From AndrewB: French Marines- Battle of Snowshoes(50pts)

I missed posting this earlier in the week, but here we are. I’m proud to finally have finished and brought to you the Compagnies Franches de la Marine from Footsore’s Savage Frontier Kickstarter, sold in the US by Special Artizan Services Miniatures!  

There are eight figures individually based, as well as the ‘objective’ team with a wounded man on a toboggan with a comrade walking alongside.  They’re full of character, sculpted in metal, and pretty painless to assemble and paint.  

One of the most challenging parts of this paint job is the overwhelmingly white wool nature of these guy’s clothing, while also understanding how filthy wool can rapidly become. Luckily, a local re-enacting group portrays another unit of this French half-marine force, and speaking with and seeing those fine men was incredibly helpful   The sheer overwhelming amount of off-white wool or canvas was more difficult to portray. Ultimately, these guys will be hard playing miniatures, and won’t disappoint!  

The improvised and slapdash nature of these troops makes me super happy, and I’m excited to get the trappers, British, and Indians completed so a large skirmish can take place for control of a blockhouse or somesuch in the northern colonies.  Keep checking for progress!  

This group should net me 50pts for 10 28mm figures! More next week!

From TeemuL: These do look nice, the white wool surely was painful to paint. The blue works good, a nice contrast. I like the basing, too, looks very nice.

From ScottC: 1980's Mash Squad & Sci Fi Ariadna Bikers [1980s][Scifi] (145 pts)

Another double whammy for ScottC the past week. 

For my 1980's project I decided to paint up my Warlord Games 28mm Mash set. I bought these guys years ago and always wanted a good excuse to get them onto the paint table. They'll be an excellent set of civilians in any future modern or sci fi games!

For my Sci Fi feature, I knew that I wanted to paint my Infinity Ariadna biker models. I loved being able to switch themes and jump into a more modern/sci fi theme for this batch of figures!

Another fun week of mini painting and more to come! My Black and White project is just about wrapped up.

Point totals:

11x 28mm infantry = 55 pts

5x 28mm mounted = 50 pts

Bonus Points = 40pts 

Total: 145 pts

From TeemuL: Very nice minis again and from different themes. I'd only hope for a map... But yes, the Mash squad looks very useful (and the minis are full of character) and the bikers surely have their uses, the green on the bikes look great.

From ByronM: Mixed Bag of projects (77 Points)

For this weeks entry I have a wide variety of pieces that I was working on cleaning up for the last little while, I thought I would have more done, but work and real life got in the way yet again.... 

First up, another vehicle to use in my "chariot" game with Orks and Imperial vehicles from the 40k universe, as after all neither Orks nor Imperials shoot much better than a chariot mounted archer, so why not!

This is another of the Wargames Exclusive miniatures that I bought years ago when I started this project and then just got side tracked.  I think it looks a little bat mobile esq so I went with a metallic black base and then added the normal bronzes and reds that many imperial or inquisition vehicles have.  I think it came out looking ok, even though it is a bit dark.

Next up is my entry for the High Adventure Cinema space, and he is my Dwarf Caster for Frosthaven.  I am using him as the entry for this space as every time I look at him I hear either "Let my people go" or "Thou shall not pass"...  It can't be just me, this sculpt does have a Charleton Heston 10 commandments or a Gandolf vs Balrog look doesn't he?  Maybe I am just losing it....

He is a 3d printed model that I picked up on myminifactory and I have a few more from the same sculpter being worked on and nearing completion.

Next up is a board game piece from a new game that my group has fallen in love with, Aeon Tresspass: Odyssey.  The game mechanics are heavily inspired by Kingdom Death: Monster which is my all time favourite game, but also has a huge choose your own adventure type story element, all set in ancient Greece after the gods have been killed by the Primordials.  

 

 

You wake up not knowing who you are with a crew on the argonaut and have to "pilot" giant Titans to fight the Primordials and try to save the world.  The combat is a little ligher than KD, but the story element is about 10x what KD has, and it is amazing.

Anyway, this is the first of the giant primordials that you fight, the mighty Hekketon.  He is from a race called the centemains and is basically a huge ball or arms and fists that tries to beat the hell out of you.  It is a crazy hectic fight that is always entertaining.  I painted him in the same manner as the Weeping Angels I did a few weeks ago and then added some grey and blue on the main fists to give a magic enchanted look (hopefully). He is a pretty big model being mounted on a 50mm base!

 

Lastly, I have the characters for my 10mm Kings of War Salamander army all done.  

There are 3 mages, 2 minor ones and a major one being carried by some giant Lizards.  I did the Skinks (smaller ones) in bright colours in a similar way as what lizards were done in old school Fantasy Battle.

I also did two combat salamader battle captains, one of which is a smaller lizard ridding on the shoulders of a titan, and the other is a Clan Lord on foot.

Last of the characters is a Clan Lord riding a giant lizard into battle.  This one was a lot of fun to paint as I always wanted a carnisaur in WFB but never got around to getting one, so at least I did one here.

And now that I have a full playable standard 2000 point army, here it is in all it's tiny scaley glory.  There will be a few more units added at some point, but this is the core and completely playable as it stands.

As for points, it's a real mixed bag this week that doesnt add up to a whole lot, but it is what it is...

- Inquisitors Vehicle - 28mm vehicle - 20 points
- 28mm Dwarf - 5 points + 20 points for High Adventure
- Hekketon - 28mm Monster - 20 points
- Lizard Characters - 9x 10mm infantry + 1x 6mm monster - 12 points

For a grand total of 77 points.

From TeemuL: Hekketon surely is handy when fighting some argonauts and that dwarf-Gandalf looks business. I already praised your 10mm KoW army in Steve's post, but it surely looks nice all together. Mixed bag out of the way and now you can focus on something new, right?

From SteveA: 10mm characters and terrain for Kings of War (30points)

This week I competed the last  of the minis I needed to have a fully painted 2000pt Despoiler force for Kings of War, with a few extra minis to have some options to change between games.  A magus conclave for ranged attacks, and a couple mounted commanders and a spell slinger I can attach to regiments.

I play a lightly bent version of KoW with 10 mm minis rather than 28 mm minis on base, and I use Depoilers as proxies for units from the rule book's Varangur army list. Same rules and points as the real KoW rules, but a different look on the game table.

For the Magus conclave, which serve as an artillery unit, I roughly applied a base layer of spackle in an effort to create the impression that the five mages were collectively summoning up a swirling mass of chaotic energy from which each turn one among them could channel a magically lobbed ranged attack.  (So I am hoping this pieces does not look like five guys in bath robs standing on a badly mowed lawn.)

I also completed the first of the 10mm terrain I am working on to enable me to host a KoW game upon a wargame table kitted out to look more like a combat among the ruins within the lost wooded scrub lands, rather than a battle upon the endless blasted barren plains (which is the kindest theme I can think of to describe the shameful horror of a naked game table top).

Both terrain pieces feature some spare bits and bobs ByronM gifted me, and both pieces  make use of old CDs for the base bottoms.  I reimagined a slightly miss-printed castle corner tower into a lone tower a top a jutting mound, and I fashioned some extras from a bag of tiny trees into a wooded hill.  

The tower is 6 inches high and a CD is 5 inches wide, so I am thinking the two terrain pieces combined neatly fill a 6x6 inch cube. 

10mm figures - proxies for Kings of War
Despoiler Lord On Steed (Mounted) 2x2pts = 4pts
Despoiler Mage (Foot Figure)    = 1 pt
Magus Conclave  (Foot Figure) 5x1pt = 5 pts 
Tower and wooded hill (Terrain) 6x6inch = 20pts
Total 30 points

From TeemuL: I really like the look of 10mm Kings of War. In the past I took a quick glance to KoW after WHFB was blown away, but at least then the theme was very thin - there was practically none. I liked the special rules of differenct factions in Old World, Dwarfs mistrusting Elfs, Orcs hating everyone, Elfs hating Orcs and ignoring Dwarfs etc and all that lacked from KoW, at least then. But I'm quite sure, if I ever get into KoW, I will do it in 10mm! Byron and you have done a good job influencing me. :)

The minis look good, as good as guys in bath robes can look... The tower is terrific and your claim for terrain cube sounds reasonable. Both of the terrain pieces are great and using old CDs for this purpose is always heart warming - I do that, too, one of the rare materials, which are thin, cheap and won't warp.

From AndrewB: Dragons and Lightsabers and more! (Fantasy)(40pts)

Today’s update has an odd combination!   A pair of lightsaber wielding gents, and two small dragons!  

To start with, the fantasy studio minis! A buddy of mine wanted to run some sort of dragon hunt with some medieval knights and men at arms, but challenged me to paint them monochrome red and yellow, to correspond with some of the groups of hunters.  They’re Reaper miniatures, which are growing on me a bit.  I’m not sure about the soft plastic, but I’m also not a fan of how my paint jobs turned out, so more work is needed before I judge the figures.  

Next, a fantastic Luke Skywalker from Battle Valor Miniatures. I attempted to get the surfer hair look of 1977, and he’s still done up in his teenage angst clothes from Tatooine, but he’s got his pappy’s old lightsaber   Probably out trying to cut womp rats in half or something. Next, a Star Wars Legion scale Darth Mail figure I 3D printed   I don’t remember where I found the STL, but he printed decently.  I painted both of these recently live over the course of about an hour on the YouTube channel ‘Not Jay’s Tabletop Gaming’ if anyone would like to watch!  

It’s pretty wild to see the scale difference between a traditional 28mm and a modern ‘32mm’ figure, but that’s all good.  I hadn’t realized how little color there is in Maul’s clothing until it became time to paint, but by then I was busy ruining his face tattoos(face tattoos?  He could be a part of my trashy Star Wars).

These four figures should net 20pts, with an additional 20 for the studio, for a total of 40pts. I even remembered my map this time! 

From TeemuL: Good stuff Andrew! Let me get this straight, there is one yellow, one red, one white and one black mini here? Quite monochromate, but very nice. I have always liked Luke, but your Maul is terrific. In my opinion it is easier to paint black than white, I don't know how you feel, but Maul is quite dark indeed - Dark Maul. :) You seem to be conquering the Studios nicely, almost time for the climax!