The Butterfly's Tally 2024

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!

DreadTober Pickups and the Raven Guard Delegatus

These past two weeks, I focused on finishing up the two Dreadnoughts that I had planned as strech goals for this years DreadTober. You have to strike the iron while it is hot – and it is always better to finish up a project before starting a new one.

Pict 1496: Blood Angels Dreadnoughts

Pict 1497: Blood Angels Contemptor

Pict 1498: Blood Angels Contemptor

Pict 1499: Blood Angels Castraferrum Dreadnought

These two Dreadnoughts are left over from last month's DreadTober. I got quite far along with them and put in the time to finish up the highlights, the red armour and of course the weathering during two evenings. The Blood Angels Contemptor chassy is such a beatiful miniature! It a real shame, they don't produce the full kit anymore. The Castraferrum also came out great – I could easily see me painting more of those!

Pict 1500: Raven Guard Delegatus Centurion

I also finished up the Delegatus Centurion for my Raven Guard. The zenithal spray was a bit heavy so after the wash I went in with a careful glaze of Abaddon Black over the armour to darken him down further. I'm really quite happy with the way this one turned out and I'm looking forward to trying the small allied detachment out during the next game of Heresy I get to play.

Pict 1501: Legions Imperialis Blood Angels Infantry (WIP)

Again, riding the high of seeing the finished Legions' miniatures from my last post, I got to work on the basic Tactical Marines and Commanders for my second formation. I put in way to much detail into these tiny miniatures – on top of converting this batch by not only removing the filled in undercuts but also the chain bayonets to differetiate formations...

Pict 1502: Legio Solaria Warlord (WIP)

And while painting small scale – why not paint another big miniature? I finally started to work on my Legio Solaria Warlord Titan; I remember that I had this one primed and ready during 2023's DreadTober and it's really good to get to it now! I managed to put on the base colours; stippling the green armour panels instantly brought the model life! Getting through all the trim did take quite a bit of persistence. Next up will be the decals and the oil wash. I plan to do only a small bit of weathering and highlighting afterwards, so I hope to have broken the back of this project!

Pict 1503: Skulls!

Lastly I painted up these two little skulls. I had scuplted them with left over green stuff after seeing Trent from Miscast's video on making miniatures. I don't have a use for them quit yet – maybe as wound markers sometime – but I'm like them nonetheless. It's fun to have something entirely made by your hands!

Blood Angels Dreadnoughts big and small

Only a quick update today to tie a bow on my DreadTober activities: I had hoped to finish at least one of my Blood Angels Dreadnoughts as a stretch goal. Real Life™, however, interferred and I had only very little time to paint.

Pict 1491: DreadTober Blood Angels Dreadnoughts (WIP)

I did only a bit of work on these two – mainly on the gold parts. It should not take to long to finish them, but we'll have to see how much I can get done in the coming weeks... Still, I'm very happy with the progress I managed during this October!

Pict 1492: Legions Imperialis Leviathan and Deredeo Dreadnoughts (WIP)

But I did spent the time to put the remaining base colours and washes on these Legions Imperials Dreadnoughts from the support box. Annoyingly I forgot to add the decals to the models before the wash, which would be my usual work flow. I'll try and do them just before the weathering and hope it will come out similar enough.

Pict 1493: Raven Guard Delegatus (WIP)

Whilst doing the base coats on the little Dreadnoughts, I also put some colours on the Raven Guard Delegatus. At least, I did not just slap on the oilwash since the model is also missing the decals. I might try and do them when I do them on the Legions miniatures as well.

Raven Guard Recons and DreadTober begins!

Sometimes you just really get into a project – this happened to me these past two weeks and I quickly finished the Raven Guard Recon Marines, I had converted and shown of in the last post and built a Centurion to lead them. I also got a start on my DreadTober Dreadnoughts!

Pict 1472: Ravan Guard Recons securinh a communications shrine

Pict 1473: Raven Guard Recon Squad

Pict 1474: Raven Guard Recon Squad

These really painted up quite fast! I managed to put on the base colours more neatly after a black prime and the grey zenithal. This left me with only a few touch ups and detailwork to do after an oil wash. As always, I documented the steps of painting in a recipe to remember them for later. They are a bit simpler than my Blood Angels but since I kept the bases the same, they should fit right in nonetheless.

Pict 1475: Chaplain Dreadnoughts (WIP)

I also put the base colours and transfers on my Howling Griffons Chaplain - these went on really quickly! The next step will be the oilwash. But I also might get moving with the Blood Angel Dreadnought I want to paint as a strech goal. With the good progess so far, the additional goal seems not that far off!

Pict 1476: Raven Guard Delegatus Centorion (WIP)

After painting the Recons, I had to also think about a HQ unit to lead them as an allied detachement. While a Vigilator sure would make sense to put with them, I also would like to be able to run them as an actual Recon Company with the Rite of War. This means either using a Praetor or the Centurion Delegatus as the budget version. I liked the idea of the latter and looked for inspiration to show the Centurion's station. As far as I can see the only miniature released as a Delegatus is the 2015 event-exclusive Alpha Legion Autilon Skorr. He is sporting a baton which I liked and repeated on my conversion. Other than that the base model is the venerable ForgeWorld production MkV with some added green stuff at the hips and neck for additional hight. I also kept the option to run him as a Vigilator open and gave him a Nemesis bolter converted in the same manner to ones on my Recon Marines. I'm pretty happy with the way he's looking and can't wait to paint him up and more importantly run him in a game!

Converting Recon Marines and Chaplain Dreadnoughts

Just a quick post to show some building / converting I have done over the past two weeks: A small squad of Recon Marines with Nemesis Bolters, ready to be painted as a part of a small Raven Guard allied detachment for my Horus Heresy Blood Angels. And two Castra Ferrum Dreadnought, both of them the venerable Chaplain Dreadnought sculpt from ForgeWorld.

Pict 1469: Raven Guard Recon Marines (Conversion)

Pict 1470: Raven Guard Recon Marines (Conversion)

I had quite a few ideas floating around in my head after last month's campaign day. But one that just had to be done was to convert some Recon Marines with Nemesis Bolters. They do seem quite useful in the game and just look great! I plan to paint them as a small Raven Guard allied detachment – a small part of the shattered legion that lend their skills in forward deployment to my Blood Angels.
The models were converted using the plastic Mk VI marines. I removed some detail on the chest armour and replaced it with detailing reminicent of the Raven Guard Dark Furies. The cloaks are made with Green Stuff – at fist only the rough shape before attaching the backpack. Once that had cured I added smaller whisps of Green Stuff to the edges to make them look less uniform and lastly texturing them with a layer of Vallejo Plastic Putty roughly stippled on to hide some of the seams that I could not iron out. The Nemesis Bolters use parts of the Grey Knight's Interceptor backpacks – using the longer teleporter rods to extend the barrels and the shorter ones to create a sight on top.

Pict 1471: Mk IV Chaplain Dreadnoughts (WIP)

Whilst converting I also worked on this pair of Chaplain Dreadnoughts. Both of them are eBay rescues and one of them was in a somewhat sorry state. The one with Lascannon will be part of my Howling Griffons to represent Chaplain Dreadnought Armand Titus that was part of force that participated in the Badab War. The other one had a bit more surgery done to make it fit in more with my Heresy Blood Angels, most notably I used a Dremel to make space for one of the Forge World Mk IV Blood Angels helmets. I really enjoyed posing these two. Whilst the boxy frame can feel a bit clumsy I'm very happy with what I came up with – one of them braced on a rock to surveil the battlefield, the other leaning forward to get ready for close combat. I plan to paint at least one of them for this year's Dreadtober. Will I manage to paint both of them?