Plans for 2021 - Warhammer 40.000

The main army I will work on for Warhammer 40K is my Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum as the range is called now). They have the highest priority in this range. I have lots of both tanks and infantry built and primed and still lots to build. This is one of my two main armies for 40K, and I have all my models at home so it is "just" a matter of finding the time to work on them. Most of my color schemes are quite clear for this army, but I am still considering how to do the airborne part of the army as I haven't built any of those yet. But I think I know how I want them to look, so it is just a matter of building and giving it a try. I have another army I can use both as a separate army and as allies to this, and that is my Imperial Knights.

I have Imperial Knights that will serve on both sides of the conflict. So far I have built and painted one for the good side and one for Chaos. My plan is to have two Chaos Knights. The rest of the knights will be Freeblades, and some will have Imperial symbols while others will have the symbols of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They will fight as backup for their factions, or together as one army of Freeblade Knights.
I plan to give the knights many different paint schemes and all knights will have their own back story. I might paint some in the same scheme to be remnants of a once mighty household, but I will see what I end up doing as I work with them. All of a sudden I find a paint scheme I really love...  This army will take some time though,  the models are big and require a lot of work.

My other main army is the Space Marines. Unfortunately Games Workshop has started to face out all the old units to replace them with Primaris, so I don't think I ever will be able to field my dream of an entire chapter of 1000 Gatekeepers. I have thought out a back story to allow Primaris Marines in to my chapter though, so I will try to field those units eventually. I still would like to finish all my Marines and make an entire chapter though, but that will not be finished by the end of 2021...

Another Space Marine army is The Deathwatch. I have all my Marines assembled and primed for this army, except one little group of Space Wolves that need their shoulderguards with a wolf symbol (they are primaris marines). But I only have my Watch Master done so far, but the five commanders of the Watch companies are on my table being painted, So far I have done the base color on their capes and the silver arm, and I have also done the base color of the silver arm on four Dreadnoughts. This is an army I have some hopes of maybe finishing in 2021. They might need a little support in the future, and I have two Corvus Blackstar flyers that I would like to build, and they should probably get some drop pods and Landriders a well sometime further down the road.

If we stick with Space Marines, we get the third individual army, my Chaos Space Marines. I have no idea if I can play them as one army (but I hope so), but no matter what they will all be the same chapter, the Knights of Oblivion. I am not sure this army will be done by the end of 2021, but I sure hope I will have gotten to paint up a sizeable army. I am still arguing with myself what colors to use exactly, but I think I am getting there. I'm painting up a few test models to see how the colors I want to use will work with the marines that are originally Deathguard, and also to see if I need to change my original plan.
I have some regular Chaos Marines to do the changes on as well. The army is one part regular Chaos Space Marines and one part Nurgle. Both have a Chaos Knight to fight along side them. This is mostly an infantry based army, at least in my mind, so I am little uncertain how they will function on a battlefield.

The fourth big army is the Orks. I love the Orks for so many reasons, one of the big ones are the possibilities of doing modifications and kitbashing and make new and crazy stuff for the army.
This is an army that actually have some finished units already. One of the finished units is my monster sized vehicle that was built by the staff at Games Workshop Oslo, and I also have the units I built for the Armies on Parade in 2018 including a Stompa called Da Punisha. I have several units primed, some are painted almost to completion and some are just primed. I have lots of units to build for this army, and like the Chaos Space Marines I hope they will have grown to a bigger force by the end of 2021. Actually I am quite sure they will...

Another slightly weird army is the Adeptus Mechancus. I have some finished units for this army as well, and several units still to assemble and paint. I know how I want the paint scheme to be for this army, but I have a long way to go before I can call it an army. I hope that I might have sort of a battleforce done by the end of 2021.

My Genestealer cult army is a lot like the Astra Militarum, so I don't think that will be a full army in 2021. I will need to buy more units to field it as a stand-alone army, and I am not entirely sure where I want the army to go. But I do know I want to paint this army and play it some day, so hopefully I will finish something this year

Then I have the armies that are separate entities, but maybe too small to be fielded as separate armies. For now they will sort under the Inquisition. They are the Sisters of Battle (they might be a separate army in the future though), the Sisters of Silence, the Adeptus Custodes (might be able to field them as a small army), some Grey Knights and some Inquisition models. Some of these models are partially painted. I have a fully painted Land Raider I plan to use for them, and lots are still on the sprues. 

Then we can wrap it all up with an army I want to work on during 2021, and that is the Necrons. This is an army I want to see grow slowly but steady during 2021. I know how I want my them to look, and some minis are almost complete (just missing some basework). I hope to be able to put a lot of work in to this force, as I think there are so many great models in this range. They should not be too hard to paint up either as it is quite  simple but effective color scheme with just a few colors and washes needed. After all, they are metal skeletons. The big problem with this range is actually having enough hands to hold everything together as you attach the arms and weapons, but I guess that gets better as you build a few batches of troops. I do not have all the units I would like for this army yet, but I do have quite a good start. As soon as I get the new rule book (sold out from Games Workshop at the moment) I can start making these models in to the beginning of an army. 

As for Necromunda I have put that on the shelf for now. I do love many of the models for this range, and I have enough Escher models to make a nice gang to start with, but I just got a big turn-off when I broke several models trying to get them off the cardboard after I had primed them. I have put the starter set in my pile of models to sell, but I am not entirely sure I will stay away, so it is just in the pile for now. Maybe when I sum up 2021 it will show that I have a small band of Clan Escher models... I will paint up the Enforcers though, as they might be used in regular 40K in some way. And even if I decide to sell my Necromunda figures I will keep the Enforcers.

Plans for 2021 - Age of Sigmar

I thought I would split the post about the plans for 2021 up in to two - one for Age of Sigmar and one for 40.000. We will start with Age of Sigmar...

The biggest plan for 2021 is to build a Sons of Behemat army from scratch. I have an old Giant set that I've had for many years and it will be used in this army. So far I have bought two new Mega-Gargants and two regular Gargants (they come in boxes of two now). I have assembled the first Mega-Gargant and started to work on a base for him. I have also assembled the old Giant and glued him to a base. Inspired by an article in White Dwarf I decided to give him a peg leg. Unfortunately it was a little short, but a small pile of rocks at the base solved that problem perfectly.

The next plan will be to build my second Mega-Gargant and two normal Gargants, and then I will check how many more regular Gargants I need to make this a working army. At the moment I figure if each Mega-Gargant have three regular Gargant followers it will make quite a solid army. I have chosen three regular Garants as that is the maximum number allowed in one unit.

I have decided to add a bird to all the "miniatures" or bases in this army to give it my special touch. There are two birds in the box with the two normal Gargants, and I have some spares from earlier so I can also cover the Mega-gargants if there shouldn't be birds in those boxes. 

The next army to build is the Kharadron Overlords. I bought a lot of these models when they were released, but I have never gotten around to do anything with them. This will change for 2021. I don't know how many points this army will be, but I will start with building what I have and see how the army looks when that is done and then supplement it if needed (or not, deep down I know I will get more models for this army no matter if I need to or not).
I have built a few minis from this army before, but only one is painted so far. I have also painted one of the smallest ships. I will decide on a paint scheme for the minis,  as I am not sure of the paint scheme I have used for the one figure that is painted. For the ships I will try my best to replicate the colors I have used, as I am very happy with that.

The third army I will work with is my Gloomspite Gitz. The plan is that part of my Sons of Behemat army also will work as mercenaries for this army if I ever get to take part in a big game. I have a lot of the old Night Goblins and Forrest Goblins (Spider Riders) for this army, and I look forward to seeing it grow. Many models are already assembled and primed and some are also painted and based. I think I will cut the finished figures that are standing on square bases off their bases and mount everything on round bases instead. The army will consist of Grots (Goblins), Gargants and lots of different Trolls. There will be lots of Squigs of different kinds as I really like them. We have gotten some new Squig riders in this range, and I already have built several units of these and more is on the way. For these units I have decided to try and add plants to the bases, and I will see if that can be done on some of the regular Grot bases as well as the big spider bases.

The fourth army are my Sylvaneth, I have two more Treelords to assemble and paint, and lots of regular trees. I know that I am missing a few character models for this army, and some medium sized models but they can be added as I go along. I know how I want to paint the models in this range, and how I want the overall look to be. I am very happy with how my two existing Treelords have turned out, and since I use contrast paints for most of the basics in this army I can get a lot done over a short period of time once the minis are assembled and primed. I have several forests that I want to build for this army. Originally I wanted a mix of the old and the new, but I found out I have so many of the old ones that I think I will stick to using them if that will work. 

The fifth army are what is now called the Cities of Sigmar. I don't know if I can make this a legal game playing army, but I do want to make something of it. I have lots of scenery that I am currently working on that will look good with this army, and I have more scenery that I haven't worked on yet. One of the things I haven't worked on so far is a big castle for "the good guys" and I would love to build that in to something special. I will see how much stuff I have and how it can be assembled. Also I have lots of the old Dwarf miniatures (Duardin now) that I would love to build and paint as I generally love those figures. I plan to place these on the square bases the came with. I have some Bretonnina models as well, and I would love to build them as part of this army as well, I am sure I can find some sort of "legal" description to fit them in to the units that are accepted to use for this army.

The sixth army are my Chaos army. At the moment I don't think there are rules for building a Chaos Unlimited army, but I have mostly elements from Salves of Darkness (what used to be Chaos Unlimited), Khorne and Nurgle with a little bit of Slaanesh  in the mix. A lot of this army are Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights that has been started a long time ago but never finished and if I just start I think I can finish quite a lot in a short time. I love the old Chaos Warrior models, and I also have a unit of the new ones that look very good (and quite similar) so I look forward to getting those done. This is apparently one of the units where Games Workshop has done a lot for gender equality in the later years and there are supposed to be many female heads with the new Chaos Warriors. I will see how they look, and maybe if I get some to spare that don't look too chaotic, I can use some of them for my Astra Militarum army.

The final army are my Ogors. I have lots of them in my storage and I think I know how I would like to paint the regular troops up. I hope I can get something done on this army for 2021 too. As far as I know they have one piece of specific scenery, and that is ordered from Games Workshop. I have used some of these models for my Astra Militarum 40K army, but there is plenty left to make up a good sized Age of Sigmar army for this faction. Lot of plastic, but also quite a lot of resin models for this range.

Today I thought I would write about how I name my armies and their characters. To me that is a big part of creating an army, as I like my armies to have a lot more history than just a bunch of random figures on a table with point values for their equipment.

I like to make up a history that fits the models,  and explain why they look the way they do and what they are doing there. For some armies it includes where they come from, how that place is governed, where it is, and other times that info is not possible to provide. Sometimes I also like to make it easy to explain why the army fight alongside another army on the same battlefield.

Let us start with Warhammer 40.000. 

The first Army worth talking about here is what I thought would be my biggest and my main army for Warhammer 40K, my loyal Space Marines. My regular Space Marine army is called The Gatekeepers. I don't really know why I chose that name, but after doing it I think it sounds like a great name for an Ultramarines successor chapter. Here I have chosen Roman and Greek names for my characters.
My chaplains and apothecaries have Greek names, while my captains and characters have Roman names (usually put together from Roman Emperors). My Chapter Master is called Otho Vitellius and the Gatekeepers have their home world of Luminus Prime. The planet got its name after some planets I saw on an old map of the known universe where they had the Luminus Cluster and I used Prime because that indicates it is the first or the biggest planet in a system.

I also have a Space Marine army of the Deathwatch. They share the monastery with the Sisters of Silence (Sisters of the Shield) that is a small army I have (just a few units really).
I named the fortress Alamo dé Bexar and the chapter master (Watch master) is named Barret Travis. This is from 1836 when Texas got to be an independent country and  broke away from the rule of Mexico. The Alamo was a little mission that they fortified and where all defenders were killed by General Santa Ana and his soldiers. Today the ruins of the mission is an important part of the city of San Antonio and is a tourist attraction (and yes, I've been there). This is the place where among others Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie died. Travis was the commander during the siege and battle of The Alamo, so I found it fitting to use his name for my Watch Master. The Deathwatch is a special kind of army as it consist of marines from other chapters, so I have decided to use names for the characters that sound like the names Games Workshop uses for the same Chapters. 

I also have a Chaos Space Marine army, and they are called The Knights of Oblivion. They used to be loyal to the Empire but during the Horus Heresy they fell to the other side. Their Chapter Master is Arch-Commodore Fallstaff. Arch-Commodore is a named that was used for leaders of the Space Marine legoins before there were split up in to chapters and the leaders became Chapter Masters, so I found that title fitting for an old Chapter. All characters here will be named after characters in Shakespeare plays as I think Chaos characters often have dramatic names.

My Astra Militarum army have all their characters named after officers in the American Civil War (mostly high ranking officers like colonels or generals).
I have used personnel from both sides of the conflict and I have named all my officers and special characters. There are a few that has gotten other names, but that is to show that they originally came from regiments that has been assimilated in to the army after they became too small to live on by themselves.
I have named the army The Walpurgian 3rd. 3 was chosen to show that the planetary system have sent large armies to fight for the Imperium before, and Walpurgia was chosen because I found out that in Sweden they light bonfires to remember a Swedish Catholic saint on the night between April 30th and May 1st. Her name in Swedish is Valborg, but in  English her name is Walpurgis. The General of the entire army of the Walpurgian 3rd are Major General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

My Adeptus Mechanicus army have their leaders named after famous explorers throughout history. They are part of the vast exploratory fleets that look for old artefacts and lost technology, and the leader of the entire fleet is Arch Magos deSousa, and the ship my forces belong to is the big exploratory vessel Gloria Inveneris. The commander of this ship, and with that the commander of my force called Cohort 9-1 Alpha is Magos Explorator de Orellana. 

My Necron army has yet to be named, but I am thinking about using some ancient Chinese Dynasty as a basis for their names.

The final 40K army that I have plans to name are my Orks. They Orks themselves are all named after actors and movie charcters. The Big Mek that is in charge of all the vehicles and war machines are named Big Mek Gyvver (McGyver) and one of the war bosses is Hazza Hof (Da Hof) (after David Hasselhof) and his pet squig Hoobie. I have not found the name for my big warboss yet, originally that was Hazza Hof as he was a big ork warboss (Grukk Facerippa), but then we got a new and plastic version of Ghazghkull Thraka and I knew I had to have him as my ultimate warboss. 

I also have a small army with Adeptus Custodes, the before mentioned Sisters of Silence, a small army of Sisters of Battle and an army of Genestealer Cultists but I have not yet decided how to name them.

For Age of Sigmar I have the following armies:

My Sylvaneth army is called The Ironroot Glade, and it is lead by Quercus Petraera. This is the Latin name for Silver Oak, and I will name all characters in this army after Latin names for trees and bushes. Since this is an army of trees I find it only fitting that they have tree names, and it's much better to be called Quercus than Oak.

I have always loved the Dwarfs, and I have lots of them, though most of them is still on sprues. I want to have a huge Dwarf army, and even though I can't play them as that anymore (at least not in a regular game of Age of Sigmar) I just want to have loads of them and they need their own back story. I can use some of them in a Cities of Sigmar army, but then I will need some Imperial troops to go along with them. I also have some Bretonnian units that I like to use as substitutes for the Imperial units in such an army. The Dwarf contingent will then have a leader called the Low King, and his name is Thorir Thorgrimsson. Thorir is an Icelanic name, and as so happens is the first name of the coach of the female National handball team here in Norway. He isn't the tallest man I know, so I thought it would be cool to make him a Dwarf king. The last name I just picked. For English speaking people it is possible to pronounce and it sounds like a proper Dwarf name. All characters in this army will have names that sound like this, Icelandic or old Norse names.

I also have an army of Kharadron Overlords, they are sort of steampunk dwarfs, and I plan to use the same kind of names for them as they are Dwarfs too. I will not use a known clan but make up my own backstory and make them my own, just like I do with my Dwarfs. Originally I also had an army of Fyreslayers, but I decided I had to choose between Kharadron and Fyreslayers and the Fyreslayers lost. I might buy a unit or two though to use as Slayers in my dwarf army as the old metal slayers are really expensive on the used market. But I am trying to scavenge some slayers here and there as they really have a special look to them that I like, and that fits very well with the rest of my army.

When starting a dwarf army back in the days (I think I started buying dwarfs as my second box of Games Workshop minis ever, and I haven't stopped since) I felt I also needed to have someone they could fight against. Back in those days dwarfs had two natural enemies, and that was Night Goblins and Skaven. I didn't care that much for painting all the fur of the Skaven rat-people, so I went for Night Goblins as they had capes and hoods and that ment not so much skin to paint. They are now the backbone of my Gloomspite Gitz army.
The Gloomspite Gitz is an army book that has come out just about a year ago, and it is perfect for me. When I started buying Night Goblins and other units from what was then known as the Orcs and Goblins range I was dead set on not having any Orcs in the army as I bought a unit of Black Orcs that was the meanest and badest Orcs back in the days. But when I assembled them they just looked like freaks with severe back-problems and they all leaned freakishly forward. So I said I wanted to have a Goblin warlord instead and started to buy Goblins. But you can never win a fight only with Goblins (or Grots as they are re-named to now) so I had to have some mercenaries. I bought two Giants, built one, and also got some River Trolls. With the Glomspite Gitz this is now a legal army, where the Grots can have trolls, giants and other monsters as allies so I plan to slowly bring home my models and get them on modern bases and ready for use in the game. The characters will be named after British names for mushrooms or words related to this. Imagine a shaman called Psilocybin, and "heroes" like Wood Mulberry, Stump Puffball, Yellow Stainer and Moss Oysterling just to mention a few. And in 2020 Games Workshop released yet another big army (big is the operative word here) called Sons of Behemat.

Sons of Behemat are giants (now called Gargants), and their big brothers the Mega-Gargants. Some  of them can go to war as mercenaries in my Gloomspite Gitz army, ut they can also be fileded in full force as an army of their own. I am currently reading their rules and trying to find out how many Gargants I need to field to have a legal army. So far I have two Mega-Gargants and two normal Gargants, but I want to get a few more of the normal ones to be followers of their big brethren and to do some fun conversions like giving one of them a peg leg. Like the Gloomspite Gitz they will have names after British words for mushrooms.

I also have quite a lot of Chaos models, and I want to have a big Chaos unlimited army, but at the moment I am not sure that this is even possible (it used to be in Warhammer Fantasy, and might come back). But I haven't decided how to name the characters in this army yet. But I need to finish some of the many models I have started for the army. And I also have Ogors, the big brutes from the North that I would like to make in to an army, I have a big box of models to assemble so I can build quite an army. 

Making scenery

I have been working on building more than on painting my scenery, but now I've come to the part where I can start to work on the painting.

I started with Skullvane Manse, and that got primed yesterday and I hope to start to paint it in just a few days.

I have completed the Deathknell Watch but I need to go over it with a mix of Greenstuff and Liquid Greenstuff to fill the cracks. That is also the status on the big Witchfate Tor and the ruin called the  Dreadstone Blight. I will begin this process after breakfast tomorrow, and when that has dried I need a day with fair weather so that I can do my priming.

I had to do some slight modifications to the Witchfate Tor to get it to stay together as all the floors were just sliding on top of each other like a hockeypuck on ice, so I installed some support struts inside to keep it together. This make the floors look weird when they are unassembled and the third floor can't sit flat on the table, but hopefully everything keeps together when the tower is standing tall.  

I have also finished the Witchfate Tor ruin, known as The Dredstone Blight. I did a few small modifictions to it from the drawings, but I think I made it look quite nice. When it is painted up I plan to add some vines to it to make it look a little overgrown and deserted, but I think I should paint the tower and the vines separately.

One of the employees at my local Games Workshop store told me about a way I could paint one or more of my towers, and I plan to give it a try with the biggest of them all. I plan to prime the inside of Witchfate Tor as I always had planned to with the light primer, then assemble the tower and seal off the windows before spraying the outside with the gray paint that is supposed to be Mechanicus Standard Gray and then use a light coat of the light gray primer on top when it has dried. Apparently I should be able to get quite a nice look on the tower with washes after that. It sounds like an interesting way of painting the stonework and I am sure it will make the tower look a little different than the Deathknell Watch.

I thought I had three Deathknell Watch towers, and had some nice plans to make one twice as tall as the original, but one box only had a few parts for the tower, and another was full of old Dwarf sprues. I still might have most of the parts for one more tower stacked away somewhere with the cupola for the Skullvane Manse, and just as I write this I think I might know when to look next time I go to check that everything is ok at the cabin. I seem to remember having built at least some of it before, and that might explain the few parts in the one box I found. So I might have a built tower in a box to take home and fix with Greenstuff and then prime and paint to add to the colection.

I have also assembled my first Mega-Gargant for my Sons of Behemat army, and it will also be used as part of my Gloomspite Gitz army from time to time. I plan to build at lest one more Mega-Gargant, and then to start with three regular Gargants and then I will have to read the rules to see how many Gargants I need to make a complete Sons of Behemat army.

Status update

My haunted forest is done, I will take pictures as soon as I get a day with good lighting and then post it here. I used the same way of painting the trees and making the bases as I do with my Sylvaneth, but I gave the wood a drybrush of XV-88 after and I think I will try that on some of my Sylvaneth figures as well as I liked the result a lot.

In the middle of the forest there is a temple, and that is from the Garden of Morr set. I have built the remaining set, but need to prime it when the weather allows for it. This was in a box that had gotten some water damage at my cabin, so it was very good to get it built so I could throw away the box that was beginning to get moldy. There is an open space on one of the bases where the temple used to be, so I have added a stone that can either be a tombstone or a stone with an inscription telling who is in the sarcophagus that used to be inside the temple. At the moment everything is separate so that I can paint inside the buildings before I glue them to the bases. This is important as all the buildings have gates that allow you to look inside. I am also thinking on assembling the entire set on a thin base so that I can glue everything together to one solid piece of scenery with the wall around it, but if I don't do that strait away at least I can glue some of the fences together even though the instructions say not to do this. I guess they say that because it should be easy to store and move around, but I plan to store my scenery in plastic bins after it is built and painted, so I won't have that problem. My only problem might be to find a place to store the bins and a system that is stackable enough, but we'll get to that sometime in the future.

I also have a completely unopened box of the same set, that was re-released after Warhammer Fantasy was re-branded to Age of Sigmar, but the content is exactly the same so I can build that with the temple some time in the future.

I just assembled the Skullvane Manse, and that was in the same water damaged cardboard box in the basement, but this box was not damaged. Sometime many years ago I decided I wanted to build the Skullvane Manse without the telescope globe in the tower, I wanted that cupola on a different tower instead, and since it is the exact same tower as the Deathknell Watch that shouldn't be any problem at all. During a move some years ago I packed up everything I was working with in boxes and they were not always placed with the models, so I have to look for it when I can go back and stay at my cabin for a while. I would love to make the tower twice as tall as the original, as it really is quite small. So that it is higher up towards the stars. I think I have at least two more towers so that should not be a problem as long as I find the cupola.

The Skullvane Manse is the first of the old big sets I have built, and I must say that Games Workshop have gotten a lot better at producing scenery. There are a lot of cracks that need to be filled with Greenstuff, so I have gone over much of the joints with liquid Greenstuff and a sculpting tool and then smoothed it out with my finger (wearing a latex glove) after. I think it looks quite nice now, and I have some specific ideas about how to paint it all, and look forward to getting it primed so I can start.

I also assembled a Deathknell Watch, and that is why I say it is so small. But I think it also will look quite nice once it is primed and painted, and I would like to use the same colors on it as on Skullvane Manse so that it appears to be built with rocks from the same region. I will probably need to give it a round with the same liquid green stuff routine as the Skullvane Manse, but it is not so many different joints so it should be handled quite easily with enough liquid green stuff.

Tomorrow I also plan to at lest start to assemble Witchfate Tor - The Tower of Sorcery. This is yet another tower from Warhammer Fantasy, and the biggest of the lot. I look forward to  getting this together. It is supposed to be modular so that you can take it apart and look inside (and even play with minis standing on the different floors). It seems to be four floors tall so it will be exiting to see how much green stuff I need to make it look good...

I also hope to get some more painting done on my Goblin Loonshrine (I know they are called Gloomspite Gitz now, but to me they are Goblins still). I have started to put on the basic colors on the mountainside and the big moon, but I need to give the moon another thin coat of yellow and then there will be a lot of drybrushing, especially on the mountain to get it to look good.
I am not sure what colors to use on all the fungus and mushrooms yet, but I think there will be a lot of purples and reds for the hats, and some sort of off-white for the stems.

General update

There has not been as much time for building and painting as I had wished for in November, but I have managed to get some stuff done. I've been a little low on energy because of new meds, but they seem to work better now so I feel I have a little more energy. Also with the Covid-19 situation all my afternoon activites (playing and conducting Big Bands) has shut down, so I have every night off now (except when I have to sit at my home office with my back to my workstation and work overtime with my day job).

I've had a Citadel forest in my bins for ages (turns out I built it way back in 2014 and just stuck it in a box with other things I wanted to paint soon) that I haven't gotten around to painting, but I finally grabbed myself by the neck, dug it out, primed it white (the darkest of the two primers made for the Contrast paints) and started painting.

This forest is meant to be a scary place, and it was originally built in store at Games Worskhop Oslo as part of a terrain masterclass. I used a chapel from the Garden of Morr set, cut it so it is a little crooked and glued it in the middle. Then I found some tombstones and a few zombies and added them too.

Since I have a Sylvaneth army I wanted the forest ground to match my Sylvaneth bases, but I also wanted it to look like Nurgle had been there, as the storyline says the Sylvaneth fights against the forces of Nurgle who destroy the forests of their realm. So I added some Nurgle Rot in puddles. 

The trees are painted with contrast paints like the Sylvaneth miniatures, but these trees don't have any leaves. They do have a few chaosy bits in them though, like bells and skeleton pieces.

I am working on the final details of the trees now, and will take pictures and show on the blog, and also tell a bit about how things are done in a blogpost when that is done.

But I found this to be rather fun, so I found my other painted forest where I only had some details left to paint and re-primed that as well, and I will paint that up like the one that is almost done. This forest is more normal and does not have any added things to it. I do think the trees have gotten some of the spare leaves from the first forest though, as the coverage look rather solid. I was quite happy with how I had done things several years ago on the base, but seeing the base on the scary forest made me see that I could do so much better, and also the colors I had used before didn't match my Sylvaneth at all.So I will redo it and get it to work with the Sylvaneth army. 

In the box with the forest from 2014 I also found two realm portals and I have started to paint them as well. I have an idea how I want them to look, but I don't have a good solution on how to achieve that look yet. But I am working on it and hope to get an okay result eventually. The main issue I have is with the magic "flames" that is inside the portal as I want them to look a certain way. But I will see what I can do, I think I have a little idea on how I can do it. The rest of the portal is basically stone and metals, so I know how to do that.  

While checking that everything was ok at the cabin last week I also had a look in my Warhammer boxes (I have lots of cardboard boxes with unbuilt models and terrain and two boxes of 40K terrain that is built but not primed or painted) and I saw I have at least a few more of the old forests still to build, so I will bring them home over time and work with them. But I don't want to have too many sets just standing around (I already have way too many as it is). But I found that one cardboard box had gotten moldy because it had been standing towards a wall that is moist so I emptied that box and brought the sets home. That was the remains of the Garden of Morr set (think I have one more that is complete in another box) the old Skulvane Manse house and one big and one not so big tower. I think I have found a nice way to paint stones, so I am not as scared to paint them now as I was when I bought them. I still have a few of the small towers left in other boxes. Only thing is that I need to find the top of the small tower and the tower in the Skulvane Manse set as I planned to swap the globe on the Skulvane Manse with a regular tower and vice versa. I started to paint the globe so they are in a box with partially painted stuff and not with the unbuilt sets. I will have to look for that next time I go to the cabin, but I will build and paint the rest in the mean time.

I have also put together the Loonshrine for the Gloomspite Gitz and primed that. And that will be my next big painting project. I like to take some time to make sure I get everything looking as good as possible with these things that will be like center pieces on the tabletop so I will do some figure painting in the meantime. 

I hope to finish some of the figures that are standing partially painted in boxes on my shelves, and I would love to finish some of my Chaos Warriors. There is a new Chaos Warrior warband coming out for Underworlds (I think) with a female warrior, and I would love to get that (hasn't been released yet, just teased) and I would love to have some warriors painted up by then.  I decided I wanted some silver Chaos Warriors just to experiement a bit with glazes (that was a thing way back when I started those) and I think the warriors themselves are almost done, but their arms with weapons and shields are not attached and not primed so I need to prime them with a brush and paint them up. I am debating with myself on how to do that, to make them cool but also make them tie in with the rest of the Chaos warriors in my army. Now these are the old warriors, but I also have one unit of the new ones to build and paint.

And I have lots of Goblins (or Gloomspite Gitz as I guess they are called now) built. The ones sitting on Squigs and dressed up a bit like knights that I would love to paint up and get tabletop ready. They will probably be the next batch I prime up.

Also I plan to build some 40K models as I try to get some big boxes away from my shelves. I will take some pictures of my stash and show off in a future post just to show why I need to get boxes done.

 I feel I've had quite a productive weekend.

I am still painting a little here and there on my many unfinished Imperial Guard tanks to try and finish more units. At the moment I have one command vehicle (Chimera with a little extra antennas and a Commissar in the turret) a regular Chimera, two Leman Russ tanks and one repair vehicle standing in vaious stages of painted on my workbench. The one that has come closest to completion is my repair vehicle. It is just missing some minor details like the driver and the two crew members and maybe a little touch-up here and there, so I hope to finish that this week.

I have also started to paint up my last Grot tank (so far at least, I'd love to make more in the future). This is a former tractor made for working in the big industrial complexes pulling cranes or other things that needs to be pulled. After the Orks came and made their base in the complex, the Grots have made this vehicle in to an armored vehicle. It does not have any big guns, but it has several heavy bolters.

It's painted yellow as vehicles of this kind often is, and the Grots haven't bothered with removing the Mechanicus insignia, as it is painted rather neutral on this working vehicle.

My love for Ogres and Ogryns is not something I hide, so it should be well known by now. These last days I have been building a box of Necromunda Slave Ogryns as they are built in the instructions, and I have one more box that I plan to build freely. There are 6 Ogryns in each box, and while some of them clearly are cyborgs, not all of them need to be. When I get to painting I plan to give the ones thata re clearly not regular Ogryns anymore a pale skin, while the others will gt the same skin I paint for my other Ogryns. This box have them armed with power lifting gloves, welding gloves and heavy tools, so my idea is to use them for my support company as mechanics and heavy muscle. But that doesn't mean that they can't fight if the need arises. I have seen some great paint-jobs of these big dudes, and I can hardly wait to get started myself (just need some decent weather so I can prime them).

But they are not the only Ogryns I have worked with, I have also made myself a squad of 6 Ogryns armed with grenade gauntlets and big heavy shields. They have gotten heads from the Age of Sigmar Ogors as I usually do, and the box I got the heads from I plan to build as Bullgryns with electrical clubs and smaller shields and then I will give them heads with gas masks. 

Ogryns with ripperguns - 1st unit

Here are the pictures of my first unit of Ogryns with ripperguns. I am sorry the lighting is different in some of the pictures and not up to its best. I will keep working on that as these picture was taken the first time I used my lightbox. Hopefully when I take pictures of my second unit in the future, the quality of the pictures will have improved a bit.

This first pic shows what comes in one box of Ogryns, 3 figures with slightly different poses.

Like I have written in earlier blog posts, I like to replace their heads with the heads of their Age of Sigmar counterparts to smarten up their looks and make them look a little more wild.

The Ogryn on the right in this picture is my favorite so far.

Originally from the instructions in the box, some of the Ogryns come without shoulder guards and most come just with one if they have any, but I think they should wear two if they can, so all my Ogryns is equipped with this as standard equipment. I think it makes the models look cooler, sort of more military and more in uniform. I imagine they strap them on somehow, and that is why you can wear them even though you don't have any other body armor. The exception from the shoulder guards are some of my Bullgryn suppressors that I have built from the Age of Sigmar Ogor sets, as they don't come with shoulderguards in the box. But they look so different anyway that this can be easily explained.

One thing that is not uniform is what they carry on their belts. I try to add a mix of pouches, grenades, extra ammunition and water bottles to give them some individual character. 

Here are two more. The one on the left in the pic is the squad leader, a so called Bone'ead.
For the Bone'eads I like to use the heads supplied in the box, and for this reason he looks a little bit different than the troops he command. He doesn't have the wild beard his other fellows often seem to have, but he has a mustache instead. He also has a steel plate in his head where he has gone through some augmentation, and it is much easier to show that by using the original head than trying to implement something by cutting in to- and gluing on to the others.

I was not too happy with the color of the t-shirts of this unit, but since it was called Ogryn camo I just had to try it. I think it came out a little too bright, almost neon, but still it looks ok so I decided to keep it. I might even use it on another unit at a later time, but for most of my Ogryns I think I will use more of a traditional light green color.

Then we have the final two, to make this a nice unit of six.Like the first two this is one with and one without t-shirt/singlet. 

What now?

I managed to finish my 3000 points painting pledge with Games Workshop Oslo. I had planned to have lots of infantry in those points, but saw that if I wanted to complete in time I needed units that gave more points so I skipped normal infantry and painted up an Ogryn bodyguard and a unit of Ogryns with ripperguns. That means I still have plenty of Infantry to paint up, but I also have lots of tanks. 

I don't think I've shown off the Ogryns with ripperguns here yet, but I will in just a few days.

Just a few days ago I got two boxes of Ogryns from Necromunda, they are called a Slave Ogryn Gang and each box contain 6 Ogryns. They have equipment made for working, like welding gloves, power lifter gloves, other welders tools and wrenches.  So I plan to use them in my Imperial Guard army as Ogryn mechanics. I would love to build and paint these as soon as possible to get them in to my army.

One other thing that I really want to paint up are my Necron army, and I have started on them  and found the paint scheme that I would like to use. I am making my own Dynasty so it is my own paintscheme.

So far I am working to paint up a Canoptek Wraith to the look I want. Most of it is done, but I am working on the details. When I am satisfied with it I will transfer that look to the rest of the painted minis and to the ones not built or not primed yet.

One of the minis I am working on now is Illuminator Szeras from the new Necron range.

Imperial Guard Ogryn/Bullgryn Bodyguard

This is my first finished infantry model in the new design. This is also my first time using a lightbox to take pictures, but I decided I much rather wanted to do that instead of taking my usual half-bad pictures with a lot of mess in the background. Hopefully I will find a better setup with time. Lord knows I have a lot of models to practice on when I get to work my brushes. It is an study to find the best spots for the lights and the camera.

This model is an Orgyn or Bullgryn (never understood the difference) bodyguard. He is either protecting a high ranking officer in the Walpurgian 3rd or one of the visiting Regimental advisors serving with them.

There is only one bodyguard model made by Games Workshop, and he is one of several versions you can build from a box of three. This bodyguard is the impressive Nork Deddog, but you can only have one of him in your army. So the remaining two gets to serve as something else, and if you do this three times you have three bodyguards and a unit of six Ogryns/Bullgryns with another setup. 
I have done it twice as much, so I have six bodyguards so I needed to personalize them a bit. One of the six is Nork (but with a new name) but the remaining five have gotten some things changed.

The great thing with the Ogryn product line is that they are interchangeable with their counterparts in Age of Sigmar where you have many more choises of heads and weapons. Most of my Ogryns/Bullgryns have heads from the Age of Sigmar Ogors (because abviously they can't have the same name in both systems...), as I think they look much better with lots of hair and wild beards and most of the boxes of that range has extra heads in them anyway.

This bodyguard is based on the model of Nork Deddog, but I had to replace his head, so I gave him one from a Bone 'ead. They are supposed to be  smarter than the regular Ogryn, so I felt that would be fitting. Would not want him to smash the head of the officer he is guarding...

Nork also has a great big knife, but I am not sure if that is something special for Nork or if that is standard equipment for bodyguards, so I replaced it with a big, heavy club. This is also from an Ogor box. 

To make him stand out as a bodyguard I decided to give him the same gun as Nork with the round magazine. I also placed the mechanical Commissar head with the Commissar cap on his shoulder. 

Around his hip I placed a pouch but I am not really sure what he keeps in there. Single bullets maybe. And he also got a couple of hand grenades to really be able to fight off an enemy.

Here he is from the back. From this angle you can see that his armor is quite nicely made, this is so he gets more acceptable by the high ranking officers who often wear very flashy uniforms. They can change for festive arrangements, but the bodyguard need to wear the same equipment all the time so it is important that he looks decent.

I think the Ogryns/Bullgryns might be my favorite unit to build and paint. They are easy to convert and even I with my limited skills can make them look alright. I have built and primed many of these, and some of them are already partially painted so more will follow fairly soon.

Imperial Guard Hellhound

This Hellhound is the first model I painted with the new squad colors, and I am quite happy with how it turned out. The Hellhound is designated a flame-tank and is built on the chimera chassis.

It is armed with an Inferno cannon in the turret and a heavy bolter. The Inferno cannon has a shorter range than the heavy bolter, but it spews flames in to every nook and cranny and makes everything it fires against go up in flames. Hellhound crews are often seen as crazy fools for serving in these kind of vehicles with that much of explosive fluids in the tanks in the back.

This vehicle is from the first squad and is commanded by Lieutenant William Scott Ketchum. 

This is how it looks like from the sides. The left side has a short armor plate and then a relay array, while the right side has the full armor plate with the Imperial eagle symbol. On this model I remembered to paint the rectangle in Dark Angels green before taking the pictures.

Here is a picture taken from above to show the tanks that are in the cargo hold. This model has four tanks. They are painted in red, just like the prometheum tanks that the flame troopers have on their backs. On this model I painted the barrels before I assembled them in the cargo hold, but on some of the other Hellhounds I have built everything before painting so I am a little exited to see how it will be to paint those. I know I will get more of these, so if painting a fully assembled model is harder I will go back to painting the tanks before I assemble them in the back.

The final pick show how the Hellhound look from behind, as one can see the tanks are pretty well protected.

Imperial Guard 2 more Leman Russ tanks

 Here are two more tanks for the 2nd Armored Regiment. This is an Eradicator and an Executioner

The Eradicator is part of the 3rd Squad as one can see from the tan markings on the turret. It belongs to Tank Company Alpha and is commanded by Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Butler.

It is armed with the Nova cannon who easly blows away both barricades and the soldiers hiding behind them (just bout the same cannon as in the Hellhammer just a bit smaller). It also has a lascannon and the side sponsons are armed with heavy bolters. 

It also has a searchlight and smoke chargers. as I like to put that on as many tank as I can. But for this one I opted not to put a dozerblade on it. I do love dozerblades, but they don't come with both Leman Russ tank sets, and it is not usually on all tanks anyway. This is the first Eradicator in my army, but I am sure it will not be the last as I like the look of the Nova cannon.

From the back it looks like any other Leman Russ. I like the look of the Leman Russ tanks from all angles, and that might be the reason why I want to have entire tank companies.

The Executioner is a relic armed with a plasma destroyer as its main weapon. It belongs to first squad of Bravo company and is commanded by Lieutenant Oliver Otis Howard. Its side sponsons also have plasma cannons, and the front has a heavy bolter and a dozerblade.

Here we see it from the side, and as we see the side sponson guns are pointing quite far out from the tank. I am not sure how it happened but they sort of stuck that way either during building or during painting. I would have liked them to be a little closer to the tank body, but one has to work with what one is given.

This is what the Executioner looks like from behind. What differentiates it from other models is the extended back part of the tower where it has a plasma coil.

This is the first time I tried to paint plasma weapons this way. I got a guide from Duncan Rhodes who used to be the main painter for the painting tutorials on Warhammer TV but now has his own painting academy. He demonstrated how to paint blue plasma coils in a video, so I kindly asked him how he would do it with green and he told me how he would do it. I think with some time and experience I will manage to make all three colors visible in layers, but I am quite happy with how it turned out for this tank.

Imperial Guard Leman Russ Vanquisher

This is the Leman Russ Vanquisher Hand of Steel, under the command of Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman is the commander of the 2nd Armored Regiment, and is a true tank ace. In games I will run him with the Knight Commander Pask rules, as this gives some special abilities.

This tank has the powerful Vanquisher cannon, and it is a quite rare version of the Leman Russ. This tank also has side sponsons armed with plasma cannons. Colonel Sherman is standing in the turret. 

The tank also has a dozerblade with wide hazard stripes. 

Here we see the tank from the side, and as we can see the side panels indicating squad has a golden bronze color, indicting that this is a command vehicle. Here we can see how long the Vanquisher cannon is, and we also see the lascannon sticking out in the front just above the dozerblade. 

This is what it looks like from behind. As we see the exhaust pipes has the same colors as the pipes on the Super Heavy tanks. We can also see that this tank has a flag, and that is because it is the tank of the tank ace Sherman.

Here we see a little more closeup picture of the flag. It is a sort of a griffin or something in the same golden bronze as the squad markings on the turret. Then it is mountains painted in the same gray as the tank, and a small sun peeking over the mountains near the end of the flag.

I am not sure where the flag is from, I got it from raiding the bitbox at my local Games Workshop store in Oslo when they wanted to clean out their bitz. I didn't know what army it originates from, but my best guess will be one of the Elf armies in Warhammer Fantasy (what is no known as Age of Sigmar).

I've been debating with myself a lot on how I should field my command segment, but right now I am thinking of having three tanks so that they can drive in a wedge formation, and then add a command Chimera with the regimental Commissar and a unit of Stormtroopers.

I already have the Chimera assembled and partially painted, so I hope there is not too long before I can present it here.

Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) Deathstrike and Manticore

I feel I have spoken of these vehicles on the blog for a long time, but they are finally finished and ready to provide firepower to the Walpurgian 3rd artillery.

On the left is a Manticore, and on the right a Deathstrike missile launcher. They are built on the popular Chimera chassis, but instead of getting compartments for transporting personnel, they are given weapon platforms instead. 

They both have a heavy bolter for close protection, and a smoke launcher and searchlight mounted under the driver compartment.

The Deathstrike missile launcher is under the command of Lieutenant Richard Brooke Garnett.

It is not sent in to the heavy fighting, but like other artillery it stays in the back where it is supposed to be relatively safe. Still it is armed with a heavy bolter for close protection if needed.

The commander of a Deathstrike must be a really cool person, for firing a Deathstrike missile without the proper authorization is a capitol offence. The Deathstrike is only fired in the direst of need as the missile has such a damaging effect. It is classified as Ordnance Extremis.

When you see the Deathtrike missile launcher from the side you see how big the missile really is.

I saw when I posted the pictures that I had forgotten to paint the small rectangle with the imperial markings and a place to write a name for the vehicle. This is fixed now, and the plate is painted Dark Angels Green like the main body of the missile and the side sponsons of my tanks. 

Not much to look at from behind, except the huge opening for the flames from the rocket motors to spew out from.

The Manticore missile launcher is also based on the Chimera and armed with a heavy bolter for close proetction. But instead of one huge missile like the Deathstrike it has four smaller missiles.

It can be used both for long-range bombardment and air support so it is quit versatile. The drawback is that it takes a long time to reload once it has fired its four missiles and it is hard to do in the field. But the missiles on the Manticore does not have the same restrictions as the Deathstrike.

Here we see it from the side. Like the Deathstrike I had forgotten to paint the rectangular area just behind the middle. But on this one I had painted the green, but not the silver of the winged scull and the "off-white" of the banner below. This is rectified now.

Here is a picture from behind, showing the rocket engines and also the mechanism to raise the firing platform to the right elevation for the rockets to go to their destination. And unlike many of my builds, the mechanism works like it is supposed to.

I decided to build the Manticore with the top hatch partially open. This shows us a little of the driver, and the driver compartment is fully painted. The driver/commander of the vehicle is Captain Joseph Wheeler who is the commander of the Deathstrike and Manticore elements of the 2nd Armored division. 

Imperial Guard Hellhammer and Stormlord

Here are the two latest finished Super Heavy tanks of the Walpurgian 3rd. This is a Hellhammer and a Stormlord. They both have red turret markings and this means that hey are the second squad of the 1st Super Heavy Tank Company. 

Fist out is the Hellhammer named The Tormentor, and it is commanded by Captain John McAllister Schofield. He is standing in the turret along with the main gunner. The Hellhammer is built on the Baneblade chassis, but the turret is slightly different and it has another cannon. The cannon is a Hellhammer cannon (genius choice of a name there), and with its explosive shells it can clear away enemies hiding behind cover very effectively. This tank is often used as the spearhead of an urban assault, and in the Walpurgian 3rd that means that the troops of the 27th Infantry Regiment can advance behind it when advancing on hostile cities. 

As with the Baneblade the Hellhammer has been given two side sponsons (one on each side) and they are located at the back of the tank. Each sponson has twin heavy flamers. I chose this because I wanted to make it as fearsome as possible for enemy infantry hiding in ruined cities, the fear of being burned alive is greater than being cut to shreds with heavy bolter rounds that will end your life instantly. 

Here is a shot from the back as well, just to prove I have painted all sides of the tank. For a long time I had not painted the back, as I didn't know how I should paint the shrine to the right. But I found a setup I liked and went with it. The exhaust pipes are painted the same way for all my tanks, both super heavies and Leman Russes (as later blog posts will show). You might think I have forgotten to paint the sculls on the barrels at the back, but that is a decision made by the crews that they will not give their enemies a point to aim at.

The next tank is the Stormlord. It is armed with a Vulcan mega-bolter and this basically spits out a hail of bolter fire to mow down entire platoons of infantry, and shred lightly armed vehicles to pieces. 

This tank is named The Iron Saint, and is commanded by Captain Isaac Ridgeway Trimble. 

The Stormlord also have twin heavy flamers in its side sponsons, but unlike the Baneblades and the Hellhammer, the side sponsons are located at the front. One of the reasons for this is that the Stormlord can carry 40 troopers in to battle and they pile out from the back so you don't want the troopers to get in the way.  

This Stormlord carries troopers from the 27th Infantry Regiment. It carries 15 heavy weapon teams and 1 regular Veteran squad. The idea is that the tank can get the troops safely to high value targets, then the heavy weapon teams and the Veterans can pour out of the tank as close to the target as possible, take out the target and get back in the tank and move to the next. This will make the advance of the rest of the army a little faster (though it is never easy in the 41st millennium) as they should only need to handle "light" resistance while advancing.

The Stormlord carries 3 heavy weapon teams with lascannons, 12 heavy weapon teams with missile launchers and 1 squad of 10 veterans.

Imperial Guard Baneblade and Shadowsword

Finally I have finished painting some units again. Here are the pics of the first two super heavy tanks for the Walpurgian 3rd.

The first tank out is the Baneblade Indomitable under the command of Captain Quincy Adams Gillmore. The side sponsons have heavy bolters unlike a lot of the other tanks that have heavy flamers instead.

The squads are marked by colors on the armored plates on the turret, and this tank has green markings. Other tanks may have dark red or tan markings. The Baneblade has the Captain and the Main Gunner up in the turret. 

This is what the tank looks like from the front. As we can see it is a mighty opponent with two big guns, two lascannons, three double heavy bolters, an autocannon and a heavy stubber.

This is how all the tanks look from the back. At the right there is a small shrine to the Machine God. 

In the middle there is an angel, and she is painted red in honor of the Batle Sisters from The Order of Our Holy Saint who watches over the remains of St. Walpurgia also known as Celestian Superior Valpurgis in High-Gothic.

The other tank in this post is the Shadowsword The Pride of Walpurgia, under the command of Major Winfield Scott Hancock who is the commander of the 1st Super Heavy Tank Company.

The Shadowsword drives in to battle supported by the two Baneblades of the company. The first Baneblade  is presented above, and the other one needs to be repainted to this new colorscheme so it will be presented at a later time. The Shadowsword has been given four side sponsons instead of the usual two for better close protection. All four side sponsons have double heavy flamers in them.

Here we have the tank seen from the front, and as we can see it does not have a turret. This makes it lower than the Baneblade, but there is a good reason for this. The main cannon is a Volcano cannon and it is one of the most powerful weapons ever added to an Imperial tank (maybe any tank) so it would probably blow the turret off the tank chassis when fired. Also it needs a lot of coils and things to fire, so it probably would not fit inside a turret anyway. The Volcano cannon takes a long time to recharge between shots, but when it fires it can destroy a Titan with one shot.

And then we have the back that is quite similar to the Baneblade.

These are the first tanks of the 2nd Armored Regiment, but more tanks are to follow shortly.

At the moment the 1st Super Heavy Tank Company consist of five tanks and four of them are painted and ready for battle. I am pretty sure that the company will gain another super heavy tank in the future, to make a full company, but I am not sure what kind of tank that will be. I have several variants that I would love to field, and I also need to consider what will look good and what will provide the most needed armament to the company.  

My two major issues in miniature painting

Today we're gonna talk about my two big issues in painting and making miniatures.

My first issue is highlighting models.

When the minis are painted up I give them a layer of wash. And then I am done. This often make my models look dirty or dark, and sometimes that is a good look, but other times that is no good at all. 

When I see painting videos it looks so simple to add highlights, but when I try to do that I end up with not getting the thin lines needed, either because I have too much paint on the brush or because the tip is not sharp enough (or a combination). Also I have a small shake in my hands, and that is a drawback. That can cause me enough problems painting details on the miniatures, so painting very thin stripes can be a problem even if I have a sharp brush with just the right amount of paint on it.

Also it doesn't help a lot that I'm not that great at painting anyway...

My second issue is making bases.

I see so many great bases when I look at other peoples work. But my stuff get very basic in comparison. 

It's not that I don't have the skills to do something , it is just that when I get to the base I sort of feel tht the mini is done and I just wan't to get it over with.

Also, making all different bases for my armies makes me have to use a lot of different technical paints.

Well, I like to think I have found a solution to both these issues, but I will have to wait until daylight tomorrow to see if this is right or not.

The solution to the highlighting is adding just a thin layer of wash all over, this will give me some contrast and shades while not clouding the original details. 

Another solution is to use more Agrax Earthshade instead of Nuln Oil as Agrax is brown instead of the black Nuln Oil.

Hopefully this will make my models look less dark. I have tried this on a Kastellan robot and his Mechanicus handler tonight, and I will take a look at it in daylight tomorrow to see how it looks.

The base problem I think I have solved with using only technical paints that add structure and that does not crackle. I like the effect you get from the crackling paint but I find it hard to keep the paint on the base and to do something with it without damaging it and chipping off pieces of cracked paint. 

I will try and make as many armies as I can with the same type of paint to keep from buying tons of different pots, and this will also make the armies fit better together as they will appear to be on the same battlefield when the bases look alike. 

I have three main bases that I plan to use. For my dwarfs I have a gray rock base, and this will also be used in a modified version for my Deathwatch and Kharadron Overlords

The second base is a woodland base using a brown base with Stirland Battlemire and then drybrushes with three green colors as a drybrush for the big bases like on my Sylvaneth Treelords and maybe just one or two greens on the smaller bases.

The third one is a desert base, and this is the one I have worked on tonight and it will (if it works) be the base for most of my 40K armies. I am implementing it on my Mechanicus army now, and will use it on my Imperial Guard army next. I will see how it works on a fairly large base tomorrow as I finished a base for my Kastellan robot tonight. 

I also have a fourth base, but that will only be used for my Ogryn army (who has a brand new name I can't remember now). That is a snow base. I might redo that to a rock base with patches of snow as I have only made 3 bases for this army so far so it will not be much work to change it.

If I have found a solution to two of my biggest problems, I will post pictures ones I have finished a unit or two.