Results from the 2019/20 Hobby Season

 

Well, it is time to bring the 2019/2020 Hobby Season to a close. And what a season it turned out to be.  As with the prior season, I chose to focus on a few specific areas or forces in order to make progress; but I didn't let that keep me from specific fun projects as they presented themselves (I'm looking at you, Jewel of July!).  This season I chose to focus on Horus Heresy Dark Angels, Blackstone Fortress, and a new Titan Legio for Adeptus Titanicus, Legio Ignatum. Over the course of the season, I completed 36 infantry sized models, four dreadnought sized models (including AT titans) and one Knight titan. During the prior 2018/19 season I completed 31 infantry sized models, nine dreadnought sized models (including AT titans), and one Knight titan.  

For a look at what I proposed for the season vs. what was accomplished, see the updated kick-off post here.  I hit everything on the list with only the Blades of Vengeance not getting any completions.  That project went on hold early when 9th edition was revealed and it became clear more was coming in terms of Primaris and Dark Angels. Since Dark Angels are now embracing their Primaris brethren, I decided to scale back the Blades of Vengeance project.  The new Indomitus marines will be painted as Dark Angels along with squads of Intercessors and such to bulk things out.  The Vanguard marines and associated characters will be painted as Blades of Vengeance. This approach will lend variety to the Dark Angels collection and offer some painting variety as well as lending the Blades of Vengeance some purpose for being in the combined force (They are the vanguard!).

 

But enough of that, let's take a look at the season's accomplishments.

So, starting with Dreadtober 2019, I completed one dreadnought, two Praetors, two Veteran command squad marines, and five Interemptors for the First Legion this hobby season. This progress covered all of the new Forge World releases except the five new Knights Cenobium (which I did get assembled and primed).

The Praetor models are very cool.  Lots of neat details and iconography, lots of character for the Legion. If I had a nit, it would be that the poses are a little stock when compared to similar models for other legions.  

These command squad veterans were fun to put together and lightly customize.  They should stand well alongside the Praetors  and other characters. I'm overdue to complete a command standard bearer.

I enjoyed using some old school decals on the veteran below. The chest eagle is probably 30 years old or close enough to not matter.

The Interemptors were a great kit to paint. Who doesn't need some plasma flamers in their First Legion army?!  So cool.

This was the season to get some work done on the great Blackstone Fortress models.  I of course wanted to get the Characters finished, but I felt that had I done that I would never get the hostiles done.  So I chose to put the characters aside and do the hostiles first instead.  Starting with Squaduary 2020, Here's what got completed over the season...

21 hostiles were completed, leaving only the cultists from the original boxed set left to do.  Here they are in order of completion throughout the season.

As stated in the individual posts, I borrowed the basing theme from White Metal Games.  I like how they come out when placed on the actual game tiles, as shown here.  It's a simple approach that works when compared to many of the more complex examples you can find around the web. I definitely wanted something I could easily and consistently reproduce on all of the models in the Blackstone Fortress line.

Starting with Monster March 4, I made progress on a second Loyalist Legio maniple for Adeptus Titanicus to face off against the Legio Tempestus force I completed last season. This happened when it became clear I had chosen a defector paint scheme from the Forge World books (I had planned to use my Tempestus force as Loyalist).  So they can still be Loyalist, or declared Heretical to face off against my new Legio Ignatum titans.  And I actually got a small socially distanced game in this summer, the first for me and the models!  Here's what got completed this season...

If a maniple is only going to have one Warlord, make sure it has ALL the options. I have a bunch more of the Forge World resin options assembled and ready to paint as well.

The new Warbringer was a fun surprise to the model line and a great way to separate this new Legio project from my existing Tempestus Legio.  I have the new Forge World Warlord-Sinister titan ready to build as well to stand with the "good guys". 

Here is my current completed set of Legio Ignatum titans standing together.  As build projects, I also completed two Warhound titans and a second Reaver titan for the maniple. I hope to get them completed over the 2020/21 hobby season.

 

I also snuck in a couple random projects of interest as the season went by, starting with a squad of Sisters of Silence to join with my Custodes force. These ladies are great fun to paint and I especially like the tine forehead tattoo decals.

Here they are standing with a few Custodes for scale and to illustrate that the forces compliment each other when displayed together.

The other outlier for the season (And I'm pretty pleased that I stayed focused through out the year on my main goals) was putting paint at last on the Cerastus Knight-Castigator as part of the Jewel of July community painting challenge. This model is the lead Titan for my House Taranis project.

I love the optional internal detail that Forge World offered for these knights.  I'm not sure this is an option any more, so I'm glad I picked them up and dumped them in the bits box while they were available.  So much is going out of production these days...I mean I get it, but it's still too bad.

Here is the Baron leading his force of House Taranis Knights. I have SO much more to paint for this force...five more assembled and primed knights and one unassembled Knight Preceptor.  And I still haven't picked up one of the newer big boys (Valliant or Castellan), not to mention picking up any more Forge World knights. This project will be on going for a couple more seasons as it isn't as high a priority in my mind so far.  Too much newer cool stuff coming out on a regular basis to spend too much time on these big models, even though I truly enjoy building and painting them.

Taken in all, I am very pleased with my production this season.  As a husband and dad, I don't commit a great deal of time to the hobby (maybe six to eight  hours a week). This hobby is my primary source of free time and I've let go of all other hobbies in order to accomplish that much.  For me, the Warhammer hobby has been a thing since the mid-90's, when I stumbled on 40K 2nd edition and the equally early editions of Warhammer Fantasy. So much background and great models. Nothing else compares for me.

Check back in September when I'll kick off the next hobby season with more simple goals and forecasts.  I will adopt a similar approach to my 2019/20 goals. One can't always guess what cool stuff will come out so I always leave the door open to change. I've been successful with focusing on a few key projects and I'm enjoying the progress as I final starting getting whole collections painted rather than just hitting random models and squads across my whole collection (which is understandably large after 30+ years of collecting).

Stay safe out there, and thanks for reading this far.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Horus Heresy Dark Angels Interemptors - TO DONE

 

Greetings!  Today I am able to display the First Legion Interempters as lacquered and DONE.  It's a fun squad, and I guess I'm going to need another five to play a decent game of Horus Heresy. For now, I'll enjoy the project win, the last project of my 2019/2020 hobby season.

To complete the project I caught a few missed areas (oaths of moment, etc.) and finished the highlighting steps I missed on the leather work.  There wasn't really that much to do from where I was in the last post.  Here's how the squad came out in the end.

For my next post, I'll wrap up the hobby season with a run down of what was completed and what was not.  Then we'll put that behind us and move on into the new 2020/21 season.  There is so much good work to get to, that I really can't wait to sit back down and keep on building and painting.

I hope you all are staying safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP: Horus Heresy Dark Angels Interemptors - part 3

 

Greetings and welcome back to 262Krieg.  After a week in the woods camping with the family, I'm back working on the Dark Angels Interemptors.  I'm very excited about the new black book due out soon with the new First Legion rules and hopefully more interesting fluff...and our Primarch! I'm itchin' to get that on pre-order.

The bases are done now and blend well with the rest of the growing force I've been working on.  It really helps to keep paint formulas around to recreate stuff like this more easily. In this case, it's a pretty simple approach, but having the wrong paint colors would leave shade differences that might prevent the force from looking uniform if I didn't use all the same paint.

I'm diggin' the molded shoulder pad legion symbols with the blue plasma.

Black armor highlights were applied completing that step at last.

This Dreadwing unit is gradually drawing to a close.  I'll apply a couple decals to liven things up and address a couple issues...like the one model who managed to avoid having his fuel canister painted...there's always a few issues to go back and touch up with these projects.  I hit them at only a couple hours a crack over a few weeks so it's hard to stay focused across the whole time.  

And this guy's left hand is lost in the weeds between the steel canister, the black armor and the splotchy highlights to the fingers. That definitely needs some tidying up. Otherwise, I'm pleased with the results.  Other than red gun casings, they fit in perfectly with my existing force.  I've decided my Dreadwing have red casings to help distinguish them from other wings.

So one more post this week will put paid to this project...then it's on to September and the start of the new hobby season.  I'll have a wrap up post for the 2019/20 session by the end of this month as well. The hobby just keeps rolling on!

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP: Horus Heresy Dark Angels Interemptors - part 2

 

The Dark Angels Interemptors continue on a piece.  Very close to complete now.  Bases need painting, armor needs highlights, and the any decals need to be applied, though I won't need much on these guys with all their molded detail.

This week, I painted the plasma coils in the usual colors.  I realized I cleaved to the box art for the plasma guns and forgot that I was originally painting black gun casing on my 30K Dark Angels.  Well, who knows that the Dreadwing get up, eh? Perhaps I'll make that a thing so they stand out from portions of the army belonging to other wings.

Next I shaded the armor trim and the reds, then brought in some red highlights.

I also attempted to dot in some yellow over the eye lenses to brighten them up a bit...this appears to have provided some unintended OSL around the eye slits in the helmets.  Bonus, I guess?

So that's where the squad is today.  One or two more sessions to go, depending on how much time I get for the next session.  I will probably put the Knights Cenobium on hold for now.  I failed to consider the family vacation plans and I'll be away from the painting desk for all of next week...and the internet so no posts next week, either.  So this project is likely to be my last for the 2019/2020 Hobby Season, at least I'll have one last week after vacation to complete it.  I could roll into September with the Knights Cenobium, but I'm not ready to commit to that yet.  Lots of other projects waiting for some love right now. I also plan to paint the HH Dark Angels Leviathan from Forge World for DreadTober 2020, so no need to paint HH Dark Angels for three months straight.

I hope everyone has good times next week as corona-summer draws to a close.  Check back in two weeks to see if I push these Interemptors to completion.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP: Horus Heresy Dark Angels Interemptors and Inner Circle Knights Cenobium

Greetings!  For my next project, I chose to advance my growing Horus Heresy Dark Angels force.  Back along, I built the Interemptors and the Inner Circle Knight Cenobium.  Now it is time to get some paint on them, starting with the Interemptors.

The recipe I use for Horus Heresy Dark Angels is in the tabs above.  I always start out with a coat of Vallejo Surface Primer Black.  Here I have applied the Vallejo Oily Steel to the trim and metal weapon bits.

Next, I applied the red base coat to the weapons, icons, and a few armor panels.  I copied the Forge World art here, painting some red checkers on the greave of one of the marines and various random bits of others (knee pads, helmet panels). Not my original scheme, but seems to be where the winds of change are blowing.  I expect we'll see more of it in the art and examples going forward. These marines will be Terrans all, so no green shoulder pads for this squad.

Last up, I base coated the plasma coils and the mouths of the barrels where some glow will be escaping. The squad is coming along well and should be a nice start to my Dreadwing.  While moving these guys along, I got my Knights Cenobium ready for paint as well.

These gentlemen will be quite a project to paint.  Lots and lots of little details are sculpted into these knights and they should come out fantastic.  So far I have based the capes and shield icons with Vallejo Surface Primer Grey and then applied a red base coat.

Not much to look at at this stage but progress none-the-less.  The red needs at least one more thin coat, maybe two, then shading and highlighting should bring things in line.  Here again, I'm sticking to the Forge World art.

I'm hoping to work through these two squads to close out the 2019/2020 hobby season, but I expect the Knights will quite likely slip into the 2020/2021 season.  There's a lot to do on them and I don't think I'll be able to commit enough time with the remainder of this month to do a good job.

This project sets me up for Dreadtober 2021 when I hope to complete the 1st Legion Leviathan Dreadnought. And all of this to get ready for the release of the next black book with the Thramas Crusade. Not that I'm doing anything about that...no games planned, etc.  It's just great inspiration to move the projects forward.

Check back later in the week to see where I get to next with these 1st Legion warriors.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

 

On the Workbench [August] - Aeronautica Imperialis and an AT Reaver

On the work bench this month, we have some 8mm scale work.  I decided to pick up some Battlefoam for storing my Aeronutica Imperialis models and gear.  Battlefoam produces some great box inserts that allow you to store all of your game gear and models safely.  I'd been holding off on this as I haven't painted the models nor played the game.  But a recent sale caught my eye so I moved on it.

Here I have the Wings of Vengeance box foam made to support bases with the stems glued on.  As you can see, there is plenty of room for the bases after the foam is put in the box and all the paper accessories still fit as well on top.  This insert will definitely keep the planes safe once painted and helps organize dice and cards.

The Skies of Fire box insert is no different.  If you prefer to not glue your stems on the bases, there are versions for that as well on the Battlefoam site, just check out the link above. I have yet to punch out the counters and otherwise explore the games, but I can see that everything should fit nice and tidy in these boxes.  It's worth it to me since these boxes come so sturdy. They'll last long on the shelf and keep everything safe and organized for the day I eventually find some time with friends to play a game or three with.

I also picked up trays for extra Thunderbolts and the Maurauder Destroyers that came separately after Wings of Vengeance.  No box for those, but still a great way to organize and protect the extra planes which previously had been just dumped loose in the box with the rest.  The model reorganization inspired me to build the extra two Thunderbolts I picked up back along (so I could have two of each variation) and even build the three Lightning fighters from Skies of Fire.  I need to assemble the rest so I can get everything back in the box now. :)

Last up, the second Reaver for Legio Ignatum starts to take shape.  The main model is built and now it is on to building and magnetizing the weapons. This Reaver will stand off and shoot while her sister stomps into the heart of the enemy with chainfist or claw. Supported by this pack of hounds.

So that's what has been on the work bench this month (well, the Warhounds were built in July...).  Expect to see some Indomitus Dark Angels being built soon, while I paint up some of the new Horus Heresy Dark Angels from Forgeworld. Lots of work to be done here at 262Krieg.

Remember Guardsmen, there is time enough to sleep, in the grave.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!