200,000 views and 2500 Comments!

Hi Gang!

A completely self congratulatory post today! But over the last 24 hours I have hit two milestones that seem worthy of a little celebration!! I have another one coming up soon that will involve a giveaway so keep your eyes peeled!

So 200,000 views! Blimey! That seems pretty insane to me, and I'm approaching 3,000,000 views on my google+ profile which blows my tiny little mind! More than views though to have so many comments on my blog, both constructive for me and also showing that other people have found my ramblings helpful is actually very humbling.

I can not thank all my readers both regular and infrequent enough for all the help and kindness as well as sarcastic humour ;)

It feel unbelievably awesome to have carved out my own little niche in this hobby that people seem to continue to enjoy visiting :) I have many plans for the future with more review content, plenty of models including a good batch of alternative GW models as well as more and more new armies cropping up! 

So hopefully you're looking forward to seeing what is in store as much as I'm looking forward to building and writing it! I've had a fair rough time of late with a large degree of mental health problems, but the blog and hobby have always been a great refuge and inspiration for me, so thank you, thank you again, and thank you a thousand times more. 

As I said, keep your eyes peeled for the next milestone I will pass soon where I will have some goodies up for grabs!

Peace out,

Rob

Solar Auxilia Overview - A Video Review!

Hi gang,

With my recent trip to play Winters Seo I chatted to him for some advice about things I've been wanting to do for the blog for sometime. Winters being an old hand at the whole internet fame kerfuffle gave me a lot of advice and he very kindly offered to host a few of my videos on his most excellent channel! 

So I recently recorded a video giving a brief over view of the Solar Auxilia as presented in the big red book. A few too many swear words, poor video editing and two mistakes but I think its a pretty good job overall!

Please bear in mind there seems to be a problem with audio for some people on phones and tablets! But it works fine on any PC it seems. 

Enjoy and please go and visit and subscribe to Winters Seo's brilliant channel. It has brilliant narrative battle reports as well as painting guides and reviews :)

Peace out,

Rob

Emperor's Children Palantine Blade Prefector - 3rd Party Parts

Hey all,

Today I finished the first of my 3rd party built Emperor's Children. This has been delayed a little as Laser Cut Candies was improving their cutting machinery and work space, but all for good quality and safety so not a problem waiting for them. But I realised I had one shield for the III legion and so finished off the Prefector for the Blades Squad. 

Much like Rylanor was, these guys are supposed to be very beaten up, having withstood the assault of the traitor ground forces on Istavann III for close to a month now after the virus bombings.

I'm still undecided on the finishing touch for the blade and whether to have the left pauldron in white like the right one. But other than that I'm pretty happy with how it looks! Thoughts welcome.

Peace out,

Rob

Happy Birthday to me!

Or at least thats what the voice in my had tells me.

Peace out,

Rob

Kromlech - Jump Pack and Chain Swords Review

Hi everyone,

So recently I've been going over some purchases I made from Anvil Industry which I've been using to build a custom Emperor's Children force for use in 30k. Considerably cheaper than buying all the bits from forgeworld and just a lot of fun pick-and-mixing different parts to get a unique looking force! 

The majority of parts were from Anvil, but I also picked up so choice pieces from Kromlech to complement. This is either because the aesthetic of the Anvil pieces didn't quite fit what I had in mind or they simply didn't sell them. So below I've got just a few shots of some Kromlech goodies :)

Jump Pack

I really like the beefy look of these jump packs and the direction of the thruster outlets. I also like the somewhat more modern juxtaposition to the more archaic forms of armour that I have chosen from Anvil. The pieces themselves come as a single jump pack with two separate end pieces to attach to the bottom of the jump pack at the point where the sprue is cut off. The jump pack has attachment points that are supposed to sit inside a recess on the thruster attachments, but I found these to not sit flush and it was easier to just cut the bottom of the jump pack flush for a nice tight fit.

Really good detail and a nice feel to the resin itself.

Chain Swords

I bought two packs of these chain swords that come in four different designs. I really like not having exactly the same chain sword for everyone, particularly in a legion known for ego and flamboyance like the Emperor's Children. These had a lot more sprue attached than I was expecting but it was pretty easy to remove and clean the flash. Though there were a few points were several small cuts was better than a big slice with a scalpel as the first time I did that it pinged off the pommel guard along with it! 

These have some particularly brutal designs festooned with different cutting blades that I think are really cool. In terms of attaching them to the miniatures I used the plethora of spare hands you get with the Anvil Industry guns which looks absolutely fine once you have cut space from the hilt of the swords and inserted the fist in (so to speak!).

Plasma Cannon

Recently Kromlech have been pumping out excellent alternative special and heavy weapons for the legions and this plasma cannon is just such an example of one! I didn't order this beast but Kromlech threw it in as part of a promotion for these new pieces which was a very pleasant surprise! Still figuring out how to fit in to the army somewhere so may end up buying four more anyway... Damn you Kromlech!

Overview

Very little bought compared to Anvil but this was my first decent order size of any kind from Kromlech and I was very pleased with the delivery speed considering they came from Poland, less than a week certainly. 

The items themselves were very well packaged and there were no breakages on arrival. The detailing, particularly on the chain swords is very very fine and I am really looking forward to painting them up to pull all that detail out. 

I've been looking at putting a larger order in for some other Kromlech goodies in the coming months so expect to see more from this awesome outfit. I thoroughly recommend :)

Peace out,

Rob

Creating Marines on the Anvil - Anvil Industry Exo-Lord Marines

Hey all,

Today I just wanted to show you a selection of my creations with the Exo-lord parts I purchased from Anvil Industry recently. I've been using the parts to make a very unique looking custom Legiones Astartes force for use in the Horus Heresy. The aesthetic of the exo-lord parts works really well as an alternative mark of armour for space marines in general.

All of these chaps currently lack back packs and left arms as the left arms are waiting for shields to arrive from Laser Cut Candies and the back packs are just being painted separately so I have full access to the cloaks for painting purposes. 

Hopefully these pictures will show you what you can do with all the parts I purchased which you can read about here and here. I really love the Anvil Industry Exo-lord range and will be buying more at a further date to expand this force to be even larger. Rest assured I'll keep you up to date :P

Peace out,

Rob