From Curt: Screaming Antelope and Terrain for 'Kingdom Death' (32 Points)

Hi All!

Our gaming group has been playing a lot of 'Kingdom Death' lately, and I have to say it's a very addictive game - very nasty and adult, but addictive. The core campaign is called 'People of the Lantern' and lasts, if you're lucky, around 30 sessions. We're about four sessions in and have managed to survive several White Lions and our growing settlement is just about to track down the next nasty: 'The Screaming Antelope'. 

From a distance, the creature looks like a giant antelope, but when you look closer you discover that it has a nightmarish gaping maw that runs down the length of its underbelly, with little creepy hands emerging from each side of the mouth that help to stuff in any nearby victim. 

Yes, the hills are alive with the sound of...screaming... Yeesh. 

As nasty as this creature may sound, it's small beer compared to what's coming down the pike. Oh well, it's not called 'Kingdom Death' for nothing.

I've painted the Screaming Antelope pretty much the same as I did  the White Lion last month. Sort of a sepia greyscale(ish) effect, with a bit of source lighting (sorry Greg) cast underneath from a dropped lantern (a little 3D print I came across). 

Sarah absolutely hates it, so I must be onto something. :)

In addition to this gnashing beastie, I've also managed to get some terrain done for the game. 

The core box comes with an assortment of punch-out cardboard pieces to represent obstructions and various bits of cover. They're perfectly fine and serviceable, but I thought it might be nice to have something a little more in-theme to go with the miniatures.

I did some poking around on Thingiverse (gosh, I LOVE that website) and discovered that some very talented folks have made excellent 3D designs of most of the game pieces. I printed off a set of the Fallen Pillars (artist: Gazgoblin) and the Giant Stone Face (artist: heribertovalle) to see how they looked. Well, as you can see they printed out very nicely, with lots of deep relieve which makes drybrushing them a doodle. 

Felix was hoping it was a dog treat.

I think I'm going to place some lanterns along the edges of these to cast (airbrush) some spooky uplighting, but that will have to come at a later time.

We face-off with the Screaming Antelope tonight, so wish us well!

Next up for this game will be the oh so touchy-feely: 'The Butcher'

_________

Hoi Curt,

Gosh, who had thought that the great Snowlord himself would be dropping in for a post all of himself? And me being allowed to judge him at that?!  I have seen the Kingdom Death figures many times in several places and while the sculpting is beautiful and the painting exceptional, they are too creepy for me. That said this stuff of yours is brilliant, I cannot say anything else. The source lighting is absolutely gorgeously executed, my wife would dislike it just as much as the Lady Sarah would so that must count for something indeed. The storyline behind it really does remind me of The Witcher stories, so yeah cool! Being able to print your own miniatures and scenery must be great, I must look into that 3D printer business more earnestly. Anyway as far as scoring goes, nobody will be surprised if I follow your scoring of 20 points for the scenery and 12 for the miniature (for which I have seen precedence) and thus a total of 32 points. 

Well folks, that was Tuesday for this week have a good night!  

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From: KentG - 28mm Napoleonic French Dragoons (120 Points)

Well its first week back to work and hardly managed to get anything done other than the two cav units. I am really happy with the colour scheme on them, The Perry's do make very nice horses thats for sure,

so this leaves one Regiment on the table and 3 still in their boxes.

 Might go back to the infantry next  think so 12 28mm cav at 10 points each is another 120 points.

Two entries in one day, Kent you are spoiling us! And such nice eye candy at that. The facings on this regiment surely pops and you've really made it work for you. For me the early regimental dress, with musicians in reversed coloured uniforms wins out over the Imperial livery of the post 1812 regulations.

Tonight your 120 points will be added!

Cheers Sander

From: BrettM - FOW Stalins Bears (78)

All the tanks from the box set Stalins Bears painted up. Got this set from Miniature Mart for a steal last year and they have been waiting to get painted. Most detail I really went into was on the tank commanders.

Was going to just put red star decals on most the tanks but read that wasn't how all the tanks were. Not exactly trying to be historically accurate here so whether what I read was right or not the decals are on now.

I'm Polish so on the side of these tanks I put the Polish decals. Again from what I read Polish volunteers would do this if they were together in a tank. Historically accurate? I did a quick 5 min search so who knows.

Final picture. You can't really see the treads well. I did something different with these than the normal way I have done treads on FOW tanks. Ended up painting them a brown and washing them twice with Nuln Oil to bring them down to almost a black. I like the effect on this rather than the straight black with some metal drybrush.

All together 13 tanks at 6 points each for a total of 78 points.

Brett that is an increble lot of shiny tanks. They are very well painted, I think you've got that lovely Frussian green colour spot on. But for me the best is your backstory. For me as Dutchman, the Eastfront and the Polish efforts in it, are not common fare. So thanks heaps for enlightening  me. 

78 points will be added to your score tonight.

From: MartinC - Numidian Cavalry (230 pts)

For Christmas I received 2 boxes of Victrix Numidian Cavalry from my baffled sister. They are really great, very well sculpted, easy to assemble and very dynamic. My only gripe is that there are only 4 different arm poses. Luckily I have loads of suitable arms in the bits box from the Perry Mahdists, so I used some of these.
There are 23 of them, there are 12 per box but I needed one to use to cast more elephant riders. This worked OK and so there is another elephant to make from the Northstar safari collection.

These guys, and next weeks submission, will fight on Sunday with republican Romans against evil Persians. My first battle using my Rep Romans resulted in their slaughter because they got mullered by elephants. Hence my need for elephants in their 2nd battle.

23 cavalry = 230 pts

Martin, that is one awesome and massive block of speedy death on horses. Those Numidians really look the part. How in the world did you get those lines of the Carthaginian Goddess symbol on their shields so thin? It looks really nice. The basing is great too since it could be used in Northern Africa but also easily pass for Northern Italy at that, so if Hannibal takes these chaps over for a well deserved vacation you do not need to rebase. 230 well earned points indeed. I am wondering though, why your sister was baffled...

Cheers Sander

From: NoelW - 28mm ECW, WW2 and Zulus, (280 pts)

Well, I’m still in the grip of la grippe, but not bad enough to avoid working, so I’ve had less painting time this week. However, I’ve still managed to churn out figures for three different projects: more ECW, a few WW2 Brits and an impetuous impi.

For the ECW, a yellow regiment (18 figs). This is Sir John Talbot’s, one of my favourites, merely because it allows you to have yellow-coated troops. Camouflage? Moi? What’s the point of an ECW army if you can’t field Talbot’s yellow-coats and Newcastle’s whitecoats and Hampden’s greencoats and Brookes’ purple, even if most of the regiments were probably grey or red? I also like the fact that a talbot was a kind of hunting dog, so the regimental ensign is a pun.

Next, six red musketeers and another officer. These will be commanded muskets for the time being, but might become the nub of a red regiment, if that’s what I next paint.

I was disappointed with the way the next batch look in the photos. There’s nine Perry's WW2 Brits, intended for the Western Desert, in battledress trousers. I’ve tried to paint them in colours which would do for the desert, but also might not look too out of place if this squad unexpectedly found itself taking leave in Walmington on Sea. I’m actually quite pleased with them in real life, as it were, but in the photos they seem rather casually painted and slapdash. To be honest, the faces were finished in the near dark – for reasons too complicated to explain – but I still felt they were okay until I saw them here. Probably the photos are simply too close up. Must try harder.

Finally 22 Zulus. There were, in fact, 24 but, ahem, two were trodden on and, being plastic, didn’t put up much of a fight. (The perils of inattention brought on by ‘flu). These, in fact, look surprisingly good in the photos, considering much less care was lavished on them than on the WW2 figs. They’re Warlord, of course, which I was lucky enough to pick up at a bargain price. 40 more wait impi-atiently in the wings.

Because Zulus only ever get used in the mass, I can’t see a great deal of point in giving them too much detail or highlighting etc. It seems like effort wasted. But I’m soon going to completely contradict myself, as Perry's’ plastic Zulus were released today and they look like wonderful figures, as if they'll truly repay careful brushwork. If I’m lucky, I’ll have a couple of boxes of these to work on before the Challenge is over…

Hope there’s something there to appeal to you.   

28mm: 25 x ECW, 9 x WW2, 22 x Zulu = 56 figs @ 5pts = 280 pts 

Oh my Noel you loony! "Less painting time" he says and chucks out 280 points worth of mini's into our Challenge! They all look spiffing, the ECW regiments are very lively coloured and the Impi looks intend on slaughter but the WW2 Brits are my favourites. Right after I read they'd be in Walmington for R&R I noticed the bases would be perfectly resembling dune vegetation. Anyway I am sure that everyone here did indeed find something they like in your eclectic collection here.

Cheers Sander  

From: AlexK - U.S armour winter wonderland (36points)

Hi all,

My first post of the challenge was of my U.S airborne (based loosely on the tv series Band of Brothers) and in that post I joked about not being able to resist painting up some Shermans.....it was a joke and I never really meant to go ahead with this silly plan, so.....

This week I have for you 5 PSC 76mm Sherman' and a Zvezda 'Stuart' M3A1. I find 15mm tanks one of the easiest things to paint due to the techniques involved, as long as your colours are right the details bring themselves out with a bit of drybrushing.

The weathering is a bit more tricky, especially snow. I think it would be very easy to over do the snow and to start masking the details. I really wanted to give them a cold feel and I tried to get that brittle cold metal look going. The little Stuart was a spare kit I had which I'm pretty sure wouldn't have been very common (if present at this stage of the war) but it's a cracking little model anyway.

I'm waiting for some decals to really finish them, when they arrive I'll put up an updated photo or 2.

Thanks for looking

Very nice armour Alex! You really succeeded in getting that frosty cold metal look you wanted, it really looks amazing. The bases themselves, with a good mix of uncovered ground and snow, truly enhance the look of the unit. That little Stuart is my favourite, the first model I ever build was a Matchbox (later Revell) Stuart Honey so yeah it's a gem!
^frosty fighting vehicles gain you 36 points for the lists.

From: KentG - 28mm Napoleonic French Hussars (120 Points)

 For this Submission I've painted up the French 1st hussar Regiment it started going pear shaped when I found I had glued half the commanders horse to another horse so wrecking two miniatures then finding I had to use the standard bearer when the first doesn't have one. So even though I'm really happy with how they came out it's annoying to have a silly mistake muck up this unit.

I spent a bit of time layering in the detail and am really pleased how it came out.

They are really nice figures and I look forward to painting the other two boxes that I have, I've used some green stuff to make use of the two I wrecked and think I'll be able 

to make them into ADC's.

Dear Challengers, one really has to admire Kent's painting schedule, he truly is a Brush-Monster! I at least am glad he's amongst us because these Hussars are really awesome. The sabretaches are incredible and the colours are so vibrant and crisp. 
12 mounted 28mm figures does indeed result in 120 points for the roster, great work Kent and I am looking forward to the other 2 regiments you've planned!
 

From RussellG - Multiscale sci fi bunker (15 points)

Not a lot of painting this week, but i did finish off this 28mm scale sci fi bunker that has been lying around for at least 2 years.

When I started painting it, I had some big ideas, but then I realised if I leave off the details I could use this for several scales.

It is fairly basic and I cant remember what I bought it for or from whom.

The interior has had a basic grey painted inside, nothing fancy here.

And here it is next to some (not part of the challenge, except the biker in another post) miniatures. It will be a small bunker in 28mm, a moderate bunker in 15mm, or my personal favourite a semi-enclosed outpost in 6mm.

This was a very basic paint job and as the model would probably only fill half of the 6 inch cube I am happy to accept 10 points at judges discretion.

Hopefully something more exciting in the next post.

Thank you for looking.

Hoi Russel! A nifty little piece of scenery. I like the smooth look of the bunker, does remind me of Tau architecture a bit. What a novel idea to leave off the detailing that could be linked to a certain scale so you can use it in several scales! The magnetised roof is very well conceived too. Anyway as points go I will go as far as award you 15 points because the building looks rather higher than 3".

Cheers Sander