Sunday 12 February 2023

SkullWatch XIII 4

Teemu and Stuart remain at the top of the skullpile, exhausted by their earlier exertions. ChrisW leaps up the rankings! I intend to join the race this week- not quite hare and tortoise style, but enough for my dignity.

  • TeemuL 512
  • StuartL 200
  • ChrisW 72
  • Sander 63
  • DavidB 46
  • PeteF 26
  • MikeW 18
  • GregB 12
  • Barks 0

MikeW's dependable Orks

KyleC's stylish dice tower

SimonG's fashion accessories

ChrisW has classic Egyptian undead...

... and a garden of skullz!

Sanders' Heroquest

JamesM has a skull-festooned beastmen gang...

... and this rogue doc with her skully companion

SteveA's necromancer and pals

PaulOG's turnip toady


Skull of the Week

Byron does another skullicious limousine!

Late entrants are welcome! Don't forget to:

a) tag your post 'Skull duel'

b) state the number of skullz and your cumulative skullz

c) notify Millsy via the Side Duel Spreadsheet (in the right sidebar)



Challenge XIII: Midway Statistical Check In

 

Many of you have been asking about the Statistical Updates on the Challenge.  I constantly get bombarded with requests "we need stats" or "please, Please gimmie some stats" - Of course, when I say most of you, I really mean none of you, but dammit, you should have asked.  I'm sure it's because you are shy.


Don't worry, your thirst for stats is about to get a lit sip of knowledge.  Your welcome.


Through the Feb 10th halfway point we have the following production statistics, which will be compared to Challenge 12 for fun


Challenge Halfway Point

XIIIXII
Total Points46,45048,064
Posts464490
Active Challengers8197
Points per Post10098
Points per Challenger573496
Posts per Challenger                    5.7                    5.0
Scale SummaryXIIIXII
28mm51.1%54.3%
15mm9.9%10.0%
6mm4.6%1.4%
20mm0.5%2.9%
10mm4.1%4.9%
40mm4.3%4.4%
54mm0.6%1.9%
terrain5.5%4.1%
Other1.4%0.3%
Bonus Points18.0%15.7%
Total100.0%100.0%

Despite having 16 less participants, Challenge XII is performing nearly the same as XII points wise but this years participants are a bit more productive in terms of points per challenger.

In terms of scale, 28mm remains the dominant scale of choice but 6mm seems to be staging a rather nice comeback.  The other interesting feature is that the studio challenge seems to be even more popular given the healthy increase in bonus points (which are mostly studio related).

In terms of a points prediction for the year, lets see.....  Ok in past challenges we have posted roughly 56% of total challenge points by the midway point.  We all kind of enter the February doldrums were production does slow a bit and then bound into "Manic March" for the crazy finish.  I've done extensive data mining on this year crew - you know the standard invasive things like credit reports, social media stalking, interviewing friends, relatives and former cellmates.  All the normal, non creepy, stuff us financial types revel in.  The findings from my research, while disturbing in many ways, provides me the confidence to say this crew will not slack off this month and we will post, when the dust is settled 91,000 points.  Lets see what the final half of XIII holds for us all.

DO NOT LET ME DOWN

Now back to your painting benches you beautiful pigmentation warriors!

From DennisC 24x Roman Legionnaires in 28mm (120 points)

As it says on the tin, 24 more legion guys, this is my entire roman army painted (all the assembled stuff anyways) now its all optional things.   All models except centurion are Warlord Games figures: old plastics, metal Cornificer and Optio.







Short and snappy from Dennis. Love the work on these Romans, the force is coming along nicely


From StuartL - Fish, Fishmen and Menfish - Books/Limo - 208 Points

Hello all,

Last week, my minion suggested that I should perhaps group all of my posts together rather than spread them out. So, as requested, I only have a single post to make today.

I left off last week at the gift store, so first of all it is time to take another ride around the studio lot in Lady Sarah's Limousine. This time, we'll be heading for the Books area. To pay for the ride, I have painted up a mermaid from Reaper's Bones range.


And to cover the cost of entry to the Books area, may I present my take on The Little Mermaid. Many of you probably know the story from the Disney movie, but it was originally a fairy story written by Hans Christian Anderson and a lot darker than the later movie adaptation. Again, the mini is from Reaper.


So, with two mermaids down, it seemed only fitting to round them up to a full squirrel point and I painted three more of them. 


Each of the models stands well over 40mm tall, with even the 'little' mermaid being about 42mm, not including the base. 

Continuing with my underwater theme for this post, I also painted up some Sahuagin, carnivorous fish-men from Dungeons and Dragons.


Again these are figures from Reaper and the three above are roughly 28mm, though one of them is 'swimming' up off some rocks.


To lead them and provide some muscle, we have a Sahuagin Baron (centre) and two Merrow or Sea Ogres (left and right). These figures are much bigger standing around the 40mm mark.

Hmm, any good underwater environment should have some fish in it, right? Well Reaper have that covered too. 

First up, a large shark. This fine, finny fellow is a bit porky, though you can't see it from this angle. Most of the fish are mounted on raised bases to give them the impression of swimming through the ocean.


That said, this large catfish is not, swimming along the sea bed.


A mixture of sharks, dolphins and a massive goldfish.


To show the size of these critters, I have included a Gripping Beast arab in the foreground. The smaller fish are all roughly 28mm scale, a little longer, but thinner perhaps. The big shark is probably closer to 40mm and the catfish is a massive chunk of sea life and maybe counts as a 50mm mini?

Okay, time to head back onto dry-ish land, with the soggy, squelchy Turnip28 setting.


These minis are straight builds of Perry's War of the Roses knights with added tufts and weird growths coming from both the horses and the riders. The models are quite dark and haven't photographed very well, despite me fiddling with the exposure settings on my camera.


And finally, to finish off the post, from the wettest of environments to the driest. 


These mummies were a real rush job, base colour, wash, drybrush and done. The centre figure is from the D&D minis game that came out about 15 years ago and the other 4 are from Reaper's first wave of Bones figures and are super bendy, lousy with mould lines that cannot be removed easily and are in some kind of odd 2D pose. If they ever see the table, they will be fodder for the players to mow down before they get to the real bad guy (represented by a much nicer figure). 




So for the scores:
13x 28mm minis = 65 Points
3x 28mm cavalry = 30 Points
9x 40mm minis = 63 Points
1x 50mm mini = 10 Points
Books = 20 Points
Limo = 20 Points
Total = 208 Points

My side duels
Squirrels +4 = 25
Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, WW2 Japanese, Teutonics, Lizardmen, Gnolls, Arabs, Space Marines, Kung Fu Chinese, Wolf's Dragoons, Merfolk, Fishmen, Fish, Mummies 

Skullz = 200

Turnips +30 = 115 Points

Fantastic post, love the mermaids. Bonus point has been awarded for doing as you are told.

From PaulO'G: Slug Gun & friends (40 points)

Last week my pair of Giant Crabs pulled only single bemused 'WTAF' in the comments (thanks DaveD!). Being mildly disappointed with this reaction, I've put applied extra strangeness effort this week...

First up I present some fire support in the form of a Stump Gun.  Curt posted a lovely pair of these last week as part of his awesome artillery park post.  Albeit on a far lesser scale, mine is mounted on a giant slug in a vein attempt to generate some battlefield mobility. It doesn't, but on the bright side it is less likely to be stolen.

Sadly, the somewhat disturbing slime trails behind him aren't very visible in these pics

German mercenaries have dubbed this lethal device, 'das Sturmschneckenfutterkanon'

"El Slugo de Booma" (as he is affectionately known) is crewed by two rather, um, unusual...persons. This body horror duo are more than a little cringeworthy and Reilly made a number of complaints values based observations from across the hobby table during their creation. You're welcome.

The specific duties of the crew are upsetting to describe...

...as are their origins.

These lads are metal Eureka models, to which I've added a pile of bits including the leftovers from a Victrix artillery piece that I converted to a bronze naval gun. Because naval guns are fabulous, obviously. I had planned a large pile of turnip ammunition next to it, but the slug ate them. He's a rather voracious gastropod you see.

Warning: Touching El Sluggo usually results in rather unsightly skin legions...

Next up: a mounted Toady, accompanied by his faithful though emaciated (and somewhat mangey) root hound, who matches his boney carcass. 

"Death rides a Pale Maggot", or something along those lines

The Toady likes to dress as a jester to give the battle a more festive vibe and keep up morale (but not morals unfortunately) amongst the otherwise dreary brawl.

Mr Maggot feels very fancy striding about in his purple boots

These are also metal Eureka models, though I mixed between different sets to get this combination.

Together thats a 28mm mobile assault slug (which I submit is more akin in size and complexity to a small vehicle than a wheeled support weapon - suggesting 15 points then? halfway between a vehicle and gun?), a mounted figure (10) and 3 x 28mm models (15), adding 40 Turnipy points*** and 2 skullz to my tally. 

Let the WTAFs flow!!!

*** leaving me just a single point behind Alan this week; expect further devolution of my sanity and increasingly obsessive behaviours focused on root vegetables...

Right, I'll start with the easy bit. Nice painting. Now onto the nitty gritty. 1. You need to change your medication. 2. What the hell has the balding gun crew guy got going into/coming out of his arse. 3. WTAF. 4. See 3.

Sunday Minion Checking In

 Afternoon chaps and chapesses. Today's minion is full of phlegm, with a dodgy chest infection. 


Luckily only a couple of entries so far today, only 1 from Stuart is a record.