We’ve been keeping up steady progress on the 8 new WFB armies that were introduced in the previous update. Dawn and I have made the most progress by far but things have been coming along nicely with the others too. Grazyna has begun work on her Empire Knightly Orders in earnest while Mario has been assembling a horde of skeleton warriors. There was a bit of a pause due to the Easter holidays but despite that a lot has been completed. Dawn has painted most of her initial 500 point force and I have completely painted mine (ok, it was only 27 figures but still…). Dawn’s initial unit of 20 Night Goblins has been done as have all of her Squigs and the mounts for her cavalry. She only needs to finish off the Goblin and Savage Orc riders to hit her first target.

Meanwhile on a different painting table not so far away, Adam and Caz have been working through their piles of plastic. I gave Adam a painted Warhawk rider for his birthday to use as a hero and he’s added a large unit of Dryads to form the core of his force while Caz has been up to her elbows in Ghouls.

On the gaming front, things haven’t been so good. We had a couple of battles to get people familiar with the rules and the different army dynamics. Mario faced off against my Warriors of Chaos first and then against Dawn’s Greenskins and found that 500 points of Tomb Kings is not a very solid force at all. We’re going to push for 1000 point armies which will help him out a bit but he’s definitely going to find things are an uphill struggle in smaller games.

My initial 500 points is entirely done now. It consists of the Sorceror on a Disc, 10 Marauder Horsemen and 15 Marauders with flails. I also painted a familiar for my Sorceror which is magnetised, a second magnet has been greenstuffed under the disc so that he can ride shotgun as required. Next up for me are five Chaos Knights and a converted battlestandard bearer.

As it happens the eight players are four real life couples; there’s me and my wife Dawn, Adam (the friend who started this whole thing off) and his wife Caz, Mario (the Game Director) and his girlfriend Grazyna and finally Jan-Eric (my boss) and his girlfriend Sarah. Conveniently all of us except for Grazyna and Caz all work for the same company which is also located within scatter range of the local game store.

There was a bit of deliberation initially over army choices but eventually we all figured out what we wanted to play. Jan, Sarah and Grazyna have never played before, Mario, Dawn and Caz have played a bit but Adam and I are the only ones with any significant experience in painting and gaming.

• I’m doing Chaos Warriors as I have a few boxes that I won just before leaving Dublin that have sat in the cupboard of shame for the last year or so.
• Mario is doing Tomb Kings
• Grazyna eventually settled on an Empire army after debating the merits of Bretonnians and Lizardmen
• Dawn will play Orcs and Goblins
• Adam has started a Wood Elf army
• Caz will be fielding Vampire Counts
• Jan-Eric is a newly fledged Skaven player
• Sarah has chosen Dark Elves

The last few weeks have seen our dining room table overwhelmed by six new armies being assembled and painted (Adam and Caz preferring to paint at their own apartment). The new hobbyists are getting painting and modelling help from those with more experience and in general it’s a pleasant way to spend an evening.

It also keeps me honest as when I’m painting by myself it’s easy to get distracted and wander off to do something else, whereas with a bunch of us painting together I tend to just get on with it and finish things. As a result I’ve completed my first unit instead of doing my usual trick of getting it half done then leaving it for months in a semi-complete state. On the left you can see my Marauder Horsemen unit which are awaiting varnish.

Jan has been blitzing his Clanrats to build confidence before starting work on Queek Headtaker and Deathmaster Sniktch. The photo here shows them mostly basecoated with a wash to come.  Mario and Grazyna have made inroads into the Tomb Kings, Dawn has been painting up Night Goblins archers and Squigs while Sarah has found that the plastic Corsairs are trickier to assemble and paint than they look. Grazyna got off to a bit of a late start compared to most as she spent a while agonising over which army to play. In the meantime though she helped Mario with his cavalry.

Bearing in mind that some of the people involved have never before tried painting miniatures, these work in progress photos aren’t too shabby at all. Everyone is keen to come across and do some more painting and tea breaks at work tend to revolve around purchasing decisions and discussions on paint schemes. I’m looking forwards to adding another army to my collection and having a group of friends to share the hobby with.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be reporting on the progress that each army makes and reports of the battles. I’ll also ask the various players to write about their experiences and print those here too.