From TomC: Black Templars Marshal (Overdue and Returns) (25 points)

Hi again gang, already behind schedule so am very grateful to my fellow Wednesday warriors for being able to do things in a reasonable manner! It is however on theme of me for today's library location of choice, the overdue and returns section...

This particular miniature has alternately been on my desk and in my painting drawer for over two years now, indeed I had included him in a post-Challenge public pledge of miniatures to complete before this Challenge (having failed to finish it prior to AHPC XIII...). 

He is, for the record, a Games Workshop Black Templars Marshal and I originally acquired him on a nostalgia kick, having previously painted his previous (and substantially smaller) metal incarnation when I was a bright-eyed youth.

In painting him, I have been reminded of an adage I heard second-hand, about academia, which is that a good thesis is finished, a great thesis is published and a perfect thesis is neither. I am my own worst enemy and even though I can still see plenty to work on (not least the base rim, which I always seem to forget in excitement as completion draws near), it is time to move on, I have a points target to try and hit!

The actual painting, owes inspiration to a variety of sources, in particular to Maxime Corbeil's great featured army, Richard Gray's gold NMM guide, Sergey Gybin's steel NMM guide and Stahly's OSL tutorial (which I have not tried before). All issues in execution are, as always, my own!

In terms of points, my understanding is that Primaris marines fall into the 28mm weight class and so our amigo comes in at 5 points, who, being dismally behind being ready for AHPC XIII, is hopefully also worth an additional 20 points in the Overdue and Returns section.

***

Hi Tom - some fantastic brushwork on this "modern" take on a classic Warhammer 40k figure. Many GW fellow-travellers will surely recognize this fellow, even if he is updated to "Primaris" size, kitted out with a snazzy volkite weapon, he still presents the familiar chains, carries the scary axe (as one does), and refuses to wear a full helmet, because who needs a helmet when one has faith in The Emperor?

You variety of techniques has certainly payed dividends, as this fellow turned out great! The only thing more impressive is your accounting technique, as you have managed to top DaveD by posting a submission with a painting-points-to-bonus-points ratio of 1 to 4...watch out for those crocodiles!

Keep up the great brushwork - 25 points for you!

GregB

From Paul O'G: Black Templar Characters (28 points)

Building on my Black Templars from last week are these four characters, imposing in their majesty and wonderfully ridiculous overdetailing (supplemented by my bitz box, naturally). Again I have used the 'Zorn palette' with a focus on reds and yellows, cream and black.

This group includes a Bladeguard Veteran Captain, his trusty Lieutenant and Second in Command, veteran Ancient with his impressively large battle standard (complete with remain of a former Chapter Hero) and the Chaplain, inspiring all with his Battle Prayers and Litanies of Loyalty.

The purging of Xenos, Heretics and Mutants is busy work

Thats 4 figs at the standard 7points for these big (35mm to top of head) fellows - nudging me past my AHPC 13 goal! It also means that I've NEARLY finished my Space Marine half of the 9th edition boxed set that came out 3ish yrs ago (so it must be time for a 10th edition!) 

But thats not the last from me - naturally I'm working on something a bit more Turnipy to closeout my season...

Delicious work (note to self don't watch cooking shows when editing posts). Another great addition to your menu

From Paul O'G: Black Templars (42 points)

Last year Reilly and I continued our Kill Team projects and even played in the GW store games night for awhile. As part of that I started a Black Templars force but didn't finish it before I went back to sea.  In typically terrible AHPC fashion I have now finished the army, but only a few of the figs will count as they had been partially painted before the Challenge started - but every finished project is a good one!

No Pity! No Remorse! No Fear!

All these figs have a range of customisation; the bitz box was raided hard and I 3d printed some extras as well. The are broadly painted in what is known as the 'Zorn palette' which keep colours to red, ocre yellow and creams, and white 

The two Sergeants of this force- both 'pack a punch'

Despite only 4 of these figures counting for the challenge, I was inspired by the progress and continued with these 3 Bladeguard intercessors who had been sitting forlornly in undercoat. Another overly detailed project but its great to have them completed.  Note that the Blue colour on the power swords is not per the Zorn Palette, but I like the way as a spot colour it isnt too harsh a contrast

Just don't call them the 3 stooges

Now I'm daydreaming of a new Custom Space Marine Chapter: The Black Turnips! or perhaps the Turnip Templars? The Templars Turnipcus? Hmmm....

These models are larger (32mm to eye) and historically score 7 points apiece.  So for 6 of them, thats a total of...

....which still leaves me 3 points shy of my challenge target!

And thus 42 was not, in fact, the answer to life, the universe and my AHPC 13 campaign :-)

Wow, these are brilliant. I'll give you the 7pts each, although 7pts is 40mm. Otherwise it's wrecks the joke.

PaulOG: Wall of Matrys (90 points)

Finally got some paint onto a long neglected bit of terrain this weekend: the Wall of Martyrs. I recently picked up an Imperial fortress looking thing second hand at CanCon, so that gave me the impetus to get it done - great battlefield options for playing Kill Team.

 Here is the Wall of Matyrs - a defensive fortification in inimitable GW style.  It comprises 2 long trenches, 3 intersections and 6 end pieces to make a flexible system.

New terrain deserves some new defenders!

I also did 2 tester figs for my new Kill Team faction - the Black Templars.  Yes I am a sucker for a new army, but at least in Kill Team its only a modest investment (or so I tell myself)

In action this morning - defended by Chaos Marines!

This entry makes the Skull-o-meter very happy: The templar figures have 4 skulls between them, and the myriad corpses of dead imperial guardsmen stacked against the wall of martyrs add another (48+28+17+26+26) = 145: a small skull bomb!
Added to my previous work, that brings my current tally to 233 noggins.  Thats a lot of grim dark!

Points wise the trenches all add up to 6 lengths of 6 inch x 4 inch wide terrain.  Thats the equivalent of 4 terrain blobs for 80 points. The two 28mm figs add another 10 for a total of 90.

Thats should break my target 500 points target - onto Snowlord's Peak!

MilesR: A wonderful and macabre piece of terrain there Mr O'G.  The skull count is just as impressive.  I like the weathering on the walls.  Hmmm, If only you had some ships to paint...... 

From StuartL - Of Paint and Squirrels (275 points)

I had thought about posting this lot up as separate entries, but I am sure that Curt and the Minions are all pretty busy today, so here we go, my final post of the challenge.

One of my favourite periods to read about, research and play is the British Colonial period. I have a small but growing collection of figures for the Anglo-Zulu War and this challenge was a good excuse to get some more minis added to both armies. Above is a Zulu InDuna, or commander. The mini is from Empress and will be used as a command figure for Black Powder. Strangely the picture shows white marks around the left eye and mouth, but when I went back to double check the figure, there are no marks. I guess it must be a reflection from the camera.

This second unit is a group of the Natal Native Contingent. The NNC were local volunteers who agreed to serve with the British in the hopes of getting some revenge for years of oppression from the Zulus. Each unit of the NNC was given a European officer, though many of them couldn't speak the native languages very well. The NNC were not deemed to be very good troops by the British high command, but this can be attributed to a lack of firearms, a lack of training and poor leadership in many cases. As I am collecting both sides of the conflict, I am tending towards slightly smaller unit sizes than those recommended in the Black Powder rules. Each of my British units is 16 men strong.

My next entry is a set of  12 Japanese infantry for the war in Burma and the attempted invasion of India. If you aren't aware of it, in the Spring of 1944, the Japanese launched an offensive through the jungle and across the border of Burma into India. The British raced troops to stop them and a close and brutal battle was fought out at Kohima and Imphal. At times the front lines were scant metres apart. Eventually the British, Indian and African troops were able to break the Japanese invasion force and this paved the way for a counter-invasion of Burma.

These figures are all from Warlord Games' Bolt Action range. They painted up fairly easily and I tried to give them some variation in how I based them to better represent the jungle terrain they were fighting in. I had planned to do a unit of Gurkhas to oppose them, but ran out of time.

And here we have another set of Bolt Action figures, 5 early war Polish infantry. I was given these by a friend as a trade for some old 40K minis. I never had much interest in the early stages of WW2, but these figures painted up very quickly and easily.

Usually, I paint up one figure as a test piece, making notes as to colours used and so on as I go along. With the Squirrel duel, I have made the effort to do 5 test models, as that is the target to get the Squirrel point. It has been challenging to try and find enough different projects to work on, but now I have these models done and a recipe for doing more should I find the time.

These models were painted up on a whim. I had read a tutorial recently about painting black. Some rummaging around in middle of the mountain of unpainted figures netted me 5 Black Templar space marines and the perfect figures to try out the tutorial on. I used to play 40K a few years back, mainly when 5th edition was at it's peak. At that time I didn't really enjoy painting marines too much. These guys were surprisingly fun to paint and I love how they have come out. I'm still undecided about the bases, but those can always be changed.

All of the models were painted in Vallejo Black and given a few highlights in Basalt Grey. I have tried to line highlight every panel on a marine before and it drove me nuts, so with these guys I just did a few random spots here and there. Once that was done and I had painted in the metals, I gave everything a glaze of blue ink. (1:10 ink & water). This helped make the highlights seem more natural and has given the black a bit of depth. Whereas the standard colour for the shoulder pads is white, I have gone for a warm off-white shade with a mix of Vallejo Bonewhite and Sky Grey. I used a fine tipped marker pen to add some religious script to the sides of the pads to better demonstrate the zeal of these crusaders.

And to finish off, some D&D monsters. As this was the theme of my first entry, it seemed fitting that it would also be my last. The large fellow above is a Chain Golem. The figure was originally an old D&D pre-painted mini, but I gave it a new coat, a wash and a drybrush to bring out the detail more. He is very large, standing nearly 100mm high on a 70mm base. 

To accompany him are a Were-bear, a Marilith Demon, a goat-man, a wraith a dire rat and a dire weasel. Most of the models were done with a simple Base>Drybrush>Wash technique, but the Marilith I spent a little more time on. The figure is a little NSFW, so I have added a black bar to the picture for decency. The Were-bear and the weasel are pre-paints, but the others are all from Reaper's Bones range.

And in a final shot to give you an idea of scale, you can see a rather confused looking Japanese NCO standing with the three big monsters. Both the bear and the demon are on 40mm bases.

And that is it from me for the challenge. There is still some time remaining, but right now I can't even stand to be in the same room as a paint brush, let alone think about picking one up. I have beaten my target by a mile and had a good shot at the Squirrel duel too.
I'm looking forward to seeing the final scores after the dust settles.

So, to end my post, a tally of points for the Minions.
The NNC and InDuna get me 17x28mm models for 85 Points and 1 Squirrel.
The Japanese get me 12x 28mm models for 60 Points and 1 Squirrel.
The Poles get me 5x 28mm models for 25 Points and my final Squirrel.
The Black Templars get me 5x 28mm models for 25 Points.
And finally the D&D figures are where I have to ask the minions to step in. 4 of the figures are roughly the same size as a standard 28mm model, but as you can see in the last picture, 3 of them are a bit bigger.

So that gives me a total of 195 Points, plus whatever the minions see fit for the D&D figures, plus 3 Squirrels.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my posts. I tried to comment on other people's but never had enough time to look at all of them. Thanks also to Curt for organising this and to Evan for being an awesome minion.
I believe a recap post is usual, so I will have a rest and come back after the end of the challenge.

Thank you!


TamsinP:

I have enjoyed your large, mixed-bag entries throughout the Challenge, and this is no exception. Lovely work on all of these Stuart.

I'm going to score the D&D figures as four 28mm foot and the big monsters as 28mm vehicles. That gives you a grand total of 275 points for your final entry.

From DavidL - Black Templar Terminators and Land Raider (45 points)

As the finish line looms closer, I finally at least manage to put some points on the board towards my Black Templar project. I'd hoped to get through my entire Templar list this Challenge, but so it goes.

I've always had a soft spot for the 40K universe, but most of my gaming in that setting has been via Epic-scale engagements. For various reasons, I never got into 40K proper back in the 90s. I've nearly gotten into it a few times over the last 10 years, but I lacked a project that really fired my imagination.

That changed when I discovered the Black Templars. I love their look, I love their lore. In a gothic sci-fi universe, they are the most gothic of all. I used to field an Empire army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and I think the Black Templars come closest to capturing that same visual aesthetic. I was additionally pleased to find out that Forge World offer a variety of resin and brass-etched "add-ons" to properly pimp out one's Templars in grand gothic fashion.

What we have here is one of the centerpiece units of my Templar force: five Terminators and their Land Raider Crusader transport.

The Terminators are kitted out with custom shoulder plates and shields from Forge World; for their helmets, I swapped in appropriately knight-like pieces from Puppets War (gotta love those third-party Eastern European conversion companies!).

As befits the Eternal Crusaders of Righteousness, these guys are positively festooned in purity seals. (I love purity seals.)

And then there's the behemoth that is the Land Raider Crusader. This thing took almost as long to build as it did to paint! Coming off of painting WWII tanks, which are usually no more than 3-5 pieces total, it was a bit daunting assembling this thing, with its dozens of parts.

Size-wise, it's truly massive - probably the largest vehicle miniature I've ever painted.

Once again, lots of nice additional details courtesy of Forge World.

I'm quite pleased with how the black turned out on both the Terminators and the Crusader. I used Andrea Color's "Black Paint Set" (as I did with my Soviet sailors in my last entry) and the kit worked great both with the brush and airbrush (although the rather viscous paints needed a lot of watering down for the latter).

I'm going to knuckle down and get one more entry in before the closing ceremonies, so I won't say cheerio just yet...

Superb work David. I've always had a soft spot for the Black Templars as they have such a classic colour scheme and brutal aesthetic about them. I really like your use of white as an accent to accentuate the helmets and weapon casings - it looks very sharp. Your Crusader Land Raider is a wonderful centerpiece as well, especially with those marvelous Forge World add-ons (to which I'm going to add a few more points as I know how fiddly those things can be). Again, great stuff David!