Skull Update

Oh boy, what a skulltastic update! Last time, StuartL held the lead with TeemuL and BruceR tied on 171 skullz each. Then they felt the call of 10mm undeath...

• TeemuL 298
• BruceR 297
• StuartL 239
• Barks 192
• MattT 127
• DavidB 101
• MikeW 56*
• ErikP 35
• TomL 21
• PaulOG 13
• GregB 8
• SteveA 7
• Curt 2

*final count pending

I cannot recall such an exciting tally. There's still a few days left, the skully victory could be anyone's!

Notable skullz

DallasE gets in some oldhammer skullz

Oh yeah!

PaulSS gets on the 10mm skullz

As does BruceR

And TeemuL

AndrewG

BrianC

More from BrianC

Banner from MikeW

More skullz from TeemuL

Grimdark from MikeF

Grimdark from me

Grimdark from MattT

I love a model waving a skull around! AndrewG

So does Curt.

Skull of the week

TeemuL

To enter, tag your post with 'Skull Duel' and state in the post both how many skullz you have painted, and what your running total is. Feel free to enter the duel at any time in the Challenge!

From TeemuL: Warmaster Undead (47 points)

Just collecting some skulls and "Warmaster Undead" squirrel this week...

...and of course adding to Warmaster army some new units, the true meaning of the Challenge.

I have previously painted some units for the army during the past Challenges, but I guess I have already enough for a small game. Let's see if that happens sooner or later. These are the latest additions, one unit of foot infantry, one character and one war machine called Skull Chucka. I bought all the minis I have second hand they were mostly painted. They might have been mostly intact, too, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Skull Chucka is missing the crew, so I guess it works by magic now, and character should have another companion, one with a banner, but they are all missing at the moment. I couldn't find them in the box I stored them, but may be I found them from somewhere else.

There are lots of different kinds of bones on the base, and some weapons, too. A good supply, if you need to raise some bodyguards?

I chose green as the main colour (after bone), which is used in the shields. Cloaks are purple and shafts are red. That's pretty much it! I used Contrast paints except for the metal parts, which are traditional acrylics. Quite fast to paint once you have all the colours defined. I painted all the other characters last year, but left this one for the Challenge, because of the mountain of skulls. I gently highlighted all the skulls on the mountain with bone colour, trying to keep count of skulls, but most likely the final count is incorrect. Shields and weapons bring some interest to the bone mountain. Skull Chucka was very quick to paint, so the 3 points awarded for a crew served weapon is quite right, even though it is a big one.

There are 45 skulls between shoulders visible enough to count on the rank and file units and on the character. Then 42 freehand skulls on the shields and banners and 1 sculpted. 8 skulls on the catapult and 1 more in the banner pole. I counted 30 skulls on the base of the character, most likely incorrect to some way or another. Total amount 127 skulls. I just noticed that my close rival in the Skull race, BruceR, also painted some 10mm Warmaster skeletons. Great minds think a like!

3 points for the crew served weapon and 44 points for the infantry (there are 43 full "bodies" and 3 crawling up from the ground), total 47 points from the Undead.

List of squirrels (15): 

28mm Napoleonic British

28mm Fantasy Dwarfs

28mm Fantasy Mercenaries

28mm Fantasy Orcs

28mm Warhammer 40k Imperium

28mm Warhammer 40k Chaos

28mm Warhammer 40k Eldar

28mm Post WW2 Alternative History

28mm LotR Forces of Good

28mm LotR Forces of Evil

28mm Old West Gunfighters

25mm Classic Fantasy

15mm WW2 Soviets

15mm WW2 Germans

10mm Fantasy Undead

What a great army Teemu, you have really re-created that awesome old-school look with the green bases as well! And what a great score on the Squirreling Duel mate.

 

Well done, Sander 

From MarkE: Do miniatures get the munchies? 28mm Vending machines (10 pts)

 Ever wonder when we aren't around if our mini's do a "Night at the Museum" and need a snack?  If they don't these machines will at least provide some cover on the tabletop.

I finally put a brush to these.  I have no idea of the manufacturer, I think I picked them out of a bargain bin at Cold Wars or Historicon at least 15 years ago, maybe 20.  They sat languishing on the shelf so long I had to wash the dust off before I could get them primed.  So from deep in the need to  paint mountain here's a pair of vending machines in 28mm.

Hopefully I don't start finding miniature Cheetos fingerprints on my figs!

I scored these as 25mm figures since they are roughly man sized for that scale.  Please correct if I'm in error.

So 2 @ points each = 10 points.

Cheers, MarkE

Mark, as the level of painting required to get these nice vending machines done is quite substantial I will go along with your scoring of 2 x 28mm figures equals 10 points. Nicely done!

Cheers Sander 

From PeteB - Reconquer Designs -St. Raimundo de Fitero - 15 Points

A small contribution wit some figures from Reconquer Designs, kindly given by my friend Michele Gentile. The figures are 3D printed with some very nice details. Some information about the monk St. Raimundo de Fitero can be found here! Cause of the bad weather I couldn't take pictures in daylight. I did the best I could taking photo's inside.

Thanks for watching!

Points:

- 1 x 28 mm mounted figure = 10 Points

- 1 x 28 mm foot figure        =   5 Points

- Total                                   =  15 Points

Great little vignette Peter! Love how you used the simple dynamics of the figures to let them tell a story. The natural olours worked out great as well and really enhance the sculpting of these figures. Great work all round Peter, hope you have more of this comming!

Cheers Sander 

 

From MarkG: Russian Civil War Armoured Train and Artillery Crew (160 points)

For this week's entry I finally get to present a project that I've been thinking about for ages, and tinkering around with for a few weeks.

This is an armoured train that I printed on my filament printer over Christmas. I obtained the files from the Kickstarter that Mad Bob Miniatures ran last year. 

Though designed for a resin printer, the carriages came out quite well on the FDM printer. The few visible filament lines on the upper surfaces were easily dealt with by applying some tile filler, which was then smoothed out with some water.

The train in question is the "2nd Siberian," a Bolshevik train that was in turn captured and used by the Whites. For the moment I will keep it generic for use by both sides, just adding the appropriate flags for which side it's currently on.

I've tried to achieve the effect of sun bleached paint on rusty armour. I was inspired by the look of the numerous weathered tanks at the Lesany tank museum outside Prague.

The carriages themselves are quite big, easily twice the size, or more, of an average 28mm tank/vehicle (as you can see in the picture next to the 28mm armoured cars for scale). For this reason I am proposing to score the engine, tender, and two artillery carriages at 30 points each (as for a 54mm scale vehicle). That said, whatever the agreed final points allotment is fine.

For the artillery crew I used the wonderful Copplestone castings again. I cannibalised these off the White field gun set. 

The ones dressed in the classic Russian Imperial Army uniform, with green hats (piped red), represent the Kornilov Artillery Brigade, and the second set in red hats, the Drozdovsky Artillery Brigade. The last two generic figures in shirt sleeves, are from Scarab Miniatures. 

Based singly they can be used for the train, or any field pieces.

The rail track pictured is from Sarissa Precision, and will be sent as a separate terrain piece entry on Sunday.

The points summary:

4 x 30 = 120 points for 4 large armoured train carriages/engine

8 x 5 = 40 points for eight 28mm foot miniatures.

Excuse me?! Are you kidding me? Is this gorgeous piece of hardware an fdm print? Surely not? Well either way it is dropdead beautiful Mark! The weathering is awesome and the guns and crew are excellent too. Sometimes a finished project really shows how much thought and care went into it's production and this is no exception on that. I will go with your suggestion for scoring because this truly is huge, what a whopper, well done!  

Cheers Sander