Wednesday, 5 February 2025

From JamieM: the Drowned Earth and Elementals (280 points)

Having finally gotten Limbo out of the way, it’s time to start posting the rest of the things I’ve been painting.

First up are some miniatures for a game called “the drowned earth”. It’s a small game run by a small company and you can feel the passion they have for it. Set it a post apocalyptic world after “the Event”, (they don’t tell you what the event was, but it was certainly apocalyptic….) you have small bands running around with dinosaurs. Yep, you read that right, dinosaurs.

It’s not particularly well explained why dinosaurs are back, nor why there are some anthropomorphized animals in the crews, but I don’t care as they look cool!

The first band are the Wayfarers. These are a mercenary faction who can be taken by any faction or they can fight together.

As I mentioned, some anthropomorphizing going on, but as there’s an elephant with a minigun, I think we can count that as a massive win.


I’ll use the female in the team to help me get to the “Greed” circle and then present this mob for it.

They are the Bondsmen, essentially bounty hunters who will collect any bounty without qualms, thus prizing money over anything else.

The lizard fella is the leader and the giant ape is an absolute beast in the game, as you’d expect having seen him.

Anyway, I’ll then use one of the females in the crew to move me to the “Wrath” circle. Now, did I mention the game included dinosaurs?

These are a Keratosaur, 2 yuttaraptors, domeheads, oviraptors and troodons. They all have slightly different stats and abilities in the game and I’m itching to try them out, having only used the normal mobs so far.

Without any knowledge of the colours to use, I just went with the pictures from their stat cards and I’m pleased with how they’ve come out.

It’s also something of a milestone as I’ve managed to paint all of the Drowned Earth miniatures that I own! That’s right, I’ve managed to not expand a new game waaaaaaay beyond the time I have to paint them. Excuse as I may need to have a lie down to recover……. 

Anyway, because at least one of them will clearly be female (the male dinosaurs don’t get to have all of the fun hunting down humans to eat!), I’ll use one of the females to move me along to the “violence” circle for my next offering.

These are a selection of elementals for the Kings of War game and I think we can all see just how violent Nature can be when it gets going. Not directed violence as such, given it is just nature after all, but to those of us living on the earth we are subject to its whims and the after effects of the elements on people and places can be devastating.

Water elementals first with one greater and 5 lesser of the type. These were an absolute blast to paint and I loved what Mantic did with them, with fish, octopi and a boat skeleton unwittingly along for the ride!

I didn’t think they’d be that much fun to paint, but I really enjoyed trying to get the blues and the spray right and I’m really pleased with them.

Next up are the fire elementals

These, conversely, were less fun than I expected and I’m not pleased with how they turned out (especially having seen Barks do some excellent fire effects yesterday!), but they’re done and I suspect any attempt to change them would make them messier, so I’m calling them done and moving on to the next challenge.

So, scores on the doors……

The Drowned Earth - 15 28mm infantry (75) and 5 40mm infantry (35) plus greed and wrath (40) for 150 points.

Elementals - 10x 40mm infantry (70) and two 28mm vehicles (40) plus violence (20) for 130 points.

Altogether that’s 280 points.

Sylvain minioning for Greg: Wow, what a nice point bomb. You really are offering us a nice variety of figurines this week, especially with the Drowned Earth collection. I will have to check out that game as I like the cartoonish look of the characters. Your elementals look great and don't be too harsh on yourself, just looking at them I know these are "fire elementals", so kudos for a nice try. Great job!

 

From BruceR: Gators on 2 legs, Greeks clothed and unclothed, Wizards (104 points)

After last weeks lace affair of grenadiers, I took a palette cleansing and saw these bipedal gators base coated on the shelf.  These are Reaper Bones miniatures and stand 50mm and 40mm.

A friend has been using some different techniques and had mentioned slapchop, give a shade coat, slapchop again and another highlight coat from the color wheel.  As I really didn't have a plan, I tried this with these beasties. I used army painter pinkish speed paint for the shade.  After this a lighter white slapchop and went to work with a light green speed paint.  I really liked this effect.  You can see a flesh base color in certain areas (not sure if the photo shows this).  Added some detail, like the metal eye of the one and teeth of course.

Here are the Gator Boys.  Bodyguards to some demented wizard or just protecting the swamp.








The  process was quite easy and really hit a sweet spot for me.  These will be great monsters and one even hit the table this past weekend as a Slaad during a session of The Silver Bayonet.  










The next addition of clearing the closet is brought to you by ancient times.   One of the movies that sticks out in my mind growing up was Jason and the Argonauts.  Doesn't everybody desire the hoplite helmet with the Y eye slot?  I've never collected Greeks in my gaming life and a few years back we were group ordering from Wargames Foundry and SAGA was advertising ancient times, so I ordered Athenians.  Like many hobbyists, these went to the shelf as I'm not enamored with SAGA, an okay game, just not in my wheel house.  A friend has some Greeks, suggested we play Midgard Heroic Battles using them.  Why not, except he only had a few units.  Ahhhh, the shelf of opportunity.  

Hoplites from Athens.  

Instead of slapchop I tried a new speed paint version using a white base coat and then a dark wash.  Leaves a somewhat gritty appearance and I'm happy with the speed and result.

The first group are hoplites with no armor.  I must have never ordered shield transfers, so for now they are sporting generic shields, which may receive more attention down the road.  

I went for a mix of colors for the tunics, crests, and shield banners.  Red for the "naked" Athenian Hoplites cloaks.  





Next up are again unarmored but "naked" Athenian Hoplites, minus the tunic.  Yikes.  Big shield needed.  I did google obscuring portions of photos.  I was able to angle the camera and shield so as not to expose their bits.  








I did some steel based movement trays to allow using round or square based figures and lined them up for a shot.  

Thats 16 Hoplites.  





Been well below zero and windy this weekend and the last few days.  So more opportunity to hobby.

These two are dynamic wizards from Reaper.  One a Bones and the other a resin figure.  The resin really has defined features.  Mix of speed paints and acrylics, plus highlights.  They turned out well.  I grabbed a wall to give them some background and set up the Gator boys as minions in their ongoing battle for dominance of the hovel.  



Reminds me of Bob the
skull from Harry Dresden















Battle for the hovel 







Thats the week.

Points.

16x 28mm Greeks @ 5                    =    80 pts

 2x 40mm gators @ 7                      =    14 pts

 2x 28mm wizards @ 5                    =    10 pts

Total                                              =    104 pts

Hope you like.  Take care everybody and hobby on.  

Gratuitous doggo photo, cold on the paws so limited outside time, so he nests.

Bruce

Sylvain minioning for Greg: You really nailed the skin of those gators. They look happy to be green. Your Greek hoplites look really good when bunched together. They look ready to join the phalanx and fight for glory. And your wizards are colorful and well accessorized, proving that good magic does not mean bad fashion. Great work this week!



From SylvainR: 28mm Giantesses for D&D (30 points)

 

After painting seven white male giants, I felt some DEI was needed and so painted three giantesses. Again these are all Reaper vinyl models from the collection given by JeremyM. The monk, above, gives a sense of their size. The first one is a cloud giantess and her pose makes sense only if the purpose is to accentuate her curves.

I need to scratch my kneecap...

Oh, is my butt showing?

The next giantess is described as a "frost giant princess" on the Reaper web site, but the "tusks" she is wearing on each side of her head as well as the small tusks in her face inspired me to make her into an "elephant hunter" instead, so I painted her with dark skin and beige leather clothes suitable for the savanna. I assume she made her spear from elephant bones. I imagine her slowly walking in the distance, at sunset, preceded by a rattling sound. The heroes chillingly realized that the sound was caused by her collection of skulls clinking against each other. Then, when the heroes saw two blank eyes starring at them as the giantess got closer, they instantly knew that their heads would be part of her collection before the next morning...

"Merde, she saw us..."


Rattle little skulls, rattle!

I find that the third giantess is giving lots of attitude. She looks like a spoiled teenage princess except she can twirl a 500 pound stone spear. Her lips seem to be initiating the sound "F...". When you look at her body proportions, her legs appear too short in regard to her torso, but who's fool enough to dare mention it to her?

Phoque? Où? (Seal? Where?)


Say what? You want to impose tariffs on height?

 

Points claimed:

3 x 54mm foot figurines at 10 points each = 30 points

Total = 30 points

Thanks for reading!

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Thats 3 lasses I wouldn't want to fall foul of, thats for sure! Nice job Sylvain

- Paul

From SylvainR: Tray 06 - 6mm Early WW2 German Motorcycles (90 points)

 

We've all seen SAS movies with guys firing machine guns from jeeps driven at full speed in the desert. How about firing a machine gun from a speeding side-car on narrow European roads? That's what I had in mind when I was painting this week's production, while playing in my head "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf. 

Motorcycles in early WW2 were not only used for reconnaissance and liaison, full battalions were equipped with them as it was a cheap alternative to "expensive" trucks. Most European countries, at that time, fielded motorcycle battalions, including armies of Poland, France, Great-Britain, etc. So there were many good reasons for me to paint a whole battalion. There is also a Squad Leader scenario that I always wanted to adapt for miniatures: Assault on a Queen.

I'm showing below the second company (red) of the battalion. First company (blue) was completed before the Challenge as the models were already painted. Since the third company (green) is identical to the first one, I will not bother you with repetitive images. Models are mostly from GHQ with a few Heroics and Ros models sprinkled here and there


In the close-up, below, you can see that I opted to have one non-side-car bike per base, just for variety.  Normally, there would be a soldier on the rear seat of the motorcycles, thus 3 bikes could carry 9 soldiers.


Here is a picture of the company HQ, making a quick stop on the side of the road to observe enemy movement and to send an important message to their battalion HQ over the radio.

Below is the weapon company (yellow), with each element carrying an HMG, so one bike for the weapon and another for the ammo. I could not find the organization for the mortars. They were probably carried by trucks, so if mortars are needed, I shall reassign some from my Schützen Battalion. There are only two bikes per stand in this company.


Lastly, a picture of the company HQ for the weapon company with the classic combo: radio operator and officer pointing forward.


6x 6mm foot figurines at 1/2 point each = 3 points

87x 6mm mounted figurines at 1 point each = 87 points

Total = 90 points

Thanks for reading!

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Very nice Sylvain! I do love the Motorcycle troops that typify the early war Blitzkrieg period and you've done a great job with these - 90 points well earned

- Paul