First look at the new IJA infantry by Warlord Games

I was kindly sent the new plastic Japanese Infantry by Warlord Games. While I will dedicate a proper article to a more indepth look at these, I couldn't resist building two miniatures already and thought I'd write down my thoughts.

First and foremost I am happy to see that the new sculpts are remarkably better than the old racist caricature-like sculpts. While the new sculpts are also somewhat squinty they don't feel nearly as bad, but until I've painted up a face I can't be too certain.  

Similar to the Soviet kit this box comes with extra parts to build jungle fighters and even SNLF which comes in handy if you're looking to build armies of those branches. However on the downside the weird leaf ponchos for the jungle fighters in this kit are not very good, they don't properly rest on the shoulders and look very much like a toy attachment and less like actual leafs.

I've tried using two of the loose leaf bits to emulate something like the poncho which given the more fitting nature looks much better in my opinion. Lastly we have only one pistol arm in this set which makes it hard to do dynamic sergeants, especially since the arm pose is a little less dynamic than I would've like it. But that rounds out my thoughts on building these guys, rest assured I'll dedicate more than a few hours to this kit whenever I'm done with my exams. 

The First Miniatures of 2025

Since this blog will be my little corner to show off my stuff, I figured I would pepper in some old photos of minis I painted over the last few years. Yesterday's post saw me finishing the first miniature of 2025, so what better place to continue than with what I finished first last year.

Quickbeam the Ent

Quickbeam is part of an ongoing commission for a friend to paint his Lord Of The Rings miniatures; I had already finished him for the most part but actually got to finishing him off in early 2025, adding moss tufts into his roots to make him look more overgrown and adding shrubs and flowers to his base. I sadly forgot to write down how I painted his bark, since to this day I think he is the best looking Ent I have painted.

Wounded Mordians

A few years ago I got hold of these Praetorian Casualties, I actually also picked up some Praetorians, but since I have a full army squad of Mordians and the praetorians are just modified Mordian sculpts, I decided to make these guys Mordians, painting them primarily with the paints from the Nostalgia '94 starter set. If you have never heard of Nostalgia '94, it is a full range recreating the paints Citadel released in 1994 in the large hexagonal pots. I actually wrote a review on them back in 2023 over on Goonhammer if you want to take a closer look at that.

Ever since I occasionally tried to paint full miniatures with just those old paints and these two guys are the most impressive I have pulled off so far I think. Although recently I have tried to pick up more of these paints, since I cannot mix all kinds of paints all the time. If you want to pick up some of these paints and support me, I got an affiliate link for the starter set.

Anyways, these three were the first minis I finished back in 2025, giving me quite the head start, which I then promptly fumbled and didn't paint more than 30 minis or so in 2025... oops.

The first Miniature of 2026

Halfway into January and I finally finished my first miniature this year. Not just that, this guy was snipped out, assembled and painted in six hours. This beats last year's first finished miniature which was an already started project I just took the time to finish + six hours from assembly to painting is pretty quick for my standards.

The Tomb Kings were my favorite army when I was a little kid and sadly they kinda fell to the way side over the years, I have plenty of models but haven't painted up too many of them. While my projects for this year don't see me changing that, who knows when inspiration and childhood whimsy will strike.

Anyways, nothing huge but I thought I'd share the first miniature finished this year as it is a small achievement in my books. 

Blog Revival

Four years ago I started this blog with the intention of sharing my hyperfixations with all of you in a more central location; In pursuing this I ended up being offered to write these articles for Goonhammer and so my focus fell away from this blog and I honestly forgot about it. Now I write semi regularly for Goonhammer, but I think I want to have my own little corner on the Internet to share things that maybe don't fit into a neat article. Plus here I've got no oversight! 

So, what can you expect from this blog? Well anything really; My hobby attention is about as fickle as a cat's and so I regularly switch focus and projects, leaving behind half painted miniatures. While I aim to somewhat mend my ways this year, I will still be relatively chaotic and that is okay; It is my hobby after all and if I am not having fun why do it, right?

But on a more serious note, I will most likely use this space to share my collection of weird and wonderful old miniatures, there are also a handful of games I want to explore and maybe writing about it will keep me focused and actually get me to play them. There will also be the occasional painting guide, although I was considering doing those for Ko-Fi and Patreon(that is if people would care to support me in these ways).