Fast on the heels of my first distraction of the year is another!
This time Hercules, from Foundry Miniatures. He’s been sitting in my WiP box (along with the Argonauts) awaiting completion and action in Open Combat.
I’ve based him on a large base to denote his epic strength and will be giving him suitable stats to reflect this. (I’ll probably add a few bits of greenery to the base later).
I’ve enjoyed painting him, Foundry Miniatures are fun to paint.
While working on my AoS Ogroid Myrmidon I remembered I needed to build a Chaos Spawn to fill a gap in my rejigged AoS Slaves to Darkness list. While finding the components I spied my box of WiP projects. Fast forward a couple of minutes and I’d got distracted and brought the WiP box out to have a look through.
The result of the distraction… a completed Gladiator from the Crusader Miniatures line.
I’ve also been eyeing some of the other WiP gladiators from the box so it might turn into a bigger distraction than just this one model.
My post in January 2024 last year highlighted what I was going to attempt to achieve. We can refresh ourselves here:
https://battlingaleadmountain.blogspot.com/2024/01/
You’ll swiftly notice that was a very large dollop of optimism right there.
The number one project on the list was my 1000 point Age of Sigmar Slaves to Darkness army. I’m happy to say I managed to stick to that project and stay focussed all year. Unfortunately a new edition (as is GWs way) of Age of Sigmar saw some of my army choices relegated to ‘Legends’ status which means off the table from official events as of June 2025. Owing to my haphazard event attendance that pretty much removed them from my options to field out and about.
I completed the Tarantulos Warcry warband of 13 models in early 2024 but they are one of the casualties of the AoS update. So they’ll just be used in Red Harvest and Open Combat now.
In response to their removal from my official events options I built and started painting the Darkoath Savagers. That build was an… experience. Beautiful models utterly horrible to put together. Those models are still work in progress but I did complete two earlier in the year. They are still street legal in AoS but more importantly when they’re finished they’ll be another part of the Red Harvest boxed set completed.
Another casualty sent to ‘Legends’ status was Khagra’s Ravagers. I love these models and I will still be using the sorcerer in my rejigged army list. Plus the warband has seen rebirth back in their origin game, Warhammer Underworlds, should I wish to dabble there.
The Age of Sigmar army as I intended but rejigged is not complete. As of December 31st 2024 I still had the Ogroid Myrmidon Champion and the sorcerer from the Khagra’s ravagers set to complete. Along with the Aethervoid Pendulum. But it did finish very close and I did actually use many of the models at an event in 2024!
Part of the new Age of Sigmar release is a game variant called Spearhead. I was very keen to play this so I bought the necessary components and books to give it a go. I did discover I needed a Chaos Chariot to complete my Spearhead force, fortunately my birthday in the middle of the year provided the model and, unusually for me, I built and painted it this year! I did have a huge incentive though. I was booked to attend a Spearhead event at Warhammer World. More on this in a moment.
The second project on my 2024 list was my Lord of the Rings Minas Tirith army. I didn’t really get back to this although I did manage to prime the remaining unprimed infantry models. I have now got the recently released updated rules and army books for this so intend to get these and an opposing force sorted as soon as possible.
My other projects, Lucrum in 10mm, Horus Heresy Blood Angels, 40K Tyranids and my box of miscellaneous WiPs sadly all saw no progress.
When I look back this is due to having five months of no completions across the year. That’s nearly half the year of no progress. An unfortunate lack of making the time being the main culprit for the large gaps.
So my final tally for models completed in 2024 was 32. (Down by 20 on 2023’s total of 52). But the near completion of my Age of Sigmar force and attending an event with the miniatures is a massive win so I don’t mind too much.
With regards to new models into my collection, a combination of birthday and Christmas plus delivery of a Kickstarter has seen my total added to the mountain for the year reach 50. So not much progress getting the mountain down in 2024 in fact it went up… again! Combined with the additions in 2023 that’s not a good trend. But I am enjoying myself.
The Age of Sigmar Spearhead format saw me attend a casual event at Warhammer World which was a great deal of fun. It’s two games in an evening where players are attempting to achieve quests as they play their games. Very relaxed and fun games.
Pictured above a quick snapshot of a game just about to start.
I’ve enjoyed the Spearhead format so much I’ve booked myself onto two events in 2025. Another evening Quests event in January and a full day competition in March.
Another event I went to in 2024 was the Warhammer Open Day where I took my Fomoroid Crusher to enter in the Legends of Paint painting event. I was very pleased to receive a bronze medal. Which has actually got me considering attempting to go for a silver this year.
Looking ahead to 2025 I’ve again got loads to go at but I think I’m keeping my sights fairly limited and continuing with my list of projects highlighted in January 2024. They’re still things I want to complete, I’ve other projects shouting from the sidelines but the experience of the five months dry spell this year means I’ll just focus on completing one thing at a time and see where I get to.
So with that roughly coherent review onto a new adventure, happy new year and welcome to 2025!
