Better Late Than Never - Nameless Guard

The Nameless Guard project had been progressing so smoothly and efficiently. I really thought I could finish that army in 5 months. Miniature after miniature, unit after unit, war machine after war machine.

That was a good plan. To paint a full army in 5 months. To make an old dream of having my own painted army come true. Oh well, I failed. When I had just last 8 models remaining, real life kicked in and kicked my ass off the painting table.

"Failure is like a wind. It makes you stronger, but only if you oppose it"

No, it's not a quote from Sun Tzu's  Art of War. It's not another Paulo Coelho's brilliant thought. It's mine. I just came up with it.

Sorry for the poetic intermission. Back on topic.

I didn't fail completely. A full army in 8 months is quite a feat in itself for me. The last unit, Plague Havocs was made of old plastic plague marines and metal slaaneshi heavy weapons. Two of these look like missile launchers and two like... I don't know... lascannons or plasma cannons?

Yes, you may have noticed a standard space marine on the pic. Well, I ran out of plague marines, ok? Anyway, the unit got most appropriate name of Squad End and I was free to move to the last model for my army....

Nameless...

I'd added Reaper Sophie wings (54mm model) to the Scibor's chaos lord to make a leader for Nameless Guard and painted it in the very same way as all the other models. And when I finished it, I sat down and felt joy and pride streaming through my veins.

After 20 years in this hobby I proved to myself I could paint an army.

NAMELESS GUARD

7 war machines. 7 units with 7 miniatures each. Nameless. 57 models in total.

Slideshow presenting the (almost) unstoppable growth of the Nameless Guard

Now, before I get too sentimental. I'm not a gamer anymore. I will not use this magnificent army on a table-top. And I'm sure it deserves to be taken to a real battlefield to destroy anything that stands in its path.

Anyone wants to have the Nameless Guard deep-striked straight to a gaming table? Give me a reasonable offer and who knows, maybe I will add a virus or two to the deal. No, seriously, this army is for sale.

Rotten Harvest 2013

With painted Mr. Bones on the shelf I was ready for more painting. The Rotten Harvest contest held at the Wyrd forum gave me a good excuse to take another miniature and motivation to paint it quickly.

Quick research in my boxes returned this Pegaso Models demon in 54mm scale. I thought "Sure, why not" and painted it. Yeah, just like that.

Fight Fire With Fire

Frankly, I'm really proud of this paintjob. One of my best. Maybe THE best. Anyway, I finished it a lot faster than I'd expected, so I've returned  to my boxes.

Fire Walk With Me

This Red Box Games mage was my second entry. I tried to limit palette and used reddish tones all around. Not sure why am I telling you this, you sure can see that without my explanation.

Quite happy to get two entries for the contest I found out that they had extended the deadline. Another day or two? OK then, here's my third entry.

Sick Leave

No success whatsoever in the contest, but who cares? Three more painted miniatures are what matters.

Mr. Bones

As you already know I did not paint for few months. In the meantime I've received my Reaper Bones kickstarter set. I have a lot of plastic miniatures lying around now. I do mean a lot!

When I had decided to get back to the painting table I just put my hand into the bag and pulled few miniatures out of it. Mr. Bones, the kickstarter project mascot was one of them. Looked like a good way to start painting that huge pile of Bones.

That new plastic material is very interesting indeed. Not sure yet if I like it but it has some advantages. Oh, it has some drawbacks as well. For instance, it doesn't react well to aerosol primers... Yeah, I should have read about it BEFORE priming, not AFTER. The primer layer has not cured completely making it pretty difficult to paint over it. Oh well, I painted Mr. Bones anyway. Cute little sculpt originally comprising part of this 54mm set. No, I didn't convert it, it came with a shovel.

I came with a rather long title for this piece.

HEY, YOU! REAPERFOLKS! I DIG YOU...

I was back and ready for more painting!

Sinusoid

Sinusoid is one of my favourite mathematical curves. Up and down, up and down....

Up and down... You can use it to picture almost any aspect of your life. Health, love, money, job... Yes, miniature painting too.

Up and down...

For four months I was down with miniatures. Very, very down. Then I went to Hussar 2013 and it all changed. I am now very, very up. In less than a month I managed to paint one start-up mini for fun, prepare three entries for the Rotten Harvest contest, finish my Nameless Guard (8 remaining models) and kick the oldest piece out of my Hall of Shame. Not bad, not bad. Quite a lot of things to show you.

Oh, and Hussar was such a blast! Just google it out, check the galleries and read enthusiastic reports.

Stay tuned for more!

Nameless Guard: Squad Fly

This Nameless Guard could look quite boring... Plague marines, rhino, plague marines, rhino, plague marines, rhino...

But, then came the terminators... and demons...

... and then came this cool guy, Jabberwocky, with a set of converted wings and a very short instruction: "I want you to use them".

So I did.

Thank you Sean! You've made my army more interesting and varied. This shall not be forgotten.

Nameless Guard: JUNE Was Not Immune

Ouch, my first failure in this very surprising project...

I wanted to paint a Rhino, Plaguebearers and Raptors in June. Unfortunately, my exams made it impossible to get all these minis done.

Rhino? Check...
Plaguebearers? Check...
Raptors? Ouch again... Wings only...

I'm now even more motivated to finish the whole army as planned...

Nameless Guard - Looking for Nameless

This whole army project is slowly coming to (hopefully) successful end. The problem is I don't have the most important model yet...

Nameless...

There are many different options on the market, I'm trying to pick the best one. Wanna help? I haven't yet decided who Nameless actually is, but generally speaking he could be a greater demon, demon prince or chaos lord. Let's check these three groups separately. The basic assumptions - it should fit the army, doesn't need to be a GW product and should be relatively inexpensive.

Greater Demons

A greater demon would be a great centerpiece in my army. There is the official GW model...

... but it's a Finecast model. Forge World model is even bigger and most probably of a higher quality...

Of course, there are other large demons on the market. Here are examples from MaxMini, Scibor Monstrous Miniatures and Ultraforge.

The problem is that these impressive models have even more impressive prices. I think that even the second-hand models will be outside my acceptable price range, unless there is a company willing to become a sponsor of the Nameless Guard.

Let's move with something smaller then...

Demon Princes

We are still within the large-and-eyecatching-models range, but also reaching the acceptable price level. The GW Nurgle demon prince would be one the most obvious choices, if it wasn't the Finecast model...

Maybe if I found the old metal copy? Forge World has a demon prince too in its range, but it's rather pricey.

Ultraforge again

Spellcrow

Something less nurgly, to boost your invention - two Cryx warcasters from Privateer Press

Finally, the third group...

Chaos Lords

By chaos lords I mean models resembling GW Typhus (Finecast again...) - bigger than a standard marine, terminator armour etc.

Maxmini has this one...

Scibor sculpted these three

Another Polish company, HiTech, released this model...

... but I could also use one of their Terrorizers

By the way, I have two spare sets of demonic wings, so in fact any of these models (demon princes and chaos lords) could get them for some additional oomph factor.

So, what do you think? Any suggestions? Have I missed something cool? Do you have anything I could buy from you?

Please, leave your proposals, sponsorship and sale offers in the comment or contact me. Without Nameless this army will not be complete...