The challenge is still MONTHS off… but I thought a bit of a teaser was in order – so here are the first 10 entries for the challenge! I have included a bit of stats at the end as always…

The First 10

Here be the first 10 participants who have signed up for the #40k2ndAC IV. Each participant is labeled with a flag to show where on the globe they currently operate, and a P or G banner to indicated whether they’re doing Painter’s Challenge or a Gamer’s Challenge. I am happy to see a mixed bag of new folks and veterans. No one ever beats Mike Thompson to anything, and he sent in his pledge more or less on the day I announced the new format. Haha!

I’ve taken part in two 40k 2nd Ed Army Challenges now and really like the new changes that have been brought in for this fourth iteration. I’ve decided to go for the Painters Challenge as I want to focus on improving techniques and have a fairly low model count… I did Tyranids last time around and that was a slog by the end!

Blood Angels were the first chapter I wanted to paint when I came back to the hobby after a couple of years break as they are the iconic 2e chapter in my opinion. However, I ended up painting Dark Angels in my first 2e army challenge. Well, now it’s the turn of the other half of Codex Angels of Death to get used!

I’ve chosen two special characters in Commander Dante and Mephiston, both of which require different colour palettes. I hope that these will be amongst my best ever painted models as I very much want to do these two legends justice.

Furthermore, I’ve chosen two very different squads in Scouts and Devastators. I chose the Devastators simply because of the heavy plasma gun on the cover of the 2e Wargear book and the scouts because I love the characters of the models. 

My first job will be to make scenic bases for all of these models so I’ll be busy getting ideas for these in the next few weeks.

Good luck to all my fellow challengers and to Dr. The Viking for arranging everything again!

Instagram.com/grimslath

I learned about 40K back in the 90’s, during one fateful summer holiday at the beach. I went home with dreams of starting a Tyranid army, but when it came around to playing my first games at home, I quickly reverted back to the armies I knew more about (Space Marines). It wasn’t until Tyranids were rebooted in 3^rd Edition that I started to collect them, amassing a large swarm of snake-themed monstrosities. 2^nd Edition Tyranids, however, have always been a “road not taken” for me… until now!!!

This time around I am taking the Gamers Challenge and trying to get a 1500 point army of Tyranids on the battlefield. During other challenges, I have always aimed to paint models to the best of my ability (and beyond), so cranking out large volumes of gribblies will be something new for me. The paint scheme will try to capture some of the eye-popping candy of the 90’s, without using the traditional colour scheme; familiar but different.

For the subgoals, I am keen to pick some of the more social achievements. I am going to try to:

1)    Participate in a Discord Paint and Chat live session with at least 3 other challengers

2)    Play a game with what I have so far (Month 5 or 6)

3)    Build a faction specific piece of terrain/objective

‘ve loved the Jes Goodwin Eldar models since I played my Dark Angels against my best mate’s Saim Hann on his bedroom floor.  Boxes for hills, half-painted armies, all the usual stuff for teenagers.  I also had an Eldar army, but this was for Epic, and (mostly) painted in the blue and yellow of Alaitoc.  Those armies are now lost in the mists of time (with the exception of a Warlock and a striking scorpion Exarch my mate found in a drawer and kindly gave me).  But maybe – thanks to ebay, a gallon of paint stripper, and a painting challenge – I can in some way recreate them.

The army I envisage has lots of Alaitoc scouts, is led by a Farseer converted from a beat up Eldrad model, and has many aspect warriors with banners and elements of the craftworld colours in their uniforms.  While repairing a squad of jetbikes which suffered badly in postage to me, I’m going to convert them with any spare guardian bits I can rustle up.  It’s over the 1,500 points for the Gamer’s pledge, but after buying and stripping multiple mixed lots and bits to piece together complete models and full squads, I couldn’t bear to leave anything out!

Intro: My introduction to the hobby was finding White Dwarf 200 in my local Newsagent – I didn’t know what Warhammer was, but I knew immediately I’d discovered something insanely cool and made for nerds like me. Due to that White Dwarf Issue, Chaos Space Marines were the first 40k army I fell in love with. At the time and for years after, I had no money and no skills to put together anything like a fully painted army. The 2nd Ed. nostalgia bit me hard a few years ago, and I started buying older models to go with those that had survived in the loft from my old collection.

Personally I really love mixing old and new models together, and I want my 2nd Ed. or even Rogue Trader models to sit alongside my present day ones and look like part of the same force. I think that matching paint schemes and basing can really go a long way to tying quite different models together, despite scale differences. This Chaos force will be painted to sit alongside my contemporary Death Guard and other 2nd. Ed models I have painted up already. 

I painted a lot of 2nd Ed. Chaos models in 2022, partly inspired by this site / challenge! (Attached some pics). The ones in this pledge will be in the same scheme, except the Khorne and Tzeentch models.

I finally feel like I’m ready to give this a crack after watching the previous challenges go past, and I’ve had more practice!

A bit about me. I haven’t ‘technically’ played 40k since 2nd edition days, but after getting back into wargaming prior to the pandemic I rediscovered my love of the universe through Space Hulk. After starting to paint up that set, I found myself on a mission during Covid to collect the Space Wolves army I always wanted back in the day but could never afford.

Thankfully I managed to find everything bit by bit and now I have an army to rival that seen in White Dwarf in the mid 90’s. I’ve been wanting to do this challenge ever since its inception, but only having just got back into painting, I felt like I needed painting practice before I touched my beloved Wolves.

750 points turned out to be a challenge, and I wanted it to be more or less legal, so I felt like this was a good starting point.

So, here we go!

My entry this year for the 4th 2nd ed panting comp will again be Orks. And I endevour to paint them to the best of my ability with my goal being to add a back banner to each of the models ( excluding th Snotling herd bases ) in the true second edition way. This entry is a very support heavy list of models, but I love Evil Sunz so a lot of the paint schemes will be in Go Fasta red as that’s the way the speed Freaks like to ride.

And I have added some iconic characters to the sumbission too, in Ghazghkull & Makari and Zodgrod. Needless to say I am excited to begin the challenge in January and to start off with the Battle Wagon which I am thinking will be in Evil Sunz colors, or Bad Moons But I haven’t decided as yet. I guess you will know soon enough when the entries are photgraphed and sent in for submission late January. And good luck to all entrants envolved. 

Hello there.

Previously I have participated in this challenge with my Squats and latest a Genestealer Chaos Cult Force. Both my previous entries has been things I have been wanting to do for years but never really managed to get started on for real.

This time I have chosen to revisit my Blood Angel Space Marines. I have been painting these on and off for many years now and as such it was hard to really start an all new army, instead I decided to gather what I had, put aside the models I felt was done and instead paint new units, finish half done units and update the (almost) finished models and units.

The army I have chosen might not be 100% playable as is, but I will ceartainly be able to pick a 1500pts army from these models and as some are already painted to near completion I have not counted them towards the 50 model count, but all models in the list here will get some paint done to some degree.

I look forward to be churning out the Emperors finest again.

Pledge Organising:

Part 1: Predator, Whirlwind, Vindicator, Librarian in Power Armour
Part 2: Tactical Squad 1+2, Terminator Captain, Librarian in Terminator Armour
Part 3: Tactical Squad 3, Land Speeder, Comm. Officer
Part 4: Tactical Squad 4, Thudd Gun, Servitor, Techmarine
Part 5: Assault Squad, Tarantula, Servitor, Apothecary
Part 6: Paint Backdrop, Turn a toy/model-kit into a 40K vehicle

I am here once again. This time I am in for a Painter’s Challenge. The list is attached to this email alongside the initial picture. Since this time extras do not count, the list itself is barebones (And 12 points amiss, if this is an issue please tell me!). The subgoals I choose are:
– Use a new technique (I expect several of them).- Make scenic bases.- Build a faction specific piece of terrain/objective.

It is thrilling to enter my fourth consecutive 2nd edition Army Challenge .  In the first three seasons I painted a 3,000 point Dark Angels army in the classic style I had always dreamed of as a 90’s kid reading White Dwarf.  However, since I have painted almost everything I need for a 2nd edition space marine army, I am taking an abrupt departure from the sons of Caliban and the Rock.  

For the 4th round of the #40k2ndAC I will be painting Orks and I am engaging in the new category of the Painter’s Challenge! I had started collecting an Ork army back when I was a teen at the closing days of the RT era and have supplemented it with odds and ends purchases over the last few years.  Now that I have a huge space marine army, it seemed like the perfect time to finally paint the Ork army I misspent many hours in high school thinking about and planning.

Starting things off will be a large mob of the classic starter box set Goffs, split into two groups for the first two months of painting.  Month three will bring a very flavorful 2nd edition Ork unit, Snakebite Boarboyz.  They will be followed by a Deathskulls mob with lots of looted heavy weapons, and then a Scorcher in Evil Sunz colors.  Finally I will conclude in month six by painting the codex cover boy himself, Ghazghkull Thraka!  Peppered in across the months will be several Oddboyz, some Nobz, and Makari the infamous gretchin standard bearer. 

The addition of sub goals to the challenge is a fun new twist and I’m really looking forward to building some of the classic Ork huts from the pages of White Dwarf.  You can follow along with my progress over at my blog, 1st Legion Chronicles (https://1stlegionchronicles.blogspot.com/) a refuge for all things Unforgiven (and now some foul smelling Orks too!)  Thanks to Dr The Viking for putting together this great mutual project time after time, and good luck to all the participants involved in the Gamer’s and Painter’s challenges this time around.  ‘Ere We Go!  ‘Ere We Go!  ‘Ere We Go!  Waaagh!

I hereby beseech thee for a seat at the high and mighty table of the most noble knights of the #40k2ndac Round 4!

My humble submission is for a ‘Painter’s Challenge’ slot for a force of around 1100 points of Tzeentch themed Chaos Space Marines and Demons. I do love my bright colours for 2^nd Ed 40k, and rather like my Eldar from previous challenges, this should give me access to pretty much every colour in the spectrum! However, unlike the Eldar where these colours were spread across individual squads, with this army I should be able to get them all on one model!!!

Hopefully this should give me a good variety of models to work on across the challenge and keep me motivated as I will have different colours and schemes to work with each month. Technically some of the Thousand Sons marines will be 3^rd ed, but I’m rationalising this on the basis that Games Workshop didn’t actually make any Thousand Sons marines during the 2^nd Ed period!!! It’s really interesting that the Thousand Sons in Codex Chaos get only half a page of models and all of them are ‘generic’ Chaos Marines! They are also painted to look more like Night Lords – which is odd as all the Tzeentch Epic studio paint jobs from the same period were much lighter blue and yellow! However, all the other models are 2^nd Ed era (although probably more towards the end of 2^nd Ed). I’m going to be aiming to convert my Lord from Abaddon, so there’s going to be a lot of kitbashing and maybe even a little bit of greenstuff work to try and make it slightly more Thousand Sons in feel.

I am going to have a go at a diorama base, probably for the squad of 5 Thousand Sons marines. The colours on the Lord of Change and also the Icon Bearer are going to need a lot of blending, so I will try a bit of wet blending for this. Never used this before (I tend to glaze everything at the moment) so that will be rather interesting!!! Finally I will be aiming to paint a suitably apocalyptic backdrop for the army.

Really looking forward to this, if anyone want to see WIPs and other aspects of my progress through the challenge it will all be documented on my Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/university_dave/

Thanks,

Tom

Stats

So as we can see, the Painter’s Challenge is by far the more popular choice! And we have a pretty good spread among the codices with some notable exceptions. The diorama base subgoal is proving immensely popular, which has taken me a bit by surprise. Faction terrain and freehand banner are also popular choices, but this was more expected I think.

The Gamer’s challenge is less popular so far. I guess painting 50 models is a daunting task, but in 6 months that comes out at a bit over 8 models a month, and that is not even considering that vehicles count extra and so on – I am confident we will see a few more.

On average the entries have 39 models and 1200 points!