We’ve passed the Summer Equinox so it’s probably time to update on the grander scale plans for my hobby time for the rest of the year. So far it’s not been the best in terms of raw painted model production, but as you can see from the blog I have been keeping busy.
The current big project is The Old World. I am frantically painting up my army ready for our weekend in September where we’ll be bringing 1500 points for two days of battling – one as a series of smaller games while the final day will be one giant battle with all armies involved (and potentially some extra pieces if I get her painted). It’s taken me a little bit to get back into the swing of painting – it feels like I’ve been out of it for so long that the natural reflexes haven’t come back quite yet. However, bulk painting marauders in groups of 10 does mean you end the night being happy with the progress.
I’m also preparing some terrain for the Old World weekend (as well as expanding the collection). This will be some printed buildings (mostly from the Hexengarde campaign) but also finishing painting up some of the plastic kits I have. There is an imperial watchtower in there that needs a little bit of TLC as well as the woods I’ve partially painted. These ruins however I’m simply getting straight off the printer, doing some clean up and then slapping paint on.
Once the weekend of gaming is done, I’m going to put The Old World to sleep for a little bit. I’ve picked up the rulebook and both sets of army lists, intending to build an Empire list eventually using the Highland Miniatures and Last Sword figures I have. However, I think I’ll take a break before diving into that – there is a lot of painting involved with my Warriors of Chaos army and it’s positively compact compared to the possibilities of an Empire force with its infantry blocks. Maybe there will be a Christmas project or something to do early next year.
Next on the group’s calendar is a Necromunda campaign, which will be kicking off for a few weeks in October. It’s been a while since I jumped into the Underhive and I’m looking forward to having another reason to break out the gangs and roll some dice with friends – Necromunda is not balanced or particularly slick but it leads to some fantastic stories. The campaign is going to be based out of Middlesbrough (the overlord at Dreadquill is the one running it), but I’m pretty keen to slap the Leeds/Wakefield and York gaming groups together and force them into playing some game days to make sure everyone gets a little variety. This is in contrast to my first campaign where we ended up seeing a lot of Delaque vs Enforcers – I love playing against my former housemate, but playing against the same force over and over again can eliminate some of the fun of trips into the Underhive.
However, a big question is which gang to choose. I currently have a fully painted Enforcer gang (which I’ve covered in the past) but also have a mostly assembled Outcast force (which just needs a few more minor mods before painting) and an Escher gang in its early stages. I should (if I was being a good hobbyist) go for one of them but Games Workshop threw a spanner into my plans by announcing the return of the Spyrers.
When I was growing up, and playing Games Workshop games was merely a dream lived out through picking up issues of White Dwarf, there were two gangs that I read about within the pages of Fanatic that I wanted. the first issue showing off the original Enforcers (a small group of highly trained fighters that had different rules from other gangs in Necromunda) while the second issue showed off the Spyrers, (a small group of highly trained fighters that had different rules from other gangs in Necromunda). I think you can see the link here. Now I’m older enough to play properly, and seeing as the Enforcers are complete, the chance to play my dream group of arrogant nobles on a day trip to the hive and hopped up by being bonded to strange suits that enhance their abilities (while reducing their humanity) is 100% my jam. The good news is that Spyrer gangs are small, making them relatively easy to get them painted up. I’ve got my pre-order in so once I pick them up it shouldn’t be long before they are ready for the hive.
However, assembling a gang isn’t the only thing I need to do before Necroumunda time. Last time we played, I ended up using my piles of MDF to play over which are… okay? Some terrain is better than no terrain but for Necromunda, a board of corroded metal, dark corridors and multiple levels to fight over is the ticket (especially when someone falls off the edge to their death). Seeing as I now have a 3D printer, and with Necromunda being especially popular among the type of people who would also have a printer, I went out to find something to build up my Underhive.
After looking around, I decided to settle on Sector Fatalis range from Dragon’s Rest. This set includes pretty much everything you’d want from floor tiles to stairs, ladders, regular and ruined walls and pipes so many pipes. They are also designed to be printed without supports on a FDM printer, making it easy to hammer them out. I’ve already started printing the baseboards (and then printed again once I realised I had printed the GW style pieces rather than the ones designed to fit the other included parts) and then the next stage will be setting up some walkways and walls. Luckily painting should be really quick, and I’ve already ordered a metallic spray from Colour Forge. Ideally, these will be ready for when we kick off the campaign in October and we can hopefully have some rather nice-looking tables
For Christmas, I’m aiming for a return to WW2. This is mostly because I’ve just received the figures from Part 2 of the Empress Miniatures Arnhem Kickstarter, bringing the number of British Para figures up to over a platoon’s worth. Once assembled and painted, this means I’ll have four platoons available for WW2 – a Churchill tank platoon, a Comet tank platoon, a regular Late War Infantry Platoon and a British Airborne Platoon.
If I can get them all together, I’d love to be able to play another Big Chain of Command game with the Regular Opponents. It’s been a while since Operation Carronade, and being able to bring multiple platoons to pick from means we could run a truly massive Big CoC game, potentially with other opponents that don’t have their own WW2 figures.
All this sounds very non-Ultramodern, so let’s talk about the main love. First up, I need to get BPRE28mm finished off. I have both the Spearhead and Phaseline figures to paint up and I want to go back and play with the new additions (including two whole new factions). I played a load of it with the Corporate Regular Opponent last year and it would be great to have it all painted up and ready to go. I also really want to get some more work on the 3D printed buildings I had planned – many of the layouts are already done but it’s now learning to make the details that will take them to the next level.
The other side of the Ultramoderns is the ChargeReal which is going to be the home for 90% of my Ultramodern gaming. It’s going well (as Patrons may have seen some of my writings) but the level of deliverables is going to increase later this year once I’ve cleared a few pieces of hobby admin up (such as selling off the MDF and older figures). As you can see above, the fortifications from the North Africa Kickstarter I’ve looked at are going to be pretty good for fighting positions on the Shyluz/Tsardom border, which will be ideal for playing some of The Zanvult Incursion scenarios I have planned.
Speaking of the Patreon, the next step is moving a lot of the posts from the Patreon back to here. I’ve decided to centralise my articles, both because it helps to advertise to the non-Patrons what I’m up to and in terms of reading and writing, the UI doesn’t SUCK ASS on the blog. I’m actually in the process of writing a post that will be Patron-only, just a little something else for those who are helping to keep the blog’s lights on.
That’s the update for Summer 2024. At the start of the year, I had mentioned I was feeling pretty burnt out how much hobby I was actually doing in spite of things. This year even already feels more productive – having played multiple Old World games as well as a variety of other stuff, came the decision to offload a load of my older stockpile and got excited at what is coming next, both in terms of wargaming and the ways I engage with the hobby itself. It probably also helps no longer losing a bunch of my time to a certain side project but hey ho. The next stage is actually getting all this done and I’m looking forward to sitting down and breaking out the paints.
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