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I've been wondering. Of all the miniatures you've painted over the last year, which has been your favorite to paint?


EDIT: Good at spelling am I? No.

Small steps can carry you a surprising distance. Good work on the recent Undead!

 Quixote wrote:
I've been wondering. Of all the miniatures you've painted over the last year, which has been your favorite to paint?


EDIT: Good at spelling am I? No.

Favorite to paint? Or favorite models?

Here are my top 3 models from last year.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/5160/528437.page#11721798

That said, I know I didn’t enjoy the process of painting the bike chaplain. Should have left him in more parts, hard to get a brush in places.

Anything with edge highlights is a chore, and less fun. It looks good, so I do it.

Armies like my nighthaunt, tyranids, and soulblight all paint pretty quick to a decent level. Which I enjoy. Easy hit of pleasure from finishing models. The wight king I had a lot of fun with and liked how he turned out.

I’d have to comb over my blog for my thoughts while painting. It’s harder to remember that over how I feel about the results.

Also built the first barrow knight and clipped the second. They go together pretty nice, but might be a pain to paint.

Huh. That front Barrow Knight looks well armed armoured.

How are you going to fix his base to look like the rest of your Marines, since he has his own terrain?

 Quixote wrote:
Huh. That front Barrow Knight looks well armed armoured.

How are you going to fix his base to look like the rest of your Marines, since he has his own terrain?

I usually put a little snow flock on the sculpted bases so they match.

Wights should be done with basecoats, but take a lot of touch up work. Vamp is getting layers. Apoth plodding along.

2 of the new knights built. enjoying building them so far.

Hope everyones weekend is off to a good start.

So time for some Sunday coffee musings.

The FLGS is doing an armies on parade, final is sometime in October. I’m planning on getting my Soulblight up and ready for that. One issue is army structure, what to include. My thought was both the old and new Spearhead, and a few units to round it out to 2k points. After the freeform 40k list building, needing to get everyone in a regiment is weird. Especially for a character centric army like vampires.

The Spearheads:
Vamp of foot
- 3 vargheists
- 5 blood knights
- 20 skeletons

Wight King on foot
- 5 barrow knights
- 10 barrow guard
- 20 skeletons

While I could do 40 skeletons total, I plan to just keep it to 20 to share.

Add to that:
Vamp on nightmare
- 5 barrow knights
- 10 barrow guard

Wight king on steed


Shuffle around the regiments for a little theme:
1950 points of SBGLs

Vamp of foot
- 3 vargheists
- 10 barrow guard
- 20 skeletons

Wight king on steed
- Wight King on foot
- 5 barrow knights
- 10 barrow guard

Vamp on nightmare
- 5 barrow knights
- 5 blood knights

This is most, but not all of what I own. Painted I have Manfred and the bloodborn (which would take us to around 2,500 points) and the korsagi nightguard. Units which could be added are more CC characters, 20 skeletons, a mounted wight lord

To do:
Vamp of foot - Done
Wight king on steed - Done, should be re-based to 80mm round
Vamp on nightmare - Need to buy/build/prime/paint
Wight King on foot - Need to paint
3 vargheists - Done
20 barrow guard - 4 WIP, 6 primed, 10 need to bulid/prime/paint
20 skeletons - Done
10 barrow knights - 5 done, (2 built, 3 to build)/prime/paint
5 blood knights -2 Done, 1 WIP, 2 to paint.
Display Board: Need to plan/buy/build/paint.

From a painting POV that’s (not counting current WIP) 25 models. 30 if you count the stuff on the bench. Plus the display board. I’m planning on having this be my goal for the summer painting side quest challenge. Should be doable, especially if I can overlap with the regular challenge. Heck, I did that much in the month of April.

For the display board I plan on getting a frame and using the sheet of metal I have left. Pick up something color matched close to goblin green, spray glue, and undercoat and flock it. Part of me is curious if I could make it double sided and snow flock the back, so I could flip it around as needed. I am also going to try to paint up some of the random scatter minis from CC to spice it up a little. Undead black cats, hanged skeletons, gravestones. If I was more of a hard-core player, I’d grab the faction terrain. But for $80 for something marginally useful for my list? Thinking “No”.

Now this is a 2k list with some restrictions (keeping units from both spearheads) Thematically it’s a little too foot-centric for me. I keep looking at the box that’s got the snake vampire, 10 wolves, 3 bats. I really want the wolves. Stat-wise the bats seem lackluster? For 20 more points you get vargheist, which are tougher, hit harder, etc. I’ve already got way to many heroes, and don’t like the look of the vamp But if you want the wolves/bats, she’s a free extra. Alternatively, grab a box of wolves and see if I can pick up another unit of vargheists from ebay from people splitting the spearhead. Or grab a second spearhead myself. Another 5 blood knights would not be out of place. But how much we spending on a secondary army? No rush. I’ve got enough planned to keep me busy for the summer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So hit the FLGS and got a game in. I was actually down last week, but only got a couple turns in due to some issues, so not able to complete a game.



Against my nemesis the chaos player, who has kicked my teeth in the other two times we’ve clashed. But this time I’ve got a new army book, and the ritual has been ccompleted and my vampire lord on nightmare has been forged on the anvil of apotheosis. Proxied by a blood knight until his model releases next week.

Mission is to hold the objective at the end of the game.

First turn I push forward, angling towards the objective, but closing the distance. No contact.
His turn he also keeps the range open, edging closer and moving towards the objective.\

I win the priority, and keep the turn order. I sanguine blur my foot vamp and move the mounted lord aggressively up to mug his lord. He counter charges with one of his knight units. My skeletons and vykos pile into the chaos warriors (which lasted the rest of the game as a horrid grind). I almost dropped his lord on the charge with my mounted lord, but he had a 6+ ward save, and healed a wound for each save he made. He ended up alive with one wound left. He swung at my foot vamp, and shaved 4 out of 5 wounds off her. In response, she pulls him off his horse and opens up his neck, conveniently healing up all her wounds in the end phase by killing him. His knights may have put a wound on the mounted lord (his dice were cold most of the game) but if he did I just healed up.

My mounted wights failed their charge and hung back.

His turn he falls back out of combat with one unit of knights to make room for the other unit to plow in. Plus the Minotaur guys. They put the hurt down on my mounted lord, making him flee the battle in a swarm of bats (killing him, mechanically. He’s got an ability that does mortal wounds to all enemies around him when he dies with a fun special effect). The grind continues in the midfield.

I win priority again, maintain turn order and go next.

Foot vamp pulls the sanguine blur to relocate next to the sorcerer. Mounted units make some long charges to tag the knights, although the lord can only reach to sorcerer. He kills it, my knights light into his, as does my vamp. Kill 2 of them. Some wounds in return, but not enough to kill anything.

He chooses to retire from the battle, maintaining his forces and ceding the field.

Victory to the Soulblight!



I warned him that my new mounted vamp hit like a truck. So I don’t feel bad about taking a tricked out vampire lord. To be fair, Nevelon the Betrayer has been dropping Chaos Lords since WHFB 5th edition. Not many things in the World that Was could cross swords with Chaos generals, but a moderately geared vamp was one of them. Nice to see he still has it. We were both using mid-tier heroes, so it was actually a fair fight. As opposed to before, where his lord would basically run rough shod over my army.

New rules feel stronger then the index rules, but not crazy so. And some of them didn’t even come up. I feel like I’m in a good place, and am being better about remembering my rules. Although I do end up spending a lot of time flipping and checking, and forgetting stuff. So many bonuses tucked in odd places. Even with the cards it’s hard to keep track.

Next up for the wights is to clean up the straps a little and the bone. Then wash.

Medic should be almost done with basecoats.

Vamp is slowly getting there.

Built the 3rd barrow knight. 2 more basic lancers left.

Build progress. Pics of the barrow guard waiting for baseing. Apoth progress.



So looking ahead, what’s on deck for the summer?

Competitions:
June is Slow and Steady.
July is Sidekicks
Summer is a mega open round.
By October I want to have an army on parade done.

I have 4 barrow guard on the handles now, but haven’t started them. I think I’ll do them for June, as undead footsloggers fit the topic well. I’ll try to get the second 10 built (they will be sword and board) and maybe get them all done in the month.

July is sidekicks. I was thinking of some of the markers/little guys from the CC set. But also might do some of the wight characters. In the world of the Soulblight Gravelords, they are second fiddle to the vampires. At least in my army.

The summer quest is going to be the AoP. I’ve got my goal a few posts up.

We’ll see what the August comp is and if I can fit more into it. I’m not going to be reserving any project on a “what if” and in an ideal world will be mostly done by then. Unlike most past years I don’t have any summer vacations planned, so hobby time should be good. I might even blow a week of PTO for a staycation. we’ll see.

Short term plans are to keep building, and get some gaunts on the handles and get some nids done this next week. Next week I’ll start in on the undead, and keep pushing those all summer.

Edit:
The HH 3.0 stuff looks cool, but not a huge fan of Mk II or the saturnine stuff. Not enough to spring for another giant box when the last one is largely unbuilt. I still have a HH army on the back burner, and might pick up some things (like breacher shields) to add to it. I’m not planning on investing in the rules for this edition. I’ll build stuff to be compliant with the last rules, and see where I stand when 4th rolls around.

So much progress! Looks amazing.

When you're done, can I mail my army to you to finish for me?

I'm amazed how fast you paint.

blockade23 wrote:So much progress! Looks amazing.

Lathe Biosas wrote:When you're done, can I mail my army to you to finish for me?

I'm amazed how fast you paint.

Slow and Steady! Even at my recent elevated clip I still have a few years of backlog to work through. And that’s just the built, on-deck stuff. And not buying anything new. While the Pile of Shame is not crazy huge, it’s got a lot of stuff in it. especially if I start to really dig.



So set up the plan for the Army on Parade. Some stuff to buy, build and paint. But all summer to do it.

What is your Armies on Parade board you're using?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
What is your Armies on Parade board you're using?

This is just for size. It’s half the board used for Spearhead.

The plan is to get a picture frame, and use that with some sheet metal to make a magnetized flocked tray. Size should be roughly 15"x22"

 Nevelon wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
What is your Armies on Parade board you're using?

This is just for size. It’s half the board used for Spearhead.

The plan is to get a picture frame, and use that with some sheet metal to make a magnetized flocked tray. Size should be roughly 15"x22"

Wow. You're going all out on this. That's really awesome.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
What is your Armies on Parade board you're using?

This is just for size. It’s half the board used for Spearhead.

The plan is to get a picture frame, and use that with some sheet metal to make a magnetized flocked tray. Size should be roughly 15"x22"

Wow. You're going all out on this. That's really awesome.

To be fair, I already have most of what I need. When I first started making magentic boxes I bought a large sheet of steel. Enough for ~10 boxes IIRC. I made 4 to start. But it was a PITA. When I found I could just get pre-cut sheets roughly the right size, I did that for the next batch, and will do so moving forward. I think the sheet left is about 24”x18”. So it will just need a little trim to get down to size.

I either need to buy some camo green spray paint, or just mix some cheep craft paints to get something close to the right shade of goblin green. Don’t want bare metal showing though.
Spray glue the surface
Scatter flock.
Spray glue again to lock it down
Put in frame.

I want to check the local craft stores for frames. But I can get something from Amazon for like $20-25.
Spray glue and paint should not be more then $5 a can, but will need to checck the hardware store.
I have flock, but even if I didn’t, it’s like $15 for a lifetime supply of Woodland Scenics.
The metal would be the major expense if I didn’t have it already. Probably $40-50ish. Assuming I couldn’t source something cheeper.

One trick is I’m going to try to make it double sided, with grass on one side and snow on the other.

So hit the FLGS for a game. Nobody was there for PtG, but a guy was looking for a spearhead game to get into the hobby. Didn’t quite have it, but subbed some black knights for blood knights and gave it a go.

His dice were really hot on the armor save for the trolls. they took forever to kill. solid anvil. But I managed to carve through, tableing him in the 4th turn. Fun was had, game was learned, all was good.

Got the purple on some nids this morning before heading ddown, not much else from the paint bench.

Picked up the mounted vampire lord, he’s next on the build front. Want him up and running ASAP.

Unholy glowup. If the weather stays nice, might be able to prime this afternoon.

Put the white contrast on the apothecary. Clean up of some details next. Some coverage issues I’m not sure I’ll go back and touch up. Han’t given him a good look post dry.

Vamp should be done with basecoats. Need to do a few cleanup passes and then inks.

Gaunts got their black wash this morning. Eyes/teeth/tounges and cleanup to go.

Edit:
I managed to prime yesterday. So 5 barrow knights, 5 intercessors, and the vamp lord ready to go when time permits.

There is no scale creep on Fenris...

New lord looking to be quite the impressive model. Can't wait to see how he turns out.

Good luck with the Army on Parade Nev.

Cheers,

CB

So he’s done. Kinda meh on him. Could be better, could be worse. Also got the 4 gaunts based and off to the YTD shelf. They are the last of the hormagants. They also let me check off the unit as completed. Doing really well for all my non-marine goals.

Ordered a frame for the display board. Slightly bigger (16x24) then I was originally planning. My target space is like 15x22 and a quarter inches. Due to some space being lost into the frame I was thinking of 16x23. Going with 24” means I just need to trim a couple inches off one side, which will be easier. Plus I think it’s a more standard poster size, and I was able to get it on sale.

I should read up on flocking boards instead of just remembering stuff I read about a few decades ago. I should also do a magnet grip test to see how much the flock interferes with holding on. If it’s too loose I’ll forgo the flock, and just mottle some greens and browns to make a backdrop for the army.

Almost done building the barrow guard. 4 more to go. The one issue with the kit is the lack of options for the standard bearer and the drummer. I did an arm swap for the banner, so one has a sword, the other a shield. Musician just has a slightly different hat, The last 2 guys I’m going to cut the pegs off of arms and play around with options, as I already build those bodies once with sword and shields. Should not be hard to get new poses out of them.

Quick update:
Finished building the barrow guard. Arms were a little fussy, but not horrible. So the last batch of 10 is ready for the to-prime pile. Might build the new wight lord next just to finish out the deathrattle box. or 10 more skeletons while I’m in the grove. Not sure what else is kicking around that needs work. I’ll have to shake the PoS and see what falls out.

Almost done with the WIP Blood Knight. She needs her eyes and a touch of red in her mouth, and basework. Hopefully move her off the painting handle tonight.

Finally got around to flocking the vamp/guard. Off to the YTD shelf. Or more likely the travel box.

I got a game in Sunday, didn’t get around to uploading.

Assassination mission, he needed to kill my general. I just can’t sit back and play tacticaly. I needed to charge in for glory. And due to the timeing, got slapped down. Should have been more patient. I also got to remeber not to get stick into his tarpit of chaos warriors, who tied up my mounted wights all game. I should just feed them a block of skeletons and call it a day.

The game was a loss, but after my general went down, I pivoted to collecting embershards, and got a chunk of those to help advance my army.

In painting news got some reds down. Need to pick up the pace a bit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Cut to fit. Had to shave about 2” off one side of the remaining sheet. If I had to do it again, I’d just by a four pack of 8x12 metal sheets (like what I got for the last batch of boxes). Nothing against the tin snips. They work a lot better for cutting a narrow strip then 8” wide chunks. This pass was a LOT easier then before.

Need to hit the hardware store for some green paint. Might skip the spray glue and just run some 50/50 water/PVA through a spray bottle. Saw them do that on a flock demo.

Layers going down.

Stuck some more magnets into bases as well. Will need at least one more batch; have the 10 wights I just build plus all the stuff on handles need them before this project is over.

Well, the End Times are surely upon us. Prepare your souls for the rapture. It took 123 tries, but my apothecary won the monthly challenge for me. Which wraps up my collection of medals.

Bronze:

Silver:

Gold:


It was a light month of entrants, and some of the normal medalists were not participating. But still a little surprised I did so well. Didn’t even share the win. While there was a 3-way tie for both 3rd and 4th place, I had 3 more votes then 2nd. Which while not a massive margin, is actually a fairly comfortable one. I think adherence to the theme did a lot of the heavy lifting here, as the paint is not much better then my normal middle of the pack table top standard.

--

Got the browns down yesterday. Just a few more basecoats on this batch. Plugging along. Also picked up some flat green olive drab spraypaint at the store. I should have everything I need to get the board done now. Just need a decent day to spray.

Congratulations, Nev!

Thanks



I’ve packed a 1k Eldar list in case nobody showed up for AoS. Played it yesterday. I need a simpler list to keep on the back burner. I did OK for the first half, but crumpled badly in the second. So many things I forgot about that would have helped. Anyway, fun was had, game was played.

Congrads on the win. I don't know if my local shop has any painting contests.