Dances With Aliens

I don't know where my camera is so I've decided to post a final WIP of the Dreadnought taken with my mobile phone. All I did after taking this photo was to add a little more grass along the right side of the base and then touch up a couple of areas of highlighting. Finally I varnished and then glossed the lenses. And in the meanwhile I'm going to continue my search for my wayward camera. I apologize for falling behind on the visuals lately, it should pick up soon.

Tonight I finished assembling the Space Marine Scouts and I gotta say it, I am not impressed with this kit. I had already passed on using Scouts with bolters/heavy bolter because I think those minis are some of the worst in that range. The dudes with sniper rifles looked marginally better to me so I worked out my list to include them instead and I was looking forward to having them in the army as I really like the background for scouts. Plus I've always had a soft spot for them since their first plastics were released as part of the game Advanced Space Crusade... man, that takes me back... can hardly believe that was twenty years ago. Wow. Alright, now I'm getting nostalgic. Sorry.

Okay, back to the sniper Scouts. I don't like 'em. I had a surprising amount of trouble getting them put together, and while I'm no expert I'm also by no means an inexperienced modeler. I'm really not satisfied with how the heads fit on any expect the sergeant, as well as having numerous problems with the missile launcher guy. Once I had all of the torsos glued to the legs, I realized that the legs for the one with the squad's heavy weapon had cords across his holster that would only make sense if he were armed instead with a sniper rifle. Oh well, serves me right for trying to follow GW's lousy instruction sheet. I ended up gluing a grenade and pouch at the end of the cords to hopefully disguise somewhat the incongruence. I'm actually now considering going back to the squad of Scouts with bolters because at least then I get the fun of using a unit more like those over which I was just getting all nostalgic and weepy. On the other hand, the ones with sniper rifles are assembled and ready to be primed, so I should probably just push on and make the best of it. AdeptiCon is just 64 days away!

I know I'm pretty to late to game on this last thing, but I did really enjoy Avatar despite many of concerns about it being strongly confirmed. I thought as a sci-fi movie it was great and I was blown away by the visuals and the whole experience of the IMAX 3D presentation. I doubt I've ever been so engrossed and drawn into a movie before, and of course I loved all of the amazingly cool military hardware... that stuff was sweet. What drove me nuts though was that the obvious plot was more ham-fisted and sermonizing than even I expected. I can understand why people are freaking out about it because it is a good movie, but I would have preferred a more subtle approach to the themes and less cliched characters. My ideal would have been just a straight up action sci-fi like Aliens, but I'll take Dances with Aliens if it means getting to see some utterly insane 3D battles.