Things that make you boom?

They're so stupid. Nearly 20 years ago, at the Tank Museum at Bovington I wanted to stick my head in the barrel of a Sturmtiger that they have there. It's that big that it'd fit my sizeable melon. But I've wanted these in a Flames army for ages so here we go: 

 

So first off, this is not the most fun kit in the world. I love the fact that the two hulls are unique with some little details like missing tools, open hatches and similar. I elected not to build the one reloading as that seemed more for a diorama than for tabletop use.  

This was also another random camo scheme - I've been finding that if I just google patterns, I find something I want to paint. As much as I've refused on some of my LW German armour, I am enjoying painting a few interesting camo schemes that'll drop in amongst an army that will mostly be dunkelgelb. I went pretty light on the foliage as it didn't make much sense on a beast like this! 

Early War Begins...

I can't imagine ever using these in Late War but if there's anything more iconic than the Stuka in Early War, I'm not sure what it is. So I bought and painted some! I spent a bunch of time finding an interesting camo and marking scheme which hasn't shown up super well in the photo because dark green base coat with a darker green geometric pattern doesn't... 

I've got a few more things on the plate and then the Panzer Is and Panzer IIs are coming out of the box to start on the mad effort that will be completely repainting my EW Germans. 

There are a few who might note the tail insignia are wrong and what should be on there is not what's on there. I reserve the right to not put that noise on anything, historical correctness be damned. There's no reason to put that into the world. So I've put some spare Balkenkreuz on the tailplane instead to keep a marking on the tail.  

Next Time

Practice games with my new Knights I suspect. I've got some part-finished Waffentrager on my desk but I haven't decided what kind of camo to do on them. The same ambush   

...and the decisions weren't the worst...

This blog starts just for one reader. Local gaming stalwart Kenny was giving out little 3D printed models at ValleyCon earlier this year and he handed me one and said he expected to see it on the blog. So here we have one very very cute Stone Troll who now lives in a small pot plant in my living room:  

 

 It was a lot of fun to paint. I have this model in 28mm and I enjoyed doing this one in whatever scale this is. 20mm maybe? Kenny did a stunning job on the print - the details are super crisp and clean. It was an easy paint. 

And the Lancer! 

It is done.  As are the new legs on the Castigator but photos of that anon. I've had a frustrating time with yellow as I have done every time I've painted models for this army but I'm well pleased with how it's all come out. I think I'd like to add some lightning bolts between the emitters on the shield to fill it out a bit more.  

 

 My favourite bit of the whole model is, weirdly, the pennant hanging off the lance. GW intended this model to be front on   with the lance pointing straight ahead. No, says I. I wanted this defensive, hoplite-style pose and that meant the penant wouldn't work. 

So I've been staring at that pennant for like three weeks and a couple of days ago, I had a brainwave and it's worked out really well. The fact that it's the same pennant as the one hanging down in the centre made me happy. 

Photos of the full force next club day when I have enough space and enough light. Late on a midwingter Sunday was optimistic because I gave the Errant a tidy as well while I was at it. 

Next Time

Back to the 15mm train. Got some Sturmtigers and Waffentrager screaming for paint. Maybe even the Stukas that are sitting here tormenting me....  

Decisions were made....

So the Lancer is not built and there are a couple of reasons for this. One of them stems from me standing around in my office trying to work out how I wanted the legs to look and realising that I couldn't make it work the way I wanted to because it felt completely unnatural (for a robot) to stand like that. And the second stems from how I decided to fix it. 

The one bonus about building a second Cerastus Knight from GW plastics is that the leg assemblies are identical. Can you see where this is going? I decided I needed to swap the legs so I snapped the glue on the hip assemblies from the Castigator and rebuilt those legs to now be the legs for the Lancer. The Castigator gets a complete redesign and now looks like this: 

They're now the other way around and the Castigator is now leaning slightly back on it's right leg and stepping forward with the left. The legs had to be glued on given how the hip assemblies came apart so I've left all the armour plates separate so I can paint those and then I really only have to muck about with gunmetal. It'll be a challenge. 

Unsurprisingly, this has also created the opposite problem with the Lancer. Until I exactly work out how the arms go on, I am going to be challenged finishing the torso. But I had to start somewhere so start we have: 

 

 One Lancer head! Next I'll do the gunmetal and all the piping on the torso and procrastinate about the arms a little bit longer but I aim to have these done in the next couple of weeks. And if I get bored, Sturmtigers. 😆

Also, I had a great game against Pel's Gencon Paras with my Italian Guastatori yesterday that was pretty well on from turn one and I didn't take a single photo. What a mess. Given some scheduling drama llama, it's going to be workbenches for a bit but I have some cool stuff on the to do list so it's not all bad. 

Next Time

Knights and this random thing that's been sitting on my desk waiting for me to paint it since ValleyCon so I'm going to do it...   

Weekend workbench

I had a busy run getting some stuff ready for a couple of games of 40K last club day so first there's those. The Outriders: 

They didn't have a stellar day out and kept getting killed before they got to do anything. A bit vexing given the amount of swears that went into getting the shoulders on. But one day they''ll get to hit something and it'll be awesome. Next, a couple of the new generation of Land Speeders:  

They're both sweet models and while they were both garbage on the day thanks mostly to some shockingly poor dice on my part, I am optimistic that the pairing will be quite effective if I can roll some decent dice. 

 

Finally, instead of finishing assembly of a Knight that I *should* be doing, I painted some King Tigers I picked up at Panzerschreck instead.  

 I went hunting for new camo patterns and found brown tiger stripes as an option. I quite like it (and I don't think the photo does it justice) but it was a nice change. As I go through tidying up my Germans, I'm going to be doing some more camo schemes on other things. I quite like that I can keep some consistency with the Dunkelgelb and the foilage. 

Next Time

A Knight. I hope. And another run up against Pelarel's GenCon army after it pipped me last time I'mma have another go!   

My Generation Was Killed - Part 10 - BASE! How low can you go…

 

‘Sup Killers? Well, blow me down, part TEN eh? That’s a thing for sure…! It’s been a full on week here. I was away in the CHB for mahi most of the week, but I still managed to get some stuff done on the list 🤩

First cab off the rank was to finish the bases. I painted, washed and dry brushed them, then added some tufts to lift the bases. Next step was rubbish… No, literally, I wanted to add some rubbish to the bases. No way of saying this politely, in my experiences of Iraq, rubbish is everywhere… When your go-to for rubbish disposal is burning or just dumping, then its no surprise that it gets EVERYWHERE… 

And yes, I wasn’t helping either… Me and the other thousands of coalition troops in the AO that is. I can’t remember much about what I did with my rubbish, but most of it was either dropped on the ground, or burnt for OPSEC reasons 😑 

I cut up various things to make some different colors of trash, and you may notice the small, yellow bits with some black ‘writing’ on them. They represent the Humanitarian Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). These were issued by US troops to Iraqi CIVPOP and were a variation on the usual MILSPEC MRE. The main difference being the removal of the heater pack for various reasons. They came in a similar size plastic bag to a MILSPEC MRE, and I was issued a box to feed myself on once occasion, so they have some memory for me. I painted a piece of paper yellow, gloss varnished it then used a thin sharpie to add the ‘writing’.

Pic below shows the bases before I added the Hummers, see if you can spot the yellow MRE bags… 😉

I never saw a pink bag, just the yellow ones. Pic below shows the actual bags and some of the outer packaging, and what they looked like inside.

So, I had my bases, now to glue the trucks to them…! That was an easy job using some ‘Canopy Glue’ which as far as I can tell is a runnier, sticker version of white PVA…! Anyhoo, this is what they look like.

Brad’s truck from both sides. Note the yellow MRE bags underneath his door. You can just see the Iceman poking his head out with his NV scope…🫡

Next up the other support truck with a Fifty.

And then the two, TOW vehicles, these are the ‘punch’ for the PL!

And finally a ‘family shot’ of all four trucks together. It feels good to have one PL finished and I know this will inspire me to get onto the rest! This is a departure from my previous modelling SOM where I would do everything at once for the whole list before moving to the next stage. Undercoat everything, basecoat everything etc. That’s OK for what it is, but it can lead to fade as you never see anything completed. At least with this idea, I can see progress!!!

Well, to round up, this weeks ‘Tales from the Crypt’… I have so many memories, they get a bit out of place and jumbled top. Here’s two I remember that happened at the same FOB maybe a few days apart.

First up, as a SGT I alongside all other SNCOs and Officers pulled a number of duties. And one of those was to be on radio stag or radio listen. I got this one shift that started at something like 0200 hrs. This was right in the middle of things happening, so there was a lot of radio traffic going on all the time.

My job was to note any occurrence that would affect my unit, or anything that was on larger scale. I would possibly need to raise the NBC alarm, or the incoming ARTY alarm etc. Or get the CO / RSM if big things were happening above my pay grade…

It was 0200, I was knackered, and I was also super concerned about missing something that might lead to drama for myself and others. It now was around 0330 and I remember that sensation of falling, and jerking upright… Having a radio stuck in your ear with either traffic, or the dreaded hiss of white noise wasn’t helping…

Yup, I had nodded off… I had no idea if it was a 2-second ‘micro-nap’ or if I had been out for like an hour or something… 😳 I panicked, wondering if I had missed something, if something had happened. Had I let my mates down? Was there an Iraqi Republican Guard unit storming towards us..???

Once I calmed down, I thought, ‘How am I going to work out how long I was asleep for..?’ It was then I realised to check my radio log. 

Last entry was at 0327. I checked my watch and it was 0329. So taking off the approximate the minute I had been mulling this over, that meant a gap of around one minute… That’s like an eternity… I went into a panic and just prayed that I hadn’t missed anything and caused anyone any issues. 

The rest of my shift went with no issues as I was now SO awake it wasn’t funny… My HOTO person arrived, we carried out our HOTO and I slunk off to my pit, not mentioning my lapse…

I was real worried for days that I had caused an issue, and kept popping into the COY CP to check on any issues that may have occurred whilst I was on shift. Praise the Lord there didn’t seem to be any, so I just packed that away and carried on normal jogging.

First time I have shared that storey I think. Not sure how telling it makes me feel as I am not a fan of telling of my mistakes, but there it was. These are the things that keep me awake some times…

OK, lets end on a ‘high’ note… 😉

Same FOB, same week (I think..!), different situation. It was O-Dark hundred and I myself sat on an ammo tin chewing the fat with ‘Noddy’ Holder the Transport WO and the previously mentioned Lol Wood the CSM. We were bemoaning the fact that we hadn’t had a beer in who knows how long when Noddy piped up and says, “You know you can drink AL39 (Army issue vehicle antifreeze)?” ‘Fark OFF’ says Lol and I, ‘Whatever!!’ “Honestly you can”, Noddy went on…

“Just mix it with enough orange juice and you’re in!” ‘Right’ says I, ‘I’ll be back in 5 minutes, I’m off to see the EGGOPS (Chefs). Noddy, go grab some AL39…’

5 MIKES later I returned with 2 Litres of the worlds finest OJ, Noddy had 1 LT of AL39 and a bucket…

So, we tipped the OJ and about half the AL39 into this bucket, stirred it for 10 seconds with a tent peg, then all dipped our cups into it…

BANG!!! 😳 It was like drinking vodka and orange!!! Well, MAYBE it was like drinking vodka and orange…😂 We dutifully finished the 2.5 litres of Go-Juice, yarning until it was dawn at about 0500…

We all slinked off to our scratchers to get some sleep, feeling VERY merry…🥳 🤩

About 2 hours later, I woke up… First thing I noted was the heat, then approximately 0.1 of a second later, my head started to throb… And when I say throb, it felt like Tyrian Lannister was actually inside my head, and was attacking it to get out with the same vigor he used at the Battle of the Blackwater… 😫

I mean, I had had hangovers before, but THIS?! Seriously, this would have killed a civvy stone dead…😂

By now, Lol and Noddy had appeared and we kind of stared at each other wondering did we actually do what we thought we had done the night before. The half-empty can of AL39 and the stains inside the bucket were the silent witnesses to our madness…

SO, if anyone tells you that you CANNOT drink anti-freeze, tell them that’s rubbish… I mean didn’t hurt Austrian wine sales in 1985 did it?! Did it…? 🤔😜

On that note Killers, that’s it for this week! Appreciate all your kind comments and remarks, and remember, I might be saying things in this blog that sound odd, or that im struggling with something, but actually I am OK. And this blog is part of that being OK.

Till next time, Stay Frosty 🫡

Post-event lazy blog post....

 Ahoy readers. It's been a lazy couple of weeks on the blogging front since I haven't been in much of a place to post things. My hobby time has been filled with doing stuff. So, in the interests of getting restarted, here's as many armies as I managed to take pics of from Panzerschreck XXIV!  

Tank and my Bradley ACAV and Bradley Cavalry

Dan and Greg's M1 + M1A1 "horde"

Bloggers Pel and McBeth's British

Gav's Germans and his partner...

...Rob's Swedes

Blogger Scotty and his absent partner Wilson Pooch's Germans

Clubmate Chris' Germans and his partner...

...clubmate Ric's Americans

Chris and Wayne's Franco-German Alliance

Connor and Simon's (painted by Blogger Pooch) Americans

Russell and Graham's East Germans

Octavia and Richard's Grade 1 WARPAC Russians

Andre and Smudge's Israelis

Finally....

Phil's French, and his partner...

...Ian's UN Canadians

Ian deservedly won Best Army with these Canadians - they're absolutely stunning with one of the best white treatments I've ever seen. He shared his whitewash recipe with me and it's all drybrushed. I was, and remain, in awe. The presentation is just delightful. 

 

Finally, it was a great weekend. Excellent company, excellent food and some great gaming. TY is a solid  game when played for funsies on 8' x 6' tables. It was a lot of laughs. Rumour has it that EW Blitzkrieg next year for the 25th Anniversary of the event - that'll be just as absurd as anyone could want. 

 Next Time

I've been doing a bunch of work on my Deathwatch for 40K and I'm about to start a new building project....  

My Generation Was Killed - Part 9 - Miss Me…?

 

‘Sup Killers? Firstly, thanks for all of you that reached out asking why I hadn’t posted last week. Wait, what? No one reached out…? 😳 Darn, looks like my hopes of retiring on the profits of my soon-to-be-released book might not pan out…😝

Nah, all good…! Reason there was no post last week was, it was the annual ‘boys come down from Auckland weekend’, otherwise known as the 15mm gaming  ’Panzershreck’. This year it was Team Yankee, proposed by the mighty city of Dunedin… (If you know, YOU KNOW…😜) So I dragged out what I had and took a look… I was paired with the renowned ‘Meta Gamer’ Damien Reid, and together we knew we would be a competitive force, easily placing in the top three, and most likely given our skills, winning the event outright…

Reid and I getting smashed by a combo of Canuck’s and Frenchies from Ian and Phil. We lost, but a fun time was had by all!!

JOKES!! 😂 For those that know us, you know we’d be lucky not to get the spoon…! So, what did we take? A motley mix of Polish T55 and T72, and my Ukrainian list of 19 T64s, 3 BMP2, and 4 each of SA13 and ZSU23/4. 

We had a mixed weekend, one 8-1 win, but mostly losses or draws. It was enough to put us just into the top ten…  But the main point of PzS is meeting old mates and having some laughs, and in that regard, we were number 1 🥳 So good to see all my mates from around the motu, loves to you all 🙏 💟

Once the boys had left on Monday and Sarah and I had cleared up the bomb site that was our whare…😉 I cracked into the usual mahi. You’ll remember that I have been trying to mould the TOWs I needed and had not had much luck with the Blue Stuff, so I invested in some of this:

Made a mould from LEGO and stuffed 3 BF TOW into it. Then I applied some Vaseline to the mould to stop the halves sticking together and made the top of the mould. I used Grey Milliput to fill the moulds and the results are not too bad… They are not perfect, and if you look closely you can tell what they are, but I am happy with them as they are at least my own efforts 🤩

Pic below shows the OG BF TOW at the back, and my effort at the front:

The other thing I did was made some bases for the Trucks. The BF ones are rigid enough to be used free-standing, but the 3D ones are just a wee bit delicate. So, to bring everything together I have decided to base everything. This will not only add strength but also allow me to build a coherent theme for all the minis. Stage one was making the base mix, I used a mix of PVA, Rapid Fill, and two grades of model railway ballets. Mix that all up and slop it down on some medium BF bases and you are GtG!

Hopefully next week I can finish these, paint etc, then look at getting at least one PL of trucks mounted!

Data indicates that more of you are keen on the yarns than the minis, so here is this weeks ‘Letter from the Front’ 😉

The first half had kicked off, and we had entered Iraq. Mortar strikes and other arty fire were a daily, if not hourly occurrence and by now they were so frequent, we didn’t even bother getting into the sand trench. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway as it was not revetted and would most likely have just collapsed on us… 😂 

So, things are going on, and I am doing some stuff when the RSM comes over to me. “Hey Bob, what’s happening?” He asks in a ‘there is more to follow’ type of way…“Hey Sir, just checking on my CAMs and what not, what’s up?” I replied.

“Well…..” LONG pause, like long enough for me to wonder if he’s finally slipped into that coma… “Umm… I need you to drive me up to (Insert name of town I can’t remember), and I need to go right now”

“OK” says I, “what’s going on over there…?”

“Ummm… I tell you when we get going…”

So with that, I packed away what I was doing, sorted the truck out, and picked him up at his tent.

We were about 5 MIKES into the trip when he told me what the hoo-hah was. He’d left his S10 at this town we were headed to, and he OBVIOUSLY needed it back ASAP. You know, with the constant threat of CHEM and BIO weapons, and with him being the RSM, it would have been a bad look if we got an actual CBRN attack, and he was the only joker running around without a face-welly on 😂

As you can imagine, I REALLY, REALLY struggled with not just laughing as loud as I could and calling him a Fcukwit…😜 BUT, he was still the RSM, so I had to play it somewhat cool…

En-route to the town-with-no-name, we passed through another dusty poo-bowl of a town. This had been cleared by Coalition forces a few days previously, so was relatively safe. As I was driving into the town, we came into a cross-roads. As I recall the defining  feature was a large mural of Sad-Man Hussein that had been defaced and graffitied by the locals now we were here. As I slowed to admire the handiwork and obvious fresh wet marks that were splashed all over it… I saw two kids, one maybe 8-10, the other 12-15. 

Now, Taff (RSM) and I both knew that we were not supposed to give out lollies to local kids. We were not meant to interact with the locals at all, unless we were shooting them or repairing them after we had shot them…

But these two kids looked so forlorn and sad, I looked at Taff, and slowed the truck to a halt. In the same mindset, we both reached into our daysacks and pulled out a bag of lollies each, can’t remember the brand or type. I then drove towards the kids, and threw out the two bags of lollies. Both kids picked up the bags and the joy on their faces was a sight to behold.

The smaller of the two then ripped into his bag with gusto, stuffing a handful of (snakes I think) into his wee mouth. As he started to enjoy the sugar-rush, the older kids demeanour change rapidly… I could almost see the gears in his head turn as the plan formulated in his brain.

With a flash, he stuffed his bag of lollies into a pocket, and in a simultaneous move that would have made an elite gymnast proud, punched the little kid square in the face…

Immediately the small guy dropped his bag of lollies, spilling some of them onto the ground as he held his nose which was now streaming with blood from the assault. He then ran away as the bigger kid swooped up the spilt bag of lollies, and took to his heels in the other direction. He was like the Iraqi version of Iron Mike Tyson mixed with Zola Budd…

Taff and I took one look at each other, and almost at the same time we said, “Well, we wont be doing that again.” We drove the rest of the way in silence as we tried to process the event we had just witnessed, and perhaps more tellingly, had just CAUSED…

We were just trying to do what we thought was the ‘right thing’, but clearly the BDE S2 knew more than we did when it came to handling locals… 😔

We eventually got to the town-with-no-name, and yup, you guessed it, the RSMs S10 was NOWHERE to be found…😝 He was looking high and looking low. He was looking harder than Gollum after the One Ring…! I told him not to panic, I had a plan…

We obviously couldn’t just rock up to the QM, who, being a former RSM himself, would have just laughed…! And he might not have had a spare Rezzy in his size anyway…

So, I told Taff I would source him a US respirator, and he could put that in a spare S10 haversack. Unless we got an actual CBRN attack, no one would know, and if we did get such an attack, the US one would still work 😉

SO, for the rest of the deployment, he rolled around with a US respirator, praying that he never had to use it… Fun times…

And no, before you ask, I don’t have any pics of this event…

Right, that’s all for this week, al always, thanks for reading this far, I appreciate all of your kind thoughts and comments. Till next time, Stay Frosty 🫡

My Generation Was Killed - Part 8 - Regulators! Mount UP!

 

‘Sup Killers? Well, that was the week that was… Been away all week with mahi, so not a lot of work achieved on the list. However, I did manage to squeeze some painting and assembly in on Monday…

WARNING: This week’s ‘back in the day’ section gets pretty close to the bone. Look away now if you are easily offended…

I decided to build The Iceman’s Hummer to see what it would look like, and I got about 80% of the way there. As you can see in the pics below, I fitted The Iceman, Ray, Trombley and Rolling Stone into the Hummer, almost losing all of them in the process…! I kind of new they would disappear once I got them inside, but maybe wasn’t quite prepared for just HOW lost they would become…

You can see in this first pic some bits of sprue below the truck. That’s parts of legs, body’s arms and Hummer chassis that I had to keep trimming in order to fit the team inside..! Oh well, at least I know they are there…! Still to finish are the high-viz panel on the hood, and more detailing to the MK19 and then final paint including door markings.

At this size, these are more like 54mm than 15, so excuse the roughness, but it does show the crew to good effect, especially Rudies Elvis Sunnies, and Brad’s NVG scope 🤩

In other news, I was fortunate enough to visit a major firearms collection this week. Around a dozen C96’s, two-dozen Lugers, 50+ bolt action rifles, around 10, TEN MP40s, MG42, MG34, Thompson’s etc etc… However, the real standout for me was this beauty; S1 FG42 in MINT condition. I even got to handle it! Such a shame it cannot be legally fired any longer 😢

FG42 surrounded by MP38, MP40, MP41 and others 😎

So, what’s on the ‘back in the day’ menu for this week, I hear you eagerly ask…?? Well this week, we get into some ‘military tourism’… A fascinating subject…! These pics were taken some time after the first round of fighting had taken place and we had pushed into Basra, after the Battle of Basra which took place between around 21 March to 6 April 03.

For obvious reasons, I have zero pics of those days, just the ones that remain in my head… Of course for me, the main event of this period was the loss of my friend, Matthew ‘Marty’ Hull of the Household Cavalry, who was killed by USAF A10’s on 28 March 03.

Matty and I were Section Commander instructors at ATR Pirbright in the late 90’s-early 2000’s, he was originally a Pioneer but transferred to the HCR to get more out of the Army.

28 March started for me in a holding area that we had moved into a day or two before. I remember the usual routine, woke up, had a scrape, did some dobie, checked some CBRN gear, made my rounds to check other gear in outlying units.

Then sometime in the afternoon, don’t remember when, a Rover arrived. Out jumped three of my mates, who rushed over to me. With tears in their eyes, they told me that Matty had been killed by the Americans.

I was overcome with grief.

I joined them in the Rover with the intention of driving to the nearest US unit and getting some payback.

Fortunately for us, we had a divine intervention that prevented us from carrying that mission out… That’s something to explain to people farce-to-face, but basically we were going to commit murder, and God stopped us from doing it.

Tough day in the office…

These pics were taken sometime after this event, when in usual military fashion, I had had to move on and carry on with the mission. Time to grieve being zero… This event was to traumatise me for decades to come, and I thank God everyday for getting me through this and keeping my family with me. 🙏

So, here’s some happier pics, first one of me on / in a T55. In one pic I am holding up a copy of ‘Motorcycle News’, which I was again meant to send in to them in the hope of some goodies, but never did…😝

Mad thing about this tank was, as you know, it was of Russian origin, and now being used by the Iraqi’s. However, I was able to operate all the turret controls with ease, due to the fact that all the controls were labeled in ENGLISH…😂 No wonder the Iraqi’s got slapped around so quickly, they couldn’t read the instructions in their own tanks…

Next up we have an IMR, engineering vehicle based on the T55 chassis, note the prominent gap between the 1st and 2nd roadwheels 🤩 

We found the T55 abandoned in the middle of nowhere, and the IMR was in a holding area for captured Iraqi armour. Fun times were had by all 😜

Well, that wraps it up for this week. For those of you reading that know me, you know the journey I am on, and I appreciate all of your love and support over the years. It’s YOU that have helped me to be able to tell this story. 🙏❤️

Till next time, Stay Frosty 🫡

Workbench weekend

So, given the long weekend here, I got stuck into some serious construction. I picked up a few models for my Deathwatch recently with a view to making a bit more an effort to get them on the table. 

 I started with a couple of Storm Speeders. Honestly, when 8th came out, Dark Angels or Deathwatch was a coin toss and DW came out on top. So this is a nod to the  fact that I loved the 2e Landspeeder as well as having a sensible tactical use in bringing some mobility and some decent armaments. 

Secondly, a bunch of Primaris Gravis Marines, or Phat Bois, as I've taken to calling them. These 8 marines and a Gravis Captain will join a couple of Aggressors to become an Indomitor Kill Team brining some much needed firepower to my DW collection. I haven't bought a Land Raider to put them in yet but so help me I am tempted. 

Finally, a unit of Outriders had to go into the collection. I picked up the amazing Outrider Chaplain donkeys ago and have never put it on the table. This unit solely exists to get him on the table. 

 It was a solid reminder of why I LOATHE GW's Primaris Easy Builds for Deathwatch. I had to commit some serious violence on the shoulders in order to chop off the moulded pauldrons and replace the left hand ones with Deathwatch shoulders and the right hand ones with embossed chapter pauldrons. Ugh. But they're done now so they're the first that are going on the painting queue. 

 Next Time

I dunno. I'm thinking I'll break out X-Force for a game of 40K this weekend and I am musing on a game of Kings of War too as I haven't played that in ages.