Hobby: Stuff I Painted in 2010
2010 was a pretty good year for my collections. My excitement over the new MkII rules meant I did a lot of Warmachine and Hordes, but I also spent some time on a couple of brand new games this year.
With the Hordes MkII field test in full swing, I started the year off by adding to my Trollbloods. January was my most productive month with 25 Trollkin models painted plus a Templar heavy Warjack and the 10 Bog Trogs that posed with the Minions stuff further down. Ok so I had already started on the Fennblades in the previous December and they were about 25% done at the start of 2010. Part of the reason for all the painting was my desire to try out a new skirmish game: Malifaux. With all the unpainted pewter I already had lying around I swore to myself I would finish all my Trollbloods before buying into a new game. An unpainted unit of Runeshapers, three Caber Throwers, and a Bouncer are still cursing my lack of discipline. Then much later on, around September, I went ahead and did the Bomber and Gunnbjorn, along with a Runebearer solo who was accidentally forgotten and left out of the picture.
Wyrd minis was on my radar for a while, producing models for settings that weren’t as explored by other companies. Still, I hadn’t seriously considered purchasing anything from them until I heard they were going to write a ruleset to go with their minis. The Steampunk, Victorian Horror, and Sorcery elements were pretty fascinating, but it was the weird Bayou Gremlins with their moonshine and banjos that sold me on this game. As much as I love the Iron Kingdoms there’s a scarcity there of puny green long eared humanoids. At least on the battlefield. Later in the year I branched out into Ressurectionists (necromancers) and painted my first mad scientist, Dr. Douglas McMourning, and his naughty nurses. And of course, their accompanying undead. Later still, with the release of Steampunk Abominations and Hollow Waifs, I painted up a Leveticus crew.
I was pretty stoked by the release of the plastic Heavy Warjack kits at the start of this year and painted a Templar as soon as I could get my hands one. I wasn’t a big fan of the sculpts of the old metal Protectorate heavies, so between the improved appearance of the new kits, and the superior rules for ‘jacks in MkII, I took the opportunity to expand my Warjack assets. This led me to branch out and add some infantry I’d been meaning to try out. And while I poured a lot of time into my custom Crusader conversions, they’ve still been sitting by my desk, almost but not quite fully painted, mostly thanks to the release of Lich Lord Venethrax who pulled me back into Cryx.
And thats where I got the most work done this year. Since it all started with Venethrax, it was his tier requirements that had the privilege of being the first Cryx stuff I’d painted since ’06. I started with the extra Seether, then added in the Blood Gorgers. But I couldn’t stop there. Again, with MkII rules being so much better for ‘jacks I went a little crazy adding 3 new Slayers (including my two custom ones) A new Reaper, Corruptor, Harrower, Malice, 3 Stalkers, 2 Ripjaws, the plastic bonejacks from the new starter box, and of course The Deathjack (who’d been sitting in his box unassembled for 3 and a half years). I also picked up a lot of the solos and UAs who’d come along over the years, and also some more support pieces whose rules had gotten better since MkII. Also posing with these evil worshippers of the Dragon Father is the one Mercenary model I painted this year: Drake McBain.
I already owned a considerable number of Minions to accompany my Trollbloods, so branching out into a full blown Minion army was kind of a no-brainer. Of course since collecting is an obsession for me, as I’m sure it is for most of you, making a Minions army quickly became more than just adding a few new things to the stuff I already had. I now have a total of 4 War Hogs, the second 2 being just as heavily customized as the gray hog seen here. I also plan on painting 2 more min units of Farrow, and a couple Razorback crews. For my gators I’ve already purchased three Bull Snapers, and am looking forward to adding a couple Ironback spitters to the army at the end of the month as well. Toss 3 Feralgeists on to that and I think I can safely say I’ll be done with Minions for the time being. And while I did finish my Calaban, his base was drying when this shot was taken.
Finally towards the end of the year a totally new game appeared out of nowhere to blow my mind. Dystopian Wars, with all its smoke belching, steel clad, rivet laden goodness appeared on the local store shelves in late November. I liked all the models so much I actually had my wife pick my faction for me, buying a starter set of her choice for my Christmas present. You’re looking at the fleet for the Empire of the Blazing Sun, plus their flying Carrier. And since this game isn’t just about boats, I’ve got tanks, robots, walkers, more crazy flyers, and (at some point in the future) weird monsters, to look forward to. The models painted up really easily, with drybrushing and washes doing most of the work. The tricky part of course was getting all the windows, guns and other fiddly bits taken care of. But even with that, the whole process only took me about 3 days. But I do still need to go back and finish those tiny flyers.
My biggest goal for the coming year is to get back to my Mercenaries. They’ve been on hold since 2008, in large part because I’ve been waiting to see if there will ever be a heavy jack plastic kit for them. But it looks like no such luck, and with the Ogrun Assault Corps looming on the near horizon I think it might be time for my mercs to start earning their coin again.
~So thats what one deranged hobbyist is capable of in a single years time. But the really scary part is it probably would have been a lot more if I could just hang up my MMO addiction once and for all. But enough about me… What did you guys paint last year? And what are your big plans for 2011?
