From IannickM : Halflings, Part I (25 Points)

So last Fall I'm minding my own business when I see on Facebook an add for a Halfling kickstarter. The company who produces the range is called StoneHaven Miniatures (never heard of them). The concept art is quite fun, and I do like my Halflings (play one, Cedwick Bloomberry, in our Warhammer RPG campaign). So I push the "Follow" button. And as the campaign advances they keep coming up with more awesome concepts, it tickles my nostalgia D&D button and...yeah you know where this is going...I cave in, lost my mind and went for the "Completionist" reward. Yep, the whole range, around 50 of the little buggers. 

The figures were all individuals and in my eyes didn't fit at all in a big battle "Warhammer" type game, which I usually play. Fortunately, I've been looking at doing some fantasy skirmishes for a while; projects that are faster to paint, and easier to play on a whim with a friend or two. I figured the Halflings would provide the first side, the "good guys". So I decided to wait for the Challenge to start painting these little guys. The plan is to paint 5 of them per week, give or take a few weeks.

And it starts this week. As I mentioned, what I really love about the range is that each figures represents a RPG "class" or "profession", and every one of them is unique and full or personality. For this first batch of 5, we have the fighter, the chief, the cleric, the archer and the Rogue.

From left to right: fighter, cleric, chief, archer and rogue

The figures are lovely and super detailed, and have that Halfling caricatural look that I like. While painting them I realized one doesn't save that much time  when "batch painting" 5 completely different figures with different colour schemes! I wouldn't paint 10 at a time, that's for sure. 

I painted each one individually, but I did favour green and brown tones, which I find are traditional Halflings colours. I went with a super old school "goblin green" style of base to get a bit of that old 80s Citadel/AD&D vibe, but also because I didn't want to detract from the figures and wanted to keep a very woodland vibe to the whole bunch.

So 5 28mm (if a bit of the smaller side of the scale! ) figures equals 25pts for this week.

ByronM: Looks like one last minute entry for this Wednesday, and what a lovely entry it is!  Cool miniatures, and an excellent paint job, especially on something that small Iannick.  I like all of the different colours you used here, and the super clean painting. I can't wait to see the rest of these as they are done.  I have images of them fighting their way through a dungeon in one of our Otherworld games vs the Pig Faced Orcs and the infamous Murder-hobo's. Well done, 25 last minute points for you.

From TeemuL: Odd Goblin (5 points)

Okay, so here we go again. It has quite quiet day in the challenge blog and I have had rather quiet day at home, so I was able to finish one more miniature for today.

Behold the mighty goblin!

This is an old Marauder goblin, don't know the year or the sculptor. I got this in a mixed bag some years ago. The shield is probably much newer than the wearer, though.

Look at the size of that shield! And Sword!

His first assignment will be leading my (night) goblin arrer unit. During the previous challenges I have been painting some old night goblins, but with red hoods and other clothing, so basically they work as regular goblins as well. Oh yeah, if they get on to the gaming table, it will probably be the 5th edition of Warhammer FB. And back to the arrer unit, they don't have a leader at the moment, so this little fellow will find his place there. In the future he might see more action, if I manage to paint a unit full of close combat goblins.

Painting is nothing fancy, but I tried to keep it neat and pick the details up. I was going back and forth, if I should paint some clothes to yellow instead of red, but then decided, that there's so little clothing, that it would be better to paint all red. And I was first introduced to Warhammer miniatures during the (in)famous Red Era.

One very small 25mm miniature is still worth 5 points.

ByronM: The Red era may be infamous, but Red Ones still go fasta' so its worth sticking with it.  Thanks for sending in a second entry on a slow(ish) day Teemu.   The painted shield is nice here, especially with the grinning face on it, it's like he is taunting you before he even looks at you.

From PaulS: The Weirder it gets... (145 Points)

One of my personal goals for this year's painting challenge was to try and build up my WW2/Weird War collection a bit to go with Konflikt '47 and Achtung! Cthulhu to go with the Commandos and Heer that I've done over the last 2 years.

Previously I had:
- 1 Officer with 2 guards
- 1 Medic
- 1 Sniper team
- 7 Heer with 1 MG team and 1 Panzerfaust
- 8 Heer with 1 Panzerfaust

While this isn't bad, it could be bigger, so this year we've got a number of additions to the forces in the shape of some Grenadier and Pioneer models.

The reinforcements have brought an engineer along, with his pet Goliath... though I'm not entirely sure what this is used as in Bolt Action as I can't see any entries for Goliath. All of these are from the Pioneer box set. Some of the metal bits really don't seem to fit the plastics, so I'm confused how to build the control set for the Goliath... I think some hacking and greenstuff is needed in the near future.

The box set also has an anti-tank rifle team for some of those heavy infantry squads that will no doubt appear if I ever get a game in.

We have an MG42 team that can either be put into one of the infantry squads, or take one of the riflemen and turn it into an MMG team for some more static support.

Supporting all of these is one 10 man squad of basic, rifle toting infantry, with one Panzerfaust for a bit of anti-armour if required. these are a combination of bits from the Grenadier and Pioneer kits. I know this gives a bit of a mish-mash of uniform styles that may cause some people to have sleepless nights, but I'm aiming for weird war here, rather than historical accuracy... so it doesn't really bother me much.

And a super assault-y elite infantry squad with an officer, 1 smg/panzerfaust and 6, yes 6, assault rifles. By Konflikt rules, this is fine and dandy. I can even add the MG42 team to this to make it even more obscene. For normal BA games, these would be split across multiple squads to be less *cheese* and more historically correct... In Achtung! Cthulhu these would either count as Black Sun Elite and remain as-is, or be split into pairs and spread across the Wehrmacht squads for a bit of additional kick.

That is the end of the painted German forces... for now. There are plenty more in the backlog, so I'm interested to see what the total point values are for Bolt Action, Konflikt and A!C by the end of the challenge! Full army photo will be added when I can find some space to lay it all out together.

In addition to this the Allies have reinforcements in the shape of three new Achtung! Cthulhu heroes. Well. 2 heroes and her pet winged monster.

That is the end of the WW2 bits, but the painting continued in a very eclectic manner to include a Magos for Shadows of Brimstone.

And everyone's favourite vigilante for his very own miniature game... Batfleck.

Depending on how you class the Goliath, this is 29 28mm figures. Or 28 and a 15mm tank equivalent

ByronM: Another eclectic mix of figures today, and all of them look great. While the WWII stuff is good, my favourite here is the mix at the bottom on the entry.  The Actung Cthulhu stuff looks fabulous in its evil tentacleyness (yeah, I made that word up, but it really should be a word, we need it to describe many things from Lovecraft and many things Japanese).  I like a lot of their figures and the once you painted here are really well done.  

Then onto more tenacleyness (see we really do need it as a real word) for your Magos.  I like how you used high contrast with the blue and red, and then tied the magic items together both having purple/violet colouring.  Lastly, Batfleck, where you did a great job keeping it dark, but still brought enough grey into it to allow you to see details and add depth.  

Since the Goliath is essentially the same size/volume as a normal 28mm figure, I am going to count it all up as 29x 28mm figures for a total of 145 points today.  Well done!

From TeemuL: Odd Gun and some Orcs (45 Points)

Odds and Ends are presenting this week: Odd Assault Gun and Orcs

Like the previous challenges, I like to push myself to get something ready for each week rather than "finishing" something and publishing it once it is ready.

While I was painting the Armor bonus round entry, I also painted another Battlefront miniature for Soviets, an SU72M Assault Gun. I used the same colors on both in case these two comrades find poor tank commander Vaderov in his mid war crisis and offer him a helping hand.

If the T-60 tank was not very effective in the war, I believe this assault gun was much better. It was the first self propelled gun the USSR army had in the WWII. It is open topped, but they say it helped the crew to survive, when hit by AT fire.

Some reference pictures I found, these guys wore light brown uniform. The 52 on both sides looks bit messy, I should have picked up numbers with straight angels instead of curves... The other side is missing the railing (is that the proper term?), I might have dropped it when opening the blister or it never existed. Well, in the war, things go broken.

Hold on Vaderov, we are coming!

All in all, I really liked painting these little things in this completely new 1/100 or 15mm scale. Both of the vehicles (part metal, part resin) felt good in my hand, something that wouldn't break like GW stuff I mostly paint. I have heard, Battlefront is not may be the best company to make these (quality-wise), but if I would like to start something new after my Odds and Ends, which manufacturers sale I should be looking at? I don't believe in playing Flames of War in the near future, but maybe something else. Or maybe just decorating my shelves. Some supporting infantry could be a nice addition.

Anyway, with this SU-72M, my Battlefront miniatures (T-60 is the rest) are all painted up, I have managed to "finish" one project.

All right, back to the 28mm world, Middle-Earth and Games Workshop. I'm playing a slow LotR campaign with a friend of mine. In the first scenario I was using warg riders in my Isengard force, but he started shooting the wargs. I realized, I need dismounted orcs to represent these guys.

These seven are what I came up with, they are actually Mordor Orcs and bit bigger than the warg riders, but I didn't have anything else available. I think I might be using Moria Goblins as mountless riders, because they look more similar than these. These are bigger and bulgier fellows, with more armor.

I painted some of the metal parts brown to represent wood, leather or cloth to make them look less elite and more like a rag tag force. I used several different browns and Chestnut Ink from Coat d'Arms range (I believe this is a method called dipping) to create unified feeling to these. Then I used some lighter browns to pick up details and textures.

Some of the orcs are pale, some are green, the orcs in the Middle-Earth have many forms. I didn't paint the white hand of Saruman on these fellows, the warg riders didn't have them and now I can use this as Mordor Orcs as well.

Last pictures shows two riders with wargs and these seven orcs, their equipment and weapons do not match, neither do size, but the colors tie them together quite nicely, I think. I'll call these as Odds, because I have many more of them still unpainted, I just needed these for the next game (in case the wargs get killed again...).

I already started the next Bonus Round project and there are lots of different Odds in the painting queue, so you will be hearing from me more next week.

There's quite a lot of pictures this time, it was difficult to take decent photos in the Finnish snowless winter. Some are taken in daylight, some in artificial light. I tried to choose the best and from different angles.

ByronM: That is quite a mix of figures Teemu from WWII to LOTR.  Well done on both sets though, the orcs looks really sharp with their limited colour pallet and then your dip of shade to unify and mute everything further really worked.  On the 15mm vehicle, for an early attempt at the scale you have done very well.  

Something to know when painting figures is as they get smaller, you paint with more contrast and shade up to brighter colours.  Meaning, if you paint a 28mm figure a certain shade that is correct in real life, at 15mm that colour will now look too dark on the figure so you need to go lighter at the highlight to make it "look" like it is the real color, even though it is in fact really too light.  I hope I am making sense with that statement, if not someone else can chime in and say it in a cleaner way.  Either way your 15mm vehicle looks great as is and I like the weathering you did on it, I am just trying to help for future as you will really notice that effect when / if you do 15mm infantry. 

KyleC: Ogre Player for Blood Bowl (10 points)

I am really struggling to get the ECW unit finished here with all the details that exist on them. And then this guy ( and some of his pals ) arrived in the mail. So I cracked him open immediately and went to town on painting him up.

I made sure to make his colors the same as the rest of the Human team. Trying to do a more grey pants/trouser section, with his armor sections being the team colors. He has a lot of leather sections and metal parts also.

What I don't like of my painting of him was how the skin turned out. It was really a struggle for some reason compared to the rest of the team. Then again there is a lot more skin on this bad boy compared to the rest.

I thought that the orange inbetween the grey sections on the trousers would look good, and I think it came through in the end.

Here he is now alongside the rest of the team. And I am looking forward to seeing how he does in games coming up soon!

Oh and a quick shot of him compared to a regular lineman before I started the painting. Standing quite a bit larger than 40mm in height, he wont be the biggest mode on the field though. Just hope he is big enough in the end!

ByronM: Well done Kyle!  I really like both the figure and your paint job on him.  I like the skin tone that you used a lot as the darker shade suits a big figure that is likely outside getting a lot of sun most of the time. I also love the shading on the pants and shoulder pad.  He makes a worthy addition to your team.  Great work.

From StephenS - Knights Hospitaller (41 points)

After a brief diversion with the 'Armour' challenge, I'm back in the 11th and 12th centuries with 4 knights trying to crusade their way through the Middle East.

These are 28 mm miniatures from Gripping Beast and will make a unit of Hearth-guard for the Milites Christi faction in the game SAGA. I built and primed these guys for the last challenge, so it was good to see them finally roll off the assembly line.

I'm not sure how historically accurate the Celtic cross I've clumsily painted on one shield is as a crusading symbol. However, as I've mentioned before, you can only paint a cross so many ways... Besides, maybe some of that famous Irish luck will rub off on my war-band!

These were very straight forward and enjoyable to paint up, despite horses being among my least favourite things to paint. Only 16 more horses to go before this army is finished!

Cheers,

Steve

ByronM: A very nice entry Stephen and for a game I keep hearing great things about.  The horses look really good and I like that you took the time to do extra little bits, like painting the strapping in different colours between the different horses and doing face markings and socks on the horses themselves. What really sells me though is the shields. I know you said they are clumsy, but I like them.  Seeing them a little rough actually works for me as they would have been painted very roughly in real life anyway (I assume), so I like how they look a lot.

41 points (an extra thrown in for painted shields) and best wishes on the rest of your force.

Richard P - 20mm Costa Verde (92 Points)

One of the aspects of this hobby I enjoy the most is Fictional games as it's a great opportunity to use those unusual figures and vehicles in an environment that they may not ever appear together. A group of us have been fighting over the fictional Black Sea country of Andreivia for over five years now. I have been working on the background for a fictional Central African (although it may turn out to be Central American, not sure yet) and have started painting up forces for this project.

First up twenty 20mm figures that will be used as a Local Militia force. Figures actually Portuguese Bush War figures from Enfilade Miniatures.

Next a die cast completely repainted to join the Costa Verde Highway Patrol.

ByronM - Some good looking figures there, I like the poses of the figures as they look ready to get into action.  Nice clean paint job on them as well, and neutral enough to be used for many different theaters. I like the police car repaint too, however you may want to try a little variation on the windows, I know it's really hard to do windows right so I understand why you did single colour and its perfectly fine to leave it like that, but adding 1 or 2 darker or lighter shades along the top or bottom to give it some depth may help break up that large area of solid coloured flat surface. 

I like the idea of a self designed background as you have complete control over what you want to do with it and freedom to change as you go, and if your group has had enough fun with the last made up place that they are all willing to start a new one, that makes it sound like you have a great gaming group going.

92 well deserved points for your local militia force.

Wednesday Minion reporting for duty!

Well a whole lot of bad news this week....  Apparently, I didn't do badly enough last week to get fired, so you all have to deal with me for yet another week!  So, since I got away with the meme's last week, let's try something a little better....

Welcome everyone to another Wednesday!  Were I will once again try to make helpful and insightful comments and critiques to all the wonderful painters that got unlucky and have to report in today, and were I most likely will once again fail completely at doing so. 

So far though, the day looks pretty slow, with only a few entries queued up for publishing.  They are good entries though and there may be some additional last minute submissions as well, so make sure you check back throughout the day.