From Curt: Moonstone Cultists - Gwendoline, Kavanagh, Brother Daniel and Loubard (52 Points)

Hi All!

Similar to some of you, I'm in the midst of several things all at once, madly trying to keep some focus, all the while enjoying all the excellent Challenge entries. Notwithstanding fits of squirrelness, I've managed to get these Moonstone figures to a point where I could submit them as a group. I've completed a couple Moonstone characters already, but I wanted to get an actual group of them done up to enjoy in upcoming games, and to count for a proper Squirrel Point.

First up is Gwendoline, a Faerie priestess, allied to the Cultist faction. Hey, everyone loves a cultists, right? Well, I have four for you today, so lots of eldritch creepiness to go around.

Funny, I already have a decent sized troupe of faeries in my collection, but not one of them can heal. This is the problem with picking figures for their 'looks cool factor', without considering their actual capabilities on the tabletop. So, Gwendoline,  with her Rejuvenate spell, is a very welcome addition to the cultist faction. This will allow the little winged rascals to take some hits with some hope of getting healed. She also has a few other tricks up her sleeve, such as Scry and Ethereal Allure, which can subtly assist her allies as well.

I had a lot of fun working on her flowered hair and wings. 

She's a lovely, tremendously detailed figure, with a few tiny parts that had to be glued just-so. While working on her, muttering curses under my breath, I couldn't help but think that the relative complexity of some of these models may limit Moonstone as purely a boutique 'advanced hobbyist' game. I couldn't imagine being new to the hobby and having to work with some of these models, both in their assembly and painting. Certainly they are exquisite, but they're often very intricate and quite demanding. 

Next we have Loubard, a giant cultist with a big, freakin' censer for him to swing, wallop and entangle his opponents. 

This guy can be an absolute beast in combat, especially if he's paired up with spellcasters, like the Witches, who can jack-up his abilities and potentially trigger multiple attacks. Fun!

I love his expansive belly and oh-so delicate pinkies.

Then we have relatively diminutive Brother Daniel, a rather demented, but optimistic cultist cleric. 

Dux, doesn't he look a bit like Paul?

He's a great support character, who's special abilities provide healing and additional movement for friendly models.

Daniel's figure is wonderfully whacky. I especially like his unabashed skipping, all the while holding his 'The End is Nigh!' placard. Such a wonderful weirdo.

Finally, we have Kavanagh, the rather nefarious Jongler cultist.

Again, another very characterful model. Rather a creepy little bugger, but I like him.

Kavanagh is a great disruption character, especially with his Juggling Fate and Butterfingers abilities.

I had an interesting painting challenge with him, trying to mimic creepy-clown-makeup TM, with just a trace of his underlying skin tone peeking through the white makeup in a few spots. I decided to work from the base layer up, with a fully painted face that I varnished. I then held my breath as I mostly covered it with successive layers of thinned grey paint using light blotting, which removed in spots with spirits. This required a leap of faith from me as I was concerned I'd botch the job, but the effect came off alright, I think.

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As to points, Kavanagh is a 28mm figure, Gwendoline and Brother Daniel are both 40mm, and the hulking-but-delicate bruiser, Loubard, is 54mm - making that a total of 29 base points. This will be enough to give me a Squirrel Point. Eaaxcellent. 

I'll also use Gwendoline as my ticket on Sarah's Star Yacht to take me to my next stop, the Imperial planet Corsucant. That will give me another 20 bonus points. So, 49 points total.

Another letter to add to the Alphabet Soup Challenge - 'C' is for 'Cultists'. Nine down.

Aaand, these four Moonstone models will give me enough to check off a fifth entry on my Challenge Project List. Almost half way there!

1. French Indochina
2. 10mm Fantasy
3. Moonstone
4. Malta
5. Italian Wars
6. Sisters of Battle
7. 28mm Napoleonics
8. Spanish Civil War
9. 28mm Modern
10. 20mm WWII
11. Retreat from Moscow
12. Dungeon Crawl

Thanks for dropping in for a look folks! Have a great day!

- Curt

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Brilliant brushwork as ever dude - these are the fantastic sculpts of Canadian public health experts Moonstone cultists, brilliantly capturing the unique look and feel - and projecting that neat setting - for a game that has so nicely caught your interest! 

The work on that clown face sounds tricky as hell, certainly beyond my skills, but I hope you are pleased with the results, it looks fabulous. Well done all around! Assembling that "Gwendoline" models looks like it was a massive pain in the #ss as well - some of those flowers? Wow! I can imagine you created some inventive new incantations while muttering to yourself. I am awarding a couple extra points for that clown face, and the general trickniness of these figures, combined with fine execution!

On to further "squirrelness"!

GregB