Playing ball

I finally got a day of decent weather over the weekend so I grabbed the chance to prime a load of miniatures. The next batch of ogres is now ready for painting as well as a reasonable chunk of my remaining DreadBall miniatures.

My DreadBall corporation team were done with a very easy colour scheme so I decided to blast through the team booster I got from the Kickstarter. I have renumbered some of the players from my existing team so I can make use of the alternate poses in my basic team. I have done a couple of extras as free agents just in case I ever get round to playing in a league.



The ogres are still sitting on the work bench but I might breeze through some more DreadBall miniatures first before I go back to them.

A giant update

And now for a giant update. Whilst searching through the Temple of Elemental Evil module I spotted that there were some giants of the monster list. It turns out that I had some of what I needed from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter so I dug them out and painted them up. Firstly a cloud giant and a storm giant.







And finishing off with a couple of fire giants.







And a shot with a 28mm man sized miniature for scale.



These were fun to do. I'm now considering getting the other giants that Reaper have done in their bones range to paint up too.

It slices, it dices, it minces

And this weekend I completed three goblin mincers from Mantic. These should boost my already quite large goblin army even further.



And yes I know I said I would be working on the ogre chariots and I have been - they're just not finished yet. The kits are described by Mantic as "veteran conversion kits" which means there is a certain amount of snipping, gluing and hot water bending involved over and above what you would get on a standard kit. I put the riders together on Saturday which was a reasonably involved task and required several cups of boiling water.

Now I am free to get them painted up ... right after I clear those other miniatures off my work bench. How did those get there?

Rocking in the free world

May I present to you the latest additions to the painted pile. Firstly some Mantic Lesser Obsidian Golems. According to the fluff these beasties are meant to be very hot on the inside hence the bit showing through in the cracks. This was the first time I have attempted a heat effect like this and I think it turned out pretty well.



Next up are some Mantic Gargoyles - a very quick paint job just to get them done.



So why have I been painting these instead of ogres you might ask? Well I was digging through my box of miniatures from the first Kings of War Kickstarter and they kind of jumped out at me. Both will be useful in our current D&D adventure as well.

I've also done some work on the chariots but they're not quite ready yet. Patience!

On the arrivals side my final Deadzone Kickstarter shipment turned up along with the Dreadball minis I bought in the Mantic Sale. This means that mu current purchases for the year stand at 43 meaning I am in deficit. Darn - time to paint more stuff.

2015 is go

And 2015's painting effort is off to a good start. My first completed unit of the year is a regiment of Ogre Warriors.



I've been working on a regiment of ogre chariots as well. The chariots themselves are done but the gores which pull them have slowed things down a little. I had hoped to get away with filling the gaps between the parts of the gore models but after applying a first coat of paint I realised that they were a little too prominent and had to crack out the green stuff. I'm also holding off building the chariot riders until the chariots and gores are completed and based.

As well as painting I did a fair bit of assembling too this weekend. With my goal of painting up my dreadball teams on my mind I decided to assemble all the miniatures to see what the task ahead looks like.



Oh my! Here they are straightened out and arranged by team:-



That's going to take a lot of time to work through. Fortunately some of the colour schemes on my existing teams are pretty simple so painting up the boosters shouldn't be too bad. Now I just need some decent weather so I can prime them all.

Painting by numbers

Out of curiosity I went back and checked on how 2014's performance matched up to previous years and here are the results:-

2008 Pass (86p vs 44b)
2009 Pass (114p vs 112b)
2010 Fail (126p)
2011 Fail (156p)
2012 Fail (118p vs 144b)
2013 Fail (286p)
2014 Pass (292p)

2014 Has the highest painting total since records began - over three times the total I managed in 2008 when I started my blog. I also spotted a comment about learning to speed paint in 2013 which would appear to be true from the way I managed to paint almost double my previous highest total in that year.

I wonder if I will be able to beat 292 this year and maybe pass the 300 mark?

And I'm also astounded to realise that I have painted almost 1200 miniatures in the past 6 years, wow!

2015 - Objective Acquired

With the success of 2014 still providing me with a warm glow to drive away the winter chill it is time to start looking forward and deciding which projects to progress in 2015.

Total - last year's 292 minis was a pretty respectable total all things considered. If I can manage to get close to this in 2015 I will be happy.

Dreadball
By the end of the year I would like to have painted up all my Dreadball miniatures. I currently own 12 teams and have 6 painted and playable teams. Of course being and enthusiast I heavily backed the kickstarter so I ended up with a load more minis for my painted teams as well (alternate poses and prones) so this goal doesn't just cover painting up 6 teams but also includes the extra minis for the 6 existing teams, MVPs and giants so there is a fail bit to do here. If I succeed I will have seasons 1-3 all done and as yet I have no plans to buy anything from season 4 onwards (yet).

Deadzone
I have a stack of unpainted Deadzone and a load mroe sue to be dropped off by the postman any time soon. Despite this I will set a modest target of getting 1 more faction painted up over the course of the year. Hopefully I will get a lot more done than just that but I'm not going to push things.

Ogres
I would like to have my KoW Ogre army ready to use in a fairly short time scale. Ideally Q1 but no later than Q2.

Dwarves
It would be nice to finally get my Dwarf army playable but I'm not holding out much hope really.

Paint-a-longs
I am aiming to join in as many of the paint-a-longs on the Random Platypus forum as I can although I probably won't be buying miniatures specifically to do this.
http://randomplatypus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1222

Purchases
I am aiming to keep the number of purchases down for 2015 and only but things to plug gaps in existing armies rather than starting new projects. The KoW2 Kickstarter will be delivering me a whole lot of metal but outside that I will be trying not to buy much.

Well that's a lot to be getting on with but considering I managed to paint all those minis in 2014 and a city's worth of terrain it might be possible - we will have to see how things go.

The scale of the problem (2015 edition)

As is tradition, here is a glimpse of what still remains in the lead pile. 2014 saw some major successes with no fewer that 4 projects reaching that elusive completed status.

28mm Scale Projects

Orcs and Goblins
System: KoW
Status: Several hundred figures painted, some more in the lead pile
Comments: No progress during 2014.

Kingdoms of Men/Basileans
System: KoW
Status: 18 knights started, about 100 more models unpainted.
Comments: No progress during 2014.

Dwarfs
System: KoW
Status: 80% unpainted, about 150-200 models in total.
Comments: A handful of models painted during 2014 - still waiting for the big breakthrough.

High Elves
System: KoW
Status: Mostly painted
Comments: No progress during 2014.

Undead
System: KoW
Status: Completed
Comments: Project completed - I painted up the last few units at the beginning of the year - there are a few stragglers but that's about it.

Ogres
System: KoW
Status: New for 2014
Comments: At the beginning of the year I had a few ogres in the unpainted pile from the first Kings of War Kickstarter campaign. I won an army set in October which turned this into a fully fledged army project. Currently about a third of my initial goal are painted but the army might end up growing further.


Blood Angels
System: Warhammer 40K
Status: Mostly finished.
Comments: Over 2500 points + options available for use. Gathering dust.

DreadBall Teams
System: DreadBall
Status: 6 teams painted out of 12
Comments: No painting progress but I picked up a couple more teams.

Dead Zone
System: Dead Zone
Status: 1 faction starter done
Comments: First miniatures painted right at the end of 2014. I need to put some effort in here so I can actually play the game.

SWAT teams and Criminals
System: Officer Down!
Status: Completed.
Comments: This year's big success story - not only have I painted all the miniatures (including the ones I bought to expand the factions) but I now also have an entire city's worth of painted terrain.



Modern Zombies
System: And Stay Down!
Status: Completed (66 miniatures).
Comments: Another success story - started and completed in time for the Halloween special.

RPG miniatures
System: D&D etc
Status: Lots painted - lots still to do.
Comments: I've been chipping away at these over the course of 2014 - the year's additions have been outweighed by the ones I have painted..


10/15mm Scale Projects

Aliens and Marines,
System: Xenomorph
Status: Completed
Comments: Another project completed during 2014.

High Elves, Undead, Dark Elves, Mongols, Later Muslim Indian, Later Achmeneid Persian
Systems: DBA, HOTT etc
Status: No progress during 2014.

Well that was 2014, how was it for you?

And as the new year dawns is it time to show off the last few miniatures painted up during 2014. Firstly some old Marauder Miniatures ogres and some really old Chronicle Miniatures ogres which I recently re-discovered after they were shipped off into storage about 10 years ago. After a quick bath in biostrip I have put fresh paint jobs on old lead.



I'm quite happy with how these turned out.

Next up some more modern Mantic ogres. This leaved me on just under a third of the initial ogre army project completed.



And lastly my Deadzone Plague starter which I painted up in a flash of inspiration. Now I need to do another faction starter so I can get some games in.



So what was 2014's total? With that last batch of miniatures painted up I achieved a grand total of 292 miniature equivalents painted up (ogre sized minis count as 2, smaller miniatures count as less than 1). For me that is a lot of miniatures and I am very happy with it.

So what about purchases? Even with the last minute purchase of a couple more season 3 Dreadball teams I am still in surplus! I'm not exactly sure how much by as I have not opened all the Deadzone packages from the second shipment yet but I'm sure there are fewer than surplus of 111 miniatures I have at the moment which means ...

2014 was a WIN for the wargamer's pledge! (cue fireworks)