From TeemuL: Slambo (5 points)

After not winning the side duel, I have been slowing down. And still running out of prepped minis and hobby time. But as always, I managed to get something done on this week (in addition to the bonus round entry). Let me present mister Slambo to you.

Slambo has visited this challenge blog earlier this year, too, but he has just seems to like attention, so here's my interpretation of him. Although the two axes might hint to the Khorne, I decided to paint him Nurgle colors. Quite strangely, with the current rules of the Age of Sigmar, he can't take Mark of any Chaos god, he then fights for all of them - or no one. He is the one man army anyway.

He is a resin model from the Games Workshop. Sculpted and released last year, but based on the original Slambo miniature from the 80s. I really like those old plastic Chaos Warriors, so he fits nicely with them.

Painting was actually quite simple and fast, but looks very good - in my opinion. Especially the horns on the helmet are something I personally like.

He is a big taller than average 28mm miniatures, but I think 5 points is good for him.

__________________________________

What a beast Teemlu, you certainly wouldn't want to upset this chap in a bar!  Lovely use of colour, especially the blending on the horns.  Nicely done Sir. 

From AlexS: terrain 25 points

Hello everybody. My name is Alex, I'm from Russia, and I really like to do the terrain. I was always inspired by one person who in his blog laid out the terrain made of ordinary things. He used a shell of nuts, children's toys and much more.

His name is Michael and he's my curator on this event and first reads my entry. This is very exciting! And today I present my small project. I am the father of two children and they are always breaking toys. Recently they broke the "tumbler". I did not let my wife throw it away.

I decided to make it an element of the terrain for games on post apocalypse or science fiction.

After I glued it again, I primed it and fixed it on the stand.

Then I painted it with an airbrush.

Then I thought for a long time how it would look better. There was an option - to cover the whole surface of the jungle with artificial grass for aquariums. But then I decided to paint it out by making an idol toy, which is worshiped by local wild tribes. Or a special border post that marks the territory.

Finally, I could not resist and made from this area an artefact of my childhood and youth.

Miniature 28mm, so you can feel the size and pathos of the terrain. He reminds me of a bear from the novel by Stephen King.

The size of the terrain: 9x6x8 inches
I think it's 30 points.

__________________________________________

Thank you so much for the kind words Alex,  many of my creations are in turn inspired by others so delighted to pass it on, as it were.  I just love this, so creative and I can just imagine this new idol being the centre of a Post Apocalyptic tribe.  Fabulous fun and a good reminder to never throw anything away! 

With regards to scores, I am going to be a little mean and suggest that it is a 25 rather than a 30 point piece.  It is wonderfully tall, but the volume is such that I think that it would only just fill a 6"x6"x6" cube - sorry!  

From ByronM: Robots, Mecha, and Terrain (120 points)

This week I prepped and worked on a lot of stuff for an upcoming project, and for the theme week entry this weekend, so my submission is a little light.  However, I am keeping on track with something every week, so that's good!

First up, I continue to expand my 30k Mechanicum army (which really was meant to be a small auxiliary force not a full army!) with some fast attack robots.  Here are 6 Vorax class battle-automata.

These things are pretty short range with only dual rotor cannons (light weight versions of assault cannons) and lightning guns.  The rotor cannons are range 30" but only strength 3 so not much to write home about, and the lighting guns are 18" strength 7, so that's where they can cause some pain.  Once they get close they have power blades mounted under their guns that cut through marine armour like butter.

They are fast units with high movement so getting into combat should not be an issue.  Especially since their shooting is not a huge threat, most enemies will be more worried about gunning down the big plasma mortar guys in my backline than these little guys, until it's too late, or at least that's my hope!

I painted them in my normal method (meaning mainly airbrush) but then added some brighter red highlights as I did for the smaller guys I posted recently.  I am now thinking of going back and adding a bit more to some of the bigger guys as well, but we will see.

I did leave a lot of gun/ammo belts off as they were a pain in the $@# to bend correctly to get in place and would have blocked a whole lot of painting access.  I had meant to add them after but I actually like them without the added clutter of an ammo belt from each arm to the back ammo cases and from the back generator up to the lightning gun.  Who knows I might change my mind, but for now they are staying off.

Next up is a piece that has been sitting around for the last 2 years waiting to get done.  I had picked up 2 Tau giant stealth suits a while ago and painted up one for the challenge last year or the year before, then never did the other one.  Since it is such an easy and basic scheme, I banged it out while waiting for washes and stuff to dry on other models over the last few weeks.

It matches the old one pretty closely with lots of mecha style hard highlights and chips.  I then based it with my normal winter basing pattern.

Lastly, a set of Fantasy Flight terrain quonset huts that I picked up a few years ago and just never manage to get too.  I actually have about 4 more sets as they were clearing them out and I got several sets as they were about $10 a set or something.  I had plans to do a summer, winter, and dessert set for myself and then have some spares hanging around but then never got to them.

So here is my summer set, finally done.  Normal army green with highlights, all done with airbrush and all super simple, but effective.

Also, as you can tell I spent some serious time figuring out lighting and camera settings to finally be able to give some better pictures.  I have been getting really tired of putting up pictures that do not look like what I have been doing, colours are wrong, contrasts wrong, which all led things to look no where near as goon as they do in real life.  Hopefully I can continue to make this setup work as to my eye these l look much closer to the real life figure.

______________________________________________

Once again it is such a treat to see these amazing models and so beautifully painted, I'm more than happy to agree your thoughts on the scores, but it was your maths for the terrain that had me roaring with laughter so much so that I'm going to have to share the equation with the group.  Fabulous work Sir.

The inclusion of terrain this year has left a few of us minions scratching their heads:Terrain -They are each 4" long and 2" tall - so 1/2 * π * r squared * 4" = roughly 25.135 cubic inches

A 6" cube = 216 cubic inches = 20 points so.... 1 cubic inch = 0.0923 pointsSo points = 6 * 25.135 * 0.0923 = 13.964 points

From PeteF: Old School Minifigs 61st Ligne (120 points)

This is the second battalion of French Ligne that I've done for this Painting Challenge. Project 1 is Mo' French! so that I have enough crappoes* to take on the Anglo Allied 100 days army I inherited from my dad and my brother. I've based and flocked10 battalions of various Dutch Belgians and Hanoverians in the last couple of weeks - making the need for some opposition even greater.

Vive L'Empereur

These Minifigs are new castings that I bought from Calivers Books in the UK before I discovered the 2nd hand market of unpainted minifigs - I've picked up a few more battalions of French (and for reasons of lack of self control some Prussians - now project 13) but I'm always on the look out for more - the centjours website lists 55 regiments of Ligne - most with 2 or 3 battalions. This takes me to 10 battalions - so just a few to go - maybe I should change scale?

On that subject we tried out ESR with 2 bases per battalion and my wargaming group liked the rules. Even though ESR probably looks best in 10mm, 25mm is what I've got so I've gone for strong magnets on each base - 2 bases can be fitted to a metal base that will take either 8 infantry or 3 cavalry and the whole base can be lifted up by any one figure. This will work for Blucher as well.

Flexible Basing

I used the centjours website to decide on the details - the voltigeurs got yellow over green plumes, the ensign an all blue coat and the drummer blue coat with white lace instead of green. I have the impression the minifigs standard ligne are more peinsular or 1812 - but they'll do.

It's always a pleasure to put paint on minifigs - it takes me back to my first days of wargaming - I can even vaguely remember the smell of Humbrol and turps.

Skirmishers out

Hard to believe we're in the last month of the Challenge - I wish I'd had more time, especially to meet people live on Google as brushes are twirled and flocking flocked. I'm down to the last battalion and a bits and pieces that I primed way back in December with some hope of getting them all painted by the 20th. Good luck to everyone else as we hit the home stretch!

24 x 25mm foot - Minifigs - 120 points.

* crapaud - toad.

____________________________________________

Fabulous job Pete, what a wonderful sight!  Like you I can't believe that we are in the final throes of the challenge.  Great to hear that you have nearly achieved all that you hoped and best of luck in the final push.

Thank Goodness it's Saturday!

All teachers love the snow, well let me beg to differ!  Far too much excitement this week so really looking forward to wrapping up warm and getting some painting done.  Don't forget to get your entries in for the final bonus round.