October review and November goals

October is gone and it went... Surprisingly well.

On the Warhammer front, I'm taking a breather. The new codexes are brutal and I need to reassess my daemons before continuing. Good thing I have other stuff to occupy me.

We restarted the Dungeon of the Mad Mage and immediately went on a hiatus again. Working with minimum capacity is brutal for scheduling. Alas we are scheduled to play once again next week, wish us best of luck.

At least we are active in Avernus, as the blog posts show. We are preparing for a Mad Max style bit next.

Finally ASOIAF will take center stage in November as I'll attend the Realms of Battle event in Warsaw. I don't expect to win any prizes with the amount of practice I haven't been getting, but it should be fun, at least if my leg will hold it together.

Speaking of ASOIAF, the Free Folk have been central to October's hobby activities. I painted my last units and so this project is finished - for now. I still have a few Guard stragglers, both infantry and vehicles are still coming in slowly. However I might skip painting them in favor of more daemon troops. I'll dip into Tzeentch first with a lot of screamers on the painting table, then whatever I come up with next. I am just on schedule with the painting count, and I want to keep it that way.

So... I painted Free Folk and played daemons during October, and I'll do the reverse during November.

Painting commission naga as Heroes 3 Naga Queens

Reaper snake demons, totally following my previous Naga Queen... with a few hiccups.  

Painting commission fantasy heroes

A motley collection of heroes, Reaper bones except the metal dwarf.

Chaos Daemons vs Custodes, 20.10.2026

We tested the new Custodes codex! I used a similar list as last time, but I switched out the two Khorne heralds for a unit of Pink Horrors. On the other side... surprisingly many models, with 21 Sisters of Silence present. That, and 9 Terminators with Trajan, plus two Dreadnoughts. 

Painting a commission werebear

This werebear painted as a European brown bear. I looked up some pictures of bears and it looked like they were darker in the front and lighter along the back/spine. So I drew inspiration from the polar bear technique and went to work.

Painting a commission bone giant

The "biggest" commission of 2026. 

Chaos Daemons vs Orks, 13.10.2026

Chaos Daemons are back, this time against the brand new ork codex. I made a more well rounded list instead of a monster mash and went at it again with the Daemonic Incursion. Be'lakor is still here with his two bloodthirster buddies, but I had 3 infantry squads in reserve and nurglings clogging up the middle. 

The orks had two loaded squads of meganobz, a big boy squad, the big man Ghaz himself, as well as two dakkarigs and a deff dread. Other units rounded out the list for scoring purposes.

Painting more Unsullied Swordmasters and Targaryan heroes

Probably the last commission of the year, rounding off the Unsullied infantry.

Converting and painting more Free Folk Giants

I've already worked on some Free Folk giants, see Converting and painting Free Folk giants. I have another pair of savage giants, one of which needs to become a spear thrower. Obviously I won't do the same conversion again. Instead I came up with the idea of a pine tree thrower, as previously the guys joked a lot about pine trees flying across the table. I also put some work into the other guy, just to make sure everybody understands that this is a melee giant. 

Dungeon of the Mad Mage: ...and all of your heads explode

The party regrouped in Waterdeep, and spent some time selling off loot, shopping for magic items and high quality diamonds. They actually found nothing of interest after rolling poorly on the merchant tables, so they used their old teleport network to take a detour through Neverwinter. Here they bought some gear and a diamond to resurrect Szivem. Initially Groin began the ritual on the high street in front of the temple of Lliira, but on rolling a 1, he had to retreat inside before a procession of nobles. Still many people gathered to witness the miracle[1] and the temple gained new followers.

After a well deserved long rest, the adventurers once again descended into the Dungeon. They explored the rest of the mansion, going through the chambers of a noble couple, abandoned in a hurry. They saw and heard signs of being watched. Twice they encountered Star Spawn Larva Mages materializing from thin air. They fought the first one, to general disgust at all the worm-related happenings.

Painting a lich

Painting the lich from the Reaper DDRPG Kickstarter with the purpose of completing the purple experiment done on the cultists. 

Painting Reaper cultists in yellow and purple experiments

Painting the cultists from the Reaper DDRPG Kickstarter and having fun with new color schemes.

Chaos Daemons vs Thousand Sons, 29.09.2026

 

For my first foray into Chaos Daemons since a long time, I chose the easiest possible army to play: daemonic incursion with 6 greater daemons (models courtesy of my opponent, I just brought two Bloodthirsters). Against me, the Thousand Sons with Magnus in the lead, on this Dawn of War deployment. My opponent proclaimed my imminent victory.

I wasn't so sure so I deployed somewhat conservatively, with one Bloodthirster in reserves, one on the left flank, and everything else in a death star formation around Be'lakor.

September review and October goals

Summer and holidays are definitely gone now, hello school year and glorious autumn! 

Just kidding, I hate the changing weather and flu.

Anyway, with the holiday season gone, schedules are somewhat on track. I had some more leg-related issues, but those should be done for the time.

We did not manage to restart the Dungeon of the Mad Mage due to... as I said, I hate the flu. At least we sneaked in some Descent into Avernus, with the bodies of fiends piling high everywhere we go. D&D5.5 is a great extension of the game. Triss is having a blast.

ASOIAF is based, with a small local tournament serving as training with the new patch. I also dipped into Chaos Daemons, and got my ass kicked, although I can see the potential. My excitement for 11th edition is waning, and we just got another massive changeset... we'll see.

At least the hobbying went well. My backlog of Imperial Guard infantry is almost finished, and I also went through some vehicles. Fantasy miniatures help shore up the numbers: several dragons, which I've been eyeing since the start of the year, are done. For the first time this year, I was ahead of schedule, even if by a measly 2... I'm behind again by 7, but a new batch of minis is soon done. This includes low effort Warhammer marines, ASOIAF commissions and some Free Folk for yours truly. All this should eat into the 98 minis scheduled to be painted until the end of the year.

As for the next batch, I will continue in the same vein. I have just two more units of Free Folk to paint up, one being already converted. I have a large amount of Warhammer minis converted and primed, ready for some paint. And of course, fantasy minis, mostly of the Reaper kind, also sit in boxes. I have no plans set in stone. I just want to get this through!

Painting Frozen Shore Bear Riders

Poor Bear Riders... they won't see the table during S7, but I like the models so here they are.

Painting Free Folk Heroes 1... and some attachments

After my essay on Slapchop 2.0 and its vigorous testing and finally codifying... all that's left is to apply it.