From TamsinP - 15mm Kra'Vak (226 points)

Continuing down the SciFi rabbit hole, but this time in 15mm, my second post today is the beginning of a Kra'Vak force for Gruntz (and other SF games).

The Kra'Vak are an alien race (obviously) in the "Tuffleyverse" as it is affectionately known by fans of GZG's rules. All the figures in this post are from the recent resculpts of the range which are larger than the original Kra'Vak figures. As Jon Tuffley has noted, the smaller early sculpts could easily be used as the adolescent kra'Vak troops, and the new sculpts as the adult warriors. As well as size, adolescents can be distinguished from adults by the cast of their skin and "hair" tendrils which are reddish rather than green.. And their lunatic behaviour on the battlefield.

So, on with the pics of which there are a lot!


Hunting Beasts and Handlers

Scouts on Grav Bikes

Power Armour Troops

Heavy K-Cannon Teams

Missile Launcher Teams

Grav Mortar Teams

Infantry Platoon with Missile Launchers

Infantry Platoon with Heavy K-Rifles

As mentioned before, all the figures are 15mm from Ground Zero games.

Onto the scoring:
84 foot plus 9 beasts @ 2 = 186 points
6 crew-served weapons @ 4 = 24 points
4 grav bikes (cavalry) @ 4 = 16 points
Total = 226 points

I do have some more Kra'Vak to paint, which might appear later in the Challenge.

---

Fantastic entry Tamsin, these are a treat to look at. You must have steady hands because these are beautifully crisp and clean making the colours really pop. The figures look nicely detailed which must have made them a joy to paint. 

Lee

From TamsinP: 28mm SciFi Terrain (40 points)

This should be the first of two entries from me this week. It's actually the second that I started, but it was finished first for, well, reasons.

Last year, Warlord Games released their Strontium Dog range. Let's just say that I might have bought a pack or two of the figures (you will be seeing them very soon). I knew I'd need some suitable terrain, besides the bits that came with the starter set, so I looked around and found some bits from Warbases. Of course, to use those I had to consume a few cans of fizzy-pop - the sacrifices we make for our hobby.

From the starter set (made by Sarissa Precision for Warlord):

Solar panels

Shack

Watch tower and wind generator

From Warbases:

These should give me a variety of cover and height options. At some point I'll need to make up some rock formations and barricades.

Points-wise, these fill up just a smidgeon over two terrain cubes so that should be 40 points toward my target.

---

Nice terrain and plenty of it, you have been busy. They look nicely weathered and I like the use of some more unusual colours like that metallic bluebottle green on those tanks. Not a colour that gets used often I'd guess. 
Lee

From RayR - Napoleonic Baden Gen Guards & Don Cossack Artillery (48 Points)

Postie had a few odds and ends left over in his 15mm Napoleonic Bitz Box. He decided to make this unit the Baden Guard Grenadiers. For what reason, I know not?? It doesn't seem the unit fought in any battles and we couldn't find a flag for them either.

The figures are actually some unknown make and represent British Fusiliers, but they're almost identical to the Guards.

Postie seems to think they may have fought in the Austrian Tyrol, although he can't confirm this fact. I've tried to search the web, all I can come up with is from another blog. Blunders on the Danube, check it out....

16 x 15mm figures 32 points

Don Cossack Horse artillery

"Mounted cossack battery (officially called a horse-artillery company) counted 12 light cannons, the so-called unicorns (6 horses), with 2 ammunition caissons (3 horses) for each gun. Each battery also had 2 reserve gun carriages. There were authorized, in so far as this could be achieved, 8 officers including 1 field-grade officer as commander, 25 non-commissiond officers, 255 privates (75 of whom were riding gunners), and 1 officer's servant. Thus there were 289 men. Twenty train horses were supposed to be on hand, but it is an open question whether these were led as pack animals or in harness. No trumpeters! The rank titles for officers and non-commissioned officers were not in the cossack style, but the same as in the army."

from here

Note sure where the figures come from, but I think they look rather snazzy! 4 x 15mm figures 8 points and 2 x 15mm Artillery 8 points

---

An unusual collection of units that I expect will never see a tabletop battlefield... typical of Postie to want them! I have to say these have some nice crisp brushwork. They look very nice, especially the Cossack Batteries. Well done tracking down that little bit of history on them as well (albeit second hand). A tidy 48 points earned. 

Lee

From KenR - What a Tanker 28mm A9 Cruiser Tanks (45 points)

Following on from last weeks Desert Transport I had a couple of Tanks lined up for one of our early War Op Compass Campaign games and decided to get them done so I would have an entry in the "What a Tanker!" Challenge.

The tanks themselves are from Warlord Games and as far as I know are the only examples of the A9 Cruiser Tank in this scale, sadly they don't do a desert version with sand guards and my modelling skills are too limited to make any, so let's pretend they fell off !

They are painted in the Caunter Scheme which was common in the early Desert battles and was designed to disrupt the shape of the vehicle rather than camouflage it. The paints are from AK Interactive who do a specific Caunter paint set, I have added some decals and a Tank Commander (to one vehicle).

The lines are all hand painted, I really can't be bothered with masking and Airbrushes, it's just by eye till it looks about reet. There is a little bit of weathering, with some chipping and a wash in the recesses as well.

With a frontal "armour" of only 14mm it was vulnerable to an angry man with a pointy stick, if he had a decent run up. Just to make it better all the armour was virtually vertical and there were shot traps everywhere. Thankfully they were up against some equally poor Italian vehicles, by the time the Germans turned up with some proper tanks they had virtually all disappeared.

British tanks were named, often with the first letter of the name representing the Company they belonged too, so my A Company tanks are "Archer" (I am watching Enterprise at the moment so after the Captain) and "Amos" a classic Yarkshire name and a famous character from the Yarkshire TV Soap Emmerdale (when it were proper before t'plane crash).

A nice little deviation from the Italian Wars Project, I have some Italian Motorcycles to hopefully add to the WW2 Desert stuff before the Challenge ends.

Points wise, 20 points each plus a couple for the commander is 42 hard earned.

---

Oh my. These are beautiful and right now I'm green with envy! I'm a well-known tread-head, having done pretty much every desert tank in 6mm, but these make me want to throw them out and start over in 28mm. Like you I think Caunter is best painted by hand as I have tried masking tapes and just couldn't get on with them. 

I'm going to throw in a couple of extra points because I love these (playing to the Judge again!) and three for the driver bringing the total up to 45 points for these. 

Lee

From IannickM - Gggg-ghosts!!!!!!! (17pts)

This week we have the start of my Undead Oldhammer project with three Ethereal creatures, making up my Ethereal Host.

I got tempted by the latest fad and did that green Ethereal effect. I've always been puzzled by how to do proper ghosts and well this is the best look I've seen. For all the sh*t I give GW for many of their new models, I have to admit their new technical paints and washes are superb products. In this case, I used Nihilakh Oxide mixed with Lahmian medium over an Ionrach Skin base and then highlighted with Ionrach skin and Deepkin Flesh. It's pretty rare actually that I use almost exclusively GW paints on a figure, my paints of choice being Foundry and Andreas.

For a very first try with no tests beforehand I am quite happy with my results! I wanted the Host to tie together so all three figures were painted the same way. Yeah, my Wraith ain't black, big deal.

The Wraith is from Foundry's (now carried by their sister company Warmonger) fantasy Undead range, and I will admit preferring it to Citadel Oldhammer Wraith. It's huge, and I find the chains and the skeleton very evocative of what a Wraith is. It also looks like a 150pts creature in Warhammer.

Then we have two ghosts to round up the Host. One is an absolute classic and maybe my favourite undead model from the Oldhammer (79-92) era. He was originally sold as a "Headless Ghost", part of the Night Horrors range. I love how he came out, and had a ton of fun painting him.

The last ghost is obviously from the same range as the Wraith, a smaller version. He's the add-on figure I painted on the last day of the month. It's a cute figure and I will use it as another Ghost.

I used round bases as it seemed more evocative of the wandering nature of ghosts and ethereals in Warhammer.


Fine prints : 2x28mm Ghosts : 10pts
1x40mm Wraith : 7pts
17pts

---

Sc-c-c-arry! Not sure why but I feel like screaming "yikes Scoob, lets get out of here" and then running in and out of the room... Maybe I just need to take my medication. Lovely work on these, this is a colour scheme that looks excellent but I have never mastered so I'm suitably impressed. 17 points it is. 
Lee

From RayR - Donnybrook - Ladies (22pts)

For today's viewing pleasure may I present four Donnybrook ladies. The first three are armed and dangerous and look like triplets! They can be used in a local Militia in Europe or the America's. 

The last lady stands babe in arms and is probably the most dangerous out of the four!

All 4 are from Redoubt Enterprises.

Nice and easy, pretty boring really 20 points Mr H?

---

Never underestimate a woman with a pitchfork! Or - thinking back to one of our FIW games - a bucket!! Nicely done Ray, a small entry but every little helps. I'm throwing in an extra couple of points for the babe in arms so you'll get 22 points for this lot. 

Lee

From KenR : Italian Wars Gendarme 3 & Command (85)

This week's unit of Cavalry has something a bit different with it, a Command Stand, over the years I have always been really slack on Commanders and never have enough, something I hope to cure with this army.

8 x 28mm Cavalry at 10pts plus three flags for 83 more points for both the main total and the Renaissance Side Duel.

This week's Gendarme is again Foundry 28mm with a couple of Petes Flags to boot, as before I have taken my clothing colours and horse furniture cues from these flags using mostly blue, yellow, red and white.

Although the horses in the Foundry range are quite limited, you can get a good variation with mixing up the riders and the colour scheme.

The flags are those of Federico da Montefeltro, also known as Federico III da Montefeltro (7 June 1422 – 10 September 1482), he was one of the most successful condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, and Lord of Urbino from 1474.

He was employed throughout his life by the Sfozas of Milan, Florence, Naples and the Pope so would not be out of place in most armies.

Federico led a colourful life losing his right eye in a tournament (hence the scar painted over that eye) and is said to have had the top of his nose removed to improve the visibility with his other eye, contemporary portraits clearly show this rather extreme, but useful alteration. The figure is from the Perry's Miniatures metal range.

The standard bearer is a Perrys figure as well but is from the plastic Light Cavalry box set, I was looking around for some flag bearer figs and didn't think about these until I got a unit of them out to paint. The lightbulb went off and instead of a light Cavalry unit they will be now used as Standard Bearers.

That's it from the Italian Wars this week, next week there will be another Gendarme unit and a unit of Sword and Shield Light Infantry, must try to decide if it's time to start another pike block?

---

Another magnificent entry Ken. I've said it before, but I'm really enjoying these entries and look forward to them each week. The command stand looks particularly fine, and you can never have too many commanders. And you can never have too many Pike Blocks (hint hint)! 

I've included the usual points for flags but I'm throwing in a couple extra for the added heraldic details you have on the figures themselves. That sort of attention to detail really makes these figures stand out. 

Lee

From PhilH: TIE Specialists (24 points)

Hello everyone!

A small Tuesday post from me with more from Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars: Armada after the Mercenary Theme Round. Yay, two posts in a row the same project: take that, squirrel tendency!

More Armada TIEs, the leftovers from the Imperial Squadrons I set: two each of TIE Advanced and TIE Bombers. A bunch of their screeching brethren were submitted in Challenge XIII.

Bombers in the centre, escorted by Advanced

TIE Advanced are more durable and hit harder than basic TIEs, but for Armada’s squadron metagame they come with an important ability: Escort. Enemy squadrons in range must target these over other squadrons. In short, they help get bombers or other specialists get through to their targets. They're also better at attacking enemy capitol ships.  

Same as last time, I’ve given red markings to more easily spot an ace pilot rather than vanilla squadron, if I’m using one. Their Ace squadron is none other than Darth Vader himself.! 

TIE Bombers's purpose is fairly obvious: they look to get a clear run at opposing capitol ships before ‘bombs away!’. Other than that, they’re predictably, slow and terrible at dogfighting. Their Ace is Major Rhymer, who makes all nearby squadrons more effective against capitol ships - nasty. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of him, but apparently, he first appeared in 1990s Star Wars Collectible Card Game. 

My painting entertainment over recent weeks has been to binge on the first two seasons of the ‘Dice for Brains’ podcast. It’s a Star Wars RPG actual play podcast that’s been going for a good number of years, using FFG’s Force and Destiny system (and later, non-SW RPGs). Not really my usual thing at all, not really being an RPG player, but a friend recommended it highly. After a slow first episode, I found it to be excellent, really nailing the SW universe with a great cast of memorable characters and NPCs and some deft game-mastering. Recommend any fellow Star Wars fans give it a try. 

I recall that we called these 2 points each last time out, so twelve TIEs makes 24 points to my tally please, Lee. 

---

A pleasure sir! What's not to like about Star Wars (down Haters, down!)? I may have to take a look at this game in more detail. O-oh...shinney complex kicking in! I really like these and the little bit of 'history' behind them make them extra special. 
Lee