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!

Going Berserk

The forces of Chaos have always, by their very nature, been an eclectic bunch, their technology unrestrained by by the strict edicts of the Imperium and their bodies twisted and mutated by their daemonic patrons. Here Games Workshop has almost limitless potential to be creative, and us hobbyists can kitbash to our hearts’ content. Over the years however the degree to which this is reflected in the Chaos Marines’ range has waxed and waned. When I first fell to Chaos back in the mid-2000s there really wasn’t a whole lot to differentiate the followers of one god from those of another. If I painted my Marines green I was sworn to Nurgle, if you painted yours red you were a follower of Khorne. There were a few god-specific models kicking around as I recall, mostly still made of metal, but not many. What really drew me to the service of the Dark Gods was a combination of several factors; a mate gave me his old codex, I had no money to spend on new models and I owned a load of loyalist marines, a bunch of bits I’d scrounged up and an over-active imagination. The result was kitbashing carnage and a life sworn to the ghastly powers that dwell in the warp.

In recent years however things have improved a lot. The release of the Thousand Sons brought us a range of kits specific to Tzeentch’s chosen legion and, although I now think some of those could be improved a lot and expanding the range further would be well worthwhile, at the time it was a revelation. Then along came the Death Guard and really blew me away. With its huge range of unique kits all designed around the theme of a single god this remains, for me, the gold standard for a Chaos Legion. Needless-to-say I’ve been waiting with baited breath for GW’s designers to turn their attention to the World Eater’s and Emperor’s Children and, at last, the former has arrived.

After months of build up, Saturday morning saw the full reveal of Khorne’s legion and for me they were well worth the wait. We’d already seen some of the range of course, the Khorne Berserkers for example were shown off back in September.

These are really nice models, workmanlike and perhaps not the most surprising or creative but fitting the bill perfectly and demonstrating that a model doesn’t have to be fancy to be good. When I first saw them I thought “Yeah, these are fine, they do the job” but the longer I’ve looked at them the more I’ve come to love them. I always say that you can swap out specialists and leave characters on the shelf but if you don’t care for the core troops then the army isn’t for you.

Plus they certainly beat the hell out of the old kit, which has been kept going long, long after it should have been shuffled off to retirement.

Then in October we saw the appearance of Lord Invocatus, a special character who rides around on a thunderous juggernaut spreading carnage.

Now I think the juggernauts of Khorne look really cool and I’m always happy to see someone perched atop one of these mechanical bulls and laying waste to the followers of the corpse-emperor so you’d think I’d be a fan of Lord Invocatus but honestly he doesn’t do much for me, especially now that we’ve seen the very similar generic Lord of Khorne (below) which, for my money, is much nicer.

Like the Berserkers the Lord on Juggernaut just gets on with doing it’s job and looking cool. Lord Invocatus meanwhile feels like it’s trying too hard to stand out as something special whilst working with a limited range of options crammed into a small amount of sprue space. From what we’ve seen so far my assumption is that one kit can make either the Lord on Juggernaut or Lord Invocatus, in which case Lord Invocatus’ flaws become a bit more forgivable – there will always be limits to how much you can do with just one sprue after all. If Lord Invocatus proves to be an entirely separate kit I’m less impressed, a special character should have a lot more visual impact than this. Either way the head with the crest and yet another topknot just doesn’t work, and there’s nothing about him that feels particularly unique or cool. Go big or go home I would say – give him his own kit with an extra large, souped-up juggernaut, daemonic weapons chained to his arms and a few crazy mutations, or don’t bother. As it stands I can see the generic Lord on Juggernaut finding a home at the head of my army but Lord Invocatus just doesn’t look all that special to me.

However Lord Invocatus isn’t the only special character in this release. No discussion of the World Eaters is complete without mentioning the big man himself; the Primarch Angron.

Following in the footsteps of Magnus and Mortarion, Angron is the third daemon primarch to enter the setting and he looks outstanding. I do struggle a bit to paint these very large kits so perhaps I should restrain myself from rushing to buy him, and I sometimes feel GW are in a bad habit of making models that are bigger, and bigger still, but if there’s one time when being OTT is just fine it’s the daemon primarch of the World Eaters.

On Saturday Games Workshop revealed the rest of the range, the headline to the article even going so far as to promise “Hordes of New World Eaters Units”. What we saw was, for my money, some of the best things in the whole range – but “hordes” is stretching the truth a little.

First of all we have Eightbound, possessed berserkers who have been driven into a killing rage after discovering they have one of the daftest backstories in the setting. Chaos Marines which have been possessed by daemons have been around since the very earliest days and I’ve been hoping we’d someday see models which really reflected the natures of both the marine and the daemon doing the possessing (Death Guard marines possessed by daemons of Nurgle for instance, or in this case Khorne Berserkers possessed by the rage-filled daemons of Khorne). This would be more than enough to satisfy World Eaters fans but no, some silly eegit who probably communicates only in memes, decided that they should be possessed by not one, not two, but eight daemons of Khorne! Because OTT is cool right? Because eight is the holy number of Khorne right? Because everything Khorne should have something to do with the number eight right? Because I don’t know very much about the background and I don’t have anything in the way of an imagination but somebody gave me the job of writing this bollocks and nobody cares about “fluff” anyway!

As someone who turns from mild-mannered and easy-going Wudugast to a rage-fueled monster that Angron himself would tell to calm down at the mere mention of the word “fluff” seeing this kind of rubbish published has, in the parlance of da yoof, “triggered” me so let’s move swiftly on. The models, at least, are really cool. I shudder to think about the price but I want them anyway. Each one can be built as either a possessed marine…

… or an exulted version which has beaten the daemon within into submission and gained even greater power as a result.

I really like the way each one can be tweaked to be more or less possessed so that you can dial up or down the level of mutation on display your own taste. Personally I like my marines to be twisted by the warp, but too much mutation is by no means a good thing so I’ll probably end up somewhere about halfway between these two examples. I also really like the way the armour is forming into a mouth that’s swallowing the marine’s head in a nice nod both to the battle against the daemon that’s occurring within and to the icon of the World Eaters (a fanged mouth biting down on a planet – they never were a very subtle legion…).

Lastly we have the cultists of Khorne, deranged mortals known as Jakhals.

These are ace, I’m a big fan of Chaos Cultists and this has been a good year for them. I will undoubtedly be looking to get my hands on some of these; to serve as cannon fodder for my World Eaters, as a berserker vanguard for my Lost and Damned cultist horde, as more recruits for my Necromunda chaos cult and to kitbash with my Necromundan Corpse-Grinders.

The preview also notes “If you think they look nasty now, wait until you see what they can do when they’re all juiced up on stimms” which makes me hopeful that there’s an alternative way of building of this kit still to be shown.

This appears to be the unit champion…

…however it’s this brute that has me particularly interested.

He’s bigger than the other cultists and referred to as the Dishonoured so could it be that we’re looking at a failed World Eater of some kind who’s been stripped of his armour? We can’t see the back of his head from this angle, if we could we’d be able to see if the Butcher’s Nails are there or not, so for now all we can do is guess. Either way he’s a damn cool model as he is, although once again I’m thinking about Necromunda and wondering if he might have a use as a Goliath champion with a bit of kitbashing.

Anyway, apart from Lord Invocatus and some very dodgy lore regarding the Eightbound, this all looks fantastic and I’m already cracking my knuckles and pacing, a low growl building in my chest as the Butchers Nails start to bite and command me to paint, paint, paint for the Blood God! However, I can’t help but ask “Where’s the rest of it?”. Your way of estimating exact number of kits may vary but there’s no denying, the Death Guard got a hell of a lot more than this. The World Eaters, like the Thousand Sons, lean very heavily on the wider Chaos range to bulk up the numbers with borrowed kits and daemonic allies. For a long time I’ve been feeling that Tzeentch’s legion was short changed in comparison to the followers of Nurgle, and now the World Eaters seem to have gone the same way. Based on this release the World Eaters will get six kits of their own (the Berserkers, Eightbound, Jakhals, Lord Invocatus, Lord on Juggernaut and Angron himself – plus the already released Kharn of course). The Death Guard got somewhere around twenty and are visually much more complete as a result. I recognise that GW do not have entirely unlimited resources, just as I don’t have unlimited money, time or energy to spend buying and painting models, but it’s hard not to feel that more could have been done here. This isn’t so much eating the world as taking a small bite. Where are the juggernaut cavalry to follow the mounted lord into battle? Where is the World Eater’s Lord on foot for those days he doesn’t feel like riding to war? Where are the daemon engines with which Khorne has had such a long association; the brass scorpions, blood slaughters, berserker dreadnaughts, blood reapers, doom blasters, death dealers and cauldrons of blood? Where are the Khornate beastmen, the Berserker Surgeons, the Ogryn Berserkers, Red Butcher Terminators, a new kit for the Mutilators or the Teeth of Khorne – the World Eater’s heavy weapons squads designed by Jes Goodwin all those years ago? These last are particularly missed I think as they’d bring something to the army other than just angry men who want to get into close combat and hit people in the face. Having a theme to an army is good, but – despite what the kids with the memes would have you believe – there’s no need to treat Khorne as being one dimensional.

Overall I’m really happy with what we’ve got and I’m sure some of it will be finding its way into my Chaos collection in time. Part of me hopes that this is just the first wave and, like the Sisters of Battle and other recent releases, we’ll see a second wave with a whole heap of new kits in a year or so’s time. Part of me however fears that they may end up like the Thousand Sons and left on the sidelines.

Anyway, I’m off to eat some raw meat and sharpen my chainaxe. If you have thoughts other than the hammering of an angry god stabbing painfully through the raw flesh of your mind and want to punch the keyboard furiously until it spells out a message then the comment’s box is the place to do it.

Total Waaagh! – Part 6

…And here we have it, the final update of the annual Ork painting contest versus IRO (at least until next year of course). I’ll be away from home tonight so realistically I’m not going to get any more painting done before November. Still, my weekend was quite productive so let’s take a look at what all I managed to get done.

First up, another of the savage Beastsnagga Boys.

Inspired by a couple of Orks I saw at Dave Stone’s Wargames Terrain Workshop, which incorporated a bit of purple in the skin, I decided to try giving him some purple warpaint. I think it’s a bit subtle here, I was a little cautious with it and the blue animal-skin cape draws the eye away from it, but it’s something I’ll keep playing with as and when I get around to the rest of the squad. For now, here he is hanging out with the rest of his newly painted Beastsnaggin’ buddies.

Speaking of Beastsnaggas, next up we have an imposing Beastboss (a Snakebite Warboss by any other name). I built him pretty much “as standard” but swapped out his head – I wasn’t too keen on the original although I reckon it’ll work well on a different model.

He’s a big lad – towering over the rest of the boys.

One of my objectives for this month was to build and paint the warboss who rules over my rambunctious horde. Sadly he’s still in bits, but at least the Beastboss can stand in for him in the meantime.

Next up, another Kommando.

I’ve wanted a squad of these ever since I got into the greenskins and doubly so since the new kit was released. With these 5 sneaky dudes (plus Snikrot of course!) done I’m calling that objective achieved although I love these models so much it’s safe to assume there will be plenty more in the future.

Then, roaring over the horizon in a cloud of dust, we have another squig-hog boy.

I really like these models, especially this one with a wheel instead of hind legs, and getting at least a couple of them done this month was a key goal for me. In a perfect world I’d have liked to paint a squad of bikers as well, and kitbash some boarboys on cyboars (hint GW; add these to the next wave of Ork models you release eh!) but no matter, all of that will come in time. In the meantime at least these lads are ready to ride out.

Lastly, but by no means least, I’ve finished off the third of my Killa Kans.

Much like the Kommandos I’ve been wanting to add a squad of these to the collection for years and years and years so I’m chuffed to bits to have the three of them ready to go at last.

In fact, I’m really pleased with everything I managed to get painted over the last few weeks. IRO thoroughly trounced me in our contest of course, but that’s ok because it just means I’m going to have to work harder to regain my honour next year! In fact IRO has been an absolute painting machine this month, churning out awesome terrain and all kinds of Orks at a rate with which no mortal man can compare. He’s also been an excellent sport and a real gent, both on the blogs and “behind the scenes” as it were (although the less said about what his wife thinks I’m called the better…). It really is worth repeating that without the challenge I would have got an awful lot less done so thanks to IRO for giving me the encouragement to find the mental discipline to get these painted and keeping me on my toes all month. There is NO need to be concerned and one of his monkey ninjas is NOT threatening me, knife clasped in one hairy paw, as I write this. I repeat, there is NO need to send help and I’ve NOT been abducted and threatened into writing this praise by murderous simian thugs in the employ of a ruthless Antipodean.

At the start of the month I thought about laying out a list of objectives I was intending to achieve. Having given it more consideration however I decided that this would be unwise, I knew this was going to be a busy time with “real life” concerns and I wanted to have fun with the challenge rather than put too much pressure on myself to complete specific goals. Still I’m pretty damn pleased with everything I did manage to get done; Snikrot, the Kommandos and the Killa Kans have all been longstanding ambitions, and I’ve been wanting to get started on the Squig-hog boys for the last year or so as well.

There are a fair number of things I didn’t get done of course, but then my eyes have always been bigger than my stomach when it comes to painting miniatures. I’d have like to get the Warboss finished, and the aforementioned squad of bikers. Vehicles are another thing my Ork army is a bit short on; IRO actually has an awesome fleet of ork vehicles (seriously, don’t tell him but I’m a bit jealous – you should go to his blog and check them out if you haven’t already). I do have various unassembled ork buggies sitting around, plus a whole heap of ideas I’ve done nothing with, and part of me did dream that I’d so something about that this month – alas it was not to be. I also planned to add a squad of Flash Gits but that too fell by the wayside, although the balance was redressed somewhat when John of Just Needs Varnish! sent me this awesome git.

And although this month was mostly about my Warhammer 40k Orks I did manage to sneak in another addition to the Blood Bowl collection with the star player Varag Ghoul-Chewer.

So, where does that leave us? Why, in need of a parting group shot of course! Let’s take a last look at all the ugly greenskins I’ve managed to accrue over the last few weeks.

The score for this weekend comes to another 7 points (1 per Ork and 2 each for the Killa Kan and the Squighog rider). Add that to the score accumulated so far and we find ourselves looking at a fairly respectable 27 points. This falls a little short of IRO’s score (38 points at the time of writing although god knows, by the time I get around to posting this he’ll probably have knocked out half-a-dozen more mad, ramshackle vehicles and added a few more districts to his Ork town).

As for what comes next I’ve got a whole heap of projects that have been crying out for attention, and have been completely ignored over the last few weeks as I concentrated on Orks so all being well they’ll get their turn in the sun next. Or who knows, maybe IRO and I will just carry on painting Orks, disregarding all other concerns in a glorious WAAAAGH! that never ends! Watch this space I guess…

Total Waaagh! – Part 5

It’s Week 4 of Orktober and time for another roundup of my progress, after which I’ll have just a few more days to squeeze in a final ork or two.

I’ve still not finished building the Ork Warboss who’ll someday be leading this army but I did get around to kitbashing this nob to carry his banner.

Next up another rusty Killa Kan joins the one I painted last week.

Then we have another Ork boy.

Meanwhile this boy stands ready to annihilate IRO and his minions with his trusty rocket launcher.

Last, but by no means least, I’ve finally done it! It may have taken me over a decade but Boss Snikrot is painted at last!

Now I said back at the start of the month that if I could get Snikrot painted I’d be calling this month’s endeavors a win. As you can see that goal has been achieved so let’s all agree that I have indeed won and not look too closely at our respective scores…

Oh you’re going to insist on seeing the scoreboard are you? Very well – this week brings me another 6 points so the tally for the month now stands at 20 points. Meanwhile my painting adversary IRO has put on another burst of speed and extended his lead even further – at the time of writing he has 32 points under his belt. I’m no quitter but I think it’s safe to say I’ll need some very fancy footwork indeed to catch up to him now.

Ork Reinforcements Arrive!

Well here we are, the clock ticking inexorably down towards midnight on the 31^st of Orctober and the end of the annual Orktober Wudugast vs IRO greenskin showdown. You might think I’m on the ropes, with IRO having pulled out an unassailable lead. You might think I’m as good as beaten already. You might be right. But this is the moment in any good high-stakes action thriller when, just as you think the hero might be defeated, that help arrives from an unexpected quarter. The villain (in this case a certain nefarious Australian) hesitates mid-way through his triumphant speech. The hero, paint-splattered and exhausted but still defiant smiles grimly. The audience shifts to the edge of their seats, watching events unfold with baited breath…

Alright, maybe I’m over-egging things a little, but I’ve got something really cool to show you today. I do have a load of Orks painted (not enough to defeat IRO yet but enough to make my defeat less humiliating) and I was going to talk about them today but instead I’m going to save them for tomorrow (by which time who knows, I might even have painted some more). Instead we’re going to look at an Ork painted by someone else – and no, it doesn’t count towards the contest because that would be cheating and if I’m going to be beaten by IRO I’m going to do it fair and square. (The orks painted by my production-line of slave minions locked in the basement do count, of course, but we don’t talk about them in case they start plotting to escape again).

A few days ago I was contacted by fellow blogger and all round top bloke John from Just Needs Varnish (seriously, if you’re not already familiar with him do yourself a favour, go and check him out and give his blog a follow). Those of you who are familiar with him will know Orks aren’t the kind of thing he usually paints but as it happens he did paint one recently and he sent it to me as a gift. What a guy eh!

Now funnily enough this is a Flash Git and I’d been planning to paint some of them this month but, for various reasons, I’ve not got around to them and I really don’t see it happening now. So having resigned myself to not adding any to the army for a little while it was a particularly nice touch to have one arrive out of the blue. The story of how the Ork came to John, and why he then decided to paint it and send it to me is for him to tell if he wants, suffice to say I’m chuffed to bits to have this classy-looking guy in my collection.

Edit: If this has whet your appetite for Gits of a flash variety and you want to read John’s side of the story, he’s now written a post about it which you can find here.

Total Waaagh! – Part 4

Well here we are at the end of week 3 of the great annual Orktober painting battle between the Imperial Rebel Ork and myself. After IRO’s storming start to the month and my fairly dismal performance in week 2 a lot of people will have sensibly written me off so it’s time to come back swinging.

First of all we have this clanking, smoke-belching, rusty monstrosity; a Killa Kan. I’d quite like to add a whole squad of these to the army this month but we’ll see how it goes.

Next, another ork boy…

…and another of the new Beastsnaggas.

Lastly we have a couple of the new Kommandos. Have I mentioned how much I like these models? I like them a lot! This boy is ready to smash the door and unleash havoc!

Whilst his mate is a vicious knife-fighter, and he’s ready to get all stabby!

So let’s see what that all adds up to. To keep things (relatively) fair we’re using a scoring system which you can find out all about here. As a vehicle the Killa Kan is worth 2 points, whilst each of the orks (plus Varag Ghoul-Chewer who got his own post earlier in the week) is worth 1 point each, making this week worth a total of 7 points. Add that to the 5 points I scored in week 1 and the 2 I scored in week 2 and we find ourselves with a grand total of 14 points with just over a week left to go. IRO still has a lead on me but I’m back in the game (note “in” not “on”) and there’s still everything to play for as we hurtle towards November and our cataclysmic showdown.

Total Waaagh! – Part 2

Well, here we are – one week into Orktober already and it’s time to take a look at how I’m getting on in my now annual struggle to the death against fellow blogger IRO. (Can one have an annual struggle to the death? I’m going to say yes…).

First up we have this ugly brute, and his mighty squig-hog! I’m not sure you can call this a conversion as I didn’t add anything to him, but I did leave quite a lot off. The original model was a bit too busy I felt, with lots of extra armour, grots hanging on and so forth, and I preferred a more slimmed down look.

Meanwhile this Ork Nob started out as one of the single-pose models from the Assault on Black Reach set but I decided to make him a bit more interesting by chopping off his arms and replacing them, and giving him a new head into the bargain.

In the past I’ve talked about my mixed feelings in regards to the new ork boys kit. I really wish it was easier to kitbash them to create a rag-tag horde of unique models – but on the other hand they do make for cracking miniatures straight out of the box. This one is a particular favourite.

And speaking of cool models, last but not least we have this Kommando.

By my count the Squig-hog rider is worth 2 points and the other 3 models are 1 point each so I’m currently looking at a score of 5 in my contest against IRO (find our “rules”, such as they are, listed here). The coming week is looking pretty busy and I’m going to be working through this weekend so progress is likely to be slow but at least I’m off to a solid start.

Total Waaagh! – Part 1

The boundary between reality and the Warp shivered and bulged before, with a flatulent squelch, tearing itself open. Like a goblet of phlegm coughed up by the green gods themselves the space hulk Wurldbreaka tore free of the immaterium and thundered back into real space. Cut off from their natural home, the daemons which had been attacking the ship began to collapse, wailing and giggling, their unnatural forms crushed by the uncaring hand of harsh physics. Down in the bowels of his ship Mad-Boss Murdakk da Mighty put aside his favourite shoota, giving a last idle kick towards the dissolving carcass of a thing with many eyes and wings which had, until a moment before, been trying to tear off his face with it’s many suckered hands.

“Roight!” he said to no-one in particular, “Let’s find out where we are den!”. All around the ship still echoed to the sounds of wailing grots, decompressing metal and the sudden cracks and bangs as overenthusiastic boys fired a last few shots at dying daemons or their slower and duller-witted mates. Murdakk smiled contentedly to himself. He’d heard that the Imperium, cowardly gits that they were, used a thing called a Geller Field when transversing the Warp in order to keep their ships from being overrun by the howling creatures of Chaos. “Sounds roight borin’ to me”, he muttered, “Gettin’ to fight dose weird gits is da best part of space travel. No wonder humies are weak”.

He turned to Bashem, his second in command. Bashem had all the qualities Murdakk liked in a first officer – being both hard of thinking and an expert in the field of shouting.

“Let’s get to da bridge, find out where we are. I’ve got a good feelin’ about this one!”

+++

“Kaptain on da bridge!” yelled Flickit the grot, smirking to himself as he spotted the predicament of Bugelit, the Mad Boss’s personal grot-herald. Caught quite literally with his pants down, Bugelit hopped desperately back from the drops and reached his station just in time to burst into a rousing chorus of Murdakk’s famous anthem. “Mad-boss, Mad-boss, whatcha going to do? Whatcha going to do when he yurk…”.

“Shaddap,” Murdakk muttered, squashing the little grot flat with one armoured boot. “You”, he jabbed a finger at Flickit, “New Bugelit. Clean dat up!”. Parking his massive bulk in the Kaptain’s chair he growled “Get sensors online”. At once a fearful grot scurried to throw open the shutters and allow the assembled orks to see out through the window.

“Enhance da image”. Obligingly a mob of sweating grots pushed the Mad-Boss closer to the window.

Ahead lay a planet shrouded in dark clouds of filthy smog, the atmosphere occasionally lit by flashes of green lighting. Looking straight down from their vantage-point in the heavens the Orks could see a city directly beneath them, it’s rusty towers emerging from leaning mounds of junk, it’s outer walls ringed by roadways littered with burned out wrecks and its scrap-lined streets busy with the distant figures of thousands of orks.

“I fort so”, the big ork growled. “I’d recognise dat pit anywhere! New Ork Leans! We’re back boys!”

“Fort you said we wur goin’ where da best fightin’ is?” said Furst Mate Bashem uncertainly. Murdakk treated his old buddy to his friendliest scowl. “Don’t you worry mate”, he declared, “We’ve found it!”

Well here we are, another year older and not a bit wiser and it’s time once again for Orktober and my now annual Ork painting challenge vs fellow blogger and all-round top-bloke the Imperial Rebel Ork. IRO has already been hard at work putting together his awesome kitbashes, including laying the foundations of the great greenskin fortress known as New Ork Leans. Meanwhile I’ll be trying to clear my way through more of the heap of unpainted models that have been gathering dust on and around my painting desk. Some of my unpainted orks date back more than a decade so for now the focus of my efforts has switched from “Convert or Die” to “Clear The Backlog or Else!”. Last year I battered through 37 greenskins of various shapes and sizes (and bizarrely enough, so did IRO).

This year I’m aiming to focus on my Warhammer 40k Ork army, although there might be the odd fantasy Orc sneaking in here and there. I’ve been working on this army since the mid-2000s, they were my first 40k army and they’re still probably my favourite faction. Of course a side-effect of this is that there’s a lot of models that have fallen by the wayside and never got the paint they deserved. A month or so IRO posted an inventory of all his Orks so far, which inspired me to look back and do the same thing. Here’s the total fighting strength of my Murda Boyz after almost two decades of recruiting.

1 Warboss

2 Big Meks In Mega Armour

1 Weirdboy

Ghazghkull Thraka (and Makari of course)

105 Ork Boys

22 Gretchin

2 Runt herds

2 Painboys

7 Burna Boys

5 Lootas

16 Nobs

4 Meganobs

5 Stormboyz (although these really need repainted and rebased)

1 Nob riding on a Smasha Squig

3 Deffcoptas

1 Truck

1 Lobba (plus crew)

1 Deffdread

Total – 181 angry futuristic green gits

So what am I planning to paint over the coming month? Well, Orks mainly – I’ve dug out all the stuff I’ve assembled but never got around to painting and its a pretty sizable heap of gits; mostly infantry but also some vehicles, kans and bits of scenery. I don’t want to box myself in by committing to too many specifics but one model I will definitely be aiming to paint is this guy; Boss Snikrot.

I loved the background for him when I bought my first Ork codex, and loved the model even more when it was eventually released. I pre-ordered it with my (at the time very limited) funds and so its somewhat embarrassing that I never painted it. If this is the only model I complete this month I’m calling it a win (IRO may of course argue that this isn’t enough in to count as a win in and of itself and I still need to actually paint more models than him – don’t listen to him!).

That said, even Orks must adhere to the rules of war and this year we’ve structured things a little differently to make sure this cut-throat competition is as sporting as we can manage. Here’s IRO himself to explain how it all works.

This year, after much behind the scenes squabbling, long nights pondering over ancient scriptures and scrolls, debating with scholars and military tacticians we have come up with a new set of rules. 

Last year, quite simply, it was one model = one point. 

This year, still quite simple really, the point scoring system is as follows: 

One greenskin (grot, stormboy, nob etc) = one point 

One vehicle (buggy, trukk, Deff dredd etc) = two points 

One terrain piece (scatter terrain, tower etc) = three points

Anyway, needless to say I’m dead excited about Orks right now, and that’s been translating into a desire to paint something green and mean. On the other hand I wanted so save my Orks for Orktober (somewhat counter-intuitively because the aim is to get my backlog painted not leave it sitting there but go with me here). Instead I wanted to paint something Orky, something that would fit into my Ork army, but not something that I could paint a few days from now and count towards the contest. What a conundrum eh! Luckily I knew exactly which model would fit the bill – a mean little git who’s most definitely not an Ork, in fact he’s a thorn in the side of Orks everywhere; da Red Gobbo.

Da Red Gobbo first appeared back in 1998 where he led the Gretchin Revolutionary Committee in the game Gorkamorka, his goal nothing less than throwing off the shackles of oppression for gretchin everywhere, raising the flag of revolution in every Ork camp and putting the bigger greenskins in their place once and for all. He returned with a limited edition model for Christmas 2020 (which I chose not to buy, feeling it was bit on the pricey side) and another for Christmas 2021 which I caved and snapped up.

I remember when he was announced enjoying a quiet chuckle at the forced controversy that sprang up online, especially in those parts of the internet where people refuse to just enjoy themselves. Either he was very offensive because he mocks Communism (something that must never be the butt of a joke comrade – workers of the world unite!) or he was very offensive because he mocks Communism (something which is no laughing matter – even to mention it without caveats about how dreadful it is places us on a short, slippery slope that ends in a Stalinist purge). Anyway, I think he’s pretty cool. Check this detail out for instance. This is the inside of the squig’s stomach.

That’s right, the sculptor has taken the time to add the various baubles that the greedy squig has eaten, even though no-one will ever see them on the painted model. That’s attention to detail! The one thing I’m not keen on about him is the Christmas theme – that’s a joke that only works on one day of the year and the Gretchin Revolution is for life not just for Christmas. I trimmed away all the Christmas elements, painted him in a more restrained style, and ended up with this. Vive la révolution!

Anyway, dat’s enough rabbitin’ on from me for one day – tomorrow we go to WAAAGH!

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!

June 2022 Progress Report

Early in 2022 I found myself thinking a lot about the way I’ve been going about this hobby, and the things I have and haven’t been painting. I think I’m a fairly prolific painter, admittedly not as much as some but I churn out a lot of models and on the whole I’m happy with the quantity and quality of what I produce. Despite this however there are a lot of projects that I’d like to see completed but which, for whatever reason, never seem to get done. By “projects” I mean sets of miniatures; an army, a Necromunda gang, a Warcry warband, a Blood Bowl team, the contents of a board game – you get the idea. By “completed” I generally mean; painted to a stage where we can get a game with it or where I’ve painted all the models in a particular set. So for example my Daughters of Khaine for Warcry is a completed project, even though I have some “bonus” models like a Medusa that I’d like to add to it. Blackstone Fortress on the other hand I’d call partially completed; I’ve painted enough models to play a game with it but I’d still like to paint up the rest of the box so we have plenty of options when we decide to get a game in. I know this criteria is a little vague but the key thing is, it works for me. If you’re thinking of attempting something similar with your own backlog then work out what works best for you and go from there.

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. So, over the last few months, I’ve been trying to do something about that. 

Partly this is about changing the way I look at the “pile of shame” (or as I now call it, the “Mountain of Madness”) and my efforts to tackle it. 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). 

This bias in my outlook cosied up neatly to the tally of models purchased and painted that I’ve been keeping in recent years. New models excite me and so I buy them – but the growing number in the “bought” column doesn’t look so bad if there’s a large number in the “painted” column too. Thus if I had the choice between painting 100 models and completing 2 projects or painting 10 models and completing 10 projects I’d have chosen the former – up until recently that is. The interesting thing is, by changing tack to this more “project focused” approach I’ve actually ended up painting more models than I have in previous years. My current tally stands at 191 miniatures painted so far this year – that’s more than a model a day and vastly outnumbers the 83 I’d painted by this time last year. In fact it’s more than my total output for the entirety of 2020.

In trying to overcome the backlog in this way I had to work out an inventory of how much I’m up against and compare this against how many models I can reasonably expect to paint (I know many of my readers are also fond of spreadsheets – really is there such a thing as a problem that can’t be solved by a spreadsheet? I think not). This gave me a reasonably accurate idea of the scale of the task and unfortunately it’s a biggie. If my goal is to just paint everything I have, I don’t buy anything else (some hope!) and I continue to paint at the current rate (doubtful – for various reasons) it’ll still take me several years to get it all done. Realistically though the more time passes the more likely it becomes that any given project will never be finished at all. And even if things do turn out exactly as the spreadsheet predicts do I really want to wait that long to get around to my Delaque gang, painting up Cursed City or whatever other projects find themselves falling to the bottom of the list? 

Since I first wrote about this back in February I’ve put together a list of projects and started trying to focus on them. From there I worked out how many models were needed to complete each project and how close to being fully painted said models were, and then started with the ‘easy wins’.

So how did I decide what to paint? After all, any way I slice it there’s still a lot of stuff in the heap to be tackled. The journey of a million miles may well start with a single step, but which step should it be when there are so many to choose from? To answer this I applied three key criteria.

• 1. Inspiration and enthusiasm. At the end of the day I’m still very much a believer in the idea that this is for fun, it’s a hobby not a job. I’m here to enjoy myself, not to saddle myself with extra chores. Plus I’ve always found that if I’m excited about painting something I get in the zone and power through it, and if I’m not then I really am better off leaving it for another day – the process will be dull and the end results uninspired.

• 2. How many models did I need to paint? I made a list of all my projects and worked out how many models each one needed to be called complete. The fewer models needed, the further up the list it went. If a model counted for multiple projects so much the better. My Khorne warband for Warcry needed just two models so I decided to tackle it ASAP. My Orc and Black Orc teams for Blood Bowl both needed just one troll (and better yet it was the same troll!) – they too got fast tracked. My WHFB Dwarf army needs around 130 models – needless to say it’s not currently a priority (another insult to be written down in the great book of grudges..!).

• 3. For my third criteria I used a little mental exercise. Imagine that I discover that I’m going to live a very long, healthy and happy life (hopefully this part is true!) but that I’ll never be able to paint a miniature ever again (hopefully this part is not true!). What models will I look back regretfully and wish I’d painted for my collection? In some ways this covers similar territory to criteria 1 but the fact is there are quite a few models I’ve been really wanting to paint for ages – and yet every time I look at them I think “Not today, there’s something else I ought to paint first”. Well why not today? It’s my hobby and I’ll do what I want damn it! Time to stop putting off fun and get them done. And don’t worry; it really is just a mental exercise – I’m not going anywhere!

Up to now I’ve not really talked about what specifically I’m planning to tackle so the aim of the second half of this post is to lay that out and look at what I’ve managed to complete so far. It’s a living list, things will undoubtedly be added as and when inspiration strikes, but I’ll be aiming to look at it and talk about how I’m getting on every quarter or so – and as we’re now at the end of June this is a perfect moment to take a look back and see what I’ve managed so far. 

Warcry

Let’s start with somewhere that significant progress has actually been achieved already. I find Warcry is a great excuse to work on little skirmish warbands from all over the Age of Sigmar setting, putting together small groups of models that appeal without bogging myself down in painting large armies. Warcry is one of the few games I actually play on a semi-regular basis and I really like the idea of having a range of factions to call upon. This is an area where I’ve already made great strides and even before I started on this challenge I had warbands from 13 different factions in my collection. The forces of Order were represented by the Daughters of Khaine, Death by the Nighthaunt and the Flesh-eater Courts, and Chaos by the Daemons and Mortals of Nurgle, as well as Skaven borrowed from my WHFB army, and the Iron Golems and Untamed Beasts which were released specially for the game. The forces of Destruction have been particularly busy, unleashing three types of Orc (the Bonesplitters, Ironjaws and Kruelboys) alongside mighty Ogres and scheming Gloomspite Gits. Over the last few months I’ve added Soulblight Gravelords…

…Stormcast Eternals in Thunderstrike Armour…

…Sylvaneth…

…Warriors of Chaos…

…and Khorne Bloodbound.

Speaking of Khorne I also painted this Bloodmaster (that’s a herald of Khorne if you’re an oldster like me). The range of Khorne deamons for Warcry isn’t all that extensive (just bloodletters, flesh hounds and juggernaughts) so I had planned to just take a relaxed outlook on the rules and include a few daemons alongside my mortals rather than putting together a warband that might feel a bit “samey”. However now I’ve got the Bloodmaster painted up I’ve got options, so once I’ve retrieved my bloodletters and flesh hounds from storage I can unleash an entire band of Khornate daemons should I feel the need to do things strictly by the book.

As well as all these factions borrowed from the wider Age of Sigmar setting there are a number of warbands which have been created specifically for the Warcry game. In many ways I think of these as the real Warcry warbands and I’d love to paint all of them, each one is weird, exciting and unique. As things stand however I’ve only managed the aforementioned Untamed Beasts and Iron Golems, both painted back in 2020. I’d very much like to add to that list before the year is out.

Terrain

Another major project has been to complete all the terrain from the original Warcry starter set and with the completion of this building that’s done at last. 

By adding it to all the other terrain I’ve finished we now have a small ruined town to fight over should we so wish. 

Of course this is just the beginning, I’m still planning to work on all the terrain from the Catacombs and Red Harvest sets as well. On top of that I’d like to expand my collection for Warhammer 40k and Necromunda, and with a solid start made to the fantasy side I’m hoping this will take the drivers seat over the next few months. In the meantime I’m calling this goal achieved – although there’s still plenty of room for bonus “stretch goals” yet to come.

Kill Team/Warhammer 40k

I’ve lumped these two together for now as they essentially cover the same territory – one at the skirmish level and one at the army level. As a whole the 41st Millennium is a setting that I love and for which I have a whole heap of models, both painted and unpainted. As games however these two leave me cold, for a range of reasons that would take a blog’s worth of text to elucidate. Thus when I first sat down to address the clear out back at the start of the year I thought I would probably give them only the minimum of attention. To begin with my only set goal was to complete this Death Guard kill team, something that required only a minimum of effort. 

Now I’ve heard that a plague marine fire team now runs to 3 models which, if true, only serves to illustrate one of my key objections to these games – GW’s constant tinkering with the rules which means that nothing stays the same for more than 2 minutes before an errata is released for the FAQ of the designer’s notes that explain the latest changes in the codex that’s just arrived for the game’s 170th edition. 

However, rules be damned, I love the models and I have a lot of them that I’d like to get painted – many of which are already half-done and lurking in boxes. This situation is nothing new, I’ve not played 40k in any serious way since the early days of 5^th Edition and it’s not stopped me painting plenty of them in the years since. However without a rules framework it’s harder to describe exactly what I’m planning to do here. Looking through the pile I find plenty of Orks, Chaos Marines, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Necrons, Adeptus Mechanicus, Genestealer Cultists and Eldar, plus a few Sisters of Battle. Plenty to be getting on with in other words. Of these some command large numbers of fully painted miniatures, and others are a little more sparse… I’m aiming to at least get together some small armies for most, or if possible, all of them – think something akin to a “combat patrol” (i.e. a couple of squads, a vehicle, a hero or two and a dreadnaught) but as goals go it’s deliberately ill-defined. Obviously some of these factions have already exceeded this goal, in some cases by a considerable margin, but I’ll still be adding recruits to them here and there because I want to, damn it, and all work and no play makes Wudu a dull boy (see also Criteria 1 and 3 above). So far my attention has been focussed on the Necrons and I’m pleased to say I’ve shaken a few of them out of their dusty tombs – enough that I could probably call this goal achieved in their case if I was feeling generous (and I am). Plenty more androids to come in the next few months though!

Blood Bowl 

This feels a bit like cheating (but that’s Blood Bowl right?) because I’m counting one model towards two projects, but I’m going to call it efficiency. I’ve been promising to paint this sporting troll for absolute donkey’s and so when I started this project I fast-tracked him to the front of the queue. 

This completes both my Orc team…

…and their even tougher cousins on my Black Orc team. 

Since then I’ve been been chipping away at a team of Necromantic Horrors and a heap of Snotlings, neither of which have achieved full-team status as yet.

I also have a number of other teams I’d like to paint up so hopefully we’ll be looking at a whole load more Blood Bowl by the time we get to September’s round up. 

Necromunda

Ah, my beloved Necromunda – my home away from home amid the overcrowded hives, the stinking sumps and toxic ash-dunes! I have so many projects I’d like to tackle here but alas the last six months have seen bugger all done. I shall mend my ways by the September round up I promise – and if I don’t you can sell me to the Guilders.

Aeronautica Imperialis

This one is nice and straightforward to describe; my goal is to paint everything in the Wings of Vengeance box and so far I’ve completed none of it. Just to prove I’ve not been entirely idle though here’s my first assembled Ork Dakkajet. Who knows, I might look to complete the whole Ork half of the set in Orktober. 

Adeptus Titanicus

Picture it – two armies of tiny titans, one sworn to the God Emperor, the other to the Warmaster, beating seven bells out of each other as the Imperium burns. What have I done to make it happen, aside from snapping up a few models when they were going cheap a few years ago? Not a thing!

Blackstone Fortress 

We played a fair bit of this a while ago and it’s one we’d like to get back into, so completing all the unpainted models is one of the key projects on my list. Previously I managed to complete most of the miniatures from the core set, minus one or two of the heroes, as well as both models from the Traitor Command expansion and all the heroes from the Escalation expansion. My next goal is to finish up all of the other expansions and the heroes from the original set that I never got around to. 

Cursed City 

Sticking with Warhammer Quest we move from the far future to the grim darkness of a city overrun by the undead. My aim with Cursed City is nice and straightforward; paint everything in the box. So far this year I’ve been working my way through the various baddies that roam the haunted streets and crumbling thoroughfares,  starting with ten zombies (borrowed from the wider Age of Sigmar range)…

… and two mighty ogres of the Kosargi Nightguard.

I had hoped to get a few more heroes done by now (so far only Emelda Braskov is complete) and finish off at least one more squad of baddies but it was not to be. I’ll see what I can do about that over the next few months.

A Song of Ice and Fire 

At the moment I have two projects on the go here; a House Stark army and their rivals from House Lannister. My aim is to get each of them up to 30 points (enough for a small game) and then keep expanding in 10 point increments until I get to at least 50 points each – enough for a large game or to mix things up in smaller games. Beyond that I’m tempted by some of the other factions in the game but that can wait until I have these first two armies up and running. 

So far I’ve been quite focused on the Starks and, as well as various characters and the beginnings of several squads, I’ve got a whole unit of Sworn Swords fully painted. I had hoped to have at least one more squad done by now and put together a nice group shot of the army but alas it was not to be – I promise to do better before the September round up rolls around.

My Lannisters meanwhile are a little further behind, but the Mountain is well on his way to summoning all of his men so I’ll aim to get this squad completed in the near-ish future.

Hate

At the moment I don’t have any set goals that I’m working towards here, I just really like the models so I’ll keep chipping away at them whenever I feel like it. Expect to see the odd one pop up whenever I fancy painting some crazy barbarians. 

Summing Up

I’m feeling pretty chuffed with everything I’ve got done this year, especially as the past few months are always the busiest at work (and this year has been no exception on that score). By the end of July work will be getting a little calmer but other commitments look set to take over so how much time I have for painting as the year progresses remains to be seen. That said I’m going to list a few key targets that I’d like to achieve by the time we get to the end of September and the next quarterly progress report.

• Necromunda – get another gang up and running, most likely the Orlocks. More if possible.
• Warcry – get at least one of the “core” warbands painted, the Spire Tyrants look like a good option here.
• Blood Bowl – get the Necromantic Horrors team finished. As that only needs 2 ghouls I’m going to aim for getting another team up and running as well.
• Blackstone Fortress – complete at least one expansion.
• Cursed City – make significant progress. Hard to quantify on this one, I’d love to get it finished of course but I’m not going to try to bite off more than I can chew. A squad or two of mooks and/or some of the heroes would count here, whereas a single corpse rat just isn’t going to cut it!
• ASOIAF – make significant progress. Again I’m not going to put an exact figure on it here, just that I want to get something done and again one model isn’t enough!

Really though this is the bare minimum I’d like to achieve. More would without doubt be merrier. Keep an eye out over the next few months and let’s see how I get on.