Retrospective I (2020)

I'm going to be away for a few days at a funeral in Scotland. In the meantime here are some highlights from the models I painted in 2020:

Starting off with some demons for my Iron Warrior army...

Plaguebearers! Seven of them, the sacred number of Nurgle.

...then I moved on to the then newly released plastic Sisters of Battle limited edition set that my partner P had got me for the previous Christmas, some of which got detailed into my old metal Order of the Pure Blood force and the rest of which became Argent Shroud for the then current errr 8th? edition of 40K...

A Penitent Engine for my old metal force.

A squad's worth of Argent Shroud Battle Sisters - these are a mix of Celestians (with the gold detailing on their pauldrons and power packs) and standard Sisters.

Another view of the same squad, showcasing the rear rankers and the Simulacrum Imperialis.

Half a squad's worth of Arco-Flagellants for the Order of the Pure Blood / my Ecclesiarchy lot.

Side shot showing off all the gnarly scarring and other bits. I think, in retrospect, I have used the wrong colour for scar tissue on black skin... will fix that when I do the other half of the squad!

Back in 8th - and I can't recall how it works now - you could give every squad a Cherub, and the box set left you one short if you built them the way I did, so I made this eerie fellow out of a spare part from a Space Marine Librarian.

I'm still proud of how the shield turned out and how the flight stand works!

Because I wasn't using the Repentia - I gave them to a friend, JY, at the time - I turned the Mistress model into a Palatine with the addition of an old metal bolt pistol and a spare chainsword. I'm still a huge fan of this conversion.

Rear view, showing the script on the chainsword and a better view of the fire (note also her helm on her waist).

...then I briefly dipped into the Empire from Warhammer, having got hold of a model of the old Balthasar Gelt special character from 6th Edition, which I am running as a generic Gold Wizard on Pegasus...

A terrible photo courtesy of my mobile phone's flash, but I went for very simple, bright, primary colours here - perhaps one day I could embellish the robes but for now I'm quite happy with him.

The pegasus itself turned out quite nicely too if I do say so myself.

...then it was back to the 41st Millenium with some random individual figures for a while...

I'd backed an Anvil Miniatures Kickstarter and one of the figures I got was this cool one which I immediately knew had to be a Navigator. So she's wearing Navy style robes with a hint of green for her House colour. She can go with a Rogue Trader, an Inquisitor, an Imperial Guard force or even a Space Marine one... or be an objective.

Rear view showing a bit of the detail in the book and on her robes.

There was also this mini with a hammer, who is absolutely some form of Daemonhunter from the Ordo Malleus. I swapped the head out for a Statuesque Miniatures one though.

Just in case the gold carapace armour, huge hammer, and commanding presence didn't clue you in, her coat-tails have the three-barred I of the Inquisition on them...

...and then it was on to some Primaris Marines. I've been building up an army of (mostly) monopose Primaris Marines from the various starter sets, magazines, and similar since 8th Edition introduced them. I created a Chapter called the Palmyrene Spears, whose schtick is that they're all women and they think they are Raven Guard successors*, so they wear camouflage and none of their squad markings are ever correct to try and confuse any enemy intelligence gathering attempts. Here's a couple of characters for them...

A terrible photo but hey. An apothecary, converted from staring blankly at a progenoid gland to looking badass and standing over the corpse of a Word Bearer.

You can see here quite clearly the low-visibility insignia and dull metal in contrast to the red and silver of the Word Bearer.

They may be a more austere and practical chapter in comparison to some others but they're not immune to gothic nonsense!

Speaking of Gothic Nonsense, here's a Chaplain. She has a big hitty stick and a lot more gold and shiny bling than all the other Palmyrene Spears, because someone's got to draw the enemy fire, right?

Even here though you can see the camouflage on the armour and the black robes of office aren't exactly bright or eye-catching.

...then it was back to some Sisters of Battle! First I finished what was, then, a legal unit of seven - deliberately hearking back to the 2nd Edition squad size - with a cherub...

First, a Sister Superior with chainsword and combi-flamer. Back in 8th, this provided a hefty discouragement to charging the squad as the flamer's overwatch auto-hits.

Rear view - a bit (a lot) washed out by flash sadly.

And a second special weapon. Two storm bolters in the squad really ups their firepower, kicking out 4 shots each within 12".

And the finished line squad - Sister Superior, two storm bolters, a Simulacrum Imperialis, three Sisters with bolters, and a cherub. Nowadays this is three Sisters too few to be fielded officially, thanks to GW's policy of continually reducing options in 9th and 10th 40K.

...then I felt like a change from figures and broke out some scenery that had been sitting around unloved for years...

First the old crashed Aquila lander from the 4th Edition starter set, the Battle For Macragge.

Then some barricades I ended up with at some point. I think these ad hoc defences were first released in the early 2000s.

Front view - a lot less skulls than the more modern stuff, thankfully.

...palate suitably cleansed, it was back on to the figure front with some Tzeentchian heresy:

The Aspiring Champion / apprentice Sorceror who leads the Iron Warrior squad devoted to Tzeentch

Note the slight purple tint to the armour and the book of Terrible Sorceries(tm, r, c).

...and then I repainted the new plastic Saint Celestine set I picked up when she was released in a big set with Inquisitor Greyfax and Belisarius Cawl, swapping her from my Order of the Pure Blood to the Argent Shroud. I have since repainted her again, so that her red armour - from the original Pure Blood version - is now golden. Not sure I have photos of that though!

I used the injured Sister from the Hospitaller model to bling up the Living Saint's base

I really like this version of Celestine, and the seemingly flimsy purity parchments are actually surprisingly durable (and a much better replacement for flight stands than the ones the plastic Seraphim actually got).

...then after Celestine it was the OG Sister of Battle breakout character, Sister Ephrael Stern, the DAEMONIFUGE! I absolutely had to paint her in original 1990s Our Martyred Lady colours as depicted in the comic strip...

Scott Johnson's incredible art which was used as the cover for the original collected edition of the comic, and which I used to paint my figure.

Getting a blue glow on her eyes was hard, but not as hard as the hazard stripes on the bolt pistol! I also swapped the head for one that had a bit more sensible motion on her hair.

Technically I think she's meant to be a Seraphim but she never wears a jump pack in the comic and I like to think she's just yeeted herself off a roof to land in among some heretics.

...sticking with the Sisters theme I chopped up one of my already painted metal Seraphim and swapped her bolt pistols for plastic hand flamers taken from the new kits...

So now the original metal squad for my Order of the Pure Blood force, though small at just five models, has four (!) hand flamers, which is a lot of death to heretics. And iconoclasts. And apostates. And indeed anyone they don't like the look of, really.

...all this religious fanaticism needs some enemies, and by this point in 2020 9th Edition 40K had hit (I think), and I had a copy of the Necron half of the starter set courtesy of a friend. Some of it would go into my 3rd/4th edition Necron army (the Warriors and Scarabs) and the rest, well, that's all super new, so I painted it up in the colours of some dynasty that uses red. I'm not very up on the current Necron background, honestly...

Necrons! I'm particularly chuffed with the blades, which look just right and were quite simple (if a bit fiddly) to do.

Scarab swarms! Cute little doombots that they are.

...and then a brief interlude to do another Palmyrene Spear...

This Captain bears the chapter colours more openly than the rest of the army, because I wanted to do something with the crest and tassels.

She has a power sword sheathed at her hip, and has the company heraldry in black and white on her knee.

This is a good view of the urban camo scheme, too, as well as showing the (not great) crossed spears in a laurel wreath that is the Chapter badge.

...then it was back to some more Necrons...

First of all I got this Lord off my son for the princely sum of £5, and did him up for my 3rd/4th Edition army.

Lots of gold, lots of gloss, very shiny, very regal.

And then I did a bunch of warriors. These are simple but a bit dull to do.

...after the Necron menace, I plunged into some Marines again because why not...

First off, some Space Wolves! I'd already finished the Wolf Lady a while before, and I picked up a box of Space Wolves and mixed some of my bits box in to make her Wolf Guard bodyguard (on the left), the Wolf Guard Pack Leader for the Blood Claws (behind her - he was featured on a GW live stream!), the Grey Hunter Pack Leader and two Grey Hunters, and finally the Long Fang Pack Leader.

Here's a better image of the Wolf Guard Blood Claw Pack Leader, with his massive axe and stern countenance. This is the mini that got featured on GW's Twitch channel! That made me very chuffed as you can imagine.

A Deathwing squad from the Angels of Redemption Chapter - this brought me up to two such squads at the time; nowadays I'm two Dreadnought Drop Pods away from a 2,500 point army for 4th Edition.

...and, in keeping with the Marine theme, I used my bits box and two of the blind-box Marines to bulk up the little group of Ultramarines I'd built and painted on holiday a few years before this that came in a starter paint set to a full Kill Team. This was for Kill Team 1.0, before they changed the way you made Kill Teams and made it a lot less flexible, so it's not usable in Kill Team 2.0 - and probably not in 3.0 when that comes out either...

First up, Tullia - its bolter slung in favour of pistol and grenade in the close confines of urban war.

Then the Deathwatch Veteran Galla, with meltagun for punching holes in doors, walls, tanks... anything really. I'm particularly proud of the veteran's laurel on its helmet.

I built this - and indeed all three of the Scouts - from spares left over from the Scout landspeeder kits I'd put together years prior for my Righteous Fists army.

I love the way the beckoning hand works with the shotgun, as though Sappho is guiding its siblings through the rubble.

I used a Mechanicus head and a bunch of green stuff to give this scout a sniper's cape, and I enjoyed painting the two different camo patterns on it.

I deliberately went for a different urban scheme to the one I used on the Palmyrene Spears.

The whole Kill Team - a demi-squad of Marines from the 4th Battle Company's 5th Squad, accompanied by three scouts from the 10th Company's 3rd Squad. Having checked the rules, I could use the Marine half of the Kill Team quite happily, but it seems sad to leave the Scouts behind. Still, good to know!

...then, suddenly...

I was siezed with the urge to paint a Good Boy. This is the war mastiff from a Darkoath warband from Warcry. I still haven't finished the rest of that set.

...and after that...

Back to Sisters of Battle! Here, again, is a (now illegal) seven-strong squad of Sisters with Superior, Simulacrum, storm bolters, and bolters. No cherub at this point though it has since been done.

A command squad to go with the Palatine - very flamer heavy, this squad has a heavy flamer, flamer, and combi-flamer as well as a Simulacrum and power maul. Again, I have since completed the cherub.

And a command squad for the Canoness! This one is just bolters and storm bolters, as she's a support character rather than a get-stuck-in character. Thought it does have a couple of power swords and a Simulacrum... and a cherub that, yes, has since been finished up.

I'm really proud of this conversion - I used the banner from a 7th Edition Warhammer Empire set and a pin vice drill (!) to assemble a nice Argent Shroud type thing.

Very sinister, very bleak, very memento mori

And a Hospitaller! She isn't Argent Shroud, hence the white armour and cream robes. Frustratingly the metallics turned out really grainy and textured, but you can't tell from arm's length.

...and then it was my birthday, and I got toy soldiers, one of which was the limited edition Sergeant "Ripper" Jackson. However I don't have a Catachan army (lies, I do, but it's only a platoon) and I do have a big desert Guard army, so it was time for an Ensign...

The text on the standard reads RIGEL LIX - the Rigellian 59th Mechanised Infantry.

She wears an officer's jacket (and purloined carapace pads from somewhere), but because it's very hot, has left the jacket open. The headwrap is a concession to the local environment and not just because I didn't have a suitable head to replace hers with...

Front view showing her issue pistol and back-slung chainsword, as well as her bionic leg.

...and then it was back to random stuff to finish the year off...

Added Kyganil, the exile, to Ephrael Stern. I went with a very monochrome palette for him as he's been exiled and in the comic he seems to wear creams and whites a lot as far as I can tell. The rainbow squares are meant to be light refracted into shattered colours as he steps out of the webway / activates his shimmershield.

A look at the back of both of them. Diagonal checks are a swine to paint.

Around this time I was very keen on Oathmark - still am but haven't expanded on my idea for a Pictish style fantasy force: this model from Bad Squiddo Games was (is?) going to be my general for large and small games - on horse in large games and on foot for smaller skirmishes.

Fifeshire Regiment (yellow standard) and Edinburgh Regiment (red standards) at Marston Moor 1644 - during this battle they were part of the Vanguard of the Army of the Solemn League and Covenant (the alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish government). Figures from the inimitable Peter Pig (More Oink!), standard designs as best as I can tell from research accurate. Based for 'For King and Parliament' rules. This is all because the club I used to go to - Scimitar - was planning on doing 15mm ECW and I said I'd do the Scots. The army never got beyond this point.

A Black Dragon I painted for my friend AC - the mini is one of the official Wizards of the Coast D&D miniatures, sold as a 'Nightmare Dragon'.

Then I finally finished the DBA Anglo-Saxons for my venerable father, Al Front (who has sadly stopped updating his blog).

 

...and then, finally, finally, I ended the year with...

A stone troll! I particularly like the bird's nest on his head.

And that was that! Gosh - what a year. I think, painting points wise, all that came to...

Painting Points:
2020: 182 (!)

* this is all Belisarius Cawl's fault on all counts

PS: If you made it all this way and still want more to tide you over until my return from the northern wastes, please have a read of this little story I wrote about the Ultramarines based on a conversation I had with the Black Library author Thomas Parrott. I wrote this around the same time I was painting my Ultramarine Kill-Team that you saw earlier.