This is the Plague Sorcerer conversion model I mentioned in my previous post. As it came, sitting on a plain base, it looked a whole lot like the Terminators, which is boring. Also, psyker units also usually have some kind of staff or banner. So, to make him a bit more interesting I made a raised base and pieced together a standard-type staff from leftover bits from my Bloat Drone kit. It will all look a lot less crappy when it's painted.
Yesterday a friend was visiting from out of town, and I had an opportunity to play my first fill game of Warhammer 40,000. We pitted my fledgling Death Guard army against his Deathwatch (no relation) space marines. I actually won quite handily, which surprised me. I was ahead on points and completely destroyed all of his units by turn 3. I'm not going to feel smug about it because my friend was giving me a lot of advice along the way. Still, he didn't let me win; it was a legitimate victory.
I also gained a unit of five Blightlord Terminators which he was able to get me at half price from his local hobby store because they're already assembled (but unpainted). They accidentally threw in a kit-bashed Lord of Contagion that as best we can tell was meant to be a conversion to a Sorcerer in Terminator Armour, which is awesome because I've been lacking an HQ unit. Score.
I realized I haven't posted about the chicken coop in quite a while. It's been taking me a long time, in large part due to bad weather, but it's nearly there.
I've been a little underwhelmed by Leo in the past year or two. Most of his recent covers seem kind of boringly straightforward, but I think this one works really well: https://youtu.be/axLnV1490ug
@[Peter Lindelauf](/people/5bbee3d093d1013911d9002590c0bfb8), you asked for updates on the Hugel. Here she is as of tonight. The one cucumber plant has so far filled 6 half gallon mason jars worth of pickles and doesn't seem to be slowing down.
I've been working on a tepache-style mead for the past couple of weeks. I started with a whole pineapple (skins included), fresh ginger, cinnamon and brown sugar and let it wild ferment until all the sugars were consumed, then I added commercial wine yeast and some chili-infused Turkish honey my parents brought back from Romania a few years ago as a gift. That added a really nice hint of smoky flavor and some mild heat on the finish that blends really nicely with the sweetness of the pineapple and the spiciness of the ginger. I think this is one I'm going to have to make again in a much larger batch. I don't have more of that chili honey, but I have a bumper crop of Fresno and cayenne peppers from my garden this summer that will likely do the trick.
Hey @[Michael Moceri](/people/edc029a0ae4a01364741005056268def), I've had one major gripe with The Expanse universe, and I feel like you're the person most likely to have thoughts on it here.
What I've noticed is a lack of mass surveillance, which permits the crew of the Roci to get away with a lot of their capers. I'm guessing it's omitted as a narrative convenience, but it seems to me like that the techno-capitalist paradigm the solar system runs under sort of screams for it to exist. I'm sure they could come up with some rationalization for it, but since it's not addressed at all in the material it comes across as a "cheat" on the writers' part. What do you think?
Finally saw fit to finish painting this Plagueburst Crawler ~6 months after I initially put it together. I like how it turned out, and it matches perfectly with the Plague Marines I painted previously.
I worked on the chicken coop today until I ran out of lumber. I got the floor insulated with 5/8" foam board and got a good portion of the framing done. Now my back will get a few well deserved days off and I can pick up where I left off this weekend.
I got as much lumber as I could reasonably fit in my car and got to work on the chicken coop this afternoon. It's a good start. I got more done than I expected to.
Last summer I used a ton of wood chip mulch around the house, and I inoculated all of it with wine cap mushroom spawn (Stropharia rugosoannulata), kind of just for shits. I didn't expect much from the small mulch piles around the bases of shrubs, and I'd mostly given up on the idea of any of it surviving, but then I found this just now, so... hey!
@[Peter Lindelauf](/people/93d5cdb0ad8901364692005056268def), here it is. The back end was the original, and has strawberries and English thyme which were planted last year. The rest is all new plants from seeds or starts, but they're still small as it only recently decided to be spring here 😄
We have wild strawberries growing on the lawn, but I wanted to see if I could get better fruits by cultivating them, so I transplanted one to the Hügel. We’ll see.