From MattK: Orks for Various Purposes, Solar Auxilia (75 Points)

Happy New Year everyone,

This year marks my return to the challenge after changing careers (leaving the hobby industry) and having a child. I've been really getting back into hobbying this year and thought this would be a great way to keep the momentum going. Without further ado, here are some quick snapshots of some Orks I speedpainted this week. 

 

These are now super old figures that are some of the first models I bought when I first joined the hobby back in 2011. The sculpts are dated and although I love them, they're far from "fantastic sculpts worth spending time painting" if that makes any sense. I spent a day or so chipping away on them off and on. We're planning on playing Space Gits, Modulorka, Gorkamorka and who knows what else so I imagine these are far from the only Orky things I bring to the challenge this go around. 

I also took a little time this week to paint up a small batch of 3d printed Solar Auxilia. These have an odd spot in my collection. I painted the leader months ago so were not counting him for points but I wanted to show the "squad" together. 

 

I play a bit of 30k and have a Word Bearers army. I printed some of these from Red Makers around the time of the plastic release with the vague intention of making a Zone Mortalis force. When I ran some numbers and did some math I realized just how many figures I'd need and pivoted to something else. For now, these are going to count as Space Marine Scouts for a game of Shadow War Armageddon because why not. They're a pain to paint and I really have no desire to do a whole army of these any time soon but I think they're kind of neat. 

So all told, 15 28mm figures x 5 points for a total of 75 

Matt, the models look great, Orks and Solar Auxilia are right up my street! I like the work you've done on these models. My own taste in Orks leans more towards Rogue Trader style (a bit less insane looking) but I can also get behind big choppas and such. The Solar Aux just look great, nice work. 75 points for you - but I'd love to see more close-up pictures in your future posts! 

Dallas

From DavidB - Da Green Horde (45 points)

 

There are a few things that I am prone to collect. Star Wars, Games Workshop Space Marines, and Orcs. Orcs are the venerable foil of many a sci fi or fantasy tale. I honestly do not see them as wickedly evil. Orcs are pure fighters. They have little mercy and are more looking for a good fight. Conquest isn't the end goal as much as having a great fight. They may keep slaves and use said slaves as a food source, however, malicious torture isn't. They are more like a pack of ravenous wolves chasing glory on the fields of battle.

These chonky lads were a gift from a friend who 3D prints for fun. He knew I liked Orcs and had seen my White Scars in action. I was gifted these in October and they have languished in primer ever since. 

Man O War- Hail and Kill

I listened to ManOWar painting this tidy horde up. They are very large models dwarfing even space marine terminators. I plan on using them in my Old Hammer Orc army as Big Uns. They will also appear in many RPG adventures as a barbarian rabble.

I do like these miniatures a lot. The armour and clothing are fantastic and detailed. All the styles of Mongolian armour and garb down to the boots. I like the juxtaposition of the fine clothes and armor with the crude weapons. The bows look like they just ripped antlers from deer and strung them as bows. the sword is beaten and worn and  it seems the scabbard remnants still encase the beaten blade. The axes too are worn with torn tree branches providing handles. Rough and ready, well worn weapons combined with clean and crisp armor and clothes.

I liked these so much, I went right to the fanatic paints. I varied the basecoats of leather and furs in keeping with the uniformly non uniformed styling. Red and blues were the spot colors and some of the reds were layered to orange.

The boss orc has a bow on his back and I added the red boot "letha" to his leather boots to make him more fancy.

The drummer had a wonderful gaping maw, so a nice purple tongue and blue gums to stand out more. The Standard Bearer got a nice turquoise shirt and gold rivets to his padded armor. His leather helm was the most fancy so red leather and cream for the fur.

pale gray fur cloaks for the musician and standard bearer.

Browns, blacks, and grays to vary the cloaks for the rest

They do have those wonderful faces i appreciated from GW Brian Nelson Orcs

I even varied the quivers...only two visible of the many bowmen. I made the one to the right look a little older and worn. 

I absolutely like the crude antler bows....very orky.

I may go back and paint the scabbard that has been beaten to the blade, It still works as a crumbling sword for now.

special mention must be made of the bases. I used tans and ochres for the ground and desaturated violets and greens for the hardy plants and errant stones.

I only had a couple days to paint them as many folks were taking time off for the holidays. I was still hitting them with a couple layers before heading off to night shift. 12 hour shifts and overtime did make them take longer than I wished. Still I have some nice Bigguns to add to my orc force and they do look more healthy and wealthy than the rest of the force. 

9 Mongolian orcs for 45 points

8 more skulls for the skull throne

Nice looking orcs here David and they ARE Big 'Uns aren't they - they barely fit on their bases! I also like the contrast between the fancy duds and the rather crude weapons. I guess these fellows have their priorities don't they! 45 points on the board for you!

Dallas

From RobH -28mm Gallic Warband (100 Points)

My first entry for the 2026 Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge are twenty Gallic Warriors. This is a unit purchase from Black Tree Design that has been sitting in my pile of lead for somehere between 15 and 20 years. The unit deals, and even the Gauls are no longer available on the BTD website. 

20 Gaulic Warriors - 28mm

They are an easy addition to my SAGA Gallic Warband but are displayed here on prototype movement trays for a concept test for Infamy, Infamy. A fellow gamer here in Montreal did a 3D print of the trays for use for a Sharpe's Practice game later this month. 

On New Year's Eve I discovered I had no shields for these figures, which I imagine are lost in the mists of time. I placed an order to Warlord Games for shields that I hope will work with these figures. Howvever I wanted them posted for the Challenge as I am still awaiting an order that was mailed on Dec 5th, departed the country on Dec 16th and still has not arrived in Canada.

I feel your pain on the shipping times Rob, I do. But your Gauls look great, they're very colourful and I quite like the groundwork too. Black Tree models are suitably chunky and fun to paint as well. I'd like to see the movement trays when they're done.

Looks to me like you've painted 20 28mm infantry models here which at 5 points each, equals 100 points for your tally. This one was easy for me to figure out but in future could you please indulge me and list the number and type of models, scale, and points claimed at the end of your post? Thanks!

Dallas

From ByronM - AOS Ogor Mawtribe Gluttons (84 Points)

Over the last few years a friend of mine has been de-cluttering since he moved way out in the middle of nowhere and that has been an amazing windfall for my pile of shame.  I think I just finished getting the last of his vast collection this fall, and it spanned over 30 tote boxes of stuff!  Most of it GW stuff!  He only gets to play games when visiting me, so it's now all here to be worked on and played with. Oh, and it has caused lots of in house fighting as my sons Riley and Quinn try to claim various parts of the collection for their own.

Anyway, part of that collect was a huge pile of Warhammer Fantasy era Ogres, or Ogors as they now call them so that the GW legal department can ensure that the IP they stole from past companies and authors can now not be re-stolen from them. Man do I hate modern day GW...

 Both of my sons have been bugging me to play Age of Sigmar with them, and while I consider the rules complete SH*T it is a chance to play games with them, sooooo....  I went looking for bits to make as small an army as possible so that I don't have to paint a whole ton of stuff for a game I don't really care about, and I decided on the Ogres, er I mean: Ogors.  The whole 2000 point army will consist of just 24 models, so that's a bonus!

This week I focused on getting the first of two units in the army together (yeah, really just two units and then a bunch on monsters and characters.... what a dumb game), a reinforced unit of 12 Ogor Mawtribe Gluttons.  Most of these were already assembled and primed, some even had some colour on them here and there (that I just painted over!) so while there are some mould lines still on them, I was not about to go and clean them up and re-prime them so they got left as they were.  Do you start to understand my level of caring for this project? :-D. 

These models have been painted to simply be done and table ready, they are nothing special, and are pretty rough.  I think they look good enough to be on a table at a store event though, so stopped at that.  I will probably put more effort into the characters and monsters, but the base infantry can suck it! 

I tried to have several different shades of flesh on them so that they do not all look the same, I also did them with various different colours of pants and boots since I really doubt the Ogors have an army tailor and uniform standard.  

For basing I am going for a dry fall / early winter Steppe look with scrub and sand base, and then patches of snow.  However, despite having at least 3 different types of snow flock, I can not find ANY of them (we moved 2 years ago and I do not believe I have used them since and they are probably still buried in my storage trailer someplace) so I had to drop the snow part of the base until I can either find my snow flock or much more likely order in some more.  I will make sure I post an updated picture when I do get the bases fully done with other Ogors in the near future.

From looking through the painting challenges history I have found that people have been claiming ogres and trolls as 40mm infantry models so I will do the same here for consistency.  So these should give me a total of 12 x 7 points = 84 points.   

These look great Byron and I applaud your efforts on several levels - getting models painted for a game and recycling someone else's giveaways! Seriously though the models look pretty cool. Like you I was "out of the modern GW game" some time ago but the price looked to be right for these models and you've done a great job in painting them! 84 points for your account.

Dallas

From NormS - 28mm Napoleonic Austrian Infantry (100 points)

This is my First involvement with the Painting Challenge (yes I know, 16 years :-) )  and I would like to thank the kind people who administer all of this to make it possible.

I have been collecting two Napoleonic armies in 28mm, French and Austrian and until recently have been painting both sides equally, to reach 6 - 8 units per side, so I have been able to do a Neil Thomas ‘One Hour Wargames’ sized game.

I now want to move the starter collection to the next level to do roughly 3 decent brigades per side, but I have bought in some pre-painted French, leaving an imbalance between the two forces. I am using the Challenge to have the Austrian force catch up.

My 400 point pledge should see four infantry units added (or 3 units and some artillery etc if all of the white drives me mad!).

So, the first unit up is a 20 figure infantry battalion, with 10 figures per base. I just use 2 bases per unit. I calculate these as 20 x 28mm inf = 100 points.

These are Perry plastics, primed black with hand brushed Vallejo acrylic, heavily dry brushed (twice) with Wraith Bone White (GW) and then block painted.  Their distinctive pink facings designate them as Ferdinand Von Wurttember Walloon (Disbanded 1809). The pink is Game Workshop’s Emperor’s Children, which is a bit too translucent, so needs two or three  coats.

My difficulty with this batch was that I used (GW) Codex White [I think you mean "Corax White"? - Dallas] to build them up before using a Vallejo White for highlights, and the problem was that the Codex White leaves them too grey, to the point that AFTER BASING, I had to dive in with (GW) Scar White to brighten them up from greyish to white.

Anyway, I consider them appropriately rescued and they broadly fit with what I have previously done, so that’s okay. They are based on 80mm x 40mm MDF.

White is a b*gger to paint Norm and you've done a creditable job here, the models look great. I also really like the groundwork. Your twenty 28mm infantry here will credit your account with 100 points. I'd love to see some closer-up photos of your great models along with some pics with the rest of the army as the Challenge continues. Welcome to the Challenge!

Dallas

Monday City Maniacs

Welcome to Monday! I'm your Monday Minion Dallas, and I'm happy to be back helping Mr. Curt run the Challenge this year. 

I hope you have a look at the link above ^^ as it's a really creative video for "Money City Maniacs", a super-catchy tune by one of Canada's greatest (and perhaps least recognized?) rock bands, Sloan. Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Sloan was formed in 1991. The band has been nominated for nine Juno Awards (Canada's national music awards) and won one, so far. I've never seen Sloan play live but last year I saw Chris Murphy of the band play with Canadian "alternative '90s supergroup" the Trans-Canada Highwaymen (also featuring Moe Berg of Pursuit of Happiness, Craig Northey of the Odds, and Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies). It was an awesome show, the boys were in high spirits and played all the hits of their regular bands plus a ton of Canadian AM radio standards, often switching instruments as they did so!

What does all of this have to do with the Challenge, you ask? Very little! But I wanted to have a punny name for my Monday crew so I came up with one. Deal with it :-)

Anyway, for Challenger posts this week I'm proud to present:

• Some magnificent Austrian Napoleonics from NormS!
• A unit of great looking Age of Sigmar Ogors from ByronM!
• Some spiffy Gauls from RobH!
• Quite large Orcs from DavidB!
• Late addition - very nice Orks and Solar Auxilia from MattK!

Enjoy your Monday!

Dallas