Though it is 12 years since I started the hobby- I have never used a varnish before. Up until today, my models have always gone into the world with just their paint- exposed to the elements. (Or, more realistically for my earliest time in the hobby- just base-coated). I suppose I had never seen varnishing models as something that was necessary as a teenager, but since returning to the hobby after my university hiatus, I've been considering protecting my miniatures more seriously. Reading up on varnishes, it seems a lot of people consider varnishing models a necessity- something which can assist with the finish to a paint job as well as protecting them. As I've got a project which involves a lot of metal miniatures, and metal chips paint very easily, I finally decided to take the plunge and try some out. I decided just to go with Games Workshops offering for the first varnish I would buy. I suspect that this probably isn't the best varnish out there, but as Games Workshop...

  The Thunderhawk Gunship I had been waiting to get one of these since it was announced last year! Despite a bit of a delay in actually getting my hands on it (out of stock for a while), its finally here- so what is the plastic Thunderhawk like? Value- 2/5 This one was tricky to rate. I have to admit, I had been slightly put off when the kit came out to see a single Thunderhawk for £26 (as of writing, it is about to see a price increase in March 2022). In a way, I view the Aeronautica range a little more like an Airfix kit- part of the joy is seeing the details of the larger aircraft recreated in such a small scale, but the cost of this is vastly higher than an Airfix kit.  Perhaps this is an unfair comparison- how does the Thunderhawk compare to another Aeronautica kit? The Thunderhawk compared with the Grot Bommer The Thunderhawk is large, and if it weren't for the wingspan, is starting to dwarf the Grot Bommers. However, I think the Thunderhawk feels like slightly worse val...

  As an addition to my Epic Eldar force, I wanted to include a Super-Heavy tank, but I wasn't massively keen on paying £20 for a 2nd hand, and metal, miniature. Looking through my bits-box, I came up with the solution- the Eldar Guardian kit for 40k already comes with a mini-tank, the support weapon. With a few tweaks to the 'turret,' it already looks like an Eldar tank of sorts. The parts used The 'turret' is the underslung weapon from an Dark Eldar Venom The kitbash was very simple from here. The front thruster(?) was cut away to form the cockpit. The base for the turret was clipped away to provide a flat surface for the weapon. From there, a bit of milliput helped smooth over the gaps, connect the 'cockpit' to the main body of the tank and create a viewpoint for the gun operator. Before the basecoat goes on The platform for the support weapon scales quite well with the Falcons And that was that, from there the painting followed the same scheme as the Falc...

  What's all the fuss about? Games Workshop have made Plastic Aspect Warriors since the 90s... With all the Eldar reveals for 40k happening at the moment, I've gotten into the Eldar vibe with some 6mm Aspect Warriors for Epic 40k. I decided to paint them in their classic colour schemes- which will make the force quite colourful (especially in comparison to my Black Templar force!) Usually I paint Epic models straight on the sprue where possible- but I've gone with the classic sticky-tack on an old paint pot for ease of photos. Exarch I'm painting my Epic Eldar as Biel-Tan, just like my 28mm Eldar. The Exarch therefore uses the White/Green paint scheme of Biel-Tan (which I actually inverted for my 28mm Eldar.) White: Celestra Grey > Apothecary White Green: Waaagh! Flesh Black: Abaddon Black Striking Scorpion Striking scorpions aren't the easiest to paint in 6mm I've found. The details on the 28mm models in yellow would be tricky to reproduce on a 6mm miniature...

  Welcome back to the blog with my next review: Dead Man's Hand Plastic Gunfighters from Great Escape Games. I picked this box up as a small project for some skirmish gaming in the Wild West (I'd been watching a few Western's recently and wanted to scratch an itch). I'm intending to use the Ruthless rules, which I saw on the LittleWarsTV Youtube channel, and loved the look of these- I generally try to get plastic miniatures where possible (personal preference) and these appeared like good value (£15). So, what are my thoughts on the kit? Value- 5/5 You can't fault the value on this kit- 10 miniatures for £15 is already fairly reasonable, but with the options you get in the kit, this could form the basis for many different kinds of miniatures for miniature games in the West- you could just buy this box and be ready to play a game. The sprues contain twice as many heads as needed, and about twice as many weapons and extras needed too. The only note I would make in reg...

  The defiled Imperial Knights, dedicated to the Chaos god Khorne. Here are the mighty Knights of Khorne, my first painted miniatures of 2022- and my newest 600pt force for my Epic 40k 3rd Edition Skirmish forces project. These were fantastic miniatures to paint, and really GW have done a fantastic job recreating the larger 28mm Knights down into the smaller scale- without losing too much detail on the way. With the newer miniatures, and the rerelease of Knights back in 2014, there was a certain level of upscaling both in size and power. When you now compare these knights with the Epic 40k miniatures, you can see that rescaling to make the knights closer to what might be described as 'true-scale.' Compared with an Ork Stompa, the Knight towers over it- this small Stompa in the Epic range is perhaps more like a modern Gorkanaut/Morkanaut? As a result of this impressive size, the rules for Knights don't feel quite right- they would be more in line with a Leman Russ Battle ta...

A Quick Blog Update: After a disrupted December, I'm finally back up and running when it comes to Hobby, and ready for a new year of working on the blog. My plans for my Hobby in 2022 are ones which I've been working towards for a few months, and I'm really looking forward to getting started! Projects to Finish I'm not far off completing my current projects in Blood Bowl and Epic 40k. I'm planning to finish painting 2 Blood Bowl Sevens teams and to complete my Orks and Chaos Knights forces of an equal size to my Black Templars, and a small amount of 6mm terrain ready for them to be able to play some small games of Epic 40k.  New Projects For the moment, I'm satisfied with my collections for Games Workshop games (both current and old) and I'm planning to move onto a project or two in Historical Wargaming. This is something that I have wanted to do for a while, and having dabbled with a few miniatures to test the waters, I've got a few ideas as to what I w...