I’ve good reason to believe that these are the last models I painted, some grubby Skaven linerats from 2002/03. I’d entered the Blood Bowl tournament at Warhammer World in 2002, and the following year my older brother fancied his chances, but needed a team. He wanted Skaven, so I put these together as a kind of proof of concept, snipping the blades of the old plastic monopose warriors. He went with a purple scheme in the end, on the metal team plus a couple of rat ogres, but I’ve kept these chunky lads.
This is also a test of my model photography, to see how best to do it - I’m only using a camera phone, a daylight desk lamp and a sheet of A3 paper. The focus is off in the group shot, so I’ll need to work on that, and they’ve come out maybe a little dark.
This is where I left off, so interesting to see how I do when I pick up again!
#skaven #bloodbowl #hobby2018 #paintingwarhammer #oldhammer
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I joked last month that a massive announcement of amazing new models could kickstart my hobby mojo, and I didn't know how right I was. What could a second wave of amazing new models do then? I guess we'll find out...
With the Space Wolves' Grotmas detachment speccing heavily into Terminator units, I think it was fair to expect the three existing Terminator-armoured characters to return with new models, and I think everyone was expecting Logan Grimnar to lose his sled, but what an amazing new model. It somehow looks like a classic piece of Warhammer art brought to the tabletop, I absolutely love it.
Arjac and his hammer getting a new model was also very much on the cards. Big fan of the build options, too, although I might go for the static pose personally.
The third character in Terminator armour also made a return, but not how I was expecting.
My boy, Njal Stormcaller. He's part of the reason I'm such a big fan of the Space Wolves, having been there from the very beginning, and I love how he's back out of his Terminator armour now, echoing his very first model.
And of course, what would new Terminator characters be without a unit of Terminators to lead?
These guys also look great - sounds like there are lots of options too which would be useful to mix in with the new, plain Terminator models I own in order to tie them all together.
And so, this hobby kickstart? Well I signed up to the local league again - no Crusade this time (boo) but they are using one of the rules brought up in the last Crusade supplement. We are building 2500 point lists, consisting of a 1000 point Primary force that starts on the table, and three Waves of 500 points each, two of which we bring on from reserves during the battle. This opens up a nice bit of flexibility - you could, for example, build one of your waves to be very heavy-weapon, anti-tank focused, so that if you came up against Knights you could bring it in, and if you faced a horde army you could leave it on the sidelines.
This was my initial idea. A balanced core Primary force (Intercessors, Hellblasters, some Phobos units to infiltrate across the board), a heavy hitter wave with Ragnar Blackmane, Assault Intercessors, Aggressors, an anti-tank wave with as many melta guns and lascannons I could muster, and then a nostalgia wave. I had six Thunderwolf Cavalry half-built from an age ago, so I thought I could put them together, finally build Canis Wolfborn and give them a final runout before the new codex dropped and they (potentially) disappeared for good.
But then I thought, "if units and models are going to disappear, why not try to include as many of them as possible?". Thus, my initial army was binned off and Lukas The Trickster's Farewell World Tour was born - a list consisting entirely of Index Space Wolves datasheets, featuring as many models and units that would be being replaced as I could muster. I foolishly included Ragnar Blackmane in my first draft but, since he's certainly in the new book, I made the obvious decision to him off in favour of good ol' Krom Dragongaze.
It's not a great list, and sadly no room for Logan's sled (or time to build it either.. although the league start has been pushed back two weeks... no, surely not..?), so I fully expect to get pasted every game.
But it's not about that. It's about giving a spin to these models for one last time, a glorious last ride into the sunset before they join the great wolf pack in the sky. And with the core of this army being the battalion I built for my first ever community meet up seven years ago, and that has seen the table maybe twice more since then, what better send off?
I had hoped to add a small post in before this one, but real life got in the way a bit over Christmas, which is appropriate as this has been something of a theme through 2018.
First things first, I’m extremely happy I managed to maintain this blog for a whole year, and almost weekly as well. Usually these things tend to die on the vine with me, but I think the hobby as a whole has been a consistent positive thread for me throughout the year, which has made posting stuff on here much easier.
I won’t go over how I managed with my stated goals for the year. My back giving up the ghost in March, plus all the work shenanigans, completely put the whole year out.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
So let’s ignore that, and go with what I did manage:
I started to put together the beginnings of my new Space Wolves army.
I made it to the first meet up of a magnificent gaming community that I am delighted to be a small part of. I played at Warhammer World with my mid-nineties Space Wolves army, tiny Terminators and all - three games of Warhammer 40K.
I started collecting an Age of Sigmar army, my Kharadron. I never saw that coming.
I made it all the way down to Cardiff for the official meet of Miniatures Monthly, where I performed abysmally in the narrative event (but got a pod mention for it!). I played four games of Age of Sigmar in total that weekend, to mixed success but total enjoyment, and a big game of Adeptus Titanicus.
I started collecting an Adeptus Titanicus maniple! That may or may not be a coincidence.
I was inspired to start writing again.
I created my first Twitter bot! A source of great Space Wolf names.
I managed to fully paint precisely zero models.
BUT. I got a good start on my Kharadron, and I’m nearly finished on my Secret Santa gift, which I’ll be continuing with today and tomorrow, and posted well before the end-of-January cut-off.
So what of next year? Do I set myself hobby goals again? Absolutely, although I’m not quite as wide-eyed as I was at the start of this year.
So - I hope to finish 2019 with a minimum of a finished 1000pt Kharadron army (already in the works), and a finished 1000pt Space Wolves army (mostly assembled)
BONUS GOALS - a Genestealer Cult Necromunda gang. A Titan or two. Human Blood Bowl team. All in that order. Plus any extra Kharadron and Space Wolves I can manage.
Fenn Snorrison looked on as the Frigates that he and his crew had just disembarked from drifted away along the coast of Grimm’s Bay.
There was a rumble of drums in the distance.
Sensing that time was short, he gathered his men around him as he stepped up to the base of the Storm Keep that stood proudly on this part of the shoreline.
“Now then lads, as you know, we are here at the behest of those Stormcast fellows, and we need to protect this port.” This was met with quiet murmuring, and some nodding.
“After a week of protracted negotiations -” A cheer broke out among the duardin.
“- we settled on an agreeable contract for our employment. And there may be one or two clauses in there in our favour that those golden boys have overlooked, let me tell you!” Raucous laughter drowned out the last of his words.
The drumming was getting louder now. The coastal fog was starting to lift.
“Enemy sighted, sir! Looks like greenskins. Big ones.”
Orruks? Snorrison sighed. There’ll be no magic here that would test him.
“Looks like we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way, lads! Hold the line, pick your target, ready on my word.”
The drums stopped.
Rukh swung his giant hammer with a grace and fluidity that belied his stature. It glowed as it arced through the air, before emitting a blinding golden flash of light when it connected with the giant boar riders in front of him. He knew he had felled them both, even before his reactive eye lenses had adjusted. That was for bringing down one of his beautiful ships.
“Stinkin’ pigs.”
He powered down his endrinharness before it sprung another scalding leak, making a mental note to fix it when he got back to the skyport. His attention was snapped back to the task at hand by cries behind him, and he turned in time to witness the end of the battle.
The Orruk’s leader had made it to the base of the Storm Keep, and was met by the remaining Arkanauts. In a savage display of power, the beast effortlessly carved through them all. Only Fenn was still standing, up the steps of the tower with his back to the door. Rukh could only look on as the navigator fired a flare skyward, before gripping his zephyrscope in both hands in front of him, in defiance of what was to come.
Another great weekend of gaming, and so good to see everyone again.
Despite the eight hour (extended) train journey on the Friday to reach Cardiff, I found I’d got extremely lucky with a decent Airbnb room. The Saturday morning was mainly spent milling around the Firestorm Games store, introducing/reintroducing ourselves to the new faces and those that had been to the unofficial meetups earlier in the year. We were also mainly ogling everyone’s armies, and waiting for the mega Miniatures Monthly narrative event to start - an incredible mega game with 11(?) battles taking place, linked to one main game in one way or another. I was part of a three-army line attempting to hold back the Orruk charge.
We failed miserably. With a disappointing show of my shooting ability, I got completely carved up by the onrushing horde, but the Endrinmaster did manage to bash up some gore-gruntas. I was even inspired to write up the experience when I got home - I’ll be posting that in a minute. And I’m looking forward to hearing how Chris and Tom manage to round all of this up on the podcast!
Spurred on by my first taste of Age of Sigmar, I started another game against an Undead army, and we left the game overnight. When we picked up in the morning my Kharadron had remembered how to work their firearms and, in combination with some solid Bravery checks, flattened some skeletons. The denouement was my Endrinmaster (Most Valuable Dwarf this weekend) bopping the Vampire general and sending them back to their coffin in one hit.
With the promise of the upcoming Adeptus Titanicus demo game in the afternoon, I managed to fit another game in beforehand, this time against the Stormcast Eternals. I got absolutely rinsed. A large unit of Sequitors wielding a number of greatmaces advanced into my line, deleting one unit after another. But such a beautiful army!
Then it was Titan time.
What a game. The rules are tight and it plays out in such a cinematic way. The models are gorgeous. Once again, I was inspired to write a story about the fate of my plucky Warhound, this time on the train journey home. I think I might just be picking up a titan or two in the future.
And then there was time for one last battle, against the dastardly Lizardmen Seraphon. Another great battle, but the victory condition of being in my deployment zone was twisted by their ability to teleport, which also led to Salamanders cooking my brave lads in their suits. And I forgot a key trait that could have turned the battle by making a giant dinosaur extinct. I also never got a real chance to flex my anti-magic muscles. Oh well, next time!
And then it was home time. A game of Adeptus Titanicus, four games of Age of Sigmar against four different armies on four different tables, and a fantastic community to be part of. Already looking forward to the next one.
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While I know I’ve missed a few weeks of posting, I hadn’t realised I’d almost missed the whole of October. I had hoped to keep a regular weekly schedule of creating something, but I’ve found my mental bandwidth at full capacity recently, and I’ve just kept putting it off. I’m still amazed I’ve managed to keep this going for almost a whole year, all previous blogs died off after a couple of posts, and I fully intend to keep this one going into next year.
#ageofsigmarathon progress has been slow, but I’ve nearly passed the first milestone of having everything assembled and ready for priming. Perfectly in time for the darker evenings. I even had a bunch of the Arkanauts ready to go at the weekend, only for the heavens to open. 3 weeks to go, so it’ll be a rush, but a big bonus has been discovering that I have accrued a huge number of holiday hours at work. In order not to lose them at the end of the year, I took off the week leading up to the meet, and can push through with the painting. I’ll also keep an eye on whether I can get the Frigate assembled, but I’m mostly concentrating on having a decent 1000 point army ready. A Gunhauler (or three) in the hand is worth a Frigate in the bush?
After being convinced I wouldn’t fall down the Primaris Space Marine hole, and keep my Space Wolves as small bois for the foreseeable future, I have become obsessed with them recently. Tooth and Claw certainly hasn’t helped, and now I’ve managed to acquire a WH40K Conquest Primaris Librarian, I’ve been planning out a contingent of them to support the Blackmane Great Company. Looking at the models from the Dark Imperium box on eBay helps fill the slow hours at work.
That, and coming up with names for pretty much every model in that army. I’ve discovered a few good sources of them, plus the Twitter bot keeps throwing out the odd gem. I’ve managed to name the main protagonists from my Kharadron force as well, so they are starting to get fleshed out a bit.
Spending so much time looking at my Space Wolves list has me itching to get back to them - 2019, the year of the Wolf - but I’ll be pushing to get up to 2000 points of Kharadron done first. A nice, solid army, completed, before moving back to the main project.
This week has seen my spare time mostly absorbed by boring grown-up activities like looking for a new job, and finding a new car. My last day at work was supposed to be today, so I took it as holiday. The perfect chance to get hobbying, but getting all the paperwork and other stuff together ready to part-ex the car and pick up the new one at the weekend meant the day passed me by. Seeing how much I’ve spent on that money pit over the last couple of years has made me feel less bad about the relative pittance I’ve spent on models and board games over the same period of time.
That pittance now includes an Aether-Khemist (that’s not pleased the spellchecker). Extremely unlikely I’ll be able to fit him in for November, but it means I now own at least one of every Kharadron model, bar the massive Ironclad and the special character. There’s not a lot of unit selection in the army, so looking forward to seeing the Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault warband models after the teaser video GW put out.
Another couple of additions include the Reivers from issue 3 of Warhammer Conquest, and picking up a Noxious Blightbringer from eBay to round out my other accumulated Death Guard eBay bits to 500 points, which will be a nice little project at some point.
Leading up to the first meet up in early May this year I was: starting to get a bit anxious about not getting anything painted in time, I was in agony from sciatica, and in the days leading up to the event I’d find out I was being made redundant.
Now, leading up to the meet up in November (still a little way off I know): I have been suffering from actual anxiety (although certainly not painting related, but I still haven’t got any of that done), my sciatica has just flared up again (nowhere near as bad as last time, but enough to have me reaching for the Ibuprofen, again), and I’ve just found out I’m being made redundant. Again.
To paraphrase Lady Bracknell: “To lose one job… may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
At least I might have a bit of bonus time to get the army ready? The plan I had in place to build up and paint in little blocks has been thrown out of the window. Everything up to the Frigate is getting built and prepped first, so it can all be sprayed at once, and then painted in turn. Looking out at the gale force winds and rain the past couple of days, I don’t want to have half an army sat waiting to be primed when I can’t actually get outside to do it, so getting it all done before the weather really turns seems the best bet. That, or I’m just finding reasons to put off painting a bit longer.
