From GillesW - I'll do it tomorrow! (74 points)

"I'll do it tomorrow." That's what I have been saying for three weeks as I saw these figures waiting for their bases and flock ( Lazy jester!). This week I flicked from a project to another, but at least I have finally done the last group of heavy cavalry of my "Mongol Conquest" project, the army is finished (yes I know only for now;-)).

They will fight their first game this evening (that 's probably why they are ready).

Then I returned to my Italian Communal stuff with the addition of some bow and crossbow skirmishers.

I also reworked the flags of the command bases, resizing and painting highlights on them cause they were too small (something to compensate lord Farquuad??), this give me no points but I quite happy now, at least enough to return on the project and just to satisfy my "oversized EGO" I present them to you:

Jacopo Rangon di Modena and Jacopo dei Pazzi, standard bearer of the Florentine flag:

Bilenchi + the flag of "di Popolo di Firenze", a St Georges cross:

    

     Dante Alighieri (the man who wrote The Divine Comedy) + the flag of the Guelf party.

     The dead horse is bearing the arms of the famiglia Silembini who financed the Sienese party ( money don't do all ;-)

The last one is for the allied city of Pistoia with the Famiglia Montemagni + Famiglia Cancelleria bearing the standard of their town:

I will have more communal Italian to come...

Bien fait encore Gilles! Well done.  Very nice to see the "finish" of your Mongol force.  I hope they bring you victory tonight - although you know what they say about newly painted figures and their first game...

I think we can all relate to the feeling of "I'll do it tomorrow."  Although in my case I am often saying that about shoveling snow or cutting the grass, so I can paint instead.  But I can understand hesitation on groundwork and flocking...it's important, but not quite as much fun as painting the miniatures themselves, is it?

Great stuff all around, and nice to see more Italian Wars figures appear.  No doubt Peter will have some academic points to make about all these Italian fellows.  All I know is they look right to me! 

So I'll throw in a couple of extra points for work on banners - another part of the hobby I struggle with, so I respect the strong work of others.  Une autre 74 points pour vous, Mr. le Jester.  A la semaine prochaine!

From SeanR - More 28mm Space Marines (40 points)

Here are some more of my Word Bearer Space Marines from the Betrayal at Calth box game.

First up are the Terminators - heavily armed and armoured genetic super soldiers of the Word Bearers legion. They start off good, but in the back story of the game they turn bad and repaint their armour red.

The box has these as a different legion, but I'd like the option to play them as an army in Warhammer 40K so chose to paint the 'loyalist' half of the box with the grey armour they used to have before they turned evil.

There's not much to say about the paint job for these guys. They were quite fiddly to keep neat with the different elements, but I used a pretty simple choice of colours and toned down the highlights to keep my speed up.

In addition to this 5, I've continued working on my smaller regular ones, just another 3.

I used the Micro Sol / Micro Set combination on their transfers - I've had a frustrating time attempting to use these in the past but it made these much easier to apply.

So this should be 40 points for this week. Time to pick up the pace for the last month! Definitely need to work on my Bolt Action US army so hopefully a reasonable points dump for next week.

All right - more sci-fi goodness! Well done Sean.  The "Betrayal at Calth" game has been a great jolt to the 30k scene, and it's neat to see more Marines heading to the table. The Word Bearers make excellent bad guys (or, as I prefer to call them, "good guys"), which means they make for excellent figures all around on the gaming table.  I like your plan of leaving some of the figures in the earlier colours so they can play in Great Crusade settings or as Loyalists in the Horus Heresy.  The colours used here are excellent, and I can sympathize with your challenges using the decals.  While products like Micro Sol are quite amazing, it is frustrating that GW continues to make the decals for the marines - particularly the shoulder plates - just a shade too large, requiring all sorts of chemical devilry just to get the damn things set...

So 40 points for you! And we look forward to your Bolt Action US army stuff and the points dump next week. 

From SamuliS: Salamanders Tactical Company (66 points)

Yet another change in subject from me. This time to an even smaller scale with some old school Epic miniatures from the evil empire.

For me Epic Armageddon always seemed to be what Warhammer 40k should be. Large battles with massed armor and infantry on both sides battling it out over deserts, city scapes you name it. The ton of vehicles, monsters, flyers etc. that you nowadays see on the table top in 40k just doesn't seem right even if they might look cool. As a kid I never really got into Epic however as there wasn't much interest in the game in my circles and the limited hobby budget of a teenager couldn't stretch in too many directions. I still bought some stuff, but never really enough to build an army.

With a slightly more stable financial situation in my hands and a looming midlife crisis ahead I've been buying stuff that I was drooling over 10-20 years ago. And not surprisingly Epic is one of those subjects that I've indulged on. Over the last year or two I've bought (and ashamedly not painted) four Epic armies. Originally I set out to buy an Imperial Guard and an Ork army. Somewhere along the way I spotted a good deal on plastic Space Marines which would already yield me roughly a 3000 point force so I couldn't resist it. And on top of that last summer I went ahead and bought a painted Eldar army as well... Some might say I have a sickness, I'm just calling it excellent hobby taste.

The Guard and Orks have been waiting for inspiration as I need to pry most of the minis of their bases to get them on round washers that I'd rather use. But luckily all the space marines have been unassembled so I ended up starting the whole Epic project with them. I wanted to pick a force that was reasonably active in the Armageddon campaign and would have a different colour than the other forces. As I want the Orks to be comprised of Speed Freakz and Goffs and the Guard to be Steel Legion red, black and sand colours were already taken. I hate painting yellow and those blue smurfs are just frankly boring as hell, so it didn't really leave too many good choices. Luckily cleansing things with fire is always fun so going green with Salamanders was quite an easy choice.
 

The first part of the army are the 3 tactical marine units which is roughly the strength of a Space Marine Company. There's also the stands for a librarian, a chaplain and the supreme commander of the force with the relevant transports, bringing the entry to 95 infantry and 9 vehicles. These are roughly half of the army models wise, with a few Terminator squads and some heavy weapons and a titan left to bring the points up to 4000. Not sure if I'm going to paint any more of them during the challenge though as there isn't really no immediate need for them and they take quite a while to paint compared to the points they yield :)

I haven't painted any 6mm stuff for a while so there was a little learning curve again. Luckily a base colour with a heavy black wash worked out quite nicely. I wanted to add a little something to make them stand out so painted some flames on the shoulder pads. Pretty tricky on such a small scale and as the missus pointed out they do seem more like German flags than flames... Oh well, I'm not going to paint them over again.

Back to the brushes then. I really need to write down some painting plan instead of switching subjects all the time :) Way too many projects going on at the same time and none are really going ahead all that fast as I'm painting a unit or two per project at a time...

Yes! I salute your excellent "hobby selection" Samuli! Epic is indeed a wonderful game, and its disappearance from store shelves is a testament to the distance which the corp-tards running GW are able to insert their heads into their own rectums.  I do believe those ass clowns, without a hint of irony, are claiming they will "bring Epic back", but as always with GW, I will believe what they do, not what they say...

But enough of that blather! These look excellent. You've selected a fine Chapter for your troops, and the colours look excellent. While round bases are not my personal preference in Epic, your basing is fantastic and they certainly look much better than the little strips in use at the time of the game's disappearance. That is a well-earned 66 points for you - keep the old-time goodness coming. And let the enemies of the Emperor burn...

One final editorial note: painting plans, like spreadsheets, are for sheep and fools...keep up the variety!  In the end it's all one big "project", once you zoom out enough...

From JohnM: Imperial Japanese Army (112 points)

As promised, next up is some IJA troops. I must say I enjoyed painting these much more than the USMC, not only because they were nicer figures but also because the uniforms and equipment have a bit more contrast. 

Here follow 2 LMG squads, as well as the senior leaders for a Type B Rifle Platoon, the organization most standard for the early part of the war up until 1942. The Grenade Discharger squad as well as the 3rd Rifle squad are almost done and I am quite confident should be ready for next Friday. Numerous support teams are half done and hopefully be finished by the end of the challenge.

These figures come from both Warmodelling and Eureka. I have put up some comparison photos. I also have a bit more of my terrain done which has been a parallel project. I am waiting for a bunch of bamboo that should arrive from China any day now (little plastic bamboo that is).

Any suggestion for a source of 20mm banners and tank insignia would be appreciated.

The hut is from Italeri, it was quite easy to put together. The bamboo tree is from Pegasus and the low bushes are from Gale Force Nine. The mat is from CigarBox. I might give it a little spray!

Squad 1 (Eureka) making it through the jungle heading out on patrol.

I went for quite a bright green for the camouflage on the helmet.  Maybe too bright for some but I quite like it. The old Citadel Goblin Green, a great colour. Washed with Citadel Athenian Camoshade.

Squad 2 (Warmodelling)

Rikugun Shõ-i and Gunsõ

Squad 1 (Eureka). The squad is made up of a LMG team with 3 crew and 9 riflemen as well as a Corporal. I need to get some 1/72 Japanese banners from somewhere.

Warmodelling on the right and Eureka on the left

The Warmodelling Japanese were much better quality than their USMC counterparts. They are quite similarly equipped but the WM are a little bulkier. I do like both but favour the Eureka.

I did like the WM LMG better so used him in the Eureka team.

WM on the left with Eureka on the Right

Great work John - more Pacific WW2 goodness.  It's neat to see these figures from Eureka - I had no idea they even offered them. I find Eureka has so many wonderful figures, but their kafka-esque web site often makes it impossible to find them, or even figure out they are there in the first place.  Also good to see the Warmodelling sculpts improved for the Japanese.  And the lighter green is excellent for the camouflage - I take the same approach.  Sometimes having the colour "pop" oddly reinforces its camouflage purpose.

That terrain is looking really sharp too - well done!  That is another 112 points for you...

From BurkhardS, SAGA Anglo-Saxon Heathguards (88 points)

So this is last weekends output, some mounted Anglo-Saxon Heathguards for SAGA.

Now in general Heathguards seem to be a rare sight in an Anglo-Saxon war band in SAGA due to the fact that Anglo-Saxons benefit most from large units (10+). Given that you can only purchase 4 Heathguards for a SAGA point, that does not seem like a natural choice and to be frank... I am not sure if I am making a clever choice here. On the other hand, I feel that many scenarios do require the extra speed mounted troops provide, so I am willing to take that gamble.

But maybe that gamble will pay off. If I amalgamate these two SAGA points into one unit it will be 8 men strong. With the right dice played on the right ability, this unit will count as 2-4 men stronger. But obviously that will leave me low on SAGA dice... ahh lets just see!

Anyway, on to what is important for the Challenge... the minis. Mounted Anglo-Saxons are not the easiest models to find, so I decided to take another route here. As some might know, I am simultaneously building a Norman army for SAGA and for those I had bought two boxes of plastic mounted Normans from Conquest Games. Actually more than I will need, so I decided to convert eight of them to Anglo-Saxons. 

Now their equipment is a little different, since in SAGA the Anglo-Saxons are based on the late 9th to early 10th century, while the Normans are based on the middle 11th century. So I took the heads as well as sword / axe hands from the Gripping Beast Saxon Thegns box set and fitted those to the Conquest models. The hands were easy enough to do, but the heads required some work, due to the fact, that the Conquest models have the necks attached to the heads, while the Gripping Beast ones have the necks as part of the body. So that required some sculpting of chainmail around the necks. Which was half as bad, since the Conquest minis are all sculpted with their swords in their scabbards, so I had to remove the hilts and re-sculpt those sections anyway. Plus I love sculpting chainmail!

Otherwise I went for the round shields that came with the Norman cavalry. Tear shaped shields simply felt wrong for early Anglo-Saxons and that leaves me with tear shaped only shields on my Normans later on. So this was a win - win scenario for me there.

Painting wise I went a slightly new route here. I have always felt, that horses were a huge time drain to paint. So some time last year I decided to do the at least the base coat with my airbrush and these were actually the first mounted troops I did since then. And I think this was a good decision. In the past it took me about 10 minutes to base coat a single horse, now it was 10 for the whole group (including cleaning the airbrush afterwards). So I think this will become my new weapon of choice for horses.

All the rest was fairly standard straight forward painting. Not much to say there. Out of the eight shields, six are free-hand painted, with the two hanging by the horses sides sporting decals from LBMS. I really enjoyed painting these, especially trying to match their designs to those from LBMS, since all the other troops will have decals on their shields and I did not want them to stand out. 

But my favorite is the one below, due to the fact that it is a simple wooden shield with the design painted on the bare wood. That gave me a canvas to paint both the bare wood and a design, which was great fun.

And here are a few more close-ups of the other riders:

There is also something else that was a first for me with these minis. In the past I always used varnish from the can to seal my minis. As we all know, that creates a "no spraying time" when it is cold and/or humid outside. Something that kept me from a posting before last week and that is simply annoying.

I have also been suffering from another problem for a little over a year now. I have always used an industrial varnish that produced a perfect flat result. But some time in 2014 they must have changed the formula, which always resulted in a satin finish. This would go flat after 6-12 month, but it was still highly annoying. So I got myself a 0.4mm needle for my airbrush which allows me to use varnish in it. She these are actually the first troops to be varnished using an airbrush. Really happy with that, especially since it will allow me to varnish regardless of temperature and humidity.

All in all, I am really really happy with these riders. I feel plastic wargaming minis can be hit an miss. Some are marvelous, others can be awful. When I took these out of the box, I felt they were somewhere in between, but once assembled and painted, I can only say that they are lovely. Especially the horses, even though the animals require some filling where the body meets the neck. In that sense, I am really looking forward to painting the Normans later on!

So simple math this week, as these should give me 80 points for eight 28mm mounted troops.

I also painted a bunch of Sci-Fi minis, but the bases bases on them are still giving me some troubles, so I am not sure, if I will be able to get those in before the Friday deadline. If not... Ei will be bäck! (Sorry for that one, but maybe this will give you an idea, of what is to come. ;-) )

Congratulations on finishing these fellows Burkhard - that is an awful lot of work you went through in terms of conversions and sculpting.  Well done!  The work on the shields is excellent, and your wooden shield in particular is very nice. I feel your pain on painting horses - a huge negative for me as well - but not enough to get me to touch an airbrush, so I salute your efforts in that regard.

You don't have to convince me of the more-hit-than-miss nature of plastic gaming figures, but you've got some excellent results here.  I think you deserve some extra points for the conversion and shield painting, so we'll make that 88 points for you.  Great job! We look forward to next week's entry...

Another Fine Weekend Looms

Another fun Friday, with lots of great stuff lined up - WW2 Pacific troops, some great sci-fi stuff, Saxon cavalry, all waiting for your viewing enjoyment and commentary throughout the day. After a week watching my beloved Winnipeg Jets continuing to go down in flames I'm looking forward to seeing some great postings from the Friday team!

From EvanH - Veni, Vidi, Velites! (45 points)

Hi Challengers, back again, a week late and several figs short, but time is short and the weather is horrible - we got ourselves a heatwave here in Sydney, and undercoating is an act of the purest futility.

Thankfully, I had already undercoated these bad boys, nine 28mm Roman Velites from Agema. These are some of the best plastic figs I have ever laid eyes on; the detail is excellent, and the anatomy is spot on. Agema are definitely on my list for future acquisitions (space permitting!).

I've been fairly, well... restrained in my figure output so far, and a unit is a bit of a departure from my usual single-character submissions. It's a bit daunting when you try to ramp up the painting rate a notch. I had to keep telling myself, "paint the unit, not the man," though with figs this good, you want to do a proper job and lavish a bit of time on them.

Right, lads, off to annoy some elephants!

I've based them on Warbases 60 x 60 mm MDF bases, built up with white pumice to conceal the figures' moulded bases and give them a bit of texture. I've based the figures as light javelinmen for Simon Miller's excellent Ancients rule set, To the Strongest!, and the base sizes mean that I can use two bases per unit on a 15cm grid and three for a 20cm grid. 

I've opted for a vaguely North African basing scheme, as I've got some Carthaginians stashed away and I want to give myself some motivation to produce a Battle of Zama force. The bases were painted with a raw sienna acrylic from a craft shop, and highlighted up with progressively lighter blends of the base coat with Vallejo Desert Yellow.

The tufts and rocks are Diorama Elements from Tajima1 Tufts, in this case, the desert pack. They work every bit as well as the rest of the tufts in Tajima's range, and stick readily to textured surfaces.

So, nine figures at five points each makes a grand total of 45 points for this submission. And what's next on the painting table? A bit more focus would be nice...

Stay tuned!

You've been keeping these ones under wraps haven't you Mr Hughes? Here's me thinking you were working on something pulp and then out these pop! 

Very well put together in every way I must say from the brushwork to the basing. I suspect you will regret letting me see these because I am now going to hound you mercilessly to see more. 

That's 45 points for your total and well done mate. Cheers, Millsy.

From StephenS - Milites Christi Mounted Warlord (15 points)

G'day!

It's been absolutely ages since  my last 'regular' challenge post, all the usual reasons, back at work, baby on the way, football training starting up etcetera, etcetera. Which basically all boils down to, I've been a wee bit lazy... =)

Only something small as I hop back into the saddle, but something that I've been itching to paint for a while now!

A warlord for the new Saga war-band that I've been 'just getting started' for nearly a year now. These guys will, I'm sure, inspire me to great things. As soon as I've gone back and finished off a few other projects that is...

The miniatures are 28 mm figures, both from Gripping Beast. 

The local gaming group is trying out Lion Rampant next week, so there is extra encouragement to get a vaguely medieval force up and running. The monk is supposed to highlight the pious nature of my warlord, but he doesn't look like he is enjoying scampering to keep up while carrying a massive wooden cross.

I would love some feedback on the basing, hopefully it captures the feel of the First Crusade. I didn't want it to look too sandy, but hopefully it will not look out of place on the desert map my nemesis, AlanD has ready and waiting, and waiting...

Hopefully that is a very significant 15 points, and the pick-me-up I needed to start hitting the brushes more regularly. Next up, possibly, will be further progress on my 'Muskets and Tomahawks' war-band. Maybe...

Cheers,
Steve

It's great to see you back on the tools Steve, even with a small submission points-wise. 

The Crescent & the Cross SAGA supplement is not one I've seen much of and I'm keen to dig deeper if this is any indication of what's on offer. A wonderful scene and very well painted indeed. 15 richly deserved points for your total! Cheers, Millsy

From JohnSh - 28mm Empire Halberdiers (40 points)

These old Warhammer Empire Halberdiers are one of those miniatures that never really caught my attention. I don't know if it was that they were one piece, so stiff or all the same, they just didn't ring my bell. However I recently purchased a pre-loved Empire army and among the many units were 30 odd of this mini unpainted and one painted with Test #1 written on the base.

I wonder why he never finished the unit?

The colour scheme jumped out at me and I thought that it would be a fun exercise to try and replicate the paint job. It was in quite a different style to what I normally do being base/block painted with was only on the face and with grey "line highlights" on the black.

My eight with the original Test figure in front

I knew that I would never get all 30 odd done for the challenge so I grabbed eight, sat down with my enormous pile of paints and started working out what had been used where. I don't have many Citadel paints, which I guess is what was used on the test figure but Army Painter, Humbrol and Vallejo were all used on my version. I even had to buy a flesh tone as I always use a tan colour for flesh but this one was much pinker.

My eight. Only 24 more to go.

I found the act of copying someone else's paint scheme and style to be an interesting challenge. Mine turned out a little brighter but I'm happy with the result. I often dither around trying out different schemes myself so it was kind of cool to be directed by an unseen hand.

This is 8 x 28mm figures so 40 points. I can't claim the Test figure :)

This is some serious Oldhammer goodness John! I've always felt the plastic halberdiers were on the wooden side too but for all that they have a real toy soldier charm about them. 

I'm quite impressed with your paint matching skills, especially given you were using paints from three different stables and none of them were Citadel. I really like the colour combination and would love to see all 30 painted up the same. I wonder if there were other test schemes that got lost along the way? 

This little lot earns you a solid 40 points John. Keep 'em coming mate! Cheers, Millsy