The Grand Old Duke Of Norfolk's Backlog?

   I'm still carrying on with a backlog army in the form of the Yorkist Duke Of Norfolk for the War of the Roses. As I am painting them I am really getting the urge to put them on the table, but as I explained in the last post about this army, this is very much a painting project to just clear some backlog at the moment.

   This post should be the last of the 'basic' army - the last unit of leveried archers, another couple of units of foot knights (one not shown but it has the flags) and a unit of billmen. Looking back at my Lancastrian armies, I used a lot of the fully armoured models as billmen to balance those numbers out, so there is a risk the two units of knights are actually billmen.

   I have since found a pack of metal billmen that I don't remember buying and aren't on my backlog spreadsheet, but they are built and sprayed and will be painted at some point soon.

  I also need at least half a box of the Perry Mounted Knights, but as they are my least favourite models to paint - even if they are fun on the table top - I'll hold off buying them until it looks like I might actually use this army. I must keep the backlog in mind rather than add to it.

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Where Did Our Horses Go?

   After my car crash a few weeks back, I've been stuck in the shoffice* far more with a lot less to do, this has meant I've been able to spend time trying to get on top of my backlog. I decided that the best thing to do was focus on just getting units off the list, without any order of priority or worry about whether I needed them for an upcoming game or not.

*shed/office

   I did end up focussing a bit on my Yorkist War of the Roses army as they were to hand, but I'm also going through whatever units are built and sprayed on the shelves near me. This post is about the ACW Confederate dismounted cavalry - after I finished their mounted versions back in 2023.

   I bought these figures in at least 2023, but I suspect a bit earlier, as we were trying slightly amended rules for cavalry in the American Civil War, with them dismounting to really shoot. I ended up rush painting the mounted versions for a game in 2023 and these were ready to be painted but didn't get close to the top of the queue.

   The horse holders for the unit were also built and sprayed about the same time, but were actually painted a month or so ago when I had a game of ACW lined up and I used it as an opportunity to just try and paint something for the project, but I didn't feel they deserved a post.

   I'm not going to rush to paint more for this project, mostly as I don't have any space in the boxes it would live in, but I do have another cannon with associated limber built and sprayed, I just can't find the cannon crew for some reason.

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Ork Boyz

   Another post slightly out of time as I was trying aiming to get some more painted and get a game in all about the time I started posting this project, but there it is anyway.

   While I was painting my Beast Snagga Orks, I very much had half a plan on doing a small regular Ork army as well. As per normal, starting with the combat patrol for a 'legal' army and working from there, but as it wasn't a priority and as I knew they were being covered by the combat patrol magazine, I kept the project on the back burner.

   Then July and August had the models in the magazine and I bought fairly conservatively, buying slightly more than I needed for the patrol itself but not clearing shelves as I would hope the magazines I left would be bought by kids new into the hobby*. The first unit I built and painted, as is my rule, was a unit of regular troops - the boyz. These were built completely as per the magazine with no funny business and then I got on with painting - all 10 in a single batch in a single sitting, which wasn't the plan going into it.

*Although I know one guy in my area was definitely clearing shelves to sell on ebay as he sometimes beats me to the shop

   I kept to a similar theory as my Beast Snaggas, keep the clothes fairly plain - in this case brown trousers and black tops (as the other Orks didn't have tops to worry about), but as I didn't have the blocks of skins to plan into my colours, I allowed myself far more freedom with brighter colours on the flat armour plates.

   For a first squad, I'm quite pleased with them. They can happily fight in the same army as my other Orks without looking identical. They are covered in dags, checks and flames, all the good stuff Orks love to paint, and because it's Orks, I don't need to do them perfectly, so I can just enjoy trying ideas.

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Atakam the Defiler

   Atakam the Defiler, his origins are obscure, dating back over 10,000 years but it seems he was a sergeant in the World Eaters' legion during the events of the Siege of Terra, quickly rising through the ranks with Khorne's favour in the years afterwards. Ultimately achieving Daemonhood on Chetis 4 during the Imperial invasion.

   The model is a Daemon Prince using the new version of the model. This is a rebuild of an old Daemon Prince I did over a decade ago that I was never really that happy with. The power claw arm is from an old resin Ghazghkull and took a bit of hacking to make fit, but it looks so good in person.

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Late Re-enforcements?

   Nearly a year ago now, I started building and painting a project that I bought in 2020 - my War of the Roses Yorkists. I built two sprues, sprayed and painted one, then lost focus*. With very little gaming going on and my real relaxation focus being on running, I've really slowed down in my painting, but as I'm also not really buying, that doesn't feel like quite the same issue. I've decided to just have a push on getting units and armies out of my backlog without any real care of what they are - if I can paint 7 units from 7 different armies, that's still 7 units off my backlog**.

*I'm really bad at this

**although, I'm going to try and do groups of units if I can

   So, in December last year, I had a mini stress about why the Yorkist side of my WotR project hadn't been finished as mentioned in this post. The second and third batches have been built and sprayed, sitting on a shelf next to my painting desk, being moved out of the way every time I've done anything - so these are a prime candidate to just get painted***.

***if it means the rest of the project gets a bump, that's a happy result

   Like the last batch, these are the Duke of Norfolk's (John Mowbray) infantry with their red liveries. I think I only have a single batch of regular infantry left in this project, plus various foot knights - so many foot knights?!? - but I will aim to get another sprue of from the Perry brothers to do some unliveried archers too in the future. 

Foot Knights

The mixed peasants

This project is starting to feel doable - hopefully the next post won't be late 2026 . . .

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Squighogs!

   It's Orktober and I want some projects finished, so here's the last unit for my Beast Snagga Ork combat patrol - the Squighogs.

   I complained bitterly on the main Beast Snagga post about not breaking the 3 colour rule, so adding squigs into the mix has only amplified the problem - with green and now red filling 2/3s of that rule without even trying.

   I have also found in the past that red is a colour that you can wash, highlight and still end up with a blob of indistinct red, so looking online, someone recommended a purple base coat and no washes, so I tried that out and I am really quite pleased.

I'm also quite enjoying painting Ork check patterns

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Just So Angry

   While I've only been to the new club twice now and I'm not able to go for another few months, but the two games I have played have made me rethink how I am collecting some of my 40k armies. The games I've tended to play in the last couple of years have been fairly small - Combat Patrol or 1500 points or much less, while this club is playing the more 'standard' points limit of 2000 points. This has made me realise that quite a lot of my armies are just so small - normally pushing over 1000 points with a few that are 1500 - 1700, but that would be using the whole collection and not a thought out army.

   I've been writing a fair few lists for my two chaos armies - aiming to focus on a single area before I spread out too much into other projects. Which one became the army that had the money spent on it was the reason I hadn't spent any money, I just couldn't decide, until chatting to one of my mates about the two collections and I made a passing comment that I thought my World Eaters were my better painted army and that in time I'd like to go back and re-tidy my regular chaos. He suggested that I finish the army I think is better painted, so that I can happily play any games I'm offered, to give me time to go back to the other army.

   So I picked the list I thought would be the most fun (and cost the least) and bought a unit or two for it. At the same time as I'd made decision, my birthday came around and my brothers, unprompted, bought me a *model for that army too. So, I got painting.

*big big

   This post is the units I've finished for my World Eaters;

Berserker Surgeon - Master of Executions. I'm not a huge fan of the base model and seeing a lot of World Eaters players taking the full 3 allowed to buff squads just looks ridiculous, but the fluff keeps going on about how the World Eaters basically only still exist because they have a strong cadre of berserker surgeons and the Fabius Bile backpack I found in the box from Phil, really got me thinking.

By my reckoning, beside the base model and the backpack, there are at least 3 other kits on show here including parts from the berserker sprues.

I am incredibly pleased with this model.

My second Hell Brute - this one a bit more basic in terms of weapons - a pair of fists with flamers in each but I was pleased with how it came out.

A old spawn model I bought online as I need pairs of spawn to make a legal unit and I only had the single one. I will add a box to round out to four in the future.

Next up is a Slaughterbound HQ. This is the newest HQ model for this army and I knew I wanted one when they came out. I gave this guy light skin so that the other stuff on the model would pop.

An unit of Exalted Eightbound, which are the elite version of the Eightbound box. These guys are never seen in current lists as they currently aren't very good but I have a Slaughterbound which is the Eightbound version of a HQ, so I wanted his units available to me. Plus units in 40k might be terrible this month and great next month, so having them in my arsenal just makes sense.

The last unit for this batch is a second rhino for the army. This is another model that I made from Phil's box - the more bits of this I found as I went through the box , the more hopeful I was that I could build a whole one.

I tried to make this one look more like a fairly recently captured Imperial one rather than a historic vehicle from their armoury.

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