From TeemuL: Outer Ring [Istvaan V] [Solaris] [Arda] [Caprica] [Death Star] (125 points)

Note to minions: I know it is free fire time, but I really like to have this entry to be posted on Wednesday, you'll understand. Yes, Tamsin, I know you are very efficient, but please leave this one for Wednesday. :)

After a quick visit to Vogspehere, we'll climb back to the Outer Ring, walk through the already visited Klendathu and Glorantha and arrive to...

Istvaan V, something for betrayal, howabout a Ringwraith from Middle-Earth, one of them is even named as Betrayer by Games Workshop for their excellent game Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. Once a king of men, then corrupted by power and Dark Lord, he betrayed his people (willingly or unwillingly).

Babylon 5 and Vulcan are familiar ground, so we move on to...

Solaris, which calls for something "Deception, Illusion". Ringwraiths are corporeal creatures, quite invisible, but often wearing black cloaks to give them form. When wearing the One Ring, they can be seen as they perhaps used to be on earlier days as King of Men. That is of course an illusion, because in "reality" they are invisible. We can of course speculate which is illusion and which is reality, but that could be very deceptive...

Well, we move on and arrive to...

Arda, something Tolkeinesque is asked for an I present one of the Ringwraiths in Twilight mode. Ringwraiths are creature of Middle Earth, created by Tolkien, so I suppose they fit the Tolkeinesque requirement, or at least the Fantasy.

Lots of these Ringwraiths here on the Outer Ring, we quickly depart and jump to...

Caprica, where we are not ambushed by invisible corporeal creatures, but those creatures are doomed to serve their Dark Lord indefinitely (or at least until the One Ring (not related to Outer Ring) is destroyed. Doomed to serve and be slave, they can be banished, but their spirits will stay and they will continue their grim service.

We leave the doomed one and move on to...

Death Star, sound like a home of big guy in black or bunch of recruits in white, but actually it is just hubris. I'm not a native in English, so I had to do some research on that. From wikipedia,  Hubris: describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. 

To me, that fits most of the bad guys in literature and movies, but right now it screams Witch King of Angmar, overconfident and arrogant minion of the Sauron saying "You fool. No man can kill me. Die now." mere seconds before killed by a woman and a hobbit. Arrogant, overconfident, so hubris.

In the movies these are kind of a reversed black-and-white and I tried to do something similar, but more colourful. So I started from white, drybrushed with green, blues and black to get the strange and disturbing look, that something is not right. The colour transitions looked good, but from white to green the leap was too much. I should have started from off white, I guess, but it was too late. I decided to try to add some yellow ink to the white parts to create an effect of transition from white to yellow to green. It helped a lot, but I'm still not 100% satisfied. Of course they don't look "right", but they shouldn't look right, they are corporeal creatures, which you only see when under magical influence (the Ring), so may be they are right. I don't know. They are not exactly what I was aiming for, but at least they look different than my barrowwights (which is good, because these are not basically ghosts) and different to my Army of Dead (which is again good, because these are different kind of magic ghosts). They could be neater, I admit that, being nice metal sculpts, very powerful creatures in the game, they should look more finished, but that would mean to start all over again. I'll get a new set from the next MTO... :)

There are only 3 different sculpts, but I was able to make some variations, since parts of the crowns were separate pieces.

That is 5 metal miniatures by Games Workshop in 28mm scale, 5 points each so total of 25 points. Planet bonuses from Istvaan V, Solaris, Arda, Caprica and Death Star totals to 100 so 125 points. Add one squirrel for MESBG Army of Mordor. I could have done something else, but that would not have been very Wednesday-way to put it, right? This should see me crash my points target, too.

My personal Squirrel count: 16

• 20mm Napoleonic
• 28mm Sludge
• 28mm Pulp
• 28mm Warhammer 40000 Xenos
• 28mm General (including Gloranthan) Fantasy
• 1:300 Cruel Seas
• 6mm Epic Imperial Fists
• 28mm ADD Boardgame
• 28mm Runewars Waiqar
• 28mm Blood Bowl
• 28mm Simians
• 15mm Mid War Germans
• 28mm Age of Sigmar Sylvaneths
• 28mm Warhammer 40000 Imperium
• 28mm Warhammer Fantasy Orcs & Goblins
• 28mm Lord of the Rings Mordor

Really? Claiming five planets from five very similar figures? Really? That is stretching things somewhat - I think I can see why you wanted this held over for Wednesday, but as Greg has an emergency at his cabin you've got me minioning it after all!

It's definitely a stretch, but I think that you have justified the planets and might have got away with it apart from a slight hitch that you seem to have overlooked - to get from Istvaan V to Solaris would require a trip on Lady Sarah's Star Yacht and there's no female figure (or Yacht trip claim) in this post.

Tamsin

Edit to Update: I'd missed Curt's reply to a query on the Quadrant Map post saying that you can skip planets that you've already visited. Points for the other four planets have now been added.