Hobby pledges - 2nd half 2015

Hi guys, 

July is rapidly fading and my hobby output these past few weeks has been decidedly poor. I've been playing catch up with the SM/DA releases since getting back from hols and now seems an appropriate time to start thinking ahead to what the rest of this year may hold. 

New releases:

Now that the pace has slowed a little with the GW releases, it's nice to have some breathing room to actually get on top of things. That being said, there are sure to be some new codex (or even wave) releases this year with Tau being tipped to be next. As always I will try to keep up with releases finances permitting and use it as a good excuse to dust off and give some attention to said army. If a Horus Heresy set does indeed land this year that will be the signal to get Luna Wolves finished off finally.  

New purchases: 

If the new releases are a bit slow between now and the end of the year, there are a few things I'd like to invest in instead. Most of my armies are at the stage where only one or two units would finish them off and so adding the finishing touch to a couple would be great. Plus another Primarch, but not until....

Horus:

Lupercal has been sitting ready to paint on the shelf in front of me for a couple of months now and I hope to finally give him the attention he deserves. Once he's complete it will be time to move on to the next Primarch.

Astartes:

Hot on the heels of the last releases I've added a few fellas here and there. 5 sniper scouts to the Raven Guard and a general re-shuffle in several armies to grant the Salamanders, Ultramarines and Imperial Fists a demi-company each. (courtesy of the new devsstator/assault kits). I've also added a third tactical squad to the Dark Angels for the same reason. These guys are all about halfway through assembly with painting/basecoating to follow. 

Loose ends:

A few loose ends remain from my previous pledge, most notably the final licks of paint on the Eversor/Vindicare assasins, a couple of Tyranid Items to paint and, of course, that darn Ork Naut which still isn't quite finished. They'll be living on the desk until I pull my finger out and sort them.

Heroes of Badab:

While huge progress was made on these guys this year there is still a way to go. The vehicles still need the last of their basecoating and once that's done I aim to move on to painting up individual squads fully. I was hoping for end of this year but we'll see how it goes.

Necrons:

Still at the top of the pile, the crons will need a bit of assembly and then spraying with chrome / brass spray to get them rapidly up to scratch. However, I'd like to take it a step further and get them on some new, larger bases (which means getting rid of the old, resin ones) with translucent green crystals on. This leads nicely onto the last pledge:

Basing:

Hopefully the next 6-12 months will be overshadowed with basing. The new round and oval bases have allowed a lot of scope for reinventing my armies, most notably the abundant Marine armies. I've already started the process of updating them and hope to continue this until ultimately they are all sorted. My criteria is pretty simple: tau/eldar/humans/scouts go on 25mm, Marines/Necrons/Nobs (undecided on boys) go on 32mm. Some of the armies (Salamanders, Iron Hands) are on resin bases, and so for the sake of uniformity I'm going to get ahold of some 25-32mm ring converters to bring them in line also. Quite the undertaking, but as I've already seen (most notably with the Heroes of Badab) it's well worth it for the effect.

While on the topic of bases, the other basing project I hope to get on top of is the flyer basing project I'd envisaged some time back. About half the flyers I own still need interesting bases to live on, and I'd like to commit a weekend sometime to sorting them out. Tau I'd like to have an Arizona-style rock formation to rest the flyer atop; Space wolves a snowdrift; Orks a swamp of dead trees and mud; Dark Angels a forest; Grey Knights some Imperial ruins; Necrons an obelisk and Imperial Guard some vehicle ruins. 

That's all for now. On the surface of things it doesn't seem that unachievable, but when you factor in exams, unpredictable releases schedules and general life bits n bobs we'll just have to see how it goes. Nice to have some targets set though. Cheers for now.