2025/26 To-Do List

 

Hi folks,

I have a squillion things to do on my list this year, many of which a carry-overs from last year. Instead of talking about those things again in this post, I'll just focus on the new and the really old stuff.

DreadTober

October is swinging around pretty quickly and I have been rummaging through the pile of potential for projects. I have settled on a Tervigon to go with my Termagants, which has been sitting around half constructed for years. It is going to take a little conversion work; my Termagants have Devourers, which I want to represent on the little one being... delivered...

Storm of Vengeance

I would love to have a go at the old Storm of Vengeance campaign with some 2nd Edition buddies. To do that I want to have a Belial and Veteran Sergeant Naaman model to play with, so they are a new priority on me 2nd Ed. Dark Angels list. I have added a second Deathwing squad as well, which I recently stripped.

Imperial Agents

After the deep dive into Adeptus Mechanicus I did last year, I didn't get around to some Assassins I had put aside for the challenge. I will try and work on them sometime during the year and have added an Eversor to the list.

10th Edition Dark Angels

I have planned the second half of my urban warfare Dark Angels, which include some more competitive units. I am particularly looking forward to converting some Black Knights and painting Azrael. The Deathwing Knights are a little intimidating... so much detail...

Terrain

I have a bunch of terrain from the CHROMA Kickstarter to construct and some Alien Cactus that I am rebasing. The Fortress of Redemption has been half painted since 2014. Maybe this could be the year...

Halo: Flashpoint

Something non-40K to spice things up. I have bought a Flashpoint starter and will be painting some teams up with my son. It is a fast-paced skirmish game that really captures that feeling of a multiplayer game of Halo. I have to say I am super-excited to play some more games.

So, as I said, squillions of things to do. Who knows what the year will bring, but I will try my best.

See you across the table,

Marc

2024/25 Hobby Review

 

Hi folks,

Well... 2024/25 has turned out to be one of those hobby seasons where I have had to "adult" way too much. Between increased weekend family responsibilities and the special kind of exhaustion that brings, it would be easy to feel like I didn't get much time at the paint table. The truth is, I had a hand in finishing off three armies, so it can't have been that bad!

Urban Dark Angels

First we have an army of urban warfare Dark Angels, inspired by the old Cityfight style of basing miniatures. I added a few Native American pieces to the construction of these figures, to pay homage to the Plains World of their origin. I still haven't managed to play a game with them yet; the last two have been cancelled due to life getting in the way.

Oscar's Orks

Around the same time I helped my son to finish off his first 40K army: Orks!! We had a fantastic time working on pieces together. He has now moved on to Tau, which still pretty much don't exist in my head cannon. Still, the mechs are pretty neat and the new Kroot models are blisteringly awesome.

Imperial Agents

During the first half of this year, I completed an Imperial Agents army for my 2nd Edition collection, using some very old Grey Knight models are repurposing some modern models to represent old Adeptus Mechanicum codex entries. Those Grey Knight figures are bucket list models for me; I was so psyched to have them on the painting table. Two of the Terminators are very old "proto" figures from the Rogue Trader era, kindly donated by Dave Weston from Confessions of a 40K Addict. He and his mates put together a care package for me a while back which completely blew me away. I have his letter on my table for a bit of inspiration when life gets crap, and I am saving some amazing models for a special project.

DreadTober

For DreadTober I painted two Blood Angels Dreadnoughts, Moriar the Chosen and Damodred, Light of Baal. A huge debt of thanks goes to DAM from over at 262nd Death Korps of Krieg, for sending the Chaplain Dreadnought. It is a truly magnificent model and, again, one for the bucket list. I have plans to return the favour, but need to find the right model 😉These are the first two models in a Blood Angels army I will be working on for the next 2nd Ed. Challenge.

Photography

After years of taking photos with a mobile phone potato camera, I asked for a digital camera and macro lens for my birthday. Wifey got me a really nice one which I am still figuring out how to use, so hopefully my photos will be a little more consistent the next 12 months. It's a steep learning curve!

Badges of Honour

It is worthwhile mentioning that I have been terrible at remembering to give myself badges to celebrate finishing things this year. Most of the time I have been working on stuff that wasn't even on my To-Do list! Ah well, there is always next year...

See you across that table,

Marc

TTCombat CHROMA Kickstarter

Hi folks,

A while ago I backed a Kickstarter by TTCombat for some decidedly old school looking terrain pieces. If you can remember the old blue-grey bunkers from 2nd Ed., that's the kind of vibe I'm talking about. The past couple of nights I have started construction of the scatter terrain. 

The pieces go together very nicely but do need some light sanding and gluing with PVA. To prep the pieces I also sprayed the back of each sheet black and coloured in any sanded surfaces with a black whiteboard marker. So far, I have just built a couple of power cores, crates and a command console. Next up, I have some "Brian the Sewer Vent" style pieces to do, which I am really looking forward to. 

See you across the table,

Marc

Vale Marcel van Holst

 

Hi folks,

This is going to be a fairly personal post, so I understand if you want to give it a miss and wait for something more hobby related. Each blog post that I do is a snapshot of where I am in life, so it feels remiss not to mention what has been going on.

Mid way through July I received a phone call that my father had been taken to hospital. This wasn't necessarily unexpected; he has been in-and-out of the emergency department very frequently the past 5 years, and seriously ill for at least 10. One of my first memories as a child is getting lost in a hospital. It is fair to say we have spent a lot of time in hospital rooms talking about serious things. We have said our last goodbyes on several occasions. 

This time was more serious, if that is possible. He was mostly unresponsive, though I got a squeeze from his hand the first day. I am sure he knew I was there. He passed away peacefully in his sleep a few days later. 

I wonder if any father-son relationship is truly simple. Our's was complicated. I cannot imagine raising a family with the kinds of experiences and challenges he had to face. I have intentionally tried to raise my own children in a very different way. He taught me many lessons about life which I cleave to, some of which directly relate to the hobby. His love language was building aircraft models with me when I was growing up. A lot of the things I know about model construction and painting come from him. One of my fondest memories was building an AV-8B Harrier model with him, hoping to get it done in time for show-and-tell at school. Knowing that good things take time, we decided not to rush it at the end. When I woke up in the morning, though, it was painted with all the decals on; he had stayed up all night to finish it off.

I find myself "picking up the pieces" at the moment. Some pieces broke off a long time ago and some have been ground into dust after many years of wear. It is hard to know what the vessel will look like when I'm done (if that every happens). It is taking professional help and the love of an amazing family to make progress. 

I'll wrap up the post with a photo of Dad as I choose to remember him. Happy and healthy, someplace by the sea, surrounded by friends and with me.

2nd Edition Army Challenge: June

 

Hi folks,

Just a short post today, as I am burnt out as all heck. After 6 months of effort, and no small amount of joy, I have completed the 2nd Edition Army painting challenge for 2025. This year I was working on Imperial Agents from the Codex Army Lists book (the "Little Black Book"). The models were mostly from the Inquisition, Grey Knights and Mechanicus portions of the list; no Sisters of Battle or Arbites. 

Finding proxies for some of the models and making new stuff look old was a real blast this time around. I especially have a soft spot for my Electropriests, so much so that i painted them a Rhino transport, lovingly named the "Voltswagon". The Electrohull vehicle card causes models that charge it to be thrown back, giving it room to deploy some frenzied electro-psychos into the mix! I also painted a Mechanicu Predator armed with a Conversion Beamer, using the vehicle conversion rules from the Dark Millenium book. The model itself is from the Horus Heresy range; what a beauty that kit is.

It has been another great journey this year and most of us are already planning for the challenge next year, assuming we can convince someone to run it. Now, though, I am tired. Teaching isn't getting easier and my father has been in palliative care for 12 months. I am still recovering physically and mentally from surgery 12 months ago. Without going into too much detail, things have been hard. I can't help but feel like I am in a liminal space at the moment and not sure at all what comes next. If you have stuck around with me this far, I thank you from the heart. I have the greatest respect for my "Blogger brothers".

See you across the table,

Marc

2nd Edition Army Challenge IV: May

 

Hi folks,

It has been a surprisingly fruitful month on the hobby front. With wifey away on a bunch of work trips I have been whiling away the late hours painting. On the table this month were a battery of Rapier Laser Destroyers, their Servitor crew and an Engineer for my Adeptus Mechanicus. The Rapiers are pretty brutal in 2nd Ed.; not many things can match them for taking out vehicles. The trick is keeping them alive for long enough to do anything, they are utter glass cannons.

I have painted them using the scheme of my Grey Knights, firmly placing them in that portion of the list. the crew, however, is painted in my Mechanicus scheme, which kind of ties the two halves of the army together in my eyes. The servitor models are from Station Forge and are whimsical as heck; very 2nd Edition in vibe. I particularly like the guy with the mop and the one polishing the servo skull.

With the last couple of hours of painting time I knocked together this engineer to keep my Grey Knights Dreadnought upright and shooting.

Having honoured my original pledge for the challenge, I am left with a month to paint bonus models. I am hoping to pull out all the stops and finish really strong with some vehicles and something special.

See you across the table,

Marc

2nd Edition Army Challenge VI: April

 

Hi folks,

We are getting towards the pointy end of the challenge now and April was a busy month on the home front. With school holidays spent at the beach and a week of school camp supervision, there wasn't much time to mess around. I probably finished this Dreadnought in the first two weeks and just got smashed the next couple of weeks, failing to get any of my bonus models completed. That leaves me with a bit of a backlog of models that don't really count for the purposes of completing the challenge, but that I don't want to leave unfinished either! I am going to put in a big push this month to see what I can catch up on. 

The Dreadnought itself is not really a vintage model; it is a more modern Venerable Dreadnought sculpt. It is such a great kit, though. It came with a huge amount of options that allowed me to give it a Grey Knights vibe. I added an extra purity seal to the sarcophagus and an old school autolauncher that I had left over from my Legion of the Damned Dreadnought from a few challenges back. Autolaunchers can have a huge impact on the game in 2nd Edition; "popping smoke" can lay down a large barrier that obscures line of sight and can persist for a significant amount of time before it drifts away. It can protect both the Dreadnought and other nearby units as well.

The twin heavy bolter was another vintage addition. It was kindly donated from a fellow old school gamer, Kharnifex, who I have had the pleasure of playing a couple of games with. He is an all-round good bloke who gives so much back to the 2nd Ed. 40K community back here in Australia, and he is particularly great to play against; his patience is amazing (most of us can only remember 50% of the rules at any one time!). The weapon was originally from a chaos dreadnought but had had one bit of the iconography filed away. I went the whole way and ground out everything I could, except for the ammo feed gargoyles. A couple more purity seals sealed the deal.

The close combat weapon is from a Blood Angels Dreadnought kit, with a storm bolter attached in a very Grey Knight-adjacent way. I think it looks super cool next to the squads which have such a similar look to their wargear. 

Next month I have some Rapier Laser Destroyers to paint and I am sweating on a delivery of 3D printed servitors from Germany to crew them. Hopefully they make it before the end of the month. Then it will just be bonus material until the end of the challenge. So... once more to the breach!

See you across the table,

Marc

2nd Edition Army Challenge VI: March

 

Hi folks,

March has been a fairly productive month on the hobby-front. My first job was to complete the bonus model I missed out on last month. The Tech Magus is the commander of my Mechanicus troops. He isn't quite as powerful as other commanders, having a ballistic skill and weapon skill of only 6. This isn't bad for taking out basic enemy troop choices but he is going to struggle with other commanders. Thankfully, the Inquisitor Lord I already have for the Grey Knights is at the other end of that scale and has an advantage over just about anything short of a Greater Daemon. 

A Tech Magus comes with a power axe, so giving him a plasma pistol was an obvious choice; it gives him an excuse to wield the axe two-handed every once in awhile. The armour and grenades section of the Imperial Agents list is pretty generous; I have selected a displacer field for him to complement the power armour he already has. It also allows me to slip some rad grenades into his pocket! This frees up wargear slots I would usually spend on survivability and grenades, giving him a solid three additional options. I have spent those on a warp jump device, bionic leg and bionic arm. Tooled up and under 160 points, he has a ton of survivability and mobility. 

I also painted a second squad of Grey Knights. These sculpts are what most people remember when they think of Grey Knights back in second edition. I always thought they looked a bit like Mexican Wrestlers, but I resisted painting them that way! Overall, they were great fun to paint, though the weird textured armour still drives me nuts. Using the rules from the Codex Army List, these Terminators aren't particularly powerful, though there force weapons make them scary for daemons. They can sling out a psychic power as well, which is certainly a force multiplier. Using the Dark Millennium rules, however,  they are fantastically deadly. Expensive, but lethal. For about 700 points I can teleport them in as a Level 4 psyker unit wielding strength 8, -5 save mod. force weapons, with multiple defensive saves. 

They cost AND hit like half an army.

To finish off the slice I painted a full squad of Electropriests. These models are proxies I ordered from a 3D printshop overseas. They were pretty good value for money, despite the postage. Electropriests are a really unique and odd entry in the Codex Army Lists book. They don't have any ranged weapons, but hit in close combat at strength 8. This allows them to punch down just about any other infantry. They are also effected by frenzy, which increases their number of attacks and makes them immune to the kind of psychology daemons like to wave about. If they are broken in combat, however, they drop dead from exhaustion, as the electrical charge they have whipped up dissipates. 

For Armour in April I will be working on a special 2nd Edition inspired Dreadnought for my Grey Knights. I may be able to fit a bonus model or two in as well, depending on how quickly I can get started on the Dread.

See you across the table,

Marc

2nd Edition Army Challenge IV: February

 

Hi folks,

February was a ridiculously busy month on the family front. It made it tough to build any momentum hobby-wise. For the challenge I was working on a squad of five Grey Knights and they were a bit painful to paint. Each had the detail of a character model; just the bodies alone had 17 skulls each!

Things went right down to the wire and I submitted my contribution directly on the midnight deadline. Taking photos of them was also pain, but here is a shot in the display cabinet.

I'm tempted to go back over the Nemesis Force Weapon hafts in black, but it is 2nd Ed., so bright is also usually better. I'll see how I feel when I do the next lot.

I missed old stuff day again after a pretty rough weekend. I'm hoping to take a trip down memory lane tonight and hopefully build a post out of it.

See you across the table,

Marc 

Oscar's Orks

 

Hi folks,

At some point during the Christmas holidays my son and I put in a concerted effort to complete his 1000 pt Ork army. This project has been a slow grow because I didn't want to push him too hard and burnout. Towards the end, though, he was so excited to start playing games that we pulled some all-nighters. The result is an infantry heavy Goffs army with tons of character. It can zip in and steal objectives but hold them fairly well too. 

In regard to who-painted-what, the idea of the project was for Oz to learn painting skills as we went along, so to begin with he focused on base coats and initial layers, but by the end he was doing his own washes and highlights. He has constantly amazed me with his developing brush control. Here's some pics of individual units:

Warboss Krumpzog Ironfinger (with Unicorn da squig)

Painboy "Doc"

Kommandos "Da Big Knives" (with Nukey da Squig)

Boyz Mob "Da Redhedz and Da Metal Skullz"

Gretchin Mob "Brave Gutz"

Deffkopta Squadron "Da Kofta Choppers"

Rukkatruck Squigbuggy "Uber Eats" (with Pancake da Squig)

Squighog Boyz "Boney Teefs" (with Pinner the Squigsnot)

Deffdread "DreadTobes"

The DreadTober crew will recognise this guy!

The little guy has also painted Ghazghkull Thraka and has a mob of 10 mega armoured Nobz to round out another 500 points. 

They'll take a while to finish though; for now he is just keen to play some games! More about that later...

See you across the table,

Marc