Hobby Progress, week 41

Hey everybody!
It’s suddenly closer to the end of the year now, and I’ve started to look a lot more at the models I’ve had on the table for the duration of 2016 (and before) in an attempt to get more stuff finished before I get to week 52 of this blog series. While I’m not really getting very far, I am nevertheless thinking about finishing off more models than I am building more. But anyway, let’s take a look at some of the excitement from this week!

First of all, it’s this big guy’s time to shine! My Alpha Legion Contemptor Dreadnought is finished, and I’m really pleased with how he’s turned out! The armour had already been painted a few months back now, of course, but all of the silver details had been kinda scaring me. Finally, on Friday I had the day off work so decided to just finish him, and over the course of about four hours I got everything finished! It’s actually fairly simple, too – the silver is just Leadbelcher, with some Runefang Steel lightly brushed over the more prominent hydras on the front there. The right arm and leg have rope tassels that I’ve painted with Kabalite Green and then highlighted with Warpstone Glow, which I’ve also dotted into the eyes of the chest hydras, before rubbing off to leave it more as a suggestion, and I think it works better that way.

The biggest problem I had, though, was just what they hell possessed me to pose the legs in that manner! I built him up over New Year, and at the time I’m sure I had a plan, but when it came to actually basing the big guy, I had no idea how to get him secure – I’ve finally gone for one of those piles of skulls you can get from GW, though I feel he’d have crushed them to powder if he actually did tread over them… But anyway, I think it still looks pretty cool, and with that load-out, he’s 190 points, bringing my total Legion up to 800 points! I’m slowly getting there, now!

I got to play a game of 40k on Thursday, which was pretty great, too! 1500 point game with my Necrons, a lot of which were unpainted/partially painted (which will hopefully inspire me to get moving and finish them!) I’ll have a blog coming out on Tuesday with more on this, but I have to say, now that the rules are beginning to sink in, I’m seeing the benefits of building models in a specific way. For example, the squad of Triarch Praetorians that I’ve built up this weekend:

I have previously built up some Praetorians, back when I was first doing things with Necrons, and I have to say, they aren’t all that great. More than anything, they’re a mixed unit, and while I think those particle casters are cool looking, they look pretty bad in the game, so I’m probably not going to bother doing any more of them.

In fact, I’m actually thinking I’m possibly going to just re-start collecting Necrons, as my painting has come on a lot since I started. Part of me also wants to strip the models I have and have a second stab at them, but part of me is thinking I might just keep them as a sort of “this is where I started” or something. Not sure yet, but for now at least, I want to add and replace models in my army…

Finally… I entered Armies on Parade this year! My board was basically all of my Stormcast Eternals going up against a lone Orruk Brute defending an Ophidian Archway. It was really fun getting to join in with everything going on at the store yesterday, and some of those boards on display were just superb! I was definitely at the lower end of the range, let me tell you – sandwiched between an amazing Helms Deep diorama, and a collection of Eldar stuff that looked fantastic! But it was great to take part, and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year – I’m actually hoping to move closer to my local store in the coming year (not so as to be closer to the store – that’ll just be a fringe benefit!) so I may be able to get something more ambitious going on and not have to contend with the logistics of transporting it too far! We’ll see.

In the end, my store had 30 entries, which is believed to have been the biggest such event in the world! In all of that, my army placed seventh, which I think is an amazing achievement, considering I don’t feel like I’m all that good of a painter! So I’m chuffed there! My favourite board was this amazing three-tier Genestealer Infestation thing:

While the overall winner was the incredible Nagash and friends:

Did you enter Armies on Parade this year? Let me know how you got on in the comments!!