Month in Review - July 2021

 Hey guys, short update to cover a lot of stuff this month.

Go like, share, subscribe and all that jazz.

Stay safe.

Cheers,

John

Month in Review - June 2021

OK, halfway point of the year, so, can't really skip this update right?  So, what have I managed to get done so far then, considering 6 months in I had about 2 months of not hobbying...

June Progress

 

Painting Resolutions 

1. Continue to work towards Grymkin being fully painted (HORDES) 

Not touched them, as predicted, because I've been focussed on the big army projects, but, with them wrapping up this month, I should get to these soon.

2. Complete the Tales of Instahammer challenge (Warmaster) 

Got it done in the end.  Smashed the 2000pt list I had planned out with a load of extras, so I'm sitting on over 2900 at the moment, and can field a 3k list once I paint up a couple more units of Zombies to meet the minimum requirements.

Vampire Counts, 2985 points
Warmaster Revolution
--------------------------------
 180 - 6 Skeletons
 140 - 4 Zombies
 110 - 2 Ghouls
 240 - 4 Grave Guard
 540 - 6 Ethereal Host
 440 - 4 Black Knights
 240 - 6 Dire Wolves
 130 - 2 Fell Bats
 150 - 1 Vampire Lord
 680 - 6 Vampire
     - 2 Winged Nightmare (160)
     - 1 Black Coach (40)
 135 - 3 Necromancer
--------------------------------
2985 - 34/17

 

10mm scale 3d prints from Forest Dragon

3. Paint 6+ points for Age of Crusades (SAGA) 

Managed to get caught up with this one too, ended up with 2 points of Hearthguard, one standard and one with Heavy Weapons, 3 points of Warriors, 12 standard and 12 with Crossbows, and a point of Levy with Bows.  I also painted up a couple of Lifeguard so that I can play Hermann Von Salza, and use the models I don't field as the "free" unit he summons.

 

#heerschau2021 SAGA Age of Crusades Ordensstaat (Crusader Miniatures)

Warlord/Hermann Von Salza with Lifeguard

Ordensstaat Hearthguard (Crusader Miniatures)

4. Paint a lot of Warbands (Warhammer Underworlds ) 

Doing pretty well here, I had planned to try and get one warband done a month for the first half of the year, then do two or three a month for the rest once my online challenges had finished.  Kinda smashed it this month by adding a further 5 to the ones I had already done.

 

Godsworn Hunt - Nightvault (Games Workshop)

The Wurmspat - Beastgrave (Games Workshop)

Garrek's Reavers - Shadespire (Games Workshop)

Spiteclaw's Swarm - Shadespire (Games Workshop)

Hedkrakka's Madmob - Direchasm (Games Workshop)

I currently have Myari's Purifiers and Rippa's Snarlfangs part done on the workbench, and Magore's Fiends and Thundrik's Profiteers primed, then it's just a case of picking up the ones I don't have yet.

5. Project: Shieldwall 

Haven't added anything since January, but I did paint January to June's quota back then...  Got 8 more heavily armoured types basecoated and washed ready for layering though.

Vikings (Wargames Foundry)

 

6. Monthly Fun Mini 

 Knocked out a 3d print for this one this month.  I actually organised a small group to do a randomly allocated colour and theme on a single mini each month to give me some direction for doing these.  The theme was stripes and the colour choice was orange, so, here she is.

Vae Victus Miniatures

7. Blood Bowl Team 

 Well, I can't undo it, so they are still done.

Plastic Ogre team - Blood Bowl (Games Workshop)

8. Terrain

 I have clipped out some of the terrain pieces from the Mortal Realms magazine, and the 3d printed statue is still sitting untouched.  I reckon I can get this stuff done now that things are opening up again, and I can hopefully nip over to Warbases to get some custom bases made to do a full set of SAGA suitable terrain.

 

 Gaming Resolutions

9. Play 26 (or 52) Games 

Played 3 or 4 games so far... hoping to get more in with my upcoming holday, and with things opening up a bit.

 

10. Start a Blood Eagle Campaign.

Errr... nope.  But not had a chance to get out gaming so...

 

11. Play 3 New Games.

I'd need to play games for this to happen, right?  I did pick up a Freefolk starter for A Song of Ice & Fire though.

 

12. Play 6 Boardgames. 

 Nope.

 

Hobby Resolutions. 

 

13. Weekly Social Media Post 

Managed 19/26 or so, so far.

14. Do a Month in Review post every month. 

4/6 so far.

15. Games Room furniture.

Nope.

16. Go to 4 Shows or Conventions.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...  Even the ones that have been announced are now getting cancelled.  Maybe I can just buy a load of stuff online while not playing games to do a lockdown version?

 

 

So yeah, that's the 6 month wrap up, getting there with a lot of stuff, a few resolutions ticked off already, some I can't complete but can still have a good go at, and a few that wel, I won't know until another 6 months have passed.

 

 

Amount	Task	Completed
28	Fully Paint Grymkin (HORDES)		0%
83	Tales of Instahammer (Vampire Counts)	83	100%
47	Paint 6pts Saga Age of Crusades army	47	100%
22	Paint Shadespire Warbands	10	45%
50	Project Shieldwall	25	50%
12	Random Fun Minis	6	50%
17	Blood Bowl Team	17	100%
4	Terrain		0%
	Paint Osprey Wargames forces		#DIV/0!
26	Play 26 Games	4	15%
4	Blood Eagle Campaign		0%
3	Play 3 new games		0%
6	Play 6 Boardgames		0%
12	Maintain blog with monthly posts	4	33%
52	Social Media post every week	19	37%
2	New Games Room Furniture		0%
4	Go to 4 shows or conventions		0%
372		57.80%

 

Stay safe folks, and I'll be back soon with another update.

 

Cheers,

 

John

Month in Review - May 2021

Well, been a while since I updated this, but I have been busy with real life stuff, yet, thankfully, I've put some time in over May to bust out a lot of minis. Not fully caught up yet, but made good headway into outstanding challenges. First up, #talesofinstahammer, managed 6 units of Ethereal Hosts, 2 Vampires, 2 Necromancers, a Vampire on Zombie Dragon and a Vampire in Black Coach. Still have 4 units of Black Knights part done, and 4 units of Zombies, 2 units of Ghouls and the Von Carstein nobility to be my General (the Vlad and Isabella figures I did this month, but on the same base).

Next up, #heerschau2021, managed to get my Levy unit done for May, and done a bit of catch up, getting 12 warriors with crossbows blocked in and washed, and getting some hearthguard and my warlord assembled and primed. Hopefully can get this caught up in June.

I did knock out my Blood Bowl team, just another exercise in contrast paints really, and it went in a totally different direction than I had envisioned. I had originally planned Black and Orange for the team colours, but ended up going with Red and Black. For the Ogres anyway, I figure nobody expects the Gnoblars to last very long, so they just get sent out onto the field wearing whatever rags they turned up with on.

Also caught up with my monthly fun minis, a bit of a mixed bag, a prototype Norse Dwarf from Foundry from years ago, the Road Warrior from Copplestone/North Star, another Frostgrave character and a Lucid Eye Cro Magnon.

Also knocked out a couple more Warhammer Underworlds warbands, keeping me on track for the year to this point. Morgwaeth's Blade Coven and the Dread Pageant, I have the Purifier's part done, and the Karahadrin Overlords assembled. Still haven't picked up any of the season 4 warbands yet though.

So, yeah, that's it for May, not a bad output to get back into it I guess. Nearly at the halfway point of the year, so I'm going to have to get my finger out to get to where I want to be overall.

Stay safe people, and hopefully I'll be back soon with an update for the middle of the year. Cheers, John

Month in Review - February 2021

 Back again with another monthly update.  So, what have I been up to then?

February 2021

Jut that little lot, another 47 minis added to the painted tally.  I managed to get a full brigade of Grave Guard done for Tales of Instahammer, because that is a monstrous unit on the table, probably second only to Black Knights in the army, as well as two units of Fell Bats, because they are monstrous bats, and just to make sure I stuck to brief, the General riding a Zombie Dragon (I'll do a foot general for June, but this was one of the few "monstrous" entries in the list.

Black Guard (Forest Dragon)

Fell Bats (Forest Dragon)

Vampire General on Zombie Dragon (Forest Dragon)

As well as the Instahammer stuff, I knocked out 1.5pts of Warriors for the Heerschau challenge (because it gives me a full unit for Lion Rampant).  I still have to do a banner, but am undecided if I'll get a printed one, or go for hand painted to match the shields.

Teutonic Warriors (Crusader Miniatures)

I did get 2 more units of Viking Hearthguard basecoated and washed, but my favourite brushes were on their way out, so I didn't get them layered up and highlighted, but, I was well ahead on Project: Shieldwall anyway.

Viking Hearthguard (Wargames Foundry)

Fat dead brushes only means one thing, battering out some Warhammer Underworlds warbands with judicious amounts of contrast paints.  In short, I finished off three warbands, making up for not doing one last month, and putting me ahead for next month.

The Eyes of the Nine were the first warband I did, and you may be surprised to see black base rims, but brown just wasn't going to work with the tiles...  Then I worked on Mollog's Mob and Hrothgorn's Mantrappers (alongside the Dread Pageant, but they aren't finished yet)

Eyes of the Nine (Warhammer Underworlds - Games Workshop)

With the Eyes, I went with a lot of blues and yellows, because Tzeentch, and had a lot of fun painting the Brimstone Horrors.  The bigger Horror was initially Pink, then Sarah pointed out it's a Blue one, so, I just slapped more paint on it...

Mollog's Mob (Warhammer Underworlds - Games Workshop)

With Mollog's Mob, I wanted him to have a kind of albino-ey look, like something that lives deep underground and has a pallid, clammy look.  Didn't spend too long on the little critters, but I did paint the Bat-Squig to match my other "normal" ones.

 

 

Hrothgorn's Mantrappers was next, basically using them to experiment with colours before I 'tackle' the Blood Bowl team.  I think I prefer the lighter green skin on the Gnoblars, and I'll probably use that for the Blood Bowl ones.

Speaking of Blood Bowl...

Primed and ready to go.

I didn't get a "fun" mini painted this month, I had started the Mom Miniatures Barbarian Giant, but didn't even get all the basecoats on, still, that's a good start for another month, and it had sat most if not all of last year on the shelf primed.

 

 I have also been back out in the workshop pottering away, so that has divided my hobby time (we won't mention the 155+ hours of Assassin's Creed Valhalla...) and knocked up two sample planters over the weekend.

I mentioned last time I had a surprise package in from Cromarty's Forge, it contained a number of 15mm scale Lizardmen prints, which are very nice.  I want to do a separate post about them, but the Kickstarter for the files and printed models is currently running, and well funded, so gratz John.

 

So yeah, 47 added to the tally (broke 100 already) and I'll leave you with a quick shot of the bench earlier before I moved the new recruits up into the cabinets.

New brushes arrived!

See you next month,

John

	Amount	Task	Completed
	28	Fully Paint Grymkin (HORDES)		0%
46	83	Tales of Instahammer (Vampire Counts)	46	55%
12	49	Paint 6pts Saga Age of Crusades army	12	24%
3	22	Paint Shadespire Warbands	3	14%
25	50	Project Shieldwall	25	50%
1	12	Random Fun Minis	1	8%
	17	Blood Bowl Team		0%
	4	Terrain		0%
		Paint Osprey Wargames forces		#DIV/0!
3	26	Play 26 Games	3	12%
	4	Blood Eagle Campaign		0%
	3	Play 3 new games		0%
	6	Play 6 Boardgames		0%
2	12	Maintain blog with monthly posts	2	17%
8	52	Social Media post every week	8	15%
	2	New Games Room Furniture		0%
	4	Go to 4 shows or conventions		0%
100	374		26.74%

Friends with Benefits Update!

Just a quick post today to say that I've updated the Friends with Benefits tab today to include links to both Element Games and Mighty Lancer Games to help promote their online stores, and generate a little kickback if you fine folks want to use them to make orders.

Element has a huge variety of stuff, and a good gaming venue, that I hope to get back to if this Lockdown ever lifts (memories of Mango cider intensify) and Mighty Lancer is a great place to pick up Reaper Miniatures, and I often drop by their stand at Vapnartak.

 

 

As far as hobbying goes, I've finished off another 6 units and a General for my Instahammer Vampire Counts, made headway on a couple more Hearthguard units for Project: Shieldwall, put together and based my Heerschau Teutonics entry for the month, rattled out a Warhammer Underworlds warband, made a start on a big fun mini, and most surprisingly, actually played a couple of games.  More on that later.

 

Oh, and I got a nice surprise package in from Cromarty Forge.

Stay safe,

John

Month in Review - January 2021

 OK, first new post of the year and I think it's a bit of a belter.  I've started off  pretty strong (as usual), New Year Motivation and all that, and made pretty good progress with a few painting projects.  I'll run through them in #hobbyresolution2021 order, then skim over the gaming and hobby ones because Lockdown, what else?

 

January 2012 - 69 minis/elements painted.   Nice!

 

1. Grymkin - not made a start on these, but that might change with some of the things I've been working on in the background.  0/28

2. Tales of Instahammer 2012 - Great progress made here, I knocked out 6 units each of Skeletons and Dire Wolves, 2 Vampire Heroes and a Necromancer.  I only had 4 of each unit in my planned list, but extras is always good, and it saves me going back and painting another 2 units at a later date and spare Skeletons won't go amiss will they.  I'm only counting the 4 units towards my Instahammer progress, so that makes 27/83 elements complete.

 

God, I wish I could count these individually...

Skeleton Warriors  (Forest Dragon)

Heroes (Forest Dragon)

Deid Dugs (Forest Dragon).  Vikings not for scale.

 

3. Heerschau 2012 - Completed the monthly quota for this challenge by painting up a unit of Heavy Weapon toting Teutonic Foot Knights from Crusader Miniatures.  Progress halted as I wait for the announcement of February's point of minis.  Fingers crossed it isn't Levy as I'd have to order in some suitable Slavic Serfs to errr.... motivate the Brotherhood.

 

Hearthguard with Heavy Weapons  (Crusader Miniatures)

 

4.  Warhammer Underworlds - Didn't get anything done for this in January, but it was the only thing I'd planned out that I didn't get around too.  Not overly fussed as I reckon this is more a late game challenge after June once Instahamer and Heerschau wrap up and give me a bit more leeway with stuff.  0/22 warbands.

5.  Project: Shieldwall - Well...  I hit this one running (but I reckon productivity was guilted into it, seeing as I took advantage of the Northstar Newsletter discount code and ordered the entire range of Crusader Vikings, yes, that includes the Norse Adventurers and Varangians...)  This was probably helped by the fact I had a backlog of Vikings built, primed, inked, and bases sorted.  Finally tally is 16 Viking Warriors (2pts for SAGA), 4 Hearthguard with Dane Axe (1pt for SAGA) and 4 Hearthguard with Bows (0 for SAGA, unless I play Lords of the Wild in AoM I think).  Still, 24 hairy heathens added to the total, making me think I missed the punctuation in my planned 2-4 models...  Seeing as I was so close to hitting the halfway point, I also painted up an old Grenadier Miniatures Barbarian Shaman with Skull from Forlorn Hope Games.  25/50 booyah!

 

Viking Warriors (Wargames Foundry)

More Viking Warriors (Wargames Foundry)

Starting to look like a real Shieldwall now.

Hearthguard with Dane Axes (Wargames Foundry)

Gangs all together now

Hearthguard with Bows (Wargames Foundry)

25 Scary Hairy Barbari... Vikings (Wargames Foundry/Forlorn Hope Games)

Barbarian Shaman with Skull (Forlorn Hope Games/ ex Grenadier)

 

6. Monthly Fun Mini - Another successful challenge.  Painted up the alternate sculpt Ranger figure that came with the Rangers of Shadowdeep collectors edition rulebook.  Had a lot of fun with him, kept a very PJ Strider look to the mini, as I intend to use him as Aragorn in some LotR skirmish games at some point.  Now I want to pick up the standard version (found here) andd seeing as he is carrying a severed head, paint him up more like Geralt from the Witcher series. 1/12 done.

Alt Ranger (Northstar Miniatures)

7.  Blood Bowl - Made a start on this, entire team box (and the Ogre big guy) assembled and based.  Hoping to get them done February or March just to knock a full project off the list.  No picture for these guys as it's literally assembled model on basing needing primed, I'm sure you can find hundreds of examples of that on the internet.   0/17

8.  Terrain - Not started, but not worried, looking to do 1 piece/set every 3 months so plenty of time.

Right, that wraps up the painting progress, which is invariably the easiest part during the continued lockdown, but how about the rest of the challenges?

Not looked at any of the Gaming resolutions, but I have just cleared the games table to take pictures, so... it's now free.  Might make a start later today, benefits of living with a gamer I guess.

As far as Hobbying challenges go, kept up to date with weekly #workbenchWednesday posts on Instagram, and I'm (obviously) doing my monthly review, so progress made there.  Haven't been out to the shed for woodworking and there haven't been any shows, so... no progress there.  Ah, balance.

 

 

That's it for now then, stay safe folks, and I'll be back in a month with more painted minis.

 

Cheers,

 

John