Aeronautica Imperialis - Terrain 1

I've actually done some hobby stuff.

A very small amount, but in the light of how much I have done over the last couple of months it can be counted as progress and worthy of an update.

As soon as I picked up that load of AI planes from eBay I was thinking I needed something Eldary for my airplanes to blow up and/or capture from the pointy eared ones (which will be referred to as "Panzies" when I'm using the Bommerz).

So I thought some bit of half buried Eldar structure, maybe a warp gate or some such would be good.

A couple of years ago I was commissioned to do a mould and casts of some Warp Vanes for a Wraithknight by the extremely talented Andy Hicks. He is an awesome converter of Eldar infantry and vehicles, if you haven't seen them I suggest you take a few hours off to browse his website. The Wraithknight with the warp vanes in place can be found on this page. He was selling casts of the vanes, so if you want some yourself drop him a line and he might be able to help you out.

I'd got a couple of the warp vanes knocking around from when I was doing the first test casts so I decided to turn them into a piece of AI terrain.

Crappy pictures I know but you get the idea. I mounted the vanes on some 1mm styrene then added milliput to bulk the bases out and help it look a bit more 'natural'. I decided to split the base so they could be either set up together or as two separate pieces. However I do wish I had made the join a bit more natural as now they can't really be set up as anything other than a pair.

Scale shot, I know, using an Eldar aircraft would have been more appropriate but I have packed them away ready to give to Nife and I couldn't be arsed to get them out just for one picture.

After the milliput had cured I covered the bases in tissue and thinned PVA. Then filler was added to the PVA and painted over. More filler (in powder form) was then sprinkled over.

To be honest I was making it up as I went along hoping to get a pleasing result. I didn't want to just sand it as I thought that would be both boring and not really fit the scale.

Quite happy overall. Needs bit more cleaning up and GS to the one air bubble but otherwise it is close to being done. I may decide to add more filler to one base to have the vane a bit more buried. We'll see.

Aeronautica Imperialis.

I've not touched any models since the last post, but as usual that's not stopped me buying more...

I have been a fan of Aeronautica Imperialis since the first book came out and I am still disappointed FW canned it when GW pulled the Epic range. While there is a chance the new Specialist Games department may bring it back the fact is it would almost certainly be in the new Epic scale.

You may (but probably don't) remember I picked up some Chaos aircraft from eBay a while back so that I could finally put together a Chaos airforce. They cost me a fortune but ever since then I have been keeping my eye on eBay for more aircraft, but Chaos and others so that I could expand the playing options.

So last week I hit gold by picking up a single auction for a large amount of aircraft. It arrived yesterday...

Once combined with the aircraft I already have I'll have a large Chaos force.

But that isn't all that was in the box, oh no...

A decently sized complete Tau force. With fighters, bombers, large transport and AA units this covers everything I'll need.

But that's not the end, the box contained a third force, larger than the other two.

A full, large Eldar force. With Nightwing Interceptors, Phoenix Fighter-Bombers, Vampire Raiders and Vampire Bombers as well as some AA units we have enough there to play any scenario from small to large.

Alas the Eldar will not be staying with me as Nife will be having those.

I might start looking at that Chaos force soon, might be what get's me back into the swing of things again.

Though the Chaos force will be large it will be missing two big elements.

1. A Chaos Thunderhawk to give some transport craft in the force.
2. One of these buggers:

Isn't it awesome?

Recalcitrant Daze - Down Time

So it's been a month since I last posted on here. That post was a return-from-holiday-pictures post, the one before that was a White Dwarf look back piece and before then we had the Forge World Open Day coverage. I've not actually done a post involving models I've worked on since the 2nd of July.

Which is a bit shite.

This is due to two things, 1. lack of time and 2. lack of motivation. It's just one of those periods that when I do have free time I just can't be arsed.

I have been catching up on some reading, currently working my way through Fiefdom, the first non Black Library book by them I've read.

After that I think I'll be picking up one of these two. Two of the best authors in their field (in my opinion at least).

Now last weekend I got my hands on the new White Dwarf.

With various posts I have made on here you probably know it has been some time since I bought a White Dwarf and my thoughts of them is more than just a little negative. But I thought it was only fair to pick up the first in what has been billed as a new start.

While I've not read it all yet I have to say my first impressions are positive.

There is a lot packed in there and a lot of what used to annoy me seems to have been toned down.

Even before I do fully read it I can see me picking up the next couple of issues to see if this new start continues or if they've put all their eggs into the basket that is the first issue.

I have to say it is nice to see artwork on the cover again.


Something else I have picked up is the Index Astartes Apocrypha book. I have mentioned being disappointed in missing out on this when it first came out as they had stupidly limited it to a very small number. It's now back in softback so I got in there quick just in case.

It is interesting to see not only how the background has developed but also just how different the artwork has changed over the years.

It only arrived yesterday, I'll put it aside till I finish Fiefdom and White Dwarf.



I did say at the beginning of this I'd not had much free time recently. One reason for this was going to a wedding last weekend in York.

While there I grabbed a few pictures of some ruins. I like ruins.