Tuesday 14 March 2017

First post of 2017. Hobby update and plans for the year

Hello all,

I was pretty shocked when I noticed the other day that it had been almost a year since I blogged on codex imperialis. This is due to a combination of factors. Firstly, this time last year I was in the early stages of buying/selling a house and relocating to a different part of the U.K. For job and family reasons. By the time all the dust had settled from the move it was summertime and house renovation work took top priority for the rest of the year. Beginning of this year we had a few hiccups in that one of our beloved dogs who had battled a long illness had to be euthanized. In addition to this my wife was made redundant at work so things were a bit rough for a time. Although I have continued to enthuse in all things hobby wise, I haven't been as productive as normal and blogging has fallen by the wayside. In addition, a lot of the projects I have been working on for the past 12 months have been space marine related and thus live on my other blog, index astartes.

Anyway, this is an update and check-in really as my hobby plan is to finish up with all my space marine projects by approximately middle of this year. That then frees me up to move onto non-astartes projects til the end of the year and then, all being well, I can turn my full attention to the dark gods next year. This is sure to be detailed to some extent by new gw releases and setting overly ambitious targets but that's roughly the idea. So, best thing I guess is to update where I a with the armies on this blog. Without further ado:

Necrons.
I made good progress with these chaps mid last year as the pics suggest. I now have the army fully assembled (save for a couple of character models and some scarabs) and all sprayed with basecoats plus 32mm bases. Very happy with how they've turned out and just have a few wishlisty items to visit in future, such as a tesseract vault, some flayed ones and a tomb stalker.




Eldar.
Love this army as it is and don't have any plans to add to it in the near future. Sadly my poor phantom collapsed in on itself and so I would like to spend a day getting it reassembled (with a bit more stability) I love the look of the new jet bikes and would love to add in some of them in the future too.


Tau.
Again, I made good progress with these guys last year and added a few big suits, including this chap. I have a storm surge, ghostkeel and commander that are still needing finishing touches. Also, I've decided to go with the desert color as seen in the pic below as my theme as opposed to the tau ochre, which means it need to invest in some more army painter spray at some point to get them rebase coated. Once these finishing touches are done I'm happy to call it a day with the tau.


Tyranids.
At some point I would like to have an expansion drive for my nids. As they stand they're about 2500 points but are missing many entries from the codex. I suspect a new dex would be a driving point behind me expanding them so I have them in the back of my head to come back to at some point. As they are now they're all basecoated and look reasonable on the tabletop.

Orks.
Nothing really to add to the orks tbh. Only work I've done on them in recent times is to finish building their stylised flying bases which can be seen below. One is made to resemble an ammo dump, another an outpost and the third an effigy.


Gene cults.
Absolutely love genecults and the idea of them. I have the overkill models but haven't ventured any further down the lines of getting them. They are on my wish list for later this year, by which time hopefully gw will have released a starter set for them.


Sisters of battle.
Added Celestine and the ltd Ed canoness to the ranks, bringing my total models to 5. Still awaiting plastics. Ready when you are gw.

Imperial agents.
Mixed feelings about the agents book from the end of last year. I feel it was a good thing overall but a missed opportunity in some ways. I've added greyfax to the roster and would at some point like to go all blanchitsu on things and create a few henchmen to hull out my retinue.

Astra militarum.
The second army on my wish list for later this year are the imperial guard. I've had some mantic models sitting in a box for the past few years waiting to be assembled to be proxy guard. The more time goes on the less I think I like the models but in the absence of plastic guard models that I actually like I will try to stick with them. Would be good to get them assembled later this year.

Dark eldar.
Haven't touched these chaps for a while and have no plans to in the near future. There are a couple of pretty units I would consider adding when they get an update such as mandrakes and beasts, but other than that (and the excellent value offered by gangs of commorragh) I have nothing to add to them.

Chaos daemons.
Plans for next year abound. The start collecting boxes and new greater daemons offer many an opportunity to expand. I think I will focus on one god at a time based on what new developments come along for them.

Chaos space marines.
Again, boundless plans for next year. I have ideas for each of the 9 legions and hope to tackle them one at a time in what will be my final phase in the descent into 40k madness. I have purposefully avoided tackling chaos waiting for a time when the rules, Horus heresy and updated plastics are correct and I suspect by this time next year that time will be upon us.

Harlequins.
Courtesy of death masque I ended up with quite a substantial amount of harlequins to go alongside the original metal ones I had as part of my eldar army. They are on the shortlist to be assembled in the latter half of this year.


Adeptus mechanicus
Lastly, courtesy of the get started and xmas boxes I managed to build up a decent collection of admech. They are mostly still needing assembly and will also gain my attention later in the year. I've been trying to come up with a colour scheme I like for my ryza admech for some time now and think I've finally settled on the alclad candy orange colour for the vehicle orange, standard gw orange for robes. This will finally mean investing in an airbrush which will be really useful for chaos legions next year too.


In summary I've a busy hobby year ahead (as always) but feel I'm almost on top of things. I estimate that I'll be done with astartes around June - July and can focus the second half of the year on harlequins, admech, imperial guard and genecults with just a few other non astartes projects thrown in. Grabbing an airbrush too will also be great now I have a double garage to set up in and is long overdue. Fingers crossed I'll be in a great position to start dabbling with the forces of chaos come 2017. Til then, cheers and hopefully updates will be more frequently than once a year. Ciao.

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