From TeemuL: The Last Ducks and Orcs (50 points)

My last post of the Challenge has elements of two of my favourite fantasy worlds, Glorantha and Middle-Earth. First Glorantha and heroic ducks. I recently painted first five of them here: Ducks from 2022. And now was the time to paint the rest and claim one more squirrel!

They being fantasy ducks and not real I was able to use varied colours - one of them is blue, another one is green, one yellow and light and dark grey pair to finish them off. I tried to again use a limited palette to tie them together, look unified, but not uniformed. So lots of greys, greens and browns, followed by wash and gentle drybrush. It is a miracle indeed how many colours you can shade with Reikland Fleshshade and drybrush with Caucasian Flesh and the end result is great! I give you hint, basically anything but blue and green on these ducks...

For those of you don't know, ducks from Glorantha are barbarians and live side by side with other barbarians following their Storm God called Orlanth. Ducks don't take criticism well, especially if it is targeted towards their height, size or skills with weapons. They are short tempered, I wonder if Donald Duck is related to them...

Times like these, Challenge coming to end, skull duel almost tied, every skull counting, it would be tempting to paint free hand skulls everywhere, for example on the shields of these ducks. But skull is not a symbol widely used in Glorantha, so one of them got a storm rune and other one got a luck rune. Whirling storm rune is also the mark of Orlanth. They are smallish minis, 20mm in height, but in 28mm scale and previously counted as 28mm so it would be 5 points per mini and total of 25 points and a "Glorantha Duck" squirrel.

<Enter some quack jokes here>

And lets move on. Here are five more Uruk-hais for my army. You might remember my earlier entry where I said these were surprisingly easy and fast to paint. So I primed five more and they were still easy and fast to paint. I need to remember that, because I have quite a lot of them waiting for paint.

The recipe is the same and since there are dozens of entries on the final hours, I'll save you from long rants. 5 minis for 25 points, no squirrels or skulls. 50 points total. Thank you and "See You In December!"

From Millsy:

One of my favourite aspects of Gloranthan lore is the quirkiness of it and the ducks are the epitome of that quirkiness. I would never have though to use such bright colours on them as you've done mate but it really works.

Lovely work Teemu and another 50 Lunars added to your tally.

PS. I tried to think of a duck joke that would quack you up but couldn't manage it.

Cheers,

Millsy

From TomL: The final Lances (60 points)

I will be back for one last post this challenge but this is the last stompy robot post.  Squeezed more painting time in last weekend than expected and finished the remaining lances of Battletech I was given to paint.  

First off is another unit of Bluestar Irregulars:

Followed by a generic inner sphere scout lance:

 

Finally a Stormhammer lance for the Lyran Rangers:

 

Since all these mech's will be heading home to their owners this weekend, I figured a AHPC16 class picture was in order:

 

Score:12 Mechs @ 5 for 60 points.

12 points for the Stompy robots of death duel.

I have not been tracking Squirrels but for fun I figured I would look back and count (Cartoon Pulp Figures, BT Innersphere factions (Steiner, Grey Death Legion, Olsons Raiders, Somerset Strikers), ACW Union, ACW CSA, SF TV Pulp).

So my duels will end here: 

Skulls - 21
BSRoD - 42
Squirrels: 8   

=====================

Sylvain: Another great bunch of robots. All your mechs look awesome in their respective house "livery". I can understand your satisfaction of having completed your painting objectives. I'm glad you had a great challenge. Bravissimo!

 

 

From TeemuL: Warmaster Undead (47 points)

Just collecting some skulls and "Warmaster Undead" squirrel this week...

...and of course adding to Warmaster army some new units, the true meaning of the Challenge.

I have previously painted some units for the army during the past Challenges, but I guess I have already enough for a small game. Let's see if that happens sooner or later. These are the latest additions, one unit of foot infantry, one character and one war machine called Skull Chucka. I bought all the minis I have second hand they were mostly painted. They might have been mostly intact, too, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Skull Chucka is missing the crew, so I guess it works by magic now, and character should have another companion, one with a banner, but they are all missing at the moment. I couldn't find them in the box I stored them, but may be I found them from somewhere else.

There are lots of different kinds of bones on the base, and some weapons, too. A good supply, if you need to raise some bodyguards?

I chose green as the main colour (after bone), which is used in the shields. Cloaks are purple and shafts are red. That's pretty much it! I used Contrast paints except for the metal parts, which are traditional acrylics. Quite fast to paint once you have all the colours defined. I painted all the other characters last year, but left this one for the Challenge, because of the mountain of skulls. I gently highlighted all the skulls on the mountain with bone colour, trying to keep count of skulls, but most likely the final count is incorrect. Shields and weapons bring some interest to the bone mountain. Skull Chucka was very quick to paint, so the 3 points awarded for a crew served weapon is quite right, even though it is a big one.

There are 45 skulls between shoulders visible enough to count on the rank and file units and on the character. Then 42 freehand skulls on the shields and banners and 1 sculpted. 8 skulls on the catapult and 1 more in the banner pole. I counted 30 skulls on the base of the character, most likely incorrect to some way or another. Total amount 127 skulls. I just noticed that my close rival in the Skull race, BruceR, also painted some 10mm Warmaster skeletons. Great minds think a like!

3 points for the crew served weapon and 44 points for the infantry (there are 43 full "bodies" and 3 crawling up from the ground), total 47 points from the Undead.

List of squirrels (15): 

28mm Napoleonic British

28mm Fantasy Dwarfs

28mm Fantasy Mercenaries

28mm Fantasy Orcs

28mm Warhammer 40k Imperium

28mm Warhammer 40k Chaos

28mm Warhammer 40k Eldar

28mm Post WW2 Alternative History

28mm LotR Forces of Good

28mm LotR Forces of Evil

28mm Old West Gunfighters

25mm Classic Fantasy

15mm WW2 Soviets

15mm WW2 Germans

10mm Fantasy Undead

What a great army Teemu, you have really re-created that awesome old-school look with the green bases as well! And what a great score on the Squirreling Duel mate.

 

Well done, Sander 

From TeemuL: Bifröst civilians (25 points)

I'm not sure what I can finish this week, since I'm away the whole weekend on a basic scout wilderness training (loosely translated) and if I manage to finish minis and take photos, I write the text beforehand and photos later and if I don't, then I can happilly just leave the finished entry as ready and this one as draft. Almost like free fire period, but too soon. And while I remember, thank you Sander for minioning our Saturday crew, I'd hoped to see more of your output, but sometimes life is what it is. Last minute edit, I have managed to finish these, but I still haven't packed for the weekend... The choices we make.

Some years ago I bought this set from Warbases, a bunch of simple civilian minis originally for my son, who disliked the overly detailed GW minis I offered him to paint, but then his interest shifted and these sat for some time. AHPC is good opportunity to paint some fine metal minis and give a nod to a long time sponsor of the challenge. Bifröst is original miniature range by Warbases, created based on the needs of the owners, if I understood correctly. Similar to Perry Miniatures, I guess, nice to have an own company to make miniatures if you miniatures. :) While the range is quite wide, this set is quite general and usable on many games, worlds, battlefields, eras and so. Very nice from gamer point of view, a bit problematic from a squirrel point of view (see later).

I based these on small Renedra bases, which come in some of the Perry boxes. I like these smaller bases, they don't take too much space, but are large enough to keep miniatures standing. And as these are civilians, it is nice that they don't take too much table space. I have in the past used 25mm bases, so these are much smaller and "a new idea" to me. There's some sand to hide the metal base, brown wash and highlight and some tufts. I have not painted the eyes, at the moment I believe that with my skills the minis look better without the eyes, at least on models this style.

Characterful but rather simple minis, there are several layers of clothes on some, but still quite easy. I painted the guy with a sack as a jester even though he is missing the bells, but otherwise he looks like one. On the website he is described something as a "shady character", but naturally I painted first, read second. I gave him (and others) quite dull, muted colours, they are civilians - not brightly coloured soldiers or nobles. Jester is clearly not part of the royal entourage - at least yet, may be when he gets couple of coins and can buy brighter clothes.

The farmer should have a shovel, but my version came like this. And again, I checked the website after painting, so didn't realize that. Now he is just holding a stick, which I guess is good enough to poke the ground. The plague doctor wears all black and silver mask, the holy and pure material most likely protecting him from the disease.

Two ladies have a bit more colour, but not much. One is selling frest meat (still with fur or feathers) and another one is just looking important. These are mainly painted with just a basecoat and a generous wash - I only used brown, green, blue and purple washes using them on many different colour. The black robe being exception, black cloak is highlighted with couple of shades of grey. I bought some new grey paints recently and they seem to be too light when used straight from the pot. I need to do some mixing or buy a darker grey. It's a pity that paint pots get empty or dried.

I'm not sure if these count as a squirrel, since I have already painted "28mm General Fantasy" squirrel and these are not that much different. But Squirrelmaster General has been quite generous, so I'll try and be happy with his rulings. Scoring wise this is easy 25 points for 5 minis, no skulls, but couple of females for Sarah.

 

 

 Teemu, this is a brilliant set of NPC civilians to be used with any and all RPG like games and as table dressing. Your painting really enhances these venerable sculpts so thanks heap for sharing these with us.

 

Cheers Sander  

From DavidB - Into the Trenches (215 points)

 

For the recent Christmas, my family gifted me two of the Army Painter John Blanche sets. John is a retired illustrator who very much influenced Games Workshop. The only black he would use was the ink in his pen and ink illustrations. He worked with a limited pallet of dark natural colors with vivid red and yellows. Although his art is dark and foreboding, the colors are those found in nature. I very much wanted to get these paints and do the Blanchitsu style painting that several hobbyists established to mimic his style as even his miniatures used the same palette. Army Painter made these sets with John to mimic his reduced palette. if you wanted a lighter color, an Ivory white would lighten the tone or you could darken with midnight olive, the coal blue-black darkness. all these paints mix well together, and you can tint them further with the special contrast paints included. probably my two new favorites are the darkness which is even better than the coal black from P3 paints and the turnbull turqouise which is a very dark blue almost black and I used on some robes for Necromundia gangers and their robes(still working on them)

I grabbed two factions Trench Crusade and all my Necromundia Cawdor gangers (still working on them) to try out the Blanche style.

First up is this massive war machine and with this one, I used a lot of ivory white to reduce the darkness into a turquoise like copper cathedral tiles patinaed in verdigris. Even for a chonky boy, I probably spent more time making the lighter tone that painting him as most of the colors are very dark.

The Trench Pilgrims are a bunch of fanatics and not too adept at equipment maintenance so I also used Vallejo rust and grime paints to dirty him up

These fellows are the cannon fodder for the trench pilgrims, and those pointy hats are a device that removes their sense of self...they are in their own echo chamber. 

I used the blanched berry and the vermillion red for spot color. as there is 11 of them, their capes are different in tone due to the constant mixing of blanched berry and ivory white which really gave them a uniformed but individual look which I consider a happy accident.

The Trench Pilgrims are true fanatics and looking for converts to swell their ranks, some are like these unfortunates and are captured folk deemed sinful for real or imagined slights. They may or may not cause damage in battle and may survive! 

perhaps they will be given the pointy hat or a new bomb....

The prophet and the castigator. You have to have the prophet to lead this particular force and why not as her polearm has an antitank mine! The Castigator whips the other pilgrims and has a shield with hands of the fallen attached...I think he also selects an unfortunate to power the shrine as that warmachine kills it's pilot during battle as it is powered by the pilot's pain

For the prophet I used blanched berry mixed with browns to make her padded armor look like reddish leather. Blanched berry mixed with red gave the castigator a more reddish-purple look.

This is the creepiest of the lot and was a lot of fun to paint with the candles and trinkets.

I am not sure if it is a trench pilgrim or something else, but I think it's tortured look fits well with the pilgrims.

I know very little of trench crusade. All of these models were printed up by my gaming group, and I was given bags of Trench Pilgrims, New Antioch, and Heretic legions. Although freely given, I have to have a force ready to try at Adepticon. Trench Pilgims are not faction I like. I searched the internet to figure out the background, and a decent force build out of the models I have. I found a lot of toxicity; The capote helms have led to a group that sees them as racist clansmen and MAGA...others as those groupthink liberals. I see them as mob of fanatics and are only needed so I can use the two models above.

The stigmatic nun is a wonderful model and where the masses were dirtied up, I painted her clean and crisp. The big fellow next to her is a devote augmented by faith and science into a monstrosity I really wanted to paint. Trench Crusade is a grimdark game and I do not need the politics when I game with friends just some nice painted models and escape from the politics. 

So, I have nineteen Trench Pilgrims ready to venture into No Man's land. The trench prophet is their nominal leader, but really it is a bunch of rednecks out for kicks with the boys fighting for the opportunity to do donuts with the quad (the shrine) the true leader is Bob (the big mutant fellow) he peaked in high school as the star football fullback and now gets rowdy with beer induced visions of his glory days. Grace, his beautiful wife (the stigmatic nun) tolerates the shenanigans until the boys mess up the house then she "cleans up house". ;)

A lieutenant and four yeomen for new Antioch

Once again, the browns and darkness where mixed and blended to leather browns and blue.

Sniper priests are my favorite of this faction as these monks have given their eyes to God and use faith to aim.

I kept them in neutral tones as befitting a monk.

Besides the mutant and nun, I really liked these sculpts.

A trench cleric, a sapper, and a trench doc.

Even with the limited palette, there is a great range of colors possible with the sets. from the various browns on the doc to the red on the trench cleric made by mixing the red and yellow of the set.

The new Antioch shock troopers are better than yeomen and I have plenty of options for the more elite troops. 

I can only use two, but once again I have options with the power suit troops.

I painted them up then weathered them with scratches and weathering.

I spent the most time on this one...

but all three were worked up to a nice used look

I have a large batch of the Red Brigade, so I added some duplicates to my New Antioch pool

The power armor knight was painted as a knight hospitaller with attendant yeomen from the chapter house.

Twenty-four New Antioch for my force pool. I will probably use them at Adepticon just to avoid politics and figure out a force from the lot. The Hospitalier will be going! Being the last bastion before No-Man's Land and the Gates of Hell, New Antioch is defended by the forces drawn from the Christian regions, perhaps the trenchcoat yeomen game from Britian...I am keen on getting some of the plastic sets to add to them.

19 Trench Pilgrims and 24 New Antioch will give me a grand mix of Trench Crusade forces for a good game. They are all 3D printed miniatures and some of the time painting was spent repairing. Still, it is a very fine game system and now that I only like to play with painted minis, I can game with my family when not figuring out a way to transport them without breaking them!

 19 Trench Pilgrims for 95 points

24 New Antioch for 120 points for 215 points

squirrels- White Scars, Fantasy Orcs, WW2 US infantry, WW2 German Infantry, battle mechs, wood elves, storm troopers, Iron Snakes, death guard, Modern Us Infantry, WW1 French, Trench Pilgrims, and New Antioch

skulls 91 plus another 10(9 on the big mutant and one for the hospitaller knight) for 101 skulls

stompy robots of death- 8

David, nice little points bomb from you here. Trench Crusade is/was a pretty popular kickstarter and did get a lot of traction with gamers. You've done up some suitably grimy trench fighters here for sure. The John Blanche paints look interesting, Blanchitsu is definitely a thing nowadays isn't it! As you noted John was the prime influence on the look of the 40K universe and good for him for monetizing that a bit, I'm sure he hasn't gotten rich off GW.

Two hundred and fifteen added to your tally.

Dallas