Landspeeder and Geckos

Landspeeder...

Still more Landspeeder...

Gecko #1 (the jumpy one)

Gecko #2 (the not quite so jumpy one)

Ok. So, just a little bit of hobby progress this week. I managed to find an unused Landspeeder that I had sitting around on the sprue, and I played around with it a bit. I wanted to get something that looked a bit like the Forgeworld Landspeeder Tempest. Whether or not I actually succeeded... Well... I'm not sure yet.

 I've always been partial to Landspeeders just due to their speed and firepower. However, I've always disliked the open crew compartment (especially with the "it's not open topped because POWER ARMOR, YO!" rule...), so I may do a few more of these if this one turns out well after painting.

In another fortuitous discovery, I found a bunch of guys I built a while back with Red Scorpion Upgrade Kits and Chaos Marine parts, so I managed to get a jumpstart on my army build. I had to shave off a few extremely Chaosy sigils to make them slightly more generic, but in the end I was extremely pleased that I hadn't painted those guys yet.

I've been playing with a bunch of different army builds right now, and a bunch of them look interesting and fun. I've got a basic framework of what I want to play in my mind, but the particulars haven't been mapped out yet. Allies are allowing me some freedom to think about army construction in a totally new way, and I'm interested to see where it will take me. Of course, using allies means you have to have 2 HQs and 3 Troops, basically, but it allows you 4 Heavy Support, Fast Attack and Elites. So far, this hasn't been a huge stumbling block for me. But, then again, I've always been a fan of 4 units of Troops anyways ;]

I'm still waiting on some remaining custom bits as well as some resin bases to arrive in the mail, and my local store ordered me the last few things I need today, so I should actually have everything by Thursday or Friday according to shipping estimates.

It's odd. Despite the fact that I still have some real problems with the way GW writes their games and prices their miniatures, I actually feel enthusiastic about returning to the game. I guess this is why they haven't gone out of business yet, right? ;] I'm still hoping that I'll eventually be able to trot out some of my other armies again, but I think that approaching the army building aspect with a "I want lots of options for when they break the books I'm using" may be a better approach than what I've used in the past. And it helps when you are using models that let you pick and choose from several different books...

As per SinSynn's request, we have gecko pictures. These are our (the "us" being me and my gf) crested geckos. Neither of them have tails due to unfortunate run-ins with an older, meaner gecko at some point before we got them. Crested geckos don't grow back their tails, so they will look this way for their entire life. Geckos are not the only exotic animals that I now live with, but that story will have to wait for another day ;]