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

Squaduary: Iron Snake Centurion Combat Squad TO-DONE!

Hi folks,

I worked on these Centurions as hard as I could this February, but still only managed to finish three of them. At the start of this week I decided to split the project into two combat squads, when work really started getting on top of me. I think that was a good idea, because I managed to achieve some detail that would have gone missing had I pushed to complete all six. This squad is armed with non-standard wargear: assault cannon, heavy bolter, storm shield and hurricane bolters. I imagine them hunkering down behind the shield with the assault cannon protruding from the cut-out, BBBRRRrrrrtttt -ing a spear of tracers into the xenos horde.

Each combat squad leader has a helmet plume, whilst the others have no helmets for differentiation. I noticed after spending an hours or so doing freehand that I had painted this guy's snake upside down and back to front; the orientation of that shoulder piece is hard to judge! Dry fit before painting free-hand peeps. Anyway, I put a coat of grey over that top this afternoon, after giving myself a day at work to get over my mistake, and repainted it in about half an hour. 

The next guy has no helmet, which means painting eyes! I'm pretty happy how he turned out, considering the speed at which I finished all of the detail. I love the open stance of this model, this is a classic "shoot that guy" pose that I love maneuvering on the tabletop.

The last model in this squad is the test model that you have all seen before, but I will include it here for the sake of completion. I love the pose of this guy, the stride is very purposeful and he looks like he is about to swipe something with his shield.

This squad has now been added to my growing Iron Snakes army, which I am hoping to push out to 2000 points this hobby season. Centurions are very, very expensive in this edition, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting to that point limit with another three on the way.

Happy Squaduary everyone!

Marc

Squaduary: Construction Progress Part 2

Hi folks,

February is rolling on and I am still falling behind in my Squaduary pledge. I'm no too worried though, I always knew that the construction of these guys was going to take the lion's share of the time. I have managed to completely assemble two new Centurions and drill all of the barrels. With a hurricane bolter and assault cannon each, that equals 12 barrels per new Centurion. I have never been great at drilling barrels out, but after the first 24 I was getting pretty good. I still managed to stuff up quite a few of them, but I still figure that a crooked hole is better than none at all. Let's just say my painting may be above tabletop level, but my drilling isn't :-)

Sooo many barrels...

Not too bad. Still needs improvement though.

I have decided to mix and match the rest of the arms, which can be a problem with this kit if you don't keep all of the bits together. Poseability is a real issue with this kit and I am trying my best to make each Centurion look like an individual. The first new Centurion also has a Primaris head for good luck.

I like the way the second guy looks for some reason. I'm looking forward to painting his ugly mug.

It takes me about 1 hour to build the arms for each Centurion, with one pair to go. That means I should be free to start painting them on the weekend. That gives me about two weeks to paint them, so I am going to have to find some extra time. The new doggo may have to miss out on a few walks*.

See you across the table,

Marc

*[sigh] Yeah, OK. Let's go for a walk.

Squaduary: Construction Progress

Hi folks,

One week in and I don't have too much to show for it yet. Centurions are a beautiful kit to work on but contain a lot of parts that only fit one way. This is problematic when you are converting them, so I am doing a lot of ugly ground work before the final build. So far I have the bodies of two extra models completed. I am confident that I can get the last one done tomorrow but the shield arm and other weapon will be a weekend job. As my week 1 and week 2 jobs are starting to overlap, I will need to try and get the base colours in as well, hopefully by Sunday night.

That's quite a bit of flash for one (1/2?) model!

The three new Centurions will have the shield and heavy bolter combo on one arm, and an assault cannon on the other, for 13 barrels of fun. Again, these guys are never going to be used for anything remotely competitive, so the rule of cool reigns supreme.

I will need to find a third head somewhere in my bits box, as I don't want to have doubles of any bare head and I don't want to have a helmet unless it is plumed. If I dig around hard enough I should be able to find a left over bare Primaris Captain head...

See you across the table,

Marc

P.S. I am totally jealous of all you guys that have finished a squad already. My work has me flat out, like a lizard drinking.

Squaduary: Planning & Buying

Hi folks,

Last year my Squaduary run was profoundly interrupted by real life, so I didn't get my Iron Snakes Centurions finished. To make up for the head-start, I have purchased another box of Centurions, to pad out the squad a bit with grunts (no offense...). In case you haven't seen them, here are the Centurions I put together last year. I have modified them a bit to fix some issues that kept bugging me, giving Kryto his own plasma cannon (instead of a sword) and the Sergeant a different heat sink on his base. I will be drilling the barrels when all 6 models are constructed.

Kryto of Squad Aegis.

Squad Sergeant with portable heat sink.

Squad Standard Bearer. I'll be painting the standard separately and attaching later.

The plan is to construct the other three Centurions over the weekend and hopefully get the spray undercoat done. The sooner I get the free-hand Iron Snakes symbol on the shoulder pads done, the more confident I will feel at being able to finish these guys. Wish me luck ;-)

See you across the table,

Marc