Slightly different post today. Thought I’d talk about my armies (not my leggies). After the jump, you can see full sized pictures of my forces, read my thoughts on each of them and get links to close-ups.
Firstly, let me thank you guys. Last week I mentioned I had Get-a-Grips for sale again. These sold out in less than a day! They’re back in stock again and I’m running the printer around the clock to keep up with demand.
Now, in no particular order onto the armies!
I started collecting this force only because of the models in Dark Vengeance boxed game. I think the Helbrute just stood out to me as something truly Chaos. It wasn’t long afterwards Games Workshop released more Daemon Engines and I was hooked. Forge fiend and Heldrake are wonderfully horrific with their techno-organic mix. At last a true identity for Chaos Space Marines which wasn’t just Space Marines with spikes on. Next steps for this force is to add the Nurgle Contingent from Dark Imperium.
Does anyone remember the Megaforce challenge Stahly and completed where we both bought megaforces and painted them to completion? Well, that is the reason for this army. It started as a megaforce and I added a few units here and there. The Tesseract Vault which is the centrepiece took around 8 weeks to paint by hand. I painstakingly blended and edge highlighted every panel. I’m really happy with the final army, especially the ghostbuster inspired proton stream/gauss flayers. I don’t have any plans to add more models to this army.
This Orc army is my first and only foray into Armies on Parade and it won me first place. The Orc Fort is made from foamcore and balsa wood and has a working jawbridge. I’m trying to remember why I started an Orc army… I think someone gave me a load of Orc boyz and then I won an auction for more cheap boyz and before long with a little conversion work I could have four units of 25 strong boyz (spear boyz, arrer boyz, choppa boyz and hard boyz – with armour and scratch built shields) a unit of Black Orcs and some characters rounded off the force. I sold this army and don’t have plans to revisit the army.
My Night Goblin army is another one of those armies that starts off as a couple of boxed sets (Battle for Skull Pass) I think I swapped the Dwarves with Tale of Painters’ contributor HaywireGrenade to get more Night Goblins. The Squigs were donated by a friend from another forum. I absolutely loved painting the Gigantic Spider with Forest Goblins riding on it’s back. I sold this army as well so I won’t be revisiting this force either.
Dark Angels are one of those surprise loves. It started off just painting the contents of Dark Vengeance and I quickly realised I loved painting Dark Angels Green armour. I can’t put my finger on why I enjoy painting Dark Angels so much but the end result is very, very pleasing to me. This army is a little bigger since this picture was taken with the addition of a couple more bolter marines for the Devastator Squad and a combat Assault Squad added. I’m in a real dilemma now. I think I want to restart this force with Primaris Marines.
Shock horror! A non-boxed game army. This army started to scratch the itch of I want a small model count army that I can take my time and make look nice. Grey Knights with lots of flashy power weapons and hand painted heraldry ticked that box. I have no plans to add to this army.
Jes Goodwin and Phil Kelly are my two favourite creatives at Games Workshop. When they worked together on this project it was pure magic in plastic form. I had to have an army and I hope I’ve done their work proud with my paint job. The Razoring Jetfire was one of my first models ever to be featured in White Dwarf. My favourite model in this force is the clawed fiend, I love the pose. Oh, and I really like the Talos Pain Engine that thing is sick!
The Deathstorm boxed game was my perfect reintroduction to Blood Angels. My first ever Games Workshop model I painted was a three-piece 2nd edition Marine and I painted it in Blood Angel colours using Humbrol Gloss Enamels (I was 12 years old, ok). My first Blood Angel army was painted during the mid 2000s. The Chaplain and Terminators from that first army picked up finalist pins from 2008 Golden Demon. I sold that army (still have the Chaplain though) and it was inevitable that I would return to the Blood Angels and paint more. Favourite model intros current force is the Death Company Dreadnought.
This is my second Space Wolf army, I sold the first. The first army picked up Best Painted Army Award at a campaign weekend at Warhammer World back in the mid 2000s. They were a really light blue/grey and I was never truly happy with them. My love for Space Wolves started in the 1990s when I saw Kim Syberg’s impressive Space Wolf army. The style of it was 90s ‘Eavy Metal turned up to 11 with beautiful blending, sculpting, converting. It’s probably the best army I’ve ever seen in White Dwarf. This paint scheme emulates and takes inspiration from Kim’s work. It’s crazy when something you saw 20 years ago can influence you today. This project died a death with the arrival of Primaris. I don’t know what I want to do with it now, a real shame.
My first of three Army of the Month appearances in White Dwarf. I wasn’t an Ultramarine fan and the story behind how I ended up with such a large collection is interesting. It all started when a friend was attending a Campaign Weekend but didn’t have time to paint his army. He said if I painted the 2250pt mechanised force for him to use I could keep the army as payment. I agreed and ended up with a great little mechanised force. It was basically a demi-company. I looked at my spare models and realised I could finish the company off with the minimal of purchases. 4th Company complete and 20 terminators in I had to then paint the entire 1st company to completion. It was round about this time Apocalypse hit the shelves and I had already painted the 4th Company Datasheet, I started buying more vehicles to finish the other Datasheets. It just got out of hand in the end. After the White Dwarf feature, I stopped painting these Ultramarines and painted some second edition inspired marines from my second edition boxset. Now we have Primaris Marines I’m painting those in second edition inspired colours. The army you see in the picture above has been chopped up into smaller forces and sold off piecemeal. I only have the Space Hulk Terminator conversions and the Thunderhawk left.
My second Army of the Month Appearance in Warhammer Visions was a bit of a cheat. It was my entire collection of Hobbit miniatures. This collection was so refreshing. Totally different to anything I’ve ever owned or painted. I was gutted when Games Workshop just stopped supporting it after the Smaug model. With no support or interest, I sold this collection. All the models you see here have full detailed painting tutorials on this blog. I remember talking to Jes Bickham at an open day and him telling me how he was using my Hobbit tutorials to paint his models. That was a lovely compliment.
Last but no means least, is my beloved Tyranids. Tyranids were my first love back in 1993. I’ve had a 2nd edition army, a 3rd edition army and this collection I started back in the early 2000s which features models from all editions. This was my proudest Army of the Month and I’ve received great feedback from people for my colour scheme. I’ve even seen someone copy my scheme down to the little yellow dots on the carapace, what a lovely compliment that is. Another high point for this army (and the Ultramarines actually) is both forces were displayed at Warhammer World Exhibition Centre. I was honoured to be asked. Earlier, I mentioned two of my favourite creatives at Games Workshop, well another two of my favourite creatives who no longer work for Games Workshop signed my Second Edition Tyranid Codex; Andy Chambers the author of the codex and Stuart Thomas one of my all-time favourite ‘Eavy Metal painters who painted a lot of the 2nd edition Tyranids and still inspires my brightly coloured paint jobs to this day. My signed 2nd Edition codex is one of my prized hobby possessions.
Well done if you made it to the end of this article. I have a couple of questions for you guys to answer in the comments. What is your prized hobby possession? and out of the armies above what is your favourite and why?
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Lovely armies.
Prized possession is my airbrush as it led to me enjoying painting again. Made the undercoating and base coating so much quicker and helping to reduce my plastic back log.
The dark elder or ultramarines in my eyes but probably the ultramarines as marines are my favourite armies.
My prized hobby possession is White Dwarf 120 from 1989. It's the first White Dwarf I ever bought and got me into this great hobby. It's not the original I bought as I wore that one out but I still love it and look at it for inspiration all the time.
It's really hard to choose my favorite of your armies as they are all great but if I must, I would choose your Dark Eldar. I'm not even the biggest Dark Eldar fan but your painting on them is gorgeous and the colors really compliment the amazing sculpts.
I think what makes painting Dark Angels so enjoyable is the different color schemes of the companies. You get to paint some green ones, some black ones, some bone white ones… it adds some variety while keeping focused on the same army.
It always bothers me how in 40K one can talk about "armies" with just a handful of models in them. I have always been a pure Fantasy Battle players, and even my high-point cost elves have 100+ models in the army. I have painted four big armies, but the favourite one must be the last one, my huge Empire army that is purely Stirland-themed. It has around 300 models at the moment, although something might still be added…The amount of energy put into the men makes it my most prized hobby possession easily. Of your fabulous armies, I gotta love the Black Legion the most. It encapsulates something of the very spirit of Chaos itself.
Really enjoyed this article – Im torn between your Orc and Dark Eldar armies as my favourite.
I don't know how you can sell so many of these armies – I could never part with anything Id painstakingly painted 🙂
All your stuff is great. Your Hobbit tutorials are, invaluable, however. I stuck with the line as I like the game quite a bit and I find the minis a nice break from 40k/AoS. You've got some great techniques that I use not only for painting these particular Hobbit minis but have found them useful on other lines. Many, many thanks for those tutorials.
Hard to choose a favourite as they are all great, Dark Eldar were my first since I got there half of the box set when they first came out. I liked them as no one else would play they and I did for 14 years and still have them. Necrons is another but mine are blue but the most impressive I think is the Tyrranids just a huge swarm coming at you exactly how it should be. I also follow all your Hobbit/LOTR tutorials and have amassed a large collection since 2001, thanks for that.
crazy
Ever think of selling some of the armies?
Dark Eldar look amazing! BTW.
In the text, I highlight which armies I've already sold. So yes, I regularly sell armies. Thinking about selling the Necrons soon.
Amazing armies. I like the Necrons the best of your armies. Just something about that floating monolith thingy.
Stunnig work mate!How did you keep yourself motivated finishing all of this?^^
It's painted over an 18 year period so there is no deadline as it's a growing collection. My interest in the hobby is a lot less than what it use to be and I'm painted a whole lot less because of that. It's not a lack of motivation, it's a lack of time. But yeah it's something I love doing so motivation comes easily when you love something.