The Butterfly's Tally 2017

This post will be a longer one than the usual sunday's post as I'll be looking at not only what I got done this week but the entire year

Pict 318: Board of Miniatures

Pict 319: Board of Miniatures

As you can see with a glance at the tags on the right side of this text, 2017 was rather producitve. The focus of my painting was with the Middle Earth SBG, painting an army of Iron Hills Dwarves, one of Rivendell and getting a good start with the Hunter Orcs. Other than those, I also painted a few more Heroes and a host of Rohan Warriors.

Pict 320: Board of Miniatures

But I didn't paint stuff for the SBG alone - I also (re)painted some of my Asrai. But I added way more to that list early on in the year by having bought a lot of earlier edition Woodelves.
As you can see in the first picture of this post, the fantasy department of my miniatures grew with a few miniatures intended for D&D. Sadly I did't get to use them all, but it's nice to have them when preparing the adventures.

Pict 321: Zoanthropes

Pict 322: Zoanthropes

Pict 323: Tyrant Guard

Pict 324: Tyrant Guard

Pict 325: Sporemines

I also made progress with my Warhammer 40k backlog (especially with the Tyranid painting spree of the last few weeks). But I also painted a Chaplain Dreadnought for my Flesh Tearers and a whole army of Death Guard. As you can see, this week I added two Zoanthropes, a Tyrant Guard and some Sporemines and with that my total tally of painted miniatures is 317. I'm happy with that number even tough it's not quite a mini a day. But it is a new record for me!
Comparing this tally to 2016's - the ratio of painted miniatures to the ones I bought is better, but I didn't manage to paint more than buying. That means I'll have to do better next year - one resolution sorted! Other than that, I want to try and reduce the backlog of miniatures not only by painting them but also by selling projects that will never get done. I hope to be able to take inventory during the first week of the year, but we'll see how much time I'll have.

Pict 326: Tyranids (WIP)

Pict 327: The White Council at Dol Guldur (WIP)

These work in progress pictures will be the first things I'll paint in 2018: I do want to get some more Tyranids done to advance this project a bit. After that I do want to mop up some of this years projects, namely the Iron Hills Dwarfes (with the chariot and the crossbows) and the Hunter Orcs (including Hunter Orcs, Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs and the Keeper of the Dungeons). Staying in Middle Earth I want to finish up the Balin's Tomb diorama of the Fellowship and a diorama of the White Council in Dol Guldur. And since GW released the Battle Companies book for the Middle Earth SBG I'm planning a Shire force as well - this will be a colourfull and well converted band to take on the challanges of The Quest to Fornost. Once the evil campaign is published in White Dwarf, I'll have to take another look at the evil companies and get to work on one of those as well.

Winged Synapse and more 'nids

With the incomeing winterbreak, I had a bit more time at my hands and I finished the Tyranids I started last week, but I didn't stop there and went right ahead with some more gribblies.

Pict 309 : Tyranid Warriors (2nd ed)

Pict 310: Tyranid Warriors (2nd ed)

The first item I painted this week were the two second edition Tyranid Warrior. I love these early sculpts and I'm tempted to get some more of the early Tyranid miniatures and build up a larger force for second edition 40k.

Pict 311: Tyranid Shrike

Pict 312: Tyranid Shrike

Pict 313: Tyranid Shrike

Pict 314: Tyranid Shrike

Pict 315: Tyranid Shrike

Pict 316: Tyranid Shrike

Just today I put the finishing touches on my Shrikes. I'm happy with the conversion but since the poses are rather similar right now, I might look at doing some more in the future - the only problem I see with the Varghaist wings is that they dont have the fleshy bits carved into them. But that's marginal. I hope that the fast synapse will keep my army together.

Pict 317: Tyranids (WIP)

Contiuning on with the Tyranids, I built and primed some more of the 'nids from my 40k box. Right now I'm working on similar basecoats to the ones last week but on a Tyrant Guard, two Zoanthropes, some Sporemines and my fith Hive Tyrant (you can never have enough!).
In the new year I hope to write a narrative campaign for the two biggest 40k forces I own - the Tyranids vs. the Flesh Tearers. I do have some things in mind and I hope that a campaign will give me the drive to finish up some more of the miniatures in my 40k box before I am distracted.

Again with the Death Guard but also more Tyranids

This week I finished the Nurgle Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer from last week's post. And, after I finished reading the new Tyranids Codex, I again picked up the brush to get some more bug on the table, but see for yourself.

Pict 303: Nugle Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer

Pict 304: Nugle Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer

Pict 305: Chaos Lord, Malignant Plaguecaster

Pict 306: Chaos Lord, Malignant Plaguecaster

Other than the aforementioned Sorcerer, there are pictures of the Chaos Lord and the Malignant Plaguecaster. The former is there because I finally managed to finish his basing the latter, since I noticed that up until now I only had shown him in the group-picture of the finished Death Guard from the Dark Imperium Box, but not on his own. He was finishedd right before I took the group shot, but somehow I forgot to take singles of him.
With that I managed to paint up all of the Death Guard again, but I'm tempted to buy some more Poxwalkers and more Plagemarines - we'll see what I'll get myself for christmas.

Pict 307: Tyranid Shrikes (WIP)

Pict 308: Tyranid Warriors 2nd edition

With the new Tyranid Codex I looked at all the Tyranids that lay unpainted in a box and discovered these fun little Shrike conversions. I was sad to see, that they are not only no longer in ther Codex, but that the loadout I build them with (all close combat weapons) is not even legal when playing with the Index. I didn't bother to change them since I'm playing so little 40k these days and I do hope my opponent wont take offence to how they are built since we mostly play open or narrative scenarios. Other than that there are two second edition plastic Warriors. I painted one up in 2015 and now I feel like painting the rest of the brood.
Right now I only drybrushed the skin areas. The next step - doing the carapace - always takes the longest but I hope to power through so that I can finish them all before christmas.

A little Nurgle here and there

This week I pretty much didn't have any time to paint but I managed to get a litte work done with my Death Guard.

Pict 301: Plaguemarine Icon Bearer

 First is this updated Plagemarine. - I added the banner of a Nurgle Sorcerer by ForgeWorld to his back to make him the Icon Bearer of the squad, since every squad should have one.

Pict 302: Nurgle Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer (WIP)

The only other miniature I can show is said Nurgle Sorcerer. He's not wuite done yet - Im not quite sure wether I'll keep the face like it is now or if I shoud mess about with it some more. Other than that the base is obviously missing - I still haven't gotten around to buy some more Agrellan Badland...

Goblintown - done for the day?

This week I'm able to show you a completed version of the Goblintown board, I worked on during the last few weeks.

Pict 297: Goblintown Board

Pict 298: Goblintown Board

Pict 299: The Goblin King's Throne

These pictures show a put together version of the board and a closeup of the Goblinking's Throne. The deatils on the Throne as it comes in the box are great - esspecially the pot of poo under it - but you do have to put in some work into it to make it look good on the rock.
The rest of the board looks nice enough all put togheter - I'm happy with the amount of coverage I got with the plattform and it overall creats a good look. There are a few things I want to cange/add to it. Firstly I'd like to add some ladders to get to the upper levels and up to the Throne. Secondly I want to make the two baseboards more similar. I hadn't put them side by side up untill now and the browns are not quite the same. I'd like to go over the whole thing and darken it down even further and adjust the two while doing that.

Pict 300: Goblintown Ojective Markers

I then painted some obejective markers fitting in with the board. Luckily GW put markers in the Goblintown boxset so that I didn't have to sculpt them. I used the basing scheme of cut up coffeestirrers I also used on my Goblintown army.

With this project (mostly) done I now have kind of a blank slate (as in I don't have to finish anything for a tournament or something), so that I now will be able to start on something random I wanted to do for a long time. Or maybe I'll be able to finish some stuff? I'll decide the next time I sit at my hobbydesk.

Goblintown - Progress with the gaming board

This week(end) I continued building and paiting my new Goblintown board. Other than that, I also finished the crates I first showed in april!

Pict 291: Goblintown Scenery

Pict 292: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 293: Goblintown Baseboard

As I wrote in the opening sentences, I did make progress with the Goblintown. For the staps fixing the throne to the rock, I used elastic bands and strengthend them with superglue. After they set I smoothed out the transitions with some greenstuff (more on that later!). Once I finished the building part of all the pieces, I started the painting - right now the rockfaces are mostly black, I only put down some brown streaks. As you can see, the ground is a splotchy brown tone. I quite enjoy the variety but I think it needs some darker tones.
Other than the moveable pieces, I also decided to build a baseboard for the pieces. For storage purposes I'll be using two 2'x4' boards and the picture you see above is one of them. It's got a thin layer of  plaster and the same brown treatment as the moveable

Pict 294: Crates

And here are the crates I originally bought for the game Schicksalspfade, but now they are going to populate the Goblintown. After a base of Steel Legion Drab and a light drybrush, I only used differently coloured washes to achive some variation with the wood.

Pict 295: Narzug (mounted) WIP

Pict 296: Narzug (mounted) WIP

And lastly here's a WIP of a conventional miniature: I chopped up a Narzug and stuck him on a Fellwarg. After some filling and resculpting fur with greenstuf, I already started blocking in the colours and putting on a wash.

Goblintown - A big terrain project and continuing with the Noldorim

Following the progress I was able to achive last week, I managed to sit down and concentrate on two projects in particular: A Goblintown gaming board and the continuation with the Noldorim from a few weeks back.

Pict 283: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 284: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 285: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 286: Goblintown Scenery

Pict 287: Goblintown Scenery

Pict 288: Goblintown Scenery

During the last two months I started to think about a 4' by 4' Goblintown board. I already built a 3' by 2' Goblintown board in 2015 but with this new one I want to be more flexible. The experience with building rockfaces did come in handy this time around and I think I was able to improve my technique. The pictures show how far I've gotten during the weekend: the building process is almost done. I might smooth out some of the filler and I'll have to sculpt the staps attaching the throne on the rock.
The one question I'm facing right now is wether I'll build a flat board for the pieces to sit on or simply use a mat. The problem with the former is the space it takes op in my storage. The problem with the latter is that I haven't found one that I really like.

Pict 289: High Elf Warriors

Pict 290: High Elf Warriors

Continuing on with my Rivendell force from a few weeks back, I added ten more High Elf warriors - four with bow and six with spear and shield. Of these I converted one from a captain and four more from warriors with elven blades. I used spare arms with lances from the Rivendell Knights kit for the spears. The conversion is not my best one - the arm's position looks somewhat uncomfortable - but it does the job and adds some variety to the force. Adding in Elrond and his two counsellors Lindir and Erestor, I got myself a 600 point army to use in an upcoming tournament in early december.

To the defence of Helm's Deep!

"What can men do against such reckless hate?"

This week I finished the Rohan Warriors from the last weeks and I got to use them in a doubles tournament. (And I got to rewatch The Two Towers!)

Pict 277: Rohan Army (Helm's Deep)

Pict 278: Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)

Pict 279: Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)

Pict 280: Rohan Warriors (Bows)

Pict 281: Rohan Warriors (Bows)

The Rohan Warriors comlete a Rohan Army on foot, that I had planned for quite some time - Rohan was my first fraction with the Middle Earth range and thus I have huge backlog of Warriors both on foot and mounted because I concentrated on painting the heroes first. To round out my 400 point army for this doubles event, I used Theoden, Gamling and a Rohan Captain as well as two more Rohan Warriors with thowing spears to get a Helm's Deep themed force. You can see the army in the first picture of this blog entry.
With 24 warriors this batch of miniatures was quite a big but I managed to plough on and prevailed. They all use the same colours but I mixed them up especially with the areas of cloth. The Warriors with bow got a decorative trim on their cloaks to be able to play them as Outriders if necessary

My doubles partner used a fitting (well, with the film canon) force of Galadhrim and in all our preparation games, the army won quite decidetly. During the tournament we got to play this army in two games and while we lost one and drew the other, the games were alway close and fun till the end.

Pict 282: The White Warg (Conversion)

Our evil army for this tournament was an Azog's Legion force with Azog, Bolg, two Ogres and some Gundabad Orcs supported by my Goblin Mercenaries. Since I was also tasked to bring Azog mounted, you saw me convert the White Warg as a dismount in case the two got separated.
The Warg painted up rather quickly in one evening so that I had enough time to finish the Rohirrim.