by Seanzor

Cancon 2024 might be over, but appreciating the quality of hobbyists that were on display during the tournament may very well live on until Cancon 2025. I have with me Tim Barklay, who took the top prize of Coolest Army with a wild trip into gothic, evil faeries and wood creatures. This is a hectic project and definitely fit the theme of full over-the-top greatness that Cancon Coolest Army winners tend to nail (see also Metal Barrels full of Dwarves, Wooden Boxes Full of Speakers and Eldritch Horror sculptures). Tim went with a forest on the back of a skeleton, WOAH!

This is a wild army, what was your biggest inspiration for the project?

I approached this army very differently to how I normally would. Usually I have an idea for a theme, pick the models and make the army (for example, my current project is a Troggoth Pro Wrestling promotion), but this one came together gradually over about 2 years. It started with a Blood Knight conversion. I love the idea of vampire cav, but not a huge fan of the traditional gothic look and wanted something sleek and lean rather than heavily armoured. Turns out Slaanesh Slickblade Seekers fit quite nicely on Chaos Marauder horses. I had a blast making the first one, but other projects took precedence and it went on the back-burner.

About 6 months after that I thought it would be cool to try and model a Vargheist tearing someone’s head off, partly for the challenge of balancing everything, and partly because it’s just a cool idea. So I made that as a one-off and put it aside.

Then, about a year ago, I acquired some Plague Drones and was attracted to the wings. I had seen a Mortarion painted up with moth-like eyes on his wings and thought it looked cool, so I decided to create a dark fae moth inspired Vampire Lord. Jump ahead another 6 months and I was thinking about a possible Cancon army, and these three models all seemed to work with one another, and so the Dance of the Glimpsewoad Faeries was born!

Love Richard Gray’s Mortarion with the eyes as well. Epic! So does having an event like Cancon help you stay motivated to complete such a major undertaking?

Absolutely. As you can tell from the previous question, I like to faff around a lot with projects. I’ll have an idea, start it, have a different idea and abandon it. CanCon has traditionally been my “Actually make an army” motivation. I don’t play AoS often, so having a a clear deadline is super helpful. The majority of the army was put together in the 3 months leading into the event. If I didn’t have that deadline, I would still be pottering about on it!

Deadlines definitely help. So was this project specifically for Cancon?

Absolutely. While I may take it to a couple of other events this year, It was primarily for CanCon. Being Australia’s biggest tabletop convention and AoS tournament, you’ll never see the same army from me, and I love the idea of premiering my new armies at the event. It may sound a little conceited, but I love showing the community what I can do that pushes the bounds of this wonderfully creative hobby.

And we love seeing them! After playing the army at Cancon, does your project also satisfy an enjoyable game play experience for you?

Pretty much. It didn’t do so well at the tournament (1-4) and when I run it again I will definitely make changes, but it suits my preferred tournament play style. I find 5 games over two days absolutely exhausting, so I don’t want an army with a bunch of tech or a something that’s going to be a grind. This army is in your face turn one, and if it hits hard enough, I’m golden, otherwise it’s all over. Three of my five games were finished at the top of Turn 3. I know that’s not everyone’s cup of Kombucha, but it works for me.

I’m also not a fan of pushing a heap of models around; this army is 19 models, and I think my next adaption of it will be 14 models and 6 warscrolls. Maybe I need to get into Sons of Behemat…

Now some more general questions from the community: what do you wish you knew about painting / hobbying when you first started?

Like every major army project, I learned a ton with this one. I spent a lot of time improving my airbrush blending, for one. I’ve been using my airbrush for years, but I feel like there’s still so much to more I can be doing with it. I would say I laid down about 70% of the colour in this army with my airbrush. I developed a better understanding of when to adjust air pressure as well. I also did more sculpting in this army than I normally would. I wish I knew how to sculpt fur – I’m still figuring that out.

I wish I knew how much work I would have to do to convert Blissbarb Archers into fairies. I had to completely resculpt the chests of several models, remove all the archery stuff, resculpt thighs, braids, shoulders – it was a ton of work! I wish

I knew I could use liquid latex to cover the wire armature of trees. I discovered that about halfway through thanks to a Luke Towan video. I was using hot glue, and it was super hard to control. Liquid latex just brushes on for a really good result.

Generally at this stage in my hobby, it’s less about acquiring skills (although that still happens regularly – I learned how to make glowing mushrooms out of silicone) and more about improving on the skills I already have. That sounded arrogant again – what I mean is I’m bad to mediocre at a lot of different things and I need to work hard to become mediocre to good at them!

I feel that Tim, I definitely feel like it’s easy to half-learn a lot of things in minis and it isn’t until you get a chance to really dig in on a subject that you move into real mastery. Considering how much mastery you’ve got in the minis realm, do you have any hobbies other than miniatures – do you even have the time?

I love everything tabletop – board games, RPGs, etc. That takes up most of my free time. I’m also an avid reader and I love the theatre. I act and direct in our local community theatre and I direct and produce our school play each year (I’m a high school English, Art and Drama teacher). I also love to build things. I built my gaming table and most recently I built 15 square meters of bookshelf with a rolling library ladder.

Lovely mate. Creativity coming from all sides. Now this is in the bag, what’s the next project you are looking towards?

I’m taking a break from Warhammer minis for a few months to catch up on my backlog of Harry Potter and Rumbleslam minis. While I’m not a huge fan of the Harry Potter Miniatures Adventure Game, the minis themselves are incredible. Rumbleslam, however, is a bonkers fun game with bonkers fun minis. My next AoS army, though, is going to be the Pro Wrestling Troggherd. Reposing is one of my favourite ways of converting a miniature and I’m really looking forward to reposing them to be doing wrestling moves, chair shots, etc. I’m going to have goblin refs and commentators and a goblin boss strutting down to the ring looking very Mr McMahon (the character, not the man). I was thinking it would be cool to pose them in such a way that if you put two of their bases together, one is performing a move and the other is receiving it. And of course you know there’s going to be a full wrestling arena display!

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I can’t wait to see what Tim comes up with for the wrestling Troggherd. Been a fan of so many of his conversions and army projects, so I can imagine it’s going to be absolutely stellar. Thanks again Tim, and congrats at taking out Coolest Army at one of the world’s biggest events!

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