Painting Panic, Market Finds, and ToW Tools We’re Already Relying On
We’ve had one of those very Wiatry Magii weeks where everything happened at once: tournament stress, emergency-speed painting plans, second-hand model hunting, and of course a completely unnecessary-but-also-amazing side quest into Warhammer: The Old World tooling.
In other words: hobby is alive and well.
The immediate problem: painted minis, preferably before the championship
end3r opened the week with the kind of sentence that every hobbyist understands on a spiritual level: not only would he like to have a painted team for the championship — he actually has to.
Naturally, our first reaction was the proper one: encouragement, followed by offers of backup painting support, followed by jokes about stripping everything in IPA after the event if necessary. A healthy hobby ecosystem.
And honestly, that mood carried through the whole conversation. We’re all trying to push projects over the line, but in the least glamorous way possible: shortcuts, compromises, and the noble art of deciding what actually matters from tabletop distance.
Speed painting Salamanders like reasonable people
end3r’s plan for the team was beautifully pragmatic. The armour is the priority, because that’s what sells the look. Skin? Fast peachy flesh. Hair? One shade of ginger. Plasma? Forget the “easy tutorial” that somehow needs seven blues, three mediums and a PhD in glazing — dark blue, then lighter blue with white, drybrush, done.
That is a deeply relatable level of realism.
A little later we got first progress shots, and the funniest part is that the shortcut approach actually worked really well. A bit of black tied everything together and suddenly the models looked much closer to finished than expected.
Then came the update that really matters in deadline season: two out of ten done, details still ahead, but the whole thing finally looked achievable.
We also got into the eternal basing question. Lava was considered, then rejected after the usual discovery that “simple basing tutorial” often means “just spend four extra evenings on it”. Ready-made lava bases from Safe and Sound entered the discussion, but in the end the minimalist route seemed more likely: Astrogranite or Agrellan Badland for the team, and saving the full scenic treatment for a larger army later.
That whole exchange felt very familiar to us: for display projects we dream big, for event deadlines we become ruthless efficiency consultants.
Meanwhile, the rest of us were also making questionable but exciting decisions
Michał reported a proper old-school market score: 15 Skaven Gutter Runners from 3rd edition, dating back to 1992, plus an Empire Captain destined to become a Renegade Captain for the Renegade Crowns. All of that for 80 PLN plus shipping, which is exactly the kind of deal that makes you immediately forgive whatever state the miniatures are in.
At the same time he was also sleep-deprived for all the right reasons, pushing Lammas forward with an airbrush through the night.
We also had a brief moment of appreciating a very interesting-looking Starcragt release/update/box sighting — one of those hobby moments where we may not yet know whether we need it, but we definitely need to look at it.
And because hobby progress is always better with perspective, Michał also dropped an older shot of a frigate from a year ago as a point of comparison.
We love these moments. Even when a project still feels unfinished, comparing it to where it started is often the best reminder that yes, it actually is getting somewhere.
Stas accidentally kept building useful tools instead of resting
The other major thread this week was Stas dusting off a December side project and then immediately escalating it.
The starting point was towd, which currently exists as:
- a database with queryable The Old World data,
- a CLI tool for fast fuzzy searching,
- generated HTML/Markdown/text compilations of the data.
Here’s the project page:
And because every ToW player has by now developed strong opinions about reference tools, the obvious comparison was with this one:
Stas showed us side-by-side comparisons of his output and the existing solutions, along with the sort of layout and information density he was aiming for.
What we liked here was that this wasn’t just “let’s make another army builder”. The point was having data in a form that can be queried, reused, exported and eventually maybe fed into other tools. That’s a different kind of useful.
Naturally, within minutes the conversation turned into: could this become an army builder? Could it be plugged into other systems? Could Hashut be taught to use it? Could there be a UI?
As always, one practical answer was: yes, probably. Another practical answer was: first let the CLI live.
Then it got gloriously out of hand: combat simulations
Once Stas had the data pipeline in place, a new project appeared almost immediately: a combat simulator.
This is exactly the kind of feature that starts as “just a quick test” and ends with everyone throwing impossible matchups into it.
At first it was Black Orc Mobs versus Infernal Ironsworn, and the results were… educational for the orcs.
Later, after adding Motley Crew and full command, the numbers got less tragic, but still not exactly encouraging. Then we moved on to boar boys into Ironsworn, which felt more promising until the percentages reminded us that doing some damage and actually winning are not always the same thing.
Then came perhaps the clearest result of all: Night Goblins into Ironsworn. A thousand simulations. Zero hope. Ninety-nine percent chance of breaking in the first round.
Beautiful. Cruel. Very Old World.
We also got a first visual mockup of a possible UI direction for the sim, which is still buggy, but already has that dangerous “this could become genuinely useful” energy.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, a parcel locker delivery arrived — the classic hobby side plot that instantly raises morale.
Useful ToW tools are multiplying, which is both great and slightly dangerous
We also stumbled onto another app that looks genuinely promising for actual gameplay flow:
The idea is great: import lists, track phases, keep the game moving. Exactly the kind of thing that can make a long event day much smoother.
That said, the immediate follow-up was also very on-brand: if something is heavily vibe-coded, players will eventually find the same rules bugs that we’ve all been stepping on elsewhere. In this case, examples included things like charge combat resolution bonuses or weird handling around magic phase assumptions.
Which led neatly into one of those tiny but important rules clarifications that absolutely save somebody from a tournament argument later: Volley Fire doesn’t work if the unit moved that turn, including reforming, and it also doesn’t work on a Stand & Shoot reaction.
That one didn’t change the outcome of the game we had just played — because the shooting in question achieved approximately nothing — but it’s exactly the kind of detail that matters when refining a list. Michał was already considering whether bows were worth dropping in favour of shields and a sturdier defensive profile.
And honestly, that’s the part we enjoy most about army-building: not just writing lists, but gradually trimming away options that look cute on paper and replacing them with things that actually survive contact with the enemy.
Side quests, as always
Because no week is complete without hobby-adjacent rabbit holes, a few more links made the rounds.
A second season announcement for I HAVE NO LUCK, AND I MUST SCREAM definitely got shared with excitement:
There was also a glorious “we need this kind of setup” kind of inspiration post:
And finally, for anyone doing campaigns, maps, lore routes or just trying to remember where exactly Tilea is supposed to be this week, this one got a lot of respect from us:
The real theme of the week
If we had to sum up this stretch of chat in one sentence, it would be this: we are all trying to make our armies, tools and hobby plans just a little bit more usable before they need to perform in the real world.
Sometimes that means accepting fast skin recipes and drybrushed plasma because the team needs to be on the table. Sometimes it means buying 1992 metal weirdos because they’re perfect for a future list. Sometimes it means writing a CLI and then accidentally inventing a combat simulator because you wanted cleaner data. And sometimes it means discovering that your goblins were, in fact, never going to beat Ironsworn and you should stop asking them to.
That’s army-building too.
Not just points and unit entries — but all the messy decisions around time, tools, modelling, painting, rules knowledge and sheer optimism.
And honestly? We love that part.