Kill Team: unboxing

 

Through some hard eBay selling and judicious saving of my pocket money, I was lucky enough to have enough surplus cash in the hobby account this month to allow me to preorder the new Kill Team game.  I am a massive fan of the Kill Team format (I was weaned on Rouge Trader and so small scale skirmishes in the grimdark are definitely my thing) with the Heralds of Ruin version being a particular stand out ruleset for me in the evolution of the game.

However, 7th edition’s version of Kill Team was a massive disappointment, which led to me passing over the highly rated (in some quarters) Shadow War that came out towards the end of the edition.  Then rumours started to circulate of a re-release for 8th, and I honestly didn’t hold out much hope for anything other than a re-boxing and basic rules update.  Oh how wrong I was…

Terrain Update 28/7/2018

 

Another day, another piece of terrain made from some plastic tat rescued from the recycling bin.  With an eye on the required pieces for the Taros campaign (yes, it is still coming, I promise…) I decided to have a go at some missile silo style terrain for the first mission.  And as luck would have it, the recycling bin provided the perfect pieces of junk to be rescued for the role!

eBay Rescue Part 5: A builders work is never done…

 

As I have said before, sometimes very little work is involved in turning around a miniature for a profit on eBay.  The most simple case is when a bad photo or misplaced posting in the wrong section means no one else is interested or indeed understands what is on offer.  Sometimes though, a little more work is required and the model itself might need a good clean and a new photo.  There is a also, it would seem, a demand for miniatures to be assembled in a decent manner – especially those with a bad reputation for being ‘difficult’ to construct.

Modeling update 22/7/18

More progress made with the Vale of Legions painting pledge – this time bases!  I’ve decided to try and push the boat out a bit and go for something a little bit more ambitious than the usual ‘generic rubble’ bases that I have done on pretty much everything in the past. I have seen a lot of people manage great results when going for a ’tile floor’ style base (either semi-ruined or not) and so I was keen to have a go myself.  However, having not done it before and forgoing the usual trawling for online tutorials, I blundered blindly into the fray and just sort of made it up as I went along!

Painting Update 18/7/18

 

I have made a start on the 30k Alpha Legion for this months Vale of Legions pledge, which will be 10 tactical marines from one of the 20 man blobs in my list.  All are armed with bolters which will keep it nice and simple, although I have decided to break the habit of a lifetime and actually add on all the little extras that come with the marine models – grenades, pouches, the big ass combat blades, etc.  In 40k I have normally favoured the stripped down approach of minimal adornment, but the 30k models seem to lend themselves better to having all that stuff stuck on.

However, my biggest challenge so far has been deciding what colour scheme to go for.  I am not a fan of the metallic turquois that seems to be the standard approach for Alpha Legion.  Instead I am trying to go for something a little more blue and not quite so shiny but still metallic (like the above image).  And so, for the first time ever I have displayed a rare streak of diligence and invested a bit of time in some test models!

Where it all began…

So there I was, quietly ticking along, making steady if not spectacular progress though my Hobby Season to do list, thinking how nice it was to have plan and see it come to (partial) fruition – when I did something silly.  Or beautiful.  You decided, but either way the thing was done – I purchased a copy of the game that started it all for me, SPACE CRUSADE!

Half Year Results 2018

Last year I decided to liquidate quite a large portion of my collection that I either never used or had just hoarded as part of my eBay 99p deal addiction.  Even though this was very much intended as a way of curbing the growth of my miniature mountain, I said at the time that any funds generated would be ploughed back into the hobby itself, with a concentration on quality rather than piles of cheap knackered old tat quantity.

I was never going to go cold turkey on purchasing hobby stuff, mainly because that would be impossible given the great stuff coming out of GW / FFG / Warlord games this year (and oh, what a year it has been!).  However, the clear intention was to try and make my hobby pay for itself – at the very least – and maybe generate a bit of profit to put aside for a new GW boxed set rainy day.  Well, the half year results are in, so lets take a look how we’ve done.

Terrain update 7/7/2018

Making a decent set of objective markers has been on my mind for so long that it didn’t even occur to me to put it on either this or last years Hobby Season To Do Lists.  It has always lurking at the back of my hobby brain, touting itself as a simple little job that will make a big difference to my gaming experience.  However, the wealth of excellent objective markers at my FLGS’s of choice has meant that there was no need to rush into making them, and hence the laziness.

However, my attendance of a few tournaments earlier this year was a bit of a wakeup call for me, as lots of other players had great markers to use in our games. Furthermore, in the games where my opponents didn’t have a set, we were reduced to deploying the dice of shame. Well, no more will I have to go meekly into that shame ridden night, as I have finally got my act together and cracked some out!

Painting Update 4/7/2018

 

With the build of the Ravenwing and 5th Company almost complete (baring the numerous HQ options that is…) I decided to move on to the Deathwing.  However, on starting to build the terminator veterans I realized that I am probably not going to want to build them all first before beginning painting en-mass, as there are lots of details in behind arms, guns,shields, etc, that I am just not going to be able to access once they are glued in place.  So it is back to the old ways with these chaps – build and paint one unit at a time.  Behold the first of the first company (with many MANY more to come…)!