288: Striking Scorpions of the Occulted Claw Shrine

I finished a group. Shrine of the occulted blade. 
There's a mix of 1990 lead models that I bought from Andrew and new (ahem) resin models. I plan to use them as 1 large or 2 small squads. I might try the claw exarch as a Karandras stand-in: I think the loadout is the same.

It's good to have more aspect warriors available to my Biel-Tan. The fluff grows stronger.

I have been planning for the new year. I have some Howling Banshees and Rangers underway. I also have an unassembled shame pile including a Wave Serpent and Dark Reapers. I think I might convert up some Shining Spears before assembling those: I need more fast attack to qualify for a battalion.

264: 2015 in recap

As the end of each year approaches, I like to look back at the year, see what I've achieved (sometimes more than I realised - last year), and to have a think about what I'd like to do in the new year which often follows as a new years resolutions post.  It helps me to keep stock of my progress, and try and know where I want to go in the coming year.

Its been quite a quiet year for me, with "life, the universe, and everything" somewhat conspiring to swallow up the majority of my spare time.  In rough order of what I achieved, I started the year painting the Treeman/Avatar after finally developing a suitable molten metal technique, and managed to bring it to near completion later in April.  I also managed to finally post a picture of the majority of my skaven army as they are painted.

In May, the blog added its first additional contributor - ColonelFazackerley, who probably produced most of the years material, posts:  245, 246, 249, 250, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258, 259, and 261.

I eventually got back into gaming, and as the new Necrons were revealed to be a little more powerful than expected.  I also had to add Tomb Blades to my force, as they are a requisite of the new Decurion Detachment.  GWs relentless release schedule also saw the release of the new Space Marine book, and I promptly gave in and acquired StormTalons which needed a little conversion.

A big part of my year was taken up by my trip to Japan, where I discovered Gundam.  I've got a lot of potential material from that trip, but it'll take me a while to get any of that posted.

Last but not least, I managed to paint my Fire Warriors.

This year, I also set myself a relatively modest 5 goals as part of my New Year's resolutions.  All were partial successes, I posted pictures of those models I hung onto, but have gotten rid of most of the Tyranids, got rid of a lot of my old models that were hanging around but still have more to be rid of, made progress on One Force but didn't complete everything, and the same for other painting projects.

• Post pictures of all the models I painted during 2014
• Skaven army, the Tyranids, One Force marines (Mk II and Mk IV)
• Continue the clear out
• Tyranids, Space Wolves (most of them), a lot of spares and bits and pieces
• Complete painting One Force as it stands
• 5 Mk V marines and jump-packs, 10 Mk III veterans with combi-weapons, missile launchers for all squads, Master of the Forge
• Complete standing painting projects
• Skaven warp lighting cannon, Treeman Avatar, Tau Firewarriors and Riptide, and any other bits and pieces I have lying around that I've forgotten
• Return to blogging

I'll keep on plugging away, and see where I get this year.

Happy New Year to you all.

237: 2015 New Years Resolutions

So here they are, my aims for the upcoming year.  I wonder if I'll have any better luck achieving them than I did my previous aims, which you can find here:
2014 resolutions and 2014 in review

2013 resolutions and 2013 in review

2012 resolutions and 2012 in review

2011 I didn't make up any resolutions but I did do a 2011 in review

• Post pictures of all the models I painted during 2014
• Skaven army, the Tyranids, One Force marines (Mk II and Mk IV)

• Continue the clear out
• Tyranids, Space Wolves (most of them), a lot of spares and bits and pieces

• Complete painting One Force as it stands
• 5 Mk V marines and jump-packs, 10 Mk III veterans with combi-weapons, missile launchers for all squads, Master of the Forge

• Complete standing painting projects
• Skaven warp lighting cannon, Treeman Avatar, Tau Firewarriors and Riptide, and any other bits and pieces I have lying around that I've forgotten

• Return to blogging
• I'd definitely like to tidy up the blog a bit, and perhaps improve the design and look of it.  As a more viable, achievable target I'm also setting myself 2 posts a month minimum as my aim for the year

So thats it, a relatively modest 5 aims, and as well as that, I'll most likely be beginning a Daemon army, and I'm sure that GW will be releasing plenty of new and interesting models that'll be tempting me and stealing even more of my money, but then that wouldn't be anything new.
If you've got any resolutions or aims for the new year, I'd be happy to know what you're aiming for, feel free to comment below and link to your own blogs.

Cheers - Andrew

236: 2014 - the year that wasn't

The year is essentially over and as far as this blog is concerned, 2014 was effectively a non-year.  Including this post, and my post setting out my 2014 new year resolutions, I've managed a mere 9 posts, and of those, only 5 actually connect to anything particularly hobby related.

Its not so much that I haven't done much hobby, I've been somewhat productive (time permitting) but have had to sacrifice time that I would normally have spent blogging so that I've had time to do the actual hobby required for blogging.

Anyway, looking back over what I've been up to this year while not blogging, it turns out I've painted up quite a bit. 

228: 2014 resolutions

Howdy everyone, welcome to 2014!

As I'm sure many of us are at the moment, we're thinking about what we'd like to achieve in the coming year, and for the last few years I've set out myself some resolutions for the upcoming year to see whether it can encourage me to keep my hobby going, and to keep myself updating the blog.  In the past I have made:

2013 resolutions and 2013 in review

2012 resolutions and 2012 in review

2011 I didn't make up any resolutions but I did do a 2011 in review

So what do I hope to do this year:

• Complete the core of One Force:  I need to complete the last of the core force, battle damage and weather all the models painted so far.
• Expand One Force:  I currently hope to add an Elites unit (most likely in MkIII armour and the Iron Hands special troopers), heavy weapons for all of the core units and a Scouts unit (probably the HH recon squad).
• Paint my Skaven:  a repeat of last years resolution to paint, base and generally finish the Skaven I have so that my force is a more reasonable size.  I'd also like to make some unit fillers as I think that'd be quite fun.
• Build a small Tau detachment:  I've had a squad of Firewarriors for ages, ever since I returned to the hobby, and they can now be taken as a small allied detachment, so along with a Riptide, I hope to add some serious hitting power to my armies.
• Have a clear out:  I've got a lot of models sat in boxes/crates that I really need to go through and get rid of those that I don't need/want/use.  I live in a small flat, so don't have more than a single small cupboard for all my gaming paraphernalia, so I have to be ruthless.
• Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge:  This will be this years new army, and I want to paint something bright, colourful and fleshy to break from all the armour and metal I've painted in the past.  I'm flip-flopping between a Deamon or Tyranid army, and of course the Tyranids are getting a new book soon so they are tempting, but there's a lot of cool models in the deamon range, I just can't decide.

So that's it, should keep me busy this year.  As well as all these, I'd still like to keep the blog going and hope to keep a more regular posting schedule than I have at late, and to attend the odd weekend event to keep in the gaming, but I just don't know what the next year will hold for me, so I'm not going to commit to any of those things.

Drop me a link if you are doing something similar, and a very Happy and model/painting/gaming-filled New Year to you all.

 - Andrew

227: 2013 in review

So, how have your 2013's been?

As has become a tradition for me, I'm going to look back over the past year for my hobby to see where I was and where I've got to.  So in 2013 I managed:

• 36 Blog posts, passing the 200 mark for total number of posts
• One Force has progressed well, and now stands at 1500 points
• I'm especially proud of the conversion I did for the Storm Raven, I think it looks a lot better now.
• I went to two tournaments this year
• I came back from the March Throne of Skulls with the Best Necron certificate (in part thanks to also getting a Best Sports certificate)
• I made at least one of Blog Wars this year, and only just managed to avoid the wooden spoon
• Painting wise I managed to total up 70 painting points, not what I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd thought it would be.

As well as all of that, I've also completely changed career, having to go back to school part time to do so, completed my first triathlon, and renovated about half of the place we live in, so I've been pretty busy.

I also started this year with a series of New Years resolutions, so lets see how I managed to hold up to them this year:

• Maintain 1 post minimum per week - FAILED: Although this worked for me in 2012, this year life and everything else kind of got in the way.
• Attend more tournaments/gaming weekends - COMPLETE: As well as the two tournaments I went to, I also got in a gaming trip to Warhammer World with some local guys. 
• Sell my spare stuff - PASS: I did sell of a lot of stuff, but there's still more to go, so not totally complete yet (but then it may never really be complete). 
• Complete my Skaven (at least all the models I own, and anything I buy) - FAIL: Nothing painted for the skaven, but thankfully only a Warp Lightning Cannon bought, and I hope to make a little progress in the new year. 
• Beat last years painting points score - FAIL: I came closer to equalling it than I expected, but just didn't have the time. 
• Bring One Force to a playable 1750 points force minimum - FAIL: I managed to get to 1500 points, and didn't buy anything new, so I'm almost through with all the models I currently own for the army.

So out of 6 resolutions, I managed to complete one, and pass one, but failed the other 4 which just goes to show that I was just a little too ambitious last year, or that I wasn't as dedicated as I could have been this year. Either way, I'm going to have to reconsider how I'm going to go about hobby next year.

So that's how my hobby year has gone, if any of you out there are doing something similar, I'd love to hear about it just in case I don't already follow your blogs. I'm away over the Christmas/New Year period, so won't be able to reply straight away to comments, but will be checking in as I now have internets abroad!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
- Andrew

My 2013 Resolution - what I hope to do

Well, here it is, my plans for 2013 which if history is anything to go by, is as good as saying these are definitely the things that I won't manage to do...

• Maintain 1 post minimum per week

This worked fantastically for me in 2012 to keep me hobbying and keep the turnover on this blog.  If I hadn't had this resolution, I think I would have let the blog languish at times, but as it was the most achievable of my goals, I kept at it.

• Attend more tournaments/gaming weekends

Blog Wars was brilliant yet again, and I'd really like to make it to 5 & 6 this year.  I've already signed up to the March 40K Throne of Skulls so I'll get in more than last year (and any other previous year), and may also be attending Nerd Thunder 4 with the guys from the Beard Bunker so this year looks to be a more gaming year.  I'd also love to try out one of the Tempus Fugitives events so I'll try and get to one of those too this year.

• Sell my spare stuff

I made a half hearted effort with this earlier this year but did nothing since, I'm definitely going to get rid of more of my random stuff that is cluttering my flat.  I have a large plastic spares/bits box that I would like to be the only place I have spares/bits by the end of this year, it'll either be in that, or painted and playable!

• Complete my Skaven (at least all the models I own, and anything I buy)

I have some idea's for a Vampire Counts army that I'd like to try out, but I won't be doing that till I've completed the Skaven I already have.  That means about 50 Clanrats, and a load of character like models that need to be painted.

• Beat last years painting points score

Pretty self explanatory, this year ended up better that I thought it would, but I'd love to get in more time painting in future.

• Bring One Force to a playable 1750 points force minimum

I'm loving these guys, and because I'm magnetising them, hopefully by this point they'll not only be 1750 points of Blood Angels for instance, but also 1750 of regular Marines, Space Wolves and maybe even whatever is the new flavour of the month.

2012, the year that was...

Howdy, howdy folks, hope you've all had a very merry christmas, stuffed yourselves with as much turkey/ham/game of choice and santa brought you lots of hobby goodness.  The year is almost over, I've just passed the 4th birthday of the blog, so its time for the obligatory look back at what has been achieved in the year, a sort of queens speech if you will, and of course next week will be a look ahead at what I hope to achieve in the coming year.

My year began with the genesis of One Force (to rule them all), my new marines and current favourite project of all time.  Unfortunately, this pretty much scuppered one of my hobby resolutions from the off (see below).  I also started out the year with recovering and re-posting my old posts that were lost when I updated the blogger template.  There was also the release of the new paints which meant I had to update the paint scheme for One Force.
This year I've also seemed to get my spotting eye in, with some interesting results:  KR Multicase Guest Spot, Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed.
I made it to Salute (1, 2, and 3), made my 100th Post, and finally made it back to Blog Wars 4:  game 1 report, game 2 report, game 3 report.
I've trialled a few new techniques in my hobby:  Casting hands, Magnetising self-help, and due to having generally less time to devote to my hobby, my painting hasn't quite been as prolific as last year, the main achievements were:  One Force Terminators Completed, TFP: Badab Project competition, One Force commander, and the first 5 squad memebers (to be posted in the new year).  I also completed a lot of my Necrons ready for Blog Wars 4, and rustled up a few more clanrats for the Skaven.

All told, this has allowed me to reach 101 painting points for the year 2012.  That's about half the points I managed in 2011, but a lot of the models are much more detailed painting wise (2011 was bolstered by the quick and easy painting of a lot of Skaven and Necrons).   I'm definitely planning on continuing with painting points as it is a nice measure of how you are doing with the creative side of the hobby, and the page linked is starting to become a jump off point for the posts of all my painted minis.
Probably favourite for me this year painting wise was getting to paint up a few centre-piece models such as the Deathwatch marine and the One Force commander as it gave me a chance to try and push myself a little with painting.  I think in the future I'd like to try and take part in a couple of painting comps, just to give myself a bit of a challenge and try new techniques like the NMM I did on the Shadowseer in 2011.

Possibly the biggest thing to happen to the blog this year was my post Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed.  It got picked up by Faeit 212 which lead to a gigantic surge in traffic to the blog.  As a result, its now the most viewed page on my blog, and pushed the number of views from an expected 37,000 since inception to its current level above 41,000.  You can see the upsurge in views in the stats-graphs below (all time, last week):

As is becoming customary for me, each year I make some resolutions to try and drive my hobby through the year.  This years resolutions can be found here, and looking back over the year...

• Post once per week minimum.
• Success -  I've managed at least one post per week all year, and on a few occasions even managed to sustain 2 posts a week.  OK not every post has been a groundbreaking source of hobby goodness, but the need to have something to talk about each week has definitely kept my hobby mojo topped up.
• Painting Points
• Success -  at the start of the year I went back and totted up the number of models I'd painted in previous years, and this year I've done my best to keep track of what I've managed.  I haven't scored that highly this year, but its been respectable and I may be able to improve on it next year.
• Space Wolf Achievements
• Fail -  in the main because my Wolves have been sidelined for most of this year as I've been experimenting with other armies, shame though as they were a fantastic idea, I'll still try and see what I can collect over time.
• Attend Blog Wars and at least one other tournament.
• Partial Success -  I managed to make it to Blog Wars, but no other tournament.  I did go to Salute though and have a few more things lined up for this year.
• 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.).
• Failure -  I did sell about half of the stuff listed at the start of the year, and have recently listed some more, but I've not sold what I'd planned, and have bought even more stuff this year, especially stuff for One Force (lovely Forgeworld goodness) which I'm loving at the moment.  Oh well.

So that's the year as it was.  I'll wish you all a very merry rest of your Christmas, and a very happy new year for 2013, tune back in next week for my plans for the upcoming year.
Cheers - Andy

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

New Years Resolutions 2010 edition

Right then, in my last post I reviewed how I'd done with last years resolutions and as I'd just been starting out I'd aimed pretty low and had managed to just about complete them all. This year I'm going to try and be a bit more ambitious so here they are (in a vague order of priority):

1. Get my Space Wolves up to around 2500 pts so that the army has some flexibility in its build
2. Build proper themed objective markers for the army
3. Post on here (or at 40K Roughnecks) at least once a week
4. Bring the M.I. up to 1500pts keeping as close as possible to theme
5. Play in a campaign
6. Enter (and play in - no cheating) a tournament
7. Visit Warhammer World (and try to get in a game while there)
8. Take up one of GW's other game systems
9. Paint some Necrons and Eldar (for the fun of painting as I love their models)

So there you go - a little more adventurous this time round, lets see how I get on.

New Years Resolutions 2009 - a review

So its only the start of December, and I've been pretty lax on the hobby front for the last month or so. I've got a few things done, but never the time to chronicle it - especially not photos. I don't know if I'll get much more time till close to Christmas either, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on New Years Resolutions.

First up, a review of last years resolutions. They were:

1. Get at least one army together and most importantly PAINTED so that I can play a game or two - this is where my future Necron purchases will come in nice and handily.
2. Start PLAYING GAMES again. I haven't had a game of 40K in years, and I'm keen to see how the game plays with all the changes that have happened over the last decade.
3. For point 2, BUY THE NEW RULEBOOK and start to learn the new rules
4. Retrieve all my lovely old models (mostly marines) from the 2nd gen 40K and start to paint them up (see a near future post for ideas I've had regarding this)
5. Get my SPACE WOLVES army together to a point where I could also have a game or two with it

So, what have I achieved. Well, I've got an army, they are space wolves, they are painted up to a tabletop standard if not my best painting, I've got the new rulebook and I've had a few games and I've managed to retrieve a good portion of my old models. What haven't I achieved - well there's still some models somewhere in storage at my old childhood home, and although I've got an army, it isn't the Necrons I orignally intended (I'd still like to do them though, especially after seeing this reposted).

I'd say I'll give myself a 4/5 for this year - not bad.

I'm going to try and be more ambitious and specific with my resolutions for the coming year in the hopes that they will spur me on to greater achievements.