From TeemuL: Classic Adventurers (40 points)

Time to gather another squirrel, this time let's call it "Classic Fantasy Squirrel". It's Tuesday morning now and the flu has gone, but I have had some after symptoms of other infection, so sick leave continues. The weekend was rather bad, the constant mild headache and tiredness kept me pretty much out of painting form, but these were started before and on Monday I was able to finish these. I got some new medicine, which might have helped or the disease is just naturally going away - who knows.

These are old metal miniatures probably meant for RPG use and come from the Julie Guthrie Personalities range by Grenadier Miniatures. I don't really pay attention to eBay offerings of prices, but at least in Finland the second hand prices of old minis are quite divided - asking price of metal GW slayers is 10-15 euroes, but these characterful classics are available roughly at 1 euro per mini with remarks "if you really want them" and "you dont' have to take them all." So I get them all. There are lots of slayers (and other metal minis of that era) in people's boxes, but these are quite rare. But I guess the want is what sets the price. But let's get to these minis, right?

This is a group of eight minis I bought last year, being quite a random selection and some time were spent to deciding the colours, since these are not uniformed of course. There are two identical minis, the two devils on the right. I decided to paint them a bit differently, because who needs two devils? I came up with an idea to paint a human like devil and a devil in his natural form. The human like devil got orange hair because why not.

They are painted with traditional acrylic paints with different approaches, some have basecoat, wash, drybrush and highlight, but most of them don't have all of those. In the end I think I managed to get them all look similar - meaning that they all could meet at the same point and all would look like belonging there. What I'm trying to say is, that one is not darker than others for example. they all have the same sun shining on them. They are all glued on plastic round bases from some Perry box, so not the usual 25mm bases, but smaller ones, which look quite nice on these. Then some glue and brown paint and small tuft to hide the join between miniature's own metal base and the plastic base. Compare the photos from front and back and you understand - probabl should have put another one on the back, too. Let's take a closer look now.

These are two devils I mentioned earlier. Julie Guthrie Personalities 897 Devil. It would be nice actually collect these minis, since each has a unique number and you could have a nice checklist for them - unlike old GW minis. Yes, the human like devil is in red cloak with purple details. Orange hair and orange highlights were partly chosen to have fiery, if not hellish, appearance. The devil in Hell was given dark red skin and yellow cloth to mimic the flames. I was actually thinking about some free hand flame pattern on the clothers, but dropped the idea quite soon. The horns are more visible on the Hell deamon, but both have them.

These two guys are Julie Guthrie Personalities 826 Fighter w crossbow and 835 Knight w lion shield. I decided to paint them in similar colours, so they might be on the same side. Red was chosen, because it is such a striking colour, widely used historically and Finnish Coat of Arms has a yellow lion on red background. I used different metallic paints on different kinds of armour and weapons, but I'm not sure how visible it is on these photos. Similarly I used different browns on different areas of wood and leather. And the lion on the shield is of course sculpted, no bonus points from there, but I'm extremelly happy about it, the colours work and I managed to highlight it quite well.

This lovely couple consists of Julie Guthrie Personalities 813 Female assassin w cup of poison and 845 Half-Elf fighter thief. With the assassin I decided to give her a brown cloak to help him hide in the shadows, but she still has a white dress and a golden belt. The green poison is maybe a bit obvious, but I couldn't resist and the colour pops nicely. The half elf is another story, he hides himself in the front of the people where anyone can see him and then surprise them. I bet these two would make an awesome duo! Light green and purple worked out well together and brown pants give him some practionality. He clearly has two sides in many ways - he is half elf, he is fighter and thief and he is fancy and practical.

Last but not least we have Julie Guthrie Personalities 890 Young Mage and 895 White Witch. Both of them have white and blue colours, unintentional, but reminds me of Finnish flag. Young mage could be male or female or something else - if someone wants to put mages in the boxes. This group is may be not as diverse as some other D&D groups seen on this Challenge, but at least there are some male and female options here, so I'm tagging this post with Sarah's Choice -label, even though I'm not sure if it is a thing this time. :) Young mage has a bit gandalfy look on him/her, but I guess that's quite normal. I especially like the blueish dress of White Witch, heavy drybrush on light blue looks like light is dancing on her dress when she storms into the middle of action. Green belt looks very good, too. Yes, here I'm admiring my own work, humble right? I'm just pleased with my colour choices, because there were no painting guides and all these were different, so an extra effort was needed.

Okay, the summary. There are 8 miniatures in old school 25mm scale, so 40 points in total. No skulls this time (but they are coming) and 1 new squirrel (25mm Classic Fantasy) making it 8 in total I guess.

Teemu, these are a welcome bunch of character figures or even NPC's for any RPG. I do approve of your excellent choice of colours! Another well earned 40 points indeed!

 

Cheers Sander 

From BartekR: A red dragon (20 points)

My next submission is a bit of a throwback to a smattering of early me hobby nerdness. The miniature: Archon Studios "Durkar, the Sovereign Serpent".

This was included with an Army Painter paint set, so another one for the squirrel challenge! I didn't actually know who Archon are but turns out they make minis for a range of tabletop games including  Masters of the Universe, Trench Crusade, and Dragons & Lasers(?!?), which range this belongs to.

There was the question of which colour to paint the beast. The booklet that came with the paint set showed a red dragon (aparently part of AP's learn to paint series), while the Archon Studios page for the mini shows a gorgeous gold paintjob. In the end, red got my vote -- sealed by that most intoxicating of drugs: nostalgia...from and for:

- Every illustration of Smaug I remembered from childhood (especially those by the brothers Hildebrandt, Michael Hague and Tolkien himself);

- Every piece of artwork from the original Dragonlance series of modules and books with a red dragon; and...

...the one, the only...

- D&D Basic red box cover art. This set - borrowed at that - was my first real intro to fantasy gaming (circa 1983), at about the same time as gamebooks (the gateway drug of Choose Your Own Adventure through Fighting Fantasy, Wizards, Warriors & You, and the wonderfully light-hearted Grail Quest series).   

Painting process: Black undercoat, white xenithal and drybrush. Started with a red contrast paint (ivory for the claws and chest) before highlighting and washes. The base is part of the mould so a lot of metallics and washes. 

Comparison photo against some Warlord Games minis (28mm and epic)

Scoring: The miniature is 165mm tall (Archon Studios webpage) so I have no idea where this falls in the points matrix. This is where I have to seek Saturday Minion Sander's wisdom for adjudication. 

"Do you see?"

 

Oh dear, now I have to decide what amount of points to give this beasty? Well I have checked the Challenge annals and most precedent seems to hint at scoring it as a 40mm vehicle which is 20 points, I do hope you are happy with that? As to the painting and the story behind your creation: those are truly awesome! I have seen these models up close and know you have really done it up admirably!

Cheers Sander 

From Martijn: More Late Romans (120 pts)

I think this is my sixth Challenge, but this is the first time I have been really struggling to get started. Up to now, I have painted all of eight miniatures.... For my next contribution,  I decided to take some rather simple figures to start with, but even so they took me an age to finish. However, they are sort of done at last, so here is the Late Roman Legio Quinta Macedonica. I have used the Victrix  Late Roman Unarmoured Infantry miniatures for them. I'm not much of a model builder, but they seemed to go together fairly easily.In all probability, these troops would have worn armour in most cases (although they leather armour on the officers is suspect anyway), but as with almost everything about the late Roman army we cannot really sure, so I am fine with them. They are based for Hail Caesar (which I have not played yet), but they can of course be used for any game, even Saga at a pinch. I think they could also fit into any post-Roman or Arthurian setting. I struggled a bit getting four figures on a base, but the end effect is nice enough.

I used mostly Contrast and Speedpaints again. I like the effect of them, but especially the way they flow from the brush. Somehow, I always struggle with acrylics,  as I either leave them too thick or make them too thin. I mean, the advice is to get them to the consistency of milk, but what is that? And should that be skimmed or half-skimmed or not skimmed at all? I find contrast paints, sometimes in combination with acrylics, a very convenient solution, often in combination with a wash. Here I used "marine juice", a combination between Reikland fleshshade, Softtone and medium. I gave the figures all the same tunics, but varied a bit with the trousers, to achieve something of a balanced between uniformity and interest. The Victrix set has a lot of options, so all figures are slightly different. I like that look; although a regular army like the Romans would also look very good with more mono-pose figures, I think the slightly irregular impression this units gives is fitting for those 5th or 6th century situations. Now all that remains is to give them a coat of  varnish once the weather clears a bit. The shield designs are the excellent transfers from Little Big Men Studios, sold by Victrix. Take note, however: the designs are symmetrical, but the transfers actually have an upper and lower side. So be careful when applying them. I wasn't, please ignore.

This is the very first time I painted a "largish" 28mm unit in one go (Yes, I can hear Yarkshire Ken's Homeric laughter in the background). So that's 24 28mm foot @ 5 points for a total of 120. Not a squirrel in sight though.

24x 28mm foot @5 = 120

Martijn, I feel your pain mate, sometimes getting the painting mojo back is a real poser indeed, but today's entry is awesome all the same! I really like your classic choice of colours and the shield designs are really striking, maybe entering this splendid unit gets your juices flowing again!

Cheers Sander 

Ready Saturday From TeemuL: All are one in Nagash and Nagash is all (10 points)

All are one in Nagash and Nagash is all. All I need for an army is Nagash. I don't need an army, I am one.

The first phrase is a classic line from Warhammer, other two are my own invetions or reinventions based on others. I bought this Nagash couple of years ago, it just looks great and is perfect mini for skull infested (no turnip infestion this year, hurray!) AHPC. I'm not really into Undead armies in any games, but Undead are the only army I have managed to buy for Warmaster and this mini is just great. So he will be my Warhammer Fantasy Battle Undead Army, and I won't need anything more.

I stripped the old paints and started from Brainmatter Beige (GW TM) basecoat. There are lots of skulls, so some colour choices were easy. I also wanted him to wear black, it creates a nice contrast to bone and is in average considered "cool." Dead cool, maybe? I added some purple for royal look, in the end Nagash is quite a narcist. Gold fits there, too, being royal, bright and looks good next to black. Those were the main colours. Skulls were first paited brown, then drybrushed with skin, followed be flesh shade wash and another drybrush of skin, before drybrushing with bone and finally some areas were drybrushed with white. Black robes were highlighted with purple and gold areas with silver. Base is naturally goblin green, Nagash is on a crusade in the Old World, not scheming in the desert.

Jewels were painted red and his book with flesh tones - his book might be covered in human skin? The sword is good old metal with a tint of blue, perhaps some magic? I was thinking about to paint it like a bone sword, but then I would had to have named it "Boner", because it is made of bone and it makes bones of people. But the image of Nagash walking around with a huge Boner in his hand, slashing and hacking here and there with his Boner, people running away in horror, all the moaning and groaning in the background, Nagash hissing "Do you want to have a taste of my Boner? My Boner is thirsty for your flesh! Let's finish this, Boner!" and I just couldn't do it.

Charming face

Nagash is far from a skeleton, you might say and you are correct! However, his skin seems to be very similar colour to the skulls and here I'm hoping to achieve a very old, dry, shrinken, almost bloodless wrinkled skin. I think it looks better than sickly green or pure white or healthy skin, but you may disagree - and be cursed by Nagash for eternity AND forever!

Nagash's book

A very nice mini to paint, it is basically just upscaled 28mm fantasy miniature instead of modern sculpts, which are large and filled with all kinds of details - pouches, trinkets, engravings, purity seals or skulls. In the nice and easy mini to paint, even though a large one and a center piece. But I believe I managed to paint him nicely within my skill limits and not trying something too much and failing.

Regarding scoring and skulls, I refer to a recent post made by a professional mathemagician and curated by respected archivist: https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2022/02/from-millsy-moar-skullz-10-points.html

Millsy regarded Nagash as a 54mm miniature for 10 points and Curt awarded him 5 bonus points. As a humble participant, I'll ask for those same 10 and see how friendly minion Sander handles the situation (I might note that Nagash is pretty much the same size as 40K dreadnoughts, which have been scored as vehicles for 20 points).

But no, I'm not trying to claim him as a big stompy robot, no! And he is not worthy of a squirrel, either, no!

So many skulls

But I'll claim couple of skulls, though. I refer again to Millsy's excellent post to make it easier for me and my minion. Millsy counted 155 skulls on the mini and then 6 more on the base. I believe I have the same number of the skulls on the mini. Following the example of a great man, I decided to add some skulls on the base, too. I grapped my plastic bag of human miniature skulls and there happened to be 7 skulls inside (true story). I decided to glue them all on the base and reuse the plastic bag for something else, so 7 skulls on the base and 162 in total from Nagash. I guess I had 9 before?

Okay Teemu, who am I to question the great Snowlord's judgement? I will award 10 points and comment you on your painting of this great old school WHF character.

Cheers Sander  

From PeteB - Wargamer Bonnie The Empress - 5 Points

 Today I present to you a naughty little lady. This figure is from the company Wargamer from Poland. It is a 28 mm high white metal figure that I bought at the last CRISIS show. I first thought I bought a resin or 3D printed figure but after a good look I saw it was white metal with parts that had to be glued. And I hate glueing metal. At this moment I get a good result with superglue and white (wood)glue. There were also some trciky edges that were hard to reach with the brush. But at the end I'm happy with te final result. Have a look for yourself.

As you can see she's riding a pet peeve (stokpaardje in Dutch), so technically she is cavalry! 😁 But I'm not so naughty as her. It's one figure. I add also some pictures of the box and a text that is written on it. Have fun reading it.

Being a boss of a big corporation is always a huge challenge. And when it is a French corporation... hmm... Say no more... Bonnie sometimes really has had enough. Worst of all is all that managing staff. If you watch them, they do what they are supposed to do (though behind-the-scenes intrigues, never-ending pressure for promotions and pay raises and constant flattery are pretty tiring), but when you let them out of your sight, it all goes like a house of cards. Merde! I think it will come to shedding this work and go to take a rest somewhere on the edge of the world... Maybe to some island?

And some more pictures I took outside.

Thanks for watching!

Points: 1 x 28 mm foot figure = 5 Points

Oh Pete,this cracks me up! I have bought the exact same figure at the Crisis as well! I will not be painting her this Challenge but it's a joy to see her here so well done by you! Chapeau!

Cheers Sander 

From MarkG: WW2 Naval ships (72 points)

While my main project of painting up units for the Russian Civil War continues, as a side project I’ve been painting 1/1800 scale naval forces for WW2. I recently purchased “Nimitz,” the excellent set of naval rules from Sam Mustafa, which has motivated to start these. It also helps with motivation to occasionally take a break, and work on another theme, such as these.

Full compliment: Kriegsmarine on the left, RN on the right

These are all 3d prints that I made at home on my filament printer. The sheer amount of either free, or cheap, STL files on the web means I’ve been amassing files for pretty much any engagement I find interesting (many from Ghukek's Miniatures); thus, I have a big bag of further goodies for the Royal Navy, Kriegsmarine, Regina Marina, US Navy, and Japanese Navy still to paint.

HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales

Given that nearly each of the ships require a base with slightly different dimensions, I decided to use balsa wood. For the sea effects I followed Ken Reilly’s (Yarkshire Gamer) tutorial on the ‘U-Tubes.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQMlywFOoeg). I temporarily painted on the names, as I still have to print up ship labels.

Bismarck

For my first outing I’ve concentrated on the War in the Atlantic, with the key ships for the Battle of Denmark Straight, and the Battle of the River Plate. Who hasn't seen the film "Sink the Bismarck" and then wanted to wargame it. I threw in the Scharnhorst as well for some fictional encounters between the RN and Kriegsmarine. I’ll add a few more ships for this theatre in coming posts, such as HMS Cumberland, and HMS Rodney. 

Prince Eugene and Scharnhorst

Further on I want to focus on the Mediterranean battles, and eventually early war encounters in the Pacific, such as the Java Sea battles.

Graf Spee

For scoring, I found an entry from the 2023 competition, where Battleships and Cruisers were scored similarly to the effort involved with a 15mm vehicle, so 8 points each (if that is acceptable).

HMS Achilles, HMS Ajax, and HMS Exeter

Normal service with more RCW figures will resume next week.

HMS Hood

The points summary:

9 x 8 = 72 points for nine 1/1800 scale Battleships and Cruisers.

Goodday Mark, what a great renditions of these classic Warships! Believe it or not but when I was a lad I did read a lot of books about WW2 and some of these ships featured amongst their pages HMS Prince of Wales and Hood amongst them. So it's a joy to see them get this kind of high level attention from you! Not only have you done a sterling job on painting the vessels themselves, the bases are top notch to!

 

Cheers Sander 

From KristoferD: Baptism of Fire (66 points)

Hello again dear enjoyers of painting challenges and curiosities in miniature,

This is a special week because when you're reading this my Swedish force have most likely experienced their baptism of fire. I have managed to complete the last parts of a legal Swedish Field Task Force for By Fire and Sword. First up, the final officer stand.

The Swedish officers of the Deluge were a mix of noblemen and professionals. Many of them were both. The higher ranks would have had extensive experience from the Thirty Years War, including the king himself, Charles X Gustavus

The Swedish population of the 17th century was quite small compared to other regional powers. During the period of the Swedish Empire the constant wars became quite impopular among the nobility who were expected to send their sons to serve as officers. While some gained great success and riches, a lot of them undoubtedly lost their lives in foreign wars far from home. Thus put a strain on the not too numerous noble families back home. I believe this served to build an opinion on the homefront to further a more cautious foreign policy. After the humiliating defeat in the Great Northern War the doves of the "Caps" party, Mössorna, must have had a lot of good arguments against costly wars. Their hawkish opposition, the "Hats" or Hattarna seem to have had less influence given that the era is referred to as the Age of Liberty in Swedish history. Despite a few wars it was a mostly peaceful period with progress in civil rights and parliamentary reform. The Age of Liberty ended with a coup d'état led by the king Gustav III who was quite the character, in the literal sense, but we're over a century after the Deluge now so I'm getting off topic. Perhaps I'll cover the 18th century in the next challenge? We shall see.

Back to the heyday of the Swedish Empire. The final piece that was missing from my little collection is some dragoons.

17th century dragoons were mounted infantry. They were thus often equipped and organised as infantry, though these models are in fact wearing riding boots like the cavalry of their contemporaries. This is however historically correct to my understanding as the military fashion changed towards the latter part of the period.

Dragoons could and would be used in rough ground with the advantage of becoming less vulnerable to enemy cavalry. This is something I tried to incorporate in my basing to make them stand out a little extra on the table. However, I limited myself to some shrubs as I believe a lot of the campaigns in the Deluge were fought over open country.

Sorry about the lack of focus on the last picture. It's a challenge to not hold the camera too close to the miniatures. In any case, thanks for reading and following along. I hope to bring great news of victory next week.

As for the points:
12 * 4 = 48 points for the 15mm cavalry
9 * 2 = 18 points for the 15mm infantry
Coming to a total of 66 points. 

Kristofer, your 17th Century project keeps on flabbergasting me with it's steadfast quality and your inventiveness regarding sabot-bases. What a great idea to place the mounted- and dismounted figures on the same base but changing the front rank to show what formation they are in! Awesome stuff indeed!

 Cheers Sander  

 

From: MarkE Orc BloodBowl Team 28mm (60 points)

 We had some balls, now we add orcs, orcs with RED highlights because.....Da go fasta!

I continued with using mainly paints from the Armory Speedpaint line.  They are different to work with much more like using inks or washes than paints in most ways.  One coat coverage for all these models, so I can't complain.  I ended up not liking the coverage of speedpaint for the bases.  I was looking for that '80's classic GW base look so went with AK Alga Green since I found my prized 20+ year old pot of Goblin Green had finally succumbed to time and dried up.

Da Throwers

Da Catchers

Da Black Orc Blitzers

Closeup of a couple of the Linemen

Da Line

And here's a shot of the entire team together.

Sad orcs waiting on a team to play stomp!

Scoring wise:

                        12 x 28mm figs @5pts/model = 60 points

        Cheers!

        MarkE

Wow Mark, what a blast from the past! Those old figures have really benefitted from your love and care with the paintbrush for sure. I do like how the skin tones really resemble the old Goblin Green, I have some of those really old pots somewhere too but  fear they will have dried up as well as yours. Anyway a great addition to the Grid Iron!

 

Cheers Sander