The Great Army Restoration Part 1

Ugly, unfinished, messy, half-assed, incomplete, boring, lazy...all words that might describe the above picture, and all are true, to an extent. We all have armies that need some TLC in one form or another. Most often these get pushed to the wayside as the next shiny thing comes out and our hobby brains gravitate towards that. This is my 2016 plan to change that for one of my oldest and most loved armies, my marines for Warhammer 40k.

Finally getting down to it

I was quite late getting around to my painting challenge from Matt Varnish. I owe him a $25 gift certificate. What can I tell you? My mom is visiting, my car went to the scrap yard, my kid had pneumonia and I got not one but THREE new jobs. Plus... I'm lazy. Anyhow... here's a little tour of what's coming up for me:

250+ points complete! On to more!

So, here are some shots of the Grey Hunter unit and transport I completed this week:









I now plan to take a week or two and build the rest of my 1500pts to full WYSIWYG (along with all the vehicles), then continue painting each unit as I go. Going to be building Wolf Guard for each Grey Hunter unit, Wolf standards, and either building or scrounging Wulfen models to use as "Mark of the Wulfen" dudes in my units. I also need to build a new unit of Skyclaws (LOVE THEM!) and maybe a Wolf Priest with jump pack to lead them, the options are endless, and I am stoked to build this army far beyond 1500pts for sure. I can easily see Space Wolves becoming a 2500 point army very quickly, with all the build option I want to have. With Joyous providing me with jump packs and Land Raider for the force, it will get there soon.

On a side note, I am still working on my Demon Prince for my Emperors Children, and I will get a pic of it up once its completed - it is less than stellar looking as a WIP.

Getting there....

Cash here,

So, the 10 man grey hunter unit is done, and I am on to the Rhino tonight. It is assembled and primed - all ready to go. Here is a shot of the unit:




I plan to add vehicle markings and iconography prior to calling it complete - don't want to have to come back to anything in this army. At least not for a while...

** EDIT : After posting the pic I noticed I forgot the eyes on the helmeted marines! How I missed that I have no idea, but it will be done! **


Also, still no word from Lothlann, looks like he will be buying soon.... Muahahaha

Valkyrie WIP Pics

Well I am 3 days in, 4 to go, I thought I would show some progress on my 100 point challenge.


Obviously still WIP but the random two colours I picked at GW seemed to turn out ok.

Comments and questions welcome.

Painting Challenge: Part 1, before AND after!

Here we go:

BTW I totally needed this motivation to get things done,, I am Motivationaly challenged at the best of times!

AND I'm done: here are the results:

War Walkers Done, Wave Serpents Next

I'd like to start with a quick Sober Gamer update: I think I have the stomach flu. Earlier this evening, it interrupted my plans to take photos of my completed War Walkers. As a favor to you, I won't tell you how. I will follow up with pics of completed War Walkers tomorrow.

With the War Walkers behind me, Matt Varnish let me know that it was time to complete my four Wave Serpents. This is a pic of how they look right now before any paint is (further) applied:


As you can see, they're a good chunk of the way towards done. I think it's fair to consider the completion of these four vehicles as being a 100 point challenge (which means that jerk is going to throw 200 more points at me before I'm done, but whatever). Going from left to right, I'll describe the workload: 1) Mostly done. Runes and freehand are on it, gems are done. I only need to touch up the undercarriage, 2) Close to being done, but needs freehand, some undercarriage work, and the Snakebite Leather "grooves" in the blue part that match the first Serpent, 3) Basically a blank canvas. Base painting is done, but needs that blue to tie it in with the other three, plus details, 4) This was whipped up as a Command Vehicle for an Apocalypse game that was planned (but ultimately canceled) for the most recent Game Summit. It wasn't just an attempt to do some fancyshmancy freehand, but more of a desire to break out from the Bone/Blue/Yellow thing I've been doing for years now. This is the vehicle that's going to require the most work, as I intend to cover it in glyphs and runes. Oh, by the way: I'm very bad with pilots, whether they're in Wave Serpents or War Walkers. In the coming weeks, you're going to see how bad.

For the record, I prefer the Forgeworld Wave Serpents to the Games Workshop ones.

Edit: As promised... War Walkers.

Not perfect. Still some stuff to be touched up (you might notice that I've got a couple "fixer upper" epoxy spots where the windows meet the Walker body), but I think I can call these done!

Joyous' First Painting Challenge

Ok, so I need to get of my ass and start painting the sweet rides for my Elysians.

First up therefore is this beauty.


With no options, this Valkyrie clocks in at 100 points on the nose, perfect for the competition, as we don't count Gubbinz!

Alrighty, lets get some primer...

Which Eldar need The Treatment? Calling Matt Varnish...

It's time for the DGoO Painting Challenge, and I've made a little list of my models which are assembled but the painting isn't done yet:

• Wave Serpent: Needs detail.

• Wave Serpent: Needs a LOT of detailing (so much that you should think of it as merely primed at this point).

• Wave Serpent: One hour left of work and repairs.

• Wave Serpent: Needs detail.

• Three War Walkers: Needs detail.

• Cobra: Needs detail.

• 13 Warlocks: Needs detail and bases

• Maugen Ra: Basecoated, unpainted sand on the base.

• Asurmen: Needs detail, base.

• Farseer: Needs detail

• Farseer: Needs detail

• Yriel: Basecoated. Needs base

• Autarch w/Reaper Launcher: Needs base and touch-ups

• Auarch w/Reaper Launcher: Basecoated, needs base.

• Autarch w/2 Swords: Primed, needs base.

• Dire Avenger Exarch: Base coated.

• Dire Avenger Exarch: Needs base.

• Dire Avenger Exarch: Needs base.

• 20 Storm Guardians: Need details, needs bases.

• Defender Guardian Heavy Weapon Guy: Needs detail.

• Fuegan: Needs detail.

• Fire Dragon Exarch: Base coated, base needs finishing.

• 10 Dark Reapers incl 2 Exarchs: Need touchups. Unpainted sand bases.

• 10 Striking Scorpions incl Exarch: Basecoated, unpainted sand bases.

• 10 Striking Scorpions incl. Exarch: Need details. Unpainted sand bases.

• 9 Dire Avengers: Base coated. Need bases.

• Wraithlord: Needs detail. Black sanded base.

• Wraithlord: Needs detail.

• Wraithlord: Needs detail.

• Falcon conversion: Needs detail.

• Armorcast Falcon (yes, really): Primed black.

• A plethora of magnetized weaponry that's either primed, base coated or bare plastic.

While I understand that it can be pretty boring to look at a list of someone else's models and try to work up some excitement for which needs to be painted next (trust me; I've been in that position), this does have me somewhat stumped as to where I should go next. I'm almost tempted to let Matt Varnish choose for me. Why him?

1. You can't give CA$H any power. He corrupts pretty much instantly.

2. No matter how little you care about which models I paint, Lothlann cares less.

3. Joyous_Oblivion's answer to "which Eldar should I paint?" would be "Macs suck", and that doesn't help me.

4. Matt Varnish is known among his friends as "The Enabler". He'll have no problem giving me things to do instead of looking for work, exercising, reading, cleaning my home, etc...

So, I am officially asking MV to choose 400 points for me to paint to completion. I'm putting it in his hands.

Matt Varnish Replies:

OK I'm going to be a bastard and only let him know one week at a time.

Corey, I Choose your Warwalkers for week one. I want all 6 finished (I think 3 blue ones are done, if so, bonus for you) and based, symbols painted, the works.

My reply:

My War Walkers come in two flavors: Blueberry and Toffee.

Matt made a pretty good approximation of 100 points in terms of how much work is left on these: The base-coats are done, bases, all that stuff. What's missing is that the drivers need to be finished and I need to put runes and glyphs on them to take them the last yard to the finish line. It's a fair challenge, and I accept.

CA$H Painting Challenge - Part 1

CA$H here,

In response - here is a pic of the "Start" of my challenge. 10 man Grey Hunter squad and Rhino transport. Comes to 205pts, so I have 2 weeks starting tomorrow Feb 22. All the marines are in various stages and and the rhino is on sprue.



I haven't yet decided on a full paint scheme, but the theme for this new army will be "Iron Wolves". It's one of the great companies and are they are renown for their "armored assault". I haven't seen anyone locally use this company, so it's mine for the taking. I also plan to "retake" Space Wolves for the casual player, and not become "one of those space wolves guys".



Orbital - what are you manning up with?

CA$H out.

Drunken Gamers Painting Challenge

In a recent conversation with Matt Varnish, we decided on a workable painting challenge concept and we're gonna do it (and challenge Lotlann, CA$H, and Joyous_Oblivion to join in). Here's how it works:

- Pick a chunk of points to paint in multiples of a hundred (i.e. 100 points, 200 points, 300 points... you get the idea)

- For each 100 points, you get a week. So if you decide to paint 100 points, you have a week to get it done. If you choose 300, that's three weeks, etc.

- Painting includes basing. Do a complete model, you lazy twits!

- You can choose to paint stuff that's already half-painted in order to get it done; no need to start from bare metal/plastic. The point is to get stuff finished that you want finished, not to add extra work.

- If you get your chosen amount finished on schedule, then you have some great painted models!

- If you don't get your chosen amount finished on schedule, you must undergo The Punishment™, which involves buying a $25 gift certificate for a random name on the DG contributors' list (a D6 works fine, with a re-roll on a 1) within 48 hours of the completion date that you failed to meet. The condition of accepting the certificate, however, is that the recipient must paint whatever it buys on the same schedule, i.e. 100 points = a week, 200 points is two weeks, etc., updates to the blog, the whole thing. If the recipient doesn't think he can do that, pass the gift certificate to the next person.

- Updates must happen on the blog every week, or else you violate the conditions of the challenge and must undergo The Punishment™ early and in addition to doing it if you don't meet your deadline. This is the case even if you are painting after receiving The Punishment™. It's just that hardcore.

This Sober Gamer will be posting his own goals shortly; I have some Eldar stuff that's been waiting a long time for attention and this might be a good time to get down to brass tacks.

JO, CA$H, Loth, MV: Step up and tell the people what you're doing, you mooks.

March Madness Painting Challenge

Ok, so we are going to be running a painting challenge: 500 pts. You take pics of before, during and when done.

We have a week for everyone to give ideas about the risk/reward for this.. and to think about what it is they are going to work on.

For me, so far my 500 points will be build three medusas from my current leman russes, plus build the prototype Chimera-rhino for my squats, and paint the Chimera.

EDIT: The above will be my points for the month of march, I wanted to get the last few models for my Nightlords knocked out before I get started with my Squat Refurbishing Project.