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 BruceR: Fleshing out the Force, More Braganza's Besiegers (56 points)

Back from somewhat sunny California (still warmer than North Dakota) and once more into the deep freeze (so to speak at -4 F).  Nice little break from the temps and now back into the downslope of the challenge.  

I am taking a Dogs of War force to Adepticon end of March to play Warmaster and need the requisite 4 units of bows.  I had ordered them early on for the Challenge and when I started to paint realized I was short about half the stands.  Oops.  back to the interweb for reinforcements.  They arrived while I was away and I started on them as we recovered from traveling this past weekend.  

I took a different approach to the troops this time.  

The prints come as 2 figures on a base front and back rank.  I placed most groups of 2 on popsicle sticks and also tried 2 stands of 8 on their bases for painting.  Not sure which method worked best.   

I gave them the black undercoat and as they are mostly armored, I decided to slap-chop them and use metal speed paint for the armor.  This seemed to speed up the process, without a downgrade in finished product.  The pouches, bow strings, bows, limited flesh, shields (these probably took the most time) and I think makes the unit pop at this scale, were done with acrylics.  I did go back and hit the helmets and shoulders with acrylic gold as I find the speed paints seem to dull the figures down somewhat.

I've started using Monument Hobby Pro Acryl Brown Earth Fine basing texture for all of these 10mm bases, a light dry brush and add clumps of flock.  

I will be using them as simply crossbows so they do not get the pavis bonus or armor bonus.  Simply ranged armed humans.  I think they look better than simple crossbows so play for looks and fun I say.

So, here are the 7 stands to flesh out my required 12 stands.

1st Unit:

I smeared some basing pumice on the shield by mistake and
figured normal weathering for campaigning so didn't sweat it.

2nd Unit w/ additional stand:

The force defending the hill:

The four units completed during the challenge.  

Points for the week:

7 Stands of 8 10mm figures at 1pt per figure          Total 56 pts  

Thanks for looking.  Hope all are enjoying the challenge and keep those brushes up as the finish line is in sight.  

Bruce

 

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Sylvain: The demonstration of your painting skills, by picking up so many details on such tiny figurines, just blows me away. I will add 2 points for the flag. Seeing you army would be a good enough reason to travel to Adepticon. Extraordinaire!

From BruceR: Vampire Lord to lead and Chaos additions to Warmaster Madness (77 points)

I have continued down my road of Warmaster and 10mm figures.  I have commented previously, I do not have a 3d printer, even though I have been tempted in the past.  I found myself without figures to paint for this project, yet I knew there were a few packs in the post. While waiting I did sit down and put brush to this little Vampire Lord on a Winged Nightmare.

I used a black primer with a dry brush of white before using speed paints to lay down the first coats of color.  I then highlighted with acrylic reds, bone, German grey, and some silver.  I added some pale blue and purple to the Lord for contrast.   I enjoyed how he turned out at this scale.  This is one of my Forest Dragon sculpts.  He is quite large for the 10mm scene so I thought points wise it would be equivalent to a vehicle at 5 points.  Sylvain can adjust if I over shot.  

Some ribs can be seen poking out

View of Skull on back of saddle for skull counting

For this next submission I'll blame GregB as he suggested Mini Rat figures and to find them, I had to go to a UK printer.  Now shipping and tariffs can make this prohibitive, but when I compared the discounts offered by MGSMiniatures Etsy the higher shipping was equal to what I pay for prints from manufacturers in the States.  Production and shipping took no longer than in country purchases.  

So, bulking up my Dogs of War force are Beorg Bearstruck  and the Bearmen of  Urslo.   Once again amazed at the detail on these printed miniatures.

Here are the WHFB details of this unit from the DOW book if interested and I used as reference.

I went to work with my tried and true method of black primed and blotch painting.  This is done inside out from skin to final details.

1st Warrior Flesh.  2nd Chain mail.  3rd Fur Brown. 4th Flat Earth. 5th Orange Brown. 6th Dark Sand. 7th Dark Vermilion. 8th Legendary Red. 9th Gold. Paints are Army Painter, Vallejo, P3.

The paw on the shield is embossed so I found not too bad to paint, just a steady hand needed.  I did highlight the red paw and plume.

Some grey needed to set out the werebear leader

Close up shows the skin blotch painting leaving
 the black to define features. 
Also, the tiny skull on the warrior's helmet on the left end.
Counted 21 of the little buggers. 

These will give me two units of medium infantry in my DOW force for Adepticon.  

I'm off to sunny California for 10 days so when you read this I should be in warmer weather.  Having said this, we experienced global warming these past few days in the North with temps in the 50's F in February.  Unusual.  

Loki enjoyed the weather for our walk.  Some runner passed me in shorts and T-shirt.  Crazy.

A couple of action shots of my crew's game this past Sunday, with my forces of DOW and Empire vs Vampire Counts and Greenskins.  Always nice to get the figures out.

On to the points.

One of the strips lost a man in the "chaos" so 71 10mm @1                 71 pts

Lord @ 5 6                                                                                                    5 pts

Total                                                                                                         76 77 pts

22 skulls (21 on the marauder helmets and one on the Lord saddle)

More in a couple of weeks.  Be safe and sane.

Bruce

 

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Sylvain: I said this before, but it still amazes me how your 10mm figurines are so detailed that they look like 28mm models. I agree with your calculation except that a 10mm vehicle is worth 6 points, not 5. So a total of 77 points for you. Génial!

 

From RafaelO: More Napoleonic French and some Warmaster bonus (193 points)

 

Hello everyone!

Two more weeks of hobby progress and some fresh units added to my army. Last week I managed to paint quite a lot, but… I completely forgot to write the post. Yes, yes, I know — I deserve some kind of punishment for that 😅. This week, however, I not only finished a few more units but also remembered to actually write the post! Hurrah!

Let’s start with some heavy cavalry. First up is part of my French Cuirassier Cavalry for the Heavy Cavalry Division. I painted eight figures, mounted on four bases, so I can field them as one or two units depending on the ruleset.

Next, we have some Polish Lancers of the Imperial Guard for my Imperial Guard Cavalry Division. Same story here: eight models on four bases and a commander, ready for flexible deployment on the tabletop.

Now it’s time for the infantry. This week I managed to complete four bases of Fusiliers-Grenadiers from the Middle Imperial Guard.

And finally… something a bit different. I wrapped things up by finishing a Warmaster unit: a unit of Terradons for my army.

In summary

3 x 10 mm Mounted figure @ 3 points = 9 points.

17 x 20mm Mounted model @ 8 points = 136 points.

12 x 20mm Infantry model @ 4 points = 48 points.

Total 193 points.

More updates next week — hopefully without forgetting the blog post next time!

Rafa

Oh man Rafa, now I do not know which figures to like best they are all sooooo well painted! I have always had a soft spot for the Zvezda French Cavalry and have plenty of both the lancers and Cuirassiers to paint still, but your level of quality is omething different all together. That said I do think those bright oranges you chose for the Terradons really win me over for those as pick of the litter awesome entry indeed! 

From BruceR; Warmaster Vampire Counts continued; pts 127

The Warmaster saga continues on my paint front.  Weather has been conducive to staying indoors and painting.  We leave for warmer a climate next week so painting will be slowed.  

The fast movers:

First up is the Black Knights.  I really like these models with the armored skeletons mounted on skeleton steeds.  I primed black and went to work hitting the bone-colored items first and then washing them with a mix of blue wash, medium, soft tone at a 1-1-3 ratio.  Might not  be needed with leaving the black in areas to show definition.  Red cloth highlighted with a orangish red. I painted all metal with airbrush silver and then went and tried to get a rust effect using a rust powder with a sepia wash.  This did tone down the silver and leave some rust areas on the figures.  Again, so small when on the table not really noticeable.  

This was the favorite unit for the week.

Black Knights

 Next up was the Blood knights.  I decided to try and use speed paints with these figures as they are encased in armor.  So black prime and then a slap chop of white.  I used blood red speed paint and they were too dark for my taste, so I did go back and hit them with the orange/red acrylic on the edges.  Grey/black for the horse's skirts, with a light highlight of grey.

Blood Knights

The flankers were up next.  Dire Wolves.  I again decided to speed paint these using medium to thin down the speed paint.  Used two tones for head and body.  I next hit what looks like open wounds with a pinkish/meat acrylic.  I tried to pick out some bone and added a wash of watered down red to try and show them as not just wolves.  

Dire Wolves

The  last unit in the force I purchased were the fell bats.  Black primed.  I hit the body with a dark brown and two shades lighter with a slight dry brush.  I used black/grey to highlight the wings, added some bone to the wing struts.  Grey for the stones that give the bats height.  

Fell Bats

The army purchases come with a number of hero type models.  So, I decided I would paint up another vampire for a game this past weekend.  

Count Chocula (looks to be raising dead)

Thanks for looking all.  I now have approximately a 1000 pts for VC to add to the battlefield, as one half of an evil force or a standalone undead army. 

For my ante I pledged to Doctors without Borders as I did last year.  

39 Skulls

On to the points and DaveD taking on the minion duties while Sylvain takes a break.  

24 Cavalry 10mm @ 3                =        72

12 Dire Wolves 10mm @2            =      24

(not sure as no rider so I scored @2, feel free to reduce if there is a going rate for animal types)

 25 fell bats 10mm @1                 =        25

Count Chocula    @1                    =         1

Total                                                      122

From DaveD . Now that’s a fine collection of Warmaster items indeed .i am struggling to pick a favourite between Black &  Blood Knights - I think the Bloods just edge it for me .You have got some great colour into all of them so I’m making that up to,127pts.