From GregB - 30k Sons Of Horus Space Marines (50 Points)

Prepare for getting the sh*t kicked out of you compliance - Sons of Horus in MK III power armour from Forge World

After a lovely week off visiting the Desert Cities of Southern California, it's back to the hellish winter of the Canadian Prairies - but also back to the painting that helps me forget about it! This entry is another group of figures from GW's Forge World subsidiary (or division or whatever) - 10 Space Marines in Mark III armour from the Sons of Horus, the 16th Legion.  These figures are for GW's Horus Heresy setting, generally referred to as "Warhammer 30k".

Rivets galore!

Officer on right, communications trooper on the left

In contrast to the Mark IV armoured marines of my last entry, these Mark III troopers have a more menacing and proto-medieval feel to them.  The armour is covered with extra plates, is segmented in the back, and the helmet is darker and more ominous with a "face plate" that would not look out of place in the late middle ages. Many rivets are visible.  I quite enjoy how they look.

Horus' lads prepare to unleash a burst of fire

In hindsight I wish I had ordered more figures wearing this type of armour - I like its look a lot more than that Mark IV power armour (which is still very nice).  The Mark III seems more ominous - the joyless, faceless grim legions of the Emperor's Great Crusade, coming to wreck your shit bring you into "compliance".

Lots of segments in the armour - a very proto-medieval feel to the design

The squad has two special weapon troopers - one with a missile launcher, and the other with a melta gun (a short range, high energy weapon for knocking out armoured opponents, be they vehicles, infantry or otherwise).  The design of the missile launcher is lovely - an homage to the "shark fin" style of this weapon from the original RTB 01 Space Marine box.  The Forge World guys have done these little nods to the early history of the sculpts again and again throughout this figure range, something I definitely appreciate about it.

"Let's hug for Horus!"

The embossed shoulder plates are awesome...and terrible, in that once you start with them, you can't stop using them...

This group is meant to represent a veteran squad - in the 30k rules, squads to not typically carry any special weapons with them - there are whole other squads for that work, after all :) But as "veterans", they are able to add a couple of special weapons to the group, mimicking the more common 10-man squads of Warhammer 40k's more "current" iterations.

Bit of a view of the comms pack in this photo

The officer (with the wacky comb on his helmet) has a small standard mounted on his backpack, and is wearing a "power fist", a big augmented armoured glove that would have some kind of power field around it to assist in the smashing of his enemies, likely in the face.  He is accompanied by a communications trooper, who has a modified helmet and backpack.

Good ol' "Shark Fin" style missile launcher

"I can see his house from here..."

I used decals throughout where I could, with very mixed results - the bronze does not come off of the green very well.  I also tried to weather them up a bit - again, the results are mixed in my opinion.  My sponging approach, which works so well on larger vehicle models, is harder to apply consistently on these figures.

Marine with melta gun

Proudly loyal to humanity's last hope - Horus the Warmaster!

These 10 figures should net me 50 points.  Now to get back to the painting table - when you take a week off, you sure fall behind in the Challenge!


From Curt:

Greg, these guys rock. Like you, I really like the whole medieval esthetic of the Mk III armour with its segmented plates and slightly baroque detailing. Your green and brass motif works very nicely with this force, especially with leaving the faceplate as simple, flat steel. My favourite model of the group has to be the trooper with the old school rocket launcher - I have great memories of that initial boxed set and always loved the design of the old 'shark fin' launcher.

'This Hug for Humanity is brought to you by Horus - A Force for Change...'

From AdamC - 15mm Jagers D'Argent (18 Points)

This is a new unit for my Imagi-Nation the Grand Duchy D'Argent.   The Jagers are an elite unit of sharpshooters recruited from the gamekeepers on the Dukes own land and supplement by sharpshooters drawn form other regiments.

The Uniform is gray the traditional color of the infantry troops of the Duchy with green cuffs, turn-backs and small cloths.

The Jagers are Essex Austrians but the officer is an Old Glory Russian but he seemed to fit

There are 8 Jagers and one Officer, so a total of 9 15mm figures for 18 points.
 

From IanW - Dominate Auxiliaries and More (112 Points)

With this submission I have almost finished all the infantry for the Dominate Starter Army. All figures are again Essex 15mm. Some of these bridge the gap into the Principate Army as well as they can have more light infantry.

Four bases of Light Infantry drilled with Javelins and light spear. They can be Superior, Average or Poor so plenty of options.

I really like these figures and it's a pity I can only have four bases of them, though they can be really expensive for light troops.

Next up the first of two Field Army Auxiliaries, this one has six bases of medium infantry so 18 figures. The blue is a little darker than the previous troops done so I figured I would do both the lights and the mediums the same shade this time.

Being Essex they are quite detailed and painted up quite easily if a little boring. I took all the shield designs from the Osprey Warrior 9 Late Roman Infantry. The colour plates for the most part are not a great deal of use but the diagram for the shields proved helpful.

All ready for battle..... what do you mean we have no cavalry?, OK OK I will get onto them, just need to get a few more 6mm out the door first.

Having the figures I thought I may as well paint up the other slingers I had in the prep box even if I already painted the max allowed. So now I have a choice of two colours.

Other lists will allow eight bases (or rules) so they should not be wasted. I can always sub out those that don't perform. These are quite bright lads so I needed something to steel the limelight.

The second Auxiliaries should do that as they are even brighter than the slingers and more of them ;-) I like these guys the most as they are punchy in colour, I also have more spare bow so will paint up support for these as well. I have the figures but they need prepping so possibly on the last leg of the challenge.

So with this entry I have just about wrapped up the infantry and made a huge hole in my 15mm part of the lead mountain. I am not sure when I will get more 6mm figures for my own collection as they seem so expensive when you compare them with both 28 and 6mm figures. I guess it will be either more pike for my Macedonian's or yet more cavalry for my Persian's but that's for another day.

So that's 52 figures - maybe it's possible to hit 2000 if I can dig a bit deeper.


From Curt:

Smashing work Ian! I really like how these fellows turned out, especially that last Auxiliary unit with the red crests and blue and white hand-painted shields - lovely stuff. My vote is for more Macedonians, but I have a soft spot for those hedgerows of pike.

From DavidB - 15mm Terra Force Walkers (36 Points)

First, apologies for lack of posting. Winter weather makes for a busy time with training and assisting folks who have difficulties with winter, the outdoors, or both. I also took a few days for a wood romp and have only recently gotten back to the land of internet connections. I am happy to report that I missed no basketball games that my children had which is a major accomplishment!

So up next are a trio of walkers that I acquired from a friend. He was going to use them in 40k as robots or sentinels. I have no idea who makes them and I had all sorts of extra bits left over which further hinders finding out who made them.( Tamsin, these are the surprise! I am hoping you or anyone else may know who made them) They were metal and polybagged with optional weapons. No instructions were included with them which made it a chore and a valid excuse for the left over bits.

Each leg is composed of upper leg, lower leg, ankle joint and three toes...5 pieces in heavy metal with no set way to attach, you gotta pin them yourself! I originally built them after deployment and had all sorts of not-fun doing so. They fell apart constantly and needed more pinning and more posing which was very difficult. I get a rash from superglue fumes and these fellows had me itching for three years! I finally just stuck them on some old AOL CD ROMS( hey I found a good use for junk mail!)

I also delved into my reclamation box to find some stuff so the legs were getting support from the base..er ... to tart the base up!

I have hit that part of the Challenge where I needed new brushes, refill paint, and I still needed a Curtgeld( that'll be later) I found out that a whole raft of GW paints are gone, renamed, or with the missing left socks from dryers. I bought some approximate P3 paints and some Army Painter shades as I needed something to replace the empty pots! ( I was also scouting what was new at the shop since I will be allowed to buy models again soon!)

The merc and not-HUMVEE are for scale and to show that I pretty much got the right colors to match the chosen camouflage. Although these were a total pain-in-the-a to build, I love the lines to them and if I had another, I'd paint it hot rod red! 

I gave two of them a rotary multi barreled cannon and one the big stubby cannon.

I think I am slowly getting the NMM about right, plus if you note they have some handy power cables hanging between the legs for Luke Skywalker types to sever!

They really are lovely models, but why do you need to assemble 10 components to get them to stand! Plastic it could work, but metal? These suckers are heavy!

All lined up and looking pretty! If you notice the center walker has a stubby defense weapon as the pin sized barrel snapped off in one of the several toppling/unsuccessful bonding times. Although they are very pleasing to me now, I'm glad to be done. they are ready to game with and I'll consider the stubby defense turret to be a Sci-Fi Sawn off shotgun and we won't discuss the walker whose textured basing heaved from the CD ROM either! ;)

three 15mm Zorty, walking tanks!


From Curt:

Are these ever cool David! I can't imagine how time consuming it must have been to pin together all six of those leg assemblies on a simple hunch. You did a bang-up job on them though - bravo to you! Also, I really like the camo pattern you came up with for this force. The blue-grey you use is particularly striking and seems to reinforce the hi-tech feel to the force.

Well done!

From JamesR - French Line Grenadiers and Random Minis (84 points)

Hello,

I've managed to paint half a small unit of Perry plastic French Grenadiers.  Here you can see the 13 of them marching somewhere.

Another angle of them still marching.  I frequently force march my French, because I am a cruel emperor.

I only painted two poses; the ones in their supposedly great coats.

The Perry plastic box has four poses of marching Grenadiers (or Voltiguers); I'll paint the two poses without said coats on, next.  There are two back pack options which will give the finished unit eight minor model variations.

 

I painted a few other minis too.  Some sort of thief or assassin, most likely from Ral Partha or Grenadier.  A John Conner model of unknown origin, whose face I ruined with drunken highlighting. It says John Conner on his base.  There's also two LotR GW Rohan leaders.

I found the two Rohan in a FLGS bits bin.  Eowyn's sword is managled and Eomir's is missing.  I'm going to pretend it's the invisible Elfin blade, Loirleilei.  Loirleilei is only mentioned once very briefly in the Silmarillion, one of the really awful back chapters that no one really reads, trust me.

From the back, it looks as it Eomir is waving a chocolate ice cream cone.  I've been meaning to give a friend this little terrain piece for many moons.

No!  The evil bad assassin is going to kill humanity's last hope.  Stop now, or you'll go on a forced march!

John's wearing a dark gray polyester twill blend two piece tactical combat suit.

John has a cute little robot head on his pre-manufactured base.

love and kisses,
Baconfat


From Curt:

James you always provide great work and an enjoyable read (though your 'love and kisses' closings makes me twitch a bit).  You know there's few things worse than an assassin who is both evil AND bad. Or perhaps you meant he's bad in the sense that he's not very good at being an assassin?  One thing for sure is that a polyester/twill two piece is BOTH bad and evil...

Also, I see that you've met your Challenge points target. Congratulations!  Now, go take your boys on a celebratory forced march, you cruel, heartless emperor you.  (And when you return let me know what you'd like to target for our last few weeks.) 

From DavidB - Something Big - 54mm 40K (50 Points)

So, a few weeks ago I found these fellows while spelunking for the rest of Blue Platoon. I really do not remember how I got them, I just recall that I shelved them as I did not like how my conversion of the Sgt Stone model went. It wasn't the whole conversion, but how I couldn't match up his hands in proportion.

I'll add the 7th insignia later after I get more ink for my rapidiograph pens. Sgt Stone was an impressive model(I have another to build stock) and I matched him up with a cyborg head from the guard bits that were also used extensively with these models. He is the command squads scout and has multiple knives, a warclub, and lasgun.

I used the gasmask head and backpack for the melta gun conversion of Sgt Dorian Black.

Any time you carry some special weapon in the military, you also get to carry all kinds of other special stuff...it probably started with the Romans! ;)

Sgt Black got the pointing arm swap from Major Jaxom. His knife came from the butchered Sgt Stone model. Major Jaxom got another arm and a hand swap for the inferno pistol. he also got the spiked power maul to keep the lads in line.

The trooper with the lasgun was converted from the other Major Jaxom model. But had the other Sgt Stone knife added and selected bits from the guard accessory bits.

I do have the Inquisitor rulebook, but I never played it with the 54mm figures, we just used our 40k stuff which we have a lot of. They are really nice models, but I have very recently discovered that they are very hard to find and very expensive. These fellows will probably just hang out in my display case as they are very fine sculpts, but have no foes.

I went with the red shoulder pads as the Major shares the same style patrol cap as Red Platoons leader(the col Schaffer model)

I did the piping on their body armor in blue to denote Infantry, The yellow cuffs denote command squad. Perhaps I should source some Cadian styled stuff to represent the 7th in epic scale.

"Run Away! Giants!"

a preview of the next submission and a scale indicator...

a note to Curt- I cannot take credit for the flock on these fellows as my 13yr old daughter did them while I flocked the other stuff, she really wanted to help. All the brushwork is mine. Also Nobody selected my challenge of including Native Americans in their forces...Here be another tribesman you cowards! ;)

From Curt:

Wow, I haven't seen these Inquisitor models for years - awesome! I can't imagine the price they must command on eBay these days. Yikes.

You did a great job on them David (and so did your daughter with the groundwork). The Native American indian conversion is suitably ferocious. Also, I really like the Union cavalry uniform colours you gave them - they just need a yellow trouser stripe and a blonde, long-haired officer to properly send them off to their doom. 

From AdamC - 15mm ACW Dismounted Cavalry (68 Points)

These are Bluemoon 18mm figures that will serve as my dismounted cavalry troops for my Union Longstreet Army.

The troops have too many men using pistols for my taste but they do make it easy to see which unit is dismounted cavalry and who is infantry.

 The Bugler with his yellow lace tunic was a bit hard to get right but really looks cool.

 The color guards bearers are carrying flags from four States.

 Pennsylvania

 Rhode Island (this one will also work as a good generic flag)

 This is the guidon of a Massachusetts Cavalry regiment

This butterfly flag is for a New Jersey regiment its a rather interesting embalm for a military unit.


From Curt:

I agree Adam, for dismounted cavalry they have an inordinate amount of pistols being brandished but you've done an excellent job on them. I especially like the 'tour' of the four state banners, particularly the butterfly motif from the boys from New Jersey. What is the background to that I wonder?