Well hello there, it's been a while, I haven't picked up a brush for about 5 years and was on the verge of giving up the hobby all together. My collections have grown and quite a high proportion of my collection remains unbuilt, unpainted and still boxed.

My enjoyment of the game has waned with the new edition releases, I wasn't overly keen on 5th, 6th was hard work, 7th introduced some awful changes and 8th is trying to be simple but is even more complex than ever. 4th still remains my favourite edition closely followed by 5th, despite it being the beginning of daft and pointless rules.

That said GW does seem to have listened, at least in part, to the players and collectors. They're now releasing some excellent boxed games. The most notable of these is the latest edition of Necromunda. A skirmish games set in the bowels of massive cities in the 40k universe. It was with much excitement that I bought my copy of the game, which has remained in mint condition for the last few months.

Another game that came out was Shadespire, it's a 2-4 player skirmish game set in what was known as the Warhammer Fantasy universe, small groups of models battle each other for some reason or another. I never really played Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but I do have a favourite race from the game, the Skaven. They're vicious, devious ratmen. Cowardly, cunning and spiteful. I discovered that a Skaven expansion set for Shadespire was available. It contained 5 fantastic models and I decided that I had to have them, so they were bought. Then I looked closely at the photos of the painted models and thought they really looked hideously brilliant. The detail is incredible and each model tells a story, I didn't feel that my painting skills would do them justice. I asked one of the guys from the Thursday night group if he would paint them for me, he's much better at it than I am. In between me handing them over and Jack returning them, I bought another Shadespire expansion, Sepulchral Guard, 7 models represent animated skeletons. Ever since watching Jason and the Argonauts and the skeleton fight scene I've like skeletons from the fantasy setting, so I had to buy them, rude not to. The models stayed in the box for a few weeks, I considered asking Jack if he would paint those as well. Then he returned the Skaven in all their colourful glory. The models look fantastic, Jack if you ever read this "Thank you so much!"

Jack's work on the Skaven triggered something in my head, and I decided that I'd paint the Sepulchral Guard models myself. With absolute respect to Jack, I'm so glad I did. As I write this I have almost almost finished the fourth of the 7 models, the rest should be finished by Sunday evening, Monday at the latest. When they're done I plan to paint some of the models from the Necromunda set.

A copy of the full Shadespire game has been ordered and I'm looking forward to painting the 8 models in that. That means I'll have 4 complete warbands for the game.

So my love of the hobby has been restored and I'm painting again, and I have Jack to thank.

Below are images of the completed Sepulchral Guard models, I'm not putting the Skaven images up as I didn't paint them, but trust me, they are stunning.

When the last 3 models are done I'll post photos.

Until then, here's some skeletons.

This one's my favourite of the set