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Lockdown Leisure League: Rebuilding

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Project Blog by dawfydd Cult of Games Member

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About the Project

Picking up the pieces: the last few years have been a difficult one for me health-wise, culminating in three surgeries on or around my spine over June & July 2019. Hobby post-surgery was not easy - due to how I had things set up I could not move the items that I would normally move to access my painting area, so I've spent most of the last year building, building, and building, minis for various armies (and organising the X-Wing collection to 2.0) whilst getting back into work. Now I'd planned to do a major sort over a week off I had booked in August this year, but at the start of the week a shelf running the length of my bedroom (where my painting desk is also located) collapsed, dumping a load of game and RPG books on me, and an assortment of other stuff onto my hobby area. At the time I could not bring myself to do anything to it A) as I'd just had a load of heavy books dumped on me followed by a smack to the head from a shelf, and B) the prospect of sorting through minis I'd invested time and money in was just heartbreaking. With the launch of the #LockdownLeisureLeague I figured - even though I'm not technically in lockdown, being classed as an essential worker - I'd begin trying to get organised and make some headway through my outstanding projects. Let'ssee how this goes.....

This Project is On Hold

Beginnings

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So. Let’s begin this thing.

First up, let’s look at the scale of what I was dealing with.

Thankfully the shelf (which ran the length of the room) has been removed, but oy, that’s a lot of crap, which has kindof buried my painting desk, smashed the in progress Space Wolves & Deathwatch armies that had been under the shelf, and knocked off assorted minis at various levels of completion.

Yeah, this hurt. And honestly? Utterly demoralizing. Between long shifts at work I just couldn’t bring myself to try to tackle sorting this mess out….

So this was the worst of the miniature damage, representing Space Wolf, Sisters of Battle, Space Wolves, Custodes, Sisters of Silence, and an assortment of miniatures from other ranges (I should point out that the Sister of battle were on the shelf right above me when it collapsed, so those got picked up and put in a bowl to be out of the way). I’d ordered a load of black dining trays to use to make moving projects easier, so they’ve become handy to store the damaged projects.

The desk post-cleanup. Not quite as bad as I thought, and I’ve not included pictures of how I’ve repurposed the painting desk as storage for carry cases and my paints. I do want to shift a lot of this into storage as (for example) the Warmachine & Hordes stuff is likely not to get touched any time soon.

I watched Duncans tutorial on how to turn Really Useful Boxes into magnetic storage boxes:

…and figure I’ll order a few more to clear the table.

Baby steps

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So once I’d sorted the mess out, I could begin going through the armies damaged and see what repairs were needed. First up? The Sisters of Battle.

 

Baby steps

I should probably have catalogued this better with more pictures, but this represents the best part of 80 models that are going to become Order of the Bloody Rose (like the primer didn’t give that away). Luckily most that broke just blew apart so it was a case of matching parts. I’ve managed to end up with just one model with a Storm Bolter that I don’t have the firing arm for, and a Sumulacram Imperialis missing have the “cage” for the reliquary. That’s not bad all in all.

And a bit of building – most of these were built either watching Weekenders or some of the fine battle reports put out by the lads at Tabletop Tactics. Here we have an Assault Intercessor from the “Getting Started in 40k” magazine, modded into a member of the Deathwatch (and when I get to them I’ll be reorganising my DW Kill Teams per the  updated Codex), this years limited edition Librarian & Chaplain (maybe some Deathwing in my future?), and the Lt, Captain & Chaplain from Indomitus. I’m torn between Black Templars or adding to my Crimson Fists. Thoughts?

Baby steps

And a little something different to end this update: Book 4 of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, Rhythm of War. The convergence point for Sanderson’s Cosmere setting, I cannot stress how good this series is. And if a book bigger than most bricks does not appeal, I can heartily recommend the audio version based on the previous releases. Just be aware the audio for each book is 40-odd hours….

The Order Militant of the Ordo Hereticus

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So I’m signed off for the rest of the week with backpain, so figure I might as well work on sorting some more of the minis affected by the accident. In this case I opted to pull out the tray with the brothers of the Deathwatch.

All in all this lot were not as badly affected – they were not as close to the shelf so avoided anything too heavy being dumped on them. The only real repairs needed were a couple of minis knocked off their bases, and a few arms to be reattached. Not too bad all in all.

So in terms of working out what we have here via the current Codex, I’ve come up with this:
1 Watch Master
Captain Artemis
Kill Team Cassius
1 Watch Captain
1 Terminator Watch Captain
1 Librarian
1 Apothecary (funnily enough built & primed long before the Deathwatch could use regular medics…)
1 Primaris Watch Captain
1 Primaris Librarian
2 Primaris Lieutenants (formerly Sgts but will be rebased)
6x 5-man squads of Veterans with assorted loadouts
1x 10-man squad of Veterans (that I’d begun painting before my surgeries)
6 Veterans with heavy weapons
1 10-man squad of Vanguard Veterans
7 Terminators
1 Veteran Dreadnought
1 Leviathan Dreadnought
6 Hellblasters
13 Intercessors
1 Reiver

This gives me some ideas. I think a few more Intercessors, and at least 5 Infiltrators, and a clutch of Assault Intercessors. Then I’m thinking a Drop Pod or two, and I’ve 6 Repulsors in the build pile (courtesy of the Conquest partworks) so I think 1 might get drafted into the Watch…..

Third times the charm.....

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Ok, so this is my third attempt at posting this particular update – I’d not realised that the pictures were too large for the system to handle >_<

Anyhoo, onto the glorious Sons of Russ:
I think it’s safe to say that this is the most catastrophic damage any of my projects have taken. It’s not the end of the world though as A) I seem to have  most of the parts in hand and B) it’s plastic Space Marines – the only resources more prevalent would seem to be hydrogen and stupidity…
(one note though – I’ve removed the Reivers heads as I’m repurposing them into Hounds of Morkai, and have ordered some of Puppets Wars revamped Wolf Helms for them)

A few more Sisters

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Having a quiet day today, so have been whittling away building some additional Sisters of Battle, and repairing the last few broken minis.

A few more Sisters

So the Sister Superior is a kitbash from the Retributer kits SS, with a head and sword arm from the Seraphim/Zephyrim kit. And whilst I’ve pictured her here with 4 Retributers, I think I’ll probably use her to head up either a Battle Sister squad or a squad of Dominions.

In terms of the Retributers, I was contemplating 3 squads each armed with 4 of one heavy weapon, but I’m starting to lean more towards 2 squads armed with dual Heavy Bolters & dual Multi-Meltas, with a third maxed out with Heavy Flamers and tossed into either a Rhino or Immolator (all together now: “TOASTIE!”). Fun fact, I’ve got a similar build for a 10-man Blood Angel Devastator squad that could be fun-fun-fun times in a drop pod….

BUUURN HERETICSBUUURN HERETICS
A few more Sisters

And a couple of repairs – a spare set of the grenade throwing arm and slung bolter arm from the Battle Sister kit sorted out one,  whilst the storm-bolter equipped sister needed a bit more work, thankfully an incomplete heavy bolter donated an upper arm that just fit wight to replace the one that has been lost. I think these have fitted well, just need to re-prime them (thank you Army Painter for colour matched primers & paints).

 

And one last thing – do I have a Gundam problem?

A few more Sisters

Re-Routing (I regret NOTHING)

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Between having a new Weekender and a new Warhammer Community Preview I figured today was a good day to focus on repairing the Space Wolves damaged in The Accident.
Just a reminder, after sorting through it didn’t look pretty. Contemptor in pieces, Rune Priest hands broken off, and a plethora of regular Marines broken off bases, missing limbs or just generally exploded.

Ouch....Ouch....

So, easy fixes first, which amounted to the Venerable Dreadnought (really simple – one ankleplate had broken off), Contemptor Dreadnought (in three pieces plus base), and the Primaris Intercessors & Agressors. Nothing fancy here, just superglue or  poly cement as needed.

 

Getting into a rhythm I moved on to the models that had either come off their bases, broken away from their  legs, or both. Was actually a nice simple job, just the number of models and matching legs to bases where I’d already laid down some Stirland Battlemire got a bit tedious.

After that consolidated any of these missing limbs with the other models that were the same, and began matching parts up (trying to remember where specific limbs originally went).

Honestly this was kinda fun, and it’s nice to get back to just needing to get them painted >_<

That just left the Rune Priest and a few odd minis where the missing bits, well, frag knows where they’ve gotten to. Easy fixes though, and a top tip for anyone – don’t throw away spare bitz, you’ll always find a use for them. On a similar note, if you are thinking of getting into Space Wolves don’t limit yourself to just the Space Wolf branded kits some of the minis I’ve been rebuilding? They’ve got parts from anything up to 6 different kits from across the Space Marine ranges. Hell, some of them even use bits from Chaos Space Marine kits, with judicious use of file & knife to make them look a little less heretical….

And relax....And relax....

And one last bit of hobby for the day – decided to build Sly Marbo, Inquisitor Eisenhorn and Canoness Veridyan (already had one built and primed but, well, she did not survive as well as some falling six feet then getting hit by an avalanche of rulebooks). Nice minis, but gods is Finecase annoying….

Very pretty,  but **** me is Finecast annoying to work with....Very pretty, but **** me is Finecast annoying to work with....

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