Bolt Thrower

Whew, that was fast! I'm not sure what caused my recent painting frenzy, but I'm trying to put it to good use. Today I've finished my Bolt Thrower and I'm also working on three more units: ten Swordmasters, ten Archers and five Silver Helms (young High Elf nobles on horses). I only finished a couple of models in those units, but I think I might be able to finish some of those units before may and maybe even before my friends and I meet again to paint and game at my house. But let me present to you: the finished Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower!

I love the fact that this thing can shoot loads of arrows every turn. I think it will force my friends to build some war machine hunters, because after I painted the models I'm working on now I will add a second Bolt Thrower. If they don't start to paint some flying units or some fast cavalry these machines will really hurt their light and medium armoured troops! (Yes, that's a threat. Start painting more fast units after you read this!)

Apart from the elves I've also build the building Thijs and Rutger got me for my birthday (in november). It's a ruined mage tower and it looks really cool, but I need to get some new undercoat spray paint before I'll be able to paint it. Hopefully I'll find some time to paint it with all those elves I want to finish in the next few weeks.

That's it for now, I'm off to buy food and try again to get a room in Utrecht. Hopefully I'll be updating again very soon!

Spearmen!

Well, about time I posted some of my newly painted elves! At the moment I need to do a lot of work to keep up with my study, but whenever I find some free time I paint. Last month I was painting a lot of greenskins, but this month I'm trying to finish the first 20-25 models in my Tale of Four Gamers army. I also played a 400-point 40k tournament which I will tell you more about after I show you my new spearmen. So here is the first batch of High Elves!

I'm really happy that they're finished now, they have been staring at me for way too long. Next up are ten swordmasters, ten archers (which I won't use in my 2500 list, but only up to 1500 points), a noble (which will later be used to represent my general when he gets shot off his griffon) and a bolt thrower. I already finished the crew of the bolt thrower and two swordmasters, so I hope I will be able to finish those two units before the new Tomb Kings are launched, because I want to paint some of the new Tomb Kings units too!

Now then, the tournament! I didn't win, but I didn't do too bad considering I had never played 40k before (apart from a practice game at the local Games Workshop so I knew the basics). My final ranking was 10 out of 17. I lost to two cheesy lists that ended in 2nd and 4th place and I defeated one player who didn't have any experience like me and a veteran player who had really bad luck (his daemons teleported on the field, but they scattered horribly, so a few got in front of my Killa Kans, which easily cut them to pieces and a few teleported off the field). Finally I also lost a game which I should've won, but we we're out of time so I couldn't finish the combat which I was winning (my orks finally got into combat with the necrons and prepared to chop them to pieces, since orks are close combat monsters I would've easily won the combat, but the judge said we had to stop and roll a dice to see who won, I rolled a 2 and he rolled a 5, so he won...).
It was a great day though, so it's too bad I won't attend the next tournament in the Subcultures because I don't want to play with a half finished army anymore.

Well that's it for today, I need to continue reading about the nineteenth century now and paint some models afterwards. I hope I get to show you my finished bolt thrower and swordmasters before may!

Orcs orcs orcs...

Finally: nice weather! Which means I could finally take some pictures of the 20 strong orc unit I'd painted last week. I didn't paint 20 models last week, but I did paint the last two ranks and the movement tray (I didn't have any of the right size) in 2 days, so I was pretty happy. Since I decided to work on my greenskins again I'm really excited to paint, but sadly I was really busy with my study too, so I couldn't paint every day. But now that I've got my work done it's finally time to update my blog and paint again!

I really like the unit, especially now that it's painted. Like I said last time, I used to use mainly goblins, but orcs are cool too. They have larger bases (which I always like), they are stronger (they even got buffed in the new army book!) and they look like they're gonna kick your ass.

Choosing the next thing I was going to paint was a hard choice. I really want to finish my snotling unit, because they're small, funny and have a 40mm base (they're swarms) and I also want to finish my night goblin archers. Both of them aren't orcs, but I want some fire support and those archers cost next to nothing, so I can take a big unit. And snotlings fit in every greenskin army, so I want them anyway. I also bought some new boar boyz, but I fear those will stay unpainted for a while, because there is just so much other stuff to do.
Finally there was another temptation I couldn't resist: a 40k (warhammer in the year 40000, aliens and lazers everywhere!) tournament in Utrecht. It really isn't a big tournament, only 400 points, but that made it even more attractive to me. I don't have a 40k army and this seemed a nice deadline to try to paint an army, it would also be a nice way to meet some warhammer players in Utrecht, because I'm trying to move there.

Ofcourse I didn't choose the right army to paint in two weeks (the tournament is in 16 days from now), I really love orcs, so I thought I wanted to play orcs. Also I didn't want to make an army filled with tanks (I like the guns, but I think infantry is cooler than tanks), so I opted to build a footslogger army. This means I'd just picked one of the two armies with the largest model count...
One of the strengths of a footslogger army, or green tide, is there are way too many models in your army to all get killed. This actually is very effective and very competitive, not to mention awesome, but it also means that I will have to paint a lot of models. For the 400 point tournament I made an armylist with over 40 models in it. So that's a few models to paint every day! But I like the army, so I'm sticking to it. I'm not going to complain anymore about my stupid choices, because I'm painting a lot anyway these days, but I just had to mention it.

Next update will be filled with 40k orks (not sure why they aren't called orcs anymore in the future) and some more talk about the tournament and my armylist. Also I hope to fight a small battle before then, to learn how 40k works, and maybe fit in some snotlings too :3. Now it's time to start finding a quick way to paint orks while still keeping them look decent.

Giant

Time to get distracted once more. I really like elves, honestly, but I like greenskins too and it's just hard to focus on one unit type (or race) for a long time. Also, Games Workshop decided they would make some brand new savage orcs, a huge spider with eight or nine goblins on top AND a new armybook (which I will buy as soon as it is released) so I couldn't resist putting those elves on hold and taking out my orcs and goblins once more. To be honest, I just took out some orcs and my old giant because I still wanted to paint in the spirit of our little Tale of Four Gamers project and I used to paint mostly goblins, so this feels like a 'new' army kinda.

Well, enough excuses! Time to show you what I've painted this weekend!

Those who know my collection will know I didn't paint all of this over the weekend, as I'd already painted a part of this model, but most of the model was painted this weekend. The same goes for the orc regiment I'm painting now and the rock lobber, both were already half finished before this weekend, but I think if I get them done it still counts for something. Besides, I gotta get them done sometime anyway.

So, next up is my unit of twenty orcs and a rock lobber and after that I think it's time to either paint more half finished greenskins or buy the new savage orcs! (I think I'll buy new models, but I hope I'll finish my old models first.) The spider will have to wait though, because even though it's awesome I don't want my army to have more monstrous creatures than regular units. I think I'll buy the spider when the army will be around 2500 points, but that will probably take so long I'll buy it anyway this summer or something.

That's enough planning for today, at least the giant is done now. I really love this guy, it probably has something to do with the 50mm base he's standing on and the fact that I've had him unfinished for at least 6 years now. I hope I can finish something else this week too! But I also need to catch up a bit on my study, because I've been ill since thursday and even though I caught up with my current homework I still need to prepare next week's exam...

First Month

To name this post December Reinforcements or something would be fitting, but then the fact that we're all way too late would be pointed out even more, so I'll just call it First Month. To be honest, no one made it, and I don't think anyone is done yet. I didn't get any pictures or requests to make some myself, so I think everyone is almost done, but not quite. I'm not done either, but I thought I'd post one of my models anyway, the rest is on their way.

The first model on my part will be a High Elf Mage. Until I paint a noble he will be my general too, so at the moment he is really important. I've also painted eight of my ten spearmen, but I really hate painting white. White cloth is not so bad, though I even dislike it there, but the shields of spearmen are just a pain to paint. I must say that when they're done they look cool, so be prepared for an awesome looking regiment.

I painted the mage with red and dark blue, because I wanted to try the Lore of Metal when I painted him. I plan to paint three mages in total which will all have different colours. This first mage will be casting fire and metal spells primarily, the next one will probably have lighter robes and will be casting spells from the lores of light, life, heavens (even though I think this one can cast those too) and High Magic. The last one will be the darkest (maybe I'll paint him a bit like my shadow warriors, which you will see too in the next few months I think) and will be casting spells from the lores of death, shadow and beasts.

To have a little variation I also started on the next batch of models, because there's no shields there! I'm painting ten Swordmasters this month. I still haven't decided on my second unit, but it will either be a bolt thrower or a noble. I hope I can finish these models (and the remaining spearmen) in time, but only time will tell. Meanwhile I hope you will get to see some other races too as my friends are working hard to finish their first steps to a grand army!

A New Plan

Well, that sure took a while...

Sometimes I suddenly take a break, which can last a while. My study is partly to blame for this break, but I passed both my courses, so it paid off. Even though I have two new courses at the moment (and they both require more work than the previous two) I also had some new ideas.

I'm trying to convince some friends to start painting again. My goal is to paint a unit every month, but I also want to add something else every month. The first month I want to paint a character and a core unit.

There is only one problem with this otherwise great idea: I want to paint some High Elves. I also want to finish my Empire models, but as usual I can't stick to one project... I told myself I should just paint what I like most, that way I'll finish more models than if I just keep staring at a half-finished project. I know I'll return to the Empire someday, so in the end they will all get a paint job!

Those of you who are familiar with Games Workshop and their magazine will have already recognized "A Tale of Four Gamers" in my plan (for those of you who don't know, go to http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=10100003a to get an idea). I really like the concept, but only one of my friends has told me he wants to join me. I will post his progress every month too once we start, but we have to convince two other players too. In the meantime I will paint some High Elves to satisfy my current painting needs and to practice a bit on colours and elves.

I have some other projects I want to start on too, so as soon as I get anything done (either on the High Elves or anything else) I'll try to post it here so everyone can see!

Third handgunner

The handgunner was done on sunday, but I forgot that I was away all day yesterday. I'm almost done with my paper now, so I thought I'd take a picture now and post it.

This is the finished model

I used Tanned Flesh to basecoat his skin and I finally like the result. This will be the way I'll paint all my humans from now on. The rest of the model is painted the same way as the other handgunners, so I'll try to hurry and finish all others so I can start on other troops. I think I'll spray the unpainted cannon crew and captain too today, so I might surprise you by painting them between handgunners. I also bought a box of Empire State Troops and I plan to give them halberds.

I really hope I can start on those halberdiers soon, I'm not tired of handgunners yet, but I think I will be in a month or so.