Paint, paint, paint

I shall post without pictures lest I undermine myself totally. I have been doing loads of painting. But I have loads of models, and so the progress is not going to overwhelm you. I have been sitting down and painting the boots of fifty or so Guardsmen brown or their guns black/Foundation (Hormagaunt?) Purple or drybrushing their guns with Chainmail after the dark colour. But this is not at all photogenic, so I have not been taking pictures. In a few weeks I will probably have about two hundred guys all ready at once, and wear myself out with photography, and you out with scores of pictures of the ten score Guardsmen. Let us leave that madness in the future while addressing what I have been painting.

About fifty-five Guardsmen who will comprise five Veteran Squads and one CCS. Fluff-wise this will be a hardened platoon. In practical terms, it will yield me three of each kind of special weapon (flamer, plasma gun, melta, sniper rifle and grenade launcher) to go with a particular force. I am not - calm down at the back! - restricting myself to one of each squad in any games I play in. I currently don't play in any games, so my focus is on theoretical organisation. I do have the figures to produce a more competitive army list, but no reason to shuffle everyone around and fiddle with their insignia.

Next, sixty or so lads who will be a Heavy Weapons Company for use in Apocalypse. Quick recap for those unaware by virtue of not wasting time on toys or those living far in the past. A squad is three teams; a team is two blokes on a base with a heavy weapon chosen from: Lascannon, Autocannon, Missile Launcher, Mortar and Heavy Bolter. The lion's share of these fellas is provided by missile launcher teams, but there are a few teams of the other flavours, and a squad of 3 Multilasers. These are typically vehicle-mounted, but the Apocalypse game system is (should be?) all about novelty and oddities.

Finally, another thirty or more lads left over from previous efforts, officers who have been forgotten until now, and assorted detritus. Oh, and that Lascannon thing mentioned in the last post. It has been undercoated, but has yet to receive its camo netting.

On a personal note, I am probably driving (or at least being driven) over to Liverpool tomorrow. A relative's friend's rabbit has produced a litter, and we are going to take one or maybe two for ourselves. With permission. We are not sneaking in at dead of night. We have not had a rabbit for a few months, but ever since I was little we have had pet bunnies. This one (or these ones) will be a kitten: perhaps the cutest form of life in the world ever. Sorry, human children, ducklings, kittens born of cats, puppies, foals, and all you other contenders, rabbits win by a mile of cuteness. So expect bunny pictures soon.

Following on from the last blog post, I saw the nurse earlier, and I do not have an infection. She very delicately said it just looks like that because I am fat! She was very nice about it, but there is no getting around it. Not unless I pull my belly over my eyes. As my last post suggested, give me a few months post recovery, and see how I look then. ;-) I mean to take a picture the day I lose the bandage, diet and exercise, then take some pictures for comparison during my twelve labours of weight-loss. As I do not practise cruelty to animals (even mythical ones), I shall not be beheading Hydrae, nor throttling snakes in my cradle. If I were in a cradle at thirty, I agree it would raise awkward questions. There was a story the other week about a nurse in Florida, I think, who was suing a - the trial is ongoing, I think, so let us be tactful! - chap. He had posted online, in the persona of the brother of a mentally ill man, advertising for a nurse. Said nurse applied for the job, sorted out all the details online, and was changing the chap's nappy regularly until it became apparent that she had been misled. She was understandably miffed.

I promise never to appear on this blog in a nappy.