The Prime Challenge

I am finding it hard to stay focused at the moment. I am painting small pieces of a lot of units at a time and not really making any progress. This Temple Guard I painted yesterday evening to test the colour scheme and to make sure what I wanted fit with their brothers the Flame Guard Cleansers. I have had eight of these for a long time but I never progressed them beyond the undercoat. Suprisingly I managed to not lose any of the shields, something I thought would be inevitable having them transported between houses three times and between countries once.

I have played with these guys a few times. I mainly like them because of the look. They ground the army in fantasy despite the massive 'jacks wandering around. There really is something to be said for a lowly regiment of spearmen. They have generally preformed well for me either as cannon fodder or as a valuable strike force. They don't do so well against 'jacks but in most other cases they can do fine. Depending on the 'caster supporting them they can get some really nice buffs. Anything that adds to their defence is great. With set defence and a buff they can become quite difficult to hit especially for the less martially inclined troops. Shieldwall is also a useful ability but there are ways around this now and it has become useful only in certain situations. In the last game I used them Beast O' Nine took them to pieces, so much so that the remnants of the unit I used simply to block up opposing troops and charge lanes. However if I really want them to preform I have to paint them and that leads on to the main point of this post: The Prime Challenge!

I have been thinking about Warmachine a bit over the last few weeks, especially my Menoth forces. As mentioned here I have never collected most of the stuff from Prime even though what I play with mainly comes from that book. I have always stuck with Zealots, Exemplar Knights and Choir as my mainstays and I really didn't vary the force much after this. Maybe the 'caster would change or maybe some 'jacks would. So now I have decided to start the "Prime Challenge" whereby I would collect and paint the models I am missing from Prime. For me that means about twenty one miniatures. I need ten Temple Guard, ten Deliverers and a Paladin of the Wall. I have the Temple Guard, well eight of them at least, already so I just need to order the rest tonight or tomorrow. That then would leave me needing a timeframe for the challenge. Hopefully if I managed to get everything from the order on time, which I suspect I will, I can then paint them by the end of April. Thats eight weeks for twenty one guys which is a little generous but I know I have a number of weekends booked up with events and gaming so I won't get as much painting done as I would hope. So there is the challenge have everything from Prime collected, painted, photographed and presented here by April 31st.

I know a few people in a similar position to me. They have played for a while but they have never managed to collect that much. Mainly what was bought was what was available or appealed the most on the shelf. While this is fine and works in general there is nothing like having a completed army. Collecting it via the order released by the books is easy and doesn't place too much pressure on the wallet. So is there anyone who would like to join me in the challenge out there?