Fantasy Gaming (6) - Warhammer Underworld (1) - Some Warbands

 But first a brief update. 

Here's the story. My work has decided to block the blogger domain and I was previously (all of last year) setting up blog drafts at lunch and then scheduling the posts out. This has all but killed my ability to post as when I've had the free time to do hobby and hobby adjacent tasks (like blog) I've spent that free time painting. The second, slightly ugly truth is, for no reason I can explain, the AHPC did the opposite of motivate me this year. For whatever reason, I hammered some stuff out, made my first post and then proceeded to not touch a brush for the remainder of the challenge. I haven't really unpacked it, its very possible that its work that stopped the hobby (lots of changes in the last 8 months that were more or less ignored here as the blog was set to auto post almost 2 months in advance)

Regardless I have been painting again this April. Pretty pictures first, then story (you've had enough of me ranting I'm sure. 

 

Long ago, GW released Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire. This is a board game where each bespoke warband came with its own deck of cards. The rules encouraged playing to the objective and each deck (faction) had its own ways of scoring. I bought the core box, painted one of the stormcast for an advertisement for the Hobby Shop and then never finished the set. We played maybe once? And although I remember liking it, it fell by the wayside as so many games do (looking at you aristeia(sp))

Here's that original paint job by the way, in case you want to compare notes from ten years ago

 

I remember pouring my heart into that paint job. Its funny now, spending the last ten or so years focusing on decent but quick painting styles how quickly I cracked the three out. The old tone was much redder and much more GW. The new, a shinier gold. 

I then turned my attention to Garrek's Reavers (probably, i cant keep these straight and its late here.)

These are the set that came with the original core box. The new skill here was mixing a dot of various colors into the skin in order to vary the tone slightly. These got a glaze of the original skin base which seemed to do ok for all three of the tones I used. 

Now I'm sure you're thinking, he's boiling the frog again. We're gonna read all this and not even know were in the middle of one of his listless reminiscing sessions. You know me so well. 

Why is he painting a 10 year old box set? Well the answer there is Paul. See Paul decided while on vacation, to spend some time looking into this game and as fate would have it, there's a new edition out. after some back and forth texting he proceeds to tell me hes purchased it all. He's not quite sure he got it all as there are some lots and he needs to meet up with a couple sellers to actually pick up what he bought but there's at least most of it and the new second edition starter set. Behold, distraction Skeletons.

As a lot of GW stuff, I dabbled. I already had the starter and as it turns out I had the Sepulchral Guard in my pile of shame as well. See for all my ribbing of Paul, he was right, you can get the second edition starter for a steal. (I paid around 60 on ebay for a copy shipped once I was done making fun of his impulsiveness)

I boldly adopted a "1 out 1 in" strategy to only buy a new set once I painted one I had. I promptly pulled this set off the shelf and finished the final details to get them to the table as well.

These figures were painted on release close to 10 years ago (i have no idea how long exactly) and Mollog (troll) was all but finished. So I painted the rock and the mushroom and the bases and called it a day. 

Now, dear reader, Do you think I held up my end of the strategy? Here we are with 4 out, how many do you think came in?

Most (not all) of the warbands are now sold in packs of 4 based off grand alliance. This means if I show my wife the range and say "who looks cool" and she rightfully picks the crab (look it up) that I need to buy 3 other factions to go with it. Which is fine, painting these has been an absolute joy and has just slaughtered the painters block I'd be struggling with. 

A few warbands however, like the Savage Orks (already found on ebay) or Cyreni's Razors (searching desperately) aren't in these packs yet. 

If you guessed 13, you'd be eerie specific but also right. 

While on a work trip in Grand Rapids I stopped by two stores I like to frequent and ended up with Reavers and Ruin, Seekers in Shadow, and Grandfathers Gardeners. 

I'm currently working my way through Zikkit's Tunnelpack but will probably paint either one of the Nurgle bands next or Elathrains Soulraid for my wife. 

 

 

AHPC XVI (1) - Orks for Various Purposes, Solar Auxilia

Copied below, (as usual for all AHPC Posts) is my entry this week for the AHPC

Happy New Year everyone,

This year marks my return to the challenge after changing careers (leaving the hobby industry) and having a child. I've been really getting back into hobbying this year and thought this would be a great way to keep the momentum going. Without further ado, here are some quick snapshots of some Orks I speedpainted this week. 

 

These are now super old figures that are some of the first models I bought when I first joined the hobby back in 2011. The sculpts are dated and although I love them, they're far from "fantastic sculpts worth spending time painting" if that makes any sense. I spent a day or so chipping away on them off and on. We're planning on playing Space Gits, Modulorka, Gorkamorka and who knows what else so I imagine these are far from the only Orky things I bring to the challenge this go around. 

 

I also took a little time this week to paint up a small batch of 3d printed Solar Auxilia. These have an odd spot in my collection. I painted the leader months ago so were not counting him for points but I wanted to show the "squad" together. 

 

I play a bit of 30k and have a Word Bearers army. I printed some of these from Red Makers around the time of the plastic release with the vague intention of making a Zone Mortalis force. When I ran some numbers and did some math I realized just how many figures I'd need and pivoted to something else. For now, these are going to count as Space Marine Scouts for a game of Shadow War Armageddon because why not. They're a pain to paint and I really have no desire to do a whole army of these any time soon but I think they're kind of neat. 

So all told, 15 28mm figures x 5 points for a total of 75  

Works in Progress (2) - End of the Season Labors

 I decided to extend that "clean of the workbench" project a bit to the start of the AHPC. Here's a couple of things I've painted since then.

Hydra Miniatures Atomic tank. There's more coming on this but here's most of the robots

I also managed to finally finish one of the two forces for BLKOUT

Art the clown is nearly done, hes actually farther along than in this photo, the base is started i just need to do some washes and paint the "concrete" hes sitting on.I will probably finish this during the challenge even if it's not going to count for points.

AHPC starts tomorrow and I've done 0 prep. I'm going to try and paint in no particular order; The Dungeon, Some adventurers, BloodBowl Season 3 starter, The Chaos Dwarf Box, a proxy force for Shadow War Armageddon, Some Napoleonic British, More Atomic Tank, Breachers for my Word Bearers. Wish me Luck

2026 Hobby Goals

I bit off way more than I could chew this year. Although I assumed I would have less time, the end of last year going into early '25 seemed very promising. I've been doing a ton of soul searching to try and pick some reasonable goals this year. So first last years goals repeated below the break

Cracking a Few Eggs - My Complex Relationship with TTRPGS

This is a very long, very rambly tale of how I feel about RPG's and some introspection on my relationship to them. I've hidden this one behind a jump break based solely on its length. 

Dark Ages (2) - More SAGA Vikings

 I finally finished up another batch of SAGA figures. These are more Victrix figures pulled from the Pillage starter bag and "upgraded" with some 3d printed shields. 

These took a little longer because as always, I struggle a bit with non uniform "units"

Retro Sci-Fi (1) - Hydra Miniatures Retro Raygun Dr. Zahn

 That's right! Another project log. This is mostly because I want paint colors documented. I took a half hour or so to "Marine Juice" the first figure for a collection. Back when I worked at the Hobby Shop, we carried Hydra Miniatures. I picked up the odd figure here and there to just sort of have without any sort of real plan. Hydra's getting ready to release Atomic Tank, which looks to be a sort of Retro Raygun at Epic scale (10mm I believe in this case). I have some early test models to paint up from that range but wanted to sort of start chipping away at the 28mm stuff. 

First up is Dr. Zahn. Colors are Caledor Sky, Tenebrous Grey, White Grey, Gunmetal, Blood Red, marine juice. Super quick Paint Job as usual. I have some other figures from the range I'll probably get painted up soon. I've got a little more SAGA stuff to get off the bench next but for now, this was a nice break.