TheChirurgeon's Road Through 2026, Part 11: Hobby Downtime

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing blog of hobby and competitive progress through 2026. Last time around I attended the Clutch City GT, taking my Red Corsairs army to the event. That went OK - I finished 3-2 - and I spent a lot of time crunching on hobby work to get there. This week I'm mostly on downtime, working through a little bit of burn-out prior to going on vacation. That said, I'm also planning the next army, so uh, it's not all downtime.

The Red Corsairs Project

I'm close to done with this project. I said as much last week, but I'm very happy with how much I got done in a very short amount of time with these guys. By my reckoning, here's what I have left to paint from the initial project:

That's two Obliterators, four Red Corsairs Raiders (likely to be run as Chosen), and two of the Nemesis Claw. On that note, I finished two more guys in the Nemesis Claw. The champion with power fist:

And then this other guy with the Paired Accursed Weapons.

If you're wondering what's up with the linework, the answer is that these guys are former Carcharodons. I've always liked the parallel between the Carcharodons and Night Lords and I really like the Carcharodons models I've seen with lots of Maori-inspired linework, so I've incorporated those on my guys here for the Nemesis Claw unit. I like the air of menace it gives them and helps tell them apart visually from the rest of the army.

I also took some time to do some touch-up work on the rest of my Red Corsairs. There were a few things I didn't have time for before Clutch, such as rivets, and I went through and touched all of those up.

Now realistically, those eight models aren't all I'm painting for this army. I'm going to pick up a few more models - probably ten more Raiders and five Terminators - and I'm going to convert up three more bikes. Is that insane? Yes. But realistically I need two units of bikes in the lists I'm bringing and I want to be able to run another unit or two of Chosen.

The Iron Warriors

Night Lords were my first army, the White Panthers were my second. But my third army? Iron Warriors. I started these guys up after the Index Astartes article in White Dwarf gave them custom rules for the first time. And then I built on them and added to them here and there over the following twenty or so years, probably painting my last model for them seriously around 2016. I mean, I did paint this guy for them in the new Cataphractii kit:

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I'm really happy with that guy! He looks a lot better than my old models. The conversion was easy enough and it go me thinking: should I revisit the army? Then the Eye of Terror preview stuff dropped and it turns out that, joke's on me - Iron Warriors are happening whether I'm ready or not.

I'm pretty excited about this. Not just because I get to paint more Chaos Space Marines, but because 1. Iron Warriors are pretty easy and fast to paint, and 2. I do have plenty of models which work just fine in current 40k and only need some touch-up work, which substantially reduces the amount of work I have to do. Let's take a quick inventory:

That's a pretty solid spread of stuff! It's worth going through what I think works and what doesn't. For starters, none of those infantry are going to work out. They're a mix of really old, metal models from 2nd edition (hell yeah), and third/fourth edition kits with the upgrade bits (less cool).

These guys just don't pass muster given their size and upgrading their base sizes is honestly more work than it's worth. They have a lot of sentimental value that say, my Black Legion goobers from 2016 don't have and that's enough to keep them around. The terminators still look great, and I put them on 40mm bases-

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

But those sad fucking Obliterators absolutely don't. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to go with the Cataphractii conversions or Indomitor pattern for my next set of Iron Warriors Terminators - having the shoulder pads for the Indomitor ones changes a lot, as I really want those sculpted shoulder pads.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Jesus those things are ugly. I'm not particularly stoked about the concept of new Mutilators - I think they're dumb, since they're likely to be a slow melee unit and I have no need for one of those - but I do look forward to painting new models and I want to replace these old pieces of shit with the plastic Obliterators.

On that note, I've already started that process:

I also have a half-assembled Lord Discordant around here who's absolutely getting painted up to be Iron Warriors soon; I'll dig him out and finish assembling and painting him at some point. These guys will follow the same scheme the old Obliterators do, which is deep red skin to add color and pop to my guys. That's how I did my Helbrute, and I think I can touch him up a little to get him up to standard as well:

I'm not unhappy with this guy but he needs shading on the trim and hazard stripes and I need to gap fill that multi-melta and add some more highlights to his red skin. He's OK but could pop much more than he does.

Back to the Iron Warriors I have, the real value here is the vehicles. I have three Vindictors, all painted to an acceptable but not amazing standard:

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

They need some work but I can definitely shore them up and get them to something more presentable, and immediately having three Vindicators means I can pull of some bullshit I couldn't with my other armies, where I was getting one painted and hoping that was enough. Veterans of the Long War is a solid shout here.

If I want to run Renegade Raiders though, I've also got the Rhinos set up and ready to go. Well, ready to be touched up to an acceptable level as well, anyways:

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I've also got a Land Raider and a Heldrake, and of those the Heldrake probably needs the least work.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

That thing needs shading on the metal parts and the hazard stripes, some OSL on the body and baleflamer, and a ton of work on the base to build it up. I'm going to do a lot of work with the basing for this army I think - more barbed wire, siege traps, and things stuck in the mud to really give the army the feel of being on a muddy hellscape.

Finally there's a defiler, but it'd need a base and it's the current model, about to be replaced. I'll use it as a second in a pinch but unlike the Death Guard where I painted three I don't think I'm liable to use this one much.

In total, what's salvageable/usable here for the army is:

Painted Iron Warriors Stuff

Helbrute (MM+Fist)
Heldrake
Land Raider
3x Rhino
3x Vindicator

Army-Agnostic Stuff

Cypher
Fabius Bile
Vashtorr

Stuff I Have Assembled/Ready to Go

Obliterators (1 unit)
Venomcrawler
Lord Discordant (most of one)
Forge World Iron Warriors Dreadnoughts x2

That's not a bad start, given I typically will likely only need ten Terminators, ten Chosen, and five to ten Legionaries to make this all work from an Infantry standpoint. I have no idea what, if anything, I'll get from GW for reviewing, nor when it's going to show up but usually it's "one of each thing," so I'm hopeful I can be ready to go with everything else before I get my hands on upgrade kits and the new Defiler. Based on what I've got here, I'm liable to also want some Forgefiends to run Vashtorr's Detachment, and I may want a Predator or two. The good news, again, is that vehicles - especially the Iron Warriors' vehicles - paint up pretty fast.

That said, Iron Warriors armies don't win best painted. Metal models don't get there even with bright hazard stripes and I'd need to put too much work into making them colorful elsewhere. The paint competitions I've lost recently have been to armies that are insanely bright and colorful, and there's just no way my traditional Iron Warriors will get there, even if immaculately painted. There's also the issue that the army just kind of lacks a centerpiece model. For the Night Lords I had the Heldrake, but only for the Grand Narrative, where it made sense to bring. Good CSM lists run a couple of transports but are mostly infantry, and an army of well painted infantry will lose to three knights every time.

That's a shame, but a bit of a load off in the sense that I can just paint these guys "good enough" and move on. And that's more or less my plan - I want to get them to a "Best Overall" standard, where they'd conceivably get there if I won like 7/8 games, and not worry so much about the heraldry on each unit.

Anyways, I expect I'll paint up what I've already primed and try and do a second unit of Obliterators, then go from there. I have some old Iron Warriors Dreadnoughts - the really cool Forge World kits from forever ago - that I need to clean up and paint, and they'll be on the list too. I'll have a better idea once I get my hands on the new datasheets and detachments, though. For the time being I'm going to get ready for those as best I can and finish up my Red Corsairs.

What About Your Night Lords and Emperor's Children?

OK look, you knew we couldn't ride those particular rafts forever.

I'll get back to those at some point. Emperor's Children are still in my project focus for the Grand Narrative. But for now I've got to focus on what's going to be in front of me. The Emperor's Children are going to be there when the Iron Warriors are done, taunting me and forcing me to eventually paint Fulgrim. Until then I'm going to work on other stuff.

Next Time: Vacation Stories

That's it for this week. By the time you read this I'll be on a flight to the Caribbean, set on vacation with the family and the in-laws. That'll more than likely lock me out of any hobby progress next week, as I'm really not big on trying to paint while I'm on vacation, especially if there are no hobby stores nearby. Also the TSA frowns on traveling with a gallon of paint in little pots. That said, I may take clippers, a scraper, and glue and do some assembly - these Traitor Guardsmen seem easy enough to handle. Either way I'll post something next week, just don't be shocked if it's a bunch of photos of the ocean and drinks with little umbrellas in them.

See you next week.

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