Well I did get in some games this year so that was nice. Not a lot ... probably not enough to justify the amount of money, space, and time it takes up ... but it's not going to go away any time soon. I managed to paint some more miniatures too. The Blood Angels, Orks, and World Eaters all got some things actually finished and a whole bunch more got base coated, if not finished, but there is plenty of work to be done ...
I also kept my "mini-moratorium" going to the end - no new miniatures acquired. I bought some parts to help finish some up, I bought some bases (though I mostly 3D print those now), and I bought plenty of paint and glue but no new boxes of plastic joy. I won't keep that at 100% for next year but I will try to limit it to "armies I am working on right now" and not "armies I might want to theoretically work on someday" or even "completely new armies I could start without making any real progress".
The state of the forces report for this year:
Marines - for the various marine armies progress was decent but slow. Lots of building, lots of base coating, lots of "almost finished" but not enough "actually finished." There are plenty of dreadnaughts and vehicles in this state too, not just infantry. The focus is still Crimson Fists and Blood Angels as far as finishing new units, with the Black Templars still sitting in a pile of sprues and boxes. I agonized over my Dark Angels once again, possibly pulling them back from OPR-land to make a Ravenwing/Deathwing force. Still not sure if I'm going to commit to that. The other chapters remain unchanged.
Imperial Guard - I finally settled in on a rough structure for my long-developing Praetorian Guard army. I had been picking up options for a new guard force all through 2024 but I finally went through and worked out which of the new stuff fit and what could be used as what and which units could be reallocated from the main guard force and have something I like - now I just need to paint it, including 100+ guard infantry! And this is of course separate from the generic guard army - generic gray-painted Cadian tank force - I have built up over the last ten years which has a lot of painted vehicles ... but in the wrong scheme for Praetorians ... which means I built up a second tank force to go with the new infantry force because I like tanks ...
I'll have more about this in future posts but you would think I would be better at this by now and not build redundant army types ... but I am not. The one bright spot is that the tank force is largely built and base coated so it is actually usable in a game. It is on my mind that this should be a top-3 priority for next year but we will see.
Other Imperials - I made no changes to the Grey Knights, Custodes, or Imperial Knights this year. I didn't even get the codexes for some of these.
Chaos - I mainly played and worked on the World Eaters this year and I have a few more things to work on for them. It's a nicely focused army and I don't really feel like I need to add much of anything to it. The rest:
- For the Iron Warriors I base coated some Venomcrawlers and a Defiler (just in time for a new defiler, according to rumors - of course). There are things I could work on here but I have a solid army already done. It's really just adding seasoning here until I decide to start rolling in the new, larger marines. With rumors of them getting a primarch model in 40K they might get some attention in the near future.
- For the Death Guard I painted some units - plague marines, bloat drones, helbrutes, etc. but I didn't finish anything but one bloat drone so I have a lot of things in that familiar middle ground of "kinda painted but not finished" that I really need to start avoiding. I had to rediscover my plague marine paint scheme and then re-locate the paints I used for it which I did manage to do! Knocking out a few more units would at least give me a core force that was finished.
- Daemons - I didn't really do much with these this year. I just sorted through them, gave each of the 4 powers their own shelf so I can easier see what I have and what I don't. The only real change I've considered here is moving some of the old ones back to square baes to use in Old World but I'm not taking that plunge yet.
- Knights - I have a lot of finished knights with a lot of unfinished magnetized gun options. This was true at the end of 2024 and it remains true at the end of 2025. Maybe 2026 will change that.
- The Tyranids got a lot of attention this year as I realized I had plenty of stuff - I just needed to get them built. I had been paralyzed by trying to nail down a color scheme. It's a big deal to me when starting a force from scratch as I don't want to have another Guard-type situation where I have either a split force or have to repaint some painted models. So I had to get that settled to be able to move past the "building" stage and I did finally get there earlier this year. so now I have built and base coated:
- The Swarmlord
- 2xHive Tyrants
- 3xFlying Hive Tyrants
- 3xTyrannofexes with the big gun + 1 with the big flamer
- 1xTervigon
- 1xHaruspex
- 10xGargoyles
- 30xGenestealers (I like genestealers)
- 3xBroodlords
So that's plenty for doing a "big bugs" army right now (+ genestealers) but I still have almost all of the Leviathan sets to get to this state and that means a lot of little bugs to build and spray to get everything to this level. This is my current project - my warriors are on the workbench now - so I hope to have it all "playable" in the very near future, ideally in January.
- Necrons - I did very little with this force in 2025 and I'm kicking myself because this is probably my best bang for the buck option time-wise here. They don't take long to paint, I have just about everything I could need for the army and the only things that are not built and sprayed are one old monolith and the Kill Team sprue which I'm not sure what I want to do with yet. I really should get these finished up so I can take them off of the to-do list completely.
- Eldar - My Eldar did get used in a game earlier this year by one of my new players and I do like them still but with around 8000 points painted and another 2000+ floating around the house I don't feel a lot of urgency to work on them. My old metal dark reapers work just as well as the new plastic dark reapers so I don't really feel a need to replace or update them. The one area I want to work on is the jetbike contingent, which, while not being very on-theme for Iyanden, is still a very Eldar thing and with Blaster out of the house I'm not stepping on his toes by building a bike force. With the wraith units and aspect units largely handled this is the one area that's thin for my army and I picked up a bunch of them in late 2024 that are still sitting there a year later, including some Shining Spears I'd like to inflict on someone else. We will see how quick I get to them.
Honorable Mention: Harlequins - they did get folded back into the Eldar book this edition, but I have a bunch of old metal ones from the RT days and I could add a few skimmers and bikes to that to have an interesting side force with these guys. Something to think about.
- Dark Eldar - I've had some form of dark eldar kicking around since the 3rd edition starter box but I've never really prioritized them as an army either to build or to play. When they were redone for 5th I started picking up a unit here and a unit there every year and I've played them a few times but they've always been "extra" - now it's 10+ years later and those units are starting to be replaced and I really should have done more with these guys. Looking at the ridiculous amount of units I have for an army I rarely play and has always been kind of third string I am almost embarrassed. I do like the lore and the style - it might be time for a concentrated "get them all built and basecoated" program here like I did with the necrons and am working on with the 'Nids. It would be a little bit down the road but it would certainly be doable.
- Tau - I decided last year to make a Tau army. I picked up a bunch of stuff including a lot of 3D printed battlesuits and vehicles just to have something different. Since then I have done zero with it - the entire force is still on sprue or in boxes or bags on a shelf in the closet waiting to be brought to life. It's dumb - don't do it this way kids.
- Orks - ah one of my favorite armies and supposedly one of the poster armies for 11th edition coming next summer! I have a -lot- of orks, and quite a few of them are painted - but so many are not! Or at least not finished! But so many are on the verge of being finished! Just finishing up a unit here and then another there, just going one unit at a time, would add so much to the finished pile. It's not even really the boyz at this point as so many of them are in good shape - it's more the bikes and buggies and 'nauts and vehicles in general. These are definitely a priority for this year.
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