Terrain is Everything - Brian the Sewer Vent 2.0

I had to share this. Over on the Brian the Sewer Vent Facebook page I received a couple of posts from fans Dominik and Alexander drawing my attention to the new Urban Conquest set available for pre-orders this weekend. Aside from the Battle for Macragge energy fences there was something very special in the terrain pieces...

 That's right Dominik and Alexander had spotted something very similar to Brian the Sewer Vent, but in a slightly smaller form factor.

Obviously I couldn't let it go and had to ask on the official 40k page and the Warhammer Community team were their usual awesome selves, joining in with the fun and alluding to a direct lineage to my favorite terrain piece. 

And then I had it proper confirmed from Nick Bayton [who kindly engineered my meeting with Brian in June] that Brian's Father - Dave Andrews had spawned a second sewer vent specifically because of  my love of this terrain piece!

I'm not sure how to process that to be honest exceptto be absolutely over thre moon with delight that my persistence has brought this mini version to the hobby community. I can only hope the next thing on Dave's hobby table is a replica scale version that will connect with all the industrial terrain sets ;) I'm like Andy Dufresne in Shawsank...

Imperial Knights - House Corvus Twins in manufactorum pt7. 'big builded'

Hard to keep track of all this now but I took some pics at the time so I would have some record of my WiPs.

I had some fun with the base adding in my urban debris mix.

Quality greenstuff skills as usual. It doesn't bother me, although this pipework is significantly more prominent than the molded plastic I only ever do them slightly highlighted black so they're very much a background element and hopefully the sculpting will go unnoticed.

Love the pale blue bits I get out of an old tumble dryer ball.

Large bore shell warheads [OK, they really should be expended shell casings but nevermind] and where I've pulled them off the ball I get that perforated twisted metal effect.

More greenstuff.

And around the toe joints.

Scruffy but functional.

Again, they hardly feature once painted so as long as I made some attempt it was enough

Not that I'll be really keeping track this year but why not...

Imperial Knights - House Corvus Twins in Manufactorum
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |

Yesterday we took the boy for his preparation session at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre as we couldn't be in the treatment room with him we can only go by the radiologists assessment that he did brilliantly and how positive and mature he was when he'd finished. Obviously that's without any treatment and his response over the next 6 weeks will change the longer he has it. There are so many unknowns at this stage it's very hard to draw conclusions on what's about to unfold, we'll just have to see how it goes and react as and when things happen. 

Aside from being clamped to the machine and in a room on his own, it appears such a simple procedure - less than 20 minutes, no pain, possibly no sensation of anything taking place but fundamentally altering his body at a cellular level in the most destructive way and changing his future [both good and bad]. It seems so innocuous and as we sit outside in the plush waiting room [the children all get to use the 'private patients' linear accelerator instead of the NHS ones] it's very hard to take in the enormity of what is taking place. The only thing to help is to acknowledge it HAS to take place, there is no choice and whatever the result it will be surely better than the alternative. So, Monday - EXTERMINATUS begins!

Hobby Spends 2018

Following on from previous year's spending record I've kept another log for 2018 [and will do so for 2019]. The final figure of £624 was £134 more than last years gross spend of £490. But again I tried to limit my spends as much as possible to Christmas money and vouchers, of which £214 came in. My Google AdSense also matured which prompted the purchase of Forgebane.

On top of that I had quite a number of surplus items I earmarked to sell on ebay to cover my hobby costs. In particular I sold the Necron half of the Forgebane box and some Age of Sigmar Paladins. I also had a bundle of ancient Windows Operating System licences which had sat in the garage for over a decade. In 2006/07 I was buying up all the copies of Win 95/98/NT I could off ebay and reselling them to a local educational software supplier. Most of the time ebay would cancel the auctions due to OEM restrictions and I'd pick them up from the seller, I managed to dispose of nearly £5,000 worth of software until my buyer went bust and these licences were all that's left. Still £87+ for the hobby fund wasn't too shabby



So my net spend of £173 over 12 months is £200 less than last year! Most of my outgoings were on tournaments, but match up to last year in that I paid for my GT3 heat and the North West Open while this year it's my GT3 hotel and next years GT4 heat, although I'll probably get a refund on GT4 as I'm no longer attending. More importantly my figure purchases are down. The Ravenwing bits/Land Speeder and Mechanicum half of Forgebane are the only things I added... OK two Knights and some Shadespire warbands too. But with the Warglaives painted at least some of the things I bought were put to good use and not just straight into the grey tide.

I've still got a few things to sell on ebay next year [those Warhammer Conquest Calsius models...] but with my hobby focus on these purchases and limited expectation in going to any more tournaments than the LCO I'm not sure what I'll be buying in 2019 - Chapter Approved but not much else planned...

Anyway, I had a good year, bring on 2019.

Terrain is everything - T'is the season to pick up trees

A few years ago I picked up a bag of model trees from Dobbies, our local garden centre [and craft shop]. They only have them in the run up to Christmas as they're for making your own Christmas scene with miniature revellers and holiday nik-naks. I managed to pick up a couple of sets post Christmas a couple of years back 50% off and I've just had a look online.

They are on sale at Webb's Garden Store again at just £6.99 with £4.95 postage, so I thought I'd share so everyone can get a chance at a bargain. There may be other offers online, this was just the first hit I got off Google. The set I got was 21 pieces from a company called Lemax. Clearly there's at least two that are just a bit too big, they're the same size as my 40k outpost that got bigger! but great line of sight blockers for a Trygon!

Of course the originals weren't going to fit with my table so I decided to paint them - undercoating them all in Red Oxide primer and then repainting them in shades of yellow.

Although I still have to complete the 2 newer sets here's the finished first set:

HAPPY X-MAS

Merry X-Mas from Professor Egon Seuss and the rest of the Magos on Ferron Proxima. Additional felicitations from the guys and gals at the Vulcan Institute of Techno-Archaeology. May all your X-mas wishes be plastic [or resin, but not Finecast].

In case you're not X-mas orientated please accept the following good wishes:

Warhammer World Visit

In November, my favourite band Pitchshifter ended a 10 year hiaitus to go touring and recognise the 20th anniversary of their [arguably] most successful album www.pitchshifter.com [they since relinquished their own URL]. This manifested in five or 6 shows, culminating in a home town blow out in of all places - Nottingham. Our original plans were to see them 3 times on the tour but obviously things changed and it was only my brother and I who went to the final gig, so I had to drag him to Warhammer World for breakfast and the obligatory Rhino shot [he does NOT like having his picture taken].

Typically we also got there too late for breakfast but we enjoyed a sandwich in Bugman's

This was day 2 of the Vigilus weekender so the hall was packed.

But this Titan Battle was also going on.

Couple of Warlords facing off against each other.

And plenty of Knights too.

The highly intricate and claustraphobic Kill Team table

Adeptus Titanicus!

Deja vu of the battle going on in the main hall!

Knight Castellan and the new Necron Heavy Construct

and painted too.

Eavy Metal studio Speed Freeeeeeeeeeeeeks

Blackstone Fortress minis.

A big dragon!

Far from the weekend originally planned but these guys [who I haven't seen in so long] were amazing. Both my sons have middle names of Clayden, Mark and Jon Clayden [left and right] are the bass player and lead singer. It was amazing that my eldest got to meet his namesakes and alongside Dan and Tim they were all so supportive during the initial hardships of my youngest's treatment.

Left to right: Mark Clayden, Dan Rayner, Tyler Edward Clayden Weston, Tim Rayner, me, Jon Clayden - the mighty, mighty Pitchshifter [and fans ;) ]

"What's this? What's this?"

"The monsters are all missing
And the nightmares can't be found"

Remember when these were our best [most despised] option for Mycetic Spores, the forerunner of the Tyrannocyte? They were roughly the right size, vaguely Tyranid and dirt cheap in budget shops [but then suddenly costing a tenner on ebay when folk figured them out]! Well I saw one for £1 on ebay the other day and couldn't resist

Obviously it's way down on my list of things that need doing and I don't even run Tyrannocytes nowadays and with their Chapter Approved points drop I'd consider running my scratchbuilt one over the Plasma Hatcher every time. However, they do make cool scenery items and for that reason alone I picked it up [plus £2.95 postage]. With a bit of effort [one day] I can add to these two.

And just to share some good news ahead of Christmas. The hospital have been in touch and their continuing genetic tests on my son's tumour have revealed that it is not the 'high grade' cancer they thought it was and is in fact and 'low grade with high grade features'. That means he will now only need the six week course of radiotherapy and won't need the 14 weeks of chemo. I'm not counting my chickens and we are from being out of the woods just yet but it's a relief to know we're in Lothlórien and not Mirkwood! He'll be less susceptible to infection and our initial ordeal will be over much sooner and with better prospects. Keep those fingers crossed 🤞🤞🤞