DreadTober Week Two: Basecolours and Atrapos finished

Not to much progress, but some is better than none! I finished my Knight Atropos unit and put in a bit more work on the two Reavers.

Pict 1655: House Procon Vi Cerastus Knight Atrapos

Pict 1656: House Procon Vi Cerastus Knight Atrapos

Pict 1657: House Procon Vi Cerastus Knight Atrapos

First up, here are the four Cerastus Knight Atrapos that were almost finished last week. The additional colours on the Lascutter and the Singularity Cannon really help to bring some visual interest into the rather muted colour scheme of House Procon Vi. Having finished these, I really would like to add more Knights to my collection – some Acherons and Castigators first and foremost. And I'm really tempted to also get a Cerastus frame in 28mm scale as an ally for my Heresy Blood Angels...

Pict 1658: Legio Solaria Reaver Titans (WIP)

No that much difference from last week on the main bodies. Only a few more details such as the scrollwork and the cabling. I also did some work on the bases. The next thing will be the trim on the bodies. The trim on the weapons took two evenings and I had to do something else before switching to the engines themselves.

Pict 1659: Vargheists (WIP)

It has become a bit of a tradition for me to play a game or two of Cursed City around Halloween and I'd like to paint up another unit by the end of the month as well. This time around I started on a trio of Vargheists. Once these are done, I'd only be missing ten Grave Guard to have everything for the two expansions. Of course, there are a few more bits and bobs, I'd like to do. But now that a new Warhammer Quest has been announced, I might struggle to get them done before I'm embarking on a new adventure.

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!

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!

Old Vampires Stir

I managed to finish a few miniatures for my Undead collection, did some more work on the elite Blood Angels from last post and then started a new MESBG army project in the form of Ents with Quickbeam and Treebeard.

Pict 1414: Old Vampires stir up the local cemetary

Pict 1415: C18 Vampira, Necromancer and Neferata

First up are the first finished miniatures of the year – three pieces of my Undead collection that I started right after a game of Cursed City last Halloween. The faces of the C18 Vampire and Neferata were a bit challenging to paint up with the somewhat exaggerated features of yesteryear. But I'm pretty happy with the way they look now. In comparison, the modern Necromancer really was a joy to highlight, but he does lack some of the charm the older miniatures have.
The Necromancer is the first of nineteen miniatures I want to finish this year for the second Cursed City expansion. Very good to have the first one done early in the year, but I have to try and not loose sight of them and should propably start the next batch sooner rather than later.

Pict 1416: Blood Angels Tartaros Command and Veterans (WIP)

My Blood Angels got to see action in a game of Zone Mortalis. I was really happy with the Veterans and the Terminators but my Preator really needs a more powerful weapon compared to the simple power weapon he comes with. Thankfully what he's modeled with could reasonably represent a numer of different weapons. So I'll be able to try a few permutations.
Anyways, the oilwash is dry and locked in with a coat of varnish, the detail work is coming along nicely and I'm starting with the highlighting of the red armour. Not that much more to do after that, so I should have them ready for a Zone Mortalis tournament this coming saturday.

Pict 1417: Quickbeam and Treebeard (WIP)

I also got to play two games of Middle-earth SBG and fell in love with a somewhat stupid list containing just the three Ent heroes Treebeard, Quickbeam and Beechbone. The latter has no official model and I used my metal Ent to represent him – the first time he saw play since I painted him almost three years ago!
Quickbeam here was only partially assembled when I played him. Glueing on the all the missing branches did not take long at all and the basecolours and washes went down fast as well. Treebeard is missing some greenstuffing before the priming. The gaps should be done quickly, but Merry is missing his right hand. I'll have to see how adequatly I can manage that...

The Butterfly's Tally 2023

Happy New Year! As is tradition, the start of a year calls for reflection on the past and for plans on what to do in the upcoming cycle around the sun. I'm really quite happy with what I have achieved in 2023 and am looking forward to the projects in 2024!

Pict 1404: Sanguinius leading the Blood Angels

The Hobby Tally 2023

So to have a look back, this is what I set out to do at the start of the year and how I did:

• Paint and play at least the first of the two Cursed City expansions (it's only 6 miniatures: 3 giant bats, Radukar the Beast, Lady Annika and Carmilla DuSang)
• I managed to paint all of these, but decided against playing just the one expansion. Ideally I'd like to start a fresh campaign with both expansions painted.
  I did, however, play one session over Halloween, which was great!

Pict 1405: Cursed City Villains of 2023

• Paint 5 Infinity miniatures and play a game with them
• In the end I painted 11 Infinity miniatures and even had a few games scheduled in, but they all did not work out in the end. I will have to be better with getting together with people to play these games!

Pict 1406: Haqqislam, Dahshat and Kaplans of 2023

• Paint 10 MESBG miniatures
• I painted 16 MESBG miniatures - not as many as in prior years, but I'm still happy with them! Again, having a game scheduled makes for great motivation to paint at least some of the miniatures you need.

Pict 1407: Mordor Orcs and Rohan Heroes of 2023

• Paint 3 more tiles of the modular gaming board as well as the rest of the Garden of Morr (that's 6 pieces of wall)
• This is probably the biggest achievement of this year! I'm super glad to have finished a 4x4 gaming board and the Garden of Morr pieces. I still have quite a few more pieces of terrain fitting in with the collection, but I can play games at home, which is amazing.

Pict 1408: Garden of Morr Scenery 2023

• Paint at least 100 miniatures in total
• 100 is always a good and round number to aim for and of course I managed to smash this goal as well with 176 miniatures painted in total!

Looking at these resolutions and my way of achieving them makes me really happy. I did not go for to many specific projects because I know, I will get distracted over the course of the year. What could have gone better is gaming – while certainly also a question of free time, I could have been more agressive in getting together with friends. But in the final days of the year I managed to get to hobby club about an hour away and get in my first Heresy game. I do hope to contiune this trend!

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

Other Big Projects of this Year

Pict 1409: Horus Heresy Blood Angels of 2023

I added quite a bit to my Blood Angels army this year: Aster Crohne, 1 Consul, 10 Mortalis Destroyers, 5 Assault Destroyers as Zephon's retinue, 1 Castra Ferrum Dreadnought, 15 Inductii Despoilers, 10 Scouts, 15 Assault Marines, 1 Rhino, 6 Seekers, 1 Avenger Strike Fighter and of course Sanguinius!
All in all 67 miniatures – quite the collection seeing it tallied up like this!

Pict 1410: Tyranids of 2023

With the new models coming for the tenth edition of 40k, I also did some work on my Tyranids. While I'm still not that enamoured with 40k, these were quite fun to get back to.

Pict 1411: Badab Enforcers of 2023

I have gotten quite a good start to a Necromunda collection without even intending to do so. I plan to use these as the bad guys in a Inquisitor game but they could also see use as a Badab War Kill Team. I should really get onto painting the Inquisitor, the retinue and some more terrain I have sloted for that project...

Hobby Plans for 2024

Which brings me nicely to the plans for the coming year. I will once again try to not be too specific and be ok with getting distracted. I also want to try and not get to swept up an the hype of new miniatures and get to the projects I already have at home. And I do want to play more games

• Paint 2 pieces of terrain each for the SciFi and the Fantasy collection
  
• 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!
  
• Once again paint more than 100 miniatures
  
• Lastly, make a concerted effort to buy less new stuff, paint the stuff I have and play with it
   

Infinity Mercenaries: Kaplan Tactical Service

November once again provided very little hobby time, so this post will be a quick catch-up. I managed tp finish a small project for Infinity: a company of Kaplan Mercenaries. I also did a little bit more work on the Oldhammer undead miniatures I had started at the start of the month.

Pict 1389: Kaplan Mercenary Company

Pict 1390: Kaplans, Yuan Yuan, Ghulam and the Yu Jing Ambassador HVT

One of my friends is really into the Mercenaries game mode for Infinity and has been trying to get me paint up a team as well. I had an old box of the Kaplan Tactical Service and took the opportunity to paint them in different (but similar) colours to my usual Haqqislam/Dashat Company collection. Besides the Kaplans I also added in a Yuan Yuan, a Ghulam and an HVT to round out a small 100 point list. I'm really happy to have this use for the Ghulams - I already have six with this exact load out in older poses painted.

Pict 1391: Vampires, Necromancer, Werefox and Cats (WIP)

I also worked on the Undeads from last post - they are now basecoated and had a wash. Highlighting them and doing the detail work should not take to long!

Blood Angel Mortalis Destroyers and Aster Crohne

During these past two weeks I managed to finish up all the Blood Angels for my tournament list, that is the ten Destroyers and their Rhino. I also put the finishing touches on my rendition of Aster Crohne. I then converted more Blood Angels heroes and started on some more Undead miniatures.

Pict 1383: Blood Angels Mortalis Destroyers and Rhino

Pict 1384: Blood Angels Mortalis Destroyers and Aster Crohne

First up, here are the ten Mortalis Destroyers as well as Aster Crohne. I really like how they came out! The Destroyers use a bit of a darker red. Combined with the black panels, this really makes the gold and green details stand out! Aster Crohne is also very nice. I pushed the contrast on the gold this time around and I have to say it does pop more than with my ususal recipe. I might have to get myself some Destroyers to swap out the special weapons for flamers since Crohne gives them a boost...

Pict 1385: Blood Angels Rhino with Reinforced Armour

Pict 1386: Blood Angels Rhino with Reinforced Armour

I'm also very happy with the way this Rhino came out. As with Crohne, I pushed the contrast on the gold. Other than that the big panes were quite fun to weather. It has been quite a long time since I last painted a vehicle and I could see myself doing more of them. Besides the Dreadnought Drop Pod I have still on my table there are also two more for Infantry.
Anyways, this meant I managed to paint every model I neede for the tournament, only to get sick a few days out preventing me from going. Next time it is then...

Pict 1387: Blood Angels Librarian Conversion, Raldoron and Vigilator (WIP)

After finishing everything I needed for the tournament, I went back into build mode and did these three heroes for my Blood Angels. The Vigilator is pretty much stock with only a little bit of green stuff to elevate the helmet a bit. Same goes for Raldoron – here, I removed the sculted blood from the blade and of course I also gave him a helmet. I realised that the Blood Angels Preator in power armour uses a helmet that is based of an illustration of Raldoron and so I had to behead my painted Praetor... He'll be getting a new head as well. The Librarian is based on the model for Ahzek Ahriman, I still had from my Betrayal at Calth box. I used plastic Mk IV head and torso and removed a lot of the sculpted detail. I really like the clean look I've achieved and very much look forward to paiting these three!

Pict 1388: Warhammer Vampires through the Ages

Lastly I also played a short introductory session of Cursed City on Halloween which reminded me of all those beautiful miniatures I want to paint for my Undead collection. I got the project box out and selected a few miniatures to paint up next. They come from various eras – the Vampires and the Werefox are from the Night Horrors line from the late 80s/early 90s; the metal Neferata and her cat Bastet are from the 6th edition Vampires whilst the plastic Necromancer is a modern sculpt from the 8th edition. Ever since the plastic Neferata was released during the End Times, I wanted to convert her on foot. I've had the bits, including a scond hand Yvraine, for quite some time now and after fiddling with the Librian, I also started outlining this conversion – the next step will be the green stuffing and some minor details.

Finishing up a few projects and starting new ones

These past two weeks I managed to finish up a few more small projects for a variety of game systems: painting a squad of Blood Angels Seekers, refurbishing some Hormagaunts and finally highlighting my remaining Sepulchral Guard models and a Wight King for my collection of undead models.

Pict 1348: Blood Angels Seekers

Pict 1349: Blood Angels Seekers

The first few miniatures I finished this week were these Seekers for my Heresy Blood Angels. Usually I like my units to be in a consistend armour mark, but I can imagine the Seekers using the cobbled together MK V whilst scouting ahead of the main army. I might build some more of them to fill out the squad with more of the special ammunition Bolter or Combi-weapons. But for now, they are done and there a q lot more Marines built and ready for a lick of paint.

Pict 1350: Tyranid Hormagaunts

Pict 1351: Tyranid Hormagaunts

Last weekend I played my first game of tenth edition 40k. It was great fun, to take the Tyranids out of their box again. I think my last game of 40k was right at the start of 8th edition, so it must have been sometime six years ago. My opponent hadn't played even longer. So it took us some time to figure out what we were doing, but in the end it was quite fun and did feel appropriately 40k.

Anyways, my bugs sustained some dings and scratches during their slumber. So I set out to refurbish them somewhat and started with these Hormagaunts. Whilst I was ironing out the dings and scratches I also updated the markings on the carapace to bring them up to speed a bit. If I find myself playing more 40k I will have to get eight more models to fill out the squad. And of course, they still suffer from the falling disease of all Hormagaunts so I might have to get myself some fitting washers to put under the base.

Pict 1352: Wight King and Sepulchral Guard

Pict 1353: Wight King and Sepulchral Guard

I also finished up this selection of skeletons. These poor miniatures sat in my box of current projects for over a year. And of course they were only missing the highlights! In the mean time the Wight King recieved some rules to use him in games of Cursed City, so after finishing the Vampires a few weeks back got him and the remaining four skeletons from the Sepulchral Guard higher up the queue. Still, nineteen more miniatures to paint to finish that second Cursed City expansion!

Pict 1354: Aeronautica Imperialis Xiphons

Lastly I started to prepare for Legiones Imperialis in the hopes that this new edition will be released soon. I managed to buy these Aeronautica Xiphons second-hand for a good price. They were already built quite nicely – only a few mold lines that had to be removed. The basecolours went on rather quickly after priming them. The 8mm scale is new to me, but I could get used to it! Next up will be an oil wash and some highlights to finish them up.