Tom: A year ago we did a review of our past year's efforts and ambitions for the future. Let's try that again. If you want a quick recap, you can see last year here.
The Bunkerites as a whole have leaned hard into Crusade this year. We started big in February with the Brütal Crüsade Week, had several smaller events and lots of one on one games through the year and capped off the year with the Raid on Lachesis (which we haven’t posted about yet here but Charlie has been writing about over on Goonhammer). Planets have burned, wars won and lost, wurrbone stolen, and Legends forged.
Naturally wars are only fought with great logistical support, and a certain amount of hobby effort has been required to sustain this conflict, to populate the battlefields with scenery to fight over and units to fight with. Let's have a look at what everyone has been up to shall we?
Jeff
It's been a comparatively light year in Jefftopia. Possibly a reaction to going ridiculously hard over the pandemic...
The only project of serious note has been the Drukhari, a compact and bijou force that I put together for crusade purposes while waiting for the glory that was the Chaos Codex. Yeah, for me a quiet year is painting an entire dang 1k army as filler... shush. I have done other projects but for the most part they're half finished and bounced off. Was an "interesting" year in the real world and it messed with me mojo. I'm firmly intending to end that trend in 2023.
Currently intending to paint only MOAR Chaos to finish the Word Bearers and if I start a new army for it to be the Imperial Guard that are just sitting there, begging me to love them. To do this I am going to studiously ignore the existence of the Leagues of Votann. An army tailor made for my affections. Wish me luck...
I also have absolute scads of scenery knocking around unpainted that need love. As a result I really want to make 2023 less about acquisition and more about completion. Again. A hollow laugh...
Tom
Last year I said “Unlike many of the Nerd Herd, I am not planning to do “new year new army”.” With that in mind, I present to the reader my new army:
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| Battlegroup 86 |
In my defence, you could look at this as just all part of getting my Knight Questoris finished, which was one of the things I did say I would focus on. I had to add a few Armigers to get a playable force together, but playing pure Knights isn’t something I find as interesting as seeing them alongside smaller dudes, so I picked up some Guard infantry with the aim of playing a balanced Guard army, with Knights taking the place of tanks (thanks in no small part to Harvey chanting “Guard Guard Guard” at me incessantly). But then playing Guard was so fun and I figured if I got some tanks I could play pure Guard and… things snowballed.
Of the other projects I said I would focus on, I did spend some time working on the Thunderbolt, but I do need a Guard army before I can use it, and it’s a bit of a pig of a model. I have painted 0 Gaunts. But it hasn’t all been Guard, I added a couple of units to each of my Raven Guard and Orks Crusade forces at the start of the year and played a few games with each of them, but my focus in both hobbying and gaming has leaned hard into Guard as the year progressed.
Currently in the “on the go” pile is most of the Cadia Stands box, and two full sets of space hulk scenery (can’t wait for Harvey’s Night Lords to stalk and slaughter my Guard through the gloomy corridors). I’ll certainly be picking up a Rogal Dorn battle tank when it comes out because it’s so pretty, but as with last year, my focus for the coming year is finishing up what I have trying not to start any new big projects. Perhaps this time I won’t fail quite as dramatically.
Maisey
2022 began as the Year of the Cog. A new year new army focused on creating a Adeptus Mechanics force. The progress of which can been seen in parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven. I also managed to put together a “small” 6mm collection. I say collection as it is multiple armies and scenery with the intent of making a playable game for 2 people.
Progress was good for the first 2/3rd of the year, getting to a solid 1500pts. Sadly Real Life intervened and disrupted all and any hobby for the rest of the year.
2023 promises to be a continuation of Real Life issues, at least to begin with. Hopefully later in the year I will be able pick up where I left off. There is plenty of Admech sitting in my pile of shame. In fact there is nothing but Admech in my pile. With a little luck I can get the Admech up to a solid 3K by the end of the year.
Rob
Looking back at my resolutions from last year, I actually did alright! I resuscitated a protean Imperial Guard force from the 1990s into the Praetorian XXXV, and had some great games with them. I also scaled up my Blitz Bowl dwarf team to a full Blood Bowl squad - The Dreadnought Coves - and made progress with some Bretonnians for Fantasy and some Duardin for AoS.
Harvey
2022 for me has been about the Night(TM) - Namely, the Nightfall 31st Rangers (Imperial Guard) and the remnants of the Night Lords’ 13th Talon. My long term ambition for 40k is to have a relevant collection for any given narrative scenario; I’ve had a Craftworld Eldar army for some time, last year was all about the Black Templars, and this time around I’ve added some evil-as-evil-gets conventional baddies, and an Imperial force that can respond to threats that don’t require quite the level of murder-fisting as the Black Templars are wont to hand out.
Both the Nightfallers and Night Lords remain small (1000-1500 points painted and based each), but both are solely 2022 projects, each taking a few months of on and off painting between videogaming fugues and work (boo, hiss). I’m pleased with both projects thus far and there’s much more to add for both, though the Night Lords don’t photograph particularly well as they’re a muddy, grimdark scheme that has all the photogenic qualities of dirt. Nevertheless, Charlie and I did attempt to get some photos out of them for his Goonhammer write up of our Lachesis Campaign, and we did get one good one of Icarael, Lord of the 13th:
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Nightfall 31st Light Infantry, L Company, 2 Platoon, Specialist Squad. Murder-fisters they are not, but sniper squads are cool! |
Both the Nightfallers and Night Lords remain small (1000-1500 points painted and based each), but both are solely 2022 projects, each taking a few months of on and off painting between videogaming fugues and work (boo, hiss). I’m pleased with both projects thus far and there’s much more to add for both, though the Night Lords don’t photograph particularly well as they’re a muddy, grimdark scheme that has all the photogenic qualities of dirt. Nevertheless, Charlie and I did attempt to get some photos out of them for his Goonhammer write up of our Lachesis Campaign, and we did get one good one of Icarael, Lord of the 13th:
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| Who’s an edgy boy then? |
I’ll be doing a showcase of the Nightfallers at Charlie’s request some time soon where I’ll talk about the painting, conversions and minis used, so watch this space, but for now I’ll have to be content with what photos exist from the campaigns we’ve played this year, and what few snaps I’ve taken at home that aren’t crimes against photography.
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| Weasel Squadron, unlikely heroes of many a battle this year. |
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| Lieutenant Raan, 2 Platoon CO, Hero of the Imperium. That "lasgun with bayonet" totally doesn't count as a bolter and power sword, honest Commissar. |
Andy
Charlie: Andy is insanely busy right now, so I'll speak for him. Last year he said he was thinking of a new marines army, possibly the Void Reavers, but instead has ended up painting the start of a rather charming Alpha Legion force. I've only had a chance to fight them once, and the Master of Possession intimidated me so much I ended up making a librarian to give myself the means to at least try and Deny the Witch. Hopefully 2023 will see that army grow a little, and likewise I hope I get to play against him! He's currently planning to swing by in February, so hopefully that'll happen. Fingers crossed.
Sadly the busyness means I can't show you a photo of said Alpha Legionnaires, but then, they are very stealthy.
Drew
Charlie: Having failed to get around to any of the things she pledged in last year's post, Drew is currently in hiding in her hobbit hole. I don't think she needs to, since she has done some hobby, and has successfully iterated on her vehicle painting skills. Plus anyway it's not like one is obliged to follow a set path in this hobby. Anyway, this year she also played her first game of 40K with a non-Eldar army. The Guard, in fact. Strong choice. (This was for the Lachesis Campaign slowly releasing over on Goonhammer.com). Who knows what next year will look like for her hobby? Naturally I shall now troll her by making some pledges she has in no way endorsed or mentioned.
- Doing a massive army of Black Templars with dead Iybraesil eldar littering their bases.
- Producing no trees whatsoever for her scenery collection.
- Painting a version of her Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay wizard she's satisfied with.
- Not finishing her Howling Banshees.
Dan, Thomas & Boris
Charlie: My guesses: Dan will go hard on World Eaters this year, and it will be glorious. The man is too busy to follow our incessant wittering on WhatsApp, so has blatantly missed that this post is happening, but I want to get him on this blog when he's digging into Angron's boys.
Boris recently moved house and has the most scattergun schedule on the planet, so is unavailable for comment, but if he could comment, he'd probably say he's looking forward to painting whatever cool thing someone showed him in the last five minutes. To be fair, he does now have serviceable collections of Salamanders, Thousand Sons, and Eldar. That Boris, he move quick, he learn painting fast, it scary.
Thomas cranked out a whole boatload of Oktarius ork terrain that I'm looking forward to dying on, but is likewise currently unavailable for comment. Something about feeding the nom-nom goblin? I didn't quite follow. Right, f---it, on to MEEEEEE.
Charlie
This feels extra self-indulgent given that I already wrote a round-up for Goonhammer, so I'll try to be brief (something I'm not exactly known for). I honestly had a grand old time this year. The main thrust of it was pumping out the first half of the Goff Metalwaaagh.
To keep things fresh, though, I had regular palette cleansers. These came in various forms; some weren't even miniatures! I did quite a bit of Photoshop-based illustration in 2022, more than I've done in years. Getting my graphics tablet out felt positively archaeological. All sorts of faction icons got made as resources for map campaigns, as did a map.
We also did a lot to tart up our campaign wiki, producing more visual interest like planets and so on.
Inevitably I painted some Cobalt Scions, but kept it light this year. Here they are:
If you're keen on the Librarian, I covered the conversion process for him in this Goonhammer article. Finally, my other mid-waaagh palette cleansers consisted of terrain. Terrain of course remains the primo means by which a wargamer can bash something out quickly and feel good about their productivity.
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| Fronteris terrain (painting recipe over on Goonhammer) |
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| A wee blue house and an even more wee pumpkin |
As demonstrated by the various links I've scattered through the last couple of paragraphs, writing about nerding remains a substantial part of my hobby. I suspect this impulse is an equal parts mix of a desire to entertain, assist and inspire my fellow nerds... and narcissism. Here's to more of all of that in 2023! My plans, subject to the whims of my inner gremlin, are to finish the Metalwaaagh, paint more blue boys, and some Empire (of which I did only the merest smattering this year), and some terrain. If I absolutely rinse through all that (hahahahahaha...haaaahaha... aaaaaaah, ha ha... ha) then maybe I could even start some of the f---ing sexy new Imperial Guard minis. God, they're sexy.
2023, Have At Ye!
Tom: Hopefully dear reader you have had a fun and productive hobby year, and are looking forward to the year ahead. As ever please feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments below, or ask any questions about projects you've seen here that you might want to know more about.
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