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Hi Folks, It has been a while since I published in this blog. Not so long but longer than the weekly puvlishing rate I defined as a target of mine in January. Anyway, volume does not necesarilly means quality. And as far as quality is concerned, I am still struggling to raise the level of my contents... This blog´s purpose was to follow up the cleaning of my Pile of Shame. Yet it looks like tha, recently, the Pile grew up mopre than it shrinked down. Too much stuff bought here or there beyond the targets of strictly legalizing what remains to be painted. This boarding patrol for AdMech is one of the guilty investment I made earlier this year. Now, 3 months latter, it is fully painted. Here is the result: I decided to boost the HtH capabilities of my AdMechs adding these Breacher, Hoplites and Sicarians. SOme other pics with different angles allow seeing the different units better, even if most can be found in previous Blog entries, individually featured. The Hoplites are the last unit painted. They have been a kind of pain to build. Superglue looked like it did not glu anything except my fingers. But in the end it is rather OK, even if some poses for 1 or 2 minis are a little bit odd. But I did worse before, so, I am rather OK with these. I decided to revise the paint scheme for this unit -being a titan Legion associated unit, they bear their own livery, distinct from my Forgeworld. Cloak is black with red inetrnal aprt and armour darker and fully metallic. I can be eventually better appreciated there: That´s all for today folks. Next steps will be to come back to decluttering of my pile of shame: I bought on ebay some Warlocks and Platforms in order to compleet some old Guardians squads that were on sprues for more than 25 years. Platforms are done and the 20 guardians (10 Defenders and 10 Strom) will be my pledge for 12 Months of Hobby 2024 - April. Let´s see you later.

(... Except if some more come on bargain inside miniature bundles.**) Hi Folks, Yes, these are going to be the last Kataphrons I include in my army on purpose. This addition will raise my count to a fourth unit: one unit of 3 Destroyers with grav cannon and flamer one unit of 6 Destroyers with plasma culverin and blaster one unit of 3 Breachers with arc gun and hydraulic claw and as the latest addition this unit of 3 Breachers with arc gun and arc claw These were coming with a Boarding Patrol - on sheer discount - and were not really desired; or at least not on the top 3 of my buying list*. But, hey, here they were! Close up are not too fancy. I sticked tio the paint scheme of the rest of the force. My only extravagance has been for the last one, passing over a wrecked chimera panel. This leaves me only with the Skitarii foot troopers to be painted from this box. They will be fitted with the FW Secutarii hoplite kit. The resin parts has been soaped to remove molding liquid and everything is ready to be primed. But this will go in my April pledge for 1 Year of Hobby. Let´s see you soon once more stuff will be added to my Admechs. * List includes Marshall, Serberys riders and Negavolt Cultists as proxi for Corpuscarii Priests. ** Just realized that these chaps' sprue has been designed in 2014. It's their 10th year birthday! It is therefore more and more likely they could be redesigned before I might buy some more "accidentaly".

Blog entries pass and sometimes look like very similar to some previous ones. It is one of the issues when dealing with army building on base of multiples buy outs of the same Patrol Box... Yet we might eventually expect some variation if the models are fitted in different fashion, ain´t we? The Onagre DuneCrawler as already been spoiled in the FOrums, but it has been the major progress of the past week so I will "proudly" republish it there. It is also an unhonorable way to fill this post as I have little to say in fact. Little to say but not necesarily nothing "new" to share. "New" being relativa as it is probably the second or thrird time I share some Kataphron tarck units painted and waiting for the upper body. So here we are this these 3 tracks for Destroyers. I have been quite rapid with these as I started them on friday afternoon. It is one of the virtues of serial painting: once you practice your paint scheme and made all the most obvious and common mistakes, you can go faster on your second or third iteration of the same type of unit. Yet tomorrow is a special day and my agenda for next week being so full of time consuming tasks, I will probably not progress much more than that. Have a nice W.E and see you next time.

Hi Folks, I considerably slowed down my painting rhythm lately. It could be a kind of hibernation syndrom. Or the fact that I am close to ending up with my 40k Pile of Shame and that it is a final step I, in an unconcious way, do not want to pass. Or that I am a little bit bored. Anyway, slowing down does not mean not doing anything. After a glorious series of 5 models painted in 2 months or so, I duplicated this number last WE by adding to my AdMech Biinaric force 5 Sicarians Infiltrators. A milestone. Sort of. The scheme applied to the rest of myforce was declined on them too, with very little changes. One red stripe on the helmet. You bet it is a big change! These models are probably the most difficult to build from all the AdMech models I assemblied so far. They are very fragiles and show some relative "Flexibility" that make me fear that any kind of remotely light table-top quake or fall from top of a scenery element might be fatal. They however get a nice presence on the table thanks to the size. The Princeps is probably the oddest model of the squad; oddest because its cloak does not fit in well for me. I would have been more inspired building it with the spare plain body, leaving the cloak away. I find it "out of place". Matter of taste I imagine. Weapon wise I went to taser and needle gun, even if I find the stub pistol had a better look. But rule wise, you have to swap the pair of weapons. And as the probabilities to do something better with the taser goad and the needle pistols are a tad higher than with the power weapon and the stub pistol,... Rational choice led me to this configuration. Ohh, and by "tad", one shall not lure itself: against a Primaris Intercessor, this unit will probably not do better than 1 unsaved wound in shoot and 1 unsaved in HtH per turn. If they can engage the enemy and survive to the encounter at full body count. It is an objective grabber and keeper, not a shock troop unit. At 10 cyborgs strong it might eventually be different. But I am not yet ready to increase its size. This unit was from the Boarding Patrol Box I grabbed in January at tremendous discount. I painted the Mago previously as you might have seen. I will see if I add the Skitarii or the Breacher as a vow for my March pledge in the Hobby Challenge. For the Skitarii, I will use the a Secutarii Hoplite kit to get them tooled up for HtH. This unit is not too bad as we saw it in a previous entry of this Blog Series. And I am planing a different colour scheme. To rejuvenate the Love... See you latter. I have building and scenery dry brushing waiting for me.

As most, or even all, hobbyists than want to end before they even took the time to think out how proceed wisely, I used to have built hundreds of models before painting them. Thousands in facts. And I end up with stuff taht sometimes was impossible to paint in a "satisfying" way because many parts of the model are uneasy to access to. and so paint can be applied except at high cost of contortions, stains and retouching. Which most of the time is worse than the issue it is meant to solve. Anyway, I only recently started to apply this trick (I really wish someone would have told me this before, but they were probably too busy doing the same mistakes as I did or laughning out loud on people commiting this 1o1 mistake of building the models without taking into account the painting step). No acrititud there. So, how it works and why would one paint models before assembly? 1. because otherwise it will be too complex to access some visible enough areas to be painted 2. because you cannot stand the idea that the back of the bolter should not be shaded (I can live without this one but, sometimes, it is necesary to get a proper access as part of the back of the weapon is visible enough to be like a wart on a witch nose if it is left unpainted or not detailled enough) 3. because you read/watched a tutorial saying it is a way to go and believe everything you see on Youtube. Can we agree not talking about bullet 3? Otherwise the 2 first options are still valid. I my case I will be dealing with AdMech miniatures, that are so gorgeous and full of details and character. Sometimes so much details and character that painting stuff separatly ceased to be an option. I just give as a precision that I am NOT painting bellow the robes of these TechPriests... Main things to take into account whem painting models before assembly/by parts: 1. Follow the manual (The assembly manual, not my step-by-step wanabee list of stuff) 2. Follow the manual AND track the parts numbers - I use small labelled bags so that I am sure I am not going to button up monday with tuesday 3. Paint some preassembled block that make sense - for example Front and Back torso on the Skitarii example, But it might be Legs and Torso plus arms on a SM, Decide on basis of the complexity of the model 4. Paint heads but glue them last. Why do you think GW made this tool to gather heads and paint them separately? It is NOT only to sell you another expensive tool. I has a purpose... (Which is basically that the model looks in the right direction once painted and waving his gun) 5. You can paint directly on sprue. In that case I find useful to tag the parts I need to paint. Of course it has two disadvantages: a) do not forget to paint heads and tails (obvious? I am sorry, not always, I pledge it) and b) you will need to add spot paint to correct unclipping marks. Yet the key advantage is obvious if you once tried to paint a small arm holding it with your thick fingers. Think about it with part 45 of the picture below in mind. As last advises: 6. you do not need to paint everything in details at preassembly step: some parts of the model will remain hidden once assemblied; so focus and keep effort and energy for what´s worth. 7. you do not need to prepaint everything at preassembly step: some parts of the model may be better painted once glued in postion. Especially if you are using cements with solvent that disolved paints. It sucks having worked to see that everything is now dissolved by acetone... As an example for the Skitarii, I do not paint shoulder pads at this stage, I wait for the arms to be glued... Alternative is not to use liquid cement with solvent and use Superglue... Should it be a topic for a future entry??? See? No paint on shoulder pads... 8. not all details are needed at this stage: for example, turf glueing on bases can wait for the model to be in position... Hope you will find this useful. I has been of great help to me to "discover" this obvious trick. I wished I knew it before. But, hey, I could have used my brain too? Apparently not. Or it is a very recent evolution. So I paintd my Skitarii by parts so that I could wait for the new Codex to be released. Technicaly it is not, but as Youtuber already reviwed it... I have enough info to decide on how to tool my Vanguards. As I alredy own an illegal Vaguard squad (thanks to ruel changes from 9 to 10th) and as we now know that (for a while) Vanguards can get all special weapons at once, I will assembly the 10 guies od my second patrol box with 2 purpose in mind: - get a shiny new squad completed fitted with haywire, plasma and sharpshooter radiactive longgun - redistribute with my existing squd so that it can be fully tooled witht eh same. so once of the haywire and radium carabine model already painted in era of 9th will be swapped with a plasma and transuranic from the new squad. I will have to see if body B2-B3 can fit properly with this long gun... See you once squad will be completed.

The Series continues with the finished Kataphrons taken out of this second Patrol Box. I should say from this ooP (or soon to be) Patrol Box as anew one has been announced. BTW, what are we goint to find in this new Patrol box?: One Manipulus Five Pteraxii Three Serberys One battleline squad of Skitarii. I already commented in the forums that it is IMHO a significant change into the structure of the "Patrol" type of content vs. the previous one we got for AdMech: A change toward a more useful character The loss of a Tank and Kataphron delete most of the gunline feature of current AdMech Patrol The inclusion of Serberys and Pteraxii put the focus on combined arm approach - in the mood of the 10th Ed Index For me this is a huge change in the design of the Box vs. current way of gathering forces for AdMech. In fact I tend to think that this box is not a good way at all to start a new army. I see it, because of the units proposed, being more indicated for a second or third levy rather than for a core building of an AdMech force. Do not misunderstood me: I do like the composition and I will probably grab one for myself but I am a little bit confused about its potential for new AdMech players... The maths were also done and shared by various contributors, and can be summarized as: a. the new patrol box would represent a less interesting absolute discount as current cost of individual sets is about 175€ in the new configuration vs. 187,5€ for the current one; should it be sold at 125€ the discount will be lower. b. the new patrol box would represent a smaller army point value, rounding the 275 pts max in the new configuration vs. 415 pts for the current one. For sake of comparison, the SM Patrol box is about 440pts worth atm... I wonder how the patrol rules will equilibrate this... Anyway, back to the actual and current Patrol box I am painting. Here are the completed 3 Kataphrons: As promised, in the same mood and trend as the previous ones. These can be aligned as a self standing unit or join the existing one into a big 6 Servitors strong unit. With these bases, these use a lot of space on the tabletop... That´s all folks. Until next time. I will go back to the bench and keep on painting the SKitarii, or rather prepaint them by parts, until I am decided on how to tool them. Codex to be relesaed soon will play a decisive role (obviously) in the decision making. So, do not expect anything related to AdMech until the release of the Book of Mars.

Since all the plans for this week end have been affected by the Ciaran storm, what can I do nbut stay at home and wait for the wind to fall? Which leaves some time for painting some stuff. The prep for the Kataphron ended with the track units assemblied and wainting for their first dry brushing (boltgun metal on tracks). But the bases are done. The sad aspect of these bases is that I clipped some skulls from CSM bitz in order to use them as scenic alements, but I completly forgot using them... Smaller Skitarii bases are not to adapted for using that kind of ornementation, so I guess I will have to fit these skulls back in the bitzbag... While painting 3 bases, why not paint 4? And here comes the larger round base of the DuneCrawler. Speaking of the Dunecrawler, the cabin/turret or whatever it might be called is done too. I will try to see how I can improve the headlights as I am not too happy with these. Most of the legs are waiting for their first layer of paint. I do not like painting the legs. Last time I spent so much time on these I had this feeling of not progressing at all. We will see if the same happens. That´s all folks. See you next time.

Now that my Patrol box has been delivered, it is time to plan for the painting. There are 4 units to be scheduled and designed, and I will start by the one that will be painted last: Skitarii. Why would I keep it for the last may you ask? Well, mainly because I wish I could have an eye on the AdMech Codex before closing my choices. I do not necesary expect changes but it might be that the Battle line units undergo some adjustments vs. the Index. Afterall, I did not expect any change for Tactial squads in SM Codex and yet it happened. I would most certainly go Vanguard, but how will these be tooled up? I do rather do some prep painting, doing legs and bodies but without final assembly until releas of the holy expensive book... Fisrt unit I will probably paint is the Crawler. As stated in the Forums already, I will be driven by "Rule of cool" more than by gaming rules. It will be set with an Annihilation Beamer. Simple. Kataphrons will strenghtn an existing unit of 3, pushinf their numbers to 6. Same out fit as the ones already done: And then, the Seer. The unit I will probably NOT paint. Or at least not too soon. I might be facing a choice here: First Option - a different piant scheme, just to change, and add it as a Seer for my Astra Militarum Armoured fist detachment Second Option - keep it for Conversion/kit bash. But this means it will join the Pile of Shame until I am decided on how and what to do exactly. Thrid Option - a combination of the previous ones ATM I am still not decided - so it will be a temporary postponing, meaning joining the "Pile of Shame"... So, it looks like the begining of a plan. While undercoat is drying, I started preparing bases for Kataphrons and Crawler. Kataphron bases are under the same type of design as previous models. Sand and rocks, plus some pavments that goes with my Sectro Imperialis table. Note the usual push printed track prints (Milliput) for mud evidence of armoured transit... The Crawler base is distinct to the initial idea. I wanted to have a wrecked Chimera Chassis coming out of the sand, but the piece endede being too big; So I will keep it for something else (a new piece of scratch built scenery or a more gargantuan base (I have some flyers waitnig for scenic bases for example...)), and instead I finally went on a dusty Imperial Plascrete road segment. Sands and rocks start covering it... Once coating will be done, painting and assembly will start...

Since the day I passed my order on the website of a FLGS, a lot of water has flown from the mountains to the sea. Let´s do the maths yourself: Order passed on July 24th and AdMech Patrol Box received on September 26th (last Tuesday). What went wrong would you ask? First we might need a small step back in time, just to reset the context: I did not want this Patrol box. Not really. Not as much as I wanted the Extermination Maniple left on shelves of the e-FLGS. But the discount on other products was attractive, and I needed anyway something to get access to their free shippment offer. Just think that after discount I was just bellow the Free shipping threshold for a dime or two. And the postage itself was worth 1 or 1 and a half character blister pack. As these were not under discount, but the Patrol box was. And it looked like being a fair deal fitting pretty well with my New Year New Army Project and the 10th Ed Index and Rules remodelling. Small detail anyway: the Patrol box was not available in the store but they proudly announced "we will get it for you". Internet coments about game store and order deliveries was quite OK/very positive, so, here I go. Order placed. But what went wrong? GW ERP? Supply shortage? Post delays? Or a little bit of everything? The Patrol was already marked as being temporarily unavailable in the GW webstore. So I expected some delays maybe. But then it shifted to available in the Spanish webstore at mid August. Yet still nothing from the the FLGS. A couple of emails latter they wrote it has been ordered, appeared on the bill of material for August resupply, but did not show up in the delivery. Warehouse issue? Probably not - apparently, from the seller´s comment, it look likes it is happening a lot: a kind of ill treatment at preparation stage for B-to-B orders that would predate Covid, Logistic crisis and ERP issue reported about GW IT projects. Interestingly they mentionned too that they are delivered from UK while private buyers are delivered from a warehouse in France (for my country area. It is true the parcel tracking leaves from Lyon´s airport, or at least it was marked as such in the last order I made at GW one year ago...) August died, September aged, and still no Patrol Box. The FLGS in fact did not get resupplied in anything - they said. Not even new stuff from Sept releases that was publicized but has been shown as unavailable right from being set online. No delivery has been reported, or at least I have been told, although shipment has been done from GW warehouse to the FLGS - "Royal Mail Service sucks" has been the explaination I have been given (And as I saw here on B&C some british fellow gamers complaining about the same, I may tend to believe it could be true). October came. I had a few trips around and did not had time to spend on this until I came back last week, seriously thinking about cancelling the order btw. But something happened: they called me directly from the FLGS. Not an email, a real phone call, saying "Hey boy, we´ve got it!" It was on Monday 23th of October. Delivery was received at my office on Wednesday by Correos and I picked it up on Thursday after my shift. So, what went wrong? I don´t really know for sure. Most probable explanation is that the stuff was unavailable and that once resupplied, priority has been given to GW webstore and GW stores´ customers - better marging than through retail sellers surely. It means that a business that manage stores but also count on local retail for distribution of its goods may have a politic of two weights/two measures: to be understood as "me, myself and I" first and retail latter. But what about countries where the GW stores are barely or almost not implanted - Portugal, Spain for example (of course these 2 countries have NOT been selected in any aleatory fashion - it is where I wander)? I am a third class customer? What else? As a lesson learnt: I will never ever order at any e-FLGS webstore some items that are not physically available on their shelves. Whatever supportive and professional they have been, they are too self-depending of GW good will. Getting their discount is still attractive and GW webstore do not applying that policy: so this will impact on my customer behaviour - I will surely reduce my amount of purchase even more as I could not get any easy access to the material I want and that fits in my budget thanks to discounts offered. And as I will try not to turn compulsive buyer, I may truly become that kind of third class customer I might be supposed to be: the one that only complains and does not buy. But anyway, great support from the FLGS. And what about my Pile of Shame? Well, nothing changed. I painted 2 HE minis from WFB, but nothing more related to 40k. So no news, except the badge issuance from the CtA 2023 Challenge. As I am too goofy to set them properly in a signature, I will share and expose them them right here: Now, let´s go planing the painting of this AdMech Patrol box! Edited: I finally managed getting the pic of badges in my signature... It has been so simple that I feel like goofier...

While summer was passing by, I spent most of my time painting for the Call to Arm 2023 Challenge, tooking the opportunity of it to repaint oldies, paint Aeldarii left in a box for almost 20 years and an even older Squat trike. Spent the summer painting, AND waiting for delivery of some ordered goods for my Admech Army. First an ooP Extermination Maniple, left forgotten in a remote FLGS. This box was supposed to be completed by a Combat Patrol; but it never showed off. It is still listed in the bill of material from GW warehouses. For 68 days now. Anyway, I have this Maniple to be painted. Some models were enlisted in the CTA23 challenge, but not the Kataphron. Glutony has its limits. I started them on duty day spare time in late Sept, knowing that I could not manage completing them before Sept. 30. Anyway, as of today, here is the status of these WIP units. 1. Kataphron Destroyers: Track units are done and based. I reproduced the same scheme I used for a prior unit. The upper body will be this time Blaster and Plasma Culverin. 2. Kataphron Breacher: Track units are done and based. I sticked to the colour scheme of other Kataphrons and there are some reminders of my Crawler tank too. The accesories used to personalize the Breacher type are really a nice addition to the kit. They bring it to another level, making the track unit quite coherent with its "tank" character. The front armour plate will be grey too. The upper body will be with haywire and hydraulic claw. I do like the so specific and exotic outlook of the haywire. I follow rule of cool, most of the time. Next update will be with bodies. For one or the other unit. Or may be for both. But I have no pressure to deliver atm (and anyway other commitments will keep me away from the workbench quite a lot). So I will take my time for these... More soon, but not too soon. PS - I would perfectly see an AdMech unit based on these track Units - some Bombots maybe?

This week progress report will be the last one before the conclusive date of the Challenge. I am on the way of closing my third vow, even if the tick tocking of the count down is still present. Todays' issue was getting short of primer. By chance some other comitments led me close to a DIY store where I took the first can I found. It is enough to get the 2 remaining pieces of scenery painted. While it dries, I will focus on the Skitarii. So next (and last) week will probably be a quick and dirty scenery painting. The big achievement is that Cawl is done. A nightmarish model to paint even if it is worth the effort. The final result is not too bad. Or at least it is of the same level thant the rest of the Admech army of mine. Clearly I was afraid that this complex model would be too much for me and would end up being a kind of wart... But I am quite satisfied of the final result. In the background, you can guess the presence of the Rangers - bodies, back packs and heads done. weapons are WIP. Final assembly probably this WE. And as a desert, the pile of tires. What remains, beside of the 10 rangers, are therefore the Proxy container and a sand bag (large) barricade. ....tick-tock, tick-tock...

As a third vow in the Call to Arm 2023 Challenge - Imperium Stronghold, I pledge the following stuff for the Adeptus MEchanicus Sub Forum: - Cawl - 10 pts - 2 Kastellns - 2 x 3 pts - Their Datasmith - 5 pts - 1 unit of Skitarii - 10 x 1 pt - 2 Pieces of scenery/small scrap type - 2 x 2 pts -1 Piece of Scenery/Munitorum Container type - 4 pts Total: 39 pts It´s a lot for just 2 weeks left, but I will try it. Pure Glutony. I count on the fact that the Scenery and the Kastelans can be painted quite fast and that I already defined and developped the paint scheme on previous models earlier this year.