From Curt: 10mm Empire Knights (II of VII) (78 Points)

Hiya!

First, thank you Martin for letting me squeeze into your roster on your last day as minion. It's been an absolute pleasure to get up on Sundays to see your welcome message and thoughtful (and humorous) comments on your talented crew's work. So, as you would so elegantly say during your first year with us: Ta. :)

Next up for my 10mm Empire force is a regiment of heavily armoured knights. I love these guys as they have that heavy-hitting, Renaissance gendarme look about them, with their fully encased, fluted plate, lances with snapping pennants, and bedecked with ostentatious plumes. Wonderful stuff. 

In the Warhammer lore, the Empire is composed of a variety of provinces, each with their own independent army and unique livery. This is great as it allows collectors to have fun fielding units in a riot of colours, if they wish. 

This regiment is fairly restrained in their 'white' armour and unpainted lances. Perhaps for a future unit I'll splash out with more colour.

Speaking of additional colour, this regiment has a general attached who is clad in his family's vibrant red livery. 

For the flags, I delved into my decal box and pulled out some unused Titan transfers from my Adeptus Titanicus kits. They seem to do the trick for these Imperials.

And a final shot of the reinforced contingent with halberdiers in support and knights leading the way.

For points, we have 26 mounted figures for a total 78 points. 

Thanks for visiting and I'll see you tomorrow with my farewell to Peter and another Imperial regiment. Have a great day!

- Curt

Curt as always it's been a pleasure to minion, especially when there is such spectacular work on display. Beautiful. 

Ta

Martin

From DallasE: Afrika Korps and a Few Normans More (55 points)

Just a few models to post this weekend before the "free-fire zone" that is the last week of the Challenge. A couple days ago my order from Perry Miniatures (placed in mid-January) arrived, apparently it was postponed by a UK postal disruption.

In any event, I've started in on the models. First up was this six-man crew set for my Sdkfz. 7 8-ton semi-track, also completed for the Challenge.

The crew figures are really good, typical Perry which says it all. But they are small!

They do look good in the vehicle though. I really like the dude with his legs crossed, talking to his buddy. So much character in these models.

Next I've got "a few Normans more" for the game with GregB coming up this week. Greg said he had some crossbowmen he would bring so I quickly painted my last four unpainted Normans with crossbows.

They went up quite quickly too. Hopefully there will be a space for them in the game.

There was one more spearman to paint as well. 

He was originally going to be a standard-bearer but in looking through the ranks I saw that I had two Crusader Miniatures standard-bearers painted but lacking banners, so I printed some out and rectified that deficiency!

They look OK and will likely take part in this week's battle!

Scoring for this post:

    6x DAK crewmen:     30 points

    5x Norman foot:         25 points

    Total:                          55 points

See you in the free-fire zone!

I bang on endlessly about the variation in german field grey shades (and other variants). Excellent job.
 

From PhilH: Historical Drama feat. 'Slapchop' (100 Points)

 Well, what's more historical drama than 'the shot heard around the world', and all the kerfuffle that followed? Plucky settlers taking up arms against the 'tyranny' of their King and heavens forbid, taxes to of course replace it with republican  Democracy and....taxes. Alas, American Revolution movies seem to be lacking in bringing this fascinating era to the silver screen: looking at you, Mel Gibson and The Patriot. 

One of my aims this challenge was to try some new approaches to paint quicker, and thus get more done. Especially after last challenge, which was a bit of a damp squib in terms of output. One of those I wanted to try was 'slapchop', the stupid name for a drybrushed variant of the old masters' 'grisaille' method of underpainting, then highly pigmented washes to try to skip time-consuming highlighting. Dreamed up with catchy slogans like 'slay the grey', and the subject of many excitable/raging YouTube videos late last year, debating whether its the best thing since sliced bread, or a load of old cobblers. 

Anyway, because I'm a hobby madlad at times, here's me seeing if it works on historicals: in this case Perry Continental plastics. These are two groups for Sharp Practice of the brown coated, red faced 4th Connecticut regiment (or Pennsylvania Associators/12th Mass. at a stretch). Why this regiment? Errrr, I fancied some brown-coated continentals, I already had Wyldwood and Blood Angels Red Contrast paints, red facings are natty and I'd stuck these together with round hats rather than tricornes. Squinting at the ever-useful Perry uniform guide from that opening position, 4th Connecticut it is. 

These aren't true Slapchop, there's a fair bit of traditional method on them after the Contrast were applied: faces, turnbacks, stockings, a highlight on the muskets, metallics, piping on the hats etc.

Is this the method for me to cruise though the pile of potential? Mmmmmm, I’m not convinced, while the test mini went well and was finished in an evening, with this a sizeable batch, I rapidly came to dislike the process. So much so that I started them on 21 December, parked them in mid-January completely, before the end of the Challenge became pressing enough for me to dig them out to finish off. 

Alas, I've a firmly established method, where I lay down basecoats, then tidy up the mess I make as I highlight them up. Making a mess with Contrast puts me in a right pickle. I feel my work on the WWII French - also rapid, using drybrushing to save work and time - was much more enjoyable approach, and came out with a better finish (though in fairness, a much simpler colour scheme)

Don't get me wrong, it's horses for courses and if approaches like Slap-chopping help hobbyists get stuff on their paint desk, that's awesome in my book. For me, Contrast paints still have their uses, like picking out little details that would be barely noticed, like boots.

Sixteen 28mm miniatures, as the leader was the test model and painted before the Challenge. 20 points for the Studio bonus is another 100 for my tally (two 100-pointers in one Challenge, look at me go!) Over 600 now and cruising towards what I suspect might be an all-time high score for me.

So this is weird, I've posted this and then it reverted to draft. Will try again. Love the figures by the way

From PhilH: Going Small at Swords & Sandals (56 Points)

 And now for something completely different...

Intrigued by the works of Mark Backhouse, Sidney Roundwood and our very own Snowlord in having a go at a teeny tiny scale project. So, with a copy of Too Fat Lardies/Reisswitz Press rules Strength and Honour in hand, I'm thought I'd use the Challenge and the Swords & Sandals room as a reason to have a dabble.

I've a few ideas, but am more at the stage of figuring out how I want to approach the project, what minis to use, and what scope I'm aiming for. Not helped that I'm juggling a whole bunch of projects this winter. But I am settled on it being a 3D printed project. 

So, rather than succumbing to my innate ability to procrastinate and I applied some JFDI - 'Just Flipping Do It'.

These are are hairy barbarian warbands, using files from Thingiverse designed by user T1ickL35 and kindly printed for me by fellow Lard America luminary and Challenger JohnE (thanks John!). The files are a bit rudimentary compared to the files with a price tag attached, but its good to handle and paint them before going to deep down the rabbit hole. 

The bases are 120mm x 60mm x 2.4mm thick to aid being picked up, designed by me in Tinkercad and printed on my FDM printer.

Trying to get into the 3mm style, I primed them black, then laid down some dark brown tones through the airbrush. These are vaguely meant to be Germanic warbands, so I was after brown and flesh tones and no colours.  For these formed units, a lot of people seem to use acrylic paint pens (what a thing!), but I don't have those to hand, so went with a toothbrush-flicking frenzy with various brown, beige and tan tones, trying achieve splodges of colour. My base was a bit dark for this, so it doesn't come out well: I should have taken the brown lighter. Lesson learned. Then I picked out the shields sculpted on the front in similar tones, and each of the 'heads' with flesh tone, aiming for a 'sea of faces'. 

I did the basing afterwards, because of the paint flicking. This was an error, I couldn't apply the paste anywhere near as neatly as I thought. I'm fairly content with how the basing came out. 

So my approach didn't really work as I'd hoped: I need to be bolder with colours, and I think the paint pens might be the way to go to achieve that. But some valuable lessons were learned along the way, I can always rework them as I get into the 3mm vibe. I'll pick this project up again when I complete my planned investment in a resin printer this summer.

I think 3mm large bases have been scored at 12 points each previously. If my esteemed minion agreed, that would be 36 plus 20 for the location bonus for 56, which should nudge me over my 500 point target with a week to spare, and 4 or 5 posts still to come 🙂

Excellent work, they look like a frenzied mass of hairy armpits, I assume that was the plan

From Paul O'G: Black Templar Characters (28 points)

Building on my Black Templars from last week are these four characters, imposing in their majesty and wonderfully ridiculous overdetailing (supplemented by my bitz box, naturally). Again I have used the 'Zorn palette' with a focus on reds and yellows, cream and black.

This group includes a Bladeguard Veteran Captain, his trusty Lieutenant and Second in Command, veteran Ancient with his impressively large battle standard (complete with remain of a former Chapter Hero) and the Chaplain, inspiring all with his Battle Prayers and Litanies of Loyalty.

The purging of Xenos, Heretics and Mutants is busy work

Thats 4 figs at the standard 7points for these big (35mm to top of head) fellows - nudging me past my AHPC 13 goal! It also means that I've NEARLY finished my Space Marine half of the 9th edition boxed set that came out 3ish yrs ago (so it must be time for a 10th edition!) 

But thats not the last from me - naturally I'm working on something a bit more Turnipy to closeout my season...

Delicious work (note to self don't watch cooking shows when editing posts). Another great addition to your menu

From BartekR: Stumbling out of the Studios - Conquest Hundred Kingdoms unit [140 points]

[So, just as I was getting this ready to post last Sunday we had an electrical storm that fried my modem - technicians words, not mine -- so,...a few hundred dollars and a week later]

Back after a hiatus (excuses, excuses - a few weeks adjusting to being back at work after a few months off as decompression from finishing up overseas last October). With time ticking down in the Challenge, my planned circumnavigation trip around the Studios was sidetracked: my brother - definitely in the 'gamer, not painter' category and having seen my work on his Chaos Warriors in my first post - asked me to paint his Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings army.

Since he'll always be my little brother, how could I refuse this  'commission'?

So, in today's post, we have - from his 'Hundred Kingdoms' human faction - a unit of fifteen men-at-arms, a veteran, a 'null mage' (a kitbash conversion) plus three objective markers.

For those not familiar with Conquest (like me), its a fantasy rank and file game (although with lowish model count it seems) published by Para Bellum Games. The rules were written by Alessio Cavatore (of Bolt Action, Mordheim, a bunch of other GW stuff...fame). My brother has been very complimentary about it. Worth mentioning (at risk of sounding like I'm spruiking it) that all the rules, army lists and setting background are free on Para Bellum's site. 

 

 

What I found most interesting about these is that they are 38mm scale - bloody massive compared to what I'm used to. The figures themselves: sculpting on the Men-at-Arms is fine though they are apparently a  early release and I think it shows. There were a few places on them where I wasn't sure what I was painting (eg, is it armour or, fabric?) or what was on the front, say, didn't match up to what was on the back (the chainmail neck collars were one example). That said, could have just been me and not a showstopper. All that said about those, there has been a decided evolution in the range: the mini used for the kitbash null mage (a "hunter cadre") is a later release and a lot sharper.

Veteran and null mage

The null mage was also my favourite when finished. Feel like the OSL suceeded after some pucker factor and worry that I was going to mess the figure up and have to redo him. And have to admit I dig the  similarity (coincidental, intentional?) of his facemask to that of SlipKnot guitarist Mick Thomson (though I didn't channel Slipknot; thinking back I spent more time listening to Canadian metal band Woods of Ypres while painting it).

 

When not playing guitar, Mick likes to do battlefield magic...

 

Paints used were the usual mix on my bench (Citadel, Vallejo and Army Painter, including Contrast and Speedpaints). Basing is Army Painter grass and LeadBear's Tufts...tufts and flowers (LeadBear is a one man business from South Australia - strongly recommended for the Aussies here). I also took the opportunity to try out  Dirty Down verdigris and rust effects, bought earlier this year at CanCon, applied on the swords on one of the objective markers. 

The objective markers

 

 

Got to use the Dirty Down verdigris and rust effects paints on the swords - not bad

In terms of painting technique, I intended these to be an experiment in slapchop (cringe at the name) but reverted to more familiar methods to get the level of detail or colour depth I wanted. That said, I do see the potential especially for smaller scales. Even with my obstinate tendency to overdo, my painting is getting incrementally more efficient. More importantly, getting more confident and comfortable with it, and readily picking up the brushes rather than umming and ahhing about it - counting that as a win as it was a major personal aim for this challenge.

Down to hard tacks - given 38mmis closer to 40 than 28mm, I am claiming each as a 40mm foot miniature (scandalously, even the objectives - I need every point I can get at this stage - though will defer to Martin's adjudication): 

16 Men at arms (inc Veteran) (40mm foot)

Null Mage (40mm foot) 

3 objective marker bases (40 foot)

20 x 7pts = 140 points.

Next week - the last dash towards the finish line through a few of the Studios.

Fantastic work on these figures. As for Slipknot  

From StuartL - No Squirrels were harmed in the making of this movie - Director's Chair - 270 Points

Hi everyone,

Last week I cleared the last stage of the studio, so it is time for my Director's Chair challenge. I emailed our most esteemed Show Lord about my goal for this area and got this response:

 "Now, what do you have in your collection that you’ve been avoiding, or have had all the intentions to getting done, but have not yet grappled with? Let’s see if we can get something like this off your to-do list."

I replied that I had a bunch of Space Marines that I had been meaning to work on, but got distracted chasing Squirrels, so I hadn't touched them. I got no reply back after that, so I am taking the silence as tacit approval of my plan.

For various reasons I have a gajillion* Space Marine for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer 30,000, and there is always something that I need to paint. Last summer I rebased a bunch of figures and started sorting and organising them with the plan to get them painted. Ages ago, I bought the Badab War books from Forge World and so I decided to start working on some armies for that conflict, as it mainly involves Space Marines Vs. Space Marines. 

*I counted. 

One of the factions in the Badab War is the Mantis Warriors chapter of Space Marines. Technically they are one of the 'bad guys' in the war, looking to secede from the Imperium, but their story is a little deeper than that. They were goaded into the secession by the real antagonist of the story, Lufgt Huron, Chapter Master of the Astral Claws and a bit of a tyrant. It didn't help that one of the protagonist factions picked a fight with them and forced them into the conflict on Huron's side. But enough waffling about the lore, let's look at some minis.

First up we have a captain to lead the army. I switched out the original head with a Mk.III helmet, obviously a relic of the chapter due to its age.

To take and hold ground, two full tactical squads equipped with a multi-melta and a flamer.

When you need to take the fight to the enemy, you need some assault marines, so here we have ten equipped with jump packs and ten without.

And to help deal with enemy armour, we have a devastator demi-squad with three las-cannons.

As I didn't much fancy hand painting the chapter logo on these models, I managed to find some transfers from a company called The Mighty Brush. Both the chapter logo and the squad markings are from there and they were really, really good. They took a while to come off the backing paper, but were very durable when I messed up sticking them in place, they conformed to the shape of the shoulder pads well and had almost no visible marks when they were done. Top quality decals. Sadly the web-store no longer sells chapter specific transfers, but they do have the squad icons and some other cool looking bits and pieces. I thoroughly recommend them.

All of the models are from Games Workshop, but they are of many different vintages. The model on the left below is from 2004, the one on the right is from 2022. Quality and design has come a long way. Of course, the prices have come a long way too.

And here is a shot of the force in its entirety. 

At some point I am going to have to get some vehicles for these fellows. 

Speaking of vehicles, I have also painted up a Damocles Command Rhino for my Warhammer 30K Ultramarines Legion. It is kind of a pre-requisite for the Ultramarines unique formation in the game, so I will probably need it sooner rather than later. I bought the kit from Forge World years ago and it has sat at the bottom of my box for well over a decade. When the new version of 30K was released, I dusted it off, cleaned it up a bit and stuck on a few 30K specific guns.

Between them, these models have 125 skulls on them, a welcome addition to my total.

The rhino only has one skull (on the side of the radar), how can the Ultramarines live with this shame?

Sadly, I have already scored a Squirrel point for Space Marines, so I get zero Squirrels here, hence the post title.

So for the scoreboard:

46x 28mm minis @5 points = 230 Points.

1x 28mm vehicle @20 points = 20 Points.

Director's Chair @20 points = 20 Points.

Total = 270 Points.

And that means that I have finished all of the different sets, stages and areas in the studio and cleared my points goal for the challenge with a week to spare. Just a few bits and pieces to clear off my painting desk now.

My Side Duels.

Squirrels - 40

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, WW2 Japanese, Teutonics, Lizardmen, Gnolls, Arabs, Space Marines, Kung Fu Chinese, Wolf's Dragoons, Merfolk, Fishmen, Fish, Mummies, Greek Myth, Peasants, Desert Terrain, Guild, WW2 Africans, WW2 French, WW2 Germans, WW2 Russians, DKoK, Sengoku Fantasy, Fantasy Zombies, Undead Pirates, Blood Bowl Orcs, AWI British, Modern Zombies

Skullz +126 = 359

Turnips - 115 Points

Lovely submission, sure the Director will be happy. Love the Rhino

From GuyB: Under Construction - Still! 180 points.

My life has been hectic of late, so forgive the double scoring post. Nevertheless, I have found the time to finish a few miniatures, if not any projects. One such project definitely falls under the heading of 'under construction', for about 20 years...

A lifetime ago, in 2001-02, I introduced my son to the <i>Lord of the Rings<i> Strategy Battle game. While he was enamoured by D&D, he never developed the wargaming habit, and the models sat unloved for a number of years. Recently, I dug them out and started a process of repairs (replacing broken bows) and repainting.

The end result is what could be salvaged from a squad of elves. Bows were replaced with spares from Perry War of the Roses. You'll note some of the bows are different.

I simply dry-brushed the original models white and put a new layer of paint on each.

The Haldir character model does not count, as I kept some of the original paint work (I liked the chainmail he had), so only touched up the cloak, the flesh, the sash, the hair and the base. But he wasn't started from scratch, nor were two others of the models.  

There's also three dead men of Dunharrow.

Moving on... to high adventure! And what better for high adventure than a barbarian! 

Here's Thundarr the Barbarian, with a ghost I missed last time. 

Both use contrast/speed paints to good effect. And what challenges is Thundarr facing? 

Zombies? Yes, some with a lick of different greens to make a ghastly skin tone. 

So in the pile of LOTR shame, you'll spot I have a few more Elves to base up and finish. Definitely 'under construction!' I make 13 elf models (less Haldir and two other models which retain some of the original paint), so 60 points plus three ghosts for 15 points, with the 20-point bonus for the round, that makes ... 100.

We have one hero and eight undead nasties for high adventure, giving us another 45 points plus the 20-point bonus for high adventure. Next time (and I'd better be quick!), there will be some historical drama!

Welcome back and what a great post. My understanding is that you can score points for 1/2 finished  figures in the Under Construction, I'm the minion and I say so. Therefore 180 pts in total