Imperial Stormtroopers(45 points)

Yup, I caught a bug. I've been under the weather for the past few days. I did make it down to the mancave today and tried to finish a few things including "Home", but I missed the deadline.

I did complete these nine stormtroopers from Fantasy Flight Games "Imperial Assault"

They beagan with a black undercoat followed by successive grey layers till completed with a white final highlight. Black-coalblack-medium grey-french blue- eggshell blue- and then white.

To seperate the troopers into fire teams, I painted some stripes onto the shoulders of two fire teams.

One got red racing stripes and the other got blue to represent the 501st"Vader's Own". I did paint stripes on the helmets too, but they did not look quite right s I had to redo the layers and "erased" the markings.

I will add to them at some point as you can never have enough troopers. Thankfully a heavy stromtrooper and an Imperial Agent exist to spice up the pose variety and add more functionality to them. There will be further additions to the 501!

Just a small appetizer of nine troopers for now.

Indeed, you can never have enough Imperial Stormtroopers, especially when those pesky rebels keep blowing up hundreds of thousands of them at a time on purely defensive space stations. Another 45 points and I hope that your bug clears up quickly.

Tamsin

From DavidB: Death Guard 40k (135 points)

This Is the fellow who started this little force. He was painted when I got back from my last deployment. A friend gave him to me and he seemed a good candidate for the infamous Death Guard and an opportunity to try painting tarnished metal and the "lighting-strike" power sword effect. I used a tourqoise over the armor then layered tinbitz then brazen brass with  small highlight of shining gold leaving the tinbitz and torqouise to show the filth and tarnish. He(being the force commander) was used as the starting point and color choice for the force. With GW technical paints adding Typhus Corrosion, Nihilakh Oxide, and Ryza Rust a lot of steps got removed. The oxide is a thick ink that coats, so the layered approach wasn't needed. It took a moment to figure that out though!

The force in entirety except for a few that are still in progress.

The helbrute came with the Dark Vengence box game and is an impressive model. He is packed with detail. I like that you can pick out various details on this one model to represent any or all of the 40k dark powers.

I used the "blood for the Blood God" to shine up the mouths that are sprouting all over him.

He was supposed to be in  the Armor round, but I kept getting sidetracked by the detail.

Since he is turning into a demonic beast, I coated the cables in blood for the blood god and used Nurgle rot to tranisiton from machine to flesh and bone. Plus it is a death guard machine and Nurgle rot kinda fits

The Chosen Marines are also from the boxed game and like the helbrute, they are packed with detail and can be readily painted to match any chaos power or all of them. This lightng claw equiped marine has Shoulder plates that seem pitted with rot.

The marine to the left has plaguebearer demons erupting from his armor and his helmet horn seemed to also be a good fit for "Papa Nurgle" The Champion next to him has an Inquistor  Head mounted on his backpack.

The Chosen Marines are armed for bear with all of them having bolters/combi bolters and hand to hand weapons. To bring them up to the sacred number of seven, I put in an old champion with a power fist.

Squad one has a mixture of second edition metal hybrids and a plasma gunner. The Champion has a plague sword. All the plague knives were given a coat of nurgle rot and the cables were given the blood god coating. I also coated the sores and wounds the technical paint as well.

This squad had all of it's models undercated white so I used pale greens and browns then steaked the armor with the Typhus Corrosion ink.

The bases wee coate with martian ironearth which cracks like dry soil then flocked.

A second edition Icon bearer and two plastic marines from a very old set...that set used to be really neat, but they are poor compared to the newer stuff.

The plastic marine to the left of the Icon bearer was the test model for all the ones painted with the newer technical paints including the basing.

I will add the icon bearer to one of the squads, but tthe two plastic marines will be used to lead the chaos cultist squads.

A couple of my favorite older deatrhguard marines.

The second squad has a champion with a plasma pistol and a melta gunner. They were undercoated black and I went from darker greens and browns till they were also hit hit the technical paints. They still look similar to the 1st squad, but have enough of a difference to tell them apart.

This force was actually used as a "tinboy"(unpainted) force in December. A three way 40k game for the fisrst dice rolling session in the new house. They are also the first time I played a chaos force.

I have another hero, a war machine and a couple of cultist squads still on the table being worked on.

hopefully they will be up shortly, but I'm still under the weather and have to perform military duty later in the week.

Still three squads of seven, a dread, and three extra marines make a pretty good force!

Nice work David! I'm going to count the Hellbrute as a vehicle (it only seems fair after scoring Miles' purple worm and tortoise dragon as vehicles),  so 135 points for you. Unless the Snowlord decides I've been over-generous of course...

Tamsin

From MilesR: Ode to Armor (105 Points)

 After a grueling week of high level strategic like business sessions, it was good to get back to the painting workbench in wintery Maryland.  I've pulled together a little impromptu armor expose for you.

First up are two WW2 tank Destroyers - a US M-18 Hellcat and a German Jagdpanther.  Both models are 28mm resin kits from Trenchworx and the are simply superb - just a joy to assemble and paint up.

 The M-18 Hellcat is one of my favorite US WW2 vehicles.  It was a very fast (50 mph) but lightly armored tank destroyer that mounted a high velocity 76mm gun.  First deployed in Italy over 2,500 vehicles saw service against the Germans.

 The Jagdpanther was a monster of a tank destroyer. It mounted a 8.8cm anti-tank gun on a Panther chassis - so had mobility, hitting piers and relatively good armor.  415 vehicles were produced during the war.  It dwarfs the M-18 (the grid in 1cm squares).

 Next up is a modern take on armor with a Soviet bloc BTR-80A that I purchased from Age of Glory Miniatures.

It's a good basic IFV for the African and middle eastern theaters.

 Lets move on to some Fantasy armor in the form of a Dragon Tortoise and Purple Worm from the Reaper Bones line.  As I've indicated earlier, the Bone s material really does work well for larger figures like these which were fun to put together and paint up.  I'll likely add some more highlighters to the Dragon-Tortoise before the Challenge is over.

You may ask "Why a Dragon Tortoise?" I say "why not?"!

The business end of the worm - I bet that will leave a mark.

 Lastly, some 28mm armored skeletons from the Northstar Miniatures Frostgrave line.  I did two up in red just for fun.

lastly, a group shot of todays work.  I've been away from the paint desk fro a week, so I'm a bit rusty.  Hopefully my productivity will increase once I get back from the UK next weekend.


Tamsin: I'll go with you judgement on points but there are 3 28mm vehicles (45points), 6 28mm figures (30 points).  The worm is essentially a vehicle (15) but the Dragon-Tortoise is ???.   I'll trust you to decide what it's worth.  All were fun to paint and that's what matters.



I can't imagine the horrific and grueling nature of those ten hours of business meetings over six days in the Turks. You poor thing - you must have been bled dry. What kind of boss would inflict such tortures?

I'm glad to see that you managed to get some work done while you were away from base. For the scoring, as worms have been scored as vehicles in the past and the dragon tortoise is a similar size I'll score that as a vehicle as well, which will give you 105 points for this entry.

Tamsin

From Paul O'G: Wasteland Raiders (60 points)

Presenting the last unit of my Riders of Doom themed army for Dragon Rampant.  This is a 12 figure light foot unit using plastic GW Chaos Marauders.  These are quite nice figures once you cull all the silly over the top components.   I experimented with some speed painting techniques, keeping the purple colour theme from the other units of the army.   They aren't perfect but I'm pretty happy with the overall result, finishing them just in time to have a submission this week.

I'm also chuffed to have started and completed a full force from scratch during this challenge, albeit with small unit sizes compared to most massed Fantasy battle games.  My force now includes Elite Riders, Elite and Heavy Foot units, a Champion and 2 Light Foot units.  I'll have to take a picture of the force all together soon.

Overall thats 12 x 28mm figs for a total of 60 points.



Well, that's 12 chappies that you wouldn't want to meet down some dark alley! I can't see any fur but I do see horns - I hope that they are either artificial or from animals that died naturally, otherwise PETA will be after you!

Another 60 points for you Paul

Side Duels and Challenges Updated

Hi All,

Another points update for the Side Duels and Challenges
has been posted.

Please check and confirm I have things right!

Cheers,
Millsy the Duels Wallah

Steve B: Blood Bowl, Dystopian Wars (121 points)

So I managed to finish off the last of my skaven blood bowl team, inc a rat ogre, extra thrower, 2 special chars, and one with long legs.

I had a hard time deciding what to do next. I've had a Covenant of Antarctica fleet for Dystopian wars for a few years now , but hadn't finalized a color scheme.
The Covenant specializes in energy weapons, so I thought to do a weapons glow. with the airbrush this is suprisingly easy to do. They won't be award winners , but I am happy with the result.

Being off the beginning of the week , I managed to crank out most of the fleet. These are mostly done with airbrush, with very little brush work.

Included are a dreadnaught, assault carrier, 2 battleships, battle cruiser, 6 cruisers, and 6 frigates.

I included a skaven blood bowl member for scale, as I'm not sure how to sore these. ( but that's what the judges are for,...lol)

Cracking work Steve! You've done a great job with the airbrush on those ships. I'm going to score the ogre as a 40mm figure so that gives you 27 points for the Blood Bowl selection. 

Having looked back through previous Dystopian Wars entries to get an idea of how to score them, I'm going to award 94 points for that fleet which brings you up to 121 points for this submission.

Tamsin

From SylvainR: OMG SMG! (176 points)

Tovarich! Heroes of the 15mm Soviet Union!

Here is my last batch of 15mm Soviet units! On the left are 12 units of SMGs to complete an SMG  company. Each stand has 4 figurines for a total of 48 (96 points). On the left are various command stands and small teams for a total of 40 figurines (80 points). Let's take a look at  them in more details.

Here is a close-up on 2 SMG stands. Nothing fancy, just that there are lots of little guys carrying submachine guns.

Next are 8 new command teams and two of them include a flag bearer. I just love the kind of anachronism that only a political system like the Soviet Union could produce during a modern war like WW2. That and the dreaded Kommissars! It's interesting how colors completely changed when I took a picture at a different angle with my i-pad. Oh well.

Kommissars bring "political correctness" (ahem) to the Soviet Army, although I can understand that the unlucky soldiers stuck at the front between crack German units and deserter hungry Kommissars had a completely different view on the matter. These 4 teams of political "advisors" will help keep the morale of the troop at the required combative level.

Lastly, a group of three light mortars (probably 50mm) with an observer behind them. We assume that the observer is there for the heavier batteries that the battalion commander keeps in the back, not for the puny mortars..

Finishing these units means that my 15mm mid-war Soviet army project is now completed. I will now refer to the holy spreadsheet and rigorously proceed to the next listed item. Hmmm, let's see...


Congrats on completing your army Sylvain! It does seem that rather a lot of Russians are appearing this year, which is no bad thing! That'll be 176 points towards your target.

Tamsin

From MichaelA Māori Artillery (27 points)

More from the ‘Empress Miniatures’ New Zealand Wars range, this time a captured Royal Navy Carronade and a Māori crew.

Now I have to confess that I know little of the Carronade other than what I have gleaned from my limited research, but it strikes me as a particularly formidable short range, anti personal weapon, particularly when in the hands of a determined adversary – perfect for defending one’s Pā against the British!

This lovely set comes with three crew members again sculpted by the talented Paul Hicks.  I couldn’t resist having a go at their facial tattoos or more correctly the Tā Moko, perhaps an unnecessary addition given the scale of the miniatures, but something that is so literally ingrained in the culture of the Māori, (Along with the Silver Fern placed at the front of base) that I thought that it was worth the effort.


Lovely work as always Michael. I must confess that this is a period that I know very little about.

To the base of 25 points for these I'm going to add a couple of bonus points for making the effort to paint the Ta Moko designs on their faces.

Tamsin

Tamsin's saTurday Tonics

I'm not entirely sure about being called on to cover a weekend shift - it plays merry heck with capitalising my post titles! It was much easier to get the alliteration last year when I was the Tuesday Minion.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is your friendly stand-in senior flight attendant Tamsin. Thank you for flying Flight AHPC7 from Challenge. Our pilot, Captain "Snowlord" Campbell has asked me to step in today so that he can focus on some Home work. I must say that after last year's flight I was dreading the state I'd find the crew lounge in - PeterD always left it in such a mess with empty fizzy drink and beer cans, half eaten pizzas, piles of sweaty socks...however, young Philip and master Sylvain seem to have left it in a very acceptable condition.

"A simply amazing 96 passengers and crew have boarded with only four no-shows. My understanding is that two of them were arrested following an altercation about how many buttons were on the trouser fly of Zwarinsky's hussars for the uniform issue of February 1834. I can inform you that both were in fact wrong - there was no February 1834 uniform issue to that regiment. Hah!

"The third missing passenger is, I regret to inform you in hospital after a PETA activist saw him openly displaying a Space Wolves army.

"The fourth is currently being questioned by various law enforcement agencies after budgies and sandbags were discovered in his checked luggage. Inside sources report that he keeps claiming that "that bleedin' Badger must have sneaked them in there to smuggle them into the Challenge". The sources suggest that a worldwide search for someone with the initials "RR" is under way.

"To bring you up to date with how the flight is going, we are currently cruising at 40,059 points with a target altitude of 75,650. Good golly-gosh my word! We're a little bit over halfway there and don't appear to be living on a prayer!

"Today is, unless my mathemagics is mistaken, the halfway point for this flight. doesn't time fly when you're having fun?

"There are a few delicious entries for your delectation today in a variety of sizes. Please do remember to show your appreciation by leaving comments.

"Before I go to do my duties, a quick reminder that Nurse Docherty will be around at some point with the medications. Rainbow crayons (noses, for putting up) can be found in the pocket under your seats.

"I hope you enjoy the remainder of this flight!"

Tamsin is at the Controls Today...

Continuing on our biweekly feature of 'Famous Minions of Yesteryear,' Tamsin will soon take the controls for today's submissions. I, in turn, will try to get my 'Home' entry done and the theme round sorted. 

You're in excellent hands, folks. See you all tomorrow!

 

Oookay ...anytime Tamsin.

Tamsin?

Tamsin!?