The Beginning

In which the protagonist gathers his resources

For the past 10 years I have been a home owner, and I’ve spent much of that time hacking at the fabric of the house with increasingly brutal power tools. Angle grinders, hammer drills and circular saws are highly effective when remodelling rooms (plus – great fun) but it turns out they aren’t much use for miniatures. 3” brushes and Dulux Brilliant White Gloss are not suitable for painting the eyes on a Black Orc Blocker.

Hark! I hear the siren call of NEW TOOLS.

After copious research, I settled on the following “starter set”:

The Army Painter Wargames Mega Brush Set (£29 from waylandgames.co.uk). This set seemed a good compromise between quality, range of brush types and cost; good enough to give room for development, but not so expensive that I’ll be devastated if I wreck a couple through inexperience.

The Citadel Warhammer 40k Essentials Set (£21 from waylandgames.co.uk). In general, the Citadel paints are more expensive ml-for-ml than equivalents from Vallejo or Army Painter, but this particular set (factoring in the included clippers and glue) is actually really good value – and has the added benefit of matching the Citadel painting tutorials.

The ANSIO A3 Craft Cutting Mat in Brown/Grey (£8 from amazon.co.uk). My wife has a bunch of these in green for quilting and sewing – but she’d kill me if I mistook one of her mats for mine and covered it in paint, so I’ve gone for the fetchingly neutral brown/grey version.

Citadel Grey Seer Undercoat Spray (£12 from games-workshop.com). Again, not the cheapest choice but I happened to be walking past a store and was seduced by the monotone goodness.

Citadel Lahmian Medium (£5 from games-workshop.com). I don’t recall this being “a thing” when I was a callow youth, but all the tutorials these days seem to recommend it.

3 Primaris Space Marine Intercessors (£8.50 from element-games.co.uk). This was pretty much the cheapest set of miniatures I could find with model-specific painting guides available.

That’s £83.50 in total; not exactly cheap, but I’ve spent more on a single Makita battery in the last year – so in perspective it’s not bad at all. That’s my argument and I’m sticking to it.

There are a few more things on my wish list – a painting handle, a daylight lamp, a pin vise, matt varnish spray – but this will have to do me for now.

To war!