Soooooo........Solar Auxilia..........

Mistakes were made.

"No I don't need any Solar Auxilia. You never painted the 20 resin ones you had and sold 2 years ago."

"They are lovely though. And all being plastic makes it much more affordable(ish)."

"I don't need another army. There's barely a 30K scene left near me these days. Multiple armies for it are overkill."

"Allied detachments are a thing......Cthonian Headhunters are a thing......"

And so 2 Solar Auxilia battle groups arrived in quick succession and grew my pile of shame by a volume I could hope to match with my output. The shame is real. But my word are they very lovely models and turns a force that was previously a financial pipe dream into something vaguely attainable. Hopefully the first models should be painted in April, but let's see.

Anyway, what did I paint this month? Well March's output was a good jump up from February's and covered 3 factions from 2 systems.

First up I finished the last 2 models that will form my 1000 credit Necromunda Orlock gang. An Arc Hammer Arms Master and a Wrecker with a chainsword seemed like a fun way to round out the team. I've really enjoyed painting this Orlock gang up and I can definitely credit them for my improved painting output this year. Holding off on building more until I get some games in and work out how I want to expand the gang, but I may have picked up a box of Ambots in anticipation......

Next up, it was time to tackle something bigger. My Norn Emissary has sat in blu-tacked together, primed sub-assemblies for months. It was finally time to give it the lick of paint it deserved. It's a gorgeous sculpt although not as big as the pre-launch pictures seemed to imply. The big brain gave me a bit of decision paralysis for a bit while I worked out the best colour to paint it. I nearly went orange, but I feel I've painted a lot of things in that spectrum of late and so plumped for some Tesseract Glow. A paint that does not like to be left unused for a long time. Multiple metal mixing balls and liberal use of a massage gun was needed to turn it back into something approaching usable, but I'm happy with the outcome. It also sets the direction for the Zoanthropes and Maleceptor that are slowly moving to the top of my painting list.

The Norn is a big model, but it still only counts as 1 model on The Spreadsheet. I therefore decided that a) volume was needed next, and b) she needed some buddies. Enter 10 termagants to form an honour guard. In true horde painting fashion, these little fellas have a step or 2 skipped from the big monsters' scheme - they are, after all, there to simply soak up bullets. However I'm happy with how they look on mass. This makes 30 termagants that I've painted now. How people get through 100s of them I'll never know. There's a limit to my horde painting abilities.

I'm (much) less happy with the outcome of the next models I painted. 5 jazz hands Electro Priests for my growing Ad Mech army. I got these to a point where I was about 80% happy with them. I felt they looked decent, but were just missing a splash of something. So I decided to add the blue glow that I'd been using on all my arc guns to the nodes (?) on their hands and head. My skill did not match the vision sadly and now I'm not too keen on them at all. To my eyes, it's too much blue now and the nice effect I'd got on the skin has been ruined and overwhelmed. They'll stay as they are for now, but I had plans to expand the unit to 10 at some point. Will need to decide if I get over it and paint the rest to match, or try and do a rescue job on these - and risk messing them up further. A problem for future Doobles, but a problem nonetheless.

Happily though I feel I can end on a high. After the frustration of the Electro Priests I turned to some Infiltrators. These I am much happier with. They took my quick and dirty scheme really well and I really like the models. Apart from that common Ad Mech issue of easily broken protruding gubbins. These cheered me up no end to round out the month and mean I'm still keen to keep painting Ad Mech.

So where does that leave us?

In a less than ideal position if I'm frank. The flow of new models in doesn't seem to be slowing. Which is obviously entirely down to my own weakness. This is something that I need to address in the next months as I'm consistently making my life harder than I should be. I've also stalled on clearing out unused projects which I aim to restart in April and May. The Elder are next to Fall (lol) and then comes a decision on my Sisters of Battle. I've not been able to settle on a paint scheme which excites me which is starting to make me think that it's the army itself that doesn't excite me. Internal wrangling will commence soon.

The hard numbers:

Models IN: 60 (ouch)

Models OUT: 23

FEB TOTAL: +37

YTD TOAL: +7

Yeah that's.....not good. Stupid sexy Solar Auxilia.