From JohnS - Dwarfy Goodness - 60 Points

I stagger away from Historicals this week, back to fantasy. Dwarfs have been calling my name.

We have another Oathmark game coming up on Sunday so I have been inspired to add a dozen more Dwarfs to my Kingdom.

These four are more of the Kev Adams resin dwarfs I picked up a few years back.

I think they are fantastically characterful sculpts and take me back to the 90s when "Doofs" became my go to army in WHFB.

These four are actual Oathmark miniatures from Northstar Figures. I have the king too but he was painted pre-Challenge so remains temporarily banished!

They are slightly taller and slimmer than The big-headed KA dwarfs but there is room for all the Dwarfy types in my Kingdom.

I have gone with a "Dark Ages" feel with these guys, using some LBMS shield transfers on some figures.

These last four are from my "random dwarf" selection. The bald guy on the left is a Kev Adams I think, the pick wielder is a Citadel mini but I am not sure of the makers of the two right hand figures.

I particularly like the spearshaft as is is wrapped in wire like every good workman's quick repair of a broken tool.

Another fun week of painting, and chatting. Back to historicals next week. Probably.

PS I have started playing around with "flocked" movement trays for Oathmark, this is my first try using a Renedra movement tray.

12 x 25/28mm foot @ 5 ea = 60 points 

From Millsy:

More swagger than stagger if you ask me. These are jolly good John! I particularly like your choice of shield motifs. The norse theme really suits the character of the miniatures and your painting style.

I have quite a few of the same sculpts in my Oathmark dwarf army and they really are a joy to paint. One of the joys of Oathmark is the ability to mix a range of figures in a unit which you've done superbly.

Great stuff and a well earned 60 gold added to your tally mate.

Cheers,
Millsy

From GeoffT: A mixed bag (75 points)

Hello Challengers, 

Today I present a mixed bag of miniatures.

There are two Grunch Warriors, I don’t know what an Grunch is, but they look like Blemmaye with birds feet.  I have four Napoleonic undead, two skeletons and two vampires for “The Silver Bayonet” an Oriental Ogre,  four British Paratroopers and Harry Flashman himself.

In total there is 11 x 28mm infantry, one 54mm figure and a 28mm scale gun.  That is a total of 75 points.

Kind Regards,

Geoff.

From Millsy:

I love a good eclectic collection of miniatures and this is the perfect specimen! I'm intrigued by the Grunch which I've not come across before. A quick bit ot Google Foo has properly educated my on them and I agree they have a definite blemaye feel to them.

Very nice work all around Geoff. Rich reds, saturated blues and bright whites. What's not to like?

75 Challenge shekels for you mate.

Cheers,
Millsy

From MikeF - Project Complete - 18 Points

 I finished the last two agents for exploit zero. They consist of the ranged agent known as a ronin and the close combat agent known as the razor. The razor is a 3-D print while the ronin is from Seb-games. The ronin has extensive cybernetics attached including a mini gun for an arm and massive ammo drum attached to his back. I painted his skin blue to give the impression he’s been bio- engineered as well. Not sure what his backstory is, but it can’t be a happy one! 

The razor also has significant cybernetics which include his arm, some sort of spinal attachment and possibly his head, though I suppose it could just be a helmet. These two complete the agent group for the game.

The last items I have for my cyberpunk project are 2 sentry guns from Northstar. They serve as an additional obstacle for the agents, but a skilled hacker could possibly enlist them to their cause.

That’s it for Exploit Zero! It’s always nice to complete these small projects in between the large army projects I have going on.

For the rest of the challenge I’ll be trying to complete a bunch of vehicles for my Imperial Guard and 30k Militia. They’ll likely take me to the end of the challenge, so I’ll probably only make one more post before the challenge ends.

Two 28mm models for 10 points. I scored the sentry guns at 4 points each as they’re a bit smaller than a full 28mm figure. 18 points total.

Thanks for visiting!

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Its always very rewarding to complete a project isn't it! And these are some great characters to wrap it up too. No self respecting SF skirmish game is complete without some kind of street ninja! And the sentry guns are great too (WHY were they cut from the cinema release of ALIENS? Criminal!)

- Paul

From Geoffrey T: Library Rampage (New Acquisitions, History, Children's Books, Overdues, 170 points, 1 skull)

 Hello Challengers and happy new year to all.

After a belated start to the challenge with visitors for the festive season, I am now underway with two submissions, both for the silver bayonet game.

The first is a new acquisition, which is two monsters for the Canadian war of 1812 supplement written by Ash Barker.  Brand new miniatures from North Star to go with a brand new supplement.

Here we have a Wendigo and a Baxbaxwaluksiwe, the latter of which I have never heard of before.  It is quite bizarre, covered in many hungry biting mouths.  It was quite hard to paint.

The second submission is some napoleonic Spanish fusiliers I sculpted moulded and cast myself.  They are pretty basic.  They lost a fair bit of sharpness when drop cast as well.  But still making your own figures makes one feel like a real naploeonic wargamer.  These I am claiming as historical, because I even looked in a book to find the uniform design and colours rather than just making it up.

Third I have classic protagonists from Children's books, goats and trolls.

Here is 5 goats from Eureka Miniatures.  Livestock is surprisingly useful in a number of games.  Sharp Practice 2, Ghost Archipelago and here I expand my collection of goats for Forbidden Psalm's expansion campaign.

Then we have three trolls.  One troll can be defeated by three goats.  I do not know how 5 goats goes v 3 trolls.  These will be used in Frostgrave and silver bayonet, and anywhere I use a cobblestone gaming mat.

They are from Grenadier miniatures, of which I picked up a hundred or so old metal minis at a game shop moving sale, they dredged out their old stock and put it on sale.  I was stoked.  It is what I like to buy anyway, to get it on sale was great.

Finally for this week I have five old skool miniatures to add to my 'slow grow' Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition armies.  These are certainly Overdue projects, by about 30 years.

Four empire halberdiers my marauder miniatures, circa 1991 or so.

One skeleton standard bearer from Grenadier, about the same age.  I was quite pleased to pick this one up as I was short a standard for one unit and had been using a gibbet as a substitute.

This skeleton also has a skull for the skullz challenge.

Total for this post is

40mm - Five monsters about 40mm tall = 5 x 7 = 35 points

28mm - three fusiliers, four halberdiers and one skeleton = 8 x 5 = 40 points

15mm - 5 goats, nominally 28mm scale but quite small = 5 x 2 =10 points

New acquisitions, History, Childerns books and Overdue books shelves = 4 x 20 = 80 points

Grand total = 165 points and 1 skull.

King Regards

Geoff.

From Millsy: Silver Bayonet is such a great game and its wonderful to see others playing. I've not yet managed to get my hands on the new wave of minis but your wendigo in particular is seriously tempting me Geoffrey!

Having cast my own minis way back when I started gaming I can attest to how much fun it is. Kudos to you for going the extra mile and making your own minis though, that is seriously impressive especially given the elegance of your sculpts. These are fit to grace any table and worth another 5 points bonus for being your own work.

The Empire halberdiers are also gorgeous and a subject dear to my own heart. Please can we have more???

From HerrRobert - Cutting the Camel Budget [Under Construction] - 95 points

 

Warned yet again that the studio executives were meeting to discuss budgets, and rumors that cuts, redundancies and the like were all possible, I rushed to finish yet another under construction project.

With the prospect of a camel corps in the offing, headquarters desperately needed an expert in the ways, care and feeding of camels, and Major Docherty was their man! Along with his trusty batman, Corporal Millsy, the good major booked passage on a fast steamer for Cairo in Egypt. There, he could use his knowledge to ensure the forces of the Queen only received the finest, most biddable, highest quality camelflesh. He found himself dining alongside a passenger returning from Afghanistan, the good Doctor John Watson, late from the battlefields of Maiwand and Kandahar.

Drawing a hard bargain in the streets and souks of the Old Quarter of Cairo, our hero manages to acquire another five camels for the baggage train. Loaded with supplies, goods, chests, and old terracotta amphorae, only the final arrangements with the camel herders must be made, to ensure they make their way to the Nile. 

Escorting the beasts is a detachment of the 2nd Essex Regiment, commanded by the redoubtable Captain Henry Percy, Baronet. Having packed away his purple facings and donned a tunic of less fashionable but more practicable gray serge, the 2nd Essex is mustering to travel to lands south.

It has been a very busy and hectic December/January, what with work, California trying to drown us all, power outages and both plumbing and roof leaks, so I have not had the energy to paint much. Not getting in under the wire was a serious possibility. 

My first entry for Challenge XIII is my own take on the long-running Major Docherty and Corporal Millsy vignettes. I'd planned for this to be my capstone for Challenge XII, but circumstances intervened, and they sat the entire year on the painting bench. Major Docherty is The Professor from North Star's Steampunk line, with a natty dressing gown and fez. Dr. Watson is also from that line, the Medical Officer. Corporal Millsy is a Foundry figure from the Zulu Line that has been sitting in the lead pile for a good twenty years. The camel herders/merchants are MENA Civilians - Foxtrot from Spectre Miniatures. These five figures were complete except for grassing the bases, so I am not claiming any points for these.

The camels are Camel w/ Pack from Reaper Miniatures. While I do like Reaper miniatures and have painted several for the challenge, I'm not terribly thrilled with the material they use for their Bones line. The camels suffer from the usual problems many Bones miniatures do; the legs are thin, and so they bend. The camel miniatures thus sway, as you can see in the photos above. I painted them in Army Painter Skeleton Bone, then washed with Citadel Contrast Aggaros Dunes. To get a lot of variety from the same sculpt, I painted the baggage in different colors.  The camels and the cargo frame was prepped for Challenge XII, and I finished up all of the baggage since.

Captain H. Percy and his detachment are Perry Miniatures. Captain Percy, Sergeant Hoge and Drummer Fred Lamb are from SB4 British Infantry command advancing, while Privates Clovis Goslan and Chris Gibb are from SB7 Infantry advancing. They were originally a much darker gray, but that didn't really fit the descriptions of gray (or is it grey?) serge. So I repainted them using Reaper Miniatures stone triad over Delta Ceramicoat Charcoal and Hippo Gray. Unfortunately, they're washed out in the photos, but it's a nice gray otherwise.

Starting our tour at Under Construction

 

I'm not very happy with the photos, despite a new photo booth, but I was a bit rushed on the photographs, so just used my phone. They don't do the figures justice, the photos are too washed out, but it gets the point across. Photography of my miniatures has always left something to be desired, but hopefully they will improve.

Here's the score:

• 5 x 25mm mounted @ 5 points per (I don't think the baggage counts as a full rider, but won't argue if others do) = 25 points
• 5 x 25mm infantry @ 5 points per = 25 points
• Under Construction (Green Pass) studio bonus = 20 points
• Total = 70 points.

I'm also claiming two squirrel points, one for the camels (since they can be used for almost any period), and one for the infantry. 

Obligatory group overhead shot

 

On to High Adventure!

Great post, and just in time. Generally we give full points for pack animals, so that is 95 in total, and you made the final directors cut

From BruceR - Lady Sarah's Star Yacht, Silver Bayonet Occultist, (25 points)

I managed to finish off my current Silver Bayonet pile.  I'm sure something new will pop up to take up space on the painting table.

I'm using the Occultist from North Star Miniatures to commission travel on Lady Sarah's Star Yacht to travel from Caprica to Glorantha.  

I painted the French Silver Bayonet miniatures as a group and it is quite different to paint individual character miniatures, when you are used to painting units.  I carved out the Occultist for the space travel and will post the other members of the French force.  This Occultist is a great figure and will do double duty for TSB and SP2.  

Occultist

1 25mm foot = 5 pts

Lardy Sarah's Star Yacht =20 pts

Total = 25 pts

Thanks all.  Stay well.  BruceR

 

***

 

Very nice Bruce, I've no doubt Sarah will be pleased to coordinate travel on her yacht courtesy of this fine work. Neat to see some of these North Star figures getting some attention in the Challenge.

 

"Occultist" - maybe I should write that into a tax form this year to see what happens? 

 

GregB