Goblin Watch Part 1

14 Mar 2020

Late in 2019 I bought a large batch of Gloomspite Gitz from a friend, at a bargain price. I didn’t know exactly what was in this batch, other than a couple of Arachnarok Spiders. When the first batch arrived in the post, I was alarmed to discover that it contained more than 100 Shootas and Stabbas from the old Battle for Skull Pass starter set. Then a second batch arrived, containing even more of them. Somewhat intimidated by the thought of painting so many models, I stored them away and focused on other projects.

Then, a month ago, an Age of Sigmar escalation league started up in Edinburgh. What better motivator for getting through all my unpainted Gitz?

Last week on Wednesday I took stock of my horde of Stabbas and Shootas and decided how many I was going to paint. I painted 2 units of 20 Stabbas and 1 unit of 20 Shootas last year, so I thought it would make sense to aim for being able to field 2 units of 40 Stabbas, or a large block of 60, plus a unit of 40 Shootas. So I needed to paint 40 Stabbas and 20 Shootas.

That Thursday I got out my airbrush and engaged in a marathon priming session, getting some 80 models ready to be painted. As well as the infantry, this included 10 Spider Riders and a Scuttleboss. When I was done I began painting the first batch of 10 Stabbas.

Then, on Friday evening I came down with a cold, but managed to finish the first batch of Stabbas. In total I had spent perhaps a little over 3 hours on them. That’s amazing! I am really astonished by how better tech and more experience have combined to enable me to blast through projects like these.

Last weekend, with all my social commitments cancelled thanks to my cold, I finished all 40, getting through each batch of 10 in about 3 hours. Here they are:

On Monday I was feeling a little better, but decided not to go to work. I hate catching illnesses from my coworkers, but I hate transmitting them even more. With not much else to do, I painted the old Night Goblin Big Boss you can see at the top of this article, who I’ll be using as a Loonboss.

Over the course of this week I painted these 20 Shootas. Again, I don’t think I spent much more than 6 hours on them altogether.

With everything that’s going on I anticipate a lot less socialising and a lot more being stuck at home. Being a productive hobbyist will be a good anchor, I think. Hopefully can have small amounts of friends over for games, but I don’t know how smart it is to play at the game shop or that sort of thing.

Shrug. Look out for each other, okay? Just like these gobbos do.