From Jez Todd - Late Persian Part 2 - Infantry (150 points) v2

Dear All

Feels great to post these for the challenge and have another new Basic Impetus army ticked off and ready for action. I have five bases of infantry for the Late Persian army to go with the cavalry posted earlier.

First up are the mercenary Greek infantry. Here in the Basic Impetus army list I opted to have two units of hoplites. These are Wargames Foundry figures. I found these nice and simple to paint up, I wanted to have a fairly heavy look on the base and each unit has nine figures.

After this I have a unit of light infantry and here went for Thracian lights

Finally I have native Persian, just two units of skirmishers. I painted these to match the cavalry units. 

Finally just posting a shot of the whole army in its box. 

Just nine units in this Basic Impetus army - not sure how they will fare. There are some decent cavalry units and the Greek hoplites should be quite strong. My brother is painting Classical Indian and not looking forward to facing a combination of Elephants and Chariots with longbow shooter supports! 

Anyway this should be 26 foot so 130 points. 

Cheers Jez

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Hey Jez,

Something went awry when I was scoring this one, it appears to have been posted while I was working on it and ended up further back in time! But I've copied it and hopefully I can post it without incident.

 Good to see the rest of the Great King's forces, Jez - that's a hefty 130 points for starters, but there's the little matter of the painted shields and the Persian textiles, so I am in an expansive mood and will bestow a further 20 points upon you.

...for I am a generous God.

Note the historically accurate portrayal there - no elaborately-curled beard, no sirree; Persepolis was one big piercing party.

So that's 148 points for you Jez, nicely done!

Ev

From TeemuL: Highborn of Hammerhal (50 points)

Ten High Elf Spearmen, oldies painted for Age of Sigmar as defenders of city of Hammerhal.

Close-up with eyes

The one without the helmet is an old Grenadier A754, he acts as a champion. There are two metal High Elfs from Citadel, year 1987. Last 7 are those plastic ones from 1992 or something. One of them had broken spear, which I replaced with another spear and made him a standard bearer. I kept thinking about the standard, should I use some plastic or metal, but I just kept thinking, not doing. Once the painting was complete, I started going through my bitz box (finally). I didn't find anything appropriate until I found the banner there. It is an old sticker from the 1990s I believe. It was High Elf banner, it was correct color and so on, so I sticked it. It was a bit tricky to fold, since it has a pointed end, but it is ok. I touched it a bit with blue to cover up white marks coming from years of storage and I painted the white symbol gold - I don't expect any points of this, though.

They are not painted bright white as some one might expect (or how I painted that one similar guy earlier this Challenge), but rather dark. It is not the bright and light Old World anymore, it is grim Realm of Fire in Age of Sigmar. Gold and Blue are the colors of Hammerhal (which has specific rules in excellent Firestorm campaign box), so I used them (like 2 Stormcast Eternals earlier this Challenge). Heayy Druchii Violet wash and some drybrushing and they look like they mean business. Lavalike base, Martian Ironearth Texture paint from Citadel over dark yellow paint, ties them nicely to their realm. Happy with the result, looking forward to add more Legacy stuff to my Hammerhal army in the future.

A bit more light

10 high elves, 5 points each, total 50 points.

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O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 
                And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
         O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
                The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 

 - Tennyson, 'The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls'

A splendid regiment, and one which put me in mind of Tennyson's verse almost immediately. Terrific work on these guys! That's 50 points for you, Teemu, keep 'em coming!

Ev

From TeemuL: Plagueburst Crawler (20 points)

Some heavy firepower for my Guards of Morr.

Plagueburst Crawler by Games Workshop, painted in similar colors and style as all my Death Guard models in this challenge.

It already did see some action last Sunday, killing Black Legion cultists and opening Black Legion Chaos Space Marine power armors like butter.

28mm vehicle gives me another 15 points.

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Guess again, Teemu - 28mm vehicles are a big 20 points this year!

Great work on this most slimy of SP gun rigs, it's repulsive! And I mean that in the nicest possible way...

So 20 points for you, and it's on to your second entry for the week!

Ev

From Curt: 40K Penitent Engine (20 points)

Hi Folks!

Just a brief entry from me today. This time out we have a Penitent Engine from the 40K universe.

Taking a dip into the GrimDark, penitent engines are mechanical constructs piloted by super-bad sinners serving penance for some particularly heinous crime (team-killing in Fortnight, refusing to signal when changing lanes, not picking up after their dogs, nasty things like that). Upon sentencing they are basically grafted into what equates to a dreadnought chassis and then injected with all manner of psychotropic drugs and pain inhibitors. After a quick buff and a shine they are then pointed at the enemy and released. Weee!! Death and Destruction ensues. Actually, death in combat is the only way getting out of this gig, but thankfully that usually comes along pretty quickly.  As you can imagine recidivism is pretty low in the Dark Imperium of Mankind....

This model is not an official Penitent Engine (Gasp! I know, Heresy in of itself.), but rather a nicely crafted proxy from the talented folks over at Wargames Exclusive. It's an all resin kit which went together like a breeze. It came with the option of a heavy stubber for the pintle weapon, but that seemed a little out of character especially when you can have a huge honkin' flame thrower instead.

As for points, it's a fairly big kit measuring in at about 80mm tall, so I think something in the 15-20 point range would probably be fitting, but I leave it to our sage minion to adjudicate.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Curt
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Other sins which will get you banged up in a Penitent Engine include;

• coughing loudly during the opening bars of Vaughan-Williams' 'The Lark Ascending' (and I'm looking at you, Sydney Symphony Orchestra matinee audience... some wounds never heal),
• using Comic Sans unironically,
• using Comic Sans at all, and
• square dancing in a round house.

Well, Curt, it's a formidable piece of kit, and you've done a terrific job with the painting and basing. It's more or less a naked Dreadnought, really... 

As it's around 80mm tall with a pilot (of sorts), let's call it a 28mm vehicle and go with 20 points. Hell, that's my going rate for Dreadnoughts (No Ken, not the battleships, sorry mate), so I'll score this the same way. 

Well done, Sir!

Ev

From MikeF - Warhammer 30k Inferallti Hussars Rhino (20 points)

I'm working to complete my first unit for my Inferallti Hussars Imperial Militia army for 30k. The Hussars are briefly mentioned in the book Praetorian of Dorn by John French and are are described as having Crimson and White carapace armor and being members of the "Old Hundred" - Regiments that served the Emperor during the Unification Wars. They're actually quite hapless in the book and fall victim to one of the oldest security mistakes a guard can make. The exchange goes something like this:
Guard: "Hey, you can't go in there!"
Baddy: Don't talk to me like that, don't you know who I am? You're commander won't be happy once he hears of this!"
Guard: "Sorry, my mistake. Please proceed."

Hopefully my army fares better on the table.
Here is a Rhino transport for one of the squads that I hope to have finished for next week.

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Lovely bit of work with the red armour on this vehicle, Mike - it's a corker!

So the Inferallti Hussars will have a quality ride - at least until they give the keys to the first enemy officer who comes up and asks for them in a loud voice...

20 points for this mighty brick of a vehicle, well done!

Ev

Brendon W - Wednesday Wars with Mongols, Arabs and a Norman (70 points)

This weeks episode contains.... 7 x 28mm on foot, 1 x 28mm Cavalry and, 2 nasty War Machines. All of these except the Norman I actually built during the Challenge...GASP! The War Machines are one of very few small purchases I have made recently. Which is kind of good as I work my way through the unpainted hordes. Anyway...on with the show.

Group shot for this weeks Wednesday club team photo.

Three more Arabs on foot to increase my collection. This time though some experimentation with the bodies. The middle one has the body from a Gripping Beast Dark Ages kit and your right is a body from a FireForge kit. Seemed to work OK. The FireForge scale leather looks suitable for a Fantasy setting but perhaps a little bit of sculpting for some baggy pants would be better for the Arab look to match the rest. Shields are hand painted.

Next in the Wednesday warrior line up is this Norman from Conquest Games. A little bit of inspiration from the Beer and Bacon army to inspire the colours on the hand painted shield. Swords can become heavy so he has his one casually down as he look to his right to give his aching shoulder a little relief.

Among my Sprue horde I could not locate (after a quick search) the larger shields this kit comes with so he has a slightly smaller one. The smaller ones have a boss while the big ones do not. 

Another mix and match with these Mongol War Machine crew. Heads and one arm from FireForge Mongol kits and Bodies from Gripping Beast Dark Ages. The metal staffs are for cranking the War Machine but I could make an arrow head for them instead.

Last but not least the weapons of war for the Mongol Crew above. A pair of nasty Bolt Throwers. These metal machines are a Mantic product fronted with plastic shields from FireForge. Been a long time since I built a metal kit like this and .....wow...lots of filling etc. 

These are actually from the Goblin range but I have re-purposed them for a different army. They are mounted on 50mm square bases. Crew for these machines have no function in 'Kings of War' rules. They are really just decoration but I wouldn't have these weapons without a crew. Kept it minimal though with only two crew each. Just extra efficient and well trained I guess. 

Cheers from Brendon

PS. Tunes Challenge....SLAYER

I am seeing them soon all the way down in Melbourne on their last World Tour. So looking forward to that. I also listened to the more chilled ZAKK WYLDE, 'Book of Shadows II', also chilled out with THE SWORD, 'Used Future'. I need to listen again to TENGGER CAVALRY...Mongol Folk Metal.

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"Mongol Folk Metal"? There had better be throat singing to go with those awesome morin khuur riffs...

😁

So, let's see... 10 for the Norman, 20 for the two ballista thingies (and a pip for their splendid basing), and 35 for the footmen (plus 4 extra for the shield painting) - that's 70 points! You're on fire, mate!

Ev

From StuartL - Samurai (26 points)

A second entry for this week, in this case a group of samurai-era figures from the Perrys and some terrain from Sarissa Precision.

These figures were originally intended for the Water Feature bonus round along with some water-filled rice fields. Sadly some evil kappa decided to curse my efforts and my rice fields were rendered useless. So, standing firmly on dry land, I have 2 samurai, a warrior monk and a travelling priest. Behind them stand two storage barns. The barns were lifted up off the ground to help dry out the harvest and to help keep pests away.

Samurai are one of those forces that look magnificent when you field a fully painted army of them. They are also one of those forces that make you question your life choices. The Perry's don't help matters by sculpting their figures so well. So many small details, so very very many.

The samurai are both sporting 'sashimono' (the small flags on their backs), these are painted with a small black circle in the top half. This symbol is a simplified version of their clan's 'mon'. In this case, the black circle denotes the Kuroda clan. The Kuroda clan served the Toyotomi clan during their invasion of Korea and then later took the side of the Tokugawa during the battle of Sekigahara.

Sashimono were used to identify friendly troops in combat, since armies during the 'Sengokujidai' (warring states period) very rarely wore uniforms. They were usually only worn by melee troops, being quite heavy and liable to blow about in the wind, they made firing a ranged weapon more difficult.

These figures will all probably be used for Ronin, as and when I get round to playing it again.

And to make the life of my assigned minion a little easier, I have included a tape measure to provide some size information for the barns. They are 6" wide in total, 3" deep and 4" tall at the highest point, so about 1/4 of the standard 6x6x6 cube.

By my estimates, that comes to 4x 28mm figures for 20 points, plus 5 more of 1/4 of a cube, for a total of 25 points and 1 more to my squirrel tally.
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Now this is how to get on the good side of a minion, always give the measurements. Thank you, Stuart!

Your quarter-cubesworth and the four figures nets you 25 points, plus an extra for the mon on the two samurai.

Well played Stuart - you certainly aren't letting the rice grass grow beneath your feet!

Ev

From StuartL - Crusaders and... (234 points)

Following on from last week's theme of crusaders, I present... some crusaders. Over the past few weeks I have been slowly grinding through this pile of 40 miniatures in the hope of getting them done by the end of the month. When I started the challenge, this was my second big group of figures that I wanted to get done, so I am feeling pretty pleased with myself.

First of all, a group of 8 archers. All of the figures are from Fireforge games and come from their archer set, which uses exactly the same bodies as their foot sergeants set. Some of the poses are a little odd, but overall, I think they're OK.

Providing some more ranged support we have 8 crossbowmen. The bodies come in three types, quilted leather, scale mail or a tabard. To keep things simple, I painted up all of each body type the same way. After that, I varied the colours on their tunics, leggings and any other visible bits of clothing. As with my Bretons that I painted up earlier in the challenge, I stuck to three colours on my palette to give some variety without breaking up the uniformity of the models. 

To lead the way in any assault, I painted up 8 guys with a variety of mean looking hand weapons. All of the shields are hand painted, with a fair bit of variation between them. I am not sure what the shields of holy order footmen should look like, so I went with plain black and a red cross for the majority. Some of them got some extra embellishment, but they all look like they are from the same group.

And finally, for the main body of the force, 16 spearmen. One of the models carries a horn borrowed from the Gripping Beast Dark Age Warrior boxed set. Again, all of the models have hand painted shields following the red cross motif.

And to finish, a group shot of all 40 guys. Fireforge's minis offer a fair level of detail and aren't bad for their price. They also work nicely with Gripping Beast and some of Warlord's figures, so I plan on kit bashing some figures from the three makers at some stage in the future. 

And, quite for gno reason, here are some Gnolls.

These figures are both from the Reaper Bones range. I have a bunch of figures having backed all of the Bones Kickstarters so far. I have had these kicking around my painting area for ages, but have never been able to figure out what to do with them until now. My painting style isn't great, but it is pretty involved. Everything gets painted in distinct colours, washed, key points get highlighted etc. With these figures I decided to try something new. The models were painted from top to bottom in Vallejo Chocolate Brown. Once that was dry, I drybrushed on a lighter shade for the fur, a deep red for the cloth, a few other colours for the assorted gear and grey for the weapons and armour. I didn't pay too much attention to detail and just let the drybrush hit everything fairly roughly. Once it was done, I gave it all a full wash of brown and left it.

The end result isn't bad, given that I spent about 30 minutes total on both figures. I wouldn't use it for historical figures, but for dirty looking monstrous barbarian types it will do the job. Given that my RPG group isn't picky about the models they use, I think this may speed up my work on prepping more minis for those games.

Anyway, that's it for this entry.

So, 42x 28mm figures should net me a nice little 210 points I believe. No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. (I claimed my RPG mini point in my first post and my crusader point last week). 

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Gnu Gnolls! Oh Gno! And more Crusaders! 

Lovely work, Stuart! I'll give you 210 points as a start, but you also get an extra 24 points for those hand-painted shields. You're a machine this week! Now let's find out what lurks at the end of that ellipsis...

Ev

From Millsy: Scatter Terrain (40 points)

Hi All,

Firstly, apologies for the lack of comments on your posts, work and real life have been mad busy for a couple of weeks. That also explains why I have not been posting too.

This week I've got a range of scatter terrain items. These have been hanging around for anywhere between just a few weeks and a couple of years. I decided I'd had enough of them lurking in corners and wanted some simple stuff to work on so dived in.

First up some MDF and coloured perspex scf-fi barriers I won as a prize on a bonus round a couple of challenges back. Really nice kit and easy to assemble and paint. Inside are some shipping containers I scratch built from MDF hex bases and plastic pipe. I'll make some more of these I think with biohazard markings and paint them white or green. Any other suggestions?

All the signs and labels were made up in Adobe Indesign. The font is Eurostile Bold Extended, the Grand Poobah of Sci-fi Fonts.

Next up some concrete pipe piles scratch built from plastic tube and cotton reels, some MDF walls and some rubble piles.

Some scratch built stacks of lumber and a kids toy cable drum.

And finally the Mantic Games Dungeon Debris set. Really good value, lovely detail and perfect for all manner of things beyond stocking dungeons.

Roughly two cubes worth of stuff so 40 more points on the tally.

Cheers,
Millsy
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As I always say, I do love me a bit of terrain!

This is a lovely collection of those bits and bobs we all need at some point in a skirmish game or RPG, but all too often have to make do with a late substitution of small household items (see also the famous Battle of the Tinned Tuna and Children's Wooden Blocks); in short, an essential part of the gamer's toolkit. I look forward to seeing them on the tabletop in the near future! 

40 points for you, well done!

Ev