2022 end of year review.

 

With 2022 ending I thought I'd do a rundown of the blog for the year.

Some number crunching to start with:

I have added 57 posts to the blog this year, including this one.

There have been a total of 6,950* views of the blog content over the year.

Of which 3,100* were from the United States of America and a further 1.970* were from my home in the United Kingdom. The rest are from around the world.

My most popular post of this year by viewership has been the Dragon Rampant battle report: Bloodbath on the Plains of Doom, which has a total of 286 views**.

Painting wise I have managed to fully finish 199 miniatures this year, compared to 217 in 2021.

Still a reasonable total overall I feel, I'll keep track of how many miniatures I paint in 2023, but I think the focus will be on completing projects rather than total number of mini's finished.

Highlights of the year definitely include:.

Dreadtober 2022 and getting my Dreadmob mostly complete, still need to finish that last Killa Kan.

The Loremaster series I started (need to pick this up again), in which I revisited old Black Library novels and discussed my favourite parts of the stories.

Part 8 of the Road to the Apocalypse series, in which I played a big game against Cardboard Fortress and his beautiful Imperial Guard army which he dusted off specially for the day.

Looking forwards I've already decided what my ongoing projects are going to be having out the list down in my Hobby Season post from August.

Having already completed a couple of them on there, I'll focus down on the ones I have stuff for and can reasonably get done in my free time.

The first few of which will probably be finishing the Stormcast and Black Legion forces, the Catachans are in the air as I decide what to do with them and finalise the army list.

One project which I have already arranged, but isn't listed on the above post is a 3D printed mini challenge.

I have bought from a seller on eBay called Print Little Things and they do a "Blind Box" for £10.

One of the boxes comes with a swordswoman and two other random Miniatures.

So I bought three boxes, kept one for myself, and whisked one away southwards to Cardboard Fortress, and the other up north to Chris.

The challenge runs from the 1st to the 31st of January 2023, and each participant must get at least the swordswoman painted, based, finished and post a blogpost about her at least when she's finished. If they post multiple in progress posts and/or finish the other two Miniatures from the box that's a bonus.

My own miniatures are assembled, based and primed in readiness:

I haven't decided on a colour scheme for the swordswoman yet, but obviously Vivi will be painted in his Final Fantasy colours:

Other then that, I don't think there is much more to say for 2022.

Have a good, safe New Year and see you all in 2023:

Until next time, have nice day...

*These numbers are approximate as the Google analytics tools included with Blogger round the numbers to the nearest ten.

** I only compared posts from this past year, not posts from previous years which people may have been searching for or clicked on when they visited the blog 

Hobby Spending - December 2022.

 

Here we are at the end of the year.

Twelve months have passed since I decided to keep track of how much I spend on the hobby throughout the course of the year.

For this last entry, we'll begin with the purchases this month:

Not much going on other then a few pots of paint which I needed to keep stocks up to continue working on projects.

Celestra Grey, Macragge Blue, Ulthuan Grey and Abaddon Black.

Ulthuan Grey and Abaddon Black are colours which I use a lot of, they're up there with Leadbelcher and Earthshade for the most used colours in my collection I think.

Celestra Grey and Macragge Blue have been bought specifically for current projects, but will find use throughout other projects as ideas arise.

As usual here are the totals for the month:

Pot of Celestra Grey paint: £2.34.

Pot of Macragge Blue paint: £2.34.

Pot of Ulthuan Grey paint: £2.34.

Pot of Abaddon Black paint: £2.34.

Total for December: £9.36.

Budget for December: £50.

Over/Under Budget: £40.64

Total spent for 2022: £449.41

Total Yearly Budget: £600.

Over/Under Yearly Budget: under by £150.59.

Overall not a bad year I guess, I've come in well under my target for the year and mostly kept under my monthly budget. Being short staffed at work over the busy summer period certainly helped with that as I spent more time on the rails then I did at my hobby desk.

I've managed to resist temptation to spend on new projects and mainly bought hobby supplies throughout the year, in the vain hopes of actually getting stuff finished like.

I may treat myself in January to something, or the money may go in the savings for a big hobby purchase in the future, not sure yet.

One thing is for sure though, I will be carrying this venture on, as it's a good way of keeping track of spending, and I'm hoping to get Chris to follow suit after talking to him about it a few days back.

Until next time, have nice day...

Repanse de Lyonesse, Damoiselle de Guerre - part 1.

It is the Bretonnian year 1,017 (Imperial Calendar year 2,007). The lands of Bretonnia are ravaged by foul Chaos invaders and with King Louis the Brave dead, the Knights of Bretonnia, whilst valiantly defending the peasant populace under their protection, are being thrown back at every turn.

*****

Smoke blew in lazy wisping curls from the remnants of the village. The peasants emerging from hiding or from the fields where they had fled when the raiding party had surged through their home. Gone were most of their buildings and possessions, burnt timbers and the ruined walls of the local chapel were all that remained.

Several of the men were organised into a defence lookout, shakily holding scavenged spears and shields from the many dead Men-at-arms which littered the village. Most of the rest of the village whom had survived were working to clear the bodies to a pyre which had been built in order to stave off any plagues which might erupt.

A young girl, no more than seventeen summers old, stumbled down the ruined road into the ruins unchallenged, accompanied by the flock of sheep she had been tending in the hills to the west when she had heard the battle. Tears streaked her face as she saw the aftermath and what had become of her home.

"We're heading for L'Anguille on the morrow girl, nothing left for us now" one of the women said sadly as she spied the girl, "Come, help us".

Ignoring the woman, and still followed by her sheep, the girl picked up a spear as the shield she tried was too heavy for her to lift. Then she took a place among the lookouts, right where she had walked into the village, much to the contempt of the other villagers, particularly the women.

That night, whilst everyone slept around the fire, the girl slept fitfully amongst the few sheep she had managed to persuade people not to eat.

She tossed and turned on the rough ground and bolted upright, instantly wide awake and aware of her surroundings.

A languid mist had crept into the village, coiling over the sleeping peasants and dulling the light of the fire. No-one stirred, not even the watch who she could now see were dozing, leaning on their spears to stay upright.

A golden glow moved into the ruins towards her and instinctively the girl raised herself to crouch and grabbed the spear she had picked up earlier. Only when the glow resolved itself into the image of a beautiful woman, filled with power and floating with her feet dangling in the mists did she realise what this was.

The girl threw herself to the floor in supplication and terror before this image of the Bretonnians Goddess. Even the lowliest of peasants knew the stories of the Lady of the Lake who appeared to the noble Knights of the Realm.

The lady gracefully extended a hand and raised the terrified girl from the ground to look at her.

"Rapanse, Rapanse rid my land of these foul foes. For they do offend me with their presence" the Lady's voice echoed within her mind, even as her lips didn't move.

Rapanse lifted her face, where earlier in the day she had shed tears of sorrow, now she wept with joy for she was truly in the presence of this Goddess of the land, Bretonnia was not forsaken.

After a moment's shock, Rapanse found her voice.

"My lady I am but a shepherdess, not a good one either as I have only three sheep left to tend of my flock. How can I face down the horrors which did this to my village?"

The Lady's fey features softened into a smile as she heard this.

"That humility is your core Rapanse, with it you can do great things for my land. I watched earlier as you took your place in the lookouts, despite being a shepherdess, your willingness to protect against the darkness is what makes you great. I will lead you, but know that it is what is within you that will make the difference".

Rapanse could not find words to reply and just bowed her head.

"Now, follow me Rapanse, I have something for you, something that you will need come sunrise" without waiting the Lady turned and floated off across the mists.

With a last look at the ruins around her, Rapanse started forwards, following the wake of the Lady of the Lake through the mist, her small flock of sheep following behind.

*****

Warhammer fantasy, the classic rank and flank wargame that I guess many of us played at some point in our misspent youth and the gateway to this hobby for a lot of folk out there.

For myself it was 5th edition with the big red box of Bretonnians and Lizardmen where I got started for one Christmas, some twenty-five years* ago now...

Duly the army books for both were bought, and each one was a treasure which I wish I still owned. Each had a full historical chart for the particular army, rules, magic items, and a host of characters as fantasy was very different back then.

In the Bretonnian army book, one of these characters was Rapanse de Lyonesse, a sort of Jean D'arc character amid the Arthurian style of the army**.

Many of the characters never had miniatures, you were expected to convert them up yourself (what a time to be alive!).

However Rapanse was gifted a miniature and I managed to get ahold of this classic sculpt, with original horse, but lacking the paper banner she came with.

A root around and I managed to find a plastic banner from the sixth edition plastic knights sprue which was drilled out and added to the top of the lance.

A little greenstuff gap filling and she was almost ready, something was off however...

I pushed on, and figured I'd try to work out which base she needed. I have a bunch of 75x42mm oval bases as I use those for space marine bikers, alongside which is a 75x50mm chariot rectangular base, both of which seemed slightly too big.

The oval base just felt wrong as really she needed to be on a square or rectangle base for that classic "oldhammer" vibe.

After pondering on this for a week of so, I stumbled upon some resin bases on eBah by a seller which I use quite a lot and grabbed a rocky and ruined Celtic detailed base. I figure the Celtic details are from some island off the coast of Bretonnia where her army is fighting.

I also figured out what was wrong with her, and lowered the banner down the lance by clipping some of it off. It was far too tall before and threw the entire model off in proportion.

So with her glued to the base, some sand added and then primed, I grabbed a few reference pictures from Google and the Total War: Warhammer games to work from as I want to paint her in the "official" style.

Lots of blue and silver in her future it seems.

I'll do three, maybe four posts in the series of painting Rapanse de Lyonesse, the introduction, a dive into the Bretonnian army book of the time and her iterations, a main painting post and lastly a showcase post***.

Well, I'll crack on and get some painting done, I'm going to take my time with her as I want to try to take that step up like I did with the Vampires I painted recently and make her a proper showcase miniature if I can.

Until next time, have nice day...

*I'm old...but both those armies are still some of my favourites.

**In the previous editions when Bretonnia had shown up, they were another Germanic inspired nation, but full of political corruption and bribery when compared to the Empire proper.

Fifth edition turned them into the Arthurian inspired Knights of legend with the lady of the lake and Chivalric Code.

Sixth edition darkened the bright-fantasy of the nation somewhat by showing the poor, illiterate peasantry in more focus.

***The painting and showcase may get merged together, but we'll see.

The Sable Host - Anvils of the Heldenhammer.

 

The sable armoured host of Stormcast Eternals stood in formation for address, the soil of Shyish, burned from their explosive landing upon reforging, mixed with ground up bone and Shadeglass flowed around their armoured feet as a gale blew in over them.

Rising and falling with it's owners particular rhythm of walking, the reliquary-banner reflected the pale white sunlight off of the ornate gold gilting. The ancient skeleton held aloft looking down upon the Stormcast with stern, dark eyesockets, the oiled relic blade held to bolster the deeds of the living, with the glories of the past.

A giant in black armour, lined with gold and inlaid with the icons of death and mortality strode purposefully towards the front rank. Lines of parchment, inset with Azyrite runes whipping around him in the gale.

He swept his skull helmed visage around, taking in the details of his host.

The proud, veterans disdain for danger and the enemies of the God-King in the stances of the Midnight Exemplars. A unit of Sequiturs who had been in his service for half a century, they had individual markings on their shields, but he could tell them all apart just by their body language.

Ordinator Valeris stood next to her Celestar Ballista, the remarkable machine crackling with the thunderbolt power of the Boltstorm it would fire in combat. 

The Pale Hounds clipped their beaks and stretched muscles out as the commander marched past, running a gauntleted hand over the alpha of the pack as he did so.

Above them, sweeping in to land with the crack of lightning came the Scions of the Host, the Prosecutors dispelling the glowing hammers they wielded and standing to attention.

Having taken the measure of his immediate force, Lord Relictor Eldosis crashed his fist to his breastplate and thunder rumbled in the sky.

"Warriors of the Sable Host" he began, voice resonating above the growing storm so that all the Stormcast could hear him speak.

"It appears that we have been broken by dark magick's as we reforged and headed back to Shyish after all this time. I am before you now before we embark upon this crusade to restore our broken brotherhood and stormhold".

He paused as lightning flashed across the amethyst sky.

"We lost The Keep of Cold Flame nearly a  hundred years ago when the Nighthaunt invaded Lethis and drove the Azyrite population and our parent Stormhost away".

A grumble of disapproval accompanied this last statement.

"But fear not, The Sable Host will take its place in the forefront of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer's ranks when the Stormhost is next called before the God-King Sigmar. Though the magical explosion may have sundered our numbers and scattered our warriors across Shyish, I declare now that we will account for each and every member of our warhost. I declare that we shall defend the people of the realm when they need it, wether Azyrite or Shyish by birth. We shall forge such a crusade that even the Undead King Nagash will have to acknowledge our presence let alone his more mundane slaves which he uses to wage his wars. My brother's and sister's, duty and war call, will you answer?"

With this last question thunder crashed above the Stormcast and their black armoured forms were lit by lightning flashes.

The gathered Sable Host did not roar their approval as some other more Bellicose Stormhost's may have done.

Instead each grasped their favoured melee weapon and thrust it into the air, a muted, whispered cry of exultation accompanying the raised mace's and hammer's.

With a satisfied nod, Lord Relictor Eldosis turned on his heel and began marching towards the ruins nearby, the host following him onwards, scarlet robes whipping in the wind as the pale soil blew across their landing site, covering the burn marks with a fresh mixture of bone and Shadeglass.

*****

Greetings, so recently I've been working on one of my projects from my list of Hobby Season project's around practicing and passing various tests at work for a future promotion when the line in the link becomes available.

As mentioned sometime before, when I took stock of all the various Stormcast Eternals Miniatures I had, I decided to unify them all under one Stormhost, namely the Anvils of the Heldenhammer.

I liked their black colour scheme and the Mrs liked their background, being linked with Shyish and the underworld (she reads a lot of paranormal romance novels, so I think that was playing into it).

So to start with, here is an overall picture of the Stormhost as it currently sits:

Closer up photo's now, and we being with the Prosecutor's, the Scions of the Host:

These models are some of the first Stormcast I ever painted when the first Age of Sigmar big box came out (yes they're that old) and I stripped the paint off to redo them for my current plan.

Below are a few more focused photo's of Prosecutor Prime Calyx.

I didn't want to just do flat black armour with gold trim, as that's very Black Legion Chaos, which I'm also working on.

So instead made a very dark metallic mixture of Leadbelcher and Abaddon Black, which I highlighted with pure Leadbelcher. I then contacted this with Khorne Red, Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet for the petruges and robes of the mini's. This is something of a regret as I think I would have been better going for Barak-Nar Burgundy to keep the moodiness of the Stormhost, but I'm going to run with the red now rather then repainting them again:

Next is Ordinator Valeris and her Celestar Ballista:

The warmachine itself is a nice ornate chunk of a machine, this got a lot more normal metallic work, the ammo clips are painted with Grey Knights Steel and washed with Nuln Oil:

The crew were where I started to experiment with the robes, to contrast with the red I wanted a warm colour and went for a bone/cream coloured base, washed with Sepia and then I made a mixture a highlight with Ushabti Bone and Ulthuan Grey:

The veteran Sequiturs of the Midnight Exemplars are next:

The two Grandmace wielding members of the unit follow the same painting steps as the warmachine crew above:

The mace and shield wielding members of the unit, Sequitur Prime Vanthia in the center may well be my favourite Stormcast model:

Their individual shields, I wanted to do something more with these then the usual flat colour which the GW Studio paint theirs. As these are veterans of the host, I see Liberators as the line units, I took the step to split their heraldry vertically, half in the black of the Anvils, and half white and red for their heraldry. The colour choice keeps the shields on theme for the army and ties everything together:

The big man himself, Lord-Relictor Eldosis, again painted using the same techniques, a lot more work went into his reliquary:

The reliquary-banner, here as a close up, the bones started with Ushabti Bone, washed with Sepia, but worked back up to Ulthuan Grey to represent polished bone inlaid. The various candles go the other way, starting with Ulthuan Grey and being washed two thirds down with Sepia, then once this had dried washing the bottom half, then the bottom Thurs, finally the bottom quarter to get an old, aged candle look (I should go back and pick out the wicks with some black at some point):

The mass of Parchment which makes up his cloak, this is simply Tallarn Sand wash heavily with Sepia:

Finally we have the Pale Hounds, Gryph-Hounds are one of my favourite creations from AoS and I had to have some for the force.

I kept to the sandy, lion bodies which I had already painted, I just used Terradon Turquoise contrast paint over the feathered areas to make them more unique and magical-creature-esque:

Finally a repeat of the overall Stormhost so far:

I believe this lot comes out to 620 points, so over a third of the project completed.

The Gryph-Hounds weren't part of the original planned list, but I just wanted to get them up to snuff and they were an easy win.

When I took stock of everything I had Stormcast wise, I had three of the original big boxes worth of models, a set of models from Stormstrike (I think), the second edition big box as well as a few other bits and pieces, so plenty to be going on with.

Until next time, have nice day...

Hobby Spending - November 2022.

 

With the dark nights of November drawing the year almost to a close, it is time to look at the financial situation of the hobby for the month again.

Managing to visit Element Games, maybe for the last time this year, but I may squeak in another visit to Stockport before Christmas, I picked up a few things which I had been needing...and FORGOT a few things I needed...

With a growing collection of Warhammer Underworlds warbands, I figured I'd need someway to protect and organise the myriad cards which come with the game.

First up was a box of card protectors:, classic black because why not?

I have been playing around writing a reskinned version of the Age of the Wolf campaign which Studio Tomahawk released for the first edition of Saga.

My version will not be Dark Age Britain, but Sengoku era Japan, and upon discovering that Element sold a selection of the Bushido miniatures, I picked up a Samurai to test the scale against my Warlord Games/Test of Honour collection, as I intend to use these as the character models to lead the armies, and then make two generic forces of Ashigaru and Samurai/Sohei/On a Bugeisha, etc.

The last box of Daemonettes which Element had in. I needed these to finish off a Black Legion army which my son's picked for One Page Rules.

Lastly I tripped over a box of MDF terrain on my way to the till to pay for stuff and ended up picking up a TTCombat Small Minka from their Eastern Empires range. Obviously this is to go with the Samurai and I have another house and rice store, so maybe one of two more buildings and then some generic trees/hills/etc 

So everything above was from Element Games, these next two items were picked up from Poundland and are listed in the shop as "Spice Racks". I'm going to stick them into the display cabinets in order to lift models at the rear so they're actually on display.

With that said, let's get onto the numbers for the month:

November spend totals:

Dragon Shield Card Protectors - £8.

Bushido Akio Takashi - £4.

Box of Daemonettes - £21.

TT Combat Small Minka - £10.

2x Organiser shelves - £8.

Total for November - £51

Budget for November - £50.

Over/Under Budget - Over by £1

Over/Under Yearly Budget - Under by 59.95.

So I've gone over budget by £1 this month, but I'm still nearly £60 under budget for the year, so well ahead of my total.

With December and Christmas looming, and it being the last month of the year, I think we'll be fine to come in under budget then.

Apart from GW releasing those Escher Jetbikes and the Ash Wastes Crawler thing...those are calling to the inner Mekboy to be kit bashed into something Orky, and I still want a close combat Leviathan Dreadnought, or two...dammit...

Until next time, have nice day...