Wednesday 12 January 2022

From BruceR - Solaris-Vulcan-Caprica-and a Space Flight (145 pts total)

The holidays were good and cold.  Yet we traveled from ND to MN where the temps were no different, still -20F during the day and down to -35F at night.  So the painting output has taken a dive.  We must soldier on.  Here is what I've been able to do with that hour a day pledge I've tried to stay with.

 Solaris in the Outer Rim


The Challenge has allowed me to dig around in the lead bin.  As many of us do we buy miniatures for playing something that catches our eye and sometimes we paint some.  This is me to the tee.  My group (maybe me) got excited about Flintloque as a means to play Sharpe games with limited figures.  Well, I painted some 15 figures more than 10 years ago, we played and set it aside.  Of course, I had found numerous deals and picked them up and stored them all these years.  The Silver Bayonet released and prior to the challenge starting, I grabbed Flintloque miniatures I had boxed away to paint and get ready for some games.  I have a few left that go well with travel to the Outer Rim Quadrant.   So.... 

Madame Boniface 

The figure is from the Lady Wintermores Fangs box set of characters.  She wears her ball gown with a mask to cover her skeleton features.  She is the confidante of the Vampyre Lamia Wintermore and, with her bodyguard, they act undercover at regal events and balls in the city of Moskova (Flintloque).  

Such is the setting for this skirmish adventure with the Ferach forces (Elves) conquerors attending a ball when all *ell breaks loose when the mask is dropped.  Can they fight their way out?  This will work for any skirmish type of game.  (Song of Drums and Shakos is another fun action coupled with Song of Blades and Heros to factor in the fantasy element).    A definite for Silver Bayonet.





5 pts for the Madam
20 pts for Solaris (Deception)
25 Total

On to Vulcan


Up for Vulcan is frankly a very characterful miniature from, again, Alternative Armies Flintloque.  I missed him in my early painting of the struggling Ferach (French) retreating from Moscova.  He is obviously dressed for the Northern reaches such as Dakotas or dare I say Saskatchewan -35F last week here, we are told Tuesday will be in the high 30's (60-70 degree swings).  Just like mother Russia! 

He is from the Death in the Snow scenario box. On the table top the Ferach (Elves) in Flintloque really look great as French Fusiliers.  Prior to obtaining the Northstar of miniatures release we used them in The Silver Bayonet.


  
He is a polish lancer bundled up against the cold on the retreat from Moscova.  He might simply be a 32mm Napoleonic figure except for the pointed ear sticking out under the Czapka (I tried to get the bugger in the photo).  My pointy eared offering for Vulcan. 











5 pt 28mm foot

20 pt planet of Vulcan (pointy eared)

25 pt total

Now on to space travel as I offer a Vivandierie of the Silver Bayonet

Catherine Deneuve





In Silver Bayonet French armies are accompanied by such women, who make a living selling supplies, and helping out as nurses and carers.  Such a member of a Silver Bayonet party has the attributes of Inspiring, Master of Cover, Supernatural Veteran.  I've used the box art package to paint this excellent miniature.  She will make a great addition to my growing Silver Bayonet troops and a "stellar" addition to my Sharp Practice forces.  For the price of this Vivandierie,  I request passage on Lady Sarah's Star Yacht to travel to Caprica. 


5 pts 25mm foot
20 pts for travel on Sarah's Star Yacht
Total 25 pts

This next submission are the miniatures from the original Deadloque -Death in the Snow Alternative Armies boxed set(the undead side, the Elves painted prior to the Challenge).  These zombie, skeletal, liche, and vampyre characters are perfect for My Silver Bayonet project.  Repurpose lead pile miniatures and incentive to paint.  Win/Win.  I had these lined up with Caprica in mind as the scenario is the Ferach (French Elves) fleeing Moskova only to be set upon by the undead of the Witch Lands.  Then Curts submission of Perry miniatures retreat from Moscow came out and I knew I would follow him with these frozen north figures setting to "Ambush" the "Doomed" invaders as they flee or investigate such strange occurrences.




Stanilov KGB Liche







Stalinov's Skeletal Cossack bodyguards








Vampyre Kaptain Grigioi Dracsul







Fusilier Zombies









Another Wednesday crew member wrap.
13 28mm foot = 65 pts
3 Quadrant planets = 60 pts
1 ride on Sarah's Space Yacht = 20 
total 145 pts

Thanks, stay well and safe.
Bruce

***

Hi Bruce - this is quite the journey - feel free to break it up into a couple of separate posts next time, and to pace your travels a touch. We have a whole winter Painting Challenge ahead - no need to clear the whole quadrant in two weeks :)

Fantasy Napoleonics...not quite my cup of tea, but then the diversity of interests is part of what makes this hobby so interesting, and there are some pretty neat sculpts - and lots of nice brushwork - to be found in this submission. Fusilier zombies would have some interesting applications...well done. 145 points for your tally.

GregB

From RayR - Caprica/Doomed Prisoner Wagon & Sarah's Star Yacht (90 points)


My 3rd post of the day!!! Sorry Greg! Not quite sure what's wrong with my posts?

My first stop is Caprica where I will invoke those who are Doomed. I was going to paint this Prison wagon up for the Challenge anyway so it was pretty handy that it fitted into Caprica/Doomed perfectly.


My prisoner wagon contains 3 Rebel traitors being driven to their doom, just after the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685.

The Wagon is from the very clever lads & lasses from Iron Gate Scenery and was a snip at £8!



It is more of a medieval model, so I changed the wheels to look more 17th/18th century which worked well. Check them out if you haven't already, they make some brilliant terrain pieces. I do have a few more bits from them for later in the Challenge.



I did also buy the figures to go with the wagon, but chose to buy another pack from Col Bill, c17th century Prisoners and guard. The three prisoner figures fit well into the wagon as my prisoners. The 2 drivers I believe are both also from Col Bill's Depot Battalion.




After lounging around on Caprica I decided to jump back on Sarah's Star Yacht, with our destination being the wonderful planet Skaro. As payment for my trip I offer up Cate Cramer a c18th century US settler, I'm sure Cate will fit in with my other civilians for King Philips War.






Cate is another of Col Bills, Belt Fed Gaming Novelty Girls and like  Becky Burton in my previous post is a snip at £3.35.

Points mean prizes so lets work out how many....

5 x 25mm figures - 25pts
Wagon 1 x 28mm vehicle - 20pts
Caprica/Doomed Bonus - 20pts

Cate Cramer 1 x 25mm - 5pts
Sarah's Star Yacht - 20pts

***
 
Well done Ray - not only is the painting fine, but I did not have to sort out the alignment of the text in your post. BRILLIANT. 
 
Now, to the painting - all the bushwork is very nice, of course, but that prisoner wagon...that is so damn cool! I can imagine it being great for all sorts of gaming scenarios. Very nice stuff. 
 
90 points for your tally!
 
GregB

From RayR - Donnybrook - Pancerni (91 points)

 

My first unit of Polish for the Battle of Vienna 1683, I have previously part painted up a unit of Pancerni here, these will be the last unit of Pancerni, I only planned for the two units of Pancerni and  I'm moving on to the Big Boys next, the Winged Hussars!! (ok I've already started them).


I really didn't know what figures to buy for this new Donnybrook army, so I've gone with a real mixture. The previous Pancerni unit was made up from Old Glory and Essex figures, which were quite small when compared to the Warfare Miniature Ottomans I painted up during the last Challenge.
 
I "ummed and arred" for a while and in the end I chose Redoubt Enterprises figures as I'm sure some of you will know their figures do come up pretty large.
 
To be totally honest they fitted in size wise to Warfare like a glove and I was really impressed with the figures as a whole, they were clean and crisp with lots of different poses as well.


I kept the painting really simple using red as the dominant colour and am very pleased with the results.


 
I found the flag and others like it online and had to go with the red one!

9 x 25mm Cavalry @10 = 90pts
 
***
 
Hi again Ray! Very cool...anything for the Battle of Vienna gets cool points for me - it's all so mysterious and complicated, and looks like a lot of fun. I wish I could dive into that period, but I just cant get it sorted...and it's not like I don't have other projects to busy myself with. But these chaps look great! I tossed on an extra point for the flag, because it seems to be the right day for it...
 
As a reminder to you Ray - and to everyone else, but especially Ray - here is a link to Tamsin's excellent guide on how to prepare posts for the Challenge. I will mention here, for no PARTICULAR reason, that posts which are too mangled to be properly formatted will not get posted on time. Cheers :)
 
GregB

From JamieM - Imperial Guard Beastmen (Istvaan 5) (123 points)

Despite having prepped a whole load of figures for the challenge in advance, for some reason I decided that I absolutely had to do these figures next and so I built, primed and painted them over the last week or so! I’ve long ago stopped trying to attribute logic to this hobby of ours…..

So please find below some pictures of some Imperial Guardsmen who also happen to be Beastmen.


Beastmen are obviously a classic of fantasy fiction and in the 80’s, Games Workshop included their version of them in their “Warhammer” universe in the Chaos armies (armies dedicated to worshipping dark gods and wiping out civilised peoples). When GW started “Warhammer 40K”, they carried a lot of their standard races over into the new universe and Beastmen were one of the races who made the journey across from the fantasy realm to the sci-fi one. Now, “Chaos” wasn’t very big in the new 40K universe, I guess they thought that those who ran the Imperium were terrible enough people….. so the Beastmen joined the Imperial Guard, the normal army men of the imperium, as opposed to the space marines, who varied mightily across the galaxy in their arms, armour and training.

The Beastmen were, along with sci-fi halflings (now ratlings) and sci-fi Ogres (Ogryn), tagged as “abhumans” and put into squads to go and duff up the enemy at close quarters.  One might wonder why a fascistic and fanatical state like the imperium would tolerate what it would consider to be less than humans?  The answer is both practical and brutal. The imperium is constantly fighting thousands of wars throughout its dominion. These would range from sector wide conflicts to small raids by pirates and other alien races. So the imperium needs fighting troops….. lots of fighting troops.

As part of the lore, Beastmen were told that they had failed the Emperor (the corpse man/god at the head of the Imperium) by being born the way that they had been. They were told that the only way to be forgiven was to fight for the emperor and kill his enemies, otherwise they should be executed. As you can imagine, abhuman troops were given a minimum of training and shoved out to the worst of the jobs, unappreciated by the other imperial troops. One quote from the original White Dwarf magazine which introduced them and gave them some background really stuck with me: “I do not doubt the Emperor’s wisdom in allowing such tainted abhuman filth to serve him, but my men shall not serve alongside them”Carab Culln, chapter masters of the Red Scorpions Space Marines. In the game, if you took abhuman troops, you couldn’t ally in Space Marines. I certainly found myself feeling sorry for the Beastmen.

This was one of the defining features of the Imperium to me in those early days, how unpleasant, uncaring and judgemental it was, but how it was willing to squeeze every last drop out of its resources as it clawed its way to survival in an uncaring universe, surrounded by threats, even whilst demeaning and devaluing it’s people. And the Beastmen were shown as absurdly grateful that they had a chance to “say sorry to the Emperor” by fighting and dying in his name given the way they’ve been born.

These figures are slightly less bestial than the original Beastmen, who are complete with cloven hooves, but I decided that this mutation would probably be a spectrum and so these ones are mostly Human, but with horns and bestial features. They’re made from a combination of the old catachan jungle fighters plastic kit, Cadian weapons and Ungor heads. Weapons are lasguns for the most part, with a couple of flamers (I figure these are cheap and disposable enough to be given to such troops) and a pistol each for the sargeants.

I thought I’d show the attitude of the imperium forces to these abhumans by giving each squad a scroll….. not just any scroll mind you, these are scrolls that are signed by the imperium’s representatives to confirm that the beastmen will be absolved of the sin of being born as they were if they fight for the emperor. And this is where the Istvaan V planet connection comes in…….. These troops have been betrayed, as there is no absolution, just a sentence to fight for the emperor until they are killed and they will never get to leave the imperial guard.

Beastmen are broadly out of the 40K canon these days, but reading about the “War of the False Primarch” project inspired me to do these, as it is set relatively shortly (in galactic terms) after a crippling civil war which nearly destroyed the imperium. As such, desperation for men and materials would rarely have been greater and so the press ganging of such troops could likely have been common.

Simple enough scoring, 20 x 28mm figures for 100 and a planetary bonus for 20. And time for something a little more light hearted for my next entry I think!
 
***
 
Now THIS takes me back! I LOVE Rogue-Trader-era GW nostalgia, and this fits the bill perfectly. Jamie has outlined the perfect description of the "Imperial Guard" of that era, and the, shall-we-say, "governance" of the Imperium that required the service and sacrifice of these soldiers, along with a propaganda complex that reminded them they were lucky just to have that opportunity...certainly as the politics of our own time have darkened somewhat, I find GW backed away from the political commentary that was once more explicit (and warped), that produced troop selections such as the Beastmen and Ogryns, and used to produce art like this to support them:
 
 
Anyway, this post is great, not just for nostalgia, but also for the clever interpretation of the planetary location, and the invocation of the War of the False Primarch. Plus, for the first time ever, you have shown there can be an actual use for the otherwise utterly dreadful Catachan models. 120 points, well earned, and I am tossing in three points - two for Rogue Trader nostalgia, and one for showing an actual use for plastic Catachans...

GregB