From AlanD - More 28mm Saracens (70 Points)

Along with the pretty boring looking Saracen archers, I also finished a unit of 8 Saracen warriors and 4 nobles this week. First up, the warriors.

All the figures are from Black Tree Design. Although the number of poses is a bit limited I like these figures a lot. The faces in particular are very nicely defined and easy to paint.

As always, the shields are hand painted. 'Shield decals!' he scoffed.

The spears are harvested from my trusty broom. For those interested in making broom bristle spears, there is a little tutorial on my blog.


Next up are four noble figures. I particularly like the guy in mail.

Tamsin and I are trading heavy blows at the moment in our race to 1500 points. This lot should give me another 60 points.

From Curt:

Ooh, pretty shields (and with your 'decal' comment you've just volunteered to do my Roman shields, smart@ss)! Awesome work Dux and I appreciate the link you provided to your brilliant spear-harvesting tutorial. (I'm off to the local DIY store after I write this...). These Black Tree castings are brilliant - I especially like how you've painted the exposed faces. Very characterful (and not one looks like Bob Dylan which is a bonus). :)

These chaps will give Alan a base of 60 points but I'm adding a few more for the more over-the-top hand painted designs. Great work!

Form ClintB - "Bob" the pony! (7 points)

For my first entry today (there may be 3 in all if I can get my finger out or maybe less!) I have "Bob" the pony NOT "Bill" the pony as this is not a LOTR miniature. It is a Foundry pack mule to go with my wild west collection or maybe my 28mm ACW, who can guess at this stage maybe even Back of Beyond.

This really was a joy to paint and was done mostly during the hours of darkness and then highlighted when in full light. Originally it was to go with some "Mountain men" as it came in the same blister pack but is such a versatile subject it really can be used for any period from Romans onwards including fantasy dungeon crawls. Although earlier might be an issue due to the axe!

That's it for "Bob". Cheers for looking guys.

From Curt:

Bob is a great mini, looking very stoic and hard working. As you say he's one of those figures you can use in a multitude of settings.  I'm going to give an extra two points for the heavy load Bob's carrying. Nice work Clint, now give the good chap some oats.

From BrianB - 15mm Deep Ones (6 Points)

I've been working on a collection of Mythos creatures in 15mm so when I came across these Deep Ones from Khurasan miniatures they were quickly added to the pile. These three were primed and ready to go at the start hopefully I'll get to the other seven later in the Challenge.

I kept the painting straightforward with a basic green with purple accents on the fins. I've always liked Khurasan's sculpts and these are good examples. Nice clean details that are easy and quick to paint and poses that are animated and full of life.

Three 15mm spawn of Dagon should net me 6 points.

From Curt:

Ah, it's great to see some Cthulhu stuff roll out for the Challenge. Wonderful work Brian. I didn't know that Khurasan did these in 15mm - very, very cool.  I particularly like the figure who is positioned forward on his (her?) right fist and I also think your choice of using purple tones on their dorsal ridge is a good one - it provides a great contrast to their green scaly bits. I look forward to seeing the other seven!

From DaveD - Royal Artillery Screw Guns, 15th Punjab Infantry (185 Points)

The next instalments toward the Sudan Imperial forces. 3 screw guns and RA crew, and the 15th Punjab  Infantry - all Connoisseur Miniatures.

12 Gunners completed - the Screw Guns themselves were already completed. There are a range of uniform options for the RA as far as I can tell from the various reference works ,I chose to go with the plainer blue/grey option they seem to have worn at 2nd El Teb - helps the break up the khaki.

I have another Naval Gatling to complete, and that should see the artillery element of the Imperials done.

Next up the 15th Punjab Infantry. 12 of these I had picked up ready painted, but frustratingly I was unable to get a good colour match for the khaki - I suspect it was a mix of enamels - so i gave up ! and decided it would just be quicker and easier to redo them from scratch - as they were a fairly simple paint job.So 24 plus a singleton foot command figure.

I want to get at least 1 more infantry unit done for year end , then perhaps I will do a group shot of progress so far. A decent combined arms force building up.

From Curt:

Ooh, another lovely points bomb Dave, well done! I really like the blue/grey of the Royal Artillery - as you say, they break up the sea of tan and khaki. Are you planning a big game with these in the future or is this period just something you've been wanting to add to your display cabinets? Either way it's turning out to be an incredibly impressive collection. Well done my good man (and you move back into top position in the points roster)!

From ByronM - 15mm WWII Germans and Robotech Zentraedi (164 Points)

Hello again, here is my second submission for this years painting challenge and it is a mixed submission.

First up I have some great castings from Peter Pig to expand my 15mm WWII German force for Chain of Command.

The figures are based in our groups normal way, which was initially planned out by Greg and Curt I believe.  Senior leaders are on hex's, heavy weapons are on large rounds, specialists (in this case sniper teams) are on ovals or pills, and most normal troops are on rounds.

Three new senior leaders for some additional options in my force, and just because I could not resist a few of them.

Two heavy tripod mounted HMG teams.  One of them has 3 men on the base, the other just 2 but the third is separated off.  I already had extra riflemen previously painted so that I can field them as teams of 5 men as they should be for CoC.  Obviously the extra men are not shown here as they were painted before the challenge.

A lot of heavy support to help out against vehicles and tanks.  Here are 5 panzerfäuste armed troopers and 2 panzerschreck teams.  Probably way more than I actually need, but hey they are 15mm and easy to paint up.

Lastly 2 sniper teams for my Germans, for reaching out and touching someone.

All of these are painted up quickly, using a pretty basic 15mm methodology.  Base coat, block in colours, wash the whole model with devlan mud, then highlight with base colour again.  Simple, fast, and table ready in no time at all.  They won't win any painting awards, but they are solid tabletop quality.

Next up is a unit of Zentraedi from the Kickstarter shipment that just came in for the Robotech RPG Tactics game.  The unit is made up of 9 Regault tactical battle pods and 1 Glaug officers battle pod.

I tried to keep the paint jobs simple and fast, since I need to do a whole lot of these and don't want to get too tied up spending too much time on each. Also I wanted them to be very cartoony and match the simplistic look from the show.  Therefore they are done with base coats of white, paint on the other colours, line them with black ink, then touch up / clean up, decal, and then clear coat with a satin coat for some shine rather than my normal dullcoat.  

They are left on the basic plain bases with the fire arcs marked on them with painted arrows, at least until I figure out how important those are.  I am not sure what kind of table or board I am going to setup to play Robotech on so did not want to base anything with either urban or rural themed bases yet.  I realize that may mean a point hit, but the bases are done for the "game" right now, just not as our normal display bases.

The miniatures are actually pretty nice once assembled, BUT whomever designed the sprues and instructions learned model making way back in the 40's or 50's and never bothered to learn how things have improved since then.  Each battle pod is 15 parts and there are 3 of them on a sprue.  The sprues have no part numbers or labels and the instruction sheet can therefore not reference anything.  Each foot and leg has a different angle and go together best with only 1 or 2 of the other foot or leg parts of the 6 on the sprue, however this is not identified or labeled anywhere.  Very frustrating and very fiddly, and something that just a little bit of extra time and effort could have prevented.

Again, the figures, once together are very nice though, and having picked them up through the kickstarter, CHEAP!  I think the final model count was right around 100 models for $140, so you I can not complain too loudly at that price.  

Scale is a bit odd, as while the official scale is really small, as these things are supposed to be almost 5 stories tall, the physical size is actually pretty big.  Therefore I am including a picture with a standard 28mm space marine to help Curt figure out what they should count as.

They are a lot of fun to paint, but I am only doing this squad and 1 squad of the human forces during the painting challenge.  More will have to come later, or I won't be able to get the items I wanted to get done finished this year.

Hope you all enjoy.

From Curt:Great work Byron! Those 15mm Germans look the business, nice and neat work for the tabletop. As for the Robotech battle pods, though they are not really my cup of tea, you've done a brilliant job with them. I really like your approach of using primary colour block-painting as it reminds me of the dynamic cell shading seen in the animated series - very cool.  I'm going to count the pods at 12 points each so 164 point total. Well done!  

From AlanD - 28mm Saracen Archers for Crescent and Cross (60 Points)

This week I have mostly...been painting some Saracens for Crescent and Cross and Lion Rampant. First up is this unit of 12 levy archers, with figures from Black Tree Design. I think these should give me 60 points.

From Curt:
Nice work Dux! I really like the striped garments and the arid basework definitely does the trick. Well done. 

From BrendonW - 15 x 28mm Perry Foot Knights

15 x 28mm Plastic Perry Miniatures Foot Knights. An excellent box set of miniatures in my opinion. They go together easy and have little flash to clean. While these look relatively simple there is a bit of trial and error to get armour to look near convincing at this scale. I kept it simple with a spray of Army Painter Plate Metal then washes, then further painting with Plate Metal from the matching Army Painter bottle. My force will have Red and Black as it's Lords colours and while this is inspired from history it is not to represent an historical source.

These Knights do not come with any shields because by the time period they come from (1450-1500 War of the Roses England period) armour had improved.

I purchased these for building a retinue for 'Lion Rampant'. I think you can only have a Max of 2 units of 6 in that game. Certainly enough in the box to make enough Foot Knights for 2 retinues and some left over for Unit Leaders of less noble units.

From TamsinP - 'They Mostly Come At Night. Mostly...' (112 Points)

And so, my third entry. 

A brood of Aliens with their Queen and King.

The figures are Space Demons from Khurasan Miniatures. In theory they are 15mm, but I've sent Curt some size comparison pictures as they are a bit bigger than 15mm human figures. I'll leave it to the Challenge-Meister to decide how to score them.

There are 48 of the little bugs. I've mounted them on washers singly, in pairs and in threes to allows for figure removal. I honestly can't remember how I did the base texture as it was a long time ago that I first started these. I'd got as far as spraying them with black metallic paint and then left them in that state. As there was a lot of bare metal which the spray hadn't hit, I re-primed them with black Vallejo surface primer.

I did these as a "break" from the SYW Russians - it is too close to Christmas to start on the 8 foot regiments I have waiting in the wings.

There were numerous steps in painting these.

The Aliens - base coat of Prussian Blue mixed with some black; wet-brush of Prussian Blue; medium-to-heavy dry-brush with Medium Blue mixed with metallic medium; black ink wash (a little bit too thick - it has pretty much hidden the first two steps!); light dry-brush with Medium Blue mixed with metallic medium; Gunmetal Blue on the extended proboscii; silver on the teeth and some claw tips.

Bases - base coat of London grey; wash of Black Grey; dry-brush of Stone Grey; a few bits picked out with Blue Violet; "veins" picked out with German Camo Medium Brown; washed with diluted Sky Blue pearlescent ink. I think the last step has really given them an alien look.

Some Close-Ups:

The King:

The Queen:

And one of the brood:

"Smile for the camera!"

Now, with all of these nasty bugs, one really needs a plucky female spaceship second officer driving a big cargo handler to deal with them:

"Get away from her you BITCH!"

Again from Khurasan, this is the Hercules Cargo Handler. I'd forgotten about it until last night when I suddenly thought that it would be an appropriate addition to this entry. I quickly prepped, assembled and primed it, then painted it this afternoon. As you can tell, I went for a well-used look.

The base is 30x40mm MDF with some wire mesh glued on top.

Some pics to show that the crew figure has been painted:

One of the Alien brood figures has a pose that always makes me think of Morecambe and Wise:

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, when you get to the end of the vid, you'll see what I mean.

Well, that's it for now folks, so here's an Alien saying "bye bye!"

ps - I'll get it in before anyone else does - "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

From Curt:

Very cool submission Tamsin. I like the paint recipe you came up for the Aliens and the drizzle of pearlescent blue on their bases is a great touch.  

This brood, along with its King and Queen and Ripley in her Cargo Lift Suit will give Tamsin 112 points, enough to allow her to slip into 3rd place. Wonderful work Ms. P.