Only a month and a half late! I’d planned to write up this more than a month ago, but life kept conspiring to prevent me from laying all of the 382 models I’ve finished this year out for a photo. This is everything I’ve gotten painted this year up until the beginning of August. Except for those two little wall segments. I’ll illustrate the entire reflective post with more shots of the year-to-date painting, because I didn’t get all of those bloody models out just to take a single photograph! Clicky for big ones, but the focus on individual models isn’t great…

Now more than halfway through the year’s Monthly round-ups, once again it’s a good time to look again at my year’s painting goals as listed during January and reflect on how I’ve been going with them:

1. Paint and finish some 2+1 marine forces/bump up existing small groups to this as a minimum.
Black Templars, Celestial Lions, Fallen Angels and Deathwatch, though I have another one on the go right now, and plans (oh dear, the plans) for several more. I’d also count finishing my 2006 Ork force in there.

I… haven’t done a damn thing on any of the Marine forces since March, when I had managed to get some stuff done. I did at least get my 2006 Ork force completed. Which reminds me, I wanted to take an army showcase shot of them but the light and/or focus has been crap every time I’ve tried…

2. Reinforce the existing 40k armies. Specifically, both Minotaurs and Iron Warriors need some proper reinforcements.

Well, I’ve painted some Cybertronic models that kinda-sorta fit in as Iron Warriors Auxillaries, but I need to get onto these as well. Hopefully the coming month (September) can see something for each?

3. Sort out the stuff that’s painted but needs reorganisation to be playable in 8th edition. I’m very much thinking of my Imperial Guard here.

No movement here. Yet. I’ve been spending much of my recent time working on making some space, but there’s still too much crap here that hasn’t been helped by clearing out my mum’s stuff to help my dad out. At this point I’m kinda thinking that this won’t happen at all this year as my time is being used to try and get models finished.

4. Finish more of the stuff I started but never finished. There’s a unit of Elves just waiting on three models to be done to be completed. There’s a unit of DUST Gorillas, a unit of Undead, some Mordor Uruks, Arbites, Savage Orcs… It’s bloody exhausting to think about how many started-but-abandoned units I still have.

Well, here is probably the biggest thing that I’ve managed to do, as I’ve made pretty good progress on a lot of the old outstanding half-painted models and units I’ve accumulated. Out of the named models there, I’ve gotten the Gorillas done, the Undead, the Mordor Uruks. Nothing on the Arbites or Savage Orcs yet – Just a shame there are so, SO many more of them to go.

5. Complete all of my metal Dwarf Slayer models.

Nope, nope, nope. I guess it’s possible, but I’d have to have a dedicated “Slayer Month”. I should be able to get some more done, at least…

6. Complete all of my metal Viking models.

I’ve done a few of them and have a few more on the desk that I dip in and out of, but haven’t actually managed to finish any more units of them since the three I completed back in April, though I’ve in the process of trying to complete another small group of them literally this past few days. (Varnish accident set me right back!) I can’t see them all getting done without “Viking Month”, and I can’t see them keeping my interest as the only thing to work on for an entire month.

7. Get a Nurgle Daemon army up and running.

This one still counts as a success for the year, though I haven’t added to them as much as I wanted to since March. Still need to get the last of the metals assembled, let alone painted. I did clean the flash off them last week, finally, though I’m yet to glue them together…

8. Get a Grey Knights army up and running.

Ain’t nothing happening here yet. I’d still like to, but perhaps getting a Kill-Team painted is a more realistic goal for 2018 at this stage.

9. Get a second Chaos Legion force up and running.

Ain’t nothing happening here, either! Once again, a Kill-Team is the more achievable outcome.

10. Skirmish forces & small miniature boardgame models updated/ready to play. Necromunda, Shadespire, Blood Bowl, Gorechosen, SAGA (aside from Vikings)

Sweet fuck-all done here since March as well for the named game skirmish forces. I’ve churned out a decent number of models for Shadows of Brimstone, and an increasing few for Imperial Assault. I’d like to update my old-school Cawdor, so maybe that can be a target for next month’s Neglected Models? I’d really like to get onto the Shadespire Warbands, though, as they’re quite small and the models are lovely and it’ll give me an excuse to actually paint some newer models instead of simply buying them and hoarding them.

11. Two small opposed forces for Bolt Action.

Still ain’t nothing happening here yet. I don’t think the 15mm Flames of War tanks count, but they’ll work for FoW, Tanks! and Tank War (BA)… As Imperial Assault is showing me so well, if I had an actual opponent for BA, I’m sure I’d automagically gravitate to getting shit done in a reasonably efficient manner.

12. Then there are unfinished terrain pieces, projects like the Graveyard and the Mighty Fortress, and scatter scenery, and…

This has been a successful category when it comes to scatter terrain, with a ton of hedges and other small bits of scatter and dressing scenery items done – mostly from boardgame sets, but they’ll work okay across many genres. Still working on some other stuff, but as with so much else, it’s often slow going. I’ve got several larger projects that just keep stalling out. I need some time off work to knuckle down and get them finished! Maybe in September…?

If I can keep up the 30-31-models per month minimum, that should be another 150 models for this year, so with that being around the 530 mark, I should really be aiming for 600+. I’m sure that with my Terrain Crates from Mantic’s Kickstarter having arrived recently, filled with little bits of scatter terrain, I should be able to make up the numbers. It’ll be a hard year to top at this rate, though!