Silo Assembled & Undercoated (And Why I've Been Quiet)

A day to remember

As a Glasweigan my attention has been, truth be told, on other things than nerdy business the past week or so.  After a two year campaign a referendum was held over whether Scotland should be an independent nation - leaving the United Kingdom and the Act Of Union of 1707 - was held on Thursday.  I stayed up all night to watch the election results and ended up quite drained, physically by the event and mentally by years of political discussion finally coming to a head.

I'm actually a bit of a politics geek as well and on previous blogs have rambled on the topic, but not here.  Here I purely aim to write about Chaos Dwarfs, Chaos Marines, bunkers, dice, Ghostbusters, Hobgoblins, daemons, Squats, tanks and other stupidity.  There is, after all, no shortage of other venues to read about Scottish politics - but only one place to read about my attempt to make an Aquila Strongpoint on the cheap.

And read it about it you shall!

Battle For The Chapel

The chapel in question.

Our proposed multiplayer Apocalypse bash fell through but Dave and I still met up yesterday for a 40K game.  I haven't played much since 7th Edition dropped - my regular opponents have been tied up with various other things - so I enjoyed a chance to break out the Slaaneshi hordes again.

Dave has been busy since last I played him - he's made a huge chapel out of polystyrene tiles which served as the centre-price to our battlefield. Cast copies of fleur-de-lys make it clearly match his Sisters of Battle army, which is always cool for terrain.  He also just that morning acquired some old vinyl flooring tiles which he combined to create a faux-paved-floor look.  The end result was that half the table was civilized, half was wild and gave us some cool locations to fight a mission over.

Even though we only had small armies - 1000 points each - it was hard not to feel epic in the environs.  I bust out a squad of Noise Marines, a squad of jump-packing raptors, a Contemptor Dreadnought battle-robot-type-think and a sorcerer; Dave brought two squads of Battle Sisters, two Peninent Engine Battle Walkers, a squad of half-naked Sister Repentia, some Imperial Guard Veterans and a Cannoness with bodyguard and transport.

The Draft: Introducing A Friend To Blood Bowl

A Roll Of The (Block) Dice

I may be battle damaged, but nerdity has not left the Quailcave.  On Monday I met up with regular 40K opponents Stuart and Dave, and Dave learnt how to play Blood Bowl with a wee demo game against me.

The girls in their computer game incarnation

I brought all four of my fully painted Blood Bowl teams with me: Humans, Amazons, Dark Elves and Lizardmen.  Unsurprisingly Dave, a committed Sisters player, was drawn to the female team and he took the Amazons for a spin.  I took the nice, dull Humans as mine and we played in the environs of Geek Retreat.

Now, Dave had played Blood Bowl before but not since he was a nipper - we've talked before about his memories of playing with his school friend Joe and having arguments over the Illegal Procedure rule.   So this was his first game in 20 years or so and therefore effectively his first.

Aquilla Strongpoint - In Progress Despite Injury

OK, maybe this picture is a bit over the top, but it really really hurt, OK?

You may have noticed updates are a little thin on the ground the past week.  I have made some progress on the Aquilla Strongpoint but unfortunately I hit a hurdle on Friday night.

This hurdle was a self-inflicted injury from when I ignored advice my Dad has given me since I was a small child, namely, "Always cut away from yourself".  While trimming a piece for the model I held it up in my hand and gently cut with a knife.... then the knife hit a bump, buckled and changed direction, hitting me on the pad of the right thumb.

Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Thankfully, while it was a bit of a bleeder (fingers always are) it's nothing serious and with the ministrations of my girlfriend I will yet live.  I attempted on Sunday night to restart only to bust the wound back open, so I've been ordered by Sister-Superior to lay off the modelmaking until I'm properly healed.

"MEDIC!"

 I was pretty bummed about this because I wouldn't be able to make my deadline of Saturday completion with all the time I had lost, but in the end the game has been delated for other reasons so it isn't the end of the world.  Still itching to get the model completed, though, because very little work was left until I could spray paint it and begin prettifying it.

In the interim, however, here are some pics of what I've made out of cardboard, milliput, all-purpose filler and plastic barricades: