Some with wheels, some without (how on earth are High Elf Boltthrowers moved to the battlefield?)
Yee-haw, some horses to go to with the foot sloggers.
Time to make some progress on that New Years Resolution. The folks over at TacComs convinced me to start with a Warmaster army. High Elves it is, since that’s the last “core” army not yet completed (see the Warmaster Gallery to see the other 5 core armies).
I am going with a red and white dragon theme for the army as my Dwarves are already blue/white (the other “classic” High Elf scheme). At a small scale like Warmaster, it’s best to stick with unique schemes per army (of course, my Empire army is also white/red but I have vague intentions to repaint them red/blue for Altdort since the paint job is not that great).
So first up are some core units and mini-dragons (Eagle Rider proxies). I shamelessly confess to copying the dragon shield design from this beautiful army.
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New Years Resolution
Happy 2015 Everybody
Looking back, 2014 was sadly aa very quiet year for the blog (and, associated with that, my gaming productivity). A combination of “Space Marine Fatigue” from my overly ambitious 40k Blood Angel force and just generally a lack of painting time made 2014 probably the least productive year of the decade.
So I wanted to start 2015 with a resolution to step up the painting rate again. Specifically, I am hoping to tackle at least some of the projects that have been lingering in my “active projects” cabinet for a while (yes, I have such a cabinet with some 40+ drawers full of “active” projects… see picture).
Warhammer 40k
Blood Angels: I really want to finish these just for the mental achievement of seeing it through. I am missing some finishing touches on a few of the “red” infantry, a dozen Terminators, the Death Company and all the vehicles (4 Rhino/Predator/Whirlwind magnetic chassis, a Death Company Rhino, a Land Raider, a Vindicator 4 assorted Dreadnought, a Drop Pod and a flyer).
Other Projects: The same “fit of airbrushing enthusiasm” that led to the Blood Angel project also saw me pick up 200 or so Ultramarine models. I also still have a large 300+ model Ork army left but I doubt that I will even start either of these in 2015 to preserve my sanity.
Warhammer:
Empire: About a decade ago I participated quite actively in the North American Grand Tournament circuit and even picked up a few awards. My Empire army from that era was painted to my (then) best quality which means that it is still adequate today. My goal for 2015 is to finish up the few remaining units and photograph the army for the blog (gotta get some 28mm forces up here!).
Other Projects: None of my other armies are really re-furbishable either due to low painting quality (done in the 90’s) or totally outdated models. The only thing I could see myself doing is to dip my super old Dwarf army (300+ Marauder era models). They were painted cleanly back then but without any shading or washes (not invented yet). I think a nice dip followed by updated basing might just bring these guys to a presentable level with little effort. Maybe…
EPIC Armageddon:
I was on quite a productivity trend with EPIC armies and generally enjoy completing those. Then GW hit the TacComs hobby modelers with a Cease and Desist letter. The subsequent “purge” sort of killed my enthusiasm. I would like to get back into the groove and finish at least one of the remaining EPIC armies in 2015
Tyranids: about 10k points all based and ready for painting.
Adeptus Mechanicus: all ready to go but 100% proxy models. Not sure if TacComs would allow images of those these days.
Titan Legion/Knight: 8 Titans and some 20+ Knights waiting to be done.
Other Projects: I don’t actually own anything else for EPIC but the recent release of Dark Eldar and Sister of Battle proxies by Onslaught Games is really tempting (so are their Tyranid proxies but I have those already). Maybe I will pick up a small force of each just for fun.
Warmaster and Warmaster Middle Earth:
When Specialist Games shut down, I did a bit of a panic purchase of all the remaining Warmaster armies (as well as most of Lord of the Rings forces just for good measure). For 2015, I hope to paint at least two of these armies to reduce the lead mountain a bit:
Warmaster (3k-4k each): High Elves, Dwarfs (re-basing and adding some units), Kislev, Lizardmen, Vampire Counts, Bretonnia, Dark Elves, Skaven
Warmaster ME: Rohan, Gondor, Isengard, Sauron, Battle of Five Armies box.
If I am particularly productive, I might reward myself with a Chaos Dwarf or Beastmen force from the awesome Eureka line.
SAGA:
I have always been intrigued by historical settings but starting another huge army never seemed appealing. Along came SAGA – a Dark Age skirmish game. As usual, enthusiasm got the better of me and I bought a few hundred models from Gripping Beast, Warlord Games and Wargames Factory (thus utterly negating the small model count benefit of a skirmish game…). At minimum, that’s enough to build decent sizes warbands for Saxons, Danes, Viking, Jomsvikings and maybe some Welsh or Scots (for once, I didn’t really plan much beyond getting all the available plastic kits and some metal models – historical models are dirt cheap to somebody used to Games Workshop prices so I just bought all the available boxes from the three manufacturers). In 2015, I hope to finish at least two of these warbands.
Mordheim/Necromunda/Blood Bowl:
Talking of skirmish games, I still have lots of Specialist Games groups in assorted boxes. Ideally, I would like to paint a couple of these in 2015 but SAGA will take precedence.
Mordheim: Orcs, Goblins, Amazon’s, Carnival of Chaos, Beastmen, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen, Ogres, Averlander, Ostlander, Marienburger, Possessed
Necromunda: Esher, Delague, Goliath, Ratskin, Scabbies, Tau
Blood Bowl: High Elves, Dwarf, Lizardman, Chaos Dwarf, Halflings, Khemri
Other Projects: There are a few other items that would be nice for 2015 but they are all low priority:
– Dystopian Wars Prussian and British Fleet (basecoated but need detailing)
– Flocking and river-pouring for a new set of half-finished terrain tiles
– Finish painting a few already built Hirst Art buildings to complete the Mordheim terrain collection
– Build some more display bases for the model cabinet
– Finish the Man-o-War Chaos fleet to complete the collection
So, finish a 40k and Warhammer army each, an EPIC army, a couple of Warmaster armies, a couple of Saga warbands, a couple of other skirmish game warbands. Maybe 400 models which seems somewhat manageable in a year. We will see :).
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Blood Bowl Halfling Team
Little buggers for another Blood Bowl team. Working on the Treeman now.
Hmm… another long break induced by my frustrated desire to finish that 40k Blood Angel army. But I did manage to sneak in some buildings for Epic. The pyramids are just foam on a hard wood base for stability. The adobe buildings are a nod to the old Titan Legion cardboard buildings but made out of wood (MDF) to inaugurate my new scroll saw (a couple of years ago when that saw was actually new – I only just got around to assembling, texturing and painting them).
I managed to finish lots much of the Wood Elf force in the last couple of weeks. They have their own page now. Have a look for more pictures.
With the motivational slump from the Blood Angel experiment, I need some small scale projects to get me energized again. As a challenge, I will try to paint one Warmaster army every month. Let’s see how it goes.
Step one was to acquire all of the remaining Warmaster armies (I already have five), adding in some War of the Rings forces for good measure. After removing a metric ton of flash and gluing everything onto millions of painting sticks, I am now ready to go.
The first few models are just left-overs for the existing armies to practice a bit of 10mm painting.
The Orcs get a second unit of Boar Boyz and another Rock Lobber (if you can’t tell the difference to the 2002 version then I did a decent job blending into the old paint job).
Next, Chaos got a third unit of hounds just because I had them lying around.
The Empire received a unit of Mortars that I picked up at some point.
Finally, I painted some Tomb Scorpions for the Tomb King army. I got these when I ordered some Reaper soft plastic models for another project.
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Blood Angel Golden Boys
I finished a few of the golden lords of the Blood Angels: Tycho, The Sanguinor, and Dante. All stock models.
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Back
Wow, it’s been a long time. A full year since my last post. I blame the Blood Angel project. In the fall of 2012 I had this crazy idea that I would do another 40k army. I built quite a few of those in the earlier part of the last decade, even won a number of Grand Tournaments. Eventually I shifted interest back into the smaller scales and left the world of 40k behind for close to decade. But the interest lingered, and all those videos of beautiful armies on the internet eventually won me over again. So I bought a few hundred models and went to work on a Blood Angel force.
And it was painful. I made the big mistake of approaching the this project like one of the many 6mm or 10mm I built in the last decade: assemble everything, base coat everything, detail everything, finish. That works great for an EPIC or Warmaster force where I can bang out the entire force in a couple of months. For a 200+ model 40k army it drained me of all motivation within weeks. Detailing the 200th shoulder pad kills you inside. The only thing worse is finding out that @#$%#%^#$% Games Workshop doesn’t make their metal shoulder pads at a consistent size scale, thus forcing you to throw away and paint a new batch of 200 shoulder pads (yes, it happened – and assembly line painting of course only discovers this at the end of the line…). Eight months into the project, I still didn’t have a single model truly completed. Big mistake.
The second demotivating factor was the development of 40k over the last year, or at least my perception thereof based on what I see online. Instead of a visually appealing skirmish battles in the 40k universe, the 40k game seems to have become an exercise of pushing as many disconnected models onto the tabletop: flyers on a tabletop not even large enough to be their airfield; alien monsters fighting side-by-side with humans; armies with more characters than troopers; tanks that drive sideways; and, worst of all, Blood Angel armies that sit back on the base line. It has become a truly weird game – and looks even weirder when you watch it.
Between these two factors, motivation slowly drained out of me and the project stalled. And with it all other painting projects stalled as well. At least until a few weeks ago when I summoned the energy to jump back into the fray and finish at least a few models. I gave up on the vehicles, for now, but will be slowly wrapping up the infantry units (and post them here). First in line is Mephiston, or at least, my proxy thereof. The real model is quite dated so I made this from the Dark Angel Librarian, a Space Wolf head and assorted bitz.
Wargaming Workshop 