Hello chaps, I managed to finish of a couple of bits and bobs before the new year, so I thought I’d get a quick post in… and then I thought “well, if I’m doing a post anyway, I might as well jump on the ‘so-long 2015’ bandwagon!” As a result, this post is a bit of an eclectic one.

First up, we have my Rogue Quest part 7 piece – Fornelo, the Paladin. The project was to make 6 of the 8 Heroquest classes for the RT universe. I did my 6, and this guy didn’t make the cut at the time… he’s been sat on the painting station looking at me accusingly ever since. I didn’t really feel all that enthusiastic about painting him to be honest, but thought I might as well get stuck in. I’ve gone for a very similar approach to my Rogue Trader with regard to the paint scheme, and then added a Lamenter chapter badge on the knee. I haven’t really done the fluff for Fornelo yet, but I imagine him as a lone Lamenter Space Marine, last of his company, rescued by Rogue Trader Arturo and sworn to his service ever since. Seems pretty straight forward to me :-)

One thing that I particularly enjoyed was the freehand on the shield – here it is as a WIP with the John Blanche artwork (called ‘The Kindred’) in the background:

I put this photo up on the Oldhammer Facebook group, and found out that the picture is also an album cover for some metal band called ‘Pariah’!  Who knew? Those who visit here often may have noticed a couple of bikes in the background on the first picture – they are new too, the old RT motorbikes in fact… I did them to use as scenic pieces.

So, on to the round-up of 2015 – warning – this is the mother of all photo dumps!

 

January saw me paint up a couple of Valkyries to fly my Stormtroopers around in. These featured in a couple of games of 40k over the first part of the year, and were great fun to assemble and paint:

February was a continuation of my Praetorian Imperial Guard force – 17 part-painted dudes were finished and a fresh 10 man squad was painted, along with a converted Master of Ordinance and an Oldhammer Commissar:

March was pretty light – only one model completed! That said, I am fond of this guy, he’s a converted Master of the Fleet, (a gift from a buddy – cheers Ross!), converted and painted in memory of Leonard Nimoy:

April saw the end of my Praetorian obsession – one last 10 man squad just about finished me off… there’s only so many times you can paint the same uniform before your brain melts! I also kinda went off 40k at about this time…

May was interesting… I decided to see what I could do if I mixed Stormclaw Spacewolves with the Wrathmonger kit… :

June was very productive – I started working through some Oldhammer Space Pirates (plus guest Ogryn), and added an uncatalogued Jabberwocky and some gribbly ‘Mesaan Grunts’ as companions. I also completed another BadWolf pack brother:

July was awesome, because I played my first game of Rogue Trader since 1989. I painted a Confrontation Tech Ganger and a converted Titan Princeps as members of a salvage crew, as well as painting more RT Pirates while on my hols:

August saw me paint up the rest of the RT Pirates, and I am now the proud owner of the whole set, fully painted! I also got my hands on the Foundry re-run of the mysterious ‘8-ball’ from the original Rogue Trader book, and painted him up in short order… Safe to say that Oldhammer was rapidly becoming a new obsession! I also put my freebee Sigmarine to good use by creating the Tick-Tock man:

September was brilliant – I converted the LE10 Power Armoured dude to be my Rogue Trader, and Arturo Lamina was ‘born’. This really kicked my painting up a notch, and remains one of my favourite pieces by virtue of the amount of effort I put into him! I also competed 4 more Confrontation Tech Gangers to add to my Salvage crew, taking them up to 6:

October was also brilliant – I only painted 5 models (plus a dog), but each was a labour of love… I had jumped on the RogueQuest project described above, and completed the Thief, Mage, Barbarian, Bard and Ranger classes:

November saw me finish the RogueQuest project with another personal favourite – Hass, the Cleric. Again, my painting went up a notch as I attempted some freehand… I’m happy with how it turned out :-)  I also tackled 13 civilians for RT, including some of the awesome Colony 87 range and some other odds and ends. I also converted and painted a secret mini – part of a plot line for a game I have planned, (but more on that when the time is right):

And here we are in December – I continued with the RT civilians and managed another 6, including my first attempt at painting ‘Object Source Lighting’ (OSL). My Lamenter Paladin and a couple of bikes complete the year:

So, I make that 4 vehicles and 114 minis… (plus a few bits of scenery here and there)… not a bad year!! So what about 2016? Well, I have a number of ideas fizzing around in my head. I want to continue doing more civvies, just because they are so much fun :-) I have more tech gangers to add to my Salvage Crew, the Marauder Psyker gang to paint, and I’ve started collecting the Ironclaw Space Pirate range… I also want to revisit my Spacewolves, and I have a half-baked idea to do a Frostgrave/Rogue Trader crossover… I have an Oldhammer security team that I’ve been putting together, (including an idea for an ed209 kit-bash), and I fancy doing some Palace Guard chaps for my C’87 royal court, and possibly a platoon of Tallarn… I also want to play more games, visit Salute, and I’m really hoping that I can make BOYL this year too and turn virtual friends into RL ones. Most importantly, I want to continue making connections within the OH community, strengthen gaming friendships in RL, and continue pushing my painting levels… Phew, that’s quite the list!

So, it just remains to thank all of you who visit, like, and especially those who comment regularly on my humble little alcove of the Noosphere – I really do appreciate each and every one of you, and I get tons of inspiration from you… I don’t think I would be doing all of this stuff without your support, encouragement and advice – you make the hobby the enjoyable slice of life that it is… Happy new year to you all.