It's been over four and a half years since I finished painting my 40K Marine army, which at the time was the only full army I'd ever painted for any game I've played. Of course, I then went and wrecked it by adding more models to that army that still need painting, so until today I technically had no armies completed.

However, that has changed with the completion of my 40K Tyranids, which has been pretty much my only goal in wargaming for the last year or so.

While I'm glad I've got them done (though I still need to varnish them before I use them), I am a bit underwhelmed at the final results. The reason I sigh is not even due to my shit painting skills, but rather that I wanted them to look a bit more wild and strange when lined up as a full army. The biggest problem is, in order to get them painted as fast as possible, I cut some corners on the large infantry units, and their colours are more dull and bland than what is evident on most of the other units.

I also messed up some of the other units, like trying to do something weird with the Hive Guard only to have them turn out looking like very pale sea creatures. I also chose dark red and light blue for the Shrikes, the last unit I painted, completely forgetting one of the Zoanthropes had already claimed that colour scheme.

But while I'm a bit disappointed, I'm very glad they're done, and I suppose they look alright for a bunch of models that I've mostly collected from ebay over the last 15 years.

I really do wish I enjoyed painting, or at the very least I wish I could do it much faster. It would make all the models I've still got to paint look a lot less daunting.

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Though I've made some progress on the painting side, I can not take my foot off the gas, not when I have a bunch of other armies and teams still to paint across a bunch of different games. Case in point, I still have another army of Tyranids to paint, this time in 6mm scale. These poor little buggers haven't been touched since the 90s, so are going to need some serious work to bring them up to date.
But I figured while I was painting Nidz, I may as well get these done as well.

We've played some more games of 40K recently. The first one was a 1500pt game, and like before we just played a pitched battle without any special scenario or objectives, but we added back in relics, stratagems and warlord traits.
I wanted to see more combat, so I went with all the combat my Marines have, as well as adding more terrain to the table. Shooting still very much ruled the game, even if we both rolled much worse than our previous game. On one turn we got some good combat where my jump pack Marines crunched into some of Scoob's Boyz, but my other Assault Marines got mowed down after their Land Raider got destroyed.
Scoob withdrew after 4 turns, with a Shokk Attack Gun, some Boyz and some Gretchin left to face my scattered heavy weapons, my Captain and a single Terminator.

A few weeks later we lined up again, playing the same type of game but stepping up the points to 2000. The first couple of turns went well for my Marines, but the Orks pulled it back as they got into closer range. The Vindicator exploding on turn 3 took out a bunch of Marines nearby. Neither army had much left after 4 turns, but again Scoob decided to call it, as his Morkanaut, last Mek Gun and last Killa Kan all only had one wound left. I was ready to call it a draw, but he realised at the end he had been slightly cheating, allowing the Morkanaut to fire twice with a stratagem only meant for infantry, so he allowed me the win.

And today we played another 2000pt game. This time we added in 5 objectives, and were going to play to a victory point target, with the objectives each having a victory point score of 200. However, after just the 2nd Ork turn, so many of my Marines were destroyed that I decided to call it. I had some stuff left on the table to have a good pop at Scoob's infantry, but had literally nothing left to take on his completely undamaged vehicles. Scoob said afterwards that he's noticed whoever is getting the first turn is winning, which in my opinion has always been the problem with 40K. In 8th edition it seems even worse, as with all the re-rolls, auras, stratagems and the like, if you have a good turn, it's possible to kick out so much damage that the game can be over straight away.
It's just not really striking me yet as a game I really feel motivated to keep playing.

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The painting very slowly continues, but I am nearing one of my big targets. In the last couple of days, I've started putting paint onto my last Tyranid unit. Yes, I'm going to have to do a lot of basing and varnishing before I can use them. But holy crap I can't wait.

So after a few months off, I've recently managed to find a little time and motivation to continue my tabletop adventures. Firstly, back before my break, I managed to finish painting my two Tyranid Primes. In the last few weeks, I've been working on the second Tyranid Warrior unit, which I've been trying to paint in classic Space Wolf colours of blue-grey and yellow.
I've also undercoated the other Marines I put together, so I can crack on at some point with painting all of those. If all goes well, in a few months all my Nidz and Marines will be finished.

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Scoob and I managed to squeeze in a game of 40K earlier today, which was actually our first one all year. In order to just try and remember how to play, we picked 1000pts and went at it in a pitched battle, using no warlord traits, stratagems or relics.

The battle became bloody very quickly, with both of us rolling very well for our random amounts of shots. My Devastators and Whirlwind, and Scoob's Mek Gunz and Shokk Attack Guns, all rolled massive numbers and shredded their enemies with long range fire. Despite loads of Orks stomping forward to meet the Assault Marines and Terminators, there was very little close combat. We definitely need some more terrain for fighting battles over at Scoob's or this might be the case in nearly every battle.

After three rounds, Scoob had two Shokk Attack Guns and 21 other Orks left to take on my Whirlwind, Devastator squad, Primaris Lieutenant and Apothecary. He decided to call it there, as the Shokk Attack Guns were now targetable by my missiles.

Some actual nice weather recently has allowed me to spray all my remaining unpainted Tyranids. This did first require me to do a bit of work on some of the models.
Some fishing shot was added to the bases of the Hormagaunts so they no longer fall over so easily. In addition, I finally got around to putting magnets on the guns of the Hive Guard so I can switch out which weapons they can use from game to game.

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My painting speed has definitely slowed down over the last couple of months, but I'm still managing to get a few things finished here and there. I know I was going to go straight into the Hormagaunt brood, but to be honest they're intimidating me. I really need to knuckle down, as I only have the following units left to complete at this point:

• 28 Hormagaunts
• 8 Warriors
• 3 Shrikes
• 3 Hive Guard
• 2 Tyranid Primes
• 2 Tyrannocytes (but only if I can be arsed to convert those old toy eggs)