Tuesday, 11 February 2025

ByronM - Warhammer 40k Armigers [160 points]

Over the last few weeks I have been working on 3D printing and painting most of the rest of my Warhammer 40k Imperial Knights army.  The army will be made up of 11 Armigers and 1 Knight, and with this post I only have the Knight to print and paint, so almost done!


First up are 2 heavy Armiger Moirax's armed with graviton pulsars and volkite veuglaires.  These are some heavy hitting close up weapons.  These armigers are expensive point wise though so I am only taking 2 of them.


Next up is the main part of the force, a group of 6 Armiger Warglaives with thermal spear and chain cleaver.  With 6 of these running around the battle field they should be able to close in and deal with whatever needs to be dealt with, or at least that is my hope.

The paint job on these is fairly basic with the models being base coated black, then dry brushed metal and washed to add a grimy look to them.  I did the metal first as it was the messiest part of the paint job and hard to control if it went over onto other areas.  I then seran wrapped the metal areas and air brushed the blue.  


The bases are 100mm rounds and I coated them with sand and then some 3d printed resin ruins,


There are a total of 8 of these models which should count as 28mm vehicles so 8x 20points = 160 points.

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Well thats quite the wall of walking death Bryon! Cant wait to see them when Big Brother joins them

Really loving the verdigris look you are using to give them a battleworn look. Very gritty and grimdark!

- Paul

TomL: More CSA, PF Gal and Violence for 205 points

Flying through the abyss we reach what will be our last stop - the Seventh Circle.  Bringing us to Violence is the final Pulp Figures miniature from the Gangland Gals set:


 
I thought these Crooked Dice figures would be the perfect choice for violence, or as Alex would say after a milk+ drink, “the old ultra-violence”.
 

 


 
Moving carefully away from Alex and 'friends', I present more Warlord Epic Confederates. This week I finished 4 stands of CSA (and touched up my two test stands to match) which completed two CSA Regiments:  The 8th FL & the 57th VI. The newly painted boys:
 


 This completes my CSA regiments in this planned paint scheme.  So it's time for a group shot:
 

 
I will return in a week or two to painting the Union side after I contemplate my path through Paradise.
Points total: 205
Violence - 20 points
5 28 MM figures @ 5 = 25 points
80 15mm figures at 2 = 160 points
 
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Thats a cracking group of Rebs there Tom! Really starting to come together as a force to be reckoned with
But the Clockwork Orange boys really take the cake:

“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

- Paul

From GregB - 15mm Imperial Fist Space Marines (46 points)

15mm/1-100 scale Imperial Fist Space Marines and support vehicles. 3d prints all around.

One of the great things about the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is inspiration provided by fellow Challengers. The inspiration can be a particular jolt when you see another Challenger working on similar projects to yours, and even more fun when those projects are somewhat "niche" by gaming standards. So I was pretty happy to see PeterA sharing some 15mm 30k Space Marines earlier in this edition of the Challenge - and duly inspired, I rushed to get some of my own 15mm 30k figures back under the brush!

It was a couple of years ago (during an earlier AHPC, or course) that I noticed Byron starting up with some 15mm 40k stuff. I loved how it looked. I am sure many gamers can relate to that experience of different gaming trade-offs offered by different scales of miniatures. 28mm figures (and larger) offer fantastic, detailed sculpts. Smaller scales, on the other hand, give more room on the table and engagement ranges that "look" a little better on a 6' x 4' table, particularly for settings that involve more vehicles. 15mm size/1-100 scale models can really provide a nice balance between these two aspects of miniature gaming. 

Naturally I immediately thought of GW's Horus Heresy setting for 15mm gaming - and it is! Here are a few reinforcements for the Loyalist side of my 15mm 30k collection. These are all painted in the bright colours of the VII Legion Astartes, the Imperial Fists.

Veteran Tactical Squad

Tactical squad from the VII Legion Astartes.

These are classic Space Marines clad in Mark VI Power Armour - the famous "beakie" helmets.

Sergeant and banner-bearer.

Missile launcher - of the classic "shark fin" variety, and melta gunner. 

We have one officer with a power sword and a bolt pistol, and two other marines in the squad are equipped with support weapons - a missile launcher and a melta gun.

Two regular marines.

View of the rear detail and the power packs.

Two more of the regular marines.

Decals thankfully can be found among the sheets sold for the GW's existing 30k miniature ranges, so that is a nice touch for the shoulder pads.  

Dreadnoughts

Let's party!

The loyalists will be pleased to benefit not only from some extra firepower, but some extra "punch", as you can see from the power fists. One dreadnought is equipped with an assault cannon, and the other a plasma cannon. 

Assault cannon, and an aggressive attitude! Getting results in the defense of The Emperor...

Plasma cannon on this fellow.

I love these dreadnought designs - particularly the one that is pointing! 

Whirlwind  

Whirlwind APC and spotter/observer Space Marine.

The Whirlwind is another "classic" Space Marine fixture, an MRLS-type support weapon based on the ubiquitous Rhino APC chassis.

View of of the back tracks and ramp.

Great details on this 3D print.

I also painted up this one figure as a kind of command figure/forward observer type. 

Big thanks once again to Byron for printing all of these models for me! He is always putting up with me bugging him with random requests to see if he can print this-or-that different STL. Hopefully PeterA will see these and fire out a few more of his Death Guard too!

For scoring, we have:

- 11 x 15mm artillery crew = 22 points

- 3 x 15mm crew-served weapons = 24 points

Total: 44 points 

We also have one skull! 

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Fabulous work Greg! Love the bright yellows- often a tough colour to pull off work in a gritty 40k way

I do think you've short changed yourself on the scoring though - I'm counting the Dreadnoughts as vehicles for a total of 46 points

- Paul

From MikeF - Agents - 10 points

Not much progress on the agents for Exploit Zero this week, but I did manage to complete two. Below is the Ronin and the Sawbones agent class. The Ronin is your basic ranged combat specialist, while the sawbones is the medic. Weapons in the game are fairly abstract and only make a distinction between different types of weapons in the expansion. The Ronin is from Urban War miniature line sold by Seb-Games. I think the model is supposed to be naked, but I didn’t want her to get cold so gave her a blue suit! She’s also equipped with numerous bionic parts, including both lower legs and her left arm.

 



The next model is a 3d print. She seems to have very limited medical training and only offers two treatments. She probably gets less pushback when asking for your immunization history!




Some have asked if I’ve heard of Kill Sample Process as an alternative cyberpunk game. I have a copy and I think it is a better player vs player game. The strength of Exploit Zero is its cooperative nature and the more detailed AI mechanism for the enemies.

2 x 28mm miniatures for 10 points.

Thanks for visiting.
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What great characters! I love their whimsical nature, brought out by your great colour choices
- Paul

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 two 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. 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 not 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