The Arena of Escalation has been a long and joyous hobby adventure for all of us participating, but like all things, it must come to an end. Don’t worry, though, because we made sure to wrap up the Arena of Escalation in style, with a day of rolling dice, admiring amazing looking armies, looking up rules, laughing, and of course, looking up rules again (sometimes even the same rule several times!).
For those of you who have been following along with us from the beginning, you know that each contestant in the Arena was tasked with completing an entire army for Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 over nine months. This started with our test models, then our first unit and hero, all the way through several check-ups, including monsters and tanks, and then culminating in our big game day back in November while we were all in Denmark together for the annual holiday party. While some of us hit that 2,000-point goal we set back in March of 2024, others fell a little short, and some far exceeded it – but regardless of the army size, they were all stunning.
We’ve gathered all the contestants from 2024 for one last hurrah to show off their finished collections and tell us in their own words how they conquered the Arena!
Oliver: This challenge has been phenomenal for me. I finally got the motivation to embark on the “Tau adventure” that I had bought so many, many kits for but never started.
Getting that easy-to-handle paint scheme down with the test model we did made sure that I had fun throughout the process, and I think I surprised myself and everyone in the challenge with just how much I got down over the year.
Seeing the army on the table at our game was such a great experience, and it made me want to pursue getting better at 40k in 2025 - I want to play way more than I do now. All in all, the challenge was a success!
Lasse: The Arena of Escalation was a great experience for me. Before this, the last army I painted was my Cryx Warmachine army back in ‘06-‘07, so it was a little daunting to commit, but once I got going, it was awesome. I was much more in the mindset of spending a lot of time on a single mini to make it look as good as possible so being forced to crank out about 50 models and a huge robot was a good learning experience for how to get results fast – something I’m definitely taking with me into 2025!
My Sisters of Battle ended up being very neat and clean, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my next force will be much, much dirtier (maybe in a bit of a celebration of our new John Blanche paints).
Playing the game was also a lot of fun and something I hadn’t done with an army of my own for almost 20 years, and even though we lost, I think my Sisters performed admirably! There was a lot of talk, early on, about everyone doing a display base for their army but somehow, I ended up being the only one to manage that, and I think I’ll be able to hold that over their heads for a long time.
And finally, It’s with great pride that I got my army displayed at the local FLGS in one of their cabinets of miniature art!
Tyler: I don’t think of myself as a particularly slow painter anymore, considering back in the day it would take me years to even finish one army, but this, by far, must be the fastest I’ve ever completed a 2,000-point army! Nine months, 2,000+ points, six tanks (plus one walker), and over 70 infantry and infantry-sized adjacent models. Quite the feat, if I do say so myself, but my Speedpaint heavy method made short work of most of those infantry. This was also my first real foray into airbrushing – using our Warpaints Air line to knock those tanks out faster than a servitor on a Lucius pattern assembly line.
This is also my first Guard army – a force I’ve always wanted to collect but have been a bit too intimidated by the sheer quantity of models needed. Originally, I intended to do a Space Marine force, as evidenced by my test model being an Iron Lords marine. While I loved how they were turning out, they were taking longer than I wanted. On a whim, I decided to paint up a Guardsmen in the scheme I ultimately went with and then decided to try airbrushing a Chimera I’ve had assembled for years. Once I saw how quickly they both went, I knew this project would be the motivation I needed to get the Astra Militarum force of my dreams to the finish line!
On the game day, I also learned just how long it can take to play an army of that size. I’m undaunted though and am looking to expand my army even further this year, but maybe at a little bit of a reduced pace.
Danni: My first ever Warhammer 40,000 army. Wow! Even though it was a small army, and I would have liked to add more units to it, I am extremely pleased with how it turned out.
In hindsight, I think I would have chosen a different colour scheme for them. It was hard to do yellow over black for a newbie, but on the other hand, sometimes you need to start on the deep end and roll with punches. I've learned quite a lot of new techniques on the way, and it was fun to see my early models compared to the last ones I did.
When it came to the actual game day, I was in total panic mode. I had just finished the bases on my models and hadn't had any time to study my army’s abilities and didn't even know how to play 40k at all. But I teamed up with Tyler, and he helped me along the way, which was nice. I still don't know how to play 40k, but it was fun to roll some dice, and I managed to destroy one of Steffen’s Eldar units. So, I'll call that a win. All in all, a 10 out of 10 experience!
Steffen: I ended up with 1,000 points of painted Eldar, even though I had acquired quite a bit more that I simply didn’t get around to before the deadline. Even though I had a bit of a rough start choosing a colour scheme, I really enjoyed painting my orange pointy ears, and I will continue adding units to the army with the new book and models that just came out.
Looking back at the project, I have been reflecting on what I did “wrong” and why I only managed to paint 1,000 points. Even though I have been painting minis for over 25 years, I have never played a lot of games. It has always been more about the painting and storytelling parts of the hobby for me, and this resulted in me kind of winging the whole army list aspect as I went along. A basic list would have helped me focus more on what I actually needed to paint to reach a 2,000 point army. Instead, I got carried away painting my Jain Zar and Avatar and had a blast doing so, but they took up a considerable amount of painting hours.
The other main contributor was the fact that I had several other projects running parallel. One was an army for the Horus Heresy, the other was a labour-heavy competition entry involving a lot of scratch building and a complete repose of a Wraithlord. In the end, it came down to priorities, and the Heresy army was put on hold with the competition entry getting my main attention, leaving the rest of the time to my Eldar. It was the right priority for me to make, and I am very satisfied with the results of both my army and my competition entry.
By late November, we had our big battle, and I teamed up with Oliver and his Tau army. It was great fun, and we got absolutely blown to bits by Tyler’s Astra Militarum and their sly allies from Danni’s Leagues of Votann. All in all, this was a fun project, and I learned a lot about hobby time management and the importance of choosing to focus on projects.
Sofie: Now I’ve finished my first-ever army of miniatures. It’s been a real blast and a lot more work than I imagined. It was a real fun challenge to do, being all new to miniatures and painting, and ending up playing a game with them was icing on the cake.
For me, it was a bit scary because I put a bit too much thought into it. Painting the stained glass for my Immolator was really scary, but by using our Speedpaints, I could better control the layers, and i think it ended up all okay.
Thomas: The Arena of Escalation was a lot of fun to take part in. Sometimes, you need an excuse to get back into painting armies again, and this challenge was perfect for exactly that! I quite quickly decided to throw gameplay and rules out the window and focus 100% on collecting and painting the faction and models I felt most compelled to work on - Imperial Agents.
I had set the bar quite high for my army, both with building and painting, but using Warpaints Fanatic made it possible to keep a relatively high level throughout the army without feeling like it was a chore.
Although I didn’t paint as much for my army as I had planned (Or bought!) I really loved diving into the dark nature of the Inquisition and building weird characters for the army. The hardest part was trying to keep a coherent feel to all the different units I ended up painting for the army, but again, the Fanatic range helped me achieve that with the huge number of colours to pick from.
The most motivating part of the experience was seeing the other armies take shape and then seeing them all in person on the game day. I must admit I was very surprised to see how awesome the other armies turned out! It’s extremely inspiring to see how well everyone else approached the challenge, and I learned a lot from it. I can only recommend that everyone else try it with a group of friends!
Erasmus: The experience of participating in the Arena of Escalation at work has been amazing. It was great to have something to bring us all together throughout the year and make it easy to stay in touch, even across the Atlantic Ocean.
I am very happy with how my army turned out; my only regret is that I did not paint more! Once again, I will continue to hype our Warpaints Air range. It is so good, both through the airbrush and with a regular brush. I could not have done all those fades without it!
To top it all of with a game day at the office, perfection! I got to play along Jonas and help him secure the win against our formidable foes in Adam and Sofie. I cant wait to paint up another army for next year!
Jonas: Looking at my minis on the table, I’m super satisfied with how they turned out. The Grey Knight sculpts are showing their age in terms of detail, but my glowing blue paint scheme takes the focus and makes them stand out on the table. The Knight was my original inspiration to paint up an army. It was such a cool project, and that’s where I feel like I learned the most in terms of new ways of working - I feel like I leveled up.
Speedpaint Fire Drake is such an underrated colour. When I was originally designing the label and measuring the colours for Speedpaint 2.0 it was one of the colours I was personally more skeptical of, but as shading through the airbrush, I can tell you it’s amazing - try it!
As for the game day? Well, I won it all. So, I can’t really be too dissatisfied there, can I? But I want to give credit to Erasmus, who knows Grey Knights much better than me and for helping me play them. It was lucky that we got teamed up in the match.
Jonathan: As a lifelong miniature painter, I was fortunate to get started with The Army Painter last October. During my first trip to our home office in Denmark and meeting my awesome coworkers, I wanted to jump into the Arena of Escalation however I could. There was just one problem - there were less than four weeks until we had our big event!
With a pile of Ultramarines in boxes and a brand-new Fanatic Wargamers paint set, I saw my opportunity. This was the first chance I had to get to work with our Fanatic line, and I was blown away by not only how easy it was to use but also by how easy it was to put together a color palette using the flexible triad system. I was hooked instantly. The next stop for me was using our Metallic Speedpaints, and WOW, what a game changer. With the deadline fast approaching, I went to The Army Painter Blog and found an easy basing tutorial, and my miniatures were based and ready in no time. 1,000 points of Ultramarines built, painted, packed and ready to play in three weeks - I was not going to show up empty-handed. I have to tell you how inspiring it was to see everyone's finished miniatures.
Adam: When we first conceptualized the Arena, the goal was to host a fun project that showcased army painting from many different skill levels, styles, and perspectives.
Throughout the process, I grew to understand that this wasn’t just an exercise in army painting but an investment in continuing the passion that drives this company, its workers, and the products we work so hard to perfect. While I loved the chance to try new techniques and push my army painting prowess to new levels, and I’m very proud of how my Horus Heresy-inspired World Eaters turned out - my biggest takeaway from this was the camaraderie with my peers, the pride we all took in our finished pieces, and the fun we had along the way. Which is why I’m so excited to continue the Arena in its next form in 2025.
As you saw in the video, though the Arena of Escalation for 2024 may be over, the Arena itself is by no means done. It will return this year in an updated and newly minted Arena Challenge format, with all-new contestants, armies, and even game systems! Stay tuned for more on that soon as we get the ball rolling on the next chapter of the Arena here at The Army Painter offices.
