From TeemuL: Sludge Shock Troopers (15 points)

There has been lots of fuzz about Turnips, but not enough of Sludge. So here we go. After clipping and gluing my initial army last year, I was left with different body parts, which weren't that suitable together. I have used some of them as gore tokens (casualty markers) and ghosts as shock tokens (terror markers), but I still had them and I was thinking about some uses for them. I had to create a different unit, because I couldn't use the left overs to make existing units larger. In the rulebook there is a unit called Shock Troops and I got some ideas. Recently I read some WSS magazine, where they made troops and trenches, but they actually didn't dig holes - the trench (or foxhole) was just a 2D area on the board and troops in trenches were half minis on bases, so they looked like being in a hole. I decided to combine those ideas in my head and create a unit of Shock Troops, lightly armoured and crossing a bog or a swamp.

These are Perry Miniature plastics, they are Zoauves torsos with right hands (bayonets clipped away) and random heads, left hands and swords from other sets. The end result is a bit of rag tag team (ie veteran) going through the mud, flanking the opponent and making the day. Painted with the glourious yellow and brown colours like the rest of my army, so they fit in nicely. My line troops have zoauve legs and hands, foot knight torsos and heads, so I had lots of zouaves torsos left. It makes sense that these shock troops in mud won't wear that much armour. By the rules, they have muskets and swords, so these are WYSIWYG. I tried to add less mud behind them, but it is not very obvious.

Also, I reached the Red Zone last week and Curt has assigned me a task to paint "Idoneth Deepkin team for Shadespire" - you know the great kit with a pretty crab. Yeah, I bought it almost the day it was released, because of the crab. I don't even play Shadespire, I just wanted (to paint) the crab. And now a few years later I have been ordered to paint the whole team. I guess this is some kind of a lesson of impulse buys or something. The team is now on my backlog, but it will be late March when it is ready.

Points are easy, 6 half 28mm minis, so 15 in total.

I didn't fool you, they are actually just half-minis! Clever. :)

From TeemuL: Army of Dead and Army General (60 points)

"Murin and Drar, were they really there (3000 Years Ago!), when Battle of Pelennor Fields took place? This a question we like to answer with our forthcoming movie 'Wild Wandering Adventures of Murin and Drar during the time of Lord of the Rings' or one of its' sequels or spin-offs. It is very likely, we like to think and here you can see some storyboards, were these two iconic heroes are there fighting alongside the Dunharrow ghosts, filthy oathbreakers. May be all those arrows were not from Legolas, maybe he miscounted his toll, I dare to ask. The movie is still in pre-production, so we have to think about the possibilities, not restrictions, you understand?"

My "Dwarfs, Rohan and Mithril"- labeled box has at least one error, there are 16 Dunharrow warriors there, but not any label to tell so! Well, here are six first out from that box. I followed my 4 year old simple recipe, which you can find here: Post from 2018.

Yes, very simple paint job, suitable for grabbing some quick and easy points at the start of the Challenge, so I can relax later. Light Grey, Blue wash and Bone drybrush. These sculpts are very nice, not just some formless ghosts, but very characterful minis.

I tried to take a detailed look, but still I'm not able to see any proper (ghostly) skulls here, there's flesh, no bone...  I need to find something else for the Skulls Challenge than Lotr minis.

I'll try to paint the remaining ten (they are metal casts) during the Challenge while trying to empty the box. Unfortunately I couldn't claim any of these to any nearby Studio location nor are any of them female so I'm stuck for the Casting Couch for time being.

Let's forget the WWAoMaDdttoLotR movie (and the acronym) for a while and move on. You might remember Sludge the Wargame, I painted several minis for that during previous Challenge. Quite similar to popular Turnip28, which is getting some love during this Challenge.

I have now started a second army for Sludge, Blaster 04 magazine includes expansion for original Sludge, allowing to create different nations, one of them can have giants, one has flyers and one has crawlers etc. So yes, over here you can see my army commander (unnamed at the moment) with his flag bearer and a crawler (very similar to M3 Stuart). I started the crawler before the Challenge, so I can't claim any points for it - I'm at the opposite side of the Studio than Under Construction! But I just wanted to share it here, since I'm quite happy with it. The gun barrel is not original, it is a paint brush protector tube and radio mast on the behind is now a flag pole (not visible).

Usually the Sludge minis are quite conversion heavy, but this command stand is pretty much straight from the Austrian Napoleonic Cavalry 1798-1815 box, there might be a piece or two from somewhere else. I wanted my commander to have some kind of sharpness and tidyness, so I avoided conversions. I really like the bold colours on them, quite opposite to the dusty crawler (I need to create a good story to explain that), the paints are mostly Citadel Contrast paints except the white, which is more traditional approach.

The backstory for this army is that they are from mountains, they have plenty of iron and ore, but not that much gunpowder. That's why they have the tank-like crawler and basic infantry has plate mails, but fight with cross bows. They are more heavily converted than the commander. The flag here shows the anvil and the hammer inside a circle, just explaining it here in case someone has poor eyesight or not enough imagination.

The mud on the base is my own mix of sand, pieces of twigs, brown paint, white glue and water. Twigs and grapevine twigs(?) painted yellow to create exotic look and some orange sand to represent rust, fungus or something like that. I'm quite happy with that, too.

Scoring, 6 warriors on foot, 2 mounted, all 28mm, so 50 points. No skulls, Studio locations etc.

_______________________________________

What an excellent post, Teemu! I know the Dunharrow ghosts can be doodle to paint, but they are always welcomed as they are so characterful and creepy. 

I'm also loving the beginnings of your new Sludge faction. I'm enjoying the background of them being mineral rich, but gunpowder poor. Your crawler conversion is hoot, with its oversized cannon and hull covered in rust and grime. I also think your banner is ace, with its stylized anvil and 'T' (for Teemu?). 

As it's the Holiday Season, I'm going to give you a few extra points for the Crawler and the banner. Thanks for sharing them!

Great, imaginative work, Teemu! Well done.

Curt

From TeemuL: The Last Sludge (70 points)

Here you are Millsy, if these are worthy of the Challenge, so be it. :)

More Sludge this week. Here are some Jaegers, they are not conversions of Perry Miniatures like most of my army, they are metal miniatures from Warbases, Red Guard models from their Mousquetaires range. I have painted them in similar yellows and browns and even though their style is bit different and proportions are not the same, they fit quite ok, especially when they are based individually. My heroes and leaders are also from the same range, so they don't look that odd.

That's dried grape wine branch (in lack of a proper English term) on the bases, if you wonder. Painted yellow to give a low fantasy look of strange bushes and roots. Some orange sand, too.

The crossbows are handy weapons, they have longer range than muskets, but is more difficult to hit and they hit armoured troops harder.

But these are plastic Perry's, similar conversions of foot knights and Zouaves as before. Two bases here, one marching and one charging. They have same colours as the previous unit (brown pants and yellow shirts) so they will expand the unit to five bases. That's pretty hard one to crack.

I managed to play my first game of Sludge last week against a friend of mine on our kitchen table, here are some photos. We had a 200 point game where there were 3 objectives in the middle, which could be plundered for points. Points were also scored for having units left on the table and killing the enemy commander. I had a narrow loss, but of course this was my first game and lots of the mechanics and tactics were new. The rules were rather simple, we only browsed the rules quite rarely. I definitely want to play more.

My kitchen table, but the mat and the terrain (excluding the grey hut) was provided by my friend Joonas. The greenish army is of course his.

We had a nice duel in the end between the commanders, both of them survived. The orange tokens represent "gore", or chaos on the battlefield. That makes it more difficult for units to operate and stay on the field, heroes can remove that stuff, but then of course they can't do other nice stuff, like buff the troops...

Scoring wise, that is 10 new Sludge minis in 28mm scale for 50 points. No skulls of squirrels.

From Millsy;

LOL, I had no idea when I suggested more Sludge for your Challenge Quadrant Hub task that you were already way ahead of me! Congrats on both your foresight AND the fact you've produced another great addition to your army Teemu. Wonderful to see the army in use for the first time too, and as we all know units are destined to die ingloriously on their first run out :-P

Like all your past Sludge posts I really dig everything here, but for me the standouts are the Warbases' Red Guard. One of the things I really enjoy as a counterpoint to kitbashing is finding an existing miniature that fits your theme and can slide right in. If they're not intended for what you use them for then so much the better.

50 points for the minis, plus another 20 for the Hub. Well done mate!

From TeemuL: The Fourth Androgynstealer and others (50 points)

I explained earlier, why there were only three genestealers on Gethen, and here you can see fourth one, painted by six-year old son. I helped with priming, reaching tricky places and minor fixing. He clearly saw my genestealers and took some inspiration firstly to paint one secondly copy some of the colours. However, he had some painter's block and couldn't decide all the colours, so I gave him an old Codex Tyranids (2nd Ed) to browse and he quickly choose the purple colour. There is some white primer visible here and there, but it doesn't seem to bother, but I will gently hint about this in the future - as well as finishing the base edges. :)

There are also couple of terrain pieces made and painted by him, but these were started before the Challenge started. They are small rocks and twigs on a base and painted with different colours. He made two similar earlier, which were fireplaces, these are meant to be placed next to the fireplace, so people can comfortably sit on them. The blue is of course water, so it can used if the camp site is next to river or lake.

Next something more boring, three bases of Sludge Line Infantry. These almost made it to the last week, they were missing the black in eyes and black on base edge, but I didn't have it in me to finish them in time. It was quite a rough and busy weekend, this weekend is busy as well, so that's three in a row. After that it should be easier and I can allocate more time for painting.

Perry miniatures, mostly American Civil War Zoauves, but torso and heads from Foot Knights, flag (heraldic wheat on brown) is made of yogurt jar lid - at least in Finland it is very nice and soft aluminic foil, which has a nice texture, when used as a flag. The universe of Sludge is very muddy, so the bases are swampy with some pieces of wood here and there. These guys most likely won't hear the "CHARGE!!!" when going through this terrain. :)

I'd like to claim painting points from the Genestealer, since it is very much a joint operation with my son - I could use the time to paint just by myself, but the possibility to share the wonderful hobby to a younger generation... My dearest minion, I believe you understand?

So that would then be 10 miniatures, all in 28mm, for total of 50 points. No skulls, no squirrels, no planets.

From Millsy:

I'm pretty sure Codex Tyranids (2nd Ed) is the very definition of an Oldhammer gateway drug Teemu! Well done getting your son started on an addiction that'll bring him endless hours of pleasure and destroy his bank account but at least leave his health intact LOL. Kudos to your young fella on a great paint job and to yourself for supporting him but letting him make his own choices and do the work.

Your Sludge project gets better with every post. The kitbashes you are coming out with are spectacular and full of character. Plastic kits have been an absolute boon to the hobby in so many ways and letting people express their creativity by mashing seemingly unrelated stuff together is a highlight for me.

Love everything about this post mate. Brilliant stuff!

Cheers,
Millsy

From TeemuL: Sludge Dragoons (30 points)

Three more dragoons for my Sludge army, very similar to previous ones.

Again Perry minis, the same light cavalry with zoauves heads and arms.

The color choices are same, yellow and browns with some green. The pale horse is Skeleton Horde, if you are wondering. Works quite well on a horse.

3 cavalry for 30 points, no more. Next time more infantry.

From Milly:

Lovely looking cavalry Teemu. Nice too see some lighter toned horses making an appearance and that cream is gorgeous mate! I've mostly done mine using Bleached Bone in the past so I will have to give the Skeleton Horde a try next time around.

30 points it is! Keep em coming.

From TeemuL: Bunch of Sludge and a Hard Rock Orc (50 points)

Here's something from the world of Sludge. I finally received my army commander and painted him with his bodyguards. I also painted three dragoons to get some variety and mobility to my force, there's at least three more to come.

The commander is a metal figure from Warbases, Captain de Travaille from their Mousquetaires range. He is accompanied by two WR foot knights from the Perry plastic box, just their heads taken from the WR light cavalry box to those nice looking feathers.

These three dragoons are plastic Perry WR light cavalry models with musket arms and heads from the ACW Zouaves box. They fitted very well, the poses might not be ultra realistic, but I like their bit uncontrolled look.

On the top picture you can see, that the horse on the left has an army symbol painted on his "head guard", a simple wheat icon. The other horse has a white star on his head (I don't actually like painting horses, but I do like to paint them individually like this to have all kind of details and markings on them).

The army colors are basically yellow and brown, as mentioned in one of my previous posts. There is some green as well, especially on the more senior stuff (and feathers and so on). The brown means dark soil and yellow means golden wheat, while the green is for the grass - the good old times, before the World went Wrong and it is just mud pretty much everywhere.

The commander and bodyguards are the same size, so no problem mixing these. And since this is not a historical game, it is easy to add fancy looking officers and heroes with funny hats and such and get away with it.

All of these are on 40mm round bases, 2mm thick (or thin), which I started to like more than the bulkier 3mm thick ones. It makes the models look bigger, doesn't it? On the bases there are Stirland mud from GW and small stones, cuts of twigs and pieces of vine, useful left overs from eating grapes! And some orange sand from Hasslefree, it can represent rust or fungi or whatever you can think of.

The stripes on the other bodyguard are hand painted (as you can see), small details which make them more life like. I tried to paint eyes to all of them, with varying results, and mustaches on some of them - again with varying results. The rest of my gaming group are having a game night today to try out Sludge (2 has played one game, other 2 none), but I had already booked myself to another group event, cook and eat and probably play some boardgames while drinking wine type of thing. It was a difficult choice, you understand, but first booking is a first booking.

Second part of this posting is this Hard Rock Orc from Widkidz prepainted range.

You might be astonished by the level of the painting, but there is an easy explanation. It is not actually painted by me, but my 6 year old son. During the last autumn (or fall) he started paying more interest on my painting hobby (probably because my painting desk was temporarily located to the living room) and wanted to paint something himself. He first painted some Stormcast Eternals, which I had primer long ago, but he soon finished those. I was running out of primed models I could let go and the weather outside didn't support outdoor spraying. I went to the local game store and bought some of these prepainted plastics for him to paint.

This has been completely painted during the Challenge XII and the flag is a freehand as well. I was creating a flag for my Sludge force and he wanted a flag for his monster as well. The front side says "LORDI ÄRR" and back side "KISS ÄRR", where the "ÄRR" part roughly translates to "ARR" (like pronouncing the letter R like a true pirate. LORDI and KISS are two hard rock bands which my son really likes (he doesn't understand English, so it must be their appearance and show - check out on youtube, if these are unfamiliar to you).

I'd like to claim 5 points from this Orc to my (family) tally, since it is basically my miniature, it has been painted using my brushes and paints and using my time - he needs help opening the Contrast paint pots and cleaning the brushes, fixing mistakes and reaching the tricky parts.

No planets on this post (or new squirrels or skulls), so just basic points:

4 28mm miniatures on foot = 20 points

3 28mm mounted miniatures = 30 points

Total 50 points

From Millsy

Some super kitbashing here on your Sludge miniatures Teemu! They really come together as a cohesive whole and your commander looks suitably imposing backed up by his guards. You colour choices reflecting the background of the world is a great touch too.

It's great to see you supporting your son as he takes his first steps into the world of miniature painting and gaming. The Challenge is slowly growing a cadre of fresh young blood to take over when the rest of us are too arthritic to paint!

From TeemuL: Line infantry variations (77 points)

I had a pleasant Christmas Eve and Day (in Finland the Eve is more important, Santa comes during the evening and everyone relaxes, so the Christmas Day is very peaceful - 25 centimeters of snow caused some outdoor exercises and our son needed some assistance with the new Lego kit, but otherwise I had quite a lot of time to paint) and here is my second post. No planets this time (where did the Napoleonic planet disappeared, which was in the early map?), but 2 Squirrels should do the trick.

First two bases of Austrian Infantry from Italeri. They should have white uniforms, but I have taken rather grey approach - historically inappropriate, I guess, but I'm just getting into historicals, so don't crucify me yet, you would lose a prospect, if you'd do that!

I haven't played any Napoleonic games (yet), let's say I'm practising to paint smaller miniatures and learning multibasing and so on. There's not much availability on these models here in Finland, so when I noticed couple of boxes in a local store, I just took what was available. I painted some of these earlier in the previous Challenge or in Vaccination Challenge, so they might look familiar. I have only two more bases to paint, so I might paint them during this Challenge.

They are painted mostly with Contrast paints using the box cover as a guide. There are 4 models on a 40x40 mdf base, which has a small magnet hole with a magnet. GW texture paint to hide the plastic bases, not perfect.

Wrong end to be...

 

The second batch is for a new game, Sludge Wargame. The rules were published this year and one guy in our small group got interested in it and soon the rest of us were making orders to Perry.

For a while we have been more and more frustrated to the GW's rule cycle, where new set of rules comes out before you get properly in to the old ones (ignoring Blood Bowl LotR/MESBG here), not to mention battletomes, codexes, campaign books etc, so we were easy prey for something new. It could have been anything, but the stars were aligned and we all got interested in this.

This is probably a new game to lots of, so please google for more information. It is a skirmish size game with very flexible and generic units in a World Gone Bad. Basic instructions are to grab some Perry sprues and build some cool looking units, and that's what I did.

Foot Knights combined with ACW Zoauves. This is cannon fodder with firearms, they have a hard hat and body armour for protection, but since they are fighting in mud, they want to stay otherwise light. That is my backstory anyway.

Yellow and brown remind them of the good old times, golden crops and fertile earth. I took the extra pain to paint striped pants. So yes, there are varied shades of browns and yellow with dirty looking metals and some dark green here and there. I have more of these to paint, so I'll give some more background in the future, may be some thoughts of the actual game as well, if we get that far...

8 20mm miniatures, 32 points

9 25mm miniatures, 45 points

77 points, two Squirrels

_______________________________________

Sorry Teemu, The Death Star took out Marengo in early December with the re-edit. :)

'Sludge'. Hmm, this sounds very similar to the 'Turnip 28' rules I've recently seen here, I wonder if they are the same? Anyway, I really like how these composite figures turned out. Is this basing what is recommended in the rules - it looks great. Anyway, I look forward to seeing more 'Sludge' units from you Teemu.

- Curt