Happy New Year!

A very Happy New Year to everyone! Hope Santa brought everything you all wanted and the hangovers have been taken care of by now. I had a very relaxing but also hectic Christmas period including driving 5-hours home at 3am on Christmas Day with the Girlfriend after she finished work and then driving all the way back on Boxing Day evening. Though I wouldn't have swapped it for the world as it was such a good day with all the family.

So what did Santa (girlfriend) bring me this year for my Empire army?

1 x General/Captain of the Empire set - Always wanted this set and it's a great box including many options for both a mounted and standing Captain/General. I'll definitely be using the standing Captain and probably give him a Sword/Shield combo for that added protection. I'm not the biggest fan of Knights in my Empire army but think I need to use them more and if they work I'll be adding the mounted model to this unit.

1 x Box of Empire State Troopers - going to be building these tonight or tomorrow to make another 10-man Halberds for my unit. The final plan is to have a big block of 38 and also include a Empire Captain/General and Warrior Priest. After this box I'll be at 34 add my Captain and Warrior Priest and I only need four extra troops, I think I'll be adding another unit filler (maybe use one of my Ogres) to this rather than shelling out on another box.

1 x Warrior Priest with Extra Hand Weapon - Little did my Girlfriend know but I've already got this model, though I'm not complaining because I love this model so I'm sure I'll be able to use it somewhere in the army.

1 x Warrior Priest with Hand Weapon and Shield - Who says you cannot have enough Warrior Priests? I do possibly have a plan with this one by maybe using it as a Arch Lector but I'm still not sure. I think I need to build everything first and then work out an army list to decide what to do with him.

1 x Box of Demigryph Knights - Yep the mothership of all Empire forces and the box set I've wanted since I started my Empire force. These will definitely be built tomorrow night as I've got my final training game on Thursday night at Games Workshop Metrocentre and want these bad boys on the table.

So yeah I feel extremely spoilt but now my painting backlog is a hell of a lot larger than I was expecting. To have a 1,500pts Empire Army fully painted by end of Jan is going to be one huge task. Thankfully I've not got much planned this month so I expect it'll be a few late nights to get them all up and tabletop ready.

Unfortunately with the Xmas period I've not had the chance to do much painting and when I did have a bit of time I touched up the Tau Hammerhead which just needs the Ion Cannon and Railgun end bits painting before it's finished. I was really hoping to get a real good start on getting everything sorted but now I've got roughly four weeks to fully paint everything I have. The one problem I've got is the weather is beginning to turn and everything needs priming. I might need to chance it by spraying in the shed, and then bringing the guys straight into the house. This is where the pain of not having a garage shows.

Anyway onwards and upwards, New Years resolution is to get everything I own painted by the end of the year. Empire will be done one way or another by Feb so after that it'll be finishing off the last remaining few of my Ogres, the Tau and then see what happens.