From RhysH - Abyssal Dwarfs and Taun Taun Riders

 This week Rhys was working on cavalry for two different games. His first entry is Abyssal Dwarf Halfbreeds from Mantic Games for Kings of War.

Five devastating cavalry for your fantasy table tops.

Next up is four more. Rhys tried to slide a half painted one past me but I pulled it out, so expect to see it next week. 

These tiger striped halfbreeds can either fill out the first unit or be a second unit.

Last up is three Taun taun riders for the Rebels in Star Wars Legion. These are 3D prints from Squamous miniatures, who I can't recommend highly enough.

These come in units of two. He has three more to paint to finish them all up.

This week is a total of 12 x 28mm Cavalry x 10pts = 120pts

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Good Morning Rhys

Great looking Taun Taun riders ... they would have been right at home in Saskatchewan last week! Surviving -50C is only for the very appropriatly dressed!

Terrific colour choices on the tiger striped Half Breeds. I'm looking forward to what we see on your next post :)

- Sarah

From TeemuL: T-70 team (42 points)

Weekend without much special activities and flu is almost gone, so good time to paint some minis. For the second post today, I present a team of T-70 Soviet tanks for Flames of War. Minis itself are from Plastic Soldier Company.

These are meant for Operation Bagration, that's why bright green bases and tanks are plain green, only some identification numbers in the turrets. So far I have understood, that there were no clear system for numbering tanks, I guess it causes some confusion to enemy, when even the own side doesn't know the meaning of all the numbers... In the background you can see some explosions, they came in the Opel Blitz truck set from Warlord Games, which I decided to do now.

I painted the exhaust systems orange to show rusted they are. Tracks are a mixture of browns and greys. And now I realize the mistake I made while quickly finishing these - I didn't apply any brown mud to the hulls... Well, maybe they were just unloaded from train and sent forward...

And the view usually seen by the controlling player. I guess better be quick, because these light tanks tend to blow up rather quickly when encountering German defenders. As you can see, I have based my tanks, this way I can glue a magnetic sheet to the bottom of the base and this helps with transfer and storage. Models itself are rather sturdy, so the bases are not necessary for protecting them, I think.

There are 5 of these 15mm tanks here, so 8 points a piece. Then two half minis on the turrets, giving 2 extra points for total of 42.

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Hi Teemu!

I like the simple green paint job, the orange and blue really 'pop'!

Can you ever have enough explosions? I think not :)

An other 42points to your tally

- Sarah

From JeremyM: 10mm Vampire Counts [gluttony]

 For my gluttony post I chose to focus on a new 10mm army, vampire counts...and I think the volume of pictures and figures is perhaps gluttonous itself this time!

Our gaming group have been playing with a few 10mm scale rules for fantasy figures. Last year we ran a campaign using the excellent M2 ruleset for To the Strongest https://ttsm2.co.uk/m2/. While it worked well we may decide to experiment with some custom options down the road. While I originally started with a chaos army that was based for warmaster and then used movement trays, I loved Curt's little mini diaromas that I decided to forgo the warmaster option and just base everything on bigger bases for this other system. Everything you'll see is 3d printed with all the figures from forestdragon fantasy's excellent range. I zenithal highlighted them and used contrast style paints to speed the process up, works well with this scale.

Vampire counts have a few figures that struck me as being gluttonous. Let's start with the heroes. I painted up a few vampires mounted and unmounted, a vampire carriage unit, and two necromancers.

The next gluttonous unit I worked on were ghouls. Who better to fit this theme than cannibals that mutated right! I painted up 4 units of them. I tried to differentiate units with a few different colours of figures and themed bases. For my vampire counts army its a fall theme with scenes from a destroyed town, creepy woods, and of course cemeteries.

After that I turned to zombies who are obviously overly gluttonous for 'brains!' With the rules we play they are typically a 'deep' or double sized unit fitting for the horde of undead. They were both fun and unfun to paint as I tried to give each of them different outfit colours and a couple different skin tone options (green for older dead, and fresh zombies as well).

To wrap up my painting for this force I also worked on two units of ghosts, and two units of giant bats....not gluttonous but hey finished them with these others.

A pretty good start to a vampire counts army I hope to hit the tables later this year. Now the tally...and it was a chore to count them all particularly because I didn't put them in rank and file order on the bases (they are horde units after all). 

513 10mm scale figures = 513 points

Gluttony them = 20 points

Total = 533 points.

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...... And a Sunday Morning Points Bomb!!

 Well done Jeremy, a very impressive and gluttonous horde!

I really enjoy the diorama basing, very characterful and leads to great storytelling. These baddies will be great on the table top.

- Sarah

Skull Duel XV, Canto V

In 1921, for the 600th anniversary of his death, Dante's sarcophagus was reopened for study by anthropology professor Fabio Frassetto. Photographs and models of Dante's skull were taken, as well as moulds of the palate and face.

Chalk model of Dante's skull, by Frassetto.

In the 1930s, Frassetto published a book of his observations as well as a reconstructed sculpt of Dante's face based on his study of the skull.

Frassetto's bust of Dante (helped by sculptor Antonio Borghesani)

Frassetto's grave has a sculpture of him next to his son, who was killed in WW2 and predeceased his father. They are having a discussion on death- alluded to by the skull the Professor is holding. (Originally the sculpt had more fingers, but we miniature painters know the weakness of finely sculpted details...)

The grave sculpts of Frassetto & son. (source)

Skull Duel

• TeemuL 177
• DavidB 95
• JohnS 78
• Curt 60
• PeterB 54
• MikeW 39
• Barks 18
• DallasE 15
• QuinnM 12
• GregB 12
• PeteF 11
• Millsy 6
• BruceR 3

All to play for as the Challenge surges home! We've seen some colossal swings in previous Skull Duels, and a skulltastic post could flip the leaderboard.

Notable skullz

JamesM's Goliaths have big skullz

Millsy has a few cheeky skullz

DaveV's classic sculpts with classic skull

PeterB's worms know skullz are needed!

MattT's Blood Angels with skully goodness

Sylvain's demon has skullz to bonk you with

DallasE's Cawl with skully embellishments

GregB- trust me, I'm an apothecary.

JohnS consistently does the Slaughterloo

More JohnS treats!

SanderS gets in a sneaky skull.

Skull of the week

StephenS's Punisher with the modern classic logo

It's not too late to enter! Just tag your post with 'Skull Duel' and state in the post both how many skullz you have painted, and what your running total is.

Next Canto will be after the end of the Challenge and declare the Skulltastic winner. And there is more to come for Dante's skull!

Sunday's with Sarah

Hello Everybody!

Its late Saturday night and I've had a long day, I'll be back in the morning to assume minion duties!

There is a great roster of talent to look forward to, get your beverage of choice and settle in.

This photo I took Wednesday morning 7:37am on the morning dog walk, just before sunrise.

- Sarah