March FTGT Hobby Challenge Check In and NOVA Update

As we close out March, I wanted to provide my update and take a look at what's coming up for the Hobby Challenge. I ended up switching gears a little and going with the Necrons this month, in part to have a fully painted force for a local tournament last weekend.

I finally cashed in my "double-up" month, with my final tally including 10 Lychguard (2x$33), an Overlord ($28), a Destroyer Lord ($31.50), Nemesor Zahndrekh ($19.25) and Vargard Obyron ($16). This goes a little over budget, and I'm tempted to discount Zahndrekh and Obyron from the list as I got them used and I'm not happy with the state of those models; I plan on likely replacing them with new ones at some point.

I am pretty happy with how the Overlord turned out, along with the shields on the Lychguard.

For April, I'm a bit up in the air at the moment. My first experience with the Necron list didn't go as planned - partly thanks to matchups, but largely due to too many eggs in one basket. As a result, I'm not quite sure what direction to go in. I still need to try out my planned NOVA list, and would like to be working toward that. To that end, I will most likely plan to paint my 3 Heavy Destroyers, plus a regular Destroyer for a final budget of $70.

With this month's challenge, my NOVA Painting list is started to get crossed off already:

• Must Paint:
• 10 Lychguard
• 3 Tomb Blades: Will have to order once they are back in stock
• Obyron and Zahndrekh (Though possibly replaced with new minis)
• Destroyer Lord
• Flex - List 1:
• 9 Destroyers: Will have to buy
• 3 Heavy Destroyers: 2 Assembled
• Flex - List 2:
• 1-5 Deathmarks
• 5-10 Immortals (see below)
• Firestorm Redoubt
• Stretch Goals:
• 10-20 Immortals: have 10 painted, but want new ones on 32 mm bases
• Overlord

As you can see, the only core element of my list remaining is the Tomb Blades, and I might look to up the number of Tomb Blades as they seem like they would compliment the list I have. 

As for the Hobby Challenge as a whole - check out what's been posted on the group Facebook page this month: 

Rick's Brass Scorpion

Will's Defiler

Michael's Raptors

Daniel's Tyranids

There are a few more pictures of these on the group page, along with Jonny's complete army progress on a great looking group of Daemons. 

To spice things up on the Hobby Challenge, we've decided to institute a raffle for those who complete the hobby challenge each month. The prize will be a newly designed FTGT T-Shirt (more details to come). Each monthly update with completed progress is worth one entry in the raffle. Those who have kept the challenge rolling and complete something for all six months will get double entries (so 12 total).

As a tack on - we will also be hosting a design competition for the new T-Shirts, which will be available to order at the end of May. Check out tomorrow's post for the full details, but start brainstorming ideas. The winning design will get 4 entries in the raffle for the free shirt, while the runners up will receive 2 entries.

Our previous shirts

Thanks to everyone who has been participating in the hobby challenge. Great job keeping it going. There are two months left in the challenge (as well as a few more days to complete March challenges if you haven't already), so let's finish strong.