October Slow Grow (and other updates and photos)

October is over, and another month in the slow grow has passed. I have some progress to report, and a few extra photos to show how the stuff I've been working on is coming together...

First up, my contribution for October was 5 more Outriders and a Baggage Train/unit filler for the Halberdiers. I did start on another wave of Handgunners, but ran out of time (they're still not quite finished, despite being almost a week into November). Ideally the Baggage Train would have been a bonus thing for the month, given it's not really worth any points in terms of army growth. But I am working with particular priorities right now, which I'll explain further down.

My second unit of 5 Outriders, led by an old metal guy as the unit champion. I don't recall how I ended up with just one metal Outrider.

These guys are already on base adapters for Old World, because by the time I took their photo, they had already seen use in a game.

My Baggage Train, which doubles as a unit filler for my Nuln Halberdiers, following my normal patterns.

This is a mix of printed components from Highlands (and maybe Reptilian Overlords), along with GW plastic components like the Pistolier heads, quartermaster (monkey) and nearly everything in the back of the wagon. 

The Baggage Train base leaves little room for including an animal to pull it. This is pretty jammed on, and it's not a big wagon. Most of my similar fillers are actually 20mm too long for the official Baggage Train base size.

The wagon is loaded with powder barrels, some crates, swords, and a stash of various types of handgun. And the odd cannonball. It was about as Nuln-themed as I could make it.

Sean:

It seems to have been a relatively restrained month for Sean, with just the 5 Screamers. Apparently he painted them twice, having decided they needed to be different colours from the first unit he painted. Even so, he's already exploded out of the blocks in November, so there will be more to show next time.

5 Screamers in a more fiery palette than the first wave.

As usual, they're on matched base adapters to ensure they're usable for both Old World and earlier editions.

Tim:

Tim has spent a lot of this slow grow producing half-painted models and moving on before there was anything ready to show here. This month was a bit of a correction to that pattern. Behold, finished models (gasp)!

First we have some Rat Swarms. I believe Tim tampered with the original 3d files for these, as he has with basically all of his Skaven. Everything goes toward his techno-chemical-style theme. I don't know exactly what he calls it, I'll get him to explain it.

Half a dozen Jezzails

I'm not sure who the pink guy is, hiding up the front there. I'm sure he's important.

Some Poison Wind Globadiers

And some more Giant Rats, adding to one of the few units he'd actually finished previously. I'm not sure where their handlers are. Maybe they've been left unsupervised...

Sadly I have nothing else to report in terms of painting progress, although I did see Hamish waving a brush at something the other day. Maybe more will come later.

With the Baggage Train completed I had a chance to put it together with the Halberdiers to show how it fits in as a unit filler. 

60 Nuln Halberdiers with unit filler

Realistically I would only expect to use it as such if we went back and played a larger game of 8th edition, at which point the filler would stand in for 15 men and I could completely exclude the second command group. Right now everything is on Old World adapters, which meant the filler needed an adapter as well, and it only fills in for 12. Stupid math!

60 men fits in with the building blocks of my existing Empire for those bigger games. I now have 4 such blocks of Halberdiers, each including some sort of filler, and each in a different colour scheme.

In other news, my Nuln army made its debut on the table on the weekend. I'm actually taking it in a 2000 point tournament in a few days, so this was a practice run to see how badly it would do. The army is really based around what I've been painting, so it's very compromised in terms of the list. But I don't really care. I'm using it as motivation. It's also why my priorities shifted a bit in terms of painting this month - I needed the Baggage Train for the event, whereas I have some options to fill in for the incomplete Handgunners, if I don't finish them in time.

Honestly, I was really happy with how they looked on the table. I think they'll look quite dashing as they get pummeled by people with proper army lists at the tournament! Guess we shall see...