New year invites reflection on the last 12 months, and hobby wise it’s often nice to look back on models painted and games played. At the start of year, I didn’t set myself any concrete goals (although that will change this time!), although I had the intention to finish my modest forest goblin force for SAGA or dragon rampant, as well as get my Empire army to 1000pts for a few games at BOYL.
By the end of January I had managed to finish off my unit of 6 spider riders. I also went to the UKTC blood bowl event in York which our team managed to win! (despite my best efforts of 1-4-1)
For these guys I included a savage orc to give them a bit more of a ragtag feel. Unfortunately their movement tray is still on the painting pile 12 months later! Here’s an army shot in February.
February was a little less productive… I managed to quickly paint up the slayer with dragon head – a model I had wanted to get to for ages. I also made a start on the pump wagon for my forest goblins. This got finished in March along with a few more goblins. The trolls also got based with a water swamp effect.
In March I was able to host Nippy for a couple of days, and we had a weekend pretty solidly dedicated to painting and gaming. Mark’s Dwarfs came out on top with a win and a draw vs my Empire (including ogre mercenaries) despite some heroics from my pistoleers.
Painting wise I spent most of the weekend painting a cobweb design onto the shields of my goblins and made some good headway on 3 gigantic spiders (including a body swap of a standard spider rider). In the meantime Mark converted a fantastic chaos spawn that will grace a future chaos warband (no pictures of this yet.. sorry!).
In June I attended the Lutece blood bowl tournament in France, which is a sensational weekend of camping, excellent food, gaming and copious Leffe. Although our team didn’t do so well I was able to take the individual prize with a 5-0-0 record. I went to Cakebowl in Swindon as well, my first time there, a really enjoyable little tournament where I finished 4th.
I finished the gigantic spiders eventually, and started an effort to get some stuff finished for BOYL in August. I finished the cannon, although my unit of free company failed to make the deadline.
I managed a game in June vs Dan’s High Elves. This started terrifically with a doomfire ring defying probability and frying both bolt thrower crew, but the elves eventually turned the tide! BOYL was a great success- Mark and I planned a campaign, games were played with hidden objectives, and victory gave each force more troops to choose from. 9 generals took part (with some beautiful armies, particularly gameoftravel, ketil_trout, and nippy) and there was much blood spilt! We also played some advanced heroquest with Mark’s beautiful set.
The free company were finished at the end of August, but a combination of house-hunting, getting engaged and work meant that the next unit, 10 crossbowmen weren’t finished until 31st December! Then for something different I took on 10 old citadel skeletons that should be finished in the new year.
I did get to a couple of blood bowl tournaments though, the Eurobowl in Wales, where our team finished 4th (I was 5-0-1), and the German team championship, where we came 1st (3-3-0).
Not bad in review then, I make it almost 50 models painted to completion, and much more gaming than I have done in years. So, targets for next year… the forest goblins still aren’t quite finished. They need one unit tray, and 6 (yes 6!) banners painting. I’m super nervous about freehand, so have been putting this off until I can get some expert tuition. Apart from that I’d really like to focus on finishing off a few loose ends. I have a chaos force that needs some TLC and finishing off, and my dwarf army needs a lot of work too… about 5 years go I decided to rebase the whole lot and got about halfway!
- Finish the forest goblins!
- Chaos beastmen: paint 6 knights, 6 hounds, spawn, and a handful of beastmen/centigors, add shields and unit trays to all units
- Dwarfs: Complete the hammerers, rebase and tidy thunderers and crossbows. Paint the flame cannon with a decent base.
The forest goblins look great, was good to meet you at BOYL and thanks for the mention. Here’s to a productive New Year
Thanks! Pleasure to meet you too, loved the Orcs – happy gaming.