Monthly Vox: 8 (December, 2021)

Happy New Year everybody! Yes, I know it's another late vox and the site has been super quiet this month but the Holidays, combined with my acquisition of COVID-19 has made things a little shaky. I hope you all had a lovely New Years Eve and were not unfortunate enough to acquire Nurgle's Rot as I have. Do not fear, however! I am on the up and you are at no risk of catching the 'rona through this site. With that, let's get into what December brought...

Modelling and Painting

High Marshal Helbrecht

I was lucky enough to maintain the motivation to paint the high-marshal in all his glory over the course of a combined 24 hours or so. I think that comparing him next to his original finecast model not only shows how far miniature sculpting tech has come but also how much I've improved as a painter this year. My shoddy photography really doesn't do it justice.

The community seemed to like my rendition of this fella because when I put it out on some Black Templar facebook groups, alongside some closeups of his terribly-painted face (I'm still no good at those), he was quickly integrated into a meme by The Eternal ShitPoster. 

Invictor Tactical Warsuit 

Using some of the mangled Necrons from the Sgt Castus kit, along with the legs of a spare necron from Imperium Magazine, I was able to get the Invictor Warsuit I bought off a clubmate over a year ago paint-ready while giving it a bit more visual interest. 

Yes, there's an argument to be made that both necrons featured on the model would probably just phase-out but maybe they're giving it one last go. The cron being clutched and lifted into the air seems to be making a grab at the pilot and the one under the Warsuit's foot appears to be reaching for his Gauss Flayer. That is how I shall justify it so shhh.

Redemptor Dreadnought (Re-Paint)

I decided to touch-up Dreadnought Alfons to be more in-keeping with the rest of my army. This was simple enough and mostly involved painting over and re-doing highlights, as well as fixing any transit damage he may have accrued. Alfons was painted in the pre-varnish era of my hobby journey. Fool me once... I am yet to repaint the weapons but they'll do for now. 

Re-Paint Prep

This month was a real slow month in terms of new projects because I kept touching up old models and even re-primed a large amount of them as well as priming old kit-bashes and stuff to hopefully encourage me to paint them more because priming is boring as hell. I intend to have these guys looking a bit more in-keeping with the rest of my army and also paint them to a generally better standard. I intend to do this with almost all my models over the next couple of months as well as having a good sit-down and going crazy with transfers even though I normally hate using them. We shall see...

Knightfall Indomitus 2021/2022 Vow

I'm also participating in this year's Knightfall over on Bolter and Chainsword and have vowed to put paint on the following units for a total of 405pts:

• 1x Phobos Marshal (95)
• 1x Reiver Castellan (75)
• 1x Invictor Tactical Warsuit (Seen earlier, 160)
• 1x Eliminator Squad (75)

I always find myself neglecting my Phobos models a little so I plan on using this vow to get through a bit of the backlog I've built. Big thanks to TheOneTrueZon over on B&C for setting things up. 

Site Changes

There's been a few changes on the site this month. The head-canon intertwining my 40K armies, the 'Gannach Crusade',  has been heavily restructured and renamed 'Warzone: Gannach' to pull less focus away from my Black Templars and stay more in-keeping with the 40K setting. I'm still not 100% committed to the structuring and navigation system but Blogger's tools are fairly limiting when it comes to large database-esque wikis of custom-written lore. 

Another large change to the site has been the introduction of ads! No, I'm not selling out (much) but I figured if the site can at least pay for it's own domain name, I'd be chill with that. So if you see something you like, make sure to click it and I'll get some bounce-back. Cheers!

Closing Statement

So that's December! COVID and the holidays have kept me busy and I'm sure January will love to pile-on when Uni work starts to pick back up. Again, I hope you all had a lovely holiday. Thank you for the growth this page has seen. The stat's are surpassing my expectations and that brings me joy. 

Here's to 2022!

Cheers, 
Ryan

Monthly Vox: 7 (November, 2021)

Hey hey hey! Yes, I know it's late but I've been distracted by Halo Infinite and stupid Uni assignments*.

This month has seen some decent growth for my hobby portfolio, mostly in the form of my newly acquired Necron force, courtesy of Imperium Magazine. 

Modelling and Painting

Necrons (WIP)

I'm feeling lazy so I'm just gonna lump all the Necrons in here together. They're not all completely finished and need basing but, until I order in some more Armageddon Dust, they'll do. All in all I have about 600 points of Necrons and I intend to run them as Nihilakh Dynasty. After all, they are the most blinged-out of the Necrons. Perhaps they're in the Gannach System seeking ancient artefacts and treasures. I honestly don't know. 

My Necron force is as follows:

• Overlord w/ Voidscythe + Resurrection Orb
• Royal Warden
• 10x Necron Warrior (Gauss Flayer)
• Canoptek Plasmacyte
• 3x Skorpekh Destroyer
• 4x Canoptek Scarab Swarm

It's not much but it'll make a fun slow-grow side project. Necrons are pretty quick to paint. I painted all of this in about 8 hours on and off. Pretty happy with it. Pics below:

Marshal Reinhardt, Phobos Armour

I received a Phobos Librarian in one of the recent issues of Imperium Magazine. Naturally, as a Black Templar player and collector, I wouldn't be caught dead running a filthy witch as part of my marine force. As such, a quick and cheeky conversion gave Marshal Reinhardt yet another loadout option for his armoury. 

Primaris Company Veterans

Seeing my complete lack of cheap and durable units for holding backfield objectives and slapping into table quarters to score 'Engage On All Fronts', I deemed it necessary to bash together some Company Veterans. These guys are great because of their small unit size, needing only two models. This keeps them cheap and perfect backfield objective-sitters and action-bitches. 

I chose to build two identical units of two veterans, with the sergeants running Power Axes and their comrades running Power Swords. This keeps them cheap while still giving them punch. Each of the units are also fully-equipped with storm shields to help them weather small arms fire and give them a bit more longevity to complete actions and hold quarters, even more-so if I give one of them the Icon of Heinmann** or Crux Obsidian. Each of these 2-man units costs 

Master of the Forge, Wernher (WIP)

This chap is a hard WIP. I just got too excited to share him. Not totally WYSIWYG since he's wearing Gravis but I just couldn't resist using Iron Father Feirros, along with a few small Templar bits, as the basis of Wernher, my 'Master of the Forge' Primaris Techmarine. He's also my first real attempt at painting marine armour that isn't just black. My Mephiston Red paint also decided to completely solidify into a brick so I had to mix a lot to get the right tones of red but it gave him plenty of gradients and tones. While he definitely isn't finished, I'm super happy with how he's looking so far. 

Closing Statement

Another quiet month, lads. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the blog has had to take a minor backseat due to work and Uni stuff but I've been steadily chugging away at some of the larger posts crawling their way down the pipeline. I'm happy to see that, despite my lack of regular content, the blog is still pulling a surprising amount of page views so thank you all for that, sincerely. 

Anyway, until the next Monthly Vox, I hope you all have good Christmas, or whatever holiday you may celebrate. 

Until next time!

Cheers,

Ryan

*Okay, mostly Halo but shhh...

**Probably not, it's way more valuable on a big squad of Bladeguard Veterans. Source: Trust me, bro.

Monthly Vox: 6 (October, 2021)

 Hey all! It's that time of the month again!*

October saw some awesome Warhammer releases including, but not limited to, the Black Templars box. Naturally, I was there for the pre-orders and, after some Sergeant Castus-related delays, the box arrived to my joy. While, I'm still not finished painting it up, I have had a few games with the new codex and I must say, I'm rather happy. I will be releasing a full competitive codex analysis at some point, to the best of my abilities. 

For now, take a look at what I hobbied this month!

Modelling and Painting

Emperor's Champion, Reynauld

Easily my favourite model in the boxset, I used the release as a perfect time to renew the appearance of the Gannach Crusade Emperor's Champion, Reynauld. I opted to grab a few nameplates from Versatile Terrain due to their custom name orders and I'm very happy with the result. Expect to see many more nameplates on here in the future. It certainly looks nicer than crudely writing names on the bases with a brush.

Bladeguard Sergeant, Klaus

October has been a month for remodels. Klaus, combined with a few other small projects has lead to me prying a variety of shoulders and heads from their still-painted models, mostly because I'm too lazy to buy more IPA and strip them, but hey! Klaus has always been a badass on the tabletop as a Bladeguard Sergeant. However, the new templar rules have made Bladeguard so damn good! As such, I deemed it needed to make him a bit more interesting than the standard Bladeguard veteran model so I transferred his head to the heavily converted body of the Captain from Imperium Magazine. 

While I am happy with him, I still need to give him a new shield and I may swap his arm for a magnetized one so I can give him a Plasma or Heavy Bolt Pistol, though I normally run Neo-Volkites on my sergeants anyway.

Hellblaster Squad

Another remodel. I opted to rejigger my E2B Hellblasters from Know No Fear. I barely used them before and needed some incentive to get them on the table so I stripped them down and remodelled them a little. I am opting to use Mk3 Helmets in my crusade to represent non-Gravis heavy-explosives/plasma specialists like Hellblasters and Grenade Launcher Intercessors. 

Auto Bolt Rifle Intercessor Squad

After over a year of just proxying standard bolt-rifle intercessors, I just had to get some actual Auto Bolt Rifles in my army. As such, I decided to use the left over Assault Intercessor bodies from my recent addition of Primaris Vanguard Veterans. These guys will also be used to fill out any Primaris Crusader Squads I plan on running as an alternative to a standard intercessor squad. I currently haven't built any of these guys with grenade launchers because I don't have the bits and, to be honest, I can handle having one standard bolt rifle with grenade launcher in a unit of Auto Bolt Intercessors. Even my strict adherence to WYSIWYG can't be assed worrying about troop choices. That being said, the sergeant is fully magnetised. 

Closing Statement

That's pretty much my whole October. Very little of particular interest in terms of gameplay. No tournaments or special events this month and I continue to have weekly games at my local club :) 

I've been super busy with work and university so apologies for the content drought. That Templar codex analysis is coming so hold on in there! I've got more stuff coming fairly soon along with a potential big step in my life but we shall have to see about that. 

In the meantime, go and follow my Instagram (@fistfulofbeans) for smaller, albeit more-frequent, news and updates, as well as general memes and junk.

Until next time...

Cheers,

Ryan

*Yes, yes, I know it's late. Shut up.