From Edward G - My first post, two 28mm chaps gone a Viking in Black and White [30pts]

 Hello all!! 

I'm very very happy to be back for my third challenge, it's such a wonderfully inspiring event every year :) This year is certainly the most challenging for me to date. Long gone are the dreams of beating my +1000pts total from challenge 10. This year not only do we have the doggo to keep me busy, on the 3rd November our little family welcomed our son, Frederick Peter, into the world. And while he's wonderful in every little way, he does keep us busy and target reduces hobby time :D

To kick off this year, I had planned to start the tour of the great film lot in Under Construction, but with a personal deadline of this Monday looming, I realised the minis would themselves still be under construction. So I dived into the lead pile, looking for some pre-primed minis that could be painted up in a couple of hours. With luck, I found these two chap. Both are Reaper mini metals from a long long paused Saga project. I decided that as these chaps were from the venerable depths of my lead pile (deeper than the 10yr country+house move re-boxing strata!) that these two should most certainly appear in black and white!

Without further ado, I present this years retro smash hit...(with a poster made by AI image generators, amazing, but also honestly rather scary that machines can do this. Soon they will be painting our minis for us!) 

Staring Olaf Olafson

And Ulric Ulricson

With amazing scenes and captivating dialogue such as:

Olaf: "Ulric, why is your left-hand axe bent?"
Ulric: "Why isn't your left-hand axe bent?! It is all the rage down in Oslo don't you know."

Olaf: "oh, I don't have a left-hand axe"

DUMM DUMM DAAAAA!!!!

Back to real life, I hope that this year my photos are better than previous years. I am trialling a new system in the basement, which my wife describes as "Quite a set up", so I believe she approves. I might need another lamp for the opposite side, so I will see where in the house I can grab one for the next photo shoot! 

As for points, I hope my maths is correct in counting the following:

- 2 x 5pts for 28mm foot figures = 10pts

- Location bonus for Black and White = 20pts

Total = 30pts

All the best until next time!

Ed

Great to have you back posting this year Ed and congrats on the new arrival.  Wishing you lots of joy and sleep.

Fine work on these venerable Reaper metals they came out nicely in their greyscale.  While I know they were banged up to meet a deadline I can see these appearing as undead in a DnD or similar game.  Your photos came out well.  Good luck raiding the house to improve the lighting.  I find that if I filch something that my wife will notice, sometimes it prompts a trip to Gnome Depot to pick top something that she thinks will work way better for me (and sh'e normally right).

Monday Minion Hopes for the Best

 

How's your first week of 2023 gone?  Mine included driving 550 kms to purchase emergency Oboe supplies and a first day of lectures following a 4:30 am airport run.  Oh yes and one of my assigned classes is first year Calculus featuring 175 students that have only registered because they have to.

On the good news side we look to have a good line of posts in a variety of scales and themes.

• Ed makes his first appearance with some Norsemen.
• Paul brings us some SciFi supplies and the start of a new Project.
• Sylvain has a weekly offering of Desert War Micro-Armour.
• Matt educates us on some of Histories Also-Rans.
• Ken (of course) goes STUPID big.

From DallasE: 40K-Scale Reaver Battle Titan (Sci-Fi: 160 points)

OK, so I have to admit that I wanted to leave this as a points bomb for the end of the Challenge, but I've been convinced to post it up now, and honestly I'm so excited about it I think it would be hard to sit on the post anyway.

In any event, here it is - a 3D-printed 40K-scale Reaver Battle Titan. I've always wanted a Reaver in 40K-scale and now I have one!

Here is the story behind it. A couple months ago I was browsing Warhammer classifieds on kijiji (free ad website, like Craigslist) and stumbled on a guy who was advertising 3D-printed proxy Titans. I'm talking Warlords, Reavers, and Warhounds. Anyway we got together and I saw that the models were decent quality, so I got him to print me one along with some extra weapons (actually I got two, and you might see the other later in the Challenge...?) 

The model required assembly of course, but not nearly as much assembly as a resin one from Forgeworld. Still fiddly in places but I would compare it to the difficulty level of the new tiny Reaver Titans from the Adeptus Titanicus (2018) game. Of course I magnetized the weapons with 3/8" neodymium magnets, which mostly worked OK.

I painted the God-machine as Legio Krytos - a Titan legio affiliated with the Iron Warriors space marine legion, which swore its fealty to the Warmaster Horus in the Horus Heresy. Krytos was the legio in whose colours I painted my AT18 titans as well.

Colours used: Vallejo German Uniform, Rakarth Flesh basecoat with Pallid Wych Flesh on the off-white bits, Leadbelcher on the metal parts, Brass Scorpion for the brass trim, Steel Legion Drab highlighted with Rakarth for the scrolls, the whole washed with Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade. I added some light dirt streaks with my new AK "Streaking Dirt" pencil and sponge chips with German Camo Black Brown. Dust was drybrushed on the feet with Rakarth.

Part of the coolness of Titans (and other ridiculously large war machines) is that they are all individually named. I chose "Dark Apostle" as the name of this Reaver, and that translates into "Warhammer Latin" as "Apostolus Tenebris". At least that's my best guess, anyway. The Krytos insignia on the shield is from the AT18 Legio Krytos decal sheet.

The model is actually pretty nicely detailed. Assembly was straightforward - mostly using superglue but some of the structural elements were secured with JB Kwik-Weld two-part epoxy.

How about this detail on the pistons on the backs of the legs!

Here's a good view of the Melta-Cannon arm weapon. This is actually pretty heavy (it has separate barrels inside the shroud) and the magnets I used to secure it could stand to be a bit stronger (those are on order). 

I used some decals from the Imperial Knights sheet to detail the weapon.

Speaking of Knight decals, I'd wanted to use the Aquila decals from the sheet on the pauldrons, but they were way too small. So I had to freehand the aquila onto the pauldron. The small cogged skull is from the Knight decal sheet though.

The other weapon is a very awesome looking laser blaster. I painted this to match the laser blasters on my AT18 Reavers.

More decal detail on the laser blaster.

I just HAD to put a "VIN plate" on the Titan as well.

And no Reaver Titan is complete without a massive power fist!! It was a little trickier to fit this one - I had to cut apart a spare arm piece to make a magnetized extension for the fist.

It's a big fist!!

Penetrating stare from the Reaver head. Such a cool look, but sadly there is no internal detailing here.

Group shot with my old Armorcast Legio Metalica Reaver. The new 3D printed model absolutely dwarfs it. You can see the Princeps and Moderati on the buildings in front of it. The scale of this Titan is massive.

Here's where the scale really shows. At front left is an Iron Warriors standard bearer and at right is an AT18 Reaver. The 3D printed Reaver is a little over 16" tall.

I'm going to post this model in the Sci-Fi studio but as I don't think a modern 3D-printed Titan has ever been painted in the Challenge, I'm going to suggest a tally for the Titan and extra weapon of 200 points.

Dallas this is fantastic, a proper monster of a figure. I've checked the annals of the challenge and only 1 28mm Titan has been posted, that was slightly smaller (a mere 13.5 inches high) and that was awarded 100pts. With that in mind I've reduced the value a little to 140pts for the figure plus Sci Fi bonus.

Martin 

From StuartL - If I Could Turn Back Time - 1980's - 55 Points

My third and final post for this week is an epic of time travel and a lucky find in my bits box. 

When I was looking over the guidelines for this part of the studio I was absolutely stumped, I didn't get into the hobby until the 90's, and most of my collection comes from well after that. I went through all my boxes of stuff, or at least the ones I could reach and started searching. Eventually I found a model that I assume I picked up in a job lot on eBay or something as I have no recollection of buying it. It looked old, so I snapped off the base and sure enough the slotta-tab showed me that I had a mini to enter. 

And a close up:

I decided to go for some bright garish colours as that is what I recall about clothing from my childhood. A bright green uniform, a tasteless pink headband and bright blue stripes down the sides. I'm not sure what the model is supposed to be, maybe an early 40K Imperial Guardsman or something.

Thinking about the 80's and movies got me thinking about one of my all time favourite franchises, Terminator. While they only made the original 1984 movie and then the classic Terminator 2: Judgement Day, it is my dearest hope that we will one day get a third entry into this series.* Now, I don't have any actual Terminator minis, but I do have the next best thing, Necrons.

Either inspired by or ripped off from the Terminator movie, Necrons are one of the factions of Warhammer 40,000. Tough, armed with incredibly potent hi-tech weapons and almost impossible to put down, they are also really easy to paint.

The Necron range got a bit of an update when 40K's 9th edition dropped a few years back and this is one of the models from that update. I forget the exact name for it, but it is a lieutenant type leader for your infantry units. To help make him stand out, it got a bit more bling around its neck and forehead. There is also a skull peeking out from behind the grass at its feet. Speaking of Skullz, if memory serves Necron Noggins count towards the Skullz side duel, so I will be adding 7 to my tally today.
 

Scoring time.

7x 28mm minis @5 points = 35 Points

1980's @20 points = 20 Points

Total = 55 Points

My side duels:

Squirrels - 11

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons

Skullz - 8

Turnips - 60 Points

That's all from me for this week, but I'll be heading off in the Limo again to my next destination soon.

*I am aware that several other movies called Terminator were made, I just choose to ignore them as they are clearly trash.

Great work on digging the cool old figure out. Do like the terminator types, love a man with a big gun

From: SebastianR Captured Armour (44pts) World Cinema

My initial project is taking a while. Like a snake digesting a meal larger than it's head, I fear that it may take a while to be done, perhaps longer than I have in order to meet the deadline.

In order to stake my claim and make said deadline, I present this stopgap, itself made out of stopgaps; three T-34's captured, and pressed into Finnish service.

A friend of mine picked these up at a trade show as T-34's pressed into German service, which I repainted with a mucky, whitewashed, winter scheme. I've decided to follow the Finnish three part camo for armour they acquired through the normal route - from allied, axis or neutral partners, and whitewash over soviet green for captured vehicles. Ironically the technique calls for a green wash over white. I like it, it's simple and effective and makes them look very used.

The figures are a weird bunch; the turrets have been attached in unique ways and one of the hulls is clearly from a different manufacturer. I'd like to think that their previous owner was experimenting with this ersatz unit too.

I've thrown them into the World Cinema category as they do meet the written definition, of being from somewhere I'm not, but I did have a quick look into the Finnish WW2 film industry. The list available on wikipedia seems quite slim; perhaps this is simply one of the many less trafficked areas of wikipedia or perhaps the Finnish film industry hasn't produced quite as much about the Winter and Continuation Wars as one might expect.

World Cinema is, as I understand it, a Hollywood euphemism for films that non-Americans make, but to me it always feels like world cinema means films that eschew the conventions of western film making as a whole. It feels weird to me to put say, the Harry Potter series or Pans Labyrinth in the World Cinema pigeon hole. All this is to say I am curious about the Finns own approach to capturing WW2 on film. Are they loud and nationalistic like many of the old Allies films, particularly the Russian ones? Are they gloomy and introspective like Fury or Dunkirk? If you've got any good recommendations please drop them in the comments.

By my reckoning that should be 44pts. 20 for the challenge and 3x 15mm vehicles.

You may notice some pixilation on the turrets. This is due to the application of the Finnish Hooked Cross, a swastika in Finnish service that predates the rise of the Nazi party and that has nothing to do with the Nazis. Nevertheless, I have no interest in getting into discussion around the politics of displaying swastikas that are not Nazi swastikas. With apologies to our Finnish runners and readers. Thank you for your understanding.

I absolutely love these, great paint job and nice back story. For me world cinema generally has subtitles, so that could include Trainspotting, as American style has pretty mich infected most nations cinema style. Americans do tend to tell exciting stories well. 

Note to all other Sunday slumberers. I fundamentally agree with Seb's position on on showing the Swastika variant. If you have plans to paint figs with Swastikas and want to show them clearly (not blurred out), I also fundamentally agree with your plan to do so. This is a forum for showing your cool figures and not to discuss politics. 

From PaulO'G: Necromunda Tower (40 points)

I'm working on a few different projects but to be honest not many of them are progressing as envisioned, and thus aren't ready as planned. But this is the chillaxed Sunday crew and we don't groove things like deadlines or stress in our hobby.  Anyway, I did get this small entry completed, a tower for our Necromunda table.

This tower (from a Mantic Games set) has been kicking around our hobby room unpainted for 4 or 5 years. So there we were playing a Christmas game when I finally said 'sod it, pass it over and I'll just get it done'. And here it is; not super exciting but it was fun to experiment with chipping medium and oil washes to give it a worn and dingy look while not making it grey!

Overall its about the volume of a 6inch cube for 20 points, and given its long term hiatus as a not quite started project I would like to also claim the "Under Construction" Bonus for a total of 40 points please. 

Thanks and enjoy your Sunday!

Lovely tower, very reminiscent of Troika pottery (look it up you philistines). Necromunda is becoming cool again here in UK

DennisC 28mm Early Imperial Romans for Hail Caesar 110points

Switched gears, finished off a few Velites and Balearic Slingers to round out for Hail Caesar plus 4 more Light Cavalry, which by my reckoning is 14 infantry and 4 cavalry figures for 110 points 

Nice work from the ever verbose Dennis

From StuartL - Turning Up With Turnips - Lady Sarah's Limousine - 98 Points

For my second entry this week, I need to hop into the limousine. Actually, I don't, the next part of the studio I'll be visiting is right next to the Sci-Fi section. But as I clearly want to put the 'mad' into PriMA-Donna, I'll be making use of the service and travelling in style. 

To pay for my ride, I offer this female paladin model from Reaper Bones (you can tell by the bendy great-sword). She may not be the ideal picture of femininity, but you'd definitely want her on your side when facing down a group of rampaging orcs or festering ghouls.

With my fee paid, I'm going to take a quick detour from my trip round the AHPC Studio and post up my first entry for the Turnip28 side duel. 

I had heard about this game a while back and even picked up a copy of the rules, but I hadn't really given it much thought. When Curt posted the duel I decided to go back and have a deeper look at it and I have to say, it looks like a lot of fun. I immediately started rummaging through bits boxes and old sprue piles and managed to come up with a handful of spare Victrix bodies and some Perrys' heads. I quickly slapped them together along with a few other bits and pieces, as well as some static grass and putty to create a unit of Fodder. Fodder are the common infantry of the game, conscripted from the great unwashed masses and sent into glorious battle to die a horrible and squishy death.

Painting wise, I started from a brown undercoat and roughly overbrushed them with the desired colours, followed by a quick wash of Sepia to dirty them up and dull them down.

The command group consists of a drummer, two bog-pipers and a standard bearer holding the regimental colours. The colours have seen better days, but they remain a point of pride in the unit and are proudly carried into battle at the head of the column.

The rank and file are quite rank indeed, with numerous root related growths and mutations. The majority of the men have taken to wearing kilts as the campaign diet means that only the quickest or bravest of men want to wear something you have to take off before an 'incident'.

For the scores.

13x 28mm minis @5 points = 65 Points

1 Limousine ride @20 points = 20 Points

Total = 85 Points

My side duels:

Squirrels - 10 Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips

Skullz - 1

Turnips - 60 Points

Coming up next, the 80's!

OK, what the hell is going on with all this Turnip malarkey. I have a choice, do I dive in or remain baffled. This is some really excellent scratch building work, bonuses have been awarded. I didn't realise they weren't off the shelf buys. You have nailed the look, I think

From StuartL - Screaming Into The Void - Sci-Fi - 120 Points

Hello everyone,

Many years ago, a friend of mine owned a comic/hobby store. He was a really friendly guy, interested in all kinds of hobby things and really, I mean REALLY, bad at running a shop. His attention wandered if he was left alone for more than a minute and he was always taking on other part time work and projects, seemingly at random. I would turn up at his hobby shop after working all day only to be asked to look after the place while he took off to go and fix up an old car or to do a DJing gig at a local club. In my friend's store there were loads of comics to read and a fair selection of D&D products to look over, but there was also a stand containing blister packs of a cool looking SF game, VOID! Wait, whaddaya mean you've never heard of it? Void is essentially a table-top wargame in the style of Warhammer 40K. Aside from only having a handful of factions and none of the brand name recognition, the biggest difference between the two systems was that Void used d10s. Fast forward a few months and my friend's shop was closing down. He wasn't selling anything and had to get a job elsewhere. As he had his closing down sale, I bought a bunch of the Void minis.

Skip forwards about 21 years and I have finally painted some of these models that have been sat staring at me in all their unpainted glory whenever I managed to dig my way down to that sedimentary layer of my to-do pile. I have tried to copy the box art I found for the different models online, though I did add some different skin-tones to break them up a bit. The models are all pretty simple and all of the factions seem to have a mix of male and female models in most of the units. The figures used to be made by a company called i-Kore, but they are now produced by Scotia Grendel I believe.

First up we have the Viridians. From what I can tell, they are based on a jungle planet and ride around on dinosaurs. Nothing screams jungle fighters like bright blue trousers.

These guys are from an organisation called VASA. They are like the space UN and are the elite special forces of the setting. To help differentiate themselves from the other factions, they wear cool?? helmets and knee pads.

And finally we have the Junkers. Reading their background they are all convicts/slaves sent out to fight on behalf of their masters. Apparently they are the low tech, horde faction in the game and are meant to fight in disposable human waves, which really makes me wonder why they have body armour and full length shields. I think the designer just really liked the Roman aesthetic.

So, for my score, this entry is fairly simple. 

20x 28mm models @5 points = 100 Points

Sci-Fi @20 points = 20 Points

Total = 120 Points

My side duels:

Squirrels - 9

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers

Skullz - 1

Turnips - 0

Next up a trip in the limo.

Stuart, you are right. I've heard of it. To be honest if I was part of the Junker horde, I'd want 2 things, a really big shield, and to be at the back. Great colour job on these, jungle troops need be painted blue and the purple on the VASA is very cool.

From Steve K - Rohan Infantry 122pts

 Now then,

A bit late submitting my entry today, as I struggled to get them finished off! But never mind, here they are.

So 24 x 28mm Infantry have been this weeks efforts. I paint my Lord of the rings stuff in a slightly different way from my normal method, mainly because my forces are so big. So batch painting is the order of the day, where the mass is more important than the small details.

These all have an oil wash applied, which I have found saves a huge amount of time when getting them cranked out.

I have also painted up and finished the movement trays for the War of the Ring game system, which I prefer, as big armies and big battles is what its all about for me!

These are MDF movement trays from Warbases.

And finally, here are the three companies, 1 of Archers, 2 of Militia.

So, scores on the doors...

24 x 28mm foot @5pts = 120pts

3 x Movement trays.... I don't know....

That's it from me this week!

Steve

Great looking set of figures, Steve. Batch painting may not yield the highest quality minis, but as you say the mass is more important when fielding big forces. These Rohan troops look great all ranked up and ready for combat. I'll throw in an extra couple of points for the movement trays too.

One small point, please add labels to your post as it makes it easier for people to search for it if they want to come back to it, or to browse related posts on the blog.