or - My journey into time consuming madness and despair. Possibly.


So, an idea I've had kicking about in my head for some time now, in a belated attempt to paint some of my backlog, is to tackle the sourcebooks one at a time, and paint every model required for the scenarios, based on the historical participants.

Now that I've found this place, I suppose it really is time to get started, if only for the motivational factor. I've decided (unsurprisingly, for anyone that's read the title) to start of with the Fall of the Necromancer book.

Why? I hear you ask...

Easy, I already own every evil model required for the scenarios.

Sounds good, you say.

It does. I just don't own all the good ones yet... There are a fair amount of them on their way here at the moment (hopefully they'll arrive Monday) and a few still to get ordered. So much for forcing myself to paint the backlog huh?

Ok, so bar 20 or so unbought minis, and about another 40 in transit, I'm pretty much set to go. More good news, I already have about 45% of the required evil models painted, so that cuts down on the workload.

What I'm planning, therefore, is to amass all required models, assemble, paint them, and play the scenarios from the book. Simple, but what stands in the way?

1 - Don't have all the minis. (Yet)
2 - Working backshift fulltime at the moment.
3 - In order to get a games table sorted out, I need to buy the missus a new kitchen table.
4 - I hate Elves...
5 - My gamesroom is a tip.

It's not looking good is it?

But, with the encouragement of you fine chaps it can be done! (I hope)

As far as timescale, I'd be hoping to have it done for the end of the year, depending on how I break down the painting.

I'm thinking - hopefully have the rest of the minis I need, and everything assembled and primed by mid to end of August, then give myself a month, or 4 weeks, to paint the participants for each of the seven scenarios.

Seven scenarios? But there's only 6 months left this year...

Here's the cunning part, like I said, some of the minis are already finished, so it cuts down on what I need to do, also, some of the later scenarios include the minis from earlier ones, so the list gets shorter every stage.

What I'm not sure about is how to break down the painting. What I mean is, for example, Scenario 1 - Dol Guldur Awakens, Good participants -

Thranduil, 3 Wood Elf Sentinels, 12 Wood Elvf Warriors, 4 each of Elven Blade & Throwing Dagger, Elf Bow and Wood Elf Spear.

Do I take the easy route and say that's 16 Good models to paint, or I do I put a little extra effort in and paint the other 12 Wood Elfs I need for Scenario 5 at the same time?

Also, I'm going to need to work out colour schemes for the Good models, Evil is taken care of, and adapt my haphazard drybrush and ink painting style to suit the figures better.

Also, I'm going to have to build the gaming board and sort out scenery etc to play the scenarios, which means I'm also going to have to learn the rules properly and get someone to play against. Two of Jenni's cousins are interested in learning to play, so maybe this will be a good intro for them, whilst they decide what armies to choose and get forces painted up.

Right, as it stands at the moment, for anyone interested (you must be to have gotten this far), it's a grand total of 120 models for the scenarios.

At the moment I have, or will shortly get, enough to take me up to 100. The missing 20 are - Arwen, Celeborn, Elf Captain, Elf Banner, 3 Elves - elf bow, 3 Elfs - blade, 9 Elves - Spear and Radagast.

I'll probably try and order them in the next couple of weeks, and at least that's the first stage sorted.

Ok, the complete list of required participants...

[spoiler]

1 Arwen
1 Celeborn
1 Cirdan
1 Elf Captain
1 Elf Warrior Banner
8 Elf Warrior Elf Bow
8 Elf Warrior Elven Blade
9 Elf Warrior Spear, Shield
1 Elrond
1 Erestor
1 Galadriel
1 Gandalf the Grey
1 Glorfindel
1 Legolas
1 Radagast the Brown
1 Saruman the White
1 Thranduil
3 Wood Elf Sentinel
1 Wood Elf Warrior Banner
8 Wood Elf Warrior EB, Throwing Dagger
8 Wood Elf Warrior Elf Bow
8 Wood Elf Warrior Wood Elf Spear

2 Bat Swarm
4 Castellan Morgul Blade
4 Giant Spider
1 Khamul the Easterling
1 Mordor Troll
1 Orc Captain
1 Orc Warrior Banner
4 Orc Warrior Orc Bow
8 Orc Warrior Shield
8 Orc Warrior Spear
4 Orc Warrior Two Handed Axe
5 Ringwraith
1 Spider Queen
1 The Necromancer
1 Troll Chieftain
2 Warg Rider Orc Bow
2 Warg Rider Shield
2 Warg Rider Throwing Spear
1 Wild Warg Chieftan
6 Wild Wargs

[/spoiler]

Here's what is completely finished...

[spoiler]

4 Castellan Morgul Blade
1 Mordor Troll
1 Orc Captain
1 Orc Warrior Banner
4 Orc Warrior Orc Bow
5 Orc Warrior Shield
8 Orc Warrior Spear
4 Orc Warrior Two Handed Axe
5 Ringwraith
1 The Necromancer

[/spoiler]

Here is what is built and primed...

[spoiler]

6 Warg Riders
2 Wizards
48 Assorted Elves
Radagast the Brown

[/spoiler]

Everything is now assembled, based and primed.


When the order arrives, I'll try and get some photos up of the Good (finished), the Bad (assembled/primed) and the Ugly (still in bits) just to let you see what I'm up against.

Basic numbers to show progress...

[spoiler]
100% Bought
100% Built
100% Primed
55.81% Painted
55.81% Based
55.81% Varnished
46.51% Complete
[/spoiler]

Until then, I'm off for a smoke, a coffee and to clear the paint station...

Cheers,

John



I'll keep this bit updated with what I've still to do for each scenario...

Scenario 1 - Dol Guldur Awakens
[spoiler]

Finished! [/spoiler]

Scenario 2 - In The Nick Of Time

[spoiler]
Good

Legolas
Elrond
(One Wood Elf may carry a Banner)
4 Elf Warriors - Elven Blade, Heavy Armour
4 Elf Warriors - Elf Bow, Heavy Armour
3 Elf Warriors - Shield, Spear, Heavy Armour
(One Elf may carry a Banner)

Evil

Finished!
[/spoiler]

Scenario 3 - A Walk Through Dark Places

[spoiler]Good

Cirdan
Arwen Evenstar
Erestor
Glorfindel, Lord of the West
1 Elf Captain - Elven Blade, Shield, Heavy Armour
4 Elf Warriors - Elven Blade, Heavy Armour
4 Elf Warriors - Elf Bow, Heavy Armour
(One Elf may carry a Banner)

Evil

Finished![/spoiler]

Scenario 4 - Meddle Not in the affairs of Wizards

[spoiler]Good

Gandalf the Grey
Radagast the Brown

Evil

2 Warg Riders - Throwing Spear
2 Warg Riders - Orc Bow
2 Warg Riders - Shield
[/spoiler]

Scenario 5 - The Lair of the Spider Queen

[spoiler]Good

Galadriel, Lady of the Galadhrim
Celeborn
4 Wood Elf Warriors - Elven Blade, throwing dagger
4 Wood Elf Warriors - Elf bow
4 Wood Elf Warriors - Wood Elf Spear

Evil

Finished![/spoiler]

Scenario 6 - In the Shadow of Dol Guldur

[spoiler]Good

Elrond
4 Wood Elf Warriors - Elven Blade, throwing dagger
4 Wood Elf Warriors - Elf bow
4 Wood Elf Warriors - Wood Elf Spear
(One Wood Elf may carry a Banner)
8 Elf Warriors - Elven Blade, Heavy Armour
8 Elf Warriors - Elf Bow, Heavy Armour
9 Elf Warriors - Shield, Spear, Heavy Armour
(One Elf may carry a Banner)

Evil

Finished!
[/spoiler]

Scenario 7 - The Fall of the Necromancer

[spoiler]Good

Gandalf the Grey
Radagast the Brown
Arwen Evenstar
Cirdan
Glorfindel, Lord of the West
Erestor
Elrond
Galadriel, Lady of the Galadhrim
Celeborn
Legolas

Evil




Finished!
[/spoiler]

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Ambitious endeavor my friend, I hope you can stick with it...it might be something I should try to do, my hobby ADD takes over and I can get so sidetracked sometimes that it feels like I get nothing finished.

_________________
No one feels as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish.

I feel the same sometimes Dave. This way of working is ambitious and something I've never tried before. I guess its an incentive but my advice would be to paint them up as two seperate armies, good and evil. As you said the 'drybrush and ink' technique works just fine for getting hordes of orcs done however the elves require a little more precision.

I tend to paint mine in even smaller units like 250 point forces, if you get bored of painting one type of mini therefore, you can move onto somthing else. This way you don't lose your concentration quite so easily. It will be great to see all these models painted and gaming on a Mirkwood style board, looking forward to pics!

Right, here's some photo's for all the naysayers... I'm looking at you Sean.

Fully painted so far... (all evil)



Built, primed and started in some cases.



Still to be sprayed...



Here's my painting area... I gave it a special clean today, just for this project



A close up of my XL Painting rota (great motivator)



Here's the problem though, distractions...

Behind me. Bear in mind, this is only really some of the books and my assembled WARMACHINE and Lotr minis...



Unbuilt LotR minis (with more on the way...)



and 360... Luckily it's in another room.



Still, I'll get some of remaining models soon, and can get started on having nearly everything assembled.

Happy now Sean?


@ Dave - yeah, it is ambitious, but, well, 120 minis, is just over a full case worth (if they all go into one slot...) so it's not really that big a number. And I'm putting it up for all to see, so hopefully, a few of you will give me a boot up the backside from time to time to keep at it.

It's really going to be more like painting 5 seperate forces, Orcs, Beasts, Wraiths, Wood Elfs and Elfs so there will be a change so hopefully that will combat the boredom.

@ Lord E, yeah, it's going to be a big change in painting, all that neatness (I feel faint...) and especially with the Good force, it's very character heavy, (there's a fair few characters in the Evil force, but they are pretty much all robes and armour).

I'm thinking at this stage that'll I'll do the models on a scenario by scenario basis, unless I get a good spell where I can spend a long time painting. Nikki is one, so that's a rarity til she's in bed...

It means that rather than having to tackle all 24 Wood Elfs in one go, I can break it down into 2 groups of 12.

Well, that's about all for now I guess...

Damn, Rockband's calling...

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Blame me for being sceptic .. it was more of a Talk-about-work In Progress

Nice collection there though!

Lol a very big collecting and painting project going on there.

However your painting desk/area looks very organised and neat, which is useful to the mind as well as the eyes and paintbrush.

I like that box of unbuilt LotR figures - it'd be fun just to burrow in there and find all that could be made and painted. I in contrast have a loose set of plastic High Elves and about 10 random metal LotR characters dotted around constituting my backlog.

_________________
The true story that no one believed.

You mean -

[spoiler]Witchking on fellbeast
Ringwraith on fellbeast
Gulavher, Terror of Arnor
Buhrdur, Troll Chieftan
Troll Loader
Orc Catapult
Dragon
Grima
Lurtz
Ugluk
Vrashku
3 Urukhai battering rams
24 Uruk scouts
10 Uuk pikemen
25 morannon orcs
3 dunlending chieftans
3 dunlending banners
27 dunlendings
2 Castellans
Khamul on horse
Gothmog on Warg
cave troll
2 goblin captains
28 metal goblins
orc siege bow
15 orc trackers
2 orc banners
2 orc captains
angbor
forlong
prince imrahil - both versions
6 knights of DA
captain of DA - foot and mounted
banner of DA - foot and mounted
6 clansmen
24 rangers
6 riders of the dead
6 knights of MT
4 hobbits
gandalf
24 corsairs
3 serpent guard on horses
9 serpent guard on foot
suladan ft and mounted
24 haradrim
6 haradrim raiders[/spoiler]

I'm not listing what's in the post...

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Wow

Wow, big army, nice army as well. Can't wait to see the necromancer.

Well, just go to my gallery then, or post 4, 1st picture... He's already done.


Right, well, plan for today is to get the Bat Swarms done, and time permitting, maybe get some of the Giant Spiders started as well. And the Broodlings (which I totally forgot to count...)

Painting wise, probably going for very dark, as usual, for the bats, with maybe the occasional brown or grey body. Spiders, maybe brown for the 'furry' backed ones, and shiny varnished black for the 'spiny' ones.

Bases will be done my usual way, which is >Scorched Brown, then drybrushed Vomit Brown, then Bleached Bone, then rim re-painted Scorched Brown to tidy up. I really don't like black edged bases. Top off with some Static grass and finito.

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Can I see him on his own please in this post.

Your wish is my command.

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Well, the good news is that Nikki is away to see her grandparents today, so I get some peace to get on with things.



I'm just started doing all the bases for the minis that are already primed, seeing as that's the messy drybrushing stage. I'll get them done, then the Spiders and Bats will be almost ready. I have a feeling that if I get a bit careless with doing the spider bases then they will probably end up mostly done anyway.

Oh, and I added spoilers to the end of the first post, showing what still needs to get finished for each Scenario.

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Holy $h*t

That is easily 10x my collection. The value of that stuff is probly what i make in a year. My god.


Good luck on the necromancer scenarios i thought it was a big project, but after seing all of that stuff its probly in the same ballpark as me buying a single blister pack.

Great collection.

Wow, nice necromancer. I like it.
Thanks for getting pics of it.

Pictures!

Thats a very large collection you have there, I'm suprised any woman would put up with it

I see you still have a long way to go. I like your painted minis so far, the Necromancer looks evil! The Mordor Troll and orc warriors look awesome and have matching bases

Painting woodelves in 2 groups of 12 is a good idea but even that can be tiresome as they require different cloth colours for each piece of garment (and there are at about 5 different cloth sections on Woodelves). Remember to alternate between models, but using the same colours on different areas to create a uniform look. eg. paint half of the elves with green cloaks and half of the elves with green skirts .etc.

looking forward to seeing these spiders done, theres an article on the GW website which has a few ideas if you get stuck at any stage.

Obviously, I'm worth it. It must be my amazing stamina and prowess in the...

...kitchen.



Yeah, I'm still not sure how to go about that. I'm gonna wait until I have the minis in hand before I deceide, but at the moment I'm thinking, all the cloaks will be brown, and then do a mix between greens and greys and browns for the rest of the cloth.

The Spiders are coming along at the moment... I'm doing a test one hust now, it's basically entirely codex grey, with a black ink wash, I'm waiting for it to dry to see what to do from there, and I'm almost done on the Broodling bases...

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Lol that must be it ... kitchen work

Sounds good to me! I painted my woodelves using washes as well because it makes painting so much quicker. Heres a few combos I found. They are designed to be painted over a chaos black underocoat.

Fortress Grey - Shadow Grey wash
Camo Green - Dark Angels Green wash
Shadow Grey - Chaos Black wash
Bestial Brown - Scorched Brown wash
Bubonic Brown - Bestial Brown wash
Dark Angels Green - Chaos Black wash
Desert Yellow - Bestial Brown wash

Obviously let the first coat dry before applying the wash

Good to hear your spiders are coming along, post some more pics!

I'm tempted to steal the colour scheme you used for your sentinels...

Right, here's what I've been doing... (excuse the hastily taken pics)

Broodlings



Base done as stated above, rocks and spiderlings are codex grey, then washed with Badab black, the spiderlings are dryrushes rotting flesh. Going for that timy phospherescent baby spider look, still need to do some drybrushing on the rocks and add some static grass, but I'd consider these about 70% done.

Test piece Giant Spider



Done exactly the same as the spiderlings were. Not too sure about the colours because it's a bigger mini.

the current state of the other spiders



and Big Momma herself,



Don't really know where I'm going with her ATM...

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.

Have some better pics now.

Pretty much finished off the 3 Broodling bases, might go back and touch up the bones a bit, and the base rims need another coat, but that's them pretty much done.

I forgot to add them into my calculations, so I can't even cross them off the list...

All 3 bases together



Close up view of one (they are all pretty much identical)



and here is how my test Giant Spider is coming along.



He's starting to grow on me a bit more, going to try a couple more things with him, and then hopefully can do the other 3.

Also done the rocks and skulls on the Bat Swarm bases, no pic, but it's pretty much the same scheme as the rocks and bones on the spiderlings.

_________________
Studio gaarew; Gaming armies, by gamers, for gamers.