FTGT Turns 4

I'm almost a month late, but this April marks the fourth birthday of the blog. While we've been pretty inactive of late, we haven't completely folded up shop yet, and with the impending release of 8th Edition we have the mental wheels turning and typing fingers stretching. We haven't had a recent podcast because of technical difficulties - Chandler's computer died and as the keeper of the podcast, we haven't had a chance to record again. Despite being quiet as far as blogging and podcasting goes, we're still gaming, painting, and so on.

I've been streaming my painting sessions on my Twitch channel about twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays around 9:30am-12:00pmEST, and more reliable with that than I have been with blog posts for a while. Gaming wise, I have quite a few events planned for this year, the first of which is today!

• DeLaWarr: 40k Tournament - April 29-30 - Newark, DE
• ATC: 40k Team Tournament - July 15-16 - Chatanooga, TN
• NOVA - August 31 - September 3 - Crystal City, VA
• Warzone Atlanta: 40k Tournament - November - Atlanta, GA

The past few years I've done a summary of my collection and my personal progress toward facing down my personal grey tide. In order to not break tradition, here's a summary, year by year, of my collection by points (mostly):

Army	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Tyranids	4-5,000	5,500	9,000	9,500	7,900
GSC	-	-	-	-	1,700
Dark Eldar	4,000	1,500	1,500	800	900
Orks	3,500	4,000	3,000	4,100	4,100
Tau	1,500-2,000	2,000	2,500	2,500	1,200
Necrons	1,000	1,500	4,750	5,600	6,200
Eldar	1,500	4,500-5,000	5,000	5,700	5,700
Space Marines	500	1,500	1,000	2,500	3,500
AdMech	-	-	-	-	4,200
Daemons	-	-	-	-	2,652
Malifaux Models	-	-	26 Minis	105 Minis	105 Minis

I chose to omit defunct fantasy armies and games I have no intention of playing or getting to anytime soon. The biggest differences are obviously the addition of three new armies. As a note, AdMech includes Cult Mechanicus, Skitarii, and Imperial Knights under one umbrella. Similarly, Space Marines includes Blood Angels (and would include Dark Angels or Space Wolves if I had any). Also, the GSC list includes all the Genestealers, which have been removed from the Tyranid list.

From there, a quick breakdown of how much of everything is painted and how much of my overall collection it takes up:

Army/Faction	% of Collection (by model count)	% Painted (by model count)
Tyranids	22.6% (-5.7%)	33% (+5%)
Genestealer Cult	7.7% (+7.7%)	9% (-)
Dark Eldar	1.8% (0.3%)	59% (-4%)
Orks	16.8% (-0.4%)	22% (-)
Tau	4.3% (-4.2%)	26% (+11%)
Necrons	10.8% (+0.4%)	77% (+6%)
Eldar	9.3% (-0.6%)	25% (-2%)
Space Marines	9.5% (+2.9%)	25% (-12%)
Cult Mech / Skitarii / Knights	4.5% (+4.5%)	7% (-)
Chaos Daemons and CSM	6.0% (+6.0%)	14% (-)
Gremlins (Malifaux)	3.9% (-0.1%)	47% (+16%)
Neverborn (Malifaux)	1.4% (-0.1%)	39% (+22%)
Other Malifaux	1.3% (-)	40% (+20%)

Overall, outside collecting three new armies, I'm doing pretty well in not adding to existing piles of gray plastic.

My goals for the next year are to continue to chip away at my tide, while simultaneously helping others with theirs through working on commissions. I'm officially over a year into doing commissions and while I've been taking a lot longer than I anticipated on a few jobs, I did manage to paint a fair few models to add to others' collections:

Four Hemlock Wraithfighters

A Warhound Titan

One of four Venoms for Bryan's Dark Eldar

Bryan's Razorwings

First part of a Tau army for Justin

First half of a Raven Guard army for Mike

In the upcoming weeks and months I'm planning to finish out the entirety of Bryan's Dark Eldar, and work on second sets of the Raven Guard and Tau armies. A lot of that will be on the Twitch stream, so join me there as you can, and keep your eye out for more content from us as the 8th Edition hype train rolls on and we get back to writing and podcasting.