Project Selection: Taking on the Unmanageable
In the article before last I outlined the properties of a sensible and manageable project. A project you could get done in a weekend or two with quick results and a tangible end point. This is not that. This week I’m here to talk about starting a project that will probably make you want to pack it in halfway through. For me, this project was a mere three 10 man squads of steel legion. It all began after a lengthy leaf through the fourth edition rulebook, followed by browsing archived images from 3rd-4th edition white dwarf and some codices. Lovely pictures of armies displayed on pristine green fields, with the odd hillock added for variety. I thought to myself “ I could do that”.
The backbone of every 4th edition army is a single HQ unit and two troop units. As this is an imperial guard unit I will probably be needing 4 troop choices. Steel legion infantry squad models fluctuate in price, depending on how recently there has been a “made to order” sale at GW. However they are never cheap, with a cost per model of around £7-10 (at the time of this article). Every now and then you might find a cheap set and that’s how this project started. I stripped the paint from the models you saw in the last article so that I could paint all 30 from scratch, with uniform basing and a uniform paint scheme.
This may have been a mistake. Whilst 2p coins are readily available for basing, painting the 30 troopers proved to be a laborious task and at my cramped workstation I didn’t really have the option for a second project to take my mind off things. Below you can see the progression from unpainted white metal to a finished unit.
Countless articles and videos have been created on the topic of how to approach a 2000pt warhammer 40k army, and doubtless there will be countless more in the future. It can indeed be an intimidating project (unless you are collecting custodes, in which case, enjoy your 15 man army) but it’s something that is best chipped away at in small batches I think. There is so much advice out there getting into the how’s and the why’s, but as with so many things in life, the best advice is in fact the least helpful, and this is to just do it. Whilst it is true that you only have a finite amount of time in the day for personal projects and this will cause you to plan out the “most optimal” way to tackle a project, sometimes in obsessive detail, the planning in and of itself produces nothing.
In the miniature wargaming/ miniature painting hobby I find it more valuable to start a project and be forced to pivot to solve a problem, than to sit and think out every eventuality, because the problem solving experience will set you up for your next project better than any amount of planning could. Now this is not to say that you should go out to the hardware store and buy £400 of materials with no plan in mind, but rather that if you have a goal in mind, start towards it and then course correct. In my example of the steel legion army I started, you might notice a conspicuous lack of HQ units. This is because I started the HQ unit, didn’t like the colour scheme and so stripped them, only to never paint them again. Could planning have prevented this outcome? Possibly. One year on from the start of this project I have 3 painted infantry squads, a small tank and a sentinel painted. “That’s not an army” I hear you say. My reply, dear strawman, would be to remind you that there are games other than Warhammer 40k, where these models would serve as corporate goons or perhaps PMCs. Of course, a HQ unit can be as few as 5 figures. In other words, I am 85% of the way to my goal, which was only ever arbitrary. By being just a little bit flexible, we can make our effort expended go much further than if we insist on a pre-planned goal, so don’t be afraid to bite off more than you can chew (within your financial means of course), get out there and start a new project today!
