Orctober update: Ork Boyz WIP

Today is the last day of Orctober. It turns out even the minimal plan was too much to fully achieve. Unfortunately I didn't manage to complete (that is, both paint and base) a single orc this month.

This does not mean that I haven't slapped paint on even one orc. Actually, I primed 20, painted 5 to the point that they only need basing and another 5 need a little more work on the metallics and maybe fixing some little mistakes.

Without further ado, the current state of the project:

I'm quite happy with how they are turning out. When all 20 are finished I'll make a (hopefully) better photo and write down the colours used, in case someone wants to use this scheme.

Orctober is upon us!

It is almost a year since I stared this blog. The only model I painted last year was one of the Ork Kommandos for Kill Team. I mentioned multiple times that orcs & goblins were the first miniatures that I bought, assembled and at least partially painted, so I do feel obligated to take out someting orky from my backlog and attempt to slap some paint on it.

In other words: just paint one orc and I'm done, am I not?

Hopefully not. I won't lie, even though this year is already better than 2022 in terms of painted models, health issues, other hobbies and other obligations did not make it easy to just sit down and paint. It was often the case that when I wanted to paint I could not, but when I had the time I didn't have to motivation. Also, I still have some posts in the works and I really should finish writing down how many things I have in my backlog (too many).

In any case, this month is not about all of my backlog, only the orcish part of it. I have a minimal goal of painting the 20 Ork Boyz from Assault on Black Reach, as they have been almost assembled (put together without glue) since 2012. If I manage to that, I will pick some other units or almost units and just paint as many as I can. If I don't base them properly, I will count them as painted for Orctober, but not finished for my list.

I like to make bullet points, so I'll make one for the models that I would love to paint this month:

• Main goal: 20 Assault on Black Reach Ork Boyz
• Addon: 12 LotR Orks
• Addon: 10 Gutrippaz
• Addon: 5 Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobs
• Addon: 1 Assault on Black Reach Ork Big Boss

For some of my friends and people from various discords this list would be really short, but... it's almost as long as all I have accomplished this far in 2023. If I manage to get this far, I'll have to come up with some new goals, but the first day of Orctober is almost over and I haven't pained up any orc yet. But I did prime the first batch of them.

So... keep your fingers crossed and WAAAAAAGH on!

Hobby Update #1: June 2023

 This time I'm posting a short update regarding the wargaming and painting hobbies in my life in June, as I didn't manage to finish any projects. I will also skip showing you the photo of either the Leviathan box or the assembled inquisitorial models, as they were basically monopose. So, without further ado, let's get to the meat of it:

Played games: 2 games of Necromunda (the first was an introductory game, the second was the first game of a campaign) and a game of Kill Team.

Backlog Additions: Leviathan Box.

Assembled models: remaining inquisitorial retinue rom the Ashes of Faith box - 6 models (pistoleer, death world guardsman, mystic, auto-savant, servo skull, servitor).

Started projects: Corpse Grinder Cult gang, 10 Forest Goblin Spider Riders (after I said that I need a break from painting goblins, well...)

Backlog Additions #2: Dreadful May

 Up to May I was able to not buy too many miniatures and the painted to bought ratio was actually quite good. And then came May (June will probably see my backlog grow as well if I manage to get my hands on the Leviathan starter), the month that sees me grow a year older... and that was apparently full of Kill Team releases this year. So, without further ado, let's see what was added to my pile of shame.

The last days of April saw the preorder announcement for Gallowfall. I managed to secure a copy at my FLGS. And friends bought the Corpse Grinder Cult miniatures for Necromunda and that big swamp orc monster for my birthday. I won't lie, I'm quite anxious to build big monsters, but when the time comes it will be a really nice centrepiece for my Kruleboyz.

Then it turned out that she starters for Shadow Collective become increasingly more difficult to buy and that their prices are going up and up. So, thankfully I got my tax return and just grabbed this box and the Essentials Kit. So now I have a small force for Legion.

The little box with goblins is a treat for completing a painting goal (of painting 40 goblins). I know I wrote about posting about it at least once, but I still didn't get to organize my thoughts on the topic. The big box was the true surprise of the month. I didn't expect it to come out so quickly after Gallowfall, but once again I managed to secure a copy at my FLGS.

PS. I managed to assemble some miniatures as well!

Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition? Here we have the leader of the inquisitorial Kill Team - the Interrogator.

The team that mattered for me more - the Fellhorn Ravagers. Assembled and waiting to be painted or played with.

And the Corpse Grinders Cult. I didn't like one of the head options, so I left out the "head cage". Those are currently primed and I will be playing with this faction in my first ever Necromunda game - if nothing goes awry, that'll happen this Saturday!

Painted: Night Goblins with hand weapons and shields

 

I managed to paint another unit of Night Goblins. These were bought around the time I got the Battle for Skullpass box - the shop where I bought my first miniatures was closing, so I caught some discounted boxes - it happened somewhere between 2006 and 2008, when I was in junior high school. I assembled them pretty quickly, but they just stood and waited afterwards.

Once again slapchop proved to be a godsend and those little buggers lend themselves splendidly to that technique. I painted them in the same scheme as the Night Goblin Archers from Battle for Skullpass, the only new colour here was the blue (Highlord Blue speedpaint) that I used for the mushrooms.

I'm quite happy with how they turned out, but after 40 Night Goblins I need a little palate cleanser. We'll see what It'll be, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to tackle some more goblins in the near future, regardless.

Backlog Additions # 1: First months of the year

 

My brain likes numbers - this is why for some time now there are two info boxes on the right-hand side of the page. One of them contains played games - I don't feel up to the task of writing battle reports afterwards. Maybe at some point I'll start doing so, but I don't see it happening in the foreseeable future.

The other box contains three types of models - bought, assembled and painted. Up until now I just wrote down the numbers, without explaining what I bought or what I put together (I do show what I've painted, as this is the main goal of this hobby blog). I really have to organize the Pile of Shame site, as it is just inadequate and contains a fraction of what is actually waiting in queue - as you can easily guess from the fact, that this year I've painted quite a number of models and none of them was from what I listed there.

So yeah, that's one thing. Organizing the page, and making another one to contain links with finished models divided into armies and projects. The other thing is showing what I buy when I do it. Thus far this year the only models I bought are those you see above - Captain Messinius and the Soulshackle box. I do have some things ordered and I'll show those in due time. Oh, ok, I've forgotten, there is also one model in a box of paints I bought last month as well and it's not in this picture - It's a Nox for Infinity, hopefully he'll get painted alongside the other Shasvastii I bought in 2020!

As for the assembled models, sometimes "assembling" will be gluing them to a base, sometimes it will require lots of parts to come together to form a mini and I'll try to post that stuff as well, not only write it down in the box on the right.

I thought that I'll  be able to show you some more finished goblins, but I've painted half of the unit and didn't base them yet, so I don't consider it done.

That's all for today, see you next time

Night Goblin Archers from Skullpass finished!

 I have finally managed to finish painting some more miniatures. This time it's some night goblin archers from a very, very old starter set for WFB - Battle for Skullpass (it featured goblins vs dwarves). Those models were just sitting on the shelf and looking at me menacingly with their grey, unpainted eyes. They did it for years, and then I just put some Octarius terrain in front of them, but I still felt their gaze... So I prepared them for slapchop before Easter, managed to get most of the work done during the holidays and then finished those little buggers over the week and they look like this:

Painting this unit taught me a couple things. First of all, I don't want to paint one colour on 20 models at a time for the foreseeable future. Tackling so many models means more mistakes, tiring easily, and less noticeable progress. I'll try to paint 5 gobbos at once when I pick up the next unit (I have some more goblins on my desk, actually, this time with hand weapons and shields). Secondly, it's good to remember that red is placed opposite to green on the colour wheel - this meant I could easily fix mistakes with speedpaint when I missed an eyeball with red. Thirdly, a whole unit painted to this standard looks good enough (certainly better than bare plastic), it's faster than how I usually paint stuff and having a whole army painted up to this standard will look great on the battlefield!

If you want to know which paints I used, here you go:

• Undercoat: Chaos Black

• Drybrush: grey overbrush (Administratum Grey), white drybrush (Matt White)

• Orc Skinfor the skin

• Blood Red for the hoods

• Grim Black for the robes

• Hardened Leather for leather elements

• Pallid Bone for elements such as the fletching, rope, wrappings etc.

• Wyldwood for wooden elements

• Zealot Yellow for the big moon standard

• Leadbelcher for metal elements

• Pallid Bone for elements that should be more brassy or bronze

• Zealot Yellow for elements that should be... yellow. It doesn't look exactly like gold, but I liked the effect

• Nuln Oil for the silver elements

• Drybrush Runefang Steel on the silver elements

• Ushabti Bone for teeth

• Mephiston Red for eyes (I started with Evil Suns Scarlet but gave up)

• Base: a mix of electrostatic grass and some old basing materials (like, 20 years old ones)

Did I paint them for any particular game? Not really. I really do intend to write a post about projects, eventually (and then another about painting goals). I painted those little buggers because I felt like it (and that's important, as it's a hobby), but obviously that does not mean that I don't want to use them in a game. First that comes to mins is Age of Fantasy: Regiments, but I could probably also play WFB if I found the rules and army book. In the upcoming Old World they will probably have larger bases, but from what I've heard, for casual play that's not going to be an issue and something can certainly be arranged to make it ok - like some converters of printing up some larger squares in fdm and gluing a magnet to the base and some magnetic tape to the print.

What is more, finishing this project means that right now I have more models painted than bought this year. I hope that I'll be able to keep this up (and there are some upcoming boxes that I really want to buy).