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Well, something happened this week. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, I sat down with the Sternguard and drilled some holes. I did (guess I should say, tried here) the pilot hole trick with my craft knife, then, got to work. The results speak for themselves...aka an obvious first attempt. Little bit of history here. At no point in my hobbying career have I ever used a drill...or done any real converting. The closest I got was swapping heads like the Thousand Sons Rhino I made way back in 2003 (no picture exists sadly) where I stuck on a Thousand Sons head on the chaos space marine body that goes on top of the tank. I remember I also had plans for a Tzeentchian Demon Prince using the superb 2002 Chaos Space Marine Demon Prince as a base with Lord of Change wings and a staff...no, I don't know how 2003 me was going to pull that off. 2025 Me, on the other hand, far less ideas and ambition. This is why I did the barrel drilling. One marine though, suffered for my folly. Live and learn I guess. With the exciting new bit out of the way, the Sternguard got several coats of paint on them. Sadly they weren't finished this week like I wanted but couldn't be helped. They only need armour highlights and robes. Definitely done by next week, I've got Infernus Marines stood waiting. That's enough for now I think, so I'll just say thanks for looking!

Well, its certainly been a hot minute this time hasn't it. I'm not really sure where 2024 went but I didn't get an awful lot done last year, and I'm determined to do things better this time! Last year I progressed a bit more with the Leviathan boxset, and by year's end had just eleven space marines left to do. Which sounds good until you consider that in my last post that number was eighteen and that the space marine contingent started off at twenty four. Yeah, I didn't hobby well. There's a lot of reasons I could give as to why this was the case but it doesn't change the fact that it happened. That's why I want to try and do better this year. To that end, I'm looking at setting myself some challenges. These will be aimed to either do something I've not done ever while also tackling my pile of potential. Let's dive in to it shall we: First challenge: Complete Leviathan Yes, a hold over from last year. This one should be obvious yet the most easiest as all that's left is to finish the Sternguard Veterans and the last five Infernus Marines. The Sternguard are currently at this stage- They've been base coated, washed, had the blue, white relayered. The Sargent has even had further work with his tabard and helmet getting cleaned up. The Infernus Marines are blue, not much to say there. With that in mind, I'm wanting to try something that was suggested to me in the Forums, that of barrel drilling! I've loaned a small drill for a different task (more on that one in a bit), just need to see if I've got the right size bits. Of all the challenges I've got planned, this is the one giving me pause. Had I done this before undercoating anything, I think it'd be easier to get my head around on doing. The second challenge is probably the hardest painting wise. Simply put, I'm painting a Primarch. Lion'el Johnson to be precise, and I'm not just doing it once, I'm doing it twice. See, I got him as part of my desire to collect loyalist primarchs (pretty easy since there is only two of them so far!) However my son also wanted and got him as part of his dark angels army. Benefit here is that in keeping with the rest of his army, he wants winged helmet, while I'm going bare head all the way. Once they're done, my aim is to paint Dark Angels till July comes around. Third Challenge...is a presumption on my part, that there's going to be another Call to Arms event. If there is, it's bug time once again. I've been slowly expanding my Tyranids with 9 more Leapers, a full brood of Hormagaunts and a Hive Tyrant. The Hive Tyrant is the reason I got the drill. Someone at my FLGS suggested that by magnetising all the weapon options and wings, and using the Winged Tyrant legs and tail, that I could have my cake and eat it. I would have a modular Hive Tyrant that could serve as a normal one, a winged one and the Swarmlord if I also do the head (if I can). My original option was just to buy a torso piece from somewhere and have two Hive Tyrants...May still do that, comments are welcome! I'm still tempted to grab a few more bugs to add to the pile maybe a Tyrannofex or a Biovore, maybe one of the new Lictors. Got six months to figure out what I want! After September...depends on how things turn out GW release schedule wise. If a certain faction of Space Marine is released, my nids will finally have their true base rivals (i like to base my armies in opposing pairs, Ultramarines vs Necron, Tyranids vs...well, let's see). Though GW may not get much more money out of me due to another company entering the tabletop market with a franchise I love, I'm sure there's plenty of painting in my future. My plan is to update the blog whenever I hit a milestone (like finishing these bloody Sternguard for instance!) Till next time! (Will hopefully not be another year!)

So just a post to display some of the models I've recently painted as I've gotten back into Heresy recently. Age of Darkness is what got me back into the hobby right back on the 31st of Decemeber 2022/1st January 2023 so almost 2 years ago now. I put some of the models together, then only painted like 2 of them (a praetor with sword and a contemptor dread). The Tech-Marine was part painted then never finished til now. However, finally having actually had a couple of games of it now I'm in the mood for painting more Ultramarines etc. Annoying though to find out that a lot of the resin stuff is now completely oop when the plastic kits don't quite replace what was made in resin.. Leetu or LE2, I have 4 of the original ones I believe I've posted some time in the past, however they, along with all my RTB01 marines, are too small to use with Heresy now unless I put them all on tactical rocks or put a good 4-5mm of cork under the base which I can't be bothered to do. So I'm using 1 of the 2 anniversary ones I have unboxed (have 3 more boxed) Anyway, here's what I've painted. I hope you all like them. I'm currently finishing up a kitbash I did of a Custodes Vertus Jetbike for a Praetor on a better looking Scimitar Jetbike than the boring looking Sky-Hunters. I also need to paint the last 3 of my Veteran squad up. The old Master of the Arsenal model (it's the original metal one) is being used as a Centurion Will need to get my standard bolter bois done up so that I have the 1HQ, 2 Troop mininum but made a decent start on stuff.

Having been barely keeping up with the hobby for several years, Indomitus reignited my passion for 40k last year, so I decided to try to actually build a force. This time it will be Primaris space marines, but still my beloved 3rd Company of the Ultramarines. The plan is to build the complete company, including officers and attached specialists and a dreadnought, plus a ten-man Deathwatch kill team, and such a project needs a fresh thread, so here I am. In terms of bulding the company, I will be dividing it into combat squads, to avoid becoming overwhelmed or bored, and alternate those with Deathwatchers and officers, so that it will go Combat Squad > Deathwatch > Combat Squad > Officer > Combat Squad > Deathwatch... and so on. This should offer a decent balance between progress and sameness of models. I started an Intercessor veteran sergeant (the 30th anniversary model) as a one-off before I decided to make a full army, so I decided to finish him before doing the rest of the combat squad. If you visit the Ultramarines subforum, you may have seen him, but here he is again with one of the Necrons the 3rd is fighting: The Necron is really just a color scheme test model, not the start of an army, any time soon at least. The rest of Combat Squad Ardias is in progress, with their bodies only needing cleanup: The bolt rifle arms are coming along too, I just need to highlight the black and tidy up everything before gluing them on. Then it's just the other arms, backpacks and heads and then finishing touches. Of course, an Intercessor squad isn't the end of it. I have plenty of plans for all the squads and in particular the command cadre. I don't feel like typing out all the minute details of my plan that I've spent the last nine months overthinking, so for now I will just finish off with something black for now:

I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of the Space Marine 2 Receuit Edition today at my local Warhammer store. I’ve not had a a huge amount of motivation to paint recently so want to try something to get me to pick a brush in earnest. That coupled with a need to practise painting Leviathan nids for the base decorations of my new Blood Angels has led to this… ”I, Casual_Heresy, being of (un)sound mind and body, hereby pledge to fully paint the Space Marine 2 Recruit Edition box in one week and one day, finishing by 23:59 on 6/10/24.” Why a week and a day? Because I’ve got a double shift at my second job next Saturday so won’t have much painting time that day. So let’s do this! Here is where we start at 18:00 today.