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It's Rock Raider time!

These dudes were an absolute blast to build and paint and I'm so happy with the final result. Can't wait to play a gang of Necromunda with them. The color scheme is based on the Rock Raiders Lego series from 1999, particularly the vehicles since the characters didn't have one single color scheme. The crystals are from Greenstuff World and came transparent but I still had to edge highlight, shade, and gloss coat them to get them to blend right with the bases.

Close ups of the rest of the gang are below the cut.

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Seriously if you participate in this I’m hunting you for sport

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Hey kids you ever wanted to pay the price of two titans to get one and then have people tell you how to paint it? Here’s your chance to participate in the biggest scam GW has ever done

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Actually had a burst of motivation these past few days, so I actually built and painted something:

May I present:

Raxis (now known as Raxwas after his death).

He was a Plague Marine in our Black Crusade RP. Though jolly and friendly, he tended to take matters into his own hands a bit too often, which in the end got him ambushed and killed by a group of Dark Eldar Corsairs.

I'm quite happy how he turned out, although I think a bit more grime and a different colour on the left shoulderpad might have looked better. Also I can't paint flesh for the life of me.

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These two go from joking about cocks and English villages to Marckus reminding Kitten that they've talked about him being overly apologetic and insecure (and that he really doesn't have to say "sorry" all the time, they're good) without a hitch and...

This is how you write couples, guys. This is my own couple dynamic IRL, because guess what my GF does all the time even after seven years of reassuring her that she doesn't need to preemptively apologise for basically existing (and how it's actually damaging because it discourages dialogue and constructive criticism because one side doesn't want to hurt the other).

It hits so close home it's uncanny, and god damn me, of course I already love these two idiots.

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I have no interest in playing Wizard With a Gun but god if the trailer isnt Gorgeous. I love these character designs so much..

Its about the eyes and otherwise featureless faces

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My thoughts on the recent IP dustup.

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And, for fuck’s sake, don’t go yelling at and threatening random GW employees. They have nothing to do with this. This is body corporate and legal team bullshit.

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This might have been it, then.

Maybe this needs a bit of context, so prepare for a longer, somewhat ranty post. 

I was 13 years old when I entered into a GW shop for the first time. My first set was the Battle for Macragge, some paints a few brushes. From that day on out, I was hooked on the hobby. I built and painted whenever I could, did some first conversions. My first factions after the initial Space Marines were Chaos Space Marines and Necrons. 

After a few years, my interest in the hobby waned. These were the dark times of GW: even worse communication with the community then now, prices were too high for my non-existing income, and the only store close to my location permanently closed its doors. Rules were mismatched, specialist games were dying out, White Dwarf issues were void of fan content and creations. Around 2013-2014, I had barely any interest left in the hobby at all.

That was until the period following the resignation of Tom Kirby. After the disastrous year of 2014, GW had been trying to turn their ship around. Community engagement was on the rise, specialist games were being brought back, starter boxes started appearing which offered genuine savings. 

Maybe it had also to do with me starting to earn a bit of side income, but the main two things that got me to dive back into the hobby, into the Unvierse of Warhammer 40k, were me joining the Warhammer RPG sessions of a group of friends, and TTS. 

If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech device was such a burst of fresh air. It went on to become such a huge phenomenon that basically half of all Warhammer memes and headcanons can kinda be traced back to the show. For me it reinvigorated a passion for the Warhammer universe I did not know I could still have. This was the height of my Warhammer obsession: I dove back into the lore, started immersing myself in Warhammer Fantasy and AoS when I had been a pure 40k fan before. I learned so many things about everything pertaining to the hobby, wrote stories for my friends, created one homebrew army after the other (on paper at least). And I purchases a LOT of GW stuff (too much, but reselling it was always an option). 

That is until recently. Several price hikes. Imho somewhat mediocre new stories. Things like the Cursed City debacle. Disastrous handling of scalpers on so many levels. Warhammer +. The scandals surrounding the payments (or rather the lack thereof) of GW writers and game developers. And now the final nail in the coffin for me: the new zero tolerance policy and the shelving of TTS. 

That is... too much for me. Our hobby is an inherently creative one. We see and read these stories, we experience these universes and we add to them. We put our own spin on things, create our headcanons. We imagine where these things might lead and what could be done with them. We put so much of ourselves into these world that we explore.

Fan creators were a major part of me rediscovering my love for the hobby. Be it TTS to start out with, or Inquisitor, Hellsreach, and Astartes to name a few. Seeing creators being forced to stop their projects which they made with such passion, combined with everything GW has done recently, has entirely soured my relationship to Warhammer for now. That is why I have decided that I will no longer purchase from GW anymore. Not because I think that the universe has become unenjoyable, but because I think I can no longer give my money to a company that seems to have so little concern for its fanbase, or the people that helped make GW this successfull in the first place.

So yeah. That might indeed have been it. I will keep painting from time to time, try to work through that backlog. I might purchase some minis from other companies. Maybe even a GW mini if I can find a preowned one off of Ebay which I need. But I fear that just like in the past, my interest will wane until I move on to something different. Because this zero tolerance stance, which basically kills off fan made content and locks the rest behind a monopolized paywall, is basically the death of creativity in the hobby. And without that, what is there left?

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but this time gw actually hasn't even done anything, people are getting mad at something gw *might* do. there haven't been any c&d to ANY youtubers. the worst that happened was one guy getting demonetized and another (fairly big) channel thinking they might get a c&d so stopping early

Buddy. A company explicitly altering its legal guidelines so that it can more easily pursue legal action against anyone using... basically any part of its IP a few months after claiming ownership of the work done by the community's most prevalent independent video artists/animators is... literally doing something. It's definitively altering the legal security of people who wanna make videos using anything related to any of their IPs.

You don't need to sue someone into the floor for you to be counted as... having done something. You get that, right? Like. Altering your policies so that you can sue someone into the floor and take all their shit is very much doing something.

Changes to legal text, whether or not they come into effect, are significant. That's like.. the reason companies have lawyers and stuff who can review and optimise proposed changes. Because it's doing something important.

This isn't a hard concept to follow, right? Like if you change a law, even if that change or that law are never utilised, it's still a Big Deal, and is classed as an action that requires professional review.

And this isn't even touching on the way they underpay their employees and don't credit people for the work they do. And if you want to know about that, go look it up yourself.

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I don't normally do this but...

If you have heard of Games Workshop's recent change in attitude towards fan-based content, please contact GW to complain about it.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Complaint-Portal

The above link will take you through to their complaint's portal, please make sure that you click yes to get a response.

This will mean that they have to write a response. If enough people do this, they will have to realise that maybe these new terms and conditions aren't the right thing.

One of the biggest reasons that I am asking you all to do this is because The Emperor has a Text to Speech Device is going on indefinite hiatus, due to these draconian terms and conditions (which is fair enough as explained by @alfabusa new video).

The fact remains that this glorious work made the hobby I enjoy more accessable. Several people I know, including my fiancé, enjoyed this and made them more interested in 40k. For quite some time now, this has been a gateway to the hobby that GW paid nothing for.

Would like to ask that people remain civil when registering complaints, being rude won't help. Just try to get across the positive points of fan-based work as well as addressing the community's disappointment in the new terms.

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The Warhammer+ announcement is not having the affect GW was hoping for. Still, makes for some good memes.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ageofsigmar/comments/n4m410/capcom_gw_tall_vampires/

The Meme Is Real

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Welp, AoS 3rd Edition is announced, with these pals being added to the (already extensive) Stormcast roster.

I... I am not sure I like it. I mean I get that Stormcasts are the poster boys for AoS, but they already have so many other units...

And the fact that they become more and more like Space Marines at least aesthetically really rubs me the wrong way.

I just want my plastic Skaven man...

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Welp,

With all the PCs of our Black Crusade campaign built, I suppose I'll have to start painting them...

Shame, they looked so good in grey.

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At long last, we have the latest member of our warband. He is fabulous, he is loud he is named... *ahem* Relentless Penetrator!

As the name might suggest, he is not the most pleasant fellow to have around!