From AlanD - Medieval Russian Cavalry (110 Points)

Something a bit different this week. Because I don't have enough projects, I am starting on a medieval Russian army, and these ten horsemen are the first contigent. The figures are all from Gripping Beast, although I have given a couple kite shields from the box of plastic Russian infantry from Fireforge. I strongly dislike the moulded-on designs of the Fireforce shields, but it was either use them or give nearly all the figures round shieds, and I am aiming to make an army for the early 13th century, when round shields were less likely to be found. The shields without moulded-on detail are all hand painted.

I'm looking forward to painting this army. I have always loved the look of medieval Russians, reflecting the influences of north, south, east and west on their armour, weapons and clothing. A very colourful and interesting army. And it will be massive. Mwahhahahhh!

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Stonking work Dux! This looks to be an amazing project and very, very colourful. 

I like that you're continuing with your snowy base motif. It must have something to do with the insufferable heat waves you've been experiencing down there that makes you want to model the cursed stuff. Of course I can't help but mention that I greatly admire your signature hand-painted shields (and besides, I hear from reliable sources that you get quite grumpy if people don't). Also, I really like the varied details of bronze and steel you've done with their armour. It all helps to give them a very exotic, Slavic flavour.

Well done Alan! That's another 110 points you can take to the Challenge bank.

From Paul O'G: Looting Landsknecht Curtgeld (27 Points)

This week I've traveled interstate with work so productivity has dived.  I'm trying to finish some figures but in the meantime have completed my most important figure of the challenge; the Curtgeld.

This 28mm Landsknecht is busy redistributing goods from undeserving locals to obviously far more deserving liberators.  This is one half of a two man chest lifting team, and Reilly is painting the other guy to complete this small family submission to the larger team Oz effort.

My first Landsknecht and while it as fun to break out all the colours, I'm glad I'm not doing a whole army of them! He is sporting a dapper ginger beard as a permanent reminder of who painted him. 

You'll see some more Landsknechts in the coming weeks as the team contribution comes together.

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Oh wow, this is just tremendous Paul. I can't tell you how stoked I am in knowing that this is part of a larger Team Australia effort - I'm very, very honoured. Amazing.

I actually know this set quite well as I have it myself, but in an unbuilt form, which makes this all the better. 

This fellow does have a rather magnificent beard, doesn't he?  And his garb is a veritable riot of colour. How wonderful! I look forward to seeing Reilly's efforts on the other half of this avaricious set.

I really think the chest warrants a few extra points, don't you say? So lets go with 27.

Thank you again Paul! 

From JamieM: Goblins and their Larger Cousins (202 Points)

Having had one of the pillars of my world crumble when I discovered Sir David Attenborough didn't cover horse sized riding lizards or giant hydras in any of his many natural history programmes when I was researching their colour schemes, I didn't even bother looking to see if he'd covered Goblins.... there's only so much disappointment an Englishman can take after all...

So I went with Green for these 32 Gobboes

 Green is the GW colour after all, but I tried to keep it to an earthy green instead of a bright green.

There wasn't really any rhyme or reason to painting so many champions, standards and musicians (mostly hidden at the back looking at the photos!), but they'll come in handy once I paint a whole load more of them for multiple units, because as we all know, the only better than goblins is more goblins.

I went with red for their outfits as I thought black was a little drab.... and painting that many black cloaks didn't fill me with excitement!

I've been following the debate over "tabletop standard" which has been very interesting and it has helped me decide to do what looked good on the tabletop as opposed to "real life" sometimes, so no rust on the weapons, despite the fact I'm sure rust would be all over goblin weapons, as I didn't like the colour clash with the orange being so near the red and dirty metal just looked better.  The red cloaks are also a little neat for that exact reason, but they will cut quite a dash across the tabletop, I can assure you...!

This is the side of them I'm hoping to see most of as they charge towards the enemy.

And where would Goblins be without their larger cousins to back them up?

Nowhere good, that's for sure so here are 6 smelly Trolls (or Troggoths as the IP wizards at GW insist of calling them - insert eye rolling smiley here).

Colder colours for these chaps as they are river trolls so I wanted them to look a bit slimy.

Lots of rusted weapons as orange rust goes rather nicely with the blue/grey in this wargamers humble opinion.  I also tried to give the scales a shiny look, which was successful in parts, but a little heavy handed in others.

Lots of flesh to highlight on the back and I really did find them rather good fun to paint.  The scale difference of them with the goblins is brilliant, here's a shot to show them with their little cousins.

32 Goblins and 6 Trolls down and whole lot more of them needed!  I was supposed to be painting elves, but seeing this lot made me want to paint them up..... and we have to follow where the painting muse takes us after all.

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 Haha! I loved your Attenborough commment Jamie - that one made me laugh aloud.

I've never really taken to GWs orks, but I've always somehow liked their Goblins. What is that all about? Anyway, the fact is I really think these little guys are pretty cool with their pointy noses and obsession with drugs mushrooms and the moon. Don't even get me started on 'tabletop standard', but nonetheless, I agree, these chaps will be quite sharp on the tabletop. Are you going to do any of the Night Goblin Fanatics or Squigs? Hopefully GW has not killed off that portion of their IP as well.

These Toggoths/ not-Trolls are spectacular! I really like the blueish/purple you've used for their skin and scales, and their weapons look suitably rotten and manky as well. Loverly.

A very respectable 202 points for the bag, Jamie. Well done!

From MilesR: FOW Pacific War (486 Points)

 A flames of War: Pacific Theatre submission for today.  I finished up some Japanese and US Marines in 15mm.  These minis are are from Battlefront and were actually nicely cast.  No plastics all metals and resin tanks.

 First up a Japanese infantry platoon.  I really like playing the Japanese in FOW.  Its a list that will not win tournaments but every game you're in it to the end.  This unit has 54 figures in total.

 A second Japanese infantry platoon and, you guessed it another 54 figures.  The platoons light mortars can really be useful in the right moments.

Two support platoons in the form of a 47mm AT gun section and a heavy machine gun platoon.  The At unit has 11 figures and 2 guns while the MG unit has 15 figures and I'm taking no points for the machine guns.

 A light tank platoon in the form of 5 Type 95 Ha-Go tanks.

 and finally 2 command stands for the infantry company.  I'm not all that thrilled with the flag....

 Next up is the start of my US marine force - a basic infantry platoon with 42 figures and two LVT's

 A marine engineer assault section with 27 figures

and lastly an amphibious tank platoon.

Lets see that totals to

Japanese
Inf Platoon 1       54 figures
Inf platoon 2       54 figs
MG Platoon        15 figs
AT Platoon          11 figs / 2 guns
Command Stands  6 figures
Tanks                   5 vehicles

Japanese Total     318 points

Marines
Infantry                42+27=69 figures
5 vehicles
Marine Points 168 points

Total points 486 points

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I find that with submissions like this I have a difficult time focusing on anything in particular, so I will only say: Cripes! Miles! You're a [bleeping] painting machine! Seriously, I'm always struck dumb by what people like you, Dave, Martin, Tamsin, etc. can generate in a short period of time. It's truly astounding. 

Lovely horde of South Pacific warfighters, Mr. Reidy. I look forward to seeing how you get on with the Marines. Enough said.

486 points it is. Yeesh.

From DavidB: Nobody Expects the Inquisition! (125 points)

My prefered army in 40k is Imperial Guard. It seems that although my gaming group have many different forces, They like to play Chaos forces...often. I lose a lot of troops to warp entities and hugs from psychotic, sadistc marines. True I can field my own Chaos troops, but it is more fun to use a force I like and give them an Imperial boost. Agents of the Imperium can boost any guard force with assassins, Soritas, and Inquisitors.

I picture this fellow as a very stern sort of Inquisitor....he has the Puritan hat for it!

In the center is a tortured witch..er psycher. and a couple more flank him made from a fantasy kit.

This particular Inquisitor harnesses the power of them to capture/destroy more.

To aid in his work he has a henchman who is consulting a tome and a peciluar servitor who shouldn't be near books.

The Inquisitor can take a doctor or interorgator to buff wounds. I figured this fellow would probably use torture to find the unclean. Mr Scratch was made from a variety of plastic kits using every bladed part I could find. I think he has 7 blades visible. He usually gets the confession he seeks.

The cherub gives the Inquisitor a buff as well. This one is dragging a flail of servo skulls. They are kinda like drones good for finding adversaries. I think the cherub does this by hitting adversaries with the servo skulls.

This fellow is a junior Inquisitor. His methods are more in line with a younger fellow.

Curt painted his version earlier and it was posted up as I was blocking in colors on this one.

He is accompanied by these two Crusaders. They were undercoated white and somehow I got this nice blueish metal effect on them. I've noted the paint and will return to white coating in the future. I used several layers of very thin paint from near spent paint pots. I always add water to the pots after extended use which means a lot of my paint pots are really washes now! ;)

Blue cords for infantry!

Simple green robes for this entourage.

A missionary with a matyred saint's bones and plasma gun with a scribe help flesh out the entourage.

Both of these were also undercoated white and painted with multiple layers.

Inquisitors can call in favors and bring more Imperial might.

If you can only bring one marine to the party, A Black Templer champion by the name Inigo should be enough to lure Chaos marine champions into the open.

Inquisitors can also use their very own Inquistion troops.

These are second version storm troopers. I have another squad of these sculpts painted in black and red, but they were painted some time ago.

Although these are not as nice as my Cadian storm troopers, I do like the sheer amount of equipment sculpted on them, They are ready for any mission. I painted all the pouches brown and the armor and helmets black. what uniform can be seen is just a simple green and grey camo as they are busy sculpts.

25 more troops off the desk.

These were my "secret" project of the year. Im not sure if i'll get back to them as I'm still playing wack-a-mole on pinterest trying to find a unit to paint them as. Im kinda leaning to dividing them up between Royal Americans and French Marines. I also have a few Prussian Cav too. 

A holy grail would be to have Zinnfiguren of my own. these flats are reproductions as the real tin troops are worth more than I can scrape together. The real ones are painted by artisans too. If you thought painting a different scale was a brain scramble, Flats take everything you know, smack you in the face, and say nope that is not how you do it! ;) the paint has to be kept thin as the detail is very thin. I may have complicated it by trying the Zinnfiguren look of painting shades and shadows. I probably should've done a few test figures earlier. I'm going to have to set them aside for the moment until I can figure a method without wrecking them.

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Geez, you've managed to finish off EVERYTHING that was on my list for my Inquisitorial retinue (for which I have 4 models done). I'm so jealous! Now I have to go back to the drawing board and re-think this...

Seriously, terrific work David!  I've always liked that the Inquisition is largely made up of 'normal' human beings and not the genetically over-engineered Space Marines or monsters of the Warp. They're a little bit more identifiable. There is so many characterful models you've provided us here. I like seeing your versions of the figures I've tried, and I particularly like the fellow 'who should not be near books', but they are all great. 

To go back on my previous comment I think you may need to add a few Grey Knights as a little surprise for those folks who like to use daemons. Just to fuels the escalation if not for anything else. ;)

Save up for Zinnfiguren. You need to try some flats!

125 points for you sir!