Goonhammer Hobby Round-Up: Feburary 2026

It was February and love was in the air! Oh, never mind, that's just the fumes from our rattlecans. Carry on.

SRM

Part of my hobby New Year's Resolution this year was to paint something from every game system (or nearly every game system) I nominally collect. After a January largely painting my bread and butter Battletech and Ultramarines, it was time to crack into the weird stuff.

House Greim Military Attaché. Credit: SRM

I've wanted to paint these models for quite some time; the 18th century nobility vibe of Colonel Stolen Valor and the actual badass bodyguard next to him are pretty impeccable. After playing 129 hours (and counting!) of Rogue Trader, I also really wanted to paint some classic Imperial weirdos. When it came time to paint them, my only directives were that I didn't want to paint them like the studio paint scheme, and I wanted to use Pro Acryl's Jade color. Keewa's article asking painters about their favorite paints had me wondering how I could incorporate Jade somewhere, and this was just such the occasion. Do they also look a little toothpastey? Yeah, but you don't become part of the ruling class of Necromunda without impeccable chompers, I guess.

NCR Core Box. Credit: SRM

NCR Ranger Patrol. Credit: SRM

While Fallout season 2 was airing, I was understandably hyped about the return to one of my favorite game settings. As this season mined Fallout: New Vegas for its world and characters, I too was happy to take a return trip to the Mojave and paint up some NCR boys and girls. I'd reviewed the NCR Top Brass a few years ago, and while these casts weren't as clean, I still really enjoyed my time painting them. I'll have a painting guide out for them at some point soon, but it was fun approaching them like a historical force. There's fortunately enough gestalt sicko energy around the games that everything is documented in laborious detail on one wiki or another, so it was easy to find reference material for all the uniforms and weapons. I've also been brushing up on Fallout: Factions and hope the NCR get some proper rules in there eventually.

Heroes of Sanctuary Hills. Credit: SRM

I stayed in the wasteland just a while longer, venturing way back east to paint the Heroes of Sanctuary Hills. This crew of Codsworth, Nate, and Dogmeat had been sitting primed in a box for nearly five years. They painted up pretty quickly, and standing Nate next to the PVC Nora from the Wasteland Warfare starter set it's a night and day level of detail. I think I went a shade too dark with the vault suit on him, but I like how it came out so I'm not gonna complain too much. Was fun replicating the Pip-Boy UI on his little screen too.

Lyran Commonwealth Battlefield Support: Assault and Cavalry Lance. Credit: SRM

Lastly, I painted a smattering of tanks for Battletech. I'd had a very successful game with my little Vedette from last month, and figured they should have some friends. Knocking these out was pretty breezy, mostly done in a few short bursts over a weekend. I've got the itch to maybe push my Battletech painting a bit further and change up some schemes when I get to more of my Clan mechs, but for now I'm perfectly happy painting up more of these Steiners in blue and white.

As for March? Well, we're marching towards Adepticon and Squig City, and mayhaps even towards Macragge! Look forward to yet more blue in the weeks to come.

Beanith

This month was spent flitting from project to project doing bits and pieces here and there. As a consequence, almost nothing got finished. Started the month working on a paint scheme for my Black Orc Blood Bowl team on the off chance I can convince/trap a friend into playing Blood Bowl. Then I was distracted by the Spirit Seer before the dwarf blood bowl referee caught my eye.

But with that said, the Warhammer 40000: Combat Patrol magazine that Contemptor Kevin reviews every week here on the site has just been released in Australia and people were very keen to get their hands on a $5 Space Marine Terminator Captain and his little bug friend.

Termie Captain and his bug companion - Credit Beanith

So in order to hopefully prevent nine different armies cluttering up my desk in various stages of paint, or worse, making my pile of shame that larger, I'm getting ready to start my own little challenge, the #AussieWarhammerCombatPatrolStreak , where I attempt to build and paint the models before I pick up the next issue one week later. I'm aiming for Battle Ready and my personal standard of good enough from 3 feet away. So things like transfers and extra highlights on the characters may only happen on the off weeks.

Obviously there will be weeks where the issues are just pots of paints. Those will be just a lovely break allowing me to hopefully get paint on other projects not related to this challenge.

Termie Captain - Credit Beanith

More importantly, there will be weeks where the models are separated over two or three issues. These I will be setting aside until I have all the parts at which point I will have a week to assemble and paint that squad/vehicle before the next issue.

Termie Captain's bug companion - Credit Beanith

Not entirely sure what I'll do with nine combat patrols over the next 90 weeks, I'll probably gift them to friends and family in an effort to make them feel like they have to play Warhammer with me at some point.

Feel free to join in and use the tag on Instagram etc if you're extra keen so I have extra pressure to keep this up.

@Beanithpie on Insta

Saffgor

This past weekend was the first Store Invitational for my area, and given I'd won an RTT earlier this year I was pre-qualified. That being said, in my hubris I registered with a list for whom about 400pts were unpainted, and partially-built, which meant I had my work cut out for me. Doubly so, because my entire army is converted.

K-ant-aphron Destroyers. Credit: Carter Kachmarik

While I'm a huge fan of Admech, especially the Cult Mechanicus half of the army, I actually don't care for Servitor aesthetics, odd as that sounds. In my force, I've taken measures to swap out basically any instance of a lobotomized thought-criminal for a bug, theming the force around the Ash Wastes, and Moirae Schism. These Destroyers were an absolute joy to paint, and came together fairly quickly once I built up the martial maroon of their tank bits.

Cricket & co. Credit: Carter Kachmarik.

The other set of must-paints were Rangers 21-30, and a fourth Ironstrider, affectionately referred-to as 'Crickets'. In my haste to paint these, their bases came out a good bit lighter than the rest of the army, but honestly I don't mind it. I may go back in with some thinned-down Eshin Grey or similar to touch things up, but given folks are focusing on the bugs it's a bit of a non-issue.

Data-Psalm is Competent, I Swear. Credit: Carter Kachmarik.

The full army ended up looking fantastic on the table, and even scored me Second overall at the Invitational, only dropping a game to a great BA Inheritors list! Huge ups for a detachment that's been overlooked since release, though that's mostly because you need to own ~30 Electro-Priests of various stripes, and the full 3x Servitor Battleclade to so much as look at it. I'd have played it again in a heartbeat.

Musterkrux

It's been a busy month over here in the Krux-cave (Editor: Please never say that again). On one hand, I've been doing some repair/touch-up work on some old Warmachine models that I first bought and painted nearly 20 years ago (wow...my chest hurts just reading that). Warmachine Mk4 is starting to pick up steam (haha) again in my area, so maybe it's the right time to blow the dust off some steam-powered robots and do some biffo?

Here we have some Mercenary Warjacks (that's Steampunk talk for a special type of robot that takes coal and turns it into ass-beatings). The two Mariners are semi-amphibious (I don't think a steam-powered robot can ever consider itself fully amphibious) warjacks used by the pirates of the setting. Swinging Anchors about while shooting people with their 12-pounder long guns. Absolutely rad.

Mariner Warjacks from Warmachine (photo courtesy of Musterkrux)

Then we have the Talon and a Vanguard. The Talon is a scrappy little skirmisher, who won't do a lot of raw damage but is good at using their Stun-lance to hit the ole Reset Button on enemy Warjacks. The Vanguard was a state-of-the-art bodyguard Warjack for a faction that didn't have many Warcasters (people who control Warjacks) and invested heavily in their protection.

Talon (Left) and Vanguard (Right) Warjacks from Warmachine (photo courtesy of Musterkrux)

I'll keep chipping away at my old models in the weeks to come, see if I can give them a little Quality of Life update while I'm repairing years of neglect and paint-chipping.

In my ongoing theme of 'Nautical Nonsense', I'm painting some of my Infinity models from the 'Varuna Immediate Reaction Division' (AKA VIRD), a PanOceania sectorial, as PanO is my Faction Vow* for 2026. We have Patsy Garnett, an ORC trooper who loves tossing grenades at people and a Helot, who is a Fishman that chose to, entirely of their own free-will, volunteer to fight for PanO and violently suppress rebellions of any alien races that don't enjoy the benevolent leadership and economic...cooperation provided by Humanity. I wish to stress that the name Helot is entirely misleading and that the Fishman's 'My breathing apparatus is not dispensing mind-altering sedatives' T-shirt has a lot of people are asking a lot of questions that are already answered by the T-shirt.

Patsy Garnett and a Helot (Photo courtesy of Musterkrux)

*A faction vow is what I do every now and then when I start losing games by jumping factions too frequently instead of focusing on one army, so I commit myself to losing games with just the one faction instead.

Badusernametag

Hordes of Oldhammer Chaos- @badusernametag

I haven’t had much hobby time of late. But sometimes what you need to get moving is some old friends and a montage. Early 2021 and I was inspired by some wholesome online chat to base up a load of my oldhammer Chaos droogs and get them painted to play some OOP Warhammer Fantasy Battles (5th edition i think?!). This never came to fruition and life moved on. I switched to painting with oils and the project languished a little. Jump to 2026 and a few of my oldies and besties from the HATE club (Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts) are well into Old World. Now I aint no square baser, but this seems like just what I need to get that old chaos project going.

Hordes of Oldhammer Chaos- @badusernametag

Deciding to switch to oils but adopt the same trad blanchitsu scheme (red, siepa, black, white etc) I cranked out 1000 points of oldhammer oldworld in 5 days. working on my house in the day and huffing thinners by night. Grand old time. Don’t look too close! They ALL still need work. But the start of a beautiful new journey none the less! more of this to come! Also, as some have questioned, if I’m gonna write some Old World, I should probably be playing!?

Hordes of Oldhammer Chaos- @badusernametag

Hordes of Oldhammer Chaos- @badusernametag

After that I finished bashing my Orc Bloodbowl team, for which Seven models are already painted, so needed the rest of the squad. Have mixed in some models from the black orc team and done some little kit bashes so no model is alike. My new bruising thrower looks pretty mean! These need some paint in March so that they’re ready to hit the pitch in April...

Burgeoning Bloodbowl team- @badusernametag

Kitbashed Lineorc and Thrower- @badusernametag

To cap this month off I’ve just built and painted some of the LOVELY new Cathay models for the goonhammer review you can find HERE: https://dev.tabletopbattles.com/warhammer-the-old-world-defenders-of-the-great-bastion-models/

Kitbash wandering Ronin- @badusernametag

Kitbashed Wizzard- @badusernametag

Wizzard, Standard Bearer, peasant archer with cleaver- @badusernametag

Great models. Loads of fun. Wondering if I want to make my ‘Twilight’ scheme work for a full army? Or made just a Spearhead? But which one...

The new Army of Infamy really juices up your Peasant Levies to heroic proportions.
@badusernametag

Twilight Ronin-@badusernametag

Next month I’ve got some special things brewing. Mainly the start of a new PtG campaign and some nurgle daemons for this from my own sculpts and weirdass third parties also. Should be fun! Not to mention the Leicester GHO!! Roll on Thramas...

"Contemptor" Kevin Stillman

Well, I guess before I get into my models I first discuss the, uh, elephant on the other side of the planet. Good luck Beanith! You're absolutely mad for trying to paint the models as they come out, but...well, it very much takes one to know one. I personally found that the focus that comes from the sheer, overwhelming flood of models from the Combat Patrol subscription is motivating (and provided motivation at a time when world events left me teetering on the brink of despair)!

As I explained in my Issue #41 review, one of my goals is to build, before the summer, a modernized Assault on Black Reach battle. For my Ultramarines, I built a Redemptor Dreadnought.

Ultramarines Redemptor and Second Company Friends. Credit: Contemptor Kevin Stillman

Ultramarines Redemptor Dreadnought. Credit: Contemptor Kevin Stillman

After I finished the Dreadnought, it was time to work on some stuff for upcoming content. My next model was for Goonhammer's Crucible of Champions review, Ravenwing Technomancer Mhartizhu!

Technomancer Mhartizhu Credit: Kevin Stillman

After finishing up my Technomancer, and a side quest to one of my best friend's birthday parties, I painted up a couple of Ossiarch Bonereapers.

Credit: Kevin Stillman

Credit: Kevin Stillman

These models were an absolute blast to paint, and I'm afraid I've caught the OBR bug *bad*.

Lastly, my final model is from Combat Patrol #41, and it's the model to lead my Neo-Assault on Black Reach Ork faction: the Warboss in Mega Armour!

Goff Warboss in Mega Armour, Ghozrhrak Foestompa'. Credit: Kevin Stillman

I'm still plugging away at my Terminators, and soon a bunch of Ork Boyz. And some other stuff. All to finish before Adepticon...it's going to be a very busy three and a half weeks!

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Tags: goonhammer hobby round-up | hobby round up