Friday 17 February 2023

From DavidB: Under Construction (300 Points)

 





Last AHWPC, I was working through a sizable contingent of Primaris Marines divided into two chapters. The White Scars and the Iron Snakes, The former an original chapter and the later an Ultramarine successor chapter. The 8 marines above were close to completion except for details and final highlights. This season and within the Under Construction studio, They finally got the details and flesh tones completed as well as basing. I will not claim the points for the minis as I would place them at 75% completed but I will claim the skull tally as they either needed highlights or in most cases needed more than the primed black color. I have two vehicles which the keen eyed may have spotted in previous work table posts of which the tank above is one. I had hoped to have them both completed today, but I am a total N00b with the airbrush and miniatures. I have got them completed enough for brushwork the traditional means, but they won't be done till next week....promise!

The squad insignia and chapter icons are from Pop Goes The Monkey, The squad designation (heavy support) were a gift from them at last years Adepticon as the owner was pretty chuffed to see the Iron Snakes I painted last year.

The back pack plates, cables, and weapons were a big part of the unfinished details...

Some heavy intercessors, a unit of five equipped with heavy long range bolt rifles. They are delightfully chonky and I think I may get another squad or three for the Iron Snakes, they are too slow for White Scars....but a squad or two may join them as well

I love the gravis armor and the huge backpacks and cables. Although the new Terminators are rumored to be inbound, I like these a lot and they are worthy descendants of the terminator armor.

A squad of ten Intercessors equipped with long range boltrifles. The can target opponents well at long range and a tooled up with all the veteran bits and drop pouches scavenged from other marine kits.

I do not intend to use them as veterans, I just wanted them to be individuals and look hard-bitten.

" Nature has ways of showing dangerous animals such as the @$$ bell of a rattlesnake, The roar of a lion, or the infantry blue cord"- Fat Electrician. I would add that industrial stripes on chainswords is also a indicator of danger besides the blue plasma glow of the sgt's plasma pistol.

These fellows have eliminated several of Razor's Blood Angel Dreadnoughts which guarantees Razor to shoot at them every opportunity now as they move through the battlefield and now they will stand out even more as they are no longer dressed in primer.
I actually painted them in the army painter speed paint grey last year, but the rumor of reactivation of the paint is very accurate and was totally unexpected. For both squads of intercessors they were again base coated in GW contrast paint after I discovered the issue on the heavy intercessors and went through all sorts of methods to correct after the ink wash erased the bulk of the gray from them. Apparently a quick varnish after 24 hours fixes that issue and the color in place....FYI

This is the Phobos armor Kill team made of Incursors and Infiltrators. Of all the kill teams this one has gotten the worst reviews as a nothing special team. I like the lighter armor and often forgotten is this is the kit that actually has the medic option available to the Infiltrators which is a very big deal for 40k marine players.

The kit allows an infiltrator build with a smoke grenade. both medic and smoke grenade marines were only previously available in the mono-pose kit from earlier and now only available in a few start collecting/ patrol boxes.

Another aspect of this kill team is reivers may be taken too and you can have a mixture of reivers, infiltrators, and incursors on the kill team among the many specialists which can make them very good.

Two Incursors and two Infiltrators featuring an Incursor mine layer and infiltrator comms specialist

An infiltrator scanner marine, a veteran infiltrator, and an incursor that can shoot through walls and use use seeker ammo.

The medic, a veteran sgt, and a demo specialist

The demo infiltrator has markings on his helmet and shoulder indicating he is probably a techmarine in training.

A blue dragon courtesy of WizKids and painted up for my son as everyone should have a dragon to fight in D&D.

contrast base coat with highlights in acrylic made this massive model pretty quick to paint.

The plastic lighting bolt was painted in the translucent Pylar Glacier which I thought was a pretty good pop for the breath weapon.

Now off to Mordheim for another warband. This one is clad in the blue and white of the Middenheim province which is the homeland of the White Wolves Templars. 

The basic plastic human warband had an accessory sprue with northmen heads and hammers which was also used for space wolf and white wolf templar kits back in the day. They were built and have lost in the mountain of neglect since the 90's. Now I have both crossbow and longbow troops completed.

Two more groups of henchmen this time equipped with hammers and swords.

They look so much better now than the gray plastic they were a few months ago.

Two Champions and a leader model to finish them up.

I figure the leader and fellow with the sword are brothers off to seek fortune in Mordheim with family retainers.

Need a few more to make a good milita block, but I will have to see how well fortune favors them in Mordenheim first.

A parting shot of a few Ironsnake Sgts...The scars on them do show how helmets are a good idea in combat. 

and the whole lot in a group photo


I used the lady cultist to skip High Adventure studio. I am going to linger here a bit longer for the post next week as I have to finish up a few models that did not make it today. 

Eradicators- 3 marines with 6 skulls
Helblasters 5 marines with 8 skulls
Heavy Intersessors- 5 marines with 11 skulls 25 points
Intersessors- 10 marines with 17 skulls for 50 points
Assault Intersessors-10 marines with 17 skulls for 50 points
Phobius Marine Kill Team- 10 marines with 28 skulls for 50 points
Middenheim warband- 11 with 3 skulls for 55 points
one blue dragon for 5 points
235 points and 86 skulls
although not top skull taker so far that is now 259 toothy grins!


Friday Minion: Coming thick and fast now David, however do you keep up this productivity? I make this 54 28mm miniatures and one 'cavalry' (the dragon, 10 points seems fair for its size), making 280 Points then adding 20 for Under Construction. Please correct me if I'm mistaken there. 

Space Marines leave me cold these days, but those vintage Mordheim human warband, ooooh they are great. I had some Middenheimers in the dim and distant past. I could do with getting me some of those, apparently Mordheim is back in vogue these days.

Love the Challenge map printout with ring stains from your cuppa :-)

From GrahameH: More of the same - 15mm Midianites & Prussian Napoleonics (940 Points)

 More of the same I am afraid but I have now finished the Midianites (Essex Miniatures)

The Midianites 

So first up the last of the Midianite Warbands. Two units, each of 30 figures. I have no idea why but I have always wanted this army and have had the figures for years. So really pleased that the Challenge has given me the opportunity to paint them. I do try to paint a small army for the Challenge each year, so this is this years army. 




Some bowmen (3 units each containing 18 figures)



Two units of skirmishing slingers (9 figures each)



And finally, for the Midianites my last camels (Hurrah!!). These will be added to the baggage


Midianites Points 

Warband (60 Figures) = 120pts

Bowmen (54 Figures) = 108pts

Slingers (18 Figures) = 36pts

Camels (7 Figures) = 14pts 

Total = 278pts


Napoleonic Prussian 

I thought I had nearly finished this army, but I have just purchased 32 more cavalry, purely because I liked the uniform! As they say armies are never finished. 

So, I have painted some cannon for the army. I painted the crew about a year ago, but the thought of painting some many cannons was rather off putting. However, all done now. 25 cannons of various calibre. 


 

Also five Limbers (AB Miniatures)



And of course more cavalry (all AB miniatures)

Cuirassier Regt.



A Uhlan Regt.




Finally, my favourite, the 2nd (Leib) Hussars. 



That is it for the Prussians. I need to decide which Napoleonics to do next. I dare say it will involve cavalry. 

Points 

25 Cannon at 4pts = 100pts

5 Limbers 9 Figures = 110pts ed:58pts

Cuirassiers = 32 Cavalry figures = 128pts

Uhlans = 32 Cavalry figures = 128pts

Hussars = 32 Cavalry figures = 128pts 

Total 594pts 


LOTR Men of Gondor 

24 Gondor Infantry 



Pts for Gondor = 120

I think that this brings this entries total to 992pts 


Friday Minion: Wow, awesome points bomb once again Grahame. The hordes of Prussian cavalry, magnificent, and your basing is most effective on them. 

On points, I think your tallies were right, except the limbers, that I scored as 15mm vehicles at 8 points a piece then added 2 points for each rider. I arrived at 940 points.

From DavidB: Potpourri Part 2 (205 points)



Since I have returned, I have been busy clearing my desk of the nearly finished and this is a batch of stuff intended for Inquisimunda, Kill Team, and 40k. Up first is a group of of chaos cultists which are also going to be my chaos gang in Necromunda. They are from the latest cultist set of monopose miniatures from the Blackstone Fortress game and classic GW sculpts. I like how some of them have elements from various chaos powers and used that to indicate initiates of those powers. They also matched enough with the classic metal miniatures to beef up their numbers. 

The classic cultists from the 90's finally painted up 

Back when GW sculptors would do one- offs and sometimes be deemed cool enough for production.

Khorne, Tzeentch, Slannesh, and Nurgle with colored robes in appropriate hues. The other members have black robes.



I may also use the big guy as a Pyro type Psyker in Necromunda

The new sculpts do have ladies represented and I think they may be worthy of a ticket in Lady Sarah's Limo. I used turquoise to indicate their benefactors may be agents from one particular Marine Legion.

World Eaters are too bloodthirsty for covert ops, thousand sons are either dust or beastmen, you can smell Deathguard coming, and Word Bearers are just too fanatical to be good sorts for kill team operations (IMO) ;) The Black Legion are a good choice, but nothing screams kill team operations louder than the legion that perfected subterfuge, assassinations, sabotage, theft, fake news, good guy/bad guy misinformation better than Alpha legion. In addition to kill team, they are perfect to lead this group of chaos cultists behind the scenes.

I used a silver undercoat with contrast paint to get that pretty blue and then went to town in traditional acrylic paint for everything else. They turned out way better than the alpha legion marines I did awhile ago.



The shoulder insignia is a hydra from "Pop goes the monkey" on shapeways.

A dual handed chain-axe wielder and he is keeping a tally of skulls taken.

this fellow has drunk all the koolaid and isn't himself anymore!

My favorite of the bunch is this lowly nothing special close combat equipped chaos marine.


Cultists? check. Alpha Legion? check. now we need corrupted militia. I have them in grey to oppose my Cadian 7th in union blue. Their armor and equipment is weathered heavily as they have no NCOs or discipline for tending to equipment.

these are my favorites I really liked the breacher model on the left and the grenadier by the sniper is by far the best choice for the kill team specialist as he has lots of explosives modeled on. the three in the center are from the blackstone fortress game and monopose minis


The cleanest traitor guard is doc, but he is more prone to dispense experimental drugs and use torture

look at that clean tidy backpack no doubt filled with illegal substances!

I am no longer jealous of Barks as I finally have the corrupted commissar and his pet Ogryn bodyguard. 
I've been told that I may find the blackstone rules for them online too.

The Ogryn was a lot of fun to paint and makes me regret not getting the Chaos Ogryn from forgeworld when I had the chance.

A power sword...er maul made from an I-beam!?

The classic Kharn the Betrayer. I scored him from a Upper Peninsula medic this past weekend as she collects chaos marines and has several of this model.(Thanks again, Jenn!) He was still in the blister when I got back home, but now is ready to join the rest of my classic beserkers after I matched colors with them.

I like this model much better than the current sculpt as it seems to be screaming a challenge to all. The newer sculpt is "fine" but lacks the poise of this one.

So here is all painted this week and while I was away playing cool guy stuff. For the record I think I should probably do this type of stuff more often as while my heart and mind thrills to do the macho stuff....I am getting too old and I am really hurting from keeping up with the kids. Plus winter and water in January and February looks so much nicer when it is outside and my fireplace is warm!


Not sure where I will go next with  Lady Sarah's Limo, but next week I will be off to "Under Construction"

Cultists 11 for 55 points and 12 skulls
Traitor Guard 19 for 95 points and 20 skulls
Alpha Legion 10 for 50 points and 51 skulls
Kharn the Betrayer 1 for 5 points and 9 skulls

total- 205 points and 92 skulls

This time I will try to not add more minis to my desk and clear room for the airbrush....Initiated a challenge and so many marches conceded already!


Friday Minion: I need a little rest between Minioning your posts, David, there are so many exciting things in them I just can't cope. I am appreciating this one a lot, in part because I resisted picking up a set of these Blackstone Fortress cultists and traitor guard for an abortive Necromunda project. So I can live vicariously through you, and my plastic mountain can be that little bit smaller. Thanks! 

My favourite here are the Traitor Guard for sure. But I shouldn't write that, because then I'll go look up how much they cost on eBay again.