From AaronH - 28mm Warlord Games EIR Command(50 points)

This entry is some long awaited command figures for my EIR army. There are two command stands, which will finally let me play with an all painted army. There are also four command models to slot into my cohorts. I mis-counted at some point and had too many legionaries and not enough commanders.

First up are the two command stands. Each of these will command a "division" in Hail Caesar.

The one on the left is reminiscent of a certain movie; I can't quite place it. The one on the right reminds me of the Uruk-Hai captain in the assault on Helm's Deep.

This is a nice model, but the horse is white metal and is supposed to be standing on one back hoof. Insanity. I had to glue a piece of resin rod under the front hoof then paint it like wood and glue on some clump foliage.

I think it is unobtrusive, but needs must. The rest of the model is nice except for that mold line in the picture above. It just is not in a place that I could get at it with a file.

The dog is painted to look like my German Shepard, Finn. The close ups of the other base failed miserably; between lighting and focus they were unusable. Rest assured it's my best work ever and you'd love it.

These next four are command models to slot into my line cohorts. These are all Warlord Games metals, like the command stands above.

It's hard to tell from this angle but the Optio's helmet is askew. He is supposed to have a shield but after painting it I decided that I prefered him without. He looks fairly desperate and I thought the lack of a shield accentuated that.

I have a decal that fits the shield of the vexillarius but I hate them so much. After three failed attempts I just painted it on. As rough as it is I'd rather get my crappy shield tattooed on my forehead than try to get that damn decal on the shield again.

These stands mean I have a completely painted army to play with. Now. About that second legion...




And some more diminutive B-17's have delivered yet another payload of mini goodness! I quite like the leaders you've selected, Aaron. The general on horseback cuts a very fine figure, I quite like Finn pacing him too. Your foot general is very urkhai-ish too, it is a shame the photography gods denied a better image of him too. The comand groups for the legion are very fine sculpts. I do like the plastic kits, but metal models still have that fine level of detail that plastic often misses. The one fellow fighting sans shield does have a desperate ferocious vibe to him. from skin to shields, mail, and fur. This is a very fine addition to your legion....now on to the second legion! ;)

From SimonM: "Black Tree Design" Osiran Service Robots (50 Points)

"They're not mummies, they're service robots."

These ten 28mm metal models of Robot Mummies are manufactured by “Black Tree Design” and can be bought as code DW410 and DW474 from their "Doctor Who" range. In actuality Osiran service robots which were "disguised as mummies", these servitors were used as "workers and guards" by Sutekh's puppet, the animated corpse of Marcus Scarman, in the October 1975 BBC Television science fiction serial "The Pyramids Of Mars".

Robot Mummy WIPs - The Osiran Service Robots have been primed and washed

Initially undercoated with two coats of "Vallejo" Iraqi Sand, all of these Egyptian-looking automatons were washed with "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, and then dry-brushed with more "Vallejo" Iraqi Sand. I did then consider giving the Robot Mummies a light highlight of White, but having checked the colour scheme of their 'small screen' counterparts, I actually realised that the actors' costumes were probably far more greyish than my chosen palette had produced, so I decided to leave well enough alone. In the end however, I did finally try to simply deepen the shadowing around their 'eye' sockets by applying some "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade, and then treated all of the models to a layer of "Coat d'arms" gloss; something I steadfastly apply to all my miniatures.

Disconcertingly though, on this occasion, the varnish seemed 'hellbent' on eradicating a fair portion of "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, which had up until this point been providing each sculpts' bandages with plenty of shading and definition. As a result I was left with several figures which looked as if they hadn't been washed at all...

Robot Mummy WIPs - The Osiran Service Robots patiently waiting to be varnished and based

This incredibly frustrating state-of-affairs gave me few options, as much of the raised detail of the models was now covered in paint, so there was scant chance I could simply wash and then dry-brush the miniatures again without them losing some considerable detail. The thought of stripping all the models and starting again equally filled me with dread, so in the end I decided to simply dab on a watered-down wash of "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade over each figure and hope that wasn't subsequently 'eaten away' by the varnish either.


Some more Dr Who villians! I'm going to have to blame you,Simon for the constant bombardment of Black tree minis by my middle daughter. She is rather taken by all sorts of geeky scifi, but the good doctor is her favorite! I do remmeber these fellows when younger and the creepiness when the wrappings were torn from a mummy head.
they racked up quite the body count with the victims running about the English estate with only the Dr and athe groundkeeper's gun for defense! ;)
It seems you recovered a bit from the lacquer issues. the Agrax wash piped the wraping detail rather well!
 In the future be advised that there is a matt spray called workable fixitive. It is an artist spary that is intended to protect charcoal and pastel drawings while still allowing the artist to coninue to work on the piece. The spary does alter ink a bit, but not as drastic as lacquer does. I used to use crystal clear on minis which is very glossy, but when I began using ink the spray would wipe it out. the matt fixitive spray lessened the damage to the ink considerably...I'm sure the rest of the gang may have other tricks to help you too!

From AaronH - 28mm Victrix Velites(40 points)

This entry makes me somewhat ashamed. I had them done two weeks ago but didn't get the basing grass done. I had them done last week but didn't get them photographed.  They are finally on the boards though.

These are eight velites from Victrix (Republican Romans) for use as auxiliaries in my EIR army.

This is my second unit of these. Or fourth depending on whether they are small or very small units in Hail Caesar. Skirmishers are really useful in those rules so more is definitely better.

The unit doesn't need a leader, but I might as well include one in case it is ever a requirement. The Victrix models are very nice. Easy to assemble and easy to paint. The detail is good and the poses work well. Velites are a fluid unit and it is tricky to make models that will work in all of the possible poses that can come out of the box.

These will give me 40 points towards my quickly receding goal. With the addition of my next entry I now have a fully legal army for Hail Caesar.


Very nice work, Aaron! besides the excellent skin tones on them, the bases look very fine. The poses you made for them are very dynamic too. There leader has no doubt gotten tired of hanging around with the command staff and has tradded in his eagle for a few javelins. ;) Welcome back!

March into Thursday

I've had an interesting week so far. Work, training, painting, military, work, athletics, eat,....
My kids are wrapping up winter sports and as they dive into school books, they have suddenly become aware that they haven't finished anything of note yet...perhaps soon Monday will get a glimpse of the myriad types of elves they have been working on.
It is ironic that they have dove in while I have slacked off.
In the early morning hours of Monday I capped February off in a grand way. I rolled my car down a steep Michigan hill on my way to work. I am entirely fine-ish( if miscellaneous aches and bruising are discounted) but alas the green beast LeSabre has expired.

My productivity has declined a bit even with the forced time off from doctor orders. I may post a picture of my handiwork later! ;)
I'm rather pleased to have retained my mortal coil and passed on visiting the Happy Hunting Grounds for the moment.
My kids are diving into their books and models now, and I suspect they appreciate just how fortunate we can be. Nobody suspects the Inquisition nor a random explosive deflation of a tire while negotiating a curve leading to a steep downgrade slope either! ;)
Hug your dears, enjoy the good things, and have fun viewing the spectacular eyecandy of the AHPC!
Simon has a post ready and Aaron has returned from his sojourn. I suspect that Aaron was busy preparing a fleet of B-17's as he has quite the carpet-bombing lined up. ( ok so they are 3mm B-17, but they are loaded with an eclectic mix of mini goodness!) I'm pretty sure a few others will show up too. I am working on a few RT models and various other Scifi troops and should have a modest post ready before Saturday.
The finish line fast approaches! Get those brushes blazing! ;)

From JohnM: More Africans for Congo (50 Points)

I have to say that I am really enjoying painting this diverse group of figures from Wargames Foundry for the ruleset Congo. The paint just falls on them.

Up next is some groups a little lower on the pecking order than the Askaris I presented last week. This time I have gone with very muted colours, these chappies are just out of the bush looking for adventure. 

First up is the Ruga-Ruga. These men are the orphans of their tribes, left to fend for themselves. They are the mercenaries of the expedition age, hiring themselves out to whomever will pay. They are undisciplined but not lacking in courage. Armed with muskets.

Next up is the Young Warriors. These are young men of the African tribes, they join up looking for adventure, experience and glory. Armed only with spears and shields.

So another 50 points which I believe will push me over my goal. I actually never thought I would find the time to paint up 400 points for this year's Challenge. I was hoping to have my next detachment and supports of Blood Angels done for Epic 30k, but alas I was missing one vehicle to make up the grouping. Fortunately, I was able to find some on eBay, and they are now on their way to me. I am hoping to able to put them up next week. I am planning to finish off the Challenge with some left overs from last year, but we will have to see.

ByronM: Another great entry for your Congo game John!  The skin tones are really nice as are the shields and clothing.  You make it hard to not get into this game!  Keep up the great work and hopefully we get to see more either in this challenge or next year.  I still want to see what you are going to use for jungle terrain too!

From BillA - Griffon (10 Points )

I haven't posted much lately - I hit a long bout of painter's block that it took me entirely too long to realize was because I was bored painting chainmail and white surcoats and needed a break from my Teutonic knights.  Once I sat down with something different - Reaper Miniatures' "Griffon," from their Bones line of plastic figures - the mojo started to make a comeback, and I'm very pleased with the results.

I don't know that I have too much to say about him - the color scheme is nothing too outrageous, with tawny hindquarters and dark brown feathers based primarily on the golden eagle, though the lighter shades on the wings are more hawk-inspired.

My half-painted Teutons have begun to pull double duty as a "Kingdoms of Men" list for Kings of War, and once I have a suitable rider painted up this will be the "Winged Beast" part of "General on Winged Beast," to command my army and terrorize enemy war machines and back ranks.  To this end the Griffon has been mounted on a 50mm square base.

ByronM: That looks really sharp Bill!  I like the shading on the feathers and the lightening of the trailing feathers gives a very realistic look.  I have never worked with the Bones stuff and have heard mixed reviews on them, but this model looks great and your paint job is really nice as well! 

TeemuL: A Bunch of Chaos (80 points)

I have not been painting so much Odds and Ends lately as I was supposed to, participation in the local AoS Escalation league has "forced" me to paint some Chaos. Well, the league ended last week, I finished fourth with only one victory, but several hobby points for painted models, round bases etc. I still have some miniatures to finish to my level, even though they were all on the table already.

Here are 5 Chaos Knights, not armed with feared lances, but mediocre axes and swords. On the game they were doing what I expected, but the opposing Screamers were just too much, kill one and two new are spawned (some Tzeentch trick). In the end I managed to finish them, but that's all what they managed to done in the game.

The standard bearer was started and almost finished before the challenge, so he does not count for challenge points. In general I'm happy with them, but the shields are not what I expected. They got too messy, they looked better when half done, actually. :) Of course from the distance you don't see a thing, but it irritates me a bit. Anyway, they are finished now.

I used red glaze on some of the horses to give them more demonic, evil, Khorne look. Not bad, but not very visible either. I also decided to paint some black and some brown horses instead of all black, which is so familiar with Chaos Knights.

They are plastic horses with some metal parts and metal riders. Older GW models all.

Whole army at the moment

Then something different, but Chaos as well. These are Odds or Ends, because they are all what I have of them and now they all are done. They are Broos from Glorantha. In other universes they might be called Beastmen, which is quite odd, because goats, sheeps and other farm animals are not very beasty to me...

I got them from a sale years ago just because I used to play RPGs in the Glorantha (RuneQuest at that time) as a teenager and I really liked to world. I have bought some newer books (HeroWars and later HeroQuest - not the boardgame) every now and then, because I just like the world.

I don't know much of these, they were in the box labeled "RuneQuest Broo Selection" and I they are manufactured by Mongoose. They are all metal and those shields were separate. They are not overly detailed, but there's enough to make them other than fur and cloth.

Shields, unfortunaltely a bit flurry

I should have probably used more colors on the clothes, now they look a bit too uniformed, I think. Or at least use yellow less and others more.

This looks like a leader, the fanciest clothes and two swords

The clubs

Three spears

Swords

Pointswise this is 4 mounted and 8 standing 25/28 miniatures, so a whopping 80 points!

ByronM: More old school GW stuff, is it just me or do they look so wrong mounted on ovals and rounds!  Not anything to do with you Teemu, just feels to odd to not rank guys up for GW fantasy, just this grouchy old man talking though.  The figures themselves look good, and I especially like the beastmen at the end of the post.  They look like cool little scupts that have a lot of character.   The overall picture of the army as well is nice, you have gotten a long way on it over the course of the challenge, congrats!

KyleC - Test of Honour - 85 pts

All quiet on the western front these days.. so we will switch to the eastern front instead!

Been incredibly busy with work, and a soon to be house move ( didn't I do one of those this time last year? )... but I have had a chance to get in some painting of some gaming models.

With Warlords promoting their new game Test of Honour, the local scene is quite enthused with it, and looking forward to it arriving. Though the game is not out, I realized that I had some Samurai models kicking around. Actually they were built and ready for LAST YEARS competition for being painted up and never got touched :(

But with this game coming, it was a good time to dig out these models then and give them a go at painting!

The models are ones from Northstar and consist of 2 different bands that they provide for their Ronin game. But I think overall they mix well enough, and since the ToH game treats anything not a samurai as a commoner.. it should be ok.

Though I do have too many Samurai at the moment, I think it will be ok. Or at least give me some flavour to seeing how I wish to play them.

At present when I was doing the first batches of them, I got the first 12 models completed. Giving me a Damiyo, 2 Samurai retainers, 4 with Muskets, 4 with bows, and a Ronin with a Kanebo... I still have 5 more with spears/polearms that got finished up afterwards.

Color scheme is not so historical, but was fun to paint up. And I just felt like painting red! :) The blue being an accent color for it.

The clan I have named after my high school teacher, Mr Yamamura, who unfortunately passed last year. So all the banners have Yama, or Mountain, as its symbol to honour him.

Much fun was had with painting them up, and just now hoping to see how they will do when the game gets released. But it does give me a reason to pull out all the Japanese buildings that I bought for my IJA forces in Bolt Action last year as well.

17 models of 28mm scale in total. And when the game gets released, I will have many more to add to it to make a much greater variety for me to play with! But what I do have at the moment is enough to start almost immediately for many of the scenarios that are already known!

ByronM: An excellent looking force here Kyle and one I am sure that your old teacher would have appreciated you naming after him.  The colours are spot on with lots of great shading and transitions.  I really like the muted tones on some and the brighter tones on others.  It all looks great.   I had not heard about this new game, but since I already have a pile of Northstar and Perry Samurai figures, I may need to check it out.

From StephenS: Angry Monks (60 points)

Twelve worked-up monks take the field for my burgeoning Saga/Lion Rampant force. No doubt they've helped themselves to a little of their Monasteries home-brew and now feel they need to make a point, preferably with something sharp.

These guys are 28 mm figures from Gripping Beast. They were very easy to paint up, they are after all, basically a robe with a head and hands sticking out. Unfortunately, the castings weren't great, and a few have melted faces. It can get pretty hot out in the desert I guess...

All up that should be 60 points, and now that I've got my final theme round already finished, it's back to trying to finish the last two units for this army before the final curtain call.

Cheers,

Steve

ByronM: Very nice work Steve, I really like how you kept everything dull and muted for your colour choices.  It makes them look far more authentic and worn than brighter more saturated colours would.  Sorry to hear about the castings, I too have found Gripping Beast metals to be really hit or miss so its not something new. This rag tag unit nets you a nice 60 points towards your score, great work.

It's Wednesday again! Minion here, reporting in...

Good Morning everyone and welcome to another Wednesday and the first of March!  Wow, that snuck up on us, didn't it.  That means only 19 painting days left until the end of the challenge, so everyone should get their brushes into high gear for the dash to the finish line.

This week we have a bunch of painted goodness coming your way, including:
- A Griffon
- Chaos Warriors
- Samurais
- Monks
- Congo Warriors

Try as I might though I could not find any Halflings up for posting, they are really short and tricksy though so they might be around here somewhere, I will keep looking.

Oh and for all those in the IT field, don't forget officially....

And as all of us in the IT field know, that covers a lot of people! :-)  So go have some fun today!