From MattK: Uruk-Hai Scouts and more Goblins (125 points)

Ironically, the above Uruks were painted to squeeze in a third picture for this week but I'm super happy with how they turned out. I'm sure someday I'll grow tired of painting these models but so far 25 models in I'm still enjoying every part of the process. They're a little basic but they come together so nicely in my opinion.

The next picture requires a bit of an explanation. In addition to the Gloomspite army I'm working on, a friend and I ran a game at a local show (Flintcon) with some of the models. We decided to do a bit Goblin Squig Hunt game. Each player got a team of goblins (one netter, one herder and one "bait")

So to go with the models I already had I needed to actually paint some foot goblins. So presented below are 16 goblins with various kit.

Finally to go with these (and the several squigs from a few weeks ago) I painted five more metal squigs for the game and my collection. I think I may have finally hit the end of my pile of metal squigs and I think I'm down to just one box of the new plastic ones.

So all told 25 more 28mm infantry comes out to 125 points

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Uruk-hai form columns, yes? So, clearly French!

Well done, otherwise! 125 points!

Edit: I have thoroughly enjoyed spending the Friday guest minion budget on the finest food and alcohol San Francisco can offer. Now that I have returned to Friday Follies HQ, I have updated your points total accordingly.

From AdamC: Dead Norman and Late Romans (45 points)

So I understand Fridays are now all French all the time... or something like that so we have dead Norman (French Viking Hybrid) the last of the Conquest Games box.  I don't know what I'll use him for but the challenge motivated me to paint him up.

He's watched over by 8 Late Roman Swords men from the Gripping Beast plastic box. (They can be from Gaul if we need to conform with the all French theme) I've had a yen to have a late Roman or Romano-Briton army since my Dux Campaign with John.  This is the start.  I'm imagining them to be something like the fellow from Jack Whyte's take on the Arthur legend where a couple of retired tribunes put together a tough colony of ex-Legionaries and crafts as a haven against the bad times they see coming. (The colony eventually becomes Camelot).  I painted these shields by hand and I am very pleased with how well they came out.

  These guys are unarmoured so I would use them as militia trained by the ex-Legionaries rather than full time soldiers.  The biggest flaw with this set is they are too uniform they are all dressed alike only 4 basic poses (two of which only work for archer). I've embraced the uniformity painting them in uniform.  I went with buff for the basic color and I was a bit heavy on the wash but this works since light colors would pick up lots of dirt in the field.   I also swapped in a few heads form my bits box (the fellow on the end is barbarian with a full beard)

The tunic is edged in a purple/lavender at the cuffs, hem and as well as those decorative circles and strips at the shoulder.  I'm very pleased with the results and have a quite a bit more of these fellows on the way.

There are 8 28mm Miniatures which should be good for 40 Points.
I believe the Dead Norman is worth another 5 points (prone figures are usually worth half of the upright figures).  For a total of 45 Points (unless the Minion chooses to modify this)

Also these Romans should get me another Squirrel point

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And more French. 

I'm not buying the whole "standing guard" bit. They done kilt that Norman dead.

Uniform works for Romans, even late ones. Well done!

45 points to be added!

Edit: I have thoroughly enjoyed spending the Friday guest minion budget on the finest food and alcohol San Francisco can offer. Now that I have returned to Friday Follies HQ, I have updated your points total accordingly.

From BillA: Countess Winterthorn and Guards (35 pts)

"Ooh, Shiny" syndrome rears its head once again, like a cobra swaying hypnotically before me.  One of my local painting buddies has expressed an interest in his Age of Sigmar goblin army pulling double-duty as a Dragon Rampant warband.  He just needs opponents to play against.

Well, I dug out the skeleton army I built awhile back for DR, and I wasn't super happy with the force; I decided I would be better off building a fresh warband from scratch.  As I was brainstorming, a few figures in my project mountain caught my eye: "Adrasteia Winterthorn," a vampire countess Reaper put out last year as a promotional figure, and six copies of "Athak, Undead Knight," a Reaper Bones figure I'd bought en masse to use as a unit in the skeleton army.  An idea was born -- a vampire and their retinue, not of skeletons and zombies, but of mad and desperate mortals fighting for the vampire's promise of eternal life.

Adrasteia immediately became the army's general, and the half-dozen "Athaks" her robed, silent and highly-disciplined guards.  With their flowing robes, armored cowls and pole-weapons, they reminded me of the Emperor's Guards from the original Star Wars trilogy, hence the red robes (basecoated Reaper Deep Red, and drybrushed Reaper "Fresh Blood." The armor and shields needed some contrast though, and are done in a couple layers of Reaper "Gunmetal Blue," which is a much more striking metallic blue than comes across here.  The eyes and tongues on the shields were done in my usual gold combo - a basecoat of Ancient Bronze, washed with Citadel Nuln Oil and then highlighted with Antique Gold.

The same color scheme was carried over to Adrasteia - her dress is done in the same way as the guards' robes, and the batwinged armor covering her shoulders (as well as her bodice) are Gunmetal Blue trimmed in Antique Gold.  Her cloak was basecoated in Reaper Midnight Blue, and drybrushed with Twilight Blue.  I think the streak of gray in her hair looks neat as well.

That's seven 28mm figures so I reckon that's another 35 points to my tally.

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Vampires? Emperor's guards? Must be French somehow . . . . 

I've passed that Adrasteia figure in many hobby shops, and been sorely tempted to nab her for Frostgrave. You've done a smashing but simple paint job on both her and her guards. Well done. You've done smashing work on highlighting all those folds in both their robes and her cape. They stand out but don't look overdone; something I have struggled with in the past.

35 points well earned, and a nod for Sarah's Choice.

From PaulSS: Hundred Years War French Men at Arms (60 points)

Six more French Men at Arms for the Hundred Years War force.

All plastics made from the new Agincourt Mounted Knights 1415-29 set and based individually and mounted in some custom movement trays that I ordered from Warbases. I've now got 12 of these done, the last six were entered as Routiers in the Mercenary bonus round.

I ordered this box directly from Perry Miniatures so I also ordered a couple of extra frames of their medieval horses so that I could build an extra six figures from the box.

In the standard pack you can make up to six of the figures as lighter horse in hauberks while the rest are armoured. If you add the extra horses you can make twelve fully armoured knights and six knights / sergeants in hauberks.

The fourth and sixth figures in the group above are made from the lighter armoured bodies and legs. The one in the green/black hauberk looks like a knight with older equipment while the one in the buff hauberk holding no weapon could be a groom riding his lords remount.

For a couple of the figures in this batch I used the mail flanchards on the horses and I think they come out well. It's a really versatile set.

Six more left to do from this box and they should be ready next week along with a few more oddments left over from the foot troops.

The 60 points for these three should also contribute to the Hither do I Challenge Thee (SD4) duel.

I've lately been listening to a lot of music while painting and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine have been getting a lot of plays, I'd forgotten just how great a band they were!

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More French! More Perrys! Maybe I should just succumb to Stockholm (Paris?) Syndrome and paint some Perry French figures as well . . . 

Agincourt falls in that period for me between the classic knight with surcoat and trashcan helmet, and the beautiful stuff you see in the Italian Wars. The beaks and angles and whatnot all look kind of awkward and undeveloped. But Paul is doing a fantastic job of making them pretty and accessible.

Another smashing entry from Paul, and another 60 points on the board for him.

 

From PaulSS: Hundred Years War casualties (42.5 points)

As a part of this weeks efforts I painted a couple of packs of Perry Miniatures Hundred Years War casualties to use as markers or other litter my battlefields. My last order included a pack each of Men-at-arms casualties and Infantry casualties from their Agincourt range.

Great figures with bags of detail and for Perry metals surprisingly easy to clean up. The two packs comprise six figures each and a sprue of loose weapons.

From the twelve figures seven are dead or lying down, I think these count as half points for the challenge so should work out at about 17 1/2 points towards my total.

There are also four weapons in each pack, I only did half so far, planning to use the rest for conversions, I'm guessing this collection of sword, longbow, spear and crossbow are likely worth a point each.

Finally five walking or at least kneeling dead and wounded. Bags of character here, the first chap is quite battered and looks to be surrendering his sword while the second chap pulls an arrow out of his arm. More on the third later, the fourth rests on his pole-arm while the last one looks like he has had enough! Five 'proper' figures so hopefully 25pts for these.

These all appear a bit shiny, I took the precaution of adding a coat of gloss lacquer before the dull coat as they shall not usually be on a movement tray and are likely to get more rough handling than the troops.

These should also contribute to the Hither do I Challenge Thee (SD4) duel.

That middle chap I am sure I have seen somewhere before.....

Yes, it's the Jolly Fisherman of so many holidays and day-trips of my youth!

I keep forgetting to add Challenge Tunes, these lot were painted while listening to a lot of tracks by The Jam on Spotify.

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And thus begins our Frenchiness. I can't say that I approve of the livery on the poor chap from Skegness, but the rest are up to your usual standards . . . 

If any of you Challengers have made it to Kublacon in the Bay Area, you've definitely seen the games showcased on the Jay's Wargaming Madness blog. His games are amazingly cinematic, and feature a lot of these kinds of battlefield color. So it's very nice to see these coming along!

42.5, point five, mind you, points for these dead Frenchmen.

From DavidB: Deathwatch (55 points)

My 40k forces have a win-draw record matched by their losses. I really like to have a theme/story for them and some units that get included are not the best but do add to the overall story for the force. I do have a few Marine armies and the Crimson Fist scout heavy force is very different from the Space Wolves and Dark Angel forces I have. Imperial Guard are my favourite force to field, but they really need some assistance from the more powerful human forces. The Inquisition goes a long way to fill the gaps, but even then access to a few elite power armour troops can sometimes be better.

Deathwatch marines really go a long way to plug that special forces gap and fit a lot better than Grey Knights. It's not a thematic stretch to include a squad or two of Deathwatch with a guard force especially when an Inquisitor or three are allied with guard.

I bought a get started collecting Deathwatch force just for adding them to my Imperial Guard as allies. I assembled the kit after lamenting I missed my chance for the Overkill game. My wife and parents had, unknown to me, already purchased the last copy for my birthday last year.

Kill Team really had me going for Deathwatch also, as who better for a kill team, but a force of Astartes Heroes assembled for just such a thing! Kill Team is what Deathwatch does, indeed it is Deathwatch. I was rather disappointed that assault troops, terminators, and bikers were not included in the kill team rules lists. They'll still get used as allies for the guard, but no skirmishing for these guys.

The Raven Guard and Blood Angel assault marines from the Overkill game. Both miniatures are packed with details from their chapters making them even more unique as Deathwatch.

As both were mounted on tactical risers, I felt obligated to show their jump-packs in use. The primarchs would often tweak their chapter gear for preferred tactics. Since Corvus Corax of the Raven Guard favoured aerial assault and stealth, I painted the Raven Guard exhaust in blue hues to denote a hotter more efficient fuel for longer and more frequent jumps.

The rest of the jump-pack troops come from the start collecting box and are built entirely for close quarter fighting with only the Sergeant having a pistol.

I used different power weapon effects with power lighting arcing on the storm shield, power maul and thunder hammers. The power sword and lighting claws just received a graduated blue tone.

The Overkill marines are mounted on bases from coolminiornot while the rest are on molded bases from Happy Seppuko. happyseppukko.com uses some molded rubber stamps which you can press modelling putty or clay into for textured bases. I have been using an asphalt base as it is generic enough to double for concrete, earth, desert, or even tundra according to how I paint it. Some were molded green stuff and another putty, but I found a thick enough base of air dry clay works just as well. The clay will need to be glued in place once dry but does dry and stick well to MDF with a thin coat of PVA glue.

A salamander marine terminator with a heavy flamer and power fist with a melta gun attachment.

He would rule in kill team( probably why he wasn't included as an option)

My favourite model from the overkill game is the white scar biker.

with the cyber hawk and all the sweet details, this is a very nice biker model. I still want a white scar force, but this single model will do for now. The deathwatch kits come with a nice selection of chapter specific shoulder pads and has a few extra blanks for hand painting. Even so, It was fun looking at successor chapters to alter the chapter colors. Since Overkill came with a Blood Angel and Raven Guard, I simply altered the colors for an Angel Vermilion, and a Hawk Lord. The Black Templar was selected as an assault marine just for a difference as usually the Black Templar's would be bolter and sword. The Thunder Hammer marines are a Howling Griffon and Salamander. Salamanders are known to be quite stoic and deliberative, so I liked the idea of a young salamander marine being a touch hasty and aggressive. perhaps he was sent to deathwatch to cool his eagerness down a little bit!

8 28mm troops for 40 points

one biker for 10

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Bah, everybody expects the Emperor's Inquisitors!

What they don't expect is a nice show of exhaust ports. You've done some sweet work on your flames, both with the salamander and the jump packs in use. You've also got some top notch basing going on there. One bonus point for each fire effect, and another two for the basework.

55 points well earned that man!

Friday Follies: Part VII!

All right, we've all been at this long enough, all y'all know the drill.

We've got French, and more French,and dead French, and possibly undead French, and who knows what other kind of Frenchish or Frenchified stuff will turn up!

So kick back, grab some French fries, or French onion soup, or perhaps some haute French cuisine, and enjoy the ride!

Note, I shall be testing the new Mobile Minion Posting Device on all poor unfortunate challengers to submit after 1130 PST. Due to the wonkiness of said newfangled electronic claptrap, scores may not update until Sunday.