2014 Musing and Thoughts on the End Times

Yeeehhaaaaa!

So. Another year in the hobby done. One year closer to the cold and uncaring grave.

Still with me? Great. So, the year that was. A lot of great stuff hit the house of Saturday. My obsessive trading for old lead continued apace. This year though, my focus returned to 40k. Not so much the current game as the background. This was thanks to the O'Hammerers (the Irish Oldhammer contingent,) that my interest was rekindled. Our first outing was at KnaveCon 3, where we set out a participation game of Warhammer 3rd edition where my ravenous fimir were attacking a not so defenceless halfling village. Good times.

Delicious halflings

Since then the beginning of a genestealer cult has started in infiltrate my cabinet. Still small, perilously so, but growing. We've taken Pulp Alley as out rules du jour, and it's a very pleasant system. Easy to learn, but with enough variety to apply it to pretty much any scenario. We took to the road again for BroCon.

Paul Shoten's (Cheetor) amazing terrain

I have a couple of models I'm planning on painting for it next year I'm quite excited about. I mean, what would a hybrid ride into battle?

The fimir were not forgotten, with a large ettin joining the army, as well as some new characters. The ettin was the largest model I've yet worked on, and my first Forge World model. I was very impressed with the detail on the resin. I have some new bits and pieces I want to add to the army in 2015. Some hound handlers, along with more hounds, some fianna fimm and another wyrm rider for starters. Truly armies are never finished. I am toying with adding a large unit of human tribesmen complete with the dagda and his mates, but sure we'll see.

As the Summer wore on I got more and more engrossed in the cult. Post BroCon my hobby tailed off some due to life, but I've been adding to the cult in the time I had. It's a very enjoyable project and has really invigorated me to go searching off after a lot of the old Rogue Trader miniatures. My latest notion is a maniple of old Rogue Trader era robots led by a magus. The robots aren't common, and I'm acquiring them almost literally one piece at a time.

I know it says bog pools. I really must fix that.

There have been a couple of KnaveCon this year, which keep getting better and better. The next one is the fifth, which is on April 11th, and if you're an Irish gamer, I really recommend coming along.

September saw my now annual trip to NWG, where the games were fun and craic gooood. Nigel and the lads always put on a great event. I picked up a couple of painting prizes which was very nice indeed. Another great event in the Irish gaming calendar.

These fimm are in trouble.

The All Quiet of the Martian Front and Mars Attacks kickstarters shipped. Mostly. I'm still waiting on wave 2 of All Quiet. The models are bloody great though, especially the Martian tripods. In general the game is good, with a few little glitches, but nothing sensible gamers can't overcome. The wonderful models make any rules jiggery irrelevant. The human tanks are really excellent in my opinion, with a great alternate World War One feel to them. I'd really like to get a few tripods and tanks painted up next year.

I've played a few games of Mars Attacks, and it's a nice wee game. Mantic did a pretty decent job with the shipping, but have been so busy since that they're having trouble responding to backers looking for missing parts etc. Still, I'm looking forward to assembling the saucers and giant robots. With both this and All Quiet awaiting painting, surely I won't need to buy and models in 2015?

Indeed.

So, looking back it's been a pretty decent year gaming and painting wise, bar the terrible slump in painting in the last few of months. Still, the brushes are in hand once again. There was one other big event that warrants discussion, and that is the end times in warhammer. WARNING: SPOILERS.

Nagash has had enough of your shit.

I've been playing Warhammer now since 1986. You can't do anything for almost 30 years without it becoming part of you. Over the years the background of the game has soaked into my subconscious and nestled there. This is part of the reason the End Times series has made me gasp more than once. Both for the events in the books and the ramifications on the future of the game.

Major characters are dead. Nations burned or sunk. I mean, Ulthuan is gone. GONE. That still needs to sink in. (Sorry.) Khemri GONE. That promoted a bit of a sulk. Kemmler apparently dead, Zacharius dead, Eltharion dead, Tyrion dead. Teclis dead. Malus Darkblade dead. Naggaroth abandoned. Estalia and Tilea taken by the ratmen. Bretonnia essentially razed. Kislev destroyed. The list of losses goes on and on and on.

It's almost too much. 

The imaginary world that has seeped into my bones over the years is being take apart, one paragraph at a time. Where will it end? Part of me wonders what GW are doing. A lore that has taken over 30 years to build is being razed to the ground. That said, I LOVE the books. Despite the destruction, the sense of excitement in the books makes it no wonder they sold out. Everyone I know who has read them has devoured the story, and read only some of the rules. We all want to know how it ends. I've not been as excited about the game in a while. And yet, where is it heading?

According to those that may know, we are looking at two, maybe three more books, with the skaven the stars of book four, out January 2nd. That date is still a rumour. I really do like the united armies of undead and chaos, as that's how they were when I started the game, and my skeleton archers, skullchuckers and Realm of Chaos army might see action once again. What GW seem to be doing is consolidating the books down into 5 or 6 main armies for 9th edition, whatever that might be. Will Warhammer 9th edition just be a tin box containing cooling ashes and fragments of bone?

What will be left of the Warhammer world for 9th? Will your human army consist of a battered knight, four starving halberdiers and old guy on a horse?

The discontinuation of the Tomb Kings book bodes ill, for what replaces it? Is the rumoured ravening hordes book for 9th really going to happen? Added to that Tamurkhan and Monstrous Arcana are discontinued, with Forge World not looking at any new Warhammer releases for the next two years at least. Bad times for chaos dwarf players, myself included. Ah well, it's not like we weren't out in the cold before. Maybe what we need is for space marines to land in Altdorf to get things moving. We could have empire space marines, skaven space marines, undead space marines, (I mean, they have a primarch) lizardy space marines... sorry. That sounds bitter. I actually like space marines. Just not all the time.

I'm really very curious about where Warhammer is going post End Times.

New Irish Blog - Tabledgames

Howdy all. Today is all about Tabledgames, a new Irish gaming blog kicking off over the next few days. Tabledgames, authored by BroCon's very own Jay McKeown is aiming to promote the Limerick gaming scene and the Irish gaming community online. It will be bringing you the good word on gaming news and the lowdown on upcoming events. All that good stuff.

If you're a gamer in Ireland, make sure you subscribe for what is sure to be a fountain of gaming what's on, where and who's playing it.

http://tabledgames.blogspot.ie/

Genestealer Cult - Hybrid Aberration Finished

After spending a long damn time on my painting table, the heavy weapon hybrid is done. I painted him in brief snatches of hobby time over the last month, ten minutes here, half and hour there, as that's all I had available to me until recently. Anyway, he's finally done, and as such brings the squad up to half strength.

As you've probably guessed, the autocannon is magnetized. I feel he'll be getting a big claw at some point in the future. My 40k bits box is slowly getting to the point where I at least have some options. This entire guy is made from bits I purloined from the various trading pages on Facebook.

Here's the gang so far. Five more to go. Melta gun armed 2nd generation up next.

Curse of the Limited Edition - Gouging

Good luck.

It's been quiet here on the mumblings of late. I've not had anything of worth to say, really. Which is odd, as there's a hell of a lot going on. The end times rolls on. I've just finished Glottkin (not to worry, no spoilers) and have started into Khaine. I'm loving it thus far, but I've been quiet here as I feel I need to absorb it all before commenting. Games Workshop's frenetic release schedule is giving the commentators little time to review before the next release. Poor us.

Anyway, onto the topic of the post. It's become ever more apparent over the last couple of months as limited edition this and limited run that has been released, that folks are more than willing to snap up multiple copies of these limited items and sell them for many times the original price. I saw copies of Khaine on ebay for hundreds of euros before it was even released. Cards for both the lore of undeath and the end times spells are going for at least triple the original price.

My question is, so what?

Now, personally speaking, I don't think this is cricket. You should only be allowed one of any limited item at the store or in your cart. I'd feel a bit of an arse buying ten and selling them on for huge profit. BUT, I don't agree with giving folks who are doing it a bollicking on social media either. If you disagree with gouging, ban it from your page/blog/site/shop or write a post, but personally I don't think name-calling on Facebook is the way to go, despite my personal feelings. In fact, I managed to snag a set of end times cards this morning, (no smugness intended) and was told one copy only. Bravo. That's the way to do it.

There is another side to this. Folks aren't forced to buy these things. Also, if I was after a chaos dwarf juggernaut I'd expect to pay hundreds of euros. Not that I would. But these sellers aren't lambasted. One reason I imagine is these sellers didn't buy 20 juggernauts the day they came out to resell them later that day for triple the price. But it's a point.

Prepare to shell out.

I'd be super interested in what the good folks out there think on this. Is it fair game, or fair play for the frenzied rush to snag the end times releases?

The Depths of Obsession

Ours is a hobby that easily leads itself to obsession. We've all either witnessed it or been subject to it.

This particular post is inspired by an incredibly vivid dream I had last night. Vivid dreams should be spent doing things like riding a harley off a cliff while playing an electric guitar which is on fire before plunging into a sea of decent whiskey, or flying a pirate ship made of crystal that smells like cinnamon through a sea of paperclips wearing a lavender mankini. Or other... pleasurable scenarios.

Not picking out oldhammer blister packs from an imaginary game shop. But that's what happened. Myself and a few friends (one of which, incidentally, was the first one to comment when I mentioned this on the oldhammer FB page) were walking through a town when we came upon a game shop. Not one I'd ever been to, just a gameshop. While perusing I discovered a wall of old Citadel blister packs. The next 20 minutes of the dream were spent picking out various packs. This part was so vivid I can remember the John Blanche art on the card backing and the various contents.

 I know.

I had it in hand man! Right in my hand!!

Anyway, I had that feeling of brief but intense disappointment when I woke up. I've been mulling over the dream ever since. It's pretty indicative of an obsessive interest in miniatures, which I'm totally fine with. I've long since made peace with my deep fascination with models and gaming. What interests me is how this made me pause and appreciate how deep this fascination really is. It's not a 'must buy entire box of boosters for one card' kind of thing, though I have been known to scour the planet for a specific model to complete a range I've been collecting. I don't weep tears of blood if I don't find said model, but it's pretty full on I'll admit. It's more stepping back and observing how much time and energy I devote to the hobby in general. Don't misunderstand, I don't feel the need to change anything, but sometimes it's useful to step out of yourself and look at what you're doing, and how you're doing it. At the very least it might give you an insight into how to do it more/better!

So, the point of this self indulgent ramble? It might be interesting to look those moments where you've gone 'Woah. This is pretty hardcore. Maybe I AM obsessive.' and add them into the comments, if you feel like sharing. Like gamer group therapy. Or just a game of who's done the most crazy stuff. Either is good.

Genestealer Cult - Hybrid Aberration Heavy Weapon Servitor

I've had a notion to do a large hybrid servitor as an addition to the squad for a while now. This guy has been cobbled together with blu-tack and left at the back of the paint station for months now, so I thought it time to put him together properly. As with the smaller aberrations, this fellow is a less than perfect blend of human and genestealer dna. He's been heavily augmented, then pumped full of growth hormones and stims, turning him into little more than a massive automaton awaiting the will of the magus.

He'll take the spot of a heavy weapons team in the squad. The autocannon is magnetized in case I want to change out the weapon.

The next member of the squad under the knife is also in the shot, the six-limbed vox caster. He needs some work on his vox set, but otherwise is pretty much ready for assembly.

Freshening the Dead

Recently, with the return of Nagash and the general undead vibe going around, my thoughts have turned to adding some new bits and pieces to my undead army. It's been a few years since I worked on it, and I have a hankering to add some new units. I have a lot of old lead sleeping uneasily in their cardboard graves, awaiting the call.

With that in mind, I've been looking at the basing scheme on my existing undead units. I'm not entirely sure I still like it, but I can't make up my mind. The black does frame the miniatures nicely, but maybe it's time to update it to something a tad more realistic and earthy. I'm considering breaking one of my own cardinal rules here, and going back over old work, but it wouldn't take too long, a couple of weeks. It's more a pain in the arse. I'd rather do that though than paint new units to match a basing scheme I don't think still cuts the mustard. I've been looking over them for a couple of days, and I think I can't see them anymore. Is the flock getting a little tired looking? Would more of a dark earth work better with some tufts etc?

Or are they totally fine as is, and I'm a madman for even thinking about it?

Here is where you come in, dear reader. To re-paint the bases, or not? You tell me. I've scattered some samples from the army so you can see the existing scheme. I leave it you, as I'm 50/50 right now...

Genestealer Cult - Aberrant 2nd Generation Hybrid

My hobby has been intermittent lately, due to this, that and the other thing. I did get a few hours in recently though, and I managed to finish putting together this guy, the melta-gunner for the squad of hybrids.

He's not your standard bald bloke with an extra arm for starters, even though he is actually bald. And has an extra arm. Anyway. There will be enough of those in the force, and I wanted the specialists to be a bit more standout. In my iteration of the cult, not every hybrid turns out as expected. I wanted some weirdness in the proportions as the human genes assert themselves over the generations, this fellow being somewhere between 1st and 2nd generation. To reassert a bit of realism I had to add a bit of heft. This became pretty apparent after some discussion about his gun with Cheetor. His arm needed some re-posing to look like he was bearing the weight of the gun instead of waving it about like it was made of foam. I added some straps to make it look still heavier. The tabard was added to make him fit in a little better with the adeptus mechanicus theme, as were the stim injectors on his back. The masked head I plan on using across the force, probably more so on the skitarii, but also on the occasional hybrid.

The Mumblings on Point Hammered

Morning folks. I was out in my garden yesterday, listening to Podcasts, as I am want to do. While listening to the excellent Point Hammered I was stopped firmly in my tracks as at 1:12:30 the hosts, Johnny Hasting and the Rodge began the blog post of the month segment. The subject of which was my very own Fimir of Albion army, about which they had some very nice things to say. I'm feeling a bit chuffed, as anyone who has seen the work of either of these guys knows they produce some pretty goddam fantastic work, such as the Bull Ogres and the Cthulhu daemon army, so praise from these guys is praise indeed. It made my day, to say the least.

A better man would be far too modest to mention such a thing on his own blog.

Sooo... if you like your Warhammer podcasts on the laid back yet slightly salty side, and I do, check out Point Hammered. They also run the You Magnificent Bastards blog, which is chock full of tutorials, army projects and general hobby goodness.

NWG 2014 - Post Mortem

Undead Legions at NWG

Once again I made the journey to Wicklow to attend this year's NWG. With one other member of my club, the League of Bastards, we headed down to the event. Friday night saw us take part in the traditional NWG pub quiz. This year Games Workshop had thrown in some prize support in the form of an Imperial Knight, so competition was sharp. A few wee drinkies, lots of talk about wee men and futile attempts to wrangle news out of the GW ambassador took up the remainder of the evening.

This year NWG had three tournaments running. As usual, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40k were there, and this year for the first time Flames of War made an appearance. Fantasy was 2000 points, 20-0 system, no comp, with up to 60 points for painting, making the paint scores a significant part of the overall score. There were some rules modifications in the rulespack, mostly to do with magic. The Emerald Daemon was running again this year too, in which I had two models entered.

I don't really get to play as much as I'd like, and with a few pretty grizzled tournament veterans about, I was anticipating some tough games. Still, as long as folks were good sports and the games were fun I didn't really care all that much as long as I managed to avoid total poundings.

I won't go too deeply into my list, but here's the flavour of what was in the army. I brought along a daemon prince (meargh) with all the usual toys on lore of death, an exalted hero of Tzeentch (dirach) on a disc with the 1+ armour save and ultra-ward save, as well as burning body, and Festus, (Avagdu & Morfran) who accompanied the warriors. Festus turned the already hard as nails block of warriors into a total brick. The rest of the army consisted of  a block of 22 Nurgle warriors with full command (fimm), 3 skullcrushers with full command (Marlryrms), 5 warhounds and a Chimera (Crom Cruach). It was a pretty small army.

Game 1 - Dermot Maguire - Ogre Kingdoms
As last year, this year I faced ogres in game 1, which was Meeting Engagement. Dermot was a very pleasant and easygoing opponent, even when his gutstar and mournfang failed to appear on turn 1. His characters were initially vulnerable, if well hidden in cover. A lone sabretusk held up my crushers in the village however, preventing me from getting into the ogre's flank. Two ironblasters meant I didn't try anything too daring off the bat. Once the rest of the ogres turned up his firebelly gave the daemon prince a hosing which wounded it and ensured I had to keep her well out of the way of the blasters for the rest of the game. The firebally did miscast and go down a hole though, taking a couple of ogres with him. The mournfang, aided by the Flaming Sword of Rhun spell, charged the warriors. Even so they would have come to grief had they not passed all nine 4+ armour saves in one turn, winning the combat and running down the warriors. Despite a late charge on both blasters with the chimera and the bsb they refused to either die or bugger off. The game ended with a win to ogres. I can't recall exactly, but I think it was 18-2.

The ogres advance onto the battlefield.

Game 2 - Mark Moloney - High Elves
Mark had a large block of swordmasters with Teclis and the banner of the world dragon, two units of five dragon princes and two of units of five reavers. A large block of archers and two bolt throwers finished out the list. The scenario was Dawn Attack. I set up mostly facing the cavalry, leaving the swordmasters to slog across the woodland in the centre before they could bring their numbers to bear. I managed to tie up the cavalry and run down the dragon princes before they got close, by which time the chimera was able to get a decent charge in and as the game ended it was stuffing scores of screaming elves down it's gullet as it munched it's way toward Teclis. This one was s 10 - 10.

Dragon princes line up for the charge.

Game 3 - Fergus Finch - High Elves
The scenario for this round was Battle for the Pass. Fergus had a large unit of dragon princes with his level four wizard, noble and bsb. There was a unit of eighteen archers with a level one wizard, ten sisters of Avelorn, eight silver helms, five reavers, a great eagle and frostheart phoenix. The game got off to a disastrous start for Fergus as his level four wizard miscast and then cascaded, killing himself and some of the elven knights. From there on in I had magical dominance and managed to tie up the cavalry while my mobile units hunted down the rest of the army. In the end it was an 18 - 2 to the fimir. This one was the last game on Saturday, so I forgot to take any photos. Ah well.

Game 4 - Neil Butler - Warriors of Chaos
I'd love to say bad luck lost me this one, but a leaner list and more experienced player was more the cause of my battering here. Neil had the tooled up daemon prince, bsb on a daemonic mount, chimera, hellcannon, 3 Nurgle chariots, three units of five hounds and a unit of three crushers. We were playing Battleline.

Penned in and harassed from all sides, the fimm battle on.

I did in fairness have some bad luck, with my bsb and chimera both failing their initiative rolls with two rolls of six to survive Purple Sun in turn one, my daemon prince cascading and going down a hole in my own turn one after casting her own Purple Sun, while the initiative two chimera I'd cast at gaily made it's own initiative two test to survive. There were a couple of other examples of fun dice, but you get the drift. Neil commiserated and gave me some great tactical tips while efficiently and amiably rolling me up. With a single hellcannon the only thing I managed to destroy it was a resounding 20 - 0.

Game 5 - Nikki Hanna _ Empire
Nikki started the game with a squeaky voice from what sounded like an impending sore throat, and it became less audible as the game went on, but she battered on regardless. A very fun game, using the Blood & Glory scenario. Nikki had two cannons, a light council, a huge block of halberdiers, a unit of five knights, two units of three and four demigryphs, a steam tank, two cannon and some archer detachments.

Dodging cannon fire, the fimir raced across the board to attack the Empire left flank. The steamtank clanked forward before mounting a hill to deliver a devastating flank shot on my crushers, annihilating the entire unit in one shot. My daemon prince got within one turn of reaching the juicy backline of the empire before succumbing to an irresistible banishment, for which she failed every 3+ save and every 5+ ward. Things looked very bad for the swamp dwellers, so the warriors charged the tank to stop it causing any more mischief. With poison attacks, and Festus' own unique rules, they destroyed the tank in three turns, then managed to wipe out a unit of knights and demi gryphs. My fimm warriors had been performing only so-so all tournament, but they rallied mightily in this game. As the halberdiers took to a building to avoid my advancing fimir, they managed, with some magical help, to kill the chimera outright after taking some horrendous casualties. After a fair old scrap the Empire came out on top, winning 15 - 5 due to the fortitude bonus.

My favourite moment from the game was the steam tank engineer attempting to detonate the badly stricken tank in order to destroy both it and the fimm warriors in one monumental explosion. Alas, the dice decided this was not to be. It would have been an epic end to the combat though.

The fimm perpare to charge the steam tank.

So, after five games I was looking at three losses, one draw and one win, earning me 34 battle points. No comp can be challenging, but my painting scores gave me a boost, with 56 points out of 60 shooting my up to 6th place out of 19 players. At the end I was pretty tired, but I enjoyed my games and the relaxed vibe evident throughout the tournament.

NWG in full swing.

As to the painting, which is really my main bag, I came away with 2nd place army for Warhammer Fantasy, one point behind the winner, Ugo Greevy, whose Undead Legions army is a sight to behold.

Ugo's legions.

My curs'd ettin managed to bag best single large model in the Emerald Daemon competition, which made me happy as I do rather dig that model. The organisers did a fantastic job of keeping things ticking along, and I heard of not a single unhappy incident all weekend. Nice one lads.

Big ugly brings home the goodies.

So, after NWG I'm actually really keen to get more games in, rather than being all warhammered out. I have a couple of units to finish for the fimir, then there are a lot of undead looking for some painting love, methinks.

First though, back to those hybrids.

Genestealer Cult - Parts for Hybrids

I've been back in the hybrid toy box lately. I need a couple of specialists for the squad. My plan was to have the special weapons carried by larger 2nd generation hybrids, so that they would be easy to pick out. This guy here is almost ready for green stuff, but his weapon seems a little off. After some conferring, it became plain that the melta needed either some support to add weight, or a change of pose for the arm was needed. That's where I am with him right now. There are a few cults springing up lately, so outlining some of the more useful parts might help other followers of the Allfather. This guy uses a Deadzone plague model as the base model. The plague are really useful for hybrids. The are quite bestial already with the large spinal ridges and boney spikes, as well as the deformed proportions. I added some dark eldar talos bits to his back. I imagine these are some kind of stimulant injectors. I'm a little short on weapons, so this melta will need to be chopped up and re-built a little. I may add a chain strap, or alter the angle of the forearm. I want his ripped shirt to form the upper half of a tabard so he fits in better with the mechanicus theme, so he needs a dose of greenstuffing for that and to build up the shoulder where the genestealer arm meets the body.

This guy uses the brand new plague zombies sprue. There are two torsos with cowls, which are about as genestealer hybrid as you can get. Lots of useful parts on this sprue. The arm with the hand splayed out to compensate for the weight of the flamer is from this sprue too. The legs are from a Games Workshop grave guard, though at the moment this hybrid has no ass. The head is from Victoria miniatures, though truth be told, after yet more conferring I'll probably pop in a bald human head instead to bring it closer to Jes Goodwin's hybrids.

Lack of appropriate arms for the hybrids is a biggie, though the modern Cadian arms are about the right size for human size hybrids. More on these lads once the green stuff is on.

Fimir - Swampy Pools

I decided to take a little tiny break from the cult in order to paint up some fimir themed scenery. Partially for my army display board, and partially for the fimir terrain set. I had ordered a pile of these from Wargamma, where they are listed as lava pools. Like a lot of gamers, I have a dearth of water scenery. Pools, rivers etc. These were quick to paint up, and filled a hole in the terrain set. I have another two sets, and with nine of these and some dead trees and the odd menhir I reckon that'll do nicely to represent the bleakmoors of Albion.

Scaling Lead Mountain - Eight Tips For Reaching the Peak

I thought about an appropriate title for this post for a bit. It's hard to encapsulate the topic, and right now the title field is empty, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

So. All those projects. There's nothing new about folks bemoaning the lack of time/willpower/skill/extra arms required to complete all the projects they have in their head to satisfaction. Tons of hobbyists tell you about the list of incredible projects they have coming up that just never materialize. There's even the cheery notion that a hobbyist can't die until he's painted all his miniatures. This is not true. Unpainted lead does not bestow immortality. In fact, it may even cause a health hazard as it teeters on the point of collapse, threatening the pulverize those below into marmalade.

I've been doing this a while now, almost 30 years, and I've had some conversations over the years on how the lead pile might be tackled. There are many suggestions. Good suggestions that I often ignore completely, but I'll list them here for ye to take on or ignore at your pleasure. If even one child is saved from a wardrobe full of unassembled, unpainted models, I'll go to my grave happy. Well, not happy as such, more trying to suck in one more bitter, ragged breath while railing against the unfairness of it all while I soil myself all over the nurses, but let's go with happy.

Before I get into the tips on salving this situation, let me put things in context on a personal level. I have a TON of projects I really, really want to work on. (Deep beath) Theeeerree's: the rest of my undead (I have at least two thousand undead models, most of them metal) the chaos dwarf army, the rest of the fimir army, the Genestealer Cult, The Martian and human factions for All Quiet on the Martian Front, the Realm of Chaos army, the Chaos Renegade warband, undead BlooBowl team, Scavvy gang, and that's just the ones I really want to do and can remember. I'd also like to work on my Chinese and Japanese undead, Orc army, 2000ad Torquemada and his terminators Pulp Alley league, etc, etc etc.

As you can see, it's enough to keep me going for some years without ever buying another model. Will I then not buy any more models? I think the clip below delivers the response to that question perfectly.

Right now, I'm getting excited over the new undead releases from Games Workshop and the new dark eldar plastic wracks, so let's assume an ongoing amount of new models are adding the pile on a regular basis. There's probably an equation somewhere for this. New stuff over old stuff divided by time plus inclination equals painted models or something. Anyway.With that in mind, here we go.

1. Accept you'll never get it all done.
Let go. Take a deep, cleansing breath and exhale. Repeat after me: 'I will NEVER get everything painted. Were I to live for a thousand years, there would still be a box of stuff in the cabinet I meant to get to someday.' Now, with that acceptance of inevitable failure, the piles of blisters and boxes will seem less oppressive. After all, this isn't a job, it's a bleedin' hobby.

Just own it.

2. Decide what kind of painter you are.
Are you an individual model painter? An army painter? What kind of army? Big hordes of gobbos? A small skirmish force? A bit of each? Approach each project with that consideration in mind. If you want to win the golden demon, crystal brush and so on, great. Pouring hours into one model leads to often beautiful results, but don't paint a skaven horde like that. You often see folks on the internets that can crack out amazing armies of individually astounding miniatures in jig time. IGNORE THAT. These are often from studios where folks have learned all the tricks for painting models fast and to a high standard, and they do it all day, every day. It's the painters version of looking at pictures of photoshopped supermodels and comparing their ass to yours. Admire yes, but find your own pace and standard.

3. Stop Being Precious
This is really more of 2, but fmeh. Don't endlessly tinker with already painted models. It is the road to madness. Paint a model. If there's something you don't like, tinker away, but don't expect to get loads painted. It's super frustrating, as lack of progression is a killer for painting mojo. Paint the model. Paint the next model. Especially if you're doing an army. Stick that dude with the chalky layering in the middle rank. I say this, but I have 4 fianna fimm awaiting stripping so I can redo them. Sigh.

Don't do what I do kids.

4. Cheat
Not in the games. That is the realm of the douche. For painting, yes? Find techniques that speed things up. Shaded basecoat, drybrushing, zenithal highlighting, glazing, dip, precision washes, the list goes on. There's so much more out there than layering. Don't ignore any technique, try stuff. I keep looking at getting an airbrush. Those things are time saving magical paint shooting wands, so they are.

Also, it's not cheating. If your miniature looks good when you're done, it doesn't matter what awful things you did to it to get it there. One great question I read on Massive Voodoo, I believe it was, went: 'What do you use to get the great earth effect on your model's bases?' The answer was actual earth. Dried out and so on, but just real dirt. If it works, it works.

5. Keep Moving
The way to keep the hobby exciting is similar to the reason a shark keeps swimming. To stop is to die. Keep at it. Even if it's ten minutes every day, paint for ten minutes. They all add up, those ten minutes. There will always be demands on your time. It's amazing how you can get a regiment painted in those little snatches of hobby time. If you can, keep a place where you can leave models, paints and such, out. Unpacking everything every time you want to paint is another barrier to your finished miniature. I have a nice permanent paint station in the man cave, but I bought the Games Workshop painting tray thing a few years ago. It's one of the best items I ever bought for the hobby. I can leave models and paints on it, bring them up the living room, paint in front of the fire, chat and half watch tv. I can pop it back down to the cave when I get too dru...I mean tired, and not have to pack stuff away. I can just pick up where I left off. One recommends it.

Turns out this is as handy as a small pot.

6. Follow Your Muse
This is a tricky one. Especially when it comes to army painting. To keep the motivation levels up, don't paint 40 skeletons in one go. Batch painting is another trick one can use, but even so, keep each batch to between five and ten models. But as you paint that new army, slowly, every other model you're not painting seems like way more fun than the one you are painting. This gets to crisis levels if you don't deal with it. The so called hobby butterfly kicks in and voila, another half finished project. A way to deal with this is to give in early. Say you're painting 50 skeletons. Paint ten. Then do the movement tray. Paint another 10. Then paint a necromancer. Paint another 10. Then paint something totally different. That Bloodbowl referee, that Necromunda special character etc. The break gives you a bit of a palette cleanser and keeps your painting stamina high for getting those 50 skeletons done. We're doing this for fun, after all, so if you really want to paint something different while you're slogging through a large group of models, do it, and use the change to reinvigorate your determination to go back to the bigger project.

7. Stay Focused & Have a Plan
'But you just said paint whatever you want!' I hear you cry. Yes. I did. But. Also, when you're not taking a break from the squad of orcs to paint that fairy, paint the orcs. If you're painting a squad, decide the make-up of the squad before you start. How many troopers, special weapons, etc. If it's an army, make a list. Each regiment, squad or even individual will add to your total, and as you see units complete, it'll spur you on to paint more.

8. Play Games
I don't play anywhere near as much as I'd like, but few things get the creative juices flowing like playing some actual games with your minis. Every time I come back from a good game I want to expand the army I just played, or add some new terrain or whatever. If you're lucky enough to have a good, regular group or club, all the better. Whittering on about how your 30k space marines are made from eighteen different kits to someone who is listening AND interested does wonders for your painting enthusiasm. it's a social hobby too, after all.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but for now, there you go. I hope this helps anybody out there who's scaling the lead (also plastic, resin restic, playdoh...) mountain. Aha! I think I just found my title.