Lord of the Rings

Community Roundup – March

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Jerry S

This Month’s Painting

So to start this month off, I want to show you guys the Non-Adepticon related painting that I completed this month. Its a short list though so don’t worry, you’ll get your Adepticon coverage shortly!

The first and only model that I completed outside of Adepticon prep was the below Deathwatch Space Marine. I inherited a small Deathwatch army and combined it with my already existing (unpainted) Deathwatch force last year with the intent to (someday) paint it. My plans were moved forward as fellow warlord, Kevin C. has been painting up his Deathwatch and having so much fun doing it that I simply had to join in the fun!

You’ll see the first test model completed below, with the rest of his Kill Team not far behind. I really didn’t want to spend hours edge highlighting these models so I pulled out the airbrush to test my limits and get a nice deep black color.

I’m pretty happy with this tester, it really pulls off the “Special Forces” vibe that the Deathwatch are known for, but I think I will be punching up the grey highlights just a tad on the future models! I’m hoping to get the first 10 models done this month then hop over to finish those Old World Chaos warriors I showed off last month.

Adepticon

Next up we have the main event, Adepticon! I’m going to start out with a quick overview of the army I painted up for the event: My beautiful Ultramarines Boarding party for Horus Heresy! I’ve always wanted to build, paint, and play a force of marines all decked out in boarding shields, and this year’s Adepticon was the perfect opportunity! I didn’t grab any pictures of these lads on the table as I actually only played 1 game with them (I skipped the games to hangout with a couple of British chaps as you’ll read about down below) but they looked marvelous and will definitely be on the table again soon!

Other than Horus Heresy, I was able to play in the Lord of the Rings Doubles Tournament on Friday and partnered with my steadfast companion Middle Earth Mike, we brought a company of 50 Warriors of Minas Tirith to battle…3 battles to be exact!

It was a great outing for Gondor as we pulled out 2 major wins with only one loss! More importantly, we had 6 fantastic opponents and shared many beverages over the course of the day!

If we’re going to be honest, it was a miracle we stayed standing all day, and as such I won’t regale you with tales of the battles, I’ll just leave a nice gallery of pretty pictures below for your viewing pleasure!

I finished Adepticon off with a couple new skirmish games that I shamefully have now fully invested in. Below on the left, you’ll see a picture from a game of What a Cowboy! that I was able to demo, a fierce battle between a Mormon family and a small group of Confederados! You can read more about this showdown here on Goonhammer.com

The right picture above was taken during my first ever game of Warzone: Eternal, a brand new remake of an old wargame from the 90’s that was brought back last year via kickstarter. I walked by their booth in the vendor hall and was immediately smitten with the cool 90’s technopunk vibe of the models and the fast-paced game play. As I mentioned above, I am not fully invested in this game so expect to see some techno-samurai showing up on your hobby feed shortly!

As I continued my (very hungover) stroll through the vendor hall on Thursday, I came across a booth where you could test out the Two Thin Coats paint range, there was no way I was going to resist the opportunity! While I sat there, I was able to chat with a nice British chap about his new business, his new wife, and all of the exciting hobby projects that he is looking forward to over the next few months…oh and then another nice British chap came by and I just had to memorialize it as you can see below next to a nice little frog I painted up at the booth.

Once I was bitten by the painting bug (curse you Duncan) I absolutely needed to paint some more. I wandered around Adepticon forlornly for about an hour before I stumbled on a FREE hobby area! Adepticon yet again proving that it is Disney for wargamers! I grabbed a cheap brush from one of the many vendors around (I later found out they had free brushes, oh well!) and sat down to paint the event model that I received from Victoria Miniatures as part of my Adepticon swag bag!

As you can see, this model turned out incredible! I only had the one size brush and I knocked it out in just a few short hours but I am tremendously happy with the results!

Coming off of the Adepticon high, I am again so thankful for the ladies and gents that throw that incredible event every year. Every time I go I love it more and more- I feel like I still discover new and exciting new ways to enjoy the convention and I will definitely attend again next year! The discovery of Warzone: Eternal(more to come), Duncan’s Two Thin coats, and the Adepticon hobby area have me absolutely buzzing about the next convention…All of that on top of my normal excitement to play my normal games and explore the convention!

Until Next time, Adios!

Austin B.

Short-cuts Make For Long Delays

Well what started as a small detour to break up my painting and prevent burnout has turned into my primary focus. Having examined what I had all in my attic for Battletech, as well as the new releases coming out, plans for the two forces I discussed in the last article have ballooned to many now, as I split up my backlog between factions and try to fit the new releases into the mix as they come out. And, most hilariously, I have even detoured from the two factions I detailed last time in favor of others! No further work has been done on Clan Goliath Scorpion’s Omega Galaxy, or the Bavarian-inspired RDF2 of the Hanseatic League. Instead, others have taken hold of my attention, of whom I shall now regale you!

The first and most far-in are the first of my two custom Mercenary bands: the Solar Knights. Initially planned as a bit of a joke, I quickie decided I actually wanted to move ahead on them in earnest. The idea behind them is rather fun and amusing, with most of the mechs’ names being suitably ‘medieval,’ with such options as the Warhammer, Black Knight, Templar, or Longbow. My other Mercenary company is similarly themed, though I am far looser with theirs than here. Painting all of these took up the majority of the first half of the month, while I worked out more detailed plans for how to divide up my remaining mechs. AT this point, most have actually been allocated to one project or another, and I have only a few spares with no home. For now…

The second of my Mercenary bands, and far less completed than the first since they are a more recent project, again spun out of a joke. The theme this time around is the Wild West, with Scorpions and snakes (the Adder), and eventually Gunslingers, Marshalls, and Enforcers.I really quite like sticking to a theme with most everything. It can be quite fun and ground otherwise absurd projects. Hopefully I will get some more of these guys done this month. Perhaps polish off all the models I currently have for them. There are only about a dozen more to do!

Exiting the Inner Sphere, I’ve also found myself working on two complementary forces: Clan Snow Raven’s Zeta Galaxy, and the Alliance Grenadiers of the Outworlds Alliance. Both come together to form a combined Raven Alliance force, though they remain separate just as their two militaries still do in the lore. In larger games of Alpha Strike I may play the two of them together, but really they’re just two tangentially related painting projects under the Battletech umbrella. Technically Zeta Galaxy shouldn’t be around for the era I am intending to depict, but I’ll let that slide for what is a very cool and fun paint scheme. Best depicted on the Black Python, each mech actually has a jade rhombus painted on their torso. It’s just that for most of the mechs the shape wraps from the front of the torso to the back. 

And last of all, heading back to the Inner Sphere, and back to my first Battletech faction, I have a single test model finished for yet one more project: the New Avalon Institute of Science’s (NAIS) Training Cadre, of the Federated Suns/House Davion.

For this unit my plans have not been totally finalized, but I don;y want to push much past a Company (so 12 mechs). I have about 8 models already picked out, so it’s just sorting out the final 4 or so. This unit was more born out of necessity, as with some of the new releases there were several cool mechs that I didn’t really have an appropriate faction to give them to. And with my initial Davions complete, for all extents, I decided that a new, smaller project to eat up some of these mechs would be a fun idea. Plus it was a great opportunity for some wild camouflage! I am hoping to complete a few more of these guys within just the next few days. But otherwise, stay tuned for much more mechs to come next month! That, and perhaps a detour back to Shatterpoint, with the new releases on the horizon… 

Kevin C.

Cawdor Rehabilitation

Last year, fellow painter and blogger Austin traded my Nomads from the Ash Wastes box (which, honestly, I only got for the Orlocks and the terrain) for an abandoned project of his – Cawdor gangers. While my Orlocks will always be very near and dear to my heart, I’ve often felt that Cawdor epitomizes everything Necromunda – numberless, filth-covered gangers running around with weapons made out of literal trash.

This was the condition of the miniatures that I received from Austin – eight mostly painted, five with some paint on them, and about seven more that were not even assembled. I went about assembling and priming the unassembled ones, as well as an additional box of Redemptionists that I received for my last birthday (more on them later).

With the miniatures that were mostly painted, I just changed the robes color that he painted from a burgundy-purple to a brighter red, to give it more contrast. This was deliberately to unify the paint scheme for the entire Cawdor gang. I also based them and added some flame tufts on the base because, you know, Cawdor.

I next tackled some of the partially painted miniatures, which proved to be more difficult than I was anticipating. I couldn’t do an exact match for colors, so I ended up trying to unify the miniatures with some Agrax Earthshade, to at least cover the differences in grime and gradient. I also started playing around with different colors for the masks, and added some green for the eye lenses, since that will contrast well with the red and beige.

The miniatures that had no paint on them, I used some modified versions of what I had already painted, as well as some tips from online. I did not like the setup of the tutorial, so I will not post it here. Suffice to say, the video used the base – wash – rebase – highlight formula in the most obtuse way possible, reusing the same wash multiple times in contingent regions of the miniature. This really slowed down the painting, since I had to, unnecessarily, wait for the wash to dry before continuing. Not a fan.

Cawdor Redemption

As mentioned previously, I received a box of Cawdor Redemptionists for a birthday a while back, so I decided to add them to the painting queue. It proved… more difficult than I had expected to replicate the paint scheme I used for the gangers with the Redemptionists. I suspect this is because they were much less scraps and tatters and more robes and metal frames.

The final result was quite a bit shinier than I had anticipated, only partly due to the Chrome highlight I used (similar to what I used on my Word Bearers a few years ago which I really liked). They will definitely stand out against the rest of the gangers, but I lost quite a bit of the uniformity that I was going for. Maybe I will give the Redemptionists names, and then use the gangers as chaff in games.

RPG Miniatures

As a bit of a palette cleanser, I decided to take up two miniatures I have used in my ongoing in-person RPGs, Pathfinder and D&D. For Pathfinder, I play as a slightly older rapier-wielding swashbuckler, and I only had one miniature that met that scheme – Janus Draik from the Blackstone Fortress set.

I am quite pleased with how he turned out, and he really stands out as a flamboyant character on the table.

My second miniature was not a Games Workshop miniature, but one that I got from PAX Unplugged last year (https://dmminisus.com/products/dragonborn-paladin-krimmdar). I am playing as a gold dragonborn paladin in the D&D game that my college buddies have going on, so I tried to replicate what equipment my character has – adamantine plate, sun blade, etc.

I’ll be honest, I was not terribly pleased with the sculpt. A lot of detail was missing in the miniature, and so a lot of the contrast I was trying to put into the miniature just didn’t work. Even still, I was able to get a good adamantine effect using watered-down Talassar Blue Contrast over Leadbelcher, with some selective highlights of Chrome. The skin was inspired by this really great video on painting textured gold from Artis Opus (https://youtu.be/i7FeFkvcb38?si=me_c7yh3ckDpB1s-), and the sword was an adaptation of the tutorial on Demonic Hellblades using only Contrast Paints (https://youtu.be/ajZhDsrGa-A?si=T1qrBrFdAkRBAz_8 ).

Deathwatch Incoming

For my April project, I plan to complete my Deathwatch army, which has had quite the storied history. I was able to get a Dreadnought completed before the end of the month, so consider this a teaser.

Until next month!

Michael S.

This month I have more Imperial Fists to add to my slowly growing army and am finally getting back around to Old World. Recently I have been spending a lot of my hobby time playing other board games and card games, but towards the end of the month I got back into the saddle.

I took the better part of a Saturday morning this month to prime and basecoat a bunch of models, including some Hellblasters and a load of skeletons for my Tomb Kings

Basecoating Imperial Fists, even with an airbrush, is quite the test of patience. Many people like to prime in pink/red, but I prefer to work my way up through orange browns as it is much easier to color match in the event you make a mistake later during painting. It also brings out the shadows nicely without oversaturating them, leaving me with a nice muted yellow. These Hellblasters are still sitting primed alongside some other half-painted models, but they are at LEAST primed 😊. 

I did manage to get some good work done on a unit of 5 scouts. For the first time, I was happy with the way the fatigues on the scouts turned out. In my long history of painting I have always attempted cream-colored fatigues, only to be disappointed with the final look. The bright yellow of the armor gave me an opportunity to go with a darker, near-black for the cloth.

I incorporated some extra urban rubble into the bases with a simple color pallete of black, browns and greys. The leather pouches need some attention, and the armor needs to be pinwashed, but these guys certainly look good enough to hit the table for now.

While I didn’t have a ton of progress this month, my curio cabinet is starting to come together and is at least all yellow, and only a few intercessors didn’t catch the muted yellow memo. Seeing this small army start to take shape has me excited to paint even more!

Tomb Kings progress has been limited to giving the dragon some proper jewelry and a drybrush. I was initially worried about the model looking too boring, so I tried to work in some reds and purples into the shadows. Not much, but just enough to add some visual interest. So far so good!

A Tale of Many Warlords- November

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Another month done, I can’t believe we’re already through November, how the year has flown by…. But even as the days get shorter, our diligent hobbyists keep working. While this month’s article is a shorter one, I think you’ll be impressed by the work completed nonetheless!

Kevin C.

On to my third act for the year… my Rohirrim, which I have had sitting on my shelf for about a year. They aren’t the worst offender in my queue; I still haven’t finished my pre-Primaris Deathwatch, which have sat unfinished since 2016. Even still, with the new edition of Lord of the Rings coming down the pike, and all of my Necromunda buddies having played it and enjoyed it, I figured I should get in on the action. And I refuse to play with unpainted miniatures, so…

Riders of Rohan

My main source for instruction on painting the Riders was the Duncan Rhodes tutorial. He does a great job with setting the stage for one method of painting the Rohan riders, that I then used to experiment with in variations in later iterations. For most of the elements on the rider, he uses a base, wash, rebase, highlight method, and I replicated that method. 

For the cloak and the shield edges, I used Castellan Green, Agrax Earthshade, Castellan Green, and highlight of Loren Green. 

The red cloth underneath was Khorne Red, Agrax Earthshade, Khorne Red, and Wazdakka Red.

The trousers, sleeves, and helmet were Doombull Brown, Agrax Earthshade (noting a pattern here?), Doombull Brown, and Skrag Brown. The contrast between these last two coats was a bit too stark, but seeing as how the bits were small, I think I was able to get away with it.

At this point, I should note that, since most everything was a wash of Agrax Earthshade, I obviously started with a base on everything, washed almost everything (except the face and hair) and then brought them back up to base color, and then did the edge highlight. The rebasing and highlight got rid of much of the shine from the wash, but if you don’t rebase your models after the wash, you will definitely need to Matte Varnish them, or else they will have a weird shine to them, like so.

The white emblem on the shields, I went with a consistent Rakarth Flesh, Agrax Earthshade, Rakarth Flesh, and highlight of Pallid Wych Flesh. This proved pretty difficult near the end, as there is not a truly defined edge to the emblem, so many of the later emblems became sloppy.

The metals were Iron Hands Steel and Retributor Armor, both washed with Agrax Earthshade, and highlighted with Stormhost Silver and Liberator Gold respectively. I decided not to go with Chrome on these miniatures. While I love Chrome, and it makes everything pop, I felt as though it would’ve taken away from the more earthy tones of the Rohirrim. Maybe if/when I do Minas Tirith…

Finally, the skin (what little can be seen) was Bugman’s Glow, Reikland Fleshshade, Cadian Fleshtone, and Kislev Fleshtone. The hair was Zandri Dust, Seraphim Sepia, then Ushabti Bone. While I usually try to do multiple fleshtones and hair colors with other miniatures, I felt that there was enough variation in the miniatures that I kept them all blond and pale-skinned. Rohan is not necessarily known for being a diverse cosmopolitan place.

The horses I based in Mournfang Brown, and then washed in Agrax Earthshade. I then brought up the highlights from Mournfang, to 50/50 Mournfang and Skrag Brown, and finally an edge highlight of Skrag Brown. While Duncan does a wash for the mane and tail, I decided to use a Contrast of Wyldwood, to get a darker, richer contrast (no pun intended) across the mount.

The socks on the hooves were an interesting project, and one I’ve never done. I started with a 50/50 mix of Skrag Brown and Rakarth Flesh, then a highlight of Rakarth Flesh, and finally an “edge” highlight (mostly at the ankle) of Pallid Wych Flesh. I think the socks turned out great, and I replicated them across the entire set.

At this point, I should note that these were much harder to paint than I’ve done for a while, as unlike most of the 40K/Fantasy stuff I’ve been painting recently, these are true scale. I’ve painted true scale before, namely Infinity, but I find that I often have to give up on painting detail on the faces. Thankfully, most the of the faces here are taken up by either helmet or beard, but it is something that annoys me.

More Riders of Rohan

Now that I had my first set of 12 finished, I continued on to my next set of 24. Absolutely no variation in the posture of the miniatures, so I had to settle on varying something else. So I chose different horse colors…

For many of these recipes, I used the painting tutorial that I found here:

How to Paint Miniature Horses for Wargames – 2019

I didn’t do black or white horses, for separate reasons. I plan to keep white horses for my heroes – Theoden, Eowyn, Hama, and Haleth. And I don’t like doing black horses as they tend to look too dark and monochromatic on the field. So, for the basic riders, I went with dark brown, tan, grey, and spotted.

I also didn’t want painted horses (much to my wife’s chagrin, as she owns a painted horse), namely because that screams Mustang to me, which is an American breed. Rohan, being based on Anglo-Saxon England, didn’t seem like a natural fit for painted horses. 

The paint recipes, while they ended up working, didn’t work quite as well as Duncan Rhodes’ methods. Some of the color transitions, especially with the lighter colored horses, were too stark for my tastes. Still, they diversified the colors of the army, so I’m pleased with how they turned out.

Final Result

Well, I’ve been told by Austin that 36 Riders of Rohan is more than a Rohan player will ever need. For a Bretonnian player, 36 cavalry seems a bit small, but I will take his word for that.

Not quite Pelennor Fields level of cavalry (I’d need 5,964 more horses for that, apparently), but this will get me through a few games.

Next month, I plan to paint my Warriors of Rohan (dismounted) and the heroes I have currently, Theoden, Eowyn, and Merry. Finally, the boxed set should arrive in the middle of the month, so it is possible that I can get those miniatures assembled and painted before the end of the year is out, thus completing THREE armies in one year.

Jerry S.

Kevin’s progress this month a tough act to follow wow! I’m incredibly impressed by his conviction and ability to finish the projects he starts!

On my side, I had a pretty prolific month myself! Even with a week away due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I was still able to finish almost 50 models!

In the true wargaming tradition, Instead of finishing either of the 3 projects I’m currently working on (Solar Auxilia, Tomb Kings, or Arnor/Angmar for Middle Earth SPG) I started a brand new one at the end of September. As I hinted at last month, that new project was a reinforced platoon of American GI’s in winter clothing from Warlord Games for their brand new Bolt Action 3.0!

A little background on that, I grew up watching old war movies with my dad, The Great Escape, Von Ryan’s Express, A Bridge Too Far, the list goes on and on. I always loved these movies, the overexaggerated good guys and bad guys, corny action scenes, these movies hold a very special place in my heart.

I’ve always had my eye on Bolt Action, the game really pulls on those Hollywood WW2 themes from the old movies and the models are all overexaggerated and cartoony, just the way I like them. I’ve actually started 3 Bolt Action armies over the years, picking up Germans, Soviets, and Americans in the past, picking them up and then putting them down and selling them one by one. This time was different though, the new ruleset provided a great jumping off point and the absolutely awesome American Winter Infantry kit that came out in September was the perfect opportunity to jump into the game once more!

And Jump in I did! I picked up the new Battle of the Bulge starter set, a Sherman tank, another 30 infantrymen, and a whole plethora of support weapons. This gave me a sold 70 infantry as well as 2 vehicles to support them

This month, I managed paint the 30 infantry I had assembled in October, as well as a few of the weapons team I picked up. While I haven’t finished the basing on all of the models (darn you Amazon and your slow snow deliveries) I was able to lock down exactly how I wanted to base these guys. A sparse snow covering with some foliage and grass poking out of the snow. This gave the bases the look of a snow covered forest floor, perfect for any battlefield in the Winter of 1944/45 or for the snow-covered alpine peaks of Italy.

With this batch done, I got cracking on assembling the second wave of infantry, their heavier support weapons and then the much needed vehicle support!

Returning to the Old World

Switching back to one of the projects that y’all have seen quite a bit of this year, I dusted off my Old World army of 2024 and finished the last 10 Skeletons from the Tomb Kings Battalion I bought to begin the year!

I still love painting these Skeletons, even after finishing over 100 total this year so far! This last block of 10 is the last group of Skeleton Warriors/Archers I need for the 2000 Point Tomb King army I’ve been working on this year and as you can see below, the completed Skeletons look a formidable sight on the battlefield.

Now that the basic infantry is done, I can finally start the fun stuff. I’ve got a whole group of Stalkers, Scorpions, and Ushabti to get painted up and ready to defend the lands of Khemri! I guess I should even paint up one of those “Tomb Kings” that everybody has been talking about…Even the undead need a leader after all.

Before we move onto the last batch of models I worked on this week, I couldn’t let you leave before showing you the fearsome Necrosphinx I finished constructing this month.

News from the Kingdom of Arnor

Some of you readers may know this already but I got my start in wargaming way back in the early naughts with the release of the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battlegame. This game has always been my bread and butter, and while I took a break for a a year or so, the announcement of the new edition has brought me fully back.

I’ve been working on a middle earth gaming board the past few months, and an nice Arnor army to battle on it as you’ll see in the past few articles. I was able to continue this progress this month with a force of 6 Arnor Knights and a captain to lead them.

I wasn’t able to finish these brave defenders of Arnor this month but I imagine I’ll finish these in the first week of this month. Ready in time for the new Edition on 12/14!

Speaking of both next month and the new edition, I’ve got some huge plans for next year to go along with the new edition! I don’t have much in the way of details quite yet but I hope to share some more information next month!

A Tale of Many Warlords- July

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  1. Mike P.
  2. Jerry S.
  3. Kevin C.
  4. Joe R.

Mike P.

My Journey of Painting Empire and Hobbit Miniatures

Over the past few months, I’ve been diving into the world of painting miniatures for Warhammer: The Old World and the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, focusing on Empire and Hobbit models. This journey has been both challenging and rewarding, allowing me to combine my love for gaming with creative expression.

Painting the Empire

The Empire has always fascinated me with its blend of medieval aesthetics and vibrant color schemes. Painting these miniatures was an exciting project, and I wanted to capture the essence of these noble warriors through the following techniques:

-Classic Colors and Detailing: I started with the Empire’s signature reds and whites, using these bold colors to paint the uniforms and shields. To add realism, I incorporated metallic paints and experimented with techniques to achieve a metallic sheen on their armor.

-Intricate Heraldry: One of the most enjoyable parts was painting the intricate heraldry and banners. I used fine brushes to add tiny details to the crests, which required patience but significantly enhanced the models’ appearance.

– **Bases and Terrain:** To complement the miniatures, I crafted bases that mirrored the landscapes of the Empire. I added textures like cobblestones and grass tufts to create a sense of battle-worn terrain, making the models look like they were standing in the midst of a skirmish.

Painting Hobbits

Painting Hobbit miniatures for the **Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game** was an entirely different experience. Hobbits are characterized by their simplicity and charm, which I aimed to capture in my painting.

-Earthy Tones and Subtle Shading: I used earthy colors like browns, greens, and muted reds to paint their clothing, ensuring the tones were warm and inviting. For shading, I employed washes to add depth to their small cloaks and tunics, highlighting the folds and creases.

Community and Learning Resources

Throughout this journey, I’ve leaned heavily on the painting community for inspiration and advice. YouTube tutorials from channels like “Warhammer TV” provided step-by-step guides that helped refine my skills. Social media platforms like Instagram offered a space to share my progress and gather feedback from fellow enthusiasts, while local hobby workshops and competitions fueled my passion by connecting me with like-minded individuals.

Conclusion

Focusing on Empire and Hobbit miniatures has been a delightful artistic adventure. Whether it’s the disciplined soldiers of the Empire or the endearing Hobbits of the Shire, each miniature tells a story, and painting them has deepened my connection to these fascinating worlds. As I continue to hone my techniques, I look forward to exploring even more characters and bringing them to life with my own artistic touch.

Jerry S.

Wow July was a fun month. The oppressive heat of the southern summer, and a quick bout with Covid put a pin in my outdoor activities and forced me to spend most of my free time indoors. I aimed to take maximum advantage of my situation by painting as much as possible!

Painting in the Age of Darkness

With NOVA looming in the near future, my #1 priority this month has been getting my Thunderhawk ready for the tabletop. Every NOVA, myself and a couple friends play in the Horus Heresy megabattle that is hosted on Saturday evening. Its typically the only chance we have to bring out our truly titanic(pun intended) warmachines and this year Mike P. and I are hoping to reveal our super heavy fliers to the world. To do that though, I need to finish painting mine!

I made some great progress on the massive bird, airbrushing all of the blue and white panels then tackling the majority of the metallics with the brush.

I’m not 100% happy with the way the paneling as turned out. I was hoping there would be a little more visual interest but I have yet to shade and highlight so that will hopefully help. stay tuned and if everything goes right, I will have a completed thunderhawk ready for the next update!

The thunderhawk has been just eating my painting time this month but I managed to step away for a couple hours and painted up the new Hibou Khan that was released earlier this summer.

Hibou Khan

I am very pleased with how this model turned out. As many of you know, white is a famously difficult color to get right and I went back and forth for months on how I would be painting my White Scars. The process I settled on seems to be exactly what I was hoping for as it allows me to paint a crisp white and then dirty it down. This really sells the effect of a polished white armor that has been well used.

One more step in the Old World

Moving away from Horus Heresy, I was also able to paint yet another block of skeletons for my tomb kings. This time they are equipped with bows instead of spears though! Very exciting. I’ve got 1 last block of 10 skeleton archers to paint before the year closes but I hope to paint some of the more esoteric units that the Tomb Kings can call upon in the next couple months.

A Return to Middle Earth

To close the month out, I want to share a special teaser for a project that I’m hoping to work on as the year ends.

I’ve always loved the kingdoms of men in The Lord of The Rings, the men of Gondor especially. The recent slow drip of reveals from games workshop has fully awoken something inside of me and I had the uncontrollable urge to paint some Middle Earth models ahead of the Fall of Arnor book coming later this year.

I have some really big plans for this book, my 3d printer is running and the long neglected Arnor models in my cupboard are stirring…. But this may be for a later update. For now, here is a test model for my soon to be Army of Arnor.

Kevin C.

Well, gonna brag here a bit… I was very productive this month. I am well on my way to having at least two armies fully completed by the end of the year (possibly even three – more on that later). These are armies that did not even have a single miniature painted or assembled a year ago.

But first, Blood Bowl.

(My Very Own) Halfling Blood Bowl Team

Last month, I painted up someone else’s Halfling Blood Bowl Team. I was unsure how the paint scheme was going to look, but I ended up being quite pleased with it, so I copied it for myself.

I decided to put them on smaller bases, being wee men. I’m not sure if I like the decision to be honest, as the flock static grass I use for most of my Blood Bowl teams seems a bit crowded on these bases where they didn’t on the larger bases. Something to keep in mind for some of the smaller bases in the future.

You can really see the grass crowding with my MVP for this team… the bloodthirsty Akhorne. Still, I’m glad I have this miniature finished.

Dracosans to Complete My Solar Auxilia

So, Dracosans were released by GW a few weeks ago, but I already had printed off 19 third-party miniatures, so I figured I’d paint those guys up rather than needing to buy more kits. I think the third-party miniatures ended up working great, as long as I keep them right side up.

The printer did not do a very good job with the bottom side of the tanks, however, so I gave almost no attention to the bottom. They proved very difficult to paint, so I didn’t even bother. Still, better than the Rogal Dorn coming in without a bottom plate (que ribbing Jerry…)

And, with the Dracosans done, that completes this stage of my Legions Imperialis Army. I do plan on painting up my Titans later this year, but here are my Vostroyans in all their glory.

I will be bringing a portion of these guys to NOVA, so we will see how they do.

Bretonnian Archers

My final task of this month was to complete my Bretonnian Archers. This was the first time I painted peasants for the Bretonnian army, so I wanted to make sure they were plenty dirty, muddy, and rustic.

A lot of paint schemes I have seen online, including the video tutorial I watched by Duncan Rhodes, have the peasants wearing the livery of the army. However, I wanted to keep these guys in a consistent color of browns, greys, and greens – colors that were absent from my knights. I am hopeful that the Archers (and eventually the Men at Arms) will be so contrasted with the knights that the difference in status will be apparent on the table top.

It looks like I will finish my Men at Arms next month, and thus the entirety of my Bretonnian starter set before NOVA. Granted, I am not bringing them to NOVA (yet) but I will be delighted to finish such a goal that I set out for myself.

I have even finished all of the shields, which I painted separately. I believe painting them separate from the bodies is the only way to go, and I’m glad I had that foresight. I knew I wanted to colors of old Couronne (red and blue quartered), but I am unsure whether I will add a sigil to the heraldry.

I will take a full army picture when the Men at Arms are complete. Until then, take care!

Joe R.

Here we are again! I had initially thought my contributions would be fairly limited this month, but I had forgotten some non-painting activities that surely count!


Five Parsecs from Home – Prep
5PFH is a solo sci-fi wargame campaign experience written by Nordic Weasel Games and produced by Modiphius. It’s miniature agnostic and I have a ton of sci-fi minis! However, I started my own campaign roughly a year ago and have done very little to advance the story. I had no terrain! So, after a year of collecting and printing terrain I’m finally ready to get things rolling again. I’ve assigned minis to each member of my tramp freighter crew and plan to begin running adventures and painting the miniatures in the coming months. Thanks Necromunda for giving me everything I could ever hope for to play in a sci-fi world!

Like all good science fiction there are a suite of alien races. Titan Forge Games released STL files specifically for 5PFH which includes some of these aliens. I printed myself an Engineer (a race in this particular setting) to represent my own Engineer, E’Loo. However, I didn’t like their model for the war-like race called the K’Erin. Lots of folks use 40K Orks for this, but I wanted to use Eldar instead. I had received a box of Corsair Voidscarred at NOVA Open one year, but never built them. I also have the Striking Scorpions from the Kill Team: Salvation box. This leads to my next project…


Kill Team –Corsair Voidscarred
I finally assembled these models! Talk about a task. This was maybe the most complicated set of GW models I’ve ever worked on. I’m used to Necromunda and Blood Bowl where you basically get duplicates of the same sprue. The Corsairs come with 3 unique sprues that are not organized in any fashion (as far as I could tell). It was something like 160 pieces.


I chose to make the following agents: Voidscarred Felarch (magnetized with a neuro disruptor or shuriken rifle), Voidscarred Gunner w/ blaster, Voidscarred Heavy Gunner w/ wraithcannon, Voidscarred Starstorm Duellist, Voidscarred Kurnite Hunter, Voidscarred Shade Runner, Voidscarred Kurnathi, Voidscarred Fate Dealer, Voidscarred Way Seeker, and Voidscarred Soul Weaver. This was mostly chosen as “rule of cool”, but I did find some recommendations online. I have so many bits left over that I might purchase some additional bodies on Ebay and make a couple standard warriors as substitutions (as someone else suggested). Aside from being the toughest models I’ve assembled (so far), I also took care to smooth out sprue connection points and remove mold lines. This is new for me. I traditionally feel victorious having assembled the models. I don’t usually take the time to make them look good.

I selected the Voidscarred Kurnathi to be Ki Starvoid, my K’Erin. I printed out some additional industrial bases which I will paint in a Necromunda style (as seen in my first article). I’ll get Ki primed in the next week or so and blue tac him to his base until I’m ready to paint him in earnest.

Blood Bowl – The Wynnstaadt Warriors I – Dwarf Team
I continued to work on my Dwarf team this month. I’ve been playing games with them in my local Blood Bowl league while also trying to paint them. They were cast by a 3rd party Blood Bowl provider a ways back and I started noticing a few problems. I won’t go into heavy detail but kept having pieces fall off in the middle of my games. Some of these pieces, like the helmet wings shown below, has been an ongoing thorn in my side. So, I decided to try and pin them.

This was a pain in the ass. I had read recently to avoid using paper clips (my go to at this point) and try something softer. One suggestion was to use solder. I really liked using solder because it was much easier to clean at the end due to its softness. However, I’ve purchased some aluminum wire for future efforts.


I absolutely destroyed these helmet wings. As you can see, I’ve had to use green stuff to clean up spots where the drill removed entire parts of the wing. However, when painted, you can’t really tell the difference. Hopefully, the wings won’t be falling off anytime soon. HOWEVER, I dropped one of the blitzers while trying to drill his helmet for the pin. His hand popped off and ended up getting pretty mashed out of shape. As did his helmet. So, I decided I was done with these models and went in search of a new Dwarf team.

Blood Bowl – The Wynnstaadt Warriors II – Dwarf Team
I had purchased the metal team above because 1) no one I knew had those models and 2)I liked the aesthetic. At the time, EVERYONE had the GW 3rd edition Blood Bowl team. I own the current GW Dwarf team, but again, everyone is using it. I wanted something different. I searched through a few teams until I decided on Torchlight Miniatures Sewer Guard. These dwarves have a very constable-esque vibe that I thought would be pleasant to paint. The positionals have a very steam-punk vibe, which I liked less, but oh well. It was cool.


I printed a few test models and realized these Dwarves were HUGE. They rivaled my Chaos Chosen Blockers! So, I shrunk them down to 90% and decided to try a new resin I’d been saving: Siraya Tech FAST Smokey Black. I usually use ST FAST Grey, which is a great resin but the pigment separates from the resin over time. If I don’t print for a couple of days, I end up spending a bunch of time resuspending the pigment. Smokey Black is clear resin with a dye added. Dyes are soluble in their medium, meaning they don’t separate. I can leave this resin sitting and it’s ready to go whenever I’m ready. It also looks incredibly cool! I think I’ll be sticking with this moving forward.

The models are still big, but more in line with the GW dwarves (~33 mm from foot to head). They definitely warrant 32mm bases. I primed a few and went about blocking my scheme on a test model. You can see the test model below.

I originally had more gold sprinkled about the model (specifically on the helm), but my wife convinced me to keep the gold for the fabrics and use silver for any metal. I tried it out and agreed (though I kept the center of the belt gold because… reasons?). This also marks one of the first times I’ve tried to paint a model without attaching it to a base. As you can see, he’s just blue tac’d. It was amazing to pick the model up and get to some of those hard-to-reach places! Again, this will probably be standard moving forward. I worked on the test model for another couple hours and ended roughly here.

I was generally pretty pleased. Some of the green highlights were too bright, so I took my midtone and glazed them back down. I think it helped, but I didn’t capture a picture of it.
I’ve since started blocking another Dwarf. The hope is to have 12 models done by the Atlantic Coast Charity Cup. It might be a challenge, but I’m going to try my best!