Lenoon's Year in Review: 2025, My Beloved

December 2025 marks my fourth year with Goonhammer, and it’s been busier and in many ways more productive than ever. Weirdly - and unlike 2022-24 - I’ve done a lot more hobby outside the confines of this here screen this year than ever before, and even, just about, managed to get out of my head a little to do so. So, with the seasons fully turned and in the usual end-of-year quasipagan melancholy, let's turn to a year in review.

December

The Knight always casts a shadow over the death of the year. The Porphyrion was a shorter project than the lancer, bizarrely a quicker build and paintjob and for all that everyone was absolutely disgusted at the fish leather it was not unduly difficult. The lancer left a deep shadow of “I’ll never top this”, but the Porphyrion didn’t. Instead, I was left under the shadow of the article, written in haste and anger and disgust - something I could, I suppose, retract or edit, or even improve (I won’t) - that left me questioning what the purpose of this all was.

Lenoon's Knight Porphyrion

January

7,454 words 59 models

January was a fairly dark time (because I live in the northern hemisphere, ho ho ho), but sitting in that darkness I got a lot done. I painted, endlessly. The purpose of a hobby is to have one, and I increasingly found that the purpose of writing about a hobby is that the act of writing is fun, and good and should be a bit more joyous than I’d made it in 2023 and 2024. So I started tracking. First models, then words.

I was bored, immediately. I paint a lot, I have painted a lot for the past god knows how many years, priming, base colours, shade, highlight, more highlights, weathering, varnish. Urgh, tedious. I started the year by cracking out the oils and the dental tools to paint with, just to do something different and new to me. First steps taken in January.

Trench Crusade Communicant. Credit: Lenoon

I wanted a big project this year, and I decided it was terrain. I haven’t owned a table of terrain since I was in short trousers and playing Gorkamorka, when two polystyrene hills and a stack of polystyrene rocks was my entire petrol-and-shoota filled world. Those served me a long time, all the way up to University (with a few patches and fixings), and since then I’ve been terrainless. That ended this year in absolute style. The Village in the East project started as a way to theme a single board of terrain and ended up with multiple boards, alternate timelines, campaign structures, an entire solo campaign that in December I’m still half way through, and so, so much reading. The first article now reads as a pleasant bit of naivety that I could put together an outline for a simple project and not have it spin out of control. By the final article of this year, the Egypt project is monstrous - and nowhere near finished.

A Village in a Valley, with additional cat

It started to spiral quickly, and January was filled with Islamic Medieval models, reading, tiling and buildings. Usama Ibn Munqidh strode onto the board with a Barons’ War Outremer retinue and has been a staple of gaming throughout the year, leading his Saracens to occasional victory. The Cavalry and Infantry of the Islamic army flew off the painting table in the first months of the year, with 16 Cavalry and a stonking 32 infantry joining 2024’s 4 point SAGA haul.

Victrix Islamic Cavalry Credit: Lenoon

Limping behind came the Little Pig. I hadn’t played (or written) much Heresy for a while, but as soon as the Arvus came out I wanted to build and paint it. Soggy, kindly, agreed - provided that it ended up donated to the Goonhammer Open terrain collection. The Deeply Pig arrived, flaming out and crashing down, over a couple of long painting sessions that took up a significant chunk of DS9’s Dominion War arc and far too many large cans of Heineken. It was genuinely joyous to nominate a single project to do something a bit silly with, and then relax into the painting.

Arvus Lighter

February

38 Models 6,877 words

February turned and rolled and my painting desk was busy as the rest of life was relatively quiet. The village grew, with trees, hills, obelisks and wells and I realised the matching donation to MSF was going to bankrupt me if I carried on buying things at the rate I had been. I started a writing course, which kept my hands busy on non-Goonhammer projects, fiddling and polishing two pieces that together built to a magnum opus review of Disco Elysium-as-hiraeth which I’m very proud of but will never see the light of publication.

A long, productive month of painting turned quickly into Fallout February, with the long-awaited Fallout Factions core book landing towards the end of what was otherwise a very quiet month for my keyboard, if not for my paintbrush. I painted only a little Fallout stuff for release - that would come later - but I was steadily churning out the last Brotherhood of Steel models I needed for our inaugural Fallout Factions tournament and starting to plan April’s now annual interrail trip.

Lenoon's Brotherhood of Steel Crew. Credit: Lenoon

I’d steadily painted more Islamics - another eight cavalry, another 12 infantry - and was beginning to tire of the project, eyeing up where I could go with it, though a final spasm of purchasing added some naffatun and assassins to the pile of shame. Looking back, I’ve no idea where they went to - somewhere in the abandoned metal projects shoebox, most likely.

Oils started to seep and flow over the painting table and February saw me put down the acrylics altogether for a week or two in favour of a big, messy, slab of cardboard that was soon completely coated in glossy oils in a glorious, stinking mess that started to creep onto models.

Trying out a Decorative Frame for Trench Crusade shots. Credit: Lenoon

In parallel I was working on more Knights - Knights of whimsy and pain, little armigers to push the hard-earned experimentation with form and materials in different directions. The Armiger-that-Walks came together in February and March delightfully close to the original concept.

March

3,000 words 31 models

March was quiet. I had a set task - get the last Brotherhood of Steel models painted for the Fallout Factions tournament and go play in it. That was about all. Probably the quietest month for writing I’ve ever had, making only a couple of contributions to the Road to the Goonhammer Open articles, and working semi-feverishly in the background to keep historicals publishing at 2 a week (couple of years now, impressed yet?) while I planned to head off on holiday.

Lenoon's Knight Armiger

I finally wrote an article I’d been meaning to for about 18 months, added another Village in Egypt piece to the queue (having painted a lot of buildings), hit submit, slammed the goonhammer out of office on and sodded off.

April

9,349 words 1 model

Bair's honest thoughts on my Saga play

I think it’s good to have a break sometimes, even from your hobby or love affair with your own writing style, and April was rejuvenating as a result. Slovenia by train - highly recommended. I managed half of one model all month. Half way through the holiday I sketched out a review of the Minka Lesk series that became a surprisingly successful template for book reviews in the future - review, then ponder. I published a shocking amount of words to say that I was in the mountains or by the sea for more than three weeks.

May

11,191 words 92 models

I’m writing this in June 2025 - I’m hoping that i’ve got the wherewithal in December to edit it into the past tense a bit more, but you never know - after one hell of a month of painting and writing. I dived into the Dark Coil in the endless days of April and came up a couple of days later with a burning need to write about it, drafting the Dark Coil Damnation review in about an hour and a half over nearly a pint of coffee and two comfort syringes of calpol. Fire Caste is probably the most excited I’ve been to talk about a Black Library book, and I am proud of the work put in with the review.

Lenoon's Iron Sultanate

I painted a lot, too, finishing off the Trench Crusade Oil experiment with a warband showcase that divided opinion neatly down the middle between "what the fuck have you done to these beautiful models you monster" and “oh yeah i guess that is quite interesting”. While rave reviews may have been conspicuously absent, I love them and that’s what’s important. Oh no wait, this is:

Having had painting projects trundling along all year, the start of May saw me wrap up three Saga forces, which put my mind to playing. I, perhaps foolishly, signed up for the Grand Melee and started to get the practice games in. Then to cap it all off I built and painted an entire Partisan force for V for Victory or Chain of Command and wrote my favourite article I’ve ever written, the slightly obscenity laden Night Lords review.

Shim I could remove (left), one I was too chicken to try (right) Fallout Brotherhood of Steel. Credit: Lenoon

Wargames Atlantic Partisans, made with the help of an Osprey guide. Credit: Lenoon

Phew - upwards, in the end, of 80 28mm models painted, including finishing off a slightly sickening armiger, and a sizable dissertation on Warhammer as well. I need another break.

June

12,486 words 110 models (but most of them 12mm)

Victrix Universal Carrier. Credit: Lenoon

I didn’t give myself one. I don’t know where the burst of energy came from in the middle of this year, but life was seemingly pretty sorted. Job, writing, family, the weather, all fairly nice at the very least and I was even getting games in. What a stress free paradise that appeared to be. May belonged to me but June belonged to Victrix. The British 8th Army sets were out, and between the Universal Carriers and the Infantry I spent a lot of time drybrushing and weathering tiny men and tiny vehicles. They are so delightful that I have painted at least one or two bases worth every month since - all my 12mm stuff is yet to hit the table in a satisfying way, but oh man, they’re a painter’s paradise, honestly.

Victrix British 8th Army

Smacking into the middle of the month was the surprise that Victrix had a game out, too, and a very good game it is. Pillage games for the review saw a weeks worth of Norman civil war ravaging my Egyptian village followed by a bloody good time writing it all up. I don’t end up working with a coauthor that often because I like to write quick and off the top of my head (have you noticed?), so it was really nice to have a project to sit down with Historicals Co-Editor and all round good guy Mugginns to work on. Pillage is a game with a lot of potential, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on it for quite some time.

Pillage - Credit: Victrix

Heresy took over in the last two weeks, in two separate strands. The first, fun, one was knocking out a quick and straightforward band of Ultramarines that had been left out in the dark too long, a tiny force that was planned to spiral out into a Blackshield army to accompany my more standard Ultramarines. These were all models from one of the weird’s emerging masters - Somnderian - and I really fell for these little bronze weirdos. The army, though, is doomed to stop there because I got involved in writing for the Heresy 3.0 launch.

These might well be my favourite models I've ever painted.

July

21,000 words

34 models Goodbye Historicals, Hello Heresy. Pillage was a fun game to review. I read the rules, they were clear and straightforward (one or two translation issues aside), there was some AI art I didn’t immediately clock, which was subsequently apologised for, and I could get the hang of it quickly and easily.

Anglo Dane Hearthguard walk off with the Objective Donkey

Not so, Heresy 3.0. I spent most of the month furiously writing for release, covering the armies I knew best from 2nd edition and making the most of the fact I write quickly to make sure our launch coverage had no gaping holes in it. That meant nigh on 19,000 words written about a game I can confidently say I now am done with. I hope they were useful words for you - and I stand by them, an awful lot of effort went into them - but Heresy 3.0 is the antithesis of everything I’m looking for in game design. The contrast to every other system I’ve played this year couldn’t be starker. I hope you’re enjoying Heresy if you play it. Anyone want to buy an Ultramarines army?

But through adversity back to historicals with a lovely, lovely release to round off a far-future month: the Victrix foot knights. At this point, my top kit of the year, I greatly enjoyed building, painting and reviewing them, sorting out a solid 10 for review (I usually aim for 6!) and having polished off a second bag since. Sometimes models can be just complex enough to get the job done while looking absolutely gorgeous - a far cry from the Saturnines I’d slogged through earlier.

I resolved I wasn't going to paint a single model I didn't enjoy for the rest of the year. Into the shoebox of abandoned projects went the dregs of various ongoing projects, and the stockpiled spares of sprues hanging around for "something" went into the club bits box and the hands of various goonhammer people. If it's a grind, why do it? This is a hobby!

August

9,260 words 15 models

By August we knew we were having twins - they’ll have been born when you read this, I think. That gave me a bit of a panic, but it was also the month of the Saga Grand Melee, so I had a little time to rest and recover in the safe arms of Britcon. I greatly enjoyed my time at the Grand Melee and, life willing, I’ll be back to defend my stellar record of winning two games out of six next year too.

I may have over committed here

On the modelling front, I picked up - and shockingly completed - a little side project in the form of WW1 planes, painting small Ottoman and British Commonwealth forces that have yet to see any form of table, and yet to have any rules really read for them either. Lovely planes though!

Rumpler C.IV in Ottoman Service, credit: Lenoon

Lumbering throughout August was another Knight, a Questoris hacked out of the Saturnine Dreadnought. There was little inspiration behind this other than our own Jack Hunter said that a Saturnine was too small to turn into a Knight (he was right, so I added a lot of crab bits), and it came together slowly and, as always, painfully. It was a testbed for a lot of techniques I'd like to use in the future, changing up both my planning method and the tools I used to put it together - there's an article in there somewhere about using natural materials as glues.

Some kind of big Knight, WIP credit: Lenoon

September

8700 words 46 models

Some kind of big Knight, credit: Lenoon

The H is for Hawk knight only started to come together during the last few painting sessions in early september. The bone and stone colour scheme started to drip away under the relentless pressure of that very particular brown and green of a hot september, when sap was running from trees blistering and puckering in the drought, nights were filled with hunting dogs and echoes of long-gone pibgorn. It transformed and changed almost overnight after a particular walk that secured new lichen, cherry sap, pine needles and bark, on returning I smashed apart joints and resecured them with boiled sap and charcoal glue, setting the knight aside for several weeks to dry. It’s not my finest work (I do love the dog and the stag), but it’s not a bad piece either. Much learnt for the warhound-that-will-never-be.

Some kind of big Knight, credit: Lenoon

Once those particular tynghedau had been exorcised, it was back to work. The Foot Sergeants, Ghoul Survivors and Norman Church all meant very different painting styles and projects, contributing to a stellar month of building, painting and general hobbying. I built roads, churches, townships, piles of crates, ghoul kitbashes and 28 Sergeants, which supplanted the Knights for my favourite kit of the year. It was a real whirlwind of creative energy that flooded through a really wide variety of projects, and just about every session at the desk meant multitasking on wildly different pieces.

It was quite a big one for Historicals too, as we launched Goonhammer Historicals Essentials (yes, i know it’s stalled out a bit, but life is very busy) and covered the launch of Konflikt 47, Bolt Action’s weirder, edgier brother. I’d talk about it more, but she’s staring at me with her arm-bound eyes - midway through the month, for four long days I was seized by a single idea that absolutely wrung me dry and then has sat, discarded and unfinished, ever since: Wormcop.

Do not look for meaning in Wormcop, do not look for anything. She is unfinished and will never be finished. Wormcop is enough, as she is.

October

about 12,000 words 44 models Ah, October, Queen of months. I spent most of this year hanging out with my son, a blessed, blessed thing to say, but October was peak Dad and Son time as I had a solemn and important realisation: He was absolutely right, Warhammer is just “Dad toys” and he should get to play with them too.

Terrain and trains. Credit: Lenoon

Everything this month became about letting the boy play with the warhammer. He’s two and a half, so this was a selection of breakable pieces without sharp edges or particularly dangerous bits, but I spent a fair chunk of the month reinforcing tanks with two part epoxy along key joints so they could withstand being thrown about, and generally letting him play with anything he wanted. After a month a couple of things got broken enough to recycle down into components or chuck out altogether, but god he had a lot of fun with it. Watching models and scenery come alive in his eyes has been magical, and our contrasting ideas of what’s happening as we play with the combination of Warhammer, Historicals and Thomas and Friends was, and remains, a glorious contrast of youth and cynicism. For him, Emily comes off the rails between two buildings and Carly needs to pull her out. For me, the partisans have derailed the train and now race to loot it before the occupation forces restore order. The village developed a lot as a result, especially once I freed the chickens and goats for play with the boy.

That was all largely facilitated by the massive influx of terrain from the Bandua Medina set, which I still can’t praise highly enough. It’s great, tough enough to go toe to toe with toddler-wielded Brio and looks lovely. Go read about it. Then pick it up, the Bandua lot are good people!

It turned out that a mind dwelling in the same space as a toddler eventually spins out and goes slightly mad, resulting in me doing my best to ape the gothik forme of my betters for four thousand long and tedious words (still apologising for this Bernhardt!), with the help/enabling of one of our low-key best, Togepi.

The Devil in his Guise as a Snake, Heinrich Stayner of Augsburg Credit: Penn Libraries

November

14,371 words 52 models (plus a lot of treasure)

0200 in Progress. Credit: Lenoon

In early November/late October, I managed to get out for a few days to hang out with various Goonhammer people for a gaming weekend. It was fantastic to sit and play several games of Saga, finally try out By Fire and Sword and, most importantly, spend time with good people. I also played 0200 Hours for the first non-solo-printed-pdf time, with Goonhammer writers Bair and Serotonin and fell absolutely head over heels in love, to the extent I still haven't finished the review because I keep editing it to sound less fanboy-y and more sensible and objective. 0200 Hours is really, really, really good. Painfully so.

Making Medieval Terrain Credit: Lenoon

November saw the last big push on the Village for Medieval terrain, via the Victrix Market and Treasures sprues, which are both astonishingly lovely kits. Bar a qanat and more trees, four board layouts are now decided and ready for new year campaigns. I'd intended to then work on Napoleonic additions for the project, but I skipped forward when I managed to find some extremely cheap, in-scale planes - WW2 it is.

Making Medieval Terrain Credit: Lenoon

I might have gone overboard with the planes, especially as I've been dropping heavy hints about a bulk buy deal on 1:48 Me110s. The constraints of my very small 2x3 table should fit at least five planes on.... maybe.

It was a shockingly productive month to the extent that I completely forgot about an entire project - the Nazi Zombies. Kitbashed, based, painted and immediately forgotten about, but I'm very happy with this little force of evil bastards. I've added another couple of squads since the article - making for a round 60 evil bastards.

Kitbashed Axis for Konflikt 47. Credit: Lenoon

An undead fascist

December

32 models

Of course, I then got distracted. The last project of the year was models and scenery for 0200 hours - my mind still full of memories of the greatest demo game ever run - so some mild kitbashing between the WA German Sentries, Perry DAK and Victrix late war has put together a defending force of chumps to get knifed in the dark by the LRDG, who've more or less come together in the last available painting hours. This is one of those classic lovely historicals projects - you start with a vague idea and then, given the low cost and ease of painting uniforms when you have the right colours to hand, within a week you have one force and you're starting the Opfor as well. It's been less than three weeks since I picked up the first tan and ochre loaded paintbrush to get started, and we're almost done with 20 DAK, 10 LRDG and 3 free french partisans.

With a strange, almost unbelievable, amount of motivation, I kept pushing until baby time lurked threateningly - one last project on the go with a gigantic 1:48 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero that won't get finished this year - or possibly next!

Now that's a Big Plane!

It pushes me up and over 550 models painted this year, not only a personal "best" but really quite incredible when I think about it - and, though some of it this point is still in draft - writing about them puts me somewhere in the realms of 140,000 words written this year. As a painter and a writer I'm not sure I've necessarily improved in quality, but in speed, ease and confidence it has been a bloody good year. It's a testament to vibes, i think. I let myself get distracted, I abandoned projects, I built with no aim and I had a lot of fun. I'd like that to continue long into the future, for all that storage space is becoming a much bigger problem than time or motivation. If there's something to take away from my year it's thinking "I have to paint this" or "I must get better at painting" is shit. Just do what you want to do - mid tier painting of whatever the hell you fancy, in my case, and you'll have a fantastic hobby year. I write this, finally, with four days left until the twins arrive. What will 2026 bring? Vomit, those horrific milk-based baby shits and tiredness, undoubtedly, but the joyous thrill of that first year too. I doubt I’ll write, paint, play and build as much as I have this year for quite some time, but the hard work this year should pay off - everything, at least, is in place to game and paint in whatever scraps of time I can find. I hope you’ve enjoyed the hard work I’ve put in to talk to you about everything and anything this year and if you don’t hear from me for a couple of months, rest assured that I am working away - a draft article titled “Death of the Old World” looms almost as large as the impending arrivals…

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Tags: 2026 | Painting | hobby | Year-in-Review