From BillA - The Brotherhood of the Boomstick (40 pts)

After an absence of several years due to having other draws on my hobby time, I'm very pleased to be back with the AHPC! A lot has changed since the last time I've been here - married my long-time girlfriend, we're homeowners (bought the house I grew up in from my parents), I've become a published RPG author... Lots has gone on. 

For my first post, I've got some charming 3D printed figures, printed by a friend of mine for me from STLs designed by Ill Gotten Games. They had a recent Kickstarter for a variety of hooded cultist-types with weapons ranging from fists to ray guns, along with a goatish demonic mastermind. My buddy printed me twice as many cultists with shotguns as I'd asked for initially, so I've got some leftover that may get painted later.

I'm planning to use these for a demo table I'm running at a local gaming convention the first weekend of February; six should be more than enough (fingers crossed!) and so I didn't go too crazy with the paint jobs. The robes are basecoated in Reaper "Ultramarine Shadow" and given a heavy drybrush with "Ultramarine Blue" to pick up the folds in the robes before picking out the details of the hands and guns. 

And a solo look at their master:

He's a big boy (that's a 50mm base he's on), and I think the multiple eyes is a callback to the 1980 film "Altered States," where William Hurt's character has religious hallucinations of a goat-headed figure with a similar spread of eyes. He's been basecoated with Reaper's "Coal Black" (actually an extremely dark blue-green) and drybrushed with "Midnight Blue" before picking out the eyes, horns, hooves and giving a light feathering of "Tanned Shadow" to the palms and inner ears. 

And for my entree fee, I've made a donation to the National MS Society, a cause very close to my heart. In 2022, my wife Gina was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune condition where her immune system mis-identifies her nervous system as a foreign invader and attacks the nerve cells. We're very lucky that we were able to catch it relatively early and are in a position to treat aggressively, but as of right now there's no cure and no repairing the damage the illness has already done; the best we can hope for is slowing progression. We've done fundraising events and charity walks for NMSS in the past, so donating again was a no-brainer for me. 

We have six cultists at 28mm scale for 30 points, and I think it's reasonable to call the demon a 54mm figure for 10 points, for a total of 40 points. 

With this entry, I'm claiming 1 point towards the Squirrel Duel with these...let's call them Modern Horror as a genre. 

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First, welcome back to the Challenge, Bill! It's great to catch-up on all that you've been up to these past few years. 

Terrific cultists here. Who doesn't enjoy a cultist, or six? So wonderfully ardent, passionate and eager to please. And why not, when your overseer is a huge, multi-eyed horned beast! If you've not been ravaged by now you must be doing something right, right?! 

Great work on these, Bill! I'm sure they will give you solid service in your coming gaming convention. 

More importantly, donating to the National MS Society is a great thing. I'm very sorry to hear of your wife's diagnosis, but am heartened to hear that her treatment is on course to help her going forward. Best wishes. 

I look forward to your coming entries over the coming weeks.

- Curt