Paul's Dwarf Army January Rank and File First Unit 156 points completed

 I've been back in the hobby for a few years now after a long hiatus. Prior to this I was into army painting and have four completed 8th Edition armies. My painting techniques were batch painting with a limited colour palette and basic layering techniques. The individual models would not win any prizes but en masse on the tabletop they looked ok. On returning to the hobby I wasn't playing the game any more and I started to paint in a different way. Through online forums I met some amazing people and started painting for competitions. When I did the test model for this army I was just enjoying the process of painting the individual model. So I employed a lot of the techniques that I'd improved at and learnt such as glazing and NMM. These are great when you have plenty of time to spend on a model but I have come to realise that doing a whole army like this is going to be more difficult than I first realised. However, I've started so I'll finish and I have to admit I'm pleased with the way they are looking.

Below is the first unit for the army. 10 Thunderers with a full command unit of leader, musician and standard bearer. This comes to a total of 156 points.

Going forward I will need to adjust the way I approach the painting process. The yellow is built up on a black undercoat with four different colours being glazed over each other to build up colour and contrast. Whilst I think it looks great it is time consuming and I will need to think about the process going forward so that I am not struggling to hit the deadlines for future instalments. The other mistake I made was painting the armour and gold in NMM. I don't have any alternative now that I've painted the first unit and I think that it contrasts nicely with the yellow and black. I realised that as the painting process was dragging on that smooth blends weren't going to be an option if I want 1500 plus points painted in a reasonable time. So I'm hoping that layering so that contrast creates the illusion will cover up the lack of smooth transitions. Below are some more images of the regiment showing each of the models form three different angles. 

 

The next unit I'm attempting are 15 miners. These are mainly clad in mail coats so I'm going to get lots of practise with NMM chainmail. Wish me luck and see you next month.

Nathan’s rank and file month 1 - Blue Horrors of Tzeentch (1,400 pts)

The title says it all really - month one (and the plan is also months two and three) has had me painting blue horrors. The original Kev Adam’s horrors are great figures that ooze character which makes then great fun to paint. Here are the ten I got done in January:

So there we have it - ten mean, nasty little buggers that only arise when you “kill” a pink horror. Which is quite cool, even if it was (at least partly) designed to help GW sell more figures! Thankfully they can also be used on their own in the latest version of Warhammer which is how I plan to use them. But in units of nine of course as that is Tzeentch’s number. And last but not least here is a pic of my pledge figure which will be heading off to the US shortly:

So onto painting some more blue horrors I go…

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9, January Post (Rank and file #1 - 110points )

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9 January Post (Rank and file #1 - 110 points)

Well, I got off to a really good start in January, and made the most of my holidays - I had the base colours on all my January models within a few days. Plus, I managed to do at least a little painting every day of the month, so the progress was consistent.

I had a few wobbles in the middle of the month. This is a new colour scheme I'm trying, with a 'summer palette' based on a tetradic color combination, with green as the main colour. However, I realised some of the other colours I'd chosen (purples and oranges) weren't really working as well as I'd hoped, and I'd gone with too many complementary colours, so I had a bit of a re-think and re-painted a couple of tunics to make the group a little more coherent. In the end, I managed to scrape through and get the first 10 models finished. Nothing fancy, nothing spectacular, just 10 basic Elf archers.

I'm happy with how they turned out:

Group 1:

Group 2:

And the whole unit together:

Looking at the photos I see a few areas which need a little more work, but considering this is the most minis I've painted in four years, I'll take it. I'm planning on varnishing everything this year too, but I'll wait for a bit before doing a big batch, then flocking the bases.

I think the 'summer palette' worked fairly well. I used three different shades of green. Two worked really well, but I'm not so sure about the darkest green. I might try another shade in February.

The warm reds, browns and yellows worked out pretty well. My grand plan is to use an 'autumnal' palette with my High Elf army, and a 'winter' palette with my Sea Elves. I'm not sure what I'll do for my Dark Elves, but that's something I can worry about later.

I did want to give an impression of age, despite the bright palette, and was planning to do more ageing on the metals. I still might get round to this, as well as weathering the leathers more, but this would be a nice bonus. If I get round to some warriors in the later months of the challenge it should be easier, since there will be more metal and armour on display.

For the bows, I wanted to emphasise that these are the renowned Wood Elf bows, made from the Lornalim tree. I went for a lighter, natural (bone) colour, but I'm tempted to add more highlights, to make them stand out more.

For the bookkeeping:

10 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows and hand weapons

Now, I'm a little worried about being able to keep up the pace I need to complete the OWAC. I didn't have many distractions, was painting a little every day, yet was still cutting it fine to reach the finish line this month. I suspect I'll need to take on some different models in February, either ones with less details, or at least something to break up the monotony of painting archers. I've got a few Wardancers and Bears in the wings. However, I've got to keep reminding myself that my personal goal for this OWAC is to have at least 30 archers done by the end of it...

I'll also try to focus on batches of three figures, aiming to finish them in a week. At least this breaks things up a bit, and might avoid that last-minute sprint for the finish line at the end of the month.

At least our cat is quite happy that I'm joining in the challenge - he's realised I now spend more time than usual sitting still at my painting desk, so has been making the most of it:

Nicolas' Chaos Army of Tzeentch - Rank and file Month #1

 Back in the game!

January was a packed month for me with the family... and I saw it coming! So in my head, I needed to start with an easy pick, and one that would let me get back a painting routine.

Here they are, my firt 1260 pts of flamers!

As you can imagine, they do not stack up too well in rank and file on 25mm, and actually this edition of the flamers was not meant to.

They were for me and opportunity to test my color combinations for the disks and the wyvern that will follow... Although I might have gone a bit to much "Toucan Sam Froot Loops" on them 😅.

And here are my 3 favorites zoomed in;

Waill and Roll's First Wave is Birthed. (399 points)

It's 6mm Warhammer 40,000, NOT Epic 40k!

Pict Capture of Hive Tyrant on Chordelis

> Reinforcements needed...Hab Block Maximus has fallen...

> Massive Xeno-form nesting in ruins...Bombard location...

> Swarms everywhere...current position compromised...

> Is anybody there?..

> Oh Emperor... It's...

> Ruins of Maximus occupied by gargantuan xeno womb beast...

> Birthing more of the gunner beasts, dozens...

> There's something else...

> I'm taking the shot...

> ...

> It sees me...

I can't believe we are already at the end of January and it's time to post some ShortyK progress.

In order to get a little ahead I started the month by priming and basecoating absolutely everything, it felt really good to tick off a few processes for the entire horde. The real biomass of this months painting however was the following 26 models (points values as per 2nd Edition, where possible): 

1 Hive Tyrant with Venom Cannon, Bonesword and Lashwhip 219 points, 

1 Exocrine N/A points, 

20 Termagants with Fleshborers 120 points, 

3 custom Ripper Swarms 60 points, 

and a 3D printed Tervigon with hand sculpted additions N/A points.

Total points for the month = 399

The vintage Epic40k Tyranid sculpts are a bit of a mixed bag. The plastics are almost two dimentional, reminisent of Egyptian bas reliefs, the metals on the other hand are very characterful sculpts though many of them are radically different from the modern versions of those Bioforms. This is most evident with the Exocrine, a creature that bares no resemblance to it's modern plastic version, here it is a strange bug tank, a flesh gun with seemingly no means of self propulsion. Tee Hive Tyrant on the other hand is a more direct ancestor of the modern beast, I have painted one of the three available Tyrant models, the others shall follow in future months. The Gaunts were very easy to paint and took contrast paints well, I think these Epic40k Tyranid plastics are a little oversized compared with other 6-8mm offerings from GW but that's fine by me, it makes them nicer to paint.

My Ripper Swarms are made from 40k Tyranid Toxin Sacs mounted on Legions Imperialis bases, I saw this done on Reddit a while ago so cannot take credit for the idea but I think they work really nicely. The eagle eyed amoung you may notice that the relative scale of my ShortyK bases is a little fast and loose. My Rippers are on bases that are too big, but I do not care, these are purely for my own enjoyment and this kind of base-scale-wonk is an unavoidable element of this project. Perhaps this will slightly unbalance my games? It remains to be seen.

The Tervigon is a modern 3rd party 3D print, not Old School at all! I know, I know! I'll not be using many modern minis in this project but there will be another couple in future months, I own them so they're getting painted. I had to hand sculpt an extra pair of arms and some head crests on this one in order to make it a true Tyranid.

I'm really just laying the groundwork at this stage, there's so much more to come. Next month Leviathan will be vomitting up more Gaunts, this time with airborn support.

Finally here is a cheeky Blood Angels Terminator that I am sending to Jaakko, this is my first ever Blood Angel and it feels great to tick off such a classic. Of Course I hope he will be ripped open by a Genestealer as soon as possible.

Pokrzyw's Empire Army - Month 1 - Heavy Metal Knights - OWAC IX

"Reiksguard Knights, your Emperor is calling! Death or glory await us, but if we die, we will die as warriors, with swords in hand, and there can be no better death than that." - Kurt Helborg motivation call - from Warhammer:Armies 8th ed

Kurt Helborg - Grand Master of Reiksguard Knights

 Plans for January:

I decided to take one of the most iconic units of Oldhammer Empire - Reiksguards on foot. They are slow, they don't have good offensive or defensive skills, but they look impressive.

Before

Realization:

I started month with huge entushiasm, although after week of paintwork I had two weeks of other activities.. And it means that last week was really busy ;)

My idea was not using contrast nor speedpaints. I forget how hard and time consuming is classic painting without modern cheats..

Final Gallery:

Sorry for quality of photos, taken in very bad light in last evening.. 

Steel, feathers and saches. Impressive drill.

Together with their grand master

Frontal photo

Kurt Helborg impressive helmet

Kurt Helborg

Points:

• Kurt Kelborg (147)
• 20 Reiksguard on foot [with FCG] (286)
  

Plans for February:

February is short, but I would try to struggle with Moot forces (marked as 1)

Gift:

This year I decided to prepare and paint one of old gobbos. There are small issues with parcel, but it shall start it's trip to Byron on Monday.

Ben D's Skellibobs - Janu-Scary

January - Rank and File

Weather: Yuck

Mood: Efficient

Music: Grimdor

http://Welcome back to "Gnomes, but dead this time," where we follow the painting of an army of gnomes, who are this time, undead. Since the backbone of the army is mostly skeletons on foot, the manager of the project took ten of them to task, creating a hopeful dent in the sea of skulls.

"Since this is my second go at painting these clowns," says Ben, "I wanted to try something different. Originally they'd been painted with a ochre-heavy scheme to play into grimdark aesthetics (which were the style at the time,) but this spin I had set to work with the Gallagher palette in mind. I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out, with the high saturation halberds and the blue from within boniness."

 

This first batch actually uses much of the same color set as the Chaos Gnomes did in last season, which feels like quite a cheeky decision, but works out satisfactorily all the same. Bones here start off with a Night Lords Blue (Citadel), and then gradually brighten with Celestial Blue and Trooper White (both Two Thin Coats again.) The same basic technique goes for the halberds with a mix of Corvus Black and Khorne Red (both Citadel) up through Demon Red (Two Thin Coats) to give them that otherworldly cartoon brightness.

While there's a lot to say about this batch now, there'll be thirty more skeletons just like them in the coming months. Rumor has it that the project manager may play with an inversion of the base colors, which is to say that some bones may be red, and some halberds may be blue, likely to help differentiate the units and break up the monotony. Another way to distinguish the sections could be changing the color of their hats, a tactic which we saw in OWAC 7 for the Alpine Gnomes. 

Whatever strategy Ben ends up using however will eventually have to answer to the gods of lore. Where are all these bone-gnomes coming from? What do they want? Why are they so cute? While the word is still out on all of those questions, we do have a statement regarding the history of this force, and elements that may resurface as the project progresses.

"In 2024 I hosted an event for my LGS called Gnomemageddon where the earliest iteration of the skellignomes invaded a small village on the orders of Gneil the Gnecromancer. While story has it that he died that day in the shadow of his Abomin-umpkin, maybe that's not how the story ends. As far as I know, gnomes in Warhammer are quite longlived, so its not out of the question that it might take a little more than a sour fistfight to end the career of such an illustrious sorcerer."

Maybe that's true, and maybe its not, but there’s no time to dally since we've sunk all of our time into taking a really sweet picture of the unit as a whole... minus the frontmost, leftmost skellibob. 

He was not ready for his closeup, and we will shame him later.

 

10 skeleton warriors with halberds, musician, and banner = 120 pts

120/2003

And with that, we’re at the end of the month and this bit. 

Thank you all for reading, and good luck out there!

 

+++++

Next Month’s Preview:

I hope the suspense does not kill you.