2023 – Quarter 1, Week 1

The first week of this hobby project has come to a close. Did I walk the walk, or just talk the talk?

Thanks to the new years holiday, I had some extra time off of work this week. I spent a bit of time deciding if I should tackle the Van Saar or Ambots first, but ultimately decided to build them all this week and see what grabbed my imagination the most.

Build Process

I figured that the Ambots would be quicker to build and knocked them out in a couple of hours. This was very enjoyable, as I had only built gangers on 25mm bases since returning to the hobby. These big chunky bug-bots go together much easier but have many less decisions to make regarding load-out.

Next up, ten Van Saar gangers. These minis have a really cool look to them, but some of the build steps were a nightmare. Specifically, the guns each being separated into stock, barrel, and then multiple arm segments was very frustrating. I appreciate the options that this design allows, but trying to get some of these together was just not very fun. The kit contains three or four lasgun barrels on each sprue, but I did not realize that the hand holding them was positioned at slightly different angles. This caused a bit of confusion when one pose did not come together as expected. I struggled to line up the hand and arm for a while before realizing the issue. luckily the plastic cement hadn’t fully cured yet. Remember to dry fit!

My only other complaint about this boxset is that you cannot easily build a melee ganger with shock stave and shield. For some reason both parts are left-hand only. Apparently Forge World offers a shield set that includes right-handed shields, so maybe one day I’ll get that loadout built.

Paint Process Begins

With everything built I needed to make a decision on which box to paint first. I was pretty close to selecting the Van Saar, but the draw to paint something larger ultimately won out. Plus – I figure – I can use the Ambots with my Escher and Delaque gangs in the event that I get to play some games in the near future. Or ever.

Neither Ambot will be painted in a color scheme that matches any of my current Necromunda gangs. For this one, I decided to go with a traditional Dark Angels green for the armor plates. The Dark Angels were the chapter that I initially played back in the early 2000s Since I’m not painting any space marines right now, this seemed like a good way to pay homage to those early years.

This was also my first real attempt at edge highlighting. There are tons of sharp edges on this mini, so it provided lots of practice opportunity. I’m very happy with it so far. While not as clean as it could be, the effect is really striking in person.

The recipe I used was:

Initially, I tried pure Moot Green for the final highlight, but it just felt far far too bright from the warpstone. I’m trying to be more adventurous and push more highlights, but it felt like too much. The 50/50 mix seems to be right where I want it.

Scorecard Review

Finally, let’s take a look at the weeks scorecard. As I mentioned in the introductory post, I stole (most) of my motivation from the http://hammerthebacklog.com method of tracking and accountability. Thus, I am using a weekly scorecard from http://instantagencytools.com to keep track of my goals and weekly progress. the two major goals for the quarter are to completely finish the Ambot and Van Saar boxes – build, paint, and photograph. To that end, I am targeting 10 hours of hobby time per week. I am also updating this blog and an instagram account to provide further motivation. Let’s see how it went:

Here, we see that the first week was a success. I reached the – minimum – ten hours of hobby time, launched this website with two posts and started posting on an instagram account.

Week 1 saw me build both boxes and start painting the first Ambot. This is already more progress in a week than I would have expected to make in a month or so without using this blog for accountability.

Remember, the hoard cannot run rampant as long as you stand in defiance. Grab your brush and join me next week as I attempt to finish the first Ambot and start the second!