There was no monthly challenge on Yaktribe for December. Each month the community voted on their favourite entries, and totalling up those votes across the 2nd half of the year (FYSC was run in two parts) I came 3rd, which was nice.
In December I finished painting Karandras and the last couple of black orcs for Gorfrag’s Gitflingas, my converted Orc Blood Bowl team, giving me a complete painted team sans troll or goblins.
As its January the 1st, my thoughts have turned inexorably towards what other unfinished projects and ideas I have lurking in the cupboard, and what I’d like to aim to complete this year.
Chaos Warriors
Some of the most exciting models I want to work on are my kitbashed chaos warriors. This is a “high concept” modelling project in almost every way – every model extensively converted (at least, that was to be the case until the release of the recent chaos warriors by GW, which may tempt me to buy them to complement the ones I’ve built from Chaos Marines and Stormcast Eternals), a sin-city colour palette of black, white and bright red, thick snow and ice winter basing and high quality display bases/multi-bases for display purposes and potential use in Kings of War. Specifically, I want to quickly complete at least a small unit of actual chaos warriors to prove the concept.
Sylvanaeth
I’d also like to make and paint a small unit of Sylvanaeth dryads to face off against the chaos warriors, painted and modelled in exactly the same way. I think the dryads will look stunning in a winter scheme, with icicles dripping from blackened winter branches.
Ordo Hereticus & Ecclessiarchy
I’m not particularly enthused by these right now, but from a practical perspective I’d like to finish my various Ordo Hereticus and Ecclessiarchy models. These are the only models I imminently need for gameplay purposes, as the slow burn Kill Team campaign I’m playing with Nigel is set to continue this year. I very much like to “play painted”, so urgently need to paint my Drill Abbot and crusader (who have not yet appeared on this site – an early WIP of the Drill Abbot is below), key models for Act 1 of the campaign which is underway now.
Act 2 has a whole suite of yet un-built characters and Inquisitorial Stormtroopers represented by Kasrkin who are only undercoated – so that’s a steep hurdle. Longer term, Act 3 features Inquisitor Khronos, my Inquisitor kitbashed from a Stormcast hero, who is currently half painted. So yeah, lot’s to do here.
Stormlord/Shadowsword etc…
I picked up a cheap super heavy tank in the last month or two. I very rarely play 40k these days but I can’t resist a bargain and chance to expand on the stupidly large number of tanks (by most peoples standards) in the army – particularly as it was built modularly so can be used as one of a number of super heavy variants. And, I find the new Apocalypse rules very tempting, being as they are much more streamlined and in effect Epic 40k at 40k scale – Epic 40k is a great game.
This tank will receive a super fast and very effective (from 3 feet away) method of painting that I developed to paint around 15 tanks in one month for a big Apocalypse game at the club. I have never showed off any of my Imperial Guard on this site, nor written about this method of painting, so it might be of some use to someone – it meant I could field the below force with minimal effort despite starting the month with just 5 or 6 painted tanks:
I’ll probably make the tank the subject of a “1 day challenge” type post.
Phoenix Lords
Probably the biggest achievement of the 2019 for me has been finishing 4 of the 6 Phoenix Lords, including 3 pretty extensive conversions. This year I definitely want to complete the set. I’ll be making some simple modifications to Baharroth and using the brand new Jain Zar model stock (it’s a beauty). I’m also thinking about creating a 7th Phoenix Lord for the Warp Spider aspect.
Ork “Deff Korps” Kill Team
Once upon a time I started building an Ork army for 40k, a Blood Axe force called the “Deff Korps”, modelled as an Orky imitation of the Death Corps of Krieg. My idea at the time was to make my own multi part kits by sculpting gas masks and great coats on stock ork parts while still in bits, then cast those parts to create the whole army (at the time, I was learning how to mould and cast resin models on my custom Eldar Jetbike project). However, I only got as far as adding great coats to a couple of arms before losing interest. With my recent interest in Kill Team though, I’d quite like to pick this up again – not as a casting project but just as a small unique group of Blood Axe Orks.