February Round-Up

Round-up for the year so far a as of February:-

Miniatures Bought: 10 (1 giant=10 miniatures)
Miniatures Painted: 41
Miniatures Sold: 42

And here is the promised photo of the Savage Orcs



I am now keeping photos of the miniatures I have completed this year here and I've uploaded loads of photos of the rest of my Orc and Goblin Army here.

Ready and waiting

For the first time ever I have managed to get all my painting and basing jobs done before and event! In one final session last night I managed to blitz all the basing, varnishing and painting jobs I had outstanding.

Usually I have to go to an event with a second choice unit or I have to skimp on something like the basing or shield designs. For example at TS6 last year I didn't have time to flock the movement trays and my night goblins had to go with plain black shields.

Of course this means that I'll be going into my game against AndyP with several units bearing the curse of the newly painted unit but if the game is anything list our last one then it will just add to the mayhem.

I hope to get some pictures of the new stuff up soon.

Prepare for war!

I've been bust ticking off loads of those little jobs that I need to finish before Saturday. Things are looking pretty good but I still have some work on some of the bases, some varnishing and some last minute panic jobs to complete.

Panic job 1) On reading the rules pack for the meltdown I realised that I need to take two objective markers to the event. Not a big problem, I've located the objective markers from the Battle for Skull Pass boxed set and I will paint up two of these.

Panic job 2) I added some extra axes to my black orc battle standard bearer (Gritsqueek) at the weekend and sculpted some straps to hold them in place out of green stuff. I now need to paint the straps and touch up the model where the super glue has reacted with the paint. Overall I have to say that Gritsqueek looks much better now so I think it was worth it.

Panic job 3) I realised last night that my warboss, Snaggletooth, is not WYSIWYG at the moment as on my army list he uses a shield and the model doesn't have one. I now need to paint up a shield for for a general and find a cunning way of attaching it to his arm.

I also managed to get my new giant assembled on Sunday night. I think he might be barging his way on to my workbench priorities list very soon.

Another unit bites the dust.

The final four Savage Orcs felt the wrath of my paintbrush last night, yay! I also managed to get the shields finished for the savage orc boar boys, paint one of the two banners for big boss Wheelz's chariot and put some paint on some extra weapons for big boss Gritsqueek.

Still to do - base the Savage Orcs, attach newly painted extra bits, repair minis, tart up Gritsqeek's standard, add decals to the night goblin shields, do some back banners for Warboss Snaggletooth etc etc.

In short, all the big stuff is out of the way, its just the little bits which give the army a bit more zing left to do. Its looking good for having everything ready in time.

10 days and counting.

Last night I finished 6 more of the Savage Orcs leaving just the final four to complete. Fingers crossed I'll get them done tonight and then after I have based them I can channel my energies into getting the rest of my army ready for the field. I have numerous small repairs and touch-ups I would like to get done before the event if I get the chance.

And here's my as yet un-named giant. The temptation to start work on him now is immense but I must wait until after the tournament!

Its here!

The nice post lady brought me my my Ultraforge Giant today and it's huge! Even without his base he stands about 15cm tall. I'll get some pics of him up when I can find my camera.

Absent Friends

Time for a bit of background. One of the reasons that I've decided to take the pledge this year is that we are currently in the process of trying to sell our house (hopefully to move across town). The process of 'de-cluttering' has drastically cut the amount of storage I am allowed for all my wargames stuff, everything which doesn't fit in the remaining space has been shipped off to storage in two different locations. Add to this the de-cluttering exercise which took place a few years ago which left a lot of my OOP citadel miniatures (amongst other things) in storage (in yet another location!) and you have 20 something years of miniatures split over four different locations.

This last de-cluttering is being felt the most at the moment. for the last few weeks I have been trying to get into the storage unit to try and retrieve a box containing most of my unpainted 15mm miniatures (and maybe a few other items if I can get to them). On Saturday I finally managed to get there, only to realise that I can't find/get to any of the items I would like to bring back. I came away empty handed and the whole trip was a very frustrating experience.

So what does this mean for the pledge? Well, everything on the ‘workbench priorities list’ is within reach and I think I probably have enough there to keep me going until April or there abouts so I shouldn't panic yet. I also have some more 15mm miniatures hidden away that I can get cracking on. If I get everything in the house finished then I can lay my hands on my Bretonnians (minus the flying stuff) and get stuck into that. By the time I start making serious inroads into the Brets then I really hope we will have moved house and everything will be back to 'normal' again. Of course I’d rather do things in a different order but I will have to work with what I can get.

Progress update: Following the weekend, I now have those 6 SOs almost finished and I have made a start on the final 4.

Little by little

Another 6 Savage Orcs finished bringing the total to 10 with the next batch of 6 under way. I really might get things finished in time for this tournament! Well I suppose stranger things have happened.

I've broken my duck

Well it had to happen sometime - I've finally crumpled and bought my first minitaure of 2008.

It all started when a rather nice chap in New York offered me cash for my 20+ year old citadel giant and I decided to take him up on his offer. Shortly aftwards I embarked on a bit of retail therapy and splashed out on one of these as a replacement. The good news is that I've paid for the new giant with the money I have made so far from selling miniatures so I'm still neutral on the cash front.

On the painting front I'm 4 savage orcs down and another 6 in progress. Last night I was hoping to get some more painting done but lost the entire evening to PNKD again. Grr.

Back to basi(cs/ng)

A few more sessions gone and I now have four finished savage orcs. Only sixteen more to go. I think I am on target to get everything done in time for the Meltdown which is good news.

I have also been busy with some of the basing I have been putting off, including all the movement trays for the army. I still have some highlighting to go but everything is looking much nicer already.

I even managed to get some sand glued to the bases of the Nemesis goblins I'm using in my SoBaH warband. I intend to base these in a different style to the warhammer army and do the bases brown rather than green. For some reason I usually forget to do the bases until the very end which is far from ideal - this time I am ahead of the game although I suppose it would have been better to get the bases done before undercoating the models.