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Hi Folks, This year my 12 MoH pledge includes a plodding along pledge again. Last year was too busy and frantic to consider any possible commitment in a long-term project. But 2026 is (so far) allowing projecting oneself in a (relative) stability. From there come the idea of an excavation site as a series of scenery elements. My Plodding along vow is structured around the MTO scenery ordered last Xmas: Tectonic Drill (oh yeah) and Mechanicum crane (Servohaulers). In order to set these elements in a more global context I have decided to expand my scenery for my Ashland table. Why? Well, first because I am a little bit fed up with City of Death style ruins and I want something a tad different. (While I claim I will do something different I try to forget about the fact that grey ruins and grey ashes are all grey…) Anyway, the Fragdrill will still be a piece of scenery able to jump the gap between the 2 settings. But my second objective has a more “game impacting” purpose: my Ashland is very flat and I want to give some altitude. The drill is a 3-story element, and for balancing it some extra structures such as hills or rock formation will be a good add-on. And I have all this pink Styfoam panels left from the fixing works in the new (rented) home…My third (cherryest on the cupcakest) excuse is to resume a politic of bitz box management too… So, what is the dream scope? - My excavation site will come with the 2 MTO boxed sets - Then I need a mine entrance on the side of a big rocky hill (Mesa type), eventually half buried under grey sands. I aim at a colour shift with some cream rocks in an ocean of ashes - Styfoam - A shanty town for the miners (now disappeared à la “Ghost of Mars”) – some cut Containers will be OK + lots of bitz - A power generator (plasticard and lots of bitz too) - A watch tower, or rather an illumination pole with a watch tower platform (based, here again, mainly on heavy bitz management) - Deposits for fuel, drums and crates - Extra rock formations and/or dunes – Styfoam again So far MTO is still somewhere in a pipe. I have therefore started working on some of the Styfoam elements, essentially for training purposes. Rocky structure and a fairy chimney were produced first. But this is not today’s topic as it has already been show previously. 12 MoH - Cliffhanger - Bouargh´s miniatures´ closet clean-up - The Bolter and Chainsword Today’s topic is starting to work on the dumps. First with Containers. The technique will then be applied to drums and crates later. The first element for the dump is there to break the perspective and offer and half story elevation. A container has been glued and then sawed in 2. Such a barbarity… the missing half is then suggested with polystyrene block just to fit the width x length x height and average silhouette. It is not that relevant all that part will be covered by a tarpaulin made out of medicinal gauze soaked with glue and plaster... The Modus Operandi and many recipes can be found on Youtube, as I do not own the paternity of the idea… The main hesitation came from questioning myself if it was better to set a base of Ashland or a concrete slab (similar to the Killzone Munitorum hub)… I went for the Ashland not because I wanted to fit to the theme and not because I am lazy, but because I am short of plasticard and I want to save it for the PowerGenerator… Therefore, this is not going to look like this The various stages of the assembly can be seen below: - Primed base and halved containers - Polystyrene silhouette glued latter (as spray can paint and solvent melt that stuff) - Slapshop inspired painting of the containers (see Plasma Generators post: A personal insight on Slap Chop applied to scenery - Bouargh´s miniatures´ closet clean-up - The Bolter and Chainsword) - Covering with soaked medicinal gauze - Final painting and small details on the base (spotlights and crates plus drums of various origins) Et Voilà! Of course there is a little miss (I am still on the learning curve I I have burnt some checking steps) : my filler was not exactly cut at the correct size for the back of the containers and I had to cheat a little bit to fill the gaps. I though the gauze would have added more thickness than it does truly. You can still see the difference in height but it used to be worse before parching. Unfortunatly I have soaked the gauze with such a lot of enthusiam that it is almost impossible to remove without breaking something. I'll live with that as I prefer this imperfection to resuming all the cutting and texturing. I am a long way from the goal for this plodding along but this is already my third scenery element for this project, so I would say that so far it is on good tracks. Next steps will probably be a series of parallel projects with the rest of the dumps and starting work on the mine entrance… which already starts growing up from Styfoam: See you later.

Hi Folks, As another installment of this Series for my 12 MoH Plodding along pledge, I have completed the painting of my first pieces of scenery: the Rocky concretion and a Fairy Chimney. The Styfoam once carved and plastered/textured, has received locally some additional layers of sand and gravel to mimic accumulated ashes and rock debris. Painting step included a hue made from 2 different colors: dark grey and brownish grey, both from DIY store. The dark grey is applied on the bottom part so that it gives a continuity with the Ashland board. The top structure is set in brownish so that some eye-catching contrast is brought to the table. In between various mixes from 1/3 grey – 2/3 brown to 1/6 grey – 5/6 brown were done so that shading and relief is added. For sand (ash), a diluted grey was then added on the sandy areas before getting 2 dry brushes with Dawnstone grey and Corax white. Top rocks were dry brushed on edges with Kislev flesh. Et Voilà!: The hill is 45 cm width or so, so it makes a significant piece of terrain that can be climbbed out by infantery models and seriously break LoS. The overall aspect is my personnal homenage to classic western movies and comics... The chimney is a pure recycling of off-cut from the main board. 1 or 2 additionnal chimneys are likely to see the light when I will carve more styfoam for the big part of the project: the mine entrance itself. Close-up of an element of the hill for seeing the various brushes and hue: I consider this part to be done, unless I add some brown/orange Lichen here or there as tuft once the rest of the scenery will be done. But later. Next step will be the Containers, Fuel drums and Crates dumps... See you then

Hi Folks, Last Xmas I did something I never thought I would: I have ordered some MTO stuff, with the Tectonic drill and some Machinery (crane and so on). FOMO drived me. Now that this is comited as a purchase, it is time to plan doing something from that materiel. I have bet the delivery will not be so soon, so it leaves time for planning. And the plan that came to my mind was to increase seriously my terrain collection with some elements to define a mining camp/excavation site. I plan doing a mine entrance on a rocky hill side, some custom power generator using left over bitz, ruins, more rocky concretions and a fuel dump or crates. For ruins I have seized on ebay 1,3 box of Ryza pattern ruins, plus some power fences. I also ahve some Armoured containers from the Hachette collection somewhere. It will help for the fuel dump and more shanty town stuff. For the hill, concretions and mine entry, I have started doing some experiments on the mater last week, with left over styfoam. It is just starting and once dry, some sculpting will start. I have made my first plastering tests on flat hills for the WOrld that WAs and it went OK. So, what could go bad? I have also recoverd my blue stuff to mold pillars and reinforcements for the mine entrance. Still drying though: The next challenge will be the power gen, as it should be largely made out of plasticard. But the real challenge is to keep the project under control: I was already thinking about adding a Necromunda Stronghold or a Necromunda STC habhub... The idea is not to spend much more. So, I have to keep head cool. See you.

Hi Folks, It has been time since I resumed painting of my Epic era Space Marines. Let's say that I am resuming my resumé. This time I set the gear shift up and when beyond just colour testing. I have gone for 2 Companies, one Battle and one Veteran, plus a supporting inquisitor and some DEvastators plus Speeders. This is a good first bunch for 2026 12 MoH. The battle company has been set with the red paultrons. I have tried to stick to the Adeptus Astartes codex marking. The Assault marine received black legs, as a reminder of the colour scheme that can be found in HH books for IF. But it is a mild success. What's fun with this scale is that UM 40k decals fits the hatch of the rhinos almost perfectly. So the units type marking can be reused. It gives some caché, isn't it? The veteran company goes full Power armour. Temrinators were painted in 2024... Same as for all the bases, you see the coloured paultron and maybe the red helmet for sergeants. Being a big fat boss in the alimentary chain of the Chapter, first Captain received a personnalized livery on its tiny Rhino. Then the supporting cards come with 2 Devastator detachments requisitionned from the blue company, plus Speeders from the Orange company. They are accompanied by an Inquisitor. Next step is to keep on with the rest of the small plastic lads: I have Motos, more Speeders and enough slottas for a Tactical reserve company, some Characters and maybe a Scout company. And a (dwarfed) Warlord Titan direct from the 90's! See you later with more small stuff.