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

From PeteB - Christmas figure with Shovel (10 Points)

My first figure for my first participation is a fact. In this period of the year I always paint some figures from those well known Christmas villages with all those lights for my daughter in law. When I see those figures I always get the feeling to repaint them. So that is what I do now and then. And so I picked this figure to start with because of the shovel and because he’s cleaning the figures from my paintdesk!

The figure is from an for me unknown company called AM/63 and the figure is 54 mm high. Painted with some colourful acrylic paints he looks much better now.

Putting those other figures aside!

I show you also the unpainted figure.

And now on to the rest of the stash with lots of 20, 28 and 54 mm figures. Thank you for letting me try this challenge after all those years of lurking to all the beautiful entries.

Points: 1 x 54 mm foot figure = 10 points.

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First off Pete, welcome to the Painting Challenge! 

I really love this figure and the sentiment behind it (not the shovelling but the gifting). :) Lovely brushwork. I especially like his yellow scarf and red-and-white toque. 

And 10 points to start your ascent up the points roster Pete. I very much look forward to seeing what you have in store for us this Challenge. Bring it on!

- Curt

In theme to the post: Huckleberry and I out for a stroll in the white stuff this afternoon (camerawork by the lovely Lady Sarah).

From GeoffT - Limbo, WW2 US Paratroopers (55 points)

Hello Challengers,

This year I did a lot of sculpting, but that stuff is already painted.  So instead I will be working through the remains of a bunch of old school models I picked up from a shop moving sale.

The first submission was a project that I started a few months ago, but ended up in limbo.  I acquired a platoon worth of very nice Black Tree Design US Paratroopers. Quite timely considering Chain of Command 2 is due out in April 2025.

After painting the platoon and checking the army list I realised I was short a few pieces; browning 30 cal machine gunners and the mortar crew, so I mail ordered some from Northstar.  At the same time I preordered the new Silver Bayonet supplement, and therefore my order including the Paras went into limbo awaiting the supplement release date.  The limbo ended, they arrived and have been painted.

The colours came up odd in photos, have tried to correct back to true colour as best I could.

Eight x 28mm miniatures = 40 points 

Limbo bonus = 20 points

Total = 60 55 points.

This is also the first squirrel, for WW2 US Paras.

Kind Regards

Geoff.

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First, welcome back to the Challenge Geoffrey! A great set of American paratroopers, and with them languishing on your desk these past few months are a perfect Limbo entry. It's great to have the option of both moving or deployed support weapon teams, especially for CoC in which displaying these details are important. Well done!

Prone troops are scored as half points so I'd adjusted your total accordingly.

- Curt

PS: Also, as a reminder, please remember to place in your metadata labels as it assists for searching.

From Kent Galpin - 28mm Bloody Miniatures English Civil War Cavalry (40pts)

Afternoon from a very warm summers day in Christchurch New Zealand

I think this is my 5th crack at the challenge, had a ball last year but

I thought need to dial it back a little this year and really enjoy the Challenge 

I hope everyone has a great time and that we all get a good bunch of minis painted in the process, the funny thing is I thought after painting so many cavalry last challenge I might do something different but I did count over 50 cav that I started work on so maybe not.

Well first up I have a wee set of 4 English civil war minis from Bloody Miniatures

They really are a pleasure to paint and hopefully if I get back to them I’ll have a few more that cross my table.

We there we have the first entry 

4 x 28mm Cavalry @10pts if I’m correct 40pts

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First, welcome back to the Challenge Kent!

Beautiful brushwork for your opening gambit, wow! I've always liked your clear, clean style and these harseboys don't disappoint. They're all great minis, but I especially like that officer with the broad blue waist sash - really lovely stuff.

These lads will give you 40 points to start your climb up the points ladder. Well done Kent!

- Curt