After the chaos that surrounded our second birthday (it was right in the middle of the two house moves in 2012) it is gratifying to get to our third birthday at all! Thankfully, here we are and here indeed are all of you: An unbelievable 34,207 of you have from 108 countries generated a scary 79,000 pageviews. Yikes. Seriously, I'm just some bloke in Cardiff painting models. It is humbling to have that kind of attention. Thanks to all of you. Actually, something that has changed since last year is the almost 30,000 fake hits from spammers (blogger reckons that there have been over 100k hits, I have better data!), there is a weird growth in spam sites visiting blogs to generate sudden spurts in traffic, as a result the blogs owner visits the referring site and thus is exposed to whatever they want. Usually Canadian pharmacies for some reason. As a result it is becoming harder for us bloggers to track our audiences.
This may seem vain but in fact it is to do with giving you guys the content you like best. I can see which pages get the most hits and re-visits and give you all more of that kind of content. Helps us to improve our writing and presentation. Its tricky to know what to do about this, Blogger - I suspect - are aware and trying to find a work around. For now, what I would recommend is that as many of you as possible actually follow blogs that you like (hopefully including this one!) as it will give us a much stronger audience impression and ensure you never miss anything cool! I follow an absolute heap of blogs and have found more cool stuff in the last three years of wargaming than I had in the previous twenty three! So go ahead and follow all those cool blogs out there and get more content, rather like this:
The Flecktarn project is coming to a close. Just three models remain, a commissar, an Ursakar Creed and a Jerren Kell pair of conversions. I also need to spend a day applying the transfers and markings to the army. This first photo is of the platoon standard bearers. The client wanted the red, black and white classic Imperial colours to fit in with the Imperial agents I did last year. I wasn't sure about the bare arm on the chap on the right at first but somehow it makes him seem that bit more badass. Adds to that "uniform but ragtag" feel that the rest of the army has. Almost like a private army, a mercenary force that has equipped itself.
And then a host of boomsticks. I love grenade launchers and missile launchers. The tactical flexibility of the choice of anti-infantry or anti-armour warheads makes them my favoured armament for Imperial Guard. If you need to punch a hole through something bigger then you have stacks of tanks and anti-tank squads. Keep the squads for dealing with the variety of light armour and infantry that the enemy can throw at you. The green warhead on the missile matches the green painted cylinder grenades that several of the lads have on their backpacks.
Earning the bravery awards for the army, the three plasma gunners have arguably the most dangerous job in the Imperial Guard. When every sixth pull of the trigger can kill you, you've got to imagine that the operators are either constantly nervous or insanely full of bravado. The two on the outside flanks were both conversions to fit metal space marine plasma guns to regular plastic imperial guard arms. I kept the stocks of the lasguns in situ to give a nice "rifle" look which I like for the plasma weapons.
The heavy flamer came out really nicely. Thanks in no small part to the AK Interactive enamel weathering paints I've been playing with lately. The grimy, rusted nozzle and the oily, leaking pipes are all achieved in seconds with the enamels. They aren't for everyone and are far, far more toxic than anything you'd find in an acrylic but they have some real advantages, mostly for feathering and streaks. I promise a tutorial is coming. I think I've got it sussed now!
Like the rest of the army, the comm-links are an eclectic bunch, further reinforcing that rag-tag PMC look.
The sergeants give a nice view of the resin torsos used on some of the guardsmen.
And finally the officers. The only markings they will have are the cuffed sleeves and the wermacht style commissioning plaques around their necks. Love the guy with the swagger stick.
And thats all for today folks. Obviously there is a little bit of work still to go on the markings and on the last three figures and of course, there will be pictures whent they're finished!
TTFN
Congratulations! Hopefully this next year will be as fulfilling hobby-wise as the last three have been :)
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