Necromunda

September 2025 retrospective

Hey everybody,
I think it’s a mark of getting old, that it seems like I’m writing these retrospective posts more frequently as time goes by! September definitely seems to have gone by in a blur though, and I suppose in part that’s due to the fact that both the kids are now in school so we’ve been caught up in that whirlwind. My eldest is turning 6 tomorrow, as well, so that seems just crazy to me!

Here on the blog, September has been a fairly quiet one, I think – in no small part, I think, because I’ve been so caught up in all the real world stuff. Much like August, I haven’t really been playing a great deal of games, and I haven’t picked up the paint brushes once, so that in turn does seem to have an impact. Though I suppose the games that I have played have been quite fun. Had a terrific game of Marvel Crisis Protocol at the start of the month, where I was once more fielding my first love, X-Force, including the newly-built Bishop! James didn’t think much of him, but I have to say, I really enjoyed what he did get to do, including a fairly impactful spender. It was actually a fairly rough match-up for James and Web Warriors, though, and while I didn’t exactly wipe the floor with them, it was somewhat one-sided for the most part.

We’ve been talking pretty much for the whole month about starting a Necromunda campaign, but illness has wiped me out for the last week or so, and so we’ve now had to push the start of that back into October. We’re going for a classic Dominion campaign, and as it has been years since we actually played a proper game, we’re almost going back to basics a bit, with standard Orlock vs Goliath for it. I’m very excited about that!

The Dominion Campaign is the cornerstone of what Necromunda is all about, for me at least, and I’m pushing for us to get through it over the next 6-8 weeks without going back to other games in the meantime. I’m hoping that we can get the full experience of recruiting hangers on, maybe allying with the Guilds or something, and have a full-on campaign experience! I think the most we’ve ever had in terms of this full-on experience is during the Law & Misrule campaign, where one of the rackets I had gave me a free ammo jack, or something…

It’s going to be hard to stay focused on just one game, I think, when there are so many swirling around in my head right now. Shatterpoint has come back on my radar in recent weeks, though I can’t entirely say why. It feels like the rate of releases for Shatterpoint has really slowed down, which normally would be a source of joy as my bank balance can recover, but if I’m honest, it’s just gone to show how closely the release of new models for a miniatures game like this can be tied to the excitement levels. When I actually went back to check, there are still things coming out for it, while I had been thinking the game hadn’t seen anything new since about April, but the recent terrain pack (Outer Rim Outpost) seems to have been released without any fanfare whatsoever? I think the last time I really thought about Shatterpoint with any degree of seriousness was probably back in the spring, so maybe that’s playing a part here.

Of course, AMG are fully into Legion mode right now, as they launch that game with aplomb. James and I have been talking a lot about this as well – indeed, back in April, it was the reason why I was planning to get out of 40k altogether, and pivot into an army game set in my all-time favourite IP. Another interesting point here: having been talking about this game for literally months now, and I’ve been getting my old resin FFG-era models out for a look etc, the lustre of Legion being a new game to get into has somewhat dropped off, for me at least. I think James’ plan is to get the Empire launch box for Christmas, and work on it through the winter – we’ve both agreed that we won’t be playing with unpainted miniatures, at least. But for me, I think Legion has definitely slid down the rankings somewhat as 2025 has gone on.

Something that has come almost out of nowhere, though, is all of the fan-made content for Marvel Champions! At the very tail-end of August, I had discovered the Star Wars content from SuperMario, and while that’s all very exciting and stuff, I think the DC fan-made stuff has really exploded before my very eyes. I had not realised just how much I enjoy DC comics, and seeing all of this stuff has just thrown me back into an immense feeling of joy when I’ve discovered this community. I wrote a brief post about this last week, but the DC stuff has really intrigued me because it’s not just one person, but a real collaborative effort among several content creators who are creating new and re-skinned content for the game.

It’s very much a DC Champions, though at the weekend I have discovered a whole other level of content, in the Gotham’s Reckoning campaign. This takes 9 fan-made scenarios and strings them into a campaign, much like Arkham Horror LCG, but also adds in campaign-specific cards like the Marvel Champions campaigns do. That said, I get the impression that these cards are a lot more interesting than the “official” stuff. From my brief look through it at the weekend, it seems like there are stakes as regards whether campaign allies survive from game to game, and so on.

I’m trying not to rush myself and just print everything off for it – I lost access to my regular colour printing source at the end of August, and so getting stuff printed now is proving to be a lot more expensive than it was! For now, though, I’ve printed off the re-skinned core set (which uses Mr Freeze in place of Klaw, which I find hilarious!), a re-skinned Red Skull campaign (starting with Deathstroke and moving through the League of Assassins to R’as Al Ghul), and a re-skinned Green Goblin (Court of Owls). I’ve got a couple of fan-made scenarios, and then five heroes printed along with enough aspect cards to create several decks. All in all, I have a very plentiful start to this project!

My intention is to print off everything to play through Gotham’s Reckoning at Christmas, so that should be fun! Mechanically speaking, I don’t have enough card sleeves anyway, so I’m not in a massive rush here. I’ve discovered that Dragon Shield actually make the best size of card sleeve for what I need – resizing the cards to 6.35cm wide (the width of a standard Magic card) means they are a little long, so the Gamegenic sleeves aren’t big enough. They are, however, a pretty much perfect fit for the Dragon Shields, so that’s a new experience for me!

So yeah, September has seen a lot of arts and crafts as I’ve been cutting out hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of paper to get these fan-created things into a playable state! Hopefully from October onwards, I can actually get back to playing some games, rather than perpetually just trying to get myself prepared for sometime eventually playing!

LVO 2025: Games Workshop reveals!

With models like these coming out of Nottingham, it’s getting very difficult to resist Games Workshop these days!

The Emperor’s Children are getting their full range – some might say, at long last. They’ve been previewed in all their grisly splendour, and if I were still immersed in 40k as I used to be, I’m sure I would have been going all-in on this stuff.

Look at how Lucius has changed!

Overall, they’re looking fantastic. Very impressed with these things.

According to the roadmap of releases, they’re actually coming a lot sooner than certainly I’d expected. We’re getting Eldar, Imperial Guard and then these guys in the next batch of releases. Quite surprising, really…

Recently, we’ve seen an expansion to the Ironhead Squats, with a ‘house of’ style book, and now they’re showing off a similar wave for the Nomads. I had really thought they’d forgotten about the Ash Wastes as a setting, with everything now focused instead on Hive Secundus. I absolutely love to see this stuff, it’s just spectacular!

In a similar box to the reinforcements given to the Six, we’ve got a smaller group of guys, then some weird stuff – in this case, their pet worms. Glorious.

Oh, but wait…

We’re still in the Wastes, for this glorious centrepiece of a terrain piece! I mean, I don’t have the money for what I presume this thing is going to cost. But it’s so good, I’m really impressed!

In addition to all this, there are more skeleton warriors for the Soulblight Gravelords, with what looks like a massive injection to the range that includes a new take on the classic zombie dragon. The Old World is getting High Elves coming back, 90s models at today’s prices! And there are some other odds and ends, too. But I think the main event here is the III Legion, even if I’m mostly interested in the Necromunda stuff!!

I’ll need to exercise restraint here, I think…

Orlocks: some work in progress

Hey everybody,
While I’m a little late for wipWednesday, I wanted to share a bit of painting progress that has happened recently, in part because my painting has been really sporadic of late, and I feel like I need to give myself a bit of a boost in this area! Considering I was making some steady progress with my Neophyte Hybrids last month, all of that seems to have stalled, and I’m once again in the position where I’m finding it hard to get back into the swing of things. The last two weeks in work have been really stressful, though, with a little too much work coming my way, and so I think painting has been a really useful way to help combat that. Especially as I’ve noticed I’ve either been worrying about things of an evening, or else just too wiped out to actually do anything once I turn the computer off.

James and I have started a new Dominion campaign for Necromunda, and as it’s almost a year since we last played a game, we’ve been trying to take things steady to ensure we’re playing correctly once more. He has kept his Kroot Outcast gang, while I’ve gone for something new, the Orlocks! These were possibly my first choice for a gang when they released in 2018, although I quickly realised the trouble I had in trying to paint them like the official scheme, so gave up for a bit. A few years back, I tried a new-ish scheme, a simplified box art, although without playing them at the time, my interest soon waned. However, I’m now back in business, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they may turn out!

Orlocks were James’ first gang, and he’s recently had a clear-out of his hobby stuff (prompted mainly by his wife!) and so he’s given me all of his Orlock stuff, which includes the Wreckers box! While I have no intention to repaint his original gang, as they’re just too good and I think he may rekindle the Orlock love in time, I am very intrigued with the reinforcements box here. Wreckers have long been thought of as a top-tier unit (as much as anything can be in a narrative-focused game like Necromunda), so it’s gonna be interesting to see how they work in the game.

Speaking of which, our first game was a basic Shoot Out scenario, where we each had six gangers. Somehow, my Orlocks were able to secure a win, as I only lost one fighter (who was captured!) while I was able to eliminate all but the Outcasts leader. However, the way that guy was able to keep making his save rolls, it was nothing short of spectacular. At some point, we’re going to play a rescue mission as I need to get my guy back – he did a lot of damage in that opening game, so I don’t want to lose a ganger with so much XP so soon! I have been able to recruit a Wrecker for the job, so that’s going to be fun to see how she does in the upcoming battle!

Back to the Underhive

Hey everybody,
It’s been quite a while since I’ve talked properly about Necromunda here on the blog. It’s one of my all-time favourite games from Games Workshop, and while I may not exactly be chomping at the bit for 40k like I used to, I can still appreciate their boxed games like Necromunda and Warcry. Although, can Necromunda legitimately be called a boxed game, when it takes over the whole house?

At any rate, 2024 is the year of Hive Secundus in Necromunda, the genestealer-tainted hive that was grav-bombed from orbit when the infection was discovered. Of course, even that didn’t entirely eradicate the taint! Hive Secundus came out earlier in the summer and was actually quite reasonable for a box-set from GW, featuring new Malstrain Genestealers, a Genestealer Cults-like Scum gang, two Spyrers, and a new take on some Van Saar. Alongside this was a new rulebook, new dice, and the old bulkheads from the original Necromunda box that launched back in the mists of 2017. All of this for £105, though with discounts from the FLGS I actually got it for £75, so not bad at all.

Hive Secundus has really got me thinking about the game again, although I don’t think we’re going to be launching into that box quite yet. I really like how the Van Saar gang has been essentially re-imagined, and I wonder if they have plans to do this for the other gangs as well? So far, we’ve seen a lot of Genestealer-adjacent horrors previewed, but I wonder if the Tek-Hunters are the start of each gang getting a Secundus upgrade?

My original plan for getting back into Necromunda this year had been to use a Van Saar gang, as I have been wanting to get those miniatures finished off for ages now. However, James and I have been talking again, and he has returned to his Outcasts gang that use the new Kroot models, so in turn I have decided to return to an idea that I had about a year ago, and have got plans for some Orlocks!

The House of Iron has always been somewhat on the periphery for me. Back when James and I had originally gotten into Necromunda, they were the gang he chose, and he has returned to them a couple of times. When we had the four-player Dominion campaign last Christmas, Tom was playing Orlocks so they were once again taken. I think that now, though, will be my chance to shine! Well, it’ll be my chance to at least get mine to the table, I guess…

When Necromunda came back in 2017, the Orlocks were probably the first gang that really grabbed my attention. I built up my box excitedly, before really knowing much of the rules, and when it came to it, I found myself with a bunch of chaff. Lots of pistols and knives, nothing particularly exciting, you know? So I quietly retired them, and it wasn’t really until they came in the Ash Wastes, so I got my hands on ten more guys, that I began to seriously think about building a gang again.

So the next campaign will see Orlocks vs Outcasts, which is very exciting stuff! I don’t think we’ve chosen an actual campaign to play yet, though I suppose Dominion might be fun. I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can do with the Orlocks!

August 2024 Retrospective

Hey everybody,
August has been a funny old month, in many respects. I caught up with some book reviews for books that I’d read much earlier in the year, including the fourth Dune novel, as well as books from both Star Wars legends and new canon. Of the latter, neither has really set my world on fire so far, so that’s not exactly a good start. I also got my review up for Neuromancer, which surprised me in many ways. I’ve not yet started on the follow-up, Count Zero, though it’s on the to-be-read pile.

Speaking of Neuromancer, though, earlier in the month I devoted a week to investigating the core set factions for Android Netrunner. Dead games do appear to be my favourite type of games, I must say! All of this culminated in me finally managing to persuade my wife to play it, and it wasn’t entirely the disaster it could have been! Jemma is not really a gamer, certainly not a card gamer in this way, so I wasn’t entirely sure how it would go, as Netrunner is very much a card gamer’s game. Despite spending the majority of her clicks on gaining credits, I think somewhere in the second third of the game things started to make sense, and there was one moment at the end where she was able to make a run on my scoring remote server, break through the ICE I had out and steal the final agenda for the win. So that was positive! We’ve not played again so far, but that’s predominantly because real life has gotten in the way. Hopefully soon we can get some more games in, anyway!

This month, I have been trying to play more in the way of board games as well. I do enjoy them, when I have the time and the inclination, and have a fair few in my collection, so it’s always good to actually do stuff with them! I had a fantastic game of Arkham Horror third edition near the start of the month – I’ve said it before, but that game consistently impresses me with just how good it actually is.

After about a six month break, I’ve also found the time to play Dune Imperium once again, which took some time to get back into, but was also a really great game. I’ve noticed there’s another expansion for this game coming in 2025, though I don’t really think I’ve played it that much to warrant an expansion just yet!

I also got to play Outer Rim, the Star Wars game from FFG, when I went to see my mate JP in the middle of the month. Outer Rim is something I’ve had my eye on for some time, but have never quite pulled the trigger on. However, what a great game it was! It has gone immediately onto this year’s Christmas list, though that is unfortunately already a bit of a heavy list, so we’ll see what happens. One of the big things that has drawn me to Outer Rim is the solo play, but I like the fact that it’s a game where players are competing without much in the way of direct combat – yes, there is a mechanism to fight your opponents, but it feels nice in that it’s not the main focus of the game.

August, of course, marks the anniversary of my first foray into Games Workshop, and this year we move into double digits. I still can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for ten years, much less I’ve been painting miniatures for that length of time! But anyway, to mark the occasion, I painted up a unit of five Lychguard for my Necron army, because that was my first army, and I fell in love with Necrons because of the Lychguard models. I think this was the first step down the path, but followed by The August Audit: 2024 edition, I began to slide back into Warhammer. I think with 2024 being the anniversary year of my blog, I’ve been feeling quite nostalgic for the whole thing, and so I’ve been looking at Space Hulk once again, as well as going through my collection of miniatures.

I’ve sold off quite a few armies so far this year, and I have earmarked a few more for selling when the time is right. Most of 2024, then, has been taken up with Atomic Mass Games, either Shatterpoint or Marvel Crisis Protocol, and I have been absolutely enamoured of playing these other games. And yet, you’re never really free of GW, are you? In an effort to try to keep my life as simple as possible, I have limited myself to my Genestealer Cults, but then I started to look into Necromunda as well, and I got the Van Saar out to see what I could do to get them into a playable state, and things have begun to snowball a bit once again. I really don’t want to end up in the position of having too many projects on the go at once, because I end up too confused and so the spiral goes down.

As I look forward to September, I think it’s going to be important that I can try to get some sense of order to these various projects that I have on the go. I think I need to try and make a concerted effort to complete one of the units I have on the go, either the Neophytes or the Van Saar – though when it comes to Necromunda gangs, I find myself wanting to do a much better job on them, so smaller numbers work better for me. I still have a lot of MCP and Shatterpoint miniatures that also need painting, of course, but one step at a time!

While I was a bit disappointed in myself for going back to GW after having most of this year off, I can’t really help myself because the models are spectacular, and I do like them very much. I also love the fluff, and there’s something truly wonderful about seeing these things again. I keep hearing how 10th edition 40k is one of the best editions they’ve done, but I have not yet found that myself – I’m hoping that it will all suddenly dawn on me like a ray of divine inspiration, but so far it seems to be more akin to an unholy mess, with 30-odd pages of FAQ and errata to a 40-odd page rulebook.

At least with Necromunda, you kinda play it because of the fact that it’s such an unholy mess!

The Dreaded Ambot!

Yesterday, I built up my Ambot, and it is definitely my new favourite kit! It first came out early in 2019, but I didn’t get one until fairly recently. James suggested we split the box, and about 18 months ago, we made some vague plans about an ambot fight. Unsurprisingly, things haven’t yet worked out as I put it on the pile but didn’t get round to building the kit. James, at least, used his in our Dominion campaign last year, as Czarn the Cyberoth leading an Outcast gang of Kroot!

Now that I have it built, though, I am truly in love with this hulking chunk of plastic! I think that part of the reason for not rushing to get it done last year was due to the fact the model doesn’t have the most flattering of paint jobs in the box art. I know this stuff is subjective, but the oily, dark, ultra contrast scheme really doesn’t appeal to me, but seems to have been a thing for earlier Necromunda models.

The ambot is a design by the Adeptus Mechanicus, based on the ambull, a tunnelling creature. We had the ambull as part of the Blackstone Fortress game line, which came out around the same time as its mechanical twin. I think the initial idea was that the tech priests used a lobotomised ambull as the basis for the ambot, improving on its already considerable strength with additional features like the grav fist.

The model is such a big chunk of plastic, I am kinda excited about getting some paint on it. I’m intending to have it as just a regular ambot that any gang can use, rather than making it specifically for, say, the Van Saar. I know a lot of folks like to tie them into their gang, and there are some really good Escher ambots that I’ve seen online.

Definitely one of my favourite additions to my ever-expanding collection of plastic, though!

Oh dear…

I’ve spent most of the year so far away from Games Workshop stuff, but have recently been slinking back – first with my Genestealer Cults, and this weekend I’ve started to make a return to Necromunda, as well, with my Van Saar gang.

The Van Saar are in a bit of a sorry state, I have to say. They were the first gang that I had made a proper effort to paint up, but I wasn’t entirely happy with my efforts (plus it became tricky to replicate as I sought to increase the roster), so I started to paint over them with a more straightforward scheme, but I’m really not convinced!

However, I’m getting sidetracked from my Cults already, which is not good. It’s always the way with Warhammer, I find; I can’t seem to stay focused on one thing at a time!

Necromunda is such a good game though, I just can’t help myself…

May 2024 retrospective

Hey everybody,
Wow. May has come and (almost) gone in quite the flash, it doesn’t seem like it’s been an almost five week month, somehow. Here in the glory that is the British Isles, most of that month has been submerged in rain, though I am hopeful that sometime soon we will get more summer on the way. Always makes me feel more productive when the weather is good, though that said, I have posted quite a bit during the month. 14 posts for the month isn’t too shabby I suppose! For the most part, I’ve been exploring a lot of different Star Wars games this month, predominantly the LCG and Shatterpoint, although in terms of games played I have also tried out the still-new Star Wars Unlimited, which I plan to go more in-depth on next month, so stay tuned for that!

For the LCG, I have been investigating the second cycle, Echoes of the Force, and have rebuilt most of my decks to experiment with the “new” cards from that cycle. I found it interesting how a lot of those cards disrupted how well my decks were otherwise playing, and I think it’s possible (likely?) that the core set had a much more balanced experience overall. As the game progressed, we definitely saw the designers try to give us archetypes to build into, and so to be fair, I probably need to make completely new decks to take advantage of these “new” cards. Might need to look again at this, although I do feel some decks, like the Sith deck, will be almost completely rebuilt when I come to look at later cycles again, so we shall see what happens then!

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Shatterpoint has been a huge part of the month for me, as well, as I have fully embraced that game, and have been splashing the cash on products as well as splashing the paint on the models! I’ve primed all of the terrain, and have made some inroads to getting that stuff painted up, which has just been so good, but have also pretty much completed Count Dooku’s squad pack, which is very nice! I’m not currently happy with the way Dooku’s face has turned out, unfortunately, but at least he isn’t just grey plastic anymore.

I actually had a game last night with Dooku and Asajj, against James and his mostly-clones list that included Anakin and Obi-Wan, and it turned out to be my first ever victory! I think it really helped that I was trying to be focused on what I wanted to do, I was trying to play aggressively to score objectives, and I was trying to play fast to keep myself focused on what I was doing. It still went to a third struggle, and the way that played out was super tight in the end – it came down to Asajj wounding the 212th clones in order to gain another momentum token on my side of the tracker, which meant by scoring two objectives I won. But if I hadn’t drawn Asajj to do that, the momentum would have swung back and James would have scored two points for his victory. Very dramatic stuff!

I suppose that’s what it’s all about though, tense gameplay and cinematic moments! I think we’ve played 5 or 6 times now, though, so I was very pleased to finally have a victory there!

It has been a fairly Star Wars-centric month, especially with the reading that has been going on as well. There will be some reviews coming out soon for the novels I’ve been wading through, although not all of them are from the GFFA! At the start of May, I was back in Rokugan as I had finally finished collecting the dynasty packs for Legend of the Five Rings LCG, which was quite exciting – there’s still a couple of clan packs and the Clan War expansion that I think will never be found again. But otherwise, I have a pretty complete collection of L5R now, and I’m very excited! It’s such a good game, and such an interesting setting – indeed, on the subject of novels, I’ve got a couple of those to get round to at some point, which should be fun, as well.

Games Workshop had a reveals weekend where they showed off the box contents for Age of Sigmar 4th edition, something that had almost succeeded in getting me back on the Warhammer horse. I do love Warhammer fantasy (small f), and while there have been some pretty dire messes created by the move from Old World to AoS, I still remember with tremendous fondness the fresh feeling of the landscape in 2015 when the game first launched. I’ve been trying my hardest not to get involved, but longtime readers of the blog will no doubt remember last year’s Summer of Sigmar, something that seems to happen quite regularly – like the sun brings me back into the fold, or something! So I have been thinking about maybe taking a look at the preview articles they’ve been putting up about the game.

Maybe…

They’ve also shown off some very interesting miniatures for the Horus Heresy line for the Mechanicum, and if I wasn’t actually looking to sell my AdMech army I would probably be thinking about getting some of those to incorporate into the force. Most interesting, though, is new Necromunda, set in Hive Secundus and the genestealer infested depths. In addition to Spyrers and mutated genestealers, we’re also getting more Zone Mortalis terrain to reflect the rad-bombed wasteland of the hive, which sounds very interesting. I am somewhat cautious though, because I have an absolute ton of stuff for Necromunda, and while I am sorely tempted by the new box, I think that price is going to be a serious factor here. I might just get some of the genestealer stuff as and when, and focus instead on the terrain? If I get it at all?

I had the conversation with James the other week, as my primary Necromunda gaming partner (as well as MCP and Shatterpoint!) and I think we’re both fairly keen to try some more games in the Underhive, but in all honesty, we’ve both got so much stuff for the game at this point that more is probably irrelevant, so it’s going to be interesting to see whether the box is good value, when it eventually shows up. I’m still far more interested in Shatterpoint right now though, and I addressed this in another post this month, but I could see myself almost getting out of Warhammer entirely, or certainly selling off everything but my Necrons and Drukhari. Time will tell, I suppose!

New Necromunda!

GW are doing some kind of preview event this weekend, which started with the full reveal of the new Age of Sigmar box for 4th edition, and has continued today with 40k stuff. The big news, though, is Necromunda getting a new box that will be taking us to Hive Secundus and the Genestealer Cult infestation there!

I love it. All of it.

It’s Van Saar and Spyrers teaming-up against the tainted scum of the hive, and the article seems to suggest that we’re getting co-op style rules, if I’m reading that right? Could be kinda fascinating.

The models seem to be on the lower side of things for this one. Van Saar are eight, and Spyrers are two, which is intriguing. The Genestealer side is eight recycled Hive Scum models, then six mutants with some floating brains. As for terrain, we’re getting the bulkheads recycled from the 2017 box, so this will be a 2D affair out of the box.

This makes me hopeful that it won’t be as expensive as the Ash Wastes box, although of course that came out a couple of years ago, so anything’s possible.

I’m really trying to avoid spending more money at the minute, as I’m not really sure about my future with this kind of thing. I’m also quite painfully aware that I bought the full Ash Wastes experience, painted up all that terrain, and have only played a single game with that ruleset.

I was tempted by the Stormcast, but this is a whole other level… 😬

January Hobby Update – already!

Hey everybody,
We’re one week into the new year, and already I have a hobby update blog for you all! Well, I have been a busy bee, it seems. While this isn’t going to be strictly tied into the Hobby Goals for 2024, I wanted to write up a quick progress report, more to keep my own momentum up rather than because it may be of interest to anybody!

To begin, my Dark Reapers are finished. These are the models I had for my birthday last month, and rather than putting stuff onto the pile of shame, I’m trying to paint things as I get them, so I can at least keep on top of the whole thing, rather than letting it grow and grow! They’re quite bland, somehow – I’ve seen other people talk about how they don’t really have a lot to do on them, because they’re black armour, big guns, and skull masks… and that’s it. The guns are one of the things that have attracted me to them, as I think they’re hilarious, but they are nice models, and I suppose the black armour allows their skulls and guns to really shine forth!

I’m also going to call the Promethium Forge finished. This has been one of my oldest projects, from something like six years ago now. I built it, was in love with it, but never seemed to get round to painting it. I’ve even played games on it, but still didn’t make the jump to actually painting it!

However, I have painted two other structures for the Sector Mechanicus since then, and so last year had attempted to get it done, doing the main bulk of it, but somehow not actually making the leap to finishing it off! That’s all changed now though, and I’m pretty happy with it, if I’m honest. I’m not big into weathering on models, but I think these industrial structures need to look old and used, so after I’d finished painting, it’s just a case of a liberal drybrush of skrag brown over everything. It works quite well, and makes things look grimy and horrible, at least!

I’ve also finished a micro-project, four more computer terminals for Necromunda. I had painted one a long time ago, but hadn’t done the others. They’re not something I often use, admittedly, and door panels in the zone mortalis stuff do have computer terminals on them anyway, but I think I might be using these in an upcoming game, so that’ll be interesting to see how it works out.

In terms of what’s next in the queue, I have a few ammo crates that I want to finish painting, because most of those barrels and crates have been done now. So it’ll be good to get the rest of them finished. I’ve found that I really like to have these things in my Necromunda games, so I want to get them all finished so that I have a full range of barricades done! The biggest project for me, though, is this thing.

The Alchomite Stack was one of the first terrain pieces I bought, though it was a while before I actually put it together. I did try to paint it before I’d done anything else, though, which has resulted in a very blue dome section, and I’ve not been too happy with it since. Though it keeps coming out for games! So I’d like to get this finished as well, so that I can call all of these pieces finished. The pipes are mainly done, of course, but that dome just looks bad. I think I’d re-primed the furnace recently, so that will need some work doing as well.

My hope, once this has been done, is to get everything together and see what a fully-painted board looks like! I know I still have quite a few pieces to get painted, of course, but the core of three structures, plus the chimneys, should make for quite a look!

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So that’s both what I’ve done, and what I plan to do next. There are still the overarching Hobby Goals for the year of course, though I can tick the forge off right now! I’m hoping that by setting these kind of mini-goals, I’ll be able to get through things far quicker than by having them set in place for the year. I seem to be really keen to get the terrain painted recently, so I’m just riding that wave I guess, but I’m hoping that I can get a lot more finished this year by focusing myself like this.