From TeemuL: Skull army (40 points)

A new squirrel, a new army, a new scale, a new setting... Things you do in the Challenge. Warmaster has always been somewhere there at the back of my head. It is common knowledge, that the rule system is good and that the original minis are great and worth of gold, so getting them is not that easy. However, last year I managed to buy a second hand army for Warmaster, Undead horde. Mostly it was already nicely painted and based, some of the stuff was primed black and some are still in blisters (hidden somewhere in my hobby room, so that by-passing Curt won't get too excited). I like to paint with the minis I have painted myself, but prior this moment I had done nothing with these minis. There has been couple of inspiring posts of Warmaster in this very Challenge, so I dug the box up and saw a squirrel in there. I took some of the black primed minis, removed the primer and basecoated them white and painted with Contrast paints to get an quick and easy result with the new army and scale. Skeleton Horde does very good job on the bone areas (a lot). I was thinking blue clothes, but I did that for my Runewars skeletons and that is too close to Tomb Kings, so I wanted something different. I thought about green, mocking all the living, to whom the green is usually associated. I was scared they would look like wood elfs or something so I wanted another color and chose the royal purple. Green and purple work nicely together, I have discovered that with my Death Guard and Genestealer Cult - colour theory might approve my selection. I figured out that I would need bold colours in this scale to see what is on there, so chose to paint the bows (traditionally) red and the arrows in black. Against the bone colour all these colours pop nicely, it doesn't look too chaotic and it is quite easy to see that they are wearing bows and lances and shields here and there.

I ended up painting a big skull on the banner, basically it is a common motif in Undead armies and secondly all the skulls just improve the silly skulliness of the Challenge. And because I could, I painted 5 small skulls next to the big one and added a small skull on each of the shields as well - using Ushabti Bone for skull and Rhinox Hidefor eyes. I have learnt that non-white is good for skulls and non-black is good for eyes or eye sockets - please feel free to experiment, if you haven't already. So yes, if my post from yesterday was a tongue-in-cheek nod or tribute to the fabulous Wednesday crew, this post could be a nod towards Barks and his neverending job of spotting skulls and all the good humoured silliness we have seen regarding the before mentioned skulls. There would be lots of other groups and persons (all of you) in this Challenge I'd like to make some special nod now that I think of it, but time is running out.

This was a new army and scale for me, but I really liked painting these, at least these undeads were a joy to paint. I chose the green bases for them, partly because of the Oldhammer feeling, partly because I wanted something else than the usual desert (I guess this is an invading army) and partly because that was something I was able to do. So that is base painted green, then gluings some sand and waiting to dry. Then soaking with green wash and drybrushing with bright green, once the wash was dry. There were some nice sculpted rocks etc on the bases, which are not so visible anymore, but I painted the rocks grey. I hope to add more bases on this army (slowly as usual), so you might see more of these in the future. I have couple of squirrels in sight, so this won't be my last post, but last one to show these.

These are all original metal miniatures from Games Workshop in 10mm, 8 mounted and 24 on foot, worth 2 and 1 points respectively, 40 in total. That also gives me a new squirrel and 33 sculpted skulls (one per mini plus the one at the head of banner) and 26 freehand skulls, if they are worthy, no planets, since I already used Arda yesterday...

My personal Squirrel count: 17

20mm Napoleonic
28mm Sludge
28mm Pulp
28mm Warhammer 40000 Xenos
28mm General (including Gloranthan) Fantasy
1:300 Cruel Seas
6mm Epic Imperial Fists
28mm ADD Boardgame
28mm Runewars Waiqar
28mm Blood Bowl
28mm Simians
15mm Mid War Germans
28mm Age of Sigmar Sylvaneths
28mm Warhammer 40000 Imperium
28mm Warhammer Fantasy Orcs & Goblins
28mm Lord of the Rings Mordor
10mm Warmaster Undead

We have certainly been spoiled with an unexpected Warmaster resurgence this Challenge. Congratulations on acquiring these figures! Your Squirrel count is impressive- but not as impressive as your dedication to the skull tally! Freehand skullz definitely count.

Barks