From AndrewB: Dragons and Lightsabers and more! (Fantasy)(40pts)

Today’s update has an odd combination!   A pair of lightsaber wielding gents, and two small dragons!  

To start with, the fantasy studio minis! A buddy of mine wanted to run some sort of dragon hunt with some medieval knights and men at arms, but challenged me to paint them monochrome red and yellow, to correspond with some of the groups of hunters.  They’re Reaper miniatures, which are growing on me a bit.  I’m not sure about the soft plastic, but I’m also not a fan of how my paint jobs turned out, so more work is needed before I judge the figures.  

Next, a fantastic Luke Skywalker from Battle Valor Miniatures. I attempted to get the surfer hair look of 1977, and he’s still done up in his teenage angst clothes from Tatooine, but he’s got his pappy’s old lightsaber   Probably out trying to cut womp rats in half or something. Next, a Star Wars Legion scale Darth Mail figure I 3D printed   I don’t remember where I found the STL, but he printed decently.  I painted both of these recently live over the course of about an hour on the YouTube channel ‘Not Jay’s Tabletop Gaming’ if anyone would like to watch!  

It’s pretty wild to see the scale difference between a traditional 28mm and a modern ‘32mm’ figure, but that’s all good.  I hadn’t realized how little color there is in Maul’s clothing until it became time to paint, but by then I was busy ruining his face tattoos(face tattoos?  He could be a part of my trashy Star Wars).

These four figures should net 20pts, with an additional 20 for the studio, for a total of 40pts. I even remembered my map this time! 

From TeemuL: Good stuff Andrew! Let me get this straight, there is one yellow, one red, one white and one black mini here? Quite monochromate, but very nice. I have always liked Luke, but your Maul is terrific. In my opinion it is easier to paint black than white, I don't know how you feel, but Maul is quite dark indeed - Dark Maul. :) You seem to be conquering the Studios nicely, almost time for the climax!

From AndrewB: A couple interesting characters! (Swords and Sandals)(32pts)

 A couple extra figures this week that I got fussy and got a little extra on, but that’s alright! First, we have another off-brand Jedi, who we’ll know by his call-sign, Red-Green Leader, from Battle Valor Miniatures! Secondly, we have Hercules, another addition to the cast of characters for my Jason and the Argonauts games, from Footsore. We’ve both got swords, and Hercules is another in a long list of sandal-wearing miniatures for me so far!  Sword and Sandals!

My attempts at a plaid flannel shirt is less than my favorite, but between a Labatt Blue lightsaber, his old-school duck hunter camouflage, and empty beer cans on his base, there’s enough character there for a fun game or ten!  Red Green leader had to take his vehicle down from where he resides, in colder climes approximately 69 beer stores north of Darth Brooks’ place.   

Second comes the truly large Hercules from Footsore!  This guy was a delight to pain, and gets me one step closer to my goal of having Jason and his buddies fighting Aeetes and his skeletons, among others. There’s two swords on his back, but the club is so much cooler!  Bigger than reality for sure, I really enjoyed painting this mythic hero.  

These are both metal figures, which I have really missed painting since I’ve been hammering through so many 3D printed ones   The deep, more pronounced detail is refreshing and easy to paint.  

These fellas should get me to 10 points for the figures and 20 for the studio!  Just wait, more are coming from both of these projects!  With that, my updated map!  

From TeemuL: And a hat-trick by Andrew, last week it was Geoffrey, who will it be next week? As a keen hobbyist I'm interested in the (empty) beer cans at the base of Red-Green Leader. Are they scratch built or something easier and fancier?

Swords, sandals and sand, perfect fit for this location, not too many left. I like the swords, sandals and sand of course, and beer cans, too. The club and the lion-helm. In fact, the lion-helm Hercules looks so big, I'll score him as a 40mm infantry and 7 points.

From AndrewB: Jedi Master Darth Brooks (Under Construction) (25pts)

Hello everyone!  This fellow was supposed to be my first post, but things got in the way, unfortunately. He’s a strong second, and I’m happy to finally have him finished.  My group of gamers really enjoys playing in the Star Wars setting using Fistful of Lead, especially the Galactic Heroes book.  I’m not the biggest Star Wars person, but when I saw a pack of ‘space knights’ on super sale from Battle Valor Miniatures a couple years ago, I jumped on the opportunity.  Luckily for me, this gentleman struck a cord with what I hoped to portray as a goatee and mullet!   Always one to jump on the humor train, Darth Brooks was born.  

He really needs a speeder, and I guarantee you when it does happen, there’ll be a big white number 3 on the side, along with cup holders and if I’m feeling creative, a pair of truck nuts hanging from the space equivalent of a trailer hitch.  I’m all of a sudden feeling quite inspired to build a small faction for this system, and really have some fun with it.  

In any case, this goober should be 5pts for his 28mm stature, and 20 for the challenge room!  

More coming soon, Happy Painting!

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Oh man, this is wonderfully awful, Andrew. 

I can't tell you how much I 'love' the whole Country scene *shudder*, so this concept of yours gets under my skin in a delicious way.  I look forward to seeing the secret Sith base being composed of a nasty trailer, with broken down droids in the front yard and a Dodge sand crawler parked out front. :)

- Curt

 

From Millsy: 15mm Barbarian Army (240 points)

Q. What is best in life?
A. To paint your mins, to see them come alive before you, and to hear the lamentations of the lead pile.

Hi All,

Apologies for the long delay between entries AND the lack of comments on other people's wonderful efforts. I'm doing two jobs at the moment and what little leisure time I have is spent with brush in hand.

The last few days I have managed to spend more time at the desk and finished a number of projects. The first of these is another 15mm fantasy army to add to my collections - this time barbarians!

The humans, horses and the giant are all Mark Copplestone's wonderful work, a dream to paint and so full of character and animation.

Added to that I have the amazing Battle Valor Games mammoth with howdah and wolves. The wolves are glorious, huge beasts in three cracking poses and large enough to be ridden - proper dire wolf size, not some wimpy overfed lap dog.

The mammoth is a weighty bugger with only the head and trunk resin and the rest white metal. I deliberately left the howdah empty so I can switch the mammoth between armies and mount missile troops or commanders in him.

Finally I have a bunch of "pigmy" mammoths from an unknown manufacturer. I picked these up as an aside when I bought pile of other stuff, thinking I would find a use for them eventually. And I did!

Quite a bit of lead painted in one go, the whole army as it stands actually. No doubt I will add to it so I'm not calling it "finished" if for no other reason than to avoid the inevitable japes. ;-)

The Tally

Dire Wolves x 18 = 36pts

Barbarians on Foot x 58 = 116pts

Barbarians on Horse x 12 = 48pts

Giant x 1 = 8pts

Mammoth x 1 = 8pts

Pigmy Mammoths x 6 = 24pts

Total = 240 points

Barks, FYI the Skull-o-meter count is 17 including codpieces, banners and magical implements. Nice.

Hope you like em. Up next another complete force painted in one go...

Cheers,
Millsy

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What a cracking looking force Millsy! Great stuff. Love the animated sculpts and your painting is top knotch as always matey. But tha Cap'n got all befuddled with the numbery bits here - must have been the rum.

I've scored the wolves as foot, the pygmy mammoths as horse, and the giant and mammoth as vehicles. Chucking in bonus points for the standard and the awesomeness of dropping this army as a bomb and thats 250 points. Awesome!

Cap'n Wednesday