The goal throughout 2025, for my fantasy skirmish miniatures, at least, is to get my dwarf army finished up and ready for multiple different games, especially Kings of War, Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, and Oathmark, and to have cool individual models that would work well as NPCs or skirmishers for smaller games like Mordheim, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, and Frostgrave.
These Heavy Dwarf Infantry models from Northstar Miniature’sOathmarkrange are fantastic, they capture the classic feel of fantasy dwarfs without breaking the bank. There’s a lot of detail in these models, and considering you can get 30 of these duders for less than $40 US, you really start to wonder why people are spending so much money on monopose models from the industry powerhouse.
I also took the time to touch up a medium infantry archer, who will probably be a leader of a skirmish unit, as I want to use light infantry for the dwarf archer regiments that I’m building.
I’m also trying to spend my hobby money on smaller companies’ products, since the gaming ecosphere has been pretty much consumed by one company. Don’t get me wrong, I love that company’s products, but they’ll be fine if I spend less with them and help support these smaller games!
I am blaming my friend Randon for this. I just fell helplessly back in love with Marvel Crisis Protocol. It’s not entirely his fault, the models are incredible, fun to paint, and really easy to collect… but I’m blaming him, primarily because he’s a fun guy to pal around with, but he’s also an incredible painter, which can get the inspiration juices flowing pretty easily!
The first model off the workbench is Cain Marko, half-brother of Charles Xavier and the wielder of the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak… but you probably know him as the Juggernaut!
This model is incredible! He’s so dynamic, and the base alone conveys the brutal stompiness of the character in such a huge way! I also love that Cain just grabbed a stoplight to hit someone with on his way to the fight!
Juggernaut is one of those characters that I’ve loved since I was a kid. He’s a bad guy most of the time, but he seems to have some redeemable qualities. There was a run in the early 2000’s when he was a member of the X-Men that I loved, especially his friendship with Sammy the Squidboy. Good stuff, and it still hits me like a ton of bricks 20 years later!
There’s a bunch more MCP on the way, but Juggernaut is a great way to kick off this year’s projects! He also lets me check off a hobby bingo square, since he’s been sitting partially finished on a shelf for almost two years! Woohoo!
When the 10th edition of Warhammer 40,000 came out, I fell into a trap that I tend to set for myself. I jumped head first into a horde army, knowing full well that my sensibilities are far more skirmish game sized.
I painted up a Carnifex to test a color scheme I had percolating in my head for Tyranids, and it’s pretty neat, right?
Thanks. I loved it. And then, 25 minis into that scheme, started to hate it. Loathe, even. The type of loathing that I tend to reserve for B Movie villains and bad barristas.
I moved on to another color scheme, and while it was spiffy to look at, I was faced with the same problem. Painting the same color scheme, over and over and over and over and over a hundred times is no longer something I have any patience for!
Slowly, something began to dawn on me. Why on earth was I painting a horde of space bugs a uniform color scheme? How about if the colors the bugs end up has more to do with what biomass they consumed than some Grand Color Scheme from the stars?
So, here we are, with my new, easy to follow and replicate color scheme for Tyranids. Yes, it’s ALL THE COLORS. And I think I love it, hahaha!
I was born in 1969, burned bright in my punk rock days, and never thought I would see 30, let alone 50. Sure, I was a dedicated miniature hobbyist by the age of 14, but I also spent plenty of time in mosh pits and dabbled in things that Mother Warned Me About, so sitting here, in the far future and 55 years of age is not something I was ever prepared for.
Despite the apparent zeal the human race holds towards teetering off the narrow precipice of civilization into George Miller’s Mad Max future, the state of the miniature hobby has never looked brighter.
If supply chains hold up, that is.
2024 saw games like Trench Crusade pop up and cause a lot of folks to not only recognize that there are games outside of the GW Sphere, but that those games might be viable as well. That’s nothing but good news.
Even GW seems intent on putting out material for their specialist games, which allows titles like Warcry and Necromunda to thrive despite the all consuming nature of 40k and AOS.
Now that I’m looking at the year ahead, I am really excited to double down on some commitments I made to myself in the latter part of last year.
I want to adhere to a couple of posts a week here on the blog, since it keeps me motivated and helps thin out the horde of unpainted minis that have taken over my studio.
I want to focus on smaller games from smaller companies, but I also want to play with stuff that I forgot I loved, like Marvel Crisis Protocol and Shatterpoint.
I am also going to be making a lot more terrain this year, because I finally finished up a building that I printed off, and I really loved the process and want to PLAY A GAME with the buildings!
The biggest thing I plan on focusing on, however, is my health. Miniature painting has been a large part of my life for over 40 years, and it has been a form of meditation for me that has seen me through a lot of adversity, as well as good times.
BUT, as with all hobbies, it can be a bit all consuming! I really like to buy new models. Sometimes those will sit on a shelf for years, untouched. Part of focusing on my mental health is recognizing that it’s really not healthy to throw money at stuff that I’m not doing anything with!
It’ll be an interesting year. I’m also thinking about taking on Rob Hawkin’s hobby bingo challenge, because this bingo card is epic and it would be fun to challenge myself to do some of these!
That’s the year ahead. Hopefully, you are all well, and have plenty of hobby happiness to come!
This is a first for me, I don’t normally post enough to warrant an actual year in review, but I’m getting healthier and a steady posting schedule has helped keep me motivated! The unpainted horde is slowly shrinking, and that’s a good thing, right?
I started out 2024 in the hospital after a nearly fatal bout of necrotizing pancreatitis, which I’m still dealing with today… and probably will for the rest of my life. My motor skills were shot, and I had lost nearly a third of my body mass from atrophy. It took a few months, but I was eventually able to control my hands well enough to paint for more than a few minutes, and now, rounding out the year, I’m back to a pretty steady level of quality and able to chip away at the horde.
I also came really close to throwing away a couple of big, horde type armies, one a Tyranid group that was doing nothing but piss me off, and the other a Kruleboyz army that was just gathering dust. Spearhead helped me get over the Kruleboyz blocker, and I’m close to finishing off 1,000 points of painted figs for AOS, which will be cool.
The Tyranids were a whole other story! I have always loved the bugs, but I struggle with painting the same damned pattern and color scheme on a hundred models. I got bored. I changed my color scheme a hundred million times. I also played a game of 10th edition 40k, and freaking hated it. I go You go HAS TO GO!
Since then, though, I’ve played two games of boarding actions, and had a bit more fun. It’s still a giant pain in the ass, but I see some fun to be had here… only because my game group is amazing. If I was playing modern 40k with random folks? I would become a hermit and leave society altogether.
I also settled on a color scheme, which is essentially ALL THE COLORS. I’m happy with that, and the combined effect of all these colorful bugs makes me happy. I’m close t0 500 points of painted bugs, mostly chaff, so I’ll be sure to fill that out in the future.
The Marvel Zombicide figs are coming along, with about a dozen figs finished out of several hundred. I’ll be making steady progress on those in the year to come!
My Frostgrave/Five Parsecs/Mordheim project finally got off the ground, but it’s mostly assembled figs with very little paint. Still, it’s progress, and I’m having fun getting the stories for the characters together and have started building out terrain.
I’m also plowing right back in to Necromunda, mostly because it’s a great game to kitbash figures from. I’m hoping to build out some scenarios in the future, but for now I’m focused on building out my warbands and terrain for the game.
Warcry is also something I should be focusing on more, it’s probably the best modern GW game, but I went overboard on it and have too many warbands. But, that being said, I did get a chunk of the terrain done and was able to use it at a Spearhead retreat back in September, which I loved.
My Malifaux projects have been getting wrapped up a bit as well, with several gangs getting finished up. I had grand plans towards collecting entire keywords of Malifaux figs, but I had a change of heart that has me strongly considering divesting a large amount of the figs from this game, and probably all the games I play.
Moonstone has continued to be the salve from Grimdark burnout, the minis are cheery and whimsical, tons of fun to paint, and look great on a shelf. Plus, my wife likes them, so that’s a plus! The other side effect is that I find myself painting my other stuff with a much brighter palette now, which is making me happy.
15mm minis took a huge amount of my attention over the summer, which was a welcome break. I really love painting the smaller figs, and the scenery is a ton of fun to paint up as well. As much as I dream of playing 15mm Mordheim, however, I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen, unless I paint up entire warbands for other folks to play. Still, solo play is an option, and I really enjoy looking at these tiny models!
The last big project of 2024 was realizing that I am only one person, and that during my rehabilitation period I spend a bit of time feeling sorry for myself and buying models that I will never get around to painting. I made a goal to re-home a lot of the unopened boxes, especially from games that have been sitting in storage for more than two years. That’s resulted in me gaining back a lot of space in my studio, and has helped me focused on prioritizing what I want to do with whatever time I have left in this world to do it.
That sounds a little glum, but it’s actually the opposite. The effect of nearly dying last year has been a rally cry for me; I don’t want my hobby to be a chore. I want to celebrate these toy soldiers, and I want to really explore how painting and collecting, mindfully and with purpose, makes me feel! It’s really cathartic, in a way, and has helped me cope with my new reality in a way that I never thought possible.
Using this blog to chart my progress has been really healthy, and has helped keep me motivated towards finishing projects. I have some huge, but attainable goals for next year, so stay tuned!
I hope you all have had a positive hobby journey over this last year, and here’s to hobby tranquility in 2025!
You know, the kind of guy that planned things and had a strategy for his blog posts would have realized that his December crew for Malifaux would have made an amazing post for Christmas day, but I am not, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be that kind of guy… so here’s my Woe crew, led by the always charming Pandora!
This crew has everything. Freaky Scarecrows. Dememnted Teddy Bears. Evil, stabby babies.
Baby Kade was a challenge, babies are not a thing that come across a painting desk that often, and I wanted his skin tones to be smooth and buttery, which is kind of the opposite of how I paint!
Iggy leads three Aversions, and they’re a ton of fun! Puppets, brain removal, and nose picking, woohoo!
The sorrows are also pretty neat, and really lend themselves well to oil washes.
The Poltergeist is last of the traditional Woe crew, and I painted it up like the Aversions and Sorrows:
Now, because Baby Kade needs a teddy, one is allowed in this crew!
And we’ll round out the Woe crew with The Carver, one of my all-time favorite sculpts from Wyrd!
This crew has been successfully re-home through my wildly popular catch and release program, which allows me to keep painting miniatures without filling the house to divorce levels of crazy little figures.
I really wish I had started these sooner, but I really didn’t even dip my toe into the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game until this year (maybe last?), so I will be playing a bit of catch-up.
The Rangers of Gondor are a pretty good kit, especially considering they are mono-pose, push-fit miniatures. I was expecting a lot of sameness with the figures, but I’m actually finding that a little color variation can go a long way towards breaking up any repetition!
I’m holding off on painting Faramir (the true best boy of Gondor) up until I get the rest of the rangers done, but I’m having enough fun with these that I think I might, just really might, play a game with these guys!
I am so happy to finally have this guy done! He is literally the first miniature I saw for Moonstone when it was first teased way back in the dark ages of my memory, and he’s one I was a little stressed about finishing, because he’s so damned iconic.
Moonstone is already an incredibly thematic, atmospheric game. It’s also the only game that I know of that has a mechanic bake into it that allows for a farting dog that is used as a mount for a jousting goblin knight, so if that gets your gaming engines revving, this game was made for you!
That goblin knight’s name is Pubert. He kills folks and steels their money, but he also seems to be really attached to Doug, and I can’t hold much malice towards someone who is that devoted to their dog. I can’t imagine Doug is the best choice of mounts, after all. I’ve known far too many pugs. They’re like the drunk sidekick in every relationship; entertaining, gassy, and just a bit wobbly.
Doug and Pubert are also my first Goblin mini for Moonstone, and I’m really thrilled to be heading into this faction for the game!
It’s been a bit of time since I’ve worked much on my Frostgrave backlog, but it’s always in the back of my mind, keeping the other oft-neglected flights of fancy in my mind warm.
I decided to get back to it recently, and picked up a bunch of the “2” boxes of Frostgrave kits. The 2 means not male presenting, and I had been putting the 2 kits off for ages because I didn’t like the face sculpts on the female warriors much.
Turns out, a lot of that was the paint. But they still have a bit of a feline characteristic to them that I’m not a huge fan of. Luckily, the kits are still amazing, and Moranna of House Pike is the first mini in the new push to get my Frostgrave/Mordheim/Five Leagues from the Borderlands collection back on track!
House Pike was established in the 82nd year of the New Imperial Reckoning, recognized officially by Imperial decree four years later. The house sigil is a horned fish in haurient position, and the house colors are yellow and red.
Moranna Pike is the daughter of Archibald and Lowaine Pike, Lord and Lady of the rocky, sea crested region in the northeast of the Empire. Lord Pike was noted as being fair to the small folk and brave in battle, and Lowaine was considered kind to all and a practiced hand with a blade when needed.
As the oldest child of House Pike, Moranna assumed mastership of the house guard in her mid teens, and has shown promise in battle. She is currently questing in the Plaguewald, hunting undead, and hoping to show herself worthy of knighthood upon her return to civilization.
I have had a long history with She-Hulk. I really loved the Hulk when I was a kid, which is probably why I love orcs. Big, Green, and Dumb is a default source of joy for me!
I was about eight years old when the first She-Hulk comics came out, and I liked them, but I didn’t get the humor because I was freaking eight years old. As I got older, she became pretty entertaining to read, and as an adult, she became a bit of a favorite.
Turns out Big, Green, and Smart is pretty fun, too!
I even enjoyed the MCU She-Hulk series on Disney+, but that’s not surprising. As most people who grew up with The Trial of the Incredible Hulk as the closest thing to cool live action super heroes will tell you, we’re a bit spoiled right now, and there’s some pretty good stuff being sent our way. Also, I’m easily entertained!
The She-Hulk sculpt from CMON’sMarvel Zombies game is pretty dynamic, and easily captures her in a heroic pose, getting ready to punch some shambler into paste! I’m happy to add her to the ranks of finished models, and it’ll be cool seeing an A-Force team pop up as I get more Avengers models finished!
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