The last few weeks have seen a bunch of sporadic hobby projects for me, but for some reason, little writing here. So, here is a look at my workbench and the randomness therein.

While one of the things I have promised myself to work on is to finish a bunch of my half-finished projects before starting anything new, I have failed at that big time this week.

I have found with myself that sometimes I just don’t feel like painting. Just the idea of it overwhelms me with ‘meh.’ Odd considering that this is my hobby and one of my biggest stress reliefs.

Instead, I find the desired to build models to be where I get pulled. So that is where I have been since I finished the Megaboss.

Mentor Legion Terminators

It started with moving my workspace inside. My gracious wife recommended we move the boys into the same room and use the smaller bedroom as my new office. And in this new office, I could finally setup the bookcases with glass doors to use as a display case.

While digging out my Mentor Legion, I found a few Terminators I had started re-posing a few years ago. Along with them were the Dark Angles from the Dark Vengence set. I knew I had more terminators in my bits box of shame that I should build up.

Well, it turns out I had thirty of these terminators along with the Blood Angel’s Capitan in Terminator armor. Each had come from various box sets over the years. Assualt on Black Reach, Dark Vengence, the Space Wolf vs Orks campaign, and the Space Marine big box.

Now I love the idea of the terminators, but the basic guy is so bland and blocky. Especially compared against the DV set or Space Hulk minis. But with some simple adjustments to the pose, you can make a big difference in their look.

Armed with a pin vice, 1/16″ brass rod, and needle nosed pliers, I adjusted the angle of arms, hands, and even one of their legs. These were later filled in with putty and attempted to sculpt ribbing. Small adjustments to the arms changed the feeling and movement of the mini. From opening up the pose to making it look mid swing.

Many of the chapter specific icons I was able to scrape off. But I also left many of the general wolf, wings, and sword motifs and plan to work them into the warrior’s heraldry. Figured that I could use some of the old fluff for the Mentors where they would train with other legions.

Since I am not a gamer anymore, I have no clue as to the effectiveness of any of the weapon options. So instead, I went with the rule of cool and mixed it up.

This resulted with a squad of Lightning claw shredders.

The Titan Squad equipped with Thunder Hammers and shields.

And four squads of ranged Terminators, two with assault cannons, one missile launcher, and the last with a heavy flamer. Each squad has a couple of chain fists to make sure they can break open all those tanks.

The Capitan was only slightly modified from the original miniature. Notably, the bare face was replaced with a helmet (actually only one bare head made it into the build). Some of the Blood Angel icons were removed and some replaced with other icons where needed.

Ork Mek in Mega-armor

Another box in the backlog was Meganobz kit – also from the Space Wolf campaign box. My grown hoard of walkers needs some Meks to hammer things into place, so I busted out the Mek from the kit.

While I figure the shield generator would be more useful in the game, the teleporter weapon looks awesome. So I busted out my much-neglected magnets and actually put them to work. With a magnet sitting under the top armor of the Mek and matching magnets in each of the options, I can easily swap back and forth.

I also had the normal Mek sitting in the box so I quickly put him together. I think from the random bits between the two, I should be able to create a third – Deathskulls have a lot of scraps after all.

Painting the Buildings

The one thing I have been putting paint to this last little bit is one of the big buildings I built for my table. As these things are huge, it has mostly been dry brushing with the biggest brush I have.

I want the buildings to be neutral shades of color. Enough color to be interesting, but not stand out. They are also so large that my normal bottles of Vallejo paint would not do. It would a few bottles per building!

So instead, I am using standard acrylic tubes from the craft store. Not the stuff made for kids (it doesn’t stick well) but from the ‘fine art’ department. They are super high pigment and thick, so would be difficult to use for normal miniatures, but for dry brushing buildings, they work great.

I will write a post with more details about the paint job once I finish, but I am happy with how it is turning out.

The Backlog

As part of this office cleanup, I have also started going back through the back log of other projects in the bits bin. I plan to update my old Trello board and do some triage on all the old projects.

I spent a good deal of time going through my big bits box of unbuilt models and started clipping parts into baggies. I plan to build up a few more random models and get everything primed. Found a Rhino I plan to turn into a Razorback, a drop pod, Ork Boyz and Nobz, and the rest of the Dark Vengence kit I never built.

With the sunny summer starting to come to an end, I will have plenty built and primed for the next 8 months of rain.