From TeemuL: Warmaster Undead (47 points)

Just collecting some skulls and "Warmaster Undead" squirrel this week...

...and of course adding to Warmaster army some new units, the true meaning of the Challenge.

I have previously painted some units for the army during the past Challenges, but I guess I have already enough for a small game. Let's see if that happens sooner or later. These are the latest additions, one unit of foot infantry, one character and one war machine called Skull Chucka. I bought all the minis I have second hand they were mostly painted. They might have been mostly intact, too, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Skull Chucka is missing the crew, so I guess it works by magic now, and character should have another companion, one with a banner, but they are all missing at the moment. I couldn't find them in the box I stored them, but may be I found them from somewhere else.

There are lots of different kinds of bones on the base, and some weapons, too. A good supply, if you need to raise some bodyguards?

I chose green as the main colour (after bone), which is used in the shields. Cloaks are purple and shafts are red. That's pretty much it! I used Contrast paints except for the metal parts, which are traditional acrylics. Quite fast to paint once you have all the colours defined. I painted all the other characters last year, but left this one for the Challenge, because of the mountain of skulls. I gently highlighted all the skulls on the mountain with bone colour, trying to keep count of skulls, but most likely the final count is incorrect. Shields and weapons bring some interest to the bone mountain. Skull Chucka was very quick to paint, so the 3 points awarded for a crew served weapon is quite right, even though it is a big one.

There are 45 skulls between shoulders visible enough to count on the rank and file units and on the character. Then 42 freehand skulls on the shields and banners and 1 sculpted. 8 skulls on the catapult and 1 more in the banner pole. I counted 30 skulls on the base of the character, most likely incorrect to some way or another. Total amount 127 skulls. I just noticed that my close rival in the Skull race, BruceR, also painted some 10mm Warmaster skeletons. Great minds think a like!

3 points for the crew served weapon and 44 points for the infantry (there are 43 full "bodies" and 3 crawling up from the ground), total 47 points from the Undead.

List of squirrels (15): 

28mm Napoleonic British

28mm Fantasy Dwarfs

28mm Fantasy Mercenaries

28mm Fantasy Orcs

28mm Warhammer 40k Imperium

28mm Warhammer 40k Chaos

28mm Warhammer 40k Eldar

28mm Post WW2 Alternative History

28mm LotR Forces of Good

28mm LotR Forces of Evil

28mm Old West Gunfighters

25mm Classic Fantasy

15mm WW2 Soviets

15mm WW2 Germans

10mm Fantasy Undead

What a great army Teemu, you have really re-created that awesome old-school look with the green bases as well! And what a great score on the Squirreling Duel mate.

 

Well done, Sander 

From MarkE: Do miniatures get the munchies? 28mm Vending machines (10 pts)

 Ever wonder when we aren't around if our mini's do a "Night at the Museum" and need a snack?  If they don't these machines will at least provide some cover on the tabletop.

I finally put a brush to these.  I have no idea of the manufacturer, I think I picked them out of a bargain bin at Cold Wars or Historicon at least 15 years ago, maybe 20.  They sat languishing on the shelf so long I had to wash the dust off before I could get them primed.  So from deep in the need to  paint mountain here's a pair of vending machines in 28mm.

Hopefully I don't start finding miniature Cheetos fingerprints on my figs!

I scored these as 25mm figures since they are roughly man sized for that scale.  Please correct if I'm in error.

So 2 @ points each = 10 points.

Cheers, MarkE

Mark, as the level of painting required to get these nice vending machines done is quite substantial I will go along with your scoring of 2 x 28mm figures equals 10 points. Nicely done!

Cheers Sander 

From PeteB - Reconquer Designs -St. Raimundo de Fitero - 15 Points

A small contribution wit some figures from Reconquer Designs, kindly given by my friend Michele Gentile. The figures are 3D printed with some very nice details. Some information about the monk St. Raimundo de Fitero can be found here! Cause of the bad weather I couldn't take pictures in daylight. I did the best I could taking photo's inside.

Thanks for watching!

Points:

- 1 x 28 mm mounted figure = 10 Points

- 1 x 28 mm foot figure        =   5 Points

- Total                                   =  15 Points

Great little vignette Peter! Love how you used the simple dynamics of the figures to let them tell a story. The natural olours worked out great as well and really enhance the sculpting of these figures. Great work all round Peter, hope you have more of this comming!

Cheers Sander 

 

From MarkG: Russian Civil War Armoured Train and Artillery Crew (160 points)

For this week's entry I finally get to present a project that I've been thinking about for ages, and tinkering around with for a few weeks.

This is an armoured train that I printed on my filament printer over Christmas. I obtained the files from the Kickstarter that Mad Bob Miniatures ran last year. 

Though designed for a resin printer, the carriages came out quite well on the FDM printer. The few visible filament lines on the upper surfaces were easily dealt with by applying some tile filler, which was then smoothed out with some water.

The train in question is the "2nd Siberian," a Bolshevik train that was in turn captured and used by the Whites. For the moment I will keep it generic for use by both sides, just adding the appropriate flags for which side it's currently on.

I've tried to achieve the effect of sun bleached paint on rusty armour. I was inspired by the look of the numerous weathered tanks at the Lesany tank museum outside Prague.

The carriages themselves are quite big, easily twice the size, or more, of an average 28mm tank/vehicle (as you can see in the picture next to the 28mm armoured cars for scale). For this reason I am proposing to score the engine, tender, and two artillery carriages at 30 points each (as for a 54mm scale vehicle). That said, whatever the agreed final points allotment is fine.

For the artillery crew I used the wonderful Copplestone castings again. I cannibalised these off the White field gun set. 

The ones dressed in the classic Russian Imperial Army uniform, with green hats (piped red), represent the Kornilov Artillery Brigade, and the second set in red hats, the Drozdovsky Artillery Brigade. The last two generic figures in shirt sleeves, are from Scarab Miniatures. 

Based singly they can be used for the train, or any field pieces.

The rail track pictured is from Sarissa Precision, and will be sent as a separate terrain piece entry on Sunday.

The points summary:

4 x 30 = 120 points for 4 large armoured train carriages/engine

8 x 5 = 40 points for eight 28mm foot miniatures.

Excuse me?! Are you kidding me? Is this gorgeous piece of hardware an fdm print? Surely not? Well either way it is dropdead beautiful Mark! The weathering is awesome and the guns and crew are excellent too. Sometimes a finished project really shows how much thought and care went into it's production and this is no exception on that. I will go with your suggestion for scoring because this truly is huge, what a whopper, well done!  

Cheers Sander 

From TeemuL: Bifröst civilians (25 points)

I'm not sure what I can finish this week, since I'm away the whole weekend on a basic scout wilderness training (loosely translated) and if I manage to finish minis and take photos, I write the text beforehand and photos later and if I don't, then I can happilly just leave the finished entry as ready and this one as draft. Almost like free fire period, but too soon. And while I remember, thank you Sander for minioning our Saturday crew, I'd hoped to see more of your output, but sometimes life is what it is. Last minute edit, I have managed to finish these, but I still haven't packed for the weekend... The choices we make.

Some years ago I bought this set from Warbases, a bunch of simple civilian minis originally for my son, who disliked the overly detailed GW minis I offered him to paint, but then his interest shifted and these sat for some time. AHPC is good opportunity to paint some fine metal minis and give a nod to a long time sponsor of the challenge. Bifröst is original miniature range by Warbases, created based on the needs of the owners, if I understood correctly. Similar to Perry Miniatures, I guess, nice to have an own company to make miniatures if you miniatures. :) While the range is quite wide, this set is quite general and usable on many games, worlds, battlefields, eras and so. Very nice from gamer point of view, a bit problematic from a squirrel point of view (see later).

I based these on small Renedra bases, which come in some of the Perry boxes. I like these smaller bases, they don't take too much space, but are large enough to keep miniatures standing. And as these are civilians, it is nice that they don't take too much table space. I have in the past used 25mm bases, so these are much smaller and "a new idea" to me. There's some sand to hide the metal base, brown wash and highlight and some tufts. I have not painted the eyes, at the moment I believe that with my skills the minis look better without the eyes, at least on models this style.

Characterful but rather simple minis, there are several layers of clothes on some, but still quite easy. I painted the guy with a sack as a jester even though he is missing the bells, but otherwise he looks like one. On the website he is described something as a "shady character", but naturally I painted first, read second. I gave him (and others) quite dull, muted colours, they are civilians - not brightly coloured soldiers or nobles. Jester is clearly not part of the royal entourage - at least yet, may be when he gets couple of coins and can buy brighter clothes.

The farmer should have a shovel, but my version came like this. And again, I checked the website after painting, so didn't realize that. Now he is just holding a stick, which I guess is good enough to poke the ground. The plague doctor wears all black and silver mask, the holy and pure material most likely protecting him from the disease.

Two ladies have a bit more colour, but not much. One is selling frest meat (still with fur or feathers) and another one is just looking important. These are mainly painted with just a basecoat and a generous wash - I only used brown, green, blue and purple washes using them on many different colour. The black robe being exception, black cloak is highlighted with couple of shades of grey. I bought some new grey paints recently and they seem to be too light when used straight from the pot. I need to do some mixing or buy a darker grey. It's a pity that paint pots get empty or dried.

I'm not sure if these count as a squirrel, since I have already painted "28mm General Fantasy" squirrel and these are not that much different. But Squirrelmaster General has been quite generous, so I'll try and be happy with his rulings. Scoring wise this is easy 25 points for 5 minis, no skulls, but couple of females for Sarah.

 

 

 Teemu, this is a brilliant set of NPC civilians to be used with any and all RPG like games and as table dressing. Your painting really enhances these venerable sculpts so thanks heap for sharing these with us.

 

Cheers Sander  

From the Saturday Minion: Last saturday of regular service!

 Hoi there,

 Yes people this will be the last regular Saturday before the "Open Season" of the final Challenge week starts this Monday. So what does the crew have in store for you this day? Well I will tell you kind Challengers:

- Teemu is on a roll with two different posts regarding Civilians and very small undead.

- MarkG goes choochoo with a train! 

- PeteB has a lovely vignette to show us.

-  MarkE goes on sale with some cans of fizzy pop!

Let's dig in everyone !

 

Full Speed to the Finish!

Hi All!

Holy moly! It's hard to believe, but we are now entering the last week of the Challenge. Wowzers. With that in mind, I have a couple administrative reminders, and an update:

1) If you haven't done so already, please put aside some time to take-in the wonderful Theme Round entries for 'Resistance' and cast your votes for your top three choices. The deadline for voting is today (Saturday) midnight. I hope to announce the results of the voting late Sunday. 

2) Starting Monday we will be going into the final 'Free Fire' period for submissions. This means that you can submit at any time you like and our friendly minions will post and score your hard work.

3) Finally, due to a very busy work week, I'm going to extend the Challenge by 24hrs. So instead of concluding at 12:01am Friday, the wrap-up will be 12:01am Saturday. I'm sure there are a few of us that will welcome those few extra hours to get that last submission across the line (I know I will)!

Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing your final entries over the coming week! Full speed ahead!

- Curt

From Curt - Rashaar Warband for 'Carnevale' (39 Points)

Hi Everyone!

A few years back I picked up the starter box for 'Carnevale', you know, as one does when one already has loads of other game systems to play. I'll take a page out of the Orange Toddler's playbook and blame someone else for clearly what I did myself. So, I blame JamieM and DavidB as, over the years, they have posted some wonderfully painted miniatures from the game and I thought, 'Geez. This is essentially parkour street combat in 18th century Venice with some Cthulhu vibes thrown in... Well, pass me an espresso, and take my money!'

So here are my efforts with one of the factions: The Rashaar. 

The Rashaar unashamedly draw upon Lovecraft's Innsmouth creepy-watery mythology of Father Dagon, Mother Hydra and their Deep Ones. So lots of aquatic nasties to take advantage of Venice's network of canals. The Rashaar are also slavers, so they can call upon the unwilling support of poor unfortunates to assist them in their nefarious plans. A damp, villainous crew to be sure.

I have to say I wasn't really feeling it with these models. That's entirely on me as the models themselves are great. I simply ran out of steam with them. Thankfully they're not very complex, so I managed to get a lot done with the airbrush and some light brushwork. I think they'll be fine on the tabletop, and they help set a colour palette for any upcoming additions to the faction.

As with many of the newer ranges these days, these models are rather heroically scaled. The human slaves and deep ones are 35mm, while the wizard and Big One tip into the 40mm band. So, I believe, 39 points in total, but I leave it to our esteemed Antipodean Minion to make the final adjudication.

This warband should also provide another Squirrel Point aaand as a bonus, a couple of the deep ones are holding a skulls in thoughtful contemplation (again, as one does), which should please the cranial interests of our Skully McSkullface.

Thanks for dropping by for a peek!

- Curt

From Millsy:

LOL, Curt! That first sentence was like a lighting bolt of self recognition, shame, pride, humour and about fifty other things in one punch right between the eyes.
I like that you included a little blamestorming in your efforts to somehow excuse your own behaviour.

Judgement of your motivations and excuses aside, your work with the brush is superb mate. Your dark skin tone and the saturated blue/green are beautiful and your airbrush blending with the lilac lower torso and legs lends a very natural feel.
If this is a taste of more to come then I can only add "Yes please!"

39 points added to your tally. Nice one brother.

Cheers,
Millsy