I’m pretty certain this is my favourite playlist on Apple Music, despite not being anything I listen to daily. Great for relaxing, but equally great for when I need to concentrate on things.

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/classical-edge/pl.5a4f127f4ba54a7d82d15df510587aff

For the last 24-18 months or so I’ve had a background project to recreate my original Adepta Sororitas (nee: “Sisters of Battle“) army, in advance of the new codex and plastic release. With that release looking more and more imminent, I really need to get my skates on! By my reckoning I’ve got roughly three months to finish up, maybe less!

John Blanche illustration used on the Sisters of Battle codex in 1997

The original army was purchased by fourteen year-old me on release day in 1997. I’d saved up my paper round money for several weeks to afford it, after falling in love with what had been previewed in White Dwarf the month before. It’s a tiny army by modern standards (roughly 545 points in a Patrol Detachment), but it was a decent sized force in Second Edition, and I loved playing it. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the army was given away by my mum a few years later, once I’d moved out for university and had fallen out of the hobby. Since coming back to the fold, it’s been the one army I’ve really regretted not having any more.

I’ve already collected and painted the two Sororitas character models from the original army – a Canoness and Standard Bearer (now called an Imagifier), and I’ve started painting the two squads I’ve acquired so far: a ten-woman Battle Sister squad, and five Seraphim. I also need to paint a banner for the Standard Bearer, to truly finish it off. Long-time readers will know I have finished painting some Battle Sister squads this year, but those were bought to bulk the collection up to a “full size” Eighth Edition army, and aren’t part of the core project.

There’s still a five-strong Retributor squad to get hold of, but the problem I have here is I can’t for the life of me remember exactly what I armed them with twenty-two years ago! I’m pretty sure it was four of one weapon type – either Multi-Meltas or Heavy Flamers – but given the time period it could well have been a mix of all three. I think I’m going to go with four Heavy Flamers, as I remember I painted at least one of these “back in the day,” and I’m certain it wasn’t for the Battle Sister squad (which had a Heavy Bolter). Plus, I’ve never really liked the “Sabbat” helmet shown on some of the Sisters models, which is why I’m reasonably sure it wasn’t the Multi-Meltas.

When I started the project I knew that some of the models were going to be really hard to get hold of in a usable condition, and for a reasonable price. While many are still available from Games Workshop, several are long out of print: namely the Canoness, Standard Bearer, Immolator, and an “Imperial Missionary with Plasma Gun”. Of these, I thought the Immolator was going to be the hardest to acquire, but I found one on Saturday. Now I just need to get the Missionary. They occasionally pop-up on eBay, but usually in a bad condition, and for a higher price than I’m willing to pay for that condition. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I can’t get hold of one at this time – it’s no longer a game-legal choice, and I’m concentrating on the Sororitas – but it would be nice for completion’s sake!

1997 'Imperial Missionary 2', armed with Plasma Gun
Got one of these to sell? Let me know!

So, roughly 21/22 models to paint in the next couple of months, with a currently unknown target date for completion? Sounds doable, right? Well, yeah, if you’re not as slow a painter as me, and hadn’t started a Genestealer Cults army in the meantime which needs cleared from the painting desk… If the codex is due in October, I’m reasonably confident I can make it; coming sooner and I’m less so. If anyone in the Warhammer Community team who might happen to read this wants to give me a subtle hint, that would be helpful! 😉 (Also, I’d love to write about the project as an article on the community site, once I have some more finished models to show off!)

With all that said, whether the new models are coming in 3 months, or 3 weeks, first I need to stock up on more Retributer Armour spray paint!

😭

(TBH, I’ll probably be awake anyway… I just can’t stay in bed as I have to be on-call for a client in Australia)

I’ve just generated a webp version of every image file I’ve ever uploaded to this site, with the intent to add a redirect for browsers which support the format – that should be most, nowadays. I haven’t done the redirect yet, but I’ll turn that on later.

I also took the opportunity to fix a whole bunch of missing thumbnails and missing sizes for my images. A previous mishap on my part meant there were a lot of these missing. WP-CLI didn’t seem to work for me, but there’s an easy (although repetitive and boring) way to do this through the library:

* Open the image
* Click “Edit Image”
* Flip the image, then flip it again
* Save

So hopefully that’s any broken images fixed, and soon, speedier and more optimised versions will be served.

Quoting: Thread by @CyrusBales:

/1
Our Home secretary was previously fired for endangering UK national security through rogue meetings with a foreign power and lying to the Prime Minister about it.

/2
Our foreign secretary didn’t realize the significance of Dover-Calais on trade.

/3
Our education secretary is a homophobe who opposes LGBTQ rights, so that’ll please the assholes trying to remove LGBTQ acceptance from schools.

/4
Our chancellor wants to actively crash the economy via no deal.

/5
Our justice minister has voted against human rights and equality, against same sex marriage, and voted to reduce access to legal aid.

/6
Our environment secretary supports fracking and has continuously voted against measures to address climate change.

/7
Our business secretary lied on their CV about their qualifications and uses offshore accounting to avoid tax.

/8
Our culture secretary hates the arts and wants less of it in schools.

/9
Our international trade secretary lied/didn’t read about a key report from EY, and wants to sell of public assets like the NHS.

/10

Our secretary of state for international development (who is my MP), is the man who first introduced Johnson to the wanted Russian agent Mifsud, which then set up meeting between Jonhson and famous white supremacist Bannon.

/11
Our secretary of state for women and equalities has opposed measures to tackle domestic violence and is against feminism.

/12
Our work & pensions secretary wants to compile a list of foreign workers & “shame” companies for employing them, oversaw the deportation of UK citizens (Windrush scandal), & is on record saying she wants more “teeth” to hunt down migrants and boasted of her “ruthlessness”.

/13
Our defence secretary opposes human rights and equality and has consistently voted against them.

/14
Our transport secretary is the one who was involved in the bullying scandal that saw a young man take his own life.

/15
Our top adviser to the PM that he appointed is a man who oversaw the biggest electoral fraud in UK history and was found in contempt of parliament.

/16
Our northern Ireland secretary is a man who wanted everyone involved with the Edward Snowden story to be prosecuted.

/17
Our housing, communities and local government secretary thinks productivity is the most important economic issue and falsely thinks inequality has never been lower than it is now.

/18
Our leader of the commons is a man who wanted to prorogue parliament to push through what they want without any parliamentary scrutiny.

/19
And our Prime Minister?

He’s openly racist, homophobic, sexist, arranged the assault of a journalist, lead the campaign that committed the biggest electoral fraud in UK history, caused an innocent British woman to be incarcerated for longer…

I could go on.

A lot.

web.archive.org

📖 Read: Boris Johnson can’t be found out: we all know he’s bluffing | Fintan O’Toole (the Guardian)

“The new PM’s rise to No 10 is the carefully managed product of three decades of a show stage-managed by and about himself, says author and columnist Fintan O’Toole”

the Guardian

Insofar as he has a strategy, Johnson’s plan is all based on the power of a lie, or to use the polite term, a bluff. The bluff is a no-deal Brexit. The basic belief of Johnson and those around him is that the way to get a great deal out of the EU is to pretend that you are quite happy to crash out without one. But bluffing only works if you do not already have a reputation as one of the world’s biggest bluffers. In this poker game, Johnson doesn’t have a tell. He is the tell. To put him into No 10 is to erect a neon sign over Downing Street that says: “Don’t believe a word of it.” The knowingness that Johnson has exploited to such great effect works within a circle of collusion.