2019/20 Hobby Season Review

 

Hi folks,

When I was preparing for the 2019/20 Hobby Season I was coming off the back of a pretty hard year, so I wasn't too ambitious with my To-Do list. I was a bit disenchanted by 40K, so focussed mainly on aiming to get my Space Hulk set painted. As you all know, this year really has been balls. I spent most of summer in Tasmania, which was amazing, but when I came home I always had one eye on the horizon and the other on my Bushfires Near Me app. With some time spent working from home due to the pandemic, you would think that there would be some extra time for painting, but it just wasn't the case. As a teacher, I found my workload more than doubled; things that I could usually do quickly were taking me a lot longer. Despite that, I did manage to do a whole of bunch of stuff I would have never imagined when I wrote my To-Do list. And, no, I didn't get my whole Space Hulk set painted...

Here is a trip down memory lane:

Warhammer 40K

Iron Snakes

A big year for my Iron Snakes, I managed to finish a 2000 points army that included some new Primaries figures. Squad Damocles, a 10 man Intercessor squad equipped with boarding shields, was completed for Squaduary.

Imperial Knights

For DreadTober I completed the second knight of my Walls of Ithaka detachment. This is "Theseus" Ferrum Fortis (Strong Punch!). 

Dark Angels

For Armour in April I finished this Landraider Excelsior, just in time for it to be relegated to "Legends" (or whatever they call those things now). Ah well, still a cool model, and very likely to be used in my casual games.

2nd Edition Army Challenge

Recently I have embarked on a 6 month challenge to complete a 1000 point army using 2nd Edition sculpts. I have opted for a classic Dark Angels scheme, starting the challenge with a repaint of two of my oldest figures; a Deathwing Master and Dreadnought.

Age of Sigmar

This year I managed to finish some figures that my daughter had chosen for herself. I also caught the Age of Sigmar bug and dove into Sylvaneth. To help motivate me as I started I entered some painting competitions along the way, all at my local Warhammer store. I won the Brushmaster title for the Treelord Ancient and the Kurnoth Hunters, with both the Kurnoth Hunters and my daughters Sisters of the Thorn featured for a short time on the Age of Sigmar Facebook group! Small wins, but they sure did keep me going during the tough initial slog through isolation. To be honest, the Treelord is probably my best work, it really, really, challenged me. 

Space Hulk

Well, this was meant to be the focus of my season. If you have managed to get to this stage in the post you can see just how distracted I was! I did manage to get the commanders done for each of the teams apart from the Fallen, which I painted the full team for. Calistarius, the Blood Angels Librarian was the real highlight, completed for The Jewel of July community challenge. The Broodlord was my Monster March entry.

Kill Team

I managed to speed-paint a H. R. Giger inspired Kill Team, as an alternative to my 4 Lictor murder list. I haven't tried it out yet, but I sure am looking forward to the Aliens quotes.

BattleTech

I know most of you are here for the 40K, and perhaps meander into Age of Sigmar like I do as well. But I also play a couple of other systems that do a great job of dividing my attention. With the delays to the Clan Invasion Kickstarter, BattleTech hasn't drawn my attention as much as it could have this year, but I still managed to paint a neat lance of mercenaries and a larger scaled piece for my mate Wade.

 

Phew, that's it, I think. 2019/20 has been crazy busy. I managed to get a lot more done than I ever intended, but I am still glad to put this year behind me. Tomorrow I will post my To-Do list for 2020/21!

See you across the table,

Marc

Space Hulk: Fallen Angels Boarding Party TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

I have juuuuust managed to squeeze one last project out of the 2019/20 Hobby Season. This is a squad Fallen terminators I will be using for Space Hulk, Kill Team and perhaps a small 40K army. The paint scheme for Fallen is pretty simple, so I made it harder for myself and added some checkered patterns. If you look close enough at them you can see they are not quite as neat and even as they should be, but in large amounts I think they are a cool addition.

Well, that's it for this season. Tomorrow I will post a season wrap-up with all that has been achieved and some of what could have been. After that I'll have a new To-Do list, full of interesting projects for 9th Edition, 2nd Edition, Kill Team, Space Hulk and Age of Sigmar. I have not decided what I will work on next; with the release of 9th Edition, the current 2nd Edition Army challenge and DreadTober around the corner, I am spoiled for choices! But I am getting ahead of myself; here is my last TO-DONE of the season!!

See you across the table,

Marc

Space Hulk: Fallen Angels Test Model

 

Hi folks,

Just a quick update today, as I am knackered from work and have a couple of hours of work lesson prep to do before tomorrow. Last weekend I worked on a test paint-scheme for my Fallen Angel boarding party and came up with this guy. I have used a combination of the checkered patterns on the Forgeworld 30K Dark Angels with the red helmet stripe of old school Dark Angels.

 

I am happy with how neat the job turned out, especially considering how fast I cranked through the free-hand parts. They are far from perfect, but at this stage I just need to get them finished. The bases are 32 mm, which is perfect for Space Hulk but a tad small for 40K; I doubt anyone I play against would care though.

With the test model fairly successful, I'm happy to commit to the next four over the next couple of days. With 11 days left in this Hobby Season I may just fit a squad of Blood Angels in as well! Fingers crossed!

See you across the table,

Marc

The Jewel of July 2020: Lexicanium Calistarius

Hi folks,

I have taken a final photograph of my Blood Angels Librarian before clearing a space for him on the shelf. I didn't make a big deal of it before, as I joined the party fairly late, but Calistarius also happens to be my contribution to The Jewel of July, a community painting challenge run by Azazel, at Azazel's Bitz Box. I thundered through the challenge, so that I could get it finished before the end of the school holidays, knowing that once work (teaching) starts again I would have very little time. As a result, I have finished "early"! 

To cut a short story long, I now have two spare weeks in which I could paint another Jewel in July for my collection. I received two, stunning, miniatures for my Birthday on the 13th that would fit the bill. I have a habit of not painting my presents for years, which I hate, so painting one now would set my heart at ease a little. 

Sgt Waz gave me Master Lazarus the last time I saw him, which is an awesome Dark Angels model with heaps of conversion options. 

 

I am a big fan of the 3rd Company, and Lazarus is Master of the 5th, so converting him a little is definitely on the cards. I happened to come across this picture on Instagram, which I think is particularly evocative. A great mix of Primaris and Mark III style, old school gold trim on the armour and a dynamic pose. Full credit goes to StoryKillinger for the artwork... I am going to try and make him!

He is going to be my Primaris Master of the 3rd Company, at least until Games Workshop publishes something to the contrary (which could be next month...). I am not quite sure what to name him yet. Perhaps Azazel? If you have any ideas feel free to leave them in the comments!

See you across the table,

Marc

Space Hulk: Commanders TO-DONE!!!

Hi folks,

Just a quick progress report on my Space Hulk progress today, before I start working on some of the boarding parties more seriously. Over the past couple of days I had some free time to work on Lexicanium Calistarius, the Blood Angels Librarian. Of course Calistarius would later fall to the Black Rage before the walls at Hades Hive and be inducted into the Death Company. Trapped beneath a collapsed building for seven days during the fighting, Calistarius overcame the Black Rage and was reborn as Mephiston, Lord of Death (who just happens to be one of my favourite characters of all time).

I painted him using a very different colour palette to what I would usually gravitate towards. I was aiming for a retro 90's vibe! I'm really happy with how neat I managed to get the paint job, which has built a little more confidence in my ability to tackle the next stage. Each of the miniatures in the set is essentially a special character's worth of detail, so I am going to be very busy. We are also facing some pretty heavy rain in Sydney over the next week, so I am not sure if I am going to be able to use my airbrush.

The other Space Marine commander I have painted is Belial. Belial's ability with a sword is legendary. During his testing as an aspirant, he managed to duel with a Chaplain for 7 minutes. He was the Master of the 3rd Company (my favourite!) during the successful defence of Piscina and elevated to a position in the Deathwing terminator company. I have equipped him as a Captain in Space Hulk, which is a real witches brew of ranged and close combat wargear: stormbolter, auxiliary grenade launcher, powersword and powerfist. The addition of the Watcher in the Dark helps with the problem of "too many weapons, not enough hands"!

Again, lots of bright colours and white armour instead of the usual bone, to match the original paint scheme.

The final figure in the trilogy is the Genestealer Broodlord. Born time and time again to execute the will of the Hive Mind, the Broodlord is the perfect killing machine. I love the purple on this guy, the pigment I used is really fruity, and will tie in well with the retro colours I am using for the marines (in theory).

Originally I was going to do a Fallen Angel Librarian as well, but I don't have a suitable figure for that, as the boarding team itself is in Tartaros pattern armour. I'll sort that one out at a later date. Until then, I deserve a badge for my efforts!

See you across the table,

Marc

Space Hulk: Boarding Team Big Build

Hi folks,

We are coming to the end of another Hobby Season and, as usual, I have done very little this year to address my To-Do list. I have done heaps of stuff, just very little that I originally intended to do. I have grown quite philosophical about this over the previous years, though looking back on the list itself, I did have some really fun stuff in there. My original idea was to have a really hard craic at my Space Hulk miniatures so that I could play a couple of more spectacular games with my mates. Now that I am on school holidays for a couple of weeks, I have decided to start working to tick off some of these projects. The picture above is the Blood Angels team, which is used in a lot of the earlier missions, consisting of a Sergeant with powersword and storm bolter, marine with heavy flamer and powerfist and three marines with storm bolters and powerfists. Just the basics really.

I have replaced the models of the second team with Deathwing variants, including one that could represent an Apothecary, using some of the more advanced rules I have. I like the Blood Angels variants of these models as well, but they will need to wait for another Hobby Season, I think. I really love how the thunder hammer sergeant turned out and can't wait to paint him!

To finish off the I also constructed a Fallen Angel boarding team in Tartaros armour, that can act as a replacement for the Blood Angels, act as a stand alone team or engage in some PvP action. I am hoping to put together some homebrew rules so that they can be used as some alternative enemy models in the normal game as well. I can imagine the Deathwing player trying to hunt them down, while the Blood Angels player is desperately crying out for support defeating the genestealers...

Time to start painting again, methinks.

See you across the table,

Marc

Monster March: Space Hulk Broodlord TO-DONE!!!

Hi folks,

I have finished my Monster March project a week ahead of schedule because, as mentioned in my previous post, I now have much bigger (and woodier) fish to fry. This Broodlord is special for two reasons: it is one of the characters on my 2019/20 To-Do list and the paint scheme is a significant departure from my usual speed-painted metallics.

Instead, I chose a more classical genestealer scheme. The paints I used were Purple (Model Colour) and Periscope (Panzer Aces), from Vallejo. This will be really handy when it comes around to painting the normal genestealers, as I will be able to use the airbrush for most of the scheme.

I painted a mixture of Deathwing and Blood Angels Terminator helmets on the base, as I am hoping to have models to represent both factions in my set. Painting all of those skulls was a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. After the initial coat and washes they looked very messy, so I needed to touch each one up with Bleached Bone and white to make them presentable. I enjoyed weathering the buggins out of the rest of the base, though.

Pink isn't a colour I use very often, but I think I managed to get it right on the tongue. Even though they were small, the teeth were a lot of fun to paint; I don't think I have painted white teeth before!

Part of me wishes I had pushed the highlights a little brighter, but finished is better than perfect at this stage. From this angle you can also see the Deathwing helm in the Broodlords claw. I think the white contrasts nicely against the darker carapace armour.

Next in the Space Hulk project I will be painting the Blood Angels Librarian, to round-out the characters. That won't be for a while though, as I tackle the Sylvaneth Treelord for the Monsters painting competition and finally... finally... finish the Sisters of the Thorn for Penny. Until then, it is definitely time to give myself a stamp!

 

See you across the table,

Marc