From BruceR - Epic Iron Brigade, Zombie Camels, Chaos Warriors, Limbo, (117 pts)

It’s great to be back for Challenge XV and all the positivity associated with the hobby we share.  

As we all do, I have a number of different ways to go this year and was sitting reading Curt’s first post and I was drawn to a couple of primed epic ACW infantry stands that simply sat on my painting area.  I’d continued from the Challenge last year and completed the Guts and Glory box of epic ACW and the crew here played a couple of Black Powder games with the newly finished forces.  One of our crew had moved away a number of years ago, but manages to return once or twice a year to game.  He played ACW this summer and started painting the Army of North Virginia.  This got my juices going so why not paint the Iron Brigade (Midwest toughs) for the Union.  We, like many others, we have  paired down the number of stands in a regiment to 3 from the Warlord 5.  I was able to find a box on ebay and was surprised when they arrived in this wee box.  20 strips of Iron Brigade ready for the brush.  I had to create a command stand as only 2 are in the box.  I cut up a strip and placed some 10mm Kallistra ACW metals in to make it happen.  The buddy returned two weekends past and we put his new force and my additional troops on the table for a battle.  A long story as to why there were 3 stands sitting unloved.  They were not used or needed and so I return to the Iron Brigade.  Perfect for the first level of hell “Limbo”, returning to a project.  I whipped them out and with only 3 strips I had to dig in the bits box and decided to add some Kallistra officers and a standard to create another base.  So another 2 bases of Iron Brigade lads to the collection. 

Iron Brigade

Continuing Frenzy:

Zombie Camels

Yesterday, the gang came over for the last game of the year as I’m traveling for the holidays.  We have enjoyed The Silver Bayonet, and I had set up the 2^nd scenario from the Egypt book.  We had a blast and when finished one of the boys passed out little Xmas packets to the 3 of us.  These were resin printed “Zombie Camels”.  I had used some nurgle troops to represent them previously as I did  not have Camels of any sort.  So, while the war department watched the Kennedy Center production Sunday night, I painted Zombie Camels.  I kept to the nurgle theme as, well they are zombies.  Used speed paints for most of the work and I actually like how they turned out.  We will have to replay scenario one to get the zombie camels back  on the board. 

Gift Painting:

Chaos Warriors

While putting some gifts together of miniatures for the gaming crew I noticed two original metal chaos warriors/champions sitting on a figure shelf.  Probably been there for 15+ years (actually I have no idea where I would have obtained them from) Perfect, one of the group has an  old chaos warrior army and I had nothing for him.  Well get the brush going and two old school chaos warriors ready for Xmas giving and Mordheim, WHFB, WtOW etc… 

Good to be back

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Bruce! I've always really liked your 12mm ACW efforts and these do not disappoint. Love the undead camels; a terrific addition to your Silver Bayonet collection and definitely a good reason to revisit a scenario. This all being said, I have to admit that my favorites of the crowd are the two Chaos Warriors. Love these guys. They have that wonderful old-school wide-stance look about them. What an awesome gift. Well done!

- Curt 

From PeteB - Hagen-Miniatures Wild West Townsman - 28 mm - Limbo - 25 Points

This figure is a 28mm figure from Hagen-Miniatures which I started long time ago but never finished. And now I did. They have some more of this Wild West townsfolks but I’m not sure if I will get to them this challenge.

Painting this figure was fun, and for the first time I painted eyes on such small figure. Normally I only do this on my bigger 54 mm figures but this time I couldn't resist trying it on this one. And I like the result. He is part of a small project where I'm working on.

I wish you all and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Points: 

1 x 28 mm foot figure        = 05 points

Limbo entry                        = 20 points

Total                                    = 25 points

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Hey Peter. I can see that it's a figure, and probably very well painted, but the lighting is so off that one cannot really discern much of the details. Similar to my advice to Gavin, I suggest you not photograph your work against a white background as the camera will often underexpose the figure. Try using a darker background and good frontal lighting and the contrast balance should correct itself.  

- Curt

From GregB - Loyalist Armour for "Legions Imperialis" (8 points)

A squadron of Imperial Fist Sicaran tanks for GW's "Legions Imperialis" game.

A little palette cleanser of an entry here on Christmas Eve - a unit of Sicaran Tanks for GW's rebooted Epic 30k game "Legions Imperialis". These are multi-part plastic kits from GW, and they are painted in the colours of the VII Legion Astartes, the tiresome (if stoic) Imperial Fists.

Heavy plasma-type cannons in the turret and lascannons on the sponsons - this configuration is ideal for engaging armoured targets, like other vehicles or some of the scary walkers.

GW botched the rollout of this new game quite comically in 2023. While some of the issues relating to supply of models have alleviated since the game launched, you can still sense the impact of the failed release for the game in a lack of enthusiasm among the local 30k community. It would not be accurate to say nobody is playing it, but interest is quite limited and I frequently encounter hobbyists who had been keen to try it, but gave up when they could not obtain it, or subsequently gave up on it due to lack of models. I still haven't found an opponent to give the game a try - even those who have small collections have them put away, or are more focused on the main 30k game etc. 

Yellow armour for hope! You can see some of the different decal options used on the vehicles.

As an old-time fan of the original "Epic" game from GW, I am still working on a collection myself - after all, I find the models remarkable in their quality, if somewhat tricky to assemble owing to their size. But given that there is no game or event pressing me to get moving, my pace of painting these figures has been very, shall we say, "stately" (i.e. laughably slow). 

Autocannons in the turret, and heavy boaters on the sponson - this configuration is primed to take out light vehicles and flyers.

All the same, this slow pace allows for time to enjoy the models. And to swear constantly at the yellow paint! The Imperial Fist colours look striking when you are finished, but wow...what a pain! Even on little tanks like these!

There are scads of different tanks for GW's Horus Heresy setting. The Sicaran tanks fit somewhere in the middle in terms of size and impact. They are pretty fast, have slighter armour, and can pick different weapons load outs to emphasize anti-personnel, anti-tank or a mix of both. One model has a vehicle commander popped out of the hatch, so it can serve as a command tank should such a thing be needed in the game.

Four little tanks equals 8 points - not a whole lot, but like I said...a nice little palette cleanser.

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Lovely work Greg! Your brushwork is so clean and precise. Also the yellow you've chosen (as painful as its been to work with) really makes them pop on the tabletop.  I too have been really disappointed with GW's 'own goal' approach to design, marketing and rollout of this game. This is something you could say is typical of them, but it's not the case as their more boutique 'epic-scaled' game 'Adeptus Titanicus' was/is actually very good and was for the most part well-supported. That being said the minis for Imperialis are it's strong suite with the models being amazing in their intricacy, especially the vehicles (as we can clearly see here). Hopefully if you get enough models painted for both sides you can entice a local gamer to try out the rules with you. 'Stately progress' is still progress!

Again, great work Greg!

- Curt

Ready From TeemuL: Lannister Heroes (44 points) [Limbo]

Bit of slow start this time, I was supposed to have plenty of time during the weekend and Christmas week, but I caught a flu and focusing on minis was out of question. Happily these The Song of Ice and Fire minis have been on my desk since October and needed very little work to complete them. Anyway, they qualify for Limbo and now they are done.

These three are from Lannister Heroes 3 set, which I got from a sale. I don't have the game, but they were cheap and I decided to give them a chance. They are one piece plastic minis and rather large. Robert Strong on the left is 60mm to the feathers and the other two are almost 40mm. So they won't mix with my other minis (mostly 28mm), but may be they find some use. I have other half of the box still to do.

The paint job is not extraordinary, I'm not happy with the faces for example and highlights are bit rough, but they are ok if you look from far enough. Robert and Kevan were quite dull, full armour and red cloak, Qyburn was more interesting. There are heavy washes and heavy highlights, as I mentioned earlier. Some sand and tufts on the base.

Robert Strong

Kevan Lannister

Qyburn

After taking the initial shots, I realized I missed the blacks from they eyes, so back to the painting table. Here the horrible close ups, but the eyes are decent - it kinda helps that the models are quite large!

Regarding the scoring these qualify for Limbo (20 points) and I ask for 7 points for Kevan and Qyburn (40mm minis) and 10 for Robert Strong (54mm). Total should be 49 points, if Curt agrees.

What's next? I have been rather busy and my painting motivation has been low and I haven't prepared any females (or deamons), so I guess I need to paint something for Lust. Outside the themes, expect to see some fantasy or another, may be historical or scifi.

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Welcome back to the Challenge Teemu! I'm sorry to hear that you've not been feeling well but it seems you've managed to move from one Limbo to another that is a bit more fun. I virtually know nothing about the The Song of Ice and Fire miniature game though it seems they've produced a lot of product for it.  That aside, you've done very nice work on these Lannisters. I like the armour, your highligting and especially your efforts on their faces. Kudos to you for the eyes - I almost never do as it seems to be a practice of diminishing return on time invested. 

Your scales are right but your math is off, so 44 points it is - well done!

- Curt

From LeeH: Russian Line Grenadiers 1812 [40 Points]

My first EVER unit of 28mm Napoleonics is completed. Let's be more specific.. my first Napoleonics in any scale! It’s all Ray’s fault. He rang me a few months ago and suggested a collaboration and about five seconds after suggesting The Retreat from Moscow in 1812 I was online and making my first order! My first impression…28mm is waaaay more expensive than my usual 6mm projects! I often paint single 28mm figures for the challenge, but it has probably been three decades since I last painted units of 28’s so I had no idea how long these would take to complete to a standard I was happy with. Fortunately, I had quite a bit of time during the opening weekend of the Challenge and I rocketed through this first unit. 

These are 1812 Russian Grenadiers, but they are wearing slightly out-of-date equipment. They still wear the 1808 pattern ‘stovepipe’ Shako with its enormous plume. From February 1811 regiments started being equipped with the new ‘Kiwer’ style shako with a much thinner Plume. Still, many had not received these before the French invasion in 1812 and some regiments didn’t fully change to the new regulation uniform until 1814. Fortunately for me most of the models I have chosen for my Russian army are wearing Greatcoats making painting them a lot easier. (Ray keeps mentioning this but I don’t feel guilty at all. First, he should have started the conversion by bagsying the Russians first and second he’d just cost me £200 I wasn’t planning on spending!)

One of the reasons I so quickly agreed to this project was that I felt the hand of fate on my shoulder. I have most of the Blandford Colour Series books and just a few weeks earlier I filled a gap in my collection when I found a copy of Uniforms of the Retreat from Moscow in a charity shop for the ridiculous price of one pound. So when Ray suggested the period for our collaboration project I knew I couldn’t ignore the obvious hint from the gods of wargaming. Serendipity had spoken and I had to go with the flow. Besides, being a bit of a butterfly my will was too weak to resist. 

(Scoring: 8x28mm Foot = 40 points)

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First, welcome to 'The Beautiful Game' Lee. Your first unit of Napoleonics... Wow. To me it's like some one announcing the arrival of their first child. Fabulous work my friend. I love that you've done them in the earlier stovepipe brush shako - literally over the top stuff. Good call on the greatcoats and I also like your snowy bases which really highlights the intended setting. Lovely stuff. I look forward to the next installment in this project.

Speaking of which, where is Ray's contribution? You're barely of the gate and he's already shirking his responsibilities.. :)

40 Points to you Lee, well done.

From JP - ACW Naval 1/1200 ships (55 Points)

I'm delighted to be back for my second competition. Thank you Curt for organising this. I am also delighted to learn that Martijn is only 30-45 minutes drive from me here in soggy Belgium! My painting continues to outstrip my actual gaming, though that was not the intent when I set out in the hobby over 50 years ago... on the other hand, I prefer my current paint jobs to what I produced back then...

Apologies for the haste of the entry - the photography is not great. I wanted something in for Christmas and time was running out. 

I call this my Limbo post, if Curt allows it. I have some 120+ ACW naval vessels and some 60 to paint still. Most models occupy a base of 50-75mm in length but the small vessels, which were numerous in the conflict, keep getting pushed to the back of the to do list in favour of the better known beasts. These vessels were often converted tugs or similar with a smoothbore plonked at each end.

And so I present the North Carolina Mosquito fleet of the Confederate States Navy - lovely models producedby Pithead Miniatures. Three of the vessels are 'normal' in size, while eight are on 35mm long bases. Assembly is fiddly at this scale and the bases need work, not to mention the name tags. The main challenge remains, as I posted last year, I think, in bringing them to life with enough detail and weathering to please the eye.

So, there are eleven Pithead 1/600 scale vessels:

3 x normal size      15 points

8 x small size         20 points

Limbo entry           20 points

Sub Total               55 points

Curt - please adjust as you see fit!

A closer up shot.

Thanks for taking a peek and now back to Christmas preparations!

Cheers,

JP

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First welcome back to the Challenge JP!

These are some great looking river craft. I especially like how you've done up the bases and provided the neat labeling - very trim and clean. I can't imagine how terrifying it would have been to be in these relatively light craft and having rifled artillery shooting at me. Yikes! 

55 points for your climb up the points ladder JP. Well done!

- Curt

From PeterA - 28mm Star Wars Shoretroopers, Limbo (55 points)

Hello to all Challenge Participants from a wet and (very) windy UK! I haven't taken part in the Challenge for a few years, so I am looking forward to seeing what everyone produces and what I can complete over the coming months. 

For my first AHPC XV entry I have a small squad of Shoretroopers for the Star Wars Legion game. I got these figures a couple of years ago when FFG did a bundle deal for their Star Wars Legion game, but I didn't really enjoy the rules, so the figures languished at the bottom of the lead pile, primed but nothing more. Then, about a month ago I came across 5 Parsecs from Home by Ivan Sorenson, a solo sci-fi skirmish game with some RPG-lite elements, and this inspired me to dig out the Star Wars figures to build some small forces for games set in a galaxy far, far away. Having not done anything with these figures for two years, this also seems like a good way to start the Divine Comedy, and so this is also an entry for The First Circle: Limbo!

I loved the look of the Shoretroopers in Rogue One, and so have adopted a broadly similar colour scheme, mostly using various Contrast paints over an Army Painter Skeleton Bone basecoat. The benefit of this is that they were quite quick to paint to a 'table ready' standard. They all have a squad marking in red on their right arm and the squad leader has light blue markings on his chest and left arm. 

So 7x28mm figures plus the Limbo bonus should net me 55 points (I know SWL figures are bigger than 28mm, but this seems the best fit in terms of scoring). The backdrop in the photos is by John Hodgson from his Sci-Fi backdrops book - thoroughly recommended.

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Welcome back to the Challenge Peter - it's great to have you in the scrum again! 

These Shoretroopers look terrific in all their Light Armour Club Med glory. Great brushwork and wonderful terrain too! I remember first seeing the Shoretroopers in 'Rogue One' and thinking that they guys must come from influential Imperial families. Who else would get posted to a tropical paradise guarding an archive. Tough gig! They must have been sooo p*ssed when the Rebels dropped in with the Deathstar in tow. 'The scheduled beachside evening Mai Tais have been cancelled due to orbital turbolaser bombardment...'

Great idea to repurpose these minis for 'Five Parsecs From Home' (great rules) and as an added bonus it allows you to snag another 20 theme points. Great stuff!

Also, thanks for the tip on the John Hodgson backdrops. I'm now just plotting which ones I want to get for myself. Cheers!

- Curt

From GregB - Sons of Horus Breacher Marines (70 points)

A squad of Breacher Marines from the XVI Legion Astartes. 28mm multi-part resin figures from GW. 

Greetings once more to all Challengers! It is a delight to be spending winter with all of you once more, tackling projects old and new while making a dent in the piles of unpainted plastic and resin that haunt all of us. I'm glad to open the 15th Edition of the Challenge with a familiar theme, and veteran Challenge participants will hardly be surprised to see that I have returned once again to GW's "Age of Darkness" setting, the great, galaxy-spanning civil war of the Horus Heresy, known colloquially as "Warhammer 30k". This is a squad of 10 Breacher Marines, resplendent in the colours of the Warmaster's own XVI Legion, the Sons of Horus. They are multi-part resin models from GW. 

Three of the breacher Marines...you can see the fellow in the middle suffers from dimpled surfaces and frosting caused by a defective matte varnish spray from back in 2016. The repainting helps a bit...but still...f*ck spray paints.

Breaching Marines are great fun. We can sense just how dire things must be in the Horus Heresy setting when it becomes necessary to take a super-human soldier clad in super-amazing power armour and say, "you know, we should give those chaps a giant pavisse-style shield, you know, because safety". I love the proto-medieval look of this variant of the Mark III power armour, and how the shields have the little "hooks" that allow the Space Marines to brace and fire their weapons while on the move. Brilliant sculpts.

Fans of the Horus Heresy are enjoying a veritable golden age in terms of new figures and models...but these are not new. They are rather old, and have been re-painted as part of an ongoing effort to bring my large collection of 30k Sons of Horus models, painted over a now 10-year timeframe, into some manner of consistent appearance. You see, my hobby mind has a peculiar affliction - that of the screaming-inside-OCD monkey. Certain things - like an inconsistency in the green armour of a Sons of Horus collection, for example - cause this monkey to scream and throw things in my mind. 

Love the shields! These are some of GW's finest 30k sculpts...and there are a lot of great 30k sculpts!

These particular figures were first painted back in 2016, right as I switched over to my current approach toward painting the vaguely-blue-but-mostly-still-green armour of the Sons of Horus. This squad was painted mid-change...with about three models painted using my current approach, and the other seven painted using a previous approach (which involved many pointless glazing layers). Mixed greens within the collection were bad enough...but within one squad? The OCD monkey does NOT APPROVE! I found I could NOT deploy these in good faith knowing - and seeing! - the different greens. What would the Warmaster think??

Sergeant on the left, and a special-weapon trooper wielding a lascutter (great for opening the hulls of ships, or the armour of enemies...whatever). 

Thus I soothe - ever so slightly - the screaming inner monkey by re-painting the lost squads and vehicles a few at a time...and this is how I am kicking off Challenge XV! These Breachers are now properly ready to "stand in the line." I will shamelessly exploit the "Limbo" theme for this purpose - after all, these WERE a stalled project of a sort, from back in 2016 :) That's ten 28mm infantry figures, and 20 points for a theme, which should count for 70 points - a fair start toward my target, and a nice little start for our 30k duel. Even better, two of these guys are wearing skullz - so that is TWO skulls :)

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Greg, it's great to see you launch your opening gambit with this set of venerable-but-wonderful models. Like you, I've always been taken by the whole ridiculous idea of Breacher Marines and as you say these models are marvellously baroque with their bronze chased slab armour and spooky grilled helmets. Terrific stuff. And then there is the added bonus of the 'new' legion livery which placates your OCD monkey while making the force more cohesive. The Warmaster will be pleased. All is good in the world... Until of course you cast your eye upon the next unit of heretical off-colour models and the process deliciously repeats itself. I look forward to it!

70 points is is my friend. Well done and welcome back to the Challenge. 

- Curt

From GavinB- A Turnip28 unit of Chaff for the Parsnip Pustules 91st (25 points)

Day two! With version 18 of Turnip28 and the new Kickstarter coming out I figured I should make a new Regiment of squelchy fellows to be castle defenders for siege games, and after much consideration I decided to call them the Parsnip Pustules 91st! So I wrote some lore for the regiment and printed out the heraldry creation sheet from the Swollen Magglette, and drew up some livery designs. 

When I was happy with product I chose which Toady to do first, which happened to be Gogas Von Fredic'Fowf, a want-to-be-Toff. He leads a group of Chaff with melee weapons (Spears). Usually I give Toadies 30-40mm bases but since I made this regiment to defend a keep, they all need to be able to fit on the ramparts of a wall so I gave him a 25mm base. 

The unit of Chaff and their Toff are made up of Perry Miniatures Agincourt foot knights, extra bits from the WotR infantry and some green stuff sculpting on the visors. Five 28mm models for 25 points! These guys came out okay, which is a surprise because painting T28 models is always hard for me, sometimes they end up looking too sloppy and then other times they look too clean I can never find the sweet spot, ugggh!! well I'll stop wasting your time and let you see what you actually care about, the pictures...

Gogas's Coat has seen better days

This soldiers helmet was fun to sculpt

 

He also carries a pack of parsnips on his back. the coat of arms of his regiment can be seen as well

Well, thanks for reading about how I smash blobs of colour on little plastic men. Happy holidays!

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Great work on this unit of Chaff, Gavin! I really like your modified helmets and the guy with the parsnip backpack (or perhaps that's just a 'new' part of him). I notice that some of your figures are a bit underexposed and would suggest shooting them against a darker background so that the contrast works to your favour in making them 'pop' - again, just a suggestion. 

25 points to you sir - well done!

- Curt