Erion’s 40k Painting Mess

In my last update I mentioned that I had finished some Space Wolves from Tooth and Claw.  Before sharing them, I needed to take some better pictures than the quick shots captured when I finished them at the FLGS.  So I got the collapsible light box set up last night and edited the photos this morning.

I present to you Haldor Icepelt and an as-yet-unnamed pack of Primaris Intercessors.   The Intercessors include shoulder insignia from Pop Goes the Monkey and a bunch of random Space Wolves bits I’ve collected over the years.

The plan for 40k, going forward, is to paint a squads or single larger model from different armies so I don’t get bored of painting the same color scheme for weeks on end.  At least initially, It’s going to be mostly infantry as I try to work on stuff that I can use in both core 40k and Kill Team as I build Patrol Detachments for each army and try to get them playable in small games.  Eventually we’ll get to things like battlesuits and other vehicles.   I’m also going to be switching over to paint a few Blood Bowl teams, but those will be in a different project.

I think next I’m probably going to paint some more Fire Warriors for my T’au Empire Army.

You may be seeing a pattern here wherein I tend to neglect things for quite a while.  I imagine that this is true for many of us.  In reality, I spent much of the summer and fall purging / selling off a lot of stuff I’m never going to finish, cleaning and organizing my basement hobby space, and actually doing some work on games I enjoy (like the relaunched Monsterpocalypse,  Team Yankee, and Tanks: the Modern Age).

That said, the one consistent game system in my hobby, since it started, has been Warhammer 40,000.  I do love 8th edition, and Kill Team has been a bright spot as well.  So it is with renewed fervor that I return to working on this system with an aim to getting my still rather sizable (and, indeed, even larger than my last writing) backlog of 40k-related projects cleared up.

If I got everything built and painted, I’d be able to build at least a Patrol Detachment-sized army, if not much larger, for each of the following forces:

• Space Wolves
• Blood Ravens
• Deathguard
• Genestealer Cults
• Adeptus Custodes
• T’au Empire

Additionally, I can (and plan to) do Kill Teams for these forces

• Orks
• Adeptus Mechanicus
• Gellerpox Infected
• Elucidian Starstriders
• Heretic Astartes

Not to mention a backlog of Terrain Pieces both purchased and 3D printed to fight over / around / through.  I could conceivable paint nothing but kits related to 40k for the entirety of the next year, at a fairly rapid pace, and still not be out of projects.

The trick, for me, is to figure out a way to break this up into bite-sized pieces so I don’t get overwhelmed.  I also need to spread out the different forces  and paint scheme so I don’t get hobby fatigue from doing the same thing over and over.

It helps that the FLGS has started to actively encourage people to get their models painted.  They’re hosting hobby get-togethers on Sunday afternoons, the first of which saw me complete some Space Wolves I got fairly recently in the Tooth and Claw set (more on these in another update, soon-ish).    They’re also using social media to organize a monthly “get it painted” competition for a decent amount of Store Credit.

Now I have to mesh all of this with the fact that my oldest child has expressed an interest in Blood Bowl, and one of my oldest gaming buddies wants to do Necromunda now that the rulebooks have been consolidated and updated, and Adeptus Titanicus is within my field of view, begging for attention.  I have a pretty full and varied slate of hobby things to complete without getting more than a few steps away from Games Workshop.   I just need to get organized and stay motivated.