Scratchbuilt "Rhino" proxy (Chaos Marine transport vehicle)

 As I mentioned last time, things have been kinda rough lately -- but creativity has been a source of great comfort. In particular, despite a hectic year, I've been working on my goal to make 2024 a year of "upping my game" when it comes to crafting. 

Here's a WIP shot of a recent project. My WIP Warhammer Chaos Marine warband, the "Knights Aberrant," were in need of a transport vehicle. Since I have no Rhino or Land Raider model in the right scale, and since I didn't fancy shelling out $$$ for an official kit, I crafted this thing entirely from household junk, bits of old toys or dollar-store crud, hobby supplies, and a really obscene amount of glue and gap-fillers. I still plan to add spikes for the "dozer blade" and a few other bits, but this is pretty much the whole shebang -- sans paint, of course. I'd love to spraypaint this immediately, but below-freezing temps and soaring humidity stats this week don't look very conducive to that goal. Usually, these sorts of things look much better once they have a uniform coat of paint or primer.

This has some rough spots, but I really like it. It's always satisfying to have an ambitious build like this come together ok. 

Initially, I planned to use a larger, used toy vehicle (from the thrift store) and add bits on to make the proxy vehicle. In the end, I decided that other one would be too large. My secret, evil plan is to use these 28mm Chaos Marines as "true-scale" Astartes in games where "mortal" humans, like cultists and imperial guard troopers, come in 1/72 scale. I've been monkeying with the possibilities quite a bit, and I'm very enthusiastic. This lets one deploy a couple stands of multi-based, cheap plastic infantry as a unit, and then use a single Space Marine figure as a "counts-as" squad of its own -- and suddenly, you're saving money, making room for bigger battles, AND making Space Marines finally look and act on the table the way they're "supposed to" in the (contemporary) lore. The plan is to use some of the advanced options in Grimdark Future, which have us covered for this sort of thing (that's an affiliate link, btw). 

Happy gaming!

Where ya been, Gundobad???

 Still here! 

I had hoped that this might be a fairly active year for the blog. As it turned out, however, it's been a really challenging, draining year on the personal front. This mostly involves a lot of overlapping chronic health issues in the household, which have required an enormous amount of time and energy to address on top of the rest of life. Oh, and I'm also writing a passion-project book as part of my 'real world' profession at the same time, so ... all around, it's been a corker of a year. On the flip side, some really good and beautiful things are happening because of all that work and energy-investiture, so I'm paradoxically very grateful for much of what we're experiencing, while also chronically exhausted in my emotional reserves. Recent world events have not diminished the stress levels, either.

With all that in play, I've had to adapt my hobby activities. Running my main campaign got too mentally draining, so it's on hold. Instead, I've transitioned to playing or running the occasional one-shot. However, I've found great comfort in doubling down on the crafting side of the wargaming/minis hobby. Putting down the  scholar's pen and picking up a bunch of material things to work with my hands has proven vitally refreshing this year. I've set myself a goal of "upping my crafting game" this year, and so far I'm really pleased with the results. I've picked up and learned how to use more specialized materials, like Milliput and Green Stuff. I've become far more adventurous, creative, and unorthodox in my approach to kitbashing character minis, vehicles, and terrain. All this has been a source of real comfort during a season that isn't quite so much "bad" as "really hard." 

So: I am still here - and I do NOT consider the blog to be 'on hiatus' - I do have a variety of thoughts about things to share, related both to RPGs and to wargaming. I'm redesigning an old dungeoncrawl of mine for a local community one-shot later this month, on the one hand, and doing some weird things to 40k armies that I absolutely love on the other. :-)  But some of what I hope to share soon will reflect the quirky directions I've been taking things lately. I sometimes hesitate to share my wargaming stuff here, since my sense (possibly inaccurate?) is that my 'readership' are more invested in the RPG side. But anyway, please bear with what I do have to share for a while. :-) 

I'm grateful to all who've kept up an interest in this blog over the years. Cheers, and happy gaming!