From TeemuL: Chaos Spawns and Iron Guard (50 points)

This week I return to my Astra Militarum with this special weapon squad. There are three troopers with grenade launcher and three with trusty lasgun. They are metal Mordian miniatures by the Perry twins. I painted them in my yellow-red-blue theme I have used on my troopers.

These were acquired from fellow Challenge participant, Sander, and I was "forced" to paint some of them during the Challenge.

I think they look rather nice, the color theme works better on these than on Cadians, I think, but it doesn't like too parade with the dirty wash I used. Happy with these and looking forward to paint more.

And then two Chaos Spawns for my Chaos Age of Sigmar army. One of them is clearly a follower of Khorne and the other is a follower of Nurgle - the two Chaos gods my army generally consists of. I have quite a lot of old miniatures in my army and I decided to give all of them the classic Goblin Green base, so these two have them as well.

I should have used some greenstuff to hide some joins, but they don't look that bad from the distance and you can forgive a lot, because they are Chaos Spawns.

I used some violet wash on both, on the mutations on the Khorne one and on the bone spikes etc on the Nurgle one.

Troopers are 5 points each, so 30 points.

Chaos Spawns count maybe as mounted character or crew served weapon, so I ask for 10 points each. I will satisfy for less, I'm confident to meet my target. :)

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More splendid work Teemu and my word those Chaos Spawns are huge!  Happy to count those are as a 54mm miniatures, so 10 points for each.  With this 50 points you are but a whisker away from reaching your target score, well done Sir.

From ByronM: Greeks, Greeks, and More Greeks (300 points)

I have had a bunch of painting time this last week as the wife and I went away to a resort in western Manitoba about 3 hours north west of us.  So, given that it is winter we didn't go for the weather... Instead we took hobby stuff to do, sat and relaxed and drank lots of wine in front of the fireplace, I painted a bunch, and we had friends join us for several days to play board games and drink yet more wine.

I do have to apologize about the pictures though, I got back into town late Friday, am unpacking and had to base everything until the wee hours Saturday morning, and am setting up a game here for the Snow lord Curt himself today in a few hours since he is in town visiting, and just did not have time to setup everything to get good pictures like I did last week.  So they are all a real rush job on the pictures without any cleanup or balancing at all, nor a proper setup.

All that said, at the end of the week, I now almost have my Greek forces done!  First up are 2 more units of what I am calling Thebian and Athenian troops.

These units are both from Victrix from the Thebian box set, but they look so similar I think they can be used as either.

I did one unit with spears at rest and the other in throwing position.

Both units got treated to shield decals from LBM to finish them off.

Next up is a pair of 8 man javelin units.  Both are again from Victrix, and while I like the figures they are pretty plain (but then I am not sure what I expect for guys in robes, so they are just fine).

Each unit is on 40mm square bases instead of the deeper bases the phalanxes are on.

Next are 2 command stands.  Both are for the Greek allied force (Athenian, Thebian and allies) and each contain 2 figures.

 

I did one in green and one in blue and both are made up of Foundry figures that are very characterful and were a lot of fun to paint.

Last up are 7 different casualty stands that contain 8 figures total.  I did notice taking the pictures that I forgot to glue on the spear to the one stand with 2 figures, so that will happen later today.

I like the idea of having some way to represent shock / casualties on units that are characterful and fit in, rather than just having dice or crumps next to them.  Sure those work, and this solution actually still uses dice, I think they just add that little something to the game.

Rather than the tedious task of making dice trays out of plastic card or card stock, I instead took the far simpler option of designing them in a 3d modeller and then 3d printing them.  They are all perfectly square and hold the dice perfectly and no muss or fuss.

So, with just a bit over a week left in the challenge I am almost done the 16 units I wanted to complete to have 2 playable Greek forces for Hail Caesar.  I should be able to finish up another unit before the end, but who knows.  Either way, I have a solid amount of Greeks done and ready to go.

Since I only got home from being away Friday evening, I didn't get a chance to setup a group shot, but that will happen for next week.

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Fabulous post Byron, you certainly managed to keep yourself busy last week, it sounded absolutely wonderful.  Can't wait to see the group shot next week.  Now technically prone figures are not awarded the full 5 points, but given that you have actually created casualty markers with yours I am more than happy to award the full 300 points for the post, bravo Sir.

Side Duels and Challenges Updated

Hi All,

Just a couple of updates this time for the tenth points update for the Side Duels and Challenges.

Kent has (even) further extended his lead in the Black Powder duel and Iannick has added to his Fantasy duel total as well.

As always, please check the points and make sure they're correct.

Cheers,
Millsy The Duels Wallah

From DaveX: Some More Winter Germans (47 Points)

This week I managed to complete painting 9 more Winter Germans for my WW2 28mm Winter Germans by Warlord Games.

Winter bases are so much more interesting I find and really looks great on the table.

The group shot shows 10 figures, as I painted 1 prior to the challenge however the following photos after the group shot are the 9 I painted for the challenge.

My 3 Favorite Poses

Thanks for looking.  This should bag me a handy 45 points!

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Firstly, excuse the intrusion Dave, but I could see that your post was marked as 'Ready' so I thought that I would just jump in there and post it with the rest of the Saturday Showcase.  These really are superb, I couldn't agree more about the winter bases, they really add something magical to the board.  Now we could get into a debate as to whether or not that is a crewed weapon, but as you haven't mentioned it yourself, I shall just quietly add a couple of bonus points for the thematic basing.  Splendid work Sir.

From MikeD: Cretan Archers (40pts)

Getting into the home stretch, and it's gonna be close. As I've said earlier, I front loaded my challenge to paint the time-consuming things earlier. I've got quite a few Foundry Hoplites sitting there just waiting for shield transfers, but other than that I've mostly things I can churn out quickly. Case in point are these Cretan Archers. They are Relic figures. As I've plowed through my Greek bin I'm reminded how badly I "over-buy". If an army list calls for 10 of something, I buy 20. I'm guessing I got these at a flea market or Ebay years ago.

So that's eight for 40 points. Now where did I put those Rhodian Slingers?

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Splendid job Mike, these certainly look the part and with another 40 points to your tally you are edging, ever closer, to your target score, come on Sir, you can do it! 

From PeteF: A Few Russians including Black Powder Duel figure (36 points)

Bear with me a minute with this non miniature related story - it is vaguely relevant. Many years ago I was looking after my wife's dog - taking it for a walk on a sunny spring day and not paying much attention. We passed a small tree and before I noticed the rabbit hole and the tiny baby bunnies, soft and blinking, on their first outing into the wide world of possibilities there was a tug on the leash and Maggie had dispatched no less than six of them - coincidentally the number of losers in the Black Powder Duel.

How I feel about The Black Powder Duel is how I imagine those bunnies would have felt, if they'd been given a chance to feel very much. Although not all my submissions have been recorded I am still over 2,000 points behind KentG with 10 days left in the challenge. Enough said - unless Benito is hording a points nuke then this casualty will be headed to Kent - a Russian grenadier being shot in the gut. At least he'll be worth 5 points.

The casualty is on a heavy metal washer so he can lean back in the act of being shot.

This week I was a step closer to completing the Russian Napoleonic Build an Army that got me re-started on all this a couple of years ago - here is the finished artillery and crew. Only a mounted officer, a drummer and five more casualties to go and I will need to purchase some more figures for Project 3 (28mm napoleonics). Or maybe work on the other 12 projects.

I put the gun on a magnet in case it ever needs to be limbered.

That's it for submission 17 - still hoping to get all the stuff I primed in December painted by the 20th - it's going to be a near run thing.

Warlord metal. 5 foot (5x5=25) and one gun (10) for 35 points. 

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Well I wasn't expecting the traumatic lead into this post Pete, but when one has been bludgeoned by the painting machine that is the supremely talented Kent, I can see where you are coming from!  Another lovely unit and a fitting commemorative figure for your duel.  I am awarding a bonus point for the natty basing solution, now let's get those final troops painted before the 20th please. 

From AlexS: Zulu! Zulu! (1005 pts)

Hello everybody! My name is Alex and I'm from Russia, and I did something stupid. Instead of painting a lot of miniatures, I got carried away with the idea of making an interesting terrain. But now I realized that it's wrong and I made many miniatures. I present you my "Zulus" - I call them miniatures, which I quickly paint a lot.

First of all - two battalions of the British infantry on Napoleonic. One battalion is full  (40inf), two incomplete (24 and 23 inf), which displays losses during the campaign (total 87inf).

Next - a small army of early imperial Romans. Legionnaires, legionaries, command groups and praetorians (total 113 inf). And I think you will appreciate the amazing drawings on the shields.

Now you can rest and prepare for the last week, which will be a week of wizards - the participants will start to get a huge number of miniatures, as magicians pull out a live rabbit from the cylinder. It's always magic!

200 inf = 1000 points

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Wow Alex!  What a post and with this I see that you have sailed past your target score, brilliant job Sir!  I have nothing but admiration for those that can work their way through troops like these, such dedication and they look wonderful 'en masse'.  Let's see what you can do in the final days of the challenge.

I am adding some bonus points for flags and shield designs too.

Getting closer!

The finishing line is in sight and with this, my penultimate duty weekend, I have more delights to share on the Saturday Showcase.

Don't forget to make your votes for the final bonus theme round today and let's see how many points we can add to this year's tally before the final whistle blows!