Citadel Holiday Miniature of the Year - Jakkob Bugmansson

Last year during the holiday season I painted up the annual Games Workshop holiday miniature, The Red Gobbo, and took home a best painted in the local Warhammer Store's contest. He was a fun little guy to paint up, and I ended up putting him in an individual case and he is now a permanent part of the décor in my gaming room. This year, I'd doubted that there would be a holiday miniature painting competition, but like a champ Warhammer Hillsboro came through with a virtual competition involving this year's holiday miniature, Jakkob Bugmansson.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

Regardless of what holidays you celebrate at this time of year, I just wanted to take time out and hope everyone has a great one despite the challenges wrought by the pandemic this year. I firmly believe this is a year many of us will always remember, though in many ways we'd rather forget it. It has been full of unexpected challenges and disappointments, more tragedies than triumphs, and has truly tested all of us to the breaking point. 

Our Trip to Warhammer World - Summer 2019 Callback - Part 2

While the retail areas of Warhammer World are amazing, and being able to buy Forge World items off the shelf is a treat (and pay UK prices which are now lower than US prices), the real highlight of the whole experience for me was the Exhibition Centre. As I mentioned in the previous installment, the exhibitions start out with a brief history of Citadel Miniatures and Games Workshop. It then opens up into more detailed displays of many of the various product lines, all expertly painted, but there are many larger displays and dioramas which tell stories from various parts of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K cannon. Mixed among these are several smaller vignettes, some of which date back decades to the early days of Games Workshop. Given I started playing Warhammer 40K during its Rogue Trader debut, this was a very welcome trip down memory lane!

The Orks attack!

Our Trip to Warhammer World - Summer 2019 Callback - Part 1

Needless to say, this year has been an absolute bust for travel, vacation, camping, etc. However, it suddenly occurred to me that I'd never posted any pictures of our trip to Warhammer World during the summer of 2019. We spent nearly two weeks in the UK (England and Scotland), and honestly tried to take way too much in during that time including castles, cathedrals, Roman ruins, and even Tankfest! However, as hitting Warhammer World was on my bucket list, we had to at least spend an afternoon there.

Space Marine guarding the car park

Armies on Parade Awards Date Set

After some digging on the Warhammer 40K Facebook page, I found a cute video announcing when the Armies on Parade awards would be announced - December 19 at 1:45 GMT. So that's this Saturday! Of course, 1:45 GMT is 5:45AM Pacific, so I'll be checking out the replay once I wake up... likely a couple of hours later! The whole ceremony is going to be on Twitch, so anyone who is interested can click the links above or snag the URL from the image below.

Trench Line Fortifications for Warhammer 40K

As part of my Armies on Parade entry this year I was working on a fair amount of terrain. Almost all of it ended up in the final display, but there was one piece that didn't quite make the final cut. It wasn't that the piece wasn't coming out well, it's just that I had more trouble than expected integrating it into the final display. The top (surface) layer of the display was originally intended to have a defense emplacement on top of one of the low hills, but I had trouble integrating the emplacement into the overall theme of the board, so I ended up leaving it out. It's essentially done at this point, I may go back and so a little more shading in a couple of spots, but I think it came out pretty well.

Mortar Squad for the Brood Brothers

With Armies on Parade over, I've finally gotten back to finishing up a few projects that I'd had lying around. One of them is a fun little Heavy Weapon squad with mortars. The nice thing about this particular unit is I can slot it into my regular Genestealer Cult army or I can kick it over to the Astra Militarum detachment depending on what I want to run. The miniatures started out as the the basic Cadian squad, but I've come into a fair number of "bits" recently, and I decided to go a bit crazy with these guys as advanced modeler's syndrome kicked in.

The Subversion of Hive World Novgorod - Genestealer Cult Army Background

Hive World Novgorod lies in the outer reaches of the Segentum Tempestus, deep in The Veiled Region between Gryphonne IV and Bakka. The history of the original colonization of the world during the Dark Age of Technology, when humanity poured into the galaxy by the billions, has been lost to the ravages of time. With the coming of the Imperium, the planet became an important mining world with rich deposits of rare elements and a relatively small population. After the dark years of the Age of Apostacy, the role of the planet was modified to include not only mining, but manufacture of tanks and other weaponry for the Astra Militarum. While its production was low compared Forge Worlds like Gryphonne IV, its proximity to that world allowed it to share its unique Standard Template Construct designs. The resulting massive influx of workers soon outstripped available space for settlement and large hive cities were constructed over the mines and forges to house the burgeoning population.

The Galaxy (as of 9th Edition) - with Novgorod in green