Final Batch of 30 Plaguebearers Completed Saturday!

Hey, Folks!

Just wanted to let y'all know that I completed the final batch of 15 Plaguebearers this past Saturday, which is the final set of the 30 new PBs that I needed to get done in order to have at least 4 Daemons Troops choices and one set of 10 to pop out of the portaglyph.  That means that I have 50 painted and based Plaguebearers completed in total, with each squad of 10 having a different color on their base edges to denote the different squads.

In total it took me just 34.5 hours to complete these last 30 Plaguebearers, over about a little over two week timeframe.  Sorry I don't have more pictures of the newest 30, but I spent a marathon 7 hours on Saturday getting the last 15 painted and all 30 of the new guys based, organized into 5 squads of 10, the base edges of all 50 painted the appropriate color, all of them matte varnished, flocked and gloss varnished.  After that, I was pretty spent, and just didn't have it in me to set out all 5 squads individually and take pictures of them.  I'll try to get some close-up pictures taken here sometime soon, but you can see from the picture above what I've got, and get a general idea of what they look like and the variety in their finished looks.

That means that all I have left to do to get the minimum required done for Valhalla is to paint up the Nurgle Biker Lord, the 6 Plague Drones, and the last Plague Hulk.  I should be able to start on the Biker Lord tonight, and work on him in the evenings throughout the week (although I'll have to do so at home instead of at my FLGS for family reasons).

I'm really glad that I had to reschedule from the August Valhalla to the October one, as the August one just started today, and there's no way I would've been ready for it, at least to the degree that I wanted to be ready.

Now, it's time to get the rest done, try to get a few stretch goals fit in (doing the edge highlighting on the two Heldrakes, and getting a few more Havocs built and painted up so that I can run a squad of 4 Missile Launchers and 4 Lascannons with Aspiring Champions, if needed, plus a few other "like to" tasks), and try to get a few games in so that I'm not too rough with my rules when I get to Utah...

As always, comments are always welcome!

Nurgle Biker Lord to Lead My Death Guard Built

Hello, Folks.

Well, what I initially thought would be a major setback has once again turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  I'm talking about how at the 10th hour it turned out that I wouldn't be able to go to Blue Table Painting's Valhalla in August; however, I was able to secure a spot for October, although just by the hair on my chin.  What that did was allow me more time to get everything I wanted to get finished built and painted so that I would have 2,000 points of Chaos Space Marines and 2,000 points of Chaos Daemons.  As it turns out, there's no way I would've finished all 2,000 points of Daemons in time to leave this Sunday, August 25th, to get to the August Valhalla, which starts next Monday, the 26th.  As it stands with what I've completed, I'd be short probably 6 Plague Drones and one Plague Hulk (aka Soul Grinder).  And I'd be in even more hot water with the missus than I already am now, as I'd have had to spend more time away from my family than I actually have in the last few weeks.

However, having the extra time will allow me to get all of my Daemons finished.  But just as importantly, it will allow me to complete some "stretch goals", the first of which is actually very important.  You see, I already have a Night Lords Biker that I was using as my Biker Lord with the Mark of Nurgle in games with my CSMs.

The spiked mace I modeled up for him 10 years ago worked out great as a representation of The Black Mace.  The problem is, my CSMs have evolved into primarily a Death Guard force with other Nurgle supporting units, and I only run Nurgle Daemons as their allies.  So, it seemed a bit inappropriate for a Night Lord Biker Lord to be leading my Nurgle army, but I was willing to settle for that to get everything else I needed to get done completed in time for the August Valhalla.

But with the extra time at hand, I've been able to convert up a more appropriate Nurgle Biker Lord, and will (should) have ample time to get him painted (er, washed) up in time to take him to Utah for Valhalla in October.

The picture at the beginning of this post shows the basic conversion of the bike, with a kind of Shrine to Nurgle affixed to the back of the bike.  The bike model is a 2nd Edition Chaos Space Marine Bike, so it's a bit different than modern day CSM Bikes, and I've been saving it for a special character, so that worked out great.  Josh Howery did the kit-bashing of all the Nurgly bitz onto the back portion of the bike, using a variety of bitz that I had on hand from all the Nurgle kits that I've collected over the past 10 months.  Here are a few more shots of the bike from different angles:

What you don't see very well in these picture, unfortunately, is the slight conversion to the front of the bike.  Thanks to a suggestion by Jimmy at Empire Games, I cut off the front wheel at the point where it connects to the handlebars, and extended the front out with about 1/2 and inch or so of plasticard tubing.  (You can just make out the tubing in the second to last picture in the series above.)  When I showed Jimmy what the bike looked like after Josh's kit bashing ministrations, and what the front piece would look like, he said, "Dude, that screams Orange County Choppers!", and suggested I make the extension.  Fortunately I already had a supply of plasticard tubing of the right dimension, so with some careful cutting and trimming, and two small lengths of brass rod to run down the middle of the tubes and anchor into the handlebars and front wheel, I was able to turn this old 2nd Edition CSM Bike into a proper chopper.

I already knew that I was going to use the Aspiring Champion body-and-head from the Forge World Death Guard upgrade kit as the body and head of my Nurgle Biker Lord, so with the help of a little Green Stuff, I was able to attach him to the legs that came with the bike and get him set up and posed properly.  I've left him off the bike for the time being so that I can paint him and the bike properly, but otherwise he's ready to go.  Oh, yeah, I also used the backpack from the new CSM Sorcerer Finecast kit for my Nugle Biker Lord, as it's just such an awesome backpack.

The final bit of pre-painting conversion that I needed to do was to make another spiked mace on a chain like I had done for the Night Lords biker all those years ago to represent The Black Mace.  For that I used the following materials:

• A length of plasticard tubing that would fit in the biker's left hand (cut and re-positioned) and allow the spiked ball to hang from the chain without (hopefully) interfering with all the stuff that was now on the back of the bike.
• The chain from a pair of nail clippers.
• A length of brass rod that would fit in the center of the tubing, cut long enough to extend up from the top of the tube into the "connector" of the nail clipper's chain, and also extend down the other end long enough to anchor the "tassle" that I'd be putting there.
• 4 toothpicks with the ends cut to the appropriate length.
• The large topknot off the head of a regular CSM to be used as the "tassle" at the bottom end of the haft of The Black Mace.
• Green Stuff.
• Superglue.

Here's a shot of the biker body with the arms appropriately posed, and The Black Mace in mid-construction:

And here's a shot of the biker body on the bike, showing the handle of The Black Mace in what I hoped would be the proper position, with enough chain to work with to attach the spiked ball:

I ended up having to break the left arm off and re-position it to get a better, more upward angle on the haft of TBM, but having used superglue, that was easy enough.  Here's a few shots of the biker with the finished Black Mace mounted on the bike (the bottom foot plate of the bike is not attached at this point, which is why it looks a little out of alignment; it's just sitting on the ground to help keep the bike upright for the pictures, and to give the full impression of what the bike will ultimately look like after it has been painted and the final assembly of all the parts completed):

In this final shot you can see the tubing used to extend the front wheel out for the chopper effect.  Also, I'm really happy with the way the spiked ball turned out; my first one, on my Night Lords biker, was my first attempt at using Green Stuff, and it shows.  I worked on this ball for quite a while to make it appear as round as possible, with the spikes as evenly distributed as I could.  All in all, I like the effect.

So, what do you think?  Please leave a comment and let me know what  you think of this guy.

At the moment I'm finishing up the last batch of 15 Plaguebearers so that I will have four units of 10 plus another 10 to emerge from the portaglyph that I intend to use in games with just the Daemons.  After I'm finished with the "chore" of getting these 15 Plaguebearers finished (gotta have the Troops), I'm going to "treat" myself to painting this Nurgle Biker Lord, then I'll face down the "chore" of getting the 6 Plague Drones painted up, and finally "reward" myself with painting up the second and last of the Forge World Plague Hulks.  Then I will be DONE with everything that I HAVE to have to take with me to Valhalla, but there are a few more stretch goals that I'd like to get done, too.  Looking at my schedule and the time available to me, I think I'll get everything done that I need to get done, as well as a few things that I want to get done, like painting up four Night Lords Havocs with missile launchers and a few Havoc Aspiring Champions to go with them.

In the meantime, please opine on this guy.  I'll post pictures of him once I've finished painting him and he's finally assembled and based...

Pro Pics of My Chaos Space Marines

Hey, Folks.

A while back I promised that I would have better quality pictures of my Chaos Space Marines (and what Daemons I had done) than I was giving you courtesy of my iPhone and shaky hands.  Well, a few weeks ago my friend James Conley brought a good amount (but not all) of his photography gear to my FLGS, took a bunch of pictures of what I'd painted up so far in my efforts to get ready for Valhalla (plus some pre-existing models), and then used PhotoShop to clean them up and make them pop a bit.  So, here are the pictures he took for me.

The photo above is of my Night Lords Chaos Biker Lord with The Black Mace.  This is actually a model that I converted and painted up about 10 years ago, but with that spiked mace on the end of the chain, he was perfect for a Biker Lord to lead my CSMs and Daemon allies in games of 6th Edition 40K.  However, being a Night Lord, it didn't seem appropriate for him to continue leading what has become a predominantly Death Guard army, so with the additional time I have available to me now that I'll be going to the October Valhalla instead of the August one, I've been working on a proper Nurgle Biker Lord to lead my Death Guard.  But, that's another post for another time.  I've always liked this Biker, so thought I'd show him off here.

Next up we have a unit of Death Guard Plague Marines:

And here's all four squads of Death Guard that I painted up earlier this year, just a few months ago:

Here's a closeup shot of one of my Heldrakes:

And here's both Heldrakes swooping onto the battlefield:

Next we have the 5 Nurgle Chaos Spawn that I was able to crank out relatively quickly:

And in the background of this picture, you can see the two units of Night Lords Autocannon Havocs that I typically run:

Next up we have "Mr. Fat Pants" himself, the Forge World Nurgle Daemon Prince that I use as my Great Unclean One to lead my Daemon allies (and who will be leading my all Nurgle Daemons army once all those models have been completed):

And here's the GUO leading the twenty Plaguebearers that I have completed so far, which were the first models I painted for my journey down The Road to Valhalla:

That's it for now.  I'm hoping James will take another series of pictures of all of my Nurgle Daemons once I have them completed (I think he will), and when he does, I'll post those pictures up for your consumption.

As always, please feel free to post any comments!

First Plague Hulk Completed Saturday!

Hey, Folks!

Well, I did it! I got the first of my 2 Forge World Plague Hulks completed this past Saturday, and it didn't take all day to do it, either.  (In case you didn't know, I'll be using these beauties as Nurgle Soul Grinders in my 40K Daemons army.)

I ended up having to spend a little more time on the swords than I'd expected.  A friend (and Golden Daemon winner) suggested that I wash the sword blades, which I wanted to look like stone.  So when I did (with Agrax Earthshade) some mold lines that I'd missed became very apparent, and I had to deal with them.  That stripped off the paint down to the primer where I trimmed the mold lines, so I had to re-paint the areas I'd trimmed (Mechanicus Standard Grey), wait for that to dry, wash the entire sword (actually, I did both swords at the same time), wait for that to dry, and dry brush it (Dawnstone) to bring it to the point I'd had it before.  Then I showed them to Jimmy, the manager at my FLGS, (who is an excellent painter himself), and he suggested an extreme edge highlight of the next lighter color, Administratum Grey.  So I did that, matte varnished them, gloss varnished the pustules again, and yes, they ended up looking a lot better!  Thanks, guys!

So, all in all, from priming to final assembly, highlighting and touch-ups, I worked on this beast from Thursday, July 25, through Saturday, August 3rd (not working every day; had to take a few days off from hobby time here and there to spend time with the family).  So 10 elapsed days, of which I worked on him 7 of those days.  The entire process took me 40 hours to get him to this state:

There he is in all his Nurgly glory.  There's an amazing amount of detail on this model; sorry I don't have more close-up pictures of him; I'll try to get some next time I have decent light.

I decided to work on this model after I got the Plague Toads (to be used as Beasts of Nurgle) completed, and prior to the Plague Toads I'd been mostly painting infantry models, so working on this Plague Hulk was my "reward" for getting so much other stuff done, and before I go back to the assembly line drudgery of doing more (necessary) infantry models.

I have one more of these guys to do, but that one's going to be the last thing that I do to get all of my Daemons ready for October Valhalla.  I finished this guy up around 6:00 PM last Saturday, which left me with time to get started on my next task, which is to paint up 15 of the 30 more Plaguebearers that I need for Troops.  I got a good amount of work done on the Plaguebearers Saturday night, and then got a bunch more done last night, so they're going pretty quickly.  I'm hoping I'll get to get some hobby time in tonight (Tuesday) after work, as I've got a game scheduled this Wednesday.  I know, right?  An actual game?  Yup, time to brush up on my playing skills (and reward myself with a break from painting; although taking the time off to play a game does leave me a little anxious), and face a tough and fast Eldar force at 2,000 points to see what I need to do against the pointy-eared ones and their cracking new codex.  I'll be using my standard 2,000 point CSM list (Death Guard with Night Lords Heavy Support), which includes some Daemon allies.  But, it will be the first time I've played with this army completely painted, and the first time I've played with a completely painted army in about 4 or 5 years!  Looking forward to it!

So, point being, I probably won't get any hobby time in on Wednesday, and I'd like to get these 15 Plaguebearers completed before Saturday.  I should be able to work on them Thursday night; the question is, will I be able to tonight, as I'm estimating it will take two good evenings' work to get this first batch of 15 Plagubearers completed.  Will keep you posted on those.

In the meantime, please let me know what you think of the Plague Hulk, and leave a comment!

One Plague Hulk Body and Both Sword Hands Completed

Hey, folks!

Between last Thursday and Sunday, I spent about 16 hours working on getting the body of the first of the two Forge World Nurgle Plague Hulks that I will be using as Soul Grinders completed.  Here are a variety of pictures of his body.  You'll notice that his left arm ends in a stump; this is where the "sword hand" goes, and I'll talk more about them after the body pictures.  This guy is full of fantastic details, and I hope you can pick them out in these pictures I took using my iPhone:

Then, yesterday (Monday), I was able to spend 6.5 hours working on both of the sword hands for both of the Plague Hulks.  I figured I might as well do both of them at the same time, as either one could be used interchangeably with either Plague Hulk body, so I wanted them to look as identical as possible.  Here's a picture of the two swords:

You'll notice that one of the swords has a "brace" across the "stone" blade.  That's because the good old Forge World resin sword had warped, and as I was gently trying to bend it back into place, I used just an erg or two too many of force and it snapped right in half.  I decided to use a piece of sprue that I carved up to look, well, not like sprue, and applied one section on both sides of that sword to brace it, as I was certain it would break again from just the superglue used to connect the two halves together.

I have since learned (the hard way) how to use a heat gun (thanks to Jimmy) to soften and then bend FW resin into the position I desire.  The "low" setting on Jimmy's heat gun feels about the same as the "high" setting on my wife's hair dryer, so I should be fine in the future when such situations occur again (which I know they will).  (I also know that very hot water, even hot from the tap, will accomplish the same thing and soften up the resin enough for it to be pliable and bent back into its proper shape.)

So here's what he looks like with one of the sword hands attached to the body:

Now I have to paint up the 6 legs for this bad boy, and get them assembled onto the body.  I'm going to start working on that tonight after work, and I hope I'll be able to get them all painted and assembled onto the body by, or hopefully before, this Saturday.

Here's what I've got as the recipe for painting the legs and doing the final assembly:

Plague Hulks' Legs:

  -  Paint metallic trim & blades of the Plague Hulk's legs Ironbreaker.

  - Pick out details (like Chaos Stars, rods & the balls of the legs) with Copper.

  -  Wash Ironbreaker parts with Sepia.

  -  Wash the Copper parts with Coelia Greenshade.

  -  Paint corrupted parts of the Plague Hulk's legs.

       -- Paint open sores Bugman's Glow as a base coat.

       -- Paint pustules Yellow.

       -- Wash pustules Yellow.

  -  Wash the Plague Hulk's legs with Athonian Camoshade.

       -- Layer sores with Warlock Purple.

       -- Layer sores with Emperor's Children.

       -- Dry brush sores with Bleached Bone.

       -- Wash sores with Druchii Violet.

  -  Do any additional final details of Plague Hulk's legs.

  -  Matte varnish Plague Hulk's legs.

  -  Gloss varnish open sores on Plague Hulk's legs.

  -  Assemble Plague Hulk's legs to his body.

  -  Do final touch ups of Plague Hulk after assembling legs to body, including edge highlights on the legs, the sword, the gun & the engine stacks, and anything else that might look good getting an edge highlight

  -  Add Nurglings to the legs & possibly chassis of the Plague Hulk???

       == First Plague Hulk should be complete at this point!!!

***********************************************************************

Hope you like what you see.  Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

July 25th Update

Here's today's entry from my painting journal.  Please let me know if you find these interesting, or if I'm going into too much detail and being tedious...

Plan for Thursday:

  -  Stay home and recover from minor oral surgery, OR...

  -  Go to Empire Games (FLGS, Mesa, AZ) and Primer 30 Plaguebearers, OR...

  -  Go to Empire and Primer one of the Plague Hulk bodies and get started painting it...

         ==>> Actual ==>> Decided to primer one of the Plague Hulks and get started on him.  

Got my bony protrusion in my jaw taken care of this morning, and it wasn't as bad as the Doc told me it would be yesterday, but it still hurts like hell and hurts to talk and swallow.  So I headed out to Empire around 2:00 PM & assumed a leisurely pace, getting my paints organized for the Hulk & Plaguebearers that I'll probably work on after I get the first Hulk finished.  The primer job worked out pretty well, despite it being 97F and a tad humid.  

It was a slow but productive night. I spent quite a while examining the Plague Hulk's body & chassis, working out a plan of attack & getting it written down on my iPad.  I got all the metal parts painted Ironbreaker, including the underside of the chassis, and various stuff that's embedded in fleshy folds across the body proper.  Then I got the gaping wounds, open sores, and mouth & tongue painted with a base coat of Bugman's Glow in preparation for further grossification, in the same manner that I did my Great Unclean One, so a variety of purples, pinks, some Bleached Bone highlights and Druchii Violet washing will come later there. 

Then I got the gun barrel and smokestacks at the rear of the Hulk also painted Bugman's Glow, as these have the same texture and appearance of the gun barrels and barrel of goo on the back of the GUO.  I'll have to consult my notes from when I painted the GUO to see what I'll be doing to these parts next, but I think it involves some Athonian Camoshade washing when I wash the body itself, and then later gloss varnishing after the matte varnish spray, much later in the process.  

I'm feeling a bit better in my mouth, with the help of some Vicodin, but I'm back to eating soft foods, mostly yogurt, & frozen custard, courtesy of Culver's across the street from Empire Games.  I made it an early night so I could catch up on sleep & get an early start tomorrow (Friday) so I can jet out to Empire after my last meeting of the day ends at 4:00 PM.  Next steps tomorrow evening will be...

Plague Hulk Body - Next Steps:

   -  Paint the corrugated pipes on the gun and "engine", and the trim & rods (???) on the underside of the chassis, and anything else that would benefit from it, with Copper.

   -  Paint pustules with thinned Yellow.

   -  Wash the pustule areas with Yellow wash. 

   -  Paint the vomit issuing forth from the PH's mouth an appropriate sickly color, probably mixing Yellow with Rotting Flesh.

   -  Wash the Copper parts with thinned Coelia Greenshade.

   -  Wash the Ironbreaker parts with Sepia.

   -  Dunk the entire PH in water & Wash the Plague Hulk's Body with Athonian Camoshade, trying to not saturate the metal parts completely with this wash (but washing the gun and smokestacks).

   -  Layer the guts and open sores with varying degrees of Warlock Purple and Emperor's Children Pink. Wash with Druchii Violet or Carroburg Crimson, highlight with Pink & Bleached Bone & wash some more, in the same manner as was done on the GUO, until satisfied.

   -  Paint the mouth & tongue area Pink & wash with Crimson, then highlight with Pink & Bleached Bone & wash some more until it looks appropriate, possibly using Bloodletter glaze as a last step.

   -  Touch up the pustules with more Yellow paint & wash.

   -  Apply various Nurgly washes to vary the coloring across the body.

   -  Pick out any amazing details the Plague Hulk's body that I might have missed, such as the little gauge on his back, the various little bugs & worms crawling all over his body & intestines, the occasional fly, etc.

   -  Do any obvious edge highlighting that may be required to the body.

   -  Matte varnish the Plague Hulk's body.

   -  Gloss varnish the appropriate parts of the Plague Hulk's body.

Sounds like a lot, and the list will probably evolve and morph as I actually do things, but that's the recipe as it stands right now.   And, to be realistc, I probably won't get it all done in one evening's work, but with the family out of town & no work the next day, I should be able to get quite a bit knocked off this task list.  Some things go faster than others, but there's going to be time spent waiting for major areas that have received a wash treatment to dry before I'll want to pick up the model again, and some steps are iterative, like the gaping wounds, and their results develop organically until they get to be "just right". If I can get to the point where I give the model it's first full wash of Athonian Camoshade before the end of the evening, I'll be happy, and should be able to get the rest done with a full day's work on Saturday.

After the body, I still have all the legs, and the hand holding the sword to get painted, and then get the legs assembled onto the body.  Then this sucker will be "done"...

Like I said, please let me know if you find this level of detail interesting, or whether you'd prefer that I go back to just posting an entry when a major milestone has been met, such as getting the Plague Hulk's body completed. 

July 24th Update

I write in my Valhalla painting journal on my iPad every night after working on stuff, which is most nights.  I do this on my iPad late at night, and I can't post blog entries on the Safari browser, so haven't bothered trying to keep those of you interested in my daily doings up to date with daily updates, instead waiting until I've achieved some milestone and have pictures to make a significant post.

However, I noticed that Google has a mobile Blogger app, so I decided to install it and give it a try.  Here goes...

Wednesday:

Plan:

  -  Either continue building Plaguebearers, OR

  -  Play a 2,000 point game against Mike's Eldar.

         ==>> Actual =>> Mike was a no-show (is this the week he's in San Francisco?), so I banged out the other 20 Plaguebearers & got them built in a very nice variety of combinations of legs, bellies, arms & heads, and a nice assortment of poses, too, if I do say so myself...

Now I have to get them primed, but I'm not sure I'm going to dive right into them just yet.  I might treat myself to tackling one of the Plague Hulks next as a change of pace, being such a large model (as opposed to all the infantry I've been doing lately).  All of the models I originally planned for that I'll need at Valhalla are built, except for attaching the legs to the Hulks, which I'll do after I've got everything painted (legs & body).  (Also, I'd like to do a proper Nurgle Biker Lord to lead my Death Guard, and have worked that into the revised schedule...)

However, I couldn't stand what was going on in my mouth any more, so I went to the oral surgeon this afternoon to have him look at the bony protrusion where my tooth was extracted a month ago, and which has been rubbing against the underside of my tongue on that left side for about 4 or 5 days now.  He said that the gums would grow over it in time, but if it was really bothering me, he would make an incision, file down the bone & sew it back up.  

It really is bugging me, as it's painful and has become difficult to swallow and even talk, but I didn't want him to do it right then.  I have an important meeting at 8:30 in the morning (Thursday) that I need to be alert for, and I knew that after his ministrations I'd be in a lot of pain, would probably have a bad night, and be doped up on Vicodin in the morning.  So I scheduled an appointment for 10:00 AM tomorrow (Thursday) morning, and will likely be out of commission for at least a day, which really sucks, because my wife and daughter are both out of town until some time Sunday night, and this is a perfect opportunity to get a bunch of work done without worrying about being away from the family for a long time each night (and all day Saturday), and/or getting bitched at for it.  

Will have to see how I feel tomorrow after the surgery and some rest, and whether I need too much Vicodin to ease the pain to be comfortable with driving to my FLGS & back.  Thankfully the pressure to get as much done as possible has let up some with the change from going to Valhalla in August to going in October, but I can't let up too much, and besides, I'll just be bored out of my mind laying around the house.  If I'm OK to drive, I'll go, but if I have to hit the Vicodin hard just to survive (I don't do pain well), I'll just hang out at home and catch up on my codex fluff reading...

Hopefully at worst I'll just have to stay home tomorrow evening, and can get back to it Friday after work...  

We'll see...  Stay tuned...

Hold the Phone... Change of Plans...

I have a problem.  A big one.

I can't go to Blue Table Painting's Valhalla in August this year.

The problem stems from a conflict with getting my oldest daughter back to college.  Her school is starting their Fall semester later than they had been the previous 2 years, which we just found out about this past weekend.  The wife and I worked through all the available options, and it came down to either my youngest daughter would have to miss 3 or 4 days of high school (she'll be a Junior this year) as she'd have to go with my wife, or she would have to be home alone for a few days.  Neither of these are acceptable options (at least not to us).

So, there's no way for me to go to Valhalla in August this year.

However...

I will be going to Valhalla in October of this year, instead.

Yay!

I knew when my wife and I were trying to work out the details of trying to get me to Valhalla that there were no more suites available (which is what I had reserved for August), and that even if there were, the October prices were higher than the August prices.

I also knew that there was only one Drop Pod left for October, and therein lay the other problem:  I was not going to Valhalla alone.  My good friend, John, was also going to the August Valhalla.  What we had worked out was that I reserved a suite at August Valhalla, and for an additional $50 the BTP folks were going to provide an additional twin bed to the suite.  The suite already comes with 2 event passes, so I was going to pay a little more and take the queen/king bed in the suite, and John was going to take the added-on twin bed, and then we'd only have to share a private bathroom with each other and not two other people, as would be the case in a Drop Pod.  This worked out to be only $50 more for John than being in a Drop Pod with 3 other people, and $450 less for me from my original plan of getting a "captain's quarters" private room (these are smaller than the suites, but share a bathroom with at least one other private room).

But I the last time I'd checked the BTP store's website, there was only one Drop Pod slot left in October, and I wasn't even sure that was still available.  Dilemma.  Either John or I would have to downgrade to an event pass and get a room in a hotel in nearby Heber City, UT (about 15 minutes away from the Valhalla site), and since the problem with not being able to go to Valhalla in August was mine, I didn't feel right about asking John to take the off-the-premises room, so that meant that I'd have to get an event pass and get a room in Heber City.  And, I'd have a significant balance with BTP, as I was pretty sure they wouldn't issue a refund for the difference in what I'd paid and the price of just and event pass (although I wasn't certain of this).

So, I emailed my contact at BTP, Shannon, on this past Sunday night, and explained the situation to her, and asked if there were any suites that had become available, or whether there was more than one Drop Pod left for October.  To my amazement and delight, she replied within a few hours saying that someone had just exchanged their October Drop Pod reservation for an August one, and there were, in fact, just 2 Drop Pod beds available, and that she would hold them for me!

Huzzzah!

Unfortunately, there are no suites available at this time, and there is someone ahead of us who has requested a suite should one become available, but we're 2nd on the list should a suite become available.  (And even at the higher October prices, splitting the cost of a suite plus the extra twin bed would be less expensive than the cost of each of our Drop Pod spots.)

Also, unfortunately, John and I will each need to pony up another $250 each to cover the cost of accommodations that are not as good as we'd been expecting, but, this may be a blessing in disguise.  Why?  Because it means that I can let up on my helter-skelter schedule of painting every spare moment I have, step back, take a breather, maybe get a few games in, and get everything I wanted to get painted done in time for October, plus be able to do a few extra things, like build, convert and paint a proper Nurgle Biker Lord to lead my Death Guard, rather than the Night Lords Biker that I currently use.

So, the journey continues, albeit with a minor speed bump.  I figure I'm not going to be spending much time in my room at Valhalla as it is, and it kinda sucks that I have to pay more for less, but I've still earned enough from writing for Seeking Alpha that I've covered these costs, and then some, and I can slow down a bit and get everything done that needs to get done before heading off to the Wasatch Mountains in October.

All's well that ends well...

:-)

Nine Plague Toads (Beasts of Nurgle) Completed in 6 Days!

Hey, Folks!  I got all 9 of my Forge World Nurgle Plague Toads (which I'm going to be using as Beasts of Nurgle in my games of 40K) completed in just 6 elapsed days over 8 calendar days (wasn't able to work on them 2 of the days from Sunday, July 14th thru this past Sunday, July 21st).  Total time spent on getting them built, primed, painted, based and varnished was 24 work hours.

I really love these little guys!  They have such great attitude, and are much better models than the GW plastic Beast of Nurgle, which to me just looks like a giant turd.  Plus, there's only one GW plastic model, and who ever runs just one of these things?  As you can see from the picture above, I've based them so that I can run as a unit of 5 (green base edges) and a unit of 4 (brown base edges).

Another thing that's a plus in the Forge World Plague Toads' favor over the GW Plastic Beast of Nurgle model is that if you can get a large enough FW order put together so that you get free shipping, these little guys come out to just about the same cost per Toad as a single plastic Beast model (in my case a little less; depends on the exchange rate at the time you buy).  The GW plastic Beast is $24.75, plus tax, while at GBP43.00 for three different poses (no tax), each Toad comes out to around $22.00 apiece, give or take.  And even if you can't find enough buddies to put together a GBP250 order to get the free shipping and end up having to pay the (outrageous) 15% shipping charge, they still come out to about $25 apiece.  So, for me and my money, the FW Plague Toads were the only way to go.

I had seen these little monsters while cruising the FW website before, but what made me go for them when I realized how bad ass Beasts of Nurgle could be in the new Daemons codex was the battle report in the March White Dwarf, which featured Plague Toads as stand-ins for Beasts of Nurgle.  After seeing those pictures, I was sold on them!

And even with only 3 sculpts, there's so much you can do with them when you paint them to give you more variety that I have no problem running multiples of the same sculpt in the same unit.

And, being Nurgle, I mostly used washes, and very little paint, to get them to come out like this.  That, and a lot of imagination, plus some input, suggestions and help from bystanders and friends at my FLGS.

So, I can't wait to get a game in with my Daemons at some point to see how they actually perform.  Still more Daemons to paint to get ready for Valhalla, but I'm continuing to make progress!

I hope you like these little buggers.  As always, thanks for taking the time to read this, and please leave a comment below before you go!