Progress Report and Issues
I've been working on my DeathWing army for a while, but I've encountered a few obstacles, and there's at least one more coming up that I'll have to clear as well. I'll detail what these obstacles have been, are and will be and what I've gotten done so far. I'll also spell out my plans for just what I need to do to finish the army.

Obstacle 1: Painting and NMM
Initially I wanted to do the entire army in a form of Non-metal-metallic painting. I did a lot of research, and tried a number of ways of doing it, but I was never entirely pleased with the results. I learned a lot, but I just couldn't quite get it right. This definitely slowed down my progress, since I spent a lot of time and effort learning and painting a couple of models, instead of painting my whole army. Eventually, I settled on a much easier and more traditional paint scheme, which let me get up and running on actually getting the army painted, and I made pretty good progress after that point. UPDATE: I've just received a great tutorial on how to do SENMM that looks like it'll be fairly easy to follow and looks a lot like I originally wanted the army to look. I'm going to try a test model (or at least some test parts) to see if I can actually do it, and then I'll decide if I really want to repaint what I've already gotten done, or if I just need to save that for later and finish up the army as-is.

Obstacle 2: New Tyranid Codex
It's always great when one of your armies gets a new codex. There's all sorts of shiny new toys to play with and new fluff to read and get excited about and new rules to understand. Unfortunately, this new codex came out while I was working on my DeathWing army. I knew it would be coming, and I knew it would slow me down on my DeathWing army. That said, I tried to plan around it and put if off so that I could concentrate on my DW. That hasn't entirely worked. I've read through the codex several times and read up on the FAQ and read online reviews of it and worked through it a lot in my head. I've also got a couple of interesting army ideas for it (that mostly let me use the models I currently have.) I've even got some interesting conversion ideas that I'd like to do. All that has definitely slowed down my work on the DeathWing. I'm trying to put off the Tyranid army until after I finish the DeathWing, otherwise I'll end up with multiple unfinished armies and no complete ones.

Obstacle 3: New Dark Eldar Codex
Did I mention that it's great when one of your armies gets a new codex? Well, when it rains, it pours. The Dark Eldar, my very first army, and one that hasn't seen the light of day in a long, long time, have finally gotten a new codex. It sounds like it's got all sorts of yummy stuff in it, but I'm trying not to look at the information about it too much, because it'll slow my DeathWing progress down even more. The release date for the codex is coming soon, and I need to concentrate on my DeathWing before that. Even after the release, I plan on primarily messing with my DeathWing, to make sure it gets done. I have a bunch of Dark Eldar stuff, but I'm guessing I'll need a few shiny, new toys, and I'll put those on my Christmas wish list, which will also give me a little bit of breathing room before the desire to play with my DE overwhelms my brain. :)

Obstacle 4: Waffling Between Ideas
I've also encountered some issues that slowed or halted my progress as I have waffled between ideas for the army. For example, I planned the original army around a 1500pt goal, only to find that the local store primarily plays at 2000pts. I have also wavered in my army selection, as I've found different things that work or don't work in ways that I hadn't considered before. That means that I've assembled and painted a few models I didn't need to assemble or paint. That's time I could have spent on models I will use. To cope with this, I've finally settled on a single army plan at 2000pts to use as my final version. (At least for the moment, of course.)

Progress: What Have I Gotten Done?
I've created a model for and painted up Belial with a Thunderhammer and Storm Shield. I've painted two Sergeants, 5 regular Terminators, 2 Assault Cannon/Powerfist Terminators, 1 Stormbolter Chainfist Terminator and 2 Venerable Dreadnaughts. I've also assembled 1 RavenWing Biker, and I have 3 LandRaiders fully assembled (still painted in the old colors, though.) Having a specific army list to plan for really allows me to concentrate on completing only what I need to complete.

This is what I've gotten painted so far

New Army Plan
130 Belial: ThunderHammer and Storm Shield

160 Venerable Dreadnaught: Extra Armor, Assault Cannon, DCCW/Storm Bolter

275 Terminator Squad 1: SB/PW, Assault Cannon/PF, Apothecary w/SB/PF, 2xSB/PF
245 Terminator Squad 2: SB/PW, Assault Cannon/PF, 3xSB/PF
245 Terminator Squad 3: SB/PW, Assault Cannon/PF, 3xSB/PF

145 RavenWing Attack Squadron 1: 2xMelta, sgt w/Meltabombs

265 LandRaider 1: Extra Armor
265 LandRaider 2: Extra Armor
265 LandRaider 3: Extra Armor
1995pts

What Is Left To Do?
Okay, so that leaves me needing to paint 1 Sergeant and 3 regular Terminators, 1 Assault Cannon/Powerfist Terminator and 1 Terminator Apothecary with Stormbolter/Powerfist. I also need to assemble 1 RavenWing Biker Sergeant and 1 RavenWing Biker with Meltagun, then paint all 3 biker models. Finally, I'll need to tackle the painting on the LandRaiders.

There's one Terminator hidden behind the Biker, and there're two unassembled bikers and 2 LandRaiders painted just like this one that are not pictured.

Avoiding or Getting Past Obstacles
As already mentioned, I've now planned out my army, so that I can concentrate on just getting done what needs to be done. I've decided to put off the Dark Eldar until at least their release date, and not actually do anything physically with them until after the first of the year. The Tyranids, too, will be put on the back burner for now. I'm looking forward to coming back to them, but I need to finish the DeathWing first. After the DeathWing, my Dark Eldar desperately need some updating, so I'll be working on them next.

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