From SeanM: One last time, for the Greater Good (20 points)

Nothing ever goes wrong when you're posting late on Saturday night. Tell that to the OldHammer Group on FaceBook, where I just left a Hordes Battle Report, because it is next to the Ottawa-Gatineau Warmachine Club on my groups list. Hopefully the admins will delete the record of my sleep deficit.

You know, not every Warlord gets to ride around in a shiny new chariot. Some have to make due with some second hand, gently used equipment. To wit, here is my Tau Battlesuit Commander's sweet ride before the paint went on it.

"No really, that's real Corinthian Leather!"

As you can see, there are parts of at least three battlesuits in there. The ankles have been replaced with sewing pins after they snapped off, the C3 antenna is a map pin, and judicious scrubbing couldn't get all of the old enamel paint off. The arms are from a Heavy Gear Kodiak, because boss suits have actual hands, apparently. Now for a little "Pimp My Ride" tenderness.

As you can see, this guy looks a lot more presentable with a (greater) good coat of paint. This is the standard Tan and Green that all of my Tau are painted, although with a higher percentage of green, 'cause he's the bossman. For some reason the matte coat pulled the paint back from some of the edges, requiring some late day touch ups.

As I said before, I've been listening to some podcasts whilst painting, and these guys were inspired by the "Battle of Verdun" podcast. I give you:

Les Poilus des étoiles.

These are a pair of Forge World Death Corps of Krieg I picked up for a fiver at a gaming yard sale. Everyone seems to see Huns when they look at them, and "Krieg" doesn't help, but I found them very reminiscent of the Poilus. The helmet in particular is more Casque Adrian than Stahlhelm. I think I was able to get a decent Horizon Blue on these, with a bit of red, tan and burnt sienna to break up the montone. Man, these guys are a pain to assemble, with just about the most pieces I've seen in a 28mm figure. Legs-torso-head, left arm, right arm, right shoulder pad, pouches, grenades, back pack, and e-tool/bayonet. I could imagine doing several platoons of these. The flash supressor even just dropped off of one of them while I was painting it, due to a subsurface bubble.

Well, my wife will be happy now that I am moving the paints back to the man-cave. It was getting close to my very own personal 1917 Mutiny for a while.

And I'm spent.

TTFN.

Sean.


Tamsin: lovely work Sean! Those not Poilus look spot-on for the horizon blue. I've got absolutely no idea how big the Tau battlesuit is so I'm going to guess and score it as 28mm cavalry (if you think ti should be more, let me know) so with the two infantry that will score you another 20 points.

Sean M: Proxies! (167 points)

The sun is shining on our new fallen snow, so it's a great time... to stay inside an post some images to the Challenge! I think I have enough in me for one more post after this one, maybe.

Proxies. For when you want to try something new, without spending more money. A delve into the back pile of lead, some Bitz for the Bitz God, and there you go! A half arsed attempt to keep up with the cool kids. And as we've seen with the Electoral College, proxy systems never go wrong, amirite?

So Privateer Press has sent a new faction for Hordes into the world for beta testing, the Grymkin. This is a folktale faction, where avatars of the seven deadly sins, plus other sins, are brought to the table as a series of dad jokes in miniature (I cribbed that last part from Combo-Smite).

So here's the group shot:

First up are the Trapperkin. These guys are the boogey men who stalk you from the hidden places. They started out as some Malifaux dead babies, or something questionable like that. There a sizeable amount of Malifaux figs in this post. Some green stuff to sub in some glam rock hair, and there you go. Yes, my green stuff skills leave something to be desired. The bases without minis on them are their trapdoor markers, where they can be hidden away to be kept from being trivially removed by ranged attacks.

These are the some almost stock figures. The spectre on the left is a former Harlequin spectre who now a Lantern Man (really). He is the unit attachment for a unit called Hollow Men, which are made of magically enslaved deserters. I shaved off his crown and shield peg, and added watchman's lantern from the Mordhiem sprues. The two ladies next to him, stock Malifaux figures, represent a character unit of witches called the Twilight Sisters, one old, one young, measuring your fates, you know the trope. The lady in front is a Clan Wars Wu-Jen, a stock figure, and represents Lady Karianne, a hopelessly insane woman taken in by the Grymkin. If she is removed from play, all Grymkin on the board go into a frenzy.

 This is the one bald face "cheat", as this unit is already released. These are Gremlin Swarms, who love to play havoc with mechanical items, like Warjacks, Battle Engines and airplane engines. The are made from spare 'jack parts and GW Snotlings.

 The Warlock is a Defier called the Wanderer. None of the Grymkin warlocks have names, just titles that define their characteristics. He is all about movement and hiding magics, and smites people with his magic lantern. Maybe I should have used a Green Lantern as a proxy figure.

He started life as a Confrontation warrior priest, and his right arm has been bodged together with GW bitz, plus a spare raven from the Old Witch pack. Some extra ropes and stowage on the back cover up where I had to clip off a slung rifle. He comes with three markers which he places on the board within 5" of his position. At the start of his next turn, he can displace to one of the markers.

These are the warbeasts. The black one is a Gorehound. He started off as some sort of Malifaux Cerebus, but with only one head mounted. His extra long tongue is a Skaven tail. The two white guys are a rabbit/crab hybrid, imaginatively called Crabbits. They are two GW Squigs with Genestealer arms pasted on. The Big guy is called Skin and Moans, who gains power as he collects the skins of his foes. This started as a Confrontation Minotaur, with a Reaper Troll head, Privateer Satyr arms, Starship Trooper Bugs arms for evil skinning knives, GW Zombie face tambourines and a judicious use of Green Stuff to make the skin sash and hair.

Battle for Skull Pass Night Goblins have many uses. The Cask Imps are lower torsos attached to some spare barrels, including two from the kid's Lego collection. The two guys plucking bombs from their pouches are part of a mobile distillery team that creates Cask Imps in game.

These last guys are called Dread Rots. They are pumpkin headed nasties that harvest people to fuel the rest of the army. People being harvested by plants, get it? Yup, subtle like a smack on the head with a thumper, and i should know (see my "Home" entry). These are the current spamming option for the playtest. These are GW Zombies with cheap beads for their heads, painted like Jack-o-lanterns. I know, they look like a Scooby-Doo villian, but not from the good Scooby-Doo. The bad ones that they snookered Vincent Price into doing.

I'm going to throw myself on the judge Minions' mercy for scoring for the Dread Rots. Three were top to bottom new paints, one reused a set of legs, and the other six were merely head and right arm swaps. But I needed to display the entire unit in it's ridonculous, Saturday morning cartoon glory.

Until that one last post,

TTFN.


Tamsin - what a wonderful collection of weirdness! And lots of great conversion work (I'm sure we'll all keep schtum when your kids start asking where their Lego barrels have gone!).
For scoring, I'm going to count Skin and Moans as a 40mm figure, then there are 25 foot figures, two engines which I'll count as crew-served weapons and all the conversions (and figures which have been coverted after previous painting) which I'll give 15 points for. So, if I've got the sacrifices to the spreadsheet of doom right, that should come to 167 points :)

From Sean M - The race is almost run (120 points)

No idleness before the Ides!

With Spring Break and a Mid-March freeze settling in, it's a good time to make the final push on the Challenge. Nothing bad ever comes of leaving some nine and six year old boys unsupervised while painting, amirite? More on that later...

The Challenge has certainly inspired me to put a dent in the old leadpile, and I think I can claim I did not buy a single new mini for the Challenge. And here is the culmination of my second oldest ongoing project.

The last of the Celts are done, a Warband of 24 dudes. These are the bourgeois cats who can afford armour! They will either be fielded as an uber unit at the centre of the line, or split amongst the other units to make three more homogeneous units. The bulk of the figures are Warlord Games, with a good seasoning of Old Glory and the last 4 from Wargames Factory. That was the payoff from this unit, as I expended most of the WF minis as slingers, this unit was mercifully free of them. My experiments with the Magic Wash have progressed, so that the overly muddy tones of the earlier minis have been evened out, although they still have the dirty peasant look Hollywood has primed us to expect.

The hardest part of these figures is still hand cutting out the shield transfers around the shield bosses, although the application process is getting to be old hat. However, shield choice at this point in the project has curtailed by the remaining unspoiled decals, which meant a certain amount had to be javelin/shield pieces. The Warlord (above) is using one of the ceremonial gold shields, like the one they found in the Thames. While it is acknowledged that the shield would be too fragile to take into battle, how, as a modeler, could I pass it up. This unit also got the largest carnyx of the lot.

I've been hacking on the Wargames Factory minis a bit since the dreaded slinger entry, but to be fair, they did what they were bought for, which was pad out the units and add an option that the other manufacturers did not offer - money cheap slingers. Each WF mini is less than a dollar, and their rub on decals are pretty easy to put on once you cut them in half.

So here's one last WF Celt, who had an epic journey of a sorts. I came home from the Kill Team league yesterday, prepared to flock up the warband then snap some pics. However, 24 Celts had become 23. It seems the youngest of the brood had been watching You Tube on daddy's computer, and had shoved all of the minis into a pile on the side of the desk, and one last WF Celt went walkies. He was later found safely ensconced in a mukluk, all warm and toasty, with his spear only a little bent.

So here I am, with about a week left to go, wondering what to try to top up my points with now that the CurtGeld is off to my partner in the tender care of Canada Post. I think I will bash onto my Grymkin proxy army made of odds and sods from the basement leadpile.

TTFN.

Alan and Paul: Great to hear that the missing spearman turned up, and wasn't sacrificed in a bog to guarantee success for the rest of the warband! This is a great looking bunch, and the mix of manufacturers will just add to the personality of the army as a whole. Five more days! What will you paint up next? 

By Sean M: Aaaaaarrrrrrr! (35 points)

Just a little post to show some figs I did for a local WarMachine tournament.

So here are some of the Privateer Sea Dog figures: First Mate Hawk, Lord Rockbottom and the Deck Gun Crew.

The Deck Gun Crew is pretty generic, and probably could be used with any 28mm pirate themed army. Just a normal batch of pirate-y, mismatched clothes for a non-unified appearance. This is one of the few gun models I've seen with the carriage pegged into the ground for recoil. The Deck Gun in game is sub-par to it's larger cousin, the Commodore Cannon, but this sub-par player likes his sub-par models.

There's nothing outlandish about First Mate Hawk, except that she is a lady sea dog (not using the technical term), and there's none of Privateer's egregious steam punk design elements involved. Rule wise, her crew adores/lusts for her, and will take a bullet for her, and to quote Dr P. Venkman, "She's a nimble little minx." In the fluff, she wears a lot of pink, but that was unappealing to my sensibilities.

Lord Rockbottom is a proper pirate dwarf, peg leg (check), bicorne (check), shabby-chic frock coat (check) - unlike GW's pirate slayers. He has an unfeasibly long cutlass, and a fire spouting blunderbuss; because a fire based weapon is something you should employ a hundred leagues from shore... He's the ship's paymaster, so he can use "coins" to boost a model's game performance. However, as the Deck Gun is the only Sea Dogs unit I have, his current utility is limited.

So just a little snippet whilst I push on to the bitter end of the Challenge. I spent a good part of Sunday bashing out another large unit while listening to podcasts. On that note, I highly recommend "The Fall of Rome" and "The Battle of Verdun" podcasts.

TTFN

By Paul: What an outstanding group of scabrous sea dogs! Splice the mainbrace me hearty!
Thats 4 figures, a cannon and some extra points for a wonderfully nautical submission and outrageously oversized bicorne. Yarrrr :-)

From SeanM - Let's try this again... What should have been posted last week (15 points)

Right then.

My temper is rightly a-frayed, as the internet gremlins ate most of my last post. So most of this post is not for scoring, but to properly display what was supposed to be there. Let's start with a recap.

So this was the glamour shot of the Slaaneshi Warband to date.

"So, every warband needs a boss, so let's start with a Champion of Slaanesh. This guy/gal(?) started life as a MidHammer Chaos Champion I got from a bits box at Campaign Outfitters, I believe. It was just a torso/legs, so a sort thru the bitz box was needed to add some limbs, and a head. Although, heads were optional back in the OldHammer days"

"So, as the model indicates, this Champion has 26-35 Crab-Like Claws, 36-50 Hermaphordite and 66-73 Chaos Familiar. The left arm and cloak are off of a NewHammer Chaos Warrior, the right off of a Chaos Squat and the head from a 4th ed High Elf. Purple will be the colour to tie all of this together."

So that was the post that as it was published, but there is MOAR!!! Here is the rest of the Warband, with their accompanying Slaves of Darkness table entries.

39-41: CHAOS WARRIOR

Well, here are three of the fallen gents. The first is mounted, this figure is Mid/LateHammer. Much like the Champion, this mini was a store bitz box find, so he came sans arm and horse. A delve through the bitz box dressed him up all Chaosy.

Following him up are two comrades, who are pure, unmodified OldHammer. I've had these minis cooling in the Planos, waiting for a rainy day. These seems as good time as any.

I'm not a fan of the "Let's paint the armour all the colours" school of Chaos, so beaten steel is the look I go for.

36-38: 2d4 CHAOS DWARFS

I've got two tranches of Chaos Dwarfs. The first is a random emptying of the drawers of things that look Chaos. From the left, a Chain Mail dwarf bezerker, a big hat Chaos Dwarf that is trying to recover from a horrible hack job, and a Chaos Squat with a plastic arm. The Squat came with all of the tentacles, which seemed very appropriate for a Slaaneshi Warband.

I've been trying to be moderate on my use of purple.

These next chaps are all OldHammer Chaos Dwarfs. I must admit, I like the old spiky aesthetic over the later big hat/nose Assyrian look.

36-38: CHAOS SORCEROR

This chap is a amalgam of several different mini lines. I think the corpulent wizard is from the Fadin Suns line. I picked him up ages ago, thinking if I am on day going to go Chaos, I need this freak of nature in the Warband. Pretty much, he's just flesh tone and Ogryn Flesh wash. The captive is from a Deathwalker from the IKRPG line. The pose of the left arm did not need any modification. The back banner is from the plastic Empire Flagellents set.

You can't unsee those man-glutes!

By now, you might need some mind bleach, so I'll add some dignity to what is otherwise an ugly brawl with some Gunners!

So the gun is not a scoring unit, as it is just included for scale. These minis are Black Tree design, and the clean up was pretty easy. The detail is crisp and deep, and they were a quick refreshing joy to paint after the soul crushing Wargames Factory Celts. However, I realize now that I need to repaint the bases to match the rest of my Dogs of War army. <sigh>

I did forget to post another mini, an anti-hero who sows Chaos in his wake.

Nope, the one from the comics.

No, the guy in orange...

Yes, everyone's favourite fantasy comic book, Groo! This was a very simple figure, with a pose that immediately recalls the comic book my pre-teen self enjoyed. I found this guy in my pre-Challenge sorting for projects, still in the shrink wrap baggie. Again, a nice little palette cleanser of a mini.

So, only three new minis over the original, truncated post, but how could I deny you all of the glory that is the Fat Bastard Chaos Sorcerer.

TTFN,
Sean.

Alan and Paul: Great to see your figures in their proper glory after the gremlin attack last week. The mounted chaos champion is definitely my favourite, although I find I can't unsee the sorcerer. Thanks for that. I'm enjoying seeing what your bitz box is turning up! More please!

From Sean M: Slaves to Darkness: Part 1, plus other stuff (60 points)

Inspiration is a fickle thing.

Part of my impetus to compete in the contest was to give me the gumption to clear away the backlog from the painting drawers. You know, those Plano cabinets you've been filling with those cherished finds that "I'll get around to someday!" Well, today's submission (hur, hur, you'll get it later) is a chance to clear our the odds and sods that I've been collecting for decades to make an GW OldHammer style Chaos Warband.

So, every warband needs a boss, so let's start with a Champion of Slaanesh. This guy/gal(?) started life as a MidHammer Chaos Champion I got from a bits box at Campaign Outfitters, I believe. It was just a torso/legs, so a sort thru the bitz box was needed to add some limbs, and a head. Although, heads were optional back in the OldHammer days.

So, as the model indicates, this Champion has 26-35 Crab-Like Claws, 36-50 Hermaphordite and 66-73 Chaos Familiar. The left arm and cloak are off of a NewHammer Chaos Warrior, the right off of a Chaos Squat and the head from a 4th ed High Elf. Purple will be the colour to tie all of this together.

Alan and Paul: Nice to see a second entry today where a Challenger was able to dust off some figures that had been needing some pigmenty love for decades. This is a scary looking bunch that just screams Dragon Rampant to me. The purple is a good scheme, and kudos for the conversion work. I count ten figures on foot and one mounted, giving you 60 points. Let me know if I have miscounted anything!

From SeanM - Genestealers (115 points)

Happy Tuesday! (the day before Humpday, a.k.a. only four more days to the weekend)

This week was a bit of a scramble. It was both the last day of my 5-week Holiday season stay-cation, and also a family visit from my parents! Therefore it was a mad weekend scramble to get something (anything) painted. I've been trying to think of a game that I can break my boys into, and there has been mixed success. WarMachine is too much for them past the battle box stage, and X-Wing is too oriented towards dials and guages. A few years ago, a well meaning relative gave me some GW gift certificates, so I went out and bought a Space Hulk. This might be the right merger between board game and wargame to break them in.

Inspiration/desperation requires a muse, and this little bloke from the Clicky series provided it. I've got about ten more of these, so they might become genestealer auxilia sometime in the future. The classic black colour scheme is a good base to work from, and loads better than the crimson/purple schemes I've seen about.

So, how does that translate into the Challenge entry. There are 22 genestealers and a "Broodlord" in the basic game, and they look something like this:

Sunny ways, my friends!

You've got some standard running poses, you've got bursting through the floor poses, you've got hanging out on the architecture poses, even hanging out on a pile of skullz poses (GW, never change!). The basic scheme is a base coat of Krylon Camo Black, with a dry brush of Deco Art Colonial Blue (previous seen on some Arbites). Contrasting details are done with reds, purples, ivory, yellow and buckskin. Metals are done with Privateer's Pig Iron and Brass Balls. Here are some selections of various poses, up close.

You can start to see that the minis aren't monochromatic. The gaps in the exoskeletons are painted red, and the ovipositors (tongues) are lurid purple. Details on the minis are fairly good for wargame figures, really good for board game figures. Most joins are hidden in natural crevices, and the detail is only really soft in the areas you can't see from above.

Here are some guys just hanging around. Lots of defiance of gravity, plus moar skullz. The terrain bits really take a dry-brushing really well, and picking out some details in brass helps to Goth it up.

I like this one. You might notice that the genestealer models get a defining feature, usually they get one or two of the following: a big tongue, skullz or helmets. I counted 16 Terminator helmets on 23 minis; no wonder the Blood Angels have a hard on to stomp bugs. I think the future scenarios will be framed as the Deathwing going in to clean up the Blood Angels' mess.

Here's the boss. How do you know that he's the boss? He's got a pile of skullz, seven Terminator helmets and a tongue that puts Miley Cyrus and Gene Simmons to shame! I thought the ideas was to oviposit, not decapitate. Oh GW, why start looking for internal consistency now? At least each skull has an entrance and exit hole punched through the centre of the forehead. Or maybe they are Commissar Yarrick's clean-up detail.

Anyways, the pro's on this batch was the way the sculpts lent themselves to an easy, table top paint job. There is still room to go back and tighten up some detail, but it will be much better for the lads than blue plastic.

Tech notes: this post took over two hours to compose, thanks to the burden of reaching the data cap on satellite internet. School holidays puts a huge crimp in the bandwidth.

TTFN.

Alan and Paul: What's not to love about this entry? You have a hideous bug thing described as your muse, skullz, a sunny backdrop to genestealer hell, and all in an effort to get your boys into gaming. Well played, that man! I know almost nothing about the 40k universe, but I remember a game of Space Hulk way in the distant past that was lots of fun - I'm sure your boys will love it. Your genestealers look suitably terrifying, and your work on the bases really brings them to life (perish the thought!) I think you painted your alien 'muse' for this entry as well? If so, that's 23 figures and a respectable total of 115 points.