Three Days and a Wake Up

Taking a little break from the Sergeant Series today to update on my progress towards the third annual Standish Standoff.
I've been plugging along on bolter Marines in order to fill out my Devastator Squad. I'm happy to say that I finished the third and final Marine last night after my hockey game. I then primed the squad's sergeant, and barring disaster, he'll be done for Saturday as well.
if I have time, I'd also like to go back and pretty up my Cato Sicarius stand-in (built from the Marine Commander box aaaaages ago). His power sword no longer matches my current technique, and his gold parts are dull and flat.

I'd spent many hours this past weekend building a new, fancy army display tray. It's a 24x18 flip-top box made of pine and MDF (Eucaboard). I learned to use my table saw and cut grooves for the MDF in the lid section and used pocket screws to join it all. It looks sweet, and I'm very proud of it, but I don't think there's any possible way I can have it ready for Saturday. It needs to have some dents and gaps filled with putty, resanded, stained, and then the display section built. I want it to look like an ancient Macraggian temple, with a large (6-7" diameter) Ultramarine mosaic floor in the center, sand and fallen doric columns all around. I might skip the fallen columns, as that sort of stuff tends to block placement of the actual models cleanly on the board. I also have plans to put strong rare-earth magnets underneath in certain areas so I can paint up small pieces of terrain like ruined temple corners and place them in ways that highlight the army. I left room in the bottom of the box to put a foam tray to hold all those pieces as I create them.
Looks like I'll be bringing the old display board one last time.

I am very VERY happy to report that my entries for the Bronze Spawn painting competition are complete. I'm throwing my Sternguard unit in the Unit category for giggles, but my piece de resistance is my Hive Tyrant, and he goes in the 60mm category. I spent a lot of time on his base, and I feel it really turned out nicely. It's no longer just some painted sand and static grass. It looks like a real landscape that is slowly being sucked of life by the Tyranid invasion. I'm not sharing pics until after the event, though. No one sees the completed model until it's entered (except my wife).

It will be nice to breathe a big exhalation of relief once the event is over, win, lose, or draw. I'm starting to feel some painting burnout from the frantic race to get Marine infantry done in time. After the Standoff, I'm going to switch gears and work on three projects: a drop pod (fully magnetized using Ron's tutorial at From the Warp), the five Genestealers I have literally hanging from my paint rack (I hung them all by their claws over the top of the rack, making hissing and roaring noises while I did so), and a Company Champion model with some mid-level reposing work done to him. Maybe a standard bearer after that. I'm trying to avoid doing any "painting for a list" type of stuff for a while. I'm even considering painting something that isn't 40K at all as a break. A Savage Orc Big Boss perhaps? Or a Vampire Counts Wight King?

I'll have an event recap up as soon as I can after the Standoff is over. Til then, radio silence (or another article in the Sergeant Series).