From JamieM - Kings of War units (195 points)

My final post and it was touch and go if I’d get these done! As is traditional, I started too many things at the same time and this jeopardised getting any of them done in time….

First up is an elf mage. Originally from the old Warhammer starter set “Island of Blood” I seem to have about five of these, so I thought I would get one painted for my Kings of War Elf army.

As you can see, he’s floating on magical….. errr….. wind?

He cuts quite the dash in his snazzy cloak - I can just see him now, floating across the battlefield uttering magical phrases such as “Izzy, Whizzy, Let’s get busy!”

Next up, a gigantic monster. I’ll give myself willpower points for sticking with Kings of War….. but he’s actually for a different army (twilight kin = Dark elves), so I have to deduct a few willpower points for not sticking to getting an army done….

Originally a Games Workshop Kharibdyss (don’t ask), he’s going to be a Cronebound Shadowhulk for the Twilight Kin (who are nothing to do with Team Jacob)

Lovely model to work on and contrast paints did most of the heavy lifting.

He’s a bit of a big boy, as you can see, but he does fit nicely on his kings of war base, which will be helpful when I get to play.

Sticking with the twilight kin, here are some Dark Elf Impalers. Not on multi bases, but I have bases for them to slot into which are the right size.

They’re supposed to be two handed weapon warriors, so I used games workshop Dark Elves and just extended the handles of the swords as they were already ridiculously long….. as an old WFB player, I automatically add standards and musicians to every unit I can. They have no rules in Kings of War and so just make transporting the units harder, but I like the look of them, so in they go.

Flip-flopping back to Elves again, here I have some Hunters of the Wild.

They’re games workshop dryads with faces changed for skulls to make them a little spookier. Perhaps they’re the souls of Elves buried in the forest risen to protect their land?

My multi-basing experiment continues and I’m not overly happy with how the dry brushing went, but they are done and represent another step closer to my army being ready to use.

Two units, mostly because they’re quick to paint and so get me ready quickly!

And finally, a trip on Saran’s star yacht beckons with these two figures.

Standing up is “Motherboard” a character for 7TV. She’s a crooked dice sculpt and isn’t the official miniature for motherboard, but I already owned this figure, so getting her off the lead pile was a bonus.

The other figure is a hassle free miniature figure who I converted by replacing the head (which I’d used years ago for something else…..) and adding a ray gun to her belt so I can use her in stargrave.

Final scores then for 31 x 28mm figures (1+12+8+8+2) and one 28mm vehicle(?) at 15 I think. Add on 20 for the star yacht trip and I think that gives me 190 to finish? (Nope. It's 195, but you were close! -ed)

Thanks to Curt, and to Greg for being my Wednesday minion, and also to all those who took the time to comment on posts as it’s been another great challenge that has helped my Leadpile out no end!

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What a wonderful potpurri of figures, Jamie! The turquoise, red and yellow you used for that Elf mage is an excellent combination (making notes for future reference). The Kharibdyss is completely bonkers, but wonderfully rendered by your skilful brush. I also fully endorse your fallback position on having a banner and musicians in your fantasy units (well, any units frankly), so well done on accepting the inconvenience of storage and transport. Finally, I really like the dryads on the multibase - I think these bases have such a cool, vignette quality to them and this one is no exception. Great work Jamie!  Thank you for participating and I hope we can link up soon for a Zoom game and a chat.

- Curt

From TeemuL: Quintet of Heroes [Sarah's Star Yacht] (45 points)

Quick post today. I guess I could backtrack my way to Mars, but why bother when we can use a comfortable Star Yacht?

These are bendy plastic Pathfinder minis, I intended to buy these for my son to paint, but he found them too detailed. So off we go and collect another squirrel with these rather quick Contrast jobs. Also, writing with phone, terrible experience... There are two female oracles and fighters with a single male monk.

From Millsy:

Another post packed full of colour and character Teemu and a great way for you to round out your Challenge. They're all wonderful but I particularly like the monk, with his beautiful bronzed skin tone and wickedly curved blade.

Thanks for sharing your creativity with us this year mate. It has been a blast and I have enjoyed each and every one of your submissions. 45 points it is to add to you tally!

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 SarahHC: Lilly, the Glamourous Society Dame (25 Points)

Hey Everyone!

This week I had planned to paint terrain, however, the terrain which magically appeared in my paint nook was a turnip field. The Snowlord would not permit me a creative colour palette, the intent was for me to match with his previously painted fields. Boring!! (Well, I tried... Ed.) Instead, I chose to paint another 28mm figure as a gaming piece for a pulp adventure.

This model appeared awhile ago in my painting nook and had already been primed and based by Curt. Provenance unknown to me.

I was annoyed at trying to paint her shoes as they are more cement block than footwear. The base was going to be changed out to a clear one and I knew I’d have to do touch ups.
Despite all this, I feel that I’m getting the hang of painting 28mm. With Lilly, I was inspired by the super fancy GreenStuff World colour shift paints that Curt had acquired recently. My paint skillz have improved enough that he trusts me with these treasures, and I was even allowed to use his most coveted 35yr old paint pot of Citadel Shining Gold!

I wanted Lilly to really “shimmer”, she is a glamorous society dame, dancing from one charity function to another all the while listening for gossip and juicy tidbits. One never knows what information might come in handy. I quite like her pose. Obviously Lilly has just had her bottom pinched, and she’s deciding whether to be outraged or flattered …

The GreenStuff World colourshift paints are magical, the colours really do seem to dance! I used Nebula Copper on her dress, with Burning Gold at the hem, neckline, shoulder straps … hopefully creating a sort of ombré effect. The rosette and flouncy ruffles were painted in Citadel colour contrast Plaguebearer Flesh, and highlighted with Curt’s ‘Very Special Citadel Shining Gold paint pot, circa 1986’. ( his words, not mine….)

Lilly has accessorized in Terradon Turquoise wrist cuffs, earrings and shoes. I kept her hair-colour relatively simple gunmetal with dry brush of Vallejo Steel, emphasizing the finger waves with a touch of Nuln Oil. (Little known fact about our benevolent Snowlord: Many years ago, when I met him, he worked as a hair dresser in a fancy salon, and so was not shy to express his opinions about Lilly’s hair do. 🤷‍♀️) (No comment. Ed.)

Points wise? 1 x28mm figure for 5 points. I will also use Lilly as a ticket to summon the Star Yacht to whisk me away to the planet of Istvaan V, so another 20 points for that. Wow! I'm already well over my original 100 point target, so I think I will increase my target to 250 points. Wish me luck!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

- Sarah

I can't say that I blame you, opting to paint this instead of trying to match Curt's previously-painted turnip fields. I haven't tried colour-shifting paints on 28mm figures before, but it looks as though it works well for shimmery dresses - I'll have to remember to give it a try for some of my Pulp ladies.

By the way, we all want to know how the chocolate cakes that you and Tasha had to bake for each other were, hopefully with photos of the cakes and you sharing them!

Tamsin

From ChrisW ...Dystopian Wars and 28mm VSF (704 points)

So visiting two new planets today, but as we leave our last planet we get a quick look at the personal guards of the Princess of Mars. [Figures by The Tekumel project out of Kingston Ontario Canada.]

The journey this week will take us to Perelandra and via Sarah's Yacht onto Arrakis. 

Perelandra

Here you can see the newly arrived landing barges and the recently repainted ones that I have had for a while. The trick was to try and match the paint jobs. Oddly enough I wrote down what I had used, a rare thing and very strange thing to do since at the time I painted them I had no expectation of ever getting any more. Anyhow, it worked out, more or less, but the decks of the smaller barges did not come out as light, I must have used a different wash! [Spartan Games]

 

 

 and all of them together

Keeping with the water planet theme I also whipped up these Dystopian Wars islands, and fortress.

This was the inspiration for the islands. A co-worker had this on their wall and I asked to have it once we moved on to the next month. Note the date! It demonstrates the normal speed that I move at...

  By the time I got to the last island (the island to the right) I think I was getting pretty good at it, but none of them matched the inspiration.

 

Close up of the fortress [Spartan Games]

A size photo before painting

Yet another island, also could be used as an industrial complex. As well as painting up the 4 vacuformed islands I also painted up 22 drop on building, only 20 required but I wanted some variety.

As far as size goes, they would fit into an 18" x 18" box, with the 4th island resting on top of the 3 curved islands;

17" left to right

Very low rise

About 3-4" tall

Keeping again with water theme, I also finished off Queen Victoria's Women's Naval Brigade troops [Hinterland Miniatures OOP]

 

Onto Arrakis, using Sarah's yacht courtesy of the Martian guards. Please note the artillery piece was painted before the challenge and is only in the picture because it inspired the colour used on the jezail barrels, and because 3 crew were part of the painting done this week. 

A not so funny thing happened to the infantry on the way to the photo booth, they all came a tumbling down...!! When I finished scooping them up, I could only find 32 somewhat battered figures. Will continue to look, but felt this needed to get posted to the blog first. So apologies for come of the bare metal that can be seen on some of the bases. [Ironclad Minatures]

The points

• 40 points for the two planets
• 20 points for Sarah's yacht
  
• 70 points Women's Naval Guard [14 Hinterland miniatures] and or
• 70 points Princess's Royal guards (Tekumel unit)
• 180 points Sanwar 33  32 foot + 2 mtd [Ironclad miniatures] 
• 180 points for the 4 islands [17" by 17"]
  
• 20 points for the fortress
• 80 points for the 4 landing barges
• 40 drop on buildings (about 1" by 1" treating as 6mm vehicles)??

Grand total of 700 points

That's 28 figures that could take me around the map a few times, but one planet hop will do. I am truly looking forward to relaxing in a nice luxury yacht.

I am going to try and not do this madness next week, I hope to visit one planet, and keep the figure type to simple 28mm, easily scored items. Next week nothing weird sized or to strange (I hope)

 

Yet another huge points bomb from Chris!  You seem to be diddling yourself out of a few points - you painted 22 drop on buildings!

Tamsin