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The first batch of Primaris Space Marines are just about finished, with just a few details and the decals to finish before basing.

One of the choices I had to make was what secondary colours to use for contrasting and spot colours. The main armour is fairly monochromatic, being essentially black and bone-white. The main contrast would come from the gun casing, for which I chose a fairly bright orange. Orange isn’t a colour often seen on Space Marines, so this in itself helps the models stand out. To offset this, purple was added as a spot colour, used  on lenses and purity seals.

I decided these marines would be from the 3rd Company, so red was also added to the palette. Each marine  will get a red trim added to one knee (still to do), and the shield of the Ancient was painted red to match this.

The Lieutenant was given some basic freehand on his tilt-shield, also integrating the red of the company. I’m not happy with the blade of the scythe, so I plan to repaint it.

The Intercessors finally received their helmets. Once the shoulder pads are added, I think these will look quite intimidating on the tabletop!

With the first batch nearing completion, I needed to start preparing the next wave! Needing a break from Intercessors, I decided to build something fun – a Redemptor Dreadnought. This kit was a joy to build, going together in just a few hours. Many of the parts are designed to remain unglued, so they can be reposed. I didn’t bother with this, as it would make things more difficult to paint. A couple of parts are unglued for now so I can paint them seperately.

With the Dreadnought assembled quicker than I thought it would be, I moved on to some Hellblasters. I have to admit I think I prefer this kit to the Intercessors. I might swap some of the bodies around between the two kits.

With these built, I just need to build five more Intercessors and I’ll have everything for Armies on Parade assembled. I might make these from the models found in the 40K starter sets, to add some variety. My plan for the wider army is for each ten-man Intercessor Squad to be half multi-part kit, half “easy to build,” so there is a better mix of poses throughout.

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Similar to my Lord of Blights, this is a “catch-up post” for a model I painted earlier this year.

Arwen was painted for the same competition, and she won her category (LotR Single Figure). This was my first time painting a GW Lord of the Rings miniature, and the different scale sure caused a challenge! I ended up stripping the paint off the model and restarting, no less than three times. In the end it was worth it. Not everything turned out how I planned it, but I’m still proud of the end result.

Next year I’ll be painting Tauriel for the same category – it’ll be interesting to see the differences in experience between painting a modern plastic and an old metal cast.

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Earlier this year I painted up a Lord of Blights, from Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, for a local painting competition. I posted it all over social media at the time, but never got around to posting it here. So consider that oversight corrected!

The model was a joy to paint, one of my favourites in a while. I experimented with a few things on the skin, and I’m pretty happy how it turned out. I can’t see a Nurgle army in my future, but if that ever changes, it will be painted in a similar palette.

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If you’ve ever read a Games Workshop publication from the 90’s, you’ll have almost certainly seen some of Mark Gibbons artwork. Mostly stark, black and white illustrations of single characters, he came to define the look of some of the early “named characters” in the settings. Personally I was a huge fan of these, and even tried to emulate some of them during my school art classes. The four below are my favourites of his work, and remain some of my favourite pieces of Warhammer art to this day.

I used to have a copy of the Ulrik The Slayer piece framed on my wall. I had written to GW (in the days before email!) asking if their artwork was available to buy anywhere. At the time it wasn’t, but they sent me a print anyway. Young me was over the moon at receiving such a gift, as you can probably imagine.

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The first of many updates on the progress of painting everything for Armies on Parade.

I finally managed to get hold of a can of Zandri Dust spray, so I was able to finish the base colour of the board. Everything was sprayed lightly from above, leaving the grey showing in recessed and in random areas of the walls and roads. The important thing was to make sure it wasn’t uniform, for a more natural appearance.

As luck would have it, the sun was setting as I took a picture of my progress, giving me this shot of the building glowing in the sunlight:

From the other side, things looked a lot more washed out:

The marines started to get their base coats and initial airbrush highlights.

At first I wasn’t too happy with how things were looking, but after sleeping on things, and adding in a few more highlights to the characters, and spots of other colours, I’ve come around to how they look.

I’ll be giving them an all over wash of black ink, to give more shading, contrast, and richness to the colour. That should help a lot, even before I add the remaining “main” colours.

Over the weekend I plan to build the remaining marines (5 Intercessors, plus 5 Hellblasters), and the Dreadnought. If I can get the black armour finished on everything in the next few days, it frees me up to concentrate on other details and finishing the board.

Only 36 days to go!

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I got an email from BA about this, first thing this morning, but per The Guardian:

British Airways is investigating the theft of customer data from its website and app over a two-week period and has urged customers affected to contact their banks or credit card providers.

The airline said around 380,000 payment cards had been compromised and it had notified the police.

In a statement it said: “The stolen data did not include travel or passport details. From 22.58 BST August 21 2018 until 21.45 BST September 5 2018 inclusive, the personal and financial details of customers making bookings on ba.com and the airline’s app were compromised. The breach has been resolved and our website is working normally.

I’m waiting to hear back from my bank, but I’m a little annoyed that this was the extent of the information BA provided:

Dear Customer,

From 22:58 BST 21 August 2018 until 21:45 BST 5 September 2018 inclusive, the personal and financial details of customers making or changing bookings at ba.com, and on our app were compromised. The stolen data did not include travel or passport information.

The breach has been resolved and our website is working normally.

We’re deeply sorry, but you may have been affected. We recommend that you contact your bank or credit card provider and follow their recommended advice.

We take the protection of your personal information very seriously. Please accept our deepest apologies for the worry and inconvenience that this criminal activity has caused.

Further information can be found at ba.com.

Pretty much just “we’re sorry this happened, and you should contact your bank” but without any helpful advice on what to say to the bank, or even which department is best to speak to. Fraud? Card Services? General Customer Services? Banks aren’t known for their stellar customer service at the best of times, so dumping the responsibility of assuring potentially stressed out customers on what to do next onto the banks seems like an epic case of “slopey shoulders” from BA.

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Krebs on Security recently wrote about investigations into the wave of extortion spam doing the rounds. As chance would have it, I recently started receiving these emails myself. I’ve had three, so far, over the last week or so. All from the same @yahoo.jp email address (obviously not the real origin), and all with slight variations on the same message, and a unique Bitcoin wallet each time. For example:

These are the first few mail systems used by the most recent message, before the message reaches my own setup:

Interesting things to note:

  • The password given must be from the Tesco data breach – I remember that one as their sign-up form cut off part of the password I had typed in – I don’t remember being a Tesco Bank customer, but I have used their online grocery store, and I assume it’s all the same login system.
  • The amount they want paid has decreased over time – it started at $3000, the most recent email is $1000
  • Similarly, the number of friends they threaten to send their “recording” to has gone from 9 to 5. Perhaps the scammer is testing at what “level” they get the most returns?
  • The English is good, but not quite native-speaker level.

Given I already know this is a scam (and I don’t even have a webcam attached to my PC, for another thing… ?), I’m not exactly a prime “mark” for this. But I can easily see how some less clued-up person could be scared into handing over their savings.

[Addendum] – as I’ve been writing this, a fourth email has arrived. Same sender, same basic message, but this time asking for $5000, and threatening to send to 14 friends.

Update:- I added some of the mail headers to the post, for a bit more information.

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An important milestone has been reached in my Armies on Parade entry – the majority of board construction is finished, and painting has begun! It’s still only a few layers of paint, but every bit counts when there’s only 39 days to go!

I primed the main building separate from the rest of the board, so I could reach tricky areas easier. I then glued it to the board.

As the Sector Imperialis boards have a tonne of moulded detail, I had to find a way of hiding gaps between the walls and the ground. This was done using a combination of Polyfilla, textured paste, and various grits of sand and gravel. I managed to enlist a couple of small helpers with this, asking them to take some of the grit and (literally) throw it around the building — something which they quite enjoyed!

Once this initial layer was dry, I added some larger dollops of filler, and pressed a variety of objects into them: leftover floor sections, pieces clipped from spare wall sections, plastic H-beams, and a number of skulls. These then received the same shower of grits. These represent piles of larger rubble which have been pushed out of the way to make the building somewhat usable as shelter or storage.

The next morning, once the filler had dried overnight, all of the grit was covered in Terrain Fixer and left to dry for a couple of hours. Then, it was on to priming! The pictures below show the board from all sides, so you can see the details.

Yes, I intend to fix that gap…

Priming the rest of the board finished off the can of Chaos Black I’d started with the main building. With the undercoat dry, I started the first layer, based on Peachy’s Kill Team board recipe, by spraying everything Mechanicus Standard Grey. Oddly, this only took about a third of a can.

With the main board making progress, it was time to move on to the other elements. the barrels, crates, and barricades all received a coat of Mechanicus Standard Grey, apart from two of the barrels which were sprayed Corax White.

But an Armies on Parade board needs an army, doesn’t it? I finished assembling the first Inceptor squad, before priming them along with the Lieutenant and Ancient I’d previously made. The shoulder pads and helmets are separate for now, as they’ll be primed a lighter colour.