Hey all, welcome to the first installment of the 40k Hamateur Hour, a series following a rank amateur through the process of getting his first painted army together. I’m Dan, better known as FromTheShire on dead comedy forums, and I’m joining in with a bunch of vastly more talented people to prepare for the 2019 NoVa Open. Make sure to check the rest of the participants out over at this handy index.
Why is those things?
Well, after getting into the hobby with a couple of friends at the end of 7th, I have amassed a large collection of grey plastic, paints, and hobby supplies, but never actually combined those things into a painted army. You could table flip my current hobby station and probably accidentally wind up with more tangible progress than I’ve made. I don’t really go to my FLGS for more than supplies, and games with local friends dried to virtually nothing, so I didn’t really have much impetus to change that besides mainly lurking in a couple online communities. That all started to change when The 40k Badcast started….broadcasting? recording? and I heard their first hand accounts of how much fun going to the big tentpole events was. Last year, I decided to participate in the NoVa Narrative recon games as a way to dip my toe in the water, and had an absolute blast getting a few games in, hanging out with goons, and giving Dan shit for his highly questionable cooler ice decisions. Naturally, after thoroughly enjoying the chill hang experience, I decided to see if I could ruin it completely by signing up for the full narrative, ensuring my time would be consumed not just for the duration of the event, but for months leading up to it as well. After immediately procrastinating for months, the idea for the RtN series was brought up, coinciding with my intention to start writing the Hamateur Hour series I had come up with a while before to follow along with somebody on the opposite end of the hobby than we frequently see, my dumb ass learning by fucking up.
What’s the plan?
After some very helpful advice from Pendent and Booley to curb my usual stupid list building impulses, I have a 2000 point Blood Angels and Catachans to paint to instead of flailing in all directions and accomplishing nothing as per usual. I’ve done some color testing and have my scheme down so no more spending months picking out a dozen shades of the same color looking for just the right one. I have about 6k points worth of BA around in various stages of assembly, so naturally the ones I will be using are mainly the unassembled ones, so to begin there is a bunch of assembly that needs done. The decision to add Catachans was made within the last week, so those have been progressed to almost being shipped to me. Additionally, I decided that since I was going full force at this project for real, I should mix in some of the full kit models to the Dark Imperium Intercessors and Hellblasters I already have built to vary the poses up, because when I make things more difficult for myself, I COMMIT. Every project has to start someplace though so at least I’m underway. I have a long way to go and a short time to get there, and I’m only moderately thinking it can’t be done. Assembly on what I do have began this weekend and will continue during the week, with the goal of priming the BA infantry and getting base coats on this coming weekend. Check back weekly for updates, fuck ups, and my slow descent into madness!
