Time Flies (and More Confessions of a Hoarder)

Sorry my updates have been so sporadic recently. We're currently in the process of moving house. Or rather, we moved almost 2 weeks ago, but the renovation work on the new place is not yet finished and so we're currently living in a state of chaos. The room where all my miniatures will be living is still receiving finishing touches and I don't yet have a working painting setup. Most of my models are still packed away (as is my good camera somewhere)...

Help! Someone locked us in here and we can't get out!

Drawers stuffed full of stuff that will need to find a new home once I'm set up.

And this is where it's all meant to end up. Most of my painted models are still in those cases in the first picture, but I think there may actually be room for them all in the new display cabinets. Note that most of these cupboards still need handles, and I think I'm going to have to add some lighting too.

Anyway, with no real spare time for gaming, my models in a confused state and my paint station not yet properly established, it's not really surprising that the blog updates have been a bit thin. Hopefully we'll break the back of it soon and normal service can resume. Whatever that is...

In the meantime, I was looking back at some of my older posts and realised that it won't be long until the Hoodling's Hole celebrates its 5th birthday! Hard to believe, really. A lot can happen in 5 years, and one of the things I was looking at was this post: Confessions of a Hoarder. The post included a rough list of my armies and where they were at in terms of battle readiness (ie paintedness). The list is now obviously out of date, so I looked at a few numbers.


Since I started the blog, I appear to have painted around 850 models. This is a bit of an estimate, counting unit fillers as multiple models but things like war machines and monsters (20 or so) as single models. It's probably about right. Here's a bit of a summary. Given I am used to talking about things in Warhammer terms, that's how I will continue to break things down here:

Models painted in the last 5 years

Empire
Models: 590
Points (8th ed): 12,000

Other
Models: 260
Points (8th ed): 10,000

Total Painted
Models: 850
Points (8th ed): 22,000

The heavy Empire slant should come as no surprise to long-term readers, but the other armies have not been completely neglected with reasonable additions to my High Elves, Dwarfs and Dark Elves, as well as the odd Ogre and Orc monster. All in all, it works out at about 170 models per year. It's not necessarily a breakneck pace, but it's steady output over an extended period of time. In fact it should have been enough to actually help my improve my percentage of models/armies painted, right? Right? Errr... 

Army estimates 5 years ago

• 12,000pts High Elves (maybe 6K painted)
• 15,000pts Orcs and Goblins (8K painted)
• 8,000pts Wood Elves (5K painted)
• 8,000pts Empire (3K painted)
• 8,000pts Dwarfs (2.5K painted)
• 5,000pts Ogre Kingdoms (3K painted)
• 8,000pts Bretonnians (pretty much unpainted)
• 4,000pts Dark Elves (pretty much unpainted)

TOTAL: 68,000pts (27.5K painted)

Army estimates today

• 20,000pts High Elves (8K painted)
• 20,000pts Orcs and Goblins (10K painted)
• 12,000pts Wood Elves (5K painted)
• 30,000pts Empire (18K painted)
• 15,000pts Dwarfs (6.5K painted)
• 8,000pts Ogre Kingdoms (3.5K painted)
• 8,000pts Bretonnians (pretty much unpainted)
• 6,000pts Dark Elves (2K painted)
• 5,000pts Beastmen (some 2nd hand paint jobs - nothing painted by me)

TOTAL: 124,000pts (53K painted)

Obviously some of these estimates are pretty rough, and army books changing how things go together never helps. In very general terms I have nearly doubled my painted tally in terms of a usable force. Unfortunately I have also somehow almost doubled the overall pile. So I'm really not much better off than I was when I started! In my defence I should point out that I am now a reformed individual, and am no longer as tempted by second-hand bargains as I once was. Truly. Honest. It seems even hoarders are capable of reaching a point where they realise they really don't need/can't fit more stuff...

Clearly I have some more painting to do.