Short But Sweet

As opposed to previous posts, I'm going to keep this one shorter on the introduction and heavier on the pics. Just the stuff I've been up to so far. Don't have any real warhammer related opinions or brainfarts to share right now anyway. So sit back and check out these babies:

My two sorcerers so far. Still have to do highlights on the metal and the details. Also I need to think of a way to make it obvious that they're slaanesh sorcerers. Pink seems to be the main mode of thought so far.

 

In addition to starting work on the sorcerers I've started work on the defilers as well. I wanted to fill up the empty space inside the monolith bits so first I started greenstuffing them closed, but then decided that it would become too expensive. It was about the moment that I spent half a pack of greenstuff (15 euro's a pop) and didn't even fill half the thing. Arts and crafts store downtown came to my rescue though. Always nice to be confronted with how much my hobby resembles those of old ladies and preschool children.

 Not going to leave you without some finished project pics. This is another Dark Heresy character I played once and painted up a model for. He's pretty much finished now so I thought it'd be cool to post him here. 

Ok, so that's that already. I'll see if I can find something more discussion-worthy next time. Tonight I'm just gonna try and recuperate from a last night's Game of Thrones 'episode-that-turned-into-a-marathon' ..marathon.

Death to the False Emperor!

Distractions

I've been somewhat distracted this week.

Work has been a constant drain on my energies since I now work 6 days a week at both my graduation internship and McDonalds. In fact, it's been such a strain that I've decided to quit working at McDonalds, even though it's been my best part-time job ever and it'll probably be rough times ahead without the extra income.

For my graduation internship I also have to travel back and forth for about 3 hours by train every day. This has had the nifty little side-effect that I now tear through my black library books like there's no tomorrow. The First Heretic by Aaron Dembski-Bowden has been the first to fall.

Badass cover art is badass.

Did I ever mention that I like chaos space marines? For those not in the know: The First Heretic is about the how the Word Bearers legion introduced the worship of Chaos to the imperium of man and set in motion the massive war of betrayal that was the Horus Heresy. This right here is also precisely why I love to read Horus Heresy books. Every book reads like it's history in the making. It's immensely fascinating to me how all these small coïncidences and decisions, usually motivated by very understandable human emotions, end up shaping these incredibly epic and apocalyptic events. The First Heretic has this stuff in spades.

Another thing I never fail to enjoy is a story that makes me sympathise with a vilain. Even regular space marines are a bunch of superhuman indoctrinated psychopaths who kill people with less emotion than I feel when making a sandwhich. Chaos Space Marines (and the Word Bearers in particular) do not only go around commiting horrible genocide around the universe, but are also the ones that come up with the brilliant idea to start worshipping daemons from hell and completely betray and murder their own brothers while they're at it. It's a testament to a story when you can not only be a witness to all of this, but still get that "I know that feel" moment in the midst of it.

Even chaos marines need a hug sometimes.

Then again, this is Aaron Dembski-Bowden we're talking about here and, as he has proven with his excellent Night Lords series, chaos space marines and their inner workings are his expertise.

The only thing I felt was missing in this book were the absence of a single, continuous plotline. The main character in this book is the word bearers captain Argel Tal, but since this guy is 'merely' a captain and therefore not present at most of the plotting and scheming that goes on behind the scenes, I felt like I missed some important points from the main story. This is remedied to some extent by switching storytelling focus around a lot to the other characters, but this doesn't actually achieve the 'best of both worlds' effect that it should. This is a problem with more heresy books though as I had kinda the same complaint while reading Fulgrim, for instance.

All in all, everyone who's interested in 40k and the Horus Heresy in general should not miss this book. I highly reccomend it for a deeper understanding of the 40k universe if nothing else. 8 out of 10.

So, besides working and getting wierd looks from the people sitting beside me on the train, the rest of my week was spent getting together with friends, rehearsing/recording with the band (anyone know a good bass player near Eindhoven?) and playing Space Marine. I said in my last blog that I might give it a review this time, but I don't really feel like it right now and there's already loads of good reviews out there anyway.

As for the progres I made on the warband this week:


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Get ready for it people...


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I assembled and basecoated 2 chaos sorcerers.

Now that's there's some good-ol' fashioned metal.

Death to the False Emperor.

The Price of Progress

It's been one hell of a holiday.

So much so that the time to write a decent blog entry has been desperately lost to me these past two months. However: I have returned with the last two Chaos Space Marine squads and their Rhino transports finished. Behold!

Apologies for the bad lighting on the pictures. The natural lighting in my room sucks and I'm too lazy to try anything semi-proffesional to fix it. Better luck next time I guess.

So it seems the warband is shaping up. I'm currently still working on the Defilers and a pair of Chaos Sorcerers though, so look out for some updates on these sometime soon.

In the meantime the 40k universe will be keeping me busy through Space Marine:



Damn that game is awesome! I've spent about 6 hours playing the campaign so far and it's been all kinds of crazy. The weapons, the levels, the enemies, the flow of the game and even the story have positively surprised me at every turn. As long as the multiplayer doesn't dissapoint I can see myself playing this game as enthusiastically as I did Gears of War when it came out. I might provide a full review in a couple of days, but so far my only gripes are the absense of co-op and splitscreen options and the imperial voice acting being a tad on the lame side (ork voices are as ace as always though).

Anyhow, this is where I'll be leaving things for time being. Look more updates on the Shades of Tranquil and perhaps a review of Space Marine in the next blog. Also: holler in the comments if you're enjoying this game as much I am. Beter yet, if you're also playing on xbox live: leave your gamertag and meet up with DaanofWar online!

Death to the False Emperor!