I've been working on putting together my Vampire Counts army for Old World - sorting through the pile and repurposing things from my Kings of War Undead and Age of Sigmar Soulblight armies but when I sat down to do some painting I kept looking at the red army on my painting table and I just got pulled away.
I had some assault intercessors that had been sitting at "almost finished" for months now. It's a weird hang-up of mine that I can get a model most of the way to "finished" and then stop and overthink the final stages and eventually move on to something else instead of just finishing the damn thing. I have units that have been at this stage for literal years, sometimes since my kids were still "kids" kinds of years. I have been making an effort last year and this year to clear out some of this pro level of dumb backlog and I am liking the progress. The armies that are mostly still on the sprue - like the Black Templars primaris stuff - are just going to have to wait until next year.
Last month I managed to knock out those assault intercessors - all 20 of them - and get them into the display case which is pretty much the finish line for me. That's two full squads which is as much foot-type regular assault as I should need. I also finished up a custom Sanguinor that I had sitting on the table as well.
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| 3rd shelf yellow helmets are the assault guys, winged guy on the right is the new Sanguinor |
My takeaway from these 3 units is that you would think I would know by now that picking up someone's old half-painted squads on eBay is not nearly the shortcut that it appears to be. Finished squads -sure, but then you lose some of the options to make them "yours" and customize them a bit. I've long been a sucker for that unit that someone started but didn't finish - maybe they are built with some custom parts or have some other interesting tweaks or have the beginning of an interesting paint job but that need someone to finish them out. That someone is me - though it may take 5 years to actually accomplish it. The way I build & paint I would probably be better off focusing on one or two armies ... well that horse left the barn about 1989 so I am way past that now.
This week I am working on regular intercessors, the ones with guns, and I am actually close to finishing them too. I am at the putting-the-shoulder-pad-decals-on stage which will be followed by some touching up, painting any other details I have ignored thus far but have decided now that I want to paint them, then a final shade wash, then the clear coat, then finishing the base with flock and tufts, then cussing over any mistakes I missed prior to all that, and then finally putting them in the case. I might finish all of that next week or it might be 2031. Hopefully it's next week. Three finished five-man squads would cover basic troopers for the foreseeable future.
That's another quirk I've realized I have: if there is a type of unit I want to add to the army I tend to want to do all of them at once to ensure they all look like they belong together. I could have focused in and done one five-man intercessor squad but I had set aside three for team red and I am unlikely to take just one squad if I take any. So I end up painting fifteen of them all at once which is a bigger effort and tends to drag out - for me anyway. At lest it's not Orks where I'm doing 20-man squads of boyz - and I can't take just one of those either.
Next up ... I am not sure. I was thinking maybe aggressors - hey it's only a 3-man squad - but I need some leaders here too. Individual special models can turn into an infinite project for me too but if I just try to get them done maybe I can avoid that particular tendency this time. I should probably look into my jump pack intercessors too since that's kind of a signature thing for Blood Angels.
I also have to decide what kind of elite stuff I want to focus on next. Sanguinary guard? New terminators? Carve out some of the pile of death company that's waiting to take the field? This is where the analysis paralysis can take hold if I let it. One unit at a time ...
If I can finish these guys up this month that puts me up to 37 BA models finished so far this year as I did finally finish the biker chaplain I mentioned in August. I think 50+ sounds like a decent goal.
One final note: as is fairly evident from the shelf picture up there my army uses a lot of different reds. Being complied over many years and from multiple sources it was inevitable but I actually like it - my justification is that the whole force is out on campaign - it's a fighting company, not a parade company - and between battle damage, environmental effects, and supply challenges everyone's armor ends up slightly different. I know within the force there is GW Blood Angels Contrast Red, GW Mephiston Red, Army Painter Dragon Red, and Testor's Flat Red at least. Add in various highlighting techniques, stains, and washes and there is a lot of variation in there when you see them up close but on the table they look pretty coherent.
One thing that helps is that a few years ago I went back and made some deliberate choices on how I wanted to base the army going forward. I wanted it to be fairly simple so I could replicate it on every model, I wanted it to comprised of easily acquired materials, and I wanted it to show off and contrast the color. I'm not a huge fan of all-green basing on mostly red models so no grass this time. I probably could have gone with snow bases as it looks great with a nice bright red scheme but I already have snow on my Eldar, my Iron Warriors, and all of my chaos daemons so I wanted to do something else. I ended up with the sort of grey desert bases you see above. This is:
- Base color is GW Mechanicus Standard Grey
- Flock is Gale Force Nine Ash Waste
- Tufts are Army Painter Highland tufts
I can admire those people who have an entire army painted at once by one person or service using all the same paints but it's never going to be a thing for me.
More to come ...
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