As we hit the final straight of 2024, we check in on the team’s hobby progress.
Jack
This is really an october + november post, as I started painting a Tau army for the Grand Narrative roughly on October first. I’d already painted Farsight last year when he released, and a squad of Vespid in September for their release, but everything else going into this army was brand new and I’d procrastinated all year – every time I thought about getting started, I delayed because there was a dataslate coming soon. The cram definitely hurt my overall quality – I’m happy enough with these as a playable army, but I know I can do a lot better if I give myself more time.
While I’m now a bit burned out on painting Tau, I do want to wrap this army up by actually getting all the drones painted, and possibly one or two extra units to give me some more variety. Fortunately at this point I can do it very fast!
Soggy
I’ve been a bit all over the show this month, painting my first Genestealer Cult model in years as I was anticipating dusting of my army for 10th edition, although I only got as far as playing Boarding Actions – which is a great mode that more people should try out.
The only thing I strictly needed to paint this month was ten assault marines to act as troops in an ill advised Angel’s Wrath (all Fliers) doubles list for an even in December. Not too sure how often these will see the table but they painted up really quick.
Lastly I finished off the month with a Kratos Tank which has been assembled for months, waiting for me to remember that it exists. It’s a great kit and there’s something to be said for how cool toy tanks are – despite them being a bit crap in game. Next up I’ve got three Predators which have similarly been sitting around for ages, time to give them the attention they deserve.
Rockfish
I’ve had a rather busy month, so there’s not a ton from me this time.
Starting off with a few units of guard, there’s nothing too fancy just some quick models to continue the growth of what is increasingly one of my larger armies.
Beyond guard, I just did a bunch of random battletech models! Turns out it’s pretty easy to get good progress on a backlog of them when you can do 2-7 a night.
SRM
I don’t have a ton of models painted this month, but what I’ve got represents a buttload of work; embarrassments of details and doodads that make up an awful lot of effort for so few pieces of plastic. At least with a semi-recent points hike, they represent *checks notes* under 200 points altogether, lord.
I said on the Independent Characters that this is a pack of four characters that paints like five. I stand by that statement. I worked on these guys on and off through September and October, and devoted the first two weeks of November to them as well. I came up with some simple heraldry for the big man to repeat across all the Crusader seals, gave him some 2nd/3rd edition style hotrod flames on his Plasma Pistol, came up with a Servitor skintone I actually liked (forgot to write that down, RIP) and went hog wild on that banner. It’s honestly the thing in this set I’m happiest with, the rest of these models are just gravy.
Here’s the new Grimey next to my old, Finecast one, which I painted back in 2018. He was one of the last parts of my smol Black Templars, the project shelved until the Primaris range launched in 2021. It’s funny how much more vibrant the new one is compared to the old, and how much better the new set is, on the whole. Neither have ever seen the tabletop.
I’d been jonesing to paint some Guard again, with Space Marine 2‘s Cadians setting that particular ball and getting owned by a Guard opponent spiking it. The kit goes together beautifully, with a shocking number of heads to choose from, plus way more build options than the largely instruction manual-adherent squad you see above. Does spending two weeks laboriously doing three stage highlights on a squad of Cadians make sense? Probably not, but man am I happy with how they came out. They’re part of the Guard army I’ve been agonizingly adding to over the last two years, painting in bits and pieces.
Lastly, I wanted to make some space in my hobby cabinet, so I put together a few of the random promo/event minis I’d amassed over the last year. One of these was Commissar’s Duty, who I painted in 4 hours on Thanksgiving Day. I like it a load better than the standard Commissar, who I painted last year. This one has a bigger hat, more interesting details, and is in an iconic pose that shows him in action instead of just standing around like he’s in a character creator screen.
I also did a test panel for some Guard armor, so I’m thinking that I might finally knuckle down and paint me a Dorn, or at least a Sentinel or two just to get some of this army’s bigger guns on the board. At this point I’ve got like 30 Guardsmen and a Kasrkin squad with a couple odd and end character models, so it’s not quite an army yet!
“Leviathan” Kevin Stillman
With the approach of the Grand Narrative, I had a bunch of models that I needed to finish up before the 21st. At the end of October/beginning of November, I was focused on getting a unit of Inner Circle Companions finished. These models were a blast to build and paint, but filled with oh so many details and gubbins.
After having painted up a Repulsor Executioner and Gladiator Lancer in October, I was very, very tired of having to paint green models. So I decided to go for a change of pace: Dan “FromTheShire” Gates had just gotten married, and I wanted to give him a gift to honor that. I also wanted to 1) Paint Red and 2) Paint cool blue lightning, since I had been watching Rob’s in-progress Night Lord shots. Hence:
Lastly, I decided to paint up some cosplay props for the Grand Narrative. I did these mostly with rattlecan primers, with some light airbrush detail work.
Finally, once I was *at* the Grand Narrative, I decided I was going to fulfill my long-planned Narrative: I was going to buy, build, prime, paint, and play a Dark Angels Leviathan Dreadnought. I bought the model around 1:15 pm that Thursday afternoon. I played it against Condit Saturday morning.
And there’s still a few more days of November left to paint stuff (as of the time of this writing), and I bought a shiny new Leman Russ at the Grand Narrative…
VH Eric
It’s been awhile since I’ve had the chance to paint anything this fall, but a brief window opened up in my work travel schedule, and I wanted to get back on the horse.
Or off the horse, in this case.
Looking into my backlog for a small unit that I could knock out over a weekend and build some momentum with, I picked the relatively new “They Also Serve” set from Bloody Miniatures, which is a dismounted Thirty Years War/ECW Dragoon and three horses he’s minding.
Do I have a plan for using it in a game? No. But it’s done, and in the display case, and worked reasonably well as a way to psyche myself up for some more historicals painting, which is good because I’ve got several looming projects.
Crabstuffedmushrooms
I was inspired by Folger Pyles recent win at the Warhammer World Championships. I’ve never painted a model so fast, it took 8 hours and a day off work but I’m happy with how Draxus came out. My only gripe was how hard it was to paint the eyes, I’m pretty sure mine are twice as large than what the designer intended
Saffgor
This month, I was certainly thankful for one aspect of my hobbying: An inability to balk at absurdly overpriced conversions. To that end, my main project was working on a pair of magnetized Onager Dunecrawlers for my Ash Waste Admech, given the lists with Rad-Zone that’ve been developed.
As is evident, these kits use Belthanos’ mount as a baseline, with the hulls of Onagers straddled atop, fastened with bars and cables. I knew I wanted to use the Carnelian Greatspite since I began the army, given the goal to fully-orient the builds around non-Tyranid bugs, but this was one of the most fun ventures I’ve yet undertaken.
Measures were taken to make this kit intended to be monopose have variance between each of the bugs, from reposing the mandibles, to splaying and remounting the legs on more 40k-appropriate scenery, but as soon as I saw the outline of the beast coming together, I knew I struck gold. While a ways away from completion, I’m confident these walkers are going to be centerpieces for the army unlike anything I’ve had before.
Bair
Went away to America (my “home” country) for the last week of Oct and into Nov. Between that, being busy, and a real lack of motivation to do any painting I haven’t painted any new minis all month long.
What I did do is start building new things and pick up a few rules sets including Midgard. And with Midgard (which just looks incredible) I needed trays! So I “painted” and based a LOT of trays! These are all for my existing Vikings, mostly from Victrix, Bad Squiddo, and then a few from Gripping Beast. At this distance and all grouped together they work super well together, too. There’s even some Pagan Rus mixed in there for heavily armoured Hearthguard!
On the just-building side it’s been 12mm Victrix US Airborne with armoured support, based individually to play scaled-down versions of existing 28mm rules sets like V for Victory, Bolt Action, etc. The detail on these is insane.
Really cannot wait to play this game, it looks so cool.
The trays were looking a little plain and I didn’t want to spend the £££ on lots of tufts so I’ve used static grass for the first time since I was like 14. A hateful experience but very happy with the outcome! Also added some big rocks and even a couple little streams to the trays.
And when they’re all finished they look pretty good! Just texture paint, shade, rocks, and static grass! I used MIG Acrylic Water (Pacific Waters) that I had laying around from my Armada boats; just painted on thick over a light blue where I wanted the stream.
Evie
I actually managed to do some hobby that wasn’t related to my day job this month, so I thought I’d join in. I’ve been making warbands for Blood Red Bone White, the community driven skirmish game about the Russian Civil War Gone Even More Wrong Somehow that me and a few other authors are working on.
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