From KyleC - Tanks, tanks, and more tanks... (215)

So it seems I have been sleeping as of late and am getting run over by others in points here... let's bring out some big guns then eh? :)

First up was a trio of German Panzers for a mate at the club. After playing a tank battle against my Shermans recently painted, he said that it must be because they were painted. So I offered to paint up his if he wanted before we have a rematch next week. He agreed to this, and supplied a simple paint scheme to do them up with. Loaning me a sample tank from his collection to copy... though mine came out a bit darker than his due to the black oil wash.

I then started into my Japanese Tanks... like the Type 92s above. A pair that I bought from US last year. They are poorly 3D printed though as you can see the lines separating the levels easily. More so with the wash over them. But they are great in games, so we dont mind that. The HMGs on the front hulls have broken as the resin they are printed in is very brittle.

Then we have a Ke-nu light tanks Another mobile firing platform with the common turret of AT gun in the front and MMG on the back.

The mainstay of the Japanese army is the Chi-has.. having 3 is great in Tank wars.. again very formidable, with its light anti tank gun, and dual MMGs ( again one facing the rear on the turret ). I use the one with the figure to represent the squad leader if needed.

Dual Ho-Ros here.. love these as although they are open topped ( easy to take out ) they are mobile Heavy Howitzers.. great as anti infantry guns, and being mobile means they are even more deadly!

The Shin-hoto chi ha tank.. the only tank in their army that is also a command tank. Gives us the command feature and increased leadership on the board! Or the free upgrade if playing tank battles! And the medium anti tank gun is nothing to sneeze at either ;)

Our biggest tanks and it is still only considered a medium... the Ho Ni Type 3.. quite powerful but slow and only the main gun on it...

Last one is the Chi Nu tank.. again a medium with a decent output of power.. and a hull mounted MMG.

All tanks were given some extra stowage, and I was experimenting with the ModelMates liquid pigments on them. Though it looks like they are more rusty than running through sandy terrain...

Although the rest were done over a few days, this last tank took me all of Sunday to complete as I was trying something different. I have a few of the TankArt books, and number 2 features Allied armor. In particular the Pershing Tank.. which I just so happened to receive last week after warlords xmas sale ( but needed to be cast it seems ).

So I wanted to try out some of their techniques on it.. including weathering and damage with different techniques. One of which was thinner dry brushing.. whereby the stronger painted on the base ( enamels ) stay whereas the highlights ( acrylics ) get pulled off to show the base color as a scratch. I still have a lot to learn on using pigments it seems as this looks more like it has been whitewashed for winter than been rolling through dirt or concrete areas. Still a lot of fun all the same here. And something that I hope to retry again in the future! Maybe even as a showcase piece.. but will see on that..

All told though this is quite a few models painted up over the last week for me all ready now for more tank battles in bolt action.

15 tanks ( plus the one on loan as a scheme to copy ) means 225 points I do believe? But from the above you can see the size difference some of the tanks are in comparison to others.. More to come now...


Now thats a tank entry! And wonderfully done - i can understand why the Pershing took so long - I think you really nailed it! 225 Points well earned - looking forward to seeing some more Kyle - soon...

Wednesday so soon...

Well the Tuesday mob seem to have been productive - and grand to see Nursey take form (great job there Clint)  - see we told you she was "formidable" ....

OK Wednesday crew - what ya got...

So a little musical interlude to start the day....

Wednesday Morning 3.a.m

The day job is dragging me across the country today on what masquerades as public transport run by highway robbers (Virgin Cross Country) .. - so its pretty much the time I will be up and out at!

I will post an updated points score later today when I get home - as the Work Tech Dweebs decree no Google Sheets without filling in a mountain of forms....and my will to live with them expired....

Posts will go ok though

Have a great day people...

hmmm must go - there is a funny smell - nope its not "mind bleach"... I think it might be revenge slowly cooking...

From TeemuL - A Pair of Hobbits (10 points)

I was quite exhausted by the Dwarf Bolt Throwers and tanks for the Epic Failure last week, but somehow I managed to get these two little guys ready for my Tuesday deadline.

They are originally Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks (what a name!), a mercenary unit for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. They have rules in Dogs of War / Regiments of Renown department, but as 5th edition WHFB allows imperial player to field Imperial Halflings with bows, I will be using these as those. I had four already, so with the addition of these two, I can now field a legal unit of six.

Although they wear quite earthly colors, one has bright red shirt and other has bright white. I did pick up all the details like buttons and those, so shame on me by ignoring "always paint as good as you can" guideline... This time the eyes came out very nice, I think, so that helps.

Two (very small) 28mm halflings from GW is 10 points.

"Nassstyy hobbitses! They hurts us they does"
Nice work on this pair of halflings Teemu. As you say, that's 10 points towards your target.

From PaulS - I. Am. Groot! (12 points)

With the thawing of Frostgrave, spring starts to return to the city surroundings and with it come the forces of nature. These druids use the power of life to try and restore balance to the city ruins and find news of their elders who were in the city prior to the fall.

Only two figures this week sadly. These models are part of the Dungeon Saga campaign. The smaller model is the regular version of Groot Kapoka, a dryad shapeshifter who comes with one of the expansion sets (I forget which one). The larger figure is a Legendary, resin version of the character to use when he has levelled up a bit. Unfortunately one of the issues with DS is the odd scaling of the plastic characters that makes them really small compared to the monsters. The resin versions are larger and fit well with other fantasy ranges.

In some cases, this actually works nicely as he feels like an apprentice; making the pair some druids for Frostgrave. They would work nicely with some GW dryads as minions. I may have to investigate that as an option later...

Despite the plastic version of Kapoka being small, you can see he's supposed to be a BIG character as he still stands taller than a GW skeleton...

Nice idea about using them as low level and high level versions of the same character. I do like the colours on the tunics.As for the scoring, I'll do the smaller one as a 28mm figure and the larger as a 40mm figure - that seems about right, So, 12 points for these two.

From ClintB - 28mm Nurse Docherty to the Rescue (5 points)

Nurse Docherty was a formidable woman. In her youth as a young nurse on the wards she had waved her finger and told them to "Go away!" and it worked - the Mahdist horde left the hospital outside Khartoum and attacked the city instead. Ok there might have been a sign up in Arabic declaring the hospital was a Leper colony it is not entirely clear and over time the story changed. However Nurse Docherty was still a formidable women, no one crossed her. Well not twice and her frown was so fierce even spiders were scared. And her voice was so harsh it made even the onions cry! She was not a woman to be taken lightly by any means as she had the cure for most illnesses. No it was not to frighten the illness to extinction, although some said that might have worked. It was a trusty bottle of "Mind Bleach!" Nothing could stand up to the strength of the mind bleach! It was not the normal domestic use Mind Bleach but a special concoction. Not the type you drink, nor the type you rub into the scalp. No this was special. So special that when Nurse Docherty snapped on the rubber gloves and said "Drop them!" grown men would cry!  There was a problem on the Challenge ward but Nurse Docherty strode forth with medication in hand, her trusty mind bleach. She was ready. Nothing would stop her, and definitely not any upstarts disrupting the challenge.

Nurse Docherty will become one of the Albertines in my VBCW setting. She is a "Scarab Miniature" (More of them next week) and listed on the web site as a command figure but for me the uniform cried out Nurse travelling to the wards from the accommodation block. So I painted her in the grey uniform of the time with a deep red trim. The uniform is not perfect for a WW1 or interwar period, but as a wargamer it is close enough for me.

Yikes, what a stern lady! I think I'll avoid whatever hospital she's working at as I really don't fancy the idea of that special mind bleach delivery method.Nice work on Nurse Docherty - 5 points for you.

From BillA - 28mm Captain Krustache, Pulp Adventurer (5 points)

This handsome fellow, Captain Krustache, is a special limited-edition release from Pulp Figures to mark Movember 2015 - Movember being a charitable movement to raise awareness and funds to combat men's health issues such as prostate and testicular cancer, as well as mental health issues - something far too many men are brought up to "chin up" and soldier through rather than deal with.  These are issues that are important to me, and when I saw that Bob Murch was offering a special sculpt in exchange for donations to the movement, well, the figure was icing on the cake.

I did a little bit of asking around to see what colors others were using for their Captains' trousers and tunic before painting mine; I'd been considering dark green trousers with a white or khaki tunic and declaring him a White Russian camped out in Mongolia (possibly making him an attache of the Mad Baron, the figure of whom I simply must get from Copplestone one of these days), but ultimately went with the more general dark blue trousers and khaki tunic.  For the fur vest, I tried to give it a "grizzled" look with alternating layers of gray and brown drybrushing over a dark brown basecoat; the pictures have brought out the gray more prominently than it appears on the figure in person.

I spent more time fussing over what colors to paint his scarf than I did any other part of the figure, I think.  I considered doing stripes of dark and medium green (which would match a scarf Gina made for me when we first started dating), then thought about stripes of dark green and dark red, then dark red and dark blue, ultimately deciding on pale gray with thin stripes of dark blue.  I think it came out pretty well.

I'm waiting on an order of grass tufts to "finish-finish" the base, for for now he's painted, he's based, he's varnished - I'm willing to consider him finished enough to display, and gosh darn it, I'm too pleased with how he came out to want to wait another week to show him to you guys.

That is a lovely figure from Bob Murch. Great painting on the fur jerkin.As you already know, 5 more points for your total.

From IannickM - 28mm The Effigy Corporation (77 points)

The question you should ask yourself is not whether we will get the job done, but whether you can afford us.  

Dannon Trace,  Effigy Corporation CEO

These are dangerous times. Ruined husks of starships litter the solar systems and renegade pirates fight for whatever precious resources can be found on the savage surfaces of the inner planets. Powerful corporations wage constant industrial wars for control of the galaxy's resources and have learned to now heavily rely on hired guns and professionals to do their dirty work. The Effigy Corporation is one of those professionals and is widely considered to be one of the best mercenary outfits money can buy. The Corporation specializes in space travel protection, search and rescue operations, industrial espionage and sabotage.

Effigy's famous Havoc Squads, small teams of highly trained ex-military soldiers and specialists, are equipped with the finest equipment and weaponry currently available in the galaxy. Supported by droids and small specialist teams, the Squads have an extremely high success rate.

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The "Effigy Corporation" is to be the first outfit for a Sci-Fi skirmish project I just started. I haven't painted Sci-Fi since my Rogue Trader days a long time ago, and the original plan was to work on this project next year but as most of my stuff is in boxes at the moment, I'm just painting what is available!

 I found these figures by accident on the website of a friend who used to distribute the range in North America (sadly the range is not available anymore). I just got them on impulse and figured one day I'd find a use for them. The range, started through a Kickstarter, was very small  and unfortunately only a few figures were made; 5 squad members, two civilians and 3 specialists, along with some recon robots which I do not own. But since I intend on building factions of between 10 and 30 figures, it's not really a problem, although some heavy support soldiers would've been fun!

I find the figures would fit equally well in some Space Pulp, Cyberpunk or distant future Sci-Fi setting and that suits me well. The sculpts were lovely although I found the very realistic proportions were a little bit challenging after all that time working on Oldhammer models!

The outfit is made up of 2 Havoc Squads, Blue Squad and Green Squad, as well as a Yellow Squad (specialists), the CEO Dannon Trace and a demolition droid. I'm missing a droid and another civilian, in boxes somewhere, but other than that this bunch is complete.

Havoc Green Squad

The first figures I painted for the project. The photography doesn't do justice to the dark green however. I love the presence of a couple of female soldiers in the squads (some seriously awesome figures) and that First Sargent pose is perfect. He screams Alpha Male ;-)

Havoc Blue Squad 

After the dark green I went with a brighter colour for the blue squad and I'm very happy with the result. It's exactly the style I wanted to give to the force.

Yellow Squad, "The Techno Girls"

I quite like the middle one, a lovely figure.

Havoc-TT-4, Demolition Droid 

This droid figure is not part of the original range, and was sculpted by Drew Williams from the Oldhammer Facebook page, and he graciously made it available for a limited time to the whole group. Obviously I couldn't resist! The figure was actually based of a drawing in the original Rogue Trader rulebook! Also an impulse buy from a couple of months ago and I was looking for a way to use him.


Dannon Trace,  Effigy Corporation CEO

Doesn't he look like the perfect Corporate CEO?! You can just smell the 1%!

So that's 14 28mm figures (70pts) plus the points for the robot (?), and also my first official (non-bonus theme) entry to the Challenge. And my first painted Sci-Fi force since 1993!

What a debut in the main part of the Challenge - lovely stuff Iannick. Those figures do look fab, and I like the clean painting style you've used for them. 
I'm going to score the robot as a 40mm foot figure - that seems about right from the first pic - so this entry will score you 77 points overall.

From BrettM - 15mm First try on WW2 (166 points)

I have been wanting to get into WW2 gaming ever since I got back into the hobby years ago. Finally my brother got stationed back here so I had someone to play them with. We settled on Flames of war instead of bolt action. Of course my luck Team Yankee comes out not far after making purchases on models, terrain, and paints. Below is the US stuff I have painted up so far. Next time will be German and Team yankee since it was just to cool to resist.

Everything in one shot.

 All the infantry painted up. I had some mortars, bazookas, MGs and rifles of course

I found this wood comb to hold up the minis for a nice front shot on these guys

 First time using decals. They don't look to bad however this close you can see the circle around the star. Even used the Micro Sol from what I read works well but guess not close up and under a light?

Another close up of the trucks. I thought everything came out nice for a basic paint job

 Also used some drybrushing of brown to add some "mud" on the bottom of the tanks and on the trucks. Decals look better on the tanks I believe.

Finished it off with the names on the tanks. Figured the Commander all the way out should be named Diablo just seemed fitting since he's going to lead them to crush the Germans.

Well thats all I have on this post. This was the box set of Grimballs Beasts however after I moved on from airbrushing the basecoat I realized the 3 pershings in the box didnt get quite a good enough coat. So they will have to wait a bit to be painted. Up next is a german box set.

Score wise I have 10 vehicles at 6 points each. I have 45 infantry not counting mortars, gunners, drivers, or commanders on vehicles. I do have 6 passengers in the trucks that are painted same as infantry. All this comes to 102 points. Unless the passengers do not count.

Thanks!

Brettm

A nice collection Brett, and nice painting. The mortars being small crew-served weapons I'll score as infantry (I think I can see 4 of them - let me know if that's incorrect); the vehicle passengers/crew score half points - I can see 7 in the trucks and 1 tank commander.That will actually give you 166 points.

From Clint - 28mm WWI British Lewis Gunners (30 points)

Here today we have 3 WW! Lewis Gunners and 3 ammunition carriers. The figures are either Woodbine or Musketeer miniatures all in 28mm and all painted to fit into the rest of the WW1 figures Matt owns so a little bit more brown than my own which are more Green. Both colours work though.

A very brief post from me this time as I am pressing on with the "Epic Fail" and Including that one I will be trying for 3 submissions this week. (Fingers Crossed)

Matt's building up quite a lovely collection thanks to your paint monkeying. Very nice Lewis gun teams Clint - another 30 points for your tally.

From LeeH - 6mm SAS Raiding Jeeps (7 points)

The first of today's debut entries comes from our new passenger, "Big" LeeH.

Just last week I was bemoaning my stupidity at not entering this years Painting Challenge and my self pitying sobs were so loud they were heard across across the Atlantic! Curt took pity on me and offered a vacant slot in the Challenge roster and now I have been suitably galvanised into action. My first entry to the Challenge see's my return to the 6mm Desert Raiders project that I have been working on for some time. These three SAS Jeeps are the first batch to be finished but I have half a dozen more waiting in the wings.

I have added some dust clouds behind these vehicles as I wanted to add a little dynamism to the bases. I expect these guys have just wrought some havoc at an Italian or German airfield somewhere and are now driving hell-for-leather to escape before the enemy can react. The dust clouds are made from clump foliage soaked in sand coloured paint. It dries hard and with the help of a little superglue can be fixed to the base and then highlighted. 

So my first entry will net me just a handful of points, but something is better than nothing and soon more 6mm projects will roll of the production line. 

Three 6mm Vehicles - 6 Points

Nothing wrong with starting small (as the actress said to the Bishop) Lee. Three nice looking 6mm jeeps will get you 6 points, and I'll chuck in an extra point for the dust clouds.
Now, we've had regular entries from two Rejects; just waiting for the bromance to blossom on these hallowed fields rather than just over on the theme rounds.

From BillA - 28mm Frostgrave Trolls and Barbarian (25 points)

Today I've got a few more Frostgrave pieces, starting with a pair of  Reaper Ice Trolls (#77344).  Both of them are attached to 50mm round bases, also from Reaper.  I tried to keep the colors as muted and cool as possible to keep them as "cold" as I could, and I think I succeeded - the skin-tones are Reaper's Blue-Gray triad, with the softer skin of the chest, arms, face and legs highlighted one step lighter than the scaly area on the back.  I gave one of them green scraps of cloth around his hips, as well as a few green straps on his gauntlet (and for his, erm, G-string) to differentiate the two.  Additionally, the one wearing green had his right arm repositioned a little bit, bringing his hand up and forward, which I think adds a sense of momentum - like he's barreling towards a group of adventurers.

"I'm Thorgrim!" "Und I'm Einar!" "And we're going to slow roast your flesh, boil your bones for soup, and EAT" *clap* "YOU UP!"

Second, we have Reaper's "Nadia of the Blade" (Dark Heaven Legends #03409), which was part of an assortment of figures my girlfriend Gina got me for Christmas.  She'll be a Barbarian in a second, all-female Frostgrave warband I'm putting together.  I love that she has actual musculature instead of being cheesecake-in-chainmail, and her posture suggests some serious attitude.

I definitely went with a Red Sonja-influenced color scheme for her, and I tried to keep everything else as "cool" as I could to emphasize the bright red hair - silver chainmail, pale gray fur vest, wrist-band and boots, pale skin.

Apparently her sword is supposed to be straight, but on the piece I got it was bent juuuuuuuuuust right to look like a scimitar instead of a longsword.  Sure fooled me!

Here's a final comparison shot of Nadia and the Trolls to give a sense of scale.  Nadia's worth 5 points, and I'm hoping the wise and benevolent Tamsin will count the Trolls as a larger scale :)

Very nice work Bill! Great use of blue on the trolls - I'm going to score them as 54 mm figures, so this submission will give you 25 points.As for Nadia, I believe she was modelled on a certain redheaded flight attendant, not Red Sonja :)

From ClintB - 20mm Medevac Helicopter (23 points)

And as I continue to finish off my 20mm Vietnam project, just a couple more options to go which may get done in the Challenge. Firstly let me say Tamsin is NOT the flight attendant and Dave is NOT the nurse on this flight. And Frequent flyer miles will not be issued.

So what we have is a Revell 1/72nd scale Medevac Huey with Britannia Crew. Along with Pilot and co Pilot there are also a medical orderly/doctor a casualty and load master acting as security! They are all purchased as part of the medevac crew from Britannia. Slightly chunky but full of character. They also do a dead body with a ground sheet covering him (see my "Epic Fail" Bonus round entry) unfortunately it was a bit too crowded to squeeze them all in (That means someone has bound to have done it well).

It seems to me it is only in Modern wargames that casualties are vital to the game. No one worries how many Romans die for example in an ancient game. And that for e makes modern games very interesting (feel free to disagree) but not only are you trying to win the game but also do it without taking casualties.

This model was a BIG pain to finish. The kit went together well enough apart from me getting glue on the windows at every opportunity. But as it was over 10 years old (most of us have kits like that) the decals pretty mush disintegrated when applied or in one case just flaked off!  Still whinge over, I painted on two of the crosses but had to leaf a few decals off. That does not bother me as it is for wargaming and not display. If you look closely you can see the two red crosses I had to paint so please don't look closely. I know my club members well enough to know they will be happy if/when it turns up.

I have recently started using "Disposable" plastic wine glasses as flying stands as they are 8 for £1, are light and easy to store and transport and easy to replace. Also they can straddle a lot of terrain items and troops on the table so I would recommend their use if you do not already do so.

Lovely work Clint. Good idea about using disposable wine glasses for flight stands - nice and cheap and who doesn't like that?As for scoring, you've got the chopper at 12 points and five crew/casualty figures at 2 points each (half points for prone/seated).giving you a total of 22 points. I'm going to add an extra point though for the wine glass.

Tamsin's Tuesday Trouble Troop

Good morning passengers. We are currently cruising at 19,133 points towards our target altitude of 68.950.

We have a fun filled day ahead of us including two debut entries, one from a passenger who has joined us mid-flight.

Last week, someone asked how I was flying this plane while wearing a straitjacket. Have no fear, I wasn't in charge of that; this fellow was manning the cockpit:

So, all that remains for me to say is "Sit back and enjoy today's flight".