From RaulM: Black Seas Indiamen (15 points)

I've painted a ton of military ships for Black Seas, but what's the point if there are no fat, juicy prizes to chase or a grateful convoy to dutifully escort? Warlord thankfully has provided some Indiamen to make this a reality in your games of Black Seas. 

I purposely strayed away from yellow and black to help distinguish this ship form its escorts. The photography doesn't quite get the coloring great, but the hull is a very deep brown. I also avoided using any of the other types of national colors as I wanted this ship to be generic and usable by anyone for any scenario. 

The model also came with 4 different inserts to give some variety between Indiamen, and I chose the open deck full of cargo. It was a little difficult for me to get that to look ok in this scale, but I did my best. 

For scoring I put this at 15 points to go inline with the frigates I painted last year. It is a little larger and chunkier than those 5th rates, but I didn't have to rig any ensigns or pennants which made my life a little easier so it comes out in the wash. 

What a wonderful fat prize for any raider Raul.  Of course there are equally examples of Indiamen fighting a raider off due to their crew size and armament.  Wonderful work.

[From AndrewG: More Folks I Wouldn't Invite to Dinner (25 points)

 

As I blew past my original AHPC project and points objective rather early in the season, I’ve been forced a bit to create a two-track production line going back and forth between historical and other projects while I wait for one or the other to dry or get to its next stage. This week I did do a bit of both; this first entry being more Frostgrave baddies for what I’m now calling the Cult of the Double Scar.

I have to say I really do like these Northstar/Osprey plastic sculpts. They have an old school vibe about them and are nicely detailed without going too overboard. They are also very kit bashable, which is a huge plus for me. This group is made mostly from the Cultist 1 box, with some arm and head swaps from sets 2 and 3. I noted, however, in the Five Leagues from the Borderlands rules the initial enemy encounters often include a couple of slingers - so I incorporated one using some bits from a Wargames Atlantic peasant sprue.

Frostgrave and WGA kits mix well in conversions.

Frostgrave kits offers an excellent selection of belt gear

Apparently evil doers need loose fitting pants

 

I used more or less the same palette as last time and being pretty basic figures, these paint up relatively quickly. The application of some AK corrosive texture effects to the warrior’s shield was something new for me though. I had never tried this product before, and I have to say I really like how it works, especially with a bit of Army painter rust effects added in to give it the final look.

AK corrosive effects with Army Painter rust added in

And here they are with the first five figures I painted. I’ll probably do one more batch and give them a couple of leader/character types to round out the warband, then they’ll be ready to challenge our adventuring heroes in due course.

 

Thus, in this batch:

5x 28mm figures = 25 

Very nice figures Andrew.  They’re a nasty looking bunch and I won’t be sharing a table with them either.

From SylvainR: Regia Marina at 1/300 (52 points)

I'm such a sucker when I think I will make a "good deal". Last year, I was googling for 1:300 landing crafts for my Canadian army and I "re-discovered" the game Cruel Seas, launched in 2018 by Warlord Games but now under the banner of Skytrex. Anyway, I was using Facebook's Marketplace to look for adapted equipment in the area of Montreal and, just for fun, entered the search words "Cruel seas". Lo and behold, I found a guy who was selling 14 unopened box sets for all nations for $200, shipping included. I thought that for less than $2 per ship (about 100 in total), that was a "good deal" and ordered the whole lot, which included many landing ships I was looking for. I'm such a sucker.... 

Above is a starting fleet for the Regia Marina: 4 MAS boats and a Gabbiano-class corvette. 

I like to base my ships and there are two reasons for this. First, it protects the miniatures because players are manipulating the base instead of the model. Second, it creates the illusion that the boats are moving, which I find very satisfying.

 

For fun, I wanted to have one of the MAS boat jump off a huge wave, holding on the crest by the tip of the stern. But then I realized that these models are cut at the waterline and it would look silly to have what is obviously only the upper hull flying out of the water. Deception. So I sculpted a smaller "big wave" and kept most of the hull in the water.

 

I did similar big waves for 2 of the Vospers I painted last year. They look nice in rough seas, but the truth is that these fast ships would never be allowed to go out in this kind of weather. If there is any interest, I could write a short tutorial on how I created my sea bases. 

Here is the Italian corvette with her unmistakable "barber shop" identification mark. I admire painters who can do a clean paint job on these small ships, but my own personal preference is to do heavy weathering with rust spots and rain stains. 

 The little life rafts add a nice touch of color.

I like the little crewmen. The whole boat feels like a diorama to me :-). 

 

The AA crew keeping a watchful eye on the sky.

 

A aerial view on Capitano Paolo Schettino. His grand-son, Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, obviously did not inherit his seamanship...

 

Points claimed: 

I looked up past entries for reference:

4x MAS Boats @ 8 points = 32 points

1x Gabbiano-class Corvette @ 20 points = 20 points

Total = 52 points

Thanks for reading!

 [P.S. Paolo Schettino never existed.]

 

Wonderful looking WW2 small craft Sylvain, kinda like aquatic micro armour.   I agree on basing ships and love the planing MAS boat.  Well done on the barber strips and other fine details.  FYI, I a one point planned to do some Gabbianos in 1;2400 scale.  I'll trust your research on the points.

 

From MikeF - Tyrant’s Legion Tanks and Turrets - 3 x 28mm Vehicles and 2 small turrets - 68 Points

After completing a few infantry units for the Tyrant's Legion, I decided it was time to add some armoured support. The TL army list has a few interesting options unavailable to normal guard units in 5th edition. These include twin-linked lascannon turrets for the Leman Russ tanks and Thunderer Siege Tanks equipped with a demolisher tank. I sourced the lascannon tanks from Kromlech which are designed specifically with the classic Leman Russ tank for 40k. The thunderer is a conversion using the 30k Leman Russ tank designed for the Solar Auxilia and a kit from Tiny Panzer Studios (through Etsy) which adds the hull mount with gun and top plate to hide the turret ring. It's a very nice 3d printed part that required very minor cutting and sanding to make it fit properly. The conversion kit does NOT fit the classic Leman Russ model however and is designed specifically for the Horus Heresy version.

I also painted up two chimera turrets to swap out the ones for my Steel Legion Imperial Guard. I included a photo of the two chimera's for display purposes only and only the turrets were painted during this challenge. I went with 4 points for each turret, but I'll accept Peter's final judgement on what he feels the turrets are worth. 

The vehicles use the same grey formula, but they're a little busier with decals and markings than the Tyrant's Legion. I may pick up some new transports in the future, but they should work for now.

That's 3 x 28mm vehicles for 60 points and 2 x 28mm vehicle turrets for (maybe) 8 points = 68 points total.

I think I'll take a break from the Tyrant's Legion for now.

Thanks for visiting!

Those are great looking tanks Mike, love the 1918-1940 look to these clunkers.  Great blue too.    

From AndrewG: Saracen Cavalry and Infantry - Some test paints (25 points)

I’ve been interested in the early Crusades period for a long time, but never previously thought of pursuing it as a wargaming project. However, with the recent figure releases from Footsore, Wargames Atlantic, and Victrix covering this era I thought I’d give it another look. I’m glad I did.

Last fall I bought a bag each of the Victrix plastic Islamic cavalry and infantry. Overall, I found the sculpts were fantastic – the infantry went together with almost no effort, and while the cavalry can be a bit more finicky, they looked pretty amazing once assembled. I then left them aside for the time being – likely because some other shiny hobby thing arrived to take my attention away. You know how it goes.

Then a friend told me the week before last that he’s started working on his own Crusader and Saracen forces, so I pulled out a couple of the Victrix figures for a test paint with a view to likewise eventually building the same.

My concept for the Saracens is to paint the rank and file in simpler colours so that the leaders can easily stand out. These figures painted up pretty quickly and a bit of variety will go a long way to making a distinct looking formation. For the shields I opted to use Little Big Men Studios transfers because I like them, but one certainly can go the simpler route of just painting their own designs if preferred.

The cavalryman took me a while longer to complete. I wanted a colourful character, but I didn’t want him looking like a circus rider. So, I did a bit of historical research and settled on a palette that gave me variety but not chaos. As I was making him a bannerman for some future cavalry group, I found it easier to paint the horse and rider separately before assembly. Similarly, I painted his shield, sword, and sword harness separately then glued it on after I had secured the rider to the horse. Again, the shield design and the banner are both LBM Studio transfers. 

Overall, a bit of effort but I think the end result was worth it. Looking forward to making more!

In this small batch:

3x 28mm figures = 15 points 

1x 28 mounted figure = 10 points

Nice work on those Saracens Andrew.  I really like the Dark Age Victoria kits but might have to get some of their Arabs now.  I think we can say that you and your painting aced this test.

From MartinC Flag Sh@ggers TUESDAY 90 pts

 I am nearing the end of painting far too many Bloodbowl teams. This one is my 10th and I have 1 more in the post (which could be the best one ever).

In recent times the UK, like much of the world, has lurged to the right. Although we have a centre left government, the centre right opposition has become right or far right. For a man of my beliefs this is somewhat depressing. Last autumn the right decided that the best way to show your "patriotism" was to tie union flags (often stupidly upside-down) and St George's crosses (an Armenian) to flag poles. The people who did this became known as flag sh@ggers.

Present to you the Flag Shaggers, an ogre Bloodbowl team comprising 4 brutish bone head ogres and a bunch of useless hangers on

The ogres

The Knowles, titchy and basically useless. The ogre team is one of the worst in bloodbowl.

My Mexican shambling undead team was lacking decent players, I added a fat mummy last week and this week I've added a couple of resin ghoul runners from Etsy. These are really good players and should improve the team

They are very cool, and very infected with horrible pustules 

That's it from me this week, been very busy. Next week either my last Bloodbowl of a brand new project

Scores on the doors

18 x 28mm figs = 90pts

You know there's a lot of Blood Bowl teams when even Martin thinks he might have too many!  I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this particular rock Martin, but we have similar idiots here too.  Believe it or not, we probably have Trump to thank for not having one as our PM.   These brutish morris dancers our nicely done and look I'll look forward to the next best one yet BB team.

FROM: JohnB: Tuesday Terrors: The Garden Rescue Elf: Games Workshop: (5 points)

At last a squirrel NOT - still squirrelite! I was digging a lot in the garden last year and apart from the odd "green army" man I found this guy.

I took pity on him and later gave him a clean in the dishwasher.

Not sure if that was why his base warped or was it a garden accident?

Anyway I took to my contrast paint collection to test out some colour combinations.

TOTAL POINTS = 1 x 5 points for a single 28mm ELF.

Hilarious backstory John!  Lovely work on this rescue.  5 points it is.

From DallasE: US Seventh Cavalry Troopers (55 points)

Better late than never I guess, but here is the first sizeable tranche of my 2026 project, the Little Bighorn in 28mm. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the battle and as I've said before here, I have some stuff planned, so I have to get off my kiester and get painting.

This first bunch are mostly Foundry models, I have a lot of them to paint. The command group above are from an unknown manufacturer, I'm sure someone out there knows who. The guidon is of the type used by the Seventh at Little Bighorn and was handpainted by me on paper.

The last eight models in the post are Foundry's "Old Sweats" pack, sculpted by Mark Copplestone.

They're super-nice models as you'd expect from the Foundry. Paint formula is Kantor Blue highlighted with ancient Ultramarines Blue for the jackets. The pants have been troubling for me. The blue should be light blue but not TOO light... these ones were too light and I toned them down with a blue wash, but still not happy with them. Will do some more experimenting with the next group. Black hats, leather equipment and boots were highlighted Dark Rubber. The yellow is Averland Yellow with an Agrax Earthshade wash, then re-highlighted. Rifle stocks are Dark Brown highlighted New Wood.

Anyway here's one interesting thing about the models... when I was at the Little Bighorn battlefield in 2008 I filled a jar with dirt from Last Stand Hill (as you do) and a little bit was sprinkled into the groundwork on each of these models.

So this is eleven 28mm models x 5 points each = 55 points.

Cheers,

Dallas

Great work on the cavalry Dallas.  You’ve done those lovely Foundry sculpts justice, the blues really work.  Also love the Little Big Horn groundwork.

Tuesday Night Open Mic January 17

 

This week the Tuesday Terrors have the following acts on stage.

• DallasE plays us song good ol' Western music with Cowboy chords.
• JohnB halts out his lute
• MartinC brings out his hankies to practice his Morris dancing.
• Andrew has some middle eastern selections
• MikeF brings us some heavy metal
• SylvainR gets in touch with his inner gondolier and strums a mandolin.
• Andrew returns with some not dinner music
• Ken has some Italian favourites 

And some semi-live old fart music from me.  The Skydiggers are a hugely influential Canadian band who inspired most of the Can-con (Canadian content) Dallas and I have posted.  Through a long list of failed record companies, partings of ways, lost master tapes etc, they never managed to get the recognition that they deserved.  This is perhaps their signature song played at the iconic Massey Hall in TO (Toronto non-Canadians) in 2018 (yes this Century!).