Skullwatch XIV 2

There's been a bit of jostling in the tally, as StuartL leapfrogs to the front with his skull-festooned 40K guardsmen.

• StuartL 144
• Barks 81
• CurtC 17
• TeemuL 10
• MikeW 5
• GregB 2
• GeoffreyT 1

Notable Skullz:

ArthurS's gobbo wears his skull with pride

PeterB also knows skullz are always cool

BrianC thinks with skully portals

StuartL slips in a sculpted skully statue

ThomasG's orc appreciates skully accessories

As does ColeF!

CurtC's ghouls are not the only reanimated skullz...

GeoffT has a trio as well!

Skull of the Week:

SanderS's skully hand puppet

Honourable Mentions:

KentG's carefully curated craniums

TomC's Marshal takes a friend for a walk

To enter, tag your post with 'Skull Duel' and state in the post both how many skullz you have painted, and what your running total is. Feel free to enter the duel at any time in the Challenge.

From DallasE: Tolkien and Hairy Germans in the Fantasy Stack (45 points)

Hi everyone. Trying to sneak a second submission in today, starting with some command  (C, S, M as we used to say) for my Germanic tribesmen. These are resin models from Warlord Games.

These dudes actually mix quite well with my Foundry models, after I cut off the integral bases. The models' feet are stuck straight down to the bases.

These guys seem to be quite fond of their severed heads, no??

Not to be outdone, the carynx-blower has a head hanging off his belt too. Nice models. 

Over to the Fantasy stack now with a couple of ancient Citadel models from their 1980s Lord of the Rings range. 

This is Boromir, from the ME21 "Boromir of Gondor" blister. Nice model in the old chunky Citadel style.

The other one is Aragorn, from the BME1 "Fellowship of the Ring" boxed set. Also a nice model but slightly gangly compared to Boromir.

Here's the whole crew from Citadel, with Aragorn and Boromir done that completes my old-school Citadel LotR collection. Good to have 'em done.

So on to the scoring:

5x 28mm foot                        25 points

Fantasy Stack                        20 points

Total                                        45 points

Thanks for lookin' and see you next week!

Looking good there. Love the small freehand on the Germanic there. Having painted some of those in previous challenges, I can say I might need to update my painting now after seeing yours :D

45 more points for you here!

Kyle

From PeteF: Legions of Bloodworms - Overdues and Returns (169 points)

These units were started many moons ago - my friend ShawnD acquired a 3D printer and it seemed like a good opportunity to expand my Kings of War Nightstalkers army.

One of the units available to this faction is Bloodworms.  Mantic has not produced any official models so the sky is the limit for deciding what to use.  My army has a lot of horror/sci fi references in it so chestbursters seemed like the right choice.

Shawn found some stls - 4 poses and printed them in 3 different sizes.  I painted some, stuck them to my two legion bases (the largest base size in the game) but there was still plenty of room for a vast, seething mass.

Not until now did I finish the project - Shawn had printed me a bunch more medium and small baby aliens - all they needed was some contrast, Blood for The Blood God and touching up of their pearly whites.

Standard model count for an infantry legion is 60 - I'm really happy to have exceeded this with the all the extra wormies and I'm looking forward to getting these evil looking gribblies into battle some time.

I used a bit of foam on the bases to give it more of a three dimensional feel and to give the rivers of blood some higher ground to flow from.  Some of the worms are spawning from the blood rivers - mwahahaha.

Work has been distracting me from wargaming and other fun - hopefully Shawn and I can get a game in soon - bloodworms do have a taste for halflings.

I'm not sure how to score these - maybe 1 point for small and 2 points for medium?  They were a lot simpler to paint than regular 28mm figures.

If that's acceptable here's the summary

 47 x 1 = 47

51 x 2 = 102

Bonus points for a library section = 20

Total = 169 points?

This is the definition of nightmare fuel.. such great work! And I can whole heartily agree that things can get a bit overloaded once 3d printing gets involved. Very easy to go overboard, but also some great things can come out of it, especially with the rescaling aspect available. Great job on this, and I am happy to go with your point suggestions. 169 pts for you!

Kyle 

From PeteF: Old School Goblin Archers - Fantasy (55 points)

 

In each of the last couple of challenges I've painted a few of these little fellas - from a bag that was gifted to me when  I was thinking about branching out and painting some fantasy figures for Saga and/or Kings of War.

I believe these gobbos are from an old GW starter set - presumably some previous edition of the soon to be revived Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  The sculpts might be considered Old Skool by modern standards - although anything that's later than 1980s Minifigs is Avant-Garde in my book. 

I have no idea what I'll eventually use these for - which is why it has taken 3 Challenges to paint a total of 17.  I think there are some more lurking in Plastic Mountain somewhere, although I wasn't able to track them down and finish them for this section of the Library.  I might magnetize them so I can take them on and off metal multibases for a Kings of War goblin army - I quite like the idea of using goblins from all different manufacturers.  The main problem will be finding the motivation to paint hundreds of them.  Saga seems more likely and they would fit for at least a couple of the Saga Age of Magic factions.

This is only my second submission for Challenge 14 - I'm going to try and make it around most of the library areas before Spring but got off to a slow start due to no preparation (unless you count preparation for Challenge 13) and some priming issues.

I like these simple sculpts - GW get a lot of character into their minis.

 

Summary

7 x 28mm minis = 35 points

Fantasy Section Bonus = 20 points

Total = 55 points

2nd section of the library - slow progress

I still get a bit of PTSD from these particular goblins. I love the design, and how simple they are, but after painting a few hundred of them, I think I got a bit insane from it. Lovely work here, though I do wonder how you will base them in the future? Normally they need to be based to get full points, but being that they will go to Kings of War, I suspect then bigger group basing to be done? Would be great to see that when they are done as well!

55 pts for you ( but do hope to see the finished based photos in a future post ). 

Kyle

From LeeH: French Archaeologists and other Civilians (Challenge Library: “History”) (82pts)

The sands of the Algerian desert part to reveal a group of French civilians examining old bits of pot, drinking wine and listening to a scratchy gramophone. All very civilised in the middle of nowhere…until the locals decide to attack of course! Then they will need the protection of a detachment of Legionnaires. Meanwhile, a handful of indigenous labourers and their overseer are working in the background thinking how strange these overdressed foreigners are. 

I’m briefly revisiting my Foreign Legion/French Colonial project from 2022 and completing a group of civilian models that were on my to-do list at the time but have sat neglected in my Pile-o-Shame ever since. I had got as far as priming and mounting them on sticks…and that has been where they have stayed for the last couple of years.

I have also painted an ‘irregular’ unit consisting of civilian adventurers and explorers who have taken up arms to protect themselves. 

I’m claiming the Challenge Library, “History” bonus for these partly because they are meant to be Archaeologists exploring the history of lost civilisations in Algeria & Morocco, and partly because I’m reviving a ‘historic’ project to finally finish it. 

16x15mm Civilians + Library “History” Bonus (32+20 bonus points)

15x15mm Irregular civilian fighters (30 points)

(Total + 82 Points) 

Great work here. Love seeing some civilian models amongst some more wargaming bits. And today has all sorts of scales going on, loving it! 82pts added to your total! Enjoy the Sunday!

Kyle

From DallasE - Hairy Horsemen in the History Stack (140 pts)

Hi all, back again with some more Germanic tribesmen for my new project. The models are again from Wargames Foundry.

There are twelve of these chaps in the unit and they came with command as well! Above we see the leader (in looted Roman kit), standard bearer, and horn blower.

 

The rest of the bunch are in a variety of poses. I hand-painted the shields using ideas found on the Internet. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, there's no real primary sources of shield designs as none have survived in a condition that would indicate how they were painted.

Foundry also supplied a bunch of wicker shields, which are a real cheat because you just paint them... like wicker :-)

Germanic tribesmen apparently wore very little armour and almost none wore helmets. However the cavalry were supposed to be upper-class kind of peasants so may have been a bit better equipped. Their horses were slow and awful though, at least according to Tacitus and Caesar.

A shot just to prove I painted the back ends of the models too.

These were actually a real faff to assemble as the riders really didn't want to stick to the horses' backs. A little JB Weld (two-part epoxy) set that right though.

Points tally:

12x 28mm cavalry        120 pts

History stack bonus        20 pts

Total                            140 pts

Next up I have another unit of Germanic tribesmen infantry (the bases arrived, yay!) or maybe something completely different. I'll get back to you on that.

Dallas
 

Great job Dallas on more Ancients here! And I love seeing the freehand on the shields there. Never easy but always adds so much to the models. 140 PTS for you then!

Kyle