Hobby Season 2024/25 Review

Afternoon #warhammercommunity The 2024/25 Hobby Season (the Season of Wood) draws to a close, and how did I do? So lets start with my first task:

Develop a more healthy hobby/life balance - go to bed at a decent hour[ish]   

I keep saying I need to work on this! My average sleep time continues to increase but that's only because I get up later when I'm not working. I've had months of 1:00 to 1:50am bed times. I genuinely thought I'd set a limit on those, setting 1:30 as the absolute latest as a rarity. But no, I've been doing that constantly and even later. I need to bring it down to 12:30 at the latest, but every time I think I'm goign to be good I find some distraction to add another hour to my waking day. The knock on effect being I take longer to fall asleep, when usually I'm very good at that. I will re-commit to this promise - I just need to get the will power to actually go to bed..

Continue to play games, they bring me so much joy and fun...

This season has been a bittersweet joy. We have played so many games in Otty's shed. His wife even asked me for a logo so she could get us some t-shirts. We've had so many games on so many systems with so much laughter and joy [plus a couple of arguments over line of site], it's been wonderful. But tinged with the sadness that our friend Scott isn't here to join the fun. We have an area of the shed dedicated to him, with pictures and his Throne of Skulls trophy. Every gaming session he's there in spirit if not in person.

Furthermore we went to another Midweek MESBG tournament at Warhammer World and I had some great games with Sam Cole, Matt Crowther and Ben. We may even be looking at a doubles weekend at some point.

Hobby season TO DONE!

 First up for #DreadTober 2024 was my Norn Emissary/Assimilator. I didn't quite meet the deadline, which was disappointing but the end result was far from it.

While I was at it I finished this solo Genestealer as a gift for Marc. I probably should have done some more, they always come in handy.

As we started Adeptus Titanicus I wanted add to our terrain with these Nook and Noggin Adeptus Titanicus MDF terrain ruins - 12 MDF ruins with some added details with card and coffee stirrer sticks. Liam then pointed out he has access to a laser cutter so could make some for me. So I designed some 'unruined' versions to test what could be done. They're currently WiP being built.

And to make things look cooler I painted the Adeptus Titanicus templates in gold.

Plus all of the Adeptus Titanicus battlefield assets,

The Adeptus Titanicus markers and pins

and all the Adeptus Titanicus data terminal pins. A fiddly and slightly awkward little project not even close to being on my TO DO list. But the end results are pretty cool.

Having already done one Ironsoul's Condemnors test for my Guardians of the Covenant paint scheme I felt I needed to finish off the remaining two figures for the warband on Red Planet BASE! 🔴 - Ironsoul's Condemnors part 2.

Not only did I not finish my #DreadTober Norn Emissary pledge, but I tried to do these Genestealer Cult Sentinels at the same time. It would take another four months to finally get them finished. A shame not to see them done altogether, but again the results are worth it. They'd been around for at least 4 years, so it was great to get them finished.

And yet more Adeptus Titanicus templates, this time in silver

and their Adeptus Titanicus battlefield assets, this time in grey, to match our grey terrain board.

Teh Adeptus Titanicus markers and pins

And Adeptus Titanicus data terminal pins.

Lastly the Adeptus Titanicus priority badge, which I think I prefer to the gold one!

Finally addressing something actually on my TO DO List - Tyranid Leviathan Neurotyrant and Neurolids. I'm not 100% convinced of the brain glows, but I don't dislike what I achieved. 

The Winged Tyranid Prime also got done

As did 3 Von Ryan's Leapers. Unfortunately I added another 3 VRL's to my 'grey pile of shame' [thanks to the Combat Patrol magazines] just as I emerged from completing this slog.

Not to mention adding another brood of 5 Barbgaunts to this brood that I completed. It can be so annoying to set yourself up to batch paint and then  feel you missed a trick not throwing more into the mix so they all got done at once.

With the passing of our friends Scott the guys had decided to finish off some of his unfinished armies. This way we'd be able to game with them and keep his memory alive. So I was asked to finish Scott's Army of the Dead, 50 models in one fell swoop! Most had been primed and a basecoated, Liam had almost finished 10 of them, but some still needed building. I brought every single one up to the same standard and they look awesome now. I'm sure he'd be pleased with the result.

Alongside this I decided to paint Middle Earth 3 Hunters and Fellowship. My son had got me the 3 Hunters as a gift and they'd sat waiting their turn. Little did I recall they can ally with the Army of the Dead. When Otty found out he gifted me a Gandalf to join them. And, I needed a Gollum for another 'off-list' project I'd been ambushed with and the set I got off ebay included a Frodo and Samwise. So chuffed to get these done.

These are not the Star Wars Legion barricade project I was ambushed with, but a different task I was ambushed with. Having said how much I liked the 'rebel' style barricades Otty said I could paint the six spare ones he had! A relatively quick project with cool results.

It may be unkind to say I was 'ambushed' by this project of a Goblin Town Goblin army I mean it was a birthday gift from the guys afterall. But at no point this hobby season did I envisage adding 53 goblins to my TO DO List! But I did them!

And I also did a caveload of terrain and a display board out of a corkboard for our Midweek MESBG tournament.

Totally unnecessary as there was only a best character painting competition, not best army, and the painting level was way beyond my gobbos.

 But a lot of fun to paint and to play with nonetheless.

 I am extremely grateful for the unexpected journey that the guys set me upon!

Otty continued his generosity by presenting me with the remaining parts of the Fellowship - Merry, Pippin and Boromir. I'm not sure if he's deliberately waited until I've finished the other parts so I didn't get to batch them in one go but at least they've had some level of focus, rather than all done at once. Thankfully there is still a level of consistency despite the time difference and approaches.

I also finished the priority coin from the 3 Hunters. Dare I say it, a bit too much contrast in places but still great to finish this side-mission.

And I was able to finish the last big project of the season - the remains of my Leviathan Tyranids, plus their Combat Patrol extras.

I was somewhat concerned about the scale of the task. But I needn't have worried and the subsequent zen state I achieved painting the second set of chitin highlights was blissful.

Which was lucky as the black claws and teeth were somewhat tedious - you can't win 'em all.

And that means I'm pretty much done with Tyranids for a good while. There are some Warriors, that were supposed to be converted to be winged but I've but no desire to do that just yet.

The only other thing is to add add base adapters to some of my more recent Termagants and then one day bring the earliest Gaunts up to today's standard. But I've far more entertaining projects to try before I bring myself to go back.

So there we go 230* models painted, compared to just 36 last season! But, I must reiterate that last season I allowed myself to be less productive for 23/24. Although that number wasn't high, it didn't account for how hard those projects were to achieve. But this season has been the most productive ever. Having put off trying to do hobby points for years I finally bit the bullet and I can literally see what this season is worth.

And as I embraced the system I went back and scored previous hobby season's not only to see how I did but to validate how good this season was. It was almost twice as productive as my best season ever - 2013/14, which thanks to the sculpt and paint of the Tyranids Skyshield Landing pad scored me 239 hobby points. But here and now it was 461 points.

* Taking the Adeptus Titanicus pins as [roughly] 6 pins = 1 model and the 5 numbered counters as 1 model [otherwise it would be 324 models]. And, let's not forget I also painted additional weapon options for the Norn Assimilator, ...

Whatever I achieve each season is enough!

The 2024/25 Season of Wood is over, the 2025/26 Season of Chrome starts now, what will I achieve next?

The Big Build is my 'self-help' initiative to build miniatures. Building isn't always my favourite thing but without a construction phase I can't have a painting phase. So I recognise the special effort this challenge is to me, so I can progress through to the painting stage.

I got my Genestealer Cult Sentinels based for DreadTober

I built and based a second set of Tyranid Barbgaunts.

And a second set of  Tyranid Von Ryan's Leapers.

I built and based the Goblin Town command heroes

As well as dozens of goblins.

The 3 Hunters were built and based.

Alongside Gollum, Frodo and Samwise.

Gandalf was next.