenery so its back to models floating in the void of time and space which does horible things to the focus of my camera at times, so apologies.

Anyway, this week has been all about the test models for Forgebane and much everything else has stayed in the work in progress case. First up we have the Necron Overlord...

… he needs a lot of highlighting and some drybrushing but I'm happy with the general effects. The cape and scythe in particular, which are Stegadon Scale Green washed black and drybrushed with Thunderhawk Blue Dry Compound, is a nice effect that I think I'll try to replicate on vehicles and Canoptek units. I'm less happy with the brass effect on the backplate but since its another drybrush method it should improve with practice.

On the side, since I was doing repeated coats of Rakarth Flesh on the Overlord, I decided to do the same to some Dark Vengeance Deathwing Terminators I've had lying around for a while. As you can see they're only bone on one half, this is because the eventual plan is to do a small Angels of Redemption Deathwing army.

On the Mechanicus side I have rather more models lying around because I bought a bunch when they first came out and, being me, did very little with them after that. 

The Tech-Priest Dominus is the most complete, of course, since I'm testing out methods on him and then extending them to the other units. The silvers are the only block colour yet to do and then I can get to more shading and detail work. As you can see, I gave up on the Voss Prime colour scheme early on and switched to Stygies VIII. It wasn't even that Voss Prime's quartered red and yellow looked bad on the this model its just I couldn't work out how to extend the colour scheme to vehicles and servitor units.

Next we the Sicarian Ruststalkers who are a much, much better colour test for the Stygies VIII colour scheme because they have the blue undershirts on them that the Dominus lacks. They're coming along nicely though the Dominus taught me to hold off on the shading until all the block colours are done which is why it all looks so much brighter.

I have nothing against Duncan Rhodes' face...

… but, if we're being honest, it would be more useful to me if the WarhammerTV Tip Of The Day video thumbnails had pictures of the things being painted.

That having been said those videos are really helpful. One of the problems with printed painting guides is that they can't show you how to apply the paint. Games Workshop painting guides are especially bad for this since they describe about three different painting techniques as “layering”. Sometimes, especially when your eyesight isn't that good as in my case, it can be hard to tell if some of the more subtle differences in colour are actually layering or highlighting.

With a video, however, you can literally see how the paint is applied. I'm one of those people who learns best by watching and imitating. The most useful thing to me has actually been having a clear visual example of how much to thin my paints by and confirmation that the awful first coats I'd achieve were meant to look like that.

That last one was actually quite affirming. It also helps that I now have this enormous open source recipe book for painting methods even if Duncan Rhodes' face makes it a little hard to find that I'm looking for.

Does Infinity War even need a plot?

[SPOILERS for the Infinity War trailer if you were hoping to go in completely spoiler free.]

Okay, okay, okay, I know this is going to be the big pay off to the whole Infinity Stone business that has been underpinning the Marvel Cinematic Universe for years now. The thing is a friend and I were talking about how Marvel are going to cram in so many characters and still be able to have a solid plot to the whole thing.

And I think we need to be prepared for the fact they might not be able to and that it might even be the right decision.

Love it as I do, Avengers Assemble did not have much of a plot. They get brought together, they fall apart, they get back together again and then there's a big long fight that's just set piece after set piece for most of the rest of the film. The joy of the first Avengers movie is seeing how all these characters you'd been looking forward to bumping into each other play off one another.

And that was totally the right way to go.

Now Age Of Ultron is not a film I am not even half as fond of. Mostly that's because it just tries to do the same plot as the first film with robots instead of aliens. There are scenes that I adored, mainly the ones during and after the big party in Stark Tower but the main plot left me rather cold.

With Infinity War, of course, there are all these new characters meeting for the first time or at least for the first extended period outside the fight scene in Civil War. Case in point: the clip from the most recent trailer with Starlord being a condescending prick to Stark or Peter Parker thinking Doctor Strange's name is made up.

I'm not going to lie, that is much more the sort of thing I'm going to this movie to see than the exact mechanics of if and how purple Stone Cold manages to collect all the McGuffins. Obviously there has to be a plot but I wonder if it should be kept to a minimum and have the actors' interactions carry the film in character scene after character scene until the big old fight.

Sort of like The Five Doctors, actually, a story where the author happily admits that he just gave up on plot in the face of a laundry list of characters, monsters and callbacks he was expected to weave into it.

Forgebane and the backlog

Later this morning I'll be ordering my copy of Forgebane. My test models are proceeding apace, though the Voss Prime colour scheme did not work out for me and I'm going back to the drawing board on that. I just don't want to do Mars, ultimately. Anyway, the set was expensive and contains a lot of models plus I've come to an arrangement with a friend to take his Necron half of Forgebane off his hands. So here's the deal:

Aside from the special event Chaplain I'm going to have a chance to buy next weekend I am not going to buy a single model until I have finished painting all of the Forgebane models. At least the ones from my set, anyway. That twenty-seven models (or forty-one with the extra Necrons but let's keep things realistic).

So its another chance to address the backlog and to make sure it doesn't get any worse. For a start there's a small box of second hand Tyranids I need to get around to and the Mechanicus models I'm planning to recondition for this new army.

Time to get started on some old projects.

Forgebane thinkings

Forgebane pre-orders are this weekend and I really want the little Knights. If I have my maths right, even before you count the new stuff its still a £20 discount. So, here's the question: what to do with it all.

Now, I do have some Mechanicus stuff I impulse bought when it all first came out. Typically for me I didn't get much done on them. I painted a couple of Vanguard with blue robes because I vaguely liked the idea of representing the Ultramarian forge world of Konor. I've gone off that idea since mainly because I just did not like how those models looked in blue. Its a bad colour for them, it makes them look too small.

I don't have a Necron army but I've often thought having one might be cool. I could always just sell the Necron stuff on eBay though I doubt I'd get a good price on any of it because you know that so many people will just be buying this stuff for the Armigers and flipping the rest of the stuff for a profit thus no profit for anyone because market saturation.

Not that I have any grounds for complaint given the number of dirt cheap Tyranid Gargoyles I've snagged because no one wanted them from their Start Collectings. I've never figured out why, I adore Gargoyles.

Anyway, Adeptus Mechanicus and Necrons. What would I do with them?

Adeptus Mechanicus: Forge World Voss Prime

The Stygies VIII colour has some appeal, I admit, but I have so many black armies that I think the black robes might bore me out of the army. Most of the other sub-factions are in various combinations of black, grey and red which is a bit too standard for me. Then I saw that the new Codex has a whole double page spread of new forge world colour schemes including...

… Voss Prime. Skitarii who look like Swiss Guards. You don't tend to associate the Mechanicus with bright colours but the key art from the Codex here looks so good. It will also hopefully assuage my occasional desire for a Howling Griffons army. Voss Prime is apparently known as “The Right Hand Of Mars” thus giving me a valid background reason for using the Martian Forge World Dogma: Glory To The Omnissiah which allows you to randomly generate two Canticles of the Omnissiah each turn.

Voss is also the closest forge world to Armageddon which would be a nice excuse for them to be tooling around with my Savlar Chem-Dogs until I have a proper army's worth of either.

Necrons: The Pirate King Thaszar the Invincible

There is comedy Necron background. At the very least there is Necron background with a funny idea at the heart of it. You see, there was this exiled Necron noble called Thaszar. He was exiled and placed into hibernation on his Tomb Ship on what would become an Imperial world. Millions upon millions of years later the master program of the Sarnekh Dynasty crownworld sends out a recall order to his Tomb Ship and he wakes up, destroys the Imperial capital as he blasts his ship free of the planet's crust and returns to the world of his birth.

Except the master program for some reason issued his recall but didn't wake anyone up.

So our boy Thaszar hacks the master program and convinces it he's the phaeron of the dynasty and has that concept hard coded into every single Necron on the Sarnekh crownworld Zapennec. And he isn't happy to just be king, oh no, he decides he's going to be a pirate king.

Yes, an entire army of Necron space pirates.

I will restrain myself from converting an Overlord to have a tricorn hat but I intend to go absolutely overboard with the colour scheme. Lots of regal blue with gold accents, maybe even some white panels around chest and legs to make them look like Napoleonic naval officers. Maybe even work out a rank system represented by how much gold is on the body.

I might have to think heavily about how of even if I can incorporate the Triarch units. On the one hand they're not something Thraszar would have been able to reprogram as they wouldn't have been hibernating on Zapennec (I don't think) but on the other they seem so intent on re-establishing the Necrontyr empires that they might just accept that this guy exists and has a huge space navy so they'll just try to enforce the rules on him in the hopes that he'll at least be useful.

I'll have to do a lot more background reading before I decide whether that's a viable storyline or not.

The Test Models

One thing I've learnt the last couple of months in my little hobby renaissance is the value of a good test model. I tend to go for an ordinary trooper of some variety but since I have a Magos Dominus to hand from aforementioned impulse purchases I might as well go all out and start with generals.

So, in the red corner we have the Adeotus Mechanicus Magos Dominus with his Pope hat (I love the Pope hat) who is going to get the halved red and yellow Voss Prime colour scheme. In the green corner we have the Necron Overlord who will be getting a suitably naval ceramic design in various blocks of white and regal blue. I can already see it in my head: regal blue on the limbs and the side of the torso, bone white on the ribcage and certain elements of the legs, gold helmet and lower arms. I'll probably keep the resurrection orb and scythe in the traditional green to have some of the more common Necron visual signifiers.

To the painting table...

Weekly War Report #6

A light week, to be honest.

Finished (well, finished off) Models

For a start, there was a small furniture collapse in my room that smashed and mangled beyond repair two Termagants, my Genestealer Patriarch and the very nearly almost certainly finished Easy Build Plague Marines. It also did a small amount of no good to my Blight-Hauler which is not missing a couple of spikes.

Bollocks.

No actual finished models. To be honest, this little incident rather knocked the wind out of my sails for a day or two.

Games Played

Had a quick 50 power of 40k: my Tyranids against Matt's Death Guard. I got tabled but not before taking out all but four or five of his models. I am still running a mainly combat-oriented list because that's what was mostly painted and I think that what I really need is more range on the army to soften up the opponent before reaching combat, especially super-elite armies like the Death Guard.

Anyway, on to the painting table:

Deathwatch Kill-Team and Librarian

A little highlighting and the golds on the Kill-Team are done. After that a little tidy up and I can get started on the chapter shoulder pads, which is the fun bit. Or maybe not because the sergeant is a Star Phantom and that means painting a flat white and then filling in the small chapter symbol in black.

Yay?

Anyway, I also made some progress with the Librarian from Kill-Team Cassius. He needs more work than the Kill-Team including a little extra work on the golds which did not come out as consistently as I'd like, especially the big winged blood drop on the leg. I am happy with the shoulder pad, though, which has a very (for me) consistent bone colour. Its about three or four thin coats of Rakarth Flesh and I feel that I'm making progress in the multiple thin coats department.

Chameleon Skinks

This did not come out how I imagined it. I painted the shields of my Skink Cohort in the Slaanesh-themed purple greys and thought it might make a good skin tone for the Chameleons. I was wrong and I think I might redo these in a green or something. Either that or try improving the look with something darker on the back scales.

Purestrain Genestealers

The other week Tom sold me some old Tyranids of his. The box contained mainly second and third edition models, which I don't mind because I quite like those old designs. The super-thin and delicate looking, metal Zoanthrope I adore and am using as a Neurothrope. Anyway, the box contained about twenty old-style Genestealers.

They do, of course, look very different from the modern Genestealers so putting them next to each other looks odd. So I'm painting these in my Jormungandr colour scheme but I'm planning to use them as Purestrains in my Genestealer Cults army. I just have to work out whether those big growths on their backs are meant to be carapace or skin of some sort before I go further in painting them.

Savlar Command Squad

And, finally, the first Officer and Command Squad for my Savlar Chem-Dogs. Now, for those just coming in, this is my “2-for-1” army: an army that can be Traitor Guard units for my Genestealer Cults and an Imperial Guard army in its own right. The other week I finished a test model that was just an ordinary lasman and now I wanted to try out the conversion and colour scheme on a unit that I can't use for the Cults just to make sure it works for the Guard. 

I think it does. I have to work out a colour for the cuffs on the officer and standard bearer, how I want to paint the details on the banner and so on. I'm using a rather heavier Karak Stone drybrush to really build up the colour. Looking at how the fatigue colour came out on the standard I'm really looking forward to trying out the scheme on a vehicle.

Okay, now I want to see Cena/'Taker at Wrestlemania

He can smell what the Rock is cooking...
and it smells like Texas barbecue.

I wasn't sold on the idea before, in fact I was violently opposed to it. I did not like Reigns/'Taker last year. I get that Undertaker wanted to go out on his back and he deserved to go out on his own terms. I actually like Roman Reigns even if I think the company has been booking him with staggering incompetence for years and ignoring more over talent in favour of him (Braun Strowman most especially). Still, Mark Calaway got to go out the way he wanted to and I was one of those in favour of us never seeing him on television again except for his inevitable Hall Of Fame induction and maybe as a shadowy figure beckoning from the top of the ramp the day Kane retires.

Then Monday's Raw happened and John Cena cut an in-ring promo on the Undertaker that was, to be frank, the return of the Cena I adore. He stood there in the ring, worked the crowd like a champ and demanded the Undertaker get over his own ego, get up from his defeat last year and get back in the damn ring on the grandest stage of them all.

Cena is a master of the promo and he felt more engaged here than he did at any point in his recent feud with Roman Reigns. I particularly loved the bit where he whips up the crowd by asking them who wanted to see him get his ass kicked at Wrestlemania.

You've got to love a man who get a crowd violently calling for his blood at his own insistence.

So, yes, I want to see this now even if only to see a better final match for the Dead Man. Also, to be frank, this was the match I was hoping would be booked for 'Taker's retirement and I know I'm not the only one.

And, finally, the biggie: should Cena win?

The Streak is long dead, this would likely actually be the end for Mark Calaway in the ring as he'll be fifty-three when the match comes round. There's no pressing business reason that Undertaker needs to win: he's either disappearing properly after this or continuing in this one match per year schedule (and, no disrespect to the man, that's probably wise). Cena, meanwhile, is still the face of the company and an ongoing prospect because even if he is continuing only as a part timer he's still there a hell of a lot more than Undertaker.

But I still think 'Taker should win. I think giving the Streak away the way they did was a mistake, I think losing to Reigns in his retirement match was never going to solve the problems the company is having with getting Reigns over.

And from what I've read about him and seen in interviews, Cena's an honourable guy with a lot of respect for his elders in his industry. Maybe this is all about giving Calaway the retirement match he deserves instead of the one that serves the best interests of the WWE. Call me a bluff old sentimentalist but maybe the Dead Man deserves one last win on the grandest stage of them all against the biggest name on the roster.

The Knight Armiger

I have to admit, this little fellow is making me consider an Adeptus Mechanicus army again. Now, I love Imperial Knights (and Empire Knights and Bretonnian Knights and Cold One Knights and all the other knights) but I have to admit that the Armiger is a lot closer to what I imagined when I read Graham McNeill's Mechanicum nearly a decade ago.

That's not a criticism of McNeill (probably the world's foremost Knight fan) but just a reflection of the fact back then Knights were an all-but-forgotten artifact of deep lore and not a thing you could buy in store. So you had Knights as something an unaugmented human woman could keep pace with and have a chat with the pilot at the same time.

(If I'm mis-remembering that scene, my apologies, it has been a few years).

According to the Warhammer Community post about them you can take them in squadrons, the first Lord Of War choice that can be taken like that. They're built for hunting, basically, softening up enemy vehicles and engines before the bigger Knights come in to finish them off.

Imperial Knights now have their own version of Mounted Yeomen, which I rather like. I also like that the melta weapon is actually called a thermal spear. It looks fast, too, with the back-jointed legs.

I do hope it has an alternative head. I like the one in the example but it matches the Mechanicus head the main knight has and I'd like one to match the “noble” head which I prefer (even though I am considering these as part of a Mechanicus force).

Top 5 Doctor Who seasons that need Bluray box sets

In June, the BBC are releasing the first Bluray season box set for classic Doctor Who. They're starting with Season Twelve, Tom Baker's first season, and I can't fault them. It might not be his best season (fan consensus would peg that a year further on) but it does have a lot of big monster stories including Genesis of the Daleks, a big UNIT romp as the opener and the era-defining Ark In Space all wrapped up in an ongoing narrative that actually moves from one story to another pretty smoothly.

Good choice... but... you know what other seasons might make good box sets? (Hint hint...)

#5: Season Twenty-Five (Sylvester McCoy Year 2)

I'm sure the consensus pick for McCoy would be Season Twenty-Six which has all the real “Dark Doctor” stuff but, for me, the Twenty-Five is the better season. You have a super strong opener in Remembrance of the Daleks which is always seems to be the story fans pick as the archetypal McCoy story. The Greatest Show In The Galaxy and The Happiness Patrol are both brilliantly odd stories that show how good the McCoy era could be outside the world of old monsters and continuity and I really feel that's something that should be showcased more for the Seventh Doctor era.

Okay, Silver Nemesis is weak as a story and one of the low points of the era but each of McCoy seasons has a dud and Silver Nemesis, in my humble, is still better than Battlefield, the dud of the supposedly stronger Season Twenty-Six.

#4: Season Twenty (Peter Davison Year 2)

I have to admit an odd thing: I adore Peter Davison as the Doctor but I genuinely have trouble recommending individual stories to people wanting to try him out. Okay, Caves of Androzani is fantastic but it gives off a very off-putting vibe when the best story for a character you can recommend is the one where he dies.

Also, Twenty isn't even my favourite season of Davison's. I genuinely think Nineteen is better even if the final story is a fluffy bit of nothing that squandered what little drama could have been wrung from Adric's death. Twenty, however, has a lot to recommend it from the season showcase point of view, especially if you include The Five Doctors at the end (which you should). Mawdryn Undead and Enlightenment are very strong stories even if the middle part of the trilogy doesn't work in any fashion. Arc of Infinity is a flash Gallifrey story that at least sets up a few things about The Five Doctors even if, again, a lot about it doesn't quite work. Snakedance is, of course, amazing and I have a personal soft spot for The King's Demons which at least has some great costumes and some gloriously bizarre line readings from Mark Strickson.

In short: lots of monsters, lots of at least recognisable continuity for the modern series fan and no less than two stories of glorious scenery chewing from Anthony Ainley.

#3: Season Two (William Hartnell Year 2)

Its long. The sixties seasons were long and at thirty-nine episodes this actually weighs in as one of the shortest plus only two of them are actually missing which makes it the most complete season of the black and white years. That is actually part of the appeal in picking this one: only two episodes to do reconstruction on and you can get away with just doing them as a slide show or even just using the William Russell in-character narration from the VHS release since no one is really going to mine if you just... skip doing full reconstructions on the story with blackface in it.

Aside from the practical aspects there is the sheer breadth of stories in this season: there are two very different Daleks stories; a story about the TARDIS crew being shrunk that uses all this fantastic Victorian stage craft to achieve its effects; some straight science fiction stories in The Rescue and The Space Museum; two fantastic pure historical adventure serial-style romps in The Romans and The Crusade; the first pseudo-historical The Time Meddler featuring Peter Butterworth as the Meddling Monk, a character William Hartnell has the time of his life bouncing off; and the ultimate Marmite story in all of Doctor Who, The Web Planet, which I adore and is worth watching just for how strange everything is.

#2: Season Fourteen (Tom Baker Year 3)

The height of the show's imperial phase after which it was struck low by Mary Whitehouse but a really strong season regardless. You've got two of the best companions the series ever had appearing in this season: Lis Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and Louise Jameson as Leela, both putting in some of the best performances of their tenures. You've got some of the real writing highlights of the series, too, with The Masque of Mandragora, The Deadly Assassin and The Robots of Death. Actually, Robots is something of a go to for me when people ask me for a classic serial to try out the old stuff. Its an Agatha Christie/Isaac Asimov mystery mash-up with the most gorgeous (and, as the producer had just been fired) budget destroying set and costume design in the classic series.

Okay, The Hand of Fear is weak and The Talons of Weng-Chiang... ugh. Even now I want to give it a pass on the strength of Jago and Litefoot alone but damn is that a racist story and the box set will probably need one of those “it was the times” labels they put on Tintin books now (which is a good thing, by the way, I am not complaining).

#1: Season Ten (Jon Pertwee Year 4)

Plain and simple bias: I think this is the best season of classic Doctor Who as a season. It starts off with The Three Doctors which is this fantastic birthday party of a story. It establishes a lot of Gallifrey lore, of course, and has the UNIT crew on hand as well as the two previous Doctors so there's a large ensemble cast of fun characters going up against a threat from the dawn of Time Lord civilisation. After that there's Carnival of Monsters, another perennial favourite recommendation of mine, which is a rather low key story but with such an interesting format and central concept along with some interesting design work on the alien parts of the story. It also has alien carnival folk Vorg and Shirna, one of the all-time best Robert Holmes lovable rogue double acts (and so married).

That's followed by the twelve episode Dalek epic Frontier in Space/Planet of the Daleks which has a somewhat odd but probably smart format. Frontier is this politically-charged conspiracy thriller featuring the Master in all his urbane glory whilst Planet is this very traditional Flash Gordon-style adventure serial by the Daleks' original creator Terry Nation. In honesty, in many ways Planet is a remake of the original Dalek series from 1963 but its an entertaining remake for all that.

Then, finally, there's The Green Death which has some horribly mangled politics (if we're being generous) but its the last hurrah of the main UNIT-era cast; Pertwee gets some of his best comedy moments in this story; and the maggots are one of the iconic visuals of the entire series.

So that's my list and, as to the already announced Season Twelve box set, I look forward to finally seeing what the giant clam looks like in HD.