Constructed Termite

With the main tube glued and dried, completing the build on the Termite was very straight forward in the end. The top of the tube is a series of three concentric circles of drill bits that was very easy to put together. The rear was just one major blob of resin with a few decorative items to add on to it.

The doors to the interior of the vehicle can be modelled opened or closed. I decided to have one of the doors opened and the rest closed. They sit nicely on runners which means that the doors can be posed anywhere from fully opened to partial, to sealed shut.

On top of this, there is a choice of weapons for the upper part of the termite. Here, I've chosen to have the bolters since in-game I wanted a base line points cost for this transport.

Overall, a very nice and easy build in the end. I think it will be fine to paint, even though it has large featureless surfaces. I'm thinking some spray paint in Alpha legion colours, followed by some detailing and some decals on the surface. But that's a job for another day.

Termite Tube

Putting my Termite Assault Drill together has proved to be tough work in part. Or: at least it was until I realised that the best way to do this was not to wait until one segment was completely dry, but to do it using clamps. The only little snag here was that I didn't own enough clamps to do this the "right way", so I improvised.

In the image below, the nature of this improvisation is clear: hair bobbles. These are the stretchy bands used to keep longer hair in pony tails or tied back. They also double up very effectively for working on miniatures as it turns out!

The main tube of the Termite is not actually hard to put together. The main issue is actually getting everything to sit right all at the same time so that everything went together neatly (as I wanted to avoid gaps between the parts as much as possible for obvious reasons). This was ultimately why I decided to glue the main body of it together all at the same time rather than just two of the sides and then wait for it to dry out completely before attaching the next side to it. The hair bobbles worked very nicely for keeping everything in place (and the tread of the termite, in turn, kept the bobble in the right location). Finding ones with the right tension was straight forward enough, and I now keep a set of them for my hobby work. 

It is all nicely dry now and ready for the next few steps.

Games Workshop Southampton

Strictly, this is not a Games Workshop "branded" store: it is a Warhammer store now. That aside, my travels took me to the South Coast of England recently and afforded me a few hours to myself to explore the city of Southampton. As I sometimes do, I decided to do my "mystery shopper" thing and go and locate the Games Workshop store in the city and have a look around. 

Physically, the store is located on East Street, which is just South East of York Gate in the city. East Street is touted as "speciality stores" on the street signage. I found this slightly at odds with the occupants of the buildings. There were plenty of gambling shops, and several charity type shops on the street. Regardless, it seems that GW is a speciality (along with several other genuine specialist shops) on the small street, so that at least is correct. I'm not so sure about the location itself. It feels a little isolated in its position with arguably little footfall from the main high streets north of its location. Indeed, the main railway and bus stops are close enough, but one does have to strike out in the direction of this store to get there, rather than chance upon it. 

The store itself is of a moderate to smaller size. The front window pictured above gives a reasonable impression of the scale and size of the place (and the image below shows in the background the depth of the store, along with a miniature in the window that really took my eye!). 

I found the staff pleasant, easy to talk to and knowledgable about the hobby - which is always good. Indeed, the staff here were very accommodating and didn't apply too much pressure on me. Hence I bought a little something. The stock is reasonable, albeit standard for Games Workshops these days, and the gaming tables / space in the middle adequate for most purposes. 

Overall, this is a nice store, but I do question its physical location - a bit north of York Gate might be a superior location, although I do acknowledge that the rents would correspondingly go up. 

Wargames Gallery: Infestation

Deep within the rotting heart of the lower levels of the Hive spire lurks something altogether more sinister than brutish gangs in need of expedited Imperial discipline...

Termite Unboxing

It has been a little while - and sorry for the delay to my regular readers. To avoid burn-out on the hobby, I am not going to be posting ~daily any longer, but will be posting at a more leisurely rate from herein. 

For today's post, I wanted to share what an Imperial Termite (also known as the Terror Pattern Termite Assault Drill, but I'm old school) looks like fresh out of the box. In the image below, I have made no cuts, no adjustments, and not even washed the parts. They are literally raw out of the box and laid out on a table for inspection. 

As can be seen, there is plenty of little issues here. They range from the large amounts of flash (thin films of resin) seen in the upper left part of the image wherein a large portion of the (open) door is covered by the flash, through to little minor warps, and a couple of air bubbles here an there. I would say that the amount of air bubbles that I encounter in Forge World's resin is much reduced these days compared to when I started collecting their products. And that is to be commended. There is still a fair amount of work in this particular kit to be carried out though. I will start it off with a thorough and good wash in warm soapy water with an old toothbrush to get rid of the releasing agent that I spotted on a couple of surfaces. 

Other than that, this build looks - in principle - like it will be a straight forward one. I hope that I will be proved right.

Army wise, this termite will serve as a flexible extension to my Alpha Legion forces. I very much like the idea of death from below AND above used in conjunction with one another. It seems rather fitting for an Alpha Legion force to be honest. 

Shroud of Night - Review

I had read that there was a new book out about the Alpha Legion, but in 40k, rather than 30k. I was curious enough about it (and had heard some good things about it) that I wanted to get hold of it. Hence, when I was in the city, I popped in to the local Games Workshop store to pick up a copy of the tome: Shroud of Night (Andy Clark).

There's a lot going on in this book - in terms of lore, in terms of plot advancement for 40k, and perhaps answering a few questions about one of my favourite legions from 30k: the Alphas. 

Firstly, I must admit that I really liked the characterisation of the 40k Alpha Legion. As with my own prejudices, these Alphas have not fallen to, or committed themselves, to Chaos. In many ways, they are "pure" - or at least free from corruption to begin with. In some ways, they reminded me of the  marines in the Soul Drinkers series of books - a chapter that was freed from the Imperium, but still doing the "right thing" ... sort of. Except this time, the protagonists are totally working for themselves. 

Finding themselves marooned on a world where they'd killed most others, the Unsung (as this Alpha Legion Harrow calls itself) finds a way off by agreeing to undertake a mission for the Emperor's Children (who seem to continuously think they're the best, but merely seem to get outwitted for the vast majority of the book ... except for a potential twist at the end).

The story focuses on the Alphas taking out a plot maguffin (I don't want to spoil it) for the glory of the Emperor's Children, and as the price for helping them earlier. To do so, they need to enter a war zone and get there before a large contingent of World Eaters get to the self-same plot maguffin. Opposing them are the Imperium -- they're fighting on an Imperial world behind the new Warp incursion in 40k, a world that is a lynchpin for the local segmentum. 

Along the way, the Alphas fight to not become corrupted -- some of their number really want to accept the "rewards" of chaos that they have felt they have earned; there's a daemon sword that's also trying to corrupt them. Most are strong enough to resist, others are not. Some of their number want a different way to fight. Others amongst them want to just go their own way and say goodbye forever. 

We see the Alphas fight, but not as they did in 30k. They have a lack of resources of a legion, and are forced to be very inventive along the way. I really liked this evolution and characterisation of desperation by the Alphas. I genuinely hope that they will release another book on the Unsung as I'd certainly buy it. Its one of the better publications recently in my mind.

The negatives include the appearance of a certain Imperial Saint. I get that she might be there, but its just a little bit on the implausible side for me. The appearance of Kharn the Betrayer was also a surprise. I don't know why the World Eaters who still possess some semblance of sanity still tolerate him being around. Really. No wonder Kharn almost fights on his own (albeit with daemons). That said, all blood is welcome I guess. I had less problems with Kharn being in the book than I did with the Saint. 

Other than that, a great read overall!