Daydreams

I'm deep in the house move mines right now, so there's no time for painting. I've managed to pop to P9 Card Game shop for a few games of Flesh and Blood, as they've just moved their branch to near me. I've been day dreaming a little bit about what hobby I'll get to once the move is done and we're unpacked.

I've not moved house often, so there's an opportunity to do a bit of taking stock and clearing out stuff I'm not using. I had a little bit of a clear out before I started packing with some obvious stuff I wasn't using

Once I am moved and unpacked, I'm thinking I'll probably get a few more Combined Army figures painted first. I've got their paint scheme down just fine so they'll be a good "comfort food" project. Nottingham doesn't have an Infinity scene just now, but there's some folk up there who sound interested in trying it out.

I also want to get my Imperial Guard project back underway. There's two plasma gunners that need paint stripping, and three comm links that need painting to match my existing models. With Warhammer World in Nottingham, there's not going to be a shortage of people interested in GW games around.

Finally, I do want to have a solid blitz through the assorted RPG figures I've got. I've got tons assembled and ready to paint, and with money a bit tight around the move, it'll be a nice cheap way of passing the time while still being productive.

I don't want to plan more than this, as I suspect while I'm unpacking I'll find half a dozen things I'll get enthused about. There's no point in trying to predict this as I'll likely change my mind three times over the next couple of months...

Astra Militarum 10th Edition Plans

 

With the new Astra Militarum Codex released for 10th edition, I needed to take stock of my Guard army and work out what I'm doing. While I had a short period of considering selling them off entirely, I've enjoyed playing them in the club campaign, so decided to get them up to spec for the new edition.

Setting myself the rule of "use what you already have wherever possible", I've come up with the following starting list:

Astra Militarum - Combined Arms

Strike Force (2000 Points)

CHARACTERS

Cadian Command Squad (80 Points)

     ◦ Enhancements: Reactive Command

Commissar (40 Points)

  • Enhancements: Death Mask of Ollanius

Gaunt’s Ghosts (110 Points)

Ministorum Priest (35 Points)

Primaris Psyker (60 Points)

Sly Marbo (55 Points)

BATTLELINE

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Chimera (85 Points)

OTHER DATASHEETS

2 x Armoured Sentinels (130 Points)

Armoured Sentinels (65 Points)

Basilisk (140 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hydra (95 Points)

Leman Russ Executioner (170 Points)

Manticore (165 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

10 x Tempestus Scions (140 Points)

There's a handful of things that need fixing here. The two "Cadian" (Tallarn) squads and command squad still have heavy weapons, so they're gaining three plasma guns and three comm-links. With a mix of bits from eBay and existing stash, I've started putting the latter together. The plasma guns will be a later update...

Beyond that, I had Sly Marbo and Gaunt's Ghosts in my stash needing assembly, so I've dug those out. One of the Hellhounds and five of the Ratlings are also currently without paint, so they're going in the queue.

Quite a lot of my older tanks don't have sponsons and so on, so by and large I'm taking that as an opportunity to sell them, and buying new tanks to paint up to my new skills / standard. I'm not buying anything new for the Guard outside of fixing the squad load outs until the test list is painted. I'm pretty sure it's lacking in armour and anti-tank, and a Rogal Dorn tank is pretty high on the purchase list once this lot is done, but I reckon given the move and other projects, this is plenty to be getting on with...

Plans for 2025

My plans for my hobby this year are a bit different. It's looking like we're going to be moving house this year, and I really want my focus to be on making the move less painful rather than painting a few more figures. The blog may get a little quieter in a bit, but I've got plenty to do before then.

I do need to buy less stuff. I say this and fail many years, but I really need to not mess this up this year, as the cost and the time of the move is really going to exacerbate any failure. I've updated my tracking system, and the goal this year is to buy less than I've sold and painted. I'm excluding anything pre-ordered from previous years, because nothing ruins a system by punishing yourself for something that happened before you instituted it.

With the new edition and a move coming up, I've decided to focus in on just the Combined Army for now. HATE is holding a slow grow League, where I'm playing my beloved Shasvastii, while I'm planning on getting Vanilla up and running for tournaments and so on.

The club is also running a Frostgrave campaign, so it's time to dig out all the random bits and pieces I've painted over the years to put together a warband. I don't need to paint anything new for this, it's more a case of using stuff I've already painted.

I've been trying to improve my miniature photography, particularly using the Jon Hodgson background books. I'm likely to take a weekend some time to do a whole bunch of photography so that I can schedule a bunch of cool photos to "hold down the fort" on the blog as house moves happen.

. . . and really, that's it as far as planning goes this year! Between "sell stuff" and "move", I don't want to over-commit. I'm hoping that by Autumn I'll be able to pick up some new project, but I'll look at how the world looks then and work out what I want to focus on. No point in over-planning right now.

Future Friday - What's Caught My Eye

I've been looking thoughtfully at a few different game systems of late, so I thought I'd have a little ramble about them. First up is Battletech, where I've already painted up a local militia Wolverine, and am planning to paint a bunch more as Lyran Guards. Once I've got enough painted up, I'll find some folk to get a game with. They don't take up much space and it will be a nice thing to dip into now and again.

The new Games Workshop release of Horus Heresy has been mega tempting. Rather than buy a billion miniatures, I've assembled and undercoated these two characters a friend gifted to me. I'm going to paint those up first, and if I enjoy doing that, I'll paint the various bits and bobs of Heresy suitable stuff I already own before I get anything new.

I've had some realisation about how much stuff I have lying around that I'm not using and I want to really start cutting back on buying stuff up in advance. I'll spend a lot less money if I buy stuff just as I'm wanting to use it, and the overhead of managing a pile of boxes is quite significant!

I did play a game of Warhammer Underworlds a while ago, and quite enjoyed it. I then decided not to get into it because the idea of keeping up with that many card decks really didn't appeal. With the new Rivals format where you can just have a warband and a set deck of cards is much better for being able to dip in and out. I have some warbands commission painted from my Stormcast and other warbands are a nice "dip in" painting project size.

So I'll probably find a couple of pick up games of Underworlds to give it a go, I don't need to buy anything new to make that happen.

Not an Elder Scrolls mini

I've been seeing a couple of YouTube videos of people playing Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms, and it's been tempting me to get into it. I've got the core box without any miniatures, which will be enough to play a test game with my own miniatures. To do that, I'm going to need to finish finally tidying the hobby room, which I should get done by the end of the year.

So, Elder Scrolls can be a nice "reward" game for me. I want to give it a go, and have been trying to move towards "no models without a storage solution" for a while now. So I won't be getting this until I've cleared the hobby room sufficiently that I can make that work - and right now I've still got a bunch of models I already own with nowhere to store, so that will need sorting first!

Not a LotR mini!

Finally, I've been looking really quite thoughtfully at GW's Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. I'm hearing quite a few positive noises about it being reasonably well balanced and fun. They've also recently released some nice starter boxes, and the new models look really pretty too.

That said, I currently have enough on and I don't really know anyone who plays. So for now, it can stay as something I daydream about and look at wistfully from time to time. It's clearly the game that got a bunch of people into the hobby, so I think a lot of this is "someone else's nostalgia" feelings. I'll be keeping an eye on it for the future, though.

Reviewing February, looking forward to March and thinking about life

Starting off on a high note - the Battlemasters Chaos Archers are finished. As a club project, I'm not the last one to finish - I have finished, and they've been returned to the person co-ordinating the project to get a unified basing with everyone else's projects.

I also got a handful of individual models done this month. I'm a little unhappy with the quality on the Banshee and the Guards, but am very pleased with Hooty. A lot of this came down to a steadily growing disquiet with the amount of clutter in the hobby area. Too many "work in progress" projects sitting around has been deeply unhelpful.

I realised that having so much Stuff around takes time in and of itself. Tidying things, moving things around, trying to find things - its all time consuming. And it takes away from fun hobby time. Planning a project is definitely fun, but sorting out a never-ending pile of minis is not. I am wondering a little if the latest "sort" is causing a turning of the tide with regards my acceptance that more things need to get cleared out.

And another "are they worth it" problem are the Wizkids models. The quality just . . . isn't great, and while I can slap on some wash, a quick highlight and call them done, I am left a bit down about everything else. I mean, take these two. Pleased with: the contrast on the face of beardy guy. Unhappy with: everything else. I spent so much time cleaning up mould lines and problem areas that I could be spending, you know, painting a model? It's a similar problem to the Bones models, and Bones Black is such a step up in terms of quality, I'm already considering a bit of a purge.

That said, there's clearly stuff I am loving. Bad Squiddo stuff continues to be an absolute joy to paint, and with the assembly out-sourced, I've got a system I'm happy with.

Assembly-wise, I managed to get of most of what I got in January assembled, except the two Malifaux figures and Blackstone Fortress.

Looking forward, aside contemplating another clear out, I'm going to take another pass at assembling what I got this month. Starting off with this Mortal Realms magazine - it's a limited edition figure and I spotted that Forbidden Planet had a few left.

Ordered as a nice small project, I picked up the two referees from the new Blood Bowl box from eBay, as I don't need the whole box. I just noticed they didn't come with bases, so I need to work out what size they go on.

I also picked up these four models from Fenris. There's also a handful of metals from the same order that I'm not committing to, because I farm those out. The snake man on the left I have been meaning to get for years since I saw him at a Salute when he was already sold out. I spotted him available again with two friends, and snapped him up.

The other model is a limited edition Forge of Ice model I really liked the look of and decided to add to the order.

And finally, the big one. I got a tip off about Kill Team Rogue Trader, out of print for a good long while now, being available at list price from a retailer. The info was good and it turned up fine. Well, missing a couple of bases, but as those aren't out of print and I'm planning on using sculpted bases for the set, I don't even remember if I mailed GW Customer Service about it in the end.

Being sensible, I may not get to Rogue Trader this month. I washed a huge batch of resin in January and a ton of it is still sitting around unassembled. I'm also part way through the Mortal Realms magazine Stormcast.

So, the idea is to get the refs and the Fenris stuff done, along with the Mortal Realms magazines past and present and all this half started resin nonsense. There's an old Mortal Realms magazine I got ages ago with another order I might dig out and add as a stretch goal if that doesn't drive me up the wall.

Painting wise - it's Shasvastii time! The bugs have been patient, but it's been too long since I got one finished, and getting stuck in to one of my projects, rather than helping on a group one, is something I'm super keen to do.

Future Fridays: Warhammer Combat Patrol from Bits and Bobs

With the loss of e-books to "buy a physical book and get a code for the app", I picked up the new Codex: Space Marines given I have . . . rather a lot of Marine models and a pile of planned Marine projects - Imperial Fists guarding Terra, Deathwatch and Rainbow Warriors.

I have my big projects for the rest of this year planned out (finishing up the Wildfire Shasvastii, a Malifaux crew and a starter Skaven force) but I thought I'd have a dig about and think about what I could do with some Marines, maybe in January.

In the latest edition of 40K, there's a new 'suggested game size' of 25 Power Level or 500 points a size, called Combat Patrol. I don't much fancy massive painting projects for 40K at the moment, but I still like the look of the edition. Small games seem to be the way forward.

I work out a vague list with what I've got lying around.

I've got some Necron stuff from Indomitus I wanted to convert into something weird and creepy. The big tall tripod thing is a good basis for a Dreadnought. The floaty Necron character will become an Inquisitor. And the two stabby guard Necron constructs will be Company Veterans.

I include the Skulls pack as I know that will be the start of the conversions. I'll need some Marine weapons so they're clear on the table what they are, but a lot of the Necron looking lenses and so on are going to get skulled up.

A good friend heard I was doing a few different Marine projects and while we were swapping sprues, dropped off a bunch of Intercessors. I pulled four Intercessors out to use as the basis of the Troops choice, but I was then short a sergeant model.

I got Kor'sarro Khan in the "Supply Drop" deal. I have more Space Marine character models than I know what to do with, so super fancy sergeant he is!

My friend also included this Horus Heresy character sprue. I'm going to use the Terminator Captain here. I haven't decided if I'll also use the Chaplain for an alternative build for the Combat Patrol, or if I'll make him into a Rainbow Warrior or something...

The Intercessors are going to get some knightly heads. I think these are from the Demigryph Knight kit, but I'm not sure.

This bit from the old Empire General kit is also the sort of thing I'll be wanting to use for the look and feel. I want a weird, isolated planet feel, with lots of grime and weirdness. Probably metal and cream for a colour scheme?

Anyhow, this isn't for a while yet, but I've put these parts aside so they're all ready to go.

Future Fridays: A realistic pace

This past week, I've been on holiday, trying to focus a bit on my painting. It turned out that there was way more housework to catch up than I thought, but as Friday starts, I've got three models finished and am progressing a fourth nicely. I'll be getting onto taking nice photos of those models later for a post next week.

What it has highlighted to me is that, even if I get my painting up to "a model a day" - and I'm not there yet - there's really no need to have over 70 assembled and undercoated models sitting in the "work on next" trays.

It creates a mental clutter, a visible stress that tells my subconscious that there's no point in painting because there's too much to do. It's counter productive. So a lot of things I'm not going to be working on soon will be going away into boxes.

I'll be keeping a good handful of quick and easy paint jobs to hand to work on while I'm working on my larger projects. But I need to avoid the mistakes I've made with the Pit Fighter and the Trolls - taking a complex and time consuming paint job as a 'quick win' and getting demoralised by it taking so long to complete. They can go and sit in a box until one of my project slots opens up.

So, the idea now is that the "next project" will be out and ready to go, along with a handful of 'easy to do" paint or assembly jobs. In the meantime, I can put everything else away, and tidy a bit more of the work space.

Future Friday: Dungeons and Dragons

With lock down effectively continuing for me, I've been looking at new things to entertain myself. As a surprise to me, I've started to really get into Dungeons and Dragons.

It started off with some old friends planning a Descent into Avernus campaign. This was a situation of both a setting campaign I've been interested in playing since it came out, and also a collection of excellent people I haven't role-played with in far too long, so I jumped at the chance.

Then I decided to watch some clips of Critical Role on Youtube. Specifically, I was playing a Kenku and wanted to see how Matt Mercer had run a Kenku NPC. I found that entertaining so watched a few more clips. Then I read the wiki a bit. Then I watched an episode.

Now I've watched several whole arcs, am watching the new episodes as they come up and have a favourite ship.

(If you are interested in getting into the current, second campaign of Critical Role, I'd recommend Episodes 1 - 4, then 26 - 30, 45, 80-87, 98 and finally 105 to present (currently episode 109). This does miss much of the Fjord-Ukatoa arc and some shenanigans in Xhorhas, but I just read the summaries of those so don't know which episodes to recommend.)

Because D&D Beyond gives me access to all active D&D material while I'm in the Descent into Avernus campaign, I got reminded of quite how much I love the Eberron setting, and how I've always meant to run a campaign where the PCs are a bunch of "monsters" from the nation of Droaam trying to get their nation political recognition from the more traditional nations.

As a result, I've been writing quite a lot of campaign notes, though I won't have time to run this until one of my existing commitments is complete, it's going to take a long while to get this all written up, so it's a good time to get going.

I also feel I should absolutely recommend Exploring Eberron at this point, an unofficial supplement written by Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron. It covers a lot of the stuff he's wanted to put into more detail before but never quite had the word count for.

From a blog and miniatures point of view, this is also absolutely the excuse to give a bit of a theme and purpose to the "random models I like" projects I've had sitting around for a while. Even if I end up running on Roll20 or another online forum, I'm likely to be able to utilise pictures of my painted models to help players visualise NPCs and monsters they encounter.

Also, if my readers have some interest, while I've been noodling around some of my campaign design ideas on my Facebook, I could put some of the more developed ideas up here as I get them finalised.

Still, at the very least, hopefully it'll be a motivation to get a few more figures done.

Friday Feelings - Infinity

With the new edition of Infinity in pre-order at the moment, I'm taking a bit of a moment to look forward to my future Infinity plans.

I've loved everything Corvus Belli have said about the upcoming edition, and I'm impatient to see how it actually plays.

I'm currently working on painting up my Shasvastii. They'll be my first Infinity force I've painted myself rather than using a commission painter. I'm really stoked to see what they'll look like on the table.

Obviously, with all the Nonsense going on in the world, I've not been out much. I don't know when I'll be able to next make it down to the club to play in person. In the meantime, I'll be keeping on playing games in Tabletop Simulator so I don't forget how to play!

I've still got a whole bunch of Shasvastii who are going to need painting, so they're my top priority right now on the Infinity front.

I'm holding off on my Nomads for now as they've teased a revamp of Corregidor, and I'm expecting a new support pack and remotes box. I also want to do a whole bunch of test schemes to work out exactly how I'm going to paint them before I start putting paint on my actual Infinity figures...

Meanwhile, in the land of side projects, I have my O-12 lined up to paint - I've got the original Wildfire set, plus Starmada will be along soon enough.

I'm also super keen to get into White Company, a new mercenary faction that's been announced for the new edition. Looking at the model list, I already have an awful lot of the models you need for it. On the other hand, the colour scheme involves a lot of white, which isn't currently my strong suit. I may come to regret that...

Next steps in Infinity

Information is starting to come out about the upcoming March release of "Code One", a simplified version of the Infinity rules. This is intended to make it easier to get into the game. Then, in August, we'll see a new, fourth edition of the game.

With there now being a reasonable amount of information out now, it's got me thinking about what I'm going to do in the next edition. It's also a good opportunity to take stock, and the combination of the two was enough for me to write up a blog post documenting it.

Where I am now

Primarily, I collect Nomads and NA2 Mercenaries. With Defiance coming, I picked up Operation: Wildfire for the Shasvastii models, so have a small Shasvastii and O-12 contingent as well. Due to the breakdown of the models available to the NA2 factions I play, I can also field a Qapu Khalqi force from Haqqislam, given it consists of mostly Mercenaries. I'm painting the Shasvastii myself, and plan to paint the O-12 and Nomads. My NA2 mercenaries I get commission painted.

I'm mostly playing my Dahshat Mercenary Company seriously at tournaments this year, and signed up to play my Nomads in the HATE League because I missed them.

First steps

The first thing I'm going to want to do once N4 comes out is to get in a "test" game with each of my forces. QK are at the bottom of the list, as they're currently officially out of print, so won't get their list released on Day 1. I don't intend to do anything hugely clever in those first games - basically, take a stereotypical list for that faction, and see how it shakes out.

Painting

While I've painted none of my Nomads and a handful of my Shasvastii, I still don't own enough Shasvastii to run a sensible list. I'd originally been assembling the Shasvastii myself, but having proven to myself I can do it, I'm going to get them shipped off to my commission guy to get assembled. I can spend more of my time painting that way.

All I'm missing, in practice, for my Shasvastii is a smattering of remotes. This isn't a pricey or difficult purchase, so as soon as I'm further along with the Shasvastii painting, I'll get them in. The idea is to get to the point that when Defiance ships in November, I'll have all the current Shasvastii releases painted.

Meanwhile, while I love my Nomads to bits, the Shasvastii painting objective is a bit more achievable and would mean I could get a faction done. I've still not decided on my Nomad paint scheme and some test paints are absolutely on the "to do" list. Once I've decided the paint scheme, the idea will be to paint up a workable list, play it, then work out what to paint next to expand it.

Things to get

Outside of the very basics of Shasvastii (the Beyond box and the remotes), there's nothing I really need to get right now. The only purchases I plan to make until I've got more forces painted up are anything that's either limited edition or going out of production to mean I don't end up paying eBay prices later.

I'd like to play around with Puppetbots and the Zondnautica in Nomads, but what's the point in getting them now? I've got stuff queued up for my commission guy already that I'll get to play sooner. I'll pick them up with there's a space in the commission schedule, and preferably once I've worked out my Nomad paint scheme and have painted up a full list.

In summary

I'm really positive about where I am with Infinity. I'm enjoying the games, I'm getting stuff painted myself as well as through my commission painter, and there's a new edition coming which will mean that I get lots of fun new interactions to learn about. If anything, this means I can take my foot off the gas at the games a little bit and focus more on the modelling and painting aspect as I get ready for the new edition. But that's fine, both are fun!