From MartijnN: More ASOIAF and more Arabs (140 points)

 We're in the middle of the Challenge Doldrums, and somehow I seem to have been stuck there for some time. However, I have not been completely idle and I finally managed to finish some units. 

First up are some more Gripping Beast metal Arabs for Saga. These are four hearthguard heavy cavalry. I'm not too fond of painting horses, so it was perhaps not a brilliant idea to choose a warband that consists mostly of horsemen, but I think these came out okay. I tried to use some varied (speedpaint) colours, and went easy on the Agrax Earthshade for a change. 

They are nice figures, with quite some detail on them, and painted up nicely. Only 13 more horses to go!

Next, I have been working further on the A Song Of Ice And Fire Starter set. I painted a unit of Stark outriders. They have a fairly Anglo-Saxon feel, and I tried to achieve some uniformity while keeping them as varied as possible.

I am actually pleasantly surprised by the quality of the figures. They are made from a sturdy hard plastic and have a considerable level of detail. The poses and the proportions look very natural to me, and arrayed on their movement trays they look fairly impressive.

Finally, I painted another Stark infantry unit, the Umber Berserkers. They look pretty cool with their two axes and the fur coats draped across their shoulders. They were fun to paint, and took less time than I feared.

Now, let's just hope I'll actually like the game... If not, I can always play Saga with them ;-)

Anyway, there we have it.

8 x 28mm cavalry @ 10 = 80

12x 28mm infantry @ 5 = 60

For a total of 140 points. One month to go, I might yet make it to my total!

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Hello Martijn!

Glad you are finding your way out of the mid-challenge doldrums ... February has been a tough month for a lot of folks!

I do like your Arabs .. I like that all four cavalry figures have a bit of yellow - really ties them together as a unit. I have never painted a horse but I do think yours are nicely done with good colour variation.

The Stark Clan look awesomely fierce and ready to do battle. Interesting sidenote, I read an interview with the costume designer for Game of Thrones and she said that when trying to figure out out to dress the Starks, they decided to dye/distress/age Ikea fur rugs to use for cloaks!

140 points to you and Im cheering you on to meet your total goal! 

Cheers

- Sarah

Sarah 

From TeemuL: Won every battle, lost the war [The Inconstant] (49 points)

I have passed 6 circles in Abyss and now I'm ready to enter the Paradise. I guess we are supposed to start from the first circle, so here's my offer for the Inconstant. I present Robb Stark, the King in the North, the Young Wolf from The Song of Ice and Fire saga. He rebelled against the king, won every battle, but lost the war. He betrothed to a woman, married another woman and got killed (with pretty much every one else in his company). Kind of tried his best, but fell a bit short.

I had several Lannister characters in my Abyss entries, now couple of Starks in Paradise. These are from the Stark Heroes 3 box, which is now completely painted. I'm not planning to play any games with these, so I could have used more effort to paint them "shelf standard", but the models are a combination of being quite large and lack in details, so the paint job is "artistic" I'd say. Basically a basecoat, wash and strong highlights, from a certain point of view they have somekind of athmosphere on them. I hope. :)

The Inconstant himself

Robb is accompanied here by two of the Stark bannermen, Maege Mormont and Brynden Tully on horse. I used rather limited palette on all of these to tie them together, browns, blacks, and greys. Similar colours I used the other models. They are not an uniformed army, they are all characters, but they are all from the harsh north and wear practical clothes.

Maege

Brynden

There is one difference between these and the earlier ones, these new guys have self-made tufts on their bases! Yes. I have been using ready made tufts for couple of years, they look good and I'd like to use them more, but they are rather expensive. Especially, when it looks better when there are more of them. At some point I heard that you can made them by yourself and then I got inspired by minionee (is that a word, I hope you understand?) DaveD and asked him about the DIY tufts. Couple of emails later I placed an order on WWScenics and ordered a started kit. It arrived earlier this week and I started experimenting with it. So far so good, not all tufts are perfect, but the percentage is quite good. And this will get cheap in the long run, I can create different sizes, colours, shapes, heights etc, so I'm quite interested in this. Plus I don't need to create just tufts, I can create dioramas and/or glue static grass directly on the bases, too.

Stark Heroes 3, previously painted and tufted on the right

These fellows are in 40mm scale and one is mounted, so the point total should be 2*7+15=29 and then 20 bonus points for the Inconstant location. Until next time!

Welcome to the Paradise

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Hi Teemu

Welcome to Paradise!

Great interpretation of Inconstant, Robb Stark definitely fits the bill! Nice paint job on the Stark Heros, they do look practical and dressed appropriately (no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing choices)

Super work on your home made tufts! 

49 points to your scoreboard

- Sarah

From MartijnN: A Song of Ice and Fire (65 points)

Like many others, I loved the series Game of Thrones (except for the final season's finale of course, just like many others too...). When CMON produced a miniature game set in the world of Westeros, I was immediately intrigued. However, the game was rather pricey, so I held off for a bit. Eventually, however, of course, I caved in and bought the two player starter set. And then a bunch of additional boxes with miniatures. However, just as inevitably, I failed to paint any of them and they sat on a shelf unloved. The Challenge provided the perfect opportunity to finally start painting some of them, so I prepared a lot of miniatures from the starter set to paint in Challenge XV. I have no idea how far I am going to get before boredom sets in, but here is my first unit.

It is a unit of 12 Stark Sworn Swords. Being gaming pieces, and realizing there are a lot  of them, I decide to paint them as quickly and simply as possible. Actually, they are quite nice miniatiures. They are about 28mm tall, made of a sturdy plastic, and have enough detail on them to make them interesting without getting to GW level madness. Also, I find them very well proportioned. I painted the movement tray supplied with the game in the same style.

I am fairly happy with the result. I used Citadel contrast paints, and the Army Painter speedpaint metallics, and applied a wash of Agrax Earthshade over the whole unit to finish it. Although they came out a bit dark, I think that nicely reflects the grim and stern nature of the Northern Starks.

Finally, I painted some 3d printed rats. This was really a very simple paint job. I do not really have any use for them other than as scenic pieces, but who knows when they might come in handy. I think these were designed by Evan Carothers, but I am not entirely sure. They are nice enough sculpts.

So that's it for me this week. As to scoring, I would like to count the sworn swords as 28mm figures, and perhaps 1 point for each of the five bases with rodents? Or whatever Sarah sees fit.

Which means:

12x 28mm foot @ 5 = 60

5 bases x 28mm rats @ 1 = 5

For a possible total of 65 points. And a squirrel for the Starks!

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Hi Martijn

I think EVERYONE had issues with last season GOTR, which in my opinion is 100 percent due to  GRRMartins ego/hubris in thinking he's sooo clever with killing off everyone in Red Wedding and then found himself stuck in a corner and couldn't write himself out of it and no one else really could either! But, that tangent is for another day!

Well done points-wise and another 65points added to your scoreboard