Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Army Showcase - Thoughts

So the guys and myself at ABO have committed to producing and putting out a fully painted, no proxy Warhammer 40k army for 2014. This means collecting, building and painting each of the models for a complete 1850 Warhammer 40k list.

I wanted to put keep track of my progress to help other budding modelers out there and let you all know that it is possible even with a full time job, 2 other time hungry hobbies and staying married at the same time.

First Step: Army Creation
An army list is paramount to getting the 1850 done. While the book is new and there are a lot of uncertainty with which list may be "perfect" for you, consider running a few lists first then tweak. This would often mean proxying and playing with unpainted models in the early stages.

A large number of proxying going on - Dire Avengers and Rangers in the open were proxying for Warp Spiders
 This is the list I firmed up after playing a few games with my Eldar:
Farseer [Warlord]: Mantle of the Laughing God, Runes of Witnessing, Witchblade, Jetbike
Farseer: Runes of Witnessing, Singing Spear, Jetbike
Fire Dragons x6: Wave Serpent - Holofields, Twin Linked Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon
Guardians x10: Wave Serpent - Holofields, Twin Linked Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon
Dire Avengers x10: Wave Serpent - Holofields, Twin Linked Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon
Windrider Jetbike x3
Windrider Jetbike x3
Warp Spiders x8
Warp Spiders x8
Fire Prism: Holo Fields
War Walker x3: Bright Lance, Scatter Laser
While this list is not perfect, I still think it is a competitive build and can stand up to quite a diverse range of opponents. Ample Str6 weapons, rending and freedom of movement makes this list adaptable and good on the table. I have a slight variant to this list but for now, I will be using this list for my Army Showcase. 

I also opted to use models that I had in my collection to speed up the collecting part. Unfortunately, I still had a lot of work to do considering most of the army was painted early 2000's when my style was different hence my repaints.

Recently completed repaint

Second Step: Focus
This is very critical in getting your army done up. Knowing that I had 12 months to complete my army above, I needed a plan. Like any major task, you have to break it down. I came across another article in one of the blogs who suggested using this brilliant tool. It helped me focus on things I needed to complete before moving to the next task.

It also helped me realise how much I have to do in the timespan I have. Go check it out.

Spot the completed Guardians on the right while the Warp Spiders are under-way
I could easily collapse the complicated list to a summarized version and in one glance can tell how much I have on my table:

13  more groups of items to complete-each at varying stages of completion

With 11 more months to go and 13 items on my To Do list (12 + 1 in the Do Today), I have to finish 1.18 unit per month. I am currently slightly behind schedule!

I hope these two steps above have helped inspire you to break your large collections down into manageable chunks and bring you fun as you meander through the hobby.


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