KYM: I am a wargamer from Australia. I have been painting and playing on and off since 1997, right at the tail end of the glory years that were 2^nd ed Warhammer 40,000 and 5^th ed Warhammer Fantasy Battle. In all honesty, I lost interest in Warhammer 40,000 around 4^th edition as the rules got more stupid and the miniatures lost their character (in my opinion); it was possibly also around this time I was going to university and becoming interested in girls and beer and so on. When I got back into the hobby after a few years, I focussed on collecting historical figures for a while. In recent years though, my regular gaming buddy and I have revived 2^nd ed again, and I have been trying to put together the armies of my childhood dreams to go with our gaming exploits.

I love 2^nd ed because in my opinion the smaller size of armies is perfect for the 6’x4’ table size (if you want bigger games, that’s what Epic is for, really) and I love the over-the-top characters who dominate the game with their wacky combinations of overpowered wargear. I love the bright colours and the characterful miniatures of the era, and I hope I can capture this excitement in the Second 2^nd ed Army Challenge!

I have around 5-6,000 points worth of eldar miniatures from which I have selected a force of around 3,000 points for this Alaitoc army. A few are already painted, and I am hoping to paint 1,000 points worth for this challenge to complete the core of the army.

Completing my Alaitoc Eldar army was my intended project for 2020—but unfortunately real life got in the way and I only ended up painting a handful of miniatures. The second 2^nd ed Army Challenge is the perfect catalyst to reboot this stalling project. Eldar have always been one of my favourite factions. I love the background and the miniatures. I have been collecting the classic Eldar figures slowly since the early 2000s.  I always put off painting them though because I thought my painting skills weren’t good enough to do them justice, but eventually I realised that was the wrong approach—perfection is the enemy of the good, after all (ed. I totally agree with you there!). It was time to help these long dormant figures fulfil their destiny of fighting in glorious battle!

For this challenge I am aiming to complete the Warlock, a dire avenger, the scouts, a guardian squad and the guardian assault squad, a dreadnought and 2 war walkers, and a scatter laser anti-grav platform (1,048 points). I am also hoping to finish painting the striking scorpion squad (2 more models) but I won’t consider it a failure if I don’t get these done. (I have required myself to paint a few extra points for the challenge because a few of these models were already base-coated before the challenge began.) 

ed. Kym runs the classic40k site too. Please go check it out!

JONAS KORTNER: I’ve always had a soft spot for the Death Guard, and especially for the many unique and characterful sculpts from the Rogue Trader-era and the 1990s. When I acquired a job lot of about 20 bitterly neglected Plague Marines a few years ago, I had mainly a collector’s interest. Initially, I did up a Kill Team of only seven of them just for fun. Without any planning or strategising, I ended up with a Heresy-style paint scheme of whites and greens, bolters red – and I had a blast at that. I discovered the joys of not only building and paining models, but also researching, repairing, restoring, and re-homing them. Fast forward a couple years and my legacy Death Guard army has crowded out my other 40k projects: I currently sit at about 3500 points and I’m still adding to it. This is partly motivated by a small group of friends who, like me, mainly build and mostly play only second edition 40k any more.

Given how my army started out, I used to have a lot of marines and little else. This wasn’t very interesting to play with or against, so I spent much of my hobby time in 2020 adding a very significant number of Nurgle daemons to the list. I got an old Abaddon model with a random job lot and painted that too, along with a support squad of Black Legion marines. Running only two single vehicles (a Rhino and a Dreadnought) yet, the goal for this year is to mechanise my Death Guard. I now have a Predator and a Whirlwind, both with a fully magnetised chassis to be able to make them Rhinos too. Next up from there is a Mk I Land Raider, likely going to be the centrepiece of the army. To fill up the 1000 points, I’ll paint a squad of Black Legion Khorne Berserkers (because I happen to have the models – no better reason) and a squad of Space Crusade marines for both 40k and the boxed game itself. This is a very ambitious goal for a slow painter like me, but it’ll be great to have it all done in time. I can’t wait to get started with them.

MADDIX: I started playing Warhammer 40,000 at the end of Rogue Trader and really kicked off with the 2nd Ed Warhammer 40,000 box set, so I have a massive fondness for it. Especially as I still have it (and the models!). I dabbled in 3rd/4th edition but it never kept my interest as 2nd did. I used to have Chaos, Ork, Imperial Guard and Blood Angel forces, which are in various states of disarray or have been sold over the years. So, I have decided to go nuts with my Chaos and do these guys first. All the models are 2nd edition EXCEPT the Icon Bearer which is a cool Night Lords hero from a later edition that I got randomly in a job lot.. and I liked the pose. One Beastman Icon and 2nd ed arm later, and I have my Icon bearer! The aim is to make 1,000 point Warbands for my Chaos force, with each one themed. This is the start of my Malal worshippers and there will be a second (and possibly third) additional 1,000 points to add. I have separated out my Nurgle and Khorne boys into other forces. If all goes according to plan, I might even paint up some Space Wolves next time (the army I always wanted, but my mate called dips), ‘Nids or some RT era Guard! The concept behind the force is to have as many wielding swords as possible, as a twisted version of Knights.

JOSHUA VAN Z: Over the years I have long admired the character and style of the Rogue Trader Warhammer 40,000 orks that Kev Adams had designed for Games Workshop in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but the chance of ever owning my own army seemed impossible at the time. One fateful day a gentleman in the U.S had contacted me about an Ork army he wanted to sell and the rest is history. With so many richly characterful miniatures to select from for the challenge, I decided that I would base the theme of the army on the Bad Moon clan. With the central and most expensive unit being the Mega Armored Nobz which will act as a bodyguard to Garrza. Then I wanted a naturally warped headed Ork in the form of a Weirdboy that would zap psychic bolts of raw power as I wanted to be in the psychic phase. And he has a couple of Minderz keepin him in check. I picked up some drastic plastic boys which would supplement the role of the Bad Moon Boyz Mob perfectly and to keep in the theme I added a couple of heavy hitting weapon boyz too. The Gretchin are just a cute and fluffy addition to the army which will be mercilessly thrown into the battle for amusement which will be dutifully herded by a Runtherd and Gretchin assistant. And to top it off, I added a couple of support weapons which I have no idea how good they are in Warhammer 40,000, but they are such great models that will look great in yellow and black flames I think.

RAIVAN: The main reason I want to participate in the challenge is because Orks were my first army in 40 k. I always have love the homouristic and joking vision of that army in 2nd edition years, things like mork’s foot, the squig catapult , the weirdboys, all the crazy engines and weapons with the failure tables……..so I will paint now the miniatures I could not in tha years.

WACHTMEISTER: Once more, into the breach! If you’ve been following along you know I did the first 40k 2nd Edition Challenge.  Being a glutton I decided I should join once more! Round 1 I did Catachan’s after purchasing a large lot just for that purpose. Looking through the limited figures I had, and perusing the Angels of Death Codex I realized I had more than enough Dark Angels for one, if not two, challenges. I also considered doing Valhallans because my wife bought me a large lot for Christmas. In the end I selected the Dark Angels because of the lower model count, or so I thought….  A few of the participants of the first challenge weighed in and helped me change my mind to expanding my Catachans. A few lucky eBay finds and once more I’ll be diving into the jungle!  

JON MCMASTER: For the 2nd edition army challenge Season 2  I will be painting more Dark Angels to expand on the first 1,000 points from Season One of the Army Challenge.  For Season Two, I will be painting another tactical squad, a Deathwing Terminator Squad, and a squad of space marine scouts.   The character model this time is a Terminator Librarian to go into combat alongside the Deathwing Squad.  These additions will give my 2nd edition army some more flexibility on the battlefield adding some very hard to kill terminators on one hand, and some lightly armored scouts on the other.  If you saw the miniatures I painted for Season One of this challenge my painting style is not picture perfect 2nd edition but rather an even brighter, exaggerated interpretation developed from my nostalgia for reading early 90’s White Dwarf issues when I was a teen.  I’ll be blogging about my participation in the challenge at:
https://1stlegionchronicles.blogspot.com

JASON BOYKIN: I started gaming years ago around 1985 when I was in High School playing Battletech. In 1987 the game store we frequented in Dallas, Texas (ed. Yay! Go Mavericks!) started carrying Warhammer 40k and we were freaking stoked. Warhammer Fantasy was a big thing there already, but as my group of friends and I that played Battletech were into Sci-Fi, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. I have been collecting Games Workshop games and Minis ever since. We played a lot of Rogue Trader and when the second edition rolled around I switched from playing Space Marines (Space Wolves) to playing Orks and still play orks to this day.  I never did paint a 2nd edition Space Wolf Army. I am very interested in joining this challenge because I have collected a ton of 2nd Edition minis that I would really love to paint but never had a reason to do it. I have enclosed the miniatures I plan on painting along with a pic of my first Space Wolf army. My goal is to paint the 2000 point army that is in the 2nd Edition Codex.

I’m back and this time it’s Chaos Demon worlds army from the back of the chaos codex with a little bit of cultist and marines thrown in. Loved season one and the guys are fantastic so how could I miss out on this one . If you haven’t guessed Chaos is my go to and iv being playing them since day one, I also have a back log of unfinished minis that need some love. Can’t wait to get started.  I chose to do this army as I was guessing not many others would and it’s a bit different to the normal . This codex was and still is my Favourite codex to come out and even back in the day this book was abit out there and many armies I have created all started off from this book.  Anyway enough about me here’s what I will be painting up for season 2 ….. and no doubt there will be bonus entries as well . 

The 2nd Company of the 11th Valhallan regiment is lead by the impetuous Captain Vladimir Kharkov. His personal platoon – the ‘Hammers of Kharkov’ are known for fast striking deep into the Ice to capture objectives and hit the enemy hard. These are the first Valhallans I’ve painted, I’ve got a load of Rogue Trader Guardsmen and Cadians so it should be a fun change! The Infantry is all ’90s Perry metals, the only exception is the 1989 Rogue Trader Commissar by Mark Copplestone. Vehicles are all modern unfortunately, but the scaling and design hasn’t changed much so it works I think. One Ratling is painted but he will be stripped and redone for the new winter scheme. What I’m going to attempt is a ‘realistic’ winter camo scheme but with a bright colour for weapon and trim – maybe blue? To make it a bit ‘2nd ed’. Bases will be snowy to fit the scheme, these guys always looked weird on Goblin Green! Each month I’ll provide more background to the squads and units that have been painted.
‘For Kharkov! For Valhalla!’

DANIEL: Hi guys! So, this is it? My name is Daniel, I’m 41 years old, and I’ve been playing miniature wargames on and off since the late eighties. I have played almost all Games Workshop systems (and a few other systems as well) over the years, and I’ve had several armies over the years. At some point, other things became interresting, and I parted with most of my collection, but over the last 15 years or so, I’ve been trying to collect all sorts of things. For many years my focus has been on Oldhammer models, but lately I’m becoming more and more fascinated with the Middlehammer-era, and the aesthetics of that time. That lead me to start collecting some Space Wolves, as that is one of the armies that I haven’t played before, and which I find interresting both fluff-, and model-wise. One thing lead to the other, and when I heard that there would be a Season II of the Warhammer 40,000 challenge, I immediately signed up. For some reason that’s like pouring gasoline on the bonfire as far as buying/collecting minis for me. And here we have it, the start of my Space Wolves army. I don’t focus a lot on rules, but more on what models I like, and therefore I ended up with the following. I hope to find some way to use the wolves together with the Wolf Lord, but if that isn’t possible, I might get another and just use them as wound markers. The Space Wolves list is tough to choose from, and the units are horribly expensive, giving a low model count, but I have lots of plans to expand the force already. The Land Speeder is missing in the picture (I should’ve had it already, but it took longer than planned), but hopefully it’ll be here soon. I went with the Rogue Trader Land Speeder, as I really like that design.

DR. THE VIKING: So here we are… after a hectic first Season of the ArmyChallenge I am apparently going to go through it all one more time. I can’t imagine why. I guess I must actually like doing this. It is that kind of thing you really like… once it is done! And sometimes a little while it is on. Or a lot. Sometimes. Oh, well. Anyways, I am back at it wiht the Blood Skulls. I decided that going back was the best way forwards. Also because I know, that the way I work, if I start something else, I might never go back and add more to these guys. So now is the time. I have basically tried to add units that were not already in the army. So Nurgle marines, a Dreadnought, Terminators, a small heavy weapons squad and some bikes. The bikes caused me some trouble because the models are a bit meh… I have therefore decided to mount them on steeds of Slaanesh. I think those would be more or less as fast as bikes. And rules wise it will probably work out anyway. So there you have it.

THAT IS IT FOLKS!

For the statistically inclined here is a breakdown of the armies involved: