April Termination

The Guys

30/04/202010/10/2023

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The end of the month has hit. So it’s time to check-in and find out how everyone’s first projects finished. At the start of the month, Fairy was planning to complete Adeptus Titanicus titans. Fury was attempting to complete a Dragon Ogor force. While Sparky was aiming to complete a Tyranid force.

The aim of each month is to complete everything we set out to paint but the aim of this whole blog is to spur each other (and you) on to finishing those massive piles of shame. As far as painting everything for the month Fury was the only one that came through with a ‘Mission Complete’. So we will let him take over the blog to start.

FURY – April Mission Complete

So I completed the Dragon Ogors Warscroll. COVID-19 meant my work has slowed down a lot. I had some free time on my hands. What to do? How about I finish the army? What a novel idea. That was my thinking at the start of this whole thing. So to start the month my goal was set.

To note, it is an exceedingly rare thing for me to complete an army. It was only back in the ’90s that I ever actually finished an army and that was because there was a gun to my head to do it. Every army after that has been a work in progress. Enough to get a game in but never complete. The task then? Complete the Beasts of Chaos Beastman army with nothing left to do.

Fury’s Method for Success

To get this month’s force done I decided I needed to have a to-do list.

Bases
Mage
Touch-up’s
Little things to tie the army in.

This sort of thing would normally take me about 5-8 hours spread over the month. You know the drill. Getting in 30 minutes here, 1 hour there, in-between ‘life stuff’. Two things happened that changed that that plan though.

First, the members of our gaming club voted I would fail and put Fairy ahead of me. That will not stand!
Second, I was essentially only working 3 days per week and my kids were off school.

These two things combined meant I smashed out the Dragon Ogor force over a couple of days. I’m really happy with the end result. This completed all my Beasts of Chaos models. The army looks neat finished. It also looks really intimidating. Using really old minis and repurposing them into a modern game feels good. This army has been in a pile of shame for so long. Twenty plus years! It is just fantastic to see them come to life finally.
As an AoS army, the points come to just over 2250 points. With a few adjustments, I can get it over 2500 points.

I’m so happy with the result. Having the challenge of doing this in a month and being stirred on by the other guys was great motivation to finally get this done.

FAIRY – April Mission Report

Ah the tale of three gamers. I thought this was a great idea of Sparky’s to coordinate and record some of our hobby projects and exploits, all the while hanging shit on the other two. For me one of the most important aspects of this wonderful hobby is the banter with mates. I have known Fury and Sparky for years. We’ve worked together, lived together, and rolled a lot of dice together. Yet, I feel I may have been invited to this endeavour to fulfill the role of the villain. Time will tell! (sounds like something a villain would say – Sparky)

I had pledged to myself that 2020 was going to be a strong hobby year for me. I have also planned to return my attention to current Games Workshop systems after years and years of being away. After the golden years of the ’90s I feel that GW lost their way. But what I have seen in 2019 and 2020 has been really heartening and has stirred my hobby loins. Additionally, I have a mate involved with the reproduction of Adeptus Titanicus so I wanted to start my return there.

After Cancon 2020, in January, I started work on my Legio Gryphonicus. To help motivate myself I also decided to lose some weight and get a little fitter. The years hadn’t been kind. So come April with the start of this challenge I was in a really good routine. Especially compared to the other guys. So I just rolled straight into my first project for the month. Conservatively I only pledged to do the awesome new Nemisis Warbringer Titan as I knew there would be a lot of hours in this.

New Techniques

Juggling working from home and home schooling the kids in the wake of the Covid19 crisis played a pretty big factor in both the decision on what to paint and the completion rate. I utilised Duncan’s Warhammer TV guide on painting the Titan, which was great. This helped me develop some new techniques I may not have otherwise tried. It also helped me to expand my colour palette allowing for more styles and painting processes.

This was the first time I had tried weathering. I was pretty stoked about how it came out. I was also having more success with my Grex airbrush which allowed me to get some really nice yellow panels on the Warbringer. As I managed to get the Warbringer knocked over in pretty good time I rolled straight into doing a Warlord Titan.

Again, this is a great kit and I really enjoyed magnetizing and assembling it. This too got completed within the month. I then moved on to a pair of Warhounds right near the end of the month. But alas, these were not completed in time. All in all I am really happy with what I achieved this month. I can’t wait for Corvid19 restrictions to ease so I can get back to the club and start having some epic Titan clashes with the lads.

SPARKY – April Mission Report

I’m calling this month a success. The other guys are still giving me crap for not completing every single model though. Fairy even suggested it didn’t count as it wasn’t up to tournament size. This is about completing a force in a month. Not about completing a tournament army each month. With that in mind, I have painted enough to play small games with.

The points cost of every single Tyranid model I have would be over 3000. So even though I laid them all out and said that was the goal, realistically I didn’t expect to get them all done. This month I got over 500 points completed to a nice standard. I also managed to basecoat a few extra models near the end (not photographed yet but you can check out the progress on Instagram). This got me up to 750 points worth done for the month if I count them. Not bad for a month’s worth of hobby.

Lessons Learned

A lot of things motivated me this month in different ways. Like Fury, I was motivated by our gaming club when they didn’t give me a single vote when polled on who would finish. On top of that, Fury and Fairy got stuck into me with the trash talk and banter to stir me up. Listening to something while I painted helped as well. Horus Heresy audiobooks and the Warhammer Hang Out & Hobby Twitch was great to keep me focused.

Probably the biggest lesson I take out of this month’s challenge is to pick something to paint that you are interested in. In all honesty, I’m probably not going to ever play with these Tyranids. I only went Tyranids because the clubs poll voted on them. This meant that there was a lot of time wasted either thinking about the colour scheme or looking at army background. So for next month, I’m going to make sure I choose something that takes my interest. Hopefully, that will keep me intrinsically motivated throughout the month.

Check back tomorrow to see what everyone’s plans are for next month.