Minis I painted in 2024

One year into rediscovering the hobby, what have I managed to paint?

2024 was the year I rediscovered a love of Warhammer and oh, how I jumped back in when it comes to buying minis. But what about actually building and painting them?

In just 12 months, I’ve built a ‘pile of shame’ to rival many a veteran collector — I'm up over 2,000 miniatures already, something I know because I also got carried away and started developing software to track my collection and hobby activities. 

What have I actually painted then?

My collection tracker tells me I have 66 miniatures in the ‘done’ status.

That’s higher than I expected before starting to write this, though it’s also not entirely accurate as it includes a handful of minis from the ’90s I've dug out of the loft, as well as a few second-hand purchases that came ready-painted (I track these as ‘done’ but with a quality of ’start again’ to remind me to apply my own paint scheme one day).

On filtering out the ineligible miniatures, the number is closer to 40.

Still pretty good, I think, and way more than I expected for fully completed minis.

I count a miniature ‘done’ when it’s fully painted to at least tabletop standard and has been based, so all these 40 or so have reached that level.

My painting included a few small batches through the year — periods where I got enthused and focused on a specific faction or game — and of course the occasional random outlier.

The year began with a focus on Blood Bowl, one of my favourite games first time round, then got into Warhammer Underworlds and the Stormcast Eternals (and then Age of Sigmar more broadly).

Later in the year the 40K universe began to appeal again and I had a decent run painting some classic Escher gangers for Necromunda before eventually coming full circle to some Space Marines.

Blood Bowl: 23

Starting with 3rd edition back in the ’90s, I loved my Reikland Reivers team and they were thankfully among the minis that had survived in my mum’s loft all these years.

Humans ✕16

After picking up the latest edition of the game, I quickly tried to find the closest to those old models I could find. The Imperial Nobility aesthetic didn’t do it but I managed to get hold of some standard human players, initially through the Old World Alliance team, and began painting.

It had been over 25 years since I’d painted anything though, so I played safe, followed tutorials and stuck with the default colour scheme for the Old World Alliance team to get going.

With a few of the modern human minis painted, I dug out my old 3rd edition humans and painted a thrower, blitzer and lineman in the original Reikland Reavers colours to compare against the few I’d done as a teenager.

Morg ’n’ Thorg ✕1

Among the minis I still had from first time round were a couple of copies of the metal Morg ’n’ Thorg. Having heard about the ‘slapchop’ method by this point, I got one Morg’n’thorg mini layered up slap chop-style and began to paint.

Although I’d gone way too dark overall on my slapchop layering (something I learned later with other minis), this one actually came out really nicely in the end. Once painted, I decided to prise him off the old square base and stick him on a round base to match the current Blood Bowl stylings, which worked pretty well.

The Mighty Zug (metal) ✕1

I also still had an unpainted Mighty Zug, which I fully painted up though I regret the colour scheme I went with: it came out a bit more circus act/pirate than scary Blood Bowl player.

Stormcast kitbashes ✕3

Far from an original concept but I took on the idea of converting a Stormcast Eternal mini to a Blood Bowl player in May. Using a spare Averon Stormsire model, I’m still really pleased with how it turned out: both conversion and paint job.

That led to more Stormcast kitbashing for Blood Bowl through the year. I’m now up to 6 (half a team!), with 3 of those fully painted and based.

Stormcast Eternals: 10

By now my interests were widening out and I’d learned about this new-to-me game/universe of Age of Sigmar. Warhammer Fantasy held no interest for me back in the day, but this time around and with the more dialled up setting of AoS, it took my interest.

The Stormcast Eternals — basically ‘fantasy space marines’ — caught my eye early on and the Warcry starter set gave me a first few Stormcast models in Xandire’s Truthseekers.

Xandire’s Truthseekers ✕4

Painting up Xandire’s Truthseekers was fun and they were the first minis I painted last year that I felt proud of, giving me the encouragement to keep painting.

The Farstriders ✕3

Following that, I discovered Warhammer Underworlds and more of the excellently designed small warbands that game has produced, and painted up the Farstriders too: minis I was also really happy with at the time.

Miscellaneous Stormcast ✕3

Besides these two Underworlds warbands early on though, I only actually completed two more Stormcast minis in the year: a pair of Vindictors in an off-white, slightly metallic scheme that I’ve tried to get the right formula for all through the year (and am still working on!).

Later in the year I completed the model I’m probably most proud of from my efforts in 2024: Valius, the Keeper Aqshian. There are details I’d go back and improve on now, but it’s a mini that came together really nicely and where I tried a few new techniques that just worked out for me. Valius comes in the Cities of Sigmar ‘Saviours of Cinderfall’ set, but Valius himself is a Stormcast, so I’m including him here.

Necromunda: 8

Alongside Blood Bowl, Necromunda is the game I really played most of in the late ’90s. I got Necromunda pretty much at release if memory serves, and loved it.

The progression of your gang over multiple battles is the kind of thing I love (similar to player skill progression in Blood Bowl), while the smaller scale is so much more manageable. First time round, I had an Escher gang as my main gang, along with the Orlocks from the box.

Escher N95 (metal minis) ✕8

Sadly, just about all my original Necromunda minis have disappeared at some point in the intervening 25+ years and so I eventually began looking for replacements of the 90s metal minis. I built up a decent collection, buying in ones and twos, occasionally finding three or four for sale on ebay, before hitting the mother lode and finding a haul of 27 metal Escher minis for a (relative) bargain.

Ending up with a potentially (only ‘potentially’, you understand) overkill 47 metal Escher minis, through the year I painted 8 of them to tabletop standard (a heavy, 4 gangers and 3 juves) and have another 9 in progress.

Skitarii Claus

In November I got festive a little early and painted up a Skitarii Ranger in a Santa theme, creating Skitarii Claus:

Nearly made it…

I of course have a number of miniatures oh-so-close to being done — and many, many more in various levels of having been started — and they should probably be my focus to finish off early this year.

Space Marines

Closest to being finished are the three Deathwatch Infernus marines and Space Wolf battle leader I’ve shared previously, as well as a Space Wolf Aggressor.

Kainan’s Reapers

Started back in April, poor old Kainan’s Reapers still aren’t done. Mir Kainan, Karu and Hakor are all really close to being done, while the other three are effectively just primed. It really probably wouldn't take much to just get these done and I need to force myself to sit down and do it.

Blood Bowl Amazons

Mid-year I picked up the Amazons Blood Bowl team and started painting them reasonably soon after before stalling. They all got primed, around half are super-close to being painted, and it’s another set I should just focus on and batch paint to finish.

So this year?

Who wants to lay a bet on whether that really happens, or whether I get distracted starting other new minis?

Who are we kidding, I’m totally going to get distracted with new minis, but I do hope to come back to at least some of the above in 2025. I guess I’ll find out in a year’s time…