From MikeF - 20x Tyrant’s Legion Armsmen - 20x 28mm - 100 points

 My first post was for the Empire theme and was the command squad for my Tyrant's Legion army. My next entry are 2 squads of Armsmen. Armsmen are basically equivalent to Imperial Guard and are armed in a similar manner. For the armsmen I used the excellent Raumjager infantry from Wargames Atlantic. To give them a little 40k treatment, I replaced the heads with some Rogue Trader inspired heads from Mad Robot Miniatures. Wargames Atlantic is definitely the most cost effective way to add lots of infantry. For $55 CAN, You get 24 models in a box which was enough for the command squad and 2 squads. 

Squad with flamer and missile launcher. The Sgt has a shotgun and knife from the genestealers cultist kit.

Squad with heavy stubber and missile launcher. The Sgt is pointing and holding a lasgun.

20 x 28mm miniatures for 100 points.

Thanks for visiting!

Fine looking squads here Mike, even if I am totally out to sea as what these are!  (I am basically hard of 40K-ing, although I own a few Space Orcs so that I can wreak havoc on our group's rare games).  I appreciate the kit bashing that you've done and there's some nice subtle shading in the drab uniforms and webbing.  I also love the missiles lying around on the ground, and the grim basing ground work style that you've come with.

Tuesday Night Open Mike

 

We've got an interesting assortment of offerings from the Tuesday Terrors for tonight's open Mike.

• MikeF starts us off with some industrial rock
• JohnB brings us some old fashioned trucker music
• Sylvain leads a renaissance/jazz fusion ensemble
• HarryV offers us some tunes from North Africa
• AndrewG will wake us up with a bang.
• MartinC will regale us with tales from the mead hall
• KenR has some old French favourites.
• As always there's always room for more acts.

And as always, you have to put up with my weekly choice of kinda live music choices that fit my eclectic old man tastes.  I'll try to get something from this century for next week, but for now we've got an up and coming indie band from 1983...told you I was old.  Anyway this is apparently REM's first appearance on National TV, and boy did they look awkward and dorky!  I also love that while Michael Stipe is better known for being as bald as a billiard ball, he started out with an impressive mop of curly hair.

Back in the day if it had a driving beat, jangly guitars and mumbled lyrics I was all over it.  There's a lot of good stuff in the REM back catalogue from the days before they were Grammy winning superstars.  And many of them are fun to play on guitar even if I can't get the tone of that Rickenbacker12 string. 

ByronM - Frogdog, Mole Preacher, and Stone Building ( 45 points)

Today I have a group of three submissions that are all vastly different.  Let's start out with my favourite and the oddest, most NSFW one, which of course means a Kingdom Death model.  This is one I have waited a while to get to and paint, the mighty Frogdog and her multitude of dogpoles. This is a huge model, being on a 100mm round base and towering a little over that in height.

This is one of the newer KD models and as is normal in KD, she is anything but normal.  This is a cross between what looks like a simian face and a frog/toad body.  To help add to the strangeness of the model, she has human breasts hanging underneath and 6 human faces on her back, each with a vagina for a mouth and is giving birth to more "dogpoles".  Only in the strange and inhuman world of Kingdom Death could this creature be a thing! 

In game, the monster likes hopping around the swamp from lily-pad to lily pad that it treats as trampolines, sending people flying through the air.  She also charges up her double sphincter before releasing the most noxious of farts (she even has a fart AI deck with various toxic odours ready to release) that cause you to pass out and potentially drown in the swamp.  All in all it sounds like a cool and different fight, which is what KD is all about (although definitely not for everyone!).

Next up I have a small addition for my Burrows & Badgers collection, a small mole preacher.  I call him Friar Tuck, since he reminds me of the outfit in the Disney Robin Hood animated movie, just not big enough or fat enough, but its all they have that is close in the line.  As with all my B&B stuff it is a pretty simple cartoony paint job, but looks good with all the other miniatures.

Lastly, I have a 3D printed stone house from the Greendale line that can be found on myminifactory (there is also an equivalent line called Grimdale that is the destroyed versions of each building).  I printed this on my Anycubic Kobra S1 that I got a few months back, and it did a great job for a filament printer.  

However it did really remind me why I HATE filament prints. The lines and textures are a pain in the ass to work with, and I would really rather have printed in in resin.  The only reason I didn't is that I have about 10 buildings to paint up in this line, and another 10 for the ruined versions, and filament costs about $5 a building to print while resin would be $30-$50 per building.  To be fair, once on the table and at arms reach you can not really see the lines, so while I hate dealing with them, its not really noticeable when you are playing a game with them. 

The building is 5.5" long, 3.5" wide, and 5" tall, making it fairly substantial.  I painted it a stone grey colour to start with, then went in with 5 different shades of tan and brown and started painting random stones different colours.  From there it was washed to mute the colours a bit and then onto the roof and all the details.  Honestly, it too WAY too long to paint and was not worth it in the challenge due to the huge time sink it was as I had to be careful to always wet-brush and not dry-brush for the print lines to show up.  It probably took me twice as long as the frogdog to paint!  I am still thinking of adding some flock and moss to the roof, but decided to leave it for now until all are painted and I decide if I am going to do snow or moss.

And providing a group shot with a standard space marine for scale.

 

Overall these models should give me a grand total of  45 points.  The Frogdog is equivalent to the King I posted earlier in the challenge and should count as a 40mm monster for 25 points.  The mole preacher is a 25mm model for 5 points. Lastly the building is equivalent to many others that I have awarded 15 points to, so am claiming the same for myself here. As always though, points don't really matter to me, I am happy to just be getting stuff done, so adjust as you see fit.

Great stuff here Byron and I'm glad that at least ONE of my Maniacs has a post for Monday! The Frogdog is suitably repulsive and disturbing, and we'd expect nothing less from Kingdom Death of course. I like your paintwork on it and how you picked out the veins in a lighter green, really nice work on a really gross model. The cute li'l mole preacher, what can I say, he is great. Holding forth on the principle that four legs are good and two legs are better, maybe? The Greendale house is a beauty, you've done a great job on the stonework!

Forty-five points duly added.

Dallas

 

From FrederickC - When Life gives you lemons.....

Greetings fellow Challengers.

I was recently contacted by fellow painter, and longtime friend, JP, who was wondering if something was going on, given that we were already near the end of January, and I only had a single post to my name. So if you will indulge me, I will bring you quickly up to speed with what has been happening with me over the past month and a half.  This is not a plea for any kind of sympathy, perhaps in a ploy to get more points (or is it? 😉). When I took my basic infantryman's course so many decades ago, my platoon sergeant correctly informed us that,"if anyone was looking for 'sympathy', could find it in the pages of the dictionary, somewhere between 'shit' and 'syphilis'." And what do you know? There it was. (Those sergeants know everything. 🤣)

 Anyway, just prior to Christmas I experienced a few motor control issues and a fainting spell that were serious enough to need to be investigated further. The end result was that while sometimes life gives you lemons, on other occasions, it's a brain tumour.  But no worries.  After an initial visit to my GP, I was quickly processed with CT and MRI scans, and admitted for surgery. The main tumour was removed after a seven hour operation, and sent off for a biopsy. I had immediate improvement to motor function once it stopped pressing on my brain. Improvement was so rapid that I was  released home after only 3 days post-op. By the end of this week I should have the results, and a plan will be in place for a program of chemo- and/or radiation therapy to deal with the second one that was unfortunately less accessible.  And then we will move forward from there. 

 

Titanium staples that will come out on Thursday.  

I have now been home from the hospital for just over a week, and am feeling much better, although a little tired now and then due to the frequent visits from friends and family who have been kind enough to visit, chat, bring food, etc. Thank you, one and all . I have several projects that are already in the works. (more Terrain - sorry, Byron. 😢, which I will putter at as time and energy permits, until the clock runs out. However far I get, will be how far I get.  

First day back - no need for cane or walker now.

 

The only down side at the moment is that I could kill for a pint of English brown ale, but until further notice it's, 'no booze for youse.' 🍺

 I am sending a big shout-out to the local Fawcett Avenue Conscripts, but most importantly to my lovely wife, Cathy, who has become my PA, 'night nurse', and 'Lord High Everything Else'. 💖💖

  

Cheers, 

FrederickC

It's Monday Again!

Bahamas - Lost in the Light

So on the recent Costa Rica trip my companion liked to play music in the morning. It was quite nice to listen to it while we got ready for the day. So one day I put my own music on, and she asked if I ever listened to any "modern music" - ouch. So I trotted out this banger.

Afie Jurvanen (known professionally as "Bahamas") is a Finnish-Canadian who was born in Barrie, Ontario in 1981. He's released seven studio albums. Bahamas' musical style could probably best be described as folk rock or "adult alternative" (eww). It's very melodic and mellow for the most part. While his music has been nominated for a buncha Junos and other awards, I'd never heard of Bahamas until the financial services company I work for licensed "Lost in the Light" for a television spot. When the commercial was unveiled to the staff I was blown away. To me it's one of those songs that can just bring you to tears, it's so lovely. The female backup singers particularly are fine. I hope you enjoy it.  

Anyway, on to the painting. There's only one lonely post for Monday, but it's a great one with some nice variety. You know if it's Byron there's gonna some disturbing content from Kingdom Death, but it is leavened here with a charming little mole from Badgers & Burrows and a very nice piece of terrain. 

Have a great week.

Dallas

From PeterA: 'Auxies' for the Irish War of Independence (70 Points)

 Last week I had a serious case of the wargaming butterfly, starting 3 different units and finishing none! This week I have been a bit more disciplined and managed to get one of them finished - a unit for The Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC), aka the Auxies. These will join the unit of Black and Tans that I did for the Empire Theme earlier in the challenge. The Auxiliary Division was a paramilitary unit formed to combat the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). Like the Black and Tans, the Auxies were largely formed of ex-British Army soldiers, although in the case of the Auxies they were primarily made up of ex-officers, rather than ex-NCOs. 

In theory part of and subordinate to the RIC, in reality the Auxiliaries operated as an independent force, and were infamous for their aggressive tactics, swift raids, destruction of property and violent reprisals against civilians. They wore the same mixture of British Army khaki and RIC dark green uniforms as the Black and Tans, with the most distinctive feature being the Balmoral hats that they wore.

These figures are mostly from Footsore Miniatures Inter-War Range specifically for the IWI - sadly soon to be discontinued. First up we have a trio of Auxiliary officers - the one with the shotgun is from Footsore, the other two are from Gripping Beast's Woodbine Design Company range of WW1 British. This is a very versatile range as they come with separate heads and GB do a wide range of head variants - in this case I have used the heads wearing Tam O'Shanters (GB don't have a specific Balmoral head variant and these are close enough in appearance).

Next we have an NCO and a Lewis LMG gunner and loader.

Then we have eight men equipped with Lee Enfield rifles.

And finally a group shot of the whole group.

Points-wise that is 14x 28mm figures = 70 points, so I am closing in on halfway to my target for the Challenge.

From Dave. An interesting period I think with various sub divisions with each side . They certainly look the part . 70 pts it is . 

From KillianF - War in the Mountains (53 pts )

 Good day all,

Finally finished a variety of fantasy figures. These Orcs and Dwarfs are Medbury Miniatures(again, STLs 3d printed by myself. I would be remiss not to mention they can be bought in metal from Mr Medbury himself).

 

Firstly, four Orc archers. These guys were painted to be grungy and dirty, with lots of brown and desaturated colour. Indeed, after a zenithal prime of dark grey-grey-tan-white, they got a watered down umber ink wash to shade the entire model. Basecoats were then applied, leaving the brown in the recesses to make them dirty. Quite a few more brown washes followed.

 

The last orc is a banner bearer. The model is essentially a Roman legionary style orc, hence the wolf pelt, single greave and manica on the right arm.

The banner is tomato puree foil, covered with PVA soaked tissue to provide texture and an easily paintable surface. I freehanded another banner, because I like painting evil eyes in bright red on a backdrop of Payne's Grey. I added the traingle border on a whim, which was ultimately a silly idea. Painting that many tiny triangles is a recipe for insanity. However, it's an orc banner so I did not worry myself with making it neat.

Next are five dwarf rangers, also from Medbury. I enjoyed adding colour and texture to their clothing: I wanted them to look fitted out for running around a cold mountain. I really like Medbury Dwarfs, they're very serious, with clear (but not overwhelming) historical influences. I've got another 15 or so rangers, and a lot more heavily armoured dwarfs. I may dip into a few more before the challenge is over.

I've just noticed a few bits of kit I forgot to paint

Points:

5x 28mm Orcs: 25

5x 28mm Dwarfs: 25

Total: 50 points

2 Squirrels (5 total) 

From DaveD . Still the great work continues from you . The camera never lies does it ! Great work on the Tomato Purée foil banner . It’s a perfect media for it So it’s 53 points from me 

From DaveV - 28mm Sedition Wars Space Station Doors - 10 pts.

 

For my first terrain entry for this year's challenge, I offer a set of doors for my ongoing Sedition Wars project. The geomorphic, double-sided board tiles in the game show various types of doors that the players must fight through: standard doors (white), airlock doors (red), and section doors (blue), with varying effects on movement and line of sight. For example, standard doors automatically open when models move adjacent and close automatically when they leave, but airlock doors require the payment of 2 movement points to open or close.

One of the more involved Kickstarter rewards was a plastic terrain set, which included several of each type of door, cast in a hard, somewhat brittle plastic. The terrain set can be found on the secondary market, on sites such as eBay.

I have run Sedition Wars at some conventions, and have one coming up (GAME-ITOBA). It's always a challenge keeping track of open/closed doors, so I decided to paint up some doors. Closed Door = model door on the table; Open Door = remove door model. Easy!

Painting

I selected 7 regular doors, and a couple each of section and airlock doors. The doors are detailed on both sides, with deep cuts, and pronounced lights/switched. The plastic is hard, and the mould lines were very pronounced. After cleanup with a very heavy file (it's almost a foot long with heavy teeth) and some touching up with sanding sticks, I decided the cleanup was "good enough". 

I primed all the doors with Chaos Black and did some zenithal highlights with Corax White on the regular doors. I used and White Scar on the airlock and section doors, focusing the latter two on the doors themselves, as opposed to the frames. The regular doors ended up a kind of light grey, which worked out. I used Army Painter Dragon Red and Ultramarine Blue to differentiate the airlock and section doors.  

I added some graffiti decals from Warlord Games' 2000 AD line, and several warning signs from Hasslefree miniatures. 

The game's board tiles show a damaged, war-torn space station. Empty cartridge casings, blood smears, and the like are rendered on the tiles. Accordingly, I heavily weathered all the doors with a selection of coloured pigments, powders, pigment fixative, acrylic paint, and panel line detailing liquids. Some final detailing with small lights, rendered with flat white followed by fluorescent acrylics, completed the doors. Testors Dullcote sealed it all in.

Below, standard doors:

After some coaxing, the graffiti decals went down with decal set and solvent solutions. Some of the graffiti decals broke apart; old decals.

Below, "No Firearms Beyond This Point"? "Caution Laser Beam"? By the time the game starts, these warnings are obsolete.

Below, section doors, which divide the board tiles:

Airlock doors, with General Warning (hazardous environment) and Cryogenic Hazard (low temperature zone) signs. 

Below, some of the doors on a Sedition Wars board tile, with some Sedition Wars figures I painted before. 

Scoring:

All 11 of the doors are around 2.5 inches wide, and around 1.75 inches tall. Cleanup was a pain, but the painting itself was not too difficult. Whatever my final post tally, I enjoyed painting these, and they enhance the game.

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 Beautiful work Dave and I am sorry that the challenge doesn't award points for quality, but just for getting things done.  That said, these are lovely, and I like all the extra details and work done to them to give them that gritty look.  They make a great addition to a great game, that I really wish more people would have given a chance.

Overall though, 11 doors are a pretty easy paint task for most people and would likely take about the same time to paint as 2 normal models.  I know you spent way more time than that on them, but I can only award what would be normal.  So I am awarding 10 points as I think an average paint job for them would take in the 3-4 hour range.

-Byron 

 

From AndrewG: Dark Ages Terrain (40 Points)

I realized last week that I didn’t have any arrow storm markers for my medieval and renaissance period games. I generally don’t like seeing a table littered with tokens and markers, so I’m always keen to find ways to minimize the impact of these on the aesthetic if possible. A bit of searching online turned up this idea – quick and easy and does the trick. I finished one as a test piece and will eventually make a bunch more.

Chessex mini dice, greenstuff, arrows from Perry miniatures, and a 28mm flat base

Going into the holidays I picked up some of the new plastic Dark Ages/Medieval scatter terrain kits produced by Victrix and Wargames Atlantic (WGA). These are great kits jammed with useful items and offer great variety for creating some great pieces. This first batch was built on 40x60mmx2mm bases – I had great fun making these and look forward to getting a second batch done before the end of the challenge.

This includes bits from the WGA Fantasy Town Guards set

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Here we have some great terrain pieces that really show why size is not a great way to score terrain.  While each base here is fairly small and all together would not make even one 6" cube in the old scoring system, there is a lot of detail here to deal with!  While you kept the painting fairly simple there is still a ton of little details scattered everywhere and they look lovely.  

If I had to guess, most of the bases probably took at least as long as a single figure to paint.  I see a few that were likely a bit faster as they have a few less things on the base, but to keep it easy and to count the lovely little arrow marker in, I am going to go with 5 points a base and keep it simple, for a total of 40 points.   

-Byron 

From PaulSS: Barons' War foot troops - 100pts

 Another productive week on the Barons' War collection with 20 new foot soldiers painted.

The first trio is a Knight and a pair of Serjeants.

The Knight is an example of using a simple VVV shield decal as part of the basecoat and then adding a couple of highlights at a later stage.

A trio of three more foot Serjeants.

It's a petty good shot of the arrow through the shield, these spare arrows from the Peasants set are really useful for this.

I always seem to be needing more crossbowmen so another seven were added.

There is only one loose quiver per sprue so I did some creative solutions with the "hand on quiver" arms, trimming off the hand and arm and either leaving an empty quiver, or covering with a bedroll.

These two archers will slot into existing units.

The last group is five more spearmen to add to existing units

Twenty more 28mm figures will add another 100pts to my total. 

From DaveD . More study in browns from Paul. Though some extra colour about as well. You are consistently knocking these out and the group shot will be epic . 100 it is .