A busy weekend - Forsaken and lots of figure prep

Well, after aiming to get them done in August, I've finally got five Forsaken painted and table ready in January! This is another unit for my challenge with James at Gonzo History Gaming. These are my first finished models of the year, and it's left me feeling really positive and cheery.

I've also pottered along with assembling one of the Chaos Spawn - it's an astonishingly versatile kit for it's time. I'm looking forward to getting this one fully assembled and painted. It will be serving double duty in both Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40K.

Here's some old "never released by Citadel" figures that Wargames Foundry have now put out under their Warmonger Miniatures line. They'll be joining a squad of "not GW" Inquisitorial retinue of various figures I've picked up over time of stuff I thought was cool.

The space suited miniature had a bump on his backpack that I recognised as being intended for a Space Marine style backpack. I dug out a Forge World piece from the bitz box (I think it may be from a Legion Recon Squad? I don't know) so he could have one. I thought it was a fun mix of old and new.

I also finished basing up the EM4 Miniatures scavengers I'd started on last weekend. As those around the UK will be aware, it's not exactly been undercoating weather, so there's a big build up of bits and pieces awaiting undercoating.

Well, this takes the biscuit for rubbish progress pics, doesn't it? At least there's some other, real progress above it. This is a Forge World Renegade psyker and an Antenocitis Workshop "egg car" I got as a freebie when I attended the Infinity Winter Challenge down in Exeter.

I washed the resin, as you should, and cleaned up the (minimal) mould lines on both. I'm planning on doing a "cracked earth" style base for the psyker, so I'm keeping him separate to his base until both are painted. This is a bit of a new thing for me. To get the base ready for undercoating, I filled in the little hole the GW bases have with a bit of polyfilla.

So, there you go - 12 figures made ready for undercoating, and the last 2 figures of a set of 5 painted. I'm not sure if we'll keep up the pace, but I'm pleased to be managing to get some time at the hobby desk and not getting distracted and wandering off.

Tale of Gamers - Forsaken - a little bit a night

With Christmas Party season drawing to a close as people start to go off on holiday, I'm starting to get the odd evening back. As such, I was pretty pleased to get in, sort some food, then settle down for forty-five minutes or so of painting and faffing with the Forsaken unit that caused me so much trouble back in August.

It's not a huge amount - tidying up some overpaint here, getting a wash on there - but they're slowly creeping towards getting done now, and that makes me pretty happy.

The latest challenge was finding a rather large and annoying gap I'd missed at the assembly stage, so some liquid green stuff was deployed to fill in the hole. I'm leaving it to cure overnight before painting over it, meaning I couldn't quite push a second Forsaken through to being finished this evening.

Tale of Gamers - Chaos Warriors Assembled

 

The Tale of Gamers challenge I'm doing with Gonzo History Gaming is still plugging along. The Chaos Warriors are assembled and undercoated now - so there's 30 miniatures assembled at various stages of painting now.

This is Adira the Dark Champion, from Bad Squiddo Games. You can get her here if you like her. And yes, I spotted the mould line on the cloak - I'll get it when I paint her!

Meanwhile, here are some Harlequin "Templars". These are the ones I found on a shelf in Foundry, but they've been out of production for a while...

I also dug out the "finished" Forsaken and started redoing the base to match the finished barbarians.

Tale of Gamers: October - Finished Miniatures!

So, I've finally finished something for my Tale of Gamers challenge with James from Gonzo History Gaming! I'm super excited!

The first batch of John Pickford Barbarians (available from Wargames Foundry, though I think you need to visit the shop or phone) are painted. So yes, there should be ten finished in a month and I managed five, but I'm happy to get something finished (first thing since August).

So, next up is a quick diversion - I've got a villager for the Oldhammer Forum chaos villager project due! I feel like I might have a bit of a speed paint coming on...

Tale of Gamers: First finished Marauders

The challenge with James of Gonzo History Gaming continues apace! I've actually been away this last weekend at a 40K LARP, running around and shooting at people with NERF guns, but trying to find the time each evening to get a little progress has borne fruit.

Here are the first two Marauders finished and table ready. I've also just realised I've not paid attention and not done the basing scheme the same as the first Forsaken I finished a while back. I think I prefer this scheme though, so I will probably just update the Forsaken's base.

Tale of Gamers: End of September report

Fires up the computer

Checks previous blog posts for already used exuses...

Right, lets have a look at how we did this month, shall we?

Ah. Not quite finished. Again. I don't like how the weapons have turned out, so I'm going to have to take those back. There's just a wash for the armour, the bone and details to go, so we're nearly there!

Meanwhile, the assembly hasn't gone anywhere. This was a busy month, with a trip away for my wife's birthday and a big LARP meaning I didn't get much done at all.

I'm going to experiment with trying to free up half an hour each evening, as well as the weekends, and see how effective that is.

I thought I'd be more demoralised at this point, but I'm actually pretty positive I can turn this around!

Tale of Gamers: A little more Marauder Progress

Just a few more colours blocked in, and another wash or two down...

Tale of Gamers: Marauder Progress

Only a little progress this week as I was away at a LARP at the weekend. Starting to block in colours and washes on the Marauders.

Maps to far off lands

Tale of Gamers: Alternate Chaos Warriors

So, for my Tale of Gamers challenge with James from Gonzo History Gaming, I need ten Chaos Warriors. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the current Games Workshop plastics, and I keep picking up potential alternates, so lets see what I can find lying around...

Well, this is a good start. It's a Barbarian Warlord from Heresy Miniatures, and a Chaos Warrior from the Circle of Chaos Kickstarter. Even better, these two are already assembled, so less work for me!

This sealed bag contains a smattering of old Harlequin Templars. I found them during a trip to Foundry some time ago, and picked them up as they're not a regularly stocked item, but something they'd found a few spares of and had put up on the shelves in the hope someone would buy them. So I obliged...

And then, to round up, two miniatures I bought from Bad Squiddo Games. You may know BSG as "The Dice Bag Lady", but she does miniatures, not dice now! She stocks an assortment of awesome female sculpts and other useful stuffs. I'd picked up a "Gray Maiden" by Reaper from her at Salute, and had ordered an Adira Dark Champion from her own range when it came out recently.

So, there you have it - ten miniatures, old and new to form up a small unit of Chaos Warriors. There is a ton of choice out there at the moment, and I can strongly recommend both Heresy and Bad Squiddo.

Tale of Gamers: End of August Report

Some of you may recall I'm engaged in a bit of a painting challenge with James from Gonzo History Gaming. You can see how well he did in August here.

Target for end of August: 10 painted Forsaken.

Achieved at end of August: 1 painted Forsaken.

Only one number out!

It turns out, these Forsaken, while beautiful miniatures, are super, super fiddly and awkward to paint - making it more time consuming than I expected. I've finished off one, and will keep plugging through the other nine as time goes on. But September is a busy month, so I'm not going to try and catch up and do September's commitment at the same time!

The good news is that the Marauder unit is assembled on schedule and ready for paint. These are much simpler sculpts so should be quite achievable in the time available.

Meanwhile, the Chaos Spawn have very pretty bases finished, but I should probably finish assembling the actual models...

So, looking at the list, what am I aiming to have painted by the end of the month?

Lord of Slaanesh on Daemonic Mount
10 Chaos Marauders
10 Chaos Warriors
10 Forsaken
2 Chaos Spawn
Hellcannon

I also hope to have the Chaos Warriors assembled and ready to paint for October's part of the challenge.

Quick update: How's that Tale of Gamers Challenge going?

Well, it's not terrible!

Where I wanted to be, with one weekend to go, was to have all the Forsaken assembled, and half of them painted, and be going into next month's assembly.

We have eight out of ten Forsaken assembled, and five are mid paint. Five of next month's Marauders are assembled and ready for undercoat.

I am tempted to do a little bit of a swap, and finish off the five Forsaken I'm mid-way through, but paint the five Marauders as the other half of this month's progress. The Forsaken sculpts are pretty detailed, and there's a lot of fiddly detail to deal with.

I think I'll just see how I go next weekend.

Tale of Gamers: Forsaken Test Paint and a bit of assembly

 

My key goal for the weekend was to test the planned paint scheme for my army. I'm terrible at visualising colours, so it's vital I get some paint on a model early on to get a good idea as to whether or not the scheme in my head will actually work.

So, here's the guinea pig. He's not finished - the objective was purely just to block in the main colours to make sure they tie together OK. I'm using an off white Vallejo for the white armour, washed with Nuln Oil thinned with Lahmian Medium. The cloth is GW light purple edge paint with a very thinned GW purple wash, too. The horns and growths are bone and Earthshade wash, while the skin is Rakarth Flesh and Fleshtone wash. The metal detail is the new GW light silver, which is really very good. Stormcast Silver? Something like that.

My white definitely needs work. I think I'll probably layer some light greys and whites over the base and wash to make it cleaner. The flesh needs some bruising and detail picking out. All the bone needs detail picking out by hand, which will suck.

I'm undecided about the belt and straps. Sim reckons I should use a different white, I was considering a brown of some kind. I'm still not sure.

Still, next weekend I hope to have five of the monsters up to something approaching tabletop quality. Should be pretty feasible!

 

Here's another two assembled - just three need the arms and heads adding now. I've tried to give each one a bit of personality, rather than just jamming parts together at random. At least, they work in my head.

Forsaken are Warriors of Chaos who've mutated too much to be completely in control any more. They're never going to make Champion, let alone daemonhood. They're on a slow descent towards spawndom.

Slaanesh is very much about excess, and the rest of the warband probably has mixed feelings about them - respect for their dedication to have pushed themselves so far, but disappointment (with perhaps a little 'there but for...' feelings) in their failings. The name that springs to mind, for me, is The Indulged.

Tale of Gamers: A beginning

So, I am engaged in a battle of nerdery and productivity with James over at Gonzo History Gaming. I ahd a bit of a think, and I've sketched out my army as:

Lord of Slaanesh on Daemonic Mount
10 Chaos Marauders
10 Chaos Warriors
10 Forsaken
2 Chaos Spawn
Hellcannon

First up on the block are the Forsaken, as they're already half assembled. You'll notice I'm sticking to square bases with this army for compatability with older systems. In order to stay on target, I need to get them all painted by the end of August. I'm continuing to assemble the second five while I paint up one as a test to check I'm happy with my planned colour scheme.

By halfway through the month, I should have half painted and the others assembled, and be forging ahead with prepping the Chaos Marauders and Chaos Spawn for painting.

This is an ambitious pace, but it is not impossible. Wish me luck!