It's been a while. The end of last year definitely became all about real life and not a lot about hobbying. I'm also enjoying that realisation that comes with middle-age that my eyes don't work so well anymore and as a result, painting became deeply unfun for a while.
Mercifully, the summer rolling around and there being cricket on made for hobby time without glasses on a much more pleasing proposition.
So I've been doing a bunch of stuff with my summer break and herein is a catalogue of those things! Some of this will also be a bit of a steer as to what's on the gaming calendar for 2026!
Flames of War
A throwaway conversation with a clubmate at the end of last year about no one playing Flames of War Pacific reminded me that I had a whole army of Australians that could definitely come out to play. So I made up a list and realised that I was, annoyingly, missing a Bofors AA gun and more annoyingly, the platoon of 2pdr AT guns I thought I had painted actually doesn't exist and I have wholly imagined it.
But I made up a couple of Owen SMG bases and a flamethrower base to turn one of my infantry platoons into a Commando section:
McBeth hooked me up with a 4th Bofors gun and I'll get some 2pdrs at some stage. I've got some RAAF decals inbound to decorate the air support that's slotted in in the absence of the 2pdrs.
I've also test painted a single Early War tank, just to see how it comes out with the grey and brown and I'm really looking forward to cracking on with this army in anticipation of the release of EW in February:
ADLG Renaissance
Finally done. Am I happy with them? No, not especially but I didn't enjoy painting that army at all. The paint job is tabletop at best but honestly, I just needed to get them done. Basing and flags have helped with the finished product.
And while I'm not thrilled with the paint job on any given bit of the whole army, the collective does look pretty cool. That many flags makes everything better. I'm getting it out for a run next weekend and so we'll see how it goes.
Warhammer 40K
Having played almost nothing but Knights last year, I've been focusing on getting some improvements into my Guard army to get this army on the park again this year.
A new Leman Russ was one of the first adds and, given the armament, I decided he should be a Commissar tank:
I've also added some new support solos - two new techpriests (one of whom is nice and big for reasons that will become apparent...):
And from there (also for reasons that will become apparent...) a converted Lord Solar. I did the kitbash for two reasons. First, while I like the Lord Solar model, it's SO out of place in my Guard collection and second, I had an excellent head with a Windsor Davies style mustache and it's perfect for this.
Workbench
I've added a second trio of Bullgryns to bulk them out to a full unit. I'd like to give them a blat in a Grizzled Veterans company with a Commissar to make them more hitty:
I've done a bit of a kitbash on the new Attillan Rough Riders to provide an escort for Lord Solar. They're all built, this is the first painted one:
Finally, the apparent reason:
After much back and forth in my own head about whether to magnetise the model, I decided that the point of the whole thing was the meme so I, realistically, am only ever going to use the Baneblade:
She's not quite done - some 3D printed sponsons are inbound (so I can have the double sponson list build with only one pair of actual sponsons) and I am still pondering the specific crewing arrangements but there will be some classic 'DRIVE ME CLOSER I WANT TO HIT IT WITH MY SWORD' energy though. It's been a great little project that I've really enjoyed. I genuinely can't wait to get it painted and running.
Next Time
I'll take photos and report back on the performance of the most hateful painting project ever. I have high hopes for the performance of the Tercio but we shall see...
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