Felime’s Road to Goonhammer Open: Episode I: The Spreadsheet Menace

Welcome, goonhammer readers. It’s been… well, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything related to 40k. It’s hard to be excited for and write about a game you don’t play, and for epidemiological reasons until recently I hadn’t played Warhammer since January 2020. But now, with the fruits of modern medical science coursing through my veins, it’s time to boldly go out into the world and cautiously interact with groups of similarly vaccinated nerds. So when Goonhammer Open US was announced, I signed up without a moment’s hesitation, eager to take my sisters out into this brave new world in the narrative event.

And when I say without hesitation, I also mean without any regard to the consequences of my actions. I need to have 125PL? What sort of jerk with hundreds of PL worth of already lovingly painted Raven Guard wrote this crusade packet? Well, there’s nothing to it. I’ll have to paint some more sisters.

They say that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And they’re fucking liars. If you want to end up at your destination instead of dead in a ditch somewhere, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a plan. You need to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. And the first step to that is knowing where you’re starting from. So let’s lay out everything I’ve got so far in various stages of completion.

The Starting Point of my Sisters Crusade
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

The Starting Point of my Sisters Crusade
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

Hell yeah! Look at all those sisters! Let’s see how that looks in terms of painted Power Level!

Oh No
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

Oh… Oh no… Now things aren’t quite as dire as they appear. A few things are half finished, and there’s about 20 PL worth of models at or near completion (Half of that being the exorcist). But, uh… oof. Time to get to work!

A Palatine and Sisters Squad
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

I started the week off strong by finishing up a partially painted squad of Sisters and my converted Palatine. Another 6 PL on the scoreboard!

And then. Uh… well… I was rudely reminded that modern Sororitas models are nontrivial to assemble. I can’t just bash out cleaning and assembling 10 model squad of them in half an hour like I could Cadians, at least to a standard of quality I’m comfortable with. I put together a few more infantry models (not pictured) and then did a batch of panel lining on some primed and airbrushed models that will be joining me at Goonhammer Open.

Pinwashed Sisters WIP
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

And that’s where painting progress stopped for the week. Astute readers may have noticed a few kitbashed and converted models among the army pictures and works in progress. There are a few conversions I’ve had in mind, either because I felt inspired to create a certain look for a character or wasn’t too fond of the stock appearance of a model. The rest of the week was spent assembling models and working on some of those conversions.

Converted Preacher
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

Unpainted Preacher Back
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

First of those conversions was finishing up the preacher I’d started. Work on this began a few days before I made the spreadsheet, but I’d had this conversion in mind ever since I saw the Escher Wyld Runners kit. The idea of an imperial missionary who had been detached from her order for years to spread the good word of the Emperor, and recently rejoined her order as they landed on the planet. A little bit feral, a lot badass, and one hundred percent done with this shit. The time for words has passed and the time for fire and chainswords is here.

The bulk of the model is from the Wyld runner kit, with purity seals and a book from the seraphim kit. The sword is from the Repentia kit, and held by a different hand from the Repentia kit. That box has been a surprising goldmine. The head is from the main escher box, with the hair shaved off and a new do sculpted on. The angle of the wrist and elbow worked out a little wonky, so I did what all good imperial converters do and draped the problem in purity seals until it went away.

Someone call an ambulance, but not for her.
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

I’ve never been a fan of the new Hospitaller model. I always felt that the hood being up muddied the silhouette from the front, made her head indistinct from her body, and just didn’t capture the grace and poise of the old Hospitaller model, who was one of my favorite in the old sisters range. I clipped off the hood, stuck on a head from… probably the seraphim kit, and sculpted a new, pulled back hood and the rest of her cloak so that it looked like it would actually stay up with the hood down. Her hand was swapped out for one from a Chaos Psyker from Blackstone Fortress, as the kit comes with a spare bit. I’ve since attached the medical gubbins to her backpack, but that was after I brushed on some primer onto her cloak to make sure it’s smooth, which will make her look like garbage until I’ve got the entire model primed.

Warsuits Conversion
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

Warsuits Conversion
Credit: Evan “Felime” Siefring

And for another kit I wasn’t too hot on the look of before I started fiddling with them. The Paragon Warsuits never screamed Sisters of Battle to me. There’s a bit of baroque on there, but they always felt like they’d stepped right out of the Adeptus Mechanicus range. Luckily there are few things that can’t be fixed with liberal application of skulls and purity seals. The skulls are from the ever useful Citadel Skulls kit, and I sculpted hoods and neck joints out of green stuff. The hood over the head was surprisingly easy to sculpt by rolling a sheet flat and draping it over the top of the skull, then teasing the corners into place. The back of the head is a mess from trimming off the excess, but if nobody can see it, it doesn’t exist!

That’s the last of my progress this week, so let’s look at the scores as of the time of writing:

Days to Goonhammer Open: 47

Power Level Complete: 29/125

Shit.

 

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