From TashaH: Mana Faerie [Vulcan] 30 points

 

Ahhh the planet of Vulcan and all things logical and pointy-eared. Not to be confused with the town of Vulcan, Alberta, Canada - where all the streets were originally named after gods and goddesses. 

I'll confess. I'm not overly happy with my figure for this planet. She is a 3D print from Jukka Seppänen on My Mini Factory If you are considering printing this file for yourself, be wary. She is fragile. The petals of her skirt and her wings are paper thin. You have been warned! (she is sooo pretty and hard to resist)

Because of her fragile nature, I was leery of going in too much to fix the errors I made.  She will look pretty on a shelf from a distance! 

 

You can see her pointy ears peeking out from behind her beautiful blue hair, which was obtained with Talassar Blue Contrast. Her dress was accomplished by using a metallic white and metallic green wash over Shyish Purple Contrast. You can't see them, but she has cute little bloomers under her dress! 

 

I based her on an mdf flower and then glued a mirrored tile of the same shape on top. I thought it mimicked the flowers on her dress and crown nicely. I then affixed the figure to the mirror. 

This shot is with the figure held up to the light, to give you an idea how thin her wings are. They definitely mimic faerie wings and the pictures don't do justice to the shimmery effect I was able to obtain on them with a very thin metallic green wash. 

I was able to get some more painting supplies this past week. I am having so much fun with all my new things!

The points:

54 mm figure - 10 points

Planet Bonus - 20 points

Total: 30 points

Chocolate Cake Duel - 10 points

Coming soon: Registering flight plans for Lady Sarah's Space Yacht.

Wow! That is a lovely figure! And your painting looks fab.

Tamsin

From MartinC - Death Star (62 pts)

So I've arrived at the Death Star, need to keep out of the way the creepy guy with the sore throat, looks like a jobsworth.

I've bought some things of questionable design with me,

I picked up these Atlanteans on the way. They are a bit Flash Gordon but thier steam powered crabs are tooled up with machine guns and a cannon

The crabs are from Empress (I think) and the 2 Altanteans are from a location unknown

These 2 Honourable Lead Boiler Suit company Velociraptors are not a questionable design and will give a wild pack of dinosaurs to support the lizardmen

This is definitely of questionable design. It is a Were-armadillo. Which blithering idiot designed a Were-armadillo

Reaper, thats who. Saw him at a show and had to buy him

He's a big chap as well, standing 40mm at the crouch.

So scores are

2x28mm inf = 10

3x little machines, probably 5 each = 15

2 x small dinosaurs, probable 5 each again = 10

1 x 40mm Were-armadillo = 7

Death Star location = 30

total = 72

It's That Man Again! A were-armadillo? Whatever next! Super work, but the location bonuses are only 20 points, so that's 62 points total!

Tamsin

ChrisW - Nanarchists, Fenians, Martians, British oh my (383 points)

First off, I feel I may have not introduced myself all that well, so here it goes, again.

I am retired & live in Ottawa, Canada. I have a limited internet presence under the name Menelduir. I started miniature gaming sometime around 1972 when my parents brought home a book from England by Terence Wise, titled  'Introduction to Battle Gaming'.  If my parents only realized what they were doing when they gave me that book...

I should be much better at this given the almost 50 years in this hobby, but I am not, nor has retirement  significantly increased my hobby output or quality.  Yes I have a fair amount of free time (I am married & wish to stay that way so not all my time can go into my hobby) but l have always relied on games to drive production and current events have put a crimp in my gaming, no games, no production.  Now thanks to this challenge and my embracing of the Tuesday deadline I have been able to add some much needed pressure and stress to encourage me to get stuff done.

I have fed my eclectic taste in miniatures gaming by priming any metal/resin miniatures shortly after I buy them. This means that I can readily feed my random desires without the bother of prep time. 

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 Now onto today's post.

So picking up from where we left off last week, we manage to leave Skaros by way of  Sarah's yacht courtesy of two peaceful nannies enjoying a game of catch? Some may call them nanarchists, but at least the kids are entertained! (miniatures from Eureka)

 

They seemed to enjoy the company of a number of high flying Fenians. We all met up on planet Caprica, delightful place full of surprises and domes, er sorry did you say full of doom, not domes, doom, oh that not going to be good at all. ('Fenian' jump troops from Brigade games)

Brigade games

While enjoying the climate of Caprica they were surprised  by a visit from some nice Ether Marines, accompanied by their Martian allies. ('Ether marines' are Eureka & appear to be OOP)

Commander Cody

Eureka miniatures

and the Martian colonial troops (RAFM)

Oh yeah the British also brought along a couple of mighty tanks! (Spartan games)

Oh how their enemies tremble at the sight of these mighty behemoths. See how they flee as the very ground shakes around them. Who can be expected to resist these monstrosities!!!

What the ....?

Mighty machines, well they look bigger in the catalog!

Now the thing is, I seem to have gone rather green this week. The end result is that the Martians could easily be viewed as being allied with the Fenians, a sudden shift like that would see the British outnumbered and themselves ambushed. It will be handy to have that flexibility from this unit.

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So down to the points

• 100 points for 10 x 28mm cavalry
• 50 points for 10 x 28mm Fenian infantry
• 50 points for 10 x 28mm Martian colonial troops
• 10 points for the 2  Nanarchists
• 63 points for 9 x 40 mm Ether knights(see picture for size)
  
• 30 points for 2 x small 28mm tanks (lower points as they the size of a 20mm tank)
• 20 points for visiting planet Caprica
• 20 points for using Sarah's yacht (something not claimed last 2 posts!)
  

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Assuming my math and assumptions are correct that should be 343 points for 43 items.

More points if we add in the unclaimed Sarah's yacht points (+40) nudge, nudge.

This weeks tally, & view of how Fenians seem doomed

That is another great points-bomb, Chris! I think the "nanarchists" are my favourites, but I do like the cricket pads on the Aether Marines!

I've added the bonus points for two trips on Lady Sarah's Star Yacht that you had forgotten to claim before.

Tamsin

From SarahHC: Mushrooms for Moonstone! [Solaris](35 Points)

Hello Everybody!

The Star Yacht has brought me to my destination of Solaris - a planet of deception and illusion. Visitors to the planet will be enchanted by the wondrous and colourful mushrooms scattered throughout its forests.

In my mind, these mushrooms, though pretty to look at, are in reality, quite deceptive. They spew noxious hallucinogenic spores to ward off interlopers or make them more susceptible to the hungry forest creatures.

Moonstone has been regularly played in this household since summer. I hope these mushrooms will be good addition to the game table. I can only imagine that Curt will be embellishing rules to accommodate my noxious fungi. :)

These are 3D prints from Printable Scenery. As part of my 'indoctrination' into this hobby, I cleaned and primed before moving on the the painting and eventual basing, but more on that later!

I had a lot of fun with the colours and the use of Curt's Contrast paints was a boon. I had an idea in my head of mushrooms in an Alice in Wonderland/Willy Wonka world, but not Tim Burton-style, or too cartoonish, if that makes any sense.

Having fun with my paint journal.

I am really quite pleased with them. Although I can see mistakes, I have learned more about painting minis doing these than I have just watching Curt over the years. The basing process was a struggle, I hadn’t trimmed the 3D prints well enough, so the pieces wouldn’t fit, I glued one mushroom off-center on its washer base which really annoys me, and I can see the seams where the prints fit together… grrr!  Frankly, I'm lucky that I didn’t super glue my fingers together!

Curt is the designated mini-photographer, so the big, fat fingers you see are his … not mine. :)

Here is my grove of Mushrooms along with Curt's Moonstone Faeries to give a sense of scale.

As to points, these fungi take up about 3/4 of a cube, so 15 points, plus 20 for Solaris for a grand total of 35. As we are counting 'pure points' for my Chocolate Cake Challenge with Natasha, this will leave me just a little shy of the mark, so I'm hoping she came up short as well so we can dash to the finish together next week. 

Speaking of which, next week I will summon the Star Yacht to zip me across the quadrant to my next destination. I'm planning a fun female figure as a surprise for Tamsin!

See you soon!

- Sarah

And Lady S gets in her riposte in the Chocolate Cake Challenge! Those 'shrooms look simply superb!

It's great to see how you and Tasha are developing as painters.

Tamsin

From TashaH: The Sacred Well [Solaris] (25 points)

My last submission left me sitting on the lovely planet of Arda. Having taken an extra week to enjoy the scenery, it’s time to venture to further destinations.

Off to Solaris it is, a planet of deception and illusion.

This is the first piece I have created that will be used in game. To say I’m excited about that is an understatement! This Sacred Well (Artisan Guild) will form part of an upcoming Moonstone scenario. How? I have no idea. The SnowLord keeps such things very close to his chest! 

It took me a few goes at this to get it where I wanted. The grey stones surrounding the well, combined with the rocks really made me question my colour choices, as they initially just looked like a big blob of meh. (grayscale is HARD!) Adding some Talassar Blue, Shyish Purple and Warp Lightning Contrast into the rocks really brought them to life. I kept the stones primarily grey tones, with a sparing wash of burnt umber craft paint in  a few places for a bit of variation.  

I really wanted movement and the illusion of depth in the water. I utilized several tones of blues, greens and metallics to try to create a magical, deep swirling pool. 

Be careful how deeply you look into the Well. Is that something emerging from the water or merely a reflection of yourself? Wait … is that a Moonstone? Be careful if you choose to reach in… you never know what lays beneath the surface.

The points…

2” terrain piece: 5 points

Planet bonus: 20 points

Total: 25 points

Chocolate Cake Duel points: 5 (bonus points don't count towards the cake!)

Next up: A quick jaunt to Vulcan…

 

That is a lovely terrain piece, Tasha! For someone who has only just started painting miniatures you are doing very well - I suspect an art background!

Tamsin

From MartinC - Sarah's Yacht to the Death Star (60pts)

 I thought I'd make Tasmin's life a bit trickier today so a second of 3 posts today. I need to get to the Death Star, I have a delivery of mesh to fit over an airduct. The glitch list is massive on this job, I'll never make a profit.

To support my work I am taking a section of the Daughters of Gaia, they've come from the Bad Squiddo planet and have taken ages to get here.

I don't paint Sci Fi figures very often, don't really understand the colour schemes and still don't

They are nice figures, a little busy but very stylised

They have a punk style so I gave them all mad hair.

I have more Sci Fi to paint but not feeling it at the moment so will find something else to paint this week, I have loads to paint

Scores on the doors

8x28mm inf = 40

Sarah's Yacht bonus = 20

total = 60pts

Right, off to write the next post

I do love the look of those Daughters of Gaia - lovely stuff, Martin! On to the Death Star for you!

Tamsin

From SanderS: Going to Solaris! (50 points)

 Hoi,

 

Finally I have come round to starting my Challenge Quadrant journey. Last Challenges I tried to visit every waypoint on the bonus maps but I won't even try that here. Time is precious with work at school, COVID and an impending renovation of the house as well as several cool projects in the works. 

This year I have ample figures in store for my Quadrant entries so I just had to find a pleasant locale to start from. Of course my greatest Sci-Fi love is Battletech and therefore I just had to start at Solaris the Gameworld! Now I am not going to explain in length what Solaris means in the Battletech lore, that's why I put the link in after all, but let's just suffice with: Battlemechs are made for waging war and can thus also be used for sports and that happens on Solaris.

Many of the great CBT novels tell the story of Solaris and the great FedCom civil war starts there. So it's not surprising that I have several mechs I want to paint up in the colours of some of the larger Gaming Stables of Solaris VII. The two featured here are: 

An Awesome in blue and white tiger stripes (yes thát's what they are) of the Skye Tigers and a Locust of the De Lon stable in red, black and white. The red squares are sporting Stable logo's from the brilliant people at Fighting Piranha Decals and they are really cool. 

Now the description in the Challenge Quadrant information says "Deception" for Solaris and these two mechs are hardly deceptive. The mechs down below however...

Yes these are true Decepticons from the Transformers Universe, but CBT scale and no they're not commercially available any more. They were very shortly until lawyers were let loose and TM rules were enacted.

Included here are two of the Seekers (the Decepticon Airforce) and the 5 Cassette Bots used as a sort of drones by my all time favourite: Soundwave!

Soundwave (whom I painted earlier) and his Cassette Bots

Above: Laserbeak (red) and Buzzsaw (yellow)

Frenzy (left) and Rumble (right) 

Ravage

Thundercracker (left) and Star Scream (leader of the Seekers and Righthand bot to Megatron)

Below are the 3 original seekers: Thundercracker, Starscream and Skywarp

So we come to the points and as far as I am are concerned it's rather easy, the Cassette Bots counts as 6mm vehicles for 2 points each (5x2=10) then there's 4 mechs that are basically as big as an 28mm figure so 5 pop each makes 30 in total. Together with the locale bonus that should be 50 points. 

Decepticons ATTACK!

Great work on these Decepticons, Sander! Very crisp colouring.

Tamsin