Progress Report – December 2022

Well here we are, 2022 is over and 2023 has arrived. Hopefully all of you had a wonderful time over Christmas and New Year, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing! It’s at this time that I usually take a look back at the various developments that have occurred in this crazy hobby of ours, contrast them with my own efforts on various projects and generally take the opportunity to hold forth about whatever takes my fancy, to the (possible) delight of my readers. This year however that’s not going to be happening – try to contain your disappointment! Instead I’m going to be taking a final look back at the progress I’ve made on a project I’ve been focused on throughout the past year – namely trying to clear out my backlog.

First though, let’s talk a bit about how we got here. Like the vast majority of people who enjoy this hobby, I’ve built up quite a collection of unpainted models. The leadpile. The grey tide. The shelf of shame. The mountain of madness. Essentially it’s all stuff I was really excited about, but then never got around to actually getting painted before something distracted me. Attempting to get this amorphous mass under control isn’t a new thing, indeed it’s been a battle that has dominated my hobby time for many years, but in early 2022 I found myself giving it a lot of thought and changing my approach and attitude. Back in June, when I wrote about this I said the following, which I think still neatly sums things up.

Over the years my approach to the hobby has very much been a case of “this is for fun, paint whatever appeals in the moment, follow the hobby butterfly wherever it leads”. This has given me a lot of pleasure and has seen me paint a lot of models but whenever I look back at everything I’ve done I’m struck by the things I’ve still never finished and the models which I’ve been going to tackle “soon” for a very long time… In the past I’ve tended to view the backlog as a single entity which could be wrestled into completion through a combination of time and Herculean effort. All my projects would be completed as a side effect of this (that is to say, if all the models I want to paint are contained within the pile then by painting everything in the pile I automatically complete all of my projects). 

Like I say, this approach gave me a lot of pleasure, and I ended up with lots of models I was really happy with, but at the same time I found that no matter how many models I painted there were still lots and lots of projects that weren’t even touched.

Before I go any further I should define some terms, albeit loosely. A model is a miniature – be that a Blood Bowl playing snotling, a Karstark spearman, an Ork buggy or a greater daemon of chaos. A “project” in my mind is rather more loosely defined. Usually it’s a collection of models; a Blood Bowl team, a Warcry warband, a Necromunda gang. Sometimes it might just be a single model – Magnus the Red is a project in and of himself. “Completed” is probably the loosest term of all, but generally what I mean here is painted to a stage where I’m calling it done, at least for now. For example I would call my Orc Kruelboys for Warcry completed, because we’ve got enough to play some games with them – even though there’s some more that I still want to paint just waiting for attention. Here’s a picture of some of them which I painted in September here to break up what is otherwise turning into a real wall of text.

I’m pleased to say that my efforts to clear out the backlog have paid dividends as well. Between January and November I completed 348 miniatures, putting me well on track for painting a model a day (something I once regarded as an unachievable dream). In the last month I painted nothing at all, but I also moved house and became a father. Right now I’m much, much more interested in spending time with the tiny, wonderful, sleep-depriving, fascinating human being that my wife and I have created than I am in painting Orks (and you know that’s high praise coming from me!).

Of course I’m not going to stop painting miniatures. Fatherhood is awesome but it doesn’t mean I need to give up being me, just that I need to reappraise some things and think about how I’m using my time. Knowing this I found myself looking at my backlog and realizing that there are a lot of unfinished projects – and if I want to finish them I’m going to need to make some changes. I’ve tried to structure my approach and focus my efforts, looking for “easy wins” and projects that were already close to being completed. I’ve taught myself to be less perfectionist in my painting – I’ve never sought Golden Daemon wins or that kind of thing anyway – but sometimes “good enough” really is good enough, I don’t need to push myself with every model. Similarly a colour scheme may be a bit of a cliche, and similar to what everyone else is doing, but if it looks cool and its easy to replicate why not just go with it – it looks a hell of a lot better than grey plastic. Conversions are cool but am I cutting this model up just because that’s my “thing” – maybe it was fine to begin with. Some people have suggested that I’ve moved from “Convert or Die” to “Stop converting everything or you’ll won’t get half of this done before you die” and they may have a point…

The other thing I’ve been doing is writing these round up posts, one at the end of each quarter, in which I take a look back at everything I’ve managed to complete for a number of broad goals. This time I’ve not managed loads but I think between the new baby, moving house and giving over October entirely to trying (and failing) to thrash fellow blogger IRO at an Ork painting contest, I can be excused for letting a few things slip. However as well as looking at everything I’ve finished over the last three months I’ll also be talking about the progress I made over the entire year – meaning this post is going to be even more long and waffly than it is already. Are you still awake and reading? Excellent – then let us begin!

Warcry

A bit of a mixed bag here – in some ways I’ve succeed far above and beyond my expectations, in other ways I’ve rather missed the mark. Let me explain; one of my key aims for the year was to paint up some more of the “core” Warcry warbands – the ones designed specifically for the game rather than ported across from the wider Age of Sigmar range. We really enjoy Warcry and round our house we play it more than any other game but the Iron Golems and Untamed Beasts have seen a lot of action and we’d like to bring out some alternatives. On this front I’ve failed entirely, despite having made a start on both the Spire Tyrants and the Khainite Shadowstalkers (not to mention assembling the Darkoath Savagers) I’ve not managed to get anything completed. On the other hand I also wanted to have a range of warbands from across the range and this I’ve managed in style; I can now offer a total of 17 different factions – from the Kruelboyz to the Nighthaunt to the Thunderstike Brethren of the Stormcast Eternals – in addition to the aforementioned Iron Golems and Untamed Beasts. Alas after powering through lots of models in the first few months of year I managed nothing at all in the final quarter. Hopefully 2023 will see me back on the right track.

Terrain

Terrain sets the scene and breathes life into the world(s) inhabited by our little painted dudes, so in my opinion a decent collection of terrain is a vital component of any wargamer’s home. Once again though I didn’t add anything here since the last update. Partly this was intentional, terrain tends to be big and awkwardly shaped (a bit like me) and much easier to move if it’s unassembled, and with a house moving looming I was happy to just leave everything in its boxes and return to it in the new year.

Earlier in the year I did much better however, first finishing off everything from the first Warcry boxset and having a little ruined town for my savage scumbos to fight over…

… and painting up a collection of walls and fences which will be particularly handy for “rank and flank” games like Warhammer or ASOIAF.

I’d really like to expand my collection of terrain for Necromunda/Warhammer 40k and I do have plenty of kits to be working with so I’ll try to make that my focus next.

Warhammer 40k and Kill Team

Not an easy one to quantify here, I’ve got a lot of projects I’d like to tackle and really I should break this down a bit further and look at specific armies (the Chaos Marines, Death Guard, Imperial Guard, Adeptus Mechanicus and so on). Honestly though I think that would lead to a lot of things being listed as “no progress” from one quarter to the next – I can only spread myself so thin after all. Still, at least this time I have something to show here, with the Orktober painting challenge leading me to add all these gits to my Ork army.

I may have been thrashed in our painting contest by that notorious freebooter IRO but I still got a lot of things done that I’d been wanting to tackle so I’m damn pleased with the result. And remember, Orks never loose – next year I’m going to come back for anuvva go!

One of the key things I painted in Orktober was Boss Snikrot, one of my all time favorite miniatures, and yet one which has been sitting unfinished on my painting desk since whenever he was released (2009 maybe?).

With the greatest Kommando of all time so fresh in my memory it was interesting to spot this silhouette appearing in Games Workshop’s recent preview of 40k models scheduled for release in 2023.

It’s hard to imagine that this could be anyone other than Snikrot, so it seems that I painted mine just in time to see him replaced by a new version of the character. That said it’s hard to imagine that the new version could be any better than the old. More interesting is the possibility that this is hinting at a return to the planet Armageddon – where Snikrot stalks the jungles – and hordes of Orks do battle with regiments of Imperial Guard (who’ll be seeing a wave of releases early in 2023) and murderous warbands of World Eaters (who’ll also be seeing a wave of releases early in 2023). Could this mean we’ll be seeing more Orks (yes please!) before the year is out, perhaps alongside more World Eaters (something that there is currently a desperate need for) and perhaps even models for the Armageddon Steel Legion (possibly my favourite Imperial Guard regiment) – or am I just getting over excited about a silhouette and putting 2 and 2 together to make 22? I guess we’ll find out in the coming months…

That aside the biggest thing I managed to tackle this year was this bunch of Necrons that I worked on back in the spring and summer. They seem to have returned to their tombs for now but I’ve got plans to wake them up again soon.

Blood Bowl

Not a lot to show this time, but despite the last few months being busy it’s not nothing either – I managed to get a team of Skaven started and even recruited enough players for a game of Blood Bowl 7s.

Orctober also saw me add Varag Ghoul Chewer to the ranks as my first star player in my collection.

Technically I started the year with zero teams completed. My Orcs and Black Orcs were both pretty much done but at the time I still hadn’t painted that damn troll and I refused to call either team finished until I’d actually got paint on the blasted thing. As a result when I set myself the challenge of attacking the backlog the troll was one of the first targets.

Since then I’ve actually managed quite a few violent sportsmen and I now have 6 full teams match ready (the Orcs, Black Orcs, Goblins, Shambling Undead, Necromantic Horrors and Underworld Denizens) plus my small team of Skaven; the Lowdown Dirty Rats. Next year I’d like to return to my neglected Snotlings, get the Skaven up to full team status and add at least two more elves to the Elven Union team so they too can play at 7s. As usual I’ve got a few more ideas up my sleeve as well – we’ll see how things go.

Necromunda

Another year comes to an end and once again I’ve not done as much with Necromunda as I set out to. Partly it’s choice overload, I’ve got so many projects I want to tackle that, despite my enthusiasm, I just can’t get around them all. In the case of Necromunda however a big part of the problem has been something I’ve come to think of as “the Orlock knot”. All too often I find my painting process when it comes to Necromunda goes a bit like this:

1. I want to paint something for Necromunda! I am full of excitement! What shall it be today!

2. So many options! I am dizzy!

3. Well… I have been saying I’d work on my Orlocks since God was a boy, best start there I guess.

4. I don’t really feel like Orlocks today though.

5. I paint something else and Necromunda is left to slumber beneath filthy, toxic skies for a while longer.

That being the case I’m really pleased to started on the Orlocks at long last.

In a perfect world I’d have done more with them but I’m not going to beat myself up over that, my enthusiasm for the House of Iron is back to where it should be and plenty more Orlock gangers will be making their way to the underhive as soon as I find the time. Those aside I managed a few hive scum earlier in the year and again I’m planning to expand their ranks in the new year. The chaos cultists I painted recently will also be inducted in my old Chaos Helots gang (or perhaps found a new one), after which I’ll be looking around for what else the underhive has to offer.

Aeronautica Imperialis/Adeptus Titanicus

I love the idea of the Titans in the 40k universe and as a result have been very drawn to the idea of assembling my own collection of clashing God Machines. For a while the price of these kits really put me off but over the years a few really appealing deals have come my way and I now have a fair old stash of them. Have I painted any of them though? No, no I have not! Nor, for that matter, have I done anything about the Aeronautica Imperialis box I picked up in a sale a year or so ago. Ah well, maybe 2023 will be a better year for them.

Blackstone Fortress

Unlike Cursed City (see below) I’ve actually done pretty well here. With the great big mob of Chaos Cultists I finished recently I have the Escalation expansion fully painted, alongside Traitor Command, Deadly Alliance and almost everything from the core box (minus a couple of characters). That just leaves me with the Dreaded Ambull and Ascension expansions still to tackle so all being well it’s entirely possible I’ll get this one in the bag soon.

Cursed City

Poor old Cursed City. Launched with such fanfare and lauded for the quality of its models it swiftly disappeared once more amid a flurry of contradictory social media posts in lieu of open, honest announcements. “It was going to be available for years”, “no it wasn’t”, “it was always supposed to be limited edition”, “we never said that, that never happened”. I guess the news media think they can get away with saying “You know that thing we said last week? Well it’s not true, we never said it and if you think you heard us say it you’re a conspiracy theorist!” and GW thought “I wonder if that would work for us”. Nah, sorry Gdubz, it doesn’t work for anyone…

In what may well be the ultimate case of nominative determinism Cursed City went from being one of the most highly anticipated games in GW’s stable to a byword for making a total arse of things. The expansions, long promised and finally delivered, were a very long way from what GW had hinted at and really only served to make people more pissed off; the kind of bonus content usually reserved for an issue of White Dwarf instead sold as extremely overpriced limited-edition content for the hardcore completionist only.

Now I tend not to care too much what GW, or any other company, are doing with the “official rules” or how well a game is being supported by its publisher. Still it’s hard to shake off the feeling that GW made a right royal balls of things here (and I’m sure there are designers up at GW HQ still quietly fuming that everything they had planned has been scrapped). It may be projection but it’s hard not to get a sense of bitterness even from the official announcements – no normal person wants to be responsible for peddling bullshit on behalf of an uncaring employer after all. They screwed up, then they lied to us, they tried to cover it up and then to rip us off, their (presumably awesome but sadly now unknowable) future content will never see the light of day and they just wish the whole nasty business would go away and us customers would just focus on the new exciting thing instead.

Against such a backdrop it’s sometimes hard to feel the enthusiasm I once did and this is reflected in the fact that I’ve still not got very much done, and nothing at all in the final quarter of the year. It’s not been a dead loss though, 2022 did see me making a start on the core of the rank-and-file baddies and getting two heroes ready for adventure.

We’ll see how things go but I’d like to rediscover my drive, complete the second half of the skeleton squad, paint a couple more heroes and then – buoyed up with newfound enthusiasm – power my way through the rest of the box in 2023.

A Song Of Ice And Fire

2022 was also the year I got into the A Song of Ice and Fire miniature’s game (that’s Game of Thrones for those of you who’re more familiar with the TV show). I actually discovered it in 2021, having been a big fan of the novels for many a long year, but didn’t get around to starting some painting until March. Being a UK based fan of the game can be a bit frustrating at times, with releases sometimes not appearing for sale here until years after they’ve reached other countries (I’m still waiting for the Lannister Red Cloaks to reach these shores for instance). The forces of House Martell have been available for a few months now, but not round here they haven’t, and so my temptation to throw my support behind the lords of Sunspear is stuck on the backburner for now. Still, given their slanderous treatment in the TV show supporters of the Dornishmen have become used to rough treatment, and if you’re not accustomed to waiting years and years for the slightest hint of a release then George Martin may not be the author for you – so perhaps those of us who are enduring the long wait for the Martells to reach the British Isles are the ones who are truly embracing the spirit of the game!

Anyway, at the moment I’ve got two projects on the go here; an army from House Stark and another from House Lannister. Of the two the Lannisters are definitely lagging behind and saw no progress at all in the final quarter of the year. Still, I’m excited about them and I like the colour scheme so I’ll try to return to them soon.

The Starks did a bit better and, with the addition of a squad of Karstark spearmen, now stand at more than 30 points (the minimum size for a game).

Of course I’m already thinking ahead to potential future projects as I explore the other factions in the game. Barbarian hordes and big monsters have always appealed to me so the draw of the Free Folk is very real, and the reaving Greyjoys have also been calling to me, as have the aforementioned Dornishmen of House Martell. In fact looking at the Martells has me wondering what other factions might be waiting to join the game in the future, and honestly despite the depth and complexity of the world described by George RR Martin the list isn’t long. House Arryn seems an obvious choice and I can’t help but wonder about the Brotherhood Without Banners or the alliance from Slaver’s Bay. However, and here I’ll need to speak carefully to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t read the books, the most obvious contender of all has to be the Golden Company lead by *cough* “Young Gryff”. Yet the Golden Company were released back in the summer as part of the Neutral faction. In some ways that befits their status as a mercenary company but hardly does justice to their role in the story so far, or their likely next moves based on the chapters from Winds of Winter that have been previewed. Watch this space I guess but if CMON don’t remove the Golden Company from the Neutral faction and turn them into a faction in their own right at some point in the future they’re missing a trick.

Hate

I’ve got no real plan or structure here, I’m just enjoying chipping away at the models (which at the end of the day is what this is all about right?). As a result I didn’t manage anything else over the last few months so here’s a look at everything I’ve managed to paint in 2022.

Goals and Summing Up

In previous round-ups I’ve talked a bit about the goals I was hoping the achieve in the months ahead. This time I’m not going to do that, and I probably won’t bother with a March 2023 round up either – my hands are just too full at the moment and setting myself targets is setting myself up for failure from the get-go. Obviously being a dad is eating up a lot of my time and energy at the moment but I’ll still be painting and I’ll still be sticking to my aims as set out above. This approach has worked really well for me in achieving a lot of these long held goals but I’ve still got plenty of ground to cover. I’m also looking at ways in which I can speed up my painting, and manage my hobby time differently, whilst still making sure I have fun with it. Of course much as I’d like to pretend that I’m just going to focus on the models I already own I’m sure I won’t be entirely depriving myself of new stuff – there are World Eaters coming soon, and more Warcry warbands and Necromunda gangers, so even in this cost of living crisis I’ll try to allow myself the odd treat. Right now though I’ve got a baby to bath, boxes to unpack and other survivors of 2022 to fight for food and fuel. Have a wonderful 2023 all!

Blackstone Fortress: Chaos Cultists

First things first: let me get my excuses out of the way. This blog has been quiet lately and its probably going to stay that way for the next little while. I’ve not managed to comment on other people’s blogs very much either, although I have been reading them when I got the chance. My wife and I moved house at the start of December (well, I did the moving – she directed) and almost as soon as the last box was carried through the door our daughter was born (mum and baby doing very well thanks). She’s wriggly, healthy, tiring, wonderful and can shout for Scotland.

Needless to say building and painting miniatures just isn’t something I’ve been doing and won’t be for a while either I suspect. However I do have a bunch of models that I painted back in November (which seems like a long, long time ago now) and never got around to posting so prepare to feast your eyes.

Anyway, to no-one’s surprise I’ve gone and joined a cult. Well they all said it would happen one day… In this case it’s the chaos cult that lurks in the twisting halls of the Blackstone Fortress. I actually painted these a while ago but I’m just getting around to posting them now.

Leading the mob of insane faithful we have this cultist firebrand, ready with his flamethrower to give civilisation a helping hand if it doesn’t collapse quickly enough by itself!

I got so carried away painting the cultists from the Blackstone Fortress set that I even painted a couple of new ones from the recently released kit.

Much like the new Ork boys I really like these models but it’s a damn shame they’re not easier to kitbash, or at least come with a couple of alternative builds.

Anyway, with these done I now have a mighty mob ready to harass adventurers and treasure-seekers in the Blackstone Fortress, cause trouble in the Necromundan underhive or catch some bullets for their chaos marine overlords.

Plus, with the addition of the adventurers I painted a while ago, this means the entire Escalation expansion set for Blackstone Fortress is complete.

This will undoubtedly be my last post of the year, although I’ll try to put together a round up, but not a bad place to end things all things considered. Who knows, next year I might even get Blackstone Fortress finished entirely.

Blackstone Fortress: Zoat

Hands up everyone who thought we’d see another Zoat in our lifetimes? Anybody? Anybody at all? Yes, GW may have been willing to plunder their past over recent years, bringing back everything from Genestealer Cults to ambulls, even Squats, but I never seriously thought we’d see a Zoat again. And yet, here one is, ready to join the crew of adventurers in the depths of the Blackstone Fortress.

Wonders will never cease eh! It’s been a few years now since it was released and I still can’t quite believe it!

Blackstone Fortress: Dahyak Grekh

Earlier this month, after much fanfare, Games Workshop released the latest in their series of Warhammer Quest games; the ominously entitled Cursed City. Now I enjoy a co-operative game and the thought of smashing our way through shambling zombies of an evening seems like a fine thing to do round our house so naturally I picked it up and you can expect to see a few walking corpses and their heroic adversaries showing up here in due course. However this is also the month of the “Paint the Crap You Already Own” challenge being run by Ann’s Immaterium.

I’ve already painted some models for this challenge but I particularly wanted to paint something for Blackstone Fortress – Cursed City’s predecessor amongst the ranks of the Warhammer Quest games. I have an ambition to own a fully painted set of Blackstone Fortress (and all it’s expansions – or at least all the ones with original miniatures in them, I’m not too worried about completionism here). Excited though I am about Cursed City – and I intend to ride that wave of enthusiasm wherever it takes me – I don’t want to get completely distracted and leave Blackstone Fortress incomplete, especially as we’d quite like to delve back into it’s shifting corridors and finish the quest sooner or later. Time, then, to paint some of the “crap I already own” – specifically Dahyak Grekh, the Kroot tracker from the original Blackstone Fortress boxset.

Although I enjoy a detail heavy miniature I did find old Dahyak here oddly intimidating so I used the challenge as a spur to make sure I actually painted him, rather than bottling it and popping him at the back of the desk for “another day”. With him now done I’m one step closer to completing the original Blackstone Fortress set.

Blackstone Fortress: Aradia Madellan

Last night was another evening of frantic painting and, as a result, here’s another model finished for this year’s Fembruary challenge. I must admit I’m really enjoying just powering through all these unfinished miniatures, I wouldn’t – and couldn’t – want to paint at this rate all the time but it’s fun to just crack my knuckles, break out the brushes, put on some music and make a heroic headlong charge at the painting backlog.

Anyway, today’s model is Aradia Madellan, the sanctioned psyker from the Blackstone Fortress Escalation expansion (not to be confused with the unsanctioned psykers from the original game – those are very bad lads indeed and not in any way to be confused with a valiant servant of the Imperium like this lady).

With her done I’m not only one step closer to completing the all the models for the game (although I’ve still got a fair way to go on that front) but I’ve also, very fittingly for Fembruary, completed all the female explorers. In fact we could now, and why wouldn’t we, take an all female team in search of xenotech in the weird, shifting corridors of the Blackstone Fortress.

Not only that but I’ve also painted all five characters from the Escalation expansion, so that’s another milestone achieved. At some point I should really get around to painting all of the characters from the original game as well…

Is there more painting planned for this evening? Damn right there is!

Blackstone Fortress: Amallyn Shadowguide

Despite being a painter of Games Workshop miniatures for many a long year, and despite the fact that they’re one of the most iconic of the 41st Millennium’s inhabitants, I’ve never actually painted a single Eldar. Time to balance the books, at least a little, in favour of the pointy-eared ones.

Today’s subject is none other than Amallyn Shadowguide, the Eldar ranger from the original Blackstone Fortress and the kind of arse-kicking woman who make a perfect candidate for Fembruary. Although she was one of the first Blackstone Fortress miniatures I started painting when I got the set for some reason she fell by the wayside and sat around part-painted ever since (regular readers will know that this is an all too familiar story!). 

Amallyn’s backstory has her hailing from the craftworld of Beil-Tan but I’ve never really found their colour scheme that appealing – for those unfamiliar with it, it’s a very stark white and green – so I tweaked it and toned it down a little.

I do have a few more Eldar which were given to me by a mate when he was clearing out his old collection, and which are currently lurking, either in the webway or in a box under the bed, waiting to spring out as soon as this Mon-Keigh makes some time to work on them.

Blackstone Fortress: Daedalosus

Working on the servitor X-101 got me thinking about the sons of Holy Mars once again, and the fact that I haven’t painted anything for the glorious birthworld of the Mechanicum since back in April. Despite how much I know inside I love tech-priests and their ilk I still seem to have a bit of a mental block when it comes to actually painting them. Still, whilst I’ve got Blackstone Fortress on the brain I can always kill two (servo-)birds with one (radioactive!) stone and paint Daedalosus, the wandering tech-adept who can be taken as part of the band of adventurers venturing into the fortress.

I know I’ve slowed down a bit on getting Blackstone Fortress painted since I completed the original boxset, although this last week has done a little bit towards setting that right. We’ve got out of the habit of playing it since we discovered Warcry – although I paint plenty of other things that never see a gaming table so I don’t really see why that should make any difference. Still I would like to get the finger out and get everything else painted for it (especially once the wintery weather puts me off from being outdoors more than I strictly need to!). I’m still in two minds about buying the final expansion, Ascension. On the one hand the new Guardian Drones look amazing, we’ve enjoyed the game and it makes sense to complete the collection and finish the adventure. On the other hand the price feels a little bit like they’re taking the piss – safe in the knowledge that lots of people have been hooked by previous expansions Games Workshop are charging a bit more than I, without the box open in front of me to take a proper look at its contents, feels it really deserves. I may yet save up for it but it’s not the only thing GW are trying to tempt me into buying right now. I’ll think about it…

Blackstone Fortress: Servitor X-101

As promised the explorers risking life and limb in the darkness of the Blackstone Fortress can now be joined by the servitor X-101. Of course I won’t let the occasion pass to complain that GW really ought to provide us with some more servitor models, there are few things as evocative of the 41st Millennium and the few existing miniatures for them are hellishly old. Every Imperial faction could use a few servitors and gangs of corrupted, malfunction servitors would be a wonderful addition to Necromunda.

All in all he was remarkably quick and straightforward to paint and so I’m feeling enthused about tackling some more Blackstone Fortress models, perhaps finishing off the last few heroes from the original game or turning my attention to some of the expansions.

Blackstone Fortress: Nayam Shai Murad

A few days ago I asked my partner what I ought to paint next to add to our irregular games of Blackstone Fortress, a game we’re likely to break out more often now the winter nights are drawing in and Covid-induced lockdown is once again wrapping its loving arms around the nation. The answer, emphatically, was the rogue trader Nayam Shai Murad, so here we have her –  ready to join the slowly growing collection of heroes we can choose for our games.

I’ve got a bit of a buzz for painting Blackstone Fortress at the moment so I’ve put the servitor X-101 onto the desk, he looks fairly straightforward so I’ll try to get him finished up shortly.

Martian Madness and Pointy Elves

This weekend sees the Las Vegas Open, which is apparently some kind of big deal if you’re a tournament gamer who lives in Las Vegas. The rest of us might not pay that much attention, were it not for the fact that GW sees this as a grand opportunity to reveal some of their forthcoming releases. Needless to say I have plenty of thoughts about these and I’m not going to miss the chance to share them with the world because that’s how the internet works nowdays.

First things first we have the announcement of a substantial wave of new models joining the Adeptus Mechanicus. I’m not sure if I’ve apologised for this before but I’m a huge fan of the Ad-Mech. I say apologised because for many years I harped on about how awesome they were to anyone who couldn’t think of a suitable excuse to leave, about how great it would be to see a range of miniatures for them, about what a missed opportunity it was that GW failed to do anything with what must be one of the finest ideas they’d ever come up with. Then finally GW got the finger out and created a truly wonderful range of models, tapping into the weirdness of the Ad-Mech with real aplomb and I’ve painted nothing. In the five years since they first appeared I’ve managed to get about half-way through painting two Skitarii and that’s it. I didn’t rush out and clear the shelves of my nearest stockist but I have snapped up bargains and Start Collecting sets until I’ve gathered myself a sizeable heap of the Sons and Daughters of Mars and I love them as much as ever but I just haven’t got any of them painted. My soul may have long ago been sold to Chaos, and my heart will always be green and orky, but the Adeptus Mechanicus speaks to me to quite a profound degree, and yet I’ve done naff all about it.

Nonetheless this might be the moment to take the plunge. After all I’ve just finished off my Skaven so maybe I ought to roll up my sleeves and tackle the Martians. I wasn’t particularly wowed by the Skorpius tanks that emerged last summer, and in part that may be because I’m just not that big into tanks. To me the Skorpius are just a little plain, sensible and straightforward which is not at all how the barking-mad scholars of Mars like things. On the other hand the Archaeopter looks like much more my kind of thing, as weird and archaic as all the best Adeptus Mechanicus creations should be.

With the Serberys cavalry they’ve continued to up the Ad-Mech’s game as troops go thundering into battle on weird, bio-mechanical dogs. It’s utterly mad of course but then that’s how the Cult of Mars ought to be. I’m sure a few Imperial Guard fans are cursing that these have appeared but Rough Riders remain a thing of the past and although I agree with them entirely that Rough Riders deserve a new kit ASAP these models are one of the coolest things we’ve seen in a while (and it’s been non-stop cool things lately).

Speaking of madness we have the Pteraxii, another new unit of troops, this time with wings. Again the strangeness of the Ad-Mech is on full display and although I’m not so over-excited by them as I am the Serberys cavalry there’s still a lot to like here – not to mention what looks to be a lot of useful parts for Inq28 conversions.

I must confess the first thing I thought of when I saw them were the Bird Men of Catrazza, an old regiment of renown from the days of WHFB.  To be honest the similarity probably starts and ends with them being men with wings but it gave me a little thrill of nostalgia all the same.

All this Martian madness is due to be released soon, which makes me hopeful that GW will finally get around to releasing the Tech Priest Manipulus properly too. Until now it’s only been available as part of a Kill Team set, which would have been a bargain if I’d been in the market for any of the other contents – as it was it just looked like a very expensive way of getting the Manipulus model so I’ve been stubbornly holding off. Either way it now appears to be out of stock (unless I’m just failing to find it on the GW website) so fingers crossed the fat lad will see a proper release shortly.

Moving across to Age of Sigmar we discover that Teclis, once the premier mage of the WHFB setting and now elevated to godhood in the Mortal Realms, has been at it again. Following the capture of Slaanesh who was forced to disgorge the glut of elven souls they’d consumed during the End Times (I’m picturing someone sticking their fingers down a Chaos God’s throat until they puked – something Slaanesh probably gets off on) Teclis took his share of the available souls and turned them into a race of his very own. Sadly he made, not to put too fine a point on it, an absolute balls of things, and the result was the Idoneth Deepkin, a culture defined by their deep-seated trauma at being consumed by Slaanesh (not the mention vomited out again) and with a deeply difficult relationship with their spiritual father. With the majority of their race born with weak and withered souls they took to stealing the life-force of others and Teclis attempted to wipe them out, which only served to sour relations even further. You’d have thought old Teclis would have decided to write the whole business off as a bad job and leave creating new Elven races to others, but apparently he’s decided to take another shot at it and his latest effort are the Lumineth Realm-lords.

Perhaps worried about what they’ll get up to without him keeping an eye on them Teclis himself has joined the range, with a gloriously over-the-top miniature (although personally I still prefer Morathi and Alarielle when it comes to Elven Gods in miniatures form). Whilst Teclis himself looks suitably impressive the star here is Celennar, Spirit of Hysh, who may be intended as a creature of purity and light but could just as easily be something chillingly inscrutable and madly Tzeentchian.

These are very much old-fashioned elves in the style of the High Elves of yesteryear – some of them even ride around on horses! After the part-tree, part-elf hybrids of the Sylvaneth, the part-snake Daughters of Khaine and the weird, eyeless aquatic creatures of the Idoneth Deepkin these harken back to something much more traditional and Tolkienesque.

Incidentally I’ve recently discovered that the word “Aelves”, which GW now uses in place of the desperately outmoded “Elves” to differentiate their copyrightable pointy-eared people from the kind of pointy-eared folk that everyone else produces, should be pronounced “Elves” just the same as every other company’s elves. Until now I’d been pronouncing it “Aleves” with a hard “A” – which would have made all those fans crying out for some old-fashioned elves like these part of the Campaign for Real Aelves.

I don’t imagine I’ll be painting any of these myself any time soon, I’m sure they’ll appeal to a lot of elf fans and I can see that they’re beautiful miniatures, but they’re not really my kind of thing. That said pretty much every other AoS race has found its way into Warcry so perhaps someday these will too, in which case I might find myself tempted to put together a little warband and stretch my creative muscles into painting something bright, clean and noble rather than the filthy degenerates that usually attract me.

They did however get me thinking about the place of elves in the Age of Sigmar, and what that means for the humans which find themselves increasingly pushed to the fringes. In the past humanity stood at the heart of both GW’s key universes. Just as the Imperium has been the central mover-and-shaker of the 41st Millennium so the Empire lay at the centre of the Old World, with the other races scattered around the edge of the map. Elves lived on the outskirts, sailing their craftworlds through the depths of wilderness space or living on far flung, exotic continents like Ulthuan or Naggarond. AoS however has pushed the elves to the centre of the setting whilst humanity barely gets a look in. With the release of the Lumineth Realm-lords we now have four full elven races in AoS, joining the sea-dwelling Idoneth Deepkin, the never-knowingly-fully-dressed Daughters of Khaine and those most wooden of actors the Sylvaneth. Between them these races have sprung from just three of the Elven pantheon, Teclis, Alarielle and that old snake Morathi. That still leaves us with Tyrion and Malerion who are surely bound to usher in elven races of their own sooner or later, not to mention of the off-cuts of the old High, Dark and Wood Elves still knocking around the Realms. Rather than Age of Sigmar this could very easily have been called Age of Elves and one almost wonders why GW didn’t bite the bullet and do just that. Humans have been shoved into the margins of the setting, with most of those still living in the Realms being flesh-eating degenerates or Chaos worshipping thugs. In the purging of their old lines that followed the death of WHFB the Empire was spared the destruction that swallowed their brothers across the mountains in Bretonnia but sometimes you’re left wondering just what GW saved them for. The human perspective is a great narrative tool (most, if not all, of GW’s customers being human) but the old Empire range now look like people out of time, a race of proxies standing in for the fantastical city states described in the background. It’s easy to imagine the kind of strange and extraordinary cultures which might exist in the Realms, until you discover that everyone still dresses exactly like they did thousands of years ago in Reikland. I often dreamed of starting an Empire army myself and I certainly have nothing against them as a faction but they look out of place now, and GW seem to have little interest in developing new human cultures with which to populate their developing setting. Perhaps, with retrospect, they should have been bolder, packing the Empire range off to join the Bretonnias and Tomb Kings in the history books and reducing the human race to tribal savages, scraping by in the Age of Sigmar, with a few chosen champions elevated to join the Stormcast hosts, whilst the light of civilisation belongs exclusively to the Elves. In a decade or two they could have revived a few Empire concepts to the delight of old grognards who would rave to bemused youngsters about the era when bases were square. After all if you wait long enough everything comes round again, even zoats…

Of course, as soon as Teclis showed up with Celennar – who is at least in part a giant cat – Nurgle had to get in on the action with a cat of his own and a crazy cat lady to keep it company. Enter the Wurmspat, a new warband for Warhammer Underworlds. Underworlds hasn’t really grabbed me as a game, I’m not really interested in card games and the focus on the competitive side leaves me cold, but there’s no denying it’s brought us some outstanding models. With the Wurmspat we see not only two more Blightkings, each of which is a chip off the manky old block and a fine looking decedent of the original Nurgle Lord, but we also get Fecula Flyblown, our first Nurgle lady (and her cat). Of course I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth but for traditions sake I will repeat the same mutterings that I make every time there’s a new Nurgle release – that this was a fine chance to bring us a pestigor and they missed it again.

Last but very definitely not least we have a real blast from the past, the first Zoat to grace the worlds of Warhammer since the ’80s (by my memory at least). When I first heard that a Zoat was part of the reveals I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that this would be Zolcath, the Blood Bowl star player. Who would have thought a second Zoat might be waiting in the wings after all these years?

In many ways Blackstone Fortress has stepped into the same niche as the Specialist Games studio, allowing GW to produce those things which fans still love but which don’t quite fit in to the established armies of the main games. So far we’ve seen Rogue Traders, Imperial Navigators, a Man of Iron, Traitor Guard, Dark Mechanicum, even a stonking great Ambull. Of course nostalgia is all very well but the strength of all of these has been that they stand on their own two (or in this case four) feet as excellent models, more than deserving of attention and admiration in their own right. One wonders what else might emerge from 40k’s shadowy corners to walk the halls of the fortress; Squats, Hrud, Eldar Corsairs or Exodites, perhaps even a Slaan? Of course the question now is, will the Zoat be an adventurer or an adversary? I suspect it’ll be the latter of course but the former would be wonderful. Who wouldn’t feel more comfortable tackling the maddening halls and unravelling corridors of the xenos star-fort with a Zoat at their side?

Finally, in the midst of all this excitement, it would be remiss of me not to mention the appearance of the Eightfold Harvest Lord, a Khorne worshipping maniac now stalking the surface of Necromunda. Having sworn to bring cannibalistic madness down upon my favourite Imperial planet I was already contemplating making my own version but to be honest this beats what I’d come up with hands down. Of course, like all the Forge World bounty hunters he’s a little pricey but I reckon he’s one to save up for (not that this will be easy with all these other lovely looking miniatures crowding the release schedule over the next few months!)

Needless to say I’ll be watching all of these miniatures emerge with great interest, although exactly what I end up adding to the collection and what I allow to pass by remains to be seen. After all there’s clearly plenty more waiting in the wings – and any fellow Ork fans out there will know I’m extremely curious to get a proper look at Makari’s boss. Can the greenskin to rival Abaddon get a model to match? We’ll know soon enough…