Happy New Year!

 Ah! I haven't put anything up in... oh, about 6 months...

Right.

I'm blaming work for this - after starting the blog during the (first) lockdown, I think the sudden change to *normal* working again threw me a bit, and the blogging energy hasn't been there.

Anyway - Happy New Year (or whatever, depending on when this is read by anyone!).

Where were we up to last time?

Ah, 9th Ed 40K had been released. Well, I've done a lot of painting since then, and we've had a few games (one of the advantages of having a partner who is into the same hobbies!). Probably it's easiest to break this down into a few sections going forward:

What have I painted recently:

Well, lots of things. An entire Necron army for 40k for a start (although I had models in the same scheme from a few editions ago, the vast majority has been painted up since the release of 9th). I'll take some unit photos later, but you can see a few of them in the "gaming" photos later. 

A brief sojourn into the mortal realms has yielded both little and large inhabitants of the realms - Jakkob Bugmansson, and a Mega Gargant!

Jakkob Bugmansson, with hair extensions.

I felt Jakkob looked a little odd. There's nothing wrong with the normal head - it just doesn't feel like a Bugman to me though. So he ended up with a greenstuff beard and hair to replicate something more like his (supposed) ancestor.

Crikey, that's an ugly mug!

The Mega Gargant is just "as is", though he is missing his shoulder-boat accessory - mainly because one of the connecting chains snapped off somewhere. I may use it on a smaller giant at some stage though.

It's a lovely model to paint, though I'm not sure I'd particularly want to do another one - aside from the monetary investment, they do take long time to paint up! Most of the model followed the colours in the Sons of Behemat Battletome (which I highly recommend - the fluff is great!), with the only real difference being the skin, painted using the South American Flesh pallet from Wargames Foundry. The skin really comes up well under drybrushing, which makes that part fairly easy to do. Add a few washes around, and it really comes to life.

Aside from this, I've painted a lot of Night Lords for 30K (shock, horror!, another system!). These need the bases finishing, and a couple more squads are only at the "basecoated and washed" stage - the plan is to finish these soon, and move onto some opponents, in the form of Dark Angels (one squad done, many to go!). The overall aim is to let us get back into playing 30K, which we used to do, but haven't for a long time. Both Kati and I were very much into the Horus Heresy Black Library series (I have just about kept up), and made it to all but the last Horus Heresy Weekender event in Nottingham, which I think we ended up not being able to justify due to a large vet's bill for the cat and a few other larger expenses at the time. These events were a lovely experience (though wavered up and down greatly in organisation!), and hopefully they make a return at some point in the future, assuming we can crowd together in a large room post vaccinations and so on!

I've also spent most of the Christmas break painting Republican Romans and Carthaginians for Saga: Age of Hannibal.

What have we been playing:

Ah - well, I think we had maybe 3 games of "new" 40K shortly after it released, and a couple of games of Adeptus Titanicus.

But over the last 2 weeks (since it is a holiday) we've managed to play a couple of rounds of Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave (I have the new Direchasm set, but we haven't used anything from it yet aside from some of the boards), pitting Witch Elves against Ironjaw Brutes (the gangs do have names...I just forget them. And can't be bothered to look them up).

We've also had another game of 40K, pitting Kati's Sisters of Battle against my Necrons (using the new codex)...

A game of Beyond the Gates of Antares, pitting my Ghar Rebels against the forces of the Algoryn...

...and a couple of games of Saga: Age of Hannibal...

So it's been really nice to actually put some of the lead (or plastic, etc) out onto the table for once! Hopefully we'll manage to continue with more games going forwards over the next few months, though it's back to work tomorrow for both of us.

What's on the painting table:

A load of Antares stuff, and more Age of Hannibal models. I may also squeeze in some other bits and bobs as well. Kati has been painting Sisters of Battle and making terrain, and I suspect these will continue for a while, as there are a few units left for her to finish off.

Let's hope it isn't 6 moths before my next update as well!