Brush and Boltgun 2018 Round Up
Happy New Year! Well it’s been a busy year for everyone, and sadly not wholly busy with hobby, but there’s been plenty of progress and plenty of good stuff.
Rob
After a having less hobby time than usual over the past few months, I didn’t think this year would have had as much progress as it did. Looking back through the posts – back to May anyway, when the site transfer and post copying was in full swing I’ve managed a fair bit. There’s two things I’m really happy with from 2018, and they are the 40k Ork Shieldwall, and the 40k Meganobz (Post coming soon, and video here).
I say I was most pleased with them. The Meganobz were so detailed that they took an age to get to a point where I was happy with them, and I still know that there’s probably a few sneaky details I haven’t painted. I think this is why the post still resides in draft form. You’ll be seeing it in January though, you lucky people.
2018 also saw my love of painting Stormcast flourish. When the Age of Sigmar Soul Wars box arrived in July, I picked up some of the Sequitors to paint up (let’s not talk about the Banshees…), and really enjoyed painting them. So I went back to the shelf of them that were only spray undercoated with Retributor Armour and picked up a few more to paint. There’s been a few vids and posts about them since then, and that’s because they’re my go to whenever I want to just relax and enjoy painting something.
2018 was the year I vowed not to get another army and sold three of my 40k forces – Bran Redmaw’s Great Company, Scythes of the Emperor and Red Corsairs. I quickly followed that with buying armies for Bolt Action, Saga, and then started a Necron Army, as well as picking up Kill Team, and some Primaris to replace the Great Company. After deciding this was enough, Orktober arrived, and my Waaagh of greenskins swelled to unprecedented levels, and this is my current obsession. Today the release for Genestealer Cults was up, and this is another army I have waiting to be painted and completed. I despair.
Finally, I was pleased to finally touch brush to the Necromunda Goliaths. I’ve still only played one game of the new Necromunda, but it really is great, and painting the new and improved Necromunda minis was great fun. Hopefully this year I’ll finish them off.
Agrax Earthshade added to edges of armour 
Burnt Umber/White mix 2 
Undercoated Black
2019
2019 brings all the promise of every year, ‘I’ll defo knuckle down and finish an army for 40k’, ‘I’m not buying any more miniatures until I’ve painted the ones I have’ and ‘Do I really need to buy another army? I mean… I like them…’, but the only thing I will say for definite is that I will finish my Saga Anglo-Danes, I’ll at least start the Bolt Action US Airborne, and I’m determined to finish one 40k army this year. At the moment, Orks are looking most likely, but, well you know how it is…
Starting the year with March to War is a good thing though, and I’m determined to paint up 2019 points of orks, be it vehicles, or walkers, or any other points heavy item. Currently there’s a warboss, five nobz, a battlewagon, four of the five new vehicles, and a stompa on my desk, so there’s at least 1300 points there, but it’s also a fair bit of painting too, so will three months be enough to do that and more?
Well that’s all from me. Over to the rest of the chaps to see how they’ve got on this year!
Adam
Like the rest of the guys at Brush and Boltgun, the thought of putting pen to paper about what I have achieved this year filled me with quite some horror. After taking a deep breath, calming down and having a think, I am actually quite proud of the amount I have got done: definitely better then 2017 (have a look at how we all did back then, here!).
Painting:
Whilst Hobby-Skype with the rest of the guys has died down, I have managed to keep myself motivated to succeed at a few of the tasks I have set myself. My main success is that I have completed two full armies for SAGA, one for The Age of Vikings (Carolingians) and one for Age of Crusades (Polish).
Ok, the Poles haven’t played a game yet (so I am hoping to see a commitment from the other guys to get their armies done in these posts!), and the Carolingians have played three, lost three (it appears there’s a reason they are the top difficulty-rating in the Vikings book!), but that’s over 100 models all told, as well as the mercenary nomads painted to accompany my Byzantine army, which has rules in both supplements.
I have also made good progress with my Flames of War US force. All the infantry are painted, the tanks are progressing and the artillery is at least assembled! This will need one more box of transports buying, building and the remainder of the vehicles finishing ready to be dragged to a battle in early 2019.
More Jerry-bashing with my Bolt Action Russians, who have been updated with extra tanks, special weapons and new infantry from the Warlord Games Winter boxed set that came out earlier this year. Along with the extra tanks that were whitewashed, this now looks like a suitably imposing force, even though half of them are probably only carrying ammo!
March to War also gave me an excuse to get some Games Workshop figures done. Really, this has been my biggest stumbling block of the year, besides these few Orks, three models for Shadespire and some Night Lords, vehicles and Sevatar that I did for a big game in Warhammer World, I haven’t done any GW at all.
At least the Night Lords at look semi-finished now, and if I can get my behind into gear and build the other vehicles I got for them, I may be able to claim a finished army in 2019!
Gaming:
There has been sporadic success with gaming in 2018, we have managed a few games of Dead Man’s Hand, which is a great game, and recently had a weekend of Kill Team.
Further back in the year, gaming has been more sporadic. I have managed a few games of SAGA (some reports here and here), two games of Blood Bowl (The Middenheim Towers haven’t conceded a touchdown in 2018: mainly down to only playing two games) and when Dave came back from uni for a while we got a few different games in of SAGA, Dead Man’s Hand and even Osprey Games’ Ronin, which I will do a post on soon.
I have also played my first proper game of Frostgrave, which again is awesome. Unfortunately with work and life, that’s been it for the best part of the year. Next year promises change with my Dad (another Mike) promising to get a Roman Legion, which he has been working on for XVI years, ready to fight my Ptolemaic Macedonians by March.
The main event of the year was definitely a trip to Warhammer World to play some 30K, with the Night Lords, Emperor’s Children and Sons of Horus teaming up with a dirty big knight to beat snot out of Ferrus Manus and Vulkan. This was great fun.
This year, we hope to attend Warhammer World again, this time to attend some Doubles Tournaments to get back into 40k properly.
Coming in 2019:
Last year I had two Kickstarters planned to land…and land they did. Without a sound. I haven’t started them at all.
This year, I am not looking to start any new games systems, rather I am looking to finish off some things I have already bought. Boring I know, but it will be worth it and make me feel better about getting completely sidetracked. The current projects listed for completion are:
- Flames of War US Army
- Pirates for Blood and Plunder (and now the expansion, which came this year: No Peace Beyond the Line)
- French & Civilians for Muskets and Tomahawks
- Shadespire Stormcast Knights
- Indians for Dead Man’s Hand
- Buildings for Blood and Plunder
- Carnevale (another Kickstarter) Patricians Gang
- Necromunda Cawdor Gang
It’s quite a list! That’s before I factor in the Seven Years’ War Prussians and Napoleonic French that came for Christmas/are coming for my January birthday.
One thing is for sure, 2019 will be busy! Thanks for reading, have a good hobby 2019!
Mike
Where the hell did last year go? Like, seriously. I know we say thinks like that every year, especially us Brits, but it really seemed a “sneeze and you miss it” kinda year. I really thought I would get more done in terms of hobby, but when I look back at what I have painted it’s really quite disappointing. And let’s not mention the games, or lack there of.
That’s not to say I didn’t do anything last year – my debut novel came out, and I continued my PhD work – but despite doing lots of hobby, I seem to have been treading water.
So what did I get done? Well I started the year painting Dark Angels. The first of which I have been doing a step by step guide on here.
Along with these Deathwing Terminators. I’ve been worried about painting Deathwing for years, and I think I’ve finally got a method that I like. You will be seeing a guide on these guys soon, as well as the others models I’m about to show.
Who doesn’t love some shiny gold super humans? I’ve always the concept and mystery of the Custodes, the Emperor’s guardians. When we got models for them I just had to paint some. Once again, I was worried about doing them justice, which seems to be my crippling hobby worry these days. The quality of the models is so good and I’m a lot more aware of how much they cost that I can no longer just throw paint on and be happy with that. However, I think these guys look awesome, if I say so myself.
Inquisitor Greyfax was another model that had been sitting around since just before that time. So I decided to give her a coat of paint.
For some reason, I started to paint my Fyreslayers force by painting some characters. Oh yes, that’s right. I wanted to get the most points for my painting as possible for March to War. That worked out well…
When Soul Wars came out, I finally got Age of Sigmar, and now I find it huge fun. The Nighthaunt immediately appealed to me, and I spent about a month getting my head round how the studio had painted them. I think I’ve got a good approximation of that which I’m ready to roll out to the whole army once March to War is over. (Painting ghosts is not efficient for gaining points quickly).
And as I now have so many Stormcast I decided to do Steelheart’s Champions from Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire as some test models for my Celestial Vindicators colours scheme:
And for the aforementioned bust up at Warhammer World earlier last year, I finished some Iron Hands Legion vehicles to add to my army. Once the whole army is done, I will probably go back and weather these to make them look more trashed and beaten up.
As for 2019? Well, I may sit down and work out how many points that lot is so I can make sure I better it this year.
But before all that, I’ve got March to War 2019 to do, and big plans, big stompy plans are afoot for that!
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