A new year dawns, along with several new hobby projects from the team – let’s see what they’ve been up to.
RichyP
I normally start painting for the year in May and end in September, this time I thought I’d give January a try. I snagged the Tomb Kings Old World boxes and painted none of them, instead I found a club locally and decided to go back and rework and rebase some old Night Lords and paint some new ones as the club primarily plays 40k and I have a well known fondness for blue.
First up a repainted Master of Possession from a few years ago:
And some Havocs, a Helbrute and some Possessed:
The Possessed are a mix of the older Greater Possessed models from the Start Collecting and some newer Possessed that I originally intended to use as Gal’Vorbak (hence the Mk IV helmets). They were also primed red so they’re a bit lighter than the older two models.
I never finished the Dark Apostle (I used his Disciples for another project), so from the Combat Patrol box, I painted them up to help him out:
And finally for new Night Lords models this month, I also painted a Forgefiend I primed a couple years ago and a Warpsmith, both of which need a little bit more detail adding at some point:
On the non-40k side, I painted a few Kruleboyz too:
The left Hobgrot is an older one I painted when Dominion was released, and the one on the right is from this month. Every now and again I like to repaint familiar models to see if I’ve progressed.
And a couple of random models (Necromunda Hired Gun, and a Plague Marine):
Lenoon
God you know when you contribute to these things, you want to be the first person. Because it makes you feel better that you’ve painted a couple of things, rather than following someone who’s completed my entire painting output in a month. However! I did some cool stuff this month.
Mainly, I spent a lot of time painting Chasseurs a Cheval – and writing about them too! These were an intense painting task, lots of tiny detail in bright colours on top of other bright colours, so it was a slow, painstaking process. I think they came out well:
I’m really pleased with them – including possibly the best face I’ve ever pulled off – but that wasn’t all! This month I also unleashed my inner Jack Aubrey with some ships, and they’ve definitely awoken something in me. Something nautical. Something that really enjoys rigging with string and a pin dipped in superglue. While the photos are currently bad, expect a lot of ship shit in the future.
Person
Well I picked up the Nightmare Quest Warcry box as a present to myself just after Christmas and to get a set of the 2nd edition Warcry terrain. My wife has agreed to play Warcry with me sometimes (and Warcry is easy enough to pick up that she doesn’t mind playing it).
I painted that up over January, as the unseasonably warm weather enabled me to undercoat things in literally the middle of winter, when it wasn’t raining or so windy everything would blow over.
The centrepiece is the Realmshaper Engine, with two bamboo platforms. I left the platforms separate for ease of painting, and the ziggurat was painted with multiple thin coats of Horus Green, then washed with agrax and drybrushed with Sybarite Green and then Gauss Blaster Green.
The bamboo was done with Aggaros Dunes followed by screaming skull for highlights and occasional spot shading using agrax. The fallen Lizardmen stone pieces were painted exactly the same as the Realmshaper engine.
Finally the two giant meat eating trees, which were undercoated white and done almost entirely in contrast – Aggaros Dunes for the Bamboo, Darkoath Flesh for the bark and Skeleton Horde for the bones. They were all drybrushed or highlighted with appropriate colours, and Screaming Skull used for the tips of the branches.
Together this is a complete set of Ghur terrain for Warcry, and a set painted to a decent tabletop standard for games and to use in pictures for the site.
I also dug the Warcry Chaos Legionaires I received last Christmas out of the partially built pile. I’d started but not finished building these, and dreaded perfectionism had set in about creating scenic jungle bases for them to go with the Ghur terrain. I finished assembling them, magnetised the GW bases, and stopped worrying about needing to get perfect scenic bases before getting out some small rocks and Vallejo earth texture and just getting them done.
I’ve not finished the weird spear guy, or a single Chosen that I’ve done to add to the group, but seven painted guys is plenty to base a warband on, and I can just drop an ally or monster in to complete a 1000 point force. My big issue with playing Warcry is not having warbands complete to tabletop standard, so this is a big step in the right direction.
So that’s January painting done, with a full set of terrain and a chunk of skirmish infantry done, and with another warband on the paint table for the following month. Skirmish games are much more achievable in terms of getting things done, and once you’ve got a table of terrain out the way you can just keep adding warbands/kill teams/whatever and models you just fancy adding, because you aren’t slowly chipping away at a 2000 point army. Of course I’ve also signed up to paint Old World, so don’t listen to me about not over committing to projects.
“Contemptor” Kevin
It’s a brand new year, and I spent six months painting 3000 points of Ultramarines. I needed to switch it up, so I’m back to Dark Angels and thus building and painting an Ironstorm Spearhead for it.
HOWEVER, we ran into a problem while working on this: the new Dark Angels box features an incredible new transfer sheet. Since I like using transfers, some of the models I finished painting in January aren’t done yet. So I technically only finished two models:
Sammael, Master of the Ravenwing –
I picked up Sammy here at the Grand Narrative. This Finecast Model when finished is absolutely gorgeous and an absolute nightmare to put together.
I also finished my first Techmarine:
In order to have two different Techmarines, I used a Forge World Mk IV Firstborn Techmarine. I took a spare Heavy Bolter from the Heresy vehicle sprue to use as the Forge Bolter.
Next month, there will be more.
SRM
January was fairly light for me, only painting a handful of models and spending a week hiking the deserts of Arizona. If a month passes without painting any models I’ll probably die, so here goes nothing:
This crew were a bit of a challenge, far too complex for the intended audience of the Stormbringer magazine that contained them. However, I did enjoy them, coming up with a new stone recipe, a further refinement of a new red recipe, and going hard with naturalistic basing.
The previously mentioned Truthseekers and this Knight-Incantor are in Warhammer Quest: Lost Relics, a boardgame I swear I will review some day. This Knight-Incantor (named Regis in Lost Relics) was in some intro magazine for AoS back in 2018, and they went ahead and put him in a board game. Knocking him out alongside the Truthseekers was easy enough; the older era of Stormcast paint up remarkably quickly compared to the better proportioned and sharper detailed modern ones. I have a whole Soul Wars set I should probably paint up too, but this era of Stormcast just isn’t inspiring me as much as the slightly newer stuff. Sometimes it bites being the missing link.
My year is going to be packed with education and obligation, but I will be turning towards the Squig City Casino Royale at the end of April. I’ll be bringing my Black Templars, so watch this space for edge highlights, loud heraldry, and black power armor.
Bair
January was a much slower month for me. After painting 500 minis in 2023 I decided that 2024 would be a slower year; take more time on each mini, higher quality, and actually buy and use a palette for the first time. I also went to Brotherhood, an Age of Sigmar teams event, so had a few minis to finish off. I’m especially happy with how Skragrott came out and how purple that purple is. So purple.
I also re-based about 200, mostly metal, dwarfs for The Old World using Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Mediterranean Soil (Small Scale). The smaller scale so that there weren’t any stupid big rocks on small mini bases and it’s worked out wonderfully! I just spread some mod podge onto the base and dipped the base in. Easy. Took less than a day!
Even played one whole game of The Old World so far and it was great, very much looking forward to more!
Cronch
My goal for January was primarily to get my Ironjawz finished in time for the Brotherhood team tournament at Firestorm Games in Cardiff. To get across the finish line I painted a Weirdnob Shaman, three Gore-Gruntas, and five Brutes.
I’m really pleased with this army (less so with the quality of my photos – sorry) so once I was home I set the full collection up with some proper lighting and took a nice focus-stacked photo of all 2,600 points together.
With Brotherhood out of the way, my main goal for the year is to finish off some big projects and hopefully reduce the amount of unfinished minis lying around the house. On the table are Soulblight Gravelords and Flesh-Eater Courts for AoS, Space Marines and Leagues of Votann for 40k, and some newly-acquired Bretonnians for The Old World. The first thing I painted was a Knight of the Realm for the Bretonnians. I had a lot of fun with him, leaning on older-style techniques like layering with bright colours to try and evoke some of that middlehammer aesthetic that I’m nostalgic for. I think I’ll pull the tufts off of his base and apply some static grass instead, but otherwise I’m very pleased with the result! You’ll be able to read more about the Bretonnians progress in our upcoming Tale of Gamers series covering the Old World!
Over in the Age of Sigmar I leapt into the Flesh-Eater Courts army box to paint the new Vargulf Courtier sculpt. I love how bestial and horrifying this sculpt is, and I’m really happy with the result I got – other than I wish I’d been a bit gentler with the blood effect. Ah well, maybe she’s just eaten!
Later in the month I retreated into the comfort blanket of painting Space Marines, in particular the Terminators from Leviathan for my Tome Keepers army. I started these months ago and lost interest, so I’m glad to have them finished finally. My army is mostly Third Company, but I wanted the Terminators to be from First Company, so I opted to paint the chest eagles (where the TK display their chapter iconography) white instead of red, and drag the red in on some of their individual heraldry and markings instead. I think they fit well with the force whilst still seeming individual. You might notice that the bone armour of the teleport homer looks a little different to the Terminators – I normally do the armour with oil washes and multiple varnishes, but I’ve become a bit impatient about it, so this was me testing out a scheme more based on stippling and drybrushing. I quite like it, certainly enough to test it on a Marine at some point soon.
That’s about it for me this month! Next month I’ll be hoping to get some initial units done for the Bretonnians, and I’m currently working on some Crypt Horrors for the FEC. Have a good month!
Soggy
I’m off to a slow start this year, with loads of Old World models assembled but only one finished. As it turns out, I shouldn’t be doing all of these quartered Bretonnians in big batches – who knew?
The only other models I finally got around to finishing this month are a pair of techmarines for an event at my local club in February. Despite being a shorter month, I’m hoping to get some real momentum next month as I have a few upcoming Heresy events and am keen to add some stuff to my White Scars.
