Chimera has been ‘Desert Yellow’ based and put aside for the time being. Must finish Sentinels first. Legs of second Sentinel have been washed, just need to finish pilot, distress and wash cockpit and put it together - then the final detail painting and outlining. Still haven’t decided what the heck to do with the base.

Saw an interested comment on the Hirst Arts Ezboard forum about using simple washes to paint blocks. Seal and then black was followed by burnt umber wash - might be quicker than dry brushing everything and looks very stone-like.

Must also pick up a 50lb bag of Hydrostone from Petra Ceramics. They appear to be closed over the New Year break alas.

Threw together that Chimera in the weekend and spray primed it white. Need to pick up another Tamiya ‘Desert Yellow’ spray can for the base coat. Didn’t do a great deal of detailing but added some WWII Tamiya parts to the sides. Picked up a $20 copy of Daemonhunters from TradeMe - a bit bashed about but all the pages are there. Didn’t realise I can field DHs as Allies to the IG. Might have to get a beefy Inquisitor in there with some side-kicks to bolster the IG line. A close combat monster would be good. Some progress on the two remaining Sentinels has been made. I’m probably a week away from completing the second Sentinel. Need to think about what to do with the base however…

Oh and it turns out the Cadian plastic Heavy Weapons fit very nicely onto the Sentinels! So I’ll kit out one with an Autocannon (just some pinning to get it on there) and another with a Lascannon (the head of the barrel was cut off and inverted and the rest of the LC mounted upside down so it fits against the Sentinel body). Also endaevouring to make the weapons swappable. Three Sentinels mounting ACs would give most opponents something to think about…

Just picked up an Imperial Guard Chimera from a guy on TradeMe for $36! Sweet, that’s a 40% discount on retail. Wasn’t in the original box but everything seems intact…damn another model to make!

Finally finished the Sanctioned Psyker for 40k Imperial Guard. He’s got kind of a transitional paint job between the old ‘douse everything in chestnut ink’ style and the newer ‘paint over bits of the ink’ style I’ve been experimenting with. So-so paint job but it’ll do. Think the Basilisk tankers look nicer myself.

Cleaned up and based a couple of Cadian assault troopers (Melta and Plasma gun) and grabbed a few Cadian officers as squad leaders. Hopefully that gives me enough spare plastic troopers from the boxed set to put together a command squad as well. Hmmm, time for some maths:

20 plastic Cadians in a boxed set.
2 metal Assault troops.
2 metal Squad leaders.

I’ve turned 2 standing Cadians into Heavy Weapons troopers (ML and Autocannon).

That gives me 4 spare plastic standing Cadians.

6 plastic Cadians in a Heavy Weapon set (squatting).
I’ve used one for a Heavy Bolter. Might make another HB, leaving me 4 squatting Cadians.

That means I’ve got 4 standing Cadians and 4 squatting Cadians. More than enough for a 4 member command squad with one of the old metal Cadians lieuts I picked up from TradeMe. Excellent.

As I’ve already got enough Lascannon in my old IG squads, I’m considering converting the Heavy Weapons Lascannon so they can be attached to the 3 Sentinels I have. Haven’t had a good look yet at how feasible that would be…but sounds like a damned good idea. Especially since you can’t seem to pick up the 3 Catachan Sentinels boxed set anymore…and a since the price hike a plastic Sentinel is $40! Which is something of a rip off considering the two flimsy sprues involved.

Doh! I’m such a twit…I’ve been wondering how Bruce Hirst created those great wrought iron gates etc. Of course all I need to do it take some green stuff, sculpt *one* wrought iron paling of reasonable length, press mold that with Klean Klay and then cast a whole slew of them using resin and the temporary Klean Klay mold. You then take your resin palings and sculpt a nice gate or grill… which you then RTV mold and cast entire grills/gates with resin.

Simple! I can’t believe I was thinking of messing around with plastic rod!

Have three HW Cadians put together. Missile Launcher, Autocannon and Heavy bolter. Thinking of putting a Cadian squad together and painting them up…that would allow me to ’swap out’ an old green IG squad and repaint it while still being able to field 1800 points. Itching to finish those Sentinels because they’ll be useful for 40k40mins rules.

Finally finished the Basilisk and proceeded to drop it on the concrete garage floor while prepping it for spray varnish. !@#$% some extra ‘battle damage’ but nothing that I judged needed repairing so just glued everything back together again and then varnished it. Next on the painting queue is those two lurking Sentinels and sundry Imperial Guard metals - although I have started assembling experimental heavy weapons Cadians… naughty!

Played a ‘quick’ 40k in 40 mins game against Griff Sunday. Although with Griff it’s more like 40k in 40 mins (for setup) followed by another 40 mins for the actual game. Still he’s always interesting to play and I really should focus more on my initial setup because it’s so damned important in 40k. At any rate I managed to match up my Ogryns on the left with one squad of Kroot and totally punt them in HTH. The other squad of Kroot broke after experiencing a Guardsman wielding a Flamer - he only crisped a few Krooties but Griff rolled some appalling LD checks (12, 11, 10 I think) and they fled the table :). That was enough to force Griff to start taking LD checks (according 40k40m rules) and his Tau force bolted. Funny because I thought I was dead as my only vehicle (Sentinel) was cooked in the first turn. Ogryns saved the day! Under the new Codex they’re definitely gruntier.

Almost forgot to mention what a stirling job Griff and Em have made of their ‘Jungle’ themed table. Lovely palm trees I must say! Just needs a few more finishing touches and the table will rock. Reminds me I must make some progress on that ’sitting Tau’ statue I keep talking to them about.