Slow, quiet progress

It's been a long time since I posted a hobby update (over a year, it seems), so here is a bit of a catch-up.

First of all, I spent a fair bit of time painting battlemechs and tanks for games of Alpha Strike with friends. I probably did more than I needed to, but that doesn't mean I'm done (you probably know that about me by now)...

My current Steiner force, painted in dribs and drabs across the last year. I've shown some of the tanks previously, but there's well over a battalion of stuff all told. It's not well balanced in terms of the mechs I got finished. I need to add some more light and medium mechs, maybe some infantry or battle armour...

It hasn't all been mechs and tanks, of course. I played in 2 Warhammer: The Old World on either side of Christmas, and needed to paint things to get my armies ready for both of those events. Firstly for Axemaster, there were various gaps that needed to be plugged...

Doomseekers! I didn't start collecting Dwarfs until well after Storm of Chaos, so didn't think I'd ever have or need any of these. But here we are. They came in a pack of 4 and I did half paint the other 2 (who I didn't need for my army) before dropping them off the queue as time got tight.

Technically these guys aren't quite finished, but they're done for now. Irondrake champions with Trollhammer Torpedoes were kind of an amusing option in 8th edition, but they feel like an auto-include in TOW. I need to do some more Irondrakes in general, I think.

So this is Kragg the Grim and I actually painted him years ago. But in this list he was a Runesmith who carried my battle standard, so his empty banner pole needed work. That's Kragg's own master rune on the banner, of course. A little self promotion on his part.

Adding beer carts to the list was amusing. I had to get one. My Bugman is not painted in the traditional red and blue (I figured as career Rangers, they really should be in greens and browns), so of course this guy has been done to match.

It really is a funny old model. I do like that they've made it possible to get your hands on some of this ancient stuff again.

Some of these photos are a bit dark, sorry. Clearly I'm out of practice. Anyway, this guy is a 3D print from Blue Giant Studios. I saw him and thought he'd be a hilarious addition to follow my king around and record all of his grudges.

So many grudges, look at all those scrolls and books...

Anyway, the fact that they changed shieldbearers to be 3 bearers on a bigger base gave me a great excuse to finally get this guy painted. So that was fun. He just chills at the back and grumbles. Doesn't actually help lug the king around.

Then for Cancon I decided I'd use some of the Daemons that seem to live here (they don't belong to me, you understand - but sometimes they do what I ask them to). A whole lot of rebasing was required, and a lot of odds and ends needed to be painted. I did actually have to do up 2 units of Khorne Furies, but given they were usable but are far from finished, I won't show them here. If I decide to run them again, I might give them another pass with the brush and show how they ended up.

One of the main things I needed was a Tzeentch Daemon Prince with 2 heads. There was an old Lord of Change kicking around, and I decided he'd do the job, but that he needed a sword, given he was carrying the Aether Blade.

I couldn't find a really good sword and time was tight. This one is just from a plastic Chaos Knight, and I had to chop, turn and green stuff up his wrist in order to make his grip on it not look too silly.

We didn't have any painted Flamers. Now we have a few.

This guy is a funny old Flamer that had been set aside to serve as a Changebringer (Flamers riding Discs of Tzeentch) back in the day. I needed a very obvious champion model, given he was upgraded outrageously to be a level 3 wizard and stuff, so this did the job OK.

Anyway, those tournaments are out of the way, the Arcane Journals seem to be coming out thick and fast at the moment, and I have decided what my next project is going to be - I'm going to paint up a Nuln Empire army.

I don't think the army will perform especially well, but this plan has a number of advantages to it. The main one being: I can paint up lots of War Wagons!

Another 3D printed Magori War Wagon. I'll be using a few different types, but I do like this one. I'm too cheap to buy the real ones - I can't stomach it when I have the means to make them myself.

The intention is for the army to be uniformed mainly in black with yellow accents. That didn't really work here, so this is a lot louder than the regiments are likely to be.

The next thing on the painting table is some Handgunners I undercoated years ago. I need to see whether this plan of using the War Wagons as splashes of colour amongst the troops will work or if I need to revise my plans.

Anyway, that's all for now. Inspired by watching the Wheel of Time on TV, I've decided I will go back and listen to the whole thing on audiobook whilst I paint. It feels like a good use of time, and I'm hoping it will help with my momentum. It'll take something like 450+ hours to get through the whole series, which is a lot of painting! I will try to do a better job of keeping things up to date here in terms of my hobby progress. 'Til then!