2024 in review

 

Slightly delayed, but here is my annual look back at the previous year, and comparing it to the plans that I made at the start of the year…

Tally

As Christmas was technically happening after my last scheduled post, the Tally took one final hit before the end of the year. My brother-in-law emigrated to the states last year, and so came through with (among other things) some beautiful Boot Hill Alamo minis (as my limited Hobby budget usually doesn’t stretch to the shipping costs from Brigade to the UK - why oh why didn’t I get into the Alamo when those minis first came out and they were available in the UK?!):

Also pictured is the 3d printed space pirate that the stl for was a freebie at Salute, as he also has a 3d printer.

With this last hit, the final Tally for 2024 looks like:

62 vs 204 (one of the space pirates isn’t for me) = -142

And adds to the long running set of yearly stats:

2024: -142 (62 painted)

2023: -194 (33 painted)

2022: 0 (85 painted)

2021: +16 (52 painted)

2020: -100 (47 painted)

2019: +3 (46 painted)

2018: +52 (52 painted)

2017: -14 (47 painted)

2016: -287 (56 painted)

2015: -96 (59 painted)

2014: 0 (80 painted)

2013: -416 (25 painted)

2012: -103 (68 painted)

2011: -173 (122 painted)

So technically, it was my fifth most productive year in terms of figures painted…

Posts

39 posts this year, with at least a single post every month. The year started off with the usual random selection of things as and when they took my fancy, but then I fell into grooves of things I needed for games, like monsters for Frostgrave, or my late in the year start working my way through the Umbrella Academy board game.

Last years challenge

• Finish at least one playable force for a game (whether that be my 500 point Skaven army, my Silver bayonet unit, or something else entirely…)

I very nearly finished off my Silver Bayonet unit, but am still one model short from having a playable force, so maybe this year…

• Play at least 12 games in 2024 

I only managed two games of Frostgrave and a single game of Super Mission Force, so that’s another fail. I have the bit of terrain that I need for the next Frostgrave scenario undercoated though, so if I can drybrush that grey the adventures of Tim the Necromancer can continue in 2025…

• Prep all the monkeys in the monkey box (I mean I couldn’t delete this one after so many years)

You all know I haven’t done this.

• Convert at least one miniature

Two converted miniatures for the Silver Bayonet unit, so I get to cross something off! Generally what happens is I write the challenge, then largely forget all about it for most of the year.

• Add to the Monstrous Alphabet project

Several monsters painted this year, but R and T were newly completed entries, so that’s another challenge ticked off

• Do Zomtober posts

Four posts managed - I had some extra bits planned this year, but unfortunately ran out of time, so they’re still sat half-finished on my painting tile. Until next year…

• Do a May the Fourth post

Tiny Grogu to go with the Mandalorain I painted for May the Fourth 2021

• Do a festive post

Again, the secret to success it seems is setting myself a challenge that involves painting a single miniature, with several months notice…

• Average at least a miniature a week (so at least 52 completed miniatures across the year)

62 painted miniatures this year mean I succeeded at this one!

• End the year with the Tally in the positive

I did not in fact succeed at this one though. Any year where I start a project that involves buying several boxes of plastic miniatures at Salute tends to end with me in the red on the Tally…

Projects (according to the last end of year post)

Warhammer

Unfortunately, no movement on my Skaven, although I did manage to add some minis to the Undead army thanks to Zomtober. Although that still doesn’t make for a legal unit of zombies yet, but there will always be another Zomtober…

The Silver Bayonet

While looking at my gaming bookshelf the other day, I realised that The Silver Bayonet is actually the game that I own the most expansions for, despite not having a finished playable unit. I managed to get most of the way there this year (and actually did paint the monsters that I needed for the first solo scenario), but need at least one more mini to get to that point. Conventional wisdom seems to be that I should probably actually take a couple of monks to make up numbers rather than another specialist soldier, but what can I say, I’m a sucker for cool stuff…

Frostgrave

The adventures of Tim the Necromancer did actually continue this last year, as I made and painted some oozes to stand in for Vapour Snakes, and a tiny closet so that I could also play the second scenario in that particular chain.

Rangers of Shadow Deep

No movement last year, alas. The next scenario is somewhat scenery heavy, and building a river, bridge, ford, rocks as well as a bandit camp, which never seems to get to the top of my priority list when the next shiny thing is hogging all of my attention…then again, I do have the tents built and undercoated for this, so maybe I can sneak in a little progress in the near future…

Nothing for Ronin of Shadow Deep either - I have a couple of minis prepped, but didn’t get as far as finishing any of them…

 

Battletech

Two mechs are half finished. Painting differently scaled miniatures to what I’m used to is weird, so I tried some other techniques that I’d usually use when modelling Gunpla, and it didn’t work out quite how I’d planned, so I took a breather that has lasted about a year now.

Zombies

Zomtober technically counts for this and Warhammer, right? Since I was no longer playing my monthly Last Days campaign, I didn’t have a burning need to paint anything zombie related. Plans for building the Farm home base stayed just that, with a pile of cut out wall pieces not having found their way back onto my cutting mat after we moved house.

Star Wars

Aforementioned Tiny Grogu! 

 Cowboys

I painted a single drunk cowboy last year. What you didn’t see though, was that I also half-painted an entire Legends of the Old West Lawmen Posse, which got put to one side in favour of other things, and never got taken over that finish line.

 Board Games

This one was an actual success, I managed to paint enough miniatures to actually play a game of the Umbrella Academy board game using entirely painted miniatures! There’s still a bunch more to do, but I’m hoping to be able to repeat that feat this year…

Acolyte

No progress this year.

Until I played a few hours of Inquisitor Martyr right at the end of the year, and then all of a sudden we’re back on, and I’ve started work on my Acolyte:

It took as many days to carefully cut through that metal neck as it did searching through boxes looking for the replacement head I wanted to use (spoilers: it was two days).

2025 projects

Board games

If I can just paint the rest of the core members of the Umbrella Academy, and the other Allies, then I’ll have a fully painted base set of the game I think? Plus, if we manage to actually win a game, then I’d need to move onto painting the next set of enemies…

Frostgrave

I need to paint a single piece of scenery (that is currently sat built and mostly undercoated) to be able to play the next scenario, which is hopefully eminently doable. The next scenario story wise would be the only set in the library, but rather than having to make a million tiny bookshelves, I’ve seen people use dungeon tiles for this, which I handily have a bunch of for D&D…

Acolyte

I’d like to convert and paint my Acolyte! My friend has already painted his entire war and as well as the majority of the enemies needed, so if I can scrape together a warband from my painted minis and bits box then [hushed voice] we could actually play a game…

The Silver Bayonet

Again, just need to finish the Unit to be able to start the solo campaign, and actually have the two minis that I need for the scenario after that prepped and undercoated already…

Zombies

I’ll do Zomtober, at the very least. Unless Ash Barker releases the Evolutions expansion for Last Days, that might spur some modern zombie painting…

Star Wars

I’ll do a May the Fourth post, at the very least. Who knows though, the Andor sequel will maybe drag us back to watching Star Wars (having lost some of our enthusiasm for them a while back) and in turn, painting Star Wars more than once a year…

Cowboys and The Alamo

If the wind blows that way, I have an entire Lawmen Posse that’s half finished, and a bunch of converted Mexicans for the Alamo just waiting for some paintbrush attention…

Superheroes

Back on the projects list, as it’s nice to have something that I can play with my children! I had an urge to do something X-Men related, but unfortunately that only produced half painted miniatures last year, maybe this year I can change that…

Cyberpunk

Another one returning to the list - I got Cyberpunk 2077 for Christmas (having bought a PS5 on Black Friday), and due to my usual sickness of thinking about everything in terms of how I could do it in 28mm, was soon digging through boxes to pull out some suitable miniatures:

In terms of rules, I’m not sure what I’d use. I own Reality’s Edge, but that’s a very thick rule book. I wonder if I could use Stargrave, as that has guns and computers and encroaching enemies (which I assume I could easily re-skin to be the future police closing in), but wonder how much I’d lose not using any spaceship based things (and doubly wondering, wouldn’t I rather be using those rules for something Firefly themed?)

Back burner:

Warhammer, Rangers, Battletech

They’re not off the list, but realistically they’re not going to be top of my priority lists. Which is usual,y a sure fire way to have my attention swing back that way. And thinking about it, I was at a children’s birthday party last month and spotted that the Dad had a load of Battletech box sets on his games shelf, so who knows. Then again, if my children decide they want to start watching Doctor Who again, it’s just as likely that will jump back onto the list…

2025 Challenge

• Finish at least one playable force for a game
• Play at least 4 games in 2025
• Prep all the monkeys in the monkey box
• Convert at least one miniature
• Add to the Monstrous Alphabet project
• Do Zomtober posts
• Do a May the Fourth post
• Do a Festive post
• Average at least a miniatures week (so at least 52 completed miniatures)
• Finish more miniatures than I did in 2024 (so at least 63)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive (hey, I’m an optimist, what can I say)

Fairly similar to last year’s, but with a couple of tweaks! Honestly though, after all these years if I actually get round to prepping all the monkeys in the monkey box, it’s probably a cry for help, and someone should come and check that I’m okay. 

HO HO, ER… HO

Happy Hogswatch Christmas everyone!

After having missed last year due to a house move, I’ve resumed the tradition of the festive miniature - this year we have Discworld’s Death as the Hogfather, which was actually a Christmas present last year:

 

Resin, rather than the metals I had previously had from this range, but quite lovely all the same.

Given how overcast it was the morning I took these pictures, they came out a bit gloomy, but the picture of the back is a better indication of the colour of his red clothes:

I was tempted to add a little snow to the base, but given how busy Christmas week has been that decision was largely taken out of my hands! Easy enough to go back and add though if the fancy takes me…

The Tally has taken hits in both directions this week though, as popping into our FLGS after work to grab some last minute bits I spotted that a D&D miniature I’d asked them to order in over the summer had finally hit the shelves - there was only one on the shelf, so it would have been foolish to leave without grabbing it:

The family fought their first Mimic last week, so Intellect Devourers seem like an acceptable escalation. 

This leaves the Tally at:

62 vs 195 = -133

Speaking of the family D&D game, after not managing to play for a few weeks, we managed to squeeze in a session the Sunday before last, which I shoehorned some festive cheer into having them fight a giant animated gingerbread man that had been taken over by an evil animated hand that the party had previously let escape. The gingerbread golem lumbered around battering people with his massive fists and vomiting tainted icing (full of black flecks and fingernails) over people - Christmassy!

Pogo, monkey father figure

Work continues apace on the Umbrella Academy board game (although ‘apace’ is a very generous descriptor considering how little painting time I’ve managed to grab this week), and I’ve finished another of the Ally figures:

Pogo! I still haven’t cracked the plastic on the cards in the board game, so I’m not sure what he’ll actually do, but I’m confident it will be great. Part of me is tempted to go back and try to get a crisper finish on the logo on his mug, but honestly I’m happy enough with it to not risk going back and messing it up!

Things were progressing nicely on this paint job until the final highlight drybrush on the hair, which I went a bit too heavy on and so it ended up looking too bright and flat, but I think with the careful application of a dark wash I’ve managed to pull it back.

I’ve also managed to paint a marker of the family crest:

I undercoated it black then carefully painted multiple layers of thinned white into the recesses. My original plan was to try carefully drybrushing black over the top to pick out the raised detail, but then I decided to try something else:

The firm nib of the marker meant I was able to only catch the raised detail, and then I swapped to a fine panel lining pen to carefully clarify some of the lines. It’s not going to win any awards, but it looks snazzy enough for its intended purpose!

Painting Pogo brings the Tally to:

61 vs 192 = -131

And means the first tray of the game now looks like this:

 

Release the Kraken!

Back on track with my plan to play some Umbrella Academy the board game with my wife, I’ve finished another character:

This was the character that my gut felt I’d most likely take, but I really need to get round to re-reading the comics to see if I’m not just being swayed by the tv series (which reminds me, we still haven’t watched the last season of that…)

Lots and lots of grey makes up the Kraken’s uniform, and I went with a more yellow hair colour because I felt it would pop a bit more on the board.

As well as taking the siblings, in the game there are Allies that can come to your aid. Im not entirely sure how that works, as the cards are still shrink wrapped, but figured I should paint some up too just in case, and what better choice than Mom, the Umbrella Academy’s robotic caregiver:

I went for an unnatural skin tone that I really drive home at a glance that this isn’t a human (and she looks a bit like an Auton), and gave her solid black eyes too (thanks, Gundam Marker!) 

The dress was a it of an experiment - I couldn’t find any reference images for this outfit with a quick google, so took inspiration from someone else’s paint job, but decided that I wanted it to look slightly odd, and so went with a grey tone for the shadows, in the hopes it would make it look like a really dull, not fancy material. Not sure if I quite captured that, but done is done, and into the box they go:

Finishing these two brings the Tally to:

60 vs 192 = -132

What’s next? There are more Allies in the box that could in theory make an appearance, so those should be next up on the painting tile, and I should probably get the rest of the surviving siblings painted, so that we have options for playing (plus, I suspect they might also turn up as Allies during the game, so it wouldn’t hurt to have them on hand…)

Super Mission Force: first thoughts

Having previously played superhero games with my kids using some basic rules of my own creation, we wanted something a bit more in-depth (as in my bare bones rule set essentially each hero was a set of similar stats with a single special ability), but still simple and quick enough that my five year old could play it with us. Having seen other people playing it online, I thought we’d give Super Mission Force a try. 

While there is an excellent set of character creation rules in the rule book, for speed I grabbed some pre-generated characters from the Files section in the Four Colour Studios Facebook group. I figured for our first game while we’re learning the rules we would take a single character each, and stick to basic abilities (ignoring manoeuvres). My son wanted to be Venom, obviously, so I figured I’d take Spider-Man, for thematic reasons. My daughter, on the other hand, wanted to be Boom Boom, because I described her as ‘blowing things up and being sassy’, which apparently appealed.

According to the profiles it would be an even match for Venom to take on both Spider-Man and Boom Boom, so we set up our map to represent Venom bumping into the pair of heroes on their way home from a mission. Despite rolling fewer dice, my son was able to win the initiative on the first turn and so Venom was able to web swing his way across the entire map immediately:

Fun fact - we ended up using pretty much just this sixth of the map for the entire game. 

Super Mission Force uses a goal system (actually, I think it officially uses the trademarked Goalsystem) wherein you roll a dice pool and count successes, and I realised that I could use the dice from my old Havok set:

I figured this would be handy for the kids, counting skulls as one and explosions as two, rather than having to parse the numbers on a pile of regular dice. Inevitably, we all rolled terribly and so the game lasted longer than was statistically likely.

Also, our home printer didn’t want to behave today, so I hand wrote stat cards onto index cards for this game:

 

Long story short, Spider-man and Boom Boom did their best, but just couldn’t do consistent enough damage to overcome Venom’s health regeneration (despite managing to drop him down to his last health at one point). At one point Spider-Man webbed Venom so successfully that he could only break free if he rolled 6 successes on 4 dice, but they couldn’t even take him down despite him being totally immobilised, and my sone rolls better than his father so Venom was able to burst his bonds and wreak vengeance on the heroes:

Final thoughts: I like it! It was slightly slow going while we got used to the basic rules, but even my five year old was able to grasp the general mechanics pretty quickly. The game got a bit samey towards the end (punch, punch, try to stun so can run away then jump in for a big punch), but I think that’s more to do with there being so few figures on the board that rounds were pretty quick - with more figures per side, there would be more variety in each round. Not that we didn’t enjoy it with just a single figure each, as the goal system makes for fairly dramatic turns, where sometimes you roll a ton of dice and get bupkiss, only for your five year old to roll a statistically unlikely result on four dice to then rip himself out of your webs and proceed to murder everyone, so I think we’ll be playing again…

Everyone’s favourite quasi-dead guy

When asking my wife what character she thought she’d like to play if I was painting things for the Umbrella Academy board game, having seen the TV series she was quick to answer Klaus, so here he is:

Maybe I should go back and sort his eye out, but frankly he looks half decent as a board game piece so I’m happy with that.

The deathly skin tone didn’t come out quite how I’d planned, but honestly might look better than that, so happy little accidents, may they long continue.

Painting him brings the Tally to:

58 vs 192 = -134

And means the first tray in the box looks like this:

I’m Venom, my body weight is 40% tongue…

In between painting pieces for the Umbrella Academy board game, since I already had some black paints out I also finished this monstrous guy:

Whenever I’ve played with superhero miniatures with my children, my youngest has always asked to be Venom, which I didn’t have a miniature of, but thanks to eBay I’ve managed to rectify that. I’m not sure where my son’s love of the character comes from - he’s desperate to watch the Tom Hardy movies, but given that he’s five that’s not really on the cards yet. 

The spider logo came out quite nicely, I think, due to judicious use of Gundam liner pens to get the bits that I’d have struggled to line with a brush, then carefully tidying up with a brand new brush that came with my Father’s Day present, and has rapidly become my current favourite brush.

You wouldn’t believe it, but the black on Venom is three different shades, which you’d struggle to see in my pictures. Believe it or not, this was the second set of pictures I took of Venom, using natural light, but here’s another posed picture from the original set of Venom menacing the Spider-Man that I painted years ago:

I’m hoping to play some a super Mission Force with the kids, so I need to work out the stats for the symbiote. When asking my son who else he thought he might like to be on the same team as Venom, his first answer was Spider-Man (which I initially tried to object to, but thought the better of it), followed by Green Goblin. I have a Hobgoblin mini that I could paint, but apparently only ‘Green Goblin, wearing purple and green’ will do.

As of now, the Tally stands at:

57 vs 192 = -135

Now, back to the Umbrella Academy board game, no distractions. Honest.