Let’s check in on what the team has been up to with their hobby time over the last month!
Bair
Hell yeah, I beat Rockfish this time getting my stuff in. Also all the other incredible painters we have that are really hard to follow up. After a couple months of being slow, and some travelling, I’ve been back-on-it at my desk slapping paint onto models. Starting with a second Anvil of Doom for my Old World dwarf army (mounted on a 60mm which is the correct base size, come @ me with your “base size N/A” arguments) and two more characters: an engineer with handgun standing in for a Thane with the Good-Runes until I can buy the resin one and a younger stand-in for Burlok cause he rules. This is my second Anvil of Doom and I’m very happy to be able to have one of each of this incredibly cool model. Even managed a game with all of these against Reece’s Bretonnians (you may have seen his Bretonnian guide) and thanks to some lucky rolls even won! Hell yeah dwarfs.
Next up was a large set very kindly sent from Annie of Bad Squiddo Games for review so I’m not going to retype a lot of that here. Annie makes really wonderful models though and you should go check them out! These are all Shieldmaidens which I’m using for Saga and I guess a massed battle game with vikings soon since my collection has grown to a stupid number already.
Lastly two much larger models: the new Stoneforged and a Hellbringer Drake from Conquest The Last Argument of Kings. If you’re not familiar with the game these are for the Dweghom faction which are sort of like dwarfs but more like chaos dwarfs. That’s why I’m painting them like chaos dwarfs. Plus black, red, and gold is a kickass scheme that always looks good. Simple as. The Stoneforged has only just come out and it really shows in sculpt quality and how easily it went together compared to the Drake which was a lot more work to build. Lastly managed to finish off the Ironclad Drake as well so that I could play my event games with all three big beasties. It ruled and I went 2-1 which I was very pleased with considering I hadn’t played since like February.
“Contemptor” Kevin Stillman
So, June and July were relatively low-key hobby months for me. I spent June painting up terrain to be used at the Goonhammer Open, and July was two weekends of Pokemon GoFest in two cities in North America with 100 degree heat indexes combined with a sense of existential dread. Once the existential dread wore off, I was ready to get back to hobbying – only to run smack dab into San Diego Comic-Con.
While at SDCC, I decided that I would spend my downtime doing one of two things: Indulging in my Hotel’s waterslide, and painting Yndrasta’s Spearhead. Yndrasta is the coolest model in the Stormcast Eternal range, in my opinion (1), and I like Spearhead, so this was a logical choice.  I went with the Blades of Dawn Stormhost, as there is a relative dearth of these minis around, and I like the combination of rich purple and rich gold with cold, weathered steel. This would give me a new Spearhead to play at NoVa or the Grand Narrative.
Special thanks to SRM for talking me through some pointers to help get the Griffins done, unlike the other models in this Spearhead they were various materials that I’m not super-used to painting.
After that, it’s back onto the First Legion. I did a Storm Speeder Thunderstrike, because it was adorable:
Then I did my Deathwing Terminators, because I could use them for various things at NoVa. Also, they are awesome, look cool, and will come in handy when I try for my local GW’s Armies on Parade.
(1) I do not have Skaventide as of the time of this writing. A further discussion of this caveat will be appended to my eventual NoVa review.
SRM
It’s a light month for me as I was wrapping up some classes I was taking, but I still painted up some good stuff in preparation for NOVA.
I’ve had the plan to put together a 10-man squad of Sword Bros for a hot minute now, and I finally rounded out the squad I painted way back when. As happy as I am with the squad, a squad of 10 is kind of overkill against anything short of a Hekaton Land Fortress. Still, each of them got their own unique heraldry, and I’m real happy with how they came out.
I have some affliction where every 3-4 years I need to paint a Land Raider, and my time was up. You don’t realize how far models have come until you paint something old like this – 1999 – and even with the softer details and gaps in assembly, I still had a pretty decent time with this one. I fully magnetized the sponsons and even hid some magnets under the snow and gunk on the treads so I can pop on the frag launchers to turn this into a Crusader or Redeemer. Let’s see if those get cheaper soon! Regrettably, triple Land Raiders doesn’t give me the board control I want, but I’m happy to have another big stupid shoebox to push around.
As mentioned, I’ll be at NOVA, doing a live Badcast, then grinding away in the 40k GT. For next month, maybe I’ll be so hyped about Space Marines and 40k that I’ll get back to edge highlighting black power armor. Maybe I’ll be so sick of it that I pivot hard into Battletech, which just delivered a big honkin’ Kickstarter to my door. Maybe I’ll already be prepping for the AoS GT I’m playing in later in September. Time will tell!
head58
A brief break from this murder’s row of talent for pure schtick. I started the Amici Optimi as an idea to do an all-characters Auric Champions list for Goonhammer Open last year, but that fell through. I finally finished these folks up this past month. I may still press on with my plan, because the idea of a 13 model army plus a Venerable Land Raider painted to look like the Hall of Justice is hilarious to me. Probably only to me, but whatever. In the meantime, I have a solid Custodes Kill Team that I’m sure will be great in the new editi…wait, I’m being handed a note…
Mike Bettle-Shaffer
It’s been a minute or two since I last contributed to one of these, but I’m not planning to dump everything I’ve painted in here and I’ll just hit some highlights instead. While my burning desire to finish two-thousand points of Blood Angels is still with me a year later, my attention span has refused to comply. That and I just really needed a break from painting power armour.
The Legionnaires from Old Dominion presented me with an interesting question, “how do I paint dozens of these without burning out?”, and it led me to a lot of research and eventually settling on a combination of some fast undercoats and dry-brushing. For the Karyatids, I went a little higher effort as I wanted a painted marble effect for the murderous living statues.
Continuing the theme of Roman aesthetics, I’ve also grown my Saga: Age of Crusades Byzantine warband. This means that like every dedicated historicals player, I now have two warbands for the game so I can demo to the folks in my gaming group with a set of painted models.
This update wouldn’t be complete without at least one unit from my growing Blood Angels force, so here’s an Impulsor I finished up a little while ago but finally have some decent pictures of!
Rockfish
Soooo I was alternating between being on vacation and sick this month, which means I didn’t actually have a ton of time to paint, and it doesn’t help my airbrush broke and I had to replace it. As a result there’s only a few things from me this this time, starting off with salamanders I finally finished some models I primed probably years ago in some cases.
Last week I also gave a new scheme for Blood Angels a go as I had some ideas for neat time saves over my normal Salamanders scheme but they didn’t really fit into that existing army soooooo new army time.
Looking a bit like a marine month eh? I got a few rats done too, but I’ve not gotten around to doing the tufts so no pictures for them yet!
Saffgor
Bit of some small potatoes for this month, but I finally got a trio of Skorpius Disintegrators ready for priming & painting, with magnetized guns. This is the first time I’ve magnetized a weapon swap in ages, but given the propensity for either choice to be meta at a given time I thought this was a good time to get back on the saddle for that. I’m especially happy with the spotter pointing out of these, as it’s much harder to forget the tank has a missile launcher when there’s a poor sap holding an RPG peeking out of the hatch.
In a similar vein, because I’m aiming to try a Rad Zone Cohort list with Dragoons, Disintegrators, and tons of midboard punch, an Enginseer was on the menu for conversions, as outside of SHC it’s not possible to grant Feel No Pain to relevant vehicles. This Outlands Beastmaster clearly prefers the company of machines to gribblies now, and given I didn’t actually have an axe, an angle-swapped and shorted Manipulus staff made do!
Next month should be the grand reveal for Buggisarius Crawl, and a host of other centerpieces, so stay tuned!
Cronch
Up first this month I was attending a 2-day Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game event, and alongside the usual Favourite Army judging there was an extra category for display boards. I’m not always big on making boards outside of Armies on Parade, but this particular event was a 10 minute walk away from home and so I decided it was worth a go.
This project was perfectly timed with receiving the files from Conquest Creations’ recent Kingdom of Tor Ithilas Kickstarter, which I backed a couple of months ago. I printed off some roads, rivers, and a bridge, then set about making a board for them. As it didn’t need to travel far the board is just 6mm insulation foam, with a tile pattern scribed into it and then painted with a big brush and black edges. The terrain itself got a Colour Forge Ghoul Grey spray, then a variety of washes and unifying drybrushes for that Osigiliath stone colour. The river got a wet blend from blue through to black, then a quick layer of Ardcoat gloss varnish. Not fancy resin work, but it would do.
Adding in the Games Workshop Osgiliath terrain and some trees, I think it makes for a nice Osgiliath board and a suitable home for my Return of the King legendary legion. I didn’t end up winning, missing out to a beautiful Mirkwood display that incorporated both Elven and Dark Denizens forces, but I had a great time putting it together and showing it off, and the board will be repurposed as a liner for my display cabinet.
Post-event, I spend most of August imbued with an almost singular focus: painting Sorcerer Kings for Para Bellum’s Conquest. Up first were a unit of Efreet Flamecasters, ranged threats hurling magical fireballs.
These were closely followed by units of Steelheart Djinn and Windborn Djinn, aspects of the Court of Air.
I haven’t said too much about these here, but you can read about them in much more depth in my HTPE Sorcerer Kings article!
Finally this month I embarked on a long term hobby goal when I finally got hold of some of the Grymkin faction for Warmachine/Hordes, thanks mostly to a very generous local friend. I’ve wanted these since they released and never pulled the trigger on them, and of course now it’s a real pain to get hold of any old Privateer Press models. I and some friends have still been playing Warmachine fairly regularly, using the old MkIII rules for the most part, and these will be a fun alternative to the Protectorate of Menoth that I’ve been playing with.
Mostly I am saving these for a spooky Hallowe’en painting project, given their theming, but I couldn’t resist painting Lord Longfellow. This guy is a full on spider masquerading as a human duellist, and such a cool model. I chose to paint him blue with gold trim so that he almost looks like he’s disguised himself as one of Cygnar’s Arcane Tempest Gun-Mages.
That’s it for me in August! In September I’m mostly going to be focused on clearing out some commissions, as well as taking on some monsters for my Conquest factions.
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