miniatures

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- 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!

A Tale of Many Warlords- February

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The weather is starting to better, the days are getting longer and it’s finally time for another installment of your favorite Warhammer blog series. This was the first full month many of us had our Warhammer: The Old World minis and as you are about to see, we made a ton of progress, if not a lot of painting progress….

Michael S.

This month I spent more time than I hoped assembling models.

The Stone Age

I am naturally a bit slower than most when it comes to the building and painting process. I absolutely HATE seeing mold lines on a mini while I am painting, so my excitement to build some retro models lasted about 10 minutes, or as long as it takes to trim horrendous mold lines from a single skeleton torso. Many years of building modern kits has spoiled me on what I consider a long clean-up job for a mini, so after crawling across the finish line for my first 10 skeletons, I knew I had to change something about my process.

The Industrial Age

Knowing I had to build another… checks notes… 62 skeleton warriors drained me of most of my remaining excitement. I was in for the long haul and there was no turning back.

One of the few redeeming qualities of miniatures made in the 90s/2000s was the ability to mix and match parts. Very few pieces were numbered, and all you had to do was glue some arms to a body and that body to a base. It wasn’t until somewhat recently that mono-pose kits became the norm much to the displeasure of kitbashers everywhere. Another bonus of these interchangeable parts was that there was ALMOST no way to assemble your minis incorrectly. With this in mind, I pulled out my heavy duty clippers and got to work clipping out all the remaining skeleton spearmen. After about 15 minutes of focused work, I was left with my very own homemade box of citadel skulls!

My gameplan here was to streamline the process by building them all at once in an assembly line.

  1. Clip out all the parts
  2. Use a sharp hobby knife to cut away any extra material left from the sprue
  3. Use a dull hobby knife to scrape away any mold lines
  4. Use some fine sandpaper to smooth out any harsh lines left by previous steps
  5. Assemble

With a plan in place, I wasted no further time. I trimmed each piece, and moved it to the other side of the bin. Each step only used a single tool, so I didn’t have to worry much about picking up and putting down the same tool hundreds of times over the course of the whole kit.

This was the most time consuming part of building, but if you want great looking models, you have to start with a cleaned miniature. This is even more important for older models where the molds aren’t in great condition. The images below show a before and after of some pretty severe mold slips. That’s definitely going to leave a mark if not addressed in assembly. You’ll notice a few mold lines on the spine that just aren’t worth the effort, but the legs trimmed up nicely.

Mold lines that follow sharp edges on the model are often missed. I find taking a few seconds to clean these adds a lot to a mini’s final appearance. Edge highlights on super sharp edges (Like the shield on the right) have a tendency to be unnaturally thin compared to even a razor thin edge highlight on more rounded corners. Making sure all of your “sharp” edges are similar in shape makes it easier to get a good consistent edge highlight. Since the shields are going to be a major focus of these soldiers, it pays to take a little extra time now to prep them.

Once I took my final pass on all the parts, I sorted them as I went into small bins to keep parts of each type together. This made the assembly stage fly by. All in all I was able to assemble the other 30 spearmen in about 9 hours from start to finish. While it is by no means blazing fast, I am reasonably happy with the amount of time I spent given I was able to make all but a few mold shifts completely disappear.

From here on out, the rest of the process felt like assembling a lego kit.

The Information Age (Learning From My Mistakes)

Don’t play tomb kings.

Just kidding! Despite my desk being covered in a fine dusting of plastic shavings, ranking up my first two squads of warriors brought back all of my excitement and more. With larger projects, it easy to lose sight of the end goals, so breaking it down into smaller chunks really helped me stay motivated.

Tools For Retaining Your Sanity

Flash Scraper

Throughout my build of my Tomb Kings army, my most valuable tool has been a very dull hobby knife. A dulled blade is the perfect tool for scraping at mold lines, and is much less likely to damage a part then a sharp blade is. I have tried several other tools, including some dedicated micro deburring tools and have yet to find anything that is as easy to use and effective as a dull hobby knife.

Extra-Thin Plastic Cement

Some textures are just plain awful to clean if a mold line runs over them. In particular, plasma coils and rib cages come to mind. My preferred method for quickly tackling these is a quick light scrape with my dull hobby knife and some extra-thin cement. Brushing over just a tiny bit is usually enough to melt any shavings stuck in the detail and help hide the join.

Rubber Bands

Another useful tool was a handful of rubber bands in various sizes. Some parts, particularly the Skeleton Horses, just don’t want to stay together. Snapping a rubber band around parts as they dry helps speed up the assembly line process of building immensely. The Necrolith dragon also benefits from the added pressure to keep the ribcage together as it dries.

Other Projects

I sadly did nothing else this month except clip, sand and assemble tiny small skeletons.

Austin B.

February Progress?

Unlike the others, I have had to build fairly little this month. Between the fact that my army is composed of primarily of the mono-pose, single piece Night Goblins from Battle of Skull Pass, and I’d already done a fair bit of building last month, all I really had to do this month was rebase… checks notes… 90 goblins! Not really the most exciting process, but a far cry from removing mold lines from and assembling models nearly as old as I am. A simple afternoon and that was done. So now it was time to paint them, right?

Nope! Unfortunately I had some rather personal issues arise that tore through the first three weeks of this month, leaving me both short on capability and motivation for anything hobby related. While I have now begun the long process that is painting a veritable horde of goblins within the past few days, I am not even close to where I had hoped to be. Still, the process has been started, and I hope to have all or most of these basic bobos (gobos?) done by the next update.

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Shush on the desk. It’s organized clutter, damnit! Maybe… Now, where did I put that pot of Nuln Oil again…?

Now, progress wasn’t on a complete standstill during the tumultuous early weeks of this month, and I was able to assemble a few further hero models and some unit fillers, mostly comprised of spare bits and the Looncourt models from Warhammer Underworlds. I won’t show those off quite yet though, as I still have a bit of work I want to do on them.

“February” Progress

Now, despite what was stated above, I am not without any work to show off! Between the time of our last post in January, and my unfortunate incident in early February, I was able to get a few more miniatures painted. Firstly, I finished up four more members to join the Squig Hopper unit for the model I showed off in the last update. The other five will come in time…

Furthermore, I was able to get ten Squigs done for a Squig Herder unit. They’ve been let loose! Where are their herders? Well, you’ll hopefully see them next month, so they can round off (or round up) the unit.

And last, but not least, I was able to paint perhaps one of my favorite models from the new Gloomspite Gitz range, the Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig. While he cannot lead my armies in the Old World, he’s still certainly an intimidating presence! The sickle-blade, the mask, the giant squig tongue… Ugh, I just love everything about this model.

Well, that’s it from me! Hopefully I have more to show you all next month. Much more…

Kevin C

So, as this is being posted, I am currently out of my house due to asbestos abatement, so my hobbying availability has certainly taken a hit in recent weeks. That being said, I was able to assemble the entire boxed set of Bretonnians before I left. Here are my thoughts:

The first thing that came to mind was just how much the sprues have changed in the past 20 years. Compare and contrast the two sprues, Men-at-Arms basically unchanged from when they were released back in … checks notes… 1998, and the Lord on Pegasus that was just released.

The tightness of the Lord on Pegasus sprue is definitely more in fashion these days, I assume thanks to the significant advancement in CAD software over the intervening years. I do appreciate the lack of waste that the smaller, tighter sprues offer, but at times they make it hard to cut pieces off the sprue cleanly, due to the weird angles. I have definitely had this problem with some of the newer kits, like the kill teams and this Lord on Pegasus. More on him later…

Knights

The knights were delightfully simple to build. I chose to keep the rider and the shield removed from the horse until after I have painted them, so that I can get to the hard to reach spaces while painting. 

Don’t mind the reindeer water mug…

I like keeping helmets on all my models whenever possible. Not because I am bad at painting faces (or, not only because I am bad at painting faces), but it helps to build the uniformity of the unit. I will be differentiating them in different ways, however, mostly through heraldry.

Archers

Don’t get me wrong, I like archers. However, they definitely have the peasant, unclean look. I actually prefer the older monopose archer models from the early 1990s which always looked … healthier to me? Anyway…

It is a good thing we have those stakes and braziers – they are a must for any Bretonnian player. That being said, even though there are tons of stakes with these archer sprues, there are only two 100x25mm bases for them to go on, meaning you can only construct a single unit with stakes. I’m going to see if I can procure more long narrow bases for more stake emplacements.

Men at Arms

So, I’ll be honest, I don’t like the look of these guys. Filthy peasants. That being said, I am so glad Games Workshop made the decision to move all infantry to 25mm bases. These guys can actually finally rank up cleanly. Well, with the exception of the banner knocking the guy behind him in the face. You know, the banner that doesn’t count for VPs for your opponent? Yeah, that one…

Similar to the knights, I have kept the shields off these guys, in order to be able to reach the rest of the miniature behind the shield. On the table, I will probably run these guys as a single large unit, but I ended up building two command sets, just in case.

Duke on Pegasus

Alright, now I’m really going to gripe. This was easily the WORST kit I have ever had to build. The instructions were bad, but I’ve had that before. What really made this kit terrible was two-fold: the miniature itself is hollow (most likely to reduce cost of plastic), and the joins were flat. This means that I have to hold the pieces together, often at weird angles, and they did not want to stay together.

Even after completing the model, instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment of a job well done, I just lifted my hands in disgust and said “good riddance”. I am not entirely confident it will stay glued together through the painting process, namely because the joins are so flipping precarious. As I said, I hated building this model.

Putting It All Together

Well, despite delays in shipping thanks to freak weather in Memphis, and having to deal with unexpected home repairs this month, I was able to build the entire army in the month of February.

My hope moving forward is that I will be able to finish painting a unit for each of our future updates, and given that, should have the entire set done by mid-summer.

Now to wait until nice, low-humidity weather, to be able to prime. Meanwhile…

In Other Hobby News

I was able to finish the rest of my Legions Imperialis miniatures, as well as a pair of Baenblades. I still do not like painting the infantry, but having them all complete is a nice feeling.

I put everything I currently own for Epic together (that has been painted, at least). What kills me is that, it is 20 tanks and 88 infantry bases, and the whole of it only adds up to 1850 points. Still waiting on those aircraft to get back into stock, as well as those support boxes…

I was able to get a good game of Legions in against my buddy Pox a few nights back. He has been printing terrain almost nonstop for the past two months, so he’s got a pretty sizeable and impressive table. I still lost, mostly due to my own mistakes, but it was good to finally put a fully painted army on the table.

Jerry S

February was one of those months in my hobby journey where it felt like I was getting nothing done. Looking back at the pictures of what I worked on this month however, nothing could be further from the truth. While I wasn’t spending my hobby time painting, I was certainly still moving my project(s) along.

After finally getting (most of) my Tomb Kings kits from Games-workshop, I was able to start the long and arduous process of building my skeletons. Michael detailed that terrible process more eloquently than I ever could up above so I will spare you the details.

My goal for the month was to get my “Battleline” built and ready for the painting booth and I am happy to report that I was successful! I actually was able to sneak in a couple Sepulchral Stalkers and some Ushabti as well(not pictured).

All told I’ve assembled 40 skeleton spearman, 20 archers, 20 Tomb Guard, a Casket of Souls and several different character models.

I still have a pile of models to build but I thought this was a good launching point to begin the painting phase. I’ve always been a sucker for teal tomb kings livery. To me, it just works perfectly with white and I had a ton of fun painting different shield designs on each of the warriors. This something I haven’t often done in my hobby history so I took every opportunity to vary the shields here. I already have some more ideas for the second and third batches of spearmen as well so we all have that to look forward to!

While this first block isn’t perfect (I already have some ideas for improvements I want to make), I am happy to have locked in my scheme and I am sure to refine it over the next…100 skeletons….

In other hobby news, after many years of wishing and wanting, I finally decided to snag a PLA printer. I grabbed the P1S after seeing the incredible results one of my friends was getting from his and I am absolutely in love with this machine. I’ve only had it a week but I have been testing and printing at a furious pace.

The main reason I bought this printer was to print terrain for my various game systems and to test it out I printed the below tower and cottage. As you can see the detail is outstanding and the setting I used were more “fast and dirty” than I would use going forward so I have high hopes as I learn how to use this amazing tool.

One of the main draws for Legions Imperialis for me is the ability to create the truly epic landscapes that we all imagine our battles to be fought. The next couple pictures are some proof of concepts for an industrial spaceport board that I plan on printing, building and painting ahead of a Legions Imperialis campaign this summer.

While I did not get as much final product done this month as I would’ve liked, there is no denying that I got a lot of work done. I hope to get some more finished minis out in March though. My goal as of today is to get my block of 20 Tomb Guard finished, quickly followed by a character or two from my tomb kings. After that I hope to get some paint on some Legions Imperialis titans as I wait for jetbikes to release.

Finally, I am hoping to keep up the pace with printing, I have a ton to learn with CAD and I hope to get some epic terrain pieces out here in the coming months.

Mike P. – https://www.instagram.com/middleearth_mike/

An Epic Saga of Mike’s Miniatures

Oldhammer Heroes

It’s been quite the month, albeit with precious few hours to dedicate to my hobbies. Work, life, you know how it goes…

However, amidst the hustle and bustle, I’ve managed to make some progress on my builds and put paint to a few models. In today’s article, I’m excited to showcase some of these creations along with the meticulous steps from inception to completion.

Currently, my focus lies predominantly in the realm of the Old World. There’s a certain charm to those aged metal GW sculpts, each one brimming with character even after two decades.

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Following the assembly of the models—admittedly less labor-intensive with metal ones—I embark on a methodical assembly line process. Any gaps within the bases are deftly filled with green stuff (special thanks to Jerry for supplying me with this same line of green stuff a few years back). This meticulous step ensures a seamless finish, ready for the application of texture, typically sand, onto the base. Once the green stuff has set, I meticulously apply a uniform coat of PVA glue onto the base before plunging it into my sand pit. Though this entire process can span about an hour, the crucial point lies in allowing ample time for the sand and PVA glue to fully cure before progressing to priming.

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Once the sand has fully set, the model is primed and ready for the next stage. For priming, I rely on “Stynylrez” primer applied through an airbrush, ensuring a flawlessly even coat. Gone are the days of struggling with old rattle cans, where achieving the pristine flatness I desired seemed like an elusive feat. Given the material of these models, multiple layers of primer are essential to guarantee a solid coat, a meticulous process that demands patience and attention to detail. I can’t count the number of models I’ve had to abandon due to botched priming attempts, underscoring the importance of taking the time to get it right.

Once the primer has fully cured and every layer is meticulously covered, it’s time to dive into the exciting realm of painting. My approach to painting involves a blend of simple yet labor-intensive techniques, including basecoats, washes, layering, and highlights. It’s a methodical process that demands patience and attention to detail. With each miniature, I find myself investing hours, ensuring that every brushstroke contributes to the final masterpiece. While this meticulous approach may result in slower progress, the end result is undeniably worth it.

In the past, I’ve experimented with prioritizing quantity over quality, rushing through projects in an attempt to churn out as many miniatures as possible. However, I’ve come to realize that the depth of my affection for a model is directly proportional to the time and effort I invest in it. The miniatures that receive the full extent of my attention and care hold a special place in my heart, each one a testament to the passion and dedication poured into its creation.

Introducing a recent addition to my painting arsenal: the two thin coats paint range. In fact, I dove headfirst into this new venture, acquiring the entirety of wave two and half of wave one without hesitation. Let me tell you, these paints have exceeded my expectations in every aspect. Their smooth consistency and vibrant pigmentation seamlessly complement my existing Citadel paints, resulting in a harmonious blend ideal for layering and highlighting techniques.

After numerous painstaking hours of meticulous brushwork, I proudly unveiled the final iteration of the three models I had been diligently working on. The culmination of this laborious process revealed a level of detail and depth that truly surpassed my initial aspirations.A figurine of a person with feathers Description automatically generatedA figurine of a viking with wings and a cape Description automatically generatedA figurine of a person with a sword Description automatically generated

As you can see, we are all hard at work over here at Urban Cowboy Hobbies and I can honestly say the best is yet to come for each of our warlords. Stay tuned as each of us keeps moving forward with our hobby goals and I hope that we have motivated y’all to get after it yourselves.

Adios,

Jerry