Wednesday From JamieM - The Horus Heresy’s Greatest Traitor and Mythos (62 points)

Something of a small and yet mixed bag today. First up are the Priory faction for "Mythos" by warcradle. One of my friends and I are like moths to a flame when obscure and virtually dead games with pretty miniatures are concerned and "Mythos" is that. Don’t think it was ever big, but it limps along and can be had very cheaply on eBay at times. I have the Priory faction who are nominally the good guys standing against the evil Cthulhu-type entities

These appear to be led by a wise fellow who has dragged along a chap with a flamethrower, an archaeologist lady, a mechanic, a cat and he’s summoned a massive golem! Feels like he’s ticked all of the boxes for fighting evil…..

Fairly simple paint jobs and it remains to be seen whether the game will see table time with so many other games fighting for it. Heck, they’re nice miniatures either way and were fun to paint. Oh, and one of the ladies will be my fee to move to the “Traitor” area of hell……

……Because I’ve also painted this fella, Lorgar Aurelian...

He’s from GW’s Horus Heresy setting and is one of the primarchs, who are super human beings who lead the legions. Lorgar leads the Wordbearers, religious nut jobs who built massive cathedrals to the Emperor (back when he claimed he wasn’t a god) when they took worlds over instead of moving on to pacify the next world. The Emperor slapped them down for this very publicly and used the Ultramarines to do it, which mortified the entire legion (The Ultramrines? Ugh. I would be embarrassed too - GB).

Lorgar responded to this like any teenager would and sought out the chaos gods to worship instead. He then introduced them to Horus and some of his other primarch friends and the Horus heresy began!

Lorgar is therefore a huge traitor (even though the Emperor was also a bit of a git) as he set in motion a war that killed billions and set humanity back and got what would become the 40K universe going. Ironically, it set up a universe where the Emperor really is now seen as a god. So perhaps he’d feel it was all worth it?

Anyway, 5 x 28mm figure, one 54mm figure, one 40mm figure and a Traitor bonus for 62 points by my maths.

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This is lovely Jamie! And with all due respect to "Mythos" - and your commitment to obscure-adjacent games (which I share and respect), I can say "thank god" for some 30k at last! And that is a sentiment I think Lorgar would appreciate!

The Primarch models are a real hoot, and it is so nice to see the arch-criminal of the Horus Heresy rendered here and ready to lead his legion into some manner of "faithful endeavor". Progress demands sacrifice, after all, and Lorgar his chaps can help out with both! While Erebus is still the biggest @sshole in the story, at the end of the day, Lorgar is THE bad guy. You've done fine work here - the cape, the mace, and even the "such-a-shame-that-billions-must-die-in-order-to-show-the-obvious-truth" expression on his face.

And full marks to the "Mythos" team. But why assume the "Cthulhu types" are evil? Why, Lorgar could help you understand that inter-dimensional diversity can be your organization's new "greatest strength"...

62 points it is! We can all celebrate in our next visit to Monarchia. Right....?

GregB 

From JamieM - Kings Of War Salamanders (150 points)

 Nice and simple this week, two regiments (or one horde if I stick them together) of salamanders for Kings of War, along with two salamander heroes.

These will go into my Forces of Nature army with the elementals I’ve already painted as part of the challenge.

Not my most inspired or detailed paintwork, but they’re certainly functional as a unit and I’m going for them as a whole look instead of being super detailed individually.

I like to take the opportunity to multi base for Kings of War as I think it looks great and should allow me to set up and play nice and quickly when I start getting games in.

Simple maths this week, 30 x 28mm figures for 150 points this week.

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Have to say Jamie that when I first saw the title of this post, I was thinking "oh great, he's back at some 30k stuff!". These were not the "Salamanders" I was expecting...

But they look cool all the same, and "Kings of War" is a fine game. Rather distressing to think of "nature" amassing such armoured forces, but they look great, particularly in the big mass/horde as you have them here. That is a fine 150-point bomb for you!

GregB

From JamieM - Aliens, Elementals and Weird Monsters (158 points)

Something of a selection box today, starting with some more Grey aliens (even though some of them aren’t grey) to go alongside the starting war and I painted a few weeks ago.

These are once again from the Watchers faction for the Wild West Exodus game. Not sure I’ll get around to playing them in that game, but my plan to use them as invaders against some post apocalyptic humans is intact, probably using the Xenos Rampant rules. No idea why there is a human in the box, but in the box she was and so she got painted.

The same paint scheme as my last ones.

Next up are some tree elementals/dryads for Kings of War for the, perhaps unsurprisingly, Forces of Nature army. They’ll go alongside the water and fire elementals I painted last week as an army mainly made up of big fellas who go “Smash” instead of pesky small infantry is really rather appealing.

There’s also a Tree Herder with them, who is the big Ent looking fella at the back. He will most definitely go Smash.

Nice and simple painting with dry brushing doing most of the heavy lifting and I thought I’d add some basing flock and underbrush to their tops to give them some foliage.

Last up are a couple of big monsters and a little fella. In order to finish my Conquest Spires army, I needed to finish a standard bearer and two monsters, delightfully known as “Abominations”

They’re too big for my Photo Booth so I had to improvise! The little fella is 40mm, which shows how huge these lads are…..

Contrast paint doing some heavy lifting as there’s plenty of surface detail and it was great for the flesh.

As you can see, they’re a little bit disturbing… horrible to build though as the leg joints were all ball and socket, which sounds great in theory, but trying to hold four ball and socket joints together simultaneously was an absolute nightmare.

So, for scores then:

Aliens are 2 x 40mm and 5 x 28mm for 39 points.

Wood dryads are 6 x 40mm and 1 x 28mm vehicle for 62 points.

Conquest miniatures are 1 x 40mm infantry and 2 x 40mm vehicles for 57 points

Which I make 158 points in total.

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Well now Jamie, 158 points WITHOUT resorting to any sort of Naval Nonsense (TM) - that's more like it!

This is a tremendous assortment you have gathered here. Remember, even if all of the aliens are not grey in look, they are probably grey in motive, so "grey alien" is the perfect term to apply to all of them. The Ents look smashing - as well as able to smash. And as for the "Abomninations" well...they sure seem to do what it says on the tin! And I expect all those ball socket joints were quite the nightmare to assemble...

158 points well-earned! We look forward to your further progress on multiple fronts!

GregB

From JamieM: the Drowned Earth and Elementals (280 points)

Having finally gotten Limbo out of the way, it’s time to start posting the rest of the things I’ve been painting.

First up are some miniatures for a game called “the drowned earth”. It’s a small game run by a small company and you can feel the passion they have for it. Set it a post apocalyptic world after “the Event”, (they don’t tell you what the event was, but it was certainly apocalyptic….) you have small bands running around with dinosaurs. Yep, you read that right, dinosaurs.

It’s not particularly well explained why dinosaurs are back, nor why there are some anthropomorphized animals in the crews, but I don’t care as they look cool!

The first band are the Wayfarers. These are a mercenary faction who can be taken by any faction or they can fight together.

As I mentioned, some anthropomorphizing going on, but as there’s an elephant with a minigun, I think we can count that as a massive win.

I’ll use the female in the team to help me get to the “Greed” circle and then present this mob for it.

They are the Bondsmen, essentially bounty hunters who will collect any bounty without qualms, thus prizing money over anything else.

The lizard fella is the leader and the giant ape is an absolute beast in the game, as you’d expect having seen him.

Anyway, I’ll then use one of the females in the crew to move me to the “Wrath” circle. Now, did I mention the game included dinosaurs?

These are a Keratosaur, 2 yuttaraptors, domeheads, oviraptors and troodons. They all have slightly different stats and abilities in the game and I’m itching to try them out, having only used the normal mobs so far.

Without any knowledge of the colours to use, I just went with the pictures from their stat cards and I’m pleased with how they’ve come out.

It’s also something of a milestone as I’ve managed to paint all of the Drowned Earth miniatures that I own! That’s right, I’ve managed to not expand a new game waaaaaaay beyond the time I have to paint them. Excuse as I may need to have a lie down to recover……. 

Anyway, because at least one of them will clearly be female (the male dinosaurs don’t get to have all of the fun hunting down humans to eat!), I’ll use one of the females to move me along to the “violence” circle for my next offering.

These are a selection of elementals for the Kings of War game and I think we can all see just how violent Nature can be when it gets going. Not directed violence as such, given it is just nature after all, but to those of us living on the earth we are subject to its whims and the after effects of the elements on people and places can be devastating.

Water elementals first with one greater and 5 lesser of the type. These were an absolute blast to paint and I loved what Mantic did with them, with fish, octopi and a boat skeleton unwittingly along for the ride!

I didn’t think they’d be that much fun to paint, but I really enjoyed trying to get the blues and the spray right and I’m really pleased with them.

Next up are the fire elementals

These, conversely, were less fun than I expected and I’m not pleased with how they turned out (especially having seen Barks do some excellent fire effects yesterday!), but they’re done and I suspect any attempt to change them would make them messier, so I’m calling them done and moving on to the next challenge.

So, scores on the doors……

The Drowned Earth - 15 28mm infantry (75) and 5 40mm infantry (35) plus greed and wrath (40) for 150 points.

Elementals - 10x 40mm infantry (70) and two 28mm vehicles (40) plus violence (20) for 130 points.

Altogether that’s 280 points.

Sylvain minioning for Greg: Wow, what a nice point bomb. You really are offering us a nice variety of figurines this week, especially with the Drowned Earth collection. I will have to check out that game as I like the cartoonish look of the characters. Your elementals look great and don't be too harsh on yourself, just looking at them I know these are "fire elementals", so kudos for a nice try. Great job!

 

From JamieM - Limbo Ogryn and More Boats (96 points)

It’s been a while since my last post and, perhaps fittingly, it’s the limbo entry on the circles from hell that delayed me. I have a lot of half finished projects (I feel I might be amongst like minded people with that here) so I decided to only do the odd figures that were either left on my painting desk because “I’m sure I’ll pop enough paint on them to finish them in between other projects” ( spoiler: I didn’t do this) or the projects that were within reaching distance of my painting desk, so any slightly larger projects that had been moved to shelves to await their turn (for months….. possibly even a year).

So, firstly, here is a larger project, Ogryn for my Horus heresy militia army

As some may know (especially after the knowledgeable and well informed posts from GregB and Curt on the subject) the Horus heresy occurred in the 31st millennium when fully half of the space marines rebelled against the emperor and threw their lot in with the chaos gods instead (who tricked them into thinking life would be better under them). This resulted in a cataclysmic interstellar war and sowed the seeds for the dystopian 41st millennium that warhammer 40K is set in.

Most of the books and other literature concentrates on the space marines fighting each other (because space marines are rad as hell, obvs) but amongst the huge empire that The Emperor's minions had carved out, there were many, many more “normal” folk, who were forced to throw their lot in with either The Emperor or Horus, often with little information as to what each really stood for. Games Workshop are renowned for getting customers to spend a lot of money on specific infantry, vehicles, etc for each setting, which is fine as a business plan and all that, but does veer away a little from the origins of Gee Dubs when scratch building and converting was the cool thing (roll on deodorant hover tank anyone?). These days, every army entry has to have a specific kit you can buy for it or they remove the entry from games until they’ve made a kit for it.

Now, it seems to me that as the Horus heresy/30k range isn’t one of their most popular ranges, the designers seems to get a little more leeway and so they produced the Militia army list to represent the many and varied standing armies and militias present on any given world. At the start of the army list there is a little bit of blurb telling you that there are no kits specifically for any of the entries and you are encouraged to use the other kits they make and kit so to build your army!

Now, I’ve always been a massive kitbasher and this was music to my ears! Even better, as a child who grew up with the first edition of war hammer 40K (aka "Rogue Trader") I’ve always had a massive soft spot for the Ogryns, who are the sci fi equivalent of the ogre. Large of body and small of thinking (“Blessed is the mind too small for doubt”) ogryn have always been taken advantage of by the imperial forces to get them to do what they say the emperor commands (“a small mind is easily filled with faith”). The militia force allows you to field big units of ogryn as your basic troops! And I could kitbash away to make them happen!

So here they are. They languished in limbo as our club played 30k for about a year and then moved onto other games and that coincided with me getting partway through them. The options for a militia force are many and varied, but I chose to have my ogryn toting shields (some official, some converted from half of a dozer blade meant for the front of fighting vehicles) and chain axes. In order to get enough chain axes, I converted them from Ork choppas and spare chain swords. I’m really pleased with the result and have 12 more to do to give me my two big units of ten. I still don’t think ogryn will stand up to the best that space marines have to offer, but they are ogryns and that’s plenty good enough for me.

Next are three more boats painted up as ghosts for Mantic’s Armada game (and warmaster naval too). Nice and simple and give me more options when added to the ones painted earlier in the challenge.

And from the other side…..

In summary then:

8 x 40mm figures = 56

Limbo bonus = 20

Three boats (worth 10, 5, 5 I think?) = 20

96 total points.

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"I have a lot of half finished projects"

While I loathe the tiresome babble of progressivism, let me assure you: this is a SAFE SPACE for you! I am confident many/most Challengers will relate to the approach and sentiment which left your Ogryn unit to wait - and wait, and wait some more - before finally getting under the brush. And they look tremendous, and as you say, part of what makes 30k so fun is the lingering residual hobby spirit of GW's elder age where participants were encouraged to experiment and come up with their own kits. While Horus Heresy fans like myself are certainly excited to see the huge volume of kits now being released in plastic, 30k still retains things like the Militias which allow for creative folk like you to have some fun. The dozer blades...that is perfect as a shield for them! Can totally see a Commissar pointing at some in a yard and saying to the Ogryn "hey, just use these" and their perfectly small, loyal minds obeying immediately...

And also some naval stuff. Sigh. Whatever. At least they are spooky-looking ghost ships. 

96 points for you Jaimie! May the Hobby Gods infuse you with sufficient will to finish another project from the half-started pile...I mean...nothing new or cool being released? Right? Right?

Greg B

JamieM - Grey Alien Warband (67 points)

A second post of the day (or possibly first of next week if I don’t get it finished in good time!) and it’s a slightly random one.

I have a lot of rulesets. A lot. It’s a bit of a standing joke at the club that someone finds a game and I’ve already got the rules and either have a force or two or have bought a force, painted it and since sold it. A lot of my rulesets are miniature agnostic, which is great for buying a bunch of unusual miniatures that take my fancy. On the downside, this gives me licence to buy a bunch of unusual miniatures that take my fancy.

And in this vein, enter the Alien Grey warband

The miniatures are from the Wild West Exodus game system, but I decided they would work as adversaries in my budding post apocalyptic games.

This is the leader fella, scary looking big chap with a standard grey for scale.

These normal fellas come with two weapon types for the most part, standard rifles and larger rifles.

There is also a grey with a heavy weapon and a slightly different alien who probably sings the cows to sleep before they are taken away by the look of him….

I couldn’t resist the box when I saw it and I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing that a mate of mine bought me an expansion and the rules for Wild West Exodus for Christmas as a present/punishment for my lack of willpower.

12 28mm figures and one 40mm figures nets me 67 points I believe.

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A second post in one day! Another veteran tactic by a seasoned AHPC participant...thankfully you appear to be done with the naval nonsense, and must resort to more honest work. For now...

I salute your commitment to ensure you never commit to just one rule set! After all, there are so very many rules out there, and your "comprehensive consideration and collection" (CCAC) approach to gaming rules is one I have no doubt many Challengers will relate to. Hobbyists such as yourself are essential cogs in the psychological ecosystem of gaming - when we see rules we might like, and take a chance on them, we can still tell ourselves "well, at least I'm not as crazy as Jamie!"

My shelves (and storage) heave with piles of rules I have tried, or want to try, and the cycle of rules-meaning-I-should-buy-figures-which-is-a-good-reason-to-buy-these-other-rules is nothing other than...a perfectly normal, healthy approach to this great hobby!

The Grey Aliens here looks wonderful - ready for a military skirmish, or perhaps to snag a few subjects for some, er, probing research back at the base, all to determine what is going on - post-apocalyptic setting or otherwise!

67 points for you, and a great start today to your Challenge!

GregB

From JamieM: Ghost Fleet for Kings of War armada (140 points)

Hi all, great to be back and painting through the winter and see what everyone else is up to!

I decided to start for once with something relatively simple so I could get an early post in. I then completely lost track of time over the festive period while I feverishly worked away at the painting table and missed the free fire posting period!

So I now present my first post, of a naval variety (to my minion’s great excitement I’m sure!)

This is a small fleet for Mantic’s Kings of War, which is a great fun little naval game based on Warlord’s Black Seas game.

Mantic recently started their “Vault” which is a website hosting STLs for their resin miniatures. They release them monthly mainly with their backlog of resin stuff. They’ve recently taken the opportunity to start releasing STLs that they’ve released physically and the ghost fleet was one of those. As one of the people at my local club has a resin printer I jumped at the opportunity to get some printed and painted up.

There are four larger ships and six tiddly ones. They’ve worked so well that I’ve ordered some more….

The game has various profiles based (no pun intended) on the base size of the ship in question. These two are the second largest. I’ve converted one with the pyramid whereas the other is just a large ship from the orc fleet that I’d also had printed previously which I decided could join the fleet too.

The next two are medium ships of the line.

These last are the smallest support ships and as another mate was extolling the virtues of the new fan written “warmaster navy” rules (based on the venerable GW man ‘o’ war rules) I picked up more ships than I’d need for armada and based them on bases needed for that game instead.

Nice and simple paint scheme with washes and drybrushing.

With regards points, scoring for naval stuff seems not quite as simple as for standard figures so I’ve worked on the basis of the black sails submission from yesterday for points meaning 20 each for the two larger (L) ships, 15 each for the two medium (M) ships and 5 each for the six smallest (T) ships to make 100 in total.

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"They’ve worked so well that I’ve ordered some more…"

So say we all - if only to ourselves.

Wonderful to see you back in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge once more Jamie! Not only is your brushwork fine as ever, but I see you are learning the habits of the true Challenge veterans - namely that of embarking on some silly naval project so you can grub some extra points...

In fact, according to my spreadsheet, which never is wrong, this lot is somehow worth 140 points! Ghost points! Such a clever opening gambit...who needs the "Free Fire Period" when you can just go naval...

But it does look excellent - and the idea of a fantasy version of "Black Seas" is pretty cool. I would also love to hear more about the "Warmaster" variant as well. Anything that makes you pick up more figures than you need holds promise!

Great stuff Jamie - looking forward to more! But just not more naval :)

GregB