My Best Figure of 2025

This year has been a disaster in terms of miniatures painted, in fact, I think I played more games than miniatures I painted!! Which is good in terms of gaming, but really bad for the hobby!

Honestly speaking, there is not much to choose. I have a handful of Wood Elves and some Titans from my Legions Imperialis Army therefore the choice was quite obvious... the Warlord Titan I painted back in March!

Wild Riders (I)

I can't believe it but the last post was in August!

To be fair, those miniatures were painted a bit earlier so in reality I have not painted miniatures since early July... lots of things happened in my personal life that kept me away from the hobby. All my belongings were in boxes as I moved and it was a very stressful time... Therefore, I am quite happy that I finally was able to open up boxes and picking up brushes again just before the end of the year!

I have not played a lot with these Wild Riders but they are the quintessential wood elf, or glass cannon, they pack a punch but they wear no armour whatsoever, have frenzy and very difficult to play. But if you play your cards well they can win you a game!

I have added a Great Stag to my Army that I hope to paint in 2026 to go with these guys.

Spellweaver

And here is the last hero I have painted so far! It is the same miniature as the Spellsinger but if you look closely you will see the Staff is curved in a weird way... that is because it snapped and I was forced to pin it, and while I did my best... it did not ended up completely straight.

I tried giving this one some more fancy colours since it is typically a level 4 wizard, and that's why it has a red sword and some funky eyes. The end result is not particularly good but it is easy to spot him on the battlefield so that makes me happy.

Spellsinger

This one has been painted for a while but did not have time to finish the base and take good pictures, so here it is!

I typically play with two wizards on steed, one with each Glade Rider unit. This is the Spellsinger (lower level) and as such I used a simple metal sword and bone staff, as opposed to the other one where I chose more "magical" colours.

I am particularly happy about how this horse turned out.

Glade Riders (II)

These are the second unit of Glade Riders also fully painted!

The are another six with music.

The main difference here is that I have magnetized one of them, to be used as either a plain archer or a Standard Bearer as I sometimes play a unit of 12 with Standard.

The way I differentiate these two units on the field is by the colour of their arrows (red / blue).

I think they look quite nice once in formation and I am satisfied with the end result despite the huge amount of time invested in them.

Glade Riders (I)

Finally, the first unit I have finished!

These are 6 Glade Riders with music, a unit that is practically in all of the lists I play.

I chose to paint them first because I paint horses and riders separately and therefore transporting them is a pain until they are fully painted.

I am relatively happy with the result but there are lots of things I should have done different. To begin with, spending less time in these! The en result is not as good as it should be for the amount of time I spent on them. I blame my poor eyesight and lack of focus lately.

In addition, I have been experimenting a lot with different styles, techniques and ways to approach these figures as they are the first elves I ever paint. I can clearly see my painting style is better suited for something more grimdark.

In addition, I bought these second hand and I did not realize that at the time, but they were not in the best condition. They have scratches and broken pieces and despite my best efforts, I still failed to notice a few areas that I did not scrape properly and you can notice all of these imperfections.

Nevermind now, because they are painted and ready for battle!

The colours are exactly the ones I posted before. The only change is that I tried to apply more "texture" to the clothes by simulating leaves or other interesting patterns instead of plain highlights. I am not entirely sure if the end result is good or just weird. Need to think more about it. In addition, I decided to skip a few steps and use plain colours from the pot instead of mixing and creating so many intermediate tones, as otherwise I was taking even longer to paint these.

Archers (I)

I finally had the time to go ahead and finish the first test model by adding the last bits of grass to it. Just the first one to test some colours and highlights. I will keep on tweaking the style as I paint more of these.