The Butterfly's Hobby Tally 2025

Happy New Year! It took me some time to get this tally of my hobby activities together. But now I invite you to have both a look back and a look ahead with me!

Pict 1606: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Army for A Sector Ablaze

The Hobby Tally 2025

As always, I will start by having a look at what I set out to do at the beginning of the year. I had three goals lined up: 

• Paint 2 pieces of terrain each for the SciFi and the Fantasy collection
• I did finish both the fallen head for my Amon Hen table as well as a Cottage made by ForgeWorld. I did, however, not paint any Sci-Fi related terrain. So halfway there!

• Once again paint more than 100 miniatures.
• Smashed it mate! The final tally stands at 219 finished miniatures. Quite an impressive number and the highest since 2020! One additional stat: I posted 169 pictures to this blog and of course took loads more.

•  And again, buy less new stuff, paint the stuff I have and most importantly play with it!
•  While I did buy quite a bit more stuff, I'll still count this goal as mostly fullfilled. Mainly because I really did paint a lot and because I'm happy with the amount of gaming.

Again, if you want so look back at my painting progress of previous years, here are the links to the tallies of the past: The Tally 2017, The Tally 2018, The Tally 2019, The Tally 2020, The Tally 2021, The Tally 2022, The Tally 2023, The Tally 2024

Looking back through notable projects of 2025

• Scenery: The two terrain pieces I finished this year: the head from Amon Hen and a simple Cottage. I quite like the both of them, but I yet have to play a game with them. I really should paint up the Amon Hen ruin and make a board to play the narrative scenarios!

Pict 1529: Amon Hen Statue Head

Pict 1560: Warhammer Forge Cottage

•  Legions Imperialis at Warhammer World: One of the highlights of the year has to be going to Warhammer World for the first time and playing in the A Sector Ablaze narrative event. Winning a trophy for my objective markes was the cherry on top!

Pict 1607: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Army for A Sector Ablaze

Pict 1612: Legions Imperialis Forward Operating Bases and Trophy from Warhammer World

• Heresy at home and abroad: During the same trip to Great Britain, I also got to play in the Discordia narrative event in London. I painted quite a few additional Blood Angels both for this event and the tournaments and narrative games at home! I still have yet to try out Heresy 3.0 and my painting progress has stalled after its release. Right now, I'm focused on small scale Heresy to scratch that sci-fi itch however.

Pict 1617: Horus Heresy Blood Angels Army for Discordia

• DreadTober: Speaking of, this year's DreadTober project of two Reaver Titans and a bunch of magnetized weapon option fits right into the Epic Heresy. I feel like I stepped up my game, especially with the additional decals on them. I really should try and get them to a gaming table!

Pict 1664: Legio Solaria Reaver Titans

• Adeptus Titanicus: In addition to the two Reavers, I also did some good work for the Legio Solaria with four Warhounds. And I painted some of their retainers, the Knights of House Procon Vi with four Cerastus Lancer Knights and four Atropos Knights.

Pict 1535: Blood Angels Tacticals advancing with Cerastus Lancer Support 

Pict 1546: Legio Solaria Warhound Titan on the Prowl

Pict 1563: Legio Solaria Warhounds

Pict 1655: House Procon Vi Cerastus Knight Atrapos

• Ents: Lastly, for Middle-earth I painted two more Ents – one Birch and the third character, Beechbone. I played them in one tournament and had great fun beating up a whole load of orcs while doing so!

Pict 1579: Ent

Pict 1631: Beechbone

Hobby Plans for 2026

Looking ahead, I don't have a specific project in mind. But I want to try and focus on playing and reducing my backlog again. So the three simple goals are:

• Once again paint more than 100 miniatures.
• Paint the stuff I have and buy fewer new miniatures.
• And most importantly have fun and play with my miniatures.

 

Middle-earth tournament prep: Beechbone and Rohan

While I did not finish to much – pretty much only Beechbone for my Ents – but I there is some good progress with more Middle-earth miniatures as well as some Heresy Blood Angels!

Pict 1631: Beechbone

Pict 1632: Beechbone

Pict 1633: Beechbone

When Beechbone here was announced, I was happy to add him to my Fangorn collection. The sculpt has some really nice details such as the face and the nest with two little birds on his head. The leaves are still a bit to cookie-cutter for my liking, but they look better than the ones on Birchseed. I will play the three hero Ents as well as Merry and Pippin in a small tournament next weekend.

Pict 1634: Rohan Royal Guard, Gimli, Theodon, Rohan Banner (WIP)

Staying in Middle-earth, the weekend after next, there will be a Doubles tournament. My team mate Small Things Modelling and I decided to bring the Defenders of Helm's Deep, since the army would allow us to split the force thematically and have a little mini game with Legolas and Gimli counting kills. It has been quite some time since I played Rohan at an event – in fact most of my Warriors were painted for a similar Doubles event with the same team mate almost 8 years ago! Since then I'd like to think that my painting has improved somewhat and I'd like to try and go over the warriors once more.

Before that, however, there a two more Rohan Royal Guard on foot that I have to paint for the army and I'd like to take the opportunity to also do a third one as well as new paintjobs for the most important units of the army: Théoden, Gimli and the Banner bearer. These will be the priority. Any more highlights on the Warriors would be the icing on the cake!

Pict 1635: Blood Angels Assault Marines and Despoilers (WIP)

The first units I built to bring my Blood Angels into the third edition of the Horus Heresy are these five Despoilers and five more Assault Marines. The former are all equiped with the basic boltpistol and chainsword since my unit already has two heavy chainswords and two poweraxes that now share the same one-in-four slot. They are once again painted as Inductii – I'm looking forward to getting rules for them as well. For now, they will be a squad full squad of twenty normal Despoilers. The Assault Marines also bring up my squad to the full twenty. The base colours, decals and oil wash are down, so only the highlights to do on these!

Pict 1636: Blood Angels Librarian and Vigilator (WIP)

Anytime I add a small squad to my Blood Angels is another opportunity to also add to their Officer cadre. This time around I started to work on a Librarian I had converted from an Ahriman earlier in the year as well as the Forge World Vigilator. Both of them should come in handy when list building in the new edition. They are at the same stage like the troops, but I'd like to give them a bit more attention and details.

Erebor Dwarves, Moria Goblins, Laser Rapiers

After a lot of time spent with Heresy miniatures, the next few events I plan to go to will take place in Middle-earth once again. To that end, I painted up some more Erebor Dwarf warriors and a Captain to round out that part of my collection. I also started another army that should play the part of the dwarves' enemies in the form of a whole bunch of Moria Goblins including a big Dragon! I did also finish the two Laser Rapier Destroyers for my Heresy Blood Angels.

Pict 1624: Erebor Dwarves issuing from their mountain holds

Pict 1625: Erebor Dwarf Warriors and Erebor Captain

I played a game with these guys lead by Thrór and Thráin at the start of July and started to paint the twelve Erebor Warriors and the Captain pretty much immediately after. I painted them in the same colours that I used a few years back, when I played an alliance themed after the Battle of Azanulbizar using both Erebor and Iron Hills dwarves. With the red coats and the snow bases, they do look a bit like a collection of Santas. But I'm quite happy with them as a quick little project to finish up my Erebor Dwarves.

Pict 1626: Moria Goblins (WIP)

I built a whole lot of metal Moria Goblins to get this army started. The first two test models are pretty simple with the base colours slapped on and an oil wash applied. I really like the effect so far. I don't think they need much more highlighting. I would like to give them big cave dweller eyes, but they could also work just with the oil wash leaning more towards the grim dark painting style.

Pict 1627: Magma Dragon (WIP)

The Dragon I will want to play with my Moria Goblins is this huge Magma Dragon that ForgeWorld produced for Warhammer Fantasy a while back. I just about managed to get him on the required 130mm base with some parts overhanging. I got the Dragon second hand and spent some time rebuilding it and filling in the gaps with putty. I then put on a light coat of white primer. I'm not quite sure about the colour scheme I'm going for quite yet. But the miniature itself looks like a great canvas with lots of nice texture to play around!

Pict 1628: Beechbone (WIP)

The next project in Middle-earth, however, will be the new Beechbone to add to my my Fangorn army. I might take the Ents to an upcoming tournament. That might just be the motivation to get him done in a timely manner.

Pict 1629: Blood Angels Rapier Laser Destroyers

Pict 1630: Blood Angels Rapier Laser Destroyers

Lastly, with the new edition of Heresy, of course I'm also thinking about the 31st millenium. I finished these Rapiers – while I started them in the previous edition, they do look like a good way to deal with AV 14 vehicles in 3.0. I also picked up a third set second hand to complete the unit. It still has to be stripped of its current colours and I plan to convert the two crew members a bit. However, before that I want to try and get at least one game in with the new rules!

Catching up on Heresy, Middle-earth and Cursed City

Hoo boy! That was a rather long hiatus, thanks to the real life taking a lot of my free time for about two months. I still managed to find some time to build and paint, but not to document my progress. I originally planned to just do one big catch up post. But it got so long, that I decided to split it. So, this post will be about what I got done for my Horus Heresy Blood Angels and a just a bit of Middle-earth and Cursed City.

Pict 1569: Blood Angels Teleport homer and Tactical with new Augury Scanner

After a bit of a hiatus I had to do a quick little painting project to shake the cobwebs off. I was recently gifted the current set of Blood Angels Indomitus Terminators and quickly painted up the teleport homer to use as my marker when playing the Day of Revelations rite of war. And while I was at it, I stole the big Augury scanner from my Tactical squad and replaced the original bit that was from the vehicle sprue with the handheld one from the newer close combat weapons set. Painting the new hand up was fast and now the scanner has a somewhat more sensible size.
The next Heresy tournament I plan to go to will be in middle of June with a narrative event following at the end of the same month – more chances to make a dent in my pile of grey plastic and resin...

Pict 1570: Blood Angels Dreadnought Drop Pod

Pict 1571: Blood Angels Dreadnought Drop Pod

The first thing I finished, however, was this Dreadnought Drop Pod that had been lying about for quite some time. I had wanted to finish it for the last tournament and now I finally got to it. This old ForgeWorld version of the kit was a bit of a pain to put together and the struts still are not quite straight. Nevertheless, once the red armour was done and detailed, it really came together.

Pict 1572: Blood Angels Tactical Marines (WIP)

Pict 1573: Blood Angels Iliastus Support Squad and Commander (WIP)

And so I went ahead and started painting some more Blood Angels for the upcoming events. These are ten more Tacticals to finally expand my Squad to the full twenty. Using a Veteran as a second Sergeant, I could even fudge it and play them as two smaller squads. Then there are five more Heavy Support Marines, all outfitted with Proteus Pattern Rotor Guns that I plan to play as Iliastus Assault Cannons. And of course, there is the printed Praetor that I won last time. I was debating whether he should become a Raven Guard or a Blood Angel and finally decided on the latter on on a gut feeling.

Pict 1574: Blood Angels Dawnbreakers (WIP)

Pict 1575: Blood Angels Laser Destroyer Rapiers (WIP)

So we'll see if I bit off more than I can chew, but I built these Dawnbreakers and Laser Destroyer Rapiers to paint up for the next tournament. This one will be the first one to allow Primarchs, so I might have a look at Sanguinius to see if he is still up to snuff. One of the Dawnbreakes is converted to carry a set of Equinox Power Blades instead of the Falling-Star Power Spear. And of course I opted against the flying stands. One of the Rapiers I got secondhand, and it was missing the crew and I wanted to build one of them with the controller mounted on the back of the Battery. So I had to kitbash three additional crewmembers from Forge World resin, the older Mk III plastics and parts from my bits box. I'm particularly pleased with the backpacks, styled after the Mk III Heavy Support backpacks the Forge World models use.

Pict 1576: Blood Angels Chaplain and Angels Tears (WIP)

The narrative event will be set during the last part of the Siege of Terra and my first thought was to play Dominion Zephon and the High Host. That would be a fun opportunity to get to some more Destroyers. I still have a squad of Assault Destroyers and a Moritat primed and ready for paint. But I also built these neat Angels Tears...

And of course, as is the rule, whilst building I also put together another Consul. This time a Chaplain with Power Lance and Jumppack. He's based on the plastic version of Ortan Cassius, with the Lance made from a Fantasy High Elf bit – here, I'm very proud of the small blood drops on the blade, that I lifted from Sanguinary Guard pouches.

Pict 1577: Blood Angels Tarantulas and Exepeditionary Navigator (WIP)

I also built and primed up these miniatures, that might be part of the collecion, but will probably not see the battlefield. The Tarantuals are some very cool old ForgeWorld miniatures. However, to field them I would need a third one to make a legal squad. They will look good as set dressing nontheless. The Navigator is a limited edition from the very early years of Heresy. He also has rules, so I hope to get to use him in a narrative game in the future.

Pict 1578: Dire Wolves

After so much red armour, I had to do something different. So I pulled these Dire Wolves out to complete them for my Cursed City set. They painted up rather quickly and I'm really happy with them, even if they are a bit simpler than they could be. If I had invested a bit more time, I had individually highlighted the strands of fur to make them stand out more rather than simply drybrushing them. But as soon as the base is done, they do look great!
I even got to play a few sessions of the game and I would really like to start a second play through with all the expansions painted. Something I have planned for a few years. Now, I'm only missing a set of three Vargheists and ten Grave Guard. That should be doable shouldn't it?

Pict 1579: Birch Ent

Pict 1580: Birch Ent

Lastly, I had planned to finish this guy for Monster March – Last March of the Ents, and all that... (I didn't even use the same pun last year?!) I had painted up a Wood Elf Dryad as a birch a while back and I liked the look, but the Ent has a lot bigger surfaces and so was a bit different. Nevertheless the detailing was really fun! And GW recently showed off the third hero Ent, which, once released, will allow me to field quite a nice army of them!

Hitting the ground running

The first two weeks of the year are always good for my numbers, since I got to finish projects that were already mostly done. I started out with Gríma and the Amon Hen statue head for Middle-earth and then did the final highlights on some more Legions Imperialis Blood Angels. After that I also started some more stuff in these universes with more Orcs, an Ent and two small scale Cerastus Lancers.

Pict 1527: Gríma Wormtongue at Amon Hen?

Pict 1528: Gríma Wormtongue

The first model of this year was this Gríma Wormtongue. Again, the new edition is a great opportunity to find these smaller projects and update my armies. The old sculpt gave me a bit of trouble. Especially the strands of hair in the face made painting the eyes quite difficult. Its nice to finally have this model painted! I even got to play a game with it and I am very impressed with him. It was against the the Army of the Dead including Legolas and Aragorn. Gríma really did a lot to keep these two heroes in check while my Uruk-hai Berserkers cut down the ghosts.

Pict 1529: Amon Hen Statue Head

Pict 1530: Amon Hen Statue Head

After painting the Solstice28 idols at the end of last year, I was in the mood to paint more terrain in the same colours. Combining this with the Middle-earth hype, I finally got to the fallen statue head from Amon Hen. A very cool scene in the movies and a treat to have gotten this simple little piece of terrain made by ForgeWorld. The statue once again painted up fast over a few evenings – really satisfying!

Pict 1531: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Commanders and Veterans

I am taking part in an escalation campaign of Legions Imperialis in the first few months of this year. An opportunity to get some more stuff painted! During the first stage of the campaign I want to power through the main part of my infantry. The first of them are these four here: two command squads and two bases of Tactical Marines. The latter I build with some special weapons and painted them as Veterans accordingly with golden helmets.

Pict 1532: Procon Vi Cerastus Knights (WIP)

I also had a start on the Knight Household that will accompany my Legio Solaria as well as my Blood Angels. After reading up, I decided on House Procon Vi (having fitting decals on the Solaria transfer sheet certainly helps). The colour scheme is quite simple - mainly steel for the frame and trims, black panels and some blue spot colours - and the base colours went on very quickly. I can see myself painting a lot of these...

Pict 1534: Ent, Orcs and Dead Marsh Spectres (WIP)

I also started to add to my Fangorn collection with this plastic Ent as well as a few more Orcs and Dead Marsh Spectres. The latter will add to my Mordor collection to make it playable as a Minas Morgul list. I love that the Spectres are finally back in Mordor and the list seems quite strong on paper. I'll have to see, once they are done.

The Butterfly's Tally 2024

Happy New Year! One more rotation around the sun is completed. And that means it is time to look back at what has been achieved in the previous year. And of course it also means a look ahead and making plans for the year that has just started. Once again, I'm very happy with the hobby I have done in 2024 –

Pict 1523: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels and Legio Solaria Support

The Hobby Tally 2024

Just like last year, I'm going to start by looking back at my resolutions from the start of the year to structure my revision of this year's hobby:

• Paint 2 pieces of terrain each for the SciFi and the Fantasy collection
• I just about managed to sneak this goal in during the closing days of the year by painting the Solstice28 icons, which I will count towards my fantasy terrain. The scifi terrain is covered by the Zone Mortalis tile I put the finishing touches on only shortly before that. Since it is so big, I will allow myself to count it as two for the sake of achieving my goal!
  

Pict 1514: Zone Mortalis Reactor Tile

Pict 1519: Solstice28 Icons

• Finish up the Cursed City collection. This is 10 Grave Guard, 5 Direwolves, 3 Vargheists and a Necromancer – 19 miniatures in total, the should be doable!
• I started to work on this goal early on in the year and completed the Necromancer alongside some older Vampire miniatures. The other miniatures, however, are still primed a ghostly white...

Pict 1415: C18 Vampira, Necromancer and Neferata

•  Once again paint more than 100 miniatures
• While I was distracted from the Cursed City miniatures, I did once again paint over 100 miniatures. Again, I only reached this goal in December, but I do like it that way – that means it is an achievable but still demanding challenge. The group photo of my Legions Imperialis Blood Angels is representative of one focus, others I will look at further down this post.

Pict 1524: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels and Legio Solaria of 2024

• Lastly, make a concerted effort to buy less new stuff, paint the stuff I have and play with it
• Looking at the numbers over on the left, I am pretty content. It looks like I did indeed buy fewer miniatures – the smallest number since I started tracking in fact! Gaming took a bit of a backseat, but I still managed to play quite a few systems: The Horus Heresy, Legions Imperialis, Middle-earth SBG and Alkemy
   

If you want so look back at my painting progress of previous years, here are the links to the tallies of the past: The Tally 2017, The Tally 2018, The Tally 2019, The Tally 2020, The Tally 2021, The Tally 2022, The Tally 2023

Other notable projects of 2024

Pict 1525: Fangorn Army

Picking up after the list of gamesystems I played this year: Among them was (only) one Middle-earth tournament. I did quite enjoy this one, however, and I painted Treebeard and Quickbeam (now renamed to Birchseed) to complete a Fangorn army. I still have one more Ent to paint and now with the new rules, this looks like one easy pick-up to build out my roster. This new edition will probably mean more Middle-earth miniatures to come this year!

Pict 1526: Heresy Blood Angels and Raven Guard of 2024

All of these "big scale" Heresy miniatures were painted in concert with gaming events as well. Adding to my Blood Angels to have variety during a tournament and one narrative game day. The latter also inspired me to go ahead an paint the small allied detachement of Raven Guard. These still have to see the table, but I hope to remedy that soon!

Pict 1451: Rados Cults Starter Set

One of the smaller systems I have is Alkemy. With the Rados Cults I started a small warband and have even begun to build them out a bit more. Playing a real skirmish system is really something different to what I usually play and something I'd like to do some more in this coming year.

Hobby Plans for 2025

Speaking of plans for this upcoming year, I will also close this retrospective of 2024 out with plans for 2025. Overall I'm very happy with my goals from last year and will carry them over. I will, however finally give into my hobby butterfly persona and will refrain from giving myself any resolutions containing any particular miniature ranges and will simply go, where the games I actually play / my whims take me. So this is what I want to do:

• Paint 2 pieces of terrain each for the SciFi and the Fantasy collection
  
• Once again paint more than 100 miniatures
  
• And again, buy less new stuff, paint the stuff I have and most importantly play with it!