Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme: The Sword in the Spam

Picking up from last session[1], our intrepid participants found themselves having acquired large amounts of currency and a singular quest: retrieve Excalibur from the Vikings. First of all, they healed themselves back up, earning the displeasure of the citizens of Hounslow due to all the touching involved.[2] The participants were swiftly expelled, and they did start on their journey northwards. 

Their first stop, at a small hamlet, led into every shop available to spend their currencies and acquire accoutrements instead. At the tavern, Bark helped three bare chested Germanic gentlemen in lederhosen decide whose bratwurst is tastiest.[3] Afterwards, the participants could trade currencies, needing Whizzo Butter to buy a lucky rabbit's foot. Another village woman selling a sturdy looking ladder needed her husband located. Once again, Bark smelled out his trail - to the tavern and back - and located the fellow, well and truly dead, in the basement atop some plague dead bodies. This new form of currency was liberated and tied atop their draft horse, and also they took the guy back upstairs pretending he was dead drunk instead of just dead, long enough to buy their ladder and split.

Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme: The Tiger of Hounslow

In our most ridiculous iteration of this not a game yet, we assembled a team of: Saint Stephen, king of Hungary; Phat Dandelion, the bard; and Bark Howlbert, a catholic cleric, who is secretly a werewolf. Completely new characters because, ah, I forgot the sheets at home.

Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme: Spank the Pope

In our most recent educational programme, Fergus McCucis is joined by Connor McFly and Harry Potter the enchanter, on a divine quest.

Painting a 3d printed Culexus assassin

I hunted for an old Culexus model for a while, but I was unable to find one, so I had it 3d printed.

Painting Lady Navigator Cassia of House Orsellio

Ever since I played and reviewed Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, an absolute gem of an RPG, I wanted to paint up my crew. Sadly, the project was postponed, as I saw no practical application at the time. Inquisitorial retinues just aren't what they used to be. However, I recently happened on this STL, and at least I had Lady Cassia printed. 

Painting 3d printed medical servitors

I had these minis printed just because they were cool. Painting them was basically an exercise in how to paint a miniature as an industrial base.

Game 3: Free Folk vs Martell

Oh the Martells and the wall of text on each of their units. We were quite fatigued after the previous games, so not as many pictures. At least the scenario was simple: good old Game of Thrones.

Game 2: Free Folk vs Greyjoy

Oh my man EndRush and his killy healy Greyjoys. At least we had his least favorite mission, The Winds of Winter. But where's that refuse flank?!

Game 1: Free Folk vs Lannisters

Oh, the Lannisters. Oh, double Casterly Rock Honour Guard. Oh the game. At least I didn't have to play the double lance cavalry Stark list. Let's see how the squishy objective holders take the arrows in Honed and Ready.

Round one went by with just positioning. At least the infantry isn't that super mobile and I can dance around a bit.

13th Battle of Cluswar: A Song Of Ice & Fire: Tabletop Miniatures Game tournament

Last event of the year! A small local tournament with some returning players. No Phantom Scourge this time, just 3 regular games of fun (mostly type 1, sometimes type 2). I initially prepared some infantry lists to showcase all the minis I painted lately, but then I realized I'm going to get steamrolled and just brought giants instead. Two lists, one with Varamyr for objectives and one without in case we get the killpoints scenario. Spoiler: we had 3 scenarios with 5 objectives, so Varamyr saw lots of use. The giants weren't 100% finished but mostly painted so the showcasing was still a success.

• Game 1: Free Folk vs Lannisters
  
• Game 2: Free Folk vs Greyjoy
  
• Game 3: Free Folk vs Martell
  

With just one loss against my man EndRush, I ended up second. Great success!

Converting and painting Free Folk Trappers

The last block of Free Folk infantry that I recently purchased.

Cold (blue) white cloth/leather

 

Astra Militarum vs Thousand Sons, 10.12.2025

Back to the blessed L-shaped ruins of a city with an old~ish Leviathan matched play game. I played my trusty Scions (because I still don't have appropriate command squad models, and tanks don't do well on loaded tables) against the new Thousand Sons detachment.

The mission was whatever but we had two special rules giving us 3 secondary cards per turn and rolling 3+ on reserves.

Converting and painting Followers of Bone

I got a box of these for relatively cheap. Still riding the high of the successful Thenn conversions, I decided on giving these guys the same treatment. Unlike the spearwives, make the miniatures unique through weapon swaps and other conversions.

Raising and decorating an ASOIAF movement tray for Free Folk

Unsure if I'll do any more but here goes the process (with pictures stolen from the various ones I did).

Ark 2042: A Call of Cthulhu one-shot

With our Keeper unable to prepare, we decided on a one-shot, but kept the game system to preserve the horror feeling. Enter our group, awakening butt naked, dressed only in dog tags, getting out of pods in a sterile room. We quickly pulled out the tubes connecting us to the pods, and groggily set to explore the room. We had no memories of anything, not even of who we were.

Chaos Space Marines/Tyranids vs Dark Angels/Necrons, 19.11.2025

6th edition throwback! 6 player placed objectives, Slay the Warlord(s), First Strike, Linebreaker, random 10th edition terrain layout and deployment, random teams, let's go!

Note that I did have some misgivings about the open terrain and being faced with 3 Doomsday Arks, but hey, let's give it a try.

Converting and painting Thenn Warriors

My first foray into real conversion work on ASOIAF miniatures. I got a box of Umber Greataxes super cheap, with the intention of converting them. I also decided to create a scenic tray, with a raised middle.

Painting Papal Palatine Guard

Time to formalize the painting of Palatine Guard as Krieger counts-as. 

November review and December goals

December is upon us!

November was kinda sad as far as diverse gaming goes, with both RPG groups canceling left and right. However, that just left more time for Warhammer! I am now really into doing narrative scenarios in 10th edition. The terrain sometimes messes us up, or the random teams or scenarios make it wonky, but it sure beats regular matched play.

Hobby wise, this time I actually kept to the goals set out a month ago. I painted a load of Free Folk and Palatine Guard/Kriegers, and I'm rounding off the year's last commissions. I should break close to even on the yearly painting goals. With the influx of nuns and other Guard models, that is still a great result, with currently 671 minis painted, with modifiers. This already beats what I did in 2024. 

During December, it's more of the same. Finish the Free Folk - not all of them, not this year, but this is more of a finite project, so let's hack away at it. More Palatine Guard remain to be painted, again a finite project as I've used up almost all my Napoleonic minis in this endeavor.

I suppose this is a good place to reflect on the year as a whole as well as the next. Rumors of a 2026 Guard codex are already floating, and I just really, really hope they don't get much of a model update. That should leave me with breathing room to round out my Guard and Chaos Marines. Beyond, I might shake up my Daemon army as they are currently not very coherent, and of course there are plenty of fantasy minis to be painted. I am expecting the latest (and for a while, the last) Kickstarter mini package to come in during 2026, and so I'll continue with counting acquired (but not gifted or won) minis in my excel table. Onwards, toward net zero!

Chaos Space Marines/Necrons vs Dark Angels/Tyranids, 12.11.2025

Dark Angels and Tyranids team up to annihilate the Word Bearers and Necrons. Their units may come back, ours don't. Welcome to the meat grinder! 

Painting a final batch of Tempestus nuns

Or at least I really hope they are the final batch, because I am really bored of painting them. But I wanted to max out the number of Tempestus Scions I can take, to 6 units of 10; and I also wanted command squad members with master vox.

Painting Mag the Mighty, Wun Wun, and Mance Rayder the bard

With me using Mag the Mighty in every list, plus Mance the bard, the next commission job was a no-brainer.

Astra Militarum vs Dark Angels, 11.11.2025

Inspired by an old timey narrative scenario called "Hold your gains", the defender, the Dark Angels, deploy at most 1/3 of their force in the middle. This is the single objective and only holding this matters at the end of the game.

The attacker, the Astra Militarum Scions, can deploy on both short edges. With my rather tiny force for 2000 points, I decided to bunch up at one end.

Painting Bones minis: cow lady, fire mage, gnoll, naga, snake lady, spectator, troglodytes

A random batch of Reaper Bones miniatures that I primed last using my airbrush. Instead of putting them away, I decided to slap on some paint. Some are slapchopped, others are fancy. A couple had a hydrophobic surface for some reason, so I spray varnished them.

Masks of Nyarlathotep: Australia endgame

For our final session in the Australia chapter: the great outdoors! Well, somebody's backyard. But just as good for an underground shootout.

Masks of Nyarlathotep: Time's up

We were right back in the dungeon, on our way to Huston's cabin. We passed by the cultists on the ground floor, but the aboriginals noticed us, particularly the one previously burned by Sanchez. They started howling, alerting everybody. Huston awaited us with a lightning gun in hand, and his cronies soon arrived. We could not strike immediately, and so we stalled and drank whiskey and tea, hoping that the cultists would soon go back to work. Spoiler: they did not.

Painting Stormlight shard bearers (and Bridge 4 display stand)

Yes I went all in on the Stormlight kickstarter. Here's the first couple of painted minis, with some experiments.

King of the Colosseum: Word Bearers vs Dark Angels, 28.10.2025

Instead of our usual competitive scenario, here's this little thing:

And here's 500 points of Chaos Marines, spearheaded by my fallen Lord and his Chosen with a complement of Cultists and Rubrics. On the other side, Deathwing Knights, kitted out Gravis Captain, Intercessors and Lieutenant.

Painting the last batch of pulp heroines for Call of Cthulhu

Or at least, this should be the final batch. With 32 girls completed, it was a very fun project.

October review and November goals

October was really cool!

D&D is back, and I am freshly motivated to apply more torment to my players. If this keeps up, we might actually finish this stupid dungeon. 

Cthulhu went on a campaign hiatus but I'm doing a one-shot integrated into the story instead, already stretching across 3 sessions. Still no end in sight!

Warhammer is still on, with an influx of new players. ASOIAF is also great, with a small local tournament won by a phantom player... that was hilarious.

Hobby wise, I leant into fantasy minis, including young dragons, and my own Free Folk converted and slapchopped up to speed. Next tournament I might bring my own stuff. I am now back on top of things, barely a couple days behind painting schedule. With no more purchases scheduled, I should finish on track with all the primed Palatine guardsmen and Free Folk. Movement trays are really cool, expect to see some work put into them. 

That's about it, November should be centered around continuing what I have begun and wrapping up WIPs.

Review: Fallout: New Vegas

Continuing the tradition of playing and reviewing old games, here's New Vegas from 15 years ago. Now I played Fallout 4 a couple of years ago, and I thought I'd skip New Vegas. 76 is out of the question, MMO trash. But then the Fallout tv series happened, and that's clearly the Vegas outline at the end. So I just had to play through this as well, to experience the story and understand why fans were so upset at the nuking of Shady Sands.

Well let me tell you, this is Fallout as I love it. Keeping the trend, I made a female character called Lucy. This is her outfitted with an explosive collar. 

The story in short: some guy shoots you in the head, you survive and go find him. It escalates quickly.

Review: Assassin's Creed Syndicate

Literally 10 years late, but we're getting there. Spoiler: this was so much better than Unity. TL;DR loved it.

Word Bearers vs Tyranids, 29.10.2025

A short 1000 points tutorial-ish game using simplified mission rules. I dusted off the Word Bearers against the Leviathan-box spawned Tyranid Invasion Fleet. I took my time explaining the rules and also answer the questions of friendly spectators, so less pictures than usual. But here's how it went down.

The Tyranids had first turn and advanced cautiously behind cover. I zoomed up my Rhinos behind cover towards the objectives and braced. Cultists and Legionaries hiding from the venom cannon behind the top left ruin.

Painting monstrous wolves

Here's some rather large wolves made in Reaper Bones.

Painting giant bats

I looked up some real bats for this project but I mixed a couple of pictures up. 

Game 1.5: Targaryen vs Baratheon

This was my concurrent game so again barely any photos.

Eleventh Battle of Cluswar: A Song Of Ice & Fire: Tabletop Miniatures Game tournament

ASOIAF tournament time! All fun and games until you find out there's only 5 players. My man EndRush decided to create a "phantom player" instead of a BYE, which was making feels bads last time. Enter Scourge Phantom. This entity would play Targaryens - a simple dragon list which I said was easy to remember and pilot. The plan was for either EndRush or myself to play concurrently with our regular tables. It went... really funny actually, given that Scourge Phantom won the tournament. Too bad I only got to play 1 game with it, due to how the pairings worked out.

• Game 1: Free Folk vs Lannisters
  
• Game 1.5: Targaryen vs Baratheon
  
• Game 2: Free Folk vs Greyjoy
  
• Game 3: Free Folk vs Targaryen
  

Game 3: Free Folk vs Targaryen

Game 3 against the Phantom! Which was hilarious. However, this is Fire and Blood, which I just don't know how to play. Perhaps I should have gone with the Mag list, but giants don't do well against unblockable wounds. Anyway, either list had easy to kill animals, and both the Wolfpack and Boar got marked.

Game 2: Free Folk vs Greyjoy

Playing against my man EndRush in this classic Game of Thrones scenario. He piloted the Phantom player at another table as I was exhausted (and high on caffeine). My list was a mix of everything that denies abilities in a Free Folk list - aptly named "no abilities please".

Game 1: Free Folk vs Lannisters

Never played Mag commander in a tournament, so here he is in Here We Stand. I was up against a Lannister list with Gregor Clegane sitting in the Warrior Sons. The meme was that if they failed their morale, they'd autocharge 6"; otherwise get a faith token. I played a concurrent game so I barely took any photos. Basically the Honor Guard and a unit of outflanking Raiders held one quarter each (calculate which was a better investment), and everything else rumbled for the other two.

Painting even more pulp heroines for Call of Cthulhu

Another batch of early 20th century investigators (with a couple of cheeky outliers).

Astra Militarum vs Thousand Sons, 14.10.2025

Still at it with the WTC style layouts. I'm never bringing another tank in this stupid game.

Painting Iron Throne throphies

I wanted to repaint my own bronze trophy that I got at the nationals for a while now. When the ruling champion asked me to repaint his... well, it was time.

Painting the Mother of Dragons (and her dragons)

In a surprising twist of events, my man EndRush acquired a Targaryen army for ASOIAF. The dragons are very cool models, and in fact I got some for my own use, for D&D. Seeing the description of the dragons on wikis, I was inspired to paint them. It was a fun experience.

Pale gold

 

Targaryen vs Lannister 25.09.2025

We met up with the guys for 2 parallel games and of course we had to make it a Tiny Thursday Tournament. Just 1 round and 1 game. I played the Lannisters but at least not against my regular opponent. Instead of the Free Folk, having just painted up the Mother of Dragons box, I played... dragons. Game Mode: A Dance with Dragons. It's all coming up Millhouse.

Painting a silver dragon

More things for the Dungeon. Painted as a silver dragon as described for the Forgotten Realms.

Painting D&D miniatures: human fighter, halfling cleric, human alchemist

WhizKids preprimed miniatures, a good palate cleanser in between all the nuns.

Astra Militarum vs Aeldari, 30.09.2025

The Aeldari are back for revenge after last week's game. Their list was very similar, while I decided to switch it up and bring the tank company instead. Note that we played on a WTC layout that was very, and I mean very, full of terrain. I literally could not move my tanks around. The two eldar wave serpents also barely left their deployment zones, but their infantry had enough movement shenanigans to not really care. Spoiler alert: this hampered my efforts severely and the game did not go well.

Painting Krieg artillery teams

I had some Napoleonic infantry lying around, originally intended to be used as Conscripts. With that option gone from the codex, I decided to use them as Kriegers. I painted them in the colors of the Papal Palatine Guard.

September review and October goals

September went... not as I expected.

D&D is on break, due to a lack of interest. Call of Cthulhu is the new staple, with us blazing through the Australian chapter and only losing 2 investigators in the process. 

Wargaming is also alive and well. I played ASOIAF, tried a new army and bought into my own Free Folk. I also played some Warhammer. The nuns are back in action!

Hobby wise, I finished my giant commission, and also an unexpected dragon commission. I just had to paint Daenerys and her dragons! Commissions will now take a sideline, as I struggle to paint my own stuff during October.

Otherwise, I primed a lot of Bones using my airbrush. I also tried some color shifting paints on Stormlight shard bearers. So more preparations, less minis finished. I compensated by leaning into random fantasy minis, animals, monsters, whatever. I also painted the final batch of Tempestus nuns. I hope to never paint that color scheme again.

With these shifting priorities, my plans were delayed. But I also got a batch of 3d prints, so new avenues opened up as well. Therefor, the immediate priority is painting up what I already have primed - some Kasrkin and other random Imperial stuff. 

What I do afterwards depends on the weather. October is rainy so I might not be able to prime much. But I do want to prepare a lot. I can lean into rounding out my Guard army with Kriegers (including heavy weapons) and more Kasrkin. I can start on my own Free Folk, which will require some conversions to avoid identical models. This also requires a lot of magnets and movement tray work. I plan on doing more than just flocked trays, that's for sure. And speaking of magnets, I am in need of organizing my shelf space by producing more magnetized trays.

So the possibilities are endless!

Astra Militarum vs Aeldari

In the ever changing landscape of Warhammer 40k missions, here's my first foray into Chapter approved 2025-26. Unexploded Ordnance is kind of weird, and I did not get the reading right on the first try. You can move the objectives and you get points for how close they are to the enemy deployment zone. You don't actually have to control them to score. Weird, but I like it.

So anyway, here's the Aeldari Warhost spread out across their deployment zone. And here's my scions, with some artillery support. I thought to make good use of the cover denying stratagem. Spoiler: it never came up.

Painting more pulp heroines for Call of Cthulhu

Another batch of early 20th century investigators.

Free Folk vs Greyjoy 10.09.2025

Things are happening on the ASOIAF front, but for now, here's a game where I try out Mance Raider as commander, versus my old opponent taking a new army for a spin. Surprising nobody, the Greyjoys deployed in a refuse flank. I countered  them on their own flank, while also making a play for the other flank. The Greyjoys retained their ability to choose first player, so as to direct the arrival of outflankers.

Adding blinking lights, magnetizing, converting and painting an Astra Militarum Valkyrie

Ride of the Valkyries starts playing in the background. 

Masks of Nyarlathotep: Alien contract

We started by going back a bit to the previous scene, with professor Sanchez being struck by a bout of madness. In a panic, he rushed out. Huston just laughed, reminisced about the time he and his cultists lost their minds for the first time, then prodded us to go after him, just so a flying squid doesn't get him.

Masks of Nyarlathotep: Meeting the aliens

After a long string of banter and a short meta discussion about where we are and what we hope to accomplish, we were spirited back into the dungeon.[1]

Converting and painting Cave Dweller Savages and Spearwives (and testing a warm slapchop base)

It's been a while since I used the slapchop method. These minis looked detailed enough to support it.