Sunday, 25 February 2024

Skullwatch XIV 5

The action remains in the middle of the pack. Stuart's lead is far from safe- one dedicated terrain entry could blow this whole thing wide open!
  • StuartL 426
  • DavidB 159
  • Barks 134
  • ReillyOG 48
  • TeemuL 40
  • CurtC 22
  • MikeW 21
  • PaulOG 19
  • TomL 10
  • ChrisW 10
  • GeoffreyT 7
  • GregB 6

Notable Skullz:

If you want to get a few skullz on your minis, bases are a great way to augment your count.

ChrisW has swarms of rats clambering over skullz

TeemuL has these magnificently nostalgic cacti avec skullz.

MikeD has Tau ('The good guys of 40K'*) with skullz on bases.

These glorious lads are from PeterB.

PeterB has a discrete skull on this new dreadnought.
(I like their bulk, but I don't think their proportions
are as distinctive as the old boxnaughts.

ReillyOG teases us with a few skullz...

... as he warms us up for this friendly be-skulled arachnid.

TeemuL also has these skelly cav.

I'm keeping my skully hand in with these belt adornments.

Thomas G has a few skull masks


Skull of the week:

I'm starting to suspect KyleC and Khorne like skullz.

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.

*They're not really good guys.

From Codsticker: Bloody Miniatures- The Village People (20 pts)

Now, those of you familiar with the Bloody Miniatures catalogue may be wondering why you are seeing the Village People instead of The Lowland Shotte. Simple... I didn't buy any Scotsmen. Now don't get your kilts in a knot; I have come to see the error of my ways and plan on rectifying that at some point in the near future. 

So onto BM 023, The Village People.


These are perfect for skirmish games involving Clubmen or a mob chasing down a papist or witch.


They come with a number of weapons options; I chose a mix of muskets and farm implements.


With numerous bands of scoundrels looking to liberate anything useful, everyone in the village has to be on guard.


Quite content to stay in their own patch, they have no urge to run off and sail the seven seas or make real their dreams at The Y.


A simple 20 pts for me this week:
4 28 mm miniatures @ 5 pts each=20 pts.



It maybe a 'simple' 20 points, but they are a lovely set of models there! Always a pleasure to see your painting, and backdrops, to your models here. 

Up on the board now with another 20 pts for you!
Kyle






From DallasE: Astronauts, Cosmonauts and a Rover for Lunar! (49 points)


Like many children of the 1970s, I was obsessed with space and the Space Race. Armstrong landed on the Moon only about two years before I was born and even in the late '70s the competition between the Soviets and the Americans for space superiority was a matter of the very recent past. And with all the secrecy surrounding the former Soviet Union, speculation about what happened in their space program was rampant. So it was almost inevitable that I'd be interested in the Lunar miniatures game from Black Site Studios.


Lunar is basically a miniatures game where astronauts and cosmonauts (and taikonauts if you're so inclined) fight it out on the Moon. The alt-history background diverges from our own in that the Soviets were first to land a man on the Moon, and NASA was not to be deterred from continuing the space race onto the very lunar surface. You can see how that would go. 


The basic game was reissued and updated in 2023 and the two-player box includes 6 resin models (three NASA astronauts and three Soviet cosmonauts), the rulebook, cards and tokens, special dice, and a small decal sheet. I also picked up some more models (the "Heroes and Icons Vol. 1" set) that includes four more figures and a cool unmanned rover. My set had unit cards for the four humans but not for the rover - I've emailed Black Site about that. (And yes, the astronaut above is wielding a pistol and meat cleaver) 


The models are 40mm-ish in scale and come with 32mm bases. I was excited about the decals because I wasn't jazzed about painting US and Soviet flags on the models' arms, but it turns out the decals are much too big to use for that anyway, so I hand-painted them to mixed results. 


Black Site offers all kinds of stuff for the game including a mat (24"x24" is the play surface) and STLs of craters and Moon-surface stuff like oxy tanks and gantries, I'm having Challenger Byron print those for me. But it occurred to me that what you really need for LOS-blocking are just big rocks and Canadian Tire came to the rescue with a bag of lava rocks for the barbecue - $7. I might paint them but they don't look bad as is. I got my mat from Mats by Mars because they make good mats and it was cheap as chips.

The game rules seem pretty cool and it looks like games play very fast. You only have 3-5 models per side and combat in a vacuum can be... dangerous. The game simulates low-G combat with lots of knockbacks (basically many of the weapons are non-lethal "kinetic" ones rather than penetrators, but when you get knocked back you fall prone and the pointy rocks on the Moon's surface are dangerous too). Looking forward to trying the game out soon. 

Scoring:

7x 40mm models = 49 points

Cheers,

Dallas, listening to the lost cosmonauts recorded at Torre Bert :-)

Very interesting models to place up today. And the freehand is looking good in the spaces I can see there. Not sure projectile guns will do the best in the vacuum of space.. but then again am no astro-physicist so what do I know! :D

49 pts for you there!
Kyle

From PeteF: Leatherface/Ed Gein Chainsaw Massacre-er True Crime (25 points)

The real life crimes of Ed Gein inspired the mostly fictional 1970s horror movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I was around 14 when I saw it - still gives me the heebie jeebies.  Gein's grisly crimes - including murder and grave robbing - happened in Wisconsin - not Texas. Gein has inspired several fictional serial killers - among them Psycho's Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill in the Silence of the Lambs.

As part of their horror movie line Studio Miniatures produced this character, one of the "Butcher Brothers" (now available from Hayland Terrain).  I have several of the horror minis for incorporation into my Horror themed Nightstalker army for Kings of War.

Leatherface doesn't yet have a place in a Nightstalkers unit, so I'll just leave him in the cabinet to creep out its other inhabitants - the 12.5mm Napoleonics look particularly diminutive and vulnerable next to this monster. 

5 points for a 32mm figure plus 20 for the True Crime location.




Lovely Model there Pete, and a good reflection of the monster! And I guess it can be used for True Crime being that he chops up his victims something fierce there! 
Curious where you will head to next in the Library halls without a Sarah's cart you have Oversized Books or Self Help lined up. Watching with interest!
25 pts for you
Kyle

From LeeH: General George S Patton (Library: Statue of a Famous Person) (25 Points)

The painting Mojo has been a bit limited recently, and it's entirely my own fault. I’ve managed to pile project on top of project until finding time to paint has become a bit limited. That is not necessarily a negative, because I have played far more games - both in person and remotely via Zoom - than I usually would. And I have been working on my YouTube channel and writing some articles, so it's not like I have been idle. Add on top of this a work schedule that has doubled my workload and finding time to even think about painting has been difficult. 


I have been trying to work my way through the Challenge Library but have reached an impasse. Eventually, I decided to do the ‘Statue of a Famous Person’ and I found this model of General Patton, but I didn’t want to just paint it as bronze or stone. So my ‘Statue’ is one of two options: either a waxwork statue of the man, or my 28mm model is in effect a miniature statue?? Ok, I’m stretching the definition for this section but you get where I am coming from. 

General Patton is one of those characters who seem to stride across the pages of the history books. He certainly had a talent for war and an ego to match, so powerful that it easily reached across the intervening 79 years since his death. Reading anything about this man's life and ambitions one has to ask how different the world would have been had he lived? 

1 x 28mm Foot = 5points + Challenge bonus = 25 Points. 

Lee.. love the painting of old Patton here.. and well it doesn't have to be a statue itself so to speak, so I think this works well for the context of a Famous person. Great job, and 25 pts added for you!
Kyle

JezT - Successor/Seleucid Command - 28mm (20 points)

Hi All 

Just a quick post to keep the points ticking over. I actually painted these while watching the "SuperBowl" the other week- so was a late night here in the UK. Just got round to basing them now and the figures are not too bad in the light of day!

Not sure of manufacturers now - think the mounted commander is Gripping Beast but with mix and match horse. Are a few odd figures left over from previous Challenge painting session. 





 

Will be useful to have a reserve Commander for any Basic Impetus games, and if one Commander loses a game they can readily be replaced - sounds like Premiership football?   

So just a nice and simple 20 points for me please. 

All the best Jez

Great little entry here Jez. And a reserve commander is always a good thing to have!
20 pts added for you
Kyle

Sunday - "Slow" Traffic Day

 


So here we are back to the regularly scheduled Sunday Minion to wrangle in the Sunday Crew.

Thankful for Martijn to stand in and help out while I was travelling to India for work. Shot above showing the day that had 'little' traffic while we headed to the office. Thankfully the campus was right beside out hotel, planned, and so it was an easy 15 minute walk. Most of it off this street so we only had to deal with this for a few minutes before it was all campus traffic. 

A couple great, quick, posts already lined up, with more hopefully getting finalized. Though some might have been stuck in the traffic above, in which case we might see them later in the day or next week.

For me, I am resting today. Trying to catch up on some sleep and to not have to worry about A/C being the only way to survive the heat... being that UK is around 6 degrees Celsius vs the 30+ that India had while there this past week. 

Enjoy the rest day folks!