Hobby Goals 2021

So since it seems to be the thing to do, I guess we should have some hobby goals! This blog started as a way to get us painting out backlogs, and what better way than shared shame…(Brother Handro: “Don’t you dare use that gif again….”)…Lets see what we want to achieve…

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Brother Handro

1: Titans!

If there’s one thing I’ve fallen in love with in the last few years it’s Adeptus Titanicus. (Owning, not playing, apparently…) I just can’t get enough of that not-quite Epic-scale goodness. Expect more legios than you can shake a rangefinder at!

2: Clones!

If there’s another thing I’ve got into, it’s Star Wars Legion! Although I love all the factions, I’m a big fan of the Republic so expect to see me wade through my clones painting white and various unit markings…we may even learn how to play it properly!…(Der H ‘Easy now, tiger…’)

3: zone mortalis!

By which I obviously mean His Imperial Majesty’s Most Glorious Fists…(Der H mutters something about iron cages under his breath..) Der H has been chugging away at his magnificent ZM board and the classic match-up of Iron Warriors versus Imperial Fists will be a suitably fitting clash for this deadly stage….

4: World Eaters!

Do you hear the voices too?! (Der H ‘sanity is for the weak!’) I’ve long harboured a dark ambition to do at least some justice to this famously annoying-to-paint legion. The core of the force is built, now I just need to muster the courage…

5: Orkses!

Hey remember when I bought a whole Ork army around the beginning of 8th Ed? Yeah….Der H wants to do Gorkamorka, and I do love a good mechanised infantry theme…alright I’ll do it!

Der H

1: …I mean, titans i guess….

Brother Handro has been suggesting (Der H “Strongly….”) that I should paint my titans for some time…they are all currently gun metal with shading and have panels in various stages of completeness. We bought in HARD at the start, and each have a grand master edition jsut waiting to be played…Legion Fureans is, as such, my number 1 completion for this year!

2: Death korps of krieg

Ok, this one is serious….its been here looking at me forever it seems! I’ve expanded it with some tanks, two bombards, a minotaur, and 10 OOP renegade ogryn. I have lists on battlescribe, I have fluff and a theme….but none painted….this shall not pass!

3: Oak and iron

Yet another Kickstarter I hit HARD in the last few years. Duplicate of everything they make has been sat unpainted for a long time. It did get a coat of white (Brother Handro “wow….easy there…dont want to peak at a Golden Daemon too soon”) in 2020, but nothing since. Citadel contrast paints seem to be the way to go, and they’ve been bought and ready for some time too. Thy need to get finished! I have started this already, so its jsut a matter of motivation, dedication and strict attention to…oh look, SWL…

4: Zone Mortalis

Yea we both need this…I bought the board on LCtB last year whilst waiting for my FRCA Ceremony! (Der H “My wallet hasnt recovered”) It is mostly painted except for details and stencils. a few good sessions and we’ll be done…..now….where did that ZM door STL file go…

5: Play some games

Ok, ok this one is a pipe dream….but COVID-19 has had a wide range of effects. My professional life has certainly changed! like all of us I miss gaming; I miss events (I think…) and I miss playing games with my buddy! 2021 WILL change this and we’ll be sick of learning when to brace for impact (and what game that even is…) again before too long…

Back from the dead...

“Back from the dead, assholes....Boba’s got himself a lightsaber now!”

#ifyouknowyouknow

So…..2020 was a blast…

Even before the pandemic, The Hobby Butterflies wasn’t the most productive blog on the internet (Brother Handro: “Understatement…”). We had hoped that a series of national and regional lockdowns would help that process but it turns out that Anaesthetists are kinda useful during a pandemic…(Der H: “So what’s your excuse Handro”, Brother Handro: “Dont you work form home two days a week…?”)

We have been active, and our instagram posts over at The Hobby Butterflies and Brother Handro are pretty active…the Hashtag game is certainly strong Hobbybutterflies was even included in the mighty Edge of Empire podcast (Although not related to us!)

We have also been churning through a variety of old and new projects including 3D printing, 3D design, BFG, and some side projects inspired by a popular YouTube video series!

We continue to be true butterflies with a range of projects from 30K, Adeptus titanicus, BFG, Arc Worlde, Star Wars Legion, Oak and Iron, Blood and Plunder and a range of others, so sit back and watch as we finally (Brother Handro: “Yes, but lets ACTUALLY do it this time…”) get down to posting regularly and progressing through the endless plastic, metal and resin piles around our desks!

Change in Facebook!

Its been quiet here of late…too quiet!

Most people will have seen our activity over on Instagram (both The Hobby Butterflies and Brother Handro accounts) or on Facebook.

Today we change from a Facebook Account to a Facebook Page…tedious I know, but the account will be removed at the start of august.

Progress is happening, slowly, and projects about so take a look at our instagram, our facebook page and look out for us at events over the next 6 months (COVID permitting) and stay safe!

#returntoisstvan

Legio Cybernetica - Brother Handro's dive into giant robots!

If there’s one thing playing games in a 30k environment has taught me, it’s that the bodies of the noble Astartes are but grist for the mill of the heresy, and no matter how superhuman they may be against humans or Xenos, the Iron Hands have the right of it…the flesh is weak!

Join me as I dive into the world of servos and plastek brain wafer-chips to bring you big stompy robots…

(Der H: So you bought a Mechanicus T-shirt and realised you should probably start all those robots you’ve been hoarding….)

The Calix-Thanatar, not as good as the standard, plasma mortar-lobbing one, but way prettier. Also I hate Salamanders.

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Now I know what you’re thinking. Handro, Mechanicum are a bit…well, good, aren’t they? Yes, yes they are. You’ve grasped the practicalities of playing Mechanicum straight away! But obviously here at The Hobby Butterflies we like to think that fluff is equally if not more important and the lore behind the Mechanicum is some of the richest and most evocative of the 30/40k universe. Plus if you can think of something cooler than the line of Mechanicum models I’d like to know about it.

So we felt it was about time we had something 30K non-Astartes on the blog. We will both be churning out Mech and Imperial Militia forces over the coming months. (Der H: If we can find them in our piles of shame, that is!)

This is what the Castellax look like!

The initial plan is to complete a 1000 points Allies list for the upcoming return to Melos. So a Magos, 4 Castellax and the Thanatar need to be completed alongside a 3-strong unit of Vorax to accompany a Praevian consul. Plenty to be getting on with, but after that I fully expect to start requisitioning bigger, stompier robots from the forges of…y’know, I should actually get some fluff brewing…and from there, a long, slow descent into robotic madness…

Thought for the day: The flesh is weak, duh.

Handro.

Throne of Skulls - Shame

It wouldn’t be a trip to Warhammer World without a quick (Brother Handro: Read as “expensive”) trip through the store…

Der H caved in pretty quickly and invested in 3 imperial thudd guns and 3 sets of Krieg thudd gun crew. (Der H: God I haven’t even talked about my Krieg issue yet…)…

…and a box of easy to build Glaive Wraith Stalkers. These are planned to act as Cyber-occularis.

Sunday brought more pain with an impulse buy of a Storm Eagle, IIIrd legion rhino doors, and a box of citadel skulls. The skulls are to scatter through the Ordo Reductor (Der H: Argh, I haven’t mentioned them either!) to blend them in with the Cyber-Occularis, as an alternative to Draykavac…talk about a rod for my own back!

Of course, no self respecting Emperors Children player could pass up the opportunity to have a glorious Imperial Eagle on the prow of their Storm Eagle, and so a Shrine of the Aquila was acquired…

Brother Handro was more reserved (Der H: HA!) and bought Thallax with Photon Thruster, Thallax with Phased Plasma-fusil, the deadly Vorax and a Thanatar Calix***

(***The better looking but worse one)

As you can see...Brother Handro has been much, much (Brother Handro:   ...much ) more productive and actually built his! Cybernetica assemble!

Der H & Brother Handro 

Motivation and Events

Motivation is often a big issue in our hobby (Brother Handro: Speak for yourself!) and, with limited time available to play with toy soldiers, if motivation and that available time don’t line up then we can easily make no progress!

We have both, however, had several rapid bursts of progress related to attending events. December 2018 saw The Hobby Butterflies attend the Road to Terra Podcasts Scouring of Melos event last year in Manchester, and much progress was made with painting our respective Legions (Brother Handro: I mean, we lost every game, nearly….).

Image Source: Tomada de Securens (www.securens.in)

Many posts and videos exist around the internet looking at motivation (Tabletop Minions being particularly vocal on this subject), but we seem to progress most effectively with a mixture of encouragement, challenge and the sense of dread associated with an impending deadline!

For The Hobby Butterflies it is events that spur us to progress. Sunkillers, Jetbikes, Doom Rider and Predators have all been added to the forces of the IIIrd legion for events. Brother Handro especially pushes the borders of sanity by insisting on a new 3000pt list for each event! His 4120pts for Melos in december was truly EPIC, and adding another 1000pts for our Throne of Skulls outing is similarly bold!

Der H

For me, having a deadline is very helpful. Much of my professional life is deadline focussed with continuous deadlines followed by another over the horizon. Exams are passed to allow the next exam, courses attended to pass the next ARCP, everything a means to the end…even if that ‘end’ is just the next step.

It is good in so far as it makes me progress and leads to completion, Kakophoni, Mechanicum and armoured elements of the IIIrd being a testament to that. It perhaps explains why Blood and Plunder, Arcworlde and Bolt action sit largely unpainted - we don’t do events for these.

Bad points are aplenty. I never paint in a relaxed, calm atmosphere. It is hard to relax and enjoy hobby for hobby’s sake when there is a deadline.

How to move forwards… Option A) is deadlines for all! (Brother Handro: You get a deadline! You get a deadline! Everyone gets a deadline!) monthly pledges worked for a while, and the ETL always brings about progress! Option B) is specifically no deadlines. Only take things to an event that are finished. When writing a list only pull from completed models, and build/paint what feels ‘next’….perhaps time will tell….or perhaps I‘ll be found dead under 3.4 tonnes of Forgeworld’s finest resin…

Brother Handro

Soooo….whilst it’s true that you get a great sense of accomplishment for nailing a huge amount of completed models in the run-up to an event, I’m not totally convinced it’s the best way to achieve your hobby goals. In practical terms, you certainly get stuff done, but personally I don’t feel that much better whilst doing the actual hobbying. Slow and steady wins the race and all that…Finding a way to keep yourself motivated is the key - for me, that’s increasingly feeling like being proactive and starting a project ASAP so that it doesn’t just fall into a box when the next shiny flits along. Finishing units/models is the secret - each one finished is not only the spur to starting the next, but also another finished unit/model on the shelf lining up with the previous ones; before you know it, you’ll have a fledgling army on the go! (Der H: assuming you manage to paint units from the same army and not get distracted…)

As long as you’re enjoying whatever you’re hobbying on, there’s no real ‘bad’ way to be and feel motivated, find what works for you and run with it. For us, I think that building small Allied detachments which can then grow into armies of their own (Der H: way ahead of you!) is a nice and practical way of easing yourself into a new army but also not getting overwhelmed by having a whole army sitting on sprue…Ooh shiny!

Summary

Motivation is an issue for wargamers (Der H: all the ones we know anyway) and everyone has their own ways of managing it….find your own path…I don’t know, just stop asking, I’ve 3000pts of Mechanicum to paint by next month….

Brother Handro & Der H

Thought for the day: “Only in death does duty end”

We have awoken!

Good lord it has been a long time again! It’s nearly the end of May, and we’ve not posted anything since November! Since then there has been much painting (Brother Handro: Ha!), two events, and a great deal of buying!

The time has come to try harder to deliver some more frequent content to motivate our progress through our respective (Der H: ever expanding…) legions of grey.

Der H is now post-exam, with NO MORE EXAMS in the foreseeable future (Brother Handro: I’ve heard that before) and now that real life is a little more settled, has promptly bought more models than sin.

Brother Handro has, again, flitted between several options, but has fleshed out the Sons of Horus to an extent never seen in our little hobby bubble (Der H: Don’t forget your rapidly expanding Instagram account Brother! Brother Handro: Linky linky)

We’ve been quite happy dishing out tempting pictures on Instagram, but haven’t really frequented our own blog…today that changes!

The plan…

Over the coming weeks we’re going to be more diligent at posting our exploits, starting with a veritable plethora of posts due this weekend when we attend…

We’re heading down this Friday for a fun-filled weekend of Heresy gaming, and the old allegiance of the Sons of Horus and the Emperors Children will be put to the test (Brother Handro: Not really a ‘fair’ test though is it….). We’re planning on discussing our list over the weekend, and already have a sneak peek of some of the competition through our operatives (Der H: Ok…its Facebook), but more on this in our Throne of Skulls - prelude post later this week.

Following that we will be reviewing the much anticipated Battle report app MyMiniReport when it is released this week. This is much anticipated so head over to their Kickstarter for details of the (now closed) campaign, or head to their forum for general chatter.

Going forwards…

Following that we have a huge backlog of blog posts to churn through, from a review of the December 2018 Scouring of Melos event hosted by the Road to Terra Podcast, to a look forwards to their next event in July. We will discuss Der H’s exploits in Durham at the Company of Legends, and will be going through and showing all the lovely plastic/resin crack we’ve been buying…

In the mean time check our our official Instagram here…

…and Brother Handro’s instagram here…

Der H & Brother Handro

Thought for the day: “Heresy grows from idleness”