2020 Hobby Review

Not having to commute to work the last eight and a half months combined with the launch of 40K 9th Edition and its utter lack of connection with my hobbying mojo meant 2020 became the year of Necromunda.  I had started the year full of earnest hobby goals and trying to actually do more hobbying that just buying and assembling models.  The year definitely turned out to be more productive that probably any previous year.

I started out focused on my Steel Legion IG force thinking it was small enough that I could actually complete assembling and painting it.  Made a bit of progress before pandemic lockdowns and other distractions led me astray.

Steel Legion force.  Mostly metal with some officers coming from a combination of Anvil Industries plus Mad Robot Miniatures heads.  Mobile mortars for heavy weapon teams from Victoria Miniatures.

Another long running IG force are my attempt at Arbites.  Originally conceived using the old rules where you could upgrade non-veteran units with carapace and running lots of veterans units with shotguns.  In 2019 I'd finally settled on Anvil Industries regiment bits to get the carapace look but the 8th edition IG codex had stripped them of official rules to spam carapace but I still liked the concept and I love the Arbites so I dabbled a bit more.

I even got another semi-decent concept of using Genestealer Cult allies as the Detective/Special Forces branch of an Arbites precinct.  There would be some modeling carryover from the main Arbites force visually for some of the GSC characters along with Aberrants as Ogryns and maybe a brood brother counts as unit as a breacher squad or some other such thing.  That plus the ridgerunner vehicle as a patrol/scout vehicle were very appealing. 

I got a few of the characters modeled up but again ran out of enthusiasm and inspiration as the shelter in place continued and economic impacts began to be felt in our family finances.  That and the drop of 9th combined to just crush any remaining interest in 40K.

I avoided pandemic hobby interests like gardening or baking and instead picked up my Necromunda books to read a bit closer and brainstorm some terrain and other underhive hobby activities.  I also fortunately discovered the Sump City Radio podcast which explores the depths of Necromunda lore, modeling and gaming while also doing very creative audio segments as an underhive radio station with a diverse set of characters that they and their friends voice which includes news and atmospheric reports for the dome they occupy along with sports, listener advice and other interesting and funny segments.  The second half of 2020 ended up being all Necromunda as a result.

Only have the Sump City Radio station broadcast tower so far but the station building and fenced in yard should come soon.

Sump City Radio also got me excited about the "House of..." books released for four of the original six gangs through their tactical reviews and enthusiasm for the content.  

My 2020 Necromunda hobby output.

Lots of conversions started...

...many inspired by the "House of..." books.

Painted models for 2020.

Cawdor Modeling

So another long gap in posting to my hobby blog.  My hobbying has its fits and starts.  Documenting it even more so.  

I've really been enjoying the Convert or Die hobby blog over the course of 2020.  It's one of many that set a great hobby example in tone, detail and productivity.  Recently he posted his tenth in a series of updates about his Cawdor modeling which got me thinking about the models I had in my hobby closet.  Turns out I had even more than I remembered.

I built the box of Cawdor I bought when it was released right away and tried to work in other weapons in a bid to have more extras to spread across additional gangers converted from zombie bodies and Frostgrave cultists. 

That plan kind of worked but the current Cawdor bodies are so distinct, though, and I haven't found a good way to even come close to capturing the unbalanced, scruffy, scrawny aesthetic they embody.  Here's the other dozen or more "Cawdor Lite" models that have the ramshackle weapon aesthetic but not the body type.  You can see where I hit the pause button having run out of ideas and/or enthusiasm.  Looking at the metal Cawdor models picked up in auction purchases over the years I can only think they are destined to be Redemptionists since they all look too burly and well fed to be current Cawdor.

At least the Stig-Shamblers pretty much look the part.  Mis-matched hulking brute captained by a scrawny malicious minder.

I am very much enjoying the "House of..." books so far in 2020 and looking forward to seeing where "House of Faith" takes the Cawdor.  My 2021 hobby plans include trying to get some more Cawdor models and bits in place to add to the gang once their book is out in Q2.  Until then there's plenty to finish modeling and painting.

Messing Around With Terrain

 

Been spending a lot of time recently reading my Necromunda books for ideas and brainstorming how to put together a good set of terrain and models for playing the game.  Watching lots of Youtube videos for techniques and approaches to get a dense, gritty environment for game play.  Still have a long ways to go.

Played around with making 6mm Epic buildings this weekend from foamcore and bits.  The Microscale buildings at 4Ground are pretty cool looking so I started an intact building and a ruin using some of the measurements on their models.  Will likely need chipboard or similar material to get the exterior window/door detail.

I'm hoping to use Lego bricks to build up some shanty town shapes that can then be embellished with details and bits to look the part.  I'll need to get some chipboard to try and do the windows on the larger buildings once my finances improve.

Dibs and Dabs

Assembled my second Mechanicus Armiger and painting a bit more with quick visits to random miniatures I've bought over the years because I like the model or thought a conversion might be cool to do.  Little interest in batch painting so the poor Steel Legion linger and every other set of many models for different armies waits their turn to move from dusty and poorly primed to decently primed to a model/unit getting painted.

Armigers with carapace and cc arms from Iron Wolf Miniatures for a more Mechanicus look.

Inquisitorial retinue members, Inq28 characters, NPCs for Pulp Alley games of a 40K bent...

Special weapon servitors and an ammo caddy for clearing out that derelict ship all on your own...looking at you Deathwatch Brother Agemus.

Tiniest of progress towards actual Pulp Alley pulp gaming and recreating a Scooby Doo episode or two.

A Week of Doing Little

A week of intensive painting effort, for me, has been followed up by a typical hobby week.  Minimal modeling, some basing work to see if doing it before painting makes the process go any better or easier and a smattering of base coating on long primed models.

Basing on the remainder of the Steel Legion platoon and company command squad was completed last weekend with mixed results.  Watered down glue doesn't seem to hold the modeling grit I've been using on their bases when initially applied.  Coming back with a second coat to seal the grit to the base was equally uninspiring with clumps coming off the base to stick to the brush.  Put my first tufts onto a few bases as well as painting all of the base rims black.  Now I need to clean up the feet of the models that have grit on them and paint them.

I did paint the trousers of the unpainted models and added a wash to the bases of the painted models.

Base coat colors were applied to several of the Mechanicus drone or hovering special weapon servitors I've converted weeks or months ago.  Second heavy bolter drone has been built from bits that have sat on my hobby desk for a long time.  I think they were intended to be the gun portion of heavy weapon teams for a tech guard IG army or some such thing.  They'd be accompanied by an ammo servitor on the 60mm base.

I was never brave enough to buy the previous version of the penitent engines due to all the horror stories I read or watched on Youtube about how difficult those models were to build and keep in one piece.  New versions are chock full of detail and allow you to build two units so I did a bit of reading and will build my initial models as Mortifiers and not normal penitent engines.  Don't really play 40K but might as well have some effective in game models if I do.

 I did come up with a plastic counts as penitent engine awhile back using Sentinel and Ork Killa Kan arms as part of a SOB counts as ally force for my Arbites.  Prisoners as arco flagellants and penitent engines along with other units to buff the main Arbites army using the Astra Militarum codex.

A Week of Painting

The excellent Youtube hobby channel Midwinter Minis just wrapped up a week long get some of your hobby pile painted challenge.  I probably managed to put in 15 hours or so over the course of seven days which is probably five times or more what I put toward painting in a given week. 

Started work from this starting picture dubbed the "Closet of Shame/Opportunity".

The challenge only allowed one starting photo and this seemed to capture my overall hobby approach/style.

I managed to get a decent bit of models moved a bit along the path from grey plastic to painted.  Others in the challenge painted multiple squads while my progress meant finishing the assembly of models that I had the bits for but were never finished along with priming said models.  I also used a brush to finish the priming on many models that had been hit with a grey or Zandri Dust primer, in the case of my Steel Legion models, so that they could actually be painted.

The only truly finished models in the picture are the three crates...another indicator of my hobby approach/style.

I did manage to finish painting the second squad for my Steel Legion platoon which brings me to 21 of 71 painted infantry models in the army picture below.

Next Steel Legion step is to finish the basing on the left hand side of the army and then the paint jobs on the 3rd infantry platoon, the platoon command squad and the company command squad.  After that will come the right hand side elite and heavy support units.  Looks like I'll need to find some of my Savlar Chem Dogs to get a second troop choice into the force.

Arbites Detective Branch - Magus and Biophagus

Psyker Detective Heath - Tried to make some modifications to a metal fantasy model to bring it more in line with 40K.  A GSC Magus has an autopistol, cultist knife and force stave.  The kukri in her belt takes care of the knife while a Scion command rod becomes the force stave.  She's busy manifesting a psychic power so the gunskull will be her pistol.  It's more of a needle pistol in look with one of greatest bits, a more ornate double vial of who knows what from the Dark Angels Veterans sprue as the ammo feed, but it fits with a detective potentially working more quietly than the standard Arbite in carapace armor racking their shotgun in the middle of the street.

 Magos Krieger is a Mechanicus magos biologus assigned to the Arbites detectives divison.  He'll run closely with the Ogryns who will count as the Aberrants in the force to boost them in game.  I gave him an Escher chem thrower arm as the injector goad while a Mechanicus radium pistol counts as the auto pistol.  The little servo arm coming over the shoulder is a camera recording the combat for later analysis 

The magos and their counts as alchemical familiar.  More usage of the double vial as extra ammo since a single vial is the ammo for the injector goad.

Counts as Patriarch - Judge Press

Less time commuting and more time walking through my neighborhood the past two weeks has given me time to brainstorm more modeling ideas and even follow up with a conversion or two to see how things might work.  Below is a picture of Arbitrator Judge Press built to serve as the Patriarch of a counts as Genestealer Cult force.  Counts as forces are always fun to brainstorm and in this case the intimate local knowledge and the ambush/skirmish nature of the GSC seemed like it would work well for representing how the Detectives and Specialized operatives of a large enough Arbites precinct might function on the battlefield if it had to transition from everyday life to a war footing.

Judge Press and one of his psychic familiars.
I knew the GSC Patriarch was perched on a pipe so I built up the base for
him to stand on.

Then I found the Patriarch model from the Deathwatch Overkill boxed set for
a quick size comparison.  I'd forgotten how big the Patriarch model is on it's own.

So I went back and added some more height to the Judge's base.  Much better.
The downside to counts as modeling is that you can't always match the
presence of the original model. 

Gore Half-Horn, Grendl Grendlesen, and 40K Poultry

One of my favorite parts of the latest Necromunda game are the bounty hunters and other hired guns introduced in each book release.  It's a bit like a slow motion release of a big book of NPCs that I remember buying a couple of when I was into the 2nd and 3rd edition of D&D a long time ago.  That plus the opportunity to convert your own "counts as" models for them leads to that much more enjoyment in my case.  Gore Half-Horn is all GW bits while Grendl Grendlsen is a re-purposed Reaper Bones dwarf ranger.

Somewhere in the 40K universe someone is raising dangerous birds as sources of protein for uphivers, planetary governors or just because that's what was there when the colony ships landed.  Narrative games of 40K, RPGs or a Necromunda scenario style random monster all seems like potential homes for these two.  More Reaper Bones models.

All the models are base coated with a coat of Agrax Earthshade.  Dry brushing, bases and final details still to be worked out.  Getting to this point is an accomplishment giving my history of buying and building with no painting at all.  Finishing paint jobs and actually playing games with the miniatures is still to come.

Ambots, Arbites and Illness

A week ago I had a busy, productive Saturday that by evening time turned into a nagging cough which by Sunday midday was a fever, chills, aches, etc. For three days solid my mind was clear of all interest in any sort of hobby thought or action.  40K is a pretty constant presence in my daily activities or thoughts so it is always interesting to see what knocks it out.

In the last couple of days I've managed to build the two Ambots that have been sitting in my Necromunda cue.  It was a nice surprise that you end up with two extra pairs of legs and a small pile of other bits.

Converted Arbites bomb disposal servitor moves through Ambot depot.

Arbites are another long running 40K passion of mine.  Below are a couple of Hasslefree Miniatures converted to be a detective and her ratling sergeant/lifeward/gunslinger.  I seemed to be going for dirty concrete bases with limited success.  I need to come up with some background for the detective and her partner.  I watch a lot of detective shows and I like the idea of these two investigating cases mid-hive in what might pass for a normal community of different types of workers, Administratum and other Imperial citizens.  Not quite a cozy mystery if it's at all connected to the broader 40K universe but also not a Judge Dredd, "I AM THE LAW!!!!!" type of setting either.  The Fantasy Flight Games 40K RPG books were the inspiration for the bomb disposal servitor conversion and, while very much were intended to help set the stage for solving 40K mysteries, are also great fluffy sources of detail for life in the Imperium off the front lines.

Steel Legion Reinforcements

Some reinforcements for my Steel Legion force arrived this week from Victoria Miniatures.  One of their Kangaroo APC miniatures purchased as part of the excellent fund raiser they organized in January in response to the massive brush fires in Australia.  They also have an ever growing collection of wonderfully characterful miniatures that can be added, for free, to orders for each $50 US in the order.  I was able to pick up two of my favorites in the set along with a mortar battery on wheeled chassis that make more sense to me if I am going to model my Steel Legion force as mostly mobile infantry.

Dribs and drabs of painting done in the last week or so but not much progress on squad 2 of the Steel Legion blocking in the main colors.  I primed some models last weekend to give me options to paint when I tire of guardsmen but only a bit of paint put on two small models from those models.  I did look through another box of conversions and bits for warband models for Cardinal Vindrix and there are some potential entourage members I will try to organize into a unit under the old Agents of the Imperium codex.  I hope the Inquisition get a more robust set of rules building off the White Dwarf article at the end of 2019.

Cawdor gangers made from GSC, zombie and Frostgrave Cultist bodies.

Painting Progress, Inquisitor Axne and Cardinal Vindix

Getting close to finishing painting on my first squad of Steel Legion troops while starting the painting of squad #2.  11 out of 71 models with paint on them for the force.

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Minimal progress on painting has me looking at all of the in progress/built models that are visible in my hobby area and thinking about what to paint next.  One possibility is Inquisitor Axne built after seeing many interesting conversions from the easy to build Sequitor Stormcast models.  I'm working on some background for her and her Inquisitorial warband.  I see her as a positive, pragmatic force committed to both preserving and improving the Imperium.  It is a position that would, sadly, generate more enemies rather than fewer I suspect.

"An Escher ganger taken at age 10 in a Goliath raid, Axne was used as a test subject in Goliath growth stimulant experiments.  She escaped five years later having endured a litany of substances that left her standing well in excess of six feet tall with a strength to mass ratio the envy of many front line battle servitors. Alone in enemy territory, Axne then spent the next several years haunting the nearby territories as she collected resources and tried to determine how best to enact her revenge on the Goliaths. During that time she observed and eavesdropped on all manner of settings, people and transactions slowly developing an affinity for finding ideas and areas of worth."

Inquisitor Axne and acolytes recruited from her former Escher gang.

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If Inquisitor Axne is envisioned as a positive Inquisitorial force then Cardinal Vindix is quite the opposite.  He is a Ministorum Cardinal that will use Inquisitor rules if he ever takes the field.  Cruel and vindictive, his quest for Ministerial justice is always focused on maximizing fear and imposing his version of the Imperial Truth.  I assume his hood is made from the flayed skin of his opponents real and imagined.

Painting Progress and Conversion Chaos

Painting on the first squad of Steel Legion continues.  Weapon bodies painted black and helmets giving a coat of Castellan Green.  Both need a Nuln Oil wash and I've got at least one portion of a kneeling models coat to paint and wash since I somehow managed to miss it despite multiply passes over each model in the past week.  Lots of other details and clean up left, I'm sure, once I look closely at a given model.  Still it's progress.

The Steel Legion squad were occupying the corner of the mat holding the conversion pile I've been fiddling with the past week or so.  Ministorum agents, MicroArts mechanicus bodies, the one squad of new Scions I can't decide how to build...the list goes on and on.

Painting Steel Legion and Conversions

I have 70+ Steel Legion models plus a couple of Chimeras in my collection.  Mostly metal models but with some more recent additions from Mad Robot Miniatures for the heads and Anvil Industries for the rest of the models to round out units, model differently armed sergeants and even make a counts as set of Ratlings for the force.

Counts as Ratling snipers or a models for a Special Weapons or Veterans squad

I've never completed a 40K army in decades of buying and building.  This year I'm hoping to change that so I've started painting my Steel Legion and I'll take breaks to paint other models as I go.  After that there are many other 40K forces to work on.

Platoon 1 in progress paint job.

I also love to convert models and the counts as arco-flagellants and/or close combat servitors were made from Kromlech ork bits including their Mechanical Saw Arms.  I like that they are a bit beefier than other servitors I've bought or converted from ghouls or other models.