The Oppo: Bonehead's Lost, Damned and in all likelihood Disappointed

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, the painted picture does make him look more mutated - I had thought those cheek frills were sideburns not flesh.  Still think he would be a good fit for the civvies if they could be painted as hair - if not (or if you chose not to) he'll be right at home in your mutants.  That said, if he does become a mutant, I'll always have a fond spot in my heart for the housecoated rioter he could have been (even if that was only in my imagination). 

 

I do agree that the gas mask on the ratskin is a definite improvement.  I was kind of looking forward to seeing a zombie head on AK guy (to make him a brother of sorts to Shotgun Zombie) even though there is nothing wrong with the gas mask on him.

 

Those old confrontation guys are wild - they are look like generic early 90s figures with a hint of some of the 40K minis of the time... except as they predate that, they are kind of like evolutionary missing links between early generic sci fi minis and design elements that form part of 40K's distinct "look".

Edited November 3 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

Well, ak guy did have a zombie head oringinally of course- but seeing as I cut it off, I figured I'd be best served not just putting another one back on. Largely because I thought I'd have a look and see if any more zombies were out there, now that it's been proven they can be made back into ordinary scavvy-analogues, and it seems that these two that I have are pretty well the only ones you can get. So just as well he's not got a standard head anymore, or I'd be jeopardising my 'no two models may look the same' rule.

And the confrontation lads. Yeah, wild is the word. Some of the all-time skronkiest faces, poses and detailing. Almost all of them have really jutting underbites and a real sneer on their faces. I have another one of those, bathing in meths at the moment, and he's just as weird. They look so out there, they have to fit in somewhere. 

Meanwhile, more green stuff progress:

ak guy now has a collar and the remains of his right sleeve have been more or less made right; it should hopefully look, with paint, as though the shirt's sleeve is missing and his vest (undershirt, I think?) is showing under it. Meanwhile shotgun zombie's first sleeve is on. Dude is looking increasingly like a belligerent mutant and less like a zombie with every stage. 

Rear view:

Not bad going. Shotgun zombie's shoulderpad has been preserved as a separate piece to the sleeve, which should really help tie him in with the more vanilla scavvies. Neither of these two have a large bag at the waist, which is a very scavvy visual detail, so I'll add some.

These aren't the only two. Here's two more:

Our former ratskin is now just another guy in a ragged top and trousers. Jury's still out on whether he could use a tentacle; it might get done just because it's easy, and the more the better. His fat friend and 'ole Shotgun Zombie are doing their bit to add to the obvious mutations, but I think if the nurgle crew really aren't repping it for the mutated degenerate demographic, then who will be? It won't do. Must up the mutation quotient. On which subject, an idea just popped for one of the other ratskins.

Regardless, I'm really pleased with how the hood came out. It makes him look like he's wearing a light jacket/hoodie, which is very different to the original and much more appropriate for the crew's general 'ruined civvies' look.

Fatboy Who-Was-Elf is coming along just great. Need to remember to add a little to the ponytail to make it look less obviously hacked-through, but with that and the other trouser cuff done, he'll be finished. You can at least see in the two shots above that the gasmask tube detail is nicely vanishing under his odd fur jacket.

Here's a quick bit of detail from above on the ratskin and last week's lad in a raincoat; while raincoat man has his neck sculpted in at last, running rat does not yet:

And here's a couple of different angles on the running ratman:

Just a little work on the jacket front to go.

Finally, the other former elf's minor GS work on the face and hair to disguise the elf face:

Hair brushed over ears, as it were, and the sharp cheek disguised with an odd lump, and another one on the forehead for luck. Job done, but for attaching a strap to the bag. Shouldn't take too long. I do like the bag though, it makes me think of olympic skeet shooters, with their slings full of shells.

Ta!

 

 

 

Edited November 5 by Bonehead

[Tallarn Commander]

Excellent work. I really like the dynamism in running ratman's pose. And the chain and mask make him look fierce. Not someone I'd want to mess with on a darkened hab block.

[Gnasher]

I just reread the blog from page 1. I think this my be my 2nd most farourite blog on the forum (my own is #1 of course ). There is a ton of excellent modelling & an abundance of humourous text & loads of good text explaining not trivial technical aspects of the hobby. The electronics & significance of the technical explanations is sublime & humorous with it it too. Plus a ton of really original models.  Well done that man!

 

 

Looking forward to seeing some paint on these twerps & a full army shot (Full steam ahead, make it so Mr B).

 

Cheers

Le Gnash(er?)

 

 

Edited November 8 by Gnasher

[Tallarn Commander]

I come for the humor and stay for the pretty pictures, army background, and technical instructions. 

[Bonehead]

On 11/7/2025 at 8:37 PM, Gnasher said:

I just reread the blog from page 1. I think this my be my 2nd most farourite blog on the forum (my own is #1 of course ). There is a ton of excellent modelling & an abundance of humourous text & loads of good text explaining not trivial technical aspects of the hobby. The electronics & significance of the technical explanations is sublime & humorous with it it too. Plus a ton of really original models.  Well done that man!

Man, you must have been bored for a while to do that again! Reading it as it grows is punishment enough, even with barely a post a week.

Much appreciated though mate. Glad to know it holds up. I do remember, many moons ago, reading through blogs on Warseer from @Apologist, Bungaroo, Tommygun, Elotsip, Captain Brown and others and thinking 'man, these are so inspiring. One day i'd like to do something as big as this'.

Didn't figure it would be the traitor guard/horde of gullible cultists that caught my imagination so much and fired me to 17 pages and a distressingly large amount of money spent, or of all my projects, that it would go for so long. I sort of imagined the RT guard would probably be the one, but here we are.

On 11/8/2025 at 6:14 PM, Tallarn Commander said:

I come for the humor and stay for the pretty pictures, army background, and technical instructions. 

Well, let's hope we can keep the quality up for you!

Been fun. Little bit of modest progress this weekend, a couple more cultists taking shape:

Man alive that bulb is very yellow.

Anyway, the not-ratskin is just a general 'fanatic with a dog on his head waving weapons around;' you know, the everyday kind. The other one is an attempt to invoke one of the Confrontation scavvy sculpts from Jes Goodwin that are functionally impossible to track down due to the silly money involved.

You can see him on the far right of the top image at this link: http://www.sodemons.com/rhrare/confscavvy/index.htm

He's waving an autopistol and chainsword in the image, and also has some improvised armour plates over his coat. I'm not sure what type of gun he's going to get- it's entirely down to what I find in the bits box on the day- but I'm inclined to leave him the bone club- it does feel very nurgly, somehow. Not sure what head he'll get, but probably one of the gas mask ones I picked up recently. I already swapped his left foot. That, a go at armour plates and the head should do as far as conversion for him.

Comrade dog-head is going to keep his head as-is, but the rest of him will be fairly well transformed; more ragged trousers etc.

Think I might have a go at the autogun guy with a similar pose in the image too. Other than that, it might be a good idea to try and swap my fourth remaining version of this sculpt for a different model. Four models based on such a distinctive pose may be beyond my capability to make different enough from each other in a way I'll feel is good enough.

We'll see.

Cheers

 

 

[Bonehead]

Horrible rainy mess all day today; great on my day off after works' been too busy to get any modelling in all week.

I braved the rain to push off down WW and buy some paints. I remain very much not convinced that GW paints are the best out there, but WW is the closest hobby shop to me, and it's nice to check out all the tables and see people's models.

Picked these up:

The beigy-brown is for the nurgle cultists' coats, and some of their trousers etc. The deepkin flesh is, presumably obviously, hopefully the basis for their unhealthy skin. Should do nicely with some glazes of different sickly colours over the top.

The blue was just because I don't have a dark blue. I don't really need a better reason than that, do I?

Right, hopefully this should lead to some actual painting around here at some point...

 

[Bonehead]

Actually did a bit of painting for once. Got a rough basecoat on six cultists. Painting these did not go nearly as quickly as the Immortals, no it did not. Three hours and they're still barely half done. They did look decently coherent when undercoated though:

Went with Zandri Dust because it's close to the main colour I want them to have: a dirty tan. Black and dark red accents, same dark brown as everyone else in the log for the gear.

Next, the basecoats:

Fatboy mcconehead still needs his one boot doing, missed that. Skin isn't basecoated yet- I didn't think there was much point doing that until I've done a bunch of washing on the other areas, bit of drybrushing etc. All the wrappings/bandages are bright white now, but that won't last. it's a start. Not sure if I like them yet.

Colour is certainly all over the place in that shot but you get the general idea.

Laters

[kabaakaba]

that a nice fanatics! This have more soul in t then any latest gw sculpts.

[Bonehead]

On 11/17/2025 at 7:49 AM, kabaakaba said:

that a nice fanatics! This have more soul in t then any latest gw sculpts.

Thanks for saying so!

Now, I didn't get any more painting done so far this week, but I did manage to do a bit more sculpting and finish off a few models, as well as start in on a new one:

In case you're wondering why the elf with shotgun is back, well, I added a tiny little bit of strap in so his bag o'shells looks a little less like it's floating mysteriously in front of his crotch.

I'm sure you'll have noticed the negligible amount of green stuff done on the dog-head guy on the left. Well, you have start somewhere. Allow me to present a disttraction in the form of the also negligible amount of sculpting done on the running flailer, or if you're feeling especially spicy, flailing runner:

Basically, I enhanced the lapels of his ragged jacket to make it look more like fabric and less like lead with visible lines left in it from my clippers. Didn't notice them? that's just how slick we are around here.

I think maybe he needs a bag like most of the scavvies have, but apart form that he's done.

Similarly mostly done now is shotgun zombie:

Gave him a little nurgle belly, and finished his left sleeve off. Again, probably needs a bag. Maybe a sling of shotgun shells.

The elf with the particularly evil-looking crude machete also got finished off with his right trouser cuff; I know, exciting stuff right, but it needed doing and now it's done. Don't think he wants any more detailing, apart form remembering to actually finish the pony tail detail off properly.

Different angles to get more delicious, approval-gauranteed detail work in:

And finally a shot at higher elevation so you can see the glorious, thoroughly important detailing on the upper surfaces:

Man, I know I'm going to be getting thanks for that. People are always saying 'what about the view from the top?' and who am I to disappoint them?

Also, as everyone knows, it's the next thing to impossible to mix up only as much green stuff as you need. I've done it precisely once in my life, and at this stage I know very well it was a fluke.

But what do you do with all the spare, precious, it's-a-crime-to-let-it-go-to-waste green stuff, the people want to know. They demand increased efficiency and reduced waste, and rightly so.

Well, since precisely no-one ever asked or ever even briefly entertained the idea of asking even for half a second, I'll tell you.

You make terrain features on large bases.

Very boring. 

I bet you regret making such a fuss about it now, right?

[Bonehead]

Still no painting done yet, but I did manage to build out the last two ratskins, at least, as far as their poses, anyway.

Time will need to be put in on them with the old green stuff before they're properly finished, obviously, so let's not jump ahead of ourselves, but they look pretty good as a starting point, at least. One special weapon per ten models seems about right, so one of them got a Yantar-style flamer. One more yet will get a DKOK flamer, which is the style I've chosen for the Kur Guards. 

As you can see, the other tow recent builds got finalised; that is, I added guns to them. Two more guns that no previous member of the crew was wielding, so even more disorder. I may yet add another of those stub guns in, mind, I do have lots of them. But no more of the big revolver, that thing was starting to look like some kind of cult standard issue.

I also included the remaining North Star wizard model. Hopefully the extent of his mutation shouldn't escape any observer this time. That ugly toad face says nurgle to me, all day long. He's also got webbed hands, not that you can see them in this view. He's not glued down yet, because there were some nasty mould lines that will be easier to get rid of before he goes on the base.

Less obviously, I've put the three that actually are based on pavement/sidewalk texture instead of road texture. They're slightly higher up, which was easily done with a sliver of .5mm plasticard, and it's subtle enough that it shouldn't make much difference in a game, but when presented together the idea is that the whole crew should look like they're boiling out of somewhere onto the pavement and into the street. With that in mind, there needed to be a few more on pavement/sidewalk bases to sell the effect. 

Not sure if there ought to be any on bases with a bit of rubble on to suggest the odd straggler still to make it into the open. Let me know what you think.

As you can see, there really are a lot of areas that are going to need green stuff on these. Should be fun.

One thing that I need to think about is a general leader for the nurgle cult. They do after all have a banner bearer, a leader model should probably go along. So far I just have a couple of scavvy bosses as unit leaders, sergeants, if you will. A lieutenant to be the cult agitator in chief is probably about right; maybe not someone as moderately significant as Engil Mornum of the Immortals, maybe a more nameless goon-in-chief. I can't choose a modern GW plastic, because the scale will be totally wrong, so what do you think I should go with? One of the Realm of Chaos nurgle models, perhaps? Suggestions welcome.

Cheers

 

[kabaakaba]

Your patience is something. It's so strange that you heretic... 

That's really great job,  I think word kitbash was invented when someone saw your work. So much effort for chaff unit. 

[Tallarn Commander]

The conversions are outstanding, as always!

 

There are any number of ranges that would fit a cult Agitator in Chief. Perhaps an old Necromunda metal model, and old metal Carnival of Chaos miniature from Mordheim, or an old metal Warhammer Fantasy Beastman, some old Ral Partha random metal miniature, the possibilities are are endless. Or if you wanted to go with modern miniatures that fit the scale but not the feel of your miniatures, you could purchase and then Nurglify and Scavvy-ize a miniature from Victoria Miniatures, say one of their characters or a beastman, or Raging Heroes, possibly one of their Coyote Troopers line.

[Bonehead]

On 11/27/2025 at 11:17 PM, kabaakaba said:

Your patience is something. It's so strange that you heretic... 

That's really great job,  I think word kitbash was invented when someone saw your work. So much effort for chaff unit. 

Thanks! You're kind to say so. As for being a chaff unit, I don't really play the modern game. I'm more likely to play 2nd ed, where they'll be still a chaff unit. But that's alright. I'm more trying to make a thematically appropriate collection here. In the lore, there ought to be hundreds of cultists for every single traitor guardsman, and hundreds of traitor guard for every chaos marine. I don't care if they're useless in a balanced game of modern 40k, but in a one-off scenario using maybe a hybrid of 2nd and 4th, where there are two kill-teams of heavily outnumbered guardsmen desperately trying to hold off the massed cultists and achieve their objectives before the baddies get their reserves into play and a whole company of traitor guardsmen and a tank squadron turn up... well, they might just be perfect. Maybe on a big table with a layout that includes only diagetic lighting, built into the scenery, the oppo could really come into their own.

I have been giving a little thought recently into whether or not to have a go at some traitor marines as well. It would be just a handful, but i think it'd be very rewarding to build some up the same way that i've done these normal humans- but doing the old 'truescale' thing. Take some vintage metal marines- character models like chaplains and librarians, with lots of great detailing- and make them look like they're really seven foot tall next to the ordinary models, and also give them a load of nasty corrupted character.

To be fair, it'd also be fun to try that with loyalist marines too, but probably harder because you couldn't excuse any dodgy detail as being due to general baddie malaise. You'd want the armour to look ornate, sure, but also regular, and manufactured. I did palm off a bunch of old metal marines on a buddy a few years back for almost nothing. Maybe I could get a few characters back from him.

On 11/28/2025 at 5:35 PM, Tallarn Commander said:

The conversions are outstanding, as always!

 

There are any number of ranges that would fit a cult Agitator in Chief. Perhaps an old Necromunda metal model, and old metal Carnival of Chaos miniature from Mordheim, or an old metal Warhammer Fantasy Beastman, some old Ral Partha random metal miniature, the possibilities are are endless. Or if you wanted to go with modern miniatures that fit the scale but not the feel of your miniatures, you could purchase and then Nurglify and Scavvy-ize a miniature from Victoria Miniatures, say one of their characters or a beastman, or Raging Heroes, possibly one of their Coyote Troopers line.

Thanks buddy!

Now then, Carnival of Chaos. Now, now indeed, there's an idea alright. Oh yes indeed. I'm going to look those up..

 

[Bonehead]

Very modest progress this week, been a lot of work on and also not particularly well. Been playing a Half-Life mod in most of my leisure time: Half-Life Insecure. Strong recommend.

To resist the general sense of basically getting bugger all done, I found a few minutes here and there to undercoat a bunch of nurgle cultists. Basically every one that didn't still need a bit of green stuff got done:

The exception being one scavvy boss model who isn't based yet, and needs mould lines dealing with.

Today I also found an hour or so to experiment wiht the post-basecoat stage of the painting process. Well, that was after touching up the basecoats which were on second inspection a lot less neat than I first thought.

Mostly, the work at this point was mixing washes. I started with the citadel grey and good old agrax in roughly 2:1 ratio with a dab of medium, and washed this over all the white bandages and undershirt/vests.

As is now traditional, the damn camera wasn't in a mood to focus for the first shot. I really have got to remember to start by photoing the rear views first. On mr anorak over on the left, you can get a good reading of the colour, pst wash, on the bandages. Now they look convincingly dirty. I supplemented the grey with a couple of random dabs of pure agrax. The yellow coat was also washed with this mix; it works nicely, although I think I would probably have done well to wash it with yellow first, to make the general tone a little deeper.

The fur coat on the ex-elf on the right got a wash of pure agrax. At this point my original batch had been completely used up, and on a very modest surface area, so it was time to mix up a bigger batch- and then serendipitously, I spilled in way too much grey, making the ratio more like 20:1. A dirty grey, basically. And it came out really well on the dirty tan coats and other clothing.

The thing to do, which hopefully I'll remember with the next lot, would have been to just highlight the zandri dust undercoat with the lighter tan on the areas I want to be a dirty tan, then wash, and then re-highlight. As it is they'll be fine with just a re-highlight now, but the shading and overall dirty effect will be better with the revised method.

The fur coat will get a drybrush, and probably another wash and then another, very light drybrush. The red needs shading and highlights. Brown details need a little highlighting. Same with the black. Probably a drybrush again- the tendency to smear dirty grey on nearby areas will be basically free weathering. The metallics, a wash, and finally skin and hair.

They're definitley a longer-to-paint proposition than the immortals, but on the other hand, they should look better in the end.

I might try a little rust here and there, maybe some dried blood in very sparse quantities. It's all fair game to start with, until the scheme is finalised..

Cheers

 

Edited December 4 by Bonehead

[kabaakaba]

You modest progress is greater then my month overall. Good job. 

 

[Bonehead]

Well, progress has been even more modest since then. So modest, in fact, that I might be the most modest guy in the whole world.

With christmas coming up I've had to work a bit more to get the old present fund up to capacity, so there's been less time for modelling. 

I finally got a remote link issue sorted out today so I could work from home, and then ironically there was hardly anything left for me to do, so I suddenly had time for a bit of green stuff adventuring. It could have been paint adventuring, but I asked myself what needed doing the most and the answer was green stuff; I'm bad at it so it takes longer to get it up to a standard I can live with. Case in point being the various trouser legs among this lot; not much of a convincing lay to any of the fabric. I forgot to put holes in it to make it ragged and disguise my poor sculpting, and it shows:

Especially on flamer bloke, the cloth is very unconvincing. I'm going to have to put a little more GS over the top, so I can sculpt tears in it to make it look better. Rat waving club is a little better; I won't need to go back to him. Well, not for this, he will need a fat nurgle belly, and at least one tentacle, not to mention his other trouser leg, but his sleeves are done at least.

Middle lad with the lasgun in the middle actually came out pretty well. Once again I put a sort of general-purpose roll of GS on his shoulders to generally form into the collar and shoulder/sleeve area of a jacket, and doing the first sleeve just somehow contorted the GS across the back of his neck into most of a decently convincing hood. Once I noticed that, I was smart enough to just give it a little tweak here and there to make it sit properly, but otherwise leave it untouched.

Again, there weren't enough (really any) tears and holes in the sculpting I did do, but being as it's just the very top and sleeves of his jacket, it's fine. More will be added when he also gets his own nurgle belly and trouser legs. And one benefit of it going more by luck than judgement on the hood is that I won't have to sculpt in the back of his neck because the hood covers it, unlike ole Flaily McRunFace, who finally got the last portion of his spine put in and is now ready for paint:

Yep, I really took a picture of the roughly two pixels that show the now-reinstituted neck area of the guy. 

Finally, the lad on the far right of the picture got his head blended in with his torso somewhat. The original had a scarf/neck wrap thing there, and now the new head is similarly adorned. I may yet try and add a couple of improvised metal plates to better imitate the original model, we'll see how I feel.

He also wants longer sleeves with cuffs, to properly do the look. Again, time will tell.

Meanwhile, I have another zombie and confrontation scavvy allegedly in the post, but they've both got caught up on some snag or other. Tracking data tells me one of them is stalled out in a sorting office somewhere in Wales, and the other one, well, the sender tells me he missed the first digit off the postcode, so it's been to Scotland repeatedly. So while I wait for those to turn up, I have two more of the confrontation scavvy with the face mask to work on. Probably time to get drastic with the conversions; chopping at least one of them off at the waist should be a good start...

[Tallarn Commander]

Other than the outside of flamer fanatic's leg, the green-stuff work looks good. And, as you note, the greenstuff work on lasrifle lad is excellent. 

 

Perhaps you could disguise flamer trooper's right leg by wrapping it in jeweler's chain or something. Or chop the leg off and add a wooden peg leg, mechatendril leg, or an augmented bionic leg. 

[Bonehead]

Well, I think what I'll do with the not-very-good leg on flamer bloke is just add a little more GS on top and sculpt a couple of tears to disguise the crappy detailing I did before. Easier than hacking the leg off, and I do like easy.

but despite reaching that decision, I have not in fact done that. instead a mate came over to build some models for a game he has on the 28th, so I joined in with a bit of painting. Well, once I'd finished ironing out the faults in an effect pedal I'd just wired up, anyway.

Thus:

Mostly what I did was the skin, but you can see I've also touched up and then shaded the dark red areas. Finally remembered that I bought a pot each of Strong Tone and and Dark tone ages ago and wanted to try the Strong Tone out; it worked really well as a shading wash. I think I didn't shake it nearly enough because it came out shiny, but they're going to get a matte varnish so that's fine. The important thing is that it settles the way i want a wash to settle, unlike modern nuln oil.

For the unhealthy skin, they all started out with the deepkin flesh- which goes over balck really well, I found out, so that's great news as it means I don't need to take really any care at all when basecoating. Saves time, enables laziness, what's not to like about that?

From that point it was experiment time. I knew they wanted a wash, because the base colour is more green than flesh-coloured, so it did need bringing back a bit towards the human. So different models got different washes. AK guy got a straight Reikland flesh wash; too normal. Red coat bloke got a mix of reikland, GW grey wash, and GW yellow wash. Too yellow. Anorak bloke got a mix of reikland and grey, and that was pretty good. Changed the ratio up a bit on the fur coat guy and it was better; warmed up the skin a bit, but still dirty. That was about 1 to 1, so I did that again on the next two and it still worked. So that's the base I'll start with as the standard. Perfectly happy to vary it up though. Variety is the spice of a horrific half-life riddled with gross diseases. While the washes were out I did the usual thing on Fatboy McConehead's wee tentacle; painted on a little pattern in a slightly different skin shade to give a more interresting base for the washes, which started yellow near the body and went to red, then purple, then blue at the end. All allowed to mix on the model. Looks vile. Perfect.

At this point the skin was highlighted wiht a mix of the original colour and a warmer one: too close to the dirty tan coats and whatnot, so it was time to try something new. Glazing. Purple and green were selected to begin with, and then mixed with water in a very thin ratio- 20:1 or more. Then just gently brushed over the skin, and left to dry, then repeated if necessary, which it usually was. That's the chief step that gave them the unhealthy tinge to their skin here. The green mix was much thicker than the purple, and I covered literally the entire skin surface with it, so that's why fur coat guy and conehead are more distinctly green than the others are purple.

Red coat guy got a mix of purple glazing and some green on his weird head lump, ak guy was just purple and so was captain anorak because the purple contrasts the yellow anorak so well, whereas our gas mask ex-zombie on the end got purple all over, and then a little green here and there.

The photos were taken at night so the colours aren't great, but you get the idea. fairly successful. The water-based glaze does tend to leave nasty coloured tidemarks, so all of them needed some re-highlighting in a plain flesh colour, and then a touch more glazing, but overall I like it a lot.

With a bit of drybrushing on the guns, highlights on the red and black, some metallics and a little touch of rust, I think they're going to look pretty good. 

But they are not going to be quick. I could do eight immortals in about four hours. These guys I think will scale up fairly easily, so doing eight rather than six will barely be a difference, but they're still going to need more than twice as long.

It's going to be worth it, I think. These lot need more character from their paint jobs. The immortals were general-purpose cultists, they didn't need to have a specific character other than generally looking all riled up. These guys need to look sick, literally. The glazes really help with the B-movie feel I'm aiming at here.

Thoughts appreciated.

Cheers