Greetings friends, and welcome to what will probably be the
final instalment of The Collardhammer Special for 2025. This is going to be
more of a year in review type of instalment, looking at my hobby progress and
gaming over the year as a whole. I will also be going into some plans and goals
for 2026. Firstly though, I have managed to get some building and painting done
over the last month, which I’d like to begin by summarising.
Unsurprisingly, my hobby work over the last month or so has
been on my Emperor’s Children. I finished painting the second unit of Noise Marines
and started assembling the Christmas battleforce. The Trello board for the
project looks like this:
Status of the Emperor's Children project
I’ve assembled and undercoated Fulgrim and the first unit of
Flawless Blades, in addition to completing a unit of Noise Marines. I am really
looking forward to painting Fulgrim. The model is stunning and wonderfully detailed,
and hopefully a change of pace from just painting power armoured dudes. I am
enjoying the project, but with the limited range it is a bit repetitive. That
said, I am currently looking at rounding out a fully painted 1000-point list,
meaning that I’ll be painting at least the Flawless Blades first. Moving onto
the Noise Marines I finished this over this month, here is the full unit:
Noisy Bois!!!!!
I went with a different tabard pattern to try to differentiate this unit from the first one I painted. I tried to do a blue fish-scale effect, and while it definitely isn’t perfect, I think it adds a bit of visual distinction to the two different units and I am generally very pleased with the results here.
Taking a more holistic look at my hobby progress over the
year, here is the Trello board for the backlog clearing project:
The various other minis I have on the list to paint
Of the current 24 cards on the backlog, 12 of them are
complete. Adding in the Emperor’s Children, where of the 17 cards, 9 are
complete, these projects are around 50% complete in total. I am overall pleased
with this progress. Looking back at the first post, I completed most of the
original tickets and made progress of some kind on all of them. I also added
the whole Emperor’s Children project and several new tickets for the other
projects, meaning that overall, I did more painting over the course of the year
than I expected when I started this blog. I think that, assuming there are no major
releases for the factions I already collect, I should be able to clear up these
tickets by the end of next year at least.
Looking over my games from the last year, I played a total
of 28 across different games and armies. The vast majority of these games were
crusade games of 40k, making up about 70 percent of my games. Of those, there
was a rough 50/50 split between playing Sisters and Imperial Agents, not
surprising as they are my two main factions. Outside of the crusade campaign, I’ve
so far played a single game of Emperor’s Children. This was good fun and I am
looking forward to playing with the army more as I do more painting. I am even
hoping to get at least one more game with the army before the end of 2025.
Moving away from 40k, I played 2 games of Old World, 2 games of Warcry and 3
games of Kill Team. I’ve enjoyed exploring other games in the Warhammer sphere,
particularly Old World. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to play
any Age of Sigmar this year, mostly due to me falling out of contact with most
of the people I played with during 3rd edition. It probably doesn’t
help that 4th edition didn’t make a great first impression with me.
Nor have I played any of the new edition of Heresy yet, mainly on account of
struggling to find opponents.
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| Close ups for the Noise Marines |
Looking forward into 2026, I am excited by what the future holds! Hobby wise, I still have plenty to sink my teeth into with my existing projects, so as tempting as things like Grand Cathay or potential new releases for 40k are, I won’t be looking to start anything new for a little while. That said, new minis for Sisters, Agents or particularly EC would be well received, including the new Sisters Kill Team (which I am pretty much locked in for). This will obviously depend somewhat on the rollout of the new edition of 40k, expected for next summer. Depending on what is released and if any of my factions get an early codex, that will potentially also add to the pile. In terms of gaming, I am hoping to play more next year. I managed a little over 2 games per month this year and will be aiming to get this up to at least 3 games per month in 2026. The Crusade we are playing is nearing conclusion, and I would like to get it wrapped up before the new edition drops. I am also hoping to play a more diverse range of games, incorporating more Old World and Heresy into the rotation. A key part of this will have to be breaking out of my comfort zone and meeting new people, as my current play group isn’t so interested in these games.
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| More close ups! |
With all that said, one thing I am hoping to do in 2026 is get back to writing this blog a little bit more frequently. I think the original plan of writing one of these per week was too ambitious for my schedule, so I am going to be aiming to write this fortnightly instead. Having completed a number of personal milestones over 2025, I am hoping to have a more relaxed 2026 with fewer major life changes and more time for (amongst other things) hobby work. This means that you should expect the next blog post at the start of the new year, on the weekend of the 3rd/4th. Until that time, happy holidays, and I hope whatever Hamwarmers you desire are under the tree!
Much love,
Ben
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