Or: How I fell in love with painting thanks to Contrast paints and Goonhammer



Let start off with a picture of a lot of my work for this year. That way you won’t be as impressed with the big numbers in the table below. Lots of Easy Build Primaris Marines thanks to trades, Warhammer Conquest, and second-hand purchases. Plus some old relics I dug out from storage.

Models Points BUILT TOTALS 44 2242 PAINT TOTALS 103 4618*

* Las/Miss Centurions and relic dreadnought are crazy expensive.

2019 was a massive turn around for me: After decades spent in the hobby happily ensconced within the comfort of grey plastics, undercoats, and second-hand paint jobs, I’m now sitting quietly in the evenings smooshing Contrast paint on things and reminding Coda that painting off-camera is extremely on-brand for him whenever I can catch one of his Twitch streams.



I’ve been reading Goonhammer since the early days and, thanks largely in part to their Road to Nova series and the release of Contrast paints around the same time, I’ve been inspired to pick up a brush and start painting. The Australian launch of Warhammer Conquest helped massively as well; I might have purchased fifteen to twenty copies of the first issue… I have a shitload of brushes as well as pots of blue, gold, and black paint because of this.



In mid September I managed to sneak into the Goonhammer Discord and have since found a fantastic community of fellow hams to talk hams/rubbish with and in turn be inspired by. Later that month, Corrode needed some examples for HTPE Iron Hands (this was just as the supplement was released so not everyone and their dog had painted their counts-as Iron boys yet) so I put my hand up and had my Iron boys and accompanying recipe published… which makes me a published author! Suck it, year 12 English teacher whose name I have forgotten but who probably doubted me! (PS sorry to whomever had to edit this). (TheChirurgeon’s Note: It wasn’t pleasant)



I’ve also burped out some content for a future HTPE Tau article. I do love my Stealthy Fishy Bishies but that’s more than likely 2020 material.

In terms of games played for the year, I really didn’t keep track until recently with Instagram and uploading a few quick shots of the battle and some random highlights. I pretty much only play with the same group of people I’ve known for years now so on average I probably manage 2 or 3 games per month. In terms of wins and losses, I seem to recall a lot of hard-fought ties or narrow losses. I even attended my very first tournament. Admittedly, it was a very small 20-player tourney but it still counts. I won one of my five games at the event and had a fantastic time doing so. I had a blast and am looking at attending more in the new year.



As explained in How To Paint Everything: Iron Hands article, I still tend to play as the Iron Boys because way back in 6th edition, it was the easiest Chapter Tactic to remember. With my paint scheme currently, I use red weapons instead of white; this is because I switch hit for Deathwatch and more often than not, literally any Marine/Admech/Custards/Knights codex using a chart to randomize what I’ll bring to the table that day. Variety is the spice of life after all.

Goals for 2020

Learn to use my camera. Sorry to the poor goon that had to fix that mess.

Accidentally write more for Goonhammer maybe?

Keep track of games played, the rare wins, and what I did wrong for all those losses.

Next overseas trip, try and find fellow goons to smash hams with.

Paint more. Especially looking at repainting all my robot friends into a more uniform colour. Lots of boxy dreadies and I still need to paint the Helverins too.

Build more? I do have a lot of Death Guard sitting around…



I’m going to go HAM on decals, replace bases and maybe go back and add some details.

Thanks to Dan and SRM from the 40k Badcast, my group has gotten back into Necromunda in a big way, I’ve got a campaign in the works and the Goliaths are ready. Both were “heavily inspired” by these awesome guys.

Actually scratch that, I’ve changed my mind and will play Genestealer Cult in the campaign… or maybe the Enforcers?

Attend more tournaments and meet more Warhams.

Join a club and meet more Warhams. Expand my potential pool of games I can play on weekends.