As is tradition (or will quickly become one), in the off-season I tend to start painting en masse, as the weather and lack of daylight keeps me from training. For this year's project, I'm attempting to get a Skaven army painted up in time for a tournament called Winter War...
...of course, I also need to learn to play the game, as this is Fantasy Battle, rather than the altogether different game of 40K. The very scale of the game is different...with 40K my "good" army consists of 31 guys and a series of red boxes (aka vehicles), while the skaven army I have planned has over 200 models, and a handful of warmachines. It's a proper horde, and so I've had to approach the painting a little differently to previously.
I'm using the Army Painter stuff again, and this time I'm going very much to basics. Typical unit sizes are of 30 models, and I'm limiting myself to 4-5 colours on top of the base brown spray-coat. No highlighting or shading at all, not even a quick drybrush, and when it comes to dipping they are being dunked and flicked, rather than paint it on and wiped down with a cloth. I have a strict schedule to keep of at least 10 models a night, and a target time of 1½ hours to get them done. So far I'm keeping ahead of the schedule, with 170 models completed in 14 days. There are another 20 in the queue, and then I'm waiting on eBay for the final 30. Once they are all done it will be onto the more interesting models...characters, warmachines and big beasties.
I'm fairly pleased with the initial results...the dip is doing wonders at turning hastily painted models into tabletop-passable miniatures, and once the bases are done (that's going to be a fun few sessions, just painting green, then glue onto 200+ bases) I reckon they will be fairly presentable, especially given the sheer volume of models.
I'm hoping to have a playable army for the start of January, giving me a few practice games before the tournament. I also need to come up with a way of transporting much a volume of models, with the current favourite being magnetised bases onto movement trays, with a removeable ferrous sheet holding them on tightly. That will be a trip to B&Q at some point, and a bit of fun with a saw. Once that is done I'll get a couple more of the KR Multicases I use, and build up the innards in such a way as I can just slot the various units in.
Fingers crossed that I get a good amount of production done over Christmas, so that I can hit 2011 with my 3rd completed army!