State of the Blog Address (Part 2)

Thanks for bearing with the last post and I promise this one will be a bit more upbeat since I plan to focus on the hobby progress I've made over the past year.  While honestly it didn't seem like I accomplished much due to months long stretches of not working on any minis (and having paint dry up unexpectedly during that time!), I was pleasantly surprised by what I accomplished in the meantime. 


I pretty much finished up (except for less than a half dozen figs) my entire 40k collection and mostly sold off the stuff that I never planned on finishing.  My 6000pt Blood Angel, 2500pt Deathwing, 2500pt IG, 3000pt Eldar, and 2500pt Tau armies are officially done except for two figures.  The only other 40k related things I have left are 5 "truescale" marines that I kitbashed back when I was attempting to run a regularly scheduled Deathwatch 40k RPG campaign that has since sputtered out.  Mainly due to a lack of HG playerbase and the Robotech KS delay, 40k has actually been my second most frequently played game after X-wing. 


Over in HG land, I've made some significant progress.  I sold off my unwanted southern minis and actually finished the ones that I picked up post Forged in Fire.  My Heavy Assault King Cobra squad is done as is my platoon of Visigoth Khan tanks.  My support options models (airstrikes and turrets) were also completed along with a cityscape set from Dropzone Commander to use as terrain.  My Nucoal army went from completely in the blister due 2/3 done with two squads of hovertanks along with two sections of hoverbike GREL infantry.  The only Nucoal models left are my Chasseur MK2's that will make up a veteran GP squad.  I picked up a painted northern army as well and then spent a lot of time dealing with the dozens of breaks (and even a few missing parts) due to very, very poor packing for shipping.  I've picked up more northern minis (likely too many for blitz!) that are still unfortunately in the package though.  With the delay of Robotech, I had expected to instead work on my Northern minis but the 3 month delay and counting since the advertised Jan delivery date has put a damper on that.  Despite being a playtester, I don't know how much the product changes after it leaves our hands so I'm avoiding putting together the models until I see what the final pdf looks like.


X-wing is a pre-assembled and prepainted game so there isn't too much of a hobby aspect in that sense but I managed to get into some trouble with it anyways.  After reading some interesting reports over on Board Game Geek, I decided to make my own version of the Corellian Corvette model and rules.  I picked up an old 1990's toy in roughly the same scale and made a custom base to place it on along with some datacards and scenario rules.  Additionally, I made some 3D asteroids out of lava rocks to use during games.  At some point, I'd like to convert my TIE Advanced into Avengers but I'll likely leave that one till after the TIE Defender model comes out as that will be their squadron commander.  At that point, all my favorite LucasArts XvT models will be out and I'll be a happy starfighter pilot.


All in all, I'd say that the past year (or technically about 16 months) has been quite productive despite the relatively large gaps.  Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to finish my 40k figs and might post them here.  I'm going back and forth whether I should buy any more as I think GW has officially gone bonkers with their recent pricing but the new tau commander crisis suit looks pretty darn incredible.  As a grimdark mech, I'll post about that one if I end up acquiring and working on it.  Additionally, I hope to finish my truescale Deathwatch marines along with a kitbashed Aegis defense line and turret.  After that, assuming the Northern book doesn't come out, I'll work on my TIE Avengers and possibly the Nucoal GP squad. 


In any case, thanks again for reading and I promise the next update won't be a solid wall of text but rather filled with pretty pictures of mediocre painted minis like usual!  :)