Painting Adeptus Custodes - Vexillus Praetor

As I mentioned already in some of my posts, Adeptus Custodes are one of my 40K armies - actually, they are my primary 40K army (besides Custodes, I play Necrons and Chaos Marines as well). However, due to my focus on Age of Sigmar at the moment, I haven't played a lot of games with my Custodes army (only a single one). I am slowly painting this army, usually when I want to take a break from painting AoS stuff (and the gold scheme is easy to paint). This year, I've managed to paint a unit of Allarus Custodinas and Vexillus Praetor shown on the pictures below: 

 

As you can see, there's only the base left - I need to add some static grass and some bushes/tufts. If you like the colour scheme, here are the quick painting instructions:

• The miniature was primed with GW Retributor Armour spray
• Armour and Vexilla were washed with GW Agrax Earthshade, then drybrushed with GW Retributor Armour
• Armour and Vexilla were highlighted with Vallejo Polished Gold and Vallejo Silver (for edge highlights)
  
• Plumes were painted with GW Evil Sunz Scarlet, washed with GW Carroburg Crimson and highlighted with GW Trollslayer Orange
• Cloth on the Vexilla was painted with Vallejo Off-White, then washed with GW Contrast Apothecary White. Few highlights with Vallejo Off-White were added. 
• Gems were painted with GW Moot Green, then Washed with GW Hexwraith Lichen and highlighted again with a bit of GW Moot Green and just a bit of GW Yriel Yellow
  
• Metallic parts of the armour were painted with Vallejo Chainmail Silver, washed with GW Nuln Oil and highlighted with Vallejo Silver
• Leather was painted with GW Contrast Gore-Grunta Fur and then highlighted with Vallejo Leather Brown

NOTE: Unless noted otherwise, all Vallejo colours are from Vallejo Model Colour range.

Battle Report: Slaves of Darkness vs Stormcast Eternals (1000 pts)

Last weekend, I have played my first game of Age of Sigmar 3rd edition. I decided to play Slaves of Darkness and my friend Ivan brought his Stormcast Eternals (because he was excited to try the rules from their new battletome). We played a 1000-point matched-play game, using Veins of Ghur scenario from GHB 2021. However, I forgot to bring my Marauder Horsemen models, so our host Aleksa  borrowed his Kavalos Deathriders models to serve as "proxies" for Marauders (just keep that in mind when you look at the pictures below). Here are the lists we played: 

SLAVES TO DARKNESS (Ravagers):

- Chaos Lord on Karkadark (General, Enternal Vendetta, Mark of Tzeentch)
- Chaos Sorcerer Lord (Bolstered by Hate, Blasphemous Curiass and Binding Damnation as a lore spell, Mark of Tzeentch)
- Chaos Warriors (10, Mark of Tzeentch)
- Chaos Knights (5, Mark of Tzeentch)
- Varanguard (fellspears, Mark of Tzeentch)
Grand strategy: Hold the Line 

 STORMCAST ETERNALS (Anvils of Heldenhammer):

- Lord-Arcanum (General, Master of Magic, Arcane Tome, Chain Lightning)
- Lord-Relictor (Translocate)
- Lord-Castellant
- Judicators (10, Skybolt bows)
- Liberators (5)
- Liberators (5)
- Prosecutors (3, javelins)
Grand strategy: Hold the Line

The first round is very quick - most of my troops either move forward of run (scoring a Ferocious Advance battle tactic in the same time).  I summon a unit of Marauder Horsemen near the objective as  well. SCE move a bit forward and activate some of their defensive abilities. 

End of round 1

Chaos wall of steel, getting ready to charge

 

I win the priority for the second round. Since I am in an ideal position, my Lord on Karkadark, Varanguard and Knights declare charges. Varanguard and the Lord destroy one unit of Liberators and later in the same turn Varanguard use their ability to attack again, killing Prosecutors as well (this allows me to complete my chosen battle tactic - Broken Ranks). Knights are not so lucky: they manage to almost completely destroy the second unit of Liberators, but suffer a lot of damage in melee and are wiped out by Judicators (Ivan also uses his Thunderbolt volley as his holy command, which allows him to shoot twice in the same turn).

End of round 2

I win the priority for the third round. I use Ravagers ability "Glory for the taking" to make Sorcerer Lord my general for the turn and summon another unit of Chaos Marauder Horsemen. I manage to complete my chosen battle tactic (Aggressive Expansion) and score a lot of VPs, but I do not manage to kill anything in combat, apart from a single Liberator. However, Ivan manages to destroy both Lord on Karkadark and the Varanguard, leaving me without any heavy-hitters.

End of round 3

Ivan wins the priority for the fourth round. He destroys both units of Marauders, using his heroes and Judicators. His Lord-Arcanum turns into a Monster (using Metamorphosis) and moves to contest one of my objectives. He is then charged by a unit of Chaos Warriors with a lot of defensive abilities (Oracular Visions and Mystic Shield). He does not deal any damage to Warriors, but they also fail to deal any significant damage in return (despite absolutely fantastic hit and wound rolls). My Sorcerer Lord also joins the fight. I manage to score another battle tactic - Conquer (by taking over the objective that the Lord-Arcanum was controlling).

End of round 4

I win the priority for the fifth battle round. I choose Bring it Down as my battle tactic, trying to kill "monstrous" Lord-Arcanum. Cahos Sorcerer Lord hits Lord-Arcanum with Arcane Bolt and deals some mortal wounds, but I still fail to complete the battle tactic. However, I score VPs for controlling two objectives. We stop playing at this point, because we realize that even if Ivan manages to score maximum number of VPs, I will still be in the lead. 

SLAVES TO DARKNESS VICTORY! 

Some observations from the game:   

• I expected my units to be more durable, but then I left Chaos Sorcerer Lord far behind, so he was not able to use Mystic Shield and Oracular Visions on any of my heavy-hitters. Combined with Total Defense command ability and ability to reroll 1s on armour saves due to Mark of Tzeentch, this should help my units stay longer on the battlefield (and I have rolled a lot of 2s, unfortunately). 
• Varanguard are really good on the charge, and they easily return their points. I know that they are probably best in Archaon lists (or Knights of the Empty throne), but I think they definitely have their place in other setups as well. 
• My opponent forgot to use some very important abilities (Deathly Aura and Cycle of the Storm) that could have changed the outcome of several fights. 
• I like the new ways of scoring and new command abilities a lot. However, this abilities do make a game a bit slower (but I expect that the speed of play will increase as we play more games). However, I definitely still think that there are aspects of the game that could be improved further (as I already described here). 
• For one of my next games, I will probably choose to run the same list as Knights of the Empty Throne, because in that case I can have another Hero (Varanguard unit) which would allow me to take another enhancement (by using the corresponding batallion, as some kind people from TGA forum pointed out).
  

Warhammer 6th Edition rulebook and a return to Oldhammer

During the past few months, my work was a lot more demanding, which meant that I had a lot less time for hobby activities (or I was simply too tired). What little spare time I had, I used mostly for reading some books and slowly painting my Lord of Change (and I'll cover that in another blog post). 

However, during this period a new edition of Age of Sigmar was also launched. I did not expect a new edition of the rules at least for a year (or even more), so I was a little surprised when it was announced. So, I read the core rules as well as the army updates and I realized that I have a lot of mixed feelings about the new edition.

Now, I enjoyed playing Age of Sigmar since 1st edition (as well as my friends). However, I think that there were certain parts of the game (like line of sight and targeting rules, for example) that left a lot of room for improvement. But, when I read the rules for the 3rd edition I realized that the game went in a strange direction: more complexity was added to the game but in the areas that were either completely new, or that were working fine; there were several aspects of the game that could be improved that were left intact. I always had the feeling that Age of Sigmar could benefit from more complex core rules - especially when it came to terrain and line of sight (there were some other things as well, but I feel like these two are the most important ones). Instead, the core rules maintained low level of complexity over the years, while model and army rules became more complex. Now, with the latest edition, core rules did become a lot more complex (which I think is good) - but the same problem areas still remained. I'm not saying that heroic actions, monster rampages, new command abilities or new ways of scoring victory points are bad changes - not at all! I think they are all very interesting changes and I can't wait to play my first game of the new edition. All I'm trying to say is that it was not the kind of complexity that I wanted to see the most - and that is is probably the biggest "flaw" of the newest edition (at least in my opinion). For example, I think that 9th edition of Warhammer 40K did a pretty good job with rules changes and I expected to see some of those changes transported to Age of Sigmar.

In the same time, during the last few months I started to think about playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles again. I'm excited about The Old World, but I also feel a bit nostalgic about the old WHFB editions, especially the 6th edition. I played old WHFB for a short time: I started playing Warmachine early during the MK1 and that was my primary game for many years. Later, I switched to playing Age of Sigmar, but I was always looking back at WHFB. Part of the reason was that I played WHFRP and I loved the setting, but I also missed certain elements of the game. Not only that - I missed the spirit of the game. Age of Sigmar is wondrously diversified and the minis are great, but the setting still lacks identity as strong as the one that the Old World or Warhammer 40K have (or even Warmachine/Hordes, for that matter). All these feelings, combined with the fact that due to pandemic and lack of free time I didn't play a lot of games, together with what I wrote above regarding the new edition of AoS, resulted in a decision to finally bite the bullet and start "Oldhammer" (or would it be "Middlehammer"?) project. One of my friends liked the idea as well - even better! This way, I could still enjoy Age of Sigmar, but in the same time I could "scratch that itch" when it comes to playing a different type of game.

And so, a few days ago a package arrived on my doorstep - the rulebook for Warhammer Fantasy 6th edition. I managed to find a copy in a perfect condition in one of the Facebook groups for selling and trading Warhammer stuff (and the price was great as well). Here are some pictures: 

Right now, I am working on a short narrative campaign, that involves Hordes of Chaos and the Empire. I will play Tzeentch Chaos army - however, I will be mostly using new models and I won't rebase them. I know that this can lead to some issues, but my friend is fine with this, because nobody wants to have his minis ripped from the existing bases and glued to the old, square ones - especially if they are painted. 

So, in the following weeks/months I will cover the whole campaign and my Tzeentch force in the series of posts.

Custom hero for the narrative campaign

One of the options that Age of Sigmar 2.0 rules provided, and that I think was really good, was The Anvil of Apotheosis. I really liked the idea of building heroes for narrative games, and since I started collecting Disciples of Tzeentch this year, I decided to build my first custom hero - the loyal servant of the changer of Ways.  

I knew what I wanted - a warrior-mage, armed with a warhammer, riding a steed of Chaos (or some kind of daemonic mount). Since I really like Varanguard models, I used one of them as a base for the conversion. As you can see on the pictures below, the conversion is pretty basic and requires just a small amount of work - all you need to do is to swap the Varanguard head with Tzaangor (or Tzaangor Enlightened) one, and that's it. You might have to do a bit of work in order to make the Tzaangor head fit properly on the rider's torso, but that should be fairly easy.  

 

 

And here's a warscroll I created for this guy - the hero is 200 points (DP), with mount and all additional abilities/upgrades:

 

The good thing is that I can always use this model as a regular Chaos hero on Daemonic Mount and it also fits nicely with my Tzeentch WHFB army (I know, it's not on square base, but rebasing is something that I just don't want to do at this point).

Trying out new colour scheme

Finally, after almost six months, my Tzeentch models arrived! I wanted to start Tzeentch army this year, and purchased several kits back in January, but for some strange reason the order was going back and forth until it finally arrived last week. And I immediately assembled the miniature I was very excited about - Lord of Change:

Since I wanted this army to be my new "pet project" (because Sylvaneth are almost 100% done) I was thinking about the backstory and the characters during the past few months. I will write a blog post about that as well, but for now it is sufficient to say that I wanted them to be the main enemies of my Sylvaneth force in Ghyran. I also wanted the colour scheme to be very bright and vibrant, so I experimented a bit this morning. Here's the result (I used one of the extra parts from Lord of Change set for testing):

 

Here is the paint scheme that I used:

• GW Ahriman Blue as undercoat
• All-over wash of Vallejo Game Colour Blue Wash
• Drybrush with GW Calgar Blue
• Drybrush/edge highlight with GW Blue Horror
• Paint feathers with Vallejo Game Colour Squid Pink
• Apply wash of GW Druchii Violet to feathers
• Highlight with Vallejo Game Colour Squid Pink
• Highlight with GW White Scar
  

I am very satisfied wih this test turned out - and I can't wait to start painting the big guy :)

2021 hobby goals: progress so far

In January, I have posted my hobby goals for this year. Here's a small update on how it is going so far. The original January post can be found here.

When it comes to assembling miniatures, everything is going great and I am confident that not only I'll manage to achive my goal, but beat it completely and finish this year with no unassembled miniatures. Since January, I have built: 

• Start Collecting: Slaves to Darkness set (16 miniatures)
• 20 Kairic Acolytes
• Ogroid Myrmidon
• Custom Tzeentch hero (built by converting one of the Varanguard models) 
• Khagra's Ravegers WHU warband
  
• Unit of Kurnoth Hunters (3 models)
  
• Unit of Tree-Revenants (5 models)
  
• Converted Branchwraith out of the Branchwych model
• Abaddon the Despoiler 
• Unit of Havocs (5 models)
  
• Hellbrute
• Unit of Allarus Custodians (3 models)
  
• 2 units of Custodian Wardens (10 models total)
  
• All miniatures for the "Cursed City" board game (around 60 miniatures in total)

In my post back in January, I was not considering building Custeds models - however, as you can see, I have built a lot of them, so the only remaining Custodes unit at this moment is Vertus Praetors. I am still waiting on my Tzeentch stuff to arrive (the order got misplaced and has been lost in the Warp since February, but hopefully I will get it somewhere in June). At first, building that many models seemed a bit initimidating, but I spent 20-30 minutes almost every day to build a few smaller models or continue assembling a larger one. I did this usually during my break at work, or early in the morning, while the rest of the family were sleeping. As you can see, A LOT can be done in multiple small sessions.

When it comes to painting, there's a lot less progress here, because the recent job change and the day-to-day dynamic leaves me exhausted (and I tend to prioritize free time on excercise and reading). However, there is still progress and it's likely that I will hit my goals for this year. Since january, I have worked on the following models:

• I've finished one Varanguard model and I'm very close to finishing the first unit (out of the two). For some reason, while I like these models a lot, I struggle a lot when it comes to painting them
• I've finished unit of 3 Allarus Custodians! This wasn't among my goals for this year, but since I really love Custodes models and they are so easy to paint, I managed to paint this unit quickly.
• Kurnoth Huters are progressing nicely and I think I have nailed the new colour scheme.

I expect that I will struggle a lot less when I finish this first unit of Varanguard, because I've been working on them for a while and I now just want to have them finished. But in the same time, I don't want to do a half-assed job, but maintain the consistent quality (similar to my other minis). It seems that I have picked up a colour scheme that I really do not enjoy painting that much - this is a clear sign that I have to choose something else for the scond unit. Allarus paintjob was nice and easy, and I enjoyed it a lot (and it helped out to paint some WH40K minis, because I am working on Age of Sigmar models most of the time). 

So far, I am really satisfied with how everything is going. I played only one game of WH40K and a few Kill Team games so far, but I hope that will also improve during the rest of the year.

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City

 Last week, I got "Warhammer Quest: Cursed City"! I managed to get one copy from my local game store and also managed to get a few promo goodies - art cards, a badge and cool pen:

I really like these art cards, so here's a picture of them (personally, I plan to use them as bookmarks):

I have read the rules, watched "How to play" video and assembled almost all of the miniatures (only zombies need to be assembled at this point). The minis are really good - I especially like Vargskyr and Qualthis the Exile. The game looks very interesting and I will probably play my first solo game this or next week, and then post about it here. I will probably play the whole quest in the next few months, and turn that into a series of posts - so expect to see more "Cursed City" content on the blog. 

First miniatures I have ever painted

Recently, during a visit to my parents' house, I found these two old miniatures, which are the first miniatures I have ever painted (back in 2001, I think):

I bought these minis (and a few other ones) from a man who was visiting illustration & comic book workshop that I was attending back then. That workshop was a magical place where (besides learning how to draw comics), I met a lot of interesting people and learned about many cool games (including Warhammer). So, this person was selling recasts and he mentioned that these miniatures are used in a game called Warhammer (and basically, that's how I found out about the game). He also agreed to show us how the game is played.

So, next week he brought a fully painted 6th edition starter set (the one with empire and Orcs) and a bunch of us played a battle on one of the tables in the studio, with artbooks and comics used as hills and obstacles :) I really liked the game, but at that time, it was very hard to find Warhammer miniatures in Serbia and they were really expensive (and the country was recovering from economic sanctions and bombing campaign, so the whole economic situation was not very good). So, I bought a dozen of recasts - I understood they were not the "real" miniatures, but they were cheap and it was a first step, anyway. At that time I also learned that there was a set of fan-made rules in Serbian, called "Sword & sorcery". These rules were used for playing small skirmish games with just a handful of miniatures (much like Age of Sigmar Skirmish or Warcry rulesets). I managed to find copy of those rules as well and played a few battles with my brother using these miniatures. 

Some time later, I learned about the "White Dwarf" magazine - also from a guy that visited the studio from time to time. As far as I remember, he was not collecting Warhammer miniatures, but he liked the miniatures in general and he liked the magazine as well. So, I borrowed a few issues from him - one issue every week. I would look at the pictures of miniatures and battlefields for hours and I started reading lore articles, rules articles and painting articles. I carried the WD to school as well, and read it with a firend of mine during the breaks between the classes. 

By reading painting articles in the magazine, I actually learned the basics of miniature painting. I found a bunch of oil paints that my mother used while she was painting and decided to paint a few miniatures using them. Both of these miniatures on the picture above were painted with oil paints, using some god-awful brushes (and I did not wash the brushes properly, so I destroyed a few of them while painting these Orcs :D). I remember that I tried to make my own washes by diluting paint with water and applying it in the same way as wash (actually, it somewhat worked) and I also used tea and sand as a flock for the base. 

I am glad that I found these two miniatures, because they remind me on those days when I discovered this beautiful hobby (and how amazed I was with all the possibilities it offered). Today, I have several armies for multiple game systems, but back then, when I was a teenager - it was a distant dream. And I also love them because they remind me on my first attempts at miniature painting - so I can see how my skills have progressed since then.

Khagra's Ravagers

Yesterday, I got my box of Khagra's Ravagers: 

Out of all Warhammer Underworlds warbands released so far, the ones I like the most (visually) are this one and Ylthari's Guardians. However, I have to say that I like Crimson Court as well - those vampires are looking really good. Since I play WHU only on Steam (and I like it), the main reason why I am purchasing these Warbands is to be able to use them in regular games (as proxy models) or in Warcry/Skirmish games. In this particular case, the models in Khagra's Ravagers warband are perfect to be used as heroes. 

 

For example, regular Chaos Lord model is cool - but his pose is a bit static. Khagra's model, on the other hand, with weapon pointing forward could be a great choice for your general (or one of the heroes). I know that the weapons are not exactly the same, but that's something you can easily discuss before the game. On the other hand, it shouldn't be too hard to convert the model, so it has a halberd instead of the mace.

Same goes for Khagra's sister, Zarshia Bittersoul - she has much more dynamic pose than a regular Chaos Sorcerer Lord, but there's no difference when it comes to the equipment. I like this model much more than the regular Sorcerer Lord.

When it comes to Razek Godblessed and Dour Cragan, I thik they are perfect alternate models for Exalted Hero of Chaos. I've never liked the original model (Wulfrik the Wanderer from the old WHFB) and I can already see a Ravagers list where you can use every single model from this WHU warband as a hero.  

I can't wait to paint these guys, but they will have to wait a bit since I've got some other things that I'm focused on at the moment.

New Forgotten Realms books

Today I found two Forgotten Realms books in my mailbox. The first one is "Bladesinger" by Keith Francis Strohm and the second one is "Son of Thunder" by Murray J.D. Leeder. Both of them were in very good condition - almost without any scratches or creasing (which is fantastic not only from the collector's point of view, but because sites that sell used books can sometims grade two books in very different conditions the same way). 

Now I have all of the books from "The Fighters" series and I'm probably going to start purchasing new FR books at a much slower pace, because I have a lot of reading to do. If you are interested in buying these books, it's good to know that they are not among the more expensive FR titles and they are also much easier to find than many other FR books. Also, I would like to point out that I really like the cover illustrations for all of the books in the series (except "Master of Chains"), my favourite one being the cover illustration for "Ghostwalker". The artist is Raymond Swanland, illustrator that put out some fantastic work for Magic the Gathering, Star Wars and some other franchises, illustrated book covers for several fantasy titles ("The Black Company" series, for example) and also did a few metal album covers. If you like his style, be sure to check his website here. 

Abaddon the Despoiler - then and now

With the latest batch of the miniatures I have orded came Abaddon the Despoiler. He is a fantastic-looking model and he will be one of the centerpiece models for my Chaos Space Marines army. Funny thing is that I don't want pure Black Legion army, but some Tzeentch-themed traitor legion that loves Daemon Engines - but I'm sure I'll think up a story to have Abaddon there as well, somehow. Anyway, I have assembled him last night and then I put him next to the original miniature of Abaddon the Despoiler that I have bought long, long time ago. It's really cool to have these two iconic models side by side:

Abaddon the Despoiler always was one of the most iconic and recognizable Warhammer 40K characters - at least for me, and I still remember how I stared at the cover of some old White Dwarf issue where he appeared (it was the same illustration that was on the cover of Codex Chaos for Warhammer 40K 2nd edition). It was this illustration: 

At the time, I did not know much about the lore (or the game in general) - but images like this one was what sparked my interest for Warhammer 40K (and Chaos Space Marines, of course). I've never liked the old model - for me, it lacked everything that was great about this illustration (but I understand it probably has a special place in the hearts of many players). However, with the new model, I can finally have Abaddon in all his glory as part of my games. :)

Yay! New models!

Last week, another batch of models that I ordered back in December finally arrived, so I have picked them up today! This batch contained everything I needed in order to complete my Chaos Space Marines army (and Ogroid Myrmidon, which I plan to use in m Slaves to Darkness army). 

So, with Havocs, Hellbrute and Abaddon finally here, I can start assembling the models and creating my first few CSM lists! I have a very cool Combat Patrol in mind (something inspired by Chaos forces from the first editions of 40K). I can't wait to play it against my friend Ivan's Flesh Tearers (despite my models being complely unpainted). 

Oh, and Ivan and me played our first WH40K 9th edition game last week - there's a battle report coming soon, so stay tuned!

New book and... something interesting

Yesterday, new Forgotten Realms book arrived in my mail. It was "Master of Chains", from Jess Lebow. I have read this one long ago, when it was originally published - but I have never owned a copy. I have purchased it now because I wanted to collect all of the books from "The Fighters" series. The book itself is in good condition, apart from some creasing on the spine and a sticker on the back of the book. 

However, upon closer inspection, I have noticed a strange marks on the book cover in the upper left corner. When I realized what it was, I bursted out laughing: 

So, yeah - I have a pretty unique marking on the book cover and it's also hillarious if you put everything together. 

Since I heave read this book almost 15 years ago, I really can't remember a lot - except that I thought it was OK, but nothing special. I'm looking forward to re-reading it in the following months (and I'll post review when that happens).  

Varanguard - work in progress

This morning, I had a couple of quiet hours, so I used them to do some work on the last model of the first Varanguard unit. I did most of the gold on barding and I also did a lot of work on the mount's skin. 

I really like the progress I've made, because this one was sitting on my shelf for quite a while. As you can probably see, I removed some parts of the armour on the mount's head, because I simply did not like them (and I think it looks more sinister this way).

Here are the colours that I have used so far:

• The miniature was primed with GW Chaos Black spray
• Layer of Vallejo Black was applied over the miniature
• Mount's skin was painted with GW Rakarth Flesh
• GW Flesh Tearer's Red (Contrast Paint) was applied all over the mount's skin
  
• Layer of Wazdakka Red was applied over the raised areas
  
• Skin was highlighted using Trollslayer Orange and Fire Dragon Bright
• Gold details on barding were painted with Retributor armour
• Barding was washed with Aghrax Earthshade 

Next step will be to finish the gold details on the barding completely and add some edge highlights. 

New year hobby resolutions

Last year was very hard for everyone. It impacted me and my family on multiple levels and there were many challenges we faced (and we're probably not alone - I believe that many other people faced similar challenges as well). Things seem to be slowly settling down at the moment, so I spent some time thinking what should be my hobby goals for 2021.

For this year, I really wanted to focus on finishing my Everchosen army and painting a small group of Sylvnaeth models using an alternate colour scheme. Also, I started building Tzeentch army that uses Chaos Warriors, Tzaangors and some Daemons. Right now, I want to keep it fairly small and play some games with it (I would really like to try Meeting Engagement rules). This army is probably going to be my main "hobby project" in the near future, so expect to a few posts about it on this blog.

So, here are my hobby goals for 2021:

• Build all models for my WH40K and Age of Sigmar armies, with the exception of Adeptus Custodes (however, I will aim to build them as well if I can). The Adeptus Custodes are an exception simply because my focus for this year will not be so much on WH40K - it will mainly revolve around Age of Sigmar. My Necrons are fully painted at this point, and I will probably have my Chaos Space Mrines army painted for me. For WH40K games that I will play, I plan to use my Necrons, in order to try out their new Codex. This means that Adeptus Custodes are going to wait for some time, so I don't have to hurry.
  
• Finish painting first unit of Varanguard, paint the second unit of Varanguard, paint Kurnoth Hunters, Tree-Revenants and converted Branchwych. 
• Try to update the blog at least once a month.
  
• Obviously - play more games, especially narrative-driven ones.
  

I should be able to meet all these goals - they are fairly small and should be quite manageable. In fact, I have managed to already assembled a lot of stuff: Sylvaneth Warcry starter, Branchwraith (by converting the Branchwych model) and all models from Slaves to Darkness starter. Currently, I am assembling the Akhelian Leviadon, so it seems that the goal regarding assembling all models will be completed in the near future. When it comes to painting, I don't worry too much about the Slvaneth, because I have already painted a lot of them (over 3500 points) and despite using alternate colour scheme, I think I can move pretty fast. However, the only thing that I am concerned about is painting Varanguard - the first unit progressed very slowly because I was looking for a colour scheme to use and then I wasn't satisfied with some parts of the paintjob, so I spent a lot of time fixing that. I am still not sure which colour scheme to use for the second unit - should I simply continue using the existing one, or try something new (probaly something Tzeentch-like). 

But, I also realized that it would be a good idea to have these goals visualized in some way. I am a software engineer and I also love Kanban boards, so I have decided to use once such board for tracking my hobby projects. I also like visualizing progress in this way, because I can clearly see how much has been done and what else is there to do. I am using Asana for tracking my hobby backlog. Here's how it looks like right now.

This is my board for tracking how many models I have assembled. There is also another one, that is used for tracking models that I have painted during the year. I have broken down everyting I want to do in small "tasks", and I work on one task at a time, trying  to be as consistent as possible (and also avoid working on anything else, which is easier said than done :D ). 

However, during the last year I have also made a some hard decisions regarding my hobby - this meant selling some stuff, or abandoning some ideas completely. These decisions were made not only because of general lack of time, but also due to me wanting to spend less on miniatures and wanting to more carefully plan my hobby activities. I'll soon write a post about this as well - because it may be helpful for people who are facing similar decisions. Stay tuned!

Painting Varanguard, part 2

Few days ago, I have finished painting second model in the first unit of Varanguard. This one, in my opinion, is the hardest to paint from the unit, because all of the cracks on the horse barding and the shield. Depending on the colour scheme you use, those details could take a lot of time. I went with the more difficult option of trying to create flame/lava effect inside the cracks - however, I was not happy with the first few attempts, and had to start over each time. This frustrated me a bit, because my painting time is limited and I want to move with reasonable speed - but in the same time, I can't simply leave the miniature with the paintjob I am not satisfied with (and by satisfied, I mean "good enough", not perfect). However, I managed to finish the miniature and I am happy with the result. 

I started painting the tihrd (and last) miniature of the first unit and I think that paintjob should be a lot easier. When The whole unit is finished, I will post a short tutorial that could hepl you if you want to recreate this colour scheme.

 

Indomitus Necrons

Recently, Dusan from Warbrush studio has painted another set of Necron miniatures for me - the ones from the "Indomitus" box. If you follow this blog, you may have seen the pictures of the first batch of Necrons that Dusan painted a few months ago (original post can be found here). Back then, we defined a colour scheme for the whole army and these minis were (naturally) painted in the same way. Now I can say that my army is complete - and I can't wait to put these gorgeous models on the table. I should play my first game with Necrons (and my first WH40K 9th edition game) in the following weeks, so expect to see some battle reports soon!

 

 

 

Chaos Marauder Horsemen

Dusan from Warbrush studio has recently painted some more miniatures for me - this time, it was 10 Chaos Marauders Horsemen for my Slaves to Darkness army. I know that these models may look a bit "outdated" compared to the more recent miniatures (because this plastic kit has been around for a while and the general aestethic has changed), but I really like them a lot. Generally, I plan on using them in Everchosen, Knights of the Empty Throne and (of course) Ravagers lists, as a mobile unit that can take objectives quickly. It would be especially cool to have them along with Varanguard and Chaos Knights in all-cavalry Knights of the Empty Throne army (and I am planning to try that soon). Here's a couple of pictures: