Games Workshop Edinburgh (Warhammer)

Today, a small review of the Warhammer store in Edinburgh, Scotland (UK). I was visited the city for business, and it was the first time I have been there in over a decade or more. For a city as old as Edinburgh, the layout doesn't change that much at all: I well-remember the steep climb of the steps opposite the railway station up to the main shopping level in the city for instance - that, I don't think, will ever change. 

The Warhammer store in the city is physically located High Street, which is south of the main railway station (Edinburgh Waverley) and along the well-trodden route between Edinburgh Castle, and Holyrood. As such, it is a premium city centre location with high footfall in a busy part of the city centre with excellent pedestrian access and immediate convenience to railways and bus lines that run through the place. 

The store itself is of small to moderate size. It is by no means the smallest that I've ever witnessed, but certainly not the size of a bunker. More like fractionally above the small size. Sadly, the store was closed when I visited since it was early morning and my work in the city didn't begin until the store opened (drat!). However, I was able to see inside very readily from the window and the interior had some nice gaming tables on display. 

The picture below shows one of the dioramas in the window of the store, with apologies for some of the reflection. 

I liked this one of the Blood Angels battling away the Nurglesque army facing off against them. Good use of some of the relatively newer miniature ranges and boxed sets to be honest!

In summary, one of the best locations for a Games Workshop / Warhammer store in a city that I've been to lately, but just sorry that I couldn't visit the store when it was open to experience the (what I have come to expect would be) warm hospitality.

Iron Handed

Okay, its been a while. All I can say is that things have been manic professionally for a bit - but thanks to those of you who have messaged me, etc. 

Today a little bit of a reveal of some of the things we have been working on. This one is manifestly an Iron Hands space marine, featuring bits from the space marine classic range, combined with forge world resin parts to create a half-way house space marine. 

The only real bit of work I've added to this parts blend is to ensure that the bolt gun barrel has been drilled out a bit. Add in the cork base and a side arm holster, and we have a completed Iron Hands miniature that is screaming 30k! By now I'm sure its also obvious that my 2020 army is a bit of a Shattered Legions affair. More on the thoughts behind that at a later date though. I need to get cracking on more of them.

Salamanders Contemptor Mortis

For my first post of this year, I wanted to show off my most recent build: a contemptor mortis pattern dreadnought from the Salamanders legion. It totes a pair of multi-meltas for what I trust are very obvious reasons considering which legion this dreadnought belongs to. The build was straight forward, but I did have a bit of green stuff filling to do on the top of the thighs for each leg -- the resin had not flowed well at all in to those locations. The base features some plastic from the shadow sword (bane blade) kit, along with a series of cork pieces that will eventually be complemented with some finer grit on top to finish the look. 

The pose that I was going for here was one of the mortis pacing forward confidently from a previously hidden (or maybe even crouched over) position -- perhaps he has just emerged from cover to exact a toll of molten slag from his traitorous cousins. Overall, I'm pleased with this one, and it will certainly complement the new army that I have in progress.

Mor Deythan Squad

This is my Mor Deythan squad, assembled and ready to be primed for painting.

The squad features combi-melta guns and two meltas through the squad to take advantage of first turn infiltration set-up possibilities. Whilst they may not get within half range on the first turn, by turn two or three, the aim is to have this squad blow up a tank or transport with the melta guns, and then open fire with the bolters later if required. Subsequently, they serve as a tar pit, or meat shield support, as required. 

The only real conversion work here was fitting the melta guns to the bodies of the Raven Guard. This was not hard, and required simply removing the hand from the weapons as I wanted to preserve the hands of the resin miniatures in entirety. The back packs are not standard resin, but from the mark 4 space marine range. The naked head is from the modern space marines boxed set. Other than that, this squad is complete. 

New Year -- New Army. This is just the start.

Mor Deythan Melta

The new project is taking form with increased celerity (although that wouldn't take much either given how little progress I have made on it, to be candid). 

This model is a Mor Deythan marine from the Raven Guard legion. This is a minor bit of conversion work, replacing the regular armament with a melta gun from the plastic 30k range (which needed the hand chopped away to work with the resin hand on the Forge World parts), along with a plastic back pack. Although I thought about buying the regular marines, I got a good deal on an incomplete Mor Deythan set (minus the weapons and back packs) that I couldn't say no to. Hence this marine needed a couple of more parts to set him up well.

Well, there may still be prizes for guessing what I'm working on, so I'll leave that part of what I'm doing as a semi-mystery for the moment (but its probably obvious). I want to get a full squad of Mor Deythan converted in a similar fashion and ready for painting soon, time permitting!

Perennia Logo

It turns out that there is more than just me worldwide that wanted to have a titan in the Perennia colours. I was stoked that others reached out to me in the past year to discuss Legio Perennia (you know who you are) and I was only too happy to chat about that titan legion and what its iconography might be.

Now, when one invents a legion, there is complete freedom to choose whatever you like for iconography or colour. But the situation is slightly different here. Legio Perennia is a canon legion, but there is very little to go on for the Legio, except for the mention in the Horus Heresy short story that involves the Alpha Legion (which was also me reason for selecting Perennia).

Candidly, there really is only the name of the Legio.

As mentioned a long time ago when I was choosing the painting scheme, I felt that Perennia comes from the same root as "perennial", as per the plant type. This fact in itself is why I chose green for the major part of the colour scheme that I adopted for the war hound. To me, it also has overtures of something eternal, and even slightly Celtic perhaps.

Hence when I sat down to think about the logo, I wanted to try for something that brought these themes together.

The best result I had was looking at the ancient Celtic Tree of Life logo (also: Yggdrasil). If you google for "celtic tree of life", you will see the kind of thing I am talking about. The added benefit of this kind of symbology is that it is old enough to be out of copyright. Despite this benefit, the knots and swirls are very tough to paint due to the sheer level of complexity (I attempted several). So I started to look for a lower complexity version. There were not many. This Amazon seller for instance -- https://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Yggdrasil-Sticker-Mythology-Knotwork/dp/B01BO14HEI -- has bumper stickers that look great, and almost what I was after. In start white, it would stand out excellently against the green paint job of the body of the titan. Yet, it still lacks a certain something to my mind. Plus: needed to be simpler - much simpler. A design of this complexity is exceptionally tough to reproduce without very specific templating. 

I therefore retained the idea of knots, but simplified it a lot. I ended up with this design that I painted on the side of my war hound. 

I am broadly happy with this as it is simple enough to duplicated, yet specific enough to be easily sighted and recognised. Let the annals show that this knotwork is now the logo and symbol of Legio Perennia!