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Sunday 14 August 2016

The "I'm a Dad with no Time or I'm a Slow Painter" Challenge

I'm a Dad.

In the weeks prior to BOYL2016 I struggled to juggle painting time with the commitments of Dad life (mainly due to my partners shift work and our inability to get our 1 year old Son to sleep in his own bed). The result was a pissed off Misses, a frustrated Son and a failed painting target. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have this issue (indeed, Golgfag1 and myself think that should BOYL ever get a crest the motto should be "I ran out of time").

I managed to get most of it done, such as my Eltharion (although the photo below makes me think he needs a bit more inking). The main thing I didn't get done was shields and banners. Next year I don't plan to fall foul of this trap.


My very good friend "Quick Ben" is an absolutely brilliant painter but he is, by his own admission, quite a slow painter.

This will be known as the "I'm a Dad with no Time or I'm a Slow Painter" Challenge. It's quite similar to the "Tale of Four Gamers" that ran in White Dwarf a few times back in the day and also on a number of blogs recently. The main differences are that a) I have no idea if anyone else (Quick Ben included) will take up the challenge b) the only target is to paint the army by BOYL2017. Maybe I'll add in a "paint an additional character" or something but in principle there's no burden month to month in order to alleviate the time pressures.

So, what am I hoping to achieve? Inspired by the Dark Elf army in White Dwarf 144 I'm setting a target of 1000pts for 3rd edition. Nothing strenuous there. I then want to bring this compact army to battle at BOYL2017. As I'm probably going to be playing in the BFFB (Big F'in Fantasy Battle) on the Saturday I'm hoping to arrange some small battles on the Friday and the Sunday, so likely to be four games in total, two on the Friday and another two on the Sunday.

These are the rules:
  1. The army should be a 1000pt 3rd Edition force and should adhere to the army lists in Warhammer Armies.
  2. Numbers of compulsory troops and unit minimums are reduced to a third of the specified numbers (rounding up) so, as an example, a 3000 point Wood Elf Army should have 30 Archers but as we're playing 1000pts you only need 10 Archers to fulfill your quota of compulsory troops. Minimum unit size is 5.
  3. The Army MUST be painted (shields and banners included).
  4. The Army must be painted between now and BOYL2017. The minis can be stripped and repainted minis you have painted before this challenge but the repaints must be done in the "now to BOYL2017" time frame.
  5. Miniatures can be of any manufacturer and time period, only the rules need to be WFB 3rd Ed.
  6. I reserve the right to impose extra rules to this list should I see fit.
If I can think of any more rules I'll add them as and when (see rule 6).

My initial thinking was to paint my Nordland Empire army up but Gaj of "Warhammer for Adults" has expressed a desire to paint an Empire army this year and in the hope of enticing him into taking part I'm going to turn away from them. I don't want to go for Dark Elves as this may add to the enemy for the BFFB next year (more on this another day). So what army to go for?

Dwarfs.

I've tried to get this army off the group before, 2016/17 I'm finally going to get at least 1000pts of the bearded chaps done.

I already own a lot of the minis I need, they just need painting. The only thing I need is some Imperial Dwarf Warriors, fingers crossed I can get some at a decent price.


So, any interest at joining me in my humble plan at all?

18 comments:

  1. Well, I also have an Empire army I want to paint......but my green skins need finishing. Let me ponder......

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    1. Good thing is we could have a few tester battles as the small forces grow, up for it?

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  2. My wife wouldn't let me out for BOYL this year. My son is now 8 weeks old. I feel I'm therefore totally qualified for joining this tale. My hobby stuff is all in the garage, still packed from our house move (8 weeks and 3 days ago!). There's nothing I like more than cutting it fine. BOYL 2017 will be a tight target but I'm happy to give it a go! I just need to decide what force to go for. My undead army is in an advanced state. My Bretonians have a couple of units base coated. I would like to start a repaint of my orc and goblins. But also have Skaven, Chaos and Dwarves all vie-ing for attention. Where do I sign?

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    1. I think you just have!

      This may take a little more organisation that I thought, I may have to have a think on how I'm going to run it, I never expected anyone to actually pay attention to me =)

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  3. As a Yank, I will not be making it to BOYL2017, but as a dad, I can totally sympathize with trying to get a bit of hobby in whilst keeping the house in one piece, and doing all the other stuff that seems to need doing.

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    1. You can still play the game Dude, just without the BOYL part.

      Gonna do another posting about how I'm gonna track all this stuff.

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  4. Haha, I'm also part of this 'Dads without Borders' club :D
    Though not committing myself to BOYL17, I totally empathise with your endeavour. Best of lucks!

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    1. Hey Suber,

      As I have said to a few non UK residents on the Facebook page you're still more than welcome to take part, you may not get the games at BOYL at the end of the "year" but you will get a 1000pt army done. If you change your mind and want to jump on board then you will be very welcome.

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    2. I'm up for this as after a week off painting I can already see the danger of letting that drag on without a goal. Just a question of whether to go for dark elves or chaos!

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    3. Great stuff, Chaos would maybe be easier as you get more expensive troops but that's also a downside, you won't have many troops.

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  5. Quick question - there's rules for the Gyrocopter in WD100, would this count as eligible? (Not in Armies, but lgit riules and values in the WD...) (aka Matt Mills on the FB posts)

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    1. Yes, that's fine, same as a Goblin Iron Claw Catapult. All I was meaning was legit stuff, not here's my +10 shock elite unit no f*cker's ever heard of.

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    2. Great stuff, thanks for clarifying!

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    3. No worries, when I get 5 minutes (see the very point of this post) then I'm going to do a follow up post to clarify, expand and do a little bit of admin of the whole thing.

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  6. Sounds interesting. I'm not sure anything on my list of "some day..." projects quite qualifies (a Norse and dwarf force - the Norse being my SAGA vikings and so part-painted; the goblin and hobgoblin part of my O&G force; skaven (from Vengeance of the LicheMaster); etc...) but something structured like this might keep me moving forward at better than my current snail's pace. I'll have a ponder.

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    1. My next post is going to be about expanding the idea slightly. Lots (a handful really) of people have expressed an interest but with a later edition and some that can't make it to BOYL so I'm going to throw it open a bit more and say any edition and that it's not just for BOYL but that the time frame and the "tiny army" thing does apply. Important though is that if you're doing it to play some small games at BOYL then you bets make sure you're not the only one working on the edition you're working on or you may find a lack of opponents.

      Incidentally, one of the reasons I chose 3rd is that I like the rules but don't use them much as I don't really know them that well because I find them a bit slow. Smaller armies will hopefully make this point redundant (fingers crossed) and allow me to learn the rules of this edition better.

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  7. Sign me up chum 1k orcs (once the Eldar are finished)

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