A look back on 2017

So I thought I'd look back at what I've managed to do over the pervious year, projects that I have started or finished, the models that I have painted, the events I have attended, my first major forays into the hobby social media world and a little round up of my time working for GW. Warning: this will probably be a long post, with plenty of pictures to break it up, but a long read non-the-less. 

Most of my space wolves as they stand at the end of the year

Army projects

So let's kick off with a look at some of the armies that I've painted or worked upon this year. Two of these were started in 2017 (the Talons and the Blood Ravens) and the Mechanicum was only just about 1000pts strong at the beginning of the year and now weighs in at considerably more.

Talons of the Emperor

The army as it stood in the run up to the Word of the Sigilite event at WHW earlier in the year. This is about 3.3k of points with the army standing closer to 5k now with al the bits I've painted inbetween and have left to paint.

When Inferno (HH book 7) dropped at the weekender dropped earlier this year. As a space wolves player in heresy I thought it would be fitting to do a small allied detachment (see how that turned out...)  to run alongside the wolves. After seeing the Ixion Hale model and the spear dread I wrote out an 1000pts army list based on the book. Around 4000pts later I have a fully playable Talons of the Emperor force with a multitude of vehicles, walkers and both sisters of silence and adeptus custodes in the force, making it one of the more balanced Talons force that I have seen to date. And there is still more to do with it. So going into next year what do I need to complete? I have three transports to paint, three jetbikes and another 16 sisters of silence (minimum) to do, after this I think the army will be close to complete although I may get a couple of other transports done in the far future. I'd also like to get some 40k bits painted so that I can potentially use in the 41st millenium.

Space Wolves

Russ and friends ready to wage war

This army (which the blog was originally set up to document) has taken a bit of a back burner. This year. After the release of Inferno there was a lot of upheaval in the space wolves community and I decided that this wasn't something that I wanted to be a part of really. So I decided to sit back and not focus on them, rather finishing off (and starting) other projects. This doesn't mean however that I didn't do anything to them this year. In october I went the an event and took the wolves with me so got a couple of extra bits done to bring them inline with the new rules. This included some new weapons for my contemptor, a whirlwind scorpius, some more infantry, two more land speeders and Russ himself. I've still got some more stuff I want to do for the wolves which I have already got such as Russ' puppies and some more grey slayers to round out my numbers, oh and the Mastodon... After that I can feel myself calling it quits on this army, maybe adding some units here and there in the long run. I have nearly 10k points of wolves (both painted and not) and my painting has massively improved since I started painting them so it is time to move onto newer pastures and push my painting even further.

Mechanicum

The mechancium army that I took to the Word of the Sigilite campaign weekend

 At the beginning of the year myself and Tom (whos armies have also featured here before) took a doubles mech army to a heresy doubles event. And this was the perfect time to kickstart myself back into my mechanicum. I had already managed to aquire a number of thallax prior to this and this was kind of my excuse to get them done. This army is actually close to being done. I have a couple more myrmidon secutors to paint and I want to get some trasnports for them to go in and maybe a karacnos tank or two, but actually if I don't get them done I won't be so worried about it. This army was good fun to do and I learnt a whole bunch of new skills to do with basing, basic weathering and doing simple OSL with drybrushes. It is also the army with the largest model I have painted to date in it, my Knight Atrapos

Blood Ravens

My Blood Ravens from the Dark Imperium box and a couple of extras

 So this was a bit of a different project. I was looking at getting back into edge highlighting just before the 8th edition of 40k was released. So I decided to set myself a challange and paint up the whole box to a high standard. This army doesn't really have any practical use on the table and I've got no idea how it would play as it's never actaully been used but I do want to take it out for some games at some point in the future. The army was built around models I liked the look od and sort of expanded from there. I also have painted an apothercary and redemptor dreadnought. In the painting pile is a half finished repulsor, some more reavers, terminators, a primaris chaplain, primaris birthday captain and the big man himself Gabriel Angelos. This is an army that I would really like to get finishe in the early part of next year. I don't really have a lot I want to add to this force (some easy build aggressors and potentially a second repulsor and third squad of intercessors) having got most of the bits that I want the force already. I think one of my aims for this force is to finish painting all the bits of it that I own and take it for a game somewhere by the end of 2018

Other Random Painting projects

Overall this year I have managed to paint a couple of models for pleasure rather than for an army, although this is something that I do a lot less these days that I have done in the past. I've painted a couple of Orges/gutbusters at the beginning of the year and have recently made a start on my escher gang for Necromunda. I do enjoy painting one off models and I think it is someting that I'd like to do a little bit more off. I'm also tempted to start trying some larger scales models in the future and I will let you know how I get on with them.

My Time at Games Workshop

So as some of you may be aware and other not so I worked for Games Workshop for just over a year starting last summer and finishing at the end of this summer. It was a something that I kind of always what I wanted to do and having the chance to do so was great fun. One of the aspects that I was most fourtunate to participate being one of the good staff painters in the shop was to help paint the armies to go in the shop cabinets. One thing that I learnt how to do was to paint well and quickly and is one of the reasons I can now bash out armies on the quick side. Since this year started I helped paint a silver tower set, two sets of the nurgle side of the dark imerium box, and a member of each of triumvirate boxes released for the gathering storm plus a selection of scenery for the both the new 40k table and for other bits in the shop. Below is a selction of bits that I have painted in no particulary order.

The high quality version of the Death Guard from Dark Imperium, I was sick of painting these guys by the end of it.

I painted Cypher, Yvrainne and Celesetine and her Gemmini's for the shop. These were great models and wonderful for the painter. I am tempted to get some for myself at some point and sell on the rest

I painted all the thousand sons from the prospero box, a process made easier by the fact I'd already painted 35 MKIII marines for my space wolves in the past

One of the 4 characters from silver tower I painted

Events

So I believe I managed to attend 4 events in this year. The first heresy doubles event of the year in January, the Word of the Sigilite event, one of the Heresy Throne of Skulls and my first non-warhammer world event in Portsmouth in early November, Path 2 Confrontation run by Emperors path and Confrontation events. Overall each event was a success for different reasons. In January myself and Tom's mechanicum doubles force was nominated for best army and came 4th overall. At the Word of the Sigilite event our team (myself, Tom and Lex of Crusade and Heresy) managed to get most sportting opponents. And at P2C I managed two wins and ended coming 3rd overall which is probably the best I have done all year. I already have two events lined up for next year and would lke to try and get a best army nomination without a partner. With the expansion of the communiy and my instagram page the most enjoyable part of the events has become meeting people that I met at previous events or online and being able to catch up with people over the year.

My army from Path 2 Confrontation

My army from Throen of skulls

Really need to get these framed

Right to left: Tom, Lex Head and Myself holding out most sporting certificates, managed even with a missing team member

Mine and Tom's army in the cabinet in Warhammer World and the doubles event in January

Social Media

Instagram

So I decided to set up a hobby instagram at the beginning of this year to help me get some stuff painted and shown off. Over this year I have managed to get just over 900 followers and connect with people all over the world in all walks of the community, helping me make new friends and get involved in new groups etc which I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

Youtube

So hopefully you've made it this far, and I will now talk about a little bit about my experiences on camera this year. I have been featured on Emperors Path a mighty 4 times this year and once on Wargames weekly. So firstly thanks to Wargames and specifically George for inviting me to join them on the wednesday that I was there. And then I have to say a massive thanks to Sam over at Emperors Path for taking the dive and inviting me over with my custodes earlier in the year, I have totally enjoyed it and we have managed to film three battle reports and a mechanicum rundown, and hopefully make people more aware of what my army was doing (it made Sam start his own mechanicum force...). So hopefully Sam will have me back at some point in the neat future and we can play some more games, and maybe even collaborate with some others in the next year.

The deployment of mine and Sam's most recent game

So you have made it to the end of this massive post! Just a quick couple of thanks to be made. Firstly to Sam over at Emperors Path for the reasons pointed out above, Tom and Lex for going to a number of events alongside me (and in the case of Tom Driving me there and back). Ed Barfield for a great game at the beginning of the year and running some class events at Warhammer World this year. My old boss Rod Davis and my ex-collegue Pete from the Southampton Store and lastly all of you who have read my many rambling posts on this blog over the year, hopefully next year will bring some similar content.

Have a good New Year, I hopeit's great for your hobby,

Philip