From BrendonW: - Goblin Archer Horde (125 points)

25 x 28mm, Plastic, Goblins.

These old Games Workshop Night Goblins have been repainted in my first experiment. I have wanted to create a Goblin army for Kings of War based on my old collection. Under old Warhammer rules Goblins usually existed as a part of an Orcs and Goblins army but KoW has them running solo. The concept for Goblins has always been very Zulu. Tharsands of them sir! So more are in the pipeline.

I wanted to get away from the bright Disney Goblin Green skin color so have used Vallejo Green-Grey. I also wanted to try stepping away from the plain black robes usually associated with them.

I was surprised at how much more muted they became overall. I also had a go at painting a few rusty things (standard, gong and Moon icon).

My first submission since returning from a Holiday. You think I would have painted something with less figures and that also had more prep work done. Lots of trimming off the slotta base Tab and flash removal prior to painting. That probably helped get my head back into painting mode though.

Cheers from Brendon

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I love these Brendon, great work.  The new 'Night Goblin' colour scheme works really well and the muted effect just helps bring the unit together as a whole.  Great basing and attention to detail - a solid 125 points to your tally.  

From ByronM: 30k Mechanicum Archmagos Prime and Greek Unarmoured Phalanx (102 points)

This week my hobby induced ADD took me in way to many directions, so I have about 6 different things all started but not finished, heck I haven't even started next weeks theme entry or figured out what to do for it!  So, I only have 2 smallish entries to put up today.

First up is the Archmagos Prime on Abeyant for my 30k Mechanicum army, which now makes it an actual legal force to play with an HQ.

The model itself is pretty cool as an Archmagos Prime is one of the highest members of the cult of the Omnimessiah and has given their body over to the machine.  There is very little left that is even remotely human on this model.

Then there is the Abeyant, his transport and control unit.  The model for it looks like either a pulpit for him to preach the ways of the machine God from or some kind of cyber organ or synthesizer, at least to me.  The transport is made to hold his custom base so that you can have him on or off the transport.

Now that it is a valid force, I have also provided an overall picture of the army so far.  This is in-fact all that I bought initially to do for the force, but I have of course fallen in love with them, and more are on the way....

The other models I actually got completed this week are another 16 Greeks.  This time more unarmoured Greek hoplites that I did as a support unit of mercenaries or militia for either side that I am working on.

These are once again more of the Warlord (Immortal) figures as I continue to move work through them before going on to others in any meaningful way.  I still have at least 4 more units of them, but hope to get at least 2-3 done next week so that I am closer to being able to paint the Victrix ones that I have up next.

Nothing fancy with these guys, as I did them all in robes, so very little armour to paint up.  While simple individually, I think they work as a group so am calling them done.

That's it for this week, hope everyone has a good week.

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Wow Bryon, you are really producing some amazing work for this year's challenge.  I am going to count the Archmagos as a vehicle, but with a crew and an additional couple of points for the increased scale of the piece, so 102 points in total, another fabulous week's work Sir. 

From TeemuL: Spanish Civil and Age of Sigmar (69 points)

This week saws all kinds of stuff from me. Firstly I painted three Nurgling Bases from the Blightwar box to get some more "troopers" for my Mixed Chaos army for our Firestorm campaign. I decided to use quite bright colors, Moot Green, Biel-Tan Green wash and some yellow and blue drybrushing for the skin. They are not masterpieces, but better than I expected from them.

Then the last four unpainted Spanish Civil War Republican Militia members I have. I bought a pack last year from Empress Miniatures for the Curtgeld purposes and this year I finally managed paint the last of them. I gave all these blue trousers as well, just to keep an unified look on different sculpts. Limited palette helps with that of course, there is actually dirty white and dirty yellow on clothes, but they are not that visible in the photos. I gave them a plain red flag (with my extraordinary green stuff skills), which would allow them to fight in pretty much any force. Now I only need the opposing force, some rules and an opponent... The first two are probably the easiest. :) I could use those Crooked Dice Nazi Lizards against them, but they all have fancy sub-machine guns, so it is probably an overkill. :)

My whole Republican Militia force, 13 models

The stretch goal for this week was this Bloodstoker, which I just managed to finish. I just need add some tufts to the base, which I forgot. This fellow comes from the Age of Sigmar starter set and uses his whip to make the Khorne fighters to run even faster in to the battle. The blade on the right arm is actually stuck into his arm stump, he is not holding it with his fingers or anything. Looks quite brutal with the barbed whip.

Torn pants

Scoring wise the 4 Spanish guys are worth 5 points a piece, so 20 points.

Curt scored the Nurglings earlier in this Challenge with this formula: "...round out the Nurglings on the mass bases as 15mm figures", what that means, I have no idea. I feel sorry for you, my minion.

Bloodstoker is the same size as some other Khorne models I painted last year, which were counted as 40mms, so 7 points.

That gives me a total of 27 and some points.

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Oh I do like a scoring challenge!  Fortunately Curt has already led the way with the Nurglings so using his method I'm plumping for 42 points for the little chaps giving you a grand tally of 69 for the entry, well done Teemu!

From PeteF: AWI 71st Foot - Fraser's Highland Regiment - Tartan Aaaargh! (132 points)

The fightin' 71st

One of this year's projects is Wetzel's Mill, a battle that was fought shortly after Cowpens by some of the same troops - it is one of the scenarios in Warlord's Black Powder Rebellion! supplement. I'm hoping to have all the troops ready for a one day event in Portland in early December.

The 71st foot were at both Cowpens and Wetzel's Mill. They were one of five or so highland regiments that fought in the Revolutionary war (American War of Independence).

Perrys

I have a bunch of sprues from two Liberty or Death sets - not sure what I was thinking getting quite so many - as well as some assorted AWI Perrys that I bought from someone online. The assorted Perrys included some in kilts. The kilt had probably been abandoned by the time of the Southern campaign - but maybe a few of the hardier and more traditionally minded souls kept theirs? 

Grenadiers

The kilts won't make the button counters happy but I did do things like paint the officers' coats brighter (they were scarlet whereas the other ranks' coats were brick red - in reality all would likely be faded and ripped up on campaign). There's a grenadier company that will eventually be part of a converged grenadier battalion. Speaking of buttons - does anyone have a recommended brush or technique for doing buttons? I keep finding that my small brushes are too pointy (and make a line rather than a blob) and my larger brushes tend to get a stray hair or just hold too much paint. It all results in rather uneven buttons.

The colonel

The heads and some of the figures are from Kings Mountain Miniatures.  They're somewhat heroic but I like them. Plastic bodies from Warlord/Wargames Factory. Rest of the metal from Perry.

This was my first try at Tartan - I experimented with blacklining either the outline or across the weave (The real "government set" tartan has a dark strand in both places).  It was brutally hard painting and blacklining over the highly textured Wargames Factory breeches - these really are much better painted and washed with Strong Tone! Someone suggested that it only needs to look like tartan at 2 feet - I'm pleased with the results - I especially liked doing the hats with the blob of blue where the red weaves cross.

I considered doing a wound on the casualty but then realized that because he was fighting the Continentals that he had been shot in the back. I magnetized him so that he can be placed on a base dial that I'm experimenting with - this is a heroclix base that's been taken apart and given new numbers - it goes up to 12 so it will work for severl rulesets. I think I'll prefer this to casualty caps/markers  and I can use the magnets so that the same dials will work for different armies/eras.  

Heroclix dial - tiny magnet

Where the casualty was shot in the back -with a magnet

Highland casualty - goes up to 11 (or 12)

If it looks like this battalion is missing a musician - it is. He's not quite finished - but guess what instrument the bonnie wee lad will be playin.

Lang may yer lum reek

One Mounted, one dismounted officer and one casualty from KMM
13 Foot with Warlord bodies and KMM heads
9 Perry Foot

Total (all 28mm) 1 mounted and 24 foot for 130 points

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Tremendous Pete!  I admire any chap that takes on the challenge of painting tartan on the wee lads and first attempt or not these look stunning.  My morning cup of Earl Grey was nearly spat across the room when I read your reasoning behind not indicating the wound on your fallen hero, very funny.  Now on to the points, I am awarding 132, a couple of bonus points for bravery and clever basing.  Many congratulations on a fine unit and reaching your target score - a cracking start to the Saturday Showcase.

From DaveX: Waterloo Test Figure (5 Points)

It has been a busy week for me and I have only managed to paint one figure, however saying this I have made a start on several others and am currently doing a batch paint that I wish to have ready by this time next week (fingers crossed).

I will be doing various units from Waterloo in 28mm. The first figure I painted was from Perry Miniatures and is from the Coldstream Guards.  These chaps wore white paints at the infamous battle.  The figures from Perry are very nice.

I rushed the paint job as I have lots of these guys to do and plan on batch painting them.  As per usual I blocked in the colours, used strong tone dip, waited 3 days then highlighted.  Thanks for looking.

Boom! 5 Points!

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Boom indeed! Lovely work Dave. For a 'rush' paintjob I must say that this test figure looks very fine. I quite like the black-lining you've done around his webing and kit as it really makes them distinct and stand out from the iconic red coat. The Strong Tone dip did a very nice job, providing just enough weathering on the trousers to reflect those muddy, rainy days of June 1815. 

Well done and I look forward to seeing more from this project.

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From MilesR: A Story of 3 P's (283 Points)

 The first P in this trio are Paratroopers and take the form of 18 WW2 Italian para's.  These are 28mm metals from Warlord and they were "OK"  The came in a box set of 22 but only 18 seem were serviceable.

 This will complete my Italian collection (infantry wise) for the North Africa campaign.

Simple desert basing.  I copied the camo from the box art on the packaging they came with.  Not the most diligent form of uniform research but they're done and table ready.

The next P in the trilogy is a Pirate Ship!  Specifically the Sloop kit from Firelock Games for their wonderful Blood and Plunder ruleset.  The ship model is superb and consists of a cast resin hull, wooden dowels for masts and metal detail parts (Cannons, hatches, etc).  The sails and flags are available as downloads and print out nicely of a inkjet printer.

The ship is 18 inches long and 14 high - I included my recently painted Captain to show the scale of the boat.

I'm a sucker for ship models and really had a blast putting this ship together and then painting her up.

The cannons are really nice casts and the rigging is minimal to allow for ease of movement for figures.  The Sloop is armed with six cannons and six swivel guns.

 The only finicky part was attaching the sails but after the first one went on the others followed quickly.  The sails can be found here and are a PDF with images for both sides.  Simply cut them out, glue together and attach to the ship.  Before rigging the sails to the ship, I stained them with a sand colored wash to match what  weather sails look like.

 I think she looks grand and will soon be joined by two other larger ships as I finish out my Pirate collection.

In the lower left you can see where there was a small casting issue with the hull.  I decided to leave if as battle damage rather than try to repair the problem.  I think it looks fine and give the ship a little bit of character.

The model kit comes with black elastic thread to use for the ratlines.  It's really easy to install.  I tie a knot a one end and thread to line up from the chain plate (the lower part of the ratlines) and then up and down until you thread it from the top to bottom of the final hole on the chain plate.  Pull it taught (but not to much) and tie off another knot.  Done!  The elastic provides a lot of give as your reaching for figures.

A parting shot as she sails off into the sunset - oh just imagine she's that she's at sea and not dry docked on my painting desk.

I haven't named the Sloop yet (I know that's bad form) but just haven't figured out which faction will get her.  Perhaps I'll let the Challenge community name her.  Please note "Boaty McBoatface" and any derivations thereof would be considered historically inaccurate.

Lastly we come to the final "P"which is, of course, Pterrain!  This is an old english phrasing of Terrain where the P is silent.  I'm sure you all learned that spelling in school.  If you didn't then Im very sorry to say your education system has failed you.

20 more 4x4 sections have joined the collection and also some special details.

Here's the collection so far - it makes a nice little dungeon / catacomb to go exploring in.

 I decide to make some removable bars that will turn a "U" section into a prison cell.  Nothing all that fancy but it gets the job done.

 I added some LED lighting to 2 tiles - this one is a simple fire pit.  The black embers are a mixture of grey railroad ballast, matt medium and a few drops of black india ink.  It really looks like coals in person and dries rock hard.  No points for this tile as it's been counted earlier.

The lights are basic tea lights.  I picked up 24 on Amazon for like $5.00 so be prepared to see a lot of them over the next few weeks.

 Just for fun, I 3D printed a still to serve as an objective piece.  It was a fun little project and very helpful in teaching me how to run the printer.

 I added the green ooze on a whim but think i really looks good.  It's just Eileens tacky glue with a little green paint mixed in.

The boiler for the still has it's own LED "fire".  Really just scratching the surface of what one can do with both LED's and 3D printers.

I'll be quite over the next few weeks as work is conspiring to take me away from the painting desk with upcoming trips to London, Sao Paulo and our annual offsite in the Turks.  If only British Airways would let me paint while on board their flights.  What good is being "Gold Status" for their frequent flyer program if I can't paint while onboard?

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So much to love in this entry, wow. Great work on the WWII Italians (I think there's nothing wrong with copying the boxart as long as you believe the artists took longer than 5 minutes research before doing their drawings). It must feel good to finish off a contingent for your North African collection. 

The Pterrain (we pronounce it with a soft 'puh' here in Canada) continues to amaze. I love the prison bar add-ons and that 3D print of the 'likker still' is just stonking. The LED fire and Eileen's Ooze are perfect touches to help set the scene.

But the piece de resistance has to be the Sloop. Wow! What an absolutely beautiful craft for your pirates to bob about in while reaving the Spanish Main. I really like the paintjob you've given her, especially the light woodgrain for the deck (very realistic). That elastic rigging you describe sounds (and looks) absolutely brilliant - what an ingenious approach to an otherwise daunting chore. Name? I dunno, I think we've used it before but I've always been fond of 'The Challenger'.

Points? Hmm. Well, the Italian paras are easy at 90 points. The dungeon sections we'll place at 100 points for the twenty sections and associated bits. We'll give 8 points for the still for its creativity and fun. Finally for the Sloop lets say it's the equivalent of five vehicles with some extra for the rigging: 85 points. All together, a very respectable 268 points. Thanks for the very entertaining entry Miles and safe travels for the next few weeks!

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