From MattK: He did what now? Sisters of Battle and Something for Necromunda for Snowlords Peak (415 Points)

Well, here we are at long last. The challenge given to me by the Snow lord was "Well, I see that you've become enthused with both Necromunda and the new Sisters of Battle releases, so how about something that includes one of these?" In my infinite wisdom, with the end of the challenge approaching and the everlooming threat of "show season" I decided it was in my best interest to take on the challenge head on and agree to do both!

First up some of the amazing new plastic Seraphim from the Sisters of Battle box set. I'm not at all a fan of the clear plastic stands that came with the kit so I picked up some of these awesome 3d printable smoke bases from Deadly Print Studios. The file was reasonably priced and easy to print with the whole batch of five printing up in a bout 2 hours.

Now for the Necromunda half of the challenge. When Mr. Lord presented me with the challenge he proposed it as "something for Necromunda, another gang or a terrain piece"

I was going to paint up my Escher gang, but I wasn't happy with the test figure. I built my Corpse Grinder Cults but wanted to take my time painting them. With all this in mind I decided a terrain piece was the way to go. Not one to half-ass a project though, I went with not just a terrain piece but a whole tables worth.

First of all here is all the terrain in a nice neat pile. The terrain I went with was the excellent Death Ray Designs Armageddon Table Bundle set I impulse bought myself a little while ago. This project is the main reason I haven't posted much in the last couple weeks. A week or so of assembly, a few days of priming, a few hours here and there of weathering and detailing.

The paint jobs are pretty simple and there will be a bit of a tutorial on how I did them as well as an in depth review of the terrain coming to my Blog soonish but, spoiler alert, I absolutely love this stuff. In particular though, this bundle was reasonably priced and covers a 4 x 4 foot table pretty well as you'll see later in the post.

Figuring out the points however is proving to be quite difficult. As a result here are the points I've come up with, feel free to modify accordingly.

The set comes with 4 of these large hex platforms that measure in at approximately 10x 9 x 4 inches. which comes in at 360 cubic inches. A terrain cube is 216 inches. For simplicity sake, i've rounded down to 1.5 cubes worth each making the 4 of them worth 120 points.

There are also 2 small hex platforms that measure 7 x 6 x 4 the 2 of which total out to 336 cubic inches so call that another cube and a half for 30 points.

Next up there are all the bridges that come in the kit. There is a whole pile of these which fills a 10 x 6 x 4 in cube. Well call this one more cube for an additional 20 points.

The kit comes with 4 shipping containers as well as 20 barricades. The 4 crates fill a 5 x 5 x 5 inch cube so between the crates and barricades I figure thats another cube for 20 points.

The main focal point of the kit in my opinion are these refinery towers, of which there are 4. These towers are 13 x 7 x 6 which is approximately 2 cubes. 160 points in total

Finally the kit comes with a bunch of ladders and a staircase, but with the points from everything else it seems unfair to even count these as the only fill a 6 x 6 x 1 inch cube.

So here we are at the end of it all. The set fills out a nice 4 x 4 table and I am beyond excited to finally play necromunda on it later this month.

So, points as follows
5 x 28mm Sisters at 25 points
4 x big hex platforms at 120 points
2 x small hex platform at 30 points
Bridges for 20 points
Crates, barricades, ladders for 20 points
4 x Refinery towers for 160 points

All for a grand total today of 375 points. Completing my Snowlords challenge as well as reaching my goal of 1000 points just in the nick of time.

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Wow, another Snow Lord's Peak points bomb - fantastic stuff Matt!

Your Seraphim are terrific and I especially like those 3D flight bases you've mounted them on. I'm not a big fan of the clear flight stands as well and did something similar with tree armatures with mine many years ago. I find it's little details like this that really make an army uniquely 'yours'. Wonderful.

But I must say the star of the submission has to be this stonking table-groaning schwack of terrain, wow! I can see why you've been off the radar for a few weeks - this is an amazing amount of work. I really like the modular nature of the entire setup, especially the hexagonal platforms paired with those impressive towers. Brilliant work, Matt.

As too points, your math looks good, but you forgot the 30 point Challenge bonus and, in addition, I'm giving you another 10 for the bespoke Seraphim bases and overall effort. Congratulations on bashing through your point's target in style!

For your reward I'm happy to give you Sebastian's excellent Sci-Fi WRNS (I think she'll make a great upper-hive Necromunda character).

Again, brilliant work on the Seraphim and the terrain, Matt, and a great response to the SLP Challenge.

-Curt

From TeemuL: Dwarfing the Peak (45 points)

"Some old dwarfs, you said? Well, here you are."

"Yeah, not that many..."

"It seems we are a bit late, most of the dwarfs have already left, when the earlier treasures were taken off."

"But surely there still is a treasure for us?"

So here are some Oldhammer dwarfs, as requested. They are Norse Dwarfs from 1987. I was going to paint more, but then realized, that I don't have proper shields for those old ones (shields with hole in the middle), only the newer ones. So I picked up these three, which don't have shields at all - clever.

I guess three haven't been dwarfs with bows in the Warhammer in decades, only crossbows and black powder nonsense. I don't know what I will do with these (well I do, they end up on the shelf with others), but I guess they could be used as fillers in other groups. May be as a support troops on the back row... The third one might be one of the drunken dwarfs, which were published at one point.

But in the end these were quite a perfect group, I usually painted my Oldhammers in groups of 1-5, so this fits nicely there. Of course I used to paint them with lots of time and effort, now I decided to try how well the Contrast painted dwarfs blend in to the existing group. Not that bad, although my existing dwarfs might be a bit more darker and colorful, or more highly pigmented. Not really know the technical terms. The horns on the helmet are painted traditionally. And the stuff on the bases is sand, not sawdust.

So a small offering, but I was bit late, got delayed during the journey and I knew it the beginning that installing floor panels and wallpapers would take considerable amount of my hobby time during this winter. Three 28mm dwarfs for 15 points and 30 points for the Challenge (even though this was not much of a Challenge in the end, very quickly done). So Sir Snowlord, will you accept these as an exchange for a treasure?

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Why yes, Teemu, these will do quite well. Gee, I really enjoy seeing these old Warhammer models getting the attention they deserve. It makes me nostalgic for the days when your regiments were nothing but delivery systems for your pimped-out commanders - 'HeroHammer' indeed. You're right Teemu, you don't often see Dwarfs with bows these days, which is further testimony to their honoured vintage. I like that you made them vibrant red - you won't misplace those, even when you're blind drunk! I also really like the horned helmet on their axe-wielding cousin. He obviously has a lot to say and the will to say it!

As to your prize I'm delighted to award you with Martin's excellent Sunorodo, the wandering samurai lord.

Great work and thanks for taking the Snow Lord's Challenge, Teemu!

-Curt

AdamC: Sanders Sand Dunes Irish Piquettes (72 points)

Just in time (or perhaps a little late) for Saint Patrick’s Day the Irish Piquet’s arrive at Sanders’ Sand Dune. In 1745 the French king send a force of troops from the Irish brigade to aid the Bonnie Prince Charles.  Rather than risk any full regiment on this endeavor a selection of volunteers from each regiment to form a single force (each regiment sending the equivalent of a company). These volunteers were known as Piquets and was typical French approach to providing troops for risky operations.  All of the Irish Regiments provided volunteers but only three made it to Scotland in the initial wave.

Regiment Dillon

Regiment Lally

Regiment Rooth.

The extra flags help indicate it’s a mix of units it’s a little bigger then works but will in most cases probably operate as three small units.

Points should be 36 for the figures at 2 points per 15mm man the three units come to 18 figures. There might possibly be some additional points for the hand painted flags  Sanders Sand Dunes adds another 30 Points for 66 points.

Loving the flags Adam, worth a bonus I think

Martin

from RayR - Poacher & Son and Poacher & Son 15pts

Back to more Donnybrook time I'm afraid.

Also back with our ol' pal Col Bill and his great range of 17th Century figures.

Here we have Poacher Martin and his son Bob!

They can be found here, for the slim price of £3!!

These can and will be used in my giant Donnybrook adventure.

Our next Poacher & Son and England best poachers

Mr Fox and his boy Dave.

These can be found at Col Bill's or from the original manufacturer Warbases.

Martin and gang make some excellent animals.

Mr Fox can be found here. for £2!

For the points I'd hazard a guess at 15 for the lot?

Love these figures Ray. Nice to be named and the sly Dave will be pleased as well. I expect the poacher will be sitting on a shelf for years waiting for the next game of Donnybrook. Will give him chance to practice his shooting.

Martin

From NoelW: Romans and their enemies: (410 points)

Continuing the rapid completion of outstanding units for my Punic project, firstly we have some Republican Romans:

I believe these are Agema figures, a range which is perhaps no longer in production. I find them somewhat strange figures. They're quite delicately sculpted, with good natural proportions, meaning that they're slighter than the majority of wargames figures, and closer to 25mm than 28mm. They could be quite beautiful. Except that the design seems to lead to some very, very strange poses - I think because the positioning of the neck is not worked out well, so the heads generally sit at quite peculiar angles.

You might ask why I've built them like this. Answer: I bought them second-hand, as part of a miscellaneous Punic collection, ready assembled. I thought about breaking them up and reassembling them more aesthetically, but it seems a lot of trouble for relatively little benefit, so I decided instead I'd give them a very simple paint job to use them in my army until I've some more attractive replacements. They'll probably be used as Triarii, even though only about a quarter have the long spear typical of that rank. As the Triarii often did not make it into battle, they'll perhaps stand as placeholders rather than active figures much of the time.

Against the Romans, Carthage will pitch her many allies. Amongst these are the Spanish:

These nine figures came from the same purchase. I think most of them are Wargames Foundry, judging by the style, but a couple seem to come from a different manufacturer, as far as I can tell. I enjoyed painting these, especially trying to come up with nine different geometric shield designs using a combination of only three colours.

Fighting for either side could be the Numidians:

I've always liked the notion of the Numidian light cavalry, since my very first conversions of Airfix Indians, one of my favourite childhood sets. I've no idea who made these models, though.

Next, Celts. These are 26 Warlord models, plus one Wargames Foundry figure. The Warlord figures are very dynamic, but it's difficult to group them together into units because of the crouching poses and splayed arms. I've tried to cram them together for the photo, but will need to spread them differently in an actual game. Most of the shields are hand-painted, some more successfully than others. A few use the Warlord decals, which are all nice designs, but don't fit too exactly.

And finally, to lead the Celts:

I don't think Celtic chariots figured in the Punic Wars. As far as I know (though my knowledge is, as usual, pretty limited) the chariot was only used in Britain. As my Celts plan to resist the Roman invader of Albion, too, this will probably be Caractacus - but I may also decided to stretch history a little and give him a role in Hannibal's army.

Scoring: If I understand Tamsin's ruling correctly, a chariot scores 20 as a vehicle, plus crew (10) and horses (10), making 40 pts
4 cavalry: 40 pts
27 Celts + 30 Romans + 9 Iberians: 66 x 5 = 330 pts
TOTAL: 410 pts


from DaveD ... a kaboom for Noel that takes him through the 4000 points mark - - your in danger of making Martin the bridesmaid again... I do like the chariot i must say 

from RayR - 25mm Ladies of the night - 12 points

Once again these were purchased quite some time ago, I think they're Redoubt Enterprises figures

but can't find them on their website?

Anyway, here we have 2 ladies of the night, one in the pink fluttering her eyes at some young chap and the other..........well you know???

Oooo cheeky!

10 points for the ladies?

and a few for the bed and base???

From DaveD .. a couple of fine looking "ladies" there Ray .. now exactly what scenario were you thinking here ... 

From AlexK: More peninsular war goodies (145 points)

So its final push time, time to tie up the loose ends and get the final points to finish without the horrible feeling of failure hanging over me for the next nine months (too dramatic!??). Now I have quite a gap between posts, but for once this doesn't mean I haven't been painting rather that due to scenario specific terrain items, I've been scratch building terrain and sticking my fingers to everything in sight whilst doing so. Now I should have another post later in the week with those terrain pieces, but I come before you with what was my main aim for this challenge in this post and that's a whole bunch of British Peninsular Napoleonic's.

So first up we have 8 Light Dragoons and wow!, were these time consuming. They are 28mm Perry's plastic and are really nice, well sculpted and now they are finished I won't be painting anymore anytime soon. The problem stems from the  fact that every time you think your done, you notice that they've sculpted another little detail on and you need to go round and paint it. There were 3 separate occasions when I thought I was done, first I forgot to finish the carbines (so my fault really), secondly I had to go back and do the regimental piping on the the saddle roll and then finally I had to go round putting the metal studs on the Tarleton (best hat ever), but now they're are done I really like them and I'm pretty sure they're going to be my favourite unit.

Secondly I have a level 1 leader, which is just the sergeant from the line infantry box, but after the cavalry he was a welcome distraction.

Finally from the Napoleonic's side we have another 8 more line infantry again from Perry's, these will give me a good solid base for my 'Sharp's Practice' force. I might possibly get another 8 done before the close of play, but I'm not holding my breath.

Talking of scenario specific painting my final piece for this post is a 0.30 cal machine gun team with a couple of extra crew. The terrain and troops are for playing through the TooFatLardies Pint Size Campaign "Let's go 29". The standard U.S platoon is a bit light on fire power so a 0.30 cal should add a bit of beef to the line up.....hopefully.

Points wise I think it is,

8 x 10 for the Dragoons = 80

11 x 5 for the line infantry, sergeant and 2 U.S troops = 55

1 x 10 for the 0.30 cal = 10

so a 145 all told.

From DaveD - phew its been a day of days in the day job!  Nice job Alex - i do like to see the cavalry with fancy hats!