From DallasE: Yellow Brick Road Trip in Sarah's Limo and a Land Raider! (75 points)

OK, entering the free-fire zone with my second-last post. The push is on, and that means squeezing the bonus locations!

First off I will take a ride in Lady Sarah's Limousine with this "Sister of Battle" from Manufaktura Miniatures. It's a 3D print I've painted as statuary to fit the theme of the old-school all-metal Adepta Sororitas army I'm building for Warhammer 40K.

The Manufaktura figures are superb but it has to be noted, mostly "NSFW"... I've chosen one here that fits my taste but many of their models are... explicit. So be aware of that if you search them on the Web or visit their site. I bought this one from a stockist on eBay so wasn't really aware of the nature of the range before I visited their website... thankfully not on a work computer :-)

The model is really exquisite, well sculpted and great print quality. Painting was a breeze of course, no "grisaille" or "Zorn palette" necessary. The pillar I did before - very flexible as the space on the top fits a standard 25mm round base so I have created statuary to fit many gaming themes.

Next we'll take a spin down the Yellow Brick Road with a "Cinema" model, and what better than a Propagandakompanie Kriegsberichter with his own movie camera and "PK" cufftitle.

This is a metal model from Warlord Games' Bolt Action range and painted up a treat. I painted him as an enlisted man with the early-war lemon yellow waffenfarbe, since according to Angolia and Schlicht's "Uniforms and Traditions of the German Army" the cufftitle (see previous photo) was likely discontinued when the PK-guys got their own grey waffenfarbe colour rather than piggybacking onto the signal-troops' colour. 

Im einsatz, making a TikTok of a passing Pzkpfw. 38(t).

Lastly for this post we have a real blast from the past, an original Land Raider with just a couple of modern updates. I acquired this model in a trade on the weekend, fixed the doors, primed it black and painted it earlier this week.

As we all know, this is the Ur-Land-Raider first produced by Games Workshop back in 1988 and made available for retail purchase in a box of two models, for 12.99GBP no less!! 

But remarkably, although I've been playing 40K myself since 1989 or so, I'd never owned an original Land Raider model, until now! 

As I said, this model came to me in a trade (along with a MK1 Rhino) and needed some work. A previous owner appears to have replaced the sponson lascannons, it had Forgeworld Iron Warriors doors, and a modern exhaust stack and dozer blade has supplanted the originals. Still and all, not bad for a nearly 35-year-old model. 

I started by removing the resin doors and replacing them with standard modern Land Raider doors, cut out a bit to accommodate the big hinge. I also stuck on some very cool Heresy-era eagles from a modern Age of Darkness vehicle sprue.

The 'Raider accompanied by Iron Warriors Siege Tyrant Terminators.

I also put together a new hatch with storm bolter. Fortunately the modern 40K parts fits this old model to a tee.

Alternatively, this 'Raider can be fielded with a pintle-mounted multi-melta. This one is from the Forgeworld pintle-mounted weapons set. Handy.

A bit better view of the door, decals and weathering here.

It was a really straightforward paintjob, although I regret not having any Modelmates/Dirty Down Rust Effect for the eagle. Once I get some more of it I'll tune that up. In any event it's a really cool model and will fit in well with my Iron Warriors 30K force.

Scoring:

28mm Sister of Battle statue    5pts

Lady Sarah's limo bonus         20pts

28mm PK-berichter                    5pts

Yellow Brick Road bonus        20pts

28mm Land Raider                    20pts

Pintle weapon and crewman        5pts

Grand Total:                             75pts

See you soon for one (or maybe two?) more!

From DallasE: Iron Within, Iron Without! (1980s/Retro, 70 points)

Submitting these lads for the 1980s/Retro Studio. Although these models are relatively new (they're the plastic Space Marines in MKIII "Iron Armour"), they're throwbacks in a couple of ways. I have some of the original metal versions of these dudes in various of my Space Marine armies - those models came out something like 30 years ago. And additionally, the models are "retro" in the sense that GW released them for gaming in the Horus Heresy, a time period 10,000 years before the current 40k timeline. Well, I'm convinced anyway... 

In any case, here they are - 10 Space Marines in MKIII armour, members of the IV Legion, the infamous Iron Warriors. Pictured above is the sergeant with plasma pistol and power fist, a classic combination.

The nine other Marines are all armed with Phobos-pattern boltguns.

The poseability of the plastic models is excellent, I love each of these poses.

The models were painted in the style of my other Iron Warriors models - basecoat in Leadbelcher, trim in Brass Scorpion, armour and trim washed with Nuln Oil (the armour done twice) and the trim washed with Reikland Fleshshade. The yellow pauldron stripes were basecoated Zandri Dust and gone over with Averland Sunset, washed with Agrax Earthshade and sponge chipped with Vallejo German Camo Black-Brown.

The bases were painted with Rhinox Hide, worked up with Mournfang Brown and Steel Legion Drab. The boots and greaves of the Marine were lightly drybrushed with Steel Legion Drab as well.
 

Rear views just to prove I painted the whole model ;-)

This squad will reinforce the significant bunch of Iron Warriors already in the cabinet. I really do like the colour scheme of this Legion as it's very workmanlike and easy to paint. The yellow hazard striping is a nice pop of colour on the models too.

10x 28mm infantry = 50 points
Studio Bonus = 20 points
Total = 70 points

Thanks for looking!

Absolutely love these figures, great work

From ByronM: Horus Heresy Iron Warriors in 15mm - Sci-Fi (50 points)

Day 2 of the event and my second post.  I started these guys yesterday but had to finish the basing and clear coat off this morning before work.  Not that there is a lot to finish on them (let alone do at all) since they are pretty basic paint jobs.

A group of us in Winnipeg are doing Horus Heresy in 15mm, you will likely see Scott C and Steve A post some this Challenge, and a lot of armies were already selected and I have a TON of stuff to paint already this year.  I still wanted to get involved and play a few games though, so I started looking at what armies were out there and came across the Iron Warriors.  

 

 

Their paint scheme is silver, with black guns and black and yellow hazard stripes or chevrons on their shoulders and vehicles.  Sign me up!!!  I primed these silver after finding army painter silver primer, and then brush primed the bases black.  Once the challenge started all I had to do was paint the guns, shoulderpads, add some bronze accents and wash them with Agrax Earthshade (I put that sh*t on everything!), and they were done!  I should be able to get a whole army done in no time with these!

The Rhino was a little more problematic due to the yellow being hard to get coverage in a large area smoothly and evenly.  Trust me I tried, 4 or 5 times!!  In the end I said screw it, sanded it off, broke out the tape and masked around the areas I wanted yellow.  I then re-primed those areas white, then airbrushed yellow.  Perfect and simple, and nice and clean.

 

 

I then proceeded to ruin it with my unsteady hands trying to paint straight lines for the hazard lines.  Oh well its good enough!

For anyone interested these are the 6mm epic STL files from thingiverse and Cults3d and then scaled up about 260% to look correct against other 15mm figures.  While a little chunky looking, I think they look pretty good for Iron Warriors who are supposed to be staunch siege fighters.  

More on this project to come over the course of the challenge, as well as the rest of my 15mm Eldar from last year that got shelved over the summer.

Points:

11x Infantry @ 2 points = 22 points

1x Vehicle @ 8 points

Sci-Fi map space @ 20 points

Total of 50 points

______________________________

Two days in with an entry for each. One more and you'll have a hat-trick, Byron!

You had talked about you doing Iron Warriors for this project, knowing full well that you could knock them out in no time, and you were right - and they look absolutely terrific. Now that I see them in all their 15mm glory, I think I need to do a squad or two of Loyalists. You know, for balance and future visits... :)

- Curt

From StuartL - Laying Siege at the Lair of the Great Beast - 324 Points

Hello again. With only one chamber between myself and the Altar of the Snow Lord, I have prepared my biggest entry to date. I believe the term is "Points Bomb"?

The theme for the Chamber was The Lair of the Spider, so looking through my collection for anything Spider-esque, my eyes settled on a Chaos Space Marine Venomcrawler. A Venomcrawler is a part daemon, part machine, war engine, covered with claws, guns and mechanical tentacle things. So, I thought to myself, 'This will be a perfect addition to my Iron Warriors Army.'

However, the name of the Chamber on the AHPC information post was different from that on the map itself. The Snow Lord had decided to change it to the Lair of the Great Beast. Something bigger than the Spider, something worse. 'Okay,' I think to myself, 'What have I got that is bigger and scarier than the Venomcrawler?' Luckily, I had something. A Chaos Space Marine Forgefiend. The Forgefiend is an ever BIGGER part daemon, part machine, war engine. 

So with those two settled on, I was all ready to set to painting when I realised something vitally important. 'Hang on.... I don't have an Iron Warriors army.' If you could have seen the look on my face. Soooo... long story short, I have also painted up a Chaos Space Marines Iron Warriors army.

A Chaos Lord is the leader of a Chaos Marines army. A Veteran of hundreds of years of battle and no slouch when it comes to getting stuck into the enemy.

This fellow is a conversion based on an old Terminator body and some spare parts from an Adeptus Mechanicus kit. He will be my Master of Demolitions, as the Iron Warriors are noted siege specialists. This isn't a game legal mini, so he will only come out for narrative missions and the like.

Adding some more punch to my army is a Helbrute, a (you guessed it) part daemon, part machine, war engine. In this case the Helbrute began as a Dreadnought, a life support machine for wounded veterans attached to a walking tank. Over time it has become possessed and mutated into the beauty you see before you today.

A Rhino APC adds a bit of mobility to the army and a little fire support for the guys at the front line.

This squad are a unit of Chosen, veteran marines equipped with the best weaponry the warband can lay it's hands on.

Havocs, as pictured above are the heavy weapon specialists, bringing anti-tank and anti-personnel weapons to the battlefield.

These chunky fellows are Obliterators. They began as regular marines that were infected with the obliterator virus, which transformed them into hulking monstrosities able to morph their bodies to produce all sorts of weapons. They are pretty big, standing on 50mm wide bases.

Finally we come to the rank and file of the army. 3 squads of 10 Chaos Marines. One squad is geared up for storming the enemy positions, while the other two lay down suppressing fire and advance more cautiously to hold the ground.

And the army as a whole. I have gone for quite a grubby look for this force. The Iron Warriors are noted for being siege experts and spending a lot of time digging trenches. Unlike some other 40K armies, they are fairly pragmatic and don't run around with massive banners or huge amounts of 'bling' on their armour. I will admit that the hazard stripes were a tiny wee bit challenging, but the most difficult part was the transfers on the pauldrons. The convex shape of the pauldron does not do you any favours when it comes to putting on transfers. I actually used two different types on the army. As the Iron Warriors insignia is a metallic grey skull, on minis with metallic grey shoulder pads, I used older style transfers which had a black background to help them stand out. On minis where the pauldrons had hazard stripes, I used a newer set of transfers with no background. The older transfers really didn't sit well on the minis despite using decal softener, decal medium and various prayers to the darkest of gods. If I ever do more minis for the army in the future, it'll be hazard stripes and the newer decals all the way. I have no idea how many points this represents in game, as I don't currently play 40K 9th edition. I intend to use these for games of 5th edition using some house rules and modifications. I think it's a big enough force for the games I have in mind, but a project is never truly finished is it?

Anyway, that's all for now. 42x 28mm infantry, 2x 40mm infantry and 4 vehicles, plus the bonus for the chamber earns me 324 points by my calculations. This also opens my way to approach the Altar of the Snow Lord.

For the side duels, all of these minis are from GW, so 304 points goes towards the GW minis duel. They are also rocking an impressive 209 skullz between them, an average of 4.35 per model.

My running Duels totals:

GW Points - 591

Skullz - 352

Squirrels - 8

For anyone worried that two of my Duels totals just doubled, my work is starting to get busy again after the winter break, so I expect my output will drop off a bit from here on out.