The Beard Bunker

Life continues to be taxing for many of the Bunkerites, we seem to be hitting a lot of crises that are happening in the mid-life, but not the fun kind.  Nobody has bought themselves a (new) motorbike yet (he says, genuinely considering it since I sold my last one about 6 years ago and I miss it).  Nevertheless, Warhammer remains a beacon of fun and friendship amidst the darkness, bringing us together time and time again for a bit of entertainment and a reminder that things could still be much much worse.  As is our annual tradition , we’re going to look back at what we’ve been up to this year, and maybe some hopes for the future.   Tom 2025 has been much less productive than I’d hoped, but things have begun to look up in the last few months.  The most obvious question to answer, is my Thunderhawk completed, is sadly a no.  I’m nearly there but prioritised other units for the ODF weekend that, by the time you read this, I will have just had. ...

When Maisey painted a demi-company of Dark Angels , all with freehand squad markings, I envied his madness. When Tom painted a whole battle company of Raven Guard , I envied his madness. When Jeff painted a battle company of Blood Angels using, of all things, an 'Eavy Metal painting guide, I really  envied his madness. I envy them no longer, for the six frosted Smurfs in today's post put me in the same sanitarium: a full battle company of Space Marines, all lovingly highlighted and covered in freehand heraldry. Upon completion of the company I immediately took to our gaming group's WhatsApp thread to share my thoughts and reflections at that time. It's a heady mix of pride and confusion (I made this! Wait,  I  made this?). There's also a certain amount of excitement that I can paint whatever auxiliary units I feel like without needing to worry about how they could affect the Third Company's composition. This was a particular thorn when fitting three-man squads ...

So, I mean, hobby progress: I have just wildly increased my Raven Guard tankage by adding two Repulsors to my army, one regular and one spicy.   But that’s not specifically what I brought you here to talk about today.  Let's talk about the downsides of modernisation away from brass. So a little known fact about brass is that it’s naturally antibacterial, so all the old brass doorknobs we used to have were actually really good at preventing the spread of disease…  hang on, sorry, wrong brass rant.  I’m trying to talk about etched brass.   Foregworld etched brass Not-Forgeworld etched brass Back when GW leaned more heavily into non-plastic products and also customisation and conversion was a bigger part of the hobby, Forgeworld used to produce these lovely sheets of acid etched brass that you could cut out and stick on whatever.  Ideally suited for flat surfaces, although depending on the shape sometimes you could also bend them onto e.g. shoulder p...

People have mocked James and his Workshop for producing a surfeit of Space Marine Lieutenants, but I for one was extremely pleased both by the addition of lieutenants, and by the various kits they put out for them. Obviously even the official releases weren't sufficient to cover all the theoretical options, hence our post in August containing, among other thicc characters, rules for Lieutenants in Gravis Armour . The point is, having more options on which kit to buy is pure upside, as far as I'm concerned. As the Cobalt Scions' Third Company nears completion, I have added their second Lieutenant using the modular plastic kit, since Astartes Companies all have two Lieutenants. I have previously produced two other Lieutenants for this army: the Third Company's Antigonus Nerva  in 2021 (where I laughably said I'd completed the army) and the Tenth Company's Andrus Varro  (a conversion of the Lieutenant with combi-weapon to be less Tyraniddy). I wanted to try and con...