Hobby Progress/KR Review

I preach the word of Carl.

 

This week has been quite the toasty one, despite my workspace having an identical atmosphere to an easy bake oven I did manage to get some hobby time in this week. As you can see by my highly advanced project tracking system I finished all of D’s guard commissions for the month. With that out of the way I have had more time to work on my sentinels I decided the best way to go on this project was to break everything down into squads of three. Not counting basing I have managed to clear six of them since Monday, after getting my jungle funge layering system down its gotten a lot easier to crank these guys out, basing is still going to be a bit of a chore, but as a whole they have been coming out pretty consistently painted.

My army grows.

One of the first ones I did up out of the set.

 

I heard you like sentinels...

Aaannndddd more sentinels.

 

Random sniper, why not.

Oh yeah, did I mention I finally broke down and bought some soft blue foam, and if I didn’t upgrade my kit soon I would have keep running with my old set up (battle damaged army sabol bag filled with packing peanuts, old large GW figure case) add to that I have been doing hobby demos and taking pictures for the Escalation league over at Legends, I basically looked like a Sherpa every time I went to the shop. So I decided I try there auto fill app for my guard stuff and picked up a single case with no bag. Let me start by saying there are plenty of reviews for KR floating around out there that go into great detail about their product, this will not be one of those, as a matter of fact “just plain awesome” pretty much sums up my experience with KR so far, everything about this product is plain and functional with little extra ornamentation or frill and I mean that in the most positive manner. I have seen other more expensive options that simply add nothing more than extra flair and decide its worth double the price, KR on the other hand doesn’t bother with overly specialized options, they make a simple highly modular product that is designed to fit your needs and there has yet to be an issue with my purchase that really stands out as a negative, I do kind of wish they had a tray that was half troop half heavy weapons squad ( as you can see above I found a work around) but other than that everything seems well designed and optimized. You can cram a lot into a single case and not just troops (though I hear you can cram over 200 into a single hard case) I managed to get two troop choices (about 60 pieces of infantry) plus armor and HQ’s into one case, and there was no wiggle and no loose minis jangling around during transit.

I cut plugs in half so I could put more infantry in the empty slots.

For comparison here’s a few shots of the cores for my other bags (SABOL and GW) GW’s foam comes closest, but it’s still a far cry from the quality and softness of KR’s trays, GW’s trays are soft but much more dense and springy, with a little give, KR by comparison is quite soft and malleable almost plush to the touch with enough density to keep everything in place, but also has enough give to make sure that piece that’s just a little too wide can be made to fit without fear of damage.

 

Sabol sad to say represents the old school, pick n pluck was the norm 7-8 years ago, but now feels quite dated (KR does offer pick n pluck style trays, which do still have their uses) Compared with the more modern purpose cut foam trays from companies like KR and Battlefoam this stuff just doesn’t stack up. The foam itself has very little give and does not feel that far removed from those little bits you used to get in the GW metal single packs. Still though I use it for over flow and I will never get rid of my army carrier bag (It has far too much character to throw out, and it doubles as a cooler) So sadly I can no longer recommend them, or most of their product line, they do still make a quality and consistant product, but there are better evenly priced options out there now.

That’s it, for now anyways, I plan to get another batch of sentinels done up tonight and maybe another sniper or medic, but for the most part that’s all my hobby progress for this week. Before I sign off though, a quick shout out for the stuff of legends podcast. This Sunday we will be recording episode 13, we’ll be going over escalation news, some of the 6.1ed stuff that’s been bubbling up lately, and I review my first issue of WD visions. You can check out all the previous episodes of TSoL here.

Cheers

-Scott

BH Senior Adjunct Sommelier  

Hobby Progress: More IG

Another week cleared, another batch of minis done. Yet again I found myself painting D's imperial guard (117th, The Inheritors) So I did up a few special weapons teams, and another previously enjoyed lick. I have to say I really enjoyed working on some of the older independent characters/stand in models from this project, there's just something about the older mini's that's really fun to work with, even if they don't have rules anymore, a lot of these guys make great counts as models. Enough with words, time for the fancy stimulating imagery with our snazzy new logo.

 

Straken was a blast to paint up (buns of steel that model has) I was also very pleased with how the Vostroyan officer (he was supposed to be Chenkov) turned out, I think the reds pair well with the basing. On the Cadian officer I used GW's skin technique for the first time, super simple and done in three layers. Finally, who doesn't lover Schaffer.

 

Again I found myself trying a new GW endorsed method of painting. Rather than go with my traditional moo cow splotches, I tried their tiger streak approach, much cleaner.

 

Old school medics, so much fine detail on that model, used the new GW blood and gore technical on the transfusion packs, old RT guardsmen is featured because why not.

 

My own little slice of paradise.

 

This week is all about storm troopers (the old ones) so keep an eye out for my follow up post on those guys, oh I also finally broke down and bought an airbrush last weekend, so I expect to regale you all with tales of misfortune and great reward in the area as well in the near future. That's about it for me, oh don't forget to tune in to The Stuff of Legends next Monday, the next episode (I think) is all about hobby progress and how to get more into the hobby side of the game.

 

 

Cheers

 

-Scott

 

BH Senior Pit Master



 

 

 

Hobby Progress: basilisk

Just when I think I am out, they pull me back in, or rather D asked me to do a bit more work on his guard, so the sentinels are on the back burner for now. Last night I managed to do up a quick basilisk, again this was a second hand piece (didn't bother stopping it this time) from another players guard army (which I also painted) and I didn't bother to soak it since I figured to top layer was light enough to just prime over. The decision to experiment with the cracked earth basing paint did not pan out and I had to re prime/paint the bottom half of the side panels, a good lesson learned there, the GW technicals really helped me out this time around though I think that I am finding my balance with applying just the right amount of weathering to the metal bits, even if my free hand camo still needs a bit of work.

Quick side note:
You can also see the brand new 'Bay Hammer' logo, after several iterations and a few nights spent in Photoshop I have created a design I am finally happy with, t-shirts and bumper stickers to follow shortly.

Cheers

-Scott
BH Senior Polo Sergeant

Hobby Progress

Everything this week so far has been gear towards my upcoming Zone Mortalis throw down with D, which promises to either be a match up for the ages, or a quiet game in which two gentlemen trade jests over the others intimate nocturnal proclivities with livestock. Either way I am super pumped to finally get to play a ZM game for the first time, and really my first 40k game in the better part of a year (watching YouTube tutorials to brush up as I write this) I got a fair amount of stuff done this week, so bear with me while I itemize everything below.


First up is the sentinels, a couple of days ago I posted up a quick shot of the three that I actually managed to get painted. Here are the rest of the horde, all of which are now primed and ready for painting (did I mention a good part of my week was spent hovering over a bucket of simple green swill)

Thursday It got cold again, so my model priming efforts were shut down effectively for the evening, though I did manage to get these two guys done up for Sundays game (I also found out I was a bit short on special weapons squads, so I also put in a sizable bitz order on Ebay (more on that later) I do enjoy coming up with new ways to paint plasma effects but its still a pain to find one that looks right.

 

 

 

Today was a good day for hobby progress since the pin vice set I ordered off Amazon arrived this afternoon and I was able to drill out some of the gun barrels on my Contra Catachans (now known as Rick & Steve) which I also managed to get done up in decent time.

 I will say for $6 they are not bad, they have none of the polish that a dedicated hobby vise does and they were literally covered in grease when they arrived, but for the money they do a decent job, but they were clearly meant to be shop tools and they are not as precise as a GW/Xacto/Tamiya option, still though, hard to beat that $6 price tag.

                                  

Tetanus included in every bag!





Sgt. Steve

 

Spc. Rick

 

That's about it for me this week hobby wise, I expect to get a ton of pics from my ZM game tomorrow so keep an eye for that post in the near future, hopefully I'll start playing more games in general going forward, especially with the new guard codex dropping next week(you probably won't see me for a few days after that) Over all though its been a productive week, and I got to clear a few things off of my Trello.


Cheers

-Scott
BH Senior Dance Commander

P.S.
Almost forgot to mention, I will be making a guest appearance on the Stuff of Legends podcast Sunday, we are going to be talking about photography, and how you can use in the hobby and other fun topics. They don't have a dedicated landing page for the podcast, but I will post a link once its released.

GW Technicals

I shot out a quick blast on the Facebook group about this stuff, but I really cant state how much I love GW's new'ish technical line of paints and washes. Most of these are geared towards insta grunge.

Fact:
I Love grunge


Having access to instant grunge effect is perfect for me, I can safely say I am now addicted, I did up a quick objective piece/demo when I was over at Legends today for their escalation league night, so dirty and corroded, the cracked earth stuff is also brilliant if not a little fragile.

 

 

I cant wait to play around with these a more in the coming weeks, 'D' still has a ton of tanks for me to paint up, so expect a lot more "distressed" metal in the coming weeks. Oh one more thing before I punch out. Nothing big, just cranked out two more chimeras for D's IG and yes I am aware of the two bolters (don't look at me I am just a painter) it came to me in that odd  configuration.

 

 

 

Special shout out to Chuck who just got back from Mecca (England)

 

 

-Scott

BH Senior Coat Fluffer