From PeterA: Odds & Ends (180 points)

 I think the fact that we are in the final week of the Challenge is proof that Curt has invented time travel, as I can't believe three months have flown by. Congratulations to all Challenge Participants for their contribution to such a fabulous event. Special thanks also to Comrade Dave D, the Sunday Minion, for being such a encouraging, accommodating and welcoming presence throughout, not to mention churning out a marvellous Bolshevik force.

First up are 8 more Cartel soldados. They are all 3d prints by Turnbase Miniatures. 

One of the odd things about the prints is the length of some of the weapons like the two RPD LMGs in the pic below, which look a bit too long too me. I think these are older designs, and perhaps more recent designs don't have the same issue. 

Two standard 'gangster' poses - obviously from the 'pray and spray' weapons school!

Three assault rifle figures finish the group - unfortunately the figure with the AK had a fall and the barrel snapped of, so now he is equipped with a carbine!

Next up, are 4 PMC figures. These are also 3d prints, this time from Combat Octopus. As well as being very nice sculpts, they are modular in nature, so you can mix and match torsos, legs, heads and weapons, as well as having lots of extras like pouches, spare magazines and radios. 

So two of these have torsos with body armour and the other two are without it. They are pretty versatile figures in game - they could be PMCs as advertised, plain clothes operatives, or even mercs working for the Cartel. I have gone for a fairly subdued colour palette - I used images from Sicario as inspiration. As an aside, the two figures in blue trousers were originally much brighter - the Army Painter blue I used is pretty saturated and bright. When I mentioned this to my son he suggested I add a touch of orange to the blue to tone it down. Apparently, because it is opposite blue on the colour wheel, it will have a dulling effect, perfect for what I was after. Every day's a school day!

Obviously, these guys will need some transport, so here are two Land Rovers for them to tool about in. They are die cast toys which have been disassembled, had the windows blacked out (I do this with all my cars, as they then fit in with solid resin vehicles I have, like the Police truck in my last post), painted black and given a coat of satin varnish. Simple and quick, which makes a refreshing change!

Finally, I have 16 IRA figures by Footsore Miniatures for the Irish War of Independence, to provide some opposition to the Black and Tans and Auxies I posted earlier in the Challenge. I had intended to enter these into the Resistance Theme, but I wasn't happy with their original paint scheme. I had tried using speed paints over a grey undercoat with a white zenithal highlight. I have seen many people get good results using this method, but I'm not one of them. So I started again and that meant I was too late to enter them (plus the excellent rugby on show on Super Saturday in the Six Nations certainly put paid to any lingering chance of getting them finished in time!)

The first four are the Character pack - a shotgun armed figure painted to represent an undercover IRA agent masquerading as a member of the RIC, a Lewis LMG and loader, and a leader with pistol and rifle.

Then we have 4 figures firing/loading their rifles. I like the different clothing of the figures, a couple in the trench coat that was as close as the IRA came to an item of uniform for most of the war, the other two in suits. All also have ammunition pouches in bandoliers.

Next are four pistol armed figures. The IRA were short of weapons throughout the war, and to be honest my force here is probably rather overly-armed - most would probably have been armed with pistols like these four here. My favourite is the chap in the grey with the Mauser - obviously, being dedicated to the cause of Independence doesn't mean you can't also be a snappy dresser!

The last pack is more riflemen, advancing this time. Again, nicely mixed clothing captures the irregular nature of the force.

Finally, a group shot of all 16 figures to finish and I have to say I am much happier with how they look now.

So 28x 28mm figures = 140 points

2x 28mm vehicles = 40 points (I feel a bit of a fraud for claiming this as the paint job itself is pretty simple, so this might be revised downwards!)

Giving 180 all told I think, and that means I have met (and gone a bit beyond) my target for the Challenge.

First, get rid of the imposter syndrome and take your 40 points for the vehicles!  We don't judge quality or time spent, we just count noses.  Besides they look damn fine to me, I like the window treatments.  Your cartel looks and ganstas came out well, but I really like those IRA fighters with their mix of attire and weaponry.  Congratulations on hitting your target.  

 

PeterD

PeterA: 15mm Moderns and 28mm Federales (61 points)

 Hello all.

This week I have indulged my painting butterfly (again). Myminifactory have a sale on at the moment to celebrate their acquisition of Thingiverse, and so I snapped up several files from WarDaddy Studios. I got some of their modern Russian and NATO stuff, and first off the paint bench are a squad of 9 NATO infantry. The tenth soldier lost his gun when removing the printing supports, so I will just use him as a medic.

Although intended for more temperate climes, I fancied doing a winter theme, and I thought the chunky design of the figures leant themselves to bulky winter clothing. So I painted their jackets and FAST helmets white and lightly washed them with GW Apothecary White. Some had some sort of scrim modelled on their helmets, so I added some spots of AK Dark Green as camo. They have lots of pouches, a radio, rucksacks etc, which I painted AK Denison Tan, washed with Sonic Hedgehog's 'Marine Juice' recipe and highlighted in Denison Tan again.

Trousers were Vallejo Afrika Korps Uniform (MTP camo in 15mm is beyond me), washed as above. I looked at quite a few photos online of NATO troops exercising in Norway and they often showed troops wearing white jackets and green trousers or vice versa, so I went with this half and half approach with these figures.

1st Fire Team

2nd Fire Team

2nd Fire Team plus Squad Leader and Medic

Obviously, these guys will need an opponent. I am a fan of the Twilight 2000 RPG, so I imagine these NATO figures will be the remnants left fighting in the Nordic countries to repel the Soviet invader as part of Operation RESET. I got some WarDaddy Russians which I have started painting, but I wanted to see how some BF plastics I already have would match up. So I assembled a T72B and BMP2 from their Team Yankee range.

The kits go together very easily and match the WarDaddy figures nicely. I painted them in AK Dark Green Grey, then gave them an oil wash with thinned Windsor and Newton Black. After letting it dry for about 10 minutes I used a cotton bud (well several cotton buds!) to remove the excess and then drybrushed with the original basecoat. I wanted them to be quite heavily weathered, so I dabbed on GW Valhallan Blizzard effect paint on the T72 but it looked awful, so I didn't repeat this on the BMP2. Instead, I gave both a heavy drybrush of Pro Acryl White. 

Finally, I printed out a police truck for my cartel project. This is from Turnbase Miniatures and is the personnel carrier version. There were supposed to be two passengers, but the print failed so there is only one. I'll print a companion when I print the LMG version of the truck.

It was a very simple paintjob - basecoat of Vallejo Game Colour Imperial Blue, washed in Marine Juice and given a coat of AK Satin Varnish. Windows are just a couple of coats of GW Abaddon Black contrast paint, which I also used on the 'cage' in the truck bed, mostly just for a bit of contrast. Finally it was given a light drybrush of Vallejo Iraqi Sand to reflect the fact it will be operating in a pretty dusty environment. The passenger's uniform is Army Painter Tyrion Navy over a grey undercoat, the intention being to have a dark uniform with a blue tone, but it was a bit too dark, so I gave it a highlight of Army Painter Night Sky. His body armour, pads and helmet are all Army Painter Occultist Cloak speedpaint.

So, 10x 15mm figures = 20 points, 1x 28mm figure = 5 points, 2x 15mm vehicles = 16 points and 1x 28mm vehicle = 20 points, for a total of 61 points.

From DaveD . I do like the cartel truck here . Suitably narco . Sometimes of course you just have to feed the butterfly . Those T72 and BMP2 remind me I need to bump my own up the queue . Good job - 61 it is .

From PeterA: 28mm Cartel & Zombies! (165 points)

 Hello all! Although I haven't posted for a couple of weeks I have been pottering away on a few things (and enjoying the Six Nations) and have got some finished for today.

First up are 9 Cartel figures - they are 3D prints from Black Hills Games and Turnbase Miniatures. Last year I came across a modern skirmish solo game called Haywire. The author has a YT channel full of excellent videos showing off the game and his incredible terrain. One of the settings for the game is special forces taking on cartels (think Sicario 2 or Triple Frontier). Suitably inspired I ordered a bunch of 3d stl files and these are the first to be done.

The woman in the yellow shirt and the kneeling sniper are Turnbase figures, the remainder are all from Black Hills Games. The latter are a bit heftier than the former but not so much as to be unworkable together IMO, as the next photo shows I think. The figure all in black is mostly painted in GW Contrast paint over a grey undercoat. The others are painted using standard acrylic paints - I used Army Painter Fanatic colours on the woman as they are quite saturated and bright, and this contrasted nicely with the more subdued AK 3G and Vallejo colours used on the figures with assault rifles. A couple have red bandannas in Army Painter Pure Red for a bit of visual interest/contrast and as a cartel 'colour'.

The three with assault rifles and body armour are, not surprisingly, more lethal than the more lightly armed foot soldiers. The woman will count as a Sicario - a nasty assassin-type in Haywire.

Here we have two figures equipped with SMGs and two with pistols - these guys tend to die quickly in Haywire  but you do get a lot of them!

They are mostly painted in Army Painter Speedpaints, although the trousers/shorts of two are painted in AK 3G sand and green-grey acrylics. I experimented doing the flesh in Army Painter Warrior Skin speedpaint over a grey undercoat given a heavy white drybrush. I don't think it looks as good as my usual method using normal Vallejo Flesh acrylics, but it is a lot quicker! Good enough for the table and from 3 feet I reckon.

Finally, we have a Turnbase cartel sniper - here you can see the difference between the skin done with speedpaints and my usual method of highlighting over a darker skin tone.

As well as the modern ruleset, there is also a zombie game called Haywire Outbreak, which uses many of the same mechanics (and like Haywire, is available to download for free).  This prompted me to dig out an old box of Zombiecide zombies I've had for years and done nothing with. All were painted using GW Contrast or Army Painter speedpaints - getting them done quickly was the aim as these will only be used for the occasional fun game. They then had a generous amount of GW blood effect paint stippled on.

First are three 'bloaters', which can be made to blow up, taking other zombies/unfortunate survivors with them.

Then we have six 'runners'. Faster than the usual shuffling undead, meaning they can get into close combat more easily, so need to be kept at arms length for as long as possible!

The rest of the herd is made up of 15 'normal' zombies. Individually not too dangerous but far more so once they start gathering in numbers!

A couple of group shots to finish.

So that's 33x 28mm figures for 165 points.

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SylvainR for DaveD: Tough looking thugs and rotting zombies. What is there not to love? Your brushwork really highlights the decaying look of the foul undeads while your choice of figurines for the cartel employees and the way you paint their clothes oozes "attitude" and criminal confidence. A very productive week for you!