From GregB - 10mm High Elf Heroes for Warmaster (11 points)

High Elf heroes for "Warmaster" - 3D prints, mostly designed by Forest Dragon.

We kick things off this week with...eleven points! Not exactly a "points bomb" - not even close - but I'll take what I can get! Here we have a small collection of High Elf heroes in 10mm size, mounted on round bases to serve as characters/heroes for the game "Warmaster". These are 3d prints, most of them (although not all) designed by the amazing "Forest Dragon".  There is a mix of warrior-type heroes and mages, a cadre ready to lead a High Elf army into battle on the table. 

Valiant mounted High Elf warrior, leading the cavalry to battle!

"Warmaster" is one of the very best "specialist" games GW ever released - the bones of those rules went on to serve as a foundation for a number of very, very popular rules. Plus, they are just great to play on their own. Those rules are so awesome in terms of how to mix the actions of the different troop types, of heroes and of magic. Heroes and magic have an impact, but cannot carry things on their own - but for all that, you can have a lot of fun with the hero figures!

When you have the right sceptre, one can read AND ride into battle!

GW's original line of metal 10mm figures for Warmaster were incredible, and for the most part are now very hard to come by. But holy smokes, have the 3d printer ever filled the void! Not only can you find equivalents...the current 3d prints are functionally even better IMO. These character figures are all 10mm, but they are just...they are amazing! All sorts of wonderful little details one can take a stab at with their brushes!

A mounted "not-Tyrion" - another fine 3d print!

Does 3d printing have ANY weaknesses? Well...these resin figures do kinda maybe break if you drop them on the floor...one can say that about ANY figures, I suppose, but there have been, let's call it, "V2 requirements" after encounters with the hardwood floor in my house. No matter how much I swear, it seems you can't always fix broken figures...but here we have, at last, a group of non-damaged 3d prints!! Re-painting broken 3d prints is massively f*cking frustrating super-rewarding but it all works out in the end.

Floating on a cloud, but carrying a flaming sword...ready for whatever comes up!

I have strips and strips of 3d-printed High Elf infantry and cavalry waiting for their turn under my brushes...one of the 10 "top priorities" I had lined up for this edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Will they get any paint this year? We'll see...but I'm glad to get these heroes finished off at last. 

This fellow could be a mage, or some kind of sword-master type hero as well. 

Scoring is obviously super-modest for this post, but hey, points are points! We have three mounted 10mm figures, and two 10mm foot figures, for a grand total of, er, 11 points! Hey, progress, is progress. Hopefully the next post I have for today will increase the score counter a bit more...

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Very nice indeed Greg! Some lovely detailing and highlighting on these tiny fellows. 11 points well earned indeed.

I was, however, shocked. SHOCKED I tell you with this bold statement of yours:

"Warmaster" is one of the very best "specialist" games GW ever released 

Clearly you have not played....

AndrewB Season Opener Inferno Blitz! Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, and Greed! 260pts

Hello folks!   Sorry for the delay, but let’s get to posting!  I decided this year aside from a couple projects I’m working on, I’d blitz through the Inferno Challenge as best I could. Now that I’ve gotten some basing glue, here we go!  

First is Limbo!   These are some Old Glory ‘voodoo’ warriors I acquired many years ago to attempt to play some good James Bond style Baron Zavoodie henchmen.  Alas, they’ve sat unpainted on washers for the better part of a decade, and I ran across them while digging for other projects, so here we go!  They’re quite characterful, despite lacking many different sculpts   

The second circle provided me some trouble as I don’t have many figures which are particularly ‘Lusty’.  That said, I ran across this bundle of cave folk while shuffling through shelves, and here I am.  Not outright lusty, but she’s got her chest out, and the boys seem to be enjoying it, so here we are!  I’ll try and find some relevant 3D prints to come back here maybe.  In the meantime, it makes good sense in that monosyllabic, unshaven way.  

Next, we have gluttony!  While trying to find a suitably rotund model, a four-legged friend knocked me on the knee with a stainless steel bowl, and then proceeded to eat the dog food I put inside with a vigor that would put the Cookie Monster to shame.  Bam! Gluttony!  Not sure where all these doggos are from, but they’re certainly hungry, and will certainly serve my games of 02 hundred well until I get the plastics in the box built and painted.  

Moving right along to Greed, this group of unsavory bootleggers, loan sharks, and bookies along with some of their other flunky buddies   I like to think of these folks as side characters like Forrest Gump at some of history’s most notorious gangster moments, all with the dreams of bags of stolen cash. I even managed to sneak in a dashed my lady gangster for Lady Sarah, so that was fun to find.  We’ll see if crime really pays!  

That’s about all I can get into this post, so look for more next week!  As for my points, I think we’ve got 13 Voodoo warriors for 65pts, four cave people for 20pts, seven puppies for 35pts, and 12 gangsters for 60pts.  There are four circles in the challenge for 80pts, and two women for Lady Sarah at 40pts.  This rounds me to an even 400, which I’ll need to be picking up the pace on!  

See you all next week, and happy painting!

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A fine opening Salvo there Andrew! I like the variety of figures you've been able to get done

I'm sure it was satisfying to finally get those Voodoo warriors completed too!

Unfortunately, there are no bonus points for female figures in this year's challenge.

65+20+35+60=180 + 80 bonus points = a total of 260

- Paul

From MikeF - Corporate Security Droids - 50 Points

Last week I presented the wave 1 baddies for the game, Exploit Zero. This week I skip over wave 2 and go straight to 3 (wave 2 wasn’t primed yet). These are the top level threat of the game and arrive late in the game when the player agents have been battered fighting the 2 previous waves. Once these guys show up, it’s time to complete the objective and beat it. In cyberpunk settings, the corporations are usually messing around with robots and cyborgs, usually in the form of some secret weapon system or “initiative”. As such, wave 3 should be represented by something unburdened by human frailty.

I’ve had a group of Mantic Enforcers sitting around for years. I’ve never been a big fan of Mantic sculpts and the proportions of these models are a bit odd to look like humans are inside. That works perfectly for robots however (or cyborgs I suppose). Painting was kept simple and dark to reflect the cold, calculating malevolence of kill bots.

This guy represents an enemy Agent which provides an additional challenge for the players.

That’s 11 28mm miniatures for 55 points.

Thanks for visiting.

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Oh yes, I also love a good battle droid. Nothing like an unstoppable, merciless and heavily armoured killing machine for a bit of table top fun!

- Paul

From TomL, Stompy robots & Lust ( 55 points)

This is the first of two posts for this Tuesday. Continuing on with our tour of the Abyss This Pulp Figures Gangland Gal will accompany us to the second circle: Lust

 

Here we meet the beautiful, self-centered, hedonistic, lustful Dorian Grey from Westwind Productions.

These figures were painted using Foundry, Reaper and Two Thin Coats acrylics.  Taking a break from the Abyss we have some stompy Battletech robots.

These were painted using my airbrush and Vallejo Model Air paints, Vallejo deck tan drybrush and a light game colour wash.  This will get me on board with the Stompy Robot side duel.

Following previous years posts the Battltech Mech points would be:
2 40-50mm mechs @ 7 points = 14
3 roughly 28 mm mechs @ 5 points = 15
Lust = 20 pts
2 x 28 mm figures = 10 points

Total: 59 points.

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Ahhh Mr Dorian - a wonderful character. I wonder what he would do with all this social media stuff? Probably have a few million 'followers' I guess!

Great to some Mechs hit the table and get on with your Big Stompy Robots duel! I'll score them as 28mm figures, which seems consistent with their size as well as previous submissions

- Paul

Another Tuesday

The Tuesday Crew have been hard at it again this week. 

Thus I have more submissions to present and souls to torment - Let's get at it!

From BartekR: Charging Conquest knights beating the cut in Limbo (155 points)

Greetings all, and glad you can join me for my first post of this, AHPC XV, which is my third attempt at the Snowlord’s dance-through-hell-and-heaven obstacle course of paint and banter.

If this was a sports documentary, there would be some line in this about how I have something to prove. After a decent first outing (AHPC XIII), I aimed high and dropped low and hard in AHPC XIV. So, this year, I’m aiming for a relatively modest 750 points.

With a busy work year, I haven’t much time preparing and indeed planning miniatures. Frankly, with a pile of plastic sitting dormant since last Challenge (and some from the one before), I expect I will be  spending a *lot* of time in limbo. That said, I’m hoping to get a few new things out there – maybe have a swing at some of Dante’s circles, and get out at least one bespoke piece before we wrap up.

So, first up, to get me out of the doghouse of the 21 Jan cut off: Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings Hundred Kingdoms Household Knights. 

In AHPC XIII, I started painting my brother’s Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings Hundred Kingdoms army. Two years on, I’m still going (well, to be fair, my brother has to downsize his armies – so this is an older sibling helping out with pre-sale prep!).

What to say about these? 38mm knights on horses. The figures are large (see comparison with a GW chaos warrior). Since my brother bought his Conquest army secondhand, a number of them were already  block painted using Citadel contrast or similar. While this, I believe, qualifies as putting me in Limbo, these were a focus of a lot of touching up. 

The process

The 'touching up' mostly involved bringing minis into the red/turquoise theme of the army, with a fair bit of work on the red on the cloaks and caparison to gain more depth, and shining up the armour. As it was, the paint work was a dull metallic (heavily washed, probably Nuln Oil). Overall, very dull. Not a bad look but not what I imagined for a resplendent household knight cavalry on the charge. This was fixed by hitting them with metallics again, and then a brushed-on gloss varnish.

Admittedly harder to see in photo, but the difference between dull and touched-up and glossed metal

The new build figures - including the standard bearer - followed the same process. Without the original recipe for the paint work, here the the challenge with was getting a good colour match. Needless to say, Citadel Carroburg Crimson wash was relied on to get the red of the cloaks approximate.

And more horse butts

A last note on the rider with the pennant. The command element for this called for a musician, but there wasn't any option for one on the sprues I had. So, to distinguish the figure, I used an open helmet from an infantry set and added the pennant – metal foil from a wine bottle top!

Process wise the I rediscovered (yet again) that despite having a  generous work space, after a few days of working on the bench the inevitable spread of paint droppers/pots effectively corners me on a hand's width rump of desk space to work on, before I'm pushed off the table completely. Trying to be better about keeping this aspect of the painting process under control! 

The result 

Standard question when I finish painting: am happy with them? Given the Challenge and these prompted me to pick up a brush for the first time in a year, yes. Sure, given their generous scale I would love to be more precise and bring out more of the detail, but happy enough. They were an opportunity to use up more of my legacy Citadel paints (particularly washes), having bought a set of the Army Painter Fanatic range - which i'm quite happy with. One aspect I am keen to try out is a new matt varnish - the brushed-on Vallejo matt (on the cloaks etc) was far too satin for my liking (despite vigorous mixing/shaking) so I will be keen to try out some AK Interactive Ultra Matt when it arrives.

The points

With Monday Minion Millsy's agreement, I have scored these as for 40mm:

9 x 40mm cavalry @15 pts each: 135 pts

Limbo bonus: 20 pts

Total: 155 pts

  ...in the background

Probably like most, music or audiobooks accompany my painting. Through he painting of these I was listening to the Joe Abercrombie First Law trilogy audiobooks, which I highly recommend - English actor Steven Pacey's narration is top notch.

From Millsy:

Lovely brushwork on the knights Bartek! I really like your colour choices and the basing sets them off very nicely indeed.

Great to hear that the Challenge motivated you to pick the brush up again, it's a wonderful motivator and hopefully the enthusiasm will persist beyond the end of March.

155 points to kick start your Challenge!

Cheers,

Millsy

From GeoffT: Fraud, The Dreamer (50 points)

Hello Challengers,

For the Fraud theme, I selected ‘The Dreamer’ starter box from Malifaux 1e.  The dreamer is not what he appears, seems like a cute little boy, but can summon hideous monsters from his dreams.  He isn’t really a human boy, he is one of the Neverborn, Malifaux native inhabitants.

The big purple monster is ‘Lord Chompy Bits’, and is really big, so worth 10 points I reckon.

Points,

4 x 28mm foot = 20 points

1 x 54mm foot = 10 points

Fraud circle of hell bonus = 20 points

A squirrel score for Malifaux Neverborn.

Kind Regards

Geoff.

From Millsy:

Malifaux is one of those games I hear a lot about but have never owned or played. Maybe I should correct that omission. The miniatures are gorgeous and stand out in a market with so many offerings. You've done a wonderful job on these Geoff, especially the giant purple beastie.

Another 50 points added to your total!

Cheers,
Millsy

From Curt: Five Denizens from Mork Borg (33 points)

Hi There,

Kawe from Westfalia Miniatures has been a Challenge supporter from pretty much the beginning, in fact he was a participant himself, creating some terrific work for visitors to enjoy. As many know, Westfalia began focusing exclusively on Napoleonics, then moved on to pulp subjects, and now concentrates primarily on dark fantasy and sci-fi.

I always try to jump in to support each of Westfalia's Kickstarters and these five figures are from one of their earlier releases. They're lovely boutique minis sculpted by Boris Woloszyn and themed around the wonderfully strange and creepy world of Mork Borg. For a few years I've been GMing some out-of-town friends using Mork Borg and the Roll20 app. We've been having a lot of fun with it as the system is very rules-lite, encouraging on-your-toes creativity, which often makes for some very funny (and bloody) game sessions.

Anyway, here are five denizens from the grim world of Mork Borg:

The Gutterborn Scum

'C'mon my pretties! There's work to be done...'

The Heretical Priest

This fella looks like he's been huffin' a bit too much from the 'mystical censer'.

'Skelly Jo'

'What? The horns are too much, eh?'

Wrat

'Come now, let's all sing the chorus together...'

Wretched Royalty

'The world may be descending into rack and ruin but I'm still on the top of the heap.'

As to points, four of these five are over 40mm so I'll claim 7 points for each of those, giving me a total of 33 points.

I'll use the 'Wretched Royalty' to move from Gluttony to The Ninth Circle: 'Treachery'.

I'll also claim a Squirrel Point for this crew of degenerates.

Aaaand 5 skulls for Barks.

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt

From Millsy:

Yikes! These are weird and creepy enough to keep John Blanche awake at night!

They're all spectacular mate but if I had to pick a favourite it would be the Wretched Royalty. I love the saturated blue/greens paired with the muted palette on the rest of the miniature and the face is just packed with character too.

33 Challenge points for your total! Keep em coming...

Cheers,
Millsy