It's time to beat my backlog!

It's a bit of a grandiose title, but I'm determined to finally do something about the massive backlog of projects I've got building up.

It's probably no exaggeration to say that if I never bought another model again, I could go my entire life without running out of things to paint!

 

Honestly it's a bit ridiculous. Problem is, I get massive hobby ADD far more often than I see projects through to the end. Made worse by the fact I play so many game systems.

 

So I've decided to put in a bit more effort over the next few months to try and clear out some of the hobby clutter.

It's not really going to be a hobby purchase ban like I've done in the past, more like just being a bit more conscious about what I'm spending and trying not buy stuff I want for my armies until I've finished a chunk of stuff related to them first.

A good example are the Trolls I got done this week:

Not the best of pictures I'm afraid. Still working on how to get the best from my new phone camera. My point is though that I've got another 7 of these to get finished. I want to get a Troll Hag to go with them, but I'm not going to do that until all 12 are finished.

Sounds pretty simple and obvious when I put it like that, but I'm hoping it's a good way to try and tame the chaos and poor impulse control which tends to prevail in my hobby decisions.

I'm also going to try and post on here again more often as I've let this go to hell a bit recently. I've reached the stage where I'm pretty sure I'm the only seeing it on here, but it is nice to have a hobby log like this. I've been running this blog for 15 years, I can't stop now!

Anyway there's the update of what I'm up to. Apologies for the big gap between posts and I'll hopefully be back soon.

 Happy hobbying!

More Pootling

As I predicted, I decided to take things pretty easy over the last week or so. All I did hobby-wise last week was finally spray up my Titanicus accessories:

Only took me three years! Seems a little thing, but it feels so good to have finally gotten it done. I was getting sick of not being able to see my pips properly whilst I was playing, so I chose the bright, most lurid colour I could to spray them with!

Then this week I've been back on holiday, but I've just been pootling along with hobby stuff. After one of my Xestobiax Titans took a cat-related tumble from a shelf, it got moved up the queue for sprucing up, so I spent Monday working on that with some YouTube videos on in the background.

It was surprisingly relaxing. There was something quite zen about sitting there and just neatening up a three year-old paint job. There's still a lot to do with it, but I think it's going to become my go to thing to return to when I want to chill between bigger projects. Talking of which... 

I finally returned to the backlog train hard today and got these guys finished up. They were really loose ends from the Mordor stuff I finished a few weeks ago, but pretty important for the Minas Morgul force I'm looking at doing.

I'm really happy with how they look, although to be fair I think the lightbox does them a lot of favours. Every time I've pointed this out to people though, I've been told to shut up and look at my two recent best painted awards! *grumbles*

At least they're done though and finally off my painting desk, leaving me free to work on some 40k and Titanicus stuff. Expect to see an update on that very soon!

Until then, stay safe and happy hobbying! 

A Slight Distraction

My productive streak is ticking along nicely, with me getting a load more done over the course of this week. 

I may need rethink my new hobby setup though, thanks the arrival of this little guy:

His name is Magnus, he's 9 weeks old, adorable and that's my lightbox he's sitting in! Note the pile of models and paints he's pushed aside to get there. I'm definitely going to have to find a solution! 

I did get a few bits done though, despite the cat-shaped distraction. I finished up Dernhelm on Monday night:

It was more a spruce up than a full paint on her, but it was a good little primer to get me back into the groove of painting Middle Earth. I've got a lot of Hobbits to do in my near future! 

Another great thing which happened was that my bits order finally arrived! That means I could finally finish my Captain /Chapter Master for my Golden Knights and the Intercessor Squad from my last post. 

The squad is done but I need to do a bit more on the Captain. I want to get them both knocked out by the weekend so I can focus fully on my event armies when I have some more free time in the next few weeks. 

Here's how the captain stands atm. Looking pretty decent I reckon. There's still a few bits to do on him, as well obviously adding a head! I'm really liking how he's shaping up. It's the first time I've ever made a glowing power sword look half way decent, so there's that too! 

That'll do for today I think. It's nice to have a regular flow of posts going on here. It really helps keep thing flowing on the hobby desk too. It's just a matter of finding the energy to type something up!

Anyway, stay safe and happy hobbying. I'll see you next time. 

Blam!

That's the sound of my painting points being shattered into a thousand pieces!

To cut a long story short, whilst everyone's been getting excited about the reveal of 9th Ed 40k, I've veered off in a completely different direction.

My hobby motivation has very much come in fits and starts over the past few weeks. I think being stuck inside has been starting to get to me a little. It pretty much killed my will to work anything. When I did, I found myself unable to focus on any one project for very long. 

A friend of mine managed to really stoke up my hobby inspiration again a few weeks ago though, which led to a completely unexpected purchase:

I've always been a massive potter nerd and loved the look of the Harry Potter Miniatures Adventure Game from Knight Models ever since they started previewing it a few years ago. I never had anyone to play with though so I never actually picked it up until now.

 If that sounds like a familiar story, that's because it's exactly what happened with Middle Earth last year! It was even the same friend who convinced me to take the plunge on both occasions. 

That friend added me to a Facebook group he runs for the game and let the beautiful models splashed across my FB feed slowly erode my self control. Clearly he's a bad influence on me! 

The models were a dream to paint up. I enjoyed working on them so much I managed to finish all of them over a single weekend. The small size the game is played at and the scale of the models themselves also really encouraged me to treat each one like a character piece in their own right, so they were great fun to do. 

I'm really proud of how the they turned out. I feel like these are some of my best painting to date! Normally I'm really self critical of my painting skills so that's saying a lot. 

After finishing the Order, everything kind of snowballed. My mate pointed me in the direction of an ebay shop selling other models for the game at ridiculously cheap prices and just like that, I was hooked. Three weeks after buying my first models for this game, my collection looks like this:

. 

I regret nothing! 

Yes my painting points are totally ruined when I already have a massive backlog of other stuff to work through, but at least it gives me something to occupy my ever dwindling attention span with whilst I'm still stuck inside. Even if I never actually play the game, they'll make excellent display pieces. 

That's all for today. Hopefully I'll have some more to show you soon as I get my hobby mojo back and try to dig my way back out of backlog hell. I've even had a fun idea to try and actually get some games ayed of some description, but I'll tell you more when I get there. 

For now, stay safe and I'll catch you next time. 

A cornicopia of chaos

I've been pretty busy recently, both hobby-wise and in real life, so yet again the blog has fallen a little to the wayside. I'd promise to rectify this in future, but quite frankly we both know it's about 50/50 whether that will actually happen.

So what have I been up to? Well for a start I've been painting some Shadowspear stuff. I actually got the box set on the day of release and painted a lot of it really quickly, I just haven't really had the time to get the stuff posted up on here (more on that later).

 Of course I couldn't resist kitbashing the Master of Possession into something a little more Slaaneshi. I replaced the backpack icon and staff top with some Deamonette bits I had laying around. It's only a few simple changes, but I think it changes the character of him massively, really bringing out the shamanic nature of the model. Thus Ashur Karr, Fleshmaster of the Glorious Host was born.

Of course he then needed some deamonic minions to accompany him:

The Greater Possessed was just painted straight from box, with no modification. Something of a rarity from me. This particular sculpt really is the star of all the new releases in my opinion, up there in quality with the Forge World Gal Vorbak. It's a shame that the other one you get in the box really doesn't reach the same standard, but I suppose I can't have everything. I may try and do something with the alt sculpt to improve it at some point, but I'll have to see.

You'll notice that I painted him in Sons of Horus colours rather than Emperor's Children. That's because I love the idea of the Possessed in my force being prisoners rather than willing hosts. I got the idea from 'Black Legion' by ADB and it really stuck with me. I like to think of him as some hapless XVIth Legion warrior taken by Karr during the Legion Wars and kept as a favoured pet in some twisted form of sentimentality

Finally out of the model from the box which I've finished, we had the Venomcrawler. Again, it's a fantastic model. I want another two of them eventually. I'm really happy with how this one turned out though:

I love the way that the garish pink of the EC's makes the model look even more disturbing than it already was. Plus the look on my opponent's face when I deploy a giant pink and gold deamonic spider is priceless!

As you can see, I've been pretty busy. I did manage to build some Chosen from the Chaos Marines in the set too, but I'm holding off on painting them until the new Contrast paints come out so I can have a bit of an experiment. The Obliterators are remaining unbuilt until they get a points reduction, as I already have three of them and I see no point in blowing 575 points on fielding five of them!

I've also been busy building a Lord of the Rings Rohan force for an event which a friend hosted, but I'll cover that in my next post, along with the event itself. To be honest I've probably got enough stuff to catch up on blogging about and projects in the works to fill a dozen or so posts, it's just a matter of finding the time to write them. I might make catching up on blogging a mini hobby goal for this summer. I certainly find my hobby motivation shoots up when I'm blogging regularly, I just never seem to get around to it.

Anyway that's it for now. Happy Hobbying!

Quantity vs Quality

As I talked about in my New Year post, my goal for this year is to only play games with painted models. That's a great goal to aim for, but it's thrown up an unexpected quandry, which I want to talk about today.

My mantra when painting over the past couple of years has been to 'up my game' wherever I can. I used to be able to churn out entire armies in no time at all, but quite frankly in hindsight, they looked like garbage. I've been making a real effort to change that recently and have been trying to really improve my painting skills.

Without tooting my own horn too much, I think it's been working well for the most part. I'm certainly a lot prouder of what I've produced of late and I've had comments from several people about how much I've improved as well.

The thing is that improving my quality takes more time. Pretty obvious I know, but that's kind of at odds with what I want to achieve this year. To give you an example, my scheme for my Slaanesh Daemons looks like this:

They look great in my opinion and are exactly how I want the entire army to eventually end up looking like. the problem is though, these five models took two or three hours to get to this stage and I need fifty of them just to make my Daemon army playable.

Now compare those previous models to these:

Granted these aren't finished yet, but these took roughly an hour to get to this stage, painting mostly with washe. That's a fraction of the time it took me to do the first five, but they still look pretty decent in my opinion. They still need another layer of wash on their claws, but they're fairly close to being done. They look good as a collective group, but they're nowhere near as high quality. I'd consider them a mid-level tabletop standard.

 

The question I'm finding myself asking is, do I want to compromise on the overall standard of painting to help clear my backlog quickly and be able to play games with my Daemons, or do I take the time to bring them all up to a higher level?

I'm sure it's a question we've all found ourselves asking ourselves from time to time, hence why I decided to make a post about it, so I can hear other people's thoughts on the matter. 

 

I'm going to think this over for the next couple for days, but I'm currently leaning towards mass producing them. I can always return later and 'top them up'. Getting a shift on with my rate of finished models seems a really solid idea, especially with new projects on the horizon calling to me already.

What do you think?

I never learn...

January sales at gaming shops are dangerous. I only went into Athena Games this morning to pick up the new Daemons Codex. Then I saw this sitting on the shelf for 35% off!

I think it goes without saying that I snatched up up right away. Yeah I'm weak.

I was going to pick up the Underhive box and Gang War at some point soon anyway, but I was hoping to get a bit more progress in on my existing projects before I took the plunge. I couldn't really argue with that price though.

So I'll be working on this for the next few weeks. I'll post more once I've made progress.

Ok, so I'm weak...

My self control crumbled and I bought Death Masque. I know I'm meant to be painting more than I buy and I know this pushes my total massivvely more into the red than I was already, but it was a moment of weakness. I just got paid for my first month in a new job and I wanted to treat myself. I have no regrets.

I have to say, the box is an amazingly good deal. You get an impressive amount of plastic in there for the price, plus a mini-rulebook, finally giving me a copy of the 7th edition book to use. The character sprues are beautifully done and really show off what they can do with plastic these days. The only bad note is that the background included in the booklet is somewhat questionable, considering the implications for the Eldar race as a whole, but it's really no worse than GW's standard fare. All in all, the box is a pretty sweet deal, considering I plan on making use of everything which comes in the box, except for perhaps Eldrad.

I probably also shouldn't mention the Dark Elf Hydra I also bought off Ebay, which veers me even further from my goal. It was at a price I couldn't refuse and I needed it for my Fantasy campaign forces anyway. Also my order for magnets arrived, but those have no bearing on my painting points total, apart from allowing my to work on updating my Dark Elves.

I suppose the moral of this post is that impulse purchases are bad for painting discipline. Here's the breakdown on the hit my points total took, as far as I can work out:

12 Harlequins: -12 points
Eldrad + Death Jester: -2 points
2 Skyweavers: -4 points
Void Weaver: -5 points
10 Deathwatch Marines: -10 points
Artemis: -1 point
Dreadnought: -10 points
Hydra: -10 points
Existing points -30 points

Total: -79 points

Ouch! It basically means that I won't be buying any more models for at least the rest of this year (unless the rumoured 1k Sons vs SW box tempts me!). Although it looks quite terrible for now, it's not the disaster I thought it'd be at first. With the arrival of the magents, I should be able to chip quite a bit off this total in short order, by working on my Dark Elves. Fantasy armies have a lot of models and are fairly easy to paint. The extra Deathwatch pads which come in Death Masque also let me finish up my existing Deathwatch units very easily.

I suppose I'd best get cracking.

Daily Painting 28/08/16 - Thousand Sons Contemptor

Turns out I was awake enough to get on with some painting this this morning when I came in from work. I decided to add another layer of 50/50 Mephiston Red/ Wazdakka Red to my Thousand Sons Dreadnought:

Aside from reapplying a few dabs of wash into crevasses, that means the red is finally complete on this guy.

Next stage is cleaning up the white, then another highlight for the gold. I have a feeling that between this and my planned Emperor's Children, I'm really going to come to hate highlighting gold before much longer.

Anyway progress is progress. Hopefully I'll have the energy to tackle the white tomorrow.

Daily Painting Progress

As promised,here's my first post on the progress of my daily painting challenge. As you'll see, I've been working on a fairly eclectic mix in my first week, but I've really hit the ground running with it. I don't think I'll be able to keep up this volume of progress as time goes on, but I'll try.

First up is my Deathwatch. These two are Brother Braytek of the Iron Hands and the as-yet unnamed and unaligned Lightning Claw guy. he's probably going to become a Flesh Tearer, but I'm still deciding. These are going to become part of Kill Team 'Sword', the first of 4 teams that I'm going to produce. Not much progress has been made on these guys. The photo doesn't show it too clearly, but I've at least gotten the silver done on them, ready for washing.

Next up is the Thousand Sons Contemptor which I've been working on for ages. I certainly havn't done all this in a week! Mostly I've been chipping away at the massive amount of washes and highlights this guy requires.

I'm hoping to get him done soon, as it means a healthy bump to progress on my painting points total once he is finally finished.

More Deathwatch guys, unnamed for now, but are going to be an Imperial Fist, Raven Guard and Lamenter  (from left to right). I'm actually nearly done on these guys too, with only detailing and pads to do (the Lamenter's arm is about, but not shown here), meaning I should have a full Kill Team ready to go before too much longer. I'll get much better shots of these guys once they are done, as I've just realised that the photo I took the other day is terrible!

And finally, although it's not strictly painting progress, I had a go at building some terrain on my day off this week. I figured that now I have a lovely gaming mat to play on, I could really do with some terrain to go with it. I still need to add some more sand to the baseboards before I paint these, but I'm liking how they're turning out so far, especially as they we pieced  together from junk I found around my flat.

Summary: Lots of prgress this week, although nothing finished yet, so no painting points progress to report quite yet. Hopefully I'll have something by the end of the week. This is assuming of course that I don't get distracted with something else in the meantime. On the other hand, the beauty of this system means that progress is being made regardless.

I'm going to be hopefully switching to daily updates with this, or at least every other day. I did a weekly summary today because I've been having problems uploading pictures all week. I may take the bank holiday off though, as it's going to get ridiculously busy at work, so I'm likely to be spending all my free time sleeping. I'll see what happens though.

Either way, I'll post more soon.

What are you guys working on atm?

Tub of Heresy

Having gone through my vast horde of GW bits, I decided to seperate out any and all bits which were usable in my heresy conversions. Needless to say, I ended up with rather a lot so now I've got a big tub of heresy parts to be used or stripped down, plus two small craft boxes of the rarer or more prized pieces I found.

By my reckoning there's enough parts in there for 20-30 marines of varying descriptions. Add those what I've already got built/painted and I reckon I'll be hitting 8000 points on my Sons of Horus and Thousand Sons within a few months, once I've had a sort through and build of what's in there.

Sods law says I'll still end up spending hours looking for that one bit I need for projects though!

Oh and annoyingly I've run out of the wash I need for my Sons of Horus, bringing progress on repainting them grinding to a halt (again). Hopefully I'll be able to finish off my first Inquisitorial Henchman Squad done  though.

Thoughts on the new codex

With pre-orders going up last night, then the chaos of trying to access the site today, my mind's been firmly focused on the new Space Marine codex today and how I'm going to make use of it. I thought I'd post up my thoughts.

Ok so far, I've got three forces planned, all of which I've been had in the works on and off for years now:

1. Soul Drinkers

These guys are going to be my main SM force and my go-to army if I want a game using the codex. In keeping with the background laid out in the novels, I'm not including any vehicles in there save for maybe a counts-as Stormraven to represent the shuttles they use to get around in.

It'll be a very fast moving, rapid strike force, albeit using Imperial Fists rules (it's only fitting, considering their origins), probably led by a Tigerius counts-as to represent Sarpedon.That's subject to change though when I read the full rules for him. If the rules don't match up to what I want, I may end up using him as a Chapter Master or allying in some BA allies in order to gain access to Fear of the Darkness to properly represent Sarpedons psychic power: 'The Hell'

Model-wise I'm stripping, rebuilding and repainting my old force to match my current painting skills (my old scheme looks awful by my current standards). On my painting list atm are:

Sarpedon's Force Axe
Chaplain (Iktinos) - probably the new Chaplain with conversion work done
Terminator Captain
Lightning Claw Captain (Luko)
2 x Librarians
10 x Marines to represent Iktinos' "Flock" (to be used as Assault Marines on foot)
20 x Tactical Marines
10 x Assault Marines, including a Tellos conversion
10 x Vanguard Veterans
9 x Scouts
8 x Sternguard

I'm aiming to get these guys done by early next year at the latest.

2. Thousand Sons


Due to the fact that the Sons of Magnus don't have their own rules from FW yet, I thinking of using these guys as a Sternguard-heavy force (to represent their powers), backed up by another Tigerius count-as and maybe some counts-as Centurions to represent Mechanicum support. This is of course, in games where I can't use FW rules. Most of the time, they'll be fielded using the FW Legion list

Having been building them very slowly for over 2 years now, I've got bits and pieces done for this force, but nothing fieldable yet. On my painting list for these guys are:

Ahriman conversion, made from the new Librarian model
2 other Librarians
18 x Scarab Occult Veterans
15 x Spireguard Support (scouts)
6 x Terminators
1 x Land Speeder (FW Javelin - still to buy)
1 x Contemptor (still to buy)

The fact that GW is releasing a Mephiston Red spray will considerably speed up progress on these guys. Even so, I'm putting a longer time scale on these guys. I'm hoping to get them done by summer next year

3. Ragtag RenegadesThe idea for this army came partially from 'Dead Sky, Black Sun' by Graham McNeil and also from the fact that from time to time I like just painting up random marines that don't match my main armies, just to keep things fresh.

The idea behind the army is that renegade and outcast marines from various different chapters have banded together for mutual protection and survival. They aren't chaos yet, but they're renegades who straddle the edge of 'good', surviving in the harshest areas of the galaxy. They still fight the emperors wars, just not as part of their parent chapters any more, stealing and raiding to survive.

It basically allows me to paint single or small groups of models whatever chapters I like and still have the chance to use them in-game. I used to play this force years ago, but the marines got siphoned off for other projects. It was the first army I played with the 5th Edition codex, so I felt it was only right and good that I resurrect it for the 6th Edition book. I'll probably use them as either allies from other codices for my Soul Drinkers, or as a stand alone army using whichever traits I feel like trying out at the time.

Owing to the way I'm building this force, I don't have a set painting list for these guys, aside from a few bits and pieces I already have tucked away in the depths of my hobby cupboard. The following are definitely going to be in there:

5 x Black Templar Sword Brethren (I picked up a box on ebay just in case they went OOP with the merger)
1 x Imperial Fist Sergeant
13 x Tactical Marines of various chapters (to be decided on later)
1 x Dreadnought of indeterminate origin (at the moment)
1 x either Blood Angels or Blood Raven Librarian

With a bit of luck, this should put a crimp in my 'new army itch' as well, saving me money and sanity. I'll only be painting up models I already own, save for a few particularly nice bits and pieces I might pick up through trades or on Ebay (the Iron Hands Sergeant in metal for a start)

So as you can see, I've got big plans for this codex, but it's mainly making use of what I already have and setting myself goals to get it all painted.

I'll still be working on my Sons of Horus and Hochland force alongside these (plus another side-project which I'll reveal soon), but I won't be making any major purchases model-wise for a while,. Obviously I need to keep up with current rules, so the new SM codex and the FW 'Massacre' book are on my 'to buy' list, but those are separate and justified really.

Hopefully I'll get on well with this new plan. We'll see though...

Streamlining my hobby?

Ok, I've accepted that I'm not going to get the list of stuff which I posted a while back done in time for Games Day. Real life's just getting in the way too much.

On the other hand, i've decided to set myself a simpler goal: Streamline my hobby.

I think it's safe to say that I've got too many projects on the go. So many in fact that I'm never likely to finish them all. Therefore It's time to have a serious think and work out what ones are most important to me. The ones that aren't so important are either going to be sold or given to gaming friends who would appreciate them more.

Once my project collection is back down to a reasonable level, I can then complete the remaining ones and start thinking ahead to new ones. Sounds simple, right? We'll see, I suppose. I need to do something though and soon, otherwise my model/project collection going to reach a kind of critical mass and implode on itself.

Anyone got any thoughts or suggestions?

Njal Stormcaller WIP

It's getting depressing just how many back projects I have to clear.

Well it seemed like a simple enough goal to set myself: Build and paint all your half-finished projects, before you buy new models. That way I'll have a load of finished armies and will save me some money while I'm working on what I've already got.

Seems fine to me, I thought and promptly started cataloguing every single model I had left unfinished, so I could tick them off as they were completed and I could see what I have left to do.

Two days and over 300 models later, I was barely half way through my collection, but I persevered. Eventually I had a comprehensive list of what I needed to do and set to work, painting an entire Mordheim warband in an afternoon and feeling very proud of myself. i ticked them off and took a well earned break. Everything seemed to be going well.

The my flatmate asked me to find something in the cupboard for him. Rooting around for it, I found a box containing my half-finished Space Wolves army gathering dust. I swore rather loudly at this point.

So anyway, I decided to pick up a pot of the new GW dry paints and paint them up staright away, taking me a step closer to that magical point can start buying GW models again and making sure I didn't need to enter them onto my list, taking me further away from my goal than I had been before I painted the Mordheim warband

Anyway, here's Njal Stormcaller, half painted.



I used a heavy drybrush of Etherium Blue over a Chaos Black undercoat as a base, then applied a light wash of Badab Black to create the stormy-grey colour I was after.

After that I applied various washes to various parts of the the model to bring him to how he is now.

Mainly I just need to paint details like his beard, tailsmans and staff, then base him, then he's done. The rest of my Wolves will be painted in pretty much the same way, which hopefully will speed up the whole process, seeing as the Etherium Blue condenses what used to be about five different layers of painting into one drybrush.

All in all I'm proud of the way he's turned out, despite the rushed paint job. Once I've got pictures of them, I'll put up my Grey Hunters i painted in the same way, as I think it's a great and speedy way to churn out a Space Wolves army

Zombies arise!

With the new Vampire Counts book now up for pre-order, I felt it was time to tackle the Zombie part of my check list.

Over the next couple days I'll be painting up this lot:



I've wanted an all-zombie horde for years and with the new book, what better chance will I have?

I also want to pick up some of the gorgeous new models that are on the way, namely the Mortis Engine/Coven Throne and Vargheists, but I'm staying strong and not buying any more models until my checklist is done.

So this afternoon I will tackle all those Zombies, as well as the Necromancer, as I've been hearing rumours of a Lord-level Necromancer option making a comeback. Hopefully I won't have to buy Kemmler to access that option, but only time and having the book in my hands will tell.

A mighty hobby quest

I should know better than to venture into GW in the run up to Uni deadlines. I always end up with far too many ideas for projects that i have nowhere near enough time for.

But, in a feat of incredible self-control, I've decided that those can wait until New Year, when i have a six week break and my student loan. In the meantime, I'm going to focus my hobby efforts on getting my current projects done and dusted.


Here's my 'To Do' list to lead me nicely to the 1st of January. You'll notice most of it's stuff that's been featured on The Wandering Mind over the course of 2011 and never seen again.

- Build my new hobby area (more on this next post)

- Finish up my Dark Elf Corsair and Witch Elf units

- Paint my Dark Eldar Kabalite unit that's been sitting on my desk for the last 4 months

- Finish painting my Hochland Empire force

- Finish building and painting my first Grey Hunter unit

- Finish painting my Soul Drinker Tactical and Assault Squads

- Finish my Thunderwolves, including my Lord

- Finish Bjorn

- Paint my Rune Priest

- Paint Trazyn the Infinite

- Finish building and painting my Zombie Dragon Bloodthirster/ Shard of the Void Dragon

- Paint at least 50 (out of 350)of my Zombies

- Strip down my previous failed attempt at Deathwing ready to start anew in the new year

- Build my Throgg the Troll King conversion, ready to lead my Ogre Kingdoms/ Warriors of Chaos monster force

As you can see, it's a fairly substantial list, but one I feel i can manage. The theory is, if i get all this done, I can start the new year without an huge backlog of stuff, allowing me to focus on my new projects.

I'll post the stuff up here as I do them, so you can see how I get on and I'll do a follow-up post in the New Year, where hopefully I can congratulate myself on a job well done. Hopefully.

Here we go then...

Too many distractions!

Well it's not called the Wandering Mind for nothing...

So I picked up my copy of the new Necron codex yesterday, along with a plastic Zombie Dragon kit and Trazyn the Infinite.

My hobby time over the next couple of weeks will probably be taken up with crafting a Necron test list based around Trazyn and a Shard of the Void Dragon (the Zombie Dragon).

I'm also in the process of painting up a few test models for my Space Wolves, using a recipe recommended to me by Odinsport and re-booting my Dark Elf Corsair army, so I should hopefully show those soon, however my painting and modelling time has been cut down drastically by uni deadlines and the fact that my cat decided to give birth to a litter of kittens under my hobby desk.

Gaming-wise I actually managed to get a game of Mordheim in the other day. It was good fun. I was up against a High Elf warband, 3 Empire ones and Witch Hunters, with me playing Dark Elves.

My secret mission was to put five of the High Elves out of action, which I failed at spectacularly. My Corsair henchmen got slaughtered as we poured out of a building, hoping to catch the Asur in a pincer movement, then before my heroes could pile in, the High Elf leader raised his longbow and took out my Highborn with a single shot! To add insult to injury, it was the same character my Highborn had been taking pot-shots at all game with his crossbow pistol and the Highborn died outright after the game. Curses!

All in all not the greatest of results, but at least i got a game in and after the post-battle looting I could afford to hire myself a new hero, a Beastmaster this time, with a whip to put the fear into those damnable hounds the Witch Hunter play insists on bringing. Come here little doggies, i want you to meet my Cold One Beast Hound...

Everything must go! (again)

That's right, Khorneguy's having another sale.

As a student, I'm far too skint for hobby stuff and looking over my finances, i've found that my little splurge at Games Day cleared out my hobby fund completely, severely hampering my progress on my Space Wolves.

I've figured my best way forward is to sort through and sell the mountain of old and half finished projects I have in a bid to raise money for my newer projects.

So here we go...

Obviously I'm looking for cash for these, but I would be open to trades for Space Wolf items too.

Email me at: rickyjoy9@yahoo.co.uk, if you're interested in anything.

The painted stuff can be easily stripped before sending if you're after unpainted.

Here's a list of what I have so far. I'll add (a lot) more as I sort through what I've got over the next few days.

10 Zombies, built but unpainted £7
4 Assault Marines, painted £5
30 Ork Slugga Boyz, painted £20
1 classic Iron Hand Straken, painted - £4
1 Ork Weirdboy - painted and converted (head swap) - £5
1 Ork Stompa - built, converted and painted - £45
3 Space Hulk Genestealers - unpainted

Current Edition Codices/Army Books - £10 each

CSM Codex
Ork Codex
Tyranid Codex
Eldar Codex
Space Marine Codex
Planetstrike
Skaven Army Book
Empire Army Book

Out of print Army Books £5 each

7th ed Orcs & Goblins book
6th ed Dark Elf Army Book
6th Ed Hordes of Chaos Army Book
6th Ed Lizardmen Army Book

Warhammer 7th Ed Rulebook - near Mint condition - £20
Warhammer 8th Edition Rulebook £30
40k Mini Rulebook - £7
Chapter Approved 2003 - £10

The Killing Ground by Graham McNeill - £4
Heroes of the Space Marines - £4
Eisenhorn Omnibus by Dan Abnett- £6
Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium omnibus by Sandy Mitchell- £6
Signed hardback copy of Blood Pact by Dan Abnett - £15

Various back issues of WD dating back to 2003 - pm me for issue numbers - 75p an issue or 3 for £2

Postage will be worked out per item

There you go guys, go nuts, it's going to be helping me out a lot

Post Games Day Recovery

Games Day made me ill.

It always does. I don't know what it is about it, whether it's the 10,000 geeks packed into the same space, the constant noise or my usual all-nighter the day before, but it does. My voice went round about 11am Sunday and still hasn't returned and i've got the flue from hell.

I lost yesterday completely, falling asleep as soon as I got back 10pm Sunday night and waking up 11am this morning. Not good, especially as I was due in Uni yesterday.

But all in all it was worth it. Yeah, i know people complained about the queues, but as long as you weren't fussy what time of day you got your stuff, it wasn't so bad.

I managed to bag the following




- Forgeworld Boarding Marine

- Contemptor Dreadnought with Kheres-Pattern Assault Cannon and Power Fist

- Salvations Reach, unsigned unfortunately, due to the queues, but a damn good read nonetheless. I've been forcing myself to keep putting it down to get some uni work done.

- The Outcast Dead, again unsigned.

- and finally, a single Scout Marine from the Rites of Initiation. Rather handy, as I've been trying to work out the best way to make my Wolf Scout with Mark of the Wulfen without having to buy an entire Scouts box


I also struck up a few interesting conversations. I went to the Warseer meet-up, saw Harry and co. They seem nice sorts, but i mainly ended up talking to the guy who goes by the name ChaosAstartes about the nature of Khorne and martial honour.

I also went out to smoke and got chatting to a fellow Space Wolves player about Thunderwolves conversions (Bloodcrushers are the way to go!) and the Sons of Russ in general.

Plus I got to be sarcastic to Matt Ward and STILL get his autograph

So all in all I'd rate this Games Day 7/10. Next time GW, sort the queues!

Right now GD's out the way, back to my projects. My question to you is, where next? Thousand Sons or Space Wolves?

The Winged Contraption of Hedvig von Nearostaffen

Has anyone worked it out?





It's the start of a Steam Powered airship that I'm building for my planned Nuln-based Empire force, after being inspired by seeing this on Warseer (scroll down a bit to see it).

It'll be a very slow project due to my lack of funds until May (gods bless student loans), but i have a large supply of plasticard and no less than 12 bitz boxes to draw on, so i'm cobbling together what i can.

Anyway, turning our attention back to the Winged Contraption itself, my aim is to create a set of wings to propel it forward similar to Leonardo De Vinci's flying machine and having it held aloft by a Zeppelin-style gas bag. Hopefully it should turn out looking awesome, but I'll just have wait and see.

What do people think so far?