Back from Adepticon, setting priorities...

Well, it has taken a little while, but I'm finally caught up on things after arriving home from Adepticon on Monday. Sleep was, of course, the big one, and I'm pleased to say that crashing out on the couch each night after the girls were in bed has been very nice. Adepticon is a long show, with long hours and terrible pillows, so sleep isn't always the best. The greatest thing that I find that helps me power through such a great event is the interaction with my fellow painters, gamers, vendors, and enthusiasts of all stripes. Conversations about all manner of toy soldier related excitement can only be a good thing, right?

I spent four days taking photos of various types of historical gaming action, covering: Flames Of War, Black Powder, Bolt Action, Hail Caesar, Warhammer Ancient Battles, and SAGA. Over 220 photos that will end up illustrating at least four (possibly more) articles for Wargames Illustrated! Very pleased with that result.

I also had four entries for the Crystal Brush painting comp. Originally I was reluctant to enter, but decided to take a shot at the last moment (ie: I found myself splashing blood on the bases of my Lamenters at 11:00pm Wednesday night before leaving on Thursday). I entered my Lamenters Sergeant on Sci-fi Single, my Mechanicum in Squad, my Dreadnought in Vehicle (shown above in one of the CB official photos), and my Bridge Guard in Sculpting. Sadly none of them took away a trophy, but it was heartening to see a significant increase in the number of entries this year (200, over 125ish last year). Congratulations to all of those who took a trophy : )

We also ran our second Guns Of April game, our First Day of Gettysburg "what if?" scenario. I've just written up a report of the game for our GOA blog, you can check it out here. It was a lot of work, and not without its issues, but we all had a great time and are already looking forward to next year : )

I also took two seminars. The first was by an old friend from Australia, Victoria Lamb, the owner of Victoria Miniatures and the primogenitor of Object Source Lighting (so that's the class I took). The second was by Roman Lappat (aka Jarhead) from Germany, co-author of the wildly successful mini blog Massive Voodoo. I've been enjoying the MV crew's work for years, s I couldn't pass up a chance to sit in on his theory class. So many wonderful things were covered in the class, I just hope one day that I'll take the time to apply all the lessons learned to a competition entry.

On my way home I started sketching out a diorama I have been wanting to do since Games Day last year. Thankfully I hadn't already started because the things I learned in both classes have meant that I'm going to have to put A LOT more time into it all. Here you see the genesis of the piece. Perhaps I'll have it ready for Adepticon next year?

It should be a lot of fun to work on.

So, priorities then? Over the next two months I'm going to be working on:

• My Mechanicum army - my 2013 entry for Armies On Parade
• A FOW army commission
• The Malifaux Relic Hunters crew

Then for July I'm going to work on:
• a couple of Golden Demon entries
• possibly a Tau commission

And in August I'm going to work on:
• a Primarch for a friend of mine attending the Horus Heresy Gaming Weekend in Warhammer World.

Stay tuned for the progress ; )

Cheers
Dave

And on into 2013...

Anyone ready to suggest a name for my Lamenters Furioso? 

And yes, I still have to add the pools and splashes of blood and gore.

Well, I took a look back at my goals for my hobbying in 2012. Some of them were achieved, some of them were not (more the latter than the former), but strangely enough I'm nowhere near as troubled about that kind of thing as I was 12 months ago. Regardless of all that, I thought I'd jot down a few more goals to achieve this year.

Lamenters - I've made a pretty good start on this army, and it has helped pushed my painting a little bit outside my standard comfort zone (see the Dreadnought above as an example of that). My goal is to reach 1,500 points with this army and win a couple more games with it (currently I'm at about 50% of the painting and "winning games" thing).

Iron Brigade - I have these down for completion before Adepticon, where they'll be used as part of our Guns Of April annual game. With 100+ models already completed and roughly 70 to go, I think these one won't be too tough.

Adeptus Mechanicus/Mechanicum Army - I worked on this army eight years ago (I think), and after recently reading Priests of Mars and re-reading Mechanicum (both by Graham McNeill) I'm really psyched about re-working these guys and adding quite a few more odd, esoteric models to the mix. These will be models that have no apparent purpose in a 40K game, so you've been warned.

INQ28 - I've been keeping an eye on a cadre of great storytellers (and painters and modelers) who live, for the most part, in Europe. They've been doing some inspiring stuff that taps directly into the essence of the 40K universe and I'm hoping to use the power of the interwebs to work with a few of them over the coming year.

Everything else - No doubt there'll be a lot of other things that I'll turn my hand (and this blog) to, many of which are currently obscured from my sight. It'll be an interesting journey that will hopefully include some more Warhammer fun, maybe a little more Napoleonics and Flames Of War, and almost certainly some Horus Heresy goodness (Loyalist Death Guard are the way to go!).

So, I hope you all enjoy the journey with me, or at least chuckle heartily as I somehow get massively distracted!

Some Mechanicum fun in the next post (I think).

Cheers
Dave

Happy Birthday Blog, and a recap of 2012

Yes, the Dreadnought is almost finished, more shots in the next post.

Well, as f today, this blog has reached the grand old age of FOUR! I can scarcely believe it. It has certainly been a fun ride, and I'm sure she has many more years left in her. I figured I'd do another two-part post about what I did in 2012 (part 1), and what I have planned for 2013 (part 2), so just bear with me a bit.

First things first, thank you to all the folks who read this blog on a regular basis, especially those who have clicked on the Follow button, this year the blog cracked 1,600 followers (currently 1,623 at the time of posting). The blog currently averages around 30,000 page views a month, which helped to push it over the 1,000,000 page views mark since I started the analytics thing back in May 2009.

2012 was a little bit quieter on the hobby front, but not by too much. My two wonderful daughters continue to grow and develop and explore and I'm happy to give them more of my time : ) Still, I managed to paint up 441 models in 2012. Pretty good really, not 10 a week, but more than one a day. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep that pace rolling on through 2013, with all the many projects I'm currently lining up.

I also managed to cut back pretty dramatically on the number of models I purchased, which meant that when I felt a strong pull to convert something up (like the Adeptus Mechanicus plasma cannon servitors) I didn't feel guilty in picking them up. The vast bulk of the 325 models I did buy where purchased in three transactions: 180 Early Napoleonic French to help out my friend Alex, 44 Napoleonic Polish sculpted by Paul Hicks (because I wanted them), and 56 models in Dark Vengeance  (well, that's what I ended up with after I traded the DAs for CSMs). Amusingly enough I haven't painted a single model from those 280. The rest of the models (45 of them) purchased fit into some other project or other along the way and were certainly assembled and primed (if not painted).

So here's what I worked on each month:

January - Work continued on my Napoleonic British army for the Guns of April Adepticon event, as well as getting a decent number of models under my belt for my Army of Morr.

February - More Army of Morr, as well as quite a bit of Napoleonic stuff (including some Russians that really have gone no further).

March - Much more Napoleonic stuff, as by this stage I was helping paint units for the other side (inspiring in me a desire to build my own French army). There was also a sneak peek at the heads I sculpted for my Army of Morr.

April - Knights of Morr and some talk about competition painting was the order of the day on this blog, and I'm sure I was posting quite a bit on the Guns of April blog too, as we successfully ran our Salamanca game at Adepticon 2012!

May - This month was ALL about the Army of Morr (with plenty of repetitive puns). You got to see a little of the madness that goes into making a unique army like that (custom heads, arms, shields, and spears)!

June - Talk about paints, my new FLGS (Dropzone Games in Glen Burnie, MD), and an extensive look at the display board for my Army of Morr.

July - The in-store results for Armies on Parade, the scramble to finish off a few additions, and my entry in the diorama category for Golden Demon.

August - A review of what I took to Games Day, a plug for Infamy Miniatures, and a glimpse of my latest 40K project - the Lamenters.

September - More Lamenters, a few tales of my early games of 6th Edition 40K, and a look at the coolness in plastic from Dream Forge and Wyrd Miniatures (some of their Malifaux fun).

October - Puppet Wars in plastic, a few thoughts on building a horde of daemon engines, and more Lamenters yellowy goodness.

November - This month was all about two things - more yellow Lamenters (including my tutorial for yellow), and Movember. I was very pleased that our team was able to raise over $3,000 to go towards men's health initiatives around the globe. Oh, and a little converting for my AM army.

December - A real mixed bag here: you got to see more Lamenters, a good chunk of Flames Of War Germans, my ACW units so far, and even some ice blue Malifaux models.

So, quite a lot of stuff. Nowhere near the same number of posts as 2011 (75 posts vs 110 posts), but still pretty healthy, averaging just over six posts a month.

Anyway, next posts we'll see where things are going in the new year...

Cheers
Dave

No, he's not dancing...

I promised you some more yellow, so here it is. While I've been messing around with other projects too, I've also been slowly building up the paint on the Furioso Dreadnought for my Lamenters. As you can see from the shots above and below, I've had some fun messing around with tonal gradations much more extreme than I would have even two years ago. Obviously there's still a lot of work to be done, but it's nice to see some progress.

And I'd also like to draw your attention to an interview I did with Tyler Mengel as part of a series of interviews he is doing with folks he admires in the hobby. I'm very honored to find myself amongst a crowd that includes guys like Chris Borer and Mathieu Fontaine. If you've ever wanted to ask me a general hobby question, you might find the answer on Tyler's site. And while you're there, please take the time to check out all the cool hobby work he has done.

Cheers
Dave

Lamenters Update: Death Company Tycho/Janus and other news.

Here he is, Death Company Captain Janus (my version of DC Tycho, thanks to Brien for the name). Constructed primarily from Sanguiary Guard bitz, he also sports a combi-melta that was cobbled together from other models. His paint scheme matches the other Death Company models in the army, with the addition of a little more gold. I hope you like him. you can see him pre-paint here.

And here is my first attempt at the gory basing. I wanted the blood to be a little translucent and splattered in just the right places. Let me know what you think.

Now, on to the other things...

My buddy Alex has just re-opened his Battleroad Games & Hobbies website! You can get there via this link: http://battleroadhobbies.com/ and he has a Black Friday deal running until the end of business tomorrow (November 25th). The discount code is BRGLaunch

And my moustache continues to grow. I decided yesterday that I would match all donations taken between Nov 23-30 dollar-for-dollar. I've had $30 kicked in since then, so I'm asking you all again to consider donating. Now is certainly the best time as I'll basically be doubling your money : )

You can get to my MoSpace here.

Cheers
Dave

Lamenters Update: The basing begins!

Here we go with all ten Tactical Marines painted and standing on their new bases. I just need to add their blood and gore splatters on the base, their greaves, and on the occasional combat weapon.

Here are the last two Marines to get the treatment. The guy on the right was, of course, the model  used for the yellow tutorial from a couple of posts back.

And finally, some of the feet kind of hung over the edges of the bases. As I wanted the models to be standing in the blood and gore, I needed them to be standing lower inside the Secret Weapon Miniatures Bone Fields bases. To achieve this it was a fairly simple matter to slice out small slivers of the sides of the bases, as you can see in the photo above.

Next step, adding gallons of gore!

Cheers
Dave

Lamenters Update: Painting Yellow

I've had a lot of folks asking questions about the way I've done the yellow armor on my Lamenters. Well, here's my rough run-down. Unfortunately the transitions aren't incredibly obvious the photos below (or perhaps that's a good thing) but I hope it helps.

Note: My thanks to Brice Cocanour, Damon Drescher, and Caleb Wisseuback, who have all done some lovely yellows before and let me in on a few of their secrets.

1. After priming the model in white, I basecoat it with GW's Averland Sunset. I like this color, but sometimes it'll go on a little unevenly, take your time with it. For my Assault Marines, Dreadnought, and Storm Raven I'm planning on putting this layer down with an airbrush.

2. To ensure an even, solid coverage, I highlight the model with a mix of GW Averland Sunset and VGC Sun Yellow.

3. The next highlighting stage is with VGC Sun Yellow.

4. The final highlighting stage is a mix of VGC Sun Yellow and VMC Pale Sand (I love Pale Sand, a fantastic color that gets used all the time).

After all the highlighting is complete, it's on to the shading. This is where I was in unfamiliar territory as the vast bulk of my painting has always been working up from the shade to the highlight, but it was certainly fun learning how to work this way.

5. I began shading with a mix of GW Averland Sunset and GW Skrag Brown, adding more Skrag Brown as I went along. This stage is actually about three or four passes, adding more depth each time.

6. This stage is for adding the final depth shade, a thinned wash or two of VGC Charred Brown. I paid particular attention to the corners of the shoulder pad and the rear of the greaves.

7. And the next step is to tidy up everything with some VGC Black.

Well, I hope that sheds a bit of light on how I've been painting these guys. I'm pretty happy so far with the progress I've made. The real test will be the Storm Raven with its large, flat panels.

Wish me luck.

Cheers
Dave

Lamenters Update, and getting Lost

Sorry for the significant delays in getting posts up in recent weeks, but things have been pretty hectic. A two-week visit from my mother, Superstorm Sandy, and my coverage of Fall In have all conspired to impact my hobby and blogging time. I've still been plugging away at a few things, so here's an update on the boys in yellow - my Lamenters.

Here are a couple of finished models, including the plasma-cannon toting Marine.

And then the next two I finished up this evening.

Here are the final two models for the Tactical squad, still lots to do on them, but I'm feeling very close to reaching the final squad, the Assault Marines.

In my next Lamenters post I'll try to give everyone a detailed look at how I've been painting these bright yellow grimdark Marines.

And now for some thing completely different...

My friend James Craig from the Lost In The Warp blog has recently kicked off a multi-blog series of collaborative posts with mutual friends of ours, Mike Butcher and Shawn Welte. These posts are based around Mike and Shawn's converting skills and James painting ability (and James' very cool Beastman army).

You can check out James' first post on the series here.
And Mike's blog here.
And Shawn's blog here.

Enjoy : )

Cheers
Dave

Happy Halloween, Bone Bases, and Movember!

Happy Halloween, to those who celebrate it, Happy Wednesday to those that don't! My girls had a great time giving out treats and then collecting some from the great folks in our neighborhood. My wife and I will be good for chocolate for while now.

Amongst the wide variety of things I've been dabbling with over the last few weeks, I decided to start in on the cool Secret Weapon Miniatures bases I'll be using for my Lamenters. Here are a few I've finished (well, almost finished, just the gore and blood to add once the models are in place).

This one is the base for my Furioso Dreadnought. I'm pretty happy with how the dead Carcharadon turned out. I hope my nemesis Dave likes it too.

And here's the start of the base for my Storm Raven.

Finally, I just wanted to remind you all about our Guns Of April team for the great charity effort that is Movember! By supporting me growing a mustache, you are supporting both awareness about and research into a number of men's health issues, including testicular and prostate cancer.

Click HERE to get your donation on!

Cheers
Dave

Lamenter Update: 3rd Game Loss and Movember!

Two more Tactical Marines finished since my last update. I've been working away diligently on them, along with three other projects that will eventually see the light of day on this blog or another. I'm pretty happy with the consistency I've been able to keep with the yellows. I think once I'm finished with the squad I'll be able to go back in and wrap up the final shading with a glaze or three in the right spots.

There's a slight difference you might notice about these two guys, and it's the sword icon on their left shoulders. I decided when I was assembling the squad that five of the models would get this icon on their shoulders, and they'd form one of the demi-squads should I decide to use their "combat squad" option. To further enhance that look, this group will have their "4" in black.

And then I have another two underway. The Marine on the left is the demi-squad leader, denoted by the chalice on his backpack. The Plasma Canon Marine has been a lot of fun to work on, with such large areas of yellow needing to be shaded in some way.

My Third Game!

For my third game I played against seasoned veteran John Swann and his Space Wolves. Again I found myself outnumbered and outgunned as John ran: a Rune Priest, an 8-man Wolf Guard squad (all with different gear) in a Rhino, two 10-man Grey Hunter squads in Rhinos, and a Vindicator.

We played a game with multiple objectives scattered across the table and right from the start I was under heavy fire from John's Vindicator. After the first turn we found ourselves in a situation of each of us removing an entire squad at a time. First my Assault squad was gunned down, then my Death Company Tycho (to be renamed Janus) finished off a GH squad in combat (six models on the charge!), then the Vindicator took out my Death Company, then my Furioso wiped out his Wolf Guard in one turn (despite having lost a blood talon arm to snapfire on the way in). It was a frenzied display of blood-letting indeed. Sadly, my men could simply not hold on against the constant attacks from the Strength 10 large blast, and John won the day, although all casualties he caused were through shooting, so a moral victory in my books ; )

And finally...Movember

Please click on the link here to see our post about Movember on the Guns Of April blog. Obviously I'm going to ask that when you donate to the cause (and I know you'll do me proud) that you donate to my individual page here. In our team we have a side bet going on which side (Union or Confederate) will bring in more money, so I'll need your help as more of those damned Rebs are growing mustaches than we glorious Yankees.

Enjoy your gaming, and more about Lamenters, gaming, and embarrassing mustaches later!

Cheers
Dave

Lamenters Update: 2nd Game Victory!

Well I played my second game of 6th Edition tonight, and boy what a game! I was up against my friend Jordan and his Dark Angels (just before he packs up and moves his family across country). I took the same list as my first game (no sense in confusing myself) and I was a little disturbed to see that Jordan was fielding 36 Marines! A Chaplain, two 10-man Tactical squads, one 5-man Devastator squad, and one 10-man Assault squad (held in reserve).

We rolled up a Dawn of War deployment, and The Relic mission. Jordan deployed first, but my luck started early when I seized the initiative from him. By the second turn my Tactical squad had the relic surrounded, and my Assault Marines were tying up one of his Tactical squads. Things went kind of how I expected, with my combat specialists wearing down the Dark Angels until Tycho could get into combat and finish the job, and my static squad was thinning his gun line. I landed my Death Company behind his gun line, and he countered with his Assault squad dropping in to the side of my Dreadnought.

Man of the Match definitely goes to that Furioso Dread with Blood Talons. I survived Jordan's initial plasma pistol salvo, turned and charged into the fray. We checked all the special rules (my goodness there are a lot of them) to make sure we did the combat correctly, then my Dread proceeded to wipe out his entire squad in a single turn. It was a very strange series of rolls to watch, and it got a bit ridiculous around the sixth or seventh victim, but it certainly pushed the game completely in my favor. A turn later and I'd managed to bring down the last of Jordan's green-armored "super-humans". Jordan's response to the outcome? He asked the store staff member if he could exchange his Dark Angels for Blood Angels : )

I've also been chugging away on the modeling and painting for the Lamenters. At the top you can see the Man of the Match Dreadnought on his Bone Fields base with a Marine carcass beneath his left foot. I was originally planning on painting this model as a Space Shark (my nemesis is painting these for our Badab War action), but perhaps the corpse should represent a Dark Angels Assault Marine?

Above you can see the next two yellow models to roll off the bench, the sergeant and a trooper from my Tactical squad. The yellow is a little brighter than my test model, but I'm not too concerned about that.

Here's a look at their right shoulder pads. Initially I wanted them to be the 5th squad, but the "5" in this style of numbering looked a little too much like a "$", so I made them the 4th squad. I enjoy painting detailed numbers like these, it adds some great depth to the models.

Finally, here are the next two models on the block.

Have fun with you painting... AND gaming ; )

Cheers
Dave

Lamenters Update

Time to slip in a quick update on the progress of my Lamenters. After the game a couple of weeks back, I was very excited about the success of my Death Company Tycho. Above you can see the kitbashed model I'll be painting up soon to represent my Lamenters version of this fierce character.
I didn't have an actual combi-melta handy so this one is cobbled together from a few parts to represent Blood Song, the combi-melta capable of firing the Sternguard Veteran special ammo, not too shabby on a character with the Relentless special rule. On his outstretched left hand, I've added a few strips of plasticard to represent The Dead Man's Hand, the special rules/equipment that helps Tycho become a beast in combat. I'm looking forward to getting paint on him.

A few people have been asking me "Why the square bases Dave?" when looking at the Lamenters I have underway. Now that my order has arrived from Secret Weapon Miniatures (well, it actually arrived last week), I can reveal my plans. You can see the bases in the packs above are from the SWM Bone Fields range. As part of my mission to take this bright yellow army and embed it firmly in the grimdark universe of 40K, I knew that both skulls and blood would be needed. All of my trooper models are posed with a bit of a hunch, and an "angry" posing for the arms. Now, imagine these dark and angry Marines stalking across an area covered in blood, gore, and bones. Splashing through too much gore, seeing some of it splattering up on their greaves, dripping from the teeth of their chainswords. I'm also looking forward to getting this part of the project just right.

Cheers
Dave

First game of 6th Edition!

You know, I don't talk much about my gaming. That's mainly because I don't do much of it at all. But last night I played my first game of the new edition of 40K... and I quite enjoyed it.

I cobbled together 1,000 points of Lamenters and threw down against my friend Jake's Eldar. So, not only was it my first game of 6th, but it was also my first game with a tiny, super-elite force: Death Company Tycho, 8 Death Company with jump packs, 5 Assault Marines, 10 Tactical Marines, and a Furioso dreadnought.

It was Jake's second game of 6th, but he was well-versed in what his Eldar could do. He ran a very shooty force: 3 scatter laser-War Walkers, 2 squads of 10 Dire Avengers, 2 Wave Serpents, and a Farseer.

It was interesting learning a few things about the new system: defending against psychic powers, removing casualties from shooting, 2d6 for charging, and - much to Jake's chagrin - a lessening of the survivability of those damn Wave Serpents.

After three turns of dancing around, gunning my squads down with what seemed like endless Bladestorms, Fortune, Guide, Doom, etc etc. I was down to Tycho, 2 Tactical Marines, 1 Death Company Marine, and a Furioso surrounded by the bulk of Jake's army.

Fortunately I got a chance to split my meager leftovers and, in a couple of glorious combat phases, I got to see just how brutal the Death Company version of Tycho can be. While my remainders took out a War Walker and a Wave Serpent, Tycho single-handedly took down a loaded Wave Serpent. He then weathered a crazy Bladestorm where he was hit 22 times (thanks to Guide), wounded 17 (thanks to Doom), and proceeded to save 15 times, and let his Feel No Pain suck up one of the other two wounds.

Still standing, he went on to take out the rest of the Dire Avengers and the Farseer in combat! By the end of turn 5 Jake had a single War Walker remaining. Quite the turn around.

In honor of this first match, I'm going to kit-bash a sweet Tycho stand-in. Now I just need to come up with a name and a bit of a background story for him.

Here's to many more games of 40K : )

Cheers
Dave

More Death Company and the Dropzone Grand Opening!

Two things quickly: the first are the next five Lamenters Death Company I'm working on. You can see them above. Still yet to finish the parchments, silver, checks, and black.

Then here are a few Panthers I'm working on for a small commission. I'll show you some WIP shots as I go along. Should be interesting working on some Late War schemes after last year's Early War Germans.

If you'd like to chat a bit more about painting Flames Of War tanks, come and hang out to the Dropzone Games Grand Opening tomorrow. I'll be leading a class on FOW Tank Painting from 3pm : )

Have fun!

Cheers
Dave

Dark and Angry!

There has been some more progress this week on my Lamenters/Badab War army. Namely wrapping up the test model for the Death Company (above) and starting on the next four models (below).

Originally I was reticent to include any Death Company or Sanguinary Guard in my army as I thought their primary colors were white and gold respectively. I wanted this army to be grim, dark, and full of anger. White just didn't speak to me. When I took another look at the Imperial Armour book I noticed that the Lamenters Death Company were actually black, I changed my mind very quickly.

One change I have made, however, to the scheme is to replace the red Xs of the typical BA Death Company with the bright yellow of the Lamenters, providing a stronger link back to the regular Chapter Marines.

These four are nearing completion. Just a bit of touch up, then highlighting the black. Once I've painted the next five Death Company bodies, I'll paint up the nine backpacks I need to finish off the entire squad.

Anyways, I hope you like how they're coming along.

Someone asked, in a recent post, if I have a list ready for the army. Well, I kind of do. Here goes:

HQ: Unsure at the moment

Elites: 

• Furioso Dreadnought with Blood Talons

Troops: 

• 10 Tactical Marines - Serg w/powerfist & plasma pistol, 1 w/plasma gun, 1 w/plasma cannon

• 10 Death Company - 1 w/powerfist, 2 x melta pistols

• 5 Assault Marines - Serg w/powerfist & plasma pistol, 1 x meltagun

• 5 Assault Marines - Serg w/powerfist, 1 x meltagun

Heavy Support:

• Storm Raven - unsure of final weapon configuration.

If you have any thoughts, feel free to leave them in the comments below, or let me know next week when you visit the Grand Opening Event for Dropzone Games. I'll be hanging out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so make sure you drop by!

What's next?

With Games Day behind me (and all the work for Armies On Parade and Golden Demon with it), it is finally time to turn to my future projects and try to get them in some sort of order.

Above you can see the test model for my next 40K project. It's been quite a while since I painted up a 40K army, so it's going to be fun getting stuck back in. This model is an Assault Marine from the Lamenters Chapter, one of those who sided with Huron Blackheart during the Badab Wars. But more on this later.

My future painting plans include:

• Around 1,000 points of Lamenters
• Five regiments of Union infantry for our Guns of April 2013 project
• Finishing off the first regiment for my Napoleonic Russian army
• Painting up the cool Witch Hunter model from the new Empire list
• Some Americans and Germans for Flames Of War

And getting into some serious planning for my 2013 Armies On Parade entry ; )

What are you guys planning?

Cheers
Dave