Some Thoughts

The end of the year is rapidly approaching, and I'm sitting contemplating what I've managed to achieve hobby wise in 2024. I've undoubtedly painted the most minis in a single year that I've ever done, sitting at 350 Painting Points as of time of writing and not that far off getting to 368 before New Years, which would be more than one Painting Point per day! I also managed to get in a lot more wargames, partly as a result of going to the local club for a few weeks - this has lapsed due to life reasons but I do want to reattend more regularly next year - and also because I got to play some Kill Team and Battletech with my good friends C, D, and H. And, of course, I met S in Warhammer World for some games as well.

I've also picked up some new games, like This Quar's War and Lo! Thy Dread Empire and have my eyes on some solo stuff like Five Parsecs From Home and, once my Battletech Kickstarter eventually arrives, Alpha Strike: Aces solo Battletech. And there's the Trench Crusade bug too. But above it all this year has been a very Games Workshop-y one, from the Tomb Kings that I cranked out at a rate of knots in the first few weeks of 2024 to the Adeptus Arbites and metal giant rats sat on my workstation right now.

That's unlikely to change really; the bulk of my pile of opportunity is made up of GW stuff - 40K, Warhammer, and Specialist Games like Mordheim, Necromunda, and Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower. Things of that nature. So what's the general idea for 2025 then? 

In large part I suspect it'll be "whatever takes my fancy". I have lots of stuff waiting to be painted, some of it having languished for a long time, and some of it brand new (or even yet to arrive). That said, I would love to finish the High Elf force I've been on-and-off working on for nearly a decade. I want to try and get the Quar Royalists sorted. I'd really like to make a dent in my Dark Eldar, too. But then there's my Space Wolves, and the Imperial Guard, and my Argent Shroud Sisters of Battle, and...

It is, after all, a pile of opportunity. So let's see what 2025 brings - and in the waning days of 2024, I'll see how close to 365 Painting Points I can get!

Lest I forget, I also have a bunch of Blood Bowl teams to do...

The Last Raptor

(Maybe.)

I've done it - every Primaris Marine I own that sensibly fits into the Raptor army is finished. Technically I have a random Sergeant and a single Scout on sprue, but neither of them make sense in the context of the army, so they can go somewhere else eventually. 

5th Company standard, with honour marks and campaign shields.

Ancient rank badge

Chapter badge

I'm proud of the banner in particular!

Next up will be some Necromunda Giant Rats, because they're nice and quick, and then I'll do some work on the Arbites as planned.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 8
2024: 199 (350)

Flying The Flag

I have a spare Primaris Ancient that I have decided to paint up as a Raptor and add to the army (which is, incidentally, for sale: if you'd like to buy 2,000+ points of Space Marines for £500 - a nearly £200 discount from the RRP - leave a comment). And once she's done, I'm going to finish off the Arbites that I picked up earlier this year, I think.

I'm going to try to finish the Ancient tomorrow, but it might drag a bit. I've done half of the tedious bit of the camouflage to be fair!

Praise Be To The Burny Fellows

I finally, finally finished them. They took days longer than I expected, and they're done. Hurrah! 

A bad photo sadly but they look great all finished up

Slightly better photo showing how lovely the fire motif looks on both red and yellow

The whole lot is a gang in and of itself, but can also be mixed into my Unworthy Servants Cawdor gang as well if I fancied it. I am particularly pleased with the way the robes ended up and how the burning hats ended up through a mix of contrast, washes, and paint.

I also took the time today to finish making the free minis I got from Wargames Illustrated and Miniature Wargames:

German late-war paratroopers in winter gear that have been turned into Trench Crusade Heretic Naval Infantry Legionnaires and Troopers

I think that the paint scheme on these minis will really make them fit into the Trench Crusade aesthetic more - as it stands they are, after all, just Fallschirmjager!

Then, on the front of Miniature Wargames, there was a sprue of Wargames Atlantic's Sneakfeet - these are Ratling Snipers with the serial numbers filed off, who are in turn of course Hobbits (in space) with the serial numbers filed off...

Haven't decided how to base them yet

I deliberately picked the smaller guns on the sprue because I think they'll probably end up being Generic Sci-Fi sorts for something like Five Parsecs From Home or Space Station Zero.

Having knocked out the Redemptionists, I'm a bit unsure as to what to work on next - I might actually have a break from painting for a bit! Who knows. 

Painting Points:
Today: 7
This Week: 7
2024: 198 (349)

Oops, A Distraction

I don't know if you've noticed but Tuomas Pirinen, him of Mordheim and Warhammer Fantasy 6th Edition fame, along with some other creative types has made a ridiculously successful Kickstarter for a new skirmish wargame called TRENCH CRUSADE. Trench Crusade is an alternate universe / alt-history 1914 where the First Crusade accidentally released Hell onto Earth, and so the next thousand years or so have been a long war against Satan's Legions and their various human auxiliaries and soldiers. There's a lot more information out there, I recommend this Goonhammer article for starters.

Anyway, I did some painting on my Redemptionists - blocked out the skin, did the flames apart from the gloss varnish, and started the hair - and then, after picking up a copy of Wargames Illustrated with a sprue of Warlord Games' winter-uniformed Fallschirmjager stuck to the front, decided to rummage in my bits box and make some Heretic Naval Raiders...

They're so close to done. So close. It's painful now

You can see some bits and pieces in the bottom left corner of that photo from the Warlord Games' frame. I opened up the playtest Trench Crusade rules (available on the Facebook group, here) and had a look at what a Heretic Trooper actually has available. As I'm doing Naval Raiders, they get access to sub-machine guns, which is quite nice, so I'm going to do three with SMGs, one with an automatic shotgun, and then two Legionaries with a machine gun and a semi-auto rifle (later to be upgraded to an automatic rifle).

They might look like Germans from the late war, but if you look at their belts you can see some hearts dangling from straps... uh oh! These guys are Heretic Legionaries, with better accuracy than the regular Troopers, and funky padded trousers to help differentiate them. I think that the paint scheme is going to do a lot of work making it clear what they are - strange, deathly pale skin, esoteric runes on their helmets, dark blue naval infantry type uniforms...

Not entirely sure what sort of conversions I could do to make things like an Artillery Witch, or a Heretic Priest, but we'll see. Part of the problem I'm having is that the scale of the Warlord Games' minis is not really compatible with the bulk of my bits box, which is almost entirely Games Workshop's heroic scale stuff. Anyway, that's for another day. Who knows, maybe tomorrow I'll finally have finished those Redemptionists.

Only In Basing Does Duty End

And I haven't quite got to that stage yet but I am now tantalisingly close to it. I actually sat down for a couple of hours this evening and did the belts, pouches, grenades, books, highlighted the gold trim and masks, washed the nooses so that they look done, and did the first step on the flame-hats (which actually look really good as is, if very different to the way I usually do flames). They're definitely looking a lot closer to how I imagined them when I first picked them up to do:

I just wish it hadn't taken me seven days (!) to get this far! Oh well. Nearly there, and all that.

What Happens When The Mojo Slips

I'm not sure quite what it is, but I'd hoped to do a lot more painting this weekend than I actually have. I didn't do any yesterday - hence no update on the ol' blog - and today I only did a little bit. I painted almost all the books a dark green, went over the pipes, gloves and boots with black, and painted the belts and pouches in a dark brown (which, incidentally, I also drybrushed over the ends of all the flame weapons). It's just blocking things out for highlights, and in theory it shouldn't take too long to finish the details and move onto the bigger things like the flame-hats and the like, but I just... haven't felt like it. A bit disappointing but there you go.

The flame patterns on the robes look great though!

I have however named them - this little lot comes to 1,000 creds pretty much exactly and can be found with the extremely uninspiring name of "Red Redemption" over at YakTribe. So I know what to paint on their bases when they get to that point. Whenever that is.

Detail Time Starts Now

Having finished the process of highlighting the robes and armour, I have now begun to work on the details. By which I mean I've painted the nooses they wear on their belts in Ushabti Bone, which, if I'd been thinking, I'd've done before I painted the robes with Agrax Earthshade. Ah well. Live and learn.

I think the colour scheme of red, black, and yellow is both really striking and really sinister, as well as giving a good link to the obsession they have with fire. I'm not sure how long they'll take to finish, hopefully I'll be able to get them done this weekend.

Starting The Highlighting

Not a great deal of progress today, although it did feel like it. Slapped some Cryptek Armourshade onto the gold and bronze sections, applied the first highlight of Khorne Red to the robes, and that was it - took longer than expected for some odd reason. 

Next up - Mephiston Red highlights on the robes and the armour, then some work on the yellow and maybe some Wild Rider Red on the armour to pick some bits out. After that it's detail work really.

The Miracles Of Saint Agrax

I remember, many years ago now - and I do mean that, it must be coming up to two decades ago or so - when the hot new thing in painterly circles was floor polish dip. You paint your minis in block colours, then dip them into a tin of floor stain et voila magic skill, your miniature was shaded, highlighted, and varnished all in one. 

Nowadays we just use Agrax Earthshade, Nuln Oil, and contrasts, I suppose.

You can see why, really - these minis have just had block colours and washes applied (well, and the base metals on the trims of their hoods and their masks) and they look rather Blanchitsu, don't they? I'm in half a mind to lean into it, but I don't think I will. 

The next step is to highlight the robes and shoulder armour, then do the various belts, nooses, books, and other random little bits on their belts before I start working up the weapons. The gloves'll end up black, I think, to keep the palette simple. 

So far, they've been quite good fun to work on, which is a nice surprise. I think it's the colour scheme and the relatively open poses allowing me to get my brush into the detail quite easily.