Taking Stock

Hey everybody,
While I continue to paint my Tau force, I’ve been thinking about my other projects on the go, and mulling over my hobby resolutions for 2022. Now, I do have a lot of stuff in my to-do pile, so I thought I’d try to take stock a little, and see if I could try to get it clear in my head exactly what I am dealing with. I’m not saying that I’ll be tackling any of this during the year – I just want to work through the pile of shame! I think it will be helpful to work out just how many projects I’m looking at, though, so let’s take a look!

To start with, I have got a lot of Space Marines of various flavours. After several abortive attempts to actually do something with them, I’ve started testing the waters with selling the Blood Angels off. I mean, when am I really going to do anything with them? There’s only so much time in the day and so on, and something I am acutely aware of as time goes on is just how many armies that I have where I constantly feel like I’m learning how to play them. As it happens, my buddy JP knows someone who is starting Blood Angels, so we shall see…

I’m very much thinking the same thing for my Deathwatch and Tempestus Scions forces, too. That said, I am quite attached to those models, as they are some beautiful creations. For the time being, I think I’m going to keep them, but I will more than likely be trimming down the numbers that I have.

The other week, I was investigating my Adeptus Mechanicus force, and was quite surprised to discover that I actually have over 1000 points of these guys already! The battalion force consists of three Tech Priests and some Skitarii troops, along with two lots of Electro-Priests, some Sicarians, a Dunecrawler and a Sydonian Dragoon. I have a box of Kataphron Battle Servitors still in the shrinkwrap which tips it over the 1000 points mark, and I’m considering getting a Skitarii Marshal just to finish it off. Now, I would say about half of this army, maybe more, isn’t painted yet, but having a small army like this does appeal to me – it’s basically a finished army, it just needs painting, you know? I have no plans to add any more of the newer models that have come out, but I suppose time will tell on that score. AdMech is a faction that has some real appeal for me, though, and seeing all of my miniatures grouped together has really reinforced why I want to keep them.

Rounding out my Imperium armies are the Sisters and the Grey Knights. Both of these are much heftier armies, as I went quite deep into both of them back in the day, so still have a lot to paint for the Knights, and I do feel like I’ve barely started with the Sisters! GK are an army that I was enjoying playing over the Christmas period, and I have come to think of them as my Christmas army, which I know makes little sense. But I won’t be getting rid of them or anything, they’re just going to be on hiatus for the time being.

The Sisters of Battle are in a very weird place, as I have built up the whole of the starter box back when that came out, and had started to paint them pale blue before I have basically used that colour scheme for my Tau. So I’ve started to give some thought as to a different scheme, which in turn has made me think about basically starting again, so I have started to build up another Battle Sisters squad. I’m not sure I really have it in me to strip the paint from those Sisters I had begun to paint last Spring, but you never know. I do know that I want to keep them, though, as just looking at the model range again has got me inspired to make them work. They are incredible looking miniatures, with some of the best detail that I’ve ever seen. I think an army of these is going to be stunning on the table, and I look forward to the day when that might be the case for me!

Moving on to Chaos now, I’ve got a lot of Heretic Astartes, between the Shadowspear box and associated extras. I think I have around 1300 points all told, but there are quite a few of these models that need attention! I’ve got a lot of HQ options, to be fair, but I do have a squad of marines built, with a second squad in the box; I have two squads of 10 cultists (one with guns, one with melee weapons), though these can be buffed further (I have 8 more melee, and 10 more guns). Then there are the Shadowspear daemon bits, plus the Helbrute from Dark Vengeance. I think I have a Forgefiend and Rhino in their respective boxes, too. This faction really excites me, and like the Sisters, I would like to keep hold of these models. It might be the case that I don’t intend to expand out massively, but just keep a small playable force of these guys for small games. But with the expanded Chaos releases apparently on the horizon, to say nothing of the actual Chosen kit that we’ve already seen, I’m in two minds about the whole thing. On the one hand, it would be an exciting time to be getting more models for the force. With the rumours of Cultist support, having so many already it might be worth getting some more bits. But on the other, it would be expanding out for an army that has already been languishing unpainted for so long. I don’t want to get rid of them, that much I’m sure of, but as I’ve not done anything with it in so long, it seems silly to actually buy more models for the pile of shame…

I’ve also got a non-zero amount of Chaos Daemons, all Slaanesh, which I could probably do without but I just love them so much, I can’t seem to bring myself to just get rid of them all. Especially as I’ve already done this twice before! I think I’m gonna keep hold of them for now, at least.

Completing the three pillars, let’s move on to xenos now!

I’m not going to talk about the Tau, because they’re a new and ongoing project. My Necrons and Dark Eldar seem somehow to be huge ongoing projects as well, so I think it might be easiest to just leave those as they are for the time being, although the Dark Eldar in particular does seem to be quite a massive one.

Tyranids are a big love of mine, and I had a fairly abortive start again with them last summer, before moving swiftly into my Genestealer Cults. If my calculations are correct, then I have well on the way to 1700 points of Tyranids, with probably two more squads of Genestealers waiting to be built, and a Tyrranocyte still in the box. With the new codex coming out at some point, this is quite an exciting prospect, and I am looking forward to seeing how this will all turn out when the new book is in hand. I love the Tyranids, and even though I haven’t really been incredibly proactive with them so far, I will be keeping hold of these models. I’m doubtful as to whether I would really look to add anything to them, but I suppose you never know!

Genestealer Cults have been quite the success story for me recently, but I have put them somewhat on the back burner since I have embarked on the Tau project. In addition to having the painted force that I have so far, I still have a Sanctus and Abominant, some Aberrants, lots of Acolyte Hybrids, and still quite a few Neophyte Hybrids to paint up. So while I have done well with this army in the last few months of 2021, I do still have quite some way to go.

So, in quite a big nutshell, that’s what I’m looking at right now!

The big take-away from all of this is that I have begun to think of all the various boxes of miniatures in terms of being army projects now. This in turn has helped me to think of them as being almost closed projects, when it comes to stuff like the Chaos and the Tyranids, and while there might be a lot of models that I have to fight through, there is a finite number of things to finish painting. This is good, because it does make the scale of the task that much more manageable, I think. When I was painting the Genestealer Cults last year, I was taking two or three units at a time, and thinking of it as “this is my project”, not taking the entire army as it stands as being “the project” and being scared off. I think it’s an approach that I have mentioned quite a bit so far in 2022, where I want to think of my painting goals in terms of units, and not as the army as a whole, or being too vague and “paint more!” as a general point.

Moving forward, then, I think I’m looking at having nine armies in total: Necrons, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Heretic Astartes, Genestealer Cults, Tyranids, Adeptus Mechanicus, Sisters of Battle and Tau. Saying “I have nine armies” sounds ridiculous, but when some of these armies are small-scale, it doesn’t necessarily seem quite so bad. I do like the variety that comes with having multiple armies, and a lot of that is also down to my enjoyment of a range of miniatures.

Of course, I’m wary of saying anything in terms of “I want to get x done” or whatever, although I am now thinking that I would like to paint up some specifics over the course of the year. I’m thinking the Sicarians for my AdMech, and I would really like to have at least one full unit of Battle Sisters done, too. I know my 2022 hobby resolutions suggested that I would be getting something like a playable army ready, but being realistic here, I think with everything else going on, I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew… I’d probably feel happier about keeping all of those Sisters as well, if I’d managed to finish a unit!

For now, then, 2022 is going to be about the Tau army, with some side projects in the shape of some Imperium forces getting some paint. I do also have some Genestealer Cults units to consider, such as the bikers, but I’m going to stop there because there are so many other projects that I’d like to get into, like more Necromunda and more terrain!