Greed- DavidB( 245 points)

So Greed is often associated with wealth, but also can be for power. Probably my favorite book I have read ( without pictures) is the History of Florence by Nicco Machiavelli. He with his unique insight and wit identified the new wealth( business owners) the nobles, and the papal forces of the Vatican as the the main three forces causes strife in the known world and Italy. Machiavelli also wrote in that tome "there is always two parties. The party who has the power and the party that desires the power, neither is working for the good of the state." That is certainly a bit of greed on those parties and those same ones still pull the strings ,although fear of Bourbon kings has receded,  the push and pull of power remains. 

In the Battletech lore, House Steiner is an Inner Sphere power. They are the remnants of European power and nobility with many of House Steiner tracing their ancestral lines to Knightly lords and Napoleonic generals. They have kept power and in books by Michael Stackpole and others that I read in the 80's and 90's, they can be altruistic heroes or power brokers and power junkies. All forces in Battletech can be similar in their greed for power and it is quite easy to find a plot devise to make an entertaining wargame,

My greed is a touch different. I am a wargaming packrat. Up first are these wonderful trucks that I ordered from the Wargamers Vault. I found some very inexpensive files of 28mm scifi trucks and since the were modular and interchangeable, I paid less for those files than a space marine tank kit. These trucks were the first files run through my 3D printer in October. They are brilliant, really nice kits easy to put together.....and look entirely too small for Necromundia and other games workshop games.

Still, I love these trucks in their detail and simpilcity, and being perfectly fine trucks there was never a doubt of making more...but larger.

I painted them for too reasons... I do hate painting vicks. I would much rather paint a bunch of infantry as that is a noticeable squad, regiment, or army with noticeable progress.a truck or two is just a truck or two and vicks are a part of wargaming especially in the genres I like most.

I paired these trucks with a House Steiner platoon that has been laying around for a very long time.

A platoon commander with his platoon sgt, aid(driver, scribe, runner) and two heavy laser teams

These are old Ral Partha sculpts and are more 25mm than 28mm, but look fine with the trucks.

The platoon has three squads of troops with smaller "man portable" heavy lasers and the rest with laser rifles and carbines. With eight man squads, perhaps the heavy laser is kinda portable....from experience I can honestly remind you that man-portable is not synonymous with easy or fun. At least this platoon has access to two trucks from which the troops can place the man-portable weapons in.

They are very fine sculpts and had very little flash and cleanup needed. Poses are often repeated and the weapon crew guns made me glue my fingers together many times

The platoon Sgt has a pack on his back which could be a radio for the commander or his bag of useful items to disperse to the squads.

And finally, the whole platoon together. I have a few more trucks and Kurita troops to paint, but now I can use 5150 Star Army or any other rule set for platoon vs platoon skirmish and they wont look like lilliputians. I even have a few pieces of terrain that match them, so the battles will look proper and be more immersive. Perhaps a 25mm mech or two in a future game...  

I bought these after I first left active duty in the late 80's and when some college friends wanted to play Battletech when Rogue Trader and warhammer 40k were still new. My mistake was I liked soldiers and painting them even then and my friend who was supposed to help me find some stuff for our games thought they soldiers were cool and did not show me the mechs or even a lance worth of recommended battle mechs to use in the game...and it was RPG and not a wargame, so miniatures were needed.

from 1989 they have been unpainted and now they are ready for the table, after Kurita is completed. So 40 years later they have a use besides collecting dust! I should have purged them from the collection of the mountain of neglect years ago.

two 28 mm trucks at 20 points each  for 40points

27 troops at 5 points each...135points

5 big guns at 10 points...50 points

225 points plus 20 for the greed of a gaming hoarder

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Great to see these classic BT Battletroops get some love Dave! 

Your project is really coming together well

- Paul

From GregB - Thirty Years War Artillery (44 points)

Guns ready to tear up Central Europe...plastic figures from Warlord Games' "Epic" range.

Great to be back with everyone after taking a week off to enjoy warmer climes for a week. Need to get those paint brushes moving again if I'm going to hit my target for Challenge XV, and in that spirit I present this assorted battery of Thirty Years War artillery. These are all plastic from Warlord Games' excellent Thirty Years War "Epic" figure range. 

Lighter artillery base - smaller carriage, two crew.

Larger gun - bigger carriage, more crew.

Warlord have two different types of guns & crews in the "Epic" range. The heavier guns are not only larger on the base, but have more crew around them, while the lighter gun is of course a touch slighter, but also has fewer crew on hand to serve it. I opted to use a wide variety of colours on the clothing of the crew and the gun carriages.

Another one of the heavy guns.

Great details on these Warlord "Epic" figures.

I have been working on Imperialist/Catholic forces so far, but when it comes to artillery in the Thirty Years War this branch of the military was still somewhat early in its development/evolution - and this was a setting where mercenaries were commonly employed on all sides. As such, these guns could serve on any side when the time comes on the gaming table, firing in support of Catholic Imperialists or Protestant rebels. 

For scoring, we have:

- 14 x 15mm artillery crew = 28 points

- 4 x 15mm crew-served weapons = 16 points

Total: 44 points

That's one post down for today - but one more still to go!

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A great brace of Falcone, Sakers and Culverins Greg! I hope their mercenary specialist crews stay loyal to you - that certainly doesn't seem to have always been the case! Looking forward to more of your 30YW project :-)

- Paul

From SteveA:Turnip 28 (32 points)

And now I too turn up at the Turnip table..... with the first painted followers from my first Turnip 28 Regiment:    "Les Betteraves Royales Maléfiques du Grand Destin, du but Prédestiné et du design Inspiré !!"

Presented here are the Stump Gun Artillery Piece, its crew and leading Snob/Toady.

The Stump Gun and 2 Artillery crew adorned with the tall bearskin hats are Turnip 28 3d printed minis I obtained from ByronM, while the 3rd crew with the fuse lighting torch is an old converted  ( ala green stuff, grass tufts)  GW Warhammer Fantasy Battle Empire artillery crew mini from a mixed bag of unwanted minis I was gifted about 30 years ago from a friend abandoning WFB.  The cart supporting the stump gun is also of GW vintage stock from a WFB blister pack of  horse and cart baggage train minis I had impulse bought from my local hobby shop around that same time in the mid 90s.

The Toady is a converted model from the Victrix kit  'Napoleon's Middle Imperial Guard, Fusiliers-Grenadiers' # VX0016.  The Toady's head was obtained from a stl I found last year on Thingiverse , but  I cannot seem to find on the site currently.  Arms/weapons are from my old WFB bits box,  and of course the rest is a dose of green stuff and grass tufts befitting the Turnip 28 basic conversion techniques to represent the rooty corruption.

The minis are painted with a combination of Army Painter's regular paints and layers of AP speed paints.  The bases colour is mostly Burnt Umber brown  Liquitex brand basics acrylic paint & Argrax Earth Shade.

I have not much developed background lore for my Regiment as is often expected in theme of a Turnip 28 force,  but I will create some simple lore as I paint more, and I know these Royal Baleful Beets of Grand Destiny and Fated Purpose and Inspired Design, seek out the rare parts of the root that mimics beets from which rooty juices they can craft the Royal Purple dyes they crave to stain the remains of their battered uniforms so they can resplendently display a colour befitting their private perceptions of their public status.

Total Points = 30

x1 Toady                          (28mm Foot Figure) = 5pt
x1 Stump Gun              (28mm Artillery)   = 10 pts
x3 Stump Gun Crew     ( 28mm Foot Figure) = (3x5)=15 pts 

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Another convert to the rooty goodness! Great work Steve, they look wonderfully miserable (ie great!) - your conversion work on the gun really good too. Take a few bonus tubors!

- Paul

gluttony from the glutton- DavidB(234 points)

exploding orange paint pots in the wet pallet... it must be tuesday

So, I have made it to Gluttony. It has been an interesting day and several of the following are still very much so wet. I could have delved deeper into the mountain of neglect, but honestly as hobbyists we are by nature gourmands of Gluttony. The holidays brought its own chaos and then funnerals followed by hospitalizations and finding myself rapidly progressing to family elder. I have not had much time to properly sort my hobby space which is fine as I mostly know where things are...even if they are buried beneath primed models or new 3D prints. I am still unsure if it hobbyist hell or nirvana, but it does represent my cluttered mind and I am calmer when sitting before the disordered mess.

My  family did give me a new rolling tote which cleared stuff from my desk.

some are still balanced precariously atop shoeboxes...also precariously balanced.

And now I can kinda see troops awaiting more paint( I know a lot are sorta done and some not so much, but there are also some more troops stashed in ' organizing drawers" just behind this as they need some highlighting and metallics and are really almost done and need to be kept safe from splashing paint and precariously stacked miniatures.

Such is my organizational skills that one Corvus Cabal minion was lost under a lot of primed WW2 vehicles. He was quickly painted today so I can place him with his crew.

The terrain is some 3D prints from thingverse and are intended as generic terrain. A ruined three piece medieval church and an arched ruin and ruined well. I will print up the church again at some point, but remove the wooden timbers as they make it seem more recently ruined.

These are also 3D prints and a small file I purchased from Watcorp Designs. It was very cheap and is a nice model with options for an open cargo or enclosed troopback. I printed up both versions.

I painted these for use in a new Scifi game that has Earths first colony world. It seemed logical to assume that most equipment would be modular for ease of use and these powerful trucks would be a good platform as emergency vehicles like the bright green spaceport fire truck or the camouflaged military truck. 

the fire truck has been stored outside and exposed to a lot of excitement, so fresh paint is not a plentiful item.

I used vallejo rust effect paint set to show rust and damage while the rust and ash powders were used to show the dirt and grime these hard working trucks have gathered

cannons on a fire truck!? in the modular nature of these trucks, the turret is probably a relatively easy swap of water cannon with more destructive ones possibly plug in turrets. I painted both trucks so the absence of the turrets isn't an issue as they will mostly be table dressing in my new game Blackout.

Blackout is a new scifi skirmish game I picked up at adepticon last year. Enemy Spotted Studios is an American company where a marine and army combat veterans made a scifi skirmish game where weapons are very lethal. a d10 system and if a troop is in the open bad things will happen. it is shoot and move and the system includes mechanics for models fighting in cover or using cover to "pie out" to engage targets.  It is fast paced and somewhat counter heavy with some other interesting game mechanics. They got my money easy as the models are wonderful, but also a combat vet company where the factory and shipping dept are entirely wounded warriors.

for$100 I got two forces(UN vsHarlow) tokens and a small rulebook. 

The UN squad is led by a sniper and spotter and i matched their cloaks to the weathering powders i dusted the base and their legs with.

The UN force has bots powered by AI and in a slight horror, memory/ brain scans of deceased soldiers. All the brain scans and measurements used to track TBI(traumatic brain injury) in the game fluff I could be one of those bots. The bots are controlled by the two soldiers in the white UN helmets. in the game fluff they are women as women are pretty good in multitasking anyways and to be honest there isn't too much difference between soldiers and toddlers anyway! ;)

The ladies have recessed helmet lenses that i painted orange, the bots have a really nice similarity to the ones in Chappie which makes me think bigger things and fluff will be inbound for this game if they maintain success.

To oppose the UN forces are the Harlow mercenary company based out of South Africa. The troops are multicultural and all veterans. They were hired by the colonist workers whereas the UN represents earth and another merc group from Russia represents another faction( I think the industries involved on the colony as they are corporate security. 

Harlow has three fireteams one led by the squad leader and the troops use some exo armor for increased mobility and strength

the bot operator is a woman and the troop on the right has a squad support weapon his exo suit helps him move with.

I do like how the three women are just smaller than the men and not overt in their femininity

Harlow bots are just a little different than the UN ones.

all of the figures have nice animation and I will be looking for the other sets this year as well as an expansion set and updated rules.

Besides turquoise, I have engaged in gluttonous use of rust effects. I dug out my powders i used in challenge past, but also the Vallejo rust effects set. I cannot use blogger at work, but I can watch youtube videos of painters and scale modelers and have seen lots of amazing works and taken notes.

I am still quite the novice at weathering, but I also know practice will make perfect. I painted the two fallout derelicts in turquoise as that color pairs well with the orange rust contrast. I also used white for the generic station wagon so i could just focus on the rust itself. 

these are all freebie 3d prints. 

I used a watery tan paint to dust to corners of the pickup as it has been collecting weathering scars and dust for some time. I also focused on chipping the paint and exposing lots of weathered metal beneath the paint.

the station wagon was peeled paint an exposed primer with the addition of rusted metal over all.

the fallout sedan used both blue and white and then NMM chrome to be weathered into a milky weathered chrome finish with rust bubbling beneath.

I also used all those wonderful fins and art deco shapes for where the sun blistered the paint away on the raised rounded surfaces

All of this playing with rust led to this, which is a gift for my father who just today went to the hospital.

He is a Rat-Rod aficionado and has been buying hot rod toy cars as he knows he can never own all the classics cars he wishes in 1:1 scale. I got him Gaslands for christmas as his toy car collection is a literal motorpool for the game. He may despair at the modified hot wheel cars, but these are outfitted with all the launchers, guns, ect that he could ever need for a game.

another skull....

two rat rods and a gasser to populate the game board i am building him. i am still painting the buildings and the board. I used a oil painting frame from a $10 painting from goodwill which I have found to be the perfect size for any skirmish game

the tail lights shine nice with the blue and i noted the gasser needed the drag chute painted so it got some paint as I took pictures

the war rig for scenarios and is just a paint up from a hot wheels rat rod car carrier.

a flame thrower to take care of tailgaters and also harpoons to make things interesting

so this is a healthy stack that can be set aside for a more secure place and cleared some room from the haphazardous stacking on my desk, and they wont be splattered by the orange paint.

so one warcry cultist for 5 points and two skulls

two hulking 6x6 for 40 points

seventeen 28mm scifi troops-85 points

3 rusted derelicts- 60 points

one semi and three rat rods for gaslands- 24 points and two skulls

rust and turquoise gluttony- 20

234 points new skull tally of 95 with 4 new skulls 

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Great grimy boys and their rides! Love the Fallout Sedan in particular - quite the rockin' ride!

Hope your Dad gets well son Dave

-Paul