My 40K armies on parade

After unpacking my Age of Sigmar armies I've spent rather a lot of time creating my dream hobby space. A bit more on that later. In the meantime with the final Billy bookcase assembled I could start unpacking my 40K armies. While unpacking these I got a bit worried that it would be a lot less then my fantasy collection. I've always had a soft sport for fantasy. In the end it turned out to be a good thing I upgraded the living room table in the interim as you can see the troops getting squeezed closer together towards the end of the table (please ignore my irresponsible misuse of the space at the start of the table).

As I got to the back of the table, I discovered I had quite a few more troops then expected.

I started the GW hobby way back in 1987-88 and I fondly remember my brother buying the hardcover of Rogue Trader. I also remember the horror as the glue holding the hardcover together melted on the attic where we played the McDeath scenario box. We never did really get into 40K back then. I did play some Space Marine (epic) and Adeptus Titanicus (also epic) and a few friends and I screwed around with cardboard counters to test our future 40K armies but we where mostly set on collecting fantasy armies. In the end I did buy some Space Orc models and a box of plastic RTB01 Space Marines (I could not find these for the group shot, they must still be somewhere in a forgotten box #never-move). After that (around '93-'94) my financial responsibilities shifted towards beer, rent and erm...Dutch herbs for a while. On the plus side, I missed most of GW's red period.

Painting these guys after the launch of 40K 8th edition was a lot of fun, I should get around to painting the Primaris Marines sometime this year.

I painted most of these armies after 2008 when the 5th edition Collectors Rulebook sucked me back into the hobby. I picked up Eldar first, fondly remembering an impluse to start an army of these when I read about Jes Goodwin's new design way back when. The really badly painted Eldar in the pictures above where painted first, quickly followed by an Orc army (including some of the ancient ones I still owned (and a few I re-acquired through the Oldhammer Trading Community)). Last as far as 40K armies are concerned where the Death Guard pictured above. Since the launch of Age of Sigmar I have been more focused on painting fantasy, although I think I really should get back into 40K and stamp out another army one of these days (or at least paint my Necromunda box).

A Tyranid army should have a beautiful mix of small gribblies and big monsters. Mine still lacks a lot of flying troops although I think I have a few in boxes ready to be assembled someday.

I painted the Spore Mines in the front fairly recently, they work rather nicely in the latest edition of 40K.

Starting a Tyranid army was a bit unexpected. I didn't like them when I re-entered the hobby (I last remembered these from Advanced Space Crusade and couldn't quite grasp the fun of them). Then I attended a tournament and saw this mix of huge monsters and small gribblies. I was sold and I've been building this army ever since. Usually by finding good second hand deals (people tend to really underestimate the amount of work that goes into a horde army, making them easy to pick up).

I had a lot of fun converting the Rhino on the left, but one of my prized models is the weirdboy shown to the right of the Tyrannofex.

The old Ork Dreadnought looks like a Killa Kan next to the modern one, luckily I only have unpainted Killa Kans (and no modern Dreadnought). 

Now that is the only real place for a group of Goff Rockers to perform!

My Space Orcs are in a large part rushed and badly painted. I was still picking up the intricacies of painting without resorting to drybrushing as the only means of getting things done. The Stompa is actually on its third layer of paint but it is working for me now, especially with the Goff Rockers having a place of honor on it. As for the rest of the army, most of it is glued with a notoriously bad batch of plastic glue that doesn't hold the plastic together all that well. I hardly ever bring them to the table and they usually fall apart long before getting there.

I had big plans for my Dark Angels, but stopped loving them with every spot of green I applied.

I used to love the idea of the Dark Angels chapter, but for some reason painting them has soured me on their background. I have no idea why that happened, but it did. I used to have a reasonably painted Deathwing Terminator group as well, but I managed to sell these a few years back. The rest of the army will probably sit out its life in a display cabinet.

The Chimera off to the back was the model that taught me you should take it easy on weathering. It used to look almost the same as the Leman Russ next to it. 

I'm still rather happy with the converted Ogryn's. On typing this caption I realize I should make a mental note to check if I put all my Dark Angels on their feet before shooting pictures.

The Catachans forming my Astra Militarum army where my first attempt to get serious about doing a lot of conversion work. There is a leap of quality hidden in this army as it also marks the point where I stopped doggedly drybrushing and tried layering for the first time. I'm still rather happy with my Ogryn conversions (The new plastic models where not available when I did these). I got burned on painting guardsmen during this army and I still have rather a lot of half painted models stored. 

The conversion of this Rhino was inspired by a picture in the old Cities of Death supplement. Its large (and in gaming terms purely cosmetic) radar dish tends to make opponents nervous for no reason at all. 

After performing grand theft Land Raider on the Dark Angels I covered the glue tracks of cloaked statues with proud wolves heads (halves) left over from the Thunderwolf kit.

The last and most recent (aside from Eldar additions) of my 40K armies are my Space Wolves. I started these by buying a discounted box of Grey Hunters and wondering how many of my unassembled Dark Angels could be turned into Space Wolves. I ended up with a rather nice army,  adding some Terminators later and repainting the Drop Pod and (Deathwing) Land Raider in Space Wolf colors (take that Dark Angels!). To be quite honest I haven't fielded these guys for quite some time either, I usually bring Tyranids or Eldar to the table when I play Warhammer 40K. 

Part one of my armies mostly: Death Guard, Eldar, Necron and a handful of one off models on the bottom right.

Part two consisting of Tyanids and Space Orks. 

And the last part: Space Orks, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Astra Militarum and the end of the table appearing rather suddenly after all.

With these group shots I can safely end my private Armies on Parade (excluding a few ancient RTB01 marines hiding in a box somewhere). Next up my workspace? Or maybe I'll finally find time to do a bit of painting again? Who knows, we'll just have to see :)