From Barks: Tyranid gribblies (87 points)

Some more gribblies for my 'nid swarm. I used Contrasts Gryph-Hound Orange and Skeleton Horde to do a lot of the work.

The neurogants have a symbiotic creature on their back, which steers them to the fight.

The leader is bigger and slightly more elaborate, with a bigger base (the abominable 28.5mm) and a bigger brain.

Last year I described spore mines as "exploding jellyfish balloon thingies". I love their languid deadliness, and got my hands on more.

11x Neurogants (55 points)

8x Spore mines (32 points)

Squirrel: +1

From Millsy:

Nicely done Barks! We've not seen much of the Nids of late and you are making me want to return to my own project which has been stalled for a while.

I really like your chosen hive colour scheme, there's just something that works when red, bone and black come together like this. The shading is superb and the stark highlighting on the claws makes them feel like they really are deadly sharp!

Brilliant work and a great way to clock up another 87 points.

Cheers,
Millsy

From StephenS: The Punisher (Wrath) (27 points)

G'day everyone,

It has been a little while between posts, with the usual humdrum of life and work to blame. 

I have finally finished painting up what is my favourite Marvel comic character, Frank Castle, known more widely as the Punisher. Many moons ago I received a single copy of a Punisher comic as a ten year old for Christmas as part of some supermarket novelty gift. Widely inappropriate for a ten year old by todays standards (it was nearly 40 years ago now), I was of course, immediately hooked. I vacuumed up the story of the Punisher battling the French Foreign Legion for some reason that would have been more obvious, had I had the opportunity to read any of the other comics in the series. 

While I have long stopped reading the comics (I had to make some hard choices when I took up miniature gaming as a 13 year old), I have always had a soft spot for Frank. Driven to wage a very violent one-man war against crime after the killing of his wife and kids at the hands of mobsters, I think he epitomises Wrath.

The miniature is a 40mm plastic model from Atomic Mass Games for their Marvel game. With the bonus, that should be 27 points please.

I had a great trip down memory lane painting this one up.

Cheers,

Steve

From Millsy:

Now THIS is cool. Such an iconic character and you have really pulled off the look. Really impressed with him overall but especially the skull on his t-shirt which is one of those things that's instantly recognisable even in isolation. Was that easy to paint? I know if it was me there'd be loads of touch ups and then touch ups of touch ups!

Cracking work mate, just brilliant. 27 well earned points!

Cheers,
Millsy

From RichardM - Sudan start of the Egyptians and British limbers (228 points)

I’ve moved onto the Egyptians this week and wanted to get one unit of each arm painted so I could get happy with the paint recipes for future units.  

In the original purchase from Pendraken, I bought sufficient Egyptian infantry to make three battalions.  Subsequently I have looked at the OOB for the iconic Battle of Omdurman and have seen there are 16 Egyptian and Sudanese battalions on the field.  It is a decision for later whether I acquire the figures to refight that battle - which I think would look pretty spectacular.  However, that is a further 26 packs from Pendraken and at somewhere near GBP 7 per pack you can see that even 10mm can get pretty expensive.  I think I need to do some more research to see whether anywhere near that many battalions were used in other battles.

So first is the Egyptian 2nd Infantry Battalion.  

Then we have the first two of five batteries needed (for Omdurman) of Egyptian artillery.

And finally the first regiment of Egyptian cavalry.  I like the combination of the red fez and blue pants.   

Lastly, for no other reason that they were the first bag I pulled out of the figure box, I have the first limber teams for the British Artillery batteries.  

As always, all these are the lovely 10mm Pendraken figures. 

And just for fun, perhaps a ‘family’ photo for the Egyptian ruler’s album:

I think I’ll go back to British units next week.  

Points:

Egyptian Infantry battalion - 60 figures = 60

Egyptian Cavalry regiment -  24 figures = 72

Egyptian Artillery - each gun and crew is 6 points, so six guns and crews = 36

British Limbers - each limber and team is 15 points, so four teams = 60

Total: 228 points

From Millsy:

I was hoping you'd get to the Egyptians before the end of the Challenge Richard. They're amongst my favourite protagonists for the conflict. Rows and rows of red fezzes atop white uniforms look amazing, and the officers sprinkled throughout in all dark blue are the icing on the cake.

Great to see limbers too which are often neglected (I'm equally guilty) as they are mainly set dressing and still cost money and time. They do give a proper sense of how large an artillery park is in practice though, something we conveniently forget as gamers for the most part.

228 more points of North African goodness it is. Love em!

Cheers,
Millsy

From KentG: Medieval foot & cavalry (230pts)

These first figures are the second half of the Wargames Atlantic 

Plastic foot knight boxset, so happy I have another box  paint as

I really enjoyed painting these

Painted them up as William FitzGeoffrey de Mandeville retinue 

For the  banner I cut out a Norman banner for the shape

Then just painted the yellow and red on them like I did the figures

I got the patten off a flag from the barons wars range.

I know next to nothing about paint figures from this era so it’s all new to me

Not sure I’ll get to the next box before the challenge ends but you never know

Next up is the last of my Perry crusades minis 

I have a few foot left but they were extras you know when you make a purchase 

Get the boxes and think I didn’t order two of those, look back and go

Opps

A few French knights a part of a ongoing commission 

Always just little bits come in every now and then

Lastly 12 archers from the Wargames Atlantic peasants boxset

Two of the minis were sent to me with their hand around the wrong way

So I painted the hand to look like it was done correctly 

So this week we have 

11 x 28mm cavalry @ 10pms each 110 pts

24 x 28mm @ 5pts each 120 pts

So total of 230 pts

From Millsy:

Another high quality batch of medieval goodness to fest our eyes on Kent! Wargames Atlantic must absolutely love you mate, every time you show off something you've painted it a free marketing bonanza and no mistake.

The Perry Miniatures stuff is also very nice and you've done them proud. Their horses have a very distinct look to them (not a bad thing, they're lovely) but you can clearly pick them out vs. other manufacturers.

230 more points it is. The way you can consistently produce that kind of number is impressive indeed!

Cheers,
Millsy