"In which we imagine EvilFuzzyDoom happy" [BATG 2024]

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

That’s definitely true!

For someone who’s not working on a project this certainly looks a lot like a project. There’s something satisfying about complex list-building and a simple paint job that is really holding my attention.

And I’ve finished the Autocannon squad, too:

I held off on posting these for a little while because I couldn’t think of anything clever to say. They’re done, I’m happy. Now I need to paint some terrain before I get the urge to buy more of these lads.

Five off the pile.

BATG Score: +88

[Nicodemus]

Holy Hannah these are great! Nice work

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Thank you! I really do it all for the updoots, so everyone who tells me I’m doing a good job is contributing to this bizarre exercise

I spent my painting time yesterday and today painting this rhino:

I had originally put this together to go in a Sons of Horus project, using a Heresy vehicle accessory sprue to update a 40k rhino into a 30k one. I might have used it as a rhino for my Militia eventually, but I wanted them all to have multimeltas and the weapons are glued on this one. I enjoy the way it looks a bit used and secondhand as a result. If the Heresy vehicle sprue was easier to get hold of I might make more, but it’s a devil to find on its own so… unlikely.

The core paint job was terribly simple: prime grey, spray again with wraith one, paint the green bits, paint the brown bits and paint the metals. Then, weathering with lots of successive washes and contrast and sponging. In another legion, I would say that the weathering is too much. But this? This is Death Guard! And probably traitorous, too. Grime away! It was quite therapeutic to just sit and paint on all the grime.

With that done, the Death Guard are all up to date:

I’m going to try and paint something else before I get more of them. We’ll see how that goes.

One off the pile.

BATG Score: +87

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Uh… never mind.

I bought a commander model and it arrived in the mail this morning.

One on the pile.

BATG Score: +88

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

For want of Death Guard to weather I decided to make some headway on the terrain that’s blown out my count for the year. I decided to work on some pipes.

After a bit of experimenting (and wondering why I thought enamel metallic spray would get good results in the priming stage) I settled on a scheme that wasn’t too much effort and looked acceptable:

A few hours later, I have four pipe walls and two corner pieces done. The walls were a daily involved process (which I won’t be repeating for the rest of the pipes) while the corners were more simple:

Stipple Castellan Green with a big brush.
Stipple Vallejo Gunship Green with a smaller brush.
Recess shade everything with Magmadroth flame.
Pick out some pipes in Garaghak’s Sewer.

Easy! Now to repeat it eighteen more times.

I’ve decided that now that I’ve recalibrated all the pipes, I’m just going to count all the combined bits as single miniatures rather than try and add up the individual bits - until I hit twenty pipes, since I have five sets of pipes and I’ve been counting them as four on the pile.

So, six off the pile.

BATG Score: +82

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Another package of Death Guard arrived today, because I am a little stressed and I need the dopamine hits:

Five more mk3 marines for the autocannon squad, and five more mk6 marines to round out the command squad.

It might be a little slower painting these than the last lot, but I’ve also been putting together some stuff I found in my bitz cupboard to make some Destroyers (the dual-wielding gunslinger dudes) for this army. I should be able to do another big batch of priming soon enough, which is the lion’s share of the job for my Death Guard scheme.

Meanwhile, work on pipes continues apace. Once they’re all done I’ll need to put aside some serious time to do the ZM walls en masse if I’m going to get down under net zero

Ten onto the pile.

BATG Score: +92

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

A little update for today, I painted three more pipes:

Nothing exciting, but three off the pile.

BATG Score: +89

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Teeny tiny update.

I picked up a Chaos Warpsmith to dial back and serve as a character in my Heresy Death Guard, inspired by this fantastic Siege Breaker Consul I’ve been eyeing off for a little while.

I’m going to give him a slightly more normal head though, and his bare head has been donated to the Axe-wielding character I picked up a little while ago, to make that model look nastier.

I’ve also done a pile of priming, and I’m a little excited about the next lot of models going onto the painting desk!

Meanwhile, one onto the pile.

BATG Score: +90

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

I had a long weekend so I’ve spent a bit of time at the painting table.

First up, I finished three more pipes for Zone Mortalis:

Not super exciting, but work is work.

Next, a bit more exciting, I’ve painted up a squad of 10 kitbashed Mortalis Destroyers for my Death Guard:

They’re built from a combination of two generations of multipart Assault Marines, the old Khorne Berzerkers, the last multipart Chaos Space Marine kit, MkIV helmets from the old Black Templar upgrade sprue, spiked shoulder pads from Kromlech, flat shoulder pads from the Horus Heresy MKVI kit, a pair of 2nd edition hand flamers I found in my bitz box, a pair of Van Saar hand flamers, and a pair of Deathwatch Frag Cannons to serve as the missile launchers with suspensor webs!

To contast with the complicated kitbash, the painting was very simple: Black prime, drybrush everything with Dark Reaper, a lighter Drybrush with Dawnstone, paint all the metals in, separately prime the shoulder pads and paint them Vallejo Gunship Green before attaching, and then wash everything with Army Painter Strong Tone. There’s also a few other details and some weathering, but that was the main process.

I’m very happy with the weekend’s work. Thirteen off the pile!

BATG Score: +77

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

I’ve been a bit slack updating, so I’m just going to smash these out without much commentary.

First:

I sold the Achilles Ridgerunner I bought earlier this year. Since it’s in-and-out in the same year, it will come off the pile.

Second:

Knights of Dice had a surprise post-closure sale so I panicked and bought all the rest of the scenery I was going to buy last year. Then I forgot about it! I now have a big pile of stinky MDF that I may or may not get around to building any time soon. Still, it is very nice. It includes 7 foundation blocks, 2 highway sections and a pair of ruined highway sections. Eleven onto the pile.

Third:

Ashamed of forgetting about the MDF pile, I painted up the slightly-converted Death Guard Centurion I’ve had on my desk for a little while. One off the pile.

Net result: nine onto the pile. I’m still telling myself that I’m going to do a huge built & paint day for all my Zone Mortalis scenery but the clock is ticking. We’ll see how Christmas goes, I guess…

Also, I’m on 199 models painted! I’ll have a rummage and see if there’s anything special I feel like painting for number 200.

BATG Score: +86

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

TWO HUNDRED!

I painted a Chaos Dwarf thing:

Bull Centaur number 2, about four years later. It turns out my painting has gotten much much more streamlined since I painted any Chaos Dwarfs so… yeah, this took about five hours and I don’t have that kind of time right now.

Anyway, here he is with a friend:

One off the pile.

BATG Score: +85

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

I got a little excited while listhammering for Horus Heresy and I bought myself this little fella:

Paid new in shrink prices because I’m a bit mad, and have decided firmly that I only want last-generation Sentinels for my Heresy Militia.

There’s actually another one coming in the post, too.

For now though, one onto the pile.

BATG Score: +86

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Well, I can follow that up with a nice little update.

I’ve always liked preachers and missionaries for the Imperial Guard, since my first White Dwarf featured the Sisters of Battle 2nd edition Codex and all the Ecclesiarchy models that came with them.

These two preachers have been in and out of my storage cases lots of times over the years - one is a classic Inquisitorial retinue zealot, while the other is a kitbash from the Empire wizards box.

Today, they just happened to be on my desk so with a bit of time after wrapping up work today, I knocked them out using mainly Contrast paints. I figure they can go into my Heresy Militia, or they can accompany my Imperial Guard in 40K if they ever get good rules.

While the wash was drying on them, I also pulled out a pair of plasma wielding Grenadiers that will bring my third squad up to ten models! They were great fun to paint, really fast and simple and reminded me to get back to work on that force - which I will be, since I’ve joined a Horus Heresy slow grow league!

I played my first game of the league last night, and got absolutely demolished. It was fun! No pictures though, my opponent’s army wasn’t fully assembled so I kept the camera packed away.

Four off the pile.

BATH Score: +82

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Three more down.

Two pipe control doovalackies:

And a flagellant-turned-militia levy who owes a lot to u/Oxymandias:

I have for a long time thought the Cadian arms don’t look great on the Flagellant bodies, but after a bunch of versions of the model that have been impractical for various reasons (Skitarii rifles are too big, Catachan arms are too big, Victoria Minis arms are too expensive, Vraks Militia autogun arms are too out-of-production) - I’ve decided to use up some of the many pairs of Cadian lasgun arms I have in my bitz cupboard.

I built and painted this fellow just to check, then I built 29 more:

So hopefully I can get them all painted by end of year - or at least before I’m tempted to buy another ten so I can run them as 2 units of 20 Levies in Horus Heresy.

3 off the pile.

BATG Score: +79

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

I think I might be going a bit crazy, because even in the face of the year counting down and my high 2-digit positive score, I haven’t stopped buying things.

In the last few days I’ve received the second retro sentinel:

And a box of flagellants to make into more Militia levies:

That’s eleven onto the pile! I’m nearly back at +100!

It’s going to take a superhuman effort to get down under +50, let alone reach net zero from here.

That being said, my wife is out of the country for the next little while and I have two weekends with no plans. There’s 40 levies almost ready to paint, I still have heaps of my older Imperial Guard primed and ready to work on, and while there’s a spot of poor priming weather coming, I can maybe get all my Zone Mortalis terrain built, at least.

I’m going to try and take this one down to the wire!

Just… I need to stop buying things!

BATG Score: +90

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

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

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

In another day of wifeless behaviour, I painted three bullgryns:

Nothing special, all done the same way as the three I painted about this time last year.

Three off the pile.

BATG Score: +64

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Today was mostly a prep day, getting my pile of 40 levies primed and doing a few other things to make a pile of grenadiers ready to paint.

In a sign that maybe I’m getting tired, I felt compelled to grab this fellow and couldn’t stop until he was done a few hours later:

Maybe it’s because I watched some clips from Napoleon today.

The House Greim Military Attaché I picked up back in June last year - well before I knew what colour scheme I was going to paint my Militia - has been painted. His bodyguard is still in bits, awaiting a good use.

I decided to paint him in a similar manner to my Retro Guard, and referred to the old Rogue Trader Imperial Army box art for inspiration - note his white pants and gloves (although I skipped the tiger camo). The biggest difference from that collection is that I skipped the all-over Strong Tone wash. I decided the white pants wouldn’t work if I did that! I guess he gets an aura of “he must be in charge since he’s the clean one”.

I’m undecided as to whether he actually fits in with my converted Heresy Grenadiers as a Merchant Prince commander, or if he sits more strictly with the Retro Guard.

Either way, one off the pile for today.

BATG Score: +63

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

I know seems crazy to add anything at this late stage while still in the red, but bear with me.

I picked up a Leman Russ to build as another Vanquisher for my Militia. I’ve joined a slow grow league and they’re just about the only thing in the Militia list that works!

So, while I’ve got three of them already, I want a fourth for when we get to the larger army sizes.

And I can’t show the results yet but I’m making some excellent progress on my big pile of Militia Levies, so I figure I’ve earned this!

One onto the pile.

BATG Score: +64

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Muahahahaha!

I am unstoppable!

Except maybe by wrist pain!

Over the last few days I have painted forty-two Imperial Militia Levies.

And a slightly better picture showing how they’ll be organised on the tabletop: two units of 20 with attendant priests leading them.

These basically followed Oxymandias’ guide and while it’s super fast for getting a single model done, oh boy does it stretch out when you’re batch painting forty plus guys!

As a bonus, sheer numbers made a painting handle impractical for a lot of this batch, so my hands don’t feel too great.

Still, that’s a tremendous forty-two models off the pile. I’m almost certain I can crack net zero and THREE HUNDRED models by the end of the year.

This is by far the single biggest batch of models I’ve painted in one go before, and with these two units done I’ve got 276 models painted, solidly beating my previous year-end-best of 243! It’s all record progress from here.

Let’s goooooo

BATG Score: +22