From ScottM: LV-426 Monsters, Critters & Indians (140 pts)

My second stop in the Middle Ring is at LV-426, the Alien world. For this location I went with a medley of monsters that would easily fit in to any alien world setting. First up is a pair of 28mm plastic Gricks from Wizkids' Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures D&D range.

Next up is a pair of Flumphs from the same range as the Gricks. These two definitely have an 'alien' feel to them.

And finally is a lone Magmite. This 28mm metal fig is from Northstar Military Figures Frostgrave range.

And finally a size comparison shot with a 28mm Stargrave Medic.

Also to add to this post, I completed a box of Warlord Games Woodland Indians from their French and Indian War range.

So that should be:

• 24 - 28mm foot figs = 120 points
• 1 location (LV-426) = 20 points

Total = 140 points

From Millsy:

What a cracking collection of nasty space bugs Scott! I love all of them but the Magmite in particular is very cool indeed. I can almost feel the heat coming off him in waves. Every time I see a collection like this it makes me want to add to my own.

Nice take on the FIW figures too mate. I'm always impressed by people who can paint convincing skin tones outside the Caucasian space and tones with red in them are amongst the hardest I think. Awesome brushwork indeed.

PS. Now THAT'S how you label a post! Well done that man, carry on.

Cheers,

Millsy

From Codsticker: MOAR LOTR! (80pts)

After my deviation into the Challenge Quadrant I am back on the unpainted LoTR plastics. This time Mordor Orcs and Warriors of Minas Tirith and like the last LoTR entries, scored second hand (the Warriors of Minas Tirith needing some weapons replaced).

The Mordor Orc set may be my new favourite; great models and without the long spears of the Warriors of Minas Tirith or lances of the Rohirrim somewhat more durable.

I was able to paint these really quickly; not a lot of bells and whistles or decoration and plain shields facilitated this.

The three in the photo below are my favourite from the set; I just love the guy with the partisan-like pole arm and the crow faced helmet. Possibly my second favourite plastic LoTR mini after the Balrog.

The Warriors of Minas Tirith in all their simple, easy, uniform (kinda boring) glory...

Pretty much exactly like the last batch. I did 7 armed with hand weapons and 1 with a bow as I was filling out 8 man units like you would use for War of The Ring. Even though I may never actually use them in that rule set, it is a convenient way of organising them. I will most likely use both the Orcs and the Warriors to fight skirmish battles in Osgiliath, using my Mordheim ruins for terrain.

 

So, 16 28mm models at 5 points a piece is 80 points I believe.

From Millsy:

More very well painted Lord of the Rings goodness from you Rob! You're building up quite a quite a collection here and obviously have some great terrain to fight over too. That gatehouse is a monster and I'd like to see it in all it's glory.

This lot takes you past 300 points and very close to your initial tally. Nice one!

PS. Not a single label on your post? If Barks finds out it could get ugly! Oh. I said that out loud didn't I? My bad...

Cheers,

Millsy

From TeemuL: Skink Sorcerer [Lune] (25 points)

Here we are on the Inner Ring, moving away from the Xanth towards Terra, but we make a quick stop at Lune, where we finally meet some friendly locals, or a local. He looks very much like the genestealers we have seen before, but he has no interest on eating us, he seems to have some higher goals. He has big, friendly eyes.

May I present you a Sorcerer from Lune, Warhammer Skink Starpriest from Warhammer Quest Silver Tower Arcane Heroes pack. In the past I stupidly assumed, that Silver Tower would be on print "forever" and I can buy it, when I have time for that, but it didn't happen... I did buy this expansion pack, since there were nice Age of Sigmar heroes for a reasonable price, but I have had no use for this Starpriest yet. It has been alone in the box for quite some time, but I decided to pick him up when I was thinking which witch to paint for Lune.

One of my sub-targets for this Challenge is to "finish" things and painting this Starpriest allows me to finish the Arcane Heroes box. I have a habit to keep the unpainted miniatures in the original box until they are painted, just to remind me how much stuff I actually have. And making it easier to see what stuff I actually have. Once the box is empty, I might use it for storing some second hand miniatures or plastic bags or similar, but this box is not very useful for that kind of things, so I take my scissors and cut the front cover and place it in a big box, which is quite full of box front covers. The rest of the box is then put in to the recycle bin, because even though the cardboard has lots of uses, it is easy enough to get and I don't want to store it... :)

I like how I managed to give him nice reptilian eyes

Back to this miniature, eh? He might look similar and he does. I had no idea how to paint him, because I don't have a lizardmen army (nor Seraphon), so I had all the possibilities to paint him however I want. He is pale blue in box cover, which I though might be a good practice using thinned down Contrasts, but then I decided to paint him like the genestealers I have. They have lots of similar parts, spikes, scales, nails, tail, eyes etc so I just copied the colours more or less creatively. The only problem was the staff, genestealers have empty hands. The blue felt a bit magical, so I selected it. I painted the stones in similar colours, implying that the staff is carved from the same stone. I also helped me to keep the colour count low. The base had some sculpted details (like skulls), so I went with it, but I'm not 100% happy with it. I tried first to drybrush with grey and green to get a mossy stone effect, but that didn't look right. I then used more colour, and it is better. Still looks like a mess... But the actual base is rather small (besides the stone slabs), so I just let it be.

This eye is better than the other...

There are some skulls here (not a big surprise for a GW model, I guess), 1 at the end of staff and 5 half buried under the stone slabs, so 6 in total! We are happy to meet a friendly (or non-hostile) lizardman, but he is not what we were looking for, so we continue our quest/trek/crusade to mystical Terra - see you next week!

A single 28mm miniature for 5 points and 20 points for planet Lune, total 25 points.

From Millsy:

I love this guy Teemu! He's a riot of colour and beautifully photographed to show off your efforts very well indeed. What paint did you use to get that lovely muted red colour? It goes really well with the yellow and the bright, bright blue. Wonderful stuff!

Cheers,
Millsy

From MikeD - Romans of the Republican Variety (160 pts)

The good news is I've gotten a lot painting done this challenge. The difficulty I'm having is that things sit in the 'To Be Photographed' lane for quite some time. I envy those with enough space to set up a dedicated photo area. I still haven't gotten a system or easy setup to get these together. Also, I recently noticed a correlation between how I feel about pictures of myself and pictures of my painted figures. All I can see is that stray cat hair or part of the face with the big green streak across it. (Not to mention what I see when I look at my minis!) Anyhow...

In all these years as a wargamer, I've never had a Roman army. But as part of my 2022 project to get back into rank-and-file mass battle games (e.g. ADLG), a got a couple of boxes of Victrix Republican Romans and have been working on them for the Challenge. I have to say, these are the first Victrix's I've done and I love them. Great size and variety. I originally bought my first box of these a few years ago, when they had a special offer to include a limited edition (at the time) obscene graffiti shield decal set. I later learned that these are a totally 'speculative' take on legionary living, but I gotta admit they were too fun/cool to pass up.

The scoring on these is:

32 x 28mm foot @ 5pts = 160 pts

From Millsy:

Good to see someone else jumping aboard the Republican Roman wagon Mike! I really like how you have gone about painting yours and the slightly irregular basing and mix of gladii and pila adds an extra bit of dynamism. I've just had another big batch arrive in the post so I will be revisiting mine at some point soon, partly spurred on by yours.

PS. You're a braver man than I am tackling those split shield decals mate, I avoided them like the plague!

Cheers,
Millsy

From PeterB: Adventurers and Gentlemen Wizards [Lune to Terra] (110 points)

Another weekend, another smorgasbord of deliciously painted delights from the Saturday crew. For my own contribution I am once again jumping to another genre. My last stop off on my travels among the planets was Altair IV. Not fancying the look of the neighbouring planet, I decided to take a third and final trip on Sarah's yacht and painted up a troublesome pair from the latest Bad Squiddo games Kickstarter, the Fighter and Ranger.

My yacht trip takes me to Lune, for some Sorcery. Well, recently I have been working on some Napoleonic mass battle rules (where am I going with this you ask?) and one of the things I added to the rules was inspired by the excellent book Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. In the tale, Mr Norrell aids Wellington in his campaign against Bonaparte by the use of a few well cast Olde English spells. I therefore have been writing some period suitable battle magic for my rules and needed some Gentlemen Sorcerers for playtesting. These civilians from Front Rank are the last of what I had left to finish.

From Lune straight to Terra and a theme of Earthbound. Well what is more Earthbound, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, than a graveyard? My Brother in Law and I picked up the Silver Bayonet rules at Salute last year and for this game we need some objective tokens (or clue markers). Well, some spooky gravestones and crows will do the trick.

Unfortunately I can't remember the manufacturer of these, they have been in my bits box too long.

The stone on the left and the bat are from Bad Squiddo the cross is from GW.

I have had these stones from GW for at least 22 years, sheesh, talk about a long time in my to do pile.

So for points;

• 4 x 28mm foot, 20 points
• Yacht and two planets, 60 points
• 14 x graveyard bits in 28mm scale, 28 points?

Total: 108 points.

I believe that is now three yacht trips and 12 planets visited, so I humbly ask Millsy to consider a task for my visit to the Challenge XII star.

From Millsy:

"Another weekend, another smorgasbord of deliciously painted delights from the Saturday crew."
Hey! That's my line!

These are really cool Peter and I can definitely get the Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell vibe from your efforts. I thoroughly enjoyed the TV adaptation but struggled with the book which I found really slow paced. Perhaps I should give it another read now. These have a very evocative feel about them, making me think of cold grey skies, empty moors and unusual happenings waiting just out of eyeshot. 

Lovely work on the Bad Squiddo miniatures too. They are a couple of very dynamic poses and you've done them justice with your brush and your colour choices.

Hmmm... what shall I task you with then as you spiral inwards to the centre of the quadrant? I've especially enjoyed your Stargrave and Epic 40K efforts so far, so something to add to either of those would be real treat!

110 points for you mate, including a couple of extras for making me rethink Norrell and Strange.

Cheers,
Millsy

From TobiasK: Piers the Ploughman and the Tax Collector (45 points)

Last week's entry featured King Ronnie and his lavish court. But of course, somebody has to pay for all the pomp. So for this week's entry, I focused on ordinary people. All miniatures are from Foundry.

So here comes Piers the Ploughman dutifully plowing his field.

This was followed by the dreaded tax collector harassing a poor peasant. 

The final part of this week's entry features one of the King's Men after successfully collecting some taxes.

Group shot:

Bookkeeping:

• 7 x 5 (28mm miniatures) = 35 pts
• 1 x 28mm crew-served weapon = 10 pts (@Millsy: I am not sure if the plow falls in this category)

Total: 45 points

From Millsy:

Great to see more civvies making an appearance in the Challenge Tobias, even if one of them is an evil, miserly tax collector! I really like your vignette style basing, arranging the minis in such a way as to tell a story to compliment your wonderful painting.

Whenever I see this kind of thing I immediately start to wonder what's been said, has it been well received and what happens next? Perhaps they're arguing over who is going to pay the taxes, all the while oblivious to the oncoming plough and the fact at least one of them is about to pay the ultimate price!

45 points it is mate :-)

PS. Maybe next time you could crop your photos a bit more so we can see your efforts even better?