From TeemuL: Outer Ring [Istvaan V] [Solaris] [Arda] [Caprica] [Death Star] (125 points)

Note to minions: I know it is free fire time, but I really like to have this entry to be posted on Wednesday, you'll understand. Yes, Tamsin, I know you are very efficient, but please leave this one for Wednesday. :)

After a quick visit to Vogspehere, we'll climb back to the Outer Ring, walk through the already visited Klendathu and Glorantha and arrive to...

Istvaan V, something for betrayal, howabout a Ringwraith from Middle-Earth, one of them is even named as Betrayer by Games Workshop for their excellent game Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. Once a king of men, then corrupted by power and Dark Lord, he betrayed his people (willingly or unwillingly).

Babylon 5 and Vulcan are familiar ground, so we move on to...

Solaris, which calls for something "Deception, Illusion". Ringwraiths are corporeal creatures, quite invisible, but often wearing black cloaks to give them form. When wearing the One Ring, they can be seen as they perhaps used to be on earlier days as King of Men. That is of course an illusion, because in "reality" they are invisible. We can of course speculate which is illusion and which is reality, but that could be very deceptive...

Well, we move on and arrive to...

Arda, something Tolkeinesque is asked for an I present one of the Ringwraiths in Twilight mode. Ringwraiths are creature of Middle Earth, created by Tolkien, so I suppose they fit the Tolkeinesque requirement, or at least the Fantasy.

Lots of these Ringwraiths here on the Outer Ring, we quickly depart and jump to...

Caprica, where we are not ambushed by invisible corporeal creatures, but those creatures are doomed to serve their Dark Lord indefinitely (or at least until the One Ring (not related to Outer Ring) is destroyed. Doomed to serve and be slave, they can be banished, but their spirits will stay and they will continue their grim service.

We leave the doomed one and move on to...

Death Star, sound like a home of big guy in black or bunch of recruits in white, but actually it is just hubris. I'm not a native in English, so I had to do some research on that. From wikipedia,  Hubris: describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. 

To me, that fits most of the bad guys in literature and movies, but right now it screams Witch King of Angmar, overconfident and arrogant minion of the Sauron saying "You fool. No man can kill me. Die now." mere seconds before killed by a woman and a hobbit. Arrogant, overconfident, so hubris.

In the movies these are kind of a reversed black-and-white and I tried to do something similar, but more colourful. So I started from white, drybrushed with green, blues and black to get the strange and disturbing look, that something is not right. The colour transitions looked good, but from white to green the leap was too much. I should have started from off white, I guess, but it was too late. I decided to try to add some yellow ink to the white parts to create an effect of transition from white to yellow to green. It helped a lot, but I'm still not 100% satisfied. Of course they don't look "right", but they shouldn't look right, they are corporeal creatures, which you only see when under magical influence (the Ring), so may be they are right. I don't know. They are not exactly what I was aiming for, but at least they look different than my barrowwights (which is good, because these are not basically ghosts) and different to my Army of Dead (which is again good, because these are different kind of magic ghosts). They could be neater, I admit that, being nice metal sculpts, very powerful creatures in the game, they should look more finished, but that would mean to start all over again. I'll get a new set from the next MTO... :)

There are only 3 different sculpts, but I was able to make some variations, since parts of the crowns were separate pieces.

That is 5 metal miniatures by Games Workshop in 28mm scale, 5 points each so total of 25 points. Planet bonuses from Istvaan V, Solaris, Arda, Caprica and Death Star totals to 100 so 125 points. Add one squirrel for MESBG Army of Mordor. I could have done something else, but that would not have been very Wednesday-way to put it, right? This should see me crash my points target, too.

My personal Squirrel count: 16

• 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

Really? Claiming five planets from five very similar figures? Really? That is stretching things somewhat - I think I can see why you wanted this held over for Wednesday, but as Greg has an emergency at his cabin you've got me minioning it after all!

It's definitely a stretch, but I think that you have justified the planets and might have got away with it apart from a slight hitch that you seem to have overlooked - to get from Istvaan V to Solaris would require a trip on Lady Sarah's Star Yacht and there's no female figure (or Yacht trip claim) in this post.

Tamsin

Edit to Update: I'd missed Curt's reply to a query on the Quadrant Map post saying that you can skip planets that you've already visited. Points for the other four planets have now been added.

From PhilH: Worshipping the Root at Arda (50 Points)

Making an escape from Solaris, we arrive at Arda. I didn’t have a Fantasy project on the go, but have developed an curious fascination for the grimdark root vegetable-based whimsy of ‘Turnip28’ (those that haven’t come across it, look up @maxstaxidermia on Twitter). The nonsensical world is oddly charming, I like the idea of repurposing 28mm historical plastics and it being a freeware passion project rather than from one of the big gaming companies.

So as a first attempt at getting into the theme, I threw together some Perry HYW French bodies and AWI arms to make a unit of ‘Fodder’, the lowliest of the half dozen unit types offered. 

I liked taking a wildly different method to painting these: zenithal base, base coats and then heavy application and smearing of enamel washes (particularly ‘streaking grime’) designed for tanks to get a grimy look. 

With plenty on the got already doubt this will ever develop into a ‘full’ project, but it was a curious dalliance.

50 Points, a second (!) squirrel and my sixth planet. Onwards!

I'llm adit to jumping around on the Ready posts and turnip picking this one!  Great work on this fodder unit Phil.  I find the whole Turnip28 thing quite entertaining.  You've clearly had a to of fun putting these together and painting and the whole daffy, grimy effect is wonderful.  Can you confirm if that is some type of foliage growing out of their backs?  Or are they stuffed with straw and it's poking out, or are they just packing hay for later use?

Any way well done sir.

From StephenS: Vampire and retinue [Arda] (125 points)

G'day,

I'm finally on a roll, with two posts in two weeks (if I have made the deadline...)
and my painting is not the only thing to rise from the dead this week.

I have a Vampire Lord and 20 faithful, or at least compliant, skeleton warriors to accompany her as she stomps around the planet of Arda, looking for someone to discuss the literary merits of various fantasy tropes with.

The Vampire was bought on a whim as I really liked the model. The skeletons were a study in speed painting, it has been a long time since I have bashed out a 20 strong unit in one go. I'm pretty happy with the quality verse speed trade off I achieved. Hopefully, this will form the core of a generic undead army for use in a few different skirmish systems.

All up there are 21 x 28 mm (or whatever scale GW uses now) plastic miniatures. With the bonus for making planetfall, it is hopefully 125 points.

Cheers,
Steve

From Millsy:

These are absolutely smashing Steve! The vampire's shield is great and the red of the hair, shield motif and banner really pops against the black used everywhere else. I also really like the subtle edge highlighting on the armour which is just enough to prevent the armour being flat whilst still maintaining the overall dark tone. Who makes the vampire miniature BTW

Well done mate, that's another 125 points added to your total!

From DallasE: LotR and Otherworld City Guardsman on Arda (35 points)

Having missed last week I really wanted to keep some momentum going with my painting, so I cranked out some fantasy figures for a trip to Arda (fantasy, Tolkienesque) - I figure they score on all counts.

Of course the models in the centre and right of the photo are Armoured Pippin and Merry from the GW Lord of the Rings range. The model at left is a City Guardsman from Otherworld Miniatures. 

Anyway here's Pippin, painted pretty much as seen on the GW website.

Quite a nice little model all dressed in Gondorian battle kit.

The other half of the set is Merry, equipped as a warrior of Rohan.

Another very nice model, again painted per the GW website.

Here's the Otherworld City Guardsman - a superb model that's sure to come in handy in any urban fantasy setting. I really like this sculpt.

So there's three models for the fantasy/Tolkien theme. Fun and easy to paint.

Points:

3x 28mm models = 15 points

Arda bonus = 20 points

Total = 35 points

Cheers!

Very nice, Dallas. The guard does look the part, and your hobbits are spot-on. After much consideration, I'll allow this for Arda.

Barks

From JeremyM: 10mm Chaos Fantasy [Caprica, Arda] (245 points)

 Moving on to my second painting challenge post I'm heading from the Death Star to Caprica. I have to admit that between work, winter, and covid fatigue I've struggled to get into the hobby lately. But thankfully I managed the time to fit in a decent size number of figures in 10 mm scale. I've never painted guys this small, and it was my first real kick at the can with contrast paints. They worked alright and saved time for sure, but I keep feeling like I should have done more...then again I wouldn't have completed as many as I managed in a little over a weekend!

My first figure is a little vignette for my chaos troops. Its a 3d print by Onmioji I think called 'the sacrifice' or 'the ritual'....either way the poor fellow chained to the chaos symbol is certainly doomed...just like Caprica!

From there I decided it was time to get some troops. Given the fantasy setting I think they fit in with the theme for Arda for sure. These are more 3d prints this time from forestdragon. He put 5 figures on a stand and there are 180 of the little buggers in the photos above. I managed to take the photos and then promptly dropped a couple stands on the floor. I somehow managed to find most of the little weapons that broke off but unfortunately not all. Those guys might get hidden in the back ranks from now on. It also reminded my of one of the things I hate about most 3d print resin, it shatters. I'm hoping to address that with my new prints as I've been adding Sirya Tech Tenacious (for a little flexibility) and Sirya Tech Blu (for strength) to Elegoo standard. It seems to have helped a fair bit but I'm also hesitant to really test it...if I do it certainly won't be with painted figs!

Curt had suggested trying to play these using the To the Strongest (TTS) ruleset. But I'm also aware that warmaster is still the most popular 10 mil fantasy rules. So I decided to base each figure for warmaster. I put magnets in the base and created a larger base for TTS using a 3d printed movement tray glued to sheet metal. I made sure to file the sheet metal down so hopefully little risk of cuts...although a little blood on the table when moving figures does kind of fit with the chaos theme!

And no army is complete without a general so here is a 10mm hero with some chaos warhounds. I made a 25mm circular 3d print base for him, and once again a larger 10mm movement tray with sheet metal underneath. Magnets sure make things versatile.

Last but certainly not least was likely my favourite of the bunch. Here is a female chaos sorcerer. I really liked how the contrast red and yellow paints made the fire she is summoning pop. Looks pretty good on these tiny little figures. She has the same size base as the hero above. And with her I'm hoping to hop on Sarah's yacht and head to Skaro. There are some weird robots in my future!

    185 x 10mm figures @ 1 point =                185 point

    Caprica (Doomed) @ 20 points                  20 points

    Arda (fantasy) @ 20 points                         20 points

    Sarah’s Yacht @ 20 points                           20 points

    Total                                                             245 points

                                                                                                      

From DaveD

For a first go they look mighty fine to me , they also give a real good mass impression too - great work  . That is also a decent spin around the planets too well done. 

From PeteF Goblins for Arda (50 points)

 

My background is in historical wargaming and many moons ago, when I was thinking about branching out into fantasy there were no skeletons, orcs, goblins, ogres, lizards, dwarves or elves on my shelf of shame*.  Fortunately a generous local wargamer gave me a bunch of Night Goblins for my SAGA Age of Magic army. I've been a bit slow bringing them to the table - other projects distracted.

If you've not played SAGA - I highly recommend it for it's innovative activation system - it's a great skirmish game to give you an excuse to paint up new historical or fantasy factions or dust off some minis that haven't seen a table for a while. It can be competitive or friendly depending on your preference. I introduced SAGA Age of Vikings to my local group a year or so before the pandemic and it's gained a life of its own - now we have Age of Magic, Age of Crusades, Age of Hannibal and Age of Invasions - with more to come!

A few of these night goblins got painted for Challenge XI - I went with red hoods because there are "Red Goblins" in Mantic's Kings of War fluff. I'll eventually put magnets on them so they can be ranked up on metal trays for Kings of War. They got red shoes like the old pope.  I'm trying to get more hilighty with the light gray on the black cloaks - still looking for tips on this - would dry brushing work better?

Picking out the teeth was enjoyable - nice sculpts from an earlier time at GW.

6 x 28mm infantry = 30 points plus 20 for a new planet = 50 points

1 squirrel point (total 4)

1 skull (total 1)

*this has been rectified and all of these are now represented

Well these old school Gobbos are the Pope's Shoes Pete!  Love the red on the shows, cloaks and those little chromes on the standard.  I confess to not having taken to SAGA, I find it rather gamey but that's likely because it doesn't suit my rather linear thought processes.  

From EdwardG - A mix of 15mm, and a trip to Arda (67 points)

Hello all, 

I hope everyone is remaining well. Sadly in the past month I have not had the time I had hoped to paint and to be commenting! Fingers crossed that improves in February...but I am not hopeful. 

Due to my ad-hoc painting time, I have only been able to output an ad-hoc group of painted miniatures. The first group I concentrated on were some additional elements for my Arab army. It is not many figures, but they were required to make up the numbers to allow me to field my old DBM army as a FOG-AG force. 

The first element is a Generals base. It is made up using left over figures I had in the lead pile. I believe the figures were originally from Essex, but I am exactly sure. I have had them for a very long time! I like to think that I will use this General in the centre of the FOG-AG army, he is happily ignoring a messenger from the left wing who is in need of something...perhaps two and four pence...

 

In addition to the General, I added a base of spears and a baggage element. The spearmen are the remainder of a long ago Legio Heroica order. In DBM I had only ever needed 7 bases of these chaps but FOG-AG has round numbers of most things, so the 8th base is now painted! In addition while scouring out the lead pile for these figures, I came across the last odds and ends of the unpainted Arabs. These were two camels and a lonely spearman. Tbh, I was not sure what to do with them, I normally dislike painting camels as I know I cannot get the colouring right. But, I thought what the heck, I can always use an additional baggage element. Perhaps these are the drummers directing the army, or acting as a relay station for orders from one end to the other. Along with their close protection to give them time to get away should an enemy light horse appear flying in from a flank. And the final photo shows all of the baggage together. I grabbed the excuse of the new element to re-base the my previous baggage elements onto a matching bases.

For a change, as I was going a little sand blind, I decided to paint up a couple more elements for my Serbian army. These are to reinforce the Bosnian Hillmen who act as Rough/Bad Going clearance troops. They are very useful, reasonably cheap, and can be taken in enough numbers to make them a threat the opponent should take note of. Having two more elements is always helpful! The figures are Essex again, and are another set of lead pile lurkers who have been shirking their battlefield responsibilities for far too long! I began thinking I would paint them with contrast paints, the first chap in blue was the test piece. But I was not very happy with the outcome. I think these figures are not not detailed enough to get the best out of the contrast paint style. I switched to my 'normal' style using acrylics and doing two layers. I find three layers is just overkill at this scale.

As a final mini for this rambling, meandering post, is my offering for the planet Arda. Having seen the minis painted by Curt the Great, over the summer. The wife and I decided to give moonstone a try. We managed to persuade a couple of friends to join us on the trip, and we ordered some minis. Now sadly our order, but funnily not our friends, managed to be caught in the Brexit Britain-Europe Postage Bermuda Triangle. For some reason the package never arrived. I hope those minis have managed to find a happy home. In the end we did manage to get some minis on the second attempt, but the whole project was very delayed. Since then, we have managed to build the minis, and even get some base coat colours on some. But I have finally managed to paint the first one to completion! I present Boris, The Bunny Summoner (minus bunnies so far)! He is certainly very fantastic, and possibly even a little Tolkeinesque (although more towards CS Lewis).

Finally on to scoring. This is certainly a random bunch and I have calculated the following. Dear Minion, I hope I have done my mathematics correctly!

• Arab Generals - 15mm Mounted x 3 = 12pts
• Arab Spearmen - 15mm Foot x (4+1) = 10pts
• Arab Camels - 15mm Mounted x 2 = 8pts
• Bosnian Hillmen - 15mm Foot x 6 = 12pts
• Boris! - 28mm Foot x 1 = 5pts
• Visit to Arda = 20pts

Total =  67pts

All the best and hope to see you all sooner next time around!

Best,
Ed

***

Hello Ed, thanks for this varied and wandering submission. I know many Challengers will relate to your situation in terms of finding time for hobbies - it is an issue where we all wish we had more time. I certainly do. If only my clients would pay me to paint figures! Anyway, credit to you for getting some brush momentum going, and putting a dent into your lead pile and some points on the board!

Miles' spreadsheet tells me your scoring adds up, so 67 points for you! Unfortunately, Miles' spreadsheet cannot help me with all of the acronyms involved with DBA/DBM/FOG etc...but I'll need to have SOMETHING to search online, right?

GregB