blood bowl

A Tale of Many Warlords- December and a Year In Review

Swansong0930Leave a comment

Editor’s Note

I sit here editing and collating the fantastic updates by our diligent warlords, the final ones of the year, on a bullet train heading south from Tokyo. Not the most typical of the locations I’ve been known to work from but a fitting place to tie the bow on this fantastic year of hobbying by both myself and the fantastic warlords that have shared their work with us over the course of the year.

I wanted to take a minute before diving into the incredible work of each of the artists to thank the incredible team here at UCH. Each of these men has inspired me and made me work to be a better hobbyist. I started this series in an effort to get more done over the course of the year, and I have accomplished this in spades. I was thankfully not alone in this, dragging 5 other hapless fools onto the year-long journey that you have read through this year. I am incredibly thankful for their writings, and insight. I hope that we can continue to entertain, and maybe even inspire you into 2025 and beyond!

Austin B.

November Progress

Before I move onto December, I actually have to catch you all up on what I was able to accomplish in November! Not that it was very much, hence in part the lack of a post from me in the last month. But I got some work done on some of the new – and older – Shatterpoint boxed sets. I am hoping to get a bit more done before the next set of Rebel and Empire boxes drop sometime in Q2 2025. And I have a bit more to paint up for an event in February. (Events are a great motivator…)

With all the holiday preparation as well as some business at work, I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped, though finally finishing off the “This is Some Rescue” box was nice, and Lando’s box is actually pretty close to completion as well, with the Wing Guard half-way in progress.

December Progress

Now paradoxically, December ended up being a much more free month for me, despite having yet another holiday to prepare for. While it’s also not as much as I have done in some other months, I did get a good few heroes done for my Middle Earth armies in preparation for the new edition, including the Three Hunters: Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. Mounted, even!

Gamling joins them, as does a mounted Rohan banner bearer – his dismount having been painted over two years ago at this point for my footslogging Rohan army (that I showed off in the first ever post, actually!). I was unfortunately unable to get Theoden done as I had hoped to, so he remains unfinished (unprimed, even), as the model did not arrive till after I returned from my holiday celebrations. Expect him in January, alongside some fitting foes!

Atop those, I actually finally finished my Vampire team that I have left lying unfinished since before the start of this year! (Another item I showed off in the first post, as something “to be done!”) I painted them up to participate in a local event, and even walked away with Most Touchdowns! (Again, events are a great motivator…)

This is a bit of a cheat, since 9 of the models had already been completed (the Vargheist and 8 Thralls) last year. As was Wilhelm Chaney, who is here posing for the family photo. But I had to get those 6 Vampires done eventually, and actually base the whole team, and it was finally done! The project and event also finally got me to base Chaney, hence his inclusion in the photo, despite the fact that he’s been fully painted since his release in 2021!

Year in Review

And that’s it! That rounds out the year! Honestly, for what I wanted to do when I started on my posts, I have admittedly failed. My initial task was to get an army done for Warhammer: The Old World, and I have made significantly little progress in that regard. But as a general motivator to paint, I’m fairly happy with what I have been able to accomplish this year. I have abandoned some projects, most notably that Old World army (for the moment…), and I have certainly hopped around a lot in regards to what I am painting (how many times did I say “this is what I’ll be painting moving forward” only to change it the next month, or come back with some Shatterpoint models instead?), but posting for this blog has at least kept me painting, which isn’t quite something I could say about myself in years prior. Why do you think I have so many incomplete projects? I haven’t always posted consistently, either because I’ve felt I haven’t done enough, or because I was just too busy to get a post ready in time, but every month I have at least done something.

But to sum up what I have done this year:

-10 Squigs, 5 Squig Hoppers, and a Big Boss on Squig, all for The Old World (and all that was done for that game…)

-A whole, rather large Bolt Action army in the First Special Service Force, which consisted of 80 infantry, 2 mules, 2 guns, and 4 vehicles and their crew, completed in a month. As well as another tank and a few accessory pieces completed for the British (which I may have not shown off, oh well…)

-Three whole Blood Bowl Teams (Shadow College, Gnomes, and Vampires), and a small selection of Star Players and accessory models.

–A staggering 46 models for Star Wars: Shatterpoint, in an eclectic mix between Rebels, Imperials, and some Scoundrels.(Though I still haven’t finished those Ewoks…)

-A small handful of Necromunda models.

-Two random mechs? Haha!

-48 Landwehr and some Commanders for my Prussians (most of those never made it on these posts either, woops! Maybe when I do another army update… I also have some cavalry in progress, so perhaps they’ll make it in the next posts in January or Feburary!)

-Plus the above 8 models for MESBG!

I have also built those several dozen German infantry and vehicles, also for Bolt Action, but painting has been delayed as I reassess how I plan to actually paint them, unhappy with my few test models thusfar (hence why they haven’ty been shown). That, and the army book coming in late January means the army will be getting some revisions and new additions.

So my hobby progress has been very mixed, jumping around as I usually do.But it’s still fairly impressive. I certainly managed to churn out more in some years prior, when I was less busy (or at least pretending to be), but I am happy with how far along I have come on some projects, such as the Prussians and my ever-growing Shatterpoint collection; very happy with what I’ve completed, in the various Blood Bowl teams, and especially the FSSF; and fairly interested in what I have planned for the new year. Though I won’t spoil too much of that just yet…

As for my favorite model of the year, it was a bit of a three-way tie for me between Lando, Legolas and Gimli on horseback, and Darth Vader, but I have to say that the Darth Vader I painted way back in June remains one of my most impressive models. It was really fun trying to get some subtle differences between all the different blacks and really make the miniature read and pop without looking too dull, and I am very happy with what I was able to achieve with such a reduced color palette. 

I’ll leave you all on that. Happy New Year! Hope to have more for you in the next!

Kevin C.

Dismounted Warriors of Rohan

I had a lot of older Rohan miniatures that I purchased from a friend, and I figured I should finish painting them before getting new Rohan miniatures. These miniatures were quite old – one even had a broken spear point – but I was determined to paint them in the same scheme as the riders. While they are not my best work, they will be good pieces to have in a scrap.

Hail Theoden King!

My friend ended up selling me not one, but TWO Theoden sets (so four miniatures total – two with helmets, two without helmets). I decided to do a little experiment in painting tutorials.

In my painting, especially this year, I use a lot of online painting tutorials. My academic conditioning has trained me to be as forthright as possible in citing them. There are two online painters that I have used, and they both happened to have painting tutorials of Theoden – Warhipster with Contrast+ (https://youtu.be/HYLbQpBF1fI?si=kic1rImVIe4m3X0W), and Pete the Wargamer (https://youtu.be/4vVjtCGy9RY?si=ByF2r_g0mJrcmhP7). I’ve used Warhipster for some of my terrain pieces, and I’ve used Pete for some of my earlier Blood Bowl teams. So, I figured I would compare the two and see how I felt about the results.

For the helmeted version, I used Warhipster. Admittedly, I was nervous about the free use of contrast paint all over the place, and it made it hard to control much of the borders between colors. That being said, I really loved how the miniature turned out, especially the steed.

I used Pete the Wargamer for the unhelmeted version of Theoden, which I suspect was made before the advent of contrast paints, as none were used. I was less pleased with this result, and I found it more frustrating to paint in his style. A lot of this frustration was due to hard-to-reach places and difficult effects to accomplish, such as lightening the raised designs of the armor.

All in all, I believe I liked the Warhipster scheme more, and so I used his method for some of the other miniatures I painted this month (more below).

Eowyn and Merry

I only had one set for Eowyn and Merry, so I decided to wait until after the experiment and copy which paint scheme I liked best. Even though Warhipster did not have a video tutorial for this specific miniature, I used his scheme for the horse, and more or less copied the method I used for the regular Riders of Rohan for Eowyn and Merry.

One thing I did change from the film adaptation is that I maintained all heroes’ horses as white. I plan to continue this with Haleth, Hama, and Hera (coming soon!). This is different from the films, which have the heroes on all different color horses, but I want this to be a visual cue for me when playing pieces on the board.

Battle of Edoras

As a “reward” to myself for finishing the whole Rohan army, I was able to pick up a boxed set right when it was released. I had these guys assembled practically hours after receiving them, but it just so happened that we had more than a week of miserable rain, sleet, and otherwise yucky weather, preventing me from priming them.

I finally did prime them right before Christmas, and I am excited about painting them next month. As an interesting study, I compared one of the new footmen to one of the old ones that I had just completed.

The new ones are clearly more detailed, and just seem much more interesting in scale and posture. I am sad I didn’t have the time to paint these guys this month, but I am excited about having them finished next month.

Gaunt’s Ghosts

While I wasn’t able to finish my Rohan Warriors in time, I was able to knock something off of my shelf in the meantime – my Gaunt’s Ghosts. I have had these guys on my shelf since June 2021, so it was nice to finally complete something extra for me.

As I discussed earlier, I decided to use the Warhipster video tutorial on how to paint these guys (https://youtu.be/MqviEDV03SU?si=GfGTk256Gzi0KGhO). I admit that I was a little disappointed with how the video was laid out. There was a lot of screen time spent on applying the layer, and not a lot of time explaining how one should paint the deviations from Gaunt and Rawne (the two that got the most screen time).

I still think I did a decent job, but I was hoping they would be fantastic. Instead, they are okay, and I am glad that I have them ready to play.

Now, if I could only use them in an actual Kill Team…

Year in Review

I have done more painting in 2024 than any other year previous, which is quite an accomplishment. I have assembled and painted two full armies, nearly completed a third, and gotten a lot of painting projects off my chest. All in all, I painted over 350 miniatures this year (counting those LI infantry 5-on-a-base as one miniature, by the way). 

  • Assembled and painted the entire Bretonnian Army Box
    • 12 Knights
    • 3 Pegasus Knights and Lord on Pegasus
    • 24 Archers
    • 32 Men at Arms
  • Assembled and painted a huge Legions Imperialis Army
    • Three boxes of Solar Auxilia (12 Sentinels, 12 Ogryns, and 48 Infantry)
    • Three Support Artillery Boxes (36 Rapiers, 36 Tarantulas, and 12 Cyclopses)
    • Baneblades, Malcadors, and Valdors
    • 19 Dracosans
    • 6 Lightnings and two Marauders
  • Assembled, magnetized, and painted Titan Maniple (Warlord, two Reavers, and four Warhounds)
  • Painted four Blood Bowl teams (Norse, Black Orcs, and two Halflings)
  • Painted Kasrkin Kill Team
  • Painted Rohan Host
    • 36 Rohan Riders
    • 12 Rohan Warriors
    • Theoden, Eowyn, and Merry
  • Random Terrain Pieces

That being said, I still have many other projects on my workbench, so my queue for 2025 is already full.

The Best

My favorite miniature that I painted this year was actually one that I never posted. Austin and I went halfsies on some Brutes for Necromunda, and I am really pleased with how mine turned out. Granted, it died on its first campaign game, but that’s how Necromunda rolls. 

The Worst

I have an unending hatred for that stupid Duke on Pegasus model. The paint scheme was eventually okay, but I really hated everything about this model – assembling, priming, painting. Glad it’s done with. 

What’s Next Year

As far as what I have planned for next year, I already have the queue figured out. 

  • Finish painting Battle of Edoras
  • Paint my remaining Necromunda miniatures (Cawdor and GSC) in time for our next campaign
  • Finish painting my old Deathwatch army (had this on my desk since 2016!)
  • Assemble Meduseld

I have a few more projects, but that will last me a while yet. I also got some new drybrushes for Christmas, so I am excited to try these out. 

Until next year!

Jerry S.

Solar Auxilia: No More Lasrifles, Please.

This year has been very exciting for me, the release of plastic Solar Auxilia has been incredible and I have enjoyed every minute of it. From building, to painting, to playing; my hobby journey with Solar Auxilia has been a blast, even if a little longer than I would’ve liked in the end. As you can see here, I was prolific in my Solar Auxilia painting, the total count of infantry clocking in at 115 models in just 8 months, wow! I was able to finish the last 20 infantry this month, something I am very grateful for as I think I am mentally done with this particular scheme for the time being.

I thankfully still love the muted scheme I created for these models, the dark blue coupled with the greys and worn metals of the fatigues and armor plating really lends itself to the so called “dark millennium” and I think really captures the dearth of hope that is to be found on the battle fields of the Horus Heresy.

Bolt Action

I’ve continued the progress on my Bolt Action American force this month, focusing on completing a couple more Weapons teams, a Medium Machine Gun team and a medium anti-tank team that will hopefully help keep my GI’s alive as they navigate the battlefield. I’ve always loved the idea of overwhelming the enemy not in bodies, but in firepower, just as the American Army preferred in WW2 and these last two teams really help accomplish that idea on the tabletop.

Continuing Adventures in Middle Earth

The last of my true hobby progress was again in the realms of Middle earth. I have along with several others, began forming a regular group of MESBG players at a local hobby shop, playing weekly on Mondays and beginning to attend/plan events across the region. 

One of those aforementioned events was a Helm’s Deep mega-battle. With 6 people on each side and hundreds of minis on either side, this was a spectacle indeed. It was tremendously fun seeing the many, many models I’ve painted for both Rohan and Isengard featured on the tabletop together. Indeed the Hornburg was manned almost entirely by Rohan models I myself painted! How cool is that!

This has been a great experience thus far and I hope that we can keep this progress moving forward into 2025. Speaking of 2025, the first month of 2025 I will be attending a couple events, hoping to bring a force of Gondor using the Reclamation of Osgiliath army in the new edition. I’ve always loved this part of the books and movies and using the Brothers Gondor together is always a fun time. In past editions, I had not used my Gondor in one force, opting to either use the Rangers of Gondor, or the various defenders of Minas Tirith and had based each force differently. This isn’t inherently an issue but I know it would bug me seeing an army on the table using 2 different basing schemes. As such, I set to work rebasing my warriors of Minas Tirith to match their Ranger pals. I gotta say, I love the results too!

To finish this year off, I spent the last week not at my hobby desk, but traveling around the islands of Japan. That being said, I am still a Warhammer junky through and through and as such, made sure to visit the Warhammer cafe in Tokyo. This is a sweet little spot to stop at in Tokyo, a larger than normal Warhammer store with a variety of incredibly well painted “miniatures” to gawk at while awkwardly trying to explain to your friends the differences between a warlord titan and whatever an “Age of Sigmar” is. Something I undoubtedly failed to do even as my friends tried as hard as they could to understand.

I snagged a couple snapshots of some of my favorite displays which you can see below. This was only a fraction of the total displays and if I ever was able, I would love to play a game and enjoy a coffee in this lovely store. In the meantime, I did snag the delightfully odd “Slaves to darkness” book and a lovely hoody only sold at the Cafe.

Closing thoughts on 2024

The year has flown by, and it was a great one by all accounts! I painted around 400 models this year by my counting:

  • 115 Solar Auxilia
  • 112 Tomb Kings
  • 28 Arnor
  • 42 Bolt Action Americans
  • 35 Word Bearers
  • A Thunderhawk!
  • A 6×4 Middle Earth board!
  • Various miscellaneous characters and one offs.

An absolutely prolific year by numbers and something I am immensely proud of. Even with this wildly productive year, I still have much to do in 2025 and beyond. I was lucky enough to purchase a friend’s entire 40K and 30k collection this year, a great bargain but unfortunately adding to the backlog nearly as many models as I finished this year! UGH!

My favorite part of this year has been the Thunderhawk pictured below. This was an incredible journey, really challenging myself as a hobbyist. I don’t know how I’ll top it in 2025! (Please don’t ask about the Reaver Titan in my closet)

Enough of 2024 though, it’s 2025 now after all! In 2025, I’ve been thinking of what I want to accomplish, and although this list will undoubtedly change, maybe even in the first couple weeks of the year, It’s always a good idea to to start the year with a plan!

  • Finish my Solar Auxilia army! This should be relatively easy as I’ve only need to paint the tanks still
  • Finish my Tomb Kings Army. Again, this should be an easier task as there is only the various monsters and characters yet to do.
  • Paint MY 40K Deathwatch Army. I’m copying Kevin on this, this project needs to get done this year lol.
  • Tie up the various odds and ends for the various projects I’ve not finished. This is a broad goal, I just want to finish some of the odd characters and squads I’ve picked up over the years for my various armies.
  • Finally finish painting my Zone Mortalis board
  • Build and paint either my Warlord or Reaver titan.
  • Do more character and one-off projects. I’ve been doing a lot of Army painting the past few years and I think it would be rewarding to spend some more time on fewer models, challenging myself in new ways. 
  • Expand the Urban Cowboy Hobbies network. I’ve often thought about starting a YouTube or podcast arm of my media Empire, maybe this is the year to do so!

Until next time!

Michael S

As the year comes to a close, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the progress and joys of hobbying. The last few months have been a busy time for me, balancing a new job and the holidays has left less time for Warhammer. December hobby time for me was mostly 30 minute chunks after work and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I was able to accomplish by adding one or two coats of paint each day. Despite the lack of dedicated time, I was able to paint up and build a few miniatures this month to show off.

December’s Work

My Imperial Fists have taken most of my attention this month. I was able to build a set of terminators and scouts I’ve had on sprue for a while now. I am also about halfway through a squad of Hellblasters (not pictured) bringing the model count up to 15 for the month.

For painting, said Terminators and Scouts received a heavy spray of yellow. 4-5 passes with an Airbrush was the price of a consistent coat of Bronze Brown. Another pass with Golden Yellow brought some color and saturation to the muted yellow-brown basecoat. One final highlight was applied to the most raised surfaces using Light Yellow to push the highlights. 

Once I got the worst of the painting behind me, I went in by brush to apply the rest of the colors. The Terminators took around a week and a half of periodic work. Batch painting for 30 minutes every day made short work of this squad.

The Scouts were a bit different, since I was unsure how I wanted to paint them. In the end I settled for using a mix of colors for fatigues boots and leather. The sergeant came out nicely with pretty minimal effort. My next goal will be getting the rest of the squad to the same spot before moving on.

Year in Review: Finish the Damn Model

2024 has been a great year for me in hobbying! While I still find myself flitting from one project or model to another, I’ve painted more complete units this year than in most years I can remember.

Not counting basing, I’ve managed to fully paint the following units.

  • 5 Imperial Fist Terminators
  • 5 Imperial Fist Sternguard
  • 1 Imperial Fist Apothecary
  • 5 Black Templar Assault Intercessors
  • 5 Black Templar Terminators
  • 1 Black Templar Terminator Captain
  • 5 Death Guard Tactical Marines (25 more of  them just need me to apply some weathering; Missed opportunity to cash in BIG on hours of work.)
  • 5 Death Guard Terminators
  • 1 Imperial Guard Sentinel
  • 20 Tomb Kings Skeletons
  • 1 Lumineth Light of Eltharion

Furthermore I’ve built the following models, but haven’t had the chance to paint them fully.

  • Imperial Fist Command Squad
  • Imperial Fist Impulsor
  • 5 Imperial Fist Intercessors
  • 5 Imperial Fist Hellblasters
  • 1 Black Templar Marshal
  • 20 Imperial Guardsman
  • Imperial Guard Command Squad
  • 2 Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons Teams
  • 5 Kitbashed Fire Dragons
  • 20 Tomb Kings Skeletons
  • 36 Tomb Kings Skeleton Archers
  • 16 Tomb Kings Skeleton Horses
  • 1 Tomb King Necrolith Bone Dragon

While the list of unpainted models is still long, I’ve been way more engaged with the hobby this year and am looking forward to 2025! I can safely say this is the most productive hobby year I’ve had in a long time if not my entire history playing Warhammer. My goal moving forward is to just finish the damn model!

2024 Superlatives

A final article of the year wouldn’t be complete without a visual review of some of my work and things that stuck out in my mind. I’ve got a few superlatives to award…

Favorite Single Model:

My Imperial Fists Apothecary turned out so much better than I expected white armor to. This was one of my first forays back into oil washes in some time, and I loved the fact. The armor looks crisp but still has definition from the recess shading. I was most proud of the tabard, including a nice helix symbol and freehand outline that looks believable. A first for me in painting cloth!

Favorite Unit:

The first unit of skeletons I painted were a ton of fun! The old style kits brought back a ton of nostalgia from my entrance into the hobby and painting these was a breeze with speedpaints. I loved how the colors came together and am looking forward to getting the rest of them ready to paint in 2025.

Least Favorite Model(s):

After converting these characters up for my Death Guard force, I was really excited to get them painted up in white and green. After starting to paint them, my enthusiasm really dropped away as I felt they didn’t quite look the way I had hoped. My captain simply converted from Narik Dreygur I found is below. The model just hasn’t captured me the way it did once I started painting. 

I haven’t totally given up on these three yet. I do eventually plan to get back around to these knowing a complete paint job will go a long way toward making them look a bit less “meh”.

Favorite Base:

This sentinel almost overtook the Apothecary for favorite model, but really the base is what I fell in love with. I put quite a bit of work into building some believable rubble and liquid pigments really helped tie everything together and up the soot and grime needed to sell the effect.

Most Painful Legends Casualty:

These Iron Golems (and 2 units of Untamed Beasts) took me lots of time and work to get looking spiffy in bare steel and the blood of their foes. Despite looking their best, an unfortunately timed retirement via Warhammer Legends meant they never got to see the tabletop with the rest of my Chaos Warriors. Time to start playing Warcry?

Least Fun Model to Build:

It’s a tie between the Skeleton Horsemen from my Tomb Kings and the old Chaos Knights I picked up early this year. Both of these have a lot in common: old models, mould lines, cavalry bases, mould lines, poorly fitted parts, did I mention mould lines?

Upon finishing both of these units, I had to take a sizable break from the hobby to retain my sanity. Enough said.

Favorite Model That Mysteriously Remains Unpainted Despite How Much I Like It:

In contrast to the other Death Guard characters, this captain doesn’t make me disappointed. I still love the conversions and use of a spare Eliminator helmet to give him a hood befitting any good officer of the 14th, but he still remains mostly unpainted.

I blame the result of the other characters I put together, and my frustration with metallics at the time of painting. Instead of powering through, I just left him to sit forever incomplete. I am starting 2025 by pushing him to the top of my priority queue. Hopefully I’ll be able to share a fully completed photo next month!

Looking Forward

In 2025 I am looking forward to another great year of hobbying. My goal is to continue to make progress towards fully completing projects and models instead of leaving them 80% complete for an eternity

A stretch goal would be to have my display cabinet only displaying completed miniatures… Maybe I’ll surprise myself?

IF I can complete that, I also want to branch out in media creation for the hobby and at some point create video tutorials for painting and other aspects of miniature painting. Who knows what the future may hold.

Cheers and happy holidays!

Joe R.

Well, you might have noticed it’s been a few months since I last participated. I fell off the wagon, got back on the wagon, fell off again, brought some paints on holiday, and here we are.

Blood Bowl – The Half-Shell Universe All Stars – Lizardman Team

This project changed dramatically. I got VERY tired of cleaning and assembling the metal models from Greebo (FYI, Greebo has since switched to resin which is much nicer). So, I decided to switch over to a set of 3D printed lizardmen models from BruteFun. It was faster to 1) download the files, 2) arrange and slice the files, 3) print the files, 4) remove the supports/clean the models, and 5) prime the models than it was to assemble a single metal model. I had hoped to finish these in time for Chaos Cup in November, but that did not happen. My friend Neil let me borrow his excellently painted Beach Shark team instead.

These are still very much on my TO DO list, but I do have a huge highlight from this work. I tried my first ever comic book style miniature! I had tried comic style late last year on some Necromunda bases, which worked out okay, but this was a whole model! 

I follow Thunderbrush on Patreon, who releases guides on comic book style miniature painting. I still have a long way to go, but I was REALLY pleased with how this turned out.

Pathfinder – Keller Feelgood, NG Cleric of the Endless Road

I started painting this model while I was back in grad school (pre-2015). The model was used as one of my many Pathfinder Society miniatures when I was playing 2-3 times a week. He wasn’t one of my favorites, but the name Keller was cemented along-side his affiliation with Desna (the goddess of dreams in the setting).

This year I was asked to join a Pathfinder campaign in progress by a colleague I met in Kansas City. Turns out she was in DC now! I was a little apprehensive. My gaming group in North Carolina was really exceptional, and I was intimidated to find my place in another group. Thankfully, this has turned out to be a really wonderful group. I decided to revive Keller in Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Keller became a cleric of the Endless Road (a pantheon which includes Desna) with the edict to travel, explore, learn, and help. This incarnation also became an herbalist and brewer, striving to find new ingredients to improve his brews.

Since joining, I’ve worked on this model a couple of times. Each time he moves a little closer to being something I’m proud of. He’s also great for experimentation, since I’m really the only one who cares how he ends up looking on the table. Everyone else is using pre-painted D&D miniatures, so he already feels a little special.

Necromunda – The Junktown Jesters – Escher

I decided to take my paints with me for the holiday. It was a bit of a bust, BUT I did end up working on two additional models for my Batman villain themed Escher. 

These are still a work in progress, but I think you can see my progress as a painter reflected in the model on the left. She represents Punchline, a relatively new Batman villain. I got this all done in… 2 hours? And that included playing around with some highlighting. The other one, if you can’t guess, is Mr. Freeze inspired. The skin needs some work still, but I’m fairly pleased with the “bones” of this model. I’ll even try doing some actual plasma effect (probably with dry brushing) and see what happens!

What A Cowboy/Dracula’s America

I got really into western miniatures this year. I don’t know why exactly, but my friend Neil is ALSO into western miniatures. We played a game of What A Cowboy and have  aspirations to try Dracula’s America, Dead Man’s Hand, and Dead by Lead in the New Year.

I picked up a batch of metal lawmen from Dead Man’s Hand and was kindly gifted some Wargames Foundry western miniatures for X-Mas. I think this is going to be my next project. 

I have already cleaned up the Dead Man’s Hand miniatures (including some shotgun repair work). I really DO NOT LIKE that these miniatures come attached to a mini metal base. So I took a 3D printed base file and messed around with it in TinkerCAD to remove a section. I then put the miniature in and applied Stucco to fill the rest of the hole. Not bad eh? Now I just need to do this for… 25 other western minis. I will still apply some basing materials over this Stucco base.

I also 3D printed a ton of western miniatures. I test printed several to get them in scale with the traditional models. I think it worked out alright. I’ll be mixing and matching as I get things ready to play a mini campaign with Neil. Or maybe all the Warlords will decide westerns are cool and clammer to join in on the fun.

Some Light Reading

I finished off this year by doing some light reading.

Both of these books came highly recommended to help advance novice painters. They have both been exceptional for completely different reasons. I will need to read Figopedia again to truly retain the knowledge it contains, but I walked away understanding significantly more about light and color theory. Tommie Soule does a great job of walking step-by-step through lots of things I’ve ignored over the past several years of painting. He also does a great job encouraging you to play, not stress.

A Year in Review.

Even though I missed participating in the last few months, 2024 has probably been one of the most successful hobby years I’ve ever had. Let’s recall what got accomplished this year.

  • I arbitrated my first ever Necromunda campaign and played in another!
  • Joined a Pathfinder Campaign! And ran a 3-session Super Hero adventure
  • 6 Escher styled after various Batman Villains
  • Necromunda bases for said Escher
  • Dipped my toe into Comic Book Style
  • 1 Chaos Chosen Ogre painted almost entirely through glazing
  • 1 Blood Bowl Dwarf Team
  • 1 Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarf Team
  • 1 repainted Blood Bowl Halfling Team
  • Assembled several MDF kits for Necromunda
  • Assembled Ork Kommandos for Kill Team
  • Assembled Angels of Death for Kill Team
  • Assembled Hernkyn Yaegirs for Kill Team + Necromunda

When you look at what the other Warlords have done, this list seems pretty paltry. However, this is probably the most engaged I’ve been with my hobby since moving to Virginia 5 years ago. Much of that comes down to the wonderful community of gamers I’ve surrounded myself with. It’s been wonderful to hang out here, with the other Warlords, and grow into a fledgling painter.

The Good

My two favorite projects this year were the Chaos Chosen Ogre and the Halfling Team. The Ogre is the only model I “finished” all year, meaning I varnished him with no intent to ever adjust him again. I wasn’t able to get the Halfling Treemen where I wanted them, but those Halflings popped during that whole tournament. It didn’t hurt that I went undefeated either! 😀

I’ve also gotten much better at playing while I paint. When I just decide to work on a model and try something new (instead of rushing towards a deadline) I end up really enjoying myself. My skills have definitely improved because of this.

The Bad

I still struggle to find time to finish my models. I’m able to basecoat fairly well and provide some interest around the model, but I rarely have time to highlight a model to the point I call it finished. Out of all those dwarves I painted for Blood Bowl, I think 2 are actually done. That doesn’t even include their bases (see below)! 

Thankfully, I’ve come a long way with regards to highlighting. I used to be scared to even attempt. Now I’m willing to do it and just see what happens and learn along the way.

The Ugly

I am bad at working on bases! Those two or three Necromunda bases are the best I’ve ever done. I am barely finishing the models, let alone spending any time on the bases. However, I have started keeping my models separate from the bases so that I can more easily access hard to reach spots on the model. That’s some progress right?

Next Year!

Another Necromunda campaign is in the works. Hopefully it’ll be done in Mid-January. I might even share it here if Jerry lets me! And with that, I want to thank all the other Warlords for their support over the year and for letting me bask in their greatness.

Special thanks to Jerry for being so enthusiastic about my participation and always working to keep us all on task!

Happy New Year!

Mike P.
Painting My Empire Army for Adepticon: 12 Weeks, 102 Models, and a Dream

With 12 weeks left until Adepticon, I’m staring down a monumental challenge: painting 102 Empire models to complete my army. Thankfully, my general on griffon is already done, and he’s looking fantastic—he’s the centerpiece of the force, and I’m using him as the visual anchor for the rest of the army. Now, it’s all about getting the rest of the troops ready in time for the big event.

Week-by-Week Strategy

I’ve broken this project into manageable chunks: about 9 models per week. It’s still ambitious, but it’s doable if I stick to a plan. My approach is to focus on one unit or type of model at a time. Here’s how I’m structuring it:

1. Core Troops First: I’m starting with the infantry. They’re the backbone of the Empire, and getting those blocks of state troops painted will give me a sense of progress early on. I’m batch painting them, working in groups of 10 to 15 models to keep the momentum going.

2. Special Units and Heroes: Once the bulk of the infantry is done, I’ll move on to the knights, artillery, and their crews. These models have a bit more detail, so I plan to give them some extra attention. After that, I’ll tackle the heroes and other supporting characters, which will be fun because they let me experiment with more intricate techniques.

3. Final Touches: The last few weeks will be all about basing, finishing details, and making sure everything looks cohesive.

Staying Consistent

My general on griffon has set the standard for my army’s color scheme: rich reds, deep blues, and gold accents inspired by Altdorf. I’ve painted a couple of test models for the infantry to make sure the scheme translates well across the army. The key is to keep things consistent while still adding variety with unit markings, banners, and other small details.

Weekly Workflow

Here’s what a typical week looks like for me:

• Monday-Wednesday: Prime and base coat the models. I’m keeping it simple with a black primer and working up from there.

• Thursday-Friday: Apply washes and highlights. This is where the models really start to come to life.

• Saturday-Sunday: Focus on the details—faces, weapon hilts, feathers, and any other bits that make the models pop.

The Challenge and the Fun

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed looking at the sheer number of models left to paint, but breaking it down into smaller goals keeps me motivated. I also remind myself why I’m doing this: to field an incredible-looking army at Adepticon. Seeing the blocks of troops come together and imagining them charging into battle makes the effort worth it.

Looking Ahead

I know the last few weeks will be intense, but I’m already planning for that final push. Once the army is done, I’ll add some finishing touches—like weathering and flocking the bases—to tie everything together. If I have time, I’d love to create a display board to really show off the army.

There’s a lot of work ahead, but I’m enjoying the process. Every painted model is a step closer to the goal, and I can’t wait to see my Empire army in action at Adepticon.

A Tale of Many Warlords- July

Swansong0930Leave a comment
  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!

A Tale of Many Warlords- June

Swansong0930Leave a comment
  1. Austin B.
  2. Kevin C.
  3. Joe R.
  4. Jerry S.

Austin B.

Gno-me More Gnomes!

Another month, another Blood Bowl post, and guess what? It’s Gnomes again! I showed off the start of my actual Gnome team last month, and now I have the full team done! There’s still several associated Star Players I want (or need) to finish still, but the actual team is complete!

This team was a blast to paint. Lots of fun. The Treemen and various animals in particular were rather enjoyable, as they offered something different to break up the monotonous red tones of the team. I am very happy with how they turned out as a whole though. I hadn’t figured that red on red would work for a scheme, but I wanted to try it after seeing a painting (of a Gnome, by the way) with a similar outfit. And now you can see the Poppin’ Daisies (yes, that’s my team name) in all their glory!

Atop the actual team itself, I was able to complete Rodney Roachbait for use as a Star Player with them. He was also a nice change of pace since, again, he features more colors than red! That said, this model was surprisingly detailed and took longer than I had expected to get him done. I had planned to paint several other things alongside him during one evening, yet he ended up taking up the whole session by himself! 

As said above, I still have several Star Players to get to before I can truly call this team done. At least for those I actually have, there’s still Rumbelow Sheepskin and Griff Oberwald to get painted up, the former of which I’ll be completing this week in preparation for the Goonhammer Open’s Swelter Bowl. I’ll be bringing the Gnomes and their ram-riding fellow along to battle the heat and the other contestants for sweaty glory! I don’t expect to win much, but it should be a fun time at least. So you can expect to see Rumbelow at least in terms of Blood Bowl content next month, perhaps alongside some other stuff as I still work my way to NOVA!

Long Live The Empire!

Alongside the Gnomes, and also in preparation for the Goonhammer Open, I have been hurriedly painting my way through my Shatterpoint backlog, in some vain attempt to catch up to the steady stream of releases. Given that the Goonhammer Open decided on the Premiere format for their event, my attention has shifted rather considerably over to the Imperial forces I have been mustering (given they actually have enough units out to make a decent Premiere list). And so I have been making my way through the mostly black-clad Imperial forces, making good on the knowledge gained from last month’s painting of the Fifth Brother. Given my general dissatisfaction with the final result on him, I revised my approach to black armor, and these are the results of that:

Starting us off we’ve got Iden Versio and her Inferno Squad, as well as some generic Imperial Special Forces, and a Death Trooper Escort! Just as I said last month, I went with a starker blue-grey for the cloths in order to separate them from the now more sheer black armor paneling. This is far less apparent on the Death Trooper escort, but it’s certainly visible on the rest of them above. This helped a ton in breaking things up and making the models far more readable. But these elite forces weren’t the only additions to my completed pile… That Death Trooper escorts someone, doesn’t he?

Yes, Moff Gideon! Not to be confused with Gideon Hask of Inferno Squad above! This one shows off the new cloth and armor techniques perhaps the best, with the new cloth color being very visible against the armor panels, and the bright highlights helping make the armor pop. But what I am really most happy with is the Darksaber. It was rather enjoyable and surprisingly easy to get that edge gleam to work. And interestingly, it’s using many of the same colors used for both the armor and the cloth. Still, there’s one more of the Emperor’s servants that I got completed. The most infamous of them all!

Darth Vader! Specifically, the one from the Duel pack, most commonly referred to as Vader1 by the community (due to the fact that the Duel pack released before the “Fear and Dead Men” squad pack). This is definitely my favorite between the two sculpts of Vader in this game. The pose is fantastic. The way the cloak billows is very well executed. It was such a joy to paint, even though it was mostly the same 6 paints being used over and over again. It was a very nice model to end the month on, but it isn’t the last of the Imperials I still have to do! At least in preparation for the Goonhammer Open, I still need to finish painting the Grand Inquisitor and the Third Sister. If I have the time, I plan to repaint the Fifth Brother to match with my new methods as well. Beyond that, I still have two Dark Troopers, the Fourth Sister, and the other Vader to polish off my Imperial forces (at least until Thrawn and his crew get released in August). My Rebels are even further behind on progress, especially with the Ghost crew releasing in just a week! I’m hoping to catch up on Shatterpoint within the next month or few, so I can be on top of the releases moving forward. Though continued NOVA prep and other distractions may hamper those plans in the short term.That’s it for me for this month. I hope to have even more exciting things to show you all next month, and perhaps even a super surprise!

Kevin C.

Bretonnian Duke on Royal Pegasus

Have I mentioned yet how much I hate this miniature?

I ended up salvaging the look of the model, namely by using a great video of how to paint most of the parts from Duncan Rhodes (only available to subscribers, sadly). I probably should have left the wings off prior to painting, as so many of the pieces and parts were really hard to reach. I was going to do a decal heraldry, but I chose against it, since there is only a place on the shield for the heraldry. 

With the Duke complete, all of my knights are finished, and all that I have left are the filthy peasants. More to come next month, hopefully!

Legions Imperialis Tanks and Aircraft

I was finally able to procure some much-needed air support for my Vostroyans. As much as I hate the infantry for Legions Imperialis, the planes and tanks have been mostly delightful to build and straightforward to paint. It is unfortunate that I have not yet figured out how to play well with them.

I still have the Dracosans to paint to complete my Vostroyan Expeditionary Force, so they will have to wait until next month.

Blood Bowl Project

So, I mentioned that I have a Halfling BB Team on the backburner a few months ago, and Friend of the Blog asked, “Hey, while you are working on your Halfling BB Team, can you work on mine also?” So, I used his team as test cases for a paint scheme.

In the whole, I like the scheme and I plan to use it for my own team. This was the first time doing NMM techniques for rusted metal (on the pots, pans, and plates) and I think it looks good. I will probably replicate this for my own team, which I will show next month.

For the overall scheme, I used the tutorial provided by The Putrid Painter. 

In addition, I was able to get the treemen done for both Friend of the Blog as well as my own Halfling team. Three Halfling treemen, and one gnarly looking Gnome treeman, ready to hit the pitch. 

For these, I also used The Putrid Painter tutorial, https://youtu.be/E9k97Sw1S3o?si=aQzZCHr-q712ghe2

I don’t know if I’ll end up using any of his other tutorials in the future, since he seems to focus on Nurgle-ish themes (hence the name), and I don’t tend to go that way, but I appreciated the tutorials.

See you all next month, hopefully with some newly finished Bretonnian Archers!

Joe R.

Well, the astute of you might have noticed that my section of this monthly post was absent. Well, I spent the greater part of May getting my halflings ready for the Amorical Cup. Especially the last week of May, which is traditionally when I write this post! So I bailed to get things painted, still didn’t get everything painted, and went to Ottawa anyway!

The Moot Points – Halflings, Blood Bowl

Okay. The last we left off, I had shown off a near completed Bisque Batson (aka Shazam! Or the OG Captain Marvel for those in the know). 

Bisque’s cape (not pictured here) is one of my favorite features of this mini. I also think the white and gold turned out especially good. Overall, he’s very vibrant on the table. The style is a little cartoony, but I think I’m okay with that! They’re based on comic book characters after all.

After doing the gold on Bisque, I was feeling confident enough to work on my favorite model on the whole team, Michael Jon Custard (aka Booster Gold). Back when the Halfling team only had two positionals (Treemen & Halflings), MJC was an all-star. Now that the Halflings have a few more positions, I decided to run MJC as one of my catchers. 

Here is a picture of the original MJC. (I still did a VERY bad job taking before pictures. Just trust that all of these models started somewhere in this ballpark. This exercise has absolutely breathed new life into this team.

Not that long ago, I was very worried about highlighting and shading. I would basecoat a model, MAYBE throw a brown or black shade over the entire model and call it good. This model doesn’t even have a shade! Pretty sure this is Reaper New Gold and Tanned Flesh with Citadel Mordian Blue. Oh, and the basing is a coat of the extremely short lived GW texture paint Lustrian Undergrowth. He’s sat like this for years. 

So I started out by recoating all the gold with GW Retributor Armor and applying a “glaze” of VMC Red-Violet into the recesses of the skin (like I’d done on the other two so far). Then I took a 1:1 mix of Agrax Earthshade and Acrylic Medium and washed the gold. Here’s how that went.

I started out by recoating all the gold with GW Retributor Armor and applying a “glaze” of VMC Red-Violet into the recesses of the skin (like I’d done on the other two so far). Then I took a 1:1 mix of Agrax Earthshade and Acrylic Medium and washed the gold. Here’s how that went.
From here I started cleaning up the skin. I’ve found with these models that even if I mess up on other parts of the model (and I do!), having the skin develop provides a good distraction.

Here he is after some initial cleanup. Next up I used the Reaper Blue Triad (Sapphire Blue, True Blue, Sky Blue) to work on the shoulder pads and the pants. The shoulder pads turned out much nicer. Then I added some gold highlights with Auric Armor Gold and just a small amount of Stormhost Silver. Finally, he has a black eye (which you can barely make out in the picture above) so I mixed some Reaper Blue with VMC Red-Violet until I got something I liked. Oh! And I based Geek Gaming Scenics Spring sawdust grass. Here is the finished product. 

Overall, very pleased. A fine British friend of mine suggested the basing could use some additional flair. I agree! However, that got pushed to the backburned for now.

Next up? Hal Gourdon (the Green Lantern)

Of all the Halflings I painted in preparation for this event, I’m the most disappointed with Hal. I used the Two Thin Coats green triad (Wyvern, Emerald, and Ethereal Greens). I’m very happy with my TTC paints overall, btw. You’ll be seeing that come up more with future models. However, I think I got scared to push the green highlights with Hal. I may go back and give him another go. However, I also used the TTC black triad (Doom Death Black, Death Reaper, and Dungeon Stone Grey) on the pants, and felt that went pretty well. I was also unsure how to paint his pouty lip. Open to advice here!

Poor Hal. He’s not even my favorite Green Lantern… I’ll hit you rapid fire with rest of the models. 

Here is Berry Allen (the Flash). I was VERY pleased with this model. The VMC Red-Violet helped shade the reds, the yellows, and the skin! I also tried to glaze the brighter yellow on in a few layers (Reaper Sun Yellow over GW Averland Sunset). Reaper Sun Yellow is a garbage paint, but the glazing effect mostly worked out. I think I’ll be picking up a new bright yellow soon.
This is Hank McSoy (aka The Beast). I painted him in the traditional yellow-blue scheme of the original X-Men, but I kept his hair blue as an homage to the modern version of Beast. Again, VMC Red-Violet did a bunch of work here to provide shadows for the skin, blues, and yellows. I didn’t usually run Hank because I didn’t think his paint job was very interesting, now I think he’s one of the most interesting on the table!
This is Ted Korn (aka the 2nd Blue Beetle) and MJC’s best friend and partner in crime. It’s convenient that this ended up being my second favorite model in the whole bunch. Ted required a lot of work though. He was originally Teal and Sky Blue. After reviewing some of my favorite appearances of the Blue Beetle, I decided to go with a primarily Blue/Light Blue scheme. Teal does often show up on modern colorings of Ted, so I kept his cape (not really visible here) teal. I also painted his classic yellow goggles and even added a specular highlight! Huzzah! Growth! It was worth the repaint and he looks awesome sitting on the table.
This is another model I am very proud of. Arthur Curry (aka Aquaman) tends to be one of my tougher halflings. I used my scheme from MJC for the gold and decided to push the TTC green highlights a little higher here. I also used a dark blue to shade the orange which turned out to be a big problem. I spent a lot of time correcting the saturation because the blue looked very unnatural.

Now we get into the problem children. The last three models took me forever to complete, largely because they needed to be completely repainted. Their original schemes just didn’t work with the vision I had in mid. Some of them turned out great, but others will be joining Hal in the “eh” category.

Unlike Steak Rogers (aka Captain America) I could not “do this all day”. I had decided that I wanted to do a different blue with this model to change things up. So I decided to use GW The Fang, Russ Grey, and Fenrisian Grey for a slightly desaturated look. I spent a lot of time fighting with those paints. Honestly? I think they’re just old. They’re from the initial relaunch of the Citadel paint line as GW paints. However, Steve did eventually come together, even though I’m still a little disappointed with the way the blue-grey came out.
This is another of my favorite models, even if the paint job didn’t turn out exactly as planned. This is LoCal (aka Lobo) the dedicated fouler of the Moot Points. The sculpt of this model has a ton of character, and I’ve been using him for years to put the boot to downed opponents. He also required an entire repaint because the white skin preventing me from using while anywhere else on the model. I tried to differentiate blacks by using black with grey highlights on the helm and black with blue highlights for the leather. It kinda worked? The best thing about this whole model is that I got his moustache painted on. Oh, and the purple turned out good too.

The sculpt of this model has a ton of character, and I’ve been using him for years to put the boot to downed opponents.

Finally, in the 11th hour I realized I was a halfling short. So I picked the most painted halfling I had remaining and got him based coated. I introduce you to J’John J’Juice, the Martian Manhunter. 

He’s green! He has almost no highlights. He was good enough! However, the shirt caused a real problem because I felt like there was too much blue all together. I eventually “solved” it by going with a darker blue. I might ultimately go back and make it black/grey just to keep things cleaner. Again, open to suggestions.

So, you might possibly be wondering how we did at Amorical. We did much better than we anticipated! I ended up going 3 Wins and 3 Ties with the halflings, landing me at 23rd out of 200 participants. I came in… 3rd (?) for the Stunty Cup. My team. DUBBL Trouble came in 9th overall (out of 50) and came in 2nd (!!!) for our low point team build. Overall, it was a great time!

Bonus! – Blood Bowl

I’ve continued to work on my Dwarf team (the Wynnstaat Warriors) from my first A Tale of Many Warlords. I’ve swapped to using the TTC green triad mentioned above. I’m still getting used to highlighting, but ever model has something that works. In this case, I was proud of the skin, helmet, and ball. 

The wrinkles in the clothing, especially on the belly, were tough. I eventually got tired of messing with them and called this model good. I’m not sure how I’m going to base any of them. I’ll probably wait until the end to figure it out.

Also, as of writing, the Northern Virginia BB Tournament scene just closed out the 3rd annual Akhorne 8s. I was slotted as the odd player out (OPO), who plays if we have an uneven number of coaches in attendance. I ended up sitting out, but still got my Akhorne cleaned up just in case. I painted this little fellow for the 1st Akhorne 8s and felt he was the best thing I had ever painted at the time. I still think he’s very cute, but I touched up some places on the fur where the contrast paint didn’t take very well. 

I based him today! I applied a layer of Stirland Mud, let that dry, and tried to selectively add my sawdust grass. I ended up covering most of the mud… oh well. Look at that white line though! I applied that by putting a thick, wet coat of TTC Trooper White on a tooth pick and pressing it firmly onto the base. My British friend remains unimpressed. Maybe a skull? Can you ever really please the British?

That’s it for me folks, expect more Blood Bowl each month. I’m on a quest paint the last 7 teams I haven’t played (dwarves, chaos dwarves, high elves, elven union, dark elves, and lizardmen) and get them played by the end of the year. Wish me luck!

Jerry S.

Happy July everybody! June was a great month for me in the hobby, even if I didn’t hit all of my goals. I started the month planning on having all of my Legions Imperialis infantry finished and the whole army built. I fell a little short of this, only finishing 10 stands of terminators and only partially completing the rest of the infantry.

In an effort to procrastinate painting my smaller infantry, I did get substantial painting done on my 28mm Solar Auxilia. Finishing 40 las rifles, 10 Velataris, and 3 ogryns. I continue to love painting these models. Even got a second game with them!

This is the first month this year that I did not finish any Old World models, a streak I do not intend to continue. Look forward to seeing some more skeletons, mummies and constructs in the coming months.

Lets start with the smallest models in my collection:

This scheme isn’t too laborious, a necessity when painting such large quantities of such small models.

Here are the completed terminators for my White Scars. This scheme isn’t too laborious, a necessity when painting such large quantities of such small models.

These were painted with a simple zenithal of white over light grey, with some Mephiston red trim, with black and metal details painted on, covered with an umber oil wash to call out more of the details.

Here is my whole Legions Army, assembled and primed. There is certainly something to be said about how cool these models look ranked up en mass. I look forward to seeing the completed army on the tabletop, even if I loath the painting process.

Moving onto bigger, better Heresy- I had a prolific month painting Solar Auxilia, finishing a full 40 Las Rifles, 10 of the elite Velataris, and 3 of the hulking Charonite Ogryns.

I love the look of these resin Lasriflemen but I have to admit, painting the new plastics is a much smoother process. Luckily I have another 20 of the plastics yet to build and paint.

These Ogryns are absolutely brutal sculpts, and I mean that in the best way possible. They aren’t very good on the tabletop but they are absolutely fearsome on the painting table.

To start the month off, I watched the Lord of The Rings trilogy again… This, coupled with the upcoming supplement for Arnor and Angmar gave me an incredible urge to paint up some lord of the rings SPG models. Luckily I had the perfect trio of minis to paint up ahead of the new supplement…

The Witch King of Angmar!

I had the new plastics sitting in a cupboard along with the original Metal black rider model so I pulled out my brushes and gave these models a quick paintjob. I haven’t added flock to these just yet as I’m unsure if they will be joining my mordor army or my Angmar army. A decision that will likely wait until we have the new book in hand.

I’m very excited of July, a month without any work travel gives me great opportunity to get some hobbying done. I’m going to need every bit of that time if I plan on being prepared for NOVA as well. I have quite a bit of painting that still needs to be done ahead of my NOVA Events. I’ve listed the below things I need to finish to keep me honest!

  • Ultramarines
    • Paint my Thunderhawk and Base
    • build and paint 5 more Ultramarine Cataphractii Terminator
    • Stretch Goal: Paint Roboute Guilliman
    • Build and paint 20 Praetorian Breachers
  • Solar Auxilia
    • Paint my Solar Auxilia Command Squad
    • Paint 2 leman russes
    • Paint 1 Malcador
    • Build and paint 20 Companions
    • Build and paint 2 Auroxes

Its a long list, lets see if I can pull it out!

And that’s a wrap for this month’s hobby update! From finished Gnomes to ongoing Blood Bowl projects and Warhammer painting, we’ve seen a wide range of impressive work. Even though not all goals were met, the dedication and progress are truly inspiring. Can’t wait to see what next month’s updates will bring!

Remember to keep an eye out for more updates and surprises in the coming months! Happy hobbying, everyone!

Leave a comment

A Tale of Many Warlords- April

Swansong0930Leave a comment

Jerry S.

Howdy All! I’m taking lead this month and I gotta admit I’m pretty happy with my progress this month. This has been a pretty exciting month on my hobby desk. I continued my roll with my Tomb Kings and was able to get a good amount of progress on a couple Horus Heresy projects.

Tomb Kings

To start, I’ve continued making steady progress on my Tomb Kings with another block of 20 skeletons painted in the teal white scheme that I showed off in February. This is my 3rd 20 skeleton block completed and they make quite the sight all lined up. These 3 blocks of bones will be the main bulk of my Tomb Kings army for the time being.

While I still have 20 skeleton archers to paint, I will be taking a small break from painting the rank and file this month to paint up some of the more fun models in the Tomb Kings lineup. Below is a work in progress shot of a casket of souls I was working on as our April deadline arrived. I am very much looking forward to seeing this model completed, as well as one of the more Colossal models in the range.

The Horus Heresy

Turning our attention to the 31st millennium- I made some great progress on a squad of 5 Gal Vorbak and a Terminator Captain for my Word Bearers force that I will be using at the NOVA Open’s Zone Mortalis event in September.

This was my first time painting a fire effect and while the transitions could be a little smoother, I am thrilled with the finished product.

Solar Auxilia

I’ve been waffling back and forth on what army I wanted to bring to my NOVA doubles event and this month’s release gave me my answer. Anybody who knows me, knows that my first love in warhammer is the humble guardsman. The release of Solar Auxilia in plastic, has given me the incredible opportunity to work on an army that I’ve always loved, albeit from afar. I have acquired a few of the resin models from the always generous Mike P. and along with my headfirst dive into the new plastics, I will soon be able to put a 3000 point (unpainted) army on the field.

Needless to say, I’ve gone fully off the deep end on this release as this isn’t even half of the pile of Solar Auxilia models I have in my backlog now.

I think its safe to say that for the rest of the year, our loyal readers can expect to see a constant stream of finished Solar Auxilia models to join the already steady stream of Tomb Kings.

To finish up this month, I have a couple pictures of my first painted epic White Scars, alongside some 3d printed terrain that will be used as an Armies on Parade board for the NOVA open.

Oh and this landing pad….I wonder what will be calling this home…..

Kevin C.

Sadly, in contrast to last month where I had two Bretonnian units done, this month I have … none. With several deliverables at work, as well as a family trip down to Texas to see the eclipse in the middle of the month, my hobby time was severely curtailed. But, I was able to see a total solar eclipse for the first time, albeit through the clouds. So, this was cool…

I’ve also started hitting a groove where I watch my friends (and wife) play Helldivers 2 during the evenings, defending managed democracy, while I paint. It’s an enjoyable distraction, and I get to keep up with the gossip.

Legions Imperialis

So, I have a butt-ton of LI stuff to still paint:

  • Three Support Boxes (thank you Austin for needling me into buying a third)
  • Two Malcador Infernuses (Infernii?)
  • Two Valdor Tanks
  • Six Lightning Fighters
  • Two Marauder Bombers
  • Four Warhound Titans
  • Two Reaver Titans

I am very, very slowly making my way through the list. I decided to get the bases done, all in one go, with the technique shown on the Games Workshop Youtube channel video here (https://youtu.be/6MB5hLu9dlw).

  • Wraithbone primer
  • Seraphim Sepia Wash
  • Stipple brush with White Scar

This provides a nice contrast to my red & gold Vostroyans – it’s lighter in color, but still from the warm side of the palette, so it brings the force together.

After these were complete, I got super lazy and primed all of the platforms in the Support box Leadbelcher, and painted a few details on them after I got back from Texas. They are not great, but they are done, which has a quality all of its own.

Blood Bowl Black Orcs

These were not mine, but friends of the blog, who are Very Serious Blood Bowl Players™, needed a team done by May 3. I told them I could help them out, since I’ve painted Black Orcs before, which was a bit ambitious of me, considering my workload this month.

For Orc skin, I generally like doing lighter green skin, since that tends to make them pop on the table more. I really like Duncan Rhodes’ recipe that he uses for his Goff Boy in this video (https://youtu.be/EHxvAN7haMs). It’s not Blood Bowl, but it works well for most orcs, and it’s scalable – meaning, if I want to add extra details, it’s definitely doable.

  • Orruk Flesh Base
  • Athonian Camoshade Wash
  • Orruk Flesh first highlight
  • Nurgling Green second highlight
  • Kislev Flesh on select areas – lips, eartips, nosetips, scar tissue

Because they are supposed to be Black Orcs, I based the armor all in Leadbelcher and then covered it in Black Contrast – very easy dark armor there that you can then build upon with Stormhost Silver highlight. For the leather pants and belts, I used two different recipes for brown that I also use for my Bretonnians.

  • Rhinox Hide 🡪 Doombull Brown 🡪 Tuskgor Fur for the pants (I use this for the leather bits on Bretonnians)
  • Mournfang Brown 🡪 Skrag Brown for the belts

Because, as noted before, the owners of these Black Orcs are Very Serious Blood Bowl Players™, they needed these minis to have numbers for League Play. For the orcs, this isn’t a problem, but there is not a lot of armor for the goblins. So, I decided to put the numbers on their butts.

Finally, I decided to try out Technical Paints, using more or less the same recipe I plan to use for the movement trays for my Bretonnians, as shown in this video (https://youtu.be/k7tUuwJgZAs). Stirland Mud, Agrax Earthshade, and Gorthor Brown, along with healthy heaping of grass flock. To make it more football-like, I added white lines to the grass, using a coffee stirrer.

Supporting My Bretonnians

So, I was not able to paint any Bretonnian miniatures, but that doesn’t mean I did not paint anything for The Old World. A few months ago, I bought some movement trays from Litko, when they had just released Lance Formation shaped movement trays. I finally got time to glue them together and paint them accordingly. I also magnetized both the Knight bases and the movement trays, for easier transport. Hopefully this will make transporting them so much easier than packing them individually – I will not be doing that again.

That is all for me. I am hopeful that next month I will have the remainder of my knights completed. Until then!

Austin B.

April Advancements

Much like some of the others, this month has been a busy time for me, particularly with work. But still, I was able to get a bit of hobbying done in what little free time I had, though not quite as much as I had hoped. Between the lack of time and my constant jumping between projects, I don’t have as much to show as some of the others here – though with a few things in stages on the painting table, the next month might prove more productive! Still, it wasn’t a meaningless month, and I’ve still made great progress on miniatures for my newest obsession: Star Wars Shatterpoint. And necessarily, too, as my locals is having a tournament on May 11th that I plan to attend with a fully painted roster!

I’ll start with perhaps one of my favorites, the “Fearless and Inventive” squad pack, harkening back to the opening scenes of Return of the Jedi, with Leia in her bounty hunter getup, Lando and R2D2 in disguise, and Luke in his iconic black robes. R2 and Luke were technically completed last month, but were not yet based. All of these were very fun to paint up, all being very individual – though I did struggle a great deal with R2 as many of his details were rather small and soft. Luke was ultimately the easiest, just being almost entirely black robes. Ultimately though I found Leia (or well, Boushh) the most fun to paint, as I got to play around with trying to differentiate a few different tans and browns on a single model. My current intention is to run these guys as one of my squads in the upcoming event, so I was happy to get them all done.

C:\Users\austi\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Word\20240430_092724.jpg

Next up, and totally new for you all, is the “That’s Good Business” squad pack. Have I mentioned how much I love the box names for Shatterpoint? They’re great, and this box has probably one of the best. Haha! But here we have what will likely be my second squad for the event, as Shatterpoint lists require you run two squads together to form your Strike Team. And who better to assist our Rebel friends than the magnificent Hondo Ohnaka and his band of pirates? Hondo here especially was a real joy to paint (well, except for the monkey-lizard on his shoulder, whom I should have left off for sub-assembly. Again the uniqueness aspect of many of these Shatterpoint squads strikes again, as really every one of these models was fun and individual. Unfortunately that individuality also means batch painting is nearly impossible, so the time it takes to paint these models is increased compared to my more usual projects – certainly a contributing factor to my significant decrease in finished models to show off this month. 

Now, if I have the time between the end of this month and the event, the plan is actually to replace the Weequay Pirates above with the generic Bounty Hunters from my recently acquired “Fistfull of Credits” squad pack. You will almost certainly see them – and likely their named compatriots – in the next monthly updated. But if I can get them done in the remaining week and a half is yet to be seen…?

Other than that, further progress has been made on the initial two boxes I purchased, the two different Ewok squad packs. Again, some of these were already complete at the end of last month, but now I have finished some more of them and have gotten them all based up. The generic Ewoks still remain unfinished though. Unlike many of the other models, they have not been very fun to paint, at least for me. To be honest, it is partially my fault for having assembled them completely first, instead of doing them in sub-assemblies. But partially it’s the model’s fault, as each of the Ewoks, of which there are three to a base, have nearly the same amount of detail as the individual character models, so the time required to paint them to my standard is just absurd. Hopefully they will be done by next month, but I am not so sure I will get back to them before other things.

Plans And Preparations

Beyond all my progress with Shatterpoint, I’ve been turning my attention towards preparing my various lists for the NOVA Open this year. I have signed up for most of the Blood Bowl events at NOVA, as well as one event for Legions Imperialis. Though the convention is months away, I do not want to have to be painting frantically in the weeks leading up to the event, and would rather get my various teams and whatnot completed beforehand, so I can shift focus back to my other projects. Of course, why not kill two birds with one stone though, and complete some things I want to do anyways, or projects that I have been holding off on? I haven’t fully decided on all the teams I will be bringing for the various Blood Bowl events, but I do have a short list that I figure I will make the focus of things for a while. Meanwhile, I need to get my Legions Imperialis painted up anyways, as I am falling behind with the releases, so they were to become a priority anyways. And I have already started on my Solar Auxilia Support boxes, as well as a clutch of vehicles that I have added since I last showed off the army. I had hoped to have some of them done this month, but the support weapons have proven to be a bit of a chore to paint – though the vehicles are thankfully the opposite. 

Now on the Blood Bowl side of things, I think I will be soon focusing on finishing up my Vampire team that has been sleeping in its coffin for a few months now. But besides that, the one team I have most certainly decided to bring is the College of Shadows for Dungeon Bowl, and I have begun the task of painting up that eclectic mix of Dark Elves, Skaven, and… Gnomes!

This little buddy is the test model for my College of Shadows team, showing off the team colors of dark blue and emerald green. He will be joined by a few more of his kind, alongside some Skaven Blitzers, Gutter Runners, and a Thrower, as well as the terrifying Witch Elf and another Dark Elf lineman. But more on them next month, hopefully! And maybe a little magical surprise to go along with them…

Michael S.

This month I’ve been busy with lots of travel, but wanted to still get as much does as possible. Last month, I set some ambitious goals of fully completing 3 units. Sadly, I fell a bit short of my original goal. I was able to complete 2 of my 3 units. In addition, I made some good progress on a few other models that were waiting for some paint. All said and done, not all too disappointed given my busy month!

First off, my Heresy Death Guard. These tactical support marines have made an appearance before as a half-finished unit, but I finally got transfers applied. They are just waiting for some varnish!

I am pretty stoked about the final look for this unit. The transfers really brings them together.

Next up, my Tomb Kings have their first completed regiment. A unit of skeleton warriors in bright red. Quite happy with how this scheme turned out, and I am looking forward to painting the next unit. This was a fun exercise in contrast paint for me, a tool I haven’t heavily used before as the primary paint for a unit.

With the completed units out of the way, I wanted to showcase a few miscellaneous models from my desk. My longtime 40k army is Black Templars, though shameful few models are fully painted. After painting the units above, I had the itch to get back to edge highlighting some black armor and pulled out a few models. I was able to get some paint on a few of the terminators from Leviathan.

Frustratingly, the AP Speedpaint I used on the shoulderpad started to crackle when drying. This seems to be a side effect of using it over top of a less-than-matte undercoat. It was relatively easy to hit it with a wash to “fix” the crackle effect, but the shoulder pad ended up a much darker color than I intended. Despite this setback, I was super happy with how the cape and face turned out. The heraldry needs some attention, as to the metallics, but otherwise the model is coming together nicely.

In a departure to some non-GW models, I spent a little bit of time working on my Malifaux crew. I wanted to play with some of my new vibrant colors from the updated Vallejo Game Color range. As a long time VGC-hater, these paints have quickly become my go-to. The original colors often had a satin/glossy finish, and many colors had poor coverage. The updated range is quite the opposite!

That just about does it for me! May is shaping up to be a similarly busy month, so in an effort to achieve my goals, I am only aiming to finish my unit of tactical marines left over from this month. Happy hobbying!

Mike P.

Firstly, a huge shoutout to Mike and Taylor—it was fantastic meeting you both over the weekend, and I’m incredibly grateful for all the love and support.

Now, to bring everyone up to speed: I’ve admittedly taken a bit of a break from wielding the paintbrush recently. Truth be told, last month’s update was missing because, A, my productivity took a dip, and B, I’ve been pouring my efforts into completing my final papers for my bachelor’s degree. However, amidst the chaos, I managed to make some progress on a remarkable new project—the Bretonnian Paladin. This model has been an absolute joy to paint, though I must confess, I lost track of time completely immersed in the process. But hey, sometimes that’s just part of the magic, isn’t it?

A statue of a knight holding a sword Description automatically generated

In my initial article, I briefly mentioned my visit to Warhammer World, and now I’m excited to delve deeper into how I made that journey happen and share my experiences along the way. This isn’t meant to be the definitive guide, but rather a practical roadmap for those looking to embark on this adventure without breaking the bank. For those unfamiliar, Warhammer World is akin to Yankee Stadium for baseball fans or the Canton, Ohio for football enthusiasts—it’s the ultimate destination for tabletop miniatures aficionados, often likened to the “Disney World” of our niche hobby.

Surprisingly, prior to my own visit in 2022, I struggled to find comprehensive guidance on how to make the trip a reality. Despite reaching out to others who had been, I never received that insider’s perspective or “homeboy hook-up” that would truly demystify the process. It felt like an elusive secret guarded by those in the know. Since returning from my trip, I’ve been approached by numerous people seeking advice on how to replicate my experience and make their own Warhammer World pilgrimage. Thus, I feel compelled to share my insights and tips with fellow hobbyists eager to take the leap.

Picture it: mid-June 2022, a world still grappling with the aftershocks of COVID, and I’m feeling the weight of it all as I juggle the demands of my job. Every day feels like an uphill battle against the monotony, and I’m yearning for a break—something to shake up the routine. Then, in a moment of sheer desperation, a wild idea strikes me: what if I just went to Warhammer World?

Of course, there are hurdles to clear. Being married and in my line of work, jetting off to another country isn’t exactly a spontaneous decision. I figured it was just a fleeting daydream, something to ponder over my morning coffee. But then, I decided to broach the subject with my wife, expecting a skeptical response. To my surprise, she actually gave me her blessing. Emboldened by this unexpected support, I approached my workplace the next day—and to my astonishment, they too gave me the green light after some necessary paperwork and phone calls. Just like that, within the span of a single week, I had all the necessary approvals to make this impromptu self-adventure a reality. Shocking, indeed.

With all the necessary approvals in hand, I wasted no time. I swiftly purchased a plane ticket for the following Sunday, flying out from Baltimore to London. Anticipating my biggest hurdles, I tackled them head-on: securing my plane ticket, lodging, and a round-trip day train ticket. I knew that if I could nail down these three essentials, the entire trip would start to take shape. In terms of finances, I managed to snag all three items combined for a mere grand. Now, don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t living it up at the Ritz Carlton. Instead, I opted for a more budget-friendly option: a hostel above a pub in Shoreditch, a vibrant neighborhood in London. At just around 40 bucks a night, it was a steal; and if there are two things that I love most in this world, its beer and Warhammer.

As Sunday night descended, my wife dropped me off at BWI, and I embarked on a red-eye flight bound for London, with a layover in Iceland adding an unexpected twist to the journey. Despite my extensive flying experience, this particular flight proved to be one for the books. Peering out of my window, I was greeted by the breathtaking sight of Greenland’s icy expanse as the early morning light cast a mesmerizing glow. Upon touching down in Iceland, however, I received less-than-ideal news: my next flight was delayed by a whopping 8 hours, leaving me stranded in the Keflavik airport. Yet, surprisingly, I found myself unfazed by the setback. After all, there are certainly worse places to be marooned than in Iceland. To pass the time, I indulged in a few early morning beers, sampled some delectable Icelandic Pizza (a culinary delight!), and embraced my inner nomad by catching some shut-eye for the next five hours. Despite the unexpected delay, I couldn’t help but appreciate the unique experience unfolding before me.

A view of the sky from an airplane window Description automatically generated
Photo I took over Greenland
A person wearing sunglasses and a hat Description automatically generated
Sleeping off a few in Keflavik

Arriving in London late on a Monday afternoon, I wasted no time immersing myself in the vibrant energy of the city. With nothing but a trusty raincoat and my rucksack, I navigated the bustling streets, hopping on a shuttle (the Tube) from the airport to Liverpool Street Station. From there, a brief stroll led me to my humble abode for the night—a cozy hostel. After checking in, I rewarded myself with a well-deserved pint downstairs at the pub before calling it a night.

The next morning dawned bright and early, with a thrilling agenda awaiting me: a journey to the legendary Warhammer World in Nottingham. Armed with my faithful rucksack, I took the Tube to Paddington Station, where I boarded the East Midlands Railway (EMR) bound for my destination. The scenic two-hour train ride whisked me away to Nottingham, where I embarked on a picturesque half-hour walk along the serene river, finally arriving at the hallowed grounds of Warhammer World.

As I stepped foot inside, a sense of accomplishment washed over me. After nearly two decades of yearning, I had finally made it. For the next six hours, I savored every moment, immersing myself in the sights, scents, and exhibits that surrounded me. From leisurely strolls through the exhibit hall to perusing the offerings in the store, to soaking in the vibrant atmosphere of the gaming hall, I was in my element. A few pints and a hearty lunch at Bugman’s Bar only added to the euphoria of the experience.

A model of a castle Description automatically generated
My favorite exhibit in the Exhibition Hall

A burger and fries on a tray Description automatically generated
This ridiculous Burger I ordered for Lunch at Bugman’s Bar. It was amazing.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. Reluctantly, I bid farewell to Warhammer World, walking back to the train station and embarking on the return journey back to London. As the train whisked me away, I couldn’t help but reflect on the incredible journey I had just undertaken—a journey that had taken me from the comforts of my home in Maryland, USA, to the very heart of my long-held dreams. It was a feeling like no other, and I relished every moment of it.

For my final two days in London, I fully embraced my inner tourist, immersing myself in the rich tapestry of experiences the city had to offer. From the storied walls of the Tower of London to the spine-tingling thrills of the London Dungeon—an absolute must-see, by the way—I left no stone unturned in my quest for adventure.

With boundless energy and an insatiable curiosity, I traversed the city streets, weaving through iconic landmarks like Buckingham Palace and delving into the depths of world-class museums that housed treasures from centuries past. Along the way, I found myself forging new connections, striking up conversations with fellow travelers and locals alike, each encounter adding a vibrant hue to the canvas of my London adventure. Of course, no exploration of London would be complete without indulging in its vibrant pub culture. With a pint in hand, I raised a toast to new experiences and cherished memories, savoring the camaraderie and warmth that permeated each bustling establishment.

A large building with a clock tower Description automatically generated
Photo I took of Parliament

As the sun set on my final evening in this captivating city, I couldn’t help but reflect on the whirlwind of experiences that had unfolded over the past several days. With a sense of fulfillment and contentment, I bid farewell to London, knowing that I had seized every opportunity and embraced every moment to the fullest. And so, as Friday morning dawned, I embarked on the journey homeward, my heart brimming with gratitude for the memories made and the adventures shared. England had left an indelible mark on my soul, and as I soared through the skies, I carried with me the essence of this remarkable journey—a journey of discovery, connection, and boundless exploration.

From meticulously planning each step to navigating unexpected delays and serendipitous encounters, every moment has been a testament to the beauty of embracing the unknown. Warhammer World provided a sanctuary for my passion, while London’s historic landmarks and vibrant culture offered a tapestry of experiences unlike any other. All this at a cost around 1300 USD. As I bid farewell to London and head home, I’m filled with gratitude for the memories made and the lessons learned. I am grateful to share these experiences and insights with other hobbyists searching for Warhammer World and looking to embark on their own journey. This adventure reignited my passion for exploration and reminded me of the power of seizing every opportunity . So much so that I even made the trip two more time since then. Here’s to the journey—the highs, the lows, and everything in between. 

Joe R.

Welcome back everyone! Last month was quite the spread of hobby related projects (I might have snuck a few in from previous months). This month is quite different! However, things are ramping up in preparation for a Blood Bowl tournament in Canada!

Heartsdale Hedonists – Chaos Chosen, Blood Bowl

Those of you who read through last month will recognize this heading already. I was preparing for a Blood Bowl tournament in Roanoke VA (the Big Lick Brawl). I had decided to outfit my Chaos Chosen with an Ogre instead of the traditional Minotaur. However, I didn’t have one of those painted! That wouldn’t have been a huge deal, except I paid a fellow named Rawlin to paint my Chaos Chosen team around 10 years ago. I wanted to paint my Ogre to match (as closely as I could manage) to the existing team.

Here is the minotaur from the team, Aurum Barre, that I am trying to match with the Ogre. I do my best painting when I am experimenting with new skills or pushing myself outside of my small comfort zone. Last month I showed a zenithal highlight of the ogre, some putty work to try matching the basing, and some initial glazing.

  I spent roughly another week on the Ogre, who I named Argenti Barre, from the last update. I continued to glaze some additional layers onto the skin and generally block in the few spaces without any color. I was very

pleased with the skin, HOWEVER, I definitely think it would benefit from a few additional passes on the highlights. I’m not going to fret.

 

At this point, I was pretty pleased with the product. The pink tones did NOT match, but I didn’t think it was going to be distracting enough for folks to call it out. I started working on the base. Again, I don’t think it matches completely, but it’s close enough. I was about to call it done when I decided to add a blood effect to the hand (just like the Minotaur has!). You can see the results below. Again, I was very pleased with the effect. I varnished this model! I almost never do that! To finish off, I decided to use a gloss varnish on the metal surfaces and the shoulder pad. I think it looks pretty cool.

 

 

Overall, Argenti did very well at Big Lick Brawl. He even got a few compliments, especially from people who know my track record with finishing things.

The Moot Points – Halflings, Blood Bowl

Okay! Here we go! Halflings are one of my favorite teams in Blood Bowl. Not because they are a particularly amazing team, but because they come with their own built-in vibe. You might say, “Joe… don’t all stunty teams come with the same vibe?” No random internet person! I’ve had a lot of success with Ogres, so when I play Ogres I’m playing to win. Halflings? Not so much. This is my fun, maybe I’ll win, but I’m just here for a great time. Why? Well, every one of my team members is based off a different superhero. They are all painted to reflect the hero they represent. This means I can directly look at the model and know who it is. This has led to some legends on the team. Michael John Custard (Booster Gold) is a ball hog but tends to pull off the big plays when I need them. Thor Odinsoup can take punches on the line all day and rarely get injured. This team was produced by Willy Miniatures through a Kickstarter several years ago. They are sculpted by Pedro Ramos, who is one of my favorite creatives working in Blood Bowl.

 

A few of us from the Northern Virginia area are headed up to Ottawa for the Amorical Cup in early June. The Amorical Cup is designed to be a North American Team tournament for Blood Bowl. It was supposed to occur in 2020, but obviously that didn’t happen. Now it’s back! I thought it would be nice to give the Moot Points a fresh coat of paint and make them look a little more dynamic if we’re going to travel to a different country for Blood Bowl. I painted this team years ago. In this case, “painted” means I base coated them. They look fine on the table, but I know with a little TLC they could look so much better.

 

Unfortunately, I forgot to take BEFORE pictures of the miniatures I’m presenting today. I’ll make sure to grab those for the next batch. Overall, I need to touch-up 13 Halflings, 2 Treemen, and the star player Griff Oberwald.

 

I had recently picked up a few triads from Two Thin Coats (Black to dark grey, Ivory to white, wave 1 greens) and wanted to test out those paints. So I selected my Batman Halfling, Bruce Wyne. Bruce’s main colors are Grey and black, with yellow and blue as secondary colors. I wasn’t planning to glaze this time, so I expected the highlights to come across a little more cartoony than Argenti. I did REALLY like glazing the Vallejo Red-Violet into the skin recesses, so I started with that. I cleaned up all of the basecoats. They had accumulated a lot of chips and I had applied a very sloppy wash, which had really dulled the colors. I worked the skin a bit. It’s not my best work, but it’s definitely better than it was.

 

 

You can see I had a little trouble highlighting the black, especially on the helmet and shoulder pad. I still haven’t figured out how to highlight spheres. So I basically edge highlighted and picked out a few bright highlights. I suspect this will be a problem with the whole team. I was really pleased with the yellow highlights. You can really see them on the shoulder pad, but they ended up really helping the model pop.

Finally, I finished by basing the model with Geek Gaming Scenics spring “sawdust grass”. I just applied a layer of semi thick PVA and dunked it into the sawdust. So far, it’s been pretty durable. I will definitely add a white Blood Bowl lines (time permitting) once the team has been cleaned up.

 

 

Then I jumped over to Bisquey Batson (Shazam! Or Captain Marvel for you comics OGs out there). Bisquey had the same problems as Bruce. Again, I started by glazing red violet into the recesses of the skin and then brightening the skin up. Then I started working on the whites. I’m pretty sure the basecoat color was the grey from the old citadel foundation paints. I wanted to preserve some of that color in the shadows. I… didn’t do a great job. I used Ulthuan Grey as the next highlight, which REALLY popped the whites. I finished with some very limited highlights from Two Thin Coats Trooper White. I’m still working on Bisquey’s reds and golds, but he’s definitely moved up in the world. I am planning to finish him this week and get him based.

 

 Next up? Thor Odinsoup is on deck!