2022 was a very productive year for me in terms of hobbying – I finished off several armies I’d been working on for ages, and made a start on some new ones. Over the course of the year, I managed to paint over 250 models.
However, my backlog, though reduced, still remains. And having received some lovely Secret Santa goodies, as well as some Made to Order models I picked up last year, I have added to the pile slightly. Fortunately, my ratio of painted models for last year, compared to purchased models, was significantly higher, so I did manage to make a dent in the backlog.
My objectives for this year's blogs are still the same – try to get some paint on some models, and try to get through at least some of the backlog. The plan (for now at least) isn’t to try and beat last year's model count – I don’t want to set myself a goal and then get disappointed if I don't meet it. I might revisit the idea later in the year if I think it might become an achievable target, but for now we'll see how things progress. So, time to pick up a paintbrush and get cracking for 2023!
The first model painted for the year is quite a common theme for posts on the GBHL in January – everyone's been putting together the new toys they got for Christmas and have some spare time to get some paint on them. I was no exception, and decided to pick out a model I wanted to paint last year, but could never quite find the time to get around to it. I'd already painted the foot version of the new(ish) plastic Witch-King of Angmar, which just left the mounted version – a lick of paint later, and the Lord of the Nazgul was ready to lead Mordor's armies!
With the Witch-King done, my attention turned to what is normally the first tournament weekend of the year for me – the Warhammer World Middle Earth Grand Tournament! Needing two 700 point armies, I decided to make my evil force an army I'd played with previously at last year's Middle Earth Team Championships – the Assault on Lothlorien Legendary Legion. Unfortunately, the list I ran previously didn’t fare too well, as it failed to win a single game across the entire weekend. Although, considering all of the assaults in the War of the Ring failed, the army did stay pretty true to theme!Fortunately, the list can be run in a number of different configurations, so for the GT list, I took out some models that didn’t perform too well, and added some more of the ones that did. The Wild Warg Chieftain I used previously turned out to be an absolute brute in combat, so I quickly added a second, using a grey palette in order to tell the difference between the two. A Bat Swarm I ran in the old list was also quite effective, so I added another of those. Lastly, I increased the number of Goblin Prowlers from four to ten, as their throwing weapons would benefit from the +1 to wound bonus granted by the Legion's night-fighting special rules.
I also made a slight conversion to both my Warg Chieftains – the original rock the model is posed on comes with a dead Rohirrim warrior sculpted on it, which would look out of place considering the theme of the army – I replaced these with some pieces of cork, which I built up to the height I wanted, before covering everything with ready-mixed filler. A quick paint job later and I had my reinforcements for the Assault on Lothlorien!
For my good force, I decided to look through what I'd painted the previous year for inspiration, and my eyes settled on my Iron Hills force, led by Dain Ironfoot. However, I didn’t have enough models to take 700 points of Iron Hills Dwarves, but fortunately sitting in my painting queue were King Brand and a host of Men of Dale – perfect allies to the Dwarves, allowing me to field the Defenders of Erebor Legendary Legion from Defence of the North.
I tried to find some stills from the Hobbit films to help get the colours right on the Men of Dale – I was rather pleased with the end result, and based them to match my Iron Hills. Using the same basing style on different armies is a great way of creating a unified force – whilst the Men of Dale and the dwarves of the Iron Hills are completely different models, using the same base ties them together quite nicely. By the end of the month, I had nearly a dozen of them all finished!
One other goal I'm setting myself for this year is to try and get through the (growing) collection of random, half-finished models that have accumulated on my desk. These are all small painting projects I've ended up putting aside when another project has needed to take priority (such as finishing an army for an upcoming tournament) or if I've simply got bored with it and started on something else.
To give myself some variety between painting my GT forces, I dived into this pile at random and finished off Golfimbul for my Angmar force, as well as some Minas Tirith siege crewmen, painted up Razgush for a future Mirkwood force, and I also found a random Haradrim archer in there and gave him a coat of paint too!
Painting a random model every now and then is a nice way of taking a break or unwinding from painting the same thing over and over again, and it also means I might finally be able to see my desk at long last!
By the end of January, thanks to the goblins, Men of Dale and the random models I'd painted, I'd already reached a total of 24 models for the year, which I consider a pretty good start. February will probably be spent working on King Brand and the remaining Men of Dale for my Good GT force, before moving on to Bard II and some Dale Warriors that need painting – keep an eye out for the next blog to see how I got on with them!
