I guess I'm painting Emperor's Children now...

Its been a few weeks since I've posted on here. Honestly I've just been pretty lazy and struggled to focus enough to write anything. 

I had fun at the Old World event though. I had three great games and my birthday luck seemed to be with me as I somehow came 6th! I did get some pics, but in the interest of not bogging down this post, I won't upload them here. You can check out the blog's Facebook page if you want to see!

I thought I'd be having a bit of a rest hobby-wise after the marathon of getting nearly 2000pts of Dark Elves ready, but it turns out I've been pushed in a direction I wasn't expecting in a pretty major way.

A friend of mine wanted a game of 4th edition 40k the week after the event. It's no secret I highly dislike 10th ed, so seemed a fun change of pace. Also, like most Chaos players of a certain age, I absolutely loved the 3.5 codex, so I relished the opportunity to break that out and have some fun with it.

We had a blast playing and immediately scheduled another one a few weeks later. That sent me into a frenzy of painting Emperor's Children, a project which I hadn't touched since getting burned out playing them in the local club league a few months after their codex launched last year.

I'd converted up some Havocs a while back, so I finished those up. Havocs with Sonic Weapons haven't been an option since the 3.5 codex, so it was a great opportunity to actually use them for their intended purpose instead of needing to do 'counts as'!

These were a joy to paint up, even if a bit slow with all the freehand and patterning I like to layer onto every model. My attitude is that if your eyes don't hurt just from looking at them, they're not really Emperor's Children!

It feels so good to be working on the army again. They're my favourite legion and have been my main army in both Heresy and 40k for so long. I really need to get them finished. Finally finding a way to play 40k which I actually enjoy has definitely turbo-charged my enthusiasm for them again!

I even made some new models for my 3rd Legion. After our first game I converted a new Champion for one of my units.

May I present Dio Kyrios, 'The Denied'

He's actually got an illegal loadout for 10th, so he's exclusively for my 4th edition games. It feels weird to be building a new model for a ruleset which hasn't been current for about 20 years now!

He got the title of the 'The Denied' after he spent the entirety of his first game fruitlessly trying to get himself and his unit into combat with an enemy Tactical Squad, who very unsportingly kept backing away, before watching him get gunned down in a hail of Plasma Cannon fire!

All good fun though and I'm looking forward to him having his revenge next time!

On top of that, I've also got a pair of Rhinos on my hobby desk right now.

They're looking distinctly un-Slaaneshi at the moment, but that will change soon enough. I'm going to be going for the classic black and pink look for them, something which I haven't used a whole lot in my army, but it should be pretty quick to do and adds some variety across the army.

Obviously all this is helping my backlog clearance massively too, but really I'm just enjoying this massive outpouring of creativity and productivity. I'm hoping to get these done in the next few days, then I've got a few Necromunda Weirdos to do for the club campaign. After that I'll turn my attention back to my EC's. I won't go as far as to say I'm going to get the whole army done this year, but I'm fully intending to roll with it for however long my fickle attention span lasts!

I'll let you know how I get on. Until next time though, happy hobbying!

More Elves!

I've spent the last few days finishing up the Dragon and Dark Pegasus I need for this weekend’s Old World event. 

It actually ended up being a lot easier than I expected, finishing them both over the course of three long-ish painting sessions. I think the rider actually took more effort to do than the Dragon itself!

I really like the conversion I made for the Sorceress on Peg. I had originally planned for it to be simply a case of sticking the second rider from the Dragon kit on a kitbashed mount, but it it didn’t fit the saddle very well, so the project evolved massively until I’d basically cut up, filed, trimmed and rebuilt every part of the model!

It was a hell of a lot of  work and honestly I’d have probably been better off just giving in and buying an old metal Morathi model from ebay, but at least I’ve gotten a fun and unique model out of it!

While both models are far from perfect, I think they look decent enough and fit nicely with the rest of the army. Honestly, I actually don’t think the Dragon could have ever lived up to the image I had in my head for it. It’s been sitting on my hobby desk half finished for so long, I’ve had plenty of time to imagine how it’s going to end up. Done is better than perfect in this case!

That’s the bulk of my Dark Elves done now, or at least everything I want to be getting finished in the near future. I’ve still got a couple of units and characters I need get round to, but my hobby ADHD is definitely nudging me looking for something else to do, so it's time to switch things up for a while.

 I think I’m going to try and get some good pictures of the army as a whole at the event this weekend, then call this chunk of my backlog finished. The army is looking better than it ever has and I’m really proud of what I’ve managed to get done in just a few short months. I’ve even managed to break into positive painting figures in the process!

I’m not sure where my backlog-busting journey is going to take me next, but I’m feeling super energised right now. I’m on holiday this week too, so hopefully I’ll be able to launch myself into something fun. You’ll have to check back later to see what that might be though.

Until then though, happy hobbying!

Back to the Elves

I'm a little proud of this one. Not the models themselves, more the fact that I've managed to actually swing my attention back to an ongoing army project.

It's normally something I really struggle with. Once I’ve gotten the dopamine hit from completing a few units, my Hobby ADHD and actual Neurospicy distraction usually kicks in and I don't return to it for months, if at all. It's most of the reason I have so few painted, playable armies, despite having been in the hobby for over 20 years now!

The fact that I've got another event coming up has definitely helped, but I'm still taking it as a win!

So yeah, I've managed to get another unit of Dark Riders done across the last couple of evenings:

I also started on the Dragon I mentioned last time. Not too shabby a start, although still a way to go on it:

I'm hoping to harness my current streak of productivity and get him done by early next week, to avoid the usual last minute rush to sort stuff out, but we'll see what happens there. I'll keep you updated!

Another bunch of weirdos

I've really gotten into the groove with these random Inquisition dudes. I managed to finish up a few more over the last week or so, including the Inquisitor conversion I built in 2015!

It's so nice to be able to finally get these finished in a way which does justice to my original vision of them. It really shows me how far my standard of painting has come over the years. There's no way I would have managed this back in the day!

That said, I just realised as I'm writing that I forgot to finish off the coils on the Plasma Pistol and the lenses on the Servo Skull. Oops! I'll have to fix that at some point!

Just a quick update for today. I wanted to post this before I move into prep for my next Old World event in two weeks. Should be less of a slog this time, with just a Dragon rider and a few horses to do. I'm quite looking forward to it though, especially as the Dragon was a present from a friend the Christmas before last. 

Anyway, happy hobbying and I'll catch you next post!

A bunch of weirdos

After the slog of getting my Dark Elves finished, I wanted to paint something quick and simple before diving into my next big project, but wasn't sure what. I always have a bunch of random unpainted or part-painted models scattered round my desk, so I literally grabbed the first one I saw and spent an afternoon finishing it up.

It was a Servitor from my old Inquisition army, which naturally led to me digging out a bunch of my other old Henchmen models and getting them up to scratch.

Not bad for a day or so worth of work! I kind of got myself into a groove after that, so I kept grabbed a few more random bits and pieces and knocked them out too. 

That's a fresh Wyld Runner and a few Phelynxes for my Eschers, swiftly followed by a pair of Dead Marsh Spectres for Middle Earth.

It's felt pretty good just going with the flow and tackling little micro projects like this. I think I'm going to stick with it for a week or two. Every model done is another out my backlog and it's great to have some variety. I do need to turn my attention back to Elves soon though for another event, but that can wait a little bit.

So yeah, a quick but fun one today. I'll hopefully be back soon with more!

Pretty awesome moment!

I've been so busy getting my Dark Elves sorted for the event I mentioned in my new year post, I haven't had time to post updates on here!

Well I managed to finish up what I needed to, even though it was a bit of a scramble at the end. Obviously it's brilliant that I got the event list done in time,  but what's even better is that it led into a pretty big moment for me:

I can finally say that for the first time since i started the army 16 years ago, I have a fully painted 3000pt Dark Elf army!

I've still got loads to do and add to it, but I'm so happy right now. I bought some of these models when I was 18! Dark Elves have always been my favourite fantasy army and I've always had a very strong idea of what I wanted the force to be like. Long time readers of this blog will know that the army has been reworked, stripped and redone a few times over the years in pursuit of that vision. This is the first time it's all come together painted up together at once, to a standard I'm really happy with. It only took nearly two decades, three editions, the death of the setting and subsequent resurrection to achieve!

Honestly it's stuff like this which really cuts to the core of what my backlog busting is about: finishing up projects I keep getting wildly distracted from. Hopefully I can have a few more moments like this in tbe next few months!

The event itself was really good fun. I walked away with a single win out of three games, which is pretty much what I was hoping for. I met sonevgreat people and had a great time, so a win all round.

Not sure what what I'm going to work on next. I need a bit of a break after the slog of my Elves, so I'll probably do something small as a pallete cleanser. I'll see where the mood takes me.

Until next time, happy hobbying!