I'm all over the place..

It turns out that my painting is all over the place, I just don't seem to be able to settle down and finish anything. Things are worse than usual because my youngest (5 months) has decided to give up on sleeping which has all but destroyed my painting time, hence the lack of post recently. But, I have been doing bits here and there.

First up I repainted my craters to match my gaming table:

I've also painted up some

Terrain time...

Having just returned to 40K, after a long leave of absence, I'm in the process of getting some terrain ready for the games room. Tonight I've managed to finish the first of the two Bastions that I'm working on. Here's how it looks:



The paint scheme is straight from the box art and is largely based on advice from another blogger who gives a stage-by-stage here. I've added in a little more detail and tried out Forge World's weathering powders which are great fun to use (not overdoing it is the first challenge).

For my own reference, the metals are Vallejo Gunmetal with a Badab Black Wash, Whites are Fortress Grey then White, Reds are Mechrite, then Blood Red with a final highlight of Vallejo Orange Fire. The whole thing is sealed with Purity Seal to keep the powders on there.

I'm hoping to get the following done over the next few months:

• Realm of Battle (done)
• 2 Bastions (1 done)
• Fortress of Redemption
• 4 or 5 buildings
• Road
• Woods
• Barricades
• 2 Bunkers
• Craters

Next up it's the Shrine of Aquilla, which is glued together (it looks great but it's a stupid kit in that it doesn't have enough 'tabs' to keep things lined up). Tonight I'll begin basing it up on some 4mm plywood.

Getting underway...

One of the aims of this blog is my attempt to get to grips with my ever-expanding collection of half-finished painting projects. The plan is simple, I'll set out each of my 'live' projects (I'm going to have to ignore those that have been hidden in the cellar for now) and will keep a check of where each is up to as the weeks go on. Hopefully I'll be able to rotate between them in an attempt to keep myself interested but the main aim is to move them from unfinished to finished before starting any fresh projects.

Here's what I'm aiming to complete, all in varying stages of completion:

1. Warhammer 40,000 Valhallan Army (1500 pts)
2. Warhammer 40,000 Terrain set
3. Warhammer Fantasy Orc Army (2500 pts)
4. Warmaster Undead Army (2000 pts)
5. Warmaster Chaos Army (2000 pts)
6. Warmaster Empire Army (2000 pts)
7. Epic Armageddon Imperial Guard Army (3000+ pts)
8. Epic Armageddon Space Marine Army (3000+ points)
9. Battlefleet Gothic Imperial Fleet (1500 pts)
10. Blood Bowl Skaven team
11. Incursion British and Zombies
12. Warhammer 40,000 Grey Knight Army (2000 pts)
13. Man O War Dwarf fleet
14. Man O War Imperial fleet
15. Battlefleet Gothic Orc fleet (1500 pts)

These projects are all started, some are nearly done (Blood Bowl and Epic stuff for example) and some are barely started (Valhallans, 40K terrain). As I start work on each project I'll give some detail of where things stand.

In an attempt to encourage myself, I'll be setting some rewards in place for completed stuff. At present these probably include:

Epic terrain (I'd like to overhaul my set, probably with some stuff from Section 6 Engineering)
Epic Eldar Army, or Tyranids if I succumb to my urge to collect oop toys (which I will).
New models for Grindhouse's superb game Incursion. Lots of stuff is coming out soon.

Dull stuff - Math-hammer... Base weights....

Wobbly Nid fixing base weights here

And, for the armchair general who wants to geek out, here's math-hammer taken to the extreme. Now you can calculate all of those odds at the press of a few buttons!

Back in the real world, I've just converted another two plasma gunners and ordered the bits I need from wargamersworld to convert the rest along with a chainsword for the Commissar. I'll also be slapping down a challenge to Paul Bailey tonight to see if he's up for a game next week.

See you in London for Battle2: The Revenge of the Nids...

First contact.... (with a power-gaming filth-meister)

'First contact' is clearly something that applied to one side only last night, with the Tyranids mashed up to the point that the Guard felt like they must have cheated. And cheat they did, claiming 'first contact' when 'fifth contact' would have been closer to the truth. Sorry about that, the combination of a good list and the (now obviously) massive advantage of having had the chance to roll the Guard out a few times was far more potent than I'd have imagined possible. I'm going to try to get a game in with the list against Paul B. to see what happens, I'll let you know how it goes.