The council of Nicaea or Nikaea depending on if you’re Emperor Constantine or the Emperor of Mankind seemed like a very fitting title for the planning of hobby for 2021. But with the Age of Strife also more commonly known as 2020 now in our review mirrors, I thought it would be good to more optimistic and plan on an even grander scale what I would like to achieve over the following year. In some ways I think the limitations on actually being able to enjoy any sort of gaming in real life ended up aiding me, with painting thus becoming my default focus for the year. Which in itself threw up a lot more hurdles than I was originally expecting, from the point of view that it actually felt for the best part of 6 months that I was completely new to painting again. This did create a fair bit of frustration of having to relearn the core fundamentals of painting almost from scratch and rebuilding that lost muscle memory; with a key component of this being hand to eye coordination and being able to apply the paint to the model in a really controlled manor. So for the entire year I have just had the phrase “the highlights have to be sharper” on constant repeat over and over again in my head, I can only see this as my somewhat Monty Python quest for the holy grail of painting “box art” level models which will be a continued theme of this year. (as I have a white fluffy bunny sleeping next to me)
40K
This leads nicely into what I see as my first main target for 2021, and that being the aim of reaching 2000 points of fully painted Eldar. A labour of love project that I now have a real love hate relationship with, yet I still adore painting them most of the time… But the dream of being able to play at a Wiggender with a fully painted army and getting to see Wiggys face when he is allocating the VPs for painting is still a massive driving force. Also the temptation of attempting to play some shell game tactics with pretty models is very high, along with what fuckery can be directed at Tank Boy again! So after I finish with Fuegan it will be back at the grinding stone of getting the last 2 wind riders, 4 dire avengers and the wave serpent painted which will complete the 1k list. Then a bit of reavlaluating will need to take place in order to establish which direction to head in next, with the constant hope of a new codex and maybe even some more plastic aspect warriors and phoenix lords looming somewhere over the horizon it’s nice to keep the to do list fairly open and easily changeable.
Mordheim
The next big project I have planned is to revisit the wonderfully amazing setting of Warhammer Fantasy’s Mordheim, a game which I used to love because of its setting and overall dark fantasy aesthetic which I have sorely missed. Ultimately this is going to be a bit of a hybrid of sharpening both my converting and painting skills to really recreate this iconic game using the much more up to date GW plastic kits. With the shadowy Skaven of Clan Eshin being my first port of call (but with a more minimal amount of slings), the Skaven miniatures are such beautiful models to paint with the chance to expand on so many different painting techniques. From aged metals, textured fabrics, skin and OSL from glowing warpstone tokens; so there is a real ability to make the gang look really unique and pull little details from the books and lore of the world. If it all goes well then I would love to really expand into doing different factions of the game, but also having an attempt at creating scenery as well. The thought of making decrepit empire buildings, haunted church yards and really being able to make the sort of board I wanted to play on when I was younger is just too hard to resist.
MESBG
Anyone who know’s me well will know of my love of all things Tolkien, so the chance of being able to play out the events of his world on the tabletop grabbed me as soon as I saw the miniatures in the old spinning cabinet in GW Soton all those years ago now. Previous plans of wanting to restart MESBG have always been somewhat sunk by the tumbleweed that often follows whenever it’s mentioned, but in someway the words ‘fuck it’ came to mind. Also with the discovery of events like Ardacon and the community of MESBG being one of the nicest wargames communities I have ever come across, it’s finally given me the push to dive back into it. Currently I have no idea where I would actually start as I am still currently torn between sticking to just painting and building stuff for the narrative scenarios or actually attending events. Hopefully it may evolve into a nice combination of the two but we will have to wait and see.
Also I thought we should all just spend a minute admiring the beauty of these amazingly sculpted bats by talented forge world team!
The Horus Heresy
Then finally we have 30k which has been the boogeyman of my hobby for many years now, or the plot line of John Wick if Forge World are the bad Russians and the wolves are the puppy. Either way there have been several factors which led to my distain and at some points general hatred for a game that once upon a time I couldn’t wait to see on the tabletop; or the joy and excitement I had when I first saw Angron and heresy mark armour being shown off at Gamesday. The fond memories of friends writing monthly blog posts as they slowly built up their legions as forge world released new units and upgrade packs, and everyones armies were all so distinctly different despite all being space marines. Now looking back it’s nice to think of this as the golden age of Horus Heresy when the entire game was driven by narrative story telling, and the urge to want to recreate the art work from the collected visions. Sadly now since the loss of the beloved Alan Bligh I can’t help but think that the game has just been a ship at sail without a captain, completely losing its momentum but more importantly the heart of the game. Combined with the overall expense but what can also be looked upon as a lack of support for the 30k from forgeworld, it has made it very difficult to even consider taking inferno off the book shelf let alone picking up a paint brush. However lately I have reluctantly decided want to revisit the universe of the 30th millennium, but going completely against what is deemed to be the current META. Instead focusing more on the narrative aspect of the game which I feel has been completely lost since the games early years, this may mean that 30k just becomes a pure painting project and rarely ever making it onto the tabletop. We shall just have to wait and see what 2021 holds!
On that final note I should probably stop procrastinating writing all of this and actually get back to painting!