From Mike W: 28mm Marian Wars figure, Tau Ge'Vesa [Lady Sarah's Library Cart, Biography] (52 Points)

 Real life has intervened this week, impacting my painting prodction line, resulting in me travelling for three days this week, leaving me with little time to paint and prepare this post.

Hopefully this means a bumper post next week as I get the backlog cleared but as a stop gap gere are a couple of figres that I have painted, photographed and written up for this post.

So first off this week, I submit a new female Tau, Ge'Vesa. She is a scout, armed with a Longshot Pulse Rifle and holding a device to enable her to control Drones on the battlefield. This figure is based upon a Wargames Atlantic 'Eisenkern Stormtroopers', with GW Tau weapons, comms device and arm pad added.

Female Tau Gue'Vesa with Longshot Pulse Rifle and hand held Drone Controller

Painted as per all the others in my rapidly expanding Tau Army.

Another view!

Lady Sarah's Trolley will transport me to the Biography section within the lilbrary and here we find a figure from the Elizabethan age - namely John de Quitfurd & Milntoun, a distant ancester of mine who participated in the Marrian Wars, siding against Mary Queen of Scots.

John de Quitfurd & Milntoun, he died in 1579

The figure shows John standing with his banner, waving his sword in the air to encourage his men! He is wearing plate armour, painted GW leadbelcher with an Army Painter watered down dark wash, the armour is highlighted with a bright silver.

The standard is based upon the Whitefoord coat of arms,
three diagonal black stripes with bushels of wheat on the wider, central stripe

Next week, not ready to be published this week is a return to some 28mm Medjai, last seen by myself in the AHPC XII Challenge - these will go in the DIY section of the library. Additionally there will be some more Tau, 10mm Scots at Flodden and maybe some Lizardmen....

Points

1 x 28mm Scots Noble                       5 Points

2  1 x Tau Figures @ 5 Pts ea      10  5 Points

Lady Sarah's Bonus                            20 Points

Biography Famous Person Bonus     20 Points

TOTAL                                                55  50 Points

Great work, Mike! Your T'au lady looks very impressive, I like the white and orange uniform. And the story about your famous ancestor is great too! A very personal addition to the Biography section (although I would have loved to learn more about him!) and that is fine. Also, your Ge'Vesa grants you a ride an Lady Sarah's cart. However, unless I am very much mistaken, there is only a single T'au figure, so the total comes to 50 very efficient points. I will throw in a couple of points for the nice hand-painted banner though. I am looking forward to the promised points bomb next week, and perhaps you can provide an updated map then as well!

Martijn

From Codsticker: Bloody Miniatures Unhorsed Cuirassier and A Couple More Orcs (30 pts)

In this entry I have a couple of Orc archers that I didn't quite get finished last week as well as the third pack of wave 4 from Bloody Miniatures.

Like the two from last  week, these orcs are straight forward archers.

I imagine they are pretty useless in-game if their rules reflect their performance in both the trilogy and the movies.

On the other hand... I would expect these unhorsed cuirassier would put up a pretty decent fight.

With their armour and melee weapons, they were often called upon to force breaches and lead assaults on defended positions.

The Unhorsed Cuirassier is pack BM 022, released in September 2022.

I had another crack at yellow with their sashes. Still a little too bright for my liking.

I love blackened armour but I saved it for this model, who I have chosen to be their colonel or major.

That is 6 28mm models @ 5 pts each for a total of 30 pts.

By Guest Minion Paul:

Very nice Rob - I do love the Bloody Miniature range- such wonderfully characterful and dynamic sculpts! Your unhorsed lobsters look great - I too love the enamelled black armour for officers. 30 well deserved points!

From PeteF Greater Air Elemental - Nature (40 points)

My first Kings of War army was Forces of Nature and I still have a soft spot for the faction - intending to go back to it for a few games... if only I get some more models painted.  To that end here is a Greater Air Elemental, one of the stronger units in the game.

The model is cast in resin and available from Mantic Games.  Having prepared poorly for Challenge XIV, I didn't take enough time to deal with the joins in this model - hope they are not too obvious!

This is my first excursion with an airbrush!  ShawnD leant me his spray booth, brush and accessories and I tried it out.  Having being unable to get more than a spatter from it I fiddled with some settings and on the next try emptied the cup in about 20 seconds.  So I guess this airbrushing thing might take some study to get it right.

After hand brushing blue, airbrushing gray blue, then white with a hint of blue, then blue wash it got a heavy drybrushing.  The result looks OK for the gaming table and I'm looking forward to improving my technique.

Scoring:  this chonky monster stands 100mm high.  Maybe score as a 28mm vehicle for 20 points plus 20 for the library section for a total of 40 points?   

This proved a tough model to photograph - in the first attempts it still looked like a grey lump of resin - there's a decent amount of painting here - honest!

By Paul the Guest Minion

Welcome to the wonderful world of airbrushing! May your experience see you join the legions of fan bois who loves theirs so much they want to be buried with it, rather than be one of the frustrated, cussing masses who complain about unclogging it more than using it (I refuse to confirm which camp I am in :-)

May this big fellah fight well for you and enjoy the 40 points!

From Rhunt - Elves and fantasy figures (65 pts)

This week I painted more elves. And some more fantasy Bones. These are Oathmark elves and I like them a lot better than the GW ones.

These are Oathmark from Northstar. I bought them and put them together all by myself.

My Dad had these red tufts and I loved them.

This box comes with 30 models in it. It is the Elf Light Infantry. It doesn't come with spears but Dad had extras and let me have them. I did ask him to help me clean the mold lines off, since that is really hard (and boring).

I am building these as 10 archers, 10 sword and board and 10 spear and shield. I had a couple of left over shields for the GW elves so I used two here.

These were way more fun to paint. They are simple with just enough detail to make them interesting.

The next three are Bones fantasy models that Dad gave me.

These are the first generation soft bendy plastic that hate primer.

I did these in the winter theme again.

All together this is 13 x 28mm models x 5 pts = 65 pts.

By Paul the Stand-In Minion: 

What a cracking job you've done with these Rhys! I like the Oathmark plastic figures too, and your mixing and matching have been very effective. The basing looks really good too - love the red tufts.
65 well earned points :-)

From JezT - Footsore Crusaders - 28mm (43 points)

Dear All 

No library rooms this week and just a simple post of 8 x Crusader foot figures from Footsore. I have  posted a few of this range already this challenge and these 8 represent two new packs. Again am basing them singly so can use for Saga type games but they can also fit on a sabot base so can play as a unit for my preferred Basic Impetus games. 

First up a pack of Knight foot figures - no flesh colour was used in the painting of these 4! Then a pack of spearmen. 

one Knight demoted to Spearman

The last spearman figure from the pack I made into a bannerman and based directly onto the base. Its a bit unusual but just having 4 figures on a base for a heavy spear unit looks a bit lightweight for me so added a few others to the base. 

Bannerman is the newly painted figure

Next have a few photos of the new figures mixed in with others showing a Saga Spear unit and then some Basic Impetus Heavy Foot bases. 

front rank are the newly painted

So newly painted are two packs making 8 figures so 40 points to add. 

Cheers Jez

By Paul the Stand-In Minion: 

What a treat! If its one thing I am right into at the moment next to be Romans and Gauls, its crusaders!  Footsore makes some lovely figures and I really like how you've mixed up the livery to blend Military Order with Outremer Kingdoms. You've also been clever with your basing to keep them adaptable for multiple rules sets (the extra figs on the sabot base works really well too!).

May they find a fragment of the One True Cross for you - and in the meantime take 43 points including a few extra for the nice hand painted shields and flag

From DallasE: Legionaries of Legio XIII Gemina (76 points)

Having painted a load of hairy Germanic tribesmen so far I thought I'd change gears for a bit and work on some Romans. For this week's entry I've completed a unit of 15 Legionaries of Legio XIII Gemina.

The models are a mix of monopose metal Foundry and Warlord Games figures, with a couple Warlord Games plastics thrown in. Fortunately the plastic Legionaries mix in really well with the much older Foundry sculpts. 

The command group are all Warlord metals. Sorry about the lion on the vexillum, I really wasn't feeling it this morning and it kind of looks that way. But it's a lion, I swear. What I do really like is the metal mask worn by the standard bearer. Pretty freaky.

The shield decals are water transfers from Warlord Games. I'm really impressed at how well they came out. They make my previous handpainted shields on the veterans look pretty sad. But these are easy to apply, fit well (even on the old metal Foundry shields!) and look the business.  

I picked Legio XIII as it was one of the longest serving Legions (having been levied by Julius Caesar in 57 BC and hanging around till the 5th century CE), it served in Germany after the disaster at the Teutoburger Wald, and 13 is my number on my beer league hockey team, the Kyle Wellwoods. So there.
 

The legion gained their cognomen "Gemina" (twin) after being reinforced with veterans from other legions following Actium and the end of the Civil War against Mark Antony.

You can hardly tell the WG plastic figure (front centre) from the metal Foundry ones!

I think they look pretty good and being individually based, can be used for skirmish games as well as ranked up for WAB. I'll stick 'em up in the cabinet and call these done.

Scoring:

15x 28mm foot = 75 points

Till next time, enjoy the (long, for some) weekend!

By Paul the Stand-In Minion: 

Good stuff! I've been enjoying your tribesman, so I'm delighted to see some of Rome's finest advance proudly off your painting table.  Noting my own current Caesarian Army project, I'm particularly thrilled that your lads hail from a Legion raised by him - perhaps your Centurion was a new recruit in mine force :-) And speaking of Teutoburger Wald, I just finished listening to Harry Sidebottom's "Give me Back my Legions" which is worth a look too.  The decals look good, but never second guess your older hand painted ones! And take bonus denarii for your hand painted vexillum too! Ave!

Happy Sunnandæg!

 

Guest minion Paul reporting in as your host for this lovely Sunday (here in Sydney it is a sunny 30deg C (thats 303deg Kelvin for all you metric system holdouts, you know who you are)

I'm delighted to shift from Duels Wallah and don my slightly dusty minion hat to help out the crew as we bring you some great stuff before returning to work tomorrow - enjoy!

From SebastianR: Fleeing through the walls [Sarah's Library Cart] (25 Points)

After being cruelly bonus blocked by Dallas last Saturday (I kid), I find myself trapped in this section of the library, as, by my reading of the rules, while you can through completed sections, you can't leave a section you have only partially completed even to backtrack. (That's my reading, don't @ me) [Not true, you can certainly backtrack. See below - D.]

But with this one weird trick I can be free!

Yes, clamber aboard the Library Cart with me and flee to... well I know where, but I haven't completed my destinations project yet, and I suspect I wont have time to finish it this week, at least not at time of writing. So I guess it'll be a spooky mystery.

I'm using the same paint scheme as I did last year, a relaxing to paint spectral recipe from gardens of Hecate.

I'm pretty sure the figure is an old GW banshee, and that's what I'll be using her for. This time square based to fit in with the oldhammer project I'm trying to complete this year.

And don't worry, I'll be back for Oversized Books!

That's 20 points for the cart, 5 points for the figure, for 25 points total

Sebastian - you can backtrack at will through the Library and revisit any section you have already cleared, or go through those sections to new ones. For example you could go back to section 2 and from there to the east wing (Art, Gift Shop, etc.), to the Rotunda, or back to the first section even. 

Also, when travelling in Sarah's Library Cart you have to declare a destination. It can be any Library stack bar the Rare and Antique Books stack, but you have to say in this post where it's taking you. I'll let you skate this time but please be mindful that others need to use the Cart to get around the Library, and we can't have one Challenger just hogging it with nowhere to go and all week to get there!

Also - I always liked that GW banshee. Nice work :-)

Dallas

From AaronH: More B1s (77 pts)

 This week is more B1s for Star Wars Legion. This unit gives me four squads. This is the Orange squad.

More B1s. Same as the other ones.

This is another squad with the basic upgrades. I've got two repair droids almost done for the red and blue squads, which will exhaust that particular upgrade in my army.

With the current army lists and battle forces I can't see taking more than three units of these, but the max is eight so I might as well paint them since I have them. Next week I'll also be working on some B2s and other command options. I need to expand out the options for the list.

Commander, rocket and E5s upgrade.

The OOM unit upgrade lets droids pass orders at longer range (1-2 instead of 1). The security droid lets them lose AI attack. In Legion the droids have an AI keyword that they have to execute if they don't start the turn with an order. It's limiting and frustrating so this droid lets them avoid that.

OOM-Series battle droid aand B1 Security Droid. It's hard to tell but the OOM has a yellow head.

For points this is eleven B1s x 7 points = 77 points.

Roger roger! You can never have too many battle droids, nice work and 77 points for you!

Dallas