Xenos on Crusade: James' Craftworld Eldar - The Finale

And so here we are, at last, the end of 2020. It's been a long and oftentimes sad and melancholic year, but I felt it important to focus on some of the positives that have come out of it all. 

For me, one of those things is my recently completed Craftworld Eldar army. If you've been keeping up with all my posts, you'll know this is an army I've been working on as part of a big group project between all of my fellow writers, the Xenos on Crusade. When we started off, my ultimate goal was simply to have a painted Eldar collection; the project was something to give me the impetus to finally start collecting an army I'd always loved. 

So with this final post, I'll be going over the final set of models I painted in November and December and giving my final thoughts on the army and where I'll be looking to take it in the future. The picture below is a spoiler for everything I've painted, so no more delaying,  let's get into it!

A 2020 Retrospective - Neil's thoughts on 2020 and looking forward to 2021

Hi all it's Neil here with a quick look back at my 2020 hobby year.  I'm sure we can all agree that it has been a different year with the pandemic really limiting the gaming part of this hobby so for most of the year I've been limited to the building and painting aspects in general though my theory hammer has also been getting some work too.

Oathed by Blood; Part 1 - A Short Story by Medge

Hey All - Medge here. Welcome to Oathed by Blood - a short narrative series written for my custom Tempestus Scions Regiment - the Bloodoathed. 

This project started off as a little thing - a small piece of narrative to set-up the creation of my Astra Militarum project. Unfortunately I forgot how much I enjoy writing, and within and hour or two I'd expanded a short idea into into 2500 words of narrative. Rather than cut it down I thought I'd create a whole new blog series for the short story, fleshing it out as I go over the coming weeks.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it, and if you want to see more narrative like this let me know in the comments below!

Medge

The Imperium's Finest; An Astra Militarum project, by Medge

Hi All, Medge here with yet another new project!

We can all agree - 2020 has been a pretty bonkers year for hobby. Instead of sitting at home and just sulking about not getting games in (which, in fairness, I've been doing a lot... just not on the blog 😄) I've been using my hobby time to catch up with some Backlog projects.

Regular readers will know about my Blood Angels and Tau projects, two major successes of the year, but today on wanted to show off one of my smaller projects.

It's no secret that I'm more of a collector than I am painter or gamer. It's also no secret that I want to amass a HUGE collection. In a past, more heretical, life it was my ambition to assemble a Chaos horde that would shame Abaddon!
After breaking free of the corrupting touch of Chaos I turned back to the Imperium of Man, and under the Emperors benevolent gaze I've been steadily mustering a Imperial force. Between my Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus I'm sitting on 10-11k points of painted models right now; a planet-concurring force by anyone's standards!

Last year I picked myself up a small second hand Astra Militarum force to add to the existing Imperial horde - a little collecting/ painting project I planned to use in Kill Team, maybe building up into something bigger. With Lockdown offering a little more free time (and disincentivising painting pieces to game with) I've had the freedom to pick up this little side project.

Rather than presenting the force piecemeal in the blog I've completed the full force (24PL, ~500points), which is presented below.
I also thought It'd be a bit different to present this force with some of the narrative I've written for them; a short story regarding their creation and remit with the 41st Millennium. Unfortunately the short story blossomed into something far bigger than I first thought! So instead of presenting it below, I'll capture it in a series of smaller posts running into 2021 - you can read the first one here!

With that said and done, allow me to introduce the 1st Bloodoathed Tempestus Scions 

Casting Off: The Grand Old Duke Of York

Hi all it's Neil here with another Casting Off post for Victory at Sea with my growing Royal Navy task force. This time is all about battleships as I have painted up the Duke Of York, a King George V class battleship.  I will in this post show you my painted model, give a brief overview of historical battleship use and how I see them being used in games.

For the Greater Good, Part Five - the Second Sphere Expansion

Tau'va fellow hobbyists, and welcome back to "For the Greater Good" - a hobby blog  following my journey as I collect and learn the Tau Empire for Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition. 

Part Five will be the final installment of 2020; a close out post for the final pieces I've painted for the Tau this year.

Needless to say... it's been a bad year for the Greater Good. The metagame for 9th Edition really doesn't favour the Tau play style, and the consensus on the internet is that the Tau are in one of the worst positions (competitively) they have been for a while. 

Couple that to the ongoing COVID situation, which has really slashed gaming time (particularly in the UK), and it would be easy to finish the year on a downer.

I, however, am determined to NOT LET THE VIRUS GET ME DOWN THIS CHRISTMAS!! and will be looking to celebrate at least some elements of my progress on Tau in this post!

Read on to see how I've got on!

Casting Off: Light Cruisers On Patrol

Hi all it's Neil here with another Casting Off post for Victory at Sea and my growing Royal Navy fleet.  I have painted up the trio of light crusiers that come in the starter box so this post will be about how I painted them, the historical use of light cruisers in WW2 and how I see them being used in the game.

Bash the Backlog; Lockdown Edition - by Medge

Welcome back to Bash the Backlog, a mini-series in which I try to correct that most egregious of hobby sins; the huge pile of unpainted plastic!

It's been over six months since my last #BashtheBacklog entry (see Sigmar's Storm for that one!), with most of my backlog work coming as part of Blood of the Angel and For the Greater Good series. I have, however, worked on a few other projects in between these major series; palette-cleanser models between projects or odds-and-ends that either needed tying off, or were supposed to trigger a bigger project that never took off.

As one of my final posts of the year I wanted to capture these one-off projects in a single post so they don't become forgotten, and can act as a little inspiration for what I hope will be a brighter 2021!

So let's jump into it!

For the Lion: REPENT!

Hi all it's Neil here with another Dark Angel's post in my For the Lion series.  This is about my Interrogator Chaplain in Terminator armour, which is using the Commemorative Series Terminator Chaplain Tarentus model that got a limited release earlier this year.   Interrogator Chaplains are a Dark Angel unique HQ who basically a Chaplain with extra morale harming abilities in the game.  In the lore, these are the Chaplain's who have proven themselves and been inducted into the Inner Circle.  They are responsible for extracting confessions from the Fallen who are captured to redeem the Dark Angel's secret sin from the Heresy.

Xenos on Crusade: Neil the Devourer; Hive Fleet Lindworm Month 6

Hi all it's Neil here with a new post about my Hive Fleet Lindworm force for our group Xenos on Crusade project.  If this is the first time you've seen one of these posts the basic info is that we've been playing the new 9th edition Crusade narrative rules with a Xeno faction each, with mine being Tyranids, and using the Crusade rules to play games and paint models for our rosters.  This month due to lockdown there hasn't been any gaming possibilities so I lost a lot of enthusiasm for the force but I did paint up a Broodlord for the hive.

Casting Off: Destroyer Screen

Hi all it's Neil here with some more WW2 ships in this Casting Off following my journey with Victory at Sea by Warlord Games.  This post will be about the destroyers from the Royal Navy Starter Fleet box that I've painted up and a bit about both the historical use of destroyers and how I think they might be useful in game.