2025 Year in Review

First things first: we live in Hawai'i and its fantastic! 

We hosted a bunch of great visitors, family & friends alike, snorkelled & hiked on multiple islands, and even saw a volcano erupt on the big island of Hawai'i (super cool!)

Mrs Man Cave and I just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary, and this year I travelled to Australia, Japan, Phillipines and 6 other states in the U.S. including visits to NASA Huntsville, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, and Udvar-Hazy Air Museum. 

"Rocket City", Huntsville Alabama

OV-103 "Discovery" - the most flown of the Shuttles

Apollo-11 Capsule

So clearly I en joyed getting my space geek on this year! But from a Hobby lens its been a more mixed bag.

The Good

I reconnected with Rich after many years, and we've been playing some remote Pulp SciFi games which we wrote up here on the blog. Super fun and more in-person games are planned together in 2026. 

I managed to see a few of the lads when I slipped home for a work trip back in April, and even managed to get a 6-player Trojan Wars game in using Midguard, which I enjoyed. Was great to see John, Alan and Gav.

And thats it, those were the two games I managed to play over the whole year. The local gaming scene is 40k and Age of Sigmar only. The search continues but hope is fading. Didn't get to any game conventions either. 

I missed my good mates, our regular gaming and egging eachother on to get our next projects to the table. So I lived somewhat vicariously through other's gaming and Owen favoured me by posting a few of his battle reports here, which I really appreciated.

With the move overseas it also took me another 6 months to get a brush back in my hand too. I really missed it and most of my materials had to be reacquired. Projects were planned, sometimes acquired and then drifted into silence. Still, I did manage to paint up a couple of things for my Black Templars collection (which is in storage back home).

And for the first time ever, I entered into a local painting competition with his guy, which felt out of my usual depth!

On the upside, a range of diverse projects are now in hand for AHPC Season 16, where I'm really enjoying reconnecting with the guys back home on our interweb "paint & chat" sessions. I'm going to actively ride this wave of enthusiasm into next year

In the absence of the tabletop I re-engaged with some solo board wargames this year to fill my tabletop void, and enjoyed my narrative Stuka Ace campaign. I have a few others lined up for next year.

I missed catching up with David & David this year, and appreciated this 'missing man' pic and libation!

After helping out as a playtester, I was also thrilled this year to see Frank go gangbusters with his Blood on the Sands kickstarter and know he is working hard to get it ready for shipment. Cant wait to see that in hand of lanistas across the world!

And finally, I finished my Goodreads reading Challenge which I enjoy each year. 16k odd pages read, unsurprisingly focused in SF and fantasy genres.

If I had to pick a favourite read of the year this would be it

Thanks to all I've chatted and connected with across the year. 

May 2026 be a great year to all.

Black Templar Apothecary

I've loved this model since it came out yet somehow never painted one despite the wonderfully evocative posing. 

Brother Euthenasius of the Black Templars

Having just extracted the progenoid from the deceased battle-brother at his feet, his stares contemplatively at it in remembrance of his fallen comrade before it joins others dangling around his neck, speaking to other recent losses (and ultimately the complete futility of a grim darkness of a far future where there is only War, but I might be reading too much into that...)

Anyway, he joins my growing Black Templars force that I've been working on this year with my Crusader squads.

Painted like the rest of my Black Templars in the Zorn palette style using a combination of Apothecary White (what else?) contrast paint as well as experimenting with some make-up sponge dabbing techniques.  Details were painted separately and assembled at the end. Mars styled basing to match the rest of my BT army.

Submitted to the AHPC16 Challenge here:

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2025/12/from-paul-og-astartes-apothecary-9.html

Its Open Season for AHPC16!

The Wait is Over! 

Thats right! The 16th Season of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has kicked off! 

Around the world, 95 sets of sweaty palms are now desperately grasping brushes to crack on toward their targets. It was particularly cool to have a "paint & chat" session as we crossed the start line

Infamous characters from Canada, US, NZ and Australia

Best wishes to all Challengers and I look forward to seeing the results of your labours!

EDIT for those Anonymous posters:

Constructive comments are welcome. Trolls are not. 

You are welcome to be a harridan, termagant, curmudgeon or misanthrope elsewhere with all your friends.

This hits so hard...

More Black Templars!

I few months ago I confessed to starting some new units for my Black Templars army (which is still back in Australia) just to get the brushes moving again.

https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2025/10/back-on-brushes-crusader-squad.html

I've now finished a second (melee equipped) crusader squad, who are ready for action.

I stayed with the fresher, brighter look for this look, and yellow weapon casings help a lot with that. Its been fun to experiment with the "magma" style effects on the power weapons too.

These 20 wrathful lads are led by the cool new Execrator (read Chaplain) figure.  

When playing Black Templars, you can never field enough Chaplains to chat Litanies of Hate and inspire Righteous Fury in the Brothers. I went with the master crafted power sword just because it looked cool, but he can take a hand flamer or master crafted bolt pistol instead.

Pretty cool model - tempted to get another and make him with different weapons

I spent a bit of time on him, keeping his colours muted to help make the sword pop, and then doing some different OSL effects where the sword glow reflects off his armour. Learned lots.

Just for fun, I entered him into local Honolulu painting competition "Iron Brush". No prizes but did make the top 10, which was nice. It was fun to really focus on quality output and new techniques.

https://other-realms.com/iron-brush-2025

Thats it for now, but expect more Templar love during the upcoming painting challenge

Until next time, Suffer not the Witch, Mutant or Heretic to live!

Hobby Notes

Undercoat Coat - Pro-Cryl Brown Black

Base Coat - thinned Abaddon Black, Corax Black, then heavy drybrush with Dawnstone

Silver: Iron Warriors, Nuln Oil, 

Golds: Belthazar Gold, Agrax Shade, Retributor Gold

Red: Mephiston Red, Thinned Reikland Flesh shade, 50/50 Mephiston / Evil Suns Scarlet

Leather: Vallejo, 

Basing (as per all my other Black Templars)

Martian Ironcrust Technical texture paint

Doombull brown

Tuskgor fur

Reikland Fleshwash shade

Drybrush Tusgor fur and Karak stone

Black Undercoat then Abaddon Black base coat

Review: LUNAR Astronauts

I pre-ordered this from Black Site Studios earlier this year. Its their first foray into plastic for their game LUNAR, with the previous models all being resin. I've been saving these for AHPC and as I'm now prepping them, I thought a review might be useful.

The box comes with two identical sprues. Each sprue has an Astronaut half and a Cosmonaut half (which keeps it clear whose bits are whose) and each with 5 models. So all up the box makes 10 Soviet and 10 American moon walkers in 32mm scale. 

Each model is comprised of a waist&legs bit, a torso with PLSS (personal life support system backpack) cast as a single piece for cosmonauts and separately for astronauts, a helmet or exposed head (makes for a quick game I guess!) and then a series of arms.

Sprue detail - Cosmonauts on the left side, NAAS on the right (BSS picture)

Arms are generally a pick what you like affair, but some are matched (eg labelled 11A and 11B) where they are naturally paired for two handed weapons. Shoulder attachment points are flush so its easy to attach a 3d printed alternative if desired. There are different equipment options for each side but notably weapons are in short supply so don't expect to build them all as rifle toting assault troops with just this box. 

Note that I haven't assembled any models yet, so can't comment on how well they all fit together or if Green stuff is needed for residual gap filling. 

GW style bases are included but I'm considering using clear, transparent bases to blend in better with the lunar (or Martian!) play mat. Also, no decals which is a missed opportunity. But overall a nice boxed set and the plastic will be easier to work with if I want to do conversions.

Thinking I’ll make up one full sprue for now (5 per side) and keep the other intact for when I understand what other weapon combos I might want for our games.

Here are some models that Blogger Mike has posted at his blog - I like the gritty effects he has achieved including gold plated helmet faceshields. You can find his blog and his LUNAR paint recipes here: 

https://medium.com/@wargamermike/lunar-black-site-studios-58c03c92a1de

Mike's great NASA Moon Walkers

This boxed set is available from Black Site Studios here:

https://blacksitestudio.com/products/lunar-multipart-plastic-astronauts

EDIT: BSS have been out of stock of decals for a long time. I've now found an alternative source here:

https://districtminiatures.com/collections/black-site-studios-lunar-32mm

Counting the Trojan pile

Did a bit of a count up of the big box of Bronze Age figs I inherited from a friend who sadly passed away last year and hadn't gotten to this particular project. It was a little melancholy with his hand written labels amongst them, but I know he'll be glad they went to a good home. 

Most are Redoubt figures with a few from Eureka thrown in, and I'll need to split them between "Greeks" and "Trojans" and all their respective Allies. I plan to replace the soft lead spears with wire or something better - I hate that wobbly, bent look.

Line troops

Spearmen - 92 assorted

Swordsmen 54 assorted

Missile troops

Archers (helmets) - 18

Archers (no helmets) - 6

Naked Slingers - 12

Javelins - 18

Lukka - 8

Dendra - 19+1 damaged

Myrmidons - 8

Major Heroes

Achilles

Hector

Sarpedon

Agamemnon

Odysseus

9 light Chariots (2 horses)

Now to see if I can entice Slowpainter John to join me in this endeavour!