From SamuliS: I AM THE LAW! (25 points)

I promised some Oldhammer a while back, and now is the time I'll deliver. Staying with a grim dark(tm) theme, but this time in a larger scale!

If there is anyone in the Imperium with as large steel ball as an Imperial Guardsman it has got to be an Adeptus Arbites officer. Going up against alien scum might be bad, but at least you have some heavy back up. An enforcer will have to go down into the bowels of a hive city with little else than his weapon and badge to bring order into the world of gangers and mutants. So with the introduction done these are 5 of the 7 Adeptus Arbites sculpts from the early 90's. Still missing the last two, so if you happen to have them sitting unused I'm more than happy to give them a new home :)

What could be more ballsy than going up against a Defiler with only a bolt pistol and a power maul?

Arbites are at least for me some of the most iconic 40k models. Might have something to with seeing the Stallone Judge Dredd film at a very impressionable age and getting my hands on some of the comics soon after. Beefed up cops with trigger discipline that would make US cops look like girl scouts somehow just seems to work brilliantly. With the same kind of characters in my favorite miniature universe I was instantly sold on the Arbites enforcers. Now looking back at some of these older Citadel sculpts and how a lot of the aesthetics is completely copied from somewhere else, it's a bit funny that now they are going after everyone and their cousin for even the smallest IPR infringements. 

I wanted the bases to be urban themed to show them battling in the depths of hive worlds with some corrugated steel, rubble and rusty barbed wire thrown in. For the colour scheme I chose the traditional black and red that features quite often on the older artwork and some studio miniatures of the time. It was bit of a tricky combination as I find both red and black quite hard to highlight as red easily tends to turn into orange and black into gray. In the end I ended up just doing a dark gray edge highlight on the black areas and a bit of layering on the red. Turned out rather nicely, though the black is a bit hard to see in the pictures. Taking photos of black minis against a black background wasn't too easy.

With these done I guess it's time to play Necromunda again! I think the last time I played a game was in the early 00's with my old gang, that has sadly been sold with most of my other old minis when I quit the hobby for a few years in my late teens. Still it's never too late to get back in as it's a great game system. And what would be better than bashing in a few ganger skulls while dishing out the Emperor's justice.

Painting this week has been dreadfully slow with a minor panic at the office due to customers showing up unannounced for a three week long visit to tour all our factories etc. Luckily most of the stuff related to our team has now been dealt with so I can breath once again and hopefully have some more free time. I guess buying stuff for tens of millions does seem to give them a bit more leeway with how they can act :)

The odd moments I've had to paint have been slightly disastrous at times as I've managed to spill my brush washing cups onto the table two times this week, with the last one being just after taking these pictures. The flooding has resulted in a few MDF and cardboard sabot bases becoming soggy and starting to swell quite a bit. It wouldn't be an issue, but I have half finished minis on them that now might have to be rebased. Considering that my normal procedure is to first do the bases and then paint the minis this will be quite a pain. I'm hoping that once they dry up I can salvage them somehow as I definitely don't want to start fixing them up now. On top of all that my air compressor is starting to act up and it's power button seems to be slightly broken and getting the thing started is tricky. Will have to tear it down this weekend in an attempt to fix it. AAARGH...

Adding to the injury, my local ice hockey team lost in the KHL in the first play-off round and started their summer holiday. So no Finnish dominance in the world's second best hockey league this year... Multiple injuries late in the season and frankly slacking off against an opponent that was considered an easy first round rival didn't really help out. Oh well at least there's NHL for a few months still! If they would just start to play at a more reasonable time for us ;)

More classic Citadel goodness Samuli! These Arbites figures are wonderful and look every bit the part of menacing, tough-as-nails figures of Imperial will and law to be deployed against the scum of any hive depths.  Black can be a real SOB to sort out, but you've done excellent work here, and I believe the red has turned out beautifully as well. A solid 25 points!

Spilled water - on figures? Ouch.  I think we've all faced similar disasters - at our own hand, or sometimes at the hands of others. I'm fortunate (knock on wood) that I haven't pulled that move in a while, but I did manage to recently spill some Vallejo primer on the hardwood floor upstairs.  Cleaning that up was a LOT of fun - maybe not as bad as re-basing, but still way better than a divorce. 

I can relate somewhat to your hockey woes, but at least your team made the playoffs.  Not to worry, however. Despite the miserable time difference, the NHL still has months of trench-warfare slogging ahead as the Stanley Cup Playoffs come into view. I hope you will enjoy a few games... 

From GillesW - Catching up on the Backlog - and Borix the Bard! (160 points)

Hi everyone,

I slowly catching up my "base and flock it!"  backlog this week, at least on my Chinese infantry.
These figures are from Essex Miniatures.  I painted them to replace some older ones I had painted previously.  The spears and halberds have been cut off and changed for plastic spears and I have added a banner from the excellent "Little Big Men" studios.

The main issue was to flock them like those I already based some years ago, so I could mix and match them on the table it if needed.

I also worked on more generic Chinese troops in case I want to play something different.  These are bowmen and crossbowmen. I'll paint the same skirmishers but with a brown base to use them in medieval settings too.

To me, this is not a true "points bomb" because the painting was done during the  3 and 4 weeks ago.
I still have some biblical, hellenistic, carthaginian and generic renaissance troops waiting their turn in the queue as I try to finish basing.

But I did paint sone figures this week - some Gauls with a new idea in mind, inspired by the magnificent figures of Miss Anne. Only it is on a more modest scale of course  - don't forget that I'm only a jester ;-)

I did a white undercoat and washed it in my mixture (the wash, known as "frenchjester's bath" is on my blog). Then I put a red glaze called Bloodletter (from Games Workshop) on the flesh areas. Once dry I highlighted here and there the skin with the Ungor Flesh  of Games Workshop, and added the details.

Here is the subject just below:

 Borix the Bard is a limited edition sculpted by Westwind Miniatures for a French friend of mine
(guess how much money he spent for the Kickstarters??) who play Gauls and all sorts of French armies all along the French history

 I'll use it as commander of my Ancient celtic mercenaries.

There are some conversions like heads and shields swaps among these warriors, the shields are inspired by the paintwork done on an Ancient British army by one of my paint masters the great Ian Speed. I find the " so fast" result  on the skins very interesting ( enough to self congratulations ;-)).
more of them will certainly follow...thanks a lot Anne!

Bien fait come toujours, Gilles! Well done.  Whenever you got the painting done, so long as it was done during the Challenge, then this looks like a real points bomb to me.  A lot of variety here (Chinese? Super cool!) but I quite like Borix the Bard, and I envy the esteem in which his colleagues appear to hold him (and the apparent strength they have to carry him around like that). And I'm sure Anne will be pleased to have influenced the work of a painter as prolific and proficient as yourself!

These 79 figures, along with a couple of extra points for spear replacing mayhem and the banner, get you 160 points.  What will the Jester have for us next week? J'attend avec enthousaisme...

Is it Spring Yet?

So good to have Thursday out of the way, as I'm burning with jealousy at the Aussies and their continued complaints about summer, while winter clings to my home town like a dessicated swamp hag.  As I check the calendar, I see spring approaches, although it often arrives in Winnipeg with the reliability of a "new release" from Battlefront i.e. about two months after it is pronounced, so I wait in my bunker and grumble while the Winnipeg Jets race to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Millsy and his heat waves...

All the same, we are into March now, and starting to run out Challenge runway.  I'd better get some more bloody stuff painted! And as for the Friday gang, they put on quite a show last week, but we'll have to see if we can top that - or the points bombardment unleashed this week by the Wednesday crew...

More feats of brushwork await as we cruise towards another weekend...on with the posts!

From RossM - Augmented Infantry (54 points)

At long last here is my first entry for this year's Painting Challenge and it is not what was originally planned. The Macedonians stumbled at the start again!

All together now

The figures shown are from Critical Masses ARC Forces range and are 15mm in scale. There are a total of 27 figures: 3 Command and 24 troops - 4 stands of normal Augmented Troops and 4 stands with Plasma cannons. Normal deployment would be command with either of the troop types although there will be a command set in the post shortly to balance this out.

"Normal" Augmented Troops with Command

These figures are great to paint and even though they have never seen action yet other from the same range will continue to be on the painting table for some time.

Basing has been kept in line with previous figures from the same range and collectively produces a good finish to the figures.

Augmented troopers with Laser Cannons

Throughout painting figures for Critical Mass there has been a deliberate decision to have a limited and use warm colours sparingly. The red vambraces here are to indicate an elite unit and obviously to make them go faster.

This concludes this first entry for the Challenge and if my calculation is correct will add 54 points to my total of nil so far.

Hoping to have more from this range very soon.

Cheers for now,

Ross

Welcome to the fray Ross! It's great to have you finally get on the board. I don't think we've had much 15mm sci-fi stuff up til now so you've treated us to something new as well. What rules system are these based for BTW? 

Critical Mass make some seriously nice stuff don't they? Loads of definition that enables you to get a good amount of contrast even at distance as you've demonstrated with these fine fellows. I really like the scheme you've chosen for them with the red flashes on the elite troops giving them a bit of a flourish too. 

This is worth a solid 54 points to kick you off. Got any more in the locker? There's still over two weeks to go so you've loads of time to push your total north. Cheers, Millsy

From Barks - Dracula and foes

These are from the 2015 3rd edition of the boardgame Fury of Dracula. This is a hidden movement game where Dracula records his moves secretly and the hunters travel across Europe tracking him down. The sculpts date back to the 2005 2nd edition, and aren't fantastic. They're true 25mm.

Dracula

Lord Godalming

Mina Harker

van Helsing

Dr Seward

I used a bit of blue to highlight the Count, and gave Mina Harker a red scarf to represent her ties to him. I had a poorly-thought-out attempt at OSL for Lord Godalming, but didn't like it so overpainted it- looks a bit better now, as if I had done it properly!

Something completely different and quite fascinating Mr Barks this week! I've never heard of the Fury of Dracula and I'm more than a little intrigued now I must say. There's a real movement to paint up game pieces these days and I can see why when you're presented with stuff like this.

I really like all five characters in one way or another but I think the stand out for me is the main man Count Dracula. The blue highlight works a charm and depth of shadows on his scarlet lined cape sets his outfit off very nicely indeed.

That's a total of 25 points added to your tally. What's next I wonder? Cheers, Millsy.

From EvanH - A Nice Toad (6 points)

I'm channeling icy thoughts in the hope that I can lower the ambient temperature here in Sydney, aka Satan's Y-Fronts. Trust me, you don't want to know.

So here's my latest attempt at sympathetic weather magic, a Nice Toad an Ice Toad from North Star's Frostgrave range.

I'm feeling cooler already!

This chap was part of my birthday present from Mr Mills, and I hope to get the other half of the blister pack, That's No Leopard that Snow Leopard, finished next.

The snowdrifts were prepared using my usual recipe of bicarbonate of soda and PVA glue, undercoated with a wash of OOP GW Ice Blue and highlighted in white. Gloss varnish was used for the snow and the eyes of the beastie. A princely five points, but every little bit helps, right?

Eww. You might want to get those looked at.

He's the first of my Frostgrave figs to be completed, and I've got several more lurking in the Twilight Zone of undercoat limbo - but can I get any more of them out there before the Challenge ends? Time management has never been my strong suit...

Stay tuned!
Ev

Nice to see the birthday goodies getting some attention Ev! Considering we've both bought into Frostgrave rather heavily and then done bugger all since, this hopefully can kick-start things and make sure we get some gaming in sooner rather than later. 

I must admit until now I was dubious about how this weird little chap would look painted up. As of now I'm a convert. The sallow skin and almost Henson-esqe facial expression are very likeable indeed and the effort you've put into the basing really finishes him off nicely. 

He's worth just five points as you mentioned but I'm throwing in another for the basing. Cheers, Millsy.

From MarkH - 15mm WW2 German big guns (118 points)

Hi everyone, small post for me today. I still have lots on the go but little finished - this week I finished off some more Flames of War figures.

First up a pair of German Luftwaffe 88's. A total of 16 figures and 2 large guns. 

Next we have 4 late war German 10.5cm artillery pieces. A total of 31 infantry and 4 large guns.

Well that's it for now.

Mark :)

I'm not sure I'd class this as a small post Mark, despite the fact it's 15mm. Having painting a fair few WWII artillery myself I can testify to the amount of fiddling required just to get them assembled, never mind the large number of crew and basing as well. 

Both sets are very well executed indeed but for my mind the pick of the two are the 88s. Not only have you gone with the Luftwaffe crew but you've actually got them doing anti-aircraft work. Almost every set you see are set up as anti-tank guns because of their effectiveness in game terms but this neglects their intended role, especially in the late war when Allied bombing was at it's peak. 

Lovely work mate and well worth the 118 points it earns you. Cheers, Millsy