Detour ---->

Where did October go?

Well, anyway the Autumn Showdown is now less than a week away and I still have have a load of painting left to do.

So why didn't I do all the painting in November I hear you ask, because I was painting my Epic Armageddon Imperial Guard of course. I got an email from an old friend saying that he would be over for a game on the 27th of October. That game me a good excuse to crack out the old guard army which has lain untouched for several years. A bit of time and effort later and I managed to get everything for the game painted up (about 20 tanks and a load of infantry).

In the end we only managed to get two turns played on the night because we were too busy catching up but both armies got admiring looks from passers by at the gaming centre.

But now I have 20 spear men, an archmage and a chariot to finish if I want to use the HE army I've been hoping to use at the Autumn Showdown. Something tells me this is likely to be a busy week.

Now that's a well guarded palace

Well that didn't take long, unit number two of the palace guard is now complete. These will be Swordmasters in my WHFB army of just plain old palace guard for Kings Of War.



Now on to complete another units of spearmen.

Defending the palace

At last, they're finished!



In a sudden burst of productivity I've also made a start on the swordmasters unit as well as painting the base coat on the armour of the remaining 30 spearmen. I can actually forsee a time coming up when I will have finished painting the army!

Immitating Angels

And now I've finally got organised with the camera, here are the Blood Angels I painted up for Toy Soldier 2010.

I make that 2 vehicles and 20 infantry.

En garde

Some more progress ... I've been getting on with the palace guard.



These will be the white lions for my army (hence the white cloaks). Only another 7 to go before this unit is finished and I can start on the Swordmasters.

Wake me up when September starts

A whole month without a post? How did that happen?

Well truth be told, August was not the best month for painting. Holidays and other activities ate into available painting time so I have not managed to complete anything new, my camera is also playing up so I've not managed to put up any more pictures either.

I have managed to put some more stuff together and get it primed so I will have things to be getting on with when the spraying season (aka summer) ends.

Games wise I now have two games of 8th edition under my belt (w1:l1:d0) and I am eyeing up a tournament in November. Can I get all my high elves painted in time? We shall see.

Oh dear, that could have gone better

Dear Dante,

Sorry I can't debrief you in person about the recent assignment in the UCLAN sector but the Sanguinary Priests tell me that I'm making a good recovery and should be fit for active service again before too long.

I'm not quite sure how to put this but there seems to have been some sort of fowl up in the old intel front, instead of finding the place crawling with xeno scum or the taint of chaos we rather embarrassingly ended up having a few scrapes with some of our chums. One lot admittedly did look like they were bearing the taint of chaos but it turns out they really were following the codex astartes and the grime and corrosion was some sort of ruse.

More seriously our fellow battle brothers seem to have discovered something called 'tactics'. We view this development with the suspicion it deserves as this is obviously some sort of chaos taint and correspondingly we stayed true to the sacred Blood Angels doctrines of in-yer-face-matey and did-you-spill-my-pint.

One more thing before I go, please can you remind me why we bother to take heavy support vehicles on campaigns like this? They did of course look very nice but someone seems to have removed the armour and replaced it with tin foil as some kind of joke. By the last tussle we were almost completely out of spares and I'm afraid that the insurance claim is likely to be somewhat large.

Cheerio,

Brother Bean

And he's off

Five more minutes and then I'm off to Toy Soldier.

Army packed, scenery packed and ready to go!

I saw an angel, of that I'm sure

As of about half an hour ago I have finished the painting required for Toy Soldier this weekend. I'm still hoping to get time to add some decals and squad markings but I'm still celebrating this milestone.

Of course I thought I'd finished last night but I had one of those moments in the shower (no, not one of those moments) and I realised that I'd failed to paint a targeting/camera widget on the furioso dread so I sorted it out before breakfast.

I now have two practice games to learn how to use the list and to try and lift the curse of the newly painted models before packing everything up on Friday.

If you want blood ...

I've switched my efforts away from the elves for a bit and I am now concentrating on getting my Blood Angels ready for Toy Soldier. I'm trying somethign a bit radical with my army list which unfortunately means thst I have several items to paint. Here's a quick glimpse of some of the things I'm working on.

Guards! Guards!

A work in progress shot of the palace guard.



The colours have been washed out a bit by the photo, they don't look quite so bland in real life. They still need something extra to make them look a bit more interesting, not quite sure what though.

Eagles may soar but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

Sooner than expected, here are the shots of the completed eagles and bolt thrower.

Pretty polly

Its been a good day for painting despite some of the usual difficulties.

I finally decided to tackle the Gamezone great eagles I bought a while back. I had initially decided to try and paint them as golden eagles but I couldn't capture the depth of tone in their plumage very well and they looked quite bland. After hanging around semi painted for ages I decided the best fix for the situation was to change the colour scheme to something more like a bald eagle. The extra contrast of the white head and tale has made a big difference and I am really happy with the result.

Here they are with a coat of varnish drying on, I'll get some better pics when I get round to adding the static grass.



Nestled between them there is a second repeater bolt thrower which I also managed to finish up today, told you it was a good day for painting.

Stormbringer

Some finished stuff for your viewing pleasure:-

High Elf Lord on Dragon


Mantic High Elf Stormwind Cavalry


In other news my Mantic Palace Guard have arrived. They're now assembled and ready for priming. I'm looking forward to splashing some paint on them.

Look to my coming, at first light, on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the East.

So close to finishing these chaps now. Just a bit of flock and maybe a couple of tweaks and they'll be on the completed pile.



Hopefully I can get some decent photos of them up soon along with a few other things I may or may not have finished by then.

Just in time for the Grand National

Got a chance to sit down and do some painting for the first time in ages and I went back to the original plan and carried on working on the Mantic elven cavalry. Here are the results.



They're not quite finished but I didn't feel up to doing the detail work as my hands were more shaky than usual. If tomorrow is quiet then I might get a chance to add a few more that are almost there.

Seeing red

Toy Soldier tickets became available today and I signed up as quickly as I could ... only to get a shock afterwards when I read the WHFB rules pack.

If you've been following things I've been collecting and painting the elves since the end of last year with the hazy idea of getting back into WHFB and taking the army to a couple of tournaments. Well, it turns out that the army list I have been aiming towards falls foul of the event's comp restrictions - in short I'd have to lose two rare slots (eagles or bolt throwers) and the dragon. I could try and build an army which would work under those restrictions but it would mean buying and painting up a whole load more stuff which is a real blow when I thought I was so close to finishing.

With the release of the Blood Angels codex I have decided to jump ship and play 40k instead as I already have what I need bought and painted and I'll just need to do a few minor tweaks to get a nice list under the new rules. There's a remote chance that the events rules may be tweaked but with 40k filling up fast I didn't want to run the risk of not being able to go at all. TS is a fantastic event and its also a chance to a weekend away with friends, not being able to go at all was not an option I wanted to be left with.

Right now I'm quite sad about the whole thing, it feels like over the last few months I have been wasting my time on this project. As well as playing a few games with a more competative army than my Orcs I had hoped to be able to bring my shiny new army to the even and showcase the Mantic range to a whole host of people who might not have seen them up close before. I've also ducked out of another tournament that I was hoping to go to later in the year.

The shape (and colour) of things to come.

Yes I'm still plugging away with the high elves but I'm also getting excited by the forthcoming release of the new Blood Angels codex for Warhammer 40k. One of their fun new toys is a drop ship called the Storm Raven. GW haven't come up with a model for it yet bit I'm itching to try one out on the table so I bought a Corvus VTOL to use as a proxy.

Out of the box:-


WIP shot:-


Its probably a lot smaller than the official model will be but at £12.99 its also a lot cheaper than it will be too.

Oh and a quick thumbs up for Wargames Workshop whose service seems to be very quick with cheap postage too. Thanks chaps.

Workbench update

Some cavalry very much in progress.

Back to the slow lane

No major progress to report.

Everything I ordered for the army has now arrived and the cavalry bolt thrower + crew and mage are all assembled under coated and in some cased part painted.

For various reasons I have not managed to get in a proper painting session for a while so I have been trying to do some of the tasks which don't require much skill or attention which is why I have been doing the easy bits on new miniatures rather than finishing off ones I have already started.

One other point of note ... I seem to have also ended up buying 20 more High Elf spear men. Originally I got a box of 10 for conversions and possibly chariot crew and then I got a command box to go with it and now I don't know what to do. For Warhammer a second unit of spears doesn't make much sense right now but maybe this will change with 8th edition or maybe Mantic's rule set will materialise at some point and make them relevant. For now they sit in their boxes with their wrappers intact until I work out what to do.

Is it a bird?

Nope.



A plane?

Noooo.



Is it finished?

Not quite yet.

Reinforcements are en-route

I’ve not managed to pick up a paint brush since I finished those penguins but I have been doing other things, including buying miniatures and putting them together.

Since I last posted Mantic have featured my army on their blog which was nice. For the record they approached me and asked to use the photos and I gave them some higher resolution shots than I’ve used here. Makes me wish I’d done a better job on them but the aim was to get them painted up for use on the table rather than to sit in a display cabinet. Various people in forum postings made comments on them being ‘tabletop’ quality which is what they are. Although it was kind of fun racking up huge numbers of hits I’ll be a bit more wary of showing off my stuff in such a public way in future.

I’ve decided to push onwards with the High Elves and I’ve bought a few things I know I want in the army. I’m still not sure about the elite infantry choices so I’ll carry on proxying them for a while, and besides, the Mantic Palace Guard aren’t out yet anyway.

So what have I bought? Well thanks to a well placed birthday I have bought the following:-
1 Mantic Bolt thrower (bringing the total to 2)
2 Giant Eagles (because every army needs them)
15 Mantic Cavalry (not yet arrived)
1 Avatars of War Light Elf Mage (not yet arrived)
1 Games Workshop Dragon

You may have spotted that I have started adding non Mantic stuff to the army. I did consider trying to keep it all Mantic or at least GW free but I’ve not been able to get any more information about their release schedule for the elves other than the Palace Guard will be going up for pre-order soon so I decided to press ahead and order stuff in. This way I think I will have a better chance of getting everything painted up for Toy Soldier in July.

The Gamezone giant eagles are very nice, and very big too. On the web I’ve heard that Gamezone make lovely models but they’re a pain to put together and from sirst hand experience I can now say that yes this is correct. I can’t remember every having metal models whose parts were so ill fitting. Lots of superglue, lots of green stuff and lots of foul language later I have them assembled although I still have superglue stuck to my fingers. My other gripe is that they don’t come with bases, irritating but not too much of a problem – I dug out a couple of 40mm bases and attacked them to those. Later I got a nagging feeling and hit the net, are they really meant to be on 40mm bases or 50mm? WHFB base size chart says 40mm, phew ... but wait a minute – it’s out of date, the new ones come on 50mm bases. Doh! More superglue and greenstuff later I now have the 40mm bases stuck onto cavalry sized bases to make them the right size. Sigh.

Today I had hoped to undercoat the new stuff but the weatherman had other ideas. I opened the curtains to find a thick blanket of snow outside. I guess I’ll have to wait for the weather to warm up a bit before I crack out the spray cans.

March of the Penguins

Yes, they're done, the penguins I mean. These 15mm scale penguins (about 8mm tall) from Khurasan Miniatures. I chose to paint them up as Adelie penguins as the fit the sculpts, are easy to do and Wikipedia notes "They are also very aggressive to other penguins that steal stones from their nest". After reading that I had to make their nests the stronghold!



From arrival to completion in less than two weeks is probably a record for me.

March of the Elves

And I've already made a start on the Penguins, but I'll save that for another post.

A quick peek

Here's the first shot of my newly based Mantic High Elves. I need to take some more shots but right now I'm too tired to sort them out. All things considered I think they've turned out well.

Its official!

Yes, I am now officially sick of painting elves.

The good news is actually finished every last one of them so that's a score on the projects complete chart right off.

The bad news is that I've also bought two new 15mm armies. If you were paying attention you will have spotted the inclusion of a 15mm penguin and a 15mm dark elf army in the post below.

So on figures painted I'm at 18 painted vs 0 bought (in 28mm) but on projects is 1 completed vs 2 new. Mixed results but I'm happy right now.

I'll get some pictures of the elves up after I finish basing them.

The scale of the problem (2010 edition)

Carrying on the tradition I thought start the year with a look at what still remains in the lead pile.

28mm Scale Projects

Orcs and Goblins
System: Warhammer
Status: 300 or so figures painted, 50 more or so in the lead pile
Comments: Over 3000 points + options available for use. No progress during 2009.

Bretonnians
System: Warhammer
Status: 18 knights started, about 100 more models unpainted. No progress in 2009.

Dwarfs
System: Warhammer
Status: 85% unpainted, about 100-150 models in total.
Comments: At least they're assembled. Should be 2500-3000 points easily when done. 30 odd models added during 2009.

High Elves
System: Warhammer
Status: 50% unpainted
Comments: New project added during 2009. Current army clocks in at around 1000 points. I would like to expand the army to around 2000+ points before the summer if possible.

Wood Elves
System: Song of Blades and Heroes
Status: Completed (and started in 2009)
Comments: My only finished project for the year.

Blood Angels
System: Warhammer 40K
Status: Still about 1/4 of the army unfinished.
Comments: Over 1500 points + options available for use. Bikes, a land raider and some veterans added during 2009.

Space Hulk
System: Space Hulk
Status: About 2/3 finished. All of the Genestealers are completed, just the marines to go.
Comments: New project started in 2009.

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. No progress in 2009.

10/15mm Scale Projects

Aliens and Marines
System: Xenomorph
Status: In the post
Comment: A late 2007 purchase. About 40-60 models in total. No progress in 2009.

High Elves
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (48 points + options). No progress in 2009.

Undead
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2009.

Dark Elves
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (24npoints + options). Bought January 2010.

Penguins
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (24 points + options). Bought January 2010.

Mongols
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2009.

Later Muslim Indian
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2009.

Later Achmeneid Persian
System: DBA
Status: 30% Painted. No progress in 2009.

Summary - As with last year there's plenty in the lead pile to be getting on with.