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Greetings all,

Well, I am not going into 2024 with an empty pile of shame this year. This is a new thing for me.

However, I think my 2024 projects are manageable. I have a 6mm Hittite army that is about 20 bases large to complete and a box of Heroquest to paint up.



and



So, how about you? Do you have a large pile of shame you are working on?

Last year proved an odd one and I've had to pull back on game variety and focus a bit more on community building around core games. With that in mind, I currently have 5 big projects on my backlog with a few smaller ones on the side:

Judgement

2 Models

These guys are almost done. They're releasing new stuff and I'll want some of it, but this one is pretty complete and hardly worthy of being called shame at this point.

Marvel Crisis Protocol

13 Models

I have the new core set to paint and X-Men in March, but at the moment my big plan is to make some more terrain. I picked up the Sanctum on Black Friday and have an idea I'm very excited to try.

Shatterpoint

0 Models

Vader, Luke and Ewoks are all coming up so that zero won't stay round for long. This I'd also like to make some varied tables, but I'm finding design a little challenging since the game only really works with a lot of elevation changes.

Warmachine

32 Models

Ten figures here are Legacy army stuff I picked up before they were discontinued. Beyond that the new Khador models have been super fun, and I've just got all the infantry that are terrible in game and hard to get excited about. Maybe the January errata will change things.

Infinity

21 Models

Picked up the Bakkunin stuff last year and just haven't had time to get to it. Hard to get in games at the moment and I've got a very full collection of Nomads already, so its pretty low on my list.

Warhammer 40K

Going to split this in two. Not a huge 40k guy, but I like having an army on hand to make friends. When things go bad, there's always 40k to fall back on and at the moment its probably the most consistently played game in town, so I really need to beef up my options.

Deathwatch

17 models

Tenth removing chapter requirements officially and generally rewarding more varied, less spam armies has me excited to build up a robust roster and play far more than I have in the past. At the moment I'm trying to fill out my collection and have a couple of things that I see myself using regularly. Probably more to come.

Orks

22 Models

Probably my big dumb decision last year that ensured the pile would not be conqured. I've had an itch to own Orks for years and a deal came along that was just a little too good to pass up. I've painted nearly all of a 2000 point list and just mostly have vehicles to go. Sadly I suspect the January errata will ruin my plans, but its got enough variety that I should be able to build off of whatever survives.

I will paint more models in 2024 than I did in 2023.
So at least 14....

But seriously, this should not be hard to beat once I start as I'm set to begin painting:

*Solar Auxillia infantry + tanks for Legion Imperialis
Status:
•all base coated
•Tanks - 8/12 finished
•Infantry - 0/36
•Ogyns - 0/8
•Sentinels - 0/8
•Aircraft - 0/11
•Knights & Titans - 0


*a French army for Warlords Epic Waterloo
Status:
•all base coated.

So, lots of tiny infantry in my immediate future.

Oh, where to begin on my rather mountainous pile of shame. I guess I'll go by game system:

WARHAMMER 40,000:
Dark Angels: Plenty of stuff that needs paint. I don't have exact numbers, but it includes the Space Marines half of Leviathan as well as some vehicles and other Terminators, and I'll be adding the upcoming Deathwing Assault box once it drops. I also have some Outriders and ATVs to paint for my Ravenwing.
Adepta Sororitas: Still a few random Battle Sisters and a couple of characters that need some paint, plus I need to properly finish a couple of Rhinos, some Paragons, and Morvenn Vahl, as well as some Mortifiers.
Astra Militarum: Nothing at all is painted currently. I've got plenty of Wargames Atlantic Les Grognards infantry, many of which haven't even been assembled, as well as some 3D printed stuff and a few vehicles (a couple of Russes, a Manticore, and a Valkyrie), only some of which are even assembled. This army is currently very low priority and probably won't get touched this year unless something odd happens.
Adeptus Custodes: A bunch of models currently await assembly and nothing at all is painted. Might happen this year, then again it might not. Maybe if the upcoming codex is really strong it'll get bumped up the queue.
Imperial Knights: Right now, everything that is assembled is painted, but I do still own one more Questoris Knight on sprues. Not sure how badly I need to build and paint that. I might get more Armigers and/or a Dominus, and maybe even a Cerastus of some kind depending on how I feel.
Leagues of Votann: I've only painted 5 Hearthkyn Warriors, and have a few more that I started, as well as some Pioneers that I started. Nothing else is painted, and I've got about 1200 points currently. We'll see if I get around to them this year.
Tyranids: I've got enough for a full army, albeit not a competitive one, and most of it is primed ready for paint. I've got the Leviathan half and a bunch more including some 3D printed bugs, and I plan to print a few more possibly.

WARHAMMER AGE OF SIGMAR:
Stormcast Eternals: I've got about 4k points of these golden bois that need some painting love. I might end up getting more before the end of the year, too, depending on how I feel about whatever's in the edition starter (rumors say 4th edition is dropping this year).
Orruk Warclans: I recently picked up 2k points of Kruleboyz (including last year's Christmas box and a Dominion half), so that's a fair number of models including some big ones that will need some paint.

MIDDLE-EARTH STRATEGY BATTLE GAME:
The Fellowship: I've got a couple of metal sculpts each of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, plus a mounted Legolas. I do already have the Mines of Moria Fellowship models painted (albeit poorly, I did them like 15 years ago), so these are a low priority.
Thorin's Company: I've got them assembled but unpainted. Low priority.
Lothlorien: Lots of infantry and a few cavalry. I need to grab Orophin and Rumil, and possibly some Guard of the Galadhrim Court, but otherwise I already have a pretty complete collection. I just need to get them painted!
Minas Tirith: I've got a fair amount of infantry and some cav, plus several characters that all need paint.
Rohan: 18 Riders and 36 infantry, plus a bunch of characters, and I plan to 3D print some Royal Guard. None of it is painted at the moment.
The Dead of Dunharrow: I've got my infantry painted, but I need to paint up the King and his banner guys. I also need to pick up some Riders of the Dead and paint them as well.
Khazad-dum: I've got plenty of stuff that needs paint, and I need more stuff to make a viable army. Not sure it'll happen super soon.
Mordor: Nothing painted, and I've got a fairly big amount of stuff, and if I pick up the Osgiliath box I'll have a total of 60 Morannon Orcs and 3 Mordor Trolls! I need to finish my flying Witch-King at the very least, he's been in partially-painted hell for too long.
Moria: Funnily enough I've gotten a lot painted a long time ago, but I don't actually have much of a legal army, and I need to paint up some Cave Trolls. I'll need to get some characters if I want to actually run this army.
Easterlings: I've got 13 guys that have been partially painted for like 2 years now and I just haven't been able to motivate myself to finish them. I've also got a lot more stuff that is primed and needs to be painted, including some expensive Forge World units. I might pick up the Dragon Emperor sometime this year if I can spare the cash.
Variags of Khand: I've got a few models, and I want to grab a box of the Khandish Horsemen and maybe another Chariot or two. I'll paint what I've got first before I go get more. Not sure it'll happen this year either.
Dark Denizens of Mirkwood: All I have is various spiders, including the Queen and some Wargames Atlantic ones that I need to put together. Low priority for paint at the moment.

KILL TEAM:
Ork Kommandos: The whole team is partially painted, will probably be finished early this year.
Arbites Exaction Squad: I've got a team assembled, but nothing is even primed, let alone painted yet.

NECROMUNDA:
House Orlock: I've got probably a total of about 30 models, including 20 regular gangers, 8 models from the Arms Master and Wreckers set, and a couple of the Outrider quadbikes. None of it is painted, and a lot of it is unassembled.

KINGS OF WAR:
Ogres: I've got a Warlord, 9 Warriors, 3 Boomers, 3 Hunters, and 6 Shooters that all need paint. With local interest in KoW virtually nonexistent these might get put in storage instead of painted.
Empire of Dust: Lots of skelly bois, plus some Rev Cavalry and 3 Chariots. Like the Ogres these might not get much love for a bit.

INFINITY:
Yu Jing: I've got a total of 10 guys/girls, and none of them have been painted.
Haqqislam: Same as Yu Jing.
Other: A few random Mercs, none painted yet.

BOX GAMES:
Ankh: Gods of Egypt: Nothing painted yet, might happen this year, might not.
Aliens: Another Glorious Day In The Corps: I started working on the heroes from the core game, but they need to be finished. I've got plenty more from the game yet to work on.
Guildball: I've got 5 teams in total, and none of them have any paint on them. Not sure I'll get to them considering Guildball is a dead game at this point.
Rail Raiders Infinite: Haven't touched it, only bought the game on a lark, and because I thought it might be a fun diversion to paint chibi miniatures.
Primal: The Awakening: The kickstarter should finally get delivered this spring (only 2 years later than originally advertised), so it'll be something else to work on.

Good sweet Lord, that's a lot of stuff that needs paint! Obviously I won't get to all of it this year. In fact, I could go without buying anything for five years and probably not get all of this stuff done. Truly a mountain of stuff, and I keep adding yet more projects! I'm not a hoarder, honest! I just get new shiny syndrome a bit more than is healthy.

Things I'd like to tackle in 2024.

Mantic plague zombies: Got a bunch for generic modern day/scifi horde, painted some but at least 20 are still waiting. Slapchop fodder.

Btech: During 2023 I cleared a bunch of mechs for my OpFor in the House colors, but my main faction mechs have many unfinished mechs, though everything is at least base coated.

Imperium: Bought some bits, and bobs from the Japanese release, clearing them would be incredible.

Anything other than the above will be a nice bonus. Especially my unpainted Knight Dominus.

M.

 Easy E wrote:
Greetings all,

Well, I am not going into 2024 with an empty pile of shame this year. This is a new thing for me.

However, I think my 2024 projects are manageable. I have a 6mm Hittite army that is about 20 bases large to complete and a box of Heroquest to paint up.

Spoiler:

and

So, how about you? Do you have a large pile of shame you are working on?

Hey, could you put your pics in a spoiler tag?
Or at least the Heroquest one?
As is they're making your post & replies almost impossible to read on my phone.

Things I owned Jan 1, 2024 that are unpainted

One Chaos Knight

Neuro Tyrant
Tyranid Prime
2 Ripper swarms
Screamer Killer
5 artillery bugs
...whatever the spidery thing is called
10 Neurogaunts
20 Termagaunts
3 Leapers

3 stands Hold Warriors
3 stands Hold Thanes
3 stands Initiates
3 stands Wardens
3 stands Dragonslayers
3 stands Fire Forged
3 Inferno Automata

Things I bought in 2024 that are unpainted

Things I owned Jan 1, 2024 that are now painted

2 Hold Reigh
Tempered Steelshaper
Ardent Kerewah
Tempered Sorcerer
One Herald of Magma that is serving as a proxy for any of the three magic wielders above
3 stands Hold Warriors
6 stands Hold Ballistae
3 stands Hold Thanes
3 stands Fire Forged
6 stands Initiates
3 stands Dragon Slayers
3 stands of Wardens
3 stands Flame Berserkers
3 Inferno Automata
6 Steelforged
Hellfire Drake
Ironclad Drake

Things I bought in 2024 that are now painted

One Ipparchos
6 Companion Cavalry
2 stands of Thorakites
1 stand of Agema

Things removed from the pile for ... other reasons
Arcane Retinue
Tactical Retinue

Spoilered.

 Easy E wrote:
Spoilered.

That's much better, thank you.

Aim - Paint more than I buy

Borrowing the template from The Newman, though tweaking one category a little...

Note - I'm just going to be tracking GW things here.

Things I owned January 1st, 2024, WIP*

* - WIP is defined as at least undercoated, not just built. If I tried to include the unpainted stuff, the year would be over before the survey was done...
Note - this may expand as I find other WIP things I'd forgotten about, and as/when I start on things from the Pile that previously hadn't been undercoated.
Use of violet indicates they were also on the start-of-2023 list

Things I bought in 2024:
Q1
- 5 Fenrisian Wolves
- 3 bases of Nurglings
- Space Marine Captain with Jump Pack

Q2
- Solar Auxilia Command Tank
- Feculant Gnarlmaw
- 1 Deathwing Knight (Miniature of the Month)
- Talons of the Emperor Combat Patrol (10 Sisters of Silence, 5 Custodes, 3 Custodes Jetbikes)

Q3


Q4


Italics means I've ordered them, but they've not gotten to me yet...

Things I purchased in 2024, now WIP (at least undercoated)
- Nothing at present

Things I owned January 1st, 2024, now completed:
- 5 Necron Warriors with Gauss Flayers
- 3 Canoptek Scarab Swarms

Things I bought in 2024, now completed:
- 3 Nurgling bases

Net change to the Pile of Shame/Potential
29 bought, 1 acquired for free, 11 painted, so a net of +18(+19)

I’m not gonna list my pile of shame. Because even I do not know how deep it runs.

However, in the past three days I’ve done something Hobby, and now have 80 fully painted Legion Imperialis Tactical Legionnaires. Which is more than I painted in the entirety of last year.

362 days to go, and I’m expecting that this time next year I’ll have extensive and fully painted armies across multiple systems.

My Pile of Shame (or pile of opportunity) now creates its own gravity field, but I will continue to make a dent in its monolithic vastness.

Plan is to improve on my 2023 total (105 28mm minis), which will put me way ahead of any purchases I make, so a net reduction in the Pile.

Of course, I will be in the UK mid-year, and I can hear the siren song of Element Games…

 Gordy2000 wrote:
My Pile of Shame (or pile of opportunity) now creates its own gravity field, but I will continue to make a dent in its monolithic vastness.

Plan is to improve on my 2023 total (105 28mm minis), which will put me way ahead of any purchases I make, so a net reduction in the Pile.

Of course, I will be in the UK mid-year, and I can hear the siren song of Element Games…

If you want to get technical about it even a single miniature generates it's own gravity well.

I finished off my Egyptian army at the tail end of 2023. That was my big lift for 2024.



You can read about the final units and finished army on my blog if you are interested.

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2024/01/on-painting-desk-battle-of-kadesh-so-it.html

More importantly I also sorted the Hittites into their units, sorted them into bags for painting, and got started on some of the core of the army. Undercoated and applying base coats.

1/9/24: minor progress!
All of my Legion Imperiales Solar Auxilia are assembled & base coated. Technically the 1st paint I've laid down in 2024.

1/10/24: actual progress & proof that I do paint.
2 of 4 LI Leman Russ.
Certainly not Golden Demon lv & additional detailing to be added later, but ready for battle.
#3 is WiP. All 4 will be finished this evening.

And so it begins: three stands of Hold Warriors got finished this morning. Unusually slow for me, but I was sick as a dog last week and I didn't touch a brush for like four days.

Everything wot I’ve done a paint this year, so far.

14 straight days of “something hobby”

And three Inferno Automata.

And that's me completed. 100% painted for all my projects.

1479 models painted and in my display cases.



Now, I did dig out 3 old models from the 'box of shame' which are being stripped so technically, at some point I intend to do something with them!

Oh..
What's left to finish:
x2 Pallas
x1 Calladius
Valdor
x1 Venatari Custodian

What I would like to build and paint:
x1 Calladius
x30 Custodian Guard
x2 Armigers
x1 Vanilla Questoris
x1 Warhound

What's built and needs painting:
x1 Cerastus Acheron
If I manage to squeeze everything in this year, I will be one very happy person.

My first painting for 2024 was a quick Kill Team. The Hand of the Archon is now painted up and ready to hit the table. I all ready had a Craftworld, Harlequin, and corsair team so it seemed appropriate to get the Dark Eldar team. It looks like I am the "space elves" guy at the True Crit Gaming Guild.



I used Armypainter Speedpaints and got the whole Kill Team painted in about a weekend. If you are interested you can see the full process on my blog here:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2024/01/on-painting-desk-hand-of-archon-kill.html

Oh, don't get me started on my Pile of Doom. Actually, get me started on it. Well, you know what I mean.

I've got a ton of boxed games to paint: Arena: the Contest/Tanares Adventures, Borderlands: Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery, HeroQuest, Masters of the Universe: Clash for Eternia, the Gambler's Chest, and I even still have most of The Others and Mythic Battles: Pantheon waiting for paint. Cyberpunk 2077 and Mythic Battles: Ragnarok are on the way.

Dungeons and Lasers terrain, Archon Studios dragons, Ravaged Star, Reaper Bones Kickstarters, resin casts from Heresy Lab, Artel W, and Punga Miniatures. (Aside: other manufacturers should adopt the casting process that Artel and Punga use because they made the nicest resin I've ever received)

THOUSANDS of STLs waiting for me to fire up the 3D printer and bring to life.

It's so much. I really want to get into 30k. And I could easily drop $500+ on that.

I went into 2024 with this:
Things I owned January 1st, 2024, unpainted:
3 Sentinels
A box of Archon Studios Terrain
1 Sydonian Dragoon
3 Serberys Sulphurhounds
FW Gorgon heavy Transport
FW Skytalon
FW Malcador Infernus
5 Special/Heavy weapon operators from Anvil Industries
2 Characters from Anvil Industries

Finished the Sulphurhounds and I'm currently on the Rampart Terrain box (which is more fun to paint than I would have thought).

But a lot of new models are calling to me... damn it. Guess some new buys will come this year, but I promised myself to bring the pile down significantly this year, maybe even finish with a clean slate.

Ended up taking a little painting break, then took on some large terrain instead of digging into models. Back and finished up that MCP backlog. Working on Judgement, then I have a 40k pile to hack at.

I finished off some terrain pieces I had sitting around and I painted 2 bases of Hittite 6mm infantry.

Only 6 bases left to finish off the Hittite army.

My pile of shame got much larger due to the Old World. I picked up the Bret Box and some of the made to order items from the past weekend. Should be fun over the next month or so getting them painted up!

Otherwise, I've got a ton of HH stuff to paint as well 30 mk3 marines, land raider, Spartan, a Deredeo, 4 contemptors, 10 Tartarus terminators, a rhino, and a scorpius. Some will be painted as Dark Angels, the rest will be painted up either Space Wolves, Night Lords, or something else. I'm leaning towards Night Lords because they appear to have an interesting scheme.

I finished off another Kill Team in a 5- day painting challenge. A nice palette cleanser from the 6mm Hittites.



You can read about the full 5-day challenge and see the process on the Blood and Spectacles blog if that is your thing:https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2024/02/5-day-challenge-epilogue.html

That makes two Kill Teams for the year, when I intended on only painting 1. However, I still have 1 new one on route. I am all ready "Off Goal" as they say. Oh well.

Well, after being on vacation for ten straight days and delaying finishing a unit for several more because I wanted to use it and the basing glue wouldn't have dried in time I've finally finished something. Got a unit of Fire Forged done today.

And all my horses.