After six months of radio silence... I'm back and better than ever!
In what has quickly become a recurring punchline for this blog, my grandiose hobbying ambitions were once again blown up by a flurry of (all wonderful, but intensely time-consuming) adult real world responsibilities.
Foremost of which: we moved! My wife and I bought a house to get some extra space, which also means I finally was able to deploy a dedicated hobbying space. Check out the new setup:
I decided to indulge myself and rig up a little display case for some finished models next to the new desk to keep me feeling inspired. At the moment, it's mostly showcasing models that predate The Battle of Tsaragrad, but you can see some of Da Ironbullz at the very top:
Aside from setting up a new hobbying desk, I haven't done much in the way of working on actual models since the last post. It turns out moving into a new house with an infant, a dog, and a full-time job is as demanding as one might imagine!
I've had plenty of time to think about what comes next for this project due to the lull in 40k activity globally between 9th and 10th editions.
To kick off the new edition, my brother and I decided to try something new: we each pick a surprise army for each other and buy each other a small starter force. You can think of it like a "secret santa," but for 40k (and in May, not December).
We agreed that with so much of the rules and metagame in flux, these new armies would be hobbying projects first and foremost, with gaming optimality being a distant second priority. That framing is a perfect fit for this blog!
Of course, neither of us were picking completely blindly; my brother is my most steadfast hobbying partner (and has regularly cropped up in previous blog posts), so of course we both knew the types of armies each other liked but had not yet collected.
I was thrilled to be gifted with the starting point for an idea I had often lusted after, albeit distantly: a Nurgle Iron Warriors Chaos Marine warband, which I have named The Cult of Rust!
The general idea for this force is to mix and match generic Chaos Space Marine, Death Guard, and Horus Heresy bitz, which will all be painted in a heavily industrial, weathered, "grimdark" style that will make the army menacing on the tabletop. I'll post again in the next week or two with some background lore on my army and some work-in-progress shots, but here's a shot of what I've built so far as a preview:
Based on what my brother gifted me with a few other models and kits from past purchases, I'm currently planning on the following as the first warriors pledged to the Chaos Pantheon to lay foot on Volarius in several millenia:
I'm optimistically thinking that I should be able to get at least two nights of hobbying in per week for most of the summer, so here's to hoping that my next update won't be as long delayed as my previous one!