End of 2017 look back plus 2018 hobby targets

Hi everyone. 

A belated merry christmas. As per usual I thought I would post a rundown of my hobby throughout 2017 and hobby aims for next year. My aim for this year was to finally get all the marine armies finalised, make headway on the non-marine/non chaos armies I have and then start the turn to chaos in 2018. Despite a promising start I didn't quite get there. In no small part this was due to the release of Dark Imperium which threw yet another marine collection into the mix. If that wasn't enough, the new marine codex shook up the organisation of my armies and made me go back to the drawing board with some things. I have also been spending more time playing 40k with the advent of 8th. Here's a rundown of my hobby targets I hit. 

Whitescars were deemed complete fairly early in the year having been rebased onto both 32mm and oval bases for the bikes. I added a Jump lieutenant towards the end of the year and now consider them complete. Blood Ravens too were deemed complete earlier in the year but will need a brief revisits since the codex dropped, as will space wolves. We're only talking about adding a couple of infantry models so no big deal. A small aside was assembling, spraying and basing the Legion of the damned as a nice little side project. 

I finally finished my Luna Wolves army, which for me was a tremendous milestone as I never quite believed I would get there. Grey Knights also got some refinement and were brought up to standard. The Crimson fists are also now deemed complete having been slightly restructured and had time spent on basecoating the infantry to tabletop standard to go with the half of the army that is fully painted. A last minute hobby session (literally today!) also brought my Raven guard up to spec with a few characters and bases being added. 

Sons of Orar were a wishlist army based on a fanfic I wrote. When Primaris Marines dropped, I decided to keep them totally seperate from my other collections and draw a line under them. This left me with a Chapter to make fully Primaris and the Sons fit the bill. They are now complete save for a few characters I still haven't assembled which will be addressed in the new year. Sticking with red, Blood Angels were another milestone for me as they too have sat in their boxes for quite some time and desperately needed the last few models organising, building and magnetising to call them done. Now this is complete, I just want to add a land speeder storm and stormhawk to them which Claire kindly bought me for Christmas. 

So all in all a productive year. I'll be sailing into the new year by finishing up the last few models for my blood angels and then continuing to fight the good fight updating all the other armies as I go. Dark Angels will be the first on that list followed by the other in turn. Some, like the blood Ravens, require only minor attention, swapping out some scouts and adding an ancient models. Most require some form of updating to their command squads / now individual characters and having a lieutenant adding. One other thing I am trying to do starting with my marine armies is to change models that are on clear flying bases to sit on oval bases with a clear stem in the middle. Some xenos armies such as nids and eldar will be a lot of effort, but marines usually only need land speeders addressing. 

Three armies will give me a bit more of a headache and these are Salamanders, Ultramarines and Imperial fists. The Salamanders really only need the above updates but in addition still need about half their bases to be done - as these are scratchbuilt and need painting before the models are added they will take a bit of time. The Ultramarines are missing a dozen models, which were used to fill gaps in other armies, the idea being to replace them with the amazing looking Japanese exclusive models. If I ever get my hands on them that's the plan. Lastly, the Imperial Fists need a few models (command and Lt) adding as well as their land raider being refurbished to an achilles pattern and 5 centurions being put together. 

Well, that's about it for now. Undoubtedly there will be more Marine releases to come as time moves on, perhaps more Primaris and special character focussed going forward. This has been a real labour of love for me and a grand ambition that, with a lot of time, dedication, ££ and paint I have against the odds nearly brought to a conclusion. There's plenty of detail painting to be done on them in the years to come but it's extremely satisfying to know that I have the armies all converted, themed and basecoated sitting in boxes ready to game with or paint further whenever I choose.  2017 is almost over and 2018 looks set to be the year I finish all the marines armies off by halfway and branch out towards chaos marines. 

Here's wishing everyone a happy new year.