Well, as presaged I have been left to my own devices. Instead of going a little mad and purchasing models like I did last year, I have gone a little mad and painted models.
First I painted my Heresy Grenadier “Lifeguard” squad:
The officer and one of the plasma troopers were already painted, so this is 9 completed models. As per last time I painted some of these guys, the scheme is a delight.
Then I painted five Imperial Guardsmen in my “retro” scheme inspired by Rogue Trader Imperial Army:
These five have been sitting with the other 15 members of their squad for quite a while. What was originally quite a fun scheme to paint has somehow become much more laborious. I think it has to do with the models - like when I painted my Combat Patrol as Mordians, there’s something just a bit too nitty-gritty about the current range of Cadians.
At the other end of the scale, I painted three Rapier crews:
While technically I picked these up for my Horus Heresy militia, they’re done in my original Imperial Guard scheme. I just didn’t have the bits handy to make crew more like my other Heresy militia. These were pretty fiddly too, all told - a flaw in the colour scheme I chose to paint my guardsmen way back in the ‘00s. I think it’s reached its optimum efficiency now, but it still took a while to get them all painted. These will count as 9, since I’ve not been counting guns.
Finally, not painted but ready to paint - 40 Militia levies:
Like the dude a few posts up, these are made from Empire Flagellants and last-generation Cadian arms (although there are a few sets of Forgeworld Renegade Militia autoguns in there too). I ran out of grey primer, but there’s more on the way so they’ll get a few coats soon. The weather has turned very humid but I tested my preferred spray can in some pretty gross weather earlier this weekend and it turned out alright. Fingers crossed.
All told, 23 off the pile for this weekend. If I can get the levies painted by end of next week as well, I should be in with a chance to finish the year off with less than 1000 models in the pile.
BATG Score: +67
