2013 in review

Hello 2014! Happy New Year!

This year I wanted to review what I think are some of the highlights of the past year as far as my personal hobby accomplishments are concerned, and make a projection of what I foresee 2014 will bring.

The Wolves return to Fenris 

A year ago today, I came back from a trip visiting my friends in Cincinnati (and waging war) to discover that The Bink had made a magnificent gaming table for me! It was an awesome Christmas present and we spent 2013 using it for Warhammer 40,000 games, as well as Roleplaying games (Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd 3ed) and board games (Battlemasters, Settlers of Cataan, etc.) and card games (Bang!, and another that I suck at...LOL). A year later and I still treasure this gift. Thanks again Bink!

Big table with shelves on the inside of the legs. 

By the end of January of 2013, I had acquired my brother's old Ultramarine army which are some of the earliest models that I ever painted (Circa 1990-ish). Getting them updated and into games of 6th Edition Warhammer 40K was quite a lot of fun and I ran them a few times in 2013 and usually had fun using tactics and options that my usual Space Wolves lack. I have yet to run them under the new Space Marines codex however, but aim to do so soon. Also, I am currently painting a "new" Captain model for this army, and figuring out a way to update the models in this army without resorting to completely redoing them.

Old Ultramarines!

 Last year I also ran a Tyranid army...well, genestealers really, and although it was a lot of fun I am now looking forward to the new codex which is supposed to be out this month before I do any additional work on this army. We'll see what the future holds for these guys. It was fun discovering how tasty Imperial Guard are though...

One gun and LOTS of claws.

 I finished painting a Long Fang squad that I am still very fond of. In fact I haven't left them out of a Space Wolf game yet. For Xmas the legendary Warfrog gave me a ton of the 2nd edition plug-and-play marines including 10 more missile launchers. My dreams of Long Fang spam are about to come true! Muhahahaha!)

I don't think that plasma pistol has been fired yet...

 2013 also saw the first Dark Angel paint-jobs by me in over a decade. These are the plug-and-play models that come in the current 40k paint set. I indeed to do more with these guys soon, as I recently doubled up on the Dark Angels from Dark Vengeance.

Dark Angels

A lot of my summer and early autumn was dedicated working on my Warhammer Fantasy Orcs, which are pretty much playable at this point, I just need to get them portable and arrange some games... This army still has a lot of work to do, but while I was painting these guys I was also dabbling on some 40K models, which inspired me to start playing Orks in 40k again. Funny how that works, huh?

Waaagh!

I turned in 40 in 2013. I concept I am still in denial of. I tell you, playing these games and engaging in this hobby really does help to keep one young! LOL I do have to say nothing makes for a more humbling outlook than having your brother watch as you use his old army in a birthday bloodbath against Tau-dar. Our ancestors were weeping...

40K on your 40th! What a great day! Thanks again to all for making it a special day for me! 

Another special event that coincided with my birthday was meeting my old friends from our High School days in England for a series of intense games of Space Hulk. That 3rd edition was such a great set and I honestly believe GW has made a critical error keeping this game "limited edition".

I kept the 'stealers well fed on that weekend, except when I played them that is! LOL

Getting my Space Wolf Land Raider completed Land Raider before the 2014 was a nice project for the Holidays. You can find the links for that whole massive project on my Space Wolves page.

"Let's raid some land!"

Another fun finish for 2013 was having people contact me to tell me that Frontline Gaming used one of my Cypher pics (see below) in their Cypher Reviewed article. This was quite a pleasant, and flattering, surprise. Also, it was a good review of the Cypher dataslate which I still have yet to download. I am totally intrigued by the notion of incorporating him into my Space Wolves, not to take advantage of any benefits or whatever, but just to antagonize my Dark Angel opponents. :)

Cypher offers you his protection.

 So what does 2014 have in store for Neverness and his Chronicles? Well, in the next few months I will most likely be moving in with my girlfriend, and until we get my studio built, I will be hurting for space. So in the meanwhile, I will be cramming away on completing some projects as well as figuring out how to make my armies both portable, protected.and accessible. I don't foresee many 'construction' projects in this time, but I do foresee that individual models or units might be painted up. We shall see.

One project that I started on in December was work on my Chaos army, in particular my World Eaters. Only one model do I have finished (see below) which was painted many years ago and he is the standard that I hope to get these models up to. He's painted in a 2nd edition Chaos Codex Khorne Berserkers scheme, but I am OK with this as it has always appealed to me. Not sure how much progress will me made on this force in the New Year, but I would like to get Chaos up to a strong secondary, if not Primary, army.

World Eater.

I would also like to try to knock out some of the models that others have asked for me to paint for them, mainly so they don't get stored for heaven-knows-how-long during this move/transition. I hope to have a very productive January on both the model mini painting front as well as on my 2-D art, but I suspect it will also be a very busy month for me at work as well, so we shall see!

Meanwhile, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and thanks for your continued patronage of this blog!

-Joel (Neverness)