CanCon Apocalypse Prep Step 1: Extracting the Digit

And so life plods on as usual.  It’s again been a while between updates with the usual excuse of work and home being busy.  We’ve had the odyssey of the Amazing Vomiting Boy which resulted in many a sleepless night of worry and cleaning followed by the saga of Giving Up the Dummy (which is still ongoing).

But the reason for this update is to give myself a slap upside the head and get my 40K Apocalypse painting in gear.  I have 5000pts of Imperial Guard and Titans to get painted and ready for January next year and I don’t want to rush it all in the last month or two.  To that end, I have a Plan(TM).

I have the following list of stuff to paint (and in some cases, assemble):

Infantry:

Lord Castellan Creed (General)

Sergeant Kell (Standard Bearer)

Master of Ordnance (special officer)

Lord Commissar

2x Officers

6x Commissars

6x Sergeants

3x Autocannon Teams (2 models per team)

9x Comms Grunts

2x Sniper Grunts

2x Flamer Grunts

6x Meltagun Grunts

42x Grunts

Total Infantry:   85 (d’oh!)

Vehicles:

Deathstrike Missile Launcher

2x Vendetta Gunships

2x Custom Hydra AA Tanks

Total Vehicles:   5 (only, thank the gods)

Titans:

2x Reaver Battle Titans (Sweet!)

Now most of the infantry are built and ready to be sprayed (I only have three grunts to go before they’re all done).  Of the vehicles I only have the Missile Launcher done but the Hydra AA Tanks won’t take too much (I basically have to build the AA turrets and they’re ready for paint).  The Vendettas are waiting on parts before I build them.

What I am really waiting for are the Reaver Titans!  My mate Ags is making them for me and I really can’t wait to get my hands on them and paint them up.  I have always, ALWAYS wanted a 40K-scale Reaver Titan.  Now I’m going to get two!  This is what I’m talking about:

They’re awesomely cool and I’m really looking forward to getting them.

This weekend I hope to get some colour onto the Infantry and get the Hydra AA Tanks built.  I plan on having all the infantry done by the end of September with all of the tanks to be done by the middle to end of November, leaving all of December and January free for the Titans.  It’s kind of ambitious for me (as I rarely get more than a handful of minis painted in a year) but I really want to stick with it and get them all done.  There’ll be lots of spray painting and washes to speed the process so I think I can do it.

Wish me luck!  I hope to have semi-regular updates here to keep me motivated.

Na-na na-na na-na na-na na! BatAlex!

Another bout of silence but not as long as before. The virtual world is not holding much appeal for me at the moment, it has to be said. I’m spending most of my time working and being with family as per usual.

Work has seriously improved. My old assistant has taken a secondment to another section and I have a new assistant whom I have been working with for the last two months and it’s a HUGE improvement. She is much more relaxed and more efficient. We are actually AHEAD of our current schedule of classes and have some time to tackle the jobs that normally get left to the semester breaks. It’s awesome. She doesn’t take offence to things like my old assistant did and I don’t have to tiptoe around her like I used to. End result: I’m more relaxed and happy at work. I’d nearly forgotten what that was like.

At home, I am enjoying my son being three. His personality has come leaping out now that he’s discovered his voice and it’s a doozy. His first passion is Cars. Not just any old cars (though he does love Matchbox and Hot Wheels) but Cars from Pixar. He has just about every Cars thing that has ever been made but he’s also recently developed a liking for Batman. Most three-year olds I’ve met love Spider-man but not my boy. Batman all the way and that’s fine by me. I love Batman. He has a little Batman shirt that comes complete with a cape and he loves few things more than running around trying to make the cape fly out behind him and it’s so much fun to watch.

He loves the shirt so much that he wears it everywhere he can. This lead to the following incident, as described to me by my wife. The other day he was at the shops with his Mum and wearing his Batman shirt and cape. It came time to leave and so the following exchange took place:

“Alex, it’s time to go.”

“I’m not Alex. I’m Batman and Batman goes where he wants!”

“Well, I’m Batman’s MUM and Batman’s MUM says it’s time to go!”

“Oh.”

Heh. I would have LOVED to have seen that. My little Batman!

On the gaming front, not much has happened. I had planned on getting lots ready for CanCon 2013 Apocalypse but to tell the truth, nothing much has changed. I’ve developed a new list that has cut down the number of models I need to paint from 117 to 82 but I still have a LOT to paint (only 1 model of that 82 is painted). Easter is on its way, though, and I hope to get a little time to do some more prep on the army and get it ready.

Hello 2012

A flurry of posting activity and then silence. Until now.

Yep, last year I got busy with the postings and then lay low. The usual excuses still apply: family and work. Christmas was very nice with a visit from my folks in the morning to watch my son go mad opening presents and not know what to play with first. They also helped to assemble Alex’s big present: a 16ft trampoline. It’s a big SOB. Luckily we had cleared a big section of the backyard only a couple of months before otherwise we’d have had no where to put it. Thankfully he loves it and gets very depressed when it rains and he can’t use it. Christmas lunch then followed with a few friends joining us for the traditional stuffing of the face punctuated with home-made mojitos (I’m pretty awesome at mojitos I have to say). A nice relaxing day that I really did enjoy.

New Year came and went and I started back at work. First thing up was hiring a new assistant. My previous one took a secondment to another section to earn more money (yay!) so I had to hire a replacement. She seems to be working out really well and we appear to be getting on O.K. so the stress here at work has lessened, which has made for a happier me. It should be an interesting year as QUT is hosting TechNet, a conference for Technical Staff from around Australia and I’m involved with the Entertainment Committee. We’re having fun arranging a place for the conference dinner as well as the attendee packs and other entertainment (funny that).

On the gaming front I’ve done very little. I’m spending lots of spare time with my family as Alex is at such a fun age. His speech continues to rocket along and we’ve finally reached the point where we are telling him to shut up. I never thought I’d be happy to have to tell my boy to be quiet. But on the topic of gaming, I’ve decided to aim for CanCon 2013 to play Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse again. Last time I went and played it, I had a great time and I’d love to do it again. To that end I am planning my army now so there isn’t a big rush to get it finished. Last time I took Tau (with the attendant Tigershark aircraft I built. I still owe Blog-land pics of the finished products). This time I plan to break out my first 40K army: Imperial Guard. Normally the Imperial Guard are pretty squishy with lots of infantry that dies easily but in Apocalypse, you get to take some of the really BIG stuff, which the Imperial Guard have in abundance. I am aiming to take a company of three Baneblades (tanks that are 4 times the size of an ordinary tank, with the expected big guns and tough hides), a Shadowsword (another superheavy tank with a massive laser cannon), Deathstrike Vortex Missile (think of a cruise missile launcher who’s missile annihilates everything it touches when it blows) and lots of infantry to protect them. Heh. Fun. But there’s lots of assembling and painting to do between now and January 2013. Hopefully I can use this blog as a way of keeping track of my progress but based on my track record, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you.

In any case, stay tuned for either modelling updates or a complete lack of activity!