January Roundup

Well here are the stats at the end of January

Miniatures Bought: 0
Miniatures Painted: 21
Miniatures Sold: 42

Well its only the end of January but so far I'm succeeding in keeping to the pledge. I have been very tempted in the last few days to buy more miniatures as I have see several things I really like (1 2 3 4) but I have stayed strong. If I keep up this rate of productivity for the whole year then I think I will be very happy.

Here are some photos of the completed work for January.





More phots are up on my Photobucket.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

I've been planning out what I want to paint after I finish the Savage Orcs and get my army tournament ready. I've put a little widget on the right hand side of the page as a remider.

Once everything is ready for the Merseyside Meltdown I'd like to get my Orc and Goblin warband for SoBaH done (about 30 miniatures in total).

After that, if I can still muster the enthusiasm to paint yet more Orcs will be a unit of 25 spear armed orcs from Renegade Miniatures which I started last year but didn't finish.

Once the Orcs are done I think I might try and finish off my 15mm HOTT Wood Elves which I started about 2 years ago. From memory they're mostly done but need that last big push to get the detailing, basing etc completed so that they're ready to use.

With the Wood Elves out of the way I'm less sure of what to go for. Some 28mm Dwarves to make a Dwarf warband for SoBaH? My 15mm High Elf army? My WHFB Bretonnians? I think I'll make the decision nearer the time.

Savage Orc Frenzy

I'm now on the case of the savage orcs. I started four of them last night just to test colour schemes and all seems to be well. The models are much nicer than the black orcs (even if the poses are odd) so I'm pumped up to get them done.

I have a game tonight against Graham's Dark Elves which will be the first game for the black orcs since I finished painting them - obviously this means that they will all die horribly due to NPUS (Newly Painted Unit Syndrome). At least I can get this out of the way before the tournament.

Black Orcs Down!

I managed to get the last of the black orcs finished on Friday night which leaves only 20 Savage Orcs and some work on a goblin chariot to finish before the Merseyside Meltdown. I'm usually a very slow painter so this is really going some by my standards.

I'm not too impressed with my painting on the Black Orcs but they look good enough when ranked up - kind of like a mobile argument whis is more or less what they are.

It's spreading

January can be a month of infectious enthusiams ... I've manged to get fellow lunatic and old friend, Sam onto the pledge as well. He'll be charting his own progress over here.

Last night I managed to get most of the basecoats done on the remaining 10 black orcs after sorting out those darned mold lines. I'm beginning to think I might get everything finished for the Merseyside Meltdown without the usual last minute rush. Yay!

Should have gone to Specsavers

More progress - I finished 7 more black orcs last night (bringing the total to 10) which means I'm now halfway through the unit. As I sat back to admire my work I had a Homer Simpson moment.

"Doh!"

Half of the miniatures I have finished have a prominent mould line across the armour plates on their shoulders. How can I not have spotted this before! Well, its too late for this batch but I can do something about it on the remaining 10.

The task ahead

I've entered the Merseyside Meltdown Warhammer tournament at the beginning of March and I've gone and grudges Andy Potter into the bargain. The event is run at 2500 points which is a step up from my usual fighting weight. After trying to make my army a tad more effective (following my poor showing at Toy Soldier 6 last year) I am pretty much maxed out on magic and special and rare slots so the extra 500 points will mostly have to be core. After playing around with lists on army builder I have decided to add some Savage Orcs and some wolf riders to the list. The wolf riders were painted years ago but I only just recently primed the Savage Orcs.

So here's the task - paint up the remaining 17 Black orcs and an extra 20 Savage Orcs in the remaining 42 days left. Sounds do-able but I'll have to step up the work rate to make it happen.

I've also shoved some Black Tree Designs Savage orcs on eBay. I originally bought them when I had the idea of creating an army consisting of only Savage Orcs. Having decided that this probably wouldn't really be very effective I've decided to part with them as part of the pledge.

Here are the scores so far for 2008:-

Miniatures Bought: 0
Miniatures Painted: 4
Miniatures on eBay: 42

So far I'm managing to keep to the pledge even if my work rate is not as good as I'd hoped.

I finally got the camera out and took some photos. Here are those Black Orcs on the work bench. I've only just started them so there's not much to see but it shows that I've not been fibbing. You can see the full gallery here.



And here are some savage orcs I 'finished' before the end of last year (just). I say 'finished' as I've not done the bases or shields yet.

A Productive Weekend

Satuday dawned sunny and bright. Did I think "lets go for a walk" or "Time to tidy the garden"? No, being a wargamer I thought "Undercoating weather!". I managed to get the Savage Orcs glued and primed and I also primed the Nemesis goblins which will make up my SoBaH warband.

On Saturday afternoon I helped Isabel (aged 5) paint up a plastic Bretonnian knight that I had given to her. She has called it 'Sir Horace' after a ghostly knight in her current bedtime book 'Frognapped'. she suprised me by being quite competant with a brush and she really exceeded my expectations. I'll have to watch out for her or she'll be better than me before too long.

On Sunday I managed to get in another painting session, this time with Heather (aged 8). We both painted up our Orc and Goblin warbands (I made an exception to my painting schedule) and then played a game of SoBaH with them afterwards. This time the dice came up in my favor and I won the game - the fact that I got Isabel to roll all my dice for me may have helped.

We are go, go, go!

Last night I finally got my painting effor for 2008 under way. I managed to get one goblin character and three black orcs finished finished. I also started another 8 black orcs. Its a bit sad that I'm getting excited about a quitet Friday night in but there you go.

I'm not painting the black orcs in any sort of fancy way - I'm just aiming to get them on the table. As they're mostly armour they shouldn't take too long to finish so I'm already trying to work out what to paint next once I have this unit (20 in all) done.

I'm hoping to enter the WHFB tournament at the Merseyside Meltdown in April which is run at 2500 points rather than my usual standard of 2000. As my current Orcs and Goblins list is already maxed out on Special and Rare slots this means I'll need more core. I already have painted wolf riders or some more night goblins but I fancy trying to get something else out of the lead pile for the event. Orcs with spears? Savage Orc infantry? Decisions, decisions.

Ready, set, stop!

I was all set to get on with some painting last night when my PNKD flared up. Its kind of hard to paint when you can't move your right arm properly so that was that.

I did manage to nip out to B&Q to try and find something to base the Aliens and Marines on. I found some washers of about the right size but they are more expensive than the miniatures themselves! I think I'll follow a suggestion from TMP and see if I can find a suitable hole punch at a craft store instead.

My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are.

Excellent - yesterday the postman brought me my 10mm Aliens and Colonial Marines from Pendraken. These were a late 2007 purchase (Dec 28th to be precise) so don't count towards this year's allowance. I'm looking forwards to painting this lot up when I work out what to base them on.

Also included in the package from Pendraken are some 10mm fantasy bits for my HOTT Night Goblin army. Trolls/Ogres and Bat swarms to be precise. I've currently got 24 ap painted up already and there's another 24 ap or so in the lead pile. The additions of behemoths and more flyers should make the force a bit more flexible when it goes up to 48 ap as its largely shooters and spears at the moment.

Sadly I didn't get any painting done last night as I was busy watching Aliens special edition on video - research purposes of course.

The scale of the problem

Well, apart from helping my eldest daughter with some painting at the weekend I haven't had a chance to really get on with anything yet - but I haven't bought any miniatures yet either so I'm all square.

I thought this might be a good time to review the scale of my little miniatures problem. Off the top of my head, here are some of the projects than need the attention of my paintbrush (I know that there are more than just these!).

28mm Scale Projects

Orcs and Goblins
System: Warhammer
Status: 200 or so figures painted, 100 more or so in the lead pile
Comments: Over 2000 points + options available for use.

Orcs and Goblins
System: Song of Blades and Heroes
Status: Unpainted, about 20 models in total.

Bretonnians
System: Warhammer
Status: 18 knights started, about 100 more models unpainted.

Dwarfs
System: Warhammer
Status: 98% unpainted, about 100-150 models in total.
Comments: At least they're assembled. Should be 2500-3000 points easily when done.

Blood Angels
System: Warhammer 40K
Status: Still about 1/3 of the army unfinished.
Comments: Over 1500 points + options available for use.

SWAT teams and Criminals
System: Officer Down, about 40 models in total.
Status: 80% painted
Comments: The problem with this project is that it needs more scenery.

10/15mm Scale Projects

Aliens and Marines
System: Xenomorph
Status: In the post
Comment: A late 2007 purchase. About 40-60 models in total.

High Elves
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (48 points + options)

Wood Elves
System: HOTT
Status: 80% painted

Undead
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted

Mongols
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted

Later Muslim Indian
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted

Later Achmeneid Persian
System: DBA
Status: 30% Painted

Taking the pledge for 2008

Taking the pledge does sound a lot like drinking furniture polish to me but here I am trying to take the Warhamer's pledge after reading a Poll at TMP.

The basic idea as follows: -

"The Pledge is to paint at least one figure for every figure you purchase, and to report your progress monthly on TMP."

Knowing that I'm going to be really poor at remembering what I have bought and what I have painted I have decided to start this blog to try and keep track of my efforts and remind me of the task in hand.

Hopefully 2008 will be a good year for painting and I will make a decent dent in the lead pile. Wish me luck.

Jez