My Unoriginal Big Idea

 

Wow! It's been almost THREE years since my last published post. And that should tell you how much time I've had for the hobby since COVID. I've had little to post for several reasons. First, I started an Instagram account for my hobby stuff, but even that has seen very little activity...maybe 20 posts since I created it. The truth is that I was a little put off by 9th. I also help to moderate a very large competitive 40k Facebook group, and while I do not participate directly very often, the tone of everything these days has been a little bit of a motivation leech. I'm sure many of you are the same.

But I am re-energized! My day job has chilled out a little with some personnel changes, so my work/life balance has stabilized again. And new Kill Team! A complete revamp, and the only thing that is really blatantly stupid is the replacement of units of measure using completely unintuitive shapes instead of Arabic numerals that, oh, ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD USES. I can't even really see a sane marketing angle to it.

But forget that. With the new KT 2021 rules, it's actually realistically feasible to collect, build, convert and paint every single possible unit in the Compendium. And that's exactly what I'm starting, and I'd like you to start with me.

Now the good news is for most of you who would actually be reading this, you probably already have at least a few units of almost every faction out there. We all have shelves and piles of shame, and I'm pretty confident that you will find a few usable and playable fire teams within your trove of gray sprues. I mean, who doesn't have a couple dozen bloodletters or Cadians sitting around half-painted?

I'm working on a very simple spreadsheet to keep track of what I am doing, and I will share it in my next post. 

I still prefer 40k, but I'm also a completist, and I can't even tenably collect all the codices let alone even all the units for ONE army. So KT2021 will scratch that itch for me.

Hashtags and all that to come.

Oh, and did I mention that there is a time component? And swag? Stay tuned, and thank you for rediscovering this site.

So you want to be a commission painter

I've noticed quite a few posts on social media lately from people who are considering getting into commission painting. Actually, even in other groups I am part of outside of this hobby, I'm seeing a surge of people considering freelancing as a side hustle or even branching out and making it their day job. Maybe it's the current state of the economy or the maturing of this hobby, but many people are considering monetizing this "thing".

A lot of the posts indicate that they have no idea what to charge.

What now?

So I'm at a real quandary here. and despite blogging this, I doubt anyone will really read this, and I don't blame anyone for that; this is probably a little too personal. But I have a feeling that many of you have gone through this very thing.

FICTION: Expeditionary Force

This is the second in an intermittent series of fiction that I have written.

A few years back, prior to any Mechanicus models or codices were released, a friend of mine Lantz created a homebrew Mechanicus codex and a set of converted models. It was quite striking, and the points and abilities were well thought out. Very shortly afterwards,

FICTION: Tyranid/Mechanicus 1 pager

A few years back, prior to any Mechanicus models or codices were released, a friend of mine Lantz created a homebrew Mechanicus codex and a set of converted models. It was quite striking, and the points and abilities were well thought out. Very shortly afterwards,

Out with the old, in with the old

TL;DR posts are simple rants. Please ignore this if you are not into hearing my anger. Honestly, why WOULD you? But this post is an extension of one I made in May.

Happy thoughts....happy thoughts.....

I haven't had such mixed feelings about something since Keurig cups made my love of convenience clash with my love for the environment. This could be even more whiny (or whingey) than my normal ranting, so you've been warned.

Review: Mr. Nekonote Station

So I went to C2E2 a few weeks ago. If your only exposure to cons are 40k heavy, please do yourself a favor and attend one of these pop culture/comic conventions. They are ever so slightly less geeky, although the winner of the cosplay contest was a female 40k inquisitor!

The plasma gun was pretty amazing.

So while walking through Artists Alley where commissions were incredibly cheap (but no one I spoke with had really done 40k art), I noticed that there were a few hobby vendors an aisle over amidst the booths full of vintage toys and fidget spinners. Most of those hobby booths were Gundam-focused, of

TL;DR Whine and Cheese in the 41st Millenium

Apologies to Wayne England.

WARNING: THERE IS A BIG BUT AT THE END OF THIS VERY LONG POST

Hello, Hive Zero fans (as if there are any)! I'm back from yet another hiatus caused by work and quickly growing teenage girls who need rides to every activity known to (wo)man. Telling a varsity tennis player that her practices are cutting into painting and gaming time is met with a strong reaction in the Hive Zero household. But I have a moment, sooo...

Let's talk about all of the craziness happening right now with Games Workshop. And by craziness, I mean 180-degree-change-from-previous-behavior insanity. I know I will be leaving out

Conversion: Grot Flier

Roald Dahl! I've never even heard of this.

25-28mm scale is a funny thing, especially 28mm Heroic. It totally makes sense in terms of being compact enough for gaming but large enough to have some detail in the miniatures. But still, it becomes problematic when trying to adapt materials and models from other manufacturers that were not intended for gaming let alone this scale.

Review: Eccentric Miniatures Base Conversion

Adaptors are always nice.

Just a quick one today for the new year. I'm going to try to get through my backlog of posts that I meant to write, so we're going to go from no posts to a post every two days or so for a while. For the 3 of you who are actually still following this blog (hi Mom! Just kidding, even my mom won't follow this), brace yourselves.

So today we have a nifty little kit from Eccentric Miniatures. Or, more specifically, 

Baal Pattern Chainsword...IRL!!!

image by Bokisok

A very popular YouTube channel called Man at Arms acquiesced to numerous requests and built a real-life chainsword! No further description is necessary. Just watch.

40k Kill Team unboxing and comments

When my wife saw me making this, she remarked "How is it we are married?"

In the five years or so that I've actively returned to the miniatures wargaming hobby, I never thought I would see this day. Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, my favorite flavor of 40k was Kill Team, a set of rules that GW's specialist games put out for squad-level skirmishes. With a tiny number of models per side, there was no need to play with unpainted figures (a personal pet peeve of mine). You can still find the old rules and fan-updated rulesets all over the Internet, and they've done an admirable job keeping the flame alive. The Heralds of Ruin

Budgethammer: Cheap but great battle board

The obligatory montage. Please ignore the outdated recording studio in the back. I've switched to almost all software instruments.

For those of you in the U.S., the Sports Authority chain is going out of business. There are actually some

Incredible Tattoo Tutorial

Photo: GCT Studios
www.bushido-thegame.com

Look at this amazingly painted miniature. Holy cow.The tattoo work is otherworldly considering the size of this figure. I have no idea how it was done, which is strange because

DIY Budget Mat/Board

It's me, back from the dead! Two months without posting. Work, family, blah blah. Also, I went into shell shock after Adepticon.

And now, there's a new version of Warmahordes coming in a few weeks, I've started a Frostgrave warband, I got excited by and then completely disillusioned by Dicemasters, I bought, opened, and then put away

(I went crazy) Auctions and Adepticon

One of my favorite FLGSes is actually 1.5 hours from my house. Games Plus is located in a quiet suburb of Chicago, and it's been around for close to 40 years. I went there when I was a high school freshman, when the shelves were lined with Avalon Hill, Steve Jackson, and Ral Partha. It still has the most diverse inventory of any game store I have visited in my life. Of course, there are the complete lines of GW, Corvus Belli, Wyrd, PP, Flames of War, FFG, etc. There's also all the older and obscure stuff like Microarmor, Star Fleet Battles, many flavors of historicals, and every RPG and board game I've heard of.

Twice a year, they hold a three day auction. They've been doing it for decades. I had missed every one of them until this year. Sunday was the miniatures auction (RPGs and board games are on different days), and with my 11 year old daughter in tow, we waded into the fray.

UPDATE: Not so incredible deal

Soooo close!!

So a 6 weeks ago or so, I posted what should have been the deal of the century: 4 W&N brushes in modeler's sizes for under $20.00. While I was hardly the first to notice this deal, that post was widely shared on Facebook thanks to the incredibly generous blog networks of Faeit and House of Paincakes. But now, there's been a snag.

TL;DR I surrender

So. Tired. Can't. Even.

I was going to title this post "I give up", but that has really negative connotations, and this is not necessarily a negative communication. But I have finally, without a doubt, surrendered to the torrent of ever-changing rules from GW this year.

Warhammer 40k goes back to the mainstream.

If you've been online today and surfing 40k sites, I'm sure you've seen the breaking news: GW is going start selling model kits as, well, model kits. It's actually a pretty smart move on their

INCREDIBLE DEAL ALERT!

EDIT: Not sure if you have to be a Prime member. Please comment if you get the deal (plus shipping) if you are not Prime. Thanks! Also, if you successfully purchase, be aware that they don't ship until March.
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I have no idea whether this is an error on amazon's part, but these brushes are normally over $70.00US. But for the past two days they