The team has been working on all kinds of hobby great and small this month, lets check out what they’ve been up to!
Soggy
Baldur’s Gate 3 continues to eat into hobby time, despite this I managed to paint some models in the time I could tear myself away. Starting with my first 28mm Knight as part of our review of the new plastic kits. This only took a couple of evenings to get done – I would hate to try and do something this big without an airbrush!
I opted for the 30K Taranis blue scheme to accompany my White Scars – I like the idea of it striding into battle flanked by the Chogorian Brotherhood zipping past on jetbikes. It seems far more appropriate than dreadnoughts waddling along trying to keep up.
Next up I was to paint up two of the new Space Marine units for our recent review. We covered our thoughts extensively over there on them, so check it out if you would like to know more.
I’ve been waiting for jump pack primaris troops since the launch of 8th edition, as I loved to spam them in Dawn of War – I’m incredibly happy to be able to do that on the tabletop now.
Bair
Continuing on with 10mm dwarfs I now have a 1,000 point army painted and ready to start playing with. Is it a good 1,000 points? No idea, I just know it adds up to that much. Playing with Warmaster Revolution rules with some friends and locals and was surprised there’s much of a scene for such a niche game.
Annoyingly I realised after completing most of the infantry how much better the stands looked with 2mm grass tufts. These are from Gamers Grass and are 2mm “moss” which looks great for moss on 28mm minis, but sort of longish grass at this scale.
I’ve been really impressed by how quickly these are to paint up since I normally use contrast and these are just a bit too small for that to be effective. Instead it’s all “traditional” paint methods but I’m sure we’ll have a How To Paint guide up soon for 10mm minis!
Breaking up all the 10mm though I had the pleasure of painting the new troll king Trugg for Age of Sigmar. It was actually a bit strange picking up such a large mini after painting really tiny ones, but really happy with how it came out in the end over 2 night’s of paint work.
I’m counting the Warmaster minis as “1” per base of them for my completed mini count, it would seem like cheating to count each individual dwarf…but puts me up to a total of 406 minis so far in 2023! And (unfortunately?) there’s many more to go…
Rockfish
Bit of a quiet month from me, I’ve been a mix of busy and dealing with issues from my back injury so I’ve not nearly gotten as much done as I wanted to. Into the models themselves, the most notable stuff I got done was probably these marine preview models!
Otherwise all I managed was to repaint my five year old Swarmlord…
…and some more little WWII british models!
Charlie B
My specialist subject is not noticing the time of the month until AFTER the hobby round-up has gone out, so I regularly miss the bus. While I have been cranking out Fury of the Swarm posts, this is my first hobby round-up since… May. New personal best? So here’s four months of painting progress, all in one hit. If you want to read more about any individual project, I’ve included links to the relevant post over on the Beard Bunker (that’s the blog I do with my gaming group).
JUNE
Went on holiday to Wales with the folks, and took an unpainted Griffon kitbash with me. It was built perhaps ten years ago, and intimidated the shit out of me as a painting project, so I figured being stuck at the other end of the country with only one model to paint would be the move. Incredibly my toddler niece didn’t try to eat it, so here it is:
I kept the painting fairly loose and easy rather than sharp, or I feared I’d never finish all those feathers. You can see more plumage over at the Beard Bunker.
JULY
Enthused by getting the griffon done, I went on a bit of an Old World kick and did my first Steam Tank, and collaborated with my friend Drew to get 30 Hochland halberdiers painted up for the campaign we’re playing. Turns out I much prefer the Steam Tank with less crusty bling. Looks more real, somehow.
My friend Jeff also handed me a pair of drop pods I’d originally given to him years ago, as his Firstborn marines army stalled when we saw the first photos of Intercessors back in the dawn of 8th edition. Now that Primaris boys are allowed back inside the iconic drop pod, I was only too happy to spray these things blue and spruce the rest of the paint job. I kept things quick and easy, since drop pods have more surface area than Canada.
AUGUST
Variety is good for momentum, and 10th edition means I REALLY needed a bodyguard unit for my mega-armoured characters, so five meganobz fit the bill. The leg poses on this kit are rather static, but the rest of it is surprisingly modular. I built two of them without the irongobz, and honestly I wish I’d done all 5 that way as it makes the model way less chibi. Do I wish they had more than 2 attacks per model? Yes. Will the Orks’ current lack of lethality stop me trying to fight stuff anyway? No.
After Manteara were loaded up on their tour bus, I moved on to completing a joint scenery project with my friends Harvey and Drew. Communal painting efforts are a great way to get terrain done, and it would’ve felt truly Sisyphean painting this much space hulk terrain on my own (that’s 4 Kill Team boards, or 2 boarding action boards). I can’t wait to get more games on it. I also kind of want to do a 3D modelled floor rather than a battle mat.
SEPTEMBER
The new terminator models slap. I already said so, at length, on the Bunker. Sure there are other models in the Leviathan box, but I was ALWAYS going to paint these walking bricks first. Hell yeah.
“Contemptor” Kevin Stillman
After NoVa 2023, despite being very much in a hobby good place following a rollicking weekend with my friends, I only had there wherewithall this month to paint two models. One was Judge Dredd, in order to psychologically enable myself to paint Necromunda minis.
Dredd took me about an hour using various contrast paints. I opted for a combination of the garish comic costume but with the black gloves and boots of the 2012 movie. Mostly because Dredd is a comfort movie of mine.
The other model I painted was a Thunderhawk.
This thing was big and took awhile. But it’s done and so now it’s time to build and paint something that isn’t Cerulean Blue.
Campbell “SRM” McLaughlin
The start of the month was given over to the NOVA Open, and let me tell ya, NOVA fukken owned. I wrote many, many, many words about it here. Recording a live podcast in front of a bunch of like-minded and well-meaning peeps, creeps, nerds, and, uh, GERDs was the kind of hobby progress that isn’t bought at a store: it’s the kind of hobby progress that means something more.
Anyway, I also painted a lot of toys
While too late for our Cities of Sigmar reviews, I did finish up the first regiment of Steelhelms from the launch box. This group took an awful lot of work for a 10 man regiment but goddang am I happy with how they came out. They’re a great next step up from my “Greekcast” army of Stormcast Eternals, and their matching basing means they even look nice next to each other. I’m really looking forward to the full range of these guys to drop; for regular dudes the new Cities models really are one of the most inspired ranges in the entirety of Age of Sigmar.
I’d built this dude in January, basecoated him in May, and only finished him in September. This dude has been waiting long enough that he’s no longer the preferred loadout of a Space Marine Captain, but that’s fine – I was just stoked to paint Templars after NOVA. My buddy Nik gave me an extra helmet from Bayard’s Revenge, and I had a grand time otherwise converting up a Black Templars Marshal into this swell fella. My brushes were starting to go around the halfway point on him though, so I was getting frustrated by the time I got to his sword. Still, I’m thrilled with how he came out, and I might run him as a Bladeguard Lt. because Black Templars don’t really care about specific markings that much. It’s a vibes-based chapter of xenocidal maniacs masquerading as noble knights.
Similarly occupying a space in my closet if not exactly my heart, I’d had these since almost a year ago when I got them in an Imperium magazine I reviewed. My process is stupid simple, messy, and at times a smidge tedious, but contrast, drybrushing, and sponging get me where I wanna get with these. It’s kind of a stock GW scheme, but models really do pop against it, and I can knock it out with some rattlecans and big brushes over a few hours.
Chasing more quick hits of model completion dopamine, I painted up a few of the mechs from my closet of opportunity. At some point I had made a big spreadsheet point which mechs towards which of my trio of Battletech forces (a blue team, a red team, and a Scottish team) and these guys were earmarked for my Lyran Commonwealth force. Spending 8 hours on a Space Marine to get those perfect edge highlights and volumetric blends is great and all, but being able to knock out a trio of mechs in as many hours is a hell of a palate cleanser. I’ve also wrote “palate cleanser” so many damn times this year on account of all these Battletech models that I no longer write “palette cleanser” erroneously. Now if I write that, it’s because I’m cleaning some palettes behind the Whole Foods.
Last but certainly not least, I got to be part of the team that reviewed the new Marine range. This fella also got to be the article thumbnail on Warcom, and that felt really, really damn good. The hot rod flames and yellow weapon casing are my typical homage to John Blanche, and the mirrored heraldry on his tilting plate and crusader seal are just for me. I wasn’t quite able to deliver on the “jump pack with a back banner” that I promised on our live Badcast, but I think the candelabra is Warhammer enough to do the trick. I was hoping to have his 5-man jump pals ready for those articles as well, but just didn’t have the time. Keep an eye out next month when I finish up his buddies!
Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen
September was a month of trips for me, between the Nova Open and a family vacation, so I wasn’t able to get too much done between rest and recuperation. The Nova Narrative was a blast, though, definitely improved from last year with significantly less homework.
I used it as an excuse to take my Stormraven out for a spin, as I don’t think I’ll normally be taking it to a competitive event. It did me well, and it was fun to pop the Brutalis Dread out of it, but I don’t think it’ll be seeing the table too much in 10th.
Just before Nova, though, I did paint a Brazen Claw for Darren Latham’s 90’s Marine Challenge:
I was also able to finish the 5 Incursors that went with the Haywire Mine I painted a few months ago:
Finally, with Assault Intercessors being all the rage, I painting five of those as well, although significantly more landbound than the ones my fellow authors above painted:
For October, I’d like to get some Sternguard and my Land Raider Redeemer ready for the GW Open Tampa, and then it’s prep for the Grand Narrative!
