2013 Round-Up (just 19 days late...)

Hi guys - I've been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks now but I have only just gotten around to it! A quick recap of what I got upto in 2013 and my next post will cover my current projects and my plans going forward...

The most important part of 2013 (with regards to my blog) is that GAMES ARE BEING PLAYED! It's difficult to underestimate how good this is - I've been "back in the hobby" for 5 or so years now, but even before my break in wargaming, I rarely played (once or less a year, despite having multiple armies!). In the latter half of 2013 I played multiple games of Flying Lead and Songs of Blades and Heroes - I've been planning out games and settings for years and it was a great feeling to see my painted miniatures and terrain on the table! I even got a couple of my non-wargaming friends to start playing (my housemate and another of my best friends) and, most importantly, they kept asking for more battles!

I've actually gotten a really decent amount of figures completed this year for various different projects and I got stuck into my zomb-apoc stuff during October with Zomtober 2013 - here are a few examples of things completed this year:

Michonne and her two "camoflage" zombies - I'm very fond of her paintjob - she was a gift to myself when I'd finished half of my Studio Miniatures plastic zombie horde! Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

Chosen Space Marines of The Desolation - In The Emperor's Name

Goblins from The Hobbit - this was a lovely plastic kit! Lots of variety too. They're to be used as devolved humans in Necromunda/Space Hulk/post-apoc

Some Private Military Contractors from Empress Miniatures (sold as SAS, mine have a couple of headswaps) - these are for zomb-apoc

Wasteland Sniper - this guy is intended as a scout/herald for a new (Caesar's Legion-inspired) faction in my post-apoc. Warmachine/Hordes

Misc Studio Miniatures plastic zombies - I did enjoy painting the ones in the prison jumpsuits and the Drive-inspired one in the front! Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

A biker survivor (em4 Miniatures) and misc feral ghouls (Mantic Games plastic zombies). Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

Missing from the round-up are various different figures, an orc and goblin warband (Celtos miniatures, for my fantasy skirmish setting), 19 pirate scum (40k Chaos Cultists), 30 or so plaguebearers (plastics and kitbashes!), more zombies... A good painting year in general!

The Underfolk

I love these figures! They're the plastic Goblins from Games Workshop's "The Hobbit" miniatures game. I liked them in the film - the variety in the unwashed, debased, inbred hordes was nice, as was the pale flesh like the cave creatures that dwell in unlit caverns. I decided to pick some up when I found them cheap enough - I believe these were £8.99 inc postage on eBay. 

I have a few different plans on how to use these, so I've kept their basing nice and neutral (although I did try something new - swamp or sewer bases!) so they can fit any number of roles, but I mainly have them in mind for either the Necromundan underhive (from the very bottom of the sump, hence "Underfolk") or for a project I've started jotting ideas down for - a skirmish campaign game set in a huge space station or Space Hulk - these would be devolved mutant humans - smaller to fit through the sewer/bilge systems, poor eyesight but better hearing, hence the larger ears. 

These really are great plastics - they took barely any cleaning up and the main work was cutting off their base tabs - I prefer to have as many figures as possible on the hollow-bottom plastic bases weighted with pennies. Adds a nice amount of heft to plastics! 

With the basing I only added the finer sand I use (no gravel), painted the figures and bases as normal, hit the bases with a dark wash and then a few layers of satin varnish (in this case it was actually furniture/wood varnish - Wilkos brand clear satin - I have a tin left over from a DIY project - I'll definitely be using this to work on some swamp terrain!). I added various washes of green, blue, reddy-brown etc. over the varnish, then added varnish again. I also added a few tufts of grass or the odd leaf here and there - these were also varnished to look semi-submerged.

These were a lovely easy painting job and definitely suit my style! I particularly enjoyed painting their sore, weeping eyes, the blood and grime and rust. My favourite kind of painting!

I'll be adding a round-up post for Zombtober shortly! These are somewhat a continuation as they'll be filling a similar role in the various games they'll be seeing use in! Thanks for reading - feel free to comment!

Where I am with Space Hulk...

I had planned on completing everything for Space Hulk as of New Years Eve 2011 - sadly, this did not come to pass. I did manage to get the vast majority of the miniatures in the boxed set completed, but I still have the Librarian and Broodlord to finish, plus the bases of the Genestealers to go back over and bring up to the level of muck and grime of the Terminators. To be honest, there's probably a million different things I could go back and alter. And I probably will.

Long-time readers of my blog may remember the magnetised bases I put together for all of the Terminators shortly after receiving the box as a Christmas gift from my parents - the bases are all now painted up nicely!

Although all of the integral bases on the Terminators are different shapes, it was still slightly awkward to pair the correct Astartes to the correct 40mm gaming base. A set of transfers kindly solved this issue for me! Each integral base bottom now has a corresponding number on it's particular base. Perfect!

Hopefully I'll be able to get the Broodlord and Librarian finished soon and put an end to the project - it's been a labour of love - time to start gaming with them!

Space Hulk Termie

The picture showed a few things I'll be altering, and he still needs some rust adding to the base, but another Terminator down, 6 and the Broodlord left to go!


I never seem to have any energy for painting at the moment - I am planning a lazy day on Sunday when I'll be attempting to finish off a bunch of different almost-complete miniatures that I currently have on my desk!

Genestealers completed!

Finally finished all the Genestealers (apart from the Broodlord, who will be done seperately thanks to his size and special status) completed! I finished the final seven last night and managed to get all of the weathering powders applied to their bases this morning, followed by a couple of coats of Dullcote and finally, blood splatters! As always, click the pics for larger versions. This is something of a weight off the workload, as these were started well over a year ago - as mentioned many aeons ago on this blog, they were a Christmas gift and I had intended to get them finished before moving in with my flatmate. They're finished, at last, with the Broodlord and the last of the Terminators left to go! Everything required for the first mission is done now though!

Quantity has a quality all of it's own...

All the Genestealers in the Space Hulk boxed set done (apart from bases, dullcote and blood, which I'm on with now). Hoorah! Broodlord will be done last of all.

'Stealers

Next six Genestealers completed - I'm going to add weathering powders to their bases, dullcote them and add some Tamiya Clear Red blood to them once I've finished painting all of them...

What I'm Upto...

So, I've done a little bit of painting...

This is the tester for my Dark Eldar. To say I'm unhappy with it would be an understatement - it's turned out much darker than I planned. If you mind the pun. She looks a bit too Chaotic - I'd wanted to do something a bit different than the dirty, dusty, mucky stuff I normally paint, so this lady has just had a nice bath in Fairy Power Spray alongside the other four Wyches I've been on with. The plan now is to go for a colder scheme, pale purple with silver armoured pieces instead of brass and plenty of blood splatters.

Classic Chaos Warrior - this guy is a hired sword for Mordheim. He's also a tester for my Chaos army - the armour is supposed to be a sort of flesh-tone, they're going to be undivided but vaguely Nurglesque. I do love that he's wearing a beastman skin...

I've decided that I want to do something as a bit of a change, and the Space Hulk box was staring me in the eye - it's probably the wargame that'll get the most usage. Best get these sorted out...

Moving Tuesday

At least, Tuesday is the plan! The let is agreed (I "squeeee-d" with delight when I went on the webpage of the apartment I'm about to move into and I saw the little green "Let Agreed" icon on every photo...amazing!) and it's just a matter of all the paperwork going through as soon as possible - hopefully today (Monday). I'm just on packing up a few more bits and pieces, sorting out what games stuff I'm going to take to begin with.


Visual proof of progress...

DVDs are gone, more books are gone, the wardrobe has been emptied and painted white, the vast majority of my clothes are bagged in the green super-strength garden waste bags.


At the moment I'm planning on taking:

• Space Hulk - I have 5 Termies, 10 'stealers and the playing pieces painted - lots more left to do here.
• The pile of basecoated miniatures - lots of AE Bounty stuff, some post-apoc, some Dark Eldar Wyches. These were all on my desk whilst packing up.
• A big box of Imperial Guard - all in bits, but I recently had a tidy out and stock take. Basically went through all of my horded Guard/generic human bits and sorted them into various bits trays (well, the kind of plastic freezer boxes you get takeaway in) and I now have it all sorted into torsos, legs, left arm, right arm, weapons, heads, extras. That took a while. I love the Guard and have been hording stuff for this project since the year before the new IG codex was released. There is well over a hundred infantry, 3 Russ and 10 Sentinels. Lots of work.
• The latest stuff I bought - the zombapoc stuff and a bag of Quar!

Plus the obvious assorted tools and paints.

Plenty to start with I think! The Space Hulk and zombapoc stuff is likely to be used first, so they'll be the priority, with the AE Bounty stuff next up.

I've also just ordered another 2 Kaiser Rushforth figure cases, taking me upto 3 KR and 1 GW. Should be enough (to keep me going anyway) so I can transport most of my collection over!

Bed time I think!

First 5 Space Hulk Terminators complete!

 I finally completed the first 5 Blood Angel Terminators for Mission 1: Suicide Mission.

 Sergeant Lorenzo

 Brother Zael

Brother Noctis


Rather happy with this lot - at least it's a decent chunk of the Terminators in the set complete!

The Savage Boys - completed!

Well, the "sacred vow" made in my previous post has been somewhat broken, but at least it's not something brand new that I've started working on...

I present to you, the Savage Boys, a gang of sadist, masochist and various other varieties of 'ists.

The full gang - three of these guys were painted previously, meaning I've painted 10 miniatures from undercoat to completion in a week. I really can't remember the last time I got even close to completing that much in a week, so please allow me a small amount of chuffed-ness..

Boris Savage, escaped Pit Fighter and leader of the Savage Boys, a bunch of raidin' good fer nothings, who ain't welcome in any of the settlements of the wastes, on account of murderin' more than their fair share of peace officers over the years..

 Pyro Pete, a madman with a spray nozzle and a tank of flammable liquid strapped to his back. Rumour has it that he joined the gang after he torched the rest of his settlement down to the foundations of their shacks.

 Jawbone, who is a key example of the kind of dental surgery one can find in the wastes.

 Cuss, another fire-addicted eejit, with his custom built flamer built into the remains of a military rifle. It's rumoured that he actually volunteered to have that brace attached to his face when the rotjaw hit him - said it made him look "meaner".

 Uzi Dave, I dare you to ask this little bugger why he's called that?

 Jimbo, generic ganger/gunfodder...

 Marv, with his homemade blunderbus.

Steroid Bob, right-hand man and second-in-command of the Boys. May have a slight addiction to Buffout, and no, it don't shrink your junk! Probably best if you don't ask that again... (this guy seriously reminds me of a local bloke who used to go to the gym I used to frequent...)

Whiplash, who is a little too heavily into sadism considering his young age. He'll be more than happy to spank you.

The Sissy - kind of the odd man out, this guy just tagged along after one of the gang's more infamous raids. He was the mayor of a settlement, claimed to want to join the gang for protection after they slaughtered almost everyone in the town. Forced to wear a tutu, he's yet to prove his worth. Kept in line by Whiplash. (this guy would also double as a zombapoc "psycho")

As mentioned, I'm very happy with these! I also just returned to the "vow", having worked on a few of the Terminators tonight for a while - hopefully there'll be more progress with them tomorrow..

A Sacred Vow...

Must paint these...

Before I get to start these...

Which should have been helped by this...

Largest amount of snow in England since 1965. Sadly, enthusiasm has been lacking - couldn't get in the painting mood! Oh well. Back to work tomorrow (after missing Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, being sent home early because of the snow on Wednesday and Thursday) and today has been mostly taken up with Fallout New Vegas.

Back on the painting horse soon!

Current Works In Progress

Just a quickie on what I'm currently painting...

 - Space Hulk Terminators - freshly undercoated.

- Starport Lifter/Loader droid - this pic makes him look a lot cleaner than he is in real life...

- Barrels - for scatter terrain around the Starport - still painting in process, will get various transfers and some other bits and pieces. I want a lot of scatter terrain of crates and shipping containers and barrels around the Starport.

- Imperial Guard Stormtroopers and Commissar - I've recently finished reading the Sabbat Worlds Anthology, which was of the highest quality. It's had the effect of making me want to work on my Imperial Guard once again, and these are the most Work-In-Progress I have paint-wise at the moment. These are the rest of the squad shown a few months ago, plus one of the relatively recent Commissar miniatures. Rather dynamic miniature, and I've had him for ages, it's about time he got some paint-lovin'.

- Bounty Hunter Sniper - last of my Bloodhound Bounty Hunters (for now), he's looked like this for a couple of weeks now...

Diversionary Tactics...

Slight diversion from the AE Bounty in the form of magnetising all the bases for this lot! I realised that it'll be a year come Christmas day since I got them, and by rights they should be complete by then... I ordered a foam insert from Wayland Games that fits inside the actual Space Hulk box, protecting all the miniatures and keeping everything together. Rather snazzy I think, and as I think this is one of the few games that the rest of my none-wargaming friends would play, is probably worth it for the presentation...

Brother Deino

The first of my Space Hulk Blood Angel Terminators - Brother Deino.

I'm also giving all the Terminators from the game magnetised 40mm bases, in case I ever manage to have a 40k game...

More on the way!