As June comes to an end, many of us in the Goonhammer offices are wondering where the first half of the went, the remainder as to how Bair fit a year’s worth of painting for some in a single month.
SRM
Nobody claimed the first spot so I guess I’ll get out of the way quickly!
Somehow, these were the first Templars I’d painted all year. Fowler had sent me a bunch of random Space Marine Heroes models from a few sundry board games, and I decided to kitbash them into a group of Assault Intercessors. These guys are numbered squad 5 – same as the ones I painted like two years ago – so I can run a big squad of ten if I want to. Some sick part of me really likes the idea of ten plus Grimaldus for full rerolls to hit and wound against anybody unfortunate enough to stand on an objective, and with those full rerolls, the Thunder Hammer might even do something. You’ll see six dudes here too, because I painted the last group in 9th edition and didn’t feel like paying the points for a power fist. It’s good to have options!
I was part of the crew that got to review the new Space Marine Drop Pod, and you’ll probably see a bunch of those in this article. Check that review for more thoughts on it, but I won’t bury the lede here – this model is one of the most repetitive painting experiences of my entire painting career, and I once batch painted a full platoon of Guardsmen. I’m happy with how this thing came out, even if I’ll never be able to reasonably transport it, and I absolutely don’t want to paint another. It was my first time really getting to use Tamiya masking tape though, and that stuff rules. I’d tried masking with regular Scotch painter’s tape before, and Tamiya’s tape is so much more malleable and easier to manipulate. I’ll definitely be using it more, as a Knight is in my future!
May
So I’m still having to go pretty slow at painting as my back has been cycling between non-functional and mediocre, but I’ve still managed to get some painting done! First up was this pair of War Dogs!
These two were painted up as part of bolstering my Chaos Knights up to being a fully functional army, if you’ve read Mike and I’s article about injuries in the hobby then you’ll already know I am hoping to use this as one of my event armies that should mean I make it through a full day of playing! Next up on the table for them is the new knight Ruinator that I’ve already got base-coated and ready for brush work.
Now for a touch more chaos, I finished off some Obliterators earlier this month, it’s wild how long base coating took with all their awkward little details.
Jumping over to Battletech, we start with a couple of models I did earlier in the month then move on to a little bigger group…
…That I had just finished photographing the morning I was writing my segment in this! I’ve been making great progress at working through my Battletech backlog, I’m focusing on getting all the remaining models I’ve not painted before finished and I’ve only got 21 of those left! There’s some other dups from salvage boxes and alt variants, but I’ll worry about those later.
Bair
Well I’ve been relegated to the third spot in this article, it’s a very sad day. This has easily been my most prolific month of the year, and probably ever? I started off by painting the last 21 Victrix Rus that I’d built last year and not gotten around to, bringing my total Viking count up to 140 painted, a nice round number! And yes I’m using slideshows for the rest because apparently it’s too many photos to make you scroll through vertically.
It’s probably obvious that I’ve gotten big into Saga. It’s a fantastic game and easily my favorite right now, playing mostly Age of Vikings and some Age of Chivalry. Then I realised that I didn’t have a dedicated Age of Crusaders force when it’s so popular locally so repurposed a lot of unpainted/unbuilt models that I was planning to be used for my Age of Chivalry force and put them into the black and white of the Knights Hospitaller. Basically, I didn’t want to paint big white caparisons or cloaks. So I built the ones that hadn’t been put together yet and set out to paint up an entire warband. That wasn’t my intention but it sure is what happened, in under two weeks total too…between some Footsore metals, some Wargames Atlantic Serjeants, and a lot of Victrix these came together very quickly. I really love the Warlord especially, the model is metal from Footsore and is meant to be a banner holder but I swapped up the hand out for a sword and he works so well! I love the brooding look under the hood for the leader. I also made good use of the metal banner poles he came with on his on-foot variant and then replaced the plastic banner pole with the brass rod one on the mounted warriors unit; far more stable and much less worry of bending or breaking on transport or mid-game!
The hill, that features in many photos, was also a quick project this month getting that painted and flocked. The Warhammer hill is massive and just works so well. The backdrops are A3 sized for reference which lets me fit in a whole lot of models at once! I’d had this sitting unpainted for quite some time now and was just dreading the mess all that flock would make. Which was awful but cleaned up quickly enough. If you do this, definitely varnish the hill and flock ASAP after it dries to avoid further mess.
Then I painted even more Saga models with more of my home-made Chivalry warband. These are being done in green and yellow with a bear for heraldry (obviously) which as far as I’m aware is not anything historical whatsoever! The plan for these is to use the same models across many different boards for ease of play while looking consistent. Mostly as Hussites bedside I love the war wagon, but also as Germans, Free Companies, and Burgundians. Ranging from older Perry miniatures plastics for the barded cavalry, 1st Corps for the handgunners, and 3D printed Medbury miniatures for the Genoese crossbowmen and Knight, these have been really fun to get done. The yellow is simply Pro Acryl Warm Yellow over Corax White and I’m pleased it goes on pretty easily.
Then lastly some odds-and-ends for Saga that I’ve been meaning to paint up: objectives and some monks. The monks I realised, only far too late, won’t actually be useful at all for my Milites Christ Knights Hospitaller, so I’ll probably just play them as a Crusaders board instead, I guess? Sometimes? They were fun to paint anyways, just lots, and lots, of brown.
Wargames Foundry Pack Animals – Credit Bair
And that’s it! A total of 122 models painted this month which feels pretty great. All of it historicals, too! Plus a Warhammer hill.
I’m not going to be trying to top that any time soon.
Thundercloud
A slow month this month as the weather is incredibly hot and work is incredibly busy. Only 12 figures, but I’ve been painting my Void/Urban War stuff as I work on a review.
As I generally do with my non-GW sci fi purchases, I’ve arranged them in squads of five to slot into generic sci fi games later. The Void figures were fairly quick to paint up without the large amounts of detail GW figures have.
Rich
I started off the month with something that wasn’t direct hobby, but was a hobby success! I took models to the UK Games Expo to enter into the Sir Coates Painting Masters, a very Golden Demon-style painting competition run by the Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy.
I didn’t really know what to expect from the competition, as I was working for most of the event so didn’t get a chance to fully look around the cabinets. I didn’t pick up a trophy, but upon collecting my models I was pleased to find that my Gitmob minis had picked up Finalist pins in two different categories!
I was pleased with this, especially coming off of a bronze award for Droggz at the Mini Painting Open in Bristol in May too. I’ve really had a positive reaction to the Gitmob models I’ve done, including a couple of favourite army awards at Warhammer World events recently. It’s made me keen to do some more display painting projects and really see how far I could push myself.
Up next, I finished of Prince Imrahil for MESBG. I wasn’t really planning a Dol Amroth army but I really enjoyed painting the model for review, and did find myself ordering a bit of stuff to add to his force on the recent made-to-order run.
For the rest of the month it’s mostly been Space Wolf time. I’m working my way through the rest of the army box, and finished off the Hunting Wolves that accompany the Wolf Guard Headtakers.
I couldn’t spend too much time on the army box though, because I was lucky enough to receive the second wave of models to paint! You can read all about them in the review, but here they are again for posterity. I think the Terminators are my favourite.
I also painted a Drop Pod. I’m not super happy with this – I was trying for a kind of burned on re-entry look, partly because I was rushing it. I might repaint it to match one of my three(!) different Space Marine forces. I’m promising I won’t start a fourth in the form of a Heresy army.
Up next, I think I’m going to start building the big pile of Death Guard I’ve been collecting. I have an ambitious plan to get the whole army at least part-painted in one gasp, putting together some different army-painting techniques I’ve been practicing. Let’s see how it goes! I’ve also got to do some more Gitz models for a couple of narrative events, and I’m sure there will be some Goonhammer stuff in there too, so who knows what I’ll be typing in a month’s time! Happy hobbying.
Lenoon
I painted a ton of stuff this month, Partisans, Knights, Anglo-Danes, Saracens, Goats, Geese and about 60 chickens but then I broke my glasses. Which was a bugger. Squinting through instagram I managed to come across the work of Somnderian, one of the great masters of the weird side of our hobby, and bought 6 Osseonauts with absolutely no plan. When they arrived, I realised I could paint them without really being able to see. So I did:
They looked weird, good weird, so I thought it’s probably the time to actually kick off the Blackshield project I’ve been thinking about for a long, long time. Ultramarines who went too far, far too far, into the deep black in pursuit of the traitors. They have returned.
A little fiction might have been written about them, but plans are afoot for a dreadnought, some big wide egg lads and maybe even some vehicles…
Colin Ward (LegalizedMischief)
June was a really productive month for me, and covered a wide range of projects! I did some 40k, Warhammer: The Old World, Age of Sigmar, a photo backdrop display, and some Horus Heresy. First up were the new Mechanicum for Kill Team, painted for Warhammer Community!
I had a great time revisiting my Feral Knight scheme for these models. The burlap effect was just cotton cloth from Joanne’s that was dipped in watered down PVA and tied off with thread. Couldn’t be happier with how it worked out! Would really like to expand on this scheme in the future, both in 40k and 30k!
I also painted 10 Jade Lancers for the new Army of Grand Cathay for Warhammer: The Old World. These were a test of wills but extremely rewarding to paint. You can read more about them in the model review. There will be a lot more to come from this army as well!
After the Jade Lancers I needed a quick palette cleanser so I decided to knock out a Vampire Lord on Foot that I had lying around. I used the same recipe as I use for my candy red HH Thousand Sons. I want the Vampires in my SBG to really jump out on the table. They are drops of gleaming blood red in the midst of decaying hordes of thralls. Love how the model turned out and can’t wait to add more! The units of Blood Knights, in particular, are going to be really great in this scheme.
One thing I love doing for my armies is making Photo Backdrop Displays. I have them for my Blood Angels, 30k armies, Shatterpoint and Marvel. And now Cathay and Soulblights. I wanted a very dark backdrop for the models and needed to incorporate snow and give an overall frigid feel to the scene.
I grabbed a couple of small serving trays from Michael’s and got to work! I cut individual cork stones for the wall and built the door from popsicle sticks. Really fun project done over a few days!
The finished product:
and I get to take awesome pictures like this:
To round out the month I finally got to finish off some units for my HH Thousand Sons. I had started them in May but needed to get some stuff painted for WarCom so they got put aside for a few weeks. Ahriman was converted from Lorgar’s FW Primarch model with some bits from the 40k Thousand Sons Exalted Sorcerers. The Cataphracti Praetor and Sekhmet turned out exactly how I’d hoped and I can’t wait to see how they do in 3.0!
As June comes to a close, there are a lot of exciting projects coming up! Right now I am trying to finish off 24 Norman Cavalry and 12 Norman Crossbowmen for Saga. And after painting the Cathay Jade Lancers, 24 Victrix horses are a breeze! Hope to have them in the July roundup!
Saffgor
June was a big month for me, as I finalized the conversions on my 27 Servitor Battleclade models (originally borrowing from the Rotmire Creed, Kataphrons, and Servo-Thralls) and got some basecoats on them, but moreover I’ve locked in a Data-Psalm Conclave list for my next GT in July. Not only is that my favorite detachment, in spite of its flaws, but it also allows me to show off what I feel is my best work.
I’ve showcased a lot of my Ash Waste Admech before, and this month involved getting all of my Electro-Priests painted up as well. While I’ve got 50 painted now, which is a number few sane individuals should own, the list only needs my best 35, set aside here in the case. Before they went OOP, I grabbed 5 boxes of Tarantulos Brood for this purpose, and given their secondary market price I’m glad to have done so.
The Battleclades have been my most recent project, and I absolutely love how they’re turning out, giving that Igor-esque hunched physique from the Rotmire new meaning by way of the Servo-Thrall masks. Plus, as with everything in my list, they’re WYSIWYG by way of spare parts from Kataphrons, who conveniently had the right spares to kit out the squads, plus a few Heavy Bolters and Meltas. Once this section is done, however, I’ve got a brand-new project on the horizon: Gitmob, armed with the spoils of a pillaged wargrove. I hope to show those off soon!
Soggy
While my hobby output this month hasn’t been as productive as some others here, I was surprised that I managed to get as much as I did with the time I had on me. Like an idiot, I’m starting yet another marine army for better or for worse.
I’ve always wanted to paint up some Salamanders, and while the contrarian in me isn’t super keen on them being poster boys for the new edition – they are very much overdue their moment in the spotlight. First up was some Rapier Batteries, which we covered in our review.
Next up was one of the new Drop Pods, which we also covered in our review. Salamanders Drop Pods and Dropsites are a match made in heaven, so it seemed rude not to. I initially was wanting to do black marble on the fins with ember veins through it, as it turns out I had the wrong kind of wet wipes and ended up with this 70’s leopard print effect – seems neat, so I decided to roll with it.
I did manage to paint up something which wasn’t for a review this month! A squadron of Vindicators, which are so incredibly chunky and have grown on me a lot. I could see myself picking up some more in the future.
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