Lord Aldades journeys to the Grey Mountain - BATG 2025

After barely surviving, but succesfully defeating the Medusa in 2024, the next leg of the journey brings our noble lord to the caverns of the Grey Mountain.

And joining in the Battle Against The Gray once again this year, we are standing in front the entrance of the mythical temple of “Pile of Shame”, where sacrifices have to be made to the Gods of Gray.

With a year in front of us where we set a big heap of hobby goals, namely painting up forces for about 7 different armies to get them to a level to attend competitive events with a casual mindset (aka, paint and play what I like, and f*ck the meta), the goal is to smash all this year to the Blackshard badge!

Yes, painting 200 more models then we obtained is the goal of the journey, and somehow it will still feel like a wet slave thrown on a hot furnace, but off we go on the journey and explore the caverns formed amongst the gray piles.

January:
Bought: 143
Painted: 35
Result: + 108

February:
Bought: 3
Painted: 2
Result: - 55
Sold: 56

March:
Bought: 0
Painted: 22
Result: - 22

April:
Bought: 3
Painted: 8
Result: - 5

May:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

June:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

July:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

August:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

September:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

October:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

November:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

December:
Bought:
Painted:
Result:

The final numbers
Bought: 149
Painted: 67
Sold: 56
Result: + 26

May the furnaces burn the nightly flames as the brushes of Hashut stroke away!

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And making use of the last day of holiday before the night shifts starts again, I can kick off the year with the completing of two failry simple models.

Well, not so simple drawing all those lines on the smoke, but this Endless Spell has been drafted into to the Old World “vortex” department, in case my wizard would roll up the “Summon Elemental Spirit” Elementalism spell.

And of course, you can’t fantasy solo game without the most common of enemies, the Giant Rat…

And so we are off, hopefully towards a big score in 364 days…

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As the Escalation League, for which I started painting in the 2024 edition of BATG, has officially started, I completed already some “round 2” models. Both the small Halberdiers and the Greatsword units will be bolstered by command groups from the Warlord Games P&S range.

Banners are repainted print out’s from Foundry’s free flags downloads to suit my Marienburg colourscheme.

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Long live the night shift life. Now that I switched jobs in the medical centre to man the night reception (read: be paid basically to just stay awake and answer like 3 phonecalls per shift on average), grey mountain can be tackled in earnest.

I can now assemble and undercoat figures en masse at work (here a picture of a typical work night… tablet streaming anime or movies fell of the picture though)…

… while spending the evenings (I start at 23.00) can be used for painting as the little man is vast asleep then.


So that means another small unit done, in the form of a 47mm FRC anti-tank gun with it’s crew for my latest project, Bolt Action (Belgians of course)

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Because it’s a period of resolutions and lists on YouTube, I did one myself as well yesterday. And that will of course give an idea of what additional projects I’ll try to be painting this year apart from the regular ones.

But now, time to prepare some Chaos Dwarf units as well for painting, as I enlisted for a tournament in april out of the blue.

And it lasted 8 days, but the first purchase has been made (and more comming this weekend)

One cheap Vinted found Akhelian Taskmaster for the gray pile

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And let’s bump the mountain upwards…

A club member sold boxes of Oathmark Orc infantry, so of course I needed more slaves for Hashut. Now, I bought his full series of 6 boxes at 18 a piece, but I’m keeping only 2 for myself to include in the force.


The other four will end up on some BnB to try and basically get my own for free, but like I did with the Underworlds lot last year.

And more will come, because at a tournament next week I’m taking over a whole collection of Runewars, to sort out what I can use myself and what to sell on as well… but january will have a very hefty increase in models, and then the Warlord Mystery box still needs to arrive, oops…

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Every battlefield needs his scenery to fight over, and to that end this 3d printed ruined church has been finished.

Using craft paints, which are excellent for these sort of things, it was a nice night shift of drybrushing and in the morning one building was ready.

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For my Escalation League second round, my budding Empire army receives a “true” general for the force. And which model is more foppishly suited for a Marienburg army then the classic Warhammer Quest Imperial Noble

Apart from him, I also began the first tiny step of building a new force for MESBG, with a lonely Lothlorien spearmen to test the colour scheme.

Next on the to paint menu, a unit or 3 of actual Chaos Dwarfs!

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Last year I painted Garrek’s Reavers, from the very first underworlds box, for the challenge.

Last weekend, I took them to an underworlds tournament…

And here is how it went

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Ambitions took a serious hit today, as a Pike & Shotte mystery box arrived from Warlord Games.

That’s a LOT of models to be added to the to paint pile…

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All those Warlord Games Landsknechts that I have been painting the past months have taken to the field of battle in my first round of the Escalation League. And here is how it went…

For my Chaos Dwarfs, there will be some reports following soon, as I signed up for no less then two back to back weekends to go and contest a tournament with them. And without a single black orc in my force, as my artillery will hopefully blast the enemy to smithereens…

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Time to round out january on things I’ll get painted up, and the first is a set of 10 more Fabelzel blunderbusses. This now brings that particular unit from 10 to 20 strong, and ready to take along to a tournament in april.

I also painted up a Halfing for my slave regiment, something still takeable in T9A but I just do it for fun. Whenever my Dawi’Zharr defeat an opponent (non solo gaming), I paint up a model of their race and in their colours to add to this. Started doing this with my repainting of the force to blue and gold about 2 years ago, as it was something I did before for 40k with my Emperor’s Children.

Next up, I finished the light mortar from Mantic, also usable in T9A, but I based it 50 square to serve as a unit filler in big units of fireglaives or blunderbusses.

Rounding out the batch is some small side stuff, with a little wall section I still had lying around, and a movement tray for my warriors for the upcoming event, nothing fancy here.

And so january is done for my part, hopefully february will bring better numbers for the challenge!

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Well, technically he was completed right at the bottom end of 2024, but as the contest rules don’t allow for revealing your models until the voting, I’m putting him in this years tally instead.

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You add some, you sell some…

Today a small parcel from Warlord arrived, bringing me a member for my mighty Italian armoured company in Bolt Action, as well as a druid which is their new Soldier of Fortune for february.

But I also said goodbye to a part of my gray mountain, as these Dark Eldar, which have been lying like this in a corner now for 7 years, have found a new owner with a clubmember wanting to start an army for them. It’s one way to reduce the “to paint” pile after all…

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February is turning out to be one of those months where a lot of projects are being worked on all at once, yet nothing seems to get rounded out completely just yet.

But I did finish this lovely bloke today. Still awaiting for GW to restock on the new Blood Bowl Bull Centaurs, I need one for my next league game next friday the 28th. I didn’t feel like stripping and repainting one of the other CD teams I have around, so enter one of Fabelzel’s excellent resin sculpts, snip off the weapons and he actually looks the real deal!

So the “temporary” will be bashing out this league as a result, adding some speed to the team, which is facing an uphill two-weeker versus the first and second placed teams in the League in 2 weeks, outrated by at least 300 every game…

Game reports will of course be shared after the matches…


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You paint some, you win some… my Artisan lucky participant arrived today, and I already have a heap op converting ideas for the beastie in mind

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One Dawi’Zharr at a time, we keep repainting the collection to the blue and gold colour scheme

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The first model completed for a Bolt Action 1000pt early war event I’ll be attending in november.

And the lucky bugger is the first of my whole armoured platoon (cough, armoured), in the form of an L5/30 (or Fiat3000 if you like), a 3d printed PLA model.

I went for the olive colours instead of the more commonly known desert scheme, as the goal is to have a force based around the invasion of Greece at the opening of the hostilities as such.

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A whole bunch of Empire, part of the Escalation League, is finished.


With a regiment of Pistoliers and a regiment of Handgunners, both Warlord Games Pike & Shotte models, these won’t see the battlefield this month though. My opponent forfeited the round, and an easy win as such was chalked up for the army of Marienburg. And for some reason with 2-1 currently being in the upper regions of army size…

Next month the 1k barrier is crossed and as such the cannons can be rolled out, and the first of the two I’m adding is a Mortar, a Sunland range by Highland Miniatures, as it has those lovely fish on top, very suited to my theme.

Now to paint up some Chaos Dwarf related models first before the month is over!

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