Chief Librarian Azathor is a distinguished member of the Deathwing and experienced wielder of tremendous psychic energy.  He is a potent addition to my Dark Angels army, being the first librarian for the force, as well as the only character in Terminator armor currently in my army.  Azathor will be the perfect leader for last month’s Terminator squad Cadmus, teleporting into the part of the battlefield where they are most needed (as long as I don’t roll too high on the 2D10 scatter dice – ed. I will say that scattering in this fashion has been more than totally random! A character bobbing here, there, and everywhere without ever getting close to where he intended!).  For pictures of my growing 2nd edition army head over to my blog.

At the risk of bending the rules of the challenge maybe just a little bit – this month I painted a squad of Alpha Legion CSM (ed. why you little!!! I did not even notice! I just assumed they were the chaos squad you had submitted in the list. They do look nice though, so I will look through my power glove fingers on this one.). Yes, they can and likely will see tabletop action alongside my main Death Guard army. There’s a good chance they’ll have orchestrated it all along. They look and ‘feel’ suitably second-edition-y to me to get away with it, and mixed Chaos forces were totally a thing. But I’m really painting them for my original Space Crusade boxed game. Obviously that’s where the models are from. I planned to sandwich them in after the Death Guard tanks for a bit of fun and change of pace. Eventually though I found them quite difficult and challenging to do – like all Space Crusade models I painted so far. It took me a long time to work out a colour scheme: I wanted something that clearly stands out from the three loyalist squads on the board (which are red, yellow, and blue), that’s canonically established and recognisable as a ‘traitor chapter’, and that uses only limited palette. I felt Alpha Legion was a good fit, also since hijacking a Space Hulk and pushing around grots, orks, and genestealers as proxies is something I’d think they’d do. I think I managed to get enough green on them – the only colour the loyalists in the game don’t use – without making them look ‘wrong’. From there, it was all about muting the rest of the palette and limiting spot colours to a minimum. I think it’s worked well. I’m now also happy with the bases. I don’t think the finished ones show the many hours of thinking, strategising, trialling and starting over again. Regardless, I now have a recipe that is easy to pull off, easy to reproduce consistently, and that looks Ok. Five more models done for the Space Crusade. 

This month i show the characters wich give the army his charisma, the painboy with his big scissors and the valuable vaccine squig (ed. lol – a vaccine Squig, how fitting for the times!), Zogrod and his supergretchins mob, and the Terminator terror Shokk Attack Gun. I enjoyed a lot painting Zogrod and the Gretchin   now their 60 Gretchinz brother which keep in the army case look to them  angry…..

Another month has suddenly rushed by. Since last time I did manage to get a game in and test out the little buggers. It was great fun to play Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition again and I really look forward to field my Squat Host again in the future. (ed. I also enjoyed it tremendously! Thanks and looking forward to next time) I was using the fanmade “Yellow Codex”, which I also used for constructing my army for this round of the challenge. It turned out to work well for most parts, but other parts were not really to my liking and I have been tinkering with the idea of making my own Codex Squats at some point. Mostly I want to build unto existing rules and lore and tweak a few things and I am especially looking in the direction of the Termites here, but let’s see what happens. Onto this month’s challenge, I painted a unit of Exo Armour Squats for a whooping 210 points. I added an extra model to boost the unit or use as Hearth Guard for Orange Squad if I need that. I also painted a Squat musician for the 3rd rounds musical bonus, well, actually I painted him for last month since I was confused about the rounds and I did post him on my blog, but here he is officially in the challenge.

Read more at my blog. 

And yet another month finished in a rush! I took it too easy in the first days thinking I had time but these Swooping Hawks proved more complex to paint than expected. I’m not entirely satisfied by how the armour looks since I wanted it to replicate the look of the Eldar Codex. Mine leans more towards blue than grey. But overall they are decent enough! I am now at peace with the idea that this Eldar army will not be up to my expectations in terms of painting level. But it is my first big project after a 7 years break and they remain an acceptable warm up. (ed. I think you are acing it mate! It looks bloody good!) Also, I’m learning a lot in the process which is probably the third most important thing in that Challenge. The first one being to meet a bunch of great people sharing the same enthousiasm for the 2nd ed of 40k. And the second being to end up with a painted army within 6 months. Oh, gems count : +155 ! XD

Hi folks! This month I focused on my first real Dark Angels character, who also happens to be my favourite 40K model; Brother Bethor. This figure was one of the first that I ever bought, though I immediately converted it into a veteran assault sergeant! Unwilling to pull him apart, I managed to score another one on ebay for the challenge (at twice the original price). The unofficial theme of this month’s projects was “music”, so I have given a cheeky nod to the fact that the Dark Angels and their successors call themselves The Unforgiven. The banner was made using the Push Head art for Metallica’s famous power ballad “The Unforgiven”. (ed. powerballad! Hmm, I guess you’re right. I still haven’t figured out what it is about. Not the Western film, I think.) I also painted the first five members of a Devastator squad, which I will hopefully complete next month by adding a further four heavy bolter marines and a sergeant. They won’t win any awards for painting, but I was glad to complete them, considering some of the real life challenges I have been facing this month. Thanks to all of the challengers for their support, it meant a lot to me. (ed. We are a squad! Remember! All the best and well done!)

Dear 2nd. ed fans. After an unfortunate hiatus last month I am back with my next pledge this month! Due to a combination of poor planning on my own part and forces beyond my control (a heavy work schedule and some unavoidable travelling away from home), I found myself unable to complete my guardians in April, and I made the fatal choice to switch to something I thought I could complete in time with the result that I didn’t finish anything last month. Ultimately though, I only had myself to blame and I was quite disappointed not to achieve anything. The outside forces (mainly work commitments and unavoidable travel) continued to create headwinds through May–and I felt my motivation, as well as my actual hobby time, faltering once again. Interestingly, April-May last year was the exact same time my motivation collapsed as well (I didn’t finish painting a miniature after early May 2020 until early 2021!). I felt a rising tide of panic and shame at the prospect of once again achieving nothing for this month! I really have to credit the Challenge with giving me the motivation to keep picking up the brushes and get something done, rather than just taking the all too easy path of allowing morale to collapse, and I am proud of what I got done in the end. (ed. This makes me immensely happy! I think I speak on behalf of the rest of the guys in it too!) In actual fact they are not quite done…I still need to add waterslide transfers and another coat of varnish but they are good enough to put on a games table or enter a tournament so I am calling them done for the challenge pledge this month. They are not my best painting but they look pretty good I think from a few feet away and passable up close. And, most important of all, they are done. (ed. And done well!) I have to keep reminding myself that the goal is to paint an army, and that The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good. Therefore for May I have completed the following models: 1. War Walker with missile launcher and lascannon (150 points) 2. Guardian Hvy Wpn Team w Hvy Plasma Gun on Anti-Grav Platform (55 points) 3. Dreadnought with Scatter Laser and 2x Power fists (205 points) TOTAL MONTH 3: 410 points. Interestingly the heavy plasma gun was not on my original pledge so will count as a bonus entry! I just enjoyed painting the last guardian heavy weapon team (the crew models are great) and so I just found myself doing another one. Sometimes you just have to follow your heart!  ROLLING TOTALMONTH 1: 225 points. MONTH 2: 0 points. MONTH 3: 410 points. TOTAL SO FAR: 635 points. Enjoy, and see you all again in June for the next instalment!

Not a massive haul this month – 5 Ratling Snipers with the ‘Dead Eye Shots’ veteran ability – 105 points. Lovely old models though. Shame I only had 2 of the sculpts in this set. I’ve actually since bought another 5 with the missing sculpts so I can have 2 squads that are more mixed. I do worry about their cold feet in the snow… (ed. some Hush Puppies probably wouldn’t be out of place for them. They look tremendous though!). The plan was to get a Chimera finished as well this month but ran out of time so will get it in for June. Still on track…

Last month (April) I had everything planned. I even started early, and was convinced that it was going to be an easy month. But then RealLife® got in the way and I failed miserably. When I went to give excuses to the challenge chat, something wonderful happened: I got several messages of encouragement, telling me that maybe I failed this month, but that I will surely recover and push forward. And that simple thing changed everything. If I wouldn’t have received such messages, I might have left the challenge altogether. But, instead of that, I did everything I could to not fail again and… Here it is, my May entry. (ed. Again, this makes me super happy my dude! And it is a joy to behold! In fact I normally enforce a “one image only” policy, but to celebrate Rodrigo’s comeback, I included both the images he sent!) This is thanks to you guys, and your help. These minis are dedicated to all of you. I might not participate in the chat much, but I read it from time to time and feel like I’m part of a jolly group of fellow people that spend time putting paint to old lead toy soldiers. Thanks! Rodrigo.

Yay! I made it! And I even managed to sneak in a musical special! Double yay! Well, on the other hand I can easily go back and get some more work in on these Nurgle boys, as I sort of had to stop before I really felt they were done. Not so much yay. But, sometimes that is just how it is and must be. Next month I really hope to get the bikers done… they’re the big thing I am still missing, and it would be nice to get them out of the way.

Now let us send a commemorative “cowabunga!” to those we lost this round: