I made more terrain. Some of it is just more CD-based scatter pieces like last time. Other bits are on cardboard and foamboard bases.
The main event is the three hills I made. The bulk of these is extruded polystyrene, cut and sanded into shape, based on a sheet of foamboard, then textured with Luke’s APS sculptamold-alternative.
I learned a lot from making these. I think my main takeaway with the hills is to be more aware of what makes for a good hill gameplay-wise as I cut them into shape. These ones are okay but not ideal: measurements between figures at the bottom and the top of the slope are a little awkward and the surface is a bit too bumpy. Next time I’ll try to make some hills that have steeper slopes (easier to measure) and some that are short and gently-sloped, so they can mostly be ignored for gameplay purposes.
GoblinWatch 2020 continues with a small goblin on a big spider.
I’m not a big fan of the model, to be honest, and I kinda rushed to get it done. I hope they do a new version of it someday, like they did with the Loonboss on Giant Squig. In fact I hope they revamp the whole Spiderfang side of the Gloomspite Gitz range, I love spiders and want more of them.
Despite not really digging the model I’m looking forward to playing with him, either when The Ongoing Situation comes to an end or I crack and start trying to play Warhammer alone.
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.
I’ve never painted squigs before, so this is somewhat of a milestone. I think they came out really well.
You can run these in units of 5 (plus a herder) or multiples of 5. I think when I paint more squigs, or if I come back to these, I’ll do something to make half of them a bit distinct from the others. I’d like each group of 5 to look a little bit different. Not wildly so; just some variation in patterns, highlight tones, whatever.
Here are the handlers!
I friggin love them, gang. Kinda bummed I couldn’t build the alternate versions of them where the musician is holding a pair of cymbals and the prodder has a mushroom-on-a-stick instead. I guess that means I have an excuse to acquire a second box, or perhaps pick up the new Start Collecting?
What’s next? Well, I was going to paint Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers because I want to start playing them in Underworlds. Then the local Age of Sigmar escalation league started up and gave me a big incentive to crack on with my Gloomspite Gitz. All my hobby plans were thrown into disarray, but now they’ve coalesced again and I have a detailed plan for how I’m going to get the Gitz done. So that’s what the next couple/few months will be filled with: more goblins, spiders, and squigs.
I am not ashamed to say these were a rush job. The painting time was quick - I estimate about 5 hours - and consisted of little more than a zenithal basecoat followed by a few splashes of Citadel Contrast paint.
Despite the low time investment, I’m really pleased with the results. There’s lots of contrast between colours, light and shadow. The colour scheme is unusual without being garish or too unnatural, and all the details are crisp and clean. Most importantly, the recipe is easily scalable for when I get around to painting more Flesh-Eater Courts models.
