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.