From PaulS: Random selection of work part 1 - 65 points

This week has been a bit... bitty with the first bonus round coming up, running out of undercoat for terrain and running out of basing materials.

The first selection finished are 10 anti-walker bollard-things. These were collected from multiple sets of DUST tactics and were one of the few things I kept when I sold it all on as they are useful bits of terrain for any game that involves big tanks. You can see the Strawbear ably demonstrating scale once again.

After those, I decided to revisit Imperial Assault. Inspired by Samuli's excellent work on his Vader, here's mine. Not quite as neat, but not bad for 10 minutes work. The 4 guards were also pretty quick, taking another 20 minutes to complete. I forgot to cut them off their bases before painting though, so they are still on their original solid bases. At some point I may go back and try to cut them off, but for now they are on concrete.

Lastly is a little worm from Shadows of Brimstone, which should be useful in a number of different games, especially things like Strange Aeons where Cthulhu monsters are everywhere. The Burrower is a simple little kit with about 5 pieces, including the rockery base that it comes with.Sadly this leads to the typical problem of some of the earlier Brimstone kits in that the detail is a bit soft and there are some obvious joins in there that can't really be covered up without obscuring the detail that *is* there.

To give you a sense of scale on this little worm, the Strawbear had offered to kindly act as a scale point again. This thing is terrifyingly big... I have no idea where I'm going to store it... but should cause carnage whenever it appears in the mines!

The terrain takes up just under one box, s is 20 points. Vader and his minions should be another 25 points... the Burrower? I have no idea! I leave that up to the minions to decide as it is a 28mm monstrous creature about 3.5 times the height of the Strawbear!

From DaveD, stand in grognard minion..or is grognard minion standing in... who knows

A nicely eclectic mix. I do like Vader and his guards , and as for your Burrower , that looks like the stuff of nightmares ... I have done this a 40mm vehicle at 20 points - so a grand total of 65!

From PaulS: Brimstone showdown (30 Points)

It has been a few weeks since I had a chance to paint anything, thanks to being away with work so much, so it was nice to get back home and have a chance to put paint to model for once. I also need to get back into the swing of things as I appear to have dropped from the top ten to 25th!! I'd considered taking some away with me, but b&b rooms tend not to be the best for setting up a painting table :/

These two are from the Shadows of Brimstone kickstarter that arrived just before I went away and are a lot better than those in the first figures delivered. The robot is called the Guardian and comes from the ancient city on the Targa Plateau. Quite a surprise for the characters you start with, who are cowboys.

 The second figure is a Terralisk, a sand burrowing creature from the Blasted Wastes. As the name implies, the landscape is a barren wasteland world full of all sorts of alien gribblies. There are some smaller ones with legs still sat in the drawer of sprues.

The interesting thing to note is that these are... quite large. The 28mm priest is just for scale, he was completed just before the challenge started.

but these are only classed as XL monsters. There are XXL monsters still to come ;)

Points wise, I'm not sure... probably small vehicles?

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Great to have you back Paul! These two beasties are very imposing and you've done a terrific job on them. I like how you put a bit of rust and corrosion on the robot's carapace-like shoulders suggesting he's been sitting dormant in the sand until recently disturbed. I also think you've done a great effect with the eyes and toungue of the sandworm. I can't imagine facing off against these two with only six-shooters in hand, but I guess that's why they call them heroes in the game!

As you suggest, we'll count these as 28mm vehicles for points. So, 30 more pips for you to start your climb back up the roster. 

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From: PaulS : Final, final entry. No really. (65 Points)

Earlier on I did what I thought was going to be the last update of the Challenge. How wrong I was!

This afternoon I managed to settle down and get into the swing of things (where has this been over the last three weeks!) and managed to complete another rather large batch of things. Earlier I posted the armoured support for my Commandos. This time I've got some support for my German forces in the shape of a SdKfz 251/10 and a Tiger I. The figures are just for a sense of action and excitement. Both are Warlord's plastic kits and were really nice to put together. The SdKfz was part of the same kit that spawned the mortar team earlier in the challenge. When offered the choice of a standard 251/10, or a mortar carrying 251/10 kit for the same price, why would you go for the basic one when you can squeeze an extra unit out of the kit?!

Surprised that these two finally got finished, I moved onto finishing a Christmas present for a friend. Zombie Elvis! This is one of the Zombicide Season 3 VIP figures

After Elvis it still seemed to be pretty early in the day, so three undercoated probe droids were painted up, moving Imperial Assault one step closer to being completed. There is still a looooong way to go, but hey. One more group down

And would you believe it? There was *still* loads of time left before I had to start cooking dinner. For those of you that have been following the challenge over the years may remember I started painting up Shadows of Brimstone about 3 years back. It has been a struggle to keep going as the early models are not good. With the first KS finally nearing completion, I felt I should probably sort out some of the remaining figures. Sadly, because this one wasn't planned, I don't have a clear base for it yet. I need to work out what size it should have as he is (as you can see from the soon to be dead fallschirmjager) he is pretty darned big. I have every intention of using him in pulp and weird war games as well. You can never have too many giant demonic monsters!

The pile of uncompleted entries is... quite large. The original intent this year was to paint up all of the marines from both 30k board games as well as a pile of Black Scorpion cowboys. In typical butterfly gamer fashion these were replaced by the shinyshiny of weird war 2 instead.

As it is now about 9pm here, I doubt there will be any more updates for this year's Challenge, even though there are 4 more figures bordering on completed. So to round things off we have two more tanks, 4 28mm figures and whatever the hell the Harbinger counts as. If he stood upright he'd be about the same height as Barbie... but not quite as scary or unrealistic.

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Ha! I always find it amazing what people can do when a deadline looms (so far I think we've cranked off 7,000 points in two days...). These are great Paul, especially so considering you just started them today! The German armour, Elvis and the Demon are very nice but I have a soft spot for those Probe Droids. When I do mine I'm going to use the same clear bases that you always feature. Their minimalism really works well for these minis.

45 Points for you Paul. You're cut off now - go to bed. ;P

[Wednesday] From PaulS: Wednesday Madness (Ready)

Much like previous weeks, we're going for another very mixed batch of games and manufacturers in this entry with no thought to consistency of theme, other than "That's weird..." and I suspect that will be your response to the selection too.

Starting with some bits that very nearly got finished for the last entry, but didn't quite pip the post. These are all for Bolt Action/Konflict '47 or the Achtung! Cthulhu skirmish. The first two figures are a german super  soldier and Canon from the A!C skirmish game from Modiphius. The figures are more true scale than Warlord's which makes the Canon a little small, hence him being on a thicker base than the other guy.

When I picked up the plastics for the last batch of Germans, it included some tanks (in the queue). One of which was a choice of SD.KFZ 251 kits. Rather than grabbing the normal one, I opted for the mortar carrier... but opted to build it as a normal 251 and made the mortar into a medium mortar team instead

There is also a lone flamethrower from the Pioneer box set. I still need to make his partner in crime to complete the team, but that involves getting out the green stuff, so rather than delay things further with more modelling, I'll leave that until after the challenge. For now a generic rifleman will have to do.

Next up we have two characters from the Pulp Alley range. These are some of the nicest models I've painted in a while. I think it is the clean sculpts and just enough detail to make them characterful, but not over the top so that it takes forever to pick out the bits and pieces

Pulp Girl has been done up as a German super soldier or mystic with a powered/magical gauntlet... not quite decided which she will be.

The other figure in the pack has been painted up as Lobster Johnson from the BPRD comics. What pulp/weird war setting would be complete without his appearance?!

After the deviation into Pulp, we return to the Weird West with three giant, two headed rat-type things from Shadows of Brimstone. Like most of the earlier sculpts, the detail is soft, but not as soft as the original sets. There are also less gaps caused by poor casting design and warpage or plastic, so I have some hope that the rest of the KS figures will actually be worth while when it turns up. Lobster Johnson is fighting these off to give you a sense of scale on these things. They are massive...

Last, but definitely not least, is a deviation off into 30K with 5 Custodes from the Prospero box set. These guys make Terminators look small and weedy!

This totals to 16 28mm figures to add to the totals so far. 

ByronM: Another great eclectic post Paul.  Everything here looks great, but my two favourites are the giant rats and the pinup.  The rats I really like as they could be used for so many different games and fit right it, and your neutral / normal paint scheme for them looks great and helps them be universal.

The pinup girl is my other favourite as I love the contrast from the grey uniform to the blue glove and back to the blond hair. Speaking of which blond hair is always so hard to pull off, but it looks spot on with her, and that is what helps sell it.

The rats look big enough to be considered cavalry, so you get 95 points for today's submission. Great work!

From PaulS: The Weirder it gets... (145 Points)

One of my personal goals for this year's painting challenge was to try and build up my WW2/Weird War collection a bit to go with Konflikt '47 and Achtung! Cthulhu to go with the Commandos and Heer that I've done over the last 2 years.

Previously I had:
- 1 Officer with 2 guards
- 1 Medic
- 1 Sniper team
- 7 Heer with 1 MG team and 1 Panzerfaust
- 8 Heer with 1 Panzerfaust

While this isn't bad, it could be bigger, so this year we've got a number of additions to the forces in the shape of some Grenadier and Pioneer models.

The reinforcements have brought an engineer along, with his pet Goliath... though I'm not entirely sure what this is used as in Bolt Action as I can't see any entries for Goliath. All of these are from the Pioneer box set. Some of the metal bits really don't seem to fit the plastics, so I'm confused how to build the control set for the Goliath... I think some hacking and greenstuff is needed in the near future.

The box set also has an anti-tank rifle team for some of those heavy infantry squads that will no doubt appear if I ever get a game in.

We have an MG42 team that can either be put into one of the infantry squads, or take one of the riflemen and turn it into an MMG team for some more static support.

Supporting all of these is one 10 man squad of basic, rifle toting infantry, with one Panzerfaust for a bit of anti-armour if required. these are a combination of bits from the Grenadier and Pioneer kits. I know this gives a bit of a mish-mash of uniform styles that may cause some people to have sleepless nights, but I'm aiming for weird war here, rather than historical accuracy... so it doesn't really bother me much.

And a super assault-y elite infantry squad with an officer, 1 smg/panzerfaust and 6, yes 6, assault rifles. By Konflikt rules, this is fine and dandy. I can even add the MG42 team to this to make it even more obscene. For normal BA games, these would be split across multiple squads to be less *cheese* and more historically correct... In Achtung! Cthulhu these would either count as Black Sun Elite and remain as-is, or be split into pairs and spread across the Wehrmacht squads for a bit of additional kick.

That is the end of the painted German forces... for now. There are plenty more in the backlog, so I'm interested to see what the total point values are for Bolt Action, Konflikt and A!C by the end of the challenge! Full army photo will be added when I can find some space to lay it all out together.

In addition to this the Allies have reinforcements in the shape of three new Achtung! Cthulhu heroes. Well. 2 heroes and her pet winged monster.

That is the end of the WW2 bits, but the painting continued in a very eclectic manner to include a Magos for Shadows of Brimstone.

And everyone's favourite vigilante for his very own miniature game... Batfleck.

Depending on how you class the Goliath, this is 29 28mm figures. Or 28 and a 15mm tank equivalent

ByronM: Another eclectic mix of figures today, and all of them look great. While the WWII stuff is good, my favourite here is the mix at the bottom on the entry.  The Actung Cthulhu stuff looks fabulous in its evil tentacleyness (yeah, I made that word up, but it really should be a word, we need it to describe many things from Lovecraft and many things Japanese).  I like a lot of their figures and the once you painted here are really well done.  

Then onto more tenacleyness (see we really do need it as a real word) for your Magos.  I like how you used high contrast with the blue and red, and then tied the magic items together both having purple/violet colouring.  Lastly, Batfleck, where you did a great job keeping it dark, but still brought enough grey into it to allow you to see details and add depth.  

Since the Goliath is essentially the same size/volume as a normal 28mm figure, I am going to count it all up as 29x 28mm figures for a total of 145 points today.  Well done!

From PaulS: Wars of the Ghosties (110 points)

This week has been limited to finishing off a few bits and pieces for units or kits that were started last year, or earlier in this round.

When I first started the Wars of the Roses/Lion Rampant force last year, I intended to create two small forces. Unfortunately I never got around to creating the other force last year, though I did stick together the plastics. So we now have 12 foot knights for the Earl of Stafford.

There were complaints about too much grass on the ones last time around, so this year they come with some added mud and flowers. I have, however, just noticed that I forgot to edge the bases, so they look a bit scrappy. Dammit.

These four are some initial figures for the other foot units for the Stafford force.

After I posted the cowboy ghosts last month, moaning about how bad they were and I was grateful to have painted them... in typical foot/mouth style I found another 6 in the box with all the game cards. Doh! At least this time I'm done with them... until the missing sprues show up in the KS wave 2 that is :/

That is another 22 28mm figures for the tally. As I went past my original total weeks ago, I need to really up it to 1200 for the new aim. Co-incidentally, this is the 1200th post according to the post tally in the editor, so go team!

I also need to get back to Frostgrave related things as well as sorting out a little surprise.

Very nice work Paul. Isn't it always the way? You think you've finished a project, then a while later you find something you had forgotten to paint. That's 110 points towards your new target. I hate to break it to you, but this will be the 1197th post published, not the 1200th - so close, so close...

From: PaulS : Painting did occur after all... (104 points)

Given the lack of updates over the last few weeks, I was worried I wouldn't get anything done this week either (you can blame Lego Dimensions for that!), but it turns out I did manage to get a few bits completed after all!

To kick start things this week we have 4 new heroes from Dungeon Saga. Left to Right we have the enhanced version of the wizard, the enhanced version of the halfling thief, Valendor (a spirit of magic... or some such thing) and finally the standard version of the halfling thief.

From the group shot you can clearly see the size differences between the halflings. The standard version is almost a quarterling instead she's so small!

Next up we have a selection of cultists made using the Frostgrave cultists pack. I absolutely adore these plastics... cultists are always useful in many different settings. These guys have been painted up in the same colours as my pulp cultists (which I'll put into a group shot on my blog later in the week)

After the cultists, we have two creatures from Shadows of Brimstone. Handily, if you paint them white, they work nicely as some of the snow creatures in Frostgrave too. Here you can see them in scale with poor Helga, who is penned in by the giant spiders too (see further down!)

 

They have strange crystal growths coming out of their backs. No wonder they are cranky!

 

The spiders are from Mantic's dungeon critters set. Along with the rats and bats from last time, these are the nicest Mantic kit I've seen. Ever. Each spider is slightly different. some are black with red markings; others are furry brown

 

 

For a week that I thought was going to be pretty quiet, that turned into 10 28mm heroes/villains, two giant monsters and 8 giant spiders.  

It's posts like these that make me appreciate Curt's adjudication over the last few Challenges - deciding how to score "off-size" critters fairly is not an easy job. I think I'll score the two snow monsters as 40mm and count the spiders as 28mm. That comes to 104 points for this submission.

Nice painting on all of these Paul - especially the death's head on that spider :)

From PaulS - 28mm Critter Tuesday (85 points)

This week has mostly been spent painting critters to overwhelm heroic adventurers, whether they are deep in a dungeon, or stalking the ruins of a cold, ruined city.

The 9 rats and 6 bats came from the Dungeon Saga kickstarter and came with a selection of spiders as well, but those are still lurking on the painting table as we're both slightly arachnophobic ;)

The figures are all resin and, surprisingly, really nicely sculpted, with some great dynamic poses. The bats are insanely fragile though as the colonies of bats are only held together by the wings touching each other. I accidentally snapped two of these while painting them, they are that fragile. Thankfully, some superglue came to the rescue. I've added Sven the Viking as a scale point for these critters.

 

Speaking of scale... at the other end of the spectrum I also finally got round to painting Goliath. This is one of the end bosses from Shadows of Brimstone. Like most of the other monsters from SoB, the detail is soft and it needed a lot of filling and resculpting... but he looks pretty imposing now he's finished. That base he's on? That's 70mm... he's one biiiiig critter. Sven once again provides a scale reference.

So that is 9 rats, 6 bats and one Goliath to add to the totals. Only the giant rats count towards the Frostgrave totals sadly

Lovely work as always Paul. Hmmm, how to score these? Given that I've been scoring halflings as full 28mm foot figures, I think the rats and bats should be as well. As for Goliath, I'm going to score him as a 28mm mounted.

From PaulS - Mixed Bag of Monsters (36 Points)

This entry is a mixed bag of figures as a number of figures are still drying, or need to be repaired after a varnish fail... so not quite what I wanted to have done this week... but it does give Aidan (and anyone else) a chance to catch up on the Dungeon Saga side challenge.

First up we have the banshee from DS, which leaves one of the core set villains left to paint and 6 armoured undead. The banshee is quite a nice sculpt, with the exception of blobby hands and will see a lot of use in various game systems (including Frostgrave).

As a change, I decided to try some of the Dungeon Saga demons. These guys are the same size as the undead trolls and act as their equivalent in the demonic campaign. Again, very nice models to paint, though some of the seams are tricky to clean off as the plastic is slightly bendy. If the Kings of War ones are as nicely sculpted, they should be great models... not that I need any more of them. They will also be nice large size demons for Frostgrave. These guys suffered from a partial varnish fail. You can see the white marbling on the back of the middle demon; though in this case it adds to the texture rather than obscuring detail; so not so much a fail as an unexpected detailing!

Last and definitely least are two of the ghosts from Shadows of Brimstone. These figures are some of the worst I've had the misfortune to work with. The detail is shockingly soft, which makes them ugly lumps... so a quick ghost paintjob was done at the same time as the DS banshee to get them out of the way. There are two more around somewhere that will turn up later when I find them. Scale wise they are only useful in Shadows of Brimstone as they are 1/48 (ish), which makes them really tall when compared to any other Old West figures that I have.

Lovely work Paul! The demons are great but I have to say I really like your undead. I know you've probably mentioned it before but what do you use as your colours for these? They look wonderfully ethereal.

I have a suspicion that those demons are around 40mm so I'll score them as such. 36 points total. Well done!