The End Times...

So, last week a thought crossed my mind.

It was the day after Christmas, and it was one of the most Games Workshoppy ones my lady and I'd had in a while.  I’d already been hit with a financial crunch, but really... by seventh edition I’d lost most hope for the game.  As I’ve mentioned before.

Eighth edition has really rekindled my love for 40K. And I’d already been having this ongoing fling with Age of Sigmar, so it was kinda the best of both worlds.  And my girlfriend’s okay with it as long as she gets included sometimes (I'm a lucky guy).

So this Christmas was some Death Guard and a core of Stormcast Eternals for me, while she got the core of a shiny new Arkanaut/ Kharadron force (she’s had her eye on the steampunk dwarves and their airships since they first showed up). 

There was much rejoicing.

But it got me thinking about building a lot of this stuff.  And the tweaks I still need to make to my Death Guard so they’ll fit this brave new millennium we’ve entered into.  Plus some Primaris I have left to build.  Really, there’s a ton of additions for the Relictors that have kinda piled up.  And the core of a Seraphon army that I’ve been collecting for ages...

That’s a lot of stuff to work on.  And not a lot of time.  Especially since I’m really pushing to get two new books done in 2018.

When you also consider that I barely managed to post twelve times last year...and only nine times the year before that.  Trying to do any sort of noteworthy project, document it, and write up semi-useful directions takes up a fair amount of time.  Plus, there hasn’t been any real response on anything in about two years, and even then it’s not like there were long lines of people waiting to share their thoughts.

So... I think I’ll be shuttering this blog. I won’t be so extreme as to delete it—there’s still plenty of advice here for conversions and Paperhammer models.  Plus the models themselves in the STC files.

I may still post something now and then, too.  I’ve got a scratch-built Ogre Tyrant that I put together for about six bucks.  Some updates on my cheap Legion of the Damned.  And I’ve been toying with building a cardstock version on Witchfate Tor.  Maybe even get some of these Paperhammer projects finally done and painted...

I may put some new stuff over on my just-as-neglected Relictors blog. It’s a little less instruction, a little more of my musing about the game and the chapter and my take on them (and how my models fit into that take).  And I'll continue to do stuff with the Atomic Warlords (for as long as they'll have me).

So, to the three of you who still check this page every other month or so...  thanks. If you have any interest, I actually blab a lot about geeky stiff on Twitter and Instagram. Maybe I’ll see you there.

The Emperor Protects.

Based On... What?

One of the biggest issues I’ve been dealing with lately is rebasing. The move from Warhammer Fantasy to Age of Sigmar meant all those figures had to be moved over to round bases (although my Empire and Undead armies have decided to stay on their square bases... because sweet Jeebus that’s a lot of figs). In the workd of 40K, we’ve seen Space Marines of all types and flavors move over to these new 32mm bases, finally gaining a sense of the size and mass they’ve always supposedly had.

For most of us, this is a huge project.  I have four major Marine armies—Relictors, Alpha Legion, Thousand Sons, and Death Guard (plus a few others...).  On a rough guess... that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 models that need to end up on larger bases.  And they’re all connected to their current bases in a variety of ways.

Some of you may be in the same boat.  Here's a few options I came up with.  You may have poked at some or all of them...

Well, my first option came to me from WarGamma, a fun after-market site I’ve bought stuff from before.  He’s a sculptor who’s done some wonderful items for “heroic scale” gaming, and he jumped on the rebasing issue less than a month after the introduction of the 32mm base.  Check these out—base expanders.  Just drop your model in, add superglue, and done.  They work out to .70 cents each. 

At first I’d planned to split them between my Relictors and my Alpha Legion, just dropping them on (or under) HQ units, squad leaders, and other key figures.  Then I realized their best use was metal figs on slottabases. Which is only a few Relictors and Alpha Legion guys, but a lot of my Death Guard and Thousand Sons.  And Necrons.  So the priorities shifted a bit there.

As an added bonus, these adaptors make a minifig about a milimeter or two taller.  On a regular base, I think it’d be one even, but the raised area in the middle means slottabases sit a little higher. In these days of size-creep... that’s not a bad thing.

Helpful Hint—These adaptors are great, but they’re ever-so-slightly too high on the edges, even for the slottabase models..  I ended up sanding them down just a bit—maybe a millimeter or two—so they’d be flush with the GW bases.  It took maybe six back-and-forth swipes across

the sandpaper.

Now, rebasing option two’s the classic one. Cut the model off the old base, remount it on the new base.  Straightforward, and only costs you the new bases.  I think you can buy a bag of 32mm bases from GW for about .40 cents per base, but that’s if you buy a hundred of them.  For a ten-pack, they’re .50 each  You might be able to do slightly lower than those prices if you dig around on eBay stores for dealers like Blackdagger or Hobby Titan.

The catch here is that it means wrecking any basing/scenery you might’ve previously added.  Plus... well, I don’t know about you. but the knife’s slipped a few times for me or slid off path and suddenly a marine’s missing part of their heel or toes. It’s a minor thing, but it grates at me.  I did maybe a dozen Relictors like this a few weeks back, carefully cutting off one foot at a time.  Only one lost a bit of his heel.

And this led me to option three.

At one point that past weekend, I got a bit frustrated and just took the clippers to the base of a hapless Alpha Legionnaire and cut off the edges of the base.  I worked from underneath, so the top stayed the same. I filed down what was left and ended up with a figure standing on a flat, decorated disk. And I glued the whole thing to a 32mm base.

End result—all my basing and scenery transferred over.  There’s never any risk to the figure itself, so it’s faster and easier.  Plus, the model ends up being about 2-3 mm taller because the old base and basing transfer over and stack on the new base. I was going at a nice, leisurely pace and rebased about twenty Death Guard marines this way in a little over an hour.

You can even do this with plastic slottabase figs.  I picked out some of my Relictors with missile launchers from the Battle for Macragge/ Black Reach sets.  It takes a little more work to clip the slottabase off, but it works exactly the same.  Clip, file, glue, done.  Faster, safer, a little taller.

And there you go.  Three quick, easy, and relatively cheap way to make your old models new and even a little bigger.

Got to stand up to those Primaris somehow...

In Other News...

Sorry... need to mention my other art projects for a minute.

Next week I start touring up and down California with my new book, Paradox Bound, plus a little trip out to the east coast for New York Comic Con.  If I’m going to be near you, please stop by and say hello—there’s still time to reserve a copy at your local book store.

And if I’m not going to be near you... well, most of these stores take orders and ship. Some of them even ship internationally!  Give them a call, request something for enscribbling, and you can still have a personalized copy in your hands in just a few days.

(and there’s also a kick-ass audiobook narrated by Ray Porter, which means you can listen while building and painting... just saying)

Hope to see you there.