Tales of a hobby butterfly

Turns out my head was turned by the glint of shiny beskar.

like a lot of people i have been watching the mandalorion recently and could not fail to notice the mando box nestled on top of my pile of shame.

i did not fancy painting it with metallic paint as it never quite looks right when i do it. So inbetween bading epic dudes and blue marines i gave non metallic metal a go on the starwars legion mando figure.

i followed a you tube video from sorastrose painting and am pretty pleased with the results for a first attempt, plus its another figure removed from the pile of shame before it grows again after salute.

painting this chap has made me look at the box of imperial assault figures that need finnishing i got half way through the core set before moving on to something else. I hear zeb and ezra calling out for some paint.

An evil sunz ork dreadnought and stompa ready to squish some out of luck guardsmen

and a load of dudes ready for some paint

Back in the day me and my brother used to fight huge battles on the living room carpet, with tiny space dudes. Reenacting the horus heresy before it was cool. Thoes 6mm marines were caked in enamel paints but we had fun.

the next edition came along giving young me acesss to eldar and orks, the marines got spruced up with a new coat of acrylic paint removing any detail they once.

then along came third edition with the funky long bases so you could finaly paint the dude in the centre.

this has left me with a box full of cool stuff alowing me to create multiple armys.

i quite fancy the epic 40k or 3rd edition rules as they let me use all the cool models with simple mechanics.

im going to start with an ork and guard army each at 1500 points which should give me two forces with 5-6 activations each that should be good for an afternoons gameing i can then either increase them in 500 point lumps or starr on the chaos or marine force, depending how the mood takes me. Althoug some zelot miniatures heroquest minis are peeping at me from the corner of my painting beuro

I know the bases should be square but i quite fancy the look of rounds plus it will annoy some people which is a bonus, bam ?

All the tiles and tokens are in the box but over the years the models have moved on to other projects or been lost in the pots of doom that are my bits boxes.

the plan is to 3d print and convert from parts i have  to create the miniatures i need to complete the game. I want to paint the models as bright as possable as i have nostalgia memorys of this game always looking far to bright compared to the silver and grey corridors in normal space crusade.

some of the models have been painted some from back when i was at school in the early 90s i want to keep these as they are but rebase them to fit in with the hive fleets bright colours.

the main game came with two squads of marine scouts and four tyranid warriors. I dont have these any more but with the help of my 3d printer i now have the warriors and with the help of the bits box i have a squad  of scouts i just need to decide on which chapter of marines they belong to im thinking either ultramarines as i quite fancy painting blue or as good old howling griffons so i can add them to my 2nd edition marine force.

This project is going to hopefully allow me to paint and play a game i have been meaning to finish for a long time. This game always came across as a cool half way house between a table top war game and a futuristic dungeon crawler with some roleplay elements. plus you get to play as super human marine dudes sent smashing in to a living space craft that was minding its own business in space, to destroy its vital organs including its sphincter whilst fighting off different organisms that are trying to eat your dudes or lay eggs in them, as well as trying to escape before it all goes pop destroying you all. The origional game came with limited models to use in the campaigns. but did include rules for using lots of other types of units in your games some of the models you come across in the hive ship are even useable as units that help the imperial players such as a squar or eldar prisoners that you can help to escape. My plan is to fill out as many units as possible using my bits box, and then play through a campaign of brave imperial forces attempting to flush away the foul xenos hive ships that are invading the Stercus system.

The game came with two squads of five scouts for the marine player. These have been lost many moons ago so i consulted the bits box of doom and found an old squad of scions i was converting using old catachan, marine scout  and mechanicus bits. I managed to cobble together a single squad and painted them up as ultramarine scouts.

I guess i need some more marines, i have terminators from space hulk that i can use but i fancied some good old school marines.

so i booted up my 3d printer and made two squads of five one squad has a rocket launcher the other has s las connon but will be used as a plasma gun.

i painted these with scale 75 artists paints which are awesome.

i also had a go at making a wet pallet from a food tub kitchen roll and baking parchment which worked surprisingly well