2012 New Years Resolutions

So here are my resolutions for the upcoming year.  I'm trying not to be too ambitious in setting these so that I actually have a chance of achieving some of them, but as with the best laid plans and all that...

• Post once per week minimum - don't post when I write, schedule posts to come up each Wednesday, only allowed to move forward if already have posts to fill in at least the next 4 weeks.
• Painting Points - start keeping track of how much I've painted, will also review the previous year (maybe 2) for comparison (see below).
• Space Wolf Achievements - see how many of these I collect in gaming.
• Attend Blog Wars and at least one other tournament.
• No more purchases until my remaining Necrons (Wraiths, Spyders, Destroyers) and Skaven (IoB boxset, Stormvermin, Bell) have been painted and I have sold my spares (Land Raider, Drop Pods, Valkyrie etc.).

2011 Review

To be honest, this won't be that interesting to most of you unless you are relatively new to the blog.  I've taken the end of the year as an opportunity to look back over my year of hobby and try and bring together what I did as a quick reference guide for myself if I want to refer back to things in the year coming.  So without further ado...

Started the year in February with complete re-vamp of how I paint my Space Wolves to make them a little darker and dirtier.  I continued the painting theme by settling on a scheme for how I was going to paint my Necrons (it'd only taken me a year to figure out what I was going to do), and then went on to showcase the Skaven I painted up over the Christmas holiday.

The next accomplishment was finishing up the all metal wolf mount for my Iron Priest, and giving it a basic paintjob.  In May I applied my new Space Wolves painting scheme to the eBay purchased 13th Company Wulfen I plan to use as Scouts.  These are still my favourite unit in my army to date.

The big event for me in the year was Blog Wars.  I decided to go in April and mulled over my first list options.  Closed in on a list in May just before my birthday, which didn't change too much before the big event.  Blog Wars was my hobby highlight of the year, my first tournament, a brilliant day and also marked the peak in traffic for my blog.  Coverage is found in my posts about the day before at Warhammer World, game 1 on the top table no less, the armies from the day, game 2 and game 3.

I also tried to push my painting a bit this year (although not that successfully),  painting a Shadowseer for a competition at the local FLGW.  I only managed this and this post on the painting as I ended up with only a few nights in which to paint it.

The later half of the year was all Necrons, both before and after the announcement of the new codex.  I made some conversion to make the Necrons stand up, changes in pose, and showed off the painted contents of 2 battleforce boxes, the warriors, a lord, and the destroyers and some flayed ones I picked up.  With the new releases, I added to my Necrons.  The very cool new Annihilation Barge.  I made some adjustments to the Doomsday/Ghost Ark so that it could be either vehicle.

As I'd learned a simple way to paint glowing green that I would apply to warpstone, I interspersed the Necrons with a Skaven Doomwheel painted in a day.

That was it.  I'll be posting next week with how I'm hoping my new years hobby will go, and some interesting new plans.  Thanks to everyone who's dropped by and is still doing so, I really hope I'll be able to make the blog just that bit more interesting for you in the new year.  

Cheers - Andy

Dual use Doomsday/Ghost Ark

The Doomsday/Ghost Ark is a cool kit, both options being very useful on the board, but at £31 and seriously massive once built (much bigger than a Land Raider), I didn't want to be buying up loads of them as I just can't afford that.  So, as soon as I cracked open the box on my first Ark, I had to set about making it inter-changeable.

Annihilation Barge

The first of my shiny new Necrons is built and painted, the Annihilation/Command Barge combo.  It's a great kit with some lovely details on it, and I really like the Tesla Destructors.

I've built the kit to be able to use it as either of the options that come in the Codex, so the guns aren't glued down, neither on top or underneath.

Death Rays - such poor wording

These need to be talked about, are being argued about on the forums, and FAQ'd as soon as possible because the wording of how they work is so poor and confusing.  I will fully admit to making exactly the same mistake that it seems a lot of people are making the first time I read it, and I just know that it is going to lead to a lot of arguments as soon as they end up on the tables.  Its all down to the description of how they wound.