The Secret Project

Today I have been working on something I shall not show you yet. I shall scatter very vague clues to its nature throughout this entry. Tomorrow I mean to paint it. I think you'll like it, as the actress said to the bishop, or vice-versa? Ahem. In other news, I have completed the application of transfers to the company of Basilisks. The coat of varnish which locks the transfers to the models is drying even now. They look pretty good so far, and I thus have high hopes of their eventual appearance.

I was just a short time ago in my attic, which might help some of you discern the nature of my secret project. While there I found a box I'd missed before, which has another ten Leman Russ tanks in it. Every time I think I've disposed of some of them I turn up another load in some dusty, cobwebbed corner! So after months of selling these things, I think I now have a hundred left, which is more than I expected. The thought occurs to me that Christmas is approaching, so it might be an idea to hold off on selling any more until November, and thus take advantage of the Christmas Rush.

There's something of a segue here, as I have just spoken of GW models, and now I mean to speak of a GW ruleset. My friend alerted me last week to the sale at Warhammer Historicals, which is or was knocking fifty percent off the price of things. My penury had dissuaded me thus far from investing in Over the Top, the mid-war sequel to the company's Great War ruleset. However, this huge discount acted as a double incentive. First, the cheapness of my desire made it more attainable. Second, a fifty percent off sale suggests the possibility that the subsidiary will be axed ere long. I don't want to find myself in the position of being unable to purchase at any price that which I might have purchased at half price.

I have flicked through the rules, and am pleased at their appearance and at the appearance of the lists. Having only briefly inspected them, I offer no opinion of their historicity or playability. Having read a few pages from the beginning of the book, the fact that they were not written by a native Anglophone is apparent. You probably assume I mean this in an uncomplimentary fashion, but I mean quite the reverse! The English can't fasten together sentences with conjunctions, and our apostrophes skewer innocent words. We are never taught these rules, and so we cannot employ them. Foreigners learning English, on the other hand, are blessed to be taught it. Buchel's spelling and grammar are - so far - exemplary: a delight to the eye and an ornament to the page! There are certain peculiarities that remind one that he is not a native speaker: "the no-man's land" appears rather than "no-man's land". I'll take a hundred such instances of grammatically correct, perfectly spelled oddities rather than a single Forgeworld volume's endless instances of mangled verbiage!

I shall devote myself to this for the rest of the afternoon and the early part of the evening. I have some friends joining me at 7 pm to watch Casino,
which I have unaccountably failed to watch thus far. Well, I say unaccountably, but in truth I have dodged it for a few weeks now, knowing we would soon be watching it. I just have to explain away the preceding years of neglect now! Saturday will see me graving the portals of wherever it is in Stoke that is hosting a Real Ale Festival, and on Sunday I have arranged to have lunch with the estimable Andy Kind, an old schoolfriend of mine and all-round awesome guy, and his lovely wife. In perhaps even better news, the world of work has knocked on my door of late, though I shall say no more for the present: don't count your chickens before they are hatched, and all that! Until next time, chaps and chappesses!

The Basilisk Company Returns!

Yeesh, running out of paint, needing varnish, having to do ten vehicles: I have a lot of excuses for the tardy progress of this project, but it's back on schedule now. Today will be dedicated to the application of transfers to these lads, and then securing the same with varnish. Tomorrow I should get on to painting and weathering, some of 'em, anyway. We are talking ten vehicles here, after all! On a cheery note, I was doing some tidying and turned up that missing Arachnid jaw, so I've now got the full set of a score of the creepy-crawlies. Good news there!

Right, what else have I been up to? Well, I'm working on making some mint juleps. The name appealed to me. I have no other reason. I assure you, dear reader, I'm off to no derbies in the American South. Literature-wise, I have gone mad. I had already begun Life of Pi, and then I started The Name of the Rose and Starfleet: Year One, as well as advancing to the second volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fall. It's not so much the Romans who are bound for a fall as the fool with so many books on the go! I managed to restrain myself from beginning Brighton Rock, though, so, erm, I'm not so foolish as I would be had I begun it. Hm. I'm also feeling a bit less histrionic than I was yesterday about postal services - more grouchy than screechy today! Anyway, I'm going to bury my nose in Umberto Eco again now. No, not like that. You have a filthy mind. Au revoir, mes amis!

Basilisk batteries and Lego

Yes, batteries of Basilisks: six of the fellas in various stages of completion are on the bench at the minute. Come to think of it, there are 3 outside, so I could sell the lot as a complete Apocalypse formation at the end of all this work. The look is somewhat inspired by the German WWII Elefant (see below, sourced hence). I have previously espoused the benefits of Lego, and today is yet another opportunity to use my oratorical, rhetorical and declamatory skills in favour of it: it's great! Ages ago I knocked up parts for loads of Bassies, but got distracted by other things, and depressed, so the parts remained just that. Lately I've been getting back into the groove, and Lego has proved a godsend. Do I want an angled front? Lego can provide it (see pic 1). Is 0.5mm plasticard great for cutting to the right size but not quite strong enough on its own? Lego can help (pic 2). Do I want some additional internal structures to strengthen my build? Lego can help (pic 3)! Then I boxed in the rest of that vehicle, added a spare Baneblade exhaust (pic 4), and added a spare Baneblade Heavy Bolter to the front (pic 5).

But Lego isn't just handy for that sort of thing. I had three roofs and sides for Basilisk fighting compartments, cut long ago. I wanted a regular look to their angled side, and structural stability. Yet again, Lego helped out (pics 6&7). There was a slight case of overhanging fighting compartments, but when you consider that I accidentally made the hull widths 5 Lego blocks across and not 6, and that the roofs and sides predated any intention to use Lego, it isn't so bad. In fact, I rather like how it turned out. The guns (Russ muzzles, plasticard tube, some plumbing thingy as the base) were superglued to 0.5mm plasticard which was superglued to Lego blocks. Two of these were glued to the turret roof, and the third was glued to the floor and uses an angled block to suggest that the gun is inclined to fire at range (pic 8). Lego is more adaptable than this. Anyone experienced with it will realise that you could use the stuff to have guns aiming up or down. Pics 9 and 99 show the battery together, prior to the backs being closed in.

Sorry again for the delay in getting these things up. I was working on 'em the whole time I was watching stuff. I don't know about you, but having something distracting on really helps the work fly by! I'm going to head upstairs now and see whether I can find the Basilisk bits I made for the second company of them. I don't know that I made so many of the extra pieces, but the guns exist! Enjoy these pics, dear reader.