From Millsy: Lord of the Rings Bad Guys (271 points)

Hi All,

I've started up a new project for 2021 with the intent of running large sized fantasy games of SAGA using the fan-created A Fantastic Saga rule set. These predated the official SAGA: Age of Magic rules and I actually prefer them. Hopefully I will be running 18-24 points per side games starting at the June long weekend this year. Battle of the Five Armies anyone?

The production quality is superb and the way the writer only added to the original SAGA rules was very clever indeed. Sadly no longer supported with the advent of the official rules, they still more than adequate for my purposes and I am building out army lists and battle boards for all the major and some minor protagonists.

I'm not adhering strictly to the Peter Jackson movie interpretation of the races as some of it has never sat comfortably for me based on my lifelong reading. Rather I am putting my own spin on things and using a mix of official and other miniatures with a focus on plastics, kit bashing and only using metal minis where necessary. So far I have painted up...

Uruk-hai (95 points)

Gorgeous old skool Mark Copplestone half-orcs from the Grenadier stable.
Note the lack of a white hand or red eye until I have enough painted to do both.

Skin tone is P3 Bloodstone thinned to a wash over a white undercoat. Quick and effective.

A few mold lines I was unable to remove unfortunately but hardly noticeable from gaming distance.

Orcs (80 points)

Common garden (should that be cave?) variety orcs using Oathmark plastic Goblins. Most people seem to agree these are too large for goblins and proxy them for orcs.

Skin tone is Vallejo Green Ochre thinned to a wash over a white undercoat.

Goblins (96 points)

Red Box Games plastic Goblin Warriors #2 set roughly 20mm in size. 48 goblins for US$17.95 + shipping is pretty good value. Based in lots of 2 per base and units of 6, these are a new troop type in A Fantastic Saga called "Creature Packs" which can represent anything from swarms of crap troops as in this case to large monsters.

Skin tone is Vallejo Green Ochre thinned to a wash over a white undercoat again.

The 271 point total for these chaps should see me pass my 1,500 point total with a day or two to spare. I hope to get a few more minis in before Challenge end but if not I'm not bothered as I hit my goal. Nice.

Cheers,
Millsy

Thats quite the greenskin bomb there. The mix of figure types works really well and I do like the muted ocre skin tones - works a treat 

Well done on meeting your Challenge target mate, thats an awesome achievement no matter how many times you've done it before. This Cap'n scores that little horde in at 295 points, being that they are all 28mm figs. 

Cap'n W

From Curt: The Great Siege of Malta - Gentlemen Adventurers (75 Points)

Today I'm taking a little sojourn from the Chambers of Challenge to revisit my 1565 Siege of Malta project. I started work on this collection last year and I thought it high time to add another unit to the defenders.

These hard-bitten arquebusiers represent a group of Christian 'Gentlemen Adventurers' who played a significant role in the Great Siege. These were essentially companies of Spanish and Italian mercenaries, drawn to the Siege through the winning combination of base avarice and religious zeal. They made up a good portion of the defenders, outnumbering the well known Knights of Malta several times over. I have an impassioned priest trying to keep their bodies and souls focused on killing Ottomans for the Faith. (The barbaric actions of both the Ottomans and the Christian powers in the Middle Sea is not really a great endorsement for organised religion - but I digress.)

These figures are from Wargames Foundry's El Dorado range, sculpted by the talented Mark Copplestone (his models seems to be an unintentional theme for me this year). Like the rest of my Malta stuff, these are based up individually as I envision the games will be more skirmish based.

Nonetheless, wanting players to be able to move their groups quickly, at least at the onset of the game, I had Byron cut up some sabot bases that I had I sketched up. I designed this one to indicate skirmishers, or missile troops, spread out in a loose formation. Players can have the command stand at the front or the rear to suit their aesthetic sensibilities.

A brave and righteous man of the cloth leading from the front...

...or one with wee less conviction.

As you can see, I'm amortising the use of my Vatican Enterprises walls with a cameo appearance here.

Out of their sabot bases and manning the walls.

These 15 Bravos will give me another 75 points to add to my total and serve as Squirrel Point #2

Next: The Hall of Traps!

-Curt

From JuanM. First entry: Science Fiction (10 Points)

Hello.

Here is my first entry for the 7th Challenge. I have enjoyed a pair of days off-duty so I have had enough time to paint them. As usual, they are 28mm and for one of my favorite themes: Science Fiction.

First one, a Doranian ex-Police, a Mark Copplestone´s figure for "Rogue Stars":

The model is very good, clean, with the perfect level of detail and I have ready his profile for the ruleset as an ex-Police...lion (49 XP). He is going to be the first member of an Inquisitorial retinue (Curt, my first figure for our Side Duel if I can use non-GW models (I have a box full of GW models, so no problem with that)).

The second one is a Vandirian Assasin, also a Copplestone figure for "Rogue Stars":

Another very fine model and more "agile" than the first assasin for this range of figures. She is going to be the cover actions agent of the Inquisitorial Retinue (second model for the count, Curt, if you agree...). With a cost of 59 XP, she is not cheap but I think she can be very useful.

And this is all for now. These figures have been very easy to paint, as is usual with Copplestone´s.

Cheers!!!

______________________________________________

Oooh, what lovely painted figures, Juan!  I really like the fur on the Doranian, and you've done a terrific job on the black armour of the Vandirian. That purple knife is ace as well. You've really brought them to life with your brushwork.

Mark Copplestone is a terrific sculptor - a painter's sculptor. He always manages to provide just enough detail for interest, without over-complicating things for the brush. I'm really happy they brought him on to provide the figures for the 'Rogue Stars' range. 

You've stolen a march on me with our Inquisitor/Rogue Stars duel, Juan. I'll have to get moving so I can start to catch up (I think I signed up for too many duels...).

From SeanS - "Psycho Sam" Oldhammer 2015 figure (5 points)

I'm drafting this early in case I somehow fail to finish and photograph any other figures.

"Psycho Sam" is a figure that was commissioned for the Oldhammer 2015 events that happened, coincidentally, last year.

The color scheme I chose is a riff off of the Plexus Ranger uniform from the Howard Chaykin comic American Flagg. The idea is he will be a leader/member of a group of cop types that "enforce" the laws of Borborygmus Prime.

I deviated from my normal process in that I did not slather the figure in my grunge wash. In fact the only wash on him was a darker blue on his pants. If I had thought about it I would have layered up from that color, but I forgot I had it.

The other thing is my sort of NMM on his gun. I wanted to differentiate it from the black leather so I used Charcoal with Zinc highlights on the edges. I need to work out a little better how to spot gloss varnish the metallics, his facial piercings and ear rings look like I might have accidentally hit them with the matte varnish. They're supposed to be gold.

I used the same flash photo set up, I spent a bit of time dialing in Shutter Speed, Aperture and Flash strength to get it. I'm still not sure if it isn't a little under exposed. I left it without any post processing this time, other than cropping and resizing for the blog.

I intend to use him for Rogue Trader games, but if he's not Sci-Fi enough to count in the duel, that's fine by me.

May your brushes keep their points.

Now thats way to cool Sean. A really colourful piece too. Yes i agree a bit of spot gloss would help things pop - i use an old enamel gloss paint - its reasonably thick and does not run , just apply with a brush reserved for enamels.