hobbies

July’s Community Roundup

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Michael S.

This month I wanted to take my hobby time to work on a character model for my Black Templars. I’ve always had a soft spot for retro game pieces, and I found this old Captain Draco model on eBay a year or two back for cheap. Something about holding a pewter mini just feels so nostalgic.

That’s about all the good things I have to say about pewter minis. Any major mouldlines are a huge headache, and luckily this model came in okay shape. I’ve always had issues surface quality of metal minis affecting the final paint job, so I was meticulous about cleanup. I took a micro-file and some fine sandpaper to lots of the flat surfaces to help smooth out any irregularities. After a good bit of manual labor, I was ready to start painting. I don’t have a picture of the cleaned model, but the pitting is visible in the original shot.

For the robes I worked with muted browns and ivory. I tried to put some texture on the fabrics using crosshatching, but I found that this didn’t quite give me the effect I wanted. I tried my hand a freehanding a Templar cross, which is easier then it sounds. By following the pattern below, you can consistently get a symmetrical cross as long as you have a good brush point.

There are plenty of ways to paint black armor, but for a centerpiece mini I wanted to put in the extra mile to make it pop. I decided to paint the model using non-metallic metals, and followed a similar method for painting the black armor, albeit with less pronounced reflections. .

For the NMM metal, I researched some potential recipes for various metal tones and chose about 4-5 colors for the progression. For the golds I started with dark brown, to a pale yellow and finally a highlight of off-white. For the silver and steel, I used a dark gray, then progressed up to pure white leaning more towards the cooler midtones. I started by sketching out my highlights and blending them in using several thin glazes.

At first I wanted to scrap it, but the final step of applying specular and edge highlights really turns on the effect. It was a great excercise, though I’m still not sold on how the Bolter is turning out. There was still some residual texture which I found made it hard to get a good clean color transition. All in all though I am glad I really pushed myself to try new things.

I am not quite done with this model yet, but I am looking forward to finishing it up and getting him based!

Cory E.

In the far future of the 41st Millennium there is only…. Nostalgia ?

From Wizkid’s Mageknights to James Workshop’s Warhammer, I’ve always loved plastic minis and spending money. My Jr. High School days saw my fleet of red Eldar facing off against Necron Monoliths, Space Marine Dreadnaughts, and Tau. ….getting shot off the board by Tau. 

I genuinely don’t know what edition it was and if we even played by the right rules but boy-howdy did we roll some dice!

I have to shout out my old spot as being an absolute kingdom to first be introduced to the game. This was an official Games Workshop store, but I swear it used to be a pool hall before that. Walking into the store you’re met with two rows of 4-5 wargaming tables to the back wall that goes left with 2-4 more tables. A couple vending machines in the back for a Mountain Dew & Funyun fix because YOLO. The other half of the store had the product shelves and then there was a U-Shape bar top with stools for painting. (I think I saw my first men’s butt crack there….) You could bring your own paints and brushes but this was the early 2000s and GW employees were cracking open fresh paint pots for patrons without a care in the world! 

We got in a lot of 40K but as happens, one of the guys got into Warhammer Fantasy so we all did. My Dark Elves & Cold-One Riders got somewhat painted up and I probably played two games. It was fun but I was more enthralled with the new Lord of the Rings tabletop game. I think my 1st or second purchase was a Mumakill because who doesn’t love a giant elephant??

Much more a collector than a gamer at this point, I amassed a sizable LoTR army before slowing down and eventually putting it away in my trademarked GW foam cases.

But that was the past. I had put it all away and rid myself of my plastic addiction until I picked up Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Games a few years ago after a 15 year hiatus. (I would admittedly look at the models every 2-3 years and say that I’d get back into it but never did.) But love it or hate it – Rings of Power got me back into Tolkien’s world and I found a great east coast community to play! I’ve got stories and updates from modest LotR hobbying, but this is about 40K, right? 

“Just when I thought I was out – they pull me back in.”

-The God Emperor of Mankind, 31st Millenium. Probably. 

So the 40K relapse isn’t entirely my fault. I’ve got this buddy and I tried to get him into LotR. We played a practice game and he even kicked my ass just like you’re supposed to let happen when introducing a friend! So I’m introducing him to Mr. Workshop, show him the website and -uh-oh those sci-fi boys are looking pretty sweet. Chainswords, lasers, TANKS … it’s hard to compete. Ok, ok I know the 40K 2k pt army rabbit hole so I try to prevent this with things like Age of Sigmar Spearhead and Kill Team: buy 1-box and you’re all-set kind of games. And it works! We’ve got some Spearhead games under our belt and even a game of Kill Team! 

Then comes that dang Death Korps of Krieg box. And then that Space Wolves Army Set came out. And then Audible had an 80% off Black Library sale. So 2 pre-orders, 5 Horus Heresy books and a Space Wolves Omnibus later and we’re back! 

(Disclaimer – my friend got the Krieg box… which is what tee’d up the Space Wolves purchase so I think we can blame/thank him.)

So I don’t have a picture of my first model for comparison but you know the type: 1 thick coat, heavy nuln oil wash and two big white color-outside-the-lines looking eyes. This time we’re gonna do it right. I’ve better tools, better patience, and an endless supply of youtube videos telling me what version of the slapchop method is meta right now.

This month I took to the icy shores of Fenris and assembled the Space Wolves Army Set. I got the Blood Claws and Grey Hunters assembled and sticky puttied onto their bases. I’ve got big plans for making some frost bases and I want to be able to take them off. I also built the Head Takers and these are some sweet models! Being new to 40K, I didn’t know if I’ll need a shield or two swords so I magnetized. I got out my dremel tool to hollow out each arm and added some greenstuff for the magnets to sink into. The Head Taker shoulderpads are built into the torso & cape so I added the inside magnets first but otherwise it couldn’t have been easier.

Time for some paint! Now if these models were following my traditional pattern, they’d stay assembled and unpainted while I order Logan Grimnar…(okay he is on the way). But this time is different and this time I’ve got better tools – like Jerry’s airbrush! I did a classic black prime with a grey “Zenithal” to get all the guys staged. We used the airbrush to paint the shoulderpads yellow and this was game changing and a vast improvement from my layer-painted Blood Claw I got from the Adepticon preview. I generally like layer painting and want to improve but I get fatigued when painting a whole army. 

This is my Adepticon Blood Claw I test painted before all the rest. Although it’s perfectly acceptable, it was painstaking and I’d like to do better. The shoulder pads were a paint to layer paint with yellow. The recess shading with a pinwash was a bit messy.  You’ll see in the next pictures that I opted  for airbrushing the new shoulderpads white first then painting yellow. And  I opted for an overall contrast paint with sponging on top for the power armour. 

So instead I opted for speed paints – a 50:50 mix of Runic Grey and Cloudburst Blue. This turned out to be a sweet deep blue that is totally wrong for my Space Wolves so I sponged on some Vallejo Steel Grey and it looks great. The speed paint + sponging made the speed paint stay in the recesses like a wash and offers a sort of chipped battle damage underneath so I’m going to say that it all worked out according to plan. I have a Fenresian Grey that I’ll use to push the highlights up whenever I get the courage to edge highlight. 

Time to add the shoulder pads. These were left off so they’d be easier to airbrush and paint. I stuck them to some painters tape that I looped to be double-sided and then airbrushed them grey/white. Then I took imperial fist contrast paint and airbrushed that as well. Much easier than brush layering the yellow and a cleaner look than my fist go around.

So with the shoulder pads and the rest of the bodies ready I put them on and painted the trim. I’ve been loving the Space Wolves books surrounding Ragnar Blackmane so I’ll be running his chapter. So I’ve got some MicroSol & MicroSet on the way so I can do those transfers. I’ll also need to search for my sharpest/thinnest brush so I can do their Blood Claw pack markings!

And that’s where I end with my Space Wolves success so far. It feels great being back in the world of 40K with a bit more patience for all this painting. Tune in next month to see the Blood Claws completed hopefully alongside their Grey Hunter & Headtaker brothers. That or I’ll fully pivot over to my Mortisan Elite Spearhead that I just built…. Oh the choices we make!

Okay full disclosure: This article is coming out about July hobby progress… but I did start this in June. So I’m a bit ahead. Which means that I’ll be sure to have more for y’all next month. Here’s a quick spoiler: 

The Whistle Stop Whisper

*Legal Distinct from all other machines that convert circulating stories into hype*

Joe R

While I would say that July also turned out to be a great hobby month, this particular recap isn’t going to be all that impressive. This is a situation where the end products don’t necessarily communicate the activation energy that was required to FINALLY start some of these projects. However, I am extremely pleased with both results, even though there is more work to be done on both.

Ash Wastes Terrain – Necromunda

Look at that, a single header. Everything I did this month was in support of Necromunda. Let’s start with the “Prof” Pyggi, the newest addition to my Junktown Jesters.

Since I am the arbitrator of my Ash Wastes campaign, I am inclined to run a gang that is fun for me to play but not designed with every optimal mechanical choice. It’s also my first time consistently playing Ash Wastes, so I wanted to try out some options that I’ve never gotten to the table. One of these is the Waster Dirtbike. Now, folks on the internet will tell you that the bikes tend to be a liability instead of a benefit. The Junktown Jesters do not care! So I slapped an Escher on a dirtbike with a chainsword and decided to model her after Batman’s Professor Pyg. I was not willing to spend actual GW models on this experiment, so I used parts from various Print Minis sets to assemble my vision. The bike is from Sedona Bikers, the rider is from the Sickles (though in hindsight I should have used the one from the Bitter Nightshade Vehicle Kit), and the chainsword arm is from City Outlaws. I would select a different bike next time (the railing is hard to paint) and I would prime everything black instead of white, but overall I am very pleased with Pyggi!

I was very pleased with the pinks on the model. I started with Reapers Punk Rock Pink for the base. This paint is very thin so it took several coats. Then I used Vallejo Old Rose to highlight up to a midtone. Finally I did some targeted highlights with Vallejo Salmon Rose mixed 1:1 with Old Rose. It took a little time to understand the lower half of the model. I’m not sure if some of the details didn’t come out, or I just didn’t know what I was looking at. Regardless, eventually I got there. I used Reaper Leather White for the straps and came back through with some Vallejo white to provide some limited highlights. I also tried to do a gem effect on the boots. It looks okay. Once I seal the model (as far as I’m convinced, she’s done!) I’ll go over them with a gloss finish. I also freehanded the hazard stripes! I’ve done better, but they look good enough on the table.

The bike is still a work in progress. Priming it white was the wrong decision. I ended up going over it with a black ink so that the metallics would work better. This has been a somewhat frustrating bit of work to fix my initial priming mistake, but it’s getting there. I will eventually add some weathering powder to the rider, bike, and base to reflect the dust kicked up from the ash wastes.

One of my favorite things about 3D printing is producing my own bases. Here I used Txarli’s Dry Ground. While I am pleased to have “finished” a base for this model, it didn’t turn out exactly as I hoped. I’m currently using a red rock battlemap for my Ash Wastes campaign (mainly so I can overlap with my Cowboy shenanigans!). I should have gone for an orange approach to the base (like the rocks I painted) instead of the dried dirt approach I took. Oh well. I have since watched a few videos and will be prepared next time. 

Next up, the Fuel Station from Print Minis that I showcased recently. This has been sitting on my desk, primed, for at least two months. Why? Because I’ve never painted terrain and I was scared. How do I get over that? Sponges. Holy Moses, I love painting with a sponge. I originally started with one of those egg shaped sponges everyone on YouTube is using. I could not get that sucker to work well for me. I either wasn’t adding enough water or I had added too much! I will revisit this sponge, but instead I started ripping apart make-up wedges and using those little pieces with a pair of tweezers to do my painting. This worked out much better for me.

Frequent readers may recall that I wanted to paint my fuel station like a Red Rocket Fuel Station from Fallout, so I knew that red was going to be the primary color. I started by doing the whole model in Army Painter’s Basilisk Red. Then I came back with a liberal helping of Pure Red everywhere except the bottom. Then I provided some limited highlights with Raging Rose. Overall, I am VERY pleased with the results. Some touch ups will be required, but for now it’s gorgeous. I am considering using this for my first oil wash because, well, why the hell not. I think it will bring out some of the dents and add to the atmosphere of a functional, but poorly maintained, fuel station.

Next I started working on the roof and awning. I did these almost exclusively with Two Thin Coats (TTC) Sir Coats Silver with little highlights of Mythril Blade. To do the rust I combined Rust Orange with Wasteland Brown in various mixes. I think I went a little crazy with the rust spotting, but it was fun. Next time I’ll be a little more targeted.

The most important thing about this project though? I had a BLAST doing this. Sponging was easy and the results looked great. There are still several pieces to finish before I’m done with the Fuel Station. I’m going to continue to use this to experiment with different techniques to help it reflect its environment, but I will continue to use sponging as my main terrain tool. 

That’s all for my July folks! Next month is the Nova Open! Let’s see what we can get done before then, alright?

Kevin C.

For the first week of this month, I spent in the sunny mountains of Colorado, celebrating my parents’ 50th anniversary. I am never able to get much hobbying done on vacation, but I was able to get some riding in, this time on horses rather than bikes.

While not a painting project, I was able to get my second display case assembled and anchored, so I will be working hard this year to fill this up. Only with fully painted armies, mind you.

Empire Rebasing

So, a bit of a backstory. In the old days of 2009, my fiance (now wife) was out of the country for several months, giving me time to work on a new army. Having recently finished my first Bretonnian army, I began my work on a new Empire army, inspired by the artwork of the recently released Heraldry of the Empire, specifically the Company of Honour out of Altdorf.

I attempted to replicate this color scheme in my troops. Admittedly, my skills back then were… not great, consisting solely of base coat and wash, maybe a highlight or two. I did spend a lot of time on my greatswords and steam tank though, which I have taken pictures of here.

I played a ton of games with these guys, including several large event battles, like the Battle of Miragliano, which was a ton of fun. But, as I got married and then had a kid, I no longer had time to play large games, so I sold the army off. Unlike my first Bretonnians, who are now lost to the Winds of Chaos, I sold this army to my brother, who was at that time sans kids and had the ability and interest in playing large games.

Fast forward to 2024 – The Old World has been released, and Empire along with it. I am getting the itch to get some games in, as well as painting armies. In a reversal of roles, my brother was now newly married and with a newborn, and I was able to have some free time, so I offered to buy back my army, which he graciously accepted. 

However, in the intervening years, he had had all the miniatures rebased for Age of Sigmar, reasonably assuming that that was going to be the future of Warhammer Fantasy from now on. So, my first task was to re-rebase all of the troops onto square bases (and magnetize them). While this was a time-consuming task to be sure, this was not terribly creative, so I won’t bore you with details here. Suffice to say, here is the end result.

Empire State Troops

Even though this is already a ton of troops, I still have several more that my brother obtained that were not painted, so I’ve made it my goal for the next few weeks to paint them to display. These will… not be as good as my Bretonnians. There are a lot of miniatures, and I am mainly painting them to tabletop standard, if even that. I have fleshed out my Swordsmen, Halberdiers, and Crossbowmen this month.

Even still, I’ve been able to speed up the process immensely with some nice application of contrast. I am looking forward to getting a full army on the field before the end of the year, perhaps even by the end of summer! It also helps that I am getting Jerry to paint my Flagellants and Free Company infantry as well, which will be immensely helpful. 

Empire War Wagon

The last bit of hobbying I was able to complete is going to be a bit of a treat for me, the last Empire piece I will work on before calling the army complete. I picked up the Empire War Wagon when it went on sale with the release of the Empire for The Old World, but I have been putting off assembling it until now. 

It was a difficult piece to assemble, but boy oh boy, these miniatures look phenomenal. Unlike the rest of my Empire miniatures, I will be spending a long time painting this project. I am looking forward to it.

For next month, I am looking to paint my Pistoliers and (old pewter) Hellblaster with crew, and then getting through an ungentlemanly number of handgunners. Finally, I have some characters which I hopefully will be able to share next month.

Until then!

Community Roundup – April

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Kevin C.

Deathwatch Tacticals

Bit of a story… strap in…

The last time I went to Adepticon, all the way back in 2011, I was frantically painting up Space Wolf & Vostroyan armies for the Team Tournament. One of my teammates showed me his display case, which had a considerably sized Deathwatch army, all the marines from different chapters. That, in conjunction with the recent release of the Deathwatch RPG by Fantasy Flight (now sadly OOP), inspired me to get some Deathwatch upgrade kits, the old pewter ones, and make a Deathwatch army of my own.

I bought some basic tactical marine kits, and requested Friend of the Blog Chewie to build some squads up for me. Later, I would add some assault marines and terminators to this ensemble, as well as bikes, rhinos, and the new Corvus Blackstar kit. I had no intention to play this army competitively, but I wanted to represent many unique chapter bits throughout the army. This army, in its totality, was completely built in 2016, just after the new Primaris miniatures were released. I was rather annoyed with this, thus making my marines rather outdated, but I did eventually commit to painting my marines. I also made a commitment to have each marine come from a different chapter, and to represent many of the more obscure chapters.

In 2021, when the second edition of Kill Team came out, I painted my tactical marines to bring to various Kill Team events. I enjoyed how they played and the straightforward and flexible nature of their strategy. I know they can no longer be used in the current version of the game, but I wanted to make sure that the full army could finally see the light of day. Or at least, the light of my display case.

Two recent purchases made this project possible. First was my new display case, which I’ve shown earlier, which allows me to actually display the full army, rather than have them packed away in some random box for no one to see. The second was a gift I received for Christmas from my wonderful wife – a set of Artis Opus drybrushes. These did wonders for getting the right color on the black power armor and tanks, especially when using the Artis Opus tutorials, which I highly recommend.

Deathwatch Vehicles

I wanted to take a first crack at the vehicles, to get some drybrushing experience before starting on my infantry. Chewie assembled my Rhinos with a detachable top door that can be replaced with twin-linked lascannons to make each a Razorback. A few years back, I purchased some MSP Paints for painting a cool black, so that’s what I used for the rest of the army.

I was able to get a good base coat on the Rhinos fairly easily, but I started to get ambitious with freehanding some design stripes. I wanted to try freehanding an Inquisition symbol on the top hatch, as well as adding in the stripes along the front. While the striped in the front seemed to work well, I’m not entirely pleased with the Inquisitorial symbols. Even still, they give much needed color to the black vehicles.

I also included some script decals along the hulls that I purchased several years ago from Mighty Brush Decals (https://www.themightybrush.com/product/imperial-gothic-script-waterslide-transfers-decals/). I had intended to use these on some Imperial Knights, but I gave up on that project several years ago. I am glad I was able to use these decals on something else I worked on, and I think they worked well.

Secondly, I worked on the Corvus Blackstars. I admit, they were a lot larger than I was expecting, and they proved more difficult to basecost with drybrushing. I ended up getting some unpleasant streaks due to getting impatient and having too chalky of paint on my brush. Contrary to the name, “drybrushing” requires moisture in the paint, just like any other painting.

Next, there was a lot of gold and silver across the miniature, and much less red. I decided against a red stripe on each wing, as I feel like it would crowd out too much of the existing design. I do like these miniatures, but I’m not entirely sure I gave them the love they deserved. They are still quite flashy though, so I’m pleased with how they turned out.

Deathwatch Terminators

Before working on the Terminators, I put a new base coat on the infantry. I was pleased with my improvement in the drybrushing, but after reaching this point, I did feel like this was a bit too light for black armor. After reaching this point, I darkened the color with an overall black wash.

As I mentioned before, I wanted each of the marines to come from different chapters. I already had an Imperial Fists tactical marine, and one of these terminators would be a Salamander, but there were many Imperial Fist descendent chapters to choose from. They were a bit more obscure, but some old hands may recognize some of the chapters from their badges. None of them are DIY, promise.

Deathwatch Assault Marines

Unlike the terminators, the assault marines were designed and built with specific chapters in mind. There happen to be a lot of well-known melee-focused chapters, so it was not difficult to have five from well known chapters among the lore. It gave me some much-needed practice in freehanding chapter symbols.

I’m actually quite pleased with the technique I used for the power blades/axes/claws. Simply a base coat of Grey Seer, overall contrast of Aethermatic Blue, second contrast of Kroxigor Scales near the forte of the blade, and finally a highlight of Blue Horror. Probably something I will use in future projects.

Deathwatch Bikers

Unlike Assault Marines and Terminators, I have never painted biker marines before, so this was a new experience for me. Fortunately, unlike the other two squads, these did not have many extra bits, so I could work on these in batches easily enough. I obviously had to have one of these bikers a White Scars – which happened to be the one with the chain-talwar – but the others I needed to find good chapters they could come from.

Most of these are from White Scar chapter descendants, but I did include two Raven Guard Successors, a different kind of swift strike capability.

Deathwatch Heroes

Finally, I was able to tackle the Deathwatch Heroes – Chaplain, Librarian, and Captain. There was a lot of detail in each one of these miniatures, so they took longer than I was anticipating, but I am glad I was able to complete them before the end of the month.

And, with the heroes completed, the entire army has been completed. After nine years of staring down at me from their perch on my unfinished shelf – yes, I have an unfinished shelf – they have now taken their place of honor in my display case.

Until next month!

Austin B.

The Forces Grow

My work on Battletech projects continues! The NAIS Training Cadre I previewed last time have gotten a slight rework of their scheme, and some considerable additions! More than the 12 I had initially envisioned, and with more to come eventually as further Battletech releases creep out into the open markets.  

We’re now up to 16 mechs, not including the now-stripped Valkyrie I had done up as the test model. I have plenty more to do for this force, and I quite enjoy the scheme. It is a bit time-consuming though, which is why I haven’t gotten more than these 16 done. Well, that, and I pivoted to another, much easier to paint force: the St. Ives Compact!

Much easier to paint indeed, as it took me very little time to fly through painting 27 mechs! Just over two Companies worth! It’s a fun, simple, and effective scheme, and I have many more sitting on the painting desk waiting to be finished. These are shaping up to be my largest force yet. And with them being intended for some of the more popular eras for Battletech gaming, they’re already shaping up to be my most played force as well. So I have considerable incentive to keep up on this force most of all. That all said, with recent releases, and some recent purchases, I do have some additional things to paint now for my Outworlds Alliance and Clan Snow Raven, so I may be pivoting back to them in this coming month. That, and with new Shatterpoint releases out now, I have some more Rebels to paint. So expect a bit more than just several dozen more mechs for the Compact next month!

Joe R

Those of you with a keen eye (or just eyes really…) may have noticed a distinct lack of updates from me last month. March and April were chock full of travel, both work and pleasure. Additionally, y’all, Red Dead Redemption 2 is really good. REALLY good. It’s like I’m 7 years late to the party or something! Needless to say, hobbying has ended up in the backseat despite the start of the year showing so much promise. That said, I do have a few goodies to share.

The Venison Beach Grindylow – Blood Bowl Goblin Team

The Grindylow are still coming along, but have slowed significantly. I was hoping to have the 9 players from my 7s team painted, varnished, and based. So far, I’ve managed to finish the Looney (aka chainsaw) and put a preliminary basecoat on another Gobbo.

I had some bigger plans to turn this model into a Harley Quinn style character, but ended up deciding to just keep her blonde. I tried to make her mask look a bit like a Tiki mask with the bright and dark browns. Eh, it’s fine. I was pleased with the hazard striping, which I freehanded. Overall, there are a few areas of this model that could use some additional attention but I was happy to move on. Looking at this picture, I think I might take another crack at her eyes.

3D Printing – Necromunda, Trench Crusade

You may think “Joe, 3D printing stuff isn’t really hobby progress!” Fundamentally, I don’t disagree with you. That said, my workshop has been abuzz during April. Even though I don’t make my own models (or even modify them in Blender), I often forget how much time is required to set up and clean the prints. This is extra true for resin prints which require washing, removal of supports, and final curing. Let’s take a look at what’s been cooking…

Kevin (of AToMW fame) and Greg both requested my services to print Trench Crusade models they had acquired. Greg picked up the Trench Pilgrims, whereas Kevin acquired the Red Brigade. Thankfully my resin printer is dialed in, so I rarely get failed prints. However, sometimes the parts for modular models are spindly. In this particular case, I ended up printing the same flail 4 TIMES. It’s now up to Greg to make the final version of this particular piece escape its support prison. Kevin’s models were cake. Westfalia Publishing made some great models with great supports. I even ended up temporarily joining their Tribe on MMF. Here is a mixture of parts for the Trench Pilgrims I printed for Greg.

I’ve also got a Necromunda Ash Wastes campaign waiting in the wings. Terrain has long been a weakness of my ability to prepare a Necromunda table. I have lots of sprues ready to be assembled, but my selections for Ash Wastes are limited. I’ve been collecting files for use in the campaign for about 6 months now, but hadn’t printed a single thing. Well, that has changed! 

I’ve had my eyes on David Sheff’s Ash Pocalypse for a while now. He just completed a new campaign where I was able to pick it up for near original price. The crashed bike, jeep, barricades, and tower are all from there. I haven’t even begun to print the series of flexible walkways that “sub” for the official GW terrain (which I’m also preparing to assemble in the near future). The resin pieces are from Print Mini’s Fuel Station. Obviously, I love the Fallout vibe. I’ve been a patron of Print Minis for a long time and have almost all of their Necromunda collection. This includes a WEALTH of interesting terrain pieces and vehicles, especially for Ash Wastes. The Fuel Station is my first effort to actually print any of them. Almost all of the kits are designed for resin (though some of the newer stuff also includes FDM printing), so this is an experience for me. Even with my (relatively) large print bed it takes multiple prints to complete sets. I’ve got an Ash Waste train in my queue as well. Hopefully something we can use for the midpoint of the campaign.

Speaking of, I’ll probably post the ruleset for my Necromunda campaign for folks to peruse. I try to keep everything contained to a single (somewhat overwhelming) rules packet.

Cuckoo Clock Figurines

Now for something completely different! My stepdad recently found a cuckoo clock that belonged to his grandparents. He’s going through the process of restoring it and asked me to repaint the figures that dance at the top of the hour. It’s been a very different task for me!

These figures appear to be made out of plastic and have definitely seen better days. Very quickly, the two on the right have had a few new layers of acrylic paint applied. The fellow with the tuba is about complete (minus brightening the tuba a bit). The other two haven’t been touched, so you can see where things are starting from. The plastic doesn’t take acrylic paint particularly well, so I find myself applying a few coats just to get halfway decent coverage. I’m not planning to do a lot here. I’m basically going to repaint them, maybe provide a tiny bit of depth, and call them good. It’s been fun to reinvigorate the models and see them come back to life though! The addition of eyebrows really made the tuba model come to life. I’m hoping to have these 4 done by the end of May. When the cuckoo clock is finished, I’ll include a video of these fellows in action.

Well, that’s all for now folks. There are a lot of projects in my near future. My Escher need some TLC and those terrain pieces aren’t going to paint themselves. I’ve also got a quick Blood Bowl project that I’m hoping to finish by the 3rd Saturday in May. We’ll see how it goes! Wish me luck!

Community Roundup – March

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Jerry S

This Month’s Painting

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

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

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

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

Adepticon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until Next time, Adios!

Austin B.

Short-cuts Make For Long Delays

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kevin C.

Cawdor Rehabilitation

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

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

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

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

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

Cawdor Redemption

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

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

RPG Miniatures

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

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

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

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

Deathwatch Incoming

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

Until next month!

Michael S.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tale of Many Warlords – February

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Austin B.

New Year, Same Old Things

Unfortunately I was still rather busy through the month of January, so my progress then on hobby stuff ground to a screeching halt throughout that month. I only got done with a few figures, in sporadic bursts. And just as I was getting back in the groove, I fell ill in early February, putting another stop on painting plans. Only recently have I gotten back into the swing of things, and with these various hiccups, some plans have shifted, and new projects have sprung forth. But that does not mean previous ones were abandoned! 

On the MESBG front, while the Rohan has been temporarily shelved, I was able to finish the last dozen-ish models I needed to convert my completed Ugluk’s Scout’s over to being playable as Lurtz’s Scouts – including Lurtz himself! Twice over, actually! A second banner bearer and Captain join him, as well as all of the metal Uruks from the Amon Hen boxed set – including the lovely pair carrying Merry and Pippin!

I haven’t pictured all of the finished models. There were a few additional plastic Uruk-hai Scouts that needed to be painted up as well, to round out the numbers. In-fact, of the two total boxes I have of the Scouts, I still have about another dozen left to finish them all – plus some ancillary pieces. Maybe I will finish them all someday, if I ever feel so inclined to bring this army to a larger event.

Now what was rather interesting about this project was actually returning to it. I had completed Ugluk’s Scouts back in 2018 or 2019, following (with some edits) a painting guide on the GW website at that time. With the relatively recent website change, that article disappeared! And so I had to go through the painstaking process of reworking what the paint scheme was to match. Though interestingly, I did figure I was able to trade out the basecoat + wash for the majority of the brown cloth in favor of the Cygor brown contrast paint, and it worked! The newer models are by no means an exact match, but they look close enough, especially at a distance. Here I have my two captains. The one on the left is new, while the one on the right is the one previously painted several years ago:

Atop the MESBG progress, I was also able to put some more work in on my ever-growing Shatterpoint collection, putting paint on both the newer Veers box and the Chiss Grand Admiral himself. While I have yet to finish the Snowtrooper Lieutenant (he’s on the painting desk, waiting to get done), I did get both Veers and his two Snowtroopers completed. I had a lot of fun with the Snowtroopers in particular, trying to work out two different colors of “white” to differentiate different bits of cloth.

With Thrawn completed, that polishes off his box in totality. I’ve posted his other box-mates before – the ISB and Agent Kallus – but here they are again, together! Hopefully the Veers box can join them shortly in the vastly increasing list of completed boxes for Shatterpoint. 

After the Lieutenant, the plan is to return to the Rebels (and friends) I have remaining, especially with the newer releases about to hit in the coming months. I secured myself a full set of the Spectres wanted poster alt art order cards, so I do feel rather obligated to get the remainder of their members finished up now! And perhaps also polish off Lando’s box while I am at it.

And now speaking of the same old things,  I have taken another detour towards Battletech as a bit of a distraction, finishing some more models for one long-running project, and planning two (really three) new forces. Firstly, I completed another Lance of mechs for my 3rd Proserpina Hussars of the Draconis combine. I am not sure I have posted this force before here, so perhaps I will detail them in a later article. But it is a rather fun scheme to do. These four more Mechs join the 20 already finished in this color scheme, making for a nice even 24 for two full Companies. I am hoping to finish the full Battalion (40 mechs) here in the near-ish future!

Atop those, I did test models for two other forces I am going to be working on. The first is for the Scorpion Empire’s Omega Galaxy, and the second is for their competing element: the Hanseatic League’s Regional Defence Force 2. I know, what an inspiring name! But it is a fun little scheme with some influence from older German states – in this case, Bavaria. All of RDF 2’s mechs feature the diamond-checkered Bavarian flag on one of their arms. Meanwhile Omaga Galaxy’s tan and red provides are rather different-looking opponent.

Plans for Omaga Galaxy are rather large. I already have a little over 30 mechs in my possession earmarked for them – including many IIC designs, plus some IS mechs fitted with clan-tech, and other second-line clan mechs.. Plans for RDF 2 are comparatively smaller. A “mere” 16 mechs. Though It is reasonably likely I’ll end up with more than that, when all is said and done. 

This is all I have for now. I hope to have some more progress to show you all next month!

Joe R

The streak for 2025 certainly continues. Hmm… why would anyone desire a relaxing hobby and escapism in this day and age? Hard to say.

The Blood Bowl tournament scene is already in full swing in the Virginia area. We’ve already had three tournaments, but I have been unable to attend any so far. However, a crown jewel of our Blood Bowl scene is The Gritty Goblin Blood Bowl Games (often referred to as Gritty Goblin) which takes place at Gritty Goblin Games in Columbia Maryland. This is a Blood Bowl 7s event (which I still argue is the best way to ENJOY Blood Bowl) which has sold out every single year. I believe it sold out in less than a week this year. At this exact moment, assuming Jerry indulges me, I am planning to do a tournament recap. We’ll see if that happens. HOWEVER, the special sauce of this particular event is to complete actions with Goblins to gain goblin points. Whoever ends with the most goblin points earns the coveted Goblin Cup. I love the coaches that attend this event, I love that so many people play to the theme, I (mostly) love the organizer, and I enjoy the venue.

So, if you hadn’t guessed already, this month I have taken a short break away from Cowboys to focus on preparing a team of 8 Goblins + 1 Troll in about 3 weeks.

The Venison Beach Grindylow – Blood Bowl Goblin Team

While you, humble reader, probably weren’t desperate to know the details of how this team came to be… I’m gonna tell you anyway! Some people are called to play Goblins. I am not one of those people. In fact, Goblins are the only team I’ve ever quit mid-season. So obviously, I have two Goblin teams.

My first goblin team was part of the Star Bowl Indigogo from probably a decade ago. The team featured Star Wars Jawas as the Goblins, droids as the secret weapons, and Jawa-piloted robo-trolls. I call this team the Tatooine Technographers and they made an appearance at GGG ‘24. I don’t love this team. The sculpts are kinda funky and the pewter is garbage. The second is a pirate goblin team that I purchased from Big Child Creatives/Massive Dragon during their kickstarter a few years ago. STLs for these models were recently released, but I already had the whole team cast in resin. I actually had to go find the receipt for this team to determine what I had purchased in preparation for painting them. Always a good sign. This team had tentatively been named the Finneytown Foulers (after a Cincinnati suburb I used to live near) and were going to be colored Red/White. That has changed!

I had the exquisite pleasure of meeting fellow Blood Bowler, Seamoose, at the Amorical Cup last year. We had an amazing battle of the Halflings that might go down in history as one of the loudest Blood Bowl games on record. His team, the Venison Beach Surfing Birds, has lived rent-free in my mind ever since (Curse you Danny “Summer Lover” Zucchini!). When I failed to complete my own TMNT-themed comic-style Lizardman team for Chaos Cup, my friend Neil saved the day by offering his beach themed Sharks. I asked Seamoose if I could also have a team from Venison Beach. He agreed, and the Venison Beach Tidal Waves were born. One day I will paint my own version. The Surfing Birds and Tidal Waves faced off at Chaos Cup to crown the King of the Beach. This was the best match of Chaos Cup, hands down. I mean really, the Chaos Cup Championship pales in comparison to the King of the Beach.

That was quite the exposition dump. All that to say, the Finneytown Foulers have become the Venison Beach Grindylow. The main color is still red, but white has been relegated to an accent color.

In Pathfinder, grindylow are depicted with blue or aqua skin. I wanted to apply this to my goblins. After reading a few Reddit posts and watching a few videos about Tau skin I decided to try a contrast mix of 2:1:1 Medium:Tassalar Blue:Magos Purple. This was fine, but didn’t provide the “life” I was expecting. I may try this again by doing the Tassalar Blue first then applying full strength Magos (Update: I did this. Still didn’t like it). I had recently purchased the entire 6 paint series of Blue-Grey from the Army Painter Fanatic line and used this to highlight up from here. I largely tried to pick ideal highlight colors by eye. If the highlights became too stark, I would just glaze them back down. This generally worked well. I also tried starting with Vallejo’s Oxford Blue then highlighting up (my preferred method at the moment) and starting with Thunderous Blue and highlighting up. In both methods I used Magos Purple to “black line” the skin, which provided some purple “life” to the models.

I also experimented heavily with reds. I also purchased the entire 6 paint series of Warm Reds from Army Painter Fanatic (I was tired of trying to make my Reaper reds & blues do what I wanted). Initially I started by highlighting up from a dark red to pink. This was fine… but it didn’t pop. Then I remembered reading Figopedia V1 where Jeremie talks about this specific problem. So I eventually ended up highlighting with a red/orange mix. I liked the result. I had also tried applying a contrast “wash” with 2:1 Medium:Flesh Tearers Red. This works great, but ultimately wasn’t needed later in the process. Now, I move from Basilisk Red, up to Flat Red, then my red/orange highlights.

I also tried out some freehand on my punk rock ‘Ooligan. I was extremely pleased with the results, even though it doesn’t really pop on the table. This was the first time I had decided to try a checkerboard, but I had watched videos in the past about how to apply it. Applying “Punk” over it was not planned, but I figured one freehand experience deserved another.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with these models. I worked diligently to finish a model before moving onto the next. As a result, I only made it through 6.5 of the necessary goblins (the chainsaw is only basecoated and my pogoer was a non-starter) and didn’t even get the shark-Troll primed. I also didn’t get any bases ready (as you can see!). I did 3D print some beach bases (thanks Neil!) but I haven’t primed or painted them.

I varnished the heck out of the completed models (and even did a layer on chainsaw to save my work). I used Vallejo Ultra Matte Varnish through my airbrush in a roughly 2:1 varnish:thinner ratio. It feels like you’re spraying magic dust on your models because you can’t really tell anything is happening. I am pleased to report that my models made it through 5 games and suffered zero battle damage. Huzzah!

The siren smell of gunsmoke is calling me back to my Old West minis, but I think I’m going to finish this team (including the troll) just to say that I completed this specific project (even though there are 9 other models to paint for a full Blood Bowl team). Besides, it would be really nice to put something in my display case that I can officially classify as done.

The Contrast Paint Dropper Bottle Project

As mentioned last month, I have been using contrast paints again. I was inspired by these Warhammer Community articles (here and here) to revisit what I can make them do. However, getting the recipes consistent has always been a challenge due to the paint pots. So this month I decided to buy fifty 20 mL vials, some ball bearings, and 12 tiny funnels to transfer all of my contrast paints into dropper bottles. 

I didn’t realize how many contrast paints I had. Several came directly from the first formulation of these paints. I would casually transfer 6 or so bottles a night, clean the funnels (the contrast paints will leave a film! That’s their thing!), and transfer the labels. Overall, the process took about 2 weeks. My daughter even helped with a few. I think it was worth the added time and effort. The dropper bottles are much easier to mix (I’m looking at you Apothecary White!) and control. 

After working on the Goblins, I definitely prefer the layering approach to painting. That said, since my paints are so old, I’m not sure they are performing at their optimal level. I’ve been finding ways to use the paints to help with specific problems instead of using them as an “easy button” to finish quickly. As other folks have noted, they do provide a great foundation for a base coat (provided you can avoid touching it too much!). I will continue to experiment using the Old West models, but I have found myself repainting many areas that started as contrast.

Well that’s it folks! Hopefully next month I will show you a completed and based Blood Bowl 7s goblin team. Then I can get back to these horse bios (as my wife has taken to calling them).  

 Kevin C.

Genestealer Cult

As I posted last month, I assembled a Genestealer Cult Combat Patrol Box at the end of last month. I have never done Genestealer or Tyranids, so this was an interesting departure from my usual paint schemes, with lots of grey and purple.

It turns out that the reason I built and painted these miniatures, to use in our Necromunda campaign while one of my other gaming buddies used my Orlocks, ended up being moot – the friend in question has chosen not to participate, along my Red Belts to ride again into the Ash Wastes! That being said, the miniatures were assembled and ready, so I figured I should get them painted and done.

Vehicles

I realized early on that I did not have much experience with painting actual vehicles, aside from my Titans for Legions Imperialis. I chose to follow the tutorial Duncan Rhodes had posted all those years ago for painting the Atalan Jackals (https://youtu.be/pdUS0F8BJ3c?si=aMUDgLIZKdtpcRpn). It ended up being a great tutorial, and I was pleased with the result.

I ended up getting sick in the second week of this month, so it took me a while to get to the remaining Jackals. I eventually finished them, although not quite at the same quality as the first Jackal, using the same paint scheme as the first one.

Finally, I attempted to copy this same paint scheme to the larger two vehicles. These were somewhat draining, as painting large models tend to be. However, I did get some good experience with trying out some drybrush techniques that I plan to use on my Deathwatch later this year, especially the large vehicles.

I am reasonably pleased with how the driver’s helmet plate ended up working (Balthazar Gold → Agrax Earthshade → Sycorax Bronze → watered down Nihilakh Oxide). I plan on using that same technique on my Votann Scavengers, who all have helmets down. I find that personally more realistic.

Showing this to the group, they made the perfectly legitimate observation that the vehicle color is a bit too close to the Ash Waste base. I was hoping the flame tufts would have helped to offset this closeness in color, but it did not quite achieve the effect I was looking for. Still, with the vehicles done, I moved onto the Acolytes.

Acolytes

These guys were far more alien than what I have usually painted, so it was a nice new experiment. That being said, I kind of rushed through this paint scheme, as I only had five days to paint these guys to get them done by the end of the month. Also, work has been kicking my butt this week (I’m writing this during my lunch break).

I ended up using the paint tutorial provided again by the great Duncan Rhodes (https://youtu.be/AWHtci5sSl4?si=awWAWFRnTPq68dRp), although I am not sure I am entirely pleased with the results. I feel like the color contrasts, especially on the face, were too stark (Slaanesh Grey → Pallid Wych Flesh), and I probably should have added a mixture first before the final highlight.

I tried using a smaller method of drybrushing for the blue armor scales, and I am pretty pleased with the results. It certainly made painting the armor scales a lot quicker.

Up Next

For my March project, I plan on continuing (?) with Necromunda miniatures. About a year ago, I received some Cawdor Redemptionists for a birthday present. At about the same time, I exchanged my Ash Waste Nomads with Austin for his old Cawdor miniatures. Apparently, it was a project that he was unwilling to finish. Heaven knows I have a ton of those.

So, I will be working to get this gang up to tabletop quality by the end of this month. I won’t be playing these guys in the new Ash Wastes campaign that we have planned, but I’d like to have this on the backburner for future use.

Until next month!

Jerry S.

Hello readers! Long time, no talk! I am sorry to have missed last month’s post but the start to this year has left a lot to be desired on the hobby front. I’ve painted a couple one-off characters but I’ve been struggling to really make any serious progress with any of my hobby projects. I’m hoping to turn the tide in March and really show some serious progress, but more on that later!

Starting with what I have accomplished so far this year, I’ve got a fun smattering of models to show you below

The Old West

Not to leave Joe alone out in the old west, I’ve also started working on a small gang of cowboys, I purchased a couple 3d printed outdoorsmen from Etsy in January and immediately got to work painting them! Unfortunately, 2 of the 5 figures I bought were either damaged in shipment or broke soon after arrival – VERY disappointing….

I was able to finish two of the gang though, a model based on James Caan’s famous character “Tex” and another, more regal woodsman that yet remains unnamed…any suggestions?

Warhammer 40,000

Next up, I’ve been sitting on an old deamon prince model from a Made to Order offering a few years back. I had the whim to start painting the old boy up earlier in February and you can see my Work in Progress below! I really wanted to use fun, vibrant colors on this model and really push myself to improve my blending abilities, I think its turning out pretty good so far but there is still much work to be done on this model. I eventually aim to have the sword completed with a nice orange glow effect. I hope to get this guy done soon!

Warhammer: The Old World

Next up on my Hobby carousal, a stop in The Old World. I had an old warrior priest that was waiting patiently for a couple paints of coat. He’s an ugly model but he’s got a great charm and I’m happy with him.

Next up we have the bulk of what I did in February, I won a nice little lot of used warriors of chaos with a chaos lord on steed. I’m really excited to get started on these guys in earnest, I rebased them all onto 30mm bases and managed to paint a couple test models before being called away to work on my Adepticon army. I’m hoping to get some progress on these guys in March, so long as I can finish my Adepticon force.

Lord of the Rings

In the realm of Middle Earth this month, I painted up a Fellbeast (soon to be ridden by the Witch King, parts on the way) and a group of Osgiliath Veterans to round out my Minas Tirith revitalization project!

The Month Ahead: “We March for Macragge”

The Horus Heresy is where I should’ve focused my efforts this month but as you’ve seen above, I’ve been quite distracted with all of the other fabulous items on my workbench.

I say this is where I “Should” have focused my efforts on because I am headed to Milwaukee Wisconsin later in March to participate in Adepticon yet again! The main focus of my Adepticon will be yet again on the Horus Heresy, playing in a variety of Zone Mortalis events!

For these events, I plan to bring an elite boarding force of Ultramarines, all armed with shields. I’ve always, loved the idea of shields being used in the grim darkness that is the Warhammer universe and the Ultramarines have the most options for shield bearing madness so This will be a great opportunity for me to live out one of my hobby dreams.

Below you can see the Work-in-Progress status of the army, I’ve got 17 of the 43 models done to start the month of February…not great! At least they are all assembled though, that’s a start!

The complete list of models is:

  • 1 Praetor
  • 1 Legion Champion
  • 10 Invictarus Suzerain
  • 20 Praetorian Breachers
  • 10 Breacher Marines
  • 1 Contemptor Dreadnought

To start the project off, I painted up the below Ultramarines Champion, an old 40k model, It was a great and easy conversion to be used in Horus Heresy! I look forward to watching this guy chop his way through enemy characters!

I’ve got a really long way to go with this army as you can surely tell but with 3 weeks to get these guys finished, I think I should have enough time so long as I can stay focused on the task at hand!

Wish me luck and see you next time!

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

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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- November

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

Kevin C.

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

Riders of Rohan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Riders of Rohan

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

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

How to Paint Miniature Horses for Wargames – 2019

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

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

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

Final Result

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

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

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

Jerry S.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Returning to the Old World

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

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

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

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

News from the Kingdom of Arnor

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

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

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

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

September and October Hobby Update

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Wow, I cannot believe it has been two months since our last update, as you’re about to see, I have kept myself busy the last 60 days. This was a very fun stretch of time, full of new hobby experiences so enjoy!

September and October Hobby Update: Adventures in Eriador

Ever since my Dad took me into a gamesworkshop and bought me my first box of models (the Fantastic Fellowship of the Ring Starter set) I have wanted to create my own gaming board set in Middle Earth. Fast forward about 20 years to 2024, and Gamesworkshop releases the new Fall of Arnor supplement, and my lovely fiancé heads out of town for the weekend and the timing was perfect for long weekend project.

Taking full advantage of my free weekend, I ordered the supplies (so, so many supplies) and that Thursday night, I leapt to work! I will now walk you through the long, and labor intensive project step-by-step! Please enjoy my slow descent into the world of middle earth (and potentially madness)

Forming The Landscape

The first step was to create a sturdy frame for the board. I plan on bringing this board to events or game days outside of my house, and as such, I needed a solid wooden structure to prevent damaging the board during travel. This process isn’t necessarily hard, but I quickly found that most of my power tools had vanished, leaving me with nothing but a handsaw to cut the pieces to size hnurting both the speed and the crispness of my cuts.

nonetheless, I persevered and I ended up with some mostly straight wooden frames.

The finished framing of the board (taken from inside due to frequent and continuous insect attacks)

Once the framing was completed, the fun really began in earnest. The next couple stages were the longest, but also the most fun and impactful. This is where I was able to really determine the literal lay of the land.

The first step of forming the landscape is to lay down foam carved in the rough shapes of the hills and valleys that you want to make up the board. You can be very rough with this as you can see below. You’re really just aiming to get the general shape of the land, it will all be smoothed out in the next steps.

Once the foam is locked in place, I carved the foam to give it some more natural, rounded edges
Once you have the general shapes, its time to add in rocks to give the rough “cliff” faces a more natural, rocky texture

I decided to stick with the semi modular layout you see above. I took great inspiration from the old plastic citadel realm of battle and I love the layout that I ended with.

The next phase is the longest, but most certainly the most fun. Taking about 5lbs of sculptamold, I slopped down the groundforms, smoothing out the hills and laying down a thin layer of plaster that gives the ground a more natural texture compared to the foam and wood framing.

After laying the ground form, it took a full 3 days for the sculptamold to dry and solidify, after the second day I was starting to get worried about mold but pointed the biggest fan I had and started blasting. The results were fantastic and the board dried 3 hours later.

Once completing the ground shape, it was time to get painting! I used a variety of browns for the dirt, and some greys and ochres comprised the rock color palette. I’m very happy with how the ground cover turned out.

The longest steps done, it was time to give the ground a realistic texture. To produce the ground texture, I used a mixture of actual dirt (nothing like dirt to look like dirt) and some brown tile grout. As the below pictures show, this turned out perfectly!

Last stage, was adding the grass! I used a mixture of three flock colors to provide a more natural, interesting texture.

I absolutely love this board, I have a long list of things I would do differently but I absolutely loved this process and look forward to using it as a backdrop to the Fall of Arnor campaign I plan on running this winter. Just needs some stuff to put on top of it…..

Filling The Land

Once the board was done, I needed to fill it with the beasts, spectres, men, and elves that would call it home.

First up, I painted a pair of Barrow Wights, I was heavily inspired by the Barrow Wights from the Rings of power.

Next up, the brave men of Arnor hopped onto my painting table. I picked a more foresty green on these, a choice I was very happy with. The green cloaks matches the dark blue color pallette of my Gondor army and I think this mirrors the “sister kingdom” vibes.

I was prolific with my Arnor project, finishing both 13 warriors, 12 rangers of Arnor, as well as 2 heroes; Malbeth the Seer, and a noble Captain of Arnor. I ran through all of my warriors this month, just recieving some reinforcements in the form of 6 knights of Arnor this week. I hope to get these, along with some of the new Arnor heroes built and painted by the next article!

Next up, I painted up some terrain, a very sweet Barrow (for the wights) and a small ruined building. Both of these turned out very nice and I fully plan on adding several more of each to fill the board.

A Storm of War

In Mid September, the newest edition of Bolt Action was released. I wasn’t particularly excited about this to start, but as I walked in and out of my local Hobby shop, I found myself more and more engrossed in the idea of trying it out, so I bought the new American Rifle Platoon in winter Uniform box and the rest was history.

I blew through the construction, and even made some incredible painting progress!

I’ll talk about this a little more in the next article though, I can’t spoil you lot too much!

Ok, you get a small spoiler!

Kevin C.

So, I missed last month. After NOVA Open ended, I had a few days of rest and time with the family before trucking off to France. Biked over 200 miles in southern France, drank a ton of wine, and overall had a great time where I did zero work, both professionally or hobby-wise.

Admittedly, when I got back in late September, I had a pretty bad hobby slump. Many of you know the feeling: you look at the thing you were planning on painting, and you are just not motivated to do anything about it. You actively look for things to do other than put paint on the brush.

This is the sight I came back to. I had already assembled the substructures for the titans, and even added magnets to some of the Warhound weapons, but I was just not motivated to move further for 2-3 weeks after returning. 

I have heard others suggest, in order to get out of such a slump, to find a miniature or project that you are excited about and to start on that. I have never found that this works for me. In fact, what works for me is close to the exact opposite – find a project you don’t care about, and just put paint on it, no matter what it is. 

This prevents you from getting to much in your own head about how it will look, and suffering what I would call “analysis paralysis”. I normally use terrain to do this for, since I am not as keen on making terrain look great as I am my own models. Sadly, I did not have any terrain built on hand, so I sucked it up and started putting paint on my titans.

Legio Invicta Titans

I started with my Warhounds, partly because they were already magnetized, and partly because they were the smallest and hopefully the quickest to finish.

I chose Legio Invicta, which does not have any rules in Adeptus Titanicus (yet) but plays a prominent role in one of my favorite novels from Black Library, Dan Abnett’s Titanicus. I plan to play with these in Titandeath games of Legions Imperialis in the near future.

I got many of the titans that I painted from friend-of-the-blog Tom second-hand, in a trade of my completed titans for his uncompleted ones. This may sound like I got the raw end of a deal, but I did not like how my titans turned out, and I wanted a fresh start. After basing them in red, and peeling off the pieces of armor that were heretical, I got to work on building the layers back up.

The skeleton was straightforward, and applied across the entire miniature: Leadbelcher Base, Nuln Oil wash, Balthazar Gold Details, Agrax Earthshade wash, and a drybrush of Necron Compound.

The armor was more time consuming, although fewer steps: Mephiston Red base, Sycorax Bronze trim, Agrax Earthshade wash, and a final retread of Mephiston Red. I tried putting in a few highlights of Wazdakka Red, but there are not a lot of edges on the armor, so I started skipping this step.

I used the same combo for the bases that I used for my Legion Imperialis army: Wraithbone Base, Seraphim Sepia wash, White Scar dabs. I think it works quite well with the red and brass of the Legio Invicta colors. 

For the muzzle burns which I applied to almost all of the weapons, I used a layered rainbow of five contrast paints: Nazdrag Yellow, Gryph-Hound Orange, Volupus Pink, Magos Purple, and Akhelian Green. It’s not the best weapon style I’ve done, and I did it rather haphazardly, but it was neat to experiment with the process.

The Reavers were much harder to magnetize, and I’m still not entirely pleased with how I have magenized them. That being said, the weapons stick, and that is what really matters.

Finally, I was able to complete my Warlord Titan before the end of the month, marking the end of October. The only thing I need to figure out now is names to give these mighty walkers of war.

Next Project

So, given that there is an anime movie coming out from the Lord of the Rings universe based on the Rohirrim, and that a new edition of the Lord of the Rings game is coming out (which I have never played but looks intriguing), and I have tons of Rohirrim assembled and unpainted, I will be finishing the year painting my Rohirrim Army. Lots of horses to follow in the coming months.

And here I thought that I’d be done painting horses after finishing my Bretonnians…

Austin B.

Post-NOVA Break and Distractions

Much like my other compatriots, the time post-NOVA has seen my hobby progress slow down considerably. It was not helped by my work picking up again and keeping me busy and drained of motivation. But I tried to keep up the hobby work, and I have certainly kept up with the gaming (more on that shortly), doing at least something to both effects each week even with my limited time. Though, due to certain recent events, it hasn’t been painting almost at all! While I am slowly working through my Black Powder as shown off last article, something else did grab my attention in the post-NOVA shuffle. IF any of you are familiar with other games, and have seen my previous posts, you may know to what I am referring. Yes, Bolt Action third edition! 

Having released late September, just as I was getting back into the swing of things after NOVA, the edition’s release and how it’s changed up the rules has thrown a bit of a wrench into things. I have had to reconfigure armies and even shelve some projects for it. Both my Canadians and my FSSF, the latter of which I have shown off on here before, now need some updates for the new edition, mostly in the form of additional officers. While I am still waiting for some of those models to arrive, I also reassessed my two Axis forces to see which I could move forward on – as I had been holding off on both till we got a clear idea on what the new edition would be like. My Italians, unfortunately, have been temporarily shelved in their partially-finished state, due to just not working in the new edition as they were focused around a special campaign book unit that has no equivalent anymore. But my Germans? Well I can move forward on them with relative ease! The only issue? They were unbuilt, and in some cases, unbought! So I spent a week or so rejiggering lists for the new edition, seeing what I needed, and buying more than that to cover for any edits or allow for larger games (as my group tends to prefer 1500+ games, when the standard is 1000-1250.) 

While I am still awaiting some models (orders from Artizan always seem to take forever), and I still have others unbuilt (some Pioneers for the Germans, awaiting some Blue Stuff so I can mold more pioneer packs), I can safely say I’ve still built an army and then some for the Germans in what little spare time I’ve had. A few dudes here, a tank there, just chipping away at it week by week, till now. Due again to a busy streak these past two weeks, I haven’t gotten to really start the painting as I hoped, but I likely will be very shortly. In the meantime, we can bask in the glory of all these assembled models!

So many Germans! So many vehicles! The plans for the army is undoubtedly late war, particularly focused around the fighting in Italy in 1944 and 1945. The battles of Anzio and Rome were my central focuses, but I have included some items which might feature later in the war in Italy, such as the Hetzer. Each of the squads is built with some options as well, to give me some variety when building lists, and I’ve constructed a few extra men to help serve the same purpose. Mostly what is missing now are sufficient officers to lead the troops. As well as duplicate mortar and machine gun teams, but those should be arriving shortly with my Artizan order. Eventually I will be adding a Pioneer platoon to this as well, once I have the tools to complete those models. But for now I want to finish my 1250-1500 point lists, which requires me painting most of the primed infantry above, and a shifting selection of vehicles. The plan is to have that force at least done by or around the release of the German army book in January – though I will likely intersplice that with a few other projects, such as my Black Powder, Shatterpoint, and a Vampire team that is in desperate need of completion…

But not all of the last two months has been building. I did finish painting at least one model! And a fairly large one at that!

Yes, I have completed a Churchill tank to add to my Canadians. With two different turrets! This specific Churchill belongs to A squadron of the North Irish Horse. Wait, North Irish? That’s right! IT’s not Canadian! But then why am I adding it to my Canadian force? 

Well, I’ve been sitting on this Churchill for quite some time, not sure what to do with it, as my Canadians, whom are also themed around the battles in Italy, wouldn’t have had any Churchills of their own at the time – having ditched them just before the Invasion of Sicily in favor of the Sherman. But one came with the starter set, and so I just had to eventually make use of it. Upon digging, I found out that the Canadians in Italy were supported by the North Irish Horse on a few occasions, whom were mounted primarily in Churchills! And so I finally had my solution! Even more fun, the North Irish Horse were actually asked to add the maple leaf to their unit insignia for their dogged support of the Canadians in the breaking of the German defensive lines in Italy. You may just be able to see it in the brigade insignia below….

But with that, I’ll be calling it a month! I’ll catch you all in the next, perhaps with more painted this time around!

Michael S.

I got to work on a variety of projects this month across some different model lines. Due to a little bit less hobby time, I tried to push myself to move a bit faster than my normal meticulous pace when it comes to painting. This involved some trial and error getting techniques right that I wouldn’t have used before.

First up are some second-hand Lumineth from Age of Sigmar. These fellows were originally painted a bright red. I decided to toss them into an ultrasonic to see if I could get down to bare plastic using some LA’s Totally Awesome. With 2 scrubs and a handful of ultrasonic cycles I was able to get the original primer off. It did leave behind a textured surface in some areas, however.

At this rate, I was taking more paint off models than I was putting on. I opted for a “speedpaint” style scheme that would let me use a lot of my undercoat in the finished product without looking unfinished. This led me towards a more grimdark paint job.

Given the models’ looks, I wanted something that looked like it walked out of Elden Ring. Leaning heavily on a sponge, I put down some base colors for the near-black cloth and chipped armor. I quickly went back in with some very dark red to hit any details like the crest and ribbon. It still lacked visual interest, so I also decided to line the armor filigree with brass. To add contrast to these dark, muted colors, I added some extreme highlights and was left with this.

All in all, quite happy with how it ended up given the departure from my normal painting style and a time budget of about an hour.

Next up on the list are some Eldar that have been featured on and off this year. I finally got some color down on the converted Dire Avengers, though I ran into some issues with the contrast paint I tried to use drying oddly. After mixing for a few years, I managed to get it to behave properly. Lots of work to go on these, but I did manage to get an Autarch nearly painted up.

Last up is an hour or so of last-minute work on my Imperial Fists. I brought out a Tactical Squad and laid down some base colors. Nothing much, but it’s a start!

A Tale of Many Warlords- August

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Kevin C.


I am heading to Bretonnia France next month, not for hobbying reasons, so I knew that I would get almost nothing done for the month of September. And, given that I have small kids, October through December tend to be riddled with other commitments. Noting all of that, I decided to set myself a goal of finishing all of the Bretonnians from the starter set before I left next month.
And, I did it. I f*cking did it.
Men at Arms
These guys were not as fun to paint as the archers, but they were more straightforward. Similar to the archers, I tried to keep the clothing to earth tones – greys, greens, beige – with the exception of the heraldry on the shields.

With regards to the peasant standards, I wanted to strike a balance between eye-popping and drab (somewhat difficult, as you can imagine). Drab, since peasants have the special rule that their standards only count for half VP, because they are peasants. I think keeping it brown and lightening the border was enough to keep it eye-catching while also keeping with the drab color of the peasants.

I haven’t yet decided whether to add a sigil to the shields. If I do, it will probably be a white lion rampant, to represent maybe a cadet branch of the House of Couronne on crusade. Ideas abound.
The Entire Army
Seven months to the day after receiving the box, I have the entire army finished, based, and dullcoted. I am very much looking forward to putting them on the field soon.

What’s Next
Given that I finished my Legions Imperialis army, and I know my buddies want to start an LI campaign soon, I would like to finish the titans that I have sitting around from Adeptus Titanicus. They are assembled, but not painted. I plan to paint them in the livery of Legio Invicta, from Dan Abnett’s Titanicus, which does not have rules in AT but I can still play in Titandeath.
Following that, I plan to finish out the year painting some Rohan models I purchased a few months back. I never played Lord of the Rings, and with the new edition coming out, and the new film War of the Rohirrim coming to theaters in December, this seems like the perfect time to do so.

Joe R.

It was an incredibly busy month over here. August stated with the Atlantic Coast Charity Cup (ACCC) early in the month. You may recall I was working on a Dwarf Blood Bowl team for that event. The month ended with the NOVA Open over the Labor Day weekend. I helped facilitate several of the Blood Bowl events at NOVA, but I also was hoping to play my Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team in the Slaughterdays event. If you’re lucky (and I’m diligent), I’m hoping to post a full synopsis of NOVA Open later this month.

Okay, let’s check out what got done…

Blood Bowl – The Wynnstaadt Warriors II – Dwarf Team

I am currently playing this the Warriors in our local Blood Bowl league (it’s not going well, FYI). They are also one of the 7 remaining teams (8 with Gnomes) that I haven’t played at a tournament. The goal in 2024 was to knock out all 7 remaining teams. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I am going to try and get as many done as possible.

I spent a good amount of time working on the first two linemen for this team. I posted one last month. Here is the second.

I was very satisfied with this model. Then, I played a game with him and fell in love. His gold cape shines like the morning sun. He REALLY pops! I still need to go back and try the eyes, but for the moment I was happy to bask in a job well done.

Sadly, I was not on pace to finish this team before the ACCC. So, I decided to start slapping paint on models and agree to come back and finish them later. Essentially, each model got enough paint to apply a vibrant base layer and then an appropriately colored wash (either Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthsade, or Seraphim Sepia). Here is a group shot of the “table ready” team.

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As you can see, they look fine. Everything is blocked in for me to come back and highlight later. Sadly, I noticed a few spots (on almost every model) where the 3D prints failed. While certainly a bummer, I’ve made peace with it. I doubt most folks will eve notice once they’re done.

I printed some Dungeon-Delve inspired bases from Asgard Rising. If you look closely, I worked up a demo base on the 2nd model from the left. I even applied a little fluorescent ooze spotting. It needs some work.

The Wynnstaat Warriors went to ACCC. They went 1-1-1. Overall I had a good time, but I think Dwarves are not the best team to suit my playstyle. I did win a full set of Artis Opus dry brushes in the charity raffle though! Huzzah!

Blood Bowl – The Zinzinnati Bearclaws – Chaos Dwarf Team

I knew I wanted to knock another team out for the NOVA Open. My Chaos Dwarf team one of the first things I ever printed for Blood Bowl. I used a combination of figures from the Artisan Guild range which come with modular hands. I really like that Artisan Guild generally features male and female models. I was able to mirror a couple poses and glue on hands with no weapons. At the time I shrunk them down about 15%. I wish I hadn’t done that, but here we are! Keep rolling.

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Sadly, I ended up with the same problem as the Warriors. There was absolutely not enough time to get these models completed to the level I’d like. So like before, I decided to get a clean basecoat on and apply the key metallics to make the models pop. 

The Dark Iron Dwarves from Warcraft were the original inspiration here. Anyone who played Vanilla World of Warcraft may remember hours of grinding to collect Dark Iron Ore. In my mind, Dark Iron Ore is a bit like adamantium. I wanted it to be a shiny black metal. I tried a few different options, but eventually landed on Turbo Dork’s Purple Grey over a black basecoat. It ends up with a really nice hue that pops, but still reads as very dark.

These models are also pinned to a set of resin lava bases I purchased before the advent of resin 3D printing. These are mold cast resin bases baby! I can’t remember what company I purchased them from, but I’ve had them for at least 8 years. I also quickly applied some paint to the bases with the intent to go back and make them look more lava-esque at a later date.

Now for those of you tracking at home, you may recall that a new Chaos Dwarf team was announced at NOVA. Oh well. The current plan is to slice of some hands and add new hands to clearly designate the new positionals. So, no worries! I’m confident it’ll work out just fine.

Illustritive Miniature Painting with Will Hahn (aka Sic Willy) 

I signed up for one painting class at NOVA. Honestly, I could probably spend this entire article discussing what I learned. Sadly, I don’t have time. So I’ll give you the highlights:

  • We evaluated illustrative styles to determine their key features, especially with regards to black lining and highlights.
  • We all painted the same sci-fi bust. Will painted his on camera and came around to check on our progress.
  • I used non-linear shading on my model. I started with a pale skin down to pink down to purple. It was fun.
  • We black lined the model!

This was a 4-hour class. Probably 3 hours was painting. By about 3.5 hours, I was about at my limit. That said, Will was great. I tried several techniques that were outside my comfort zone and really enjoyed them. My only critique would be to focus on a section of the model at a time to give us more opportunity to learn how to black line. Here is the pre- and post-black lined model.

Not perfect, but overall very pleased with my first attempt at the technique.

Impromptu Speed Painting Competition

We were lucky enough to share hallway space with the folks from Mental Health Charity Painters. They were doing speed painting competitions for charity with a series of donated models. You pay a little cash, select a pre-primed model, and try to paint that sucker in 1 hour. Here is what I ended up with.

BRO! I painted this in an hour! You can probably tell, but I was so proud. I even based him in pseudo comic style. Come on! 

This was all done using Army Painter speed paints. Sadly, the zenithal on my model wasn’t very good. I worked really hard to make my model pop, but it wasn’t happening. I didn’t end up winning the event, but I now have a really cool model to turn into a Blood Bowl coach. I’m thinking his name will be R’lyeh Fhtagn. Hopefully you’ll see a highlighted version of him in the near future.

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

Finally, I am working on my 3rd Blood Bowl team. I’m hoping to play these at Chaos Cup this November, giving me lots of time. The team will be based on the Ninja Turtles, which each lizard’s color scheme reflecting a specific character. I’m also going to try a comic book style based on the original TMNT comics from the 80s. It’s a big undertaking, but I have a lot of time.

I received a metal lizardman from Greebo Games a couple years ago as part of a trade. Jesus H. Christ these models are annoying. I’m still planning to assemble them at this time, but I definitely put together a 3D print just in case they become too annoying. Anyway, here’s where we’re at. Every single model is like 6 pieces. Ugh.

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Well, that’s enough for this month folks! Hopefully I’ll actually finish some models in the coming weeks. Maybe!

Austin B.

A Long Absence

Some of you may have noticed that I did not make a post last month. Well unfortunately, life did what it does on occasion and I ended up being very busy during most of July and August, and didn’t end up having much time or motivation to paint. As such, I decided to skip last month’s post and push on painting more for the next month. Now here we are again, and with some more goodies to show you!

Now disappointingly, my NOVA prep was also damaged by this sudden bout of business, and so I did not get done with all that I had wanted to in the lead up to that event. My Legions Imperialis collection is still lagging behind, and my Vampire team for Blood Bowl still remains incomplete. As a result, I ended up swapping the Legions Imperialis event for some Blood Bowl Sevens, and I ended up taking my Gnomes to the 11s tournament at NOVA. I had a lot of fun still, and played a staggering number of Blood Bowl games (22!) across five events and four days. But hopefully I will be able to keep to my hobby goals moving forward – though with NOVA now behind us, those goals have changed, and I will discuss what my plans are for the future later. For now, onto the miniatures!

A Rebellion is Brewing

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Yes, yes, more Shatterpoint. This time, however, with much more of a focus on the Rebellion! Honestly, I am much more interested in the Rebels as a faction than the Empire, though I love the two of them, so I am excited that there are now much more Rebel boxes out, and so I have begun painting my way through them, if in a rather haphazard manner. While I have (finally) completed Han’s box fully, I’ve only painted Leia from This Is Some Rescue, and have only tackled Chopper, Sabine, and Kallus for the Spectres so far (with the ISBs being painted alongside Kallus since they were all mostly the same steps anyhow). I really ought to get to the rest of the Spectres soon, especially as I intend to attend more Shatterpoint tournaments in the future, and the Spectres in particular seem to be a rather viable build when it comes to the Rebels. I hope to finish painting the rest of my current Shatterpoint product before year’s end. I am not even beginning to think about the five other boxes that are planned for release this year, even though I do really want at least three of them (and really all five). But I need to get what I have painted before I can really think about buying any more! Tough I may make an exception for Lando…

A Small Distraction

I am not sure if I mentioned in any earlier articles, but I do have a rather significant Battletech collection, split across a number of nations / color schemes. A a bit of a break from all of the Shatterpoint painting, even as different and varied as the Rebels are, I decided to break out some of my unpainted Battletech and work on getting another few Lances together for one of my forces – the Marian Hegemony. These two mechs join an existing force of 10 other mechs and 5 vehicles, and you’ll likely see some more as time goes on and I tire of my other projects. I plan to return to these as needed, to take a break from some rather repetitive painting that I plan to be doing soon here… And as for that…

 A Grand Army

This is a bit of a cheat, as these are actually some of the first models I finished in September. But with the NOVA weekend delaying our posting, I figured I would add these models here, especially as they are rather indicative of what I plan to be painting for the majority of my time moving forward! I showed off the existing army way back in January, and now these Landwehr are the newest unit to join my Prussians for the Napoleonic Wars in Black Powder! Specifically in this case, these are from the 4th East Prussian Landwehr. I have one Battalion remaining to complete the Regiment, and you’re likely to see them in my progress for September. But really, the plan now is to finally return to painting my Black Powder army, after a rather prolonged break, as I have a lot to do for them, and I would rather like to make a dent in the project – or even complete it in it’s entirety (at least regarding what I have purchased for it). But what all is left? Besides the aforementioned remaining Landwehr battalion, I still need to paint my Commanders, two small units of Jaegers, a Battalion of Grenadiers, three Battalions of Reserve Infantry, a Regiment of Hussars, a Regiment of Dragoons, three Regiments of Landwehr Cavalry, and five cannons (two foot, three horse). 

Now that sounds like a lot, and it is, I won’t lie. But thankfully, the painting processes for these models are not particularly complex or time-consuming. These Landwehr took about a week of intermittent sessions, and that was with trying to actually paint both Battalions at once. Along the process I decided that was too daunting, and just chose to complete the one Battalion. But the second is almost complete, and could be done within another 2 or 3 painting sessions. Most other units are of similar complexity and time requirement, and so the hope is that I can get a unit done every week or two, provided I have the time to sit down and actually do the work. The most daunting task is the cavalry, as horses are rather time-consuming and not very fun to paint. As such, the idea is to splice the cavalry in-between the infantry units, so as to not burn myself out too much. Along with breaking things up with Shatterpoint and Battletech. I do not expect to have this army done by the end of the year by any means, but the hope is to make a sizeable dent in what remains in what little time there is left. Hopefully I will be able to show you that through my next updates!

Jerry S.

The NOVA Open

August was a fun month! As a couple of our other writers have pointed out, the end of August is the NOVA open every year. Tradition dictates that the month before any convention is spent frantically finishing any models that you are planning to play with and I am a sucker for a good tradition. This year I wanted to bring my Thunderhawk to NOVA, a small project to cram into only a month….

Well I did it! I wanted to do a little more weathering but I had to keep it clean for this event-I’ll dirty her up before the next sortie.

On the way to NOVA!

The other half of my NOVA adventure was back to leave the Age of Darkness and return to my old stomping ground- Middle Earth. A journey I gladly took with my ole pal Middle Earth Mike, aka Mike P. on this blog.

We participated in the always fun Doubles Tournament, I brought the hyper-elite Rangers of the North and Mike brought the ubiquitous Hobbits of the Shire…. We lost every game but I wanted to share a picture of my 6 man army and a picture of Me and Mike at the event!

My 6 Rangers of the North, with a photobomb of the Ultramarines terminators I was unable to finish before NOVA started.

In Other News…

NOVA was a blast but it wasn’t the only thing that I got up to this month. I also painted up my first Killteam! A group of Tactical Marines from Tortuga Bay, I love these Truescale marines and keeping the OG Tactical Marine vibe is fantastic. News of the new edition has me a bit chuffed though as they no longer will be playable, oh well!

On the WIP side of things, the past 9 days of September have also been busy over here. Now that the Thunderhawk is off my hobby desk, I can start working on some other projects, so a little sneak peak on what to expect in next month’s edition. Not going to write too much now though, you need to wait a couple weeks!

Looks like a building of some sort??? Wonder what it will be in the end.
A Deathwatch army? Where did this come from? Odd
Whoa that is a clean looking white, I wonder if any more clean cut White Scars will be joining him?
Solar Auxilia tanks?! That a surprise! A new painting style it seems like too, how interesting.

Michael S.

After a few months away from painting, I was excited to get back to the hobby this month! With a few different projects staring at me, I dabbled a bit here and there on a few items. I spent some time slapping contrast paint on some imperial guard and painstakingly edge-highlighting some Black Templars to properly readjust myself to the highs lows of the hobby, respectively. 

The model I was most excited to show off this month is an Imperial Guard sentinel. I picked up a Fall of Cadia box set some time ago for next to nothing as a breakaway from my typical hobby work on Space Marines. I also went with a bright color palette of the Vresh Grenadiers. I wanted something easy to paint with mostly™ contrast paint and landed on the following.

The weathering was a bit of an experiment with Newsh from Monument Hobbies. Afterwards I found I was still a fan of regular oil washes, but I can’t deny it was way less of a hassle than working with oil thinners and is about 80% as good.

On the space marine side of things, I put together and basecoated a sizable set of Imperial Fists. I went with a more pale, mustard yellow rather than a base color with more vibrance.

To get a nice crisp color I went with a faint modulation of yellow-browns, then gave everything a quick gloss coat to prep for an enamel pin wash. All in all, I was pretty happy with the progress on these fists. I am hoping to get more progress on them next month!

Next up is a 5-man squad of Terminators for my Black Templars. These were mostly basecoated, but adding a nice bit of color to the base makes them look much more complete.

That’s all for me this month! Next month I plan to get the last of my Tomb Kings built and hopefully a little paint on them as well.

A Tale of Many Warlords- July

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

Mike P.

My Journey of Painting Empire and Hobbit Miniatures

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

Painting the Empire

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

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

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

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

Painting Hobbits

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

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

Community and Learning Resources

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

Conclusion

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

Jerry S.

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

Painting in the Age of Darkness

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

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

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

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

Hibou Khan

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

One more step in the Old World

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

A Return to Middle Earth

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

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

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

Kevin C.

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

But first, Blood Bowl.

(My Very Own) Halfling Blood Bowl Team

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

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

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

Dracosans to Complete My Solar Auxilia

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

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

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

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

Bretonnian Archers

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

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

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

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

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

Joe R.

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


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

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


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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

A Tale of Many Warlords- May

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Austin

Gnomes! Gnomes In The Dungeon!

I thought you ought to know…

…that I completed my College of Shadows team! I had showed off my single test-gnome at the end of last month’s article, so it seemed only fitting that I start this one off with the completed team! Representing the College of Shadows is my team, “Hello From Down Under,” sporting two Skaven Blitzers, two Gutter Runners, one Skaven Thrower, one Witch Elf, one Dark Elf Lineman, two Woodland Foxes, one Gnome Beastmaster, one Gnome Illusionist, and two Gnome Linemen! Quite an eclectic mix, no? But that’s what I love about the Dungeon Bowl teams. They offer an amazing opportunity to bring together the various Blood Bowl teams. And with the recent addition of Gnomes to their roster, I figured it was high time I get the College of Shadows painted up! Here are some close-ups of the various members…

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I went with grey foxes for the Shadows team, since I felt they fit in more with the team’s color scheme than the starker red fox one might expect. And I am pretty happy with how they turned out!

You may also notice one additional, mysterious member I have yet to mention. That, my dear readers, is my Wizard! Alongside the eight Colleges, I want to also make up eight Wizards to act as sideline tokens for the Inducement. This is the first of those, the Grey Wizard, who quietly sports his team’s colors with the dark blue frill on his robes and an emerald scarf underneath them. While most of the Colleges are fairly easy to build from the Collegiate Arcane/Empire Wizards kit, the Grey Wizards are unrepresented, so he ended up requiring a bit of work to get right. The hat I had to sculpt, and the skull was added to the staff by replacing one of the other ornaments. Fun hobby tip, floss makes great rope or bandages, and I used that to tie the skull onto the staff.

With some playtesting already done, it is likely that I’ll have a few more members still to paint up for this team, to beef up the roster slightly. But at least my initial roster is complete! That said, the College of Shadows team was not the only thing I have done this month for Blood Bowl! With our local league starting up I decided I needed to get a team finished up for that. I had initially figured I’d run Vampires, but with them being rather overrepresented in the league by the time I was signing up, I switched my decision last minute to… Gnomes! Yes, more Gnomes! I really love the new Gnome models, and I had bought a second box to do up an 11s team. Given I had just gotten some experience painting them up, I figured now was a decent time to continue with them, just in a different color scheme. And so I am proud to present to you the “Poppin’ Daisies,” my Gnome team!

They’re not quite complete yet for this article, but they likely will be done within the next week or two. Alongside some Star Players that I plan to play with them. And speaking of Star Players…

I have completed an Akhorne the Squirrel! This was a fun little side project I had been wanting to do for a while, and now with a League to join and the opportunity to make use of him, I figured I would get the little bugger done! The skull pile in particular was really fun to figure out. The center is actually just filled with modelling putty, with the skulls pressed into the sides. Plus a few loose jaw-bones to fill in gaps here or there… That Skulls kit really is great.

Now hopefully by next month I will be able to show you the full Gnome team, Stars included. But atop that, as I said last month, I do really need to return to my Vampire team, who may well be getting their own Stars to show off! I do need to get them done for NOVA – or maybe even the Goonhammer Open, which I intend to attend! So work needs to be completed on them post-haste. 

May The Force Be With You

Alongside all the Blood Bowl stuff I have completed this month, I’ve also been more slowly working through my Shatterpoint backlog, which is growing larger with every month. And with there also being a Shatterpoint event at the Goonhammer Open, I may be needing to speed up the process in preparation there too! Plus we have new boxes coming out next week… Yeah, it’s rough! But you know what’s harder? Painting white! Or at least I thought it was…

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Yes, what I have added to the completed pile this month is some Stormtroopers! And they were not quite the pain to paint as I thought they would have been. But then I think that might have been aided by some new paints I procured. The release of the Warpaints Fanatic range has certainly taken local painters by storm, and all the good press I have heard regarding the line convinced me to pick up a few paints to give them a try. I think the results speak for themselves. The white here is fairly simple: GW Grey Seer primer, washed with GW Soulblight Grey – which is pretty much my standard start for white nowadays – then layered over with the new WPF Brigade Grey, and then highlighted with the WPF Matt White.

I have had a ton of issues with other companies’ white paints before. GW’s tends to dry up in the pot (though all their paints to, the white just does it faster) and is rather chunky, while Vallejo’s tends to get clogged in the dropper top and separates constantly. But these two paints I have yet to have any issues with. I have cautious optimism moving forward with the rest of the Fanatics range, but I have been duly impressed thus far. Oh, and pre-loaded mixing balls. Need I say more?

Beyond the Stormtroopers, I also tried my hand at the iconic black armour of many other Imperial units by painting the Fifth Brother. This model was more of a hassle to paint, though that primarily came down to the paint scheme more than anything. Black on black is very difficult to pull off. Differentiating two or three different blacks on the same model was a challenge and, while I am happy with the end result, I do not thing I quite achieved what I was going for. Further models will probably go with a grey for cloths, to have at least some difference.

In The Far Future…

…there is only more to paint! Alongside the upcoming events and the necessity to paint through all these models for them, I’ve also volunteered to be the Arbitrator for a small Necromunda campaign with some other friends of mine. While I might not have much to show for it next month – as I am only in the preparations stage at the moment – I will be working on an Escher gang to play in this campaign, as well as terrain for it which I will definitely show off once I get around to it. I have already gotten back into the swing of things with a quick palette-cleanser/test-subject in this Hive Scum, for whom I used as an experiment piece for a process for dirty white armour. That might show up with a few models in the future as well… 

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Kevin C.

Bretonnian Pegasus Knights

After a month of losing progress on my Bretonnians, I am back to it! I wanted to make sure I finished all of my knights before working on the filthy peasants, so this month was all about getting the Pegasus Knights completed. For these, as with my regular knights, I painted the knights detached from the mount, and glued them when they were complete.

In contrast with many white and light-colored Pegasus knights I’ve seen online, as well as my old Pegasus knights, I wanted to paint these mounts brown. This way, I could really explore the color spectrum along the wings, and get some cool feathering effects. I’m not sure I am entirely thrilled with the blend I instituted on the wings, since the colors were not quite as smooth of transitions as I would’ve liked to make them look natural. But, as always, washes and drybrush cover many sins.

My hope is that, next month, when I work on the Royal Pegasus (which will be white), it will be a good contrast to the more rustic look of these “normal” Pegasus knights.

Legions Imperialis Solar Auxilia Support (Rapiers and Cyclopses)

The support batteries were rough to hold onto – they had to be assembled beforehand, so I couldn’t simply paint them on the sprue like I did with the tercio infantry, but they were much smaller than the tanks and liable to get lost. In the end, I had to store them in a bin until I could get to painting them. Finally, I was able to do so this month.

I did nothing fancy with these guys – just Iron Hands Steel with Nuln Oil on any of the metal bits, and my Vostroyan tank paint scheme:

  • Zandri Dust Base
  • Ushabti Bone Heavy Drybrush
  • Athonian Camoshade Wash
  • Screaming Skull Light Drybrush
  • Blood Angel Red for any detail markings

Thank goodness I painted the bases beforehand. I think that saved me a massive headache of trying to do these in conjunction with the miniatures.

Inquisitorial Stormtroopers (Kasrkin) Kill Team

My final main project for this month has been the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers I’ve been wanting to paint up for a while now. I like how they play as a kill team – no synergy shenanigans, no layering dependencies, just reliable firepower – so I’d like to bring them to NOVA this year if I can.

I used to play a lot of Darktide back in the day (you know, six months ago), so I figured that it’s only natural that I do an Inquisitorial Stormtrooper squad paint scheme. I used much of the advice from Peachy’s video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_8wtU28oJw), though it is less of a “speed paint” than one might believe watching the video. It took quite a bit for me to finish this squad, but I got it done.

When I finished painting them, I thought they looked good. However, once I finished painting them, I sprayed them with dullcote. Sadly, it was less “dull” than I was hoping, and it is still quite shiny, so the pictures do not make them look great. 

True to form, I wanted to make sure all the troops had masks on – except for this mad lad. He’s the Warhammer+ miniature from last year, which I decided to paint at the same time in the same skin. Maybe I’ll use him as a proxy or something.

Other Projects

As you well know, dear reader, we are preparing for a campaign in Legions Imperialis, so we are trying to paint up as many buildings as we can. Using a pretty simple paint scheme that have been used for Osgiliath Ruins (detailed here: https://youtu.be/QbYRtcSU5fs?si=assJoiAuH9IWzf7p), I painted up two additional buildings for the campaign.

Jerry S.

Howdy readers! I gotta say, May was a great month for me in the hobby space. I was able to get a solid start on my new Solar Auxilia, finish painting my Legions Imperialis Titans, build a firstborn tactical squad for Killteam, 3d-print a board for the squad to fight on, completely build a Thunderhawk gunship, and get a couple units done for my Tomb Kings! A busy month indeed over in my studio, hopefully June brings just as much productivity my way.

First up, I want to show you readers the Solar Auxilia that I painted up this month. I’m particularly proud of the paint scheme of these models as it was relatively quick and looks absolutely fantastic on the tabletop. I mostly followed the painting guide here from Feral Painter. his metals and fatigues are almost an exact match for what I ended up with, the only real changes I made to the scheme were changing the helmets and shoulders with Kantor Blue with a Thrash Metal Drybrush overtop to give a nice weathered blue look to these guys. I love how the red eyelenses contrast with the blue armorplates. This scheme was so quick that I was able to paint up 20 of these guys in just one week!

Staying in the Heresy era, I was able to finish painting (sans basing and decals) my Epic Scale titans- Two Warhounds and a Reaver titan! I love the Legio Astorum scheme that I’ve settled on and I look forward to getting these guys on the tabletop soon. As Kevin mentioned, our gaming group is starting a campaign in July and I have a TON of models I still need to get built and painted before I can play a proper game. The main thing holding me back was deciding on a basing scheme for the army but I am happy to say that I think I finally have a winning scheme picked out. A simple wasteland basing to make the Whites of my Space Marines pop, as well as contrast the Blues of my titans well. Looking forward to having the whole epic force painted up soon.

switching gears away from massive armies and grand battlefields, at the behest of Kevin, I have started a space marine killteam (pictured below) using some first born bits on Tortuga Bay bodies. I love the look of these guys and I expect to get them painted in the near future.

Of course, I can’t start a new game without creating a whole board for it, and as you can see, my printer has been very busy this month creating a space for my and anybody else in my gaming group a space to play.

Switching gears once yet again, I managed to put in some more work on my Tomb kings army, building and painting my first Old World Monster-The mighty Bone Giant! This isn’t my favorite model in the world but It was a quick paint and stands out on the tabletop.

Also painted this month was “most of” my casket of souls. As you can see, I left out the mortuary priest. This was mostly because I intend to paint all four of the army’s priests at the same time, or at least close together, to preserve the uniformity of the cult.

Last but certainly not least, I finished the build of my Thunderhawk. I think by mass this is the largest “mini” I have ever built. I absolutely love this model, it was a challenging build but not as bad as the Warhound titan’s I’ve built. I’ll probably write up a side article detailing my building process in the future so stay tuned!

In the meantime- please enjoy looking at this beautiful bird resting upon its roost.

That’s all for me this month, and what a busy month it was! The month of June will likely be a good hobby month for me as I race to finish my Solar aux and thunderhawk for NOVA as well as paint an entire legions Imperialis army for our upcoming campaign in July so stay tuned!

Michael S.

This month I took some time to build and prime up a number of models from various projects. I did manage to get some paint on a couple, but most of my hobby time was spent on the less glorious parts of mold-line trimming and laying down enough yellow primer to finally get good coverage (It takes more than you’d think!)

I painted up one of the squads I primed for my Templars and was quite happy with the way they turned out. They were slightly altered from the typical assault intercessor kit using a few bits and bobs leftover from other templar kits. Edge highlighting tends to take me a while, so I was happy to get these 5 done in a few hours.

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I also primed and built about 20 Imperial Fists models. I threw a bit more paint on one of the lieutenants to get a feel for how I wanted the armor to look. I’ve tried a few different methods for getting the right shade of yellow, and I am happy with this method I’ve come up with.

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I started with a Yellow-Brown basecoat and relied on a mix of some enamel washes to get the right shading in the recesses. Using enamel washes is much faster than acrylic due to the similar properties to oil washes. 

Last for painting this month, I tested out a scheme for the Imperial Guard Combat Patrol I showed earlier on the blog. I got all the models fully primed, and a few fully painted.

May was a bit of a slower hobby month, so that’s all for me! I am aiming to jump back to my Death Guard/Tomb Kings in June!