From SylvainR - 28mm Band of Chaos Warriors for D&D (50 points)

 

 

Another band of baddies for D&D. I kept a very simple palette of colors: metal/flesh + red. First, here  are 4 unarmored warriors. My first attempt at painting flesh in this lot was the guy on the right, but I found the result two flashy, so I toned down the color for the next 3 warriors.

 Next, we have 4 armored warriors, as shiny as can be. Note that the guy on the far right has a "full skull" armor.

Finally, here is the boss, on a larger base, with his lieutenant. I tried to emphasize their higher status by adding some bronze trims on their armor. I did not put any grass on any of the bases, to show that these chaos warriors bring nothing but desolation, ashes and tears. I find that the gray base also helps to bring out the other colors, metal and red, and helps tie the band together.

I really enjoyed painting these "heavy metal" models. In fact, I find that painting colorful fantasy figurines is an excellent counterweight to painting hundreds of dull camouflaged WW2 units. The lesson to be learned here is that painting chaos warriors is good for one owns mental health.

 

Points claimed:

10 x 28mm foot figurines at 5 points each = 50 points

Total = 50 points 

Thanks for reading!

***

Nothing says "We are serious about desolation" like "full skull" armour - well done Sylvain!

This is a very enjoyable, yet still clearly ominous, band of bad guys. They are not here for a dialogue - they are here to steal anything they might like, and wreck all the rest of it. Only a bold band of heroes and adventurers can step forward to stop them!

I think you have found success here with your color palette, and your approach to the basing. The metal also looks lovely. The effect is excellent all-around, and I am sure it will be a great D&D session when these bad guys make their appearance!

Another 50 points for you Sylvain, wonderful work. 

GregB

FromBruceR, 28mm Celtic Archers, Reaper succubus, Airborne coms, (55 points)

Played a second game of Midgard Heroic Battles and have pushed on to more Celts from Warlord Games.  These will usually run as skirmishers so the 8 will work for two units.  Again, black undercoat, white "slap chop" and speed paints.  Not as gaudily dressed as my Celtic slingers, but I did add some extra lines to the clothing to "pretty" them up.  These figures are nice,  2 of each pose, so I'll keep them separate in the units they join. I have started to use a dry brush to lighten figures when done.  Helps the folds on cloaks/clothes   IMHO.  I use Iraqi Sand (vallejo) and the makeup brush.    Some static grass and tufts.  Done and ready for battle.

Archers:

2nd Reaper succubus of 3:

This demon is another great little bones mini.  She is seated on a cushion.  This again is a speed paint model.   I did note one side of her face was not hit with white and I was going to fix, but thought wait, she is from the flames so a little black/soot type complexation could be appropriate.  This a little different than the first.  Orangish wings, green pillow, lighter skin tone, and silver clothing (what there is of it).  

British Airborne communication at Arnhem:

This 3d print, received I think from a kickstarter for British Airborne.  Great little soldier with the pigeon carrier and the motion of releasing the pigeon.  A friend printed it for me and I went to work.  This is done without speed paint.  Block in the colors, Strong tone wash, highlights.  I think he turned out pretty well and will add to my Arnhem forces.   

 

Thanks for looking. 

Points:

10 28mm x 5         =               

Total                                        50 pts. 

***

Hello Bruce! Some fantastic painting here from you once more. The colours of your archers are excellent (and I will stop to acknowledge your talent at painting stripes that look proper...sigh...so nice!). The Succubus looks...well, rather perfectly suited to her role! 

But I really must dwell on your Airborne figure. There are certain subjects in this hobby where I just stop and despair whenever I attempt them, and am so totally impressed when others can execute them. British WW2 Airborne is one of those subjects. This guys just looks remarkably awesome, so well done. And the pigeon!! You got the colours just right...I swear I just shooed that off my fence!!

I hereby award five bonus points for the combination of awesome WW2 British Airborne AND pigeon...a safe precedent! 55 points for you, and thanks for the wonderful painting!

GregB

From Curt: The Emperor of Mankind and his Thunder Warriors (Treachery) (130 Points)

 Hey there!

I saved this one for Greg's posting day as we have been huge fans of the 30K lore for years and have spent countless hours discussing the stories and characters from the ridiculously expansive 'Horus Heresy' series of books (think Wagnerian opera crossed with a Latino melodrama, but with chain swords). To be frank most of the novels are pretty bad, but there are just enough good ones to have kept us coming back for more.

One of very niche bits of this GrimDark lore is set in the time before the Horus Heresy, before the Great Crusade, back to what is described as 'The Unification Wars' of Terra. This was when the Emperor was just one of the many 'techno-barbarians' fighting to be top dog over a post-apocalyptic Earth. In prosecuting this war, he created 20 legions of genetically modified super soldiers that were called Thunder Warriors (something's rhyming here...). These gene-enhanced freaks, er, peerless warriors became the prototypes for later gene-enhanced freaks known as, you guessed it, the Space Marines.

A Techno-Barbarian by John Blanche

Okay, if this wasn't dorky enough the next few paragraphs will descend into a high level of 30K nerdiness, so feel free to skim forward to the next ***. 

Whereas the Space Marines were chosen at childhood to be indoctrinated and genetically enhanced (yeah, nothing dark there), the Thunder Warriors instead originated from a pool of mature candidates, all fanatically loyal to the Emperor, who's bodies and minds were genetically manipulated for aggression and combat. The process was, um, 'imperfect' where the Warriors often became increasingly unstable, both physically and mentally. 

The Unification Wars were brought to a bloody conclusion at the Battle of Mount Ararat. It was not only the last gasp of the Emperor's adversaries on Earth but also of the Thunder Warriors themselves. Though Imperial propaganda depicts them all dying to a man in the last furious hours of the battle, they in fact were eradicated by the Custodes (i.e. The Great Golden @ssholes) on the Emperor's orders (and here, finally, is my hook to the 'Treachery' theme).

A few Thunder Warriors escaped the culling and eked out lives as fugitives in the backwaters of Imperial society. Black Library has a 30K novel, 'The Outcast Dead', that describes a brutal gang boss who was originally a Thunder Warrior. Some great space opera in that.

The French edition of 'The Outcast Dead'. Why French? Because 'La Mort des Parias' just sounds way cooler.

***

The idea of the Thunder Warriors originated from a series of concept drawings John Blanche (the creator/visionary of GW's 'GrimDark') did in the early 90s. 

Those drawings not only captured the imagination of nerds like me, but also inspired 3D designers to create groovy models based on his vision. 

So I have a small group of eight Thunder Warriors for you today. These are digital sculpts by the talented folks over at Good Game Wargame. I like the nod to the ancient Roman lorica segmentata armour with the scalloped pauldrons waist tassets and open-faced, combed helmets. They have a very neo-imperial look, I think.

In trying to reflect Blanche's baroque art for these I went with a dark copper base, lifted with a mid-tone brass colour, and finally spot-highlighted with an aged gold. I didn't want them too resplendent as that drifts more towards the Custodes, so I tried to keep them darker and a bit more primitive looking.

As a counterpoint, the Emperor is seen here in pristine white Saturnine terminator armour. From the lore, the Saturnine pattern is one of the earliest versions of the super heavy power armour common in 30/40K. The origins of the armour are sort of conflicted but, hey, a bit of mystery is a good thing, right? The model here is from by Sedivalle through Cults3D. 

I did an experiment by painting up a head of a Dark Age viking lord, placing it in the armour's cowl and then filling it with acrylic liquid water from AK Interactive. It gives an interesting murky/spooky effect that you really can't discern in the photos. Still, it was a neat thing to try out.

The armour is very baroque and grotesque, with huge hunched armoured pauldrons and heavy, segmented limbs. I went with giving him two power claws as I can't see the Big E deigning to use firearms when he could create a 'morale building opportunity' by eviscerating things up close. Yup, this armour conveys a big dose of 'just f&ck off'.

I considered doing his armour with more bling, you know, lots of gold with all the trimmings, but I figured that maybe a more austere, anonymous look would be more appropriate, providing a stark contrast between him and his warriors in their garish bronze, brass an red.

_______________________________________

As to points? Hmm, each one of the Thunder Warriors comes in at about 50mm so maybe 9 points each? The Emperor is a hulking 75mm so perhaps 15 points? Based on those estimates the total should be 87 and with the location bonus it should pop it to 107 points, but I bow to our esteemed Wednesday Minion to adjudicate as his astute wisdom sees fit.

To my delight, this entry ticks quite a few boxes across our various duels:

- Another Squirrel Point.

- Points for the 30/40K duel

- Mech Madness for the Emperor's armour

- The Can Opener Duel for various powered armour.

- Finally, as these are a bunch of Warhammer-themed figures, there are skulls aplenty with 44 in total.

Thanks for dropping in (and for your patience)!

- Curt

***

Allow me to summarize my reaction thusly - OH HELL YEAH!!!

I am honoured to Minion this delightful submission! As Curt has noted, our shared interest in the Horus Heresy/30k setting is strong, and reaches back to the very old, John-Blanche-inspiration driven era of the setting, when the outlines of the story were known, but many details were left deliberately vague so as to sustain an era of mystery around the period of "history" in that setting, which in turn was a pillar of the portrait of the grim dark 40k setting, which...well, I could go on and on - and I may at some other post...but TL:DR - this is f*cking awesome. 

The Thunder Warriors are stunning and look the exact part. I think your selection of the metallic tones is spot on, landing at "seriously significant" but south of "regal", and that is perfect, as it was the Custodes who are all covered in gold etc. but who managed, at the moment of great crisis facing The Emperor, to utterly fail at every level, from being unable to fight at the Emperor's side when he truly needed them, to bungling things like a prisoner transfer during the Siege of Terra, thus serving as exemplars for the universal truth that any state organization set up on purpose to be 'elite' will turn into expensive pumpkins...Constantine Valdor had great hot-take-perspectives on the Space Marine "project", but was still pointless in the end...but I digress and digress...you see how awesome the 30k lore discussion is, right? Right?) 

This brings me to The Emperor himself here, and your fantastic realization of that particular entity/character. "The Emperor" in 30k/40k is one of those lore concepts that are, IMO, strongest when left to the imagination to the greatest extent possible (something the assorted authors of the sprawling Horus Heresy series struggled with). I love how you have him here - not only is the acrylic liquid water a cool little hobby triumph on its own, but what a clever way for him to remain "present yet hazy", even in his giant Saturnine armour. The decision to keep the armour itself relatively unadorned adds to this effect. When portrayed in art/propaganda of the setting, of course The Emperor would be all golden bits and crafted eagles etc, but here, in his "work clothes", it is just right. It is all amazing - it "lands" just perfectly to me!

As an aside...how did you approach the pelts? Asking for a friend...

For scoring, I will rate the Thunder Warrior at 54mm. Your proposal for The Emperor is just fine, I will bump this up to a total of 130 points, just on the basis of the acrylic water (!) in addition to general amazing-ness. Really, really awesome dude - thanks!

GregB

From BobV: 28mm Chindits (90 Points)

 Happy Wednesday Everyone,

My continuing goal for this challenge is to paint as much of my existing lead as possible without buying anything new (we'll see how that turns out). As I was putting last week's winter soldiers and paratroops in storage, I came across an unpainted squad of Chindits. I quickly realized that these were the last of my unpainted 28mm minis from WW2. I decided that I had  to put my Baron's War mini's on the backburner and finish these up to complete the era.

There are 18 members of the squad including the mule. They are Warlord Miniatures, black primed and painted with a mix of Vallejo and Army Painter acrylics. 

Here is a look:

I tried to bump up the lighting in this one. I am a complete amateur in photography so I decided to just throw as much light as I could at the figures before taking the pics. I think the light is bit better this week.

Here is a shot of the amateur setup:

 

For points I am claiming 18 x 28mm infantry @ 5 points = 90 points.

And now onto the Baron's War...

***

"...without buying anything new..." 

I understand those words, but...that particular combination of words in that specific order makes no sense. I find I need to pop off to the Perry's web store right now!

Fine painting here Bob - great work on these fellows. I also want to recognize your photography! Taking photos of minis is always a little tricky. I will humbly suggest you could still do with some more light on the front parts of the figures, and also note that your selection of a backdrop is almost too perfect! The little chaps blend into the background, as well they might!

But this is all me getting persnickety! These Chindits look the business, and you are absolutely going the right way in terms of photos to share with all of us. I know the Challengers will relate to those efforts, even as they appreciate your fine work!

And also struggle with the phrase "...without buying anything new..."....like, how does that even work???

90 points for you sir!

GregB

From SylvainR: Tray 03 - 6mm Early British Logistics & Command (44 points)

 

This will be the last tray for the British Expeditionary Force. First, below, is a group of 10 elements of "Logistics". Among the huge amount of 6mm WW2 stuff I got from my friend RobertR, I found these utility vehicles that had no direct role in combat. I decided to create logistics elements with them and I have been drafting some rules on how they could be used in a game other than as objectives. We'll see how it works. I already have similar logistics sets for the early German army as well as for the British army in the desert.

This unit of logistics vehicles is made up of a combination of models from CinC, GHQ and Heroics and Ros. You might have noticed that the bases are less detailed than usual. I will be soon starting to work on late WW2 armies and since I will have a lot of models to re-base I used these logistics elements as a test bed for a simplified process to make the bases. Basically, I need 2 fewer "steps", which, when adding up, will save me some time.

A note on the recovery vehicle, below: my wife's grand-father, "Bud", drove a similar recovery vehicle for the Canadian Army during WW2, first in Italy and then in the Netherlands. There is a picture of him with his truck but, unfortunately, the photo is at my wife's uncle's farm and I did not have an opportunity to get a copy before posting this entry.

 

After completing all the other units for the BEF, I created little dioramas for the Battalion HQs.

Here is one HQ for the Cruiser Tanks Regiment and another one for the Infantry Tank Regiment. Despite being named "tank regiments" these British units were about the same size as German tank battalions. On the Cruiser tanks, the blue diamond indicates that these vehicles are part of the regimental HQ.

Below, you can see the HQ for the infantry battalion and a little vignette for Vereker (Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gorth), the overall commander of the BEF. He was given less demanding tasks after Dunkirk. I added a cow crossing the road in front of his car, for fun.

 

On the Vereker diorama, I added a road sign (see below, enlarged) giving directions for both the first battle and the last battle fought by the BEF during that fateful summer of 1940. Note the French spelling for Dunkirk ("Dunkerque").

With the command elements finished, I can now declare that my BEF army is complete. There are 8 trays of units but, when consolidated, should come down to 7 trays.

 I can now mark off another 6mm WW2 project from my to-do list. Yeah!

The next army is "Early German 2/2". It consists of a battalion of Fallschirmjagers (done before the challenge), a battalion of cavalry, a battalion of motorcycles, and various engineer units.

Points claimed:

-  8x 6mm infantry at 1/2 points each = 4 points

- 20x 6mm vehicles at 2 points each = 40 points (I did not count the trailers)

Total = 44 points

Thanks for reading!

***

More brilliant 6mm work Sylvain! Well done for working in such items as logistics and command...not always glamorous for us from the wargaming perspective, but of course in real conflicts absolutely essential. Rules which find ways to take that into account without ruining the game experience (which often happens with, say, recon elements) can be a challenge, but I am confident you will succeed.

I also love the road signs, and it is a reminder...that battle at Arras in early WW2 is another one that I know almost nothing about! I need to read up!

44 points - well done!

GregB