From Mike F - Imperial Fist Cerberus - 23 points

This is my first Wednesday post and it's an Imperial Fist Cerberus tank destroyer for 30k. I was hoping to have it ready for a New Years Day game, but the line highlighting took me a bit longer due to the size of the vehicle. This is the last Imperial Fist unit for a few months as I'll be focusing on other things for the rest of the challenge.

That gun would have come in handy against GregB's Sons of Horus Fellblade!
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*FREEM*
"Ha-ha! Twin-linked, fool!"

  - Turn Signals on a Land Raider

This is an excellent vehicle , Michael, superbly weathered and battleworn. And yes, those guns would he nice to have at the ready when the traitor's Fellblades come a-calling!

And will there be more stalwart defenders of the Imperium on their way to destroy the God-Emperor's foes? Something tells me that we've not seen the last of the Imperial Fists this Challenge...

20 points for a 28mm vehicle but an extra three points because it's such a big unit. Well done!

Ev

From TomM - Build me an army worthy of Mordor (100 points)

The newest entry for this years challenge, in which I'm trying to paint up enough forces to corrupt both the girlfriend and the Nemesis to take the field in games of Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game gaming.

Which is more my goal and focus this year.

To that end, I will be needing painted forces for both sides, and this is a good excuse to paint a bit of everything along the range from Games Workshop.

For this entry, I went for the forces of Mordor, and their basic troops as such as a result.  The lowly orc is a poor combatant, but he comes with a lot of his friends to the field.

The entry consists of 15 basic Mordor orcs, armed with a variety of bows, spears and hand weapons.

Supporting them is an old metal Mordor Troll, a fearsome foe in the game, as well as a big, heavy dreadnought sized model,bound to give the heroes of good a rough day as it sweeps through the lines.

All overseen, or driven forth if you might say, by two of the Nine...

So that makes this entry 16 infantry models of 28mm infantry strong, the large troll which I guess yields 10 points, and a 28mm cavalry model, good for 100 points to the tally :-)

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My word, Tom, that's a force to be reckoned with - they look like they're about to tear up the Pelennor Fields with their charge!

The ground troops are suitably spiky and the muscle (in the form of the troll) is a terrific sculpt. The evil overlords of the enterprise are well-rendered; I know how hard it is to get a good subtle drapery effect with black, and you've done a splendid job.

100 points to your total, and well-earned it is too!

Ev

From Brendon W - Red and Black and Lightning Teams (235 points)

4 x 28mm Mounted, and 38 x 28mm foot. All Plastic.
First is reinforcements for my Red and Black (Bacon And Beer!) army. All Perry Miniatures.
Two musicians are re-based so not included for points. The infantry are 'double ups' on 25mm round bases. These bases fit onto my universal unit trays and making 'double ups' helps thicken the units up.
Two horsemen are on 50mm square bases while the other two are 25x50mm bases.

Red and the Black are recruiting now! Have you got what it takes? A desire to eat bacon and drink beer?

4 Gunners and 5 Halberds

Light Lancers

17 Pikemen

In Kings of War the Varangur army have access to a unit option that is a unique War Machine. Three evil Wizards/Shamen who blast the opposition with Lightning spells. I built these from Gripping Beast Arab plastics and other parts including GW chaos heads and staff toppers. Some arms are FireForge Mongols. These have been sitting in my unpainted section for a while so I am very happy to get them painted at long last. No official miniatures exist for this unit which is great as the imagination can go crazy with the brief description of the unit.

6 Varangur Wizards

I am kind of medium happy with the photos. They don't really capture the painting at its best or most accurate but glad to have created my first submission.

Cheers from Brendon

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A very respectable opening salvo, Brendon.

So good to see the return of the mighty forces of Bacon and Beer, whose stentorian war cry (well, 'war belch', actually) has rung across the battlefields of the AHPC for many years now!

Basing is top notch as always, so I'm throwing in an extra few points for the groundwork.

The Varangur Wizards are suitably forbidding as well, though I can't help wondering if their magic incantation to call down the lightning is "Ni!"

; )

Ev

From Millsy - 28mm Crusader Infantry (141 points)

Hi All,

I'm back again with more Crusaders for my SAGA / To the Strongest! project.
This second instalment is the other half of the infantry component and is comprised of four units - one Hospitaller sergeants (8 figs), one generic sergeants (8 figs) and two generic knights (2 x 4 figs).

The miniatures are mostly Fireforge Games plastic foot sergeants / Templar kits plus a few metal miniatures from 1st Corps.

I'm really enjoying these to the point where I am spending more time on them that I had originally intended. That's a consequence of the fact they are lovely miniatures to paint in general, plus I am having a ball hand painting all the shields. In total I've spent something like 4 hours on the 24 shields.

The majority of the shields are completely freehand whilst a few knight shield used decals from my stockpile (wolf heads, fist and stars), but even those were over-painted and blended in. Yeah, I know, I know probably need my head examined!

Given I've got a side duel with DaveD for the first to 1500 odd points this is a silly way to go about things but what the hell...

I've still got to add some tufts to the bases but as with my first post I'm going to wait until I've got some cavalry done before tufting. The cavalry are next up BTW!

And I nearly forgot again! Whilst painting I had a number of virtual albums spinning away. It's time for Challenge Tunes!

Artist: Dubrovniks
Album: Audiosonic Love Affair

Artist: Rotersand
Album: Waiting to be Born

Artist: The Birthday Massacre
Album: Pins and Needles

Artist: Adani & Wolf
Album: The Irresistible Dust On the Floor

So that's another 24 miniatures off the prepped queue. 120 points more on the total too. Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Millsy
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A stunning submission, but I think you've sold yourself short in the points department; the entirely handpainted shields add an extra 21 points, especially as the designs are actual heraldic charges rather than just simple quarterings.

The sabot bases are an excellent idea, giving you terrific flexibility for skirmish or full-scale battle, and allowing you to switch rules systems at the drop of a (kettle) hat. I'm now wondering if blocks of pike could be based in this fashion, though there aren't many games which call for pikemen to be deployed in ones and twos...

Anyway, enough of my witterings, that's 120 points plus 21 for the shields, so 141 points for this week. 

Well played Sir!

From Jez Todd - Medieval Pagan Sarmogitian - 165 points

Dear All

Second entry and so pleased can post a completed 25 mm new Basic Impetus army! If you don't know the "Basic" version of Impetus you play with a set 10-12 units. I have a Teutonic Knights army and play this against a matched historical Russian army. Using the Basic Impetus set army lists I was finding that some of my painted tribal light infantry were just sitting in the box, as they were not part of the basic core Teutonic Knights army units. I therefore decided to paint up a third army specifically using these to fit in the set.

Pagan Prussian seemed an obvious choice but felt it would be too boring having another warband infantry type army. Luckily had inspiration for a more unusual army from this booklet about the Battle of Saule 1236.

The Sword Brothers were an early military order that were wiped out in the battle and the remnants got taken over by the newer Teutonic Knights order. They both fought pagan Sarmogitians or Lithuanians. These proved a surprising difficult opponent to kill off. A feature of the Sarmogitian army was its use of light cavalry. It is an interesting army that matches perfectly historically, was relatively cheap to buy as most bases are just light cavalry with a couple of models on. Also thought it would be interesting to play with.  

The painted figures are 12 cavalry and 8 infantry so 160 points. The figures also fit nicely into a box!

All basing is done for the winter campaigning season! The figures are all Gripping Beast matching my Teutonic Knights. Here had to select the most appropriate range and thought Dark Age Picts suited best. I especially liked the cavalry in hoods, I made some small changes to add in some bearskins on the figures and luckily still had some left over characteristic teardrops shields from my earlier painted foot lights. 

The standard style is taken from the booklet but as pagans any animal skull type standard would be fine. For the infantry I already had the required foot light but I need some dismounted bowmen. These are also from the Pict range. 

The final picture shows how I will field the new infantry paired with some previously painted skirmishers to make a new foot light archer unit (this is a T shooter unit in Basic Impetus vocab). In the Sarmogitian army list there is an option to field more cavalry units dismounted but I will just have the required two units and keep the maximum light cavalry. 

Finally with this deployment I would now need some new skirmish units for the Teutonic Knights and here just have a couple of skirmish bases. Again these are using Gripping Beast Picts but just used the more regular looking figures and added a couple of shields with the black / white Teutonic Knights design. 

All in all 160 points worth …. cant wait to try these out. 

Cheers Jez
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You certainly picked an esoteric subject for this submission, Jez; nice work thinking outside the box, except the first pic of the figures shows them in a box... mind blown!

Very nice work on the handpainted shield designs and standard, so we'll say 5 extra points there.

The snowy basing adds to the sense that these fellas are tough nuts who won't let anything as trivial as a northern winter stop them from giving the Crusaders a bit of stick, and good luck to them doing it, I say. The Ordenstaat always was too big for its boots!

Ev

From StuartL - Bad Boys, Bad Boys - 30 Points

I realise that I haven't really introduced myself to my fellow challengers, and being a first timer here, I thought that maybe I should.

Nice to meet you all. My name is Stuart and I am an addict. 

I started gaming with minis with the Hero Quest boardgame by GW/MB Games way back when, but even before that I was shooting matchsticks at toy soldiers using spring loaded 25-pdrs with my uncle. 

I grew up around military vehicles as my father enjoyed rebuilding old Land Rovers and attended rallys with other enthusiasts who had a collection of jeeps, trucks, armoured cars and even a tank or two. Needless to say I still enjoy these things, though at the much more reasonable scale of 1:48. 

I used to play 40K primarily, but about 6 years ago I got into historical gaming in a big way. Since the switch, I have been much more diligent about getting fully painted armies on the table. I have acquired numerous forces for WW2, Napoleonics, the Anglo-Zulu War and more, nearly all in 28mm. 

I am currently living near to Nagoya in the centre of Japan. There isn't a huge gaming group, but there are a few other expats and a growing number of local players, so I can usually find a game or two of something, even if I have to provide both sides myself.

I joined this challenge to see how much I could get done if I had a solid focus and goals in mind as I didn't get as much done as I had hoped last year. I set my initial target at 500 points and I think the post below should take me to that score and we are still less than 1 month in. 

So, should I rest on my laurels and lay down my brushes, or should I see if I can pass the 1500 mark before the winter comes to an end?

Just a small group of models for this week's post. Recently I bought a bunch of North Star's miniatures for A Fistful of Kung Fu. I already painted up a few of the figures before the challenge began, but I still have plenty to do. Here we have 6 cops sporting a variety of gear and weapons. The building in the background is from Knights of Dice and isn't a part of the challenge.

Providing some serious firepower, we have 3 SWAT team members in full body armour and gear. To add a bit more flavour, I have tried to give the guy on the far right a tattoo. Perhaps he was in the special forces before finishing his tour and joining up with the police department.

And here we have two beat cops and a detective. The models from North Star were nearly all nice, clean casts with very little flash. However the detective model had a slight miscast on his face. Rather than try to file it off and risk damaging the model any more, I decided to work with it and tried to paint it as a swollen, bloody mess. Now he has his hands on a shotgun and is out for revenge. I also tried to paint a chalk outline (complete with bloodstains) on his base to help set the tone a bit.

6 figures at 28mm should come to 30 Points and 1 more check on my Squirrel tally.

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Some tough looking cops there, and worthy of inclusion in the Hong Kong action film of your choice. Positively crying out for a flock of white doves!

Nice save on the wounded detective as well, very creative solution to a problem we encounter all too often in our hobby.

30 points to the gentleman in the sunglasses and white linen suit!

Ev

From TeemuL: Death Guard and a Pair of Adventurers (50 points)

Games Workshop released Death Guard Battle Force before Christmas, and I just couln't resist myself any longer, so I bought it. I have been painting quite a lot of green lately (Nurgle demons and warriors for AoS and my Genestealer Cult Kill Team has green overalls), so I wasn't sure how to approach these marines. Color schemes on the Codex were pretty much just different greens, so not very helpful, but there was luckily one, which was mostly white. Death Guard used to be mostly white before Horus Heresy and some parts of the legion have kept those colors. I think my army is one of the "early adopters", they aligned themselves with Nurgle quite soon, before the green was the new black, so they kept their white power armors. Painting white is not so nice (that's why I don't have White Scars army), but chatting with a clerk at the local store convinced me of "dirty white", which would be suitable for my many means: Death Guard, not green, not too painful to paint etc. I did paint the shoulder trims and some other details in green, just to tie them nicely with Nurgle (if it is not obvious already with all spikes, horns, tentacles, maws, teeth etc).

In the middle of the painting I realized I had found my inner Blanchitsu, I hadn't even thought about it before I had some WIP minis on my hand, there's lots of Reikland Flesh Shade on these guys. And then some more on top of that. I usually have a very tidy paint style, but with these I took a more relaxed approach, this is some painting, not just coloring. There are lots of mistakes and spoils, huge amounts of washes are not easy to control, but what the heck! I really like the atmosphere of these guys, it is more about the feeling than clean result. I also skipped lots of details, they could be white anyway, won't they? Also I'd like to have a playable army quite soon and with all this Squirreling, it is difficult enough already.

Here's one 7 man strong unit of Plague Marines and one Plague Surgeon, Nauseous Rotbone.

Guns are painted Genestealer Purple with Druchii Violet shades and Emperor's Children highlights. Bladed weapons are mostly metal with Druchii Violet. Whole model, and I do mean whole model, is drybrushed slightly with Moot Green and washed heavily with Reikland Flesh Shade. This makes the armor look worn and unclean, green looks like fungi or something like that, not healthy at all.

I'm very happy with these guys, just need to assemble, prime and paint some more of them.

And speaking of Squirreling, here's something else again. Two figures from the Legend of Drizzt boardgame by Fantasy Flight Games. I have been slowly painting figures from this game over the years, but since it doesn't see the table time that much, it is buried under other projects. But anyway, here are Athrogate, Dwarf Battlerager, and Guenhwyvar.

Where the latter two are clearly 25mm scale, the Death Guard are about 33mm to eye level, but there is no such scale. Quick look at the history, and I believe these are all scored as 25/28mm minis, just like Stormcast Eternals and other newer GW minis. Based on that, it will be 50 points.
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Very nice work, Teemu, if the word 'nice' can be realistically applied to a band of filthy, disease-ridden plague cultists!

The unified colour palette works, and the use of the off-white as a starting point on the armour is a refreshing take on this traitor Chapter.

The panther and Athrogate are both very good as well. That's 50 points for you!

Ev