With many of our crew attending events in and around April, lets check in on what they’ve been working on!
SRM
After returning from Adepticon, I was absolutely stoked to paint some Battletech and Age of Sigmar stuff. Despite my poor records in both and some rough games of the former, (which you can read about in my road to Adepticon) I was excited about both. I started with this foursome for my Lyran Commonwealth/Blue Team crew. They were a welcome reprieve from the Death Korps I painted in March, painting up in a day or two. I added a little flair with the Warhammer’s hazard stripes and the white skull faceplate on the Atlas, but they’re pretty by the numbers for me. Fun fact: half of the mechs in this picture have disappointed me greatly in games I played in April, and I love them all.
I then went the exact opposite direction and painted up a bushel of barbarians for Age of Sigmar. I know they can be used in Warcry as well, but I’ve only got so much mental hard drive space for game rules. Despite the density of detail on what are essentially the chaff or screen for more valuable units, I fell in love with this group of idiots. Where the Untamed Beasts I painted for Adepticon were an exercise in pain, these were pretty much pure joy until roughly the 80% mark when I started to get a little fatigued. They’re the exact update to the Chaos Marauder aesthetic I’ve been looking for, and I’m looking forward to painting up 10 more.
I actually painted this guy at the same time as the Savagers, and it’s wild how even with the freehand on his shield and the blending on his sword, he took about as long as the average Savager. He’s really just a Warrior in a cool pose, but I gave him a headswap for one of my preferred Chosen helmets. GW sent him my way for review purposes earlier this year, and my review is a short one: this dude is fun to paint! I left off the skulls on his shield to speed the painting process along and give me more space for my woad-inspired swirls.
I needed something simpler after those Chaos lads and lasses, so I painted up a few more mechs in my Legion of Vega/Red Team scheme. These came together very quickly, and I like having an alternate color scheme in my back pocket so when I get a duplicate of a mech I’ve already painted like the Archer, I can do something different with them.
It was my pleasure to review this pair of little guys for us, and they were about as far from battlemechs and brawny barbarians as one could ask for. These models were, by and large, a joy to paint, but you can read all about them in that review. I used the wrong grass flock for them, so it’s not quite as saturated as the grass I use on the rest of my Halflings, but oh well.
My alternating Warhammer to Battletech painting pattern kept going as I painted up the clan mechs from the Alpha Strike box, finally getting that set out of my backlog. I don’t really like the clans that much, and I’ve had an itch to paint Northwind Highlanders after reading about them here on Goonhammer, so off I went. I feel like maybe I went a little too neutral with their base paint scheme, but I added an extra layer of drybrushing that brings it a little further from the basing colors. The real challenge was obviously the tartan on each and every mech. I didn’t go for unique tartans as I was already doing enough work by painting wee patches of plaid on these Intercessor-sized robots. It was good to paint the iconic Madcat/Timberwolf though, and I’ve learned to love the Nova/Blackhawk given its embarrassment of ER Medium Lasers that can force an instant overheat and shutdown.
While churning through my backlog, I dug up Steelheart’s Champions from the very first Shadespire set. I’ve never been wild about that first generation Stormcast aesthetic, but I’ve always liked these three, even back when the general consensus around Stormcast Eternals was far less positive. I found these to be a ton of fun to paint, and while their basing was sometimes tricky to work around, I think it looks really lovely and grounds them in the overgrown basing and ancient Greek armor aesthetic I’m generally going for. I’ve written a whole dang article about how you can do the same!
Lastly, I got to review Domitan’s Stormcoven and painted them up in time for the article. This crew was much more challenging than Steelheart’s Champions, but an interesting study in contrasting aesthetics. They are so much more realistically proportioned, with sharper details and none of those weird 3D extrusions so many older digitally designed models have. They’re nothing I haven’t painted before – they’re none too different than Vigilors or the Knight-Arcanum from Dominion – but working around their robes was at times difficult.
I doubt I’ll beat this month’s 32 model record this year, but if I do I might actually churn through my backlog before one or all of us are dead! For next month, I’m thinking of more Stormcast, after which I’ll see if Chaos or Imperial Guard are grabbing my attention more. With 10th edition 40k on the horizon, I’ve been focusing on other games, but I’m keeping my options open!
Soggy
After painting Qin Xa last month, it was only fitting that I assemble his special command squad – which are all allowed to be equipped with Power Glaives. This unit was a pain to convert as there is only the one tartaros plastic left arm (which isn’t a powerfist). This really limited my options for poses and involved a wee bit of swearing to make. To be honest I’m a bit unhappy with them as a result but they’ll do for now lol.
Midmonth, I was fortunate enough to try out boarding actions and was immediately sold. As a result I thought I would paint up my own set but take the sicko approach of magnetising it! It was surprisingly not as bad as it sounds as using this approach you didn’t have to worry about the polarity of the magnets.
The end of the month was all about getting hyped and ready for Warhammer fest. After tossing up on my list many times I wanted to give the White Scars specific speeder a go and quickly painted up three Kyzagans.
My favourite part of these was channelling my inner bob ross and painting a little reflection of the landscape int he windshield. I’m looking forward to seeing how much dakka they can throw down range.
Now that I’ve got this force assembled, I’m likely to take a break next month and see what I’m in the mood for after a wee holiday.
Bair
A very sad month at the House of Bair. The first month this year that I painted less models than number of days in the month. Only 24 models, stymied by a Titanicus event AND Warhammer Fest. Puts me on 172 finished models and 56 played games for 2023.
This month was a nice mix of hobby between painting something up as a gift to another, as well as panic build-and-painting something for an event, followed by the normal build-and-paint for another event a week later, and starting a new army for Conquest. That new model for Conquest I painted up as a statue with mechanical parts as the start of a City States army, which will have statue minotaurs as well (and a painting guide coming soon).
As for the gift, this is part of a secret-santa-type birthday gifting that I’m part of, I very graciously received dwarfs and star wars minis (2 things I absolutely love) and for my gift to give wanted to paint something up. They seemed to be starting a guard army with the new minis but while I’m unsure what paint scheme they’re going for so did it up in Commissariate black. The mental image of a Commissar ordering a summary execution into the rear of a Leman Russ is just too wonderful, too. It really was a joy to build and paint and I hope that my giftee likes it!
For events, I realised the day before Greetings from the Warp where I was playing in the third part of a narrative Titanicus event that I needed a Strategium token to mark out on the map where my forces would be fighting. So I stuck together some spare Vanguard Miniatures models I had laying around and painted them as a holo-display! That’s on a 25mm base as a point of scale!
And then Warhammer Fest was approaching and I needed more yellow in my life. I couldn’t decide on a list, knowing that I wanted to take Dorn to lead my force since I don’t playing Heresy too often and I really wanted to use my Primarch. I didn’t have a proper retinue for him though so painted up some Huscarls, 10 more Phalanx Warders, and finally painted the banner bearer for my Cataphractii command squad; all of which gave me many more options to play with for a 3,000 point list. I also was able to review the new Cerberus Lord of War which recently came out, so enjoy the following yellow (and black Huscarls):
Finally, I got the new(ish) Ventress model for Star Wars Legion and painted up my Bossk, so that I can run a funky double bounty hunter list next week at a one day Star Wars legion event.
Momma Negan
I was lucky enough to receive the new Nostalgia ’94 paint set this month. These paints were technically the ones I started with as I found my mom’s old paint set, which sparked my hobby. Now the set obviously didn’t come with the classic Chaos Warrior and Space Marine, so I sought to rectify this error. Lo and behold, I had both miniatures in unpainted condition in my collection, so I set out to paint them. I’ll soon publish a proper review of the paints where I’ll also go over how I painted these, but til then, please enjoy the retro miniatures in proper retro colours.
Thundercloud
I only painted five models this month, but I had an event at Warhammer Fest and needed to get them done.
This turns all the infantry I got done for my boarding patrol (30 tactical marines and five assault terminators) into a coherent army with an appropriate beaky HQ.
This gives me a Rogue Trader style army built around tactical squads with vehicle and artillery support, and before 10th arrives I’m hoping to get more Primaris, another dreadnought and another artillery piece finished to get me comfortably over 1500 points and let me field a 1500 point Rogue Trader style army. Really need GW to release their beaky librarian soon though.
Skails
First up this month I painted the heroes for Unmatched: Redemption Row- Luke Cage, Ghost Rider, and Moon Knight. Color wise it’s a departure from my normal style, I went for brighter, more saturated colors. The models are decent and really benefited from a paint job.
I also finished up my entry for Smashbash 2023. This build consisted of a Schleich wild boar, new and old GW zombie kits, some Sylvaneth bits and 3d printed mushrooms.
Rockfish
I had a super busy month, both with RL and painting so I ended up being decently productive! I think I would probably be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t start with baby’s first primarch, if you were checking out the site around when he dropped you probably will have seen that I painted up the Lion!
As part of the same drop, I also knocked Dante out over a couple of evenings.
Beyond the two preview marines I managed to get done I have also been trying to work my way through my marine backlog in anticipation of 10th! It ended up being a bit of a eclectic mix of stuff, starting with some Reivers…
Then I did a gravis captain…
A trio of Bladeguard…
And finally, a Land Raider! Hell of a classic model to end the marines of the month on!
While 40k was the primary focus of the month, I did also manage to knock out a few mechs! Staring with a Phoenix Hawk…
Our favorite big bug, the Wraith…
The beloved little bug, the locust…
A bit of a misnomer in this case, the Black Knight…
And of course the classic Atlas!
Whew, and thats a wrap on the month!
