From SimonG: The Tale of the Valkyrie and the Twenty Zealots (147 points)

With the Green Zone now finished with I need another lift in Lady Sarah's limousine to take me to my desired destination in the new Red Zone. The chauffeur this time around is a menacing Valkyrie.

This is once again a Descent - Legends of the Dark 40mm plastic miniature, excellently sculpted and well assembled with all of the area accessible for painting (which isn't always the case, I've had to cut plastic figures apart in the past and reassemble them). Strictly this is Brynn, a human hero and player character from the game, but to me -- especially as she has just slaughtered a really cute looking baby dragon -- she seems much more sinister, perhaps more of Muire the deeply conflicted last Valkyrie in Elizabeth Bears "Edda of Burdens" trilogy (highly recommended btw if you like your Norse mythology spun through a wringer).

Highlights for me on this one were working on the hair, I find blonde very tricky. Plus the eyes -- I think the left eye is a real success, the right one less so, for some reason I just couldn't register where the brush was as I painted this one (not surprising given it is a) deeply set and b) partly obscured by hair). Anyway overall a good exercise in metallic tones and I tried to pay some attention to an overhead light source hitting the tops of exposed armour. There's also a very small amount of gore, no disguising she's a menacing figure.

Flowing Locks!

Left Eye Good, Right Eye hmmm

The Bloody Evidence (not sure what a severed Dragon joint looks like!)

Anyway the destination for our trip and our next Studio offering is the continuing "Swords and Sandals" epic retelling the fall of the Second Temple in the Jewish Revolt of CE 66-74.  This time around I'm offering up 20 Jewish warriors with a mixture of locally sourced and other materiel liberated from the Romans.

The figures are based on Victrix 28mm Numidians with some swapped in Roman legionary arms (incidentally the Numidians are much more muscular than the Roman's so the mix can look a little odd if viewed under a microscope). The heads are Anvil Industry "Long Hair" - as these are 28mm heroic scale they do look odd when first assembled but once painted up it works out OK. 

The final touches are cloaks (cut down resin camouflage cloaks from Anvil Industry again, awkward bit is removing, or trying to remove, the hoods) and the tzitzit are added with lengths of button thread.

Once they had hoods!

Next up I learn to knot the tzitzit

And of course I couldn't leave without the obligatory toe shot! 

 

Got to keep a good manicure

There are two pairs of sandals and five swords among the 20 so it should qualify for the "Swords and Sandals" bonus giving me 120 points for the Zealots and 27 for the Valkyrie (20 points for the Limo ride and 7 for a 40mm figure) for an addition towards my target of 147 this time around.

Next stop fantasy with a couple more Descent heroes but as I'm away for my wife's birthday it will be a couple of weeks -- until then keep the brushes busy and the film rolling!

"...to my desired destination in the new Red Zone" - I suspect you meant the Blue Zone, not the Red! Nevertheless, that Valkyrie is most definitely worthy of the Limo ride, and you've done a great job on the ancient Hebrews.

Tamsin

 

 

From Guy B: [The Hatchery] A Viking bondi maiden. [Sarah the Sorceror 25 points]

As I desperately searched around in my minis collection for suitable models for the hatchery, I came up with a blank. I could have painted 'Randy the wonder cockerel', but as he doesn't lay eggs, I decided best not to...

I went for a pagan maiden, a Valkyrie. The model is from the excellent Bad Squiddo range. The shield design is unashamedly stolen from Lagertha. She's a simple paint job, with a combination of contrast with highlights and washes. 

So I call upon Sarah the sorceress, teleport me to the next room! Onto the Armoury! (5 points plus 20 point bonus).

 

From GregB - Viet-Cron "Targets" (10 Points)

Two Valkyrie crewman walk away from a rough landing in...my kitchen...

A few weeks ago Sylvain dropped a points bomb into the Challenge in the form of his whacky "Viet Cron", Necrons from GW's 40k setting he had crafted and converted into pseudo-Viet-Cong-style insurgents.  It was a wonderful and bonkers tribute to GW's juvenile ethnic pandering among its factions.  In his posting, he named some Valkyries I had painted years ago and posted on our blog as part of the inspiration for his project. Well, I wanted to acknowledge and honour that little shout-out in Sylvain's hilarious and well-done submission with a little tribute of my own, and that is the inspiration behind this submission.

I thought perhaps the Viet-Cron could use some "targets", so I dug through my lead pile and found these two 28mm downed pilot figures.  I painted them with crew fatigues in a colour to match my Valkyrie models Sylvain had cited in his post.

These two figures are actually from the long-lost line of 28mm modern figures from Mongrel Miniatures.  They had a fantastic range covering the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and these two are actually Soviet helicopter crewmen.  Change the colours, and I think they make fine Valkyrie pilots for the 40k setting!

Sore shoulder from a rough landing on my counter-top

It's too bad the Mongrel figures are gone, as they were wonderful, wonderful sculpts, and I'm glad to have a sizeable collection. That's part of the reason I always buy way too many figures when I see some I like, as you just never know when they will disappear...

Some Imperial Guard storm troopers escort the pilots....

The recovery of downed pilots always makes for a good game background, particularly one with a (warped) hint of Viet-Cong-style insurgent flavour. So I thought these two figures would make ideal objective markers for when Sylvain and I manage to connect some time for a battle with the "Viet-Cron".  In the actual Vietnam war US forces often went to great lengths to recover pilots, and the knowledge in general among troops that their brothers- and sisters-in-arms will go to almost any length to recover fallen and trapped comrades seems, to my lazy civilian can, to be a prime instrument of motivation and camaraderie among the troops. So I thought these two would work for a themed game with the "Viet-Cron".

Of course, this is 40k, so it would need a dystopian twist.  The Imperials wouldn't just be out to rescue the pilots.  They would want to rescue them to ensure they didn't know too much, and then execute them properly, not trusting the Viet-Cron to do it. The pilots are rescued (killing many more Imperial troops in the process), interrogated and then shot by the Inquisition..happy ending for The Emperor, and something pyrrhic for the grim darkness of the far future...

"This way guys - what could go wrong?"

These two 28mm figures toss a paltry 10 points toward my score.  Strictly speaking, they are not "sci-fi" sculpts, so I will leave it to the judges-that-be as to whether they can be counted toward the sci-fi side-duel. 

I look forward to seeing Sylvain's bonkers Viet-Cron trying to hunt these hapless fellows down on the gaming table sometime this year!

This is awesome Greg. I love this bit of 40K escalation you're having with Sylvain and his whacky Viet-Cron (though you may want to take into account that he may retaliate). I think these Mongrel pilots fit the bill very nicely as Imperial pilots (the green lens flare effect is brilliant). I hope I can be around when the two of you tangle with your respective collections. As a suggestion, you may want to consider building the equivalent of a brown-water riverboat for some 'Heart of Cronness' action.

'The horror. The horror...'