From PeterD yet More WW2 Destroyers....(9 points)

 

It's been a week since my last post and all I've got to show for myself is these four little ships worth a whopping 8 points.   These are 4 1/2400 scale Italian destroyers and torpedo boats for my WW2 naval project.  The original plan here was to model all of the ships that took part in the actions over a 6 month period from destroyers up.  We'll see how far I get with this plan but at least I'm getting a good variety of escort vessels for a decent campaign.

Closest to the camera are two GHQ models of the Soldati class Aviere (aviator) and the Poeti class Alfredo Oriani.  Both models are sold as Soldati class but the Soldati were only slightly different from the preceding Poeti class.  Leave it to the Italians to name one class of ships after poets and then name the lead ship of the next class after the Blackshirts!  Both of these ships were heavily engaged in the convoy battles.

Now we have the Spica class torpedo boats (or destroyer escorts) Aretusa and Cigno.  These are CinC models.  With both navies mining classical mythology for ship names its not surprising that there could be both an Aretusa and HMS Arethusa on table.  At least it's not Trafalgar with two Neptunes plus a Neptuno!  

So that is 4 hulls at 2 points each for a grand total of 8 points for my overall totals and my Naval Side Duel total.  I think I need another 25 hulls or so to catch Adam assuming he stands still for a while.  Don't hold your breath on that happening.

Richard P - 20mm WW2 Italian Desert Artillery (97 Points)

One of my ongoing projects is WW2 in the desert. These were picked up for a bargain from a chap on Facebook and I believe are old Raventhorpe sculpts which paint up very nicely and I shall be getting a few more after painting these. As we play several rulesets including Rapid Fire, Battlegroup and Arc of Fire I have tried to base them up so they can easily be used for the different rules. For Battlegroup I need an artillery piece plus 3 crew for Rapid Fire I need an artillery piece plus 4 crew so I have based 3 crew on the gun base and added a separate figure for Rapid Fire. The spare figure will eventually be added to Battlegroup Loader Teams when I get the additional figures.

Think this works out as 16 x 20mm Figures = 64 Points + 4 x 20mm Artillery = 32 Points

Total = 96 Points.

Really enjoyed painting these Raventhorpe figures. Hopefully do some more soon. 

From Mike W [The Tomb] Mummy King and his Guard (40 Points)

Continuing with my new pet side project of an Egyptian Undead Army, may a present the Mummy King and three of his Guards.

The figures are all from Reaper, the Mummy King being metal, whilst the Guards are plastic of some kind. Detail on the figures is great and it made the painting job seem really easy.

Undercoated Mummy's Guard figures,
made of some kind of flexible plastic

I've mounted the figures on British 2p coins and added a desert base - fine sand and a dried grass tuft to give some interest.

The finished figures

As with my other figures, I undercoated these ones white, then did a coat on earth colour to get the base for the 'mummy' look. I dry brushed on light desert sand colour from Valiejo and did the 'fleshy' areas grey.

The Mummy King, dressed in rags & riches!

... and a better front view, I think less is best with dried grass in a desert setting.

I washed the bandages with a watered down brown wash and the fleshy areas with dark tone washes before picking out the bandages again in light sand colour and highlighting the fleshy parts with light grey.

A view of the unfortunate Guardsmen buried for eternity with their king in his TOMB!

.

Gold trim was added for weapons, shields and headdresses etc and the dark blue / light blue decorative patterns have been kept to give the army a bit of  a theme as it develops - these areas got a bit of a blue wash and the gold trim got a brown wash.

And a front view of the three guardsmen, who happen to come three to a pack!

All finished with matt varnish!

The guardsmen also come with a variant pose with a spear in their hands, although the soft plastic is about OK for these sword wielding guys, if I get some of the spearmen I'll likely replace the spears with metal ones as I hate a bent spear on my figures.

POINTS

4 x 28mm figures @ 5Pts each    = 20 Points

Dungeon Chamber Bonus            = 20 Points

TOTAL                                            40 Points

From PaulSS: Landwehr Battalion Osterode (102pts)

Taking a break from  exploring the Chambers of Challenge, I've completed my first Napoleonic unit of 2021 with a battalion of Hanoverian Landwehr for the Hundred Days Campaign in Belgium.

These stout fellows represent Landwehr Battalion Osterode, part of the 4th Hanoverian Brigade of Lieutenant General Sir Lowry Coles 6th Division at the Battle of Waterloo.

This unit was made by mixing a box each of Warlord Games Waterloo British line and Late Hanoverian Infantry, I find the mix of shako and field cap more pleasing than all of one or the other. The second half of the two boxes is in the backlog and I hope to complete them in a future entry for the challenge.  

The standards are from GMB Designs, although I note that the Regimental appears to have become a bit frosted when varnishing, bugger!

Twenty 28mm figures and a couple of standards will add 102 points to my target.

28mm Napoleonics Duel Totalizer: 14 mounted, 54 foot

From TomG - Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Guardroom - 34 points

Hello everyone! 

Once more we plough on through the Chambers of Challenge, and today that takes us to the Guardroom, where we find two trigger happy chappies, but what are they guarding? 

All of the elements used for this vignette are from Mantic Games, with the weapon rack from their Dungeon Saga game, the two guards are "Basilean" crossbow men and the chest are from their Vanguard skirmish game.

I struggled to get this mini to a point where I was happy with the colours, so I asked my wife for advice and she pointed out that I had no spot colour that would stand out. So she recommended red, and was totally right, as it brought the whole scene to life. 

And here we see the great booty that is being guarded, although with the amount of gold that has fallen out, I wonder if it's not the guards themselves that need... guarding. 

Points - 

2x 28mm Infantry = 10pts

Challenge Entry = 20pts

Total = 30pts

Protect the Eagles - The Hatchery, Mark Backhouse 74 points

 For the hatchery it is a return to 2mm and Ancient Rome! What better way than with a Roman Eagle of the 36th legion being defended in a tough orbis formation at the Battle of Nicopolis in 48BC! Surrounded by the enemy they formed a circle and fought their way to safety saving the legion’s honour! The figures are 2mm and hand sculpted. 

Next up a couple of bases of scenery. A temple and a small farm or settlement. Brigade models this time. In front of them is a unit I’ll use for a variety of purposes but the label on them today says ex-gladiators. They will form part of my slave revolt campaign I’m currently playing.

Next up is a base of infantry with some hand sculpted elephants. These could be used as Carthaginians or even Numidian troops supporting Pompey at Thapsus with their pachyderms. These are really tiny! Hopefully they look a bit more than just grey blobs!

Here is the money shot with them all slightly anachronistically flung together!

Last time Curt scored me 10 points per base. So that’s 50 points plus 20 for getting in the Eagles!😝

A total of 70 then!

Cheers

Mark Backhouse

From TeemuL: Terrify me, The Pit of the Pendulum (30 points)

"Uggla" continues towards the principal's office, he thinks when he hears something coming from the tunnel. Something big. Something many. After the previous dagger incident he starts to feel a bit nervous and checks that his badge is visible and moves closer to the wall. In the end the something is actually someone with many legs, she speeds past our brave Shellington, who has never seen this big a spider. "Tasty hobbitses" can be heard again from the direction where the spider queen runs. Shellington scratches his head and wipes away a tear of sweat and decides to continue his journey without worrying too much about the pest management of his university.

That was something terrifying, wasn't it? Huge spider queen running past you when you least expected it. Yes, S.N. Owl-Ord continues his walk in the Chambers and passes by Shelob, who is going to eat some tasty hobbitses (she thinks). She is a metal miniature from the Clutches of Shelob box by Games Workshop, sculpted by Trish Morrison, if I'm not mistaken.

On the post regarding Valhallans, I said don't use Black Templar Contrast to paint black and here I did exactly that! I painted the whole thing black, then gave it a light drybrush with medium grey. Then using Druchii Violet I painted the whole thing again, making the grey areas quite violet and black areas with a tone of violet, just to make her look more sinister and terrifying. I could have painted some eyes, fangs and whatever, but I like it how is now. Very happy. Assembling was a bit pain, but using superglue and greenstuff makes wonders and the legs are now firmly in the place. In short, super glue on the other part and a ball of green stuff on the other part and stick together. Green stuff keeps the parts together until the glue hardens the stuff and makes the bond strong. Hobby hint, please use and make it better.

Pointswise I would ask for 10 points for the cavalry sized miniature. She is not cavalry, but the size is pretty much correct. And then 20 points for the room. Total 30 points, my friend minion.

10 points to my GW side duel (total 147).

This one is a named character, clearly a she, so I'm labeling her as Sarah's Choice as well, this isn't a random werebear or anything.

From Curt: Work Servitors from the Grim Dark Future (50 Points)

 For 'The Golem's Haunt' I have six tireless (or is it forever tired?) work servitors for my 40K/Dark Heresy collection. 

MikeF scooped me on this theme (good one Mike!), but I thought I'd stick with it as I needed to complete these models as they've been balefully looking at me for the better part of a year.

These rather dolorous chaps are from Wargames Exclusive, an eastern European miniature company, whose products I've always really enjoyed. All their figures are made from resin, quite delicate and beautifully designed.

For those not savvy to GW lore, servitors are essentially cyborg slaves who's biological bits have been harvested from criminals, dissidents, and those poor souls thought to be undesirable. 

The reason for creating servitors rather than just building robots is that, in the distant past, the Imperium suffered a long, horrific war caused by rebellious machines benefitting from artificial intelligence (or 'Abominable Intelligence'). So now, they manufacture 'thinking' machines using repurposed cerebral cortexes and other bits grafted to machine parts. Yep, pretty horrific. In the grim dark future, Mankind has become a big supporter of 'social recycling'.

I really like that these figures are not combat orientated, but rather designed to set a domestic scene on some Imperial ship, or perhaps a compliant world. I especially like the fellow furiously polishing, perhaps the shoe of some dignitary, or maybe drying off a worthy's favourite pet; and the other servitor, pale in 'hand', cleaning a window, admiring his reflection: deus ex Machina indeed. 

These six fellas, along with the Chamber bonus, will give me 50 points AND my 6th Squirrel Point!

Next Up: Hmm. Not sure. Either a teleport, or a peek into the Chamber of Darkness...

- Curt

From Barks: Discworld witches (53 points)

Terry Pratchett’s witches are a crucial part of his rural communities. Each one brings her own style to their role of combined village doctor, midwife, veterinarian, and defender of the voiceless.

These 40mm figures are from Micro Arts Studio in Poland and can be used for the Witches boardgame. They represent teenage apprentice witches. I'm quite happy with the lantern- I used Iyanden Yellow Contrast then a little bit of white in the centre.

Tiffany Aching

Annagramma Hawkin

Dimity Hubbub

Petulia Gristle

I was going to eke these out for various Sorceress Sarah uses, but couldn’t resist getting them all out in one go.

4x 40mm figures: 28 points

Teleporter use: 20 points

Sorceress bonus: 5 points

JeremyM, Aliens: BugHunt

 Hi Again,

Back at work this week so my painting productivity has certainly plummeted. But I managed to complete the 4 colonial marine figures that come with the new Upper Deck Aliens:Bug Hunt game. Just in time to as I'm hoping to run it with our local group via zoom tomorrow night. Get ready to shout "They are coming out of the God Damned Walls!" Curt.

I just realized will working on this that technically this is my 5th aliens themed board game, as I have the Legendary Encounters card game, Aliens vs Predator the Hunt Begins Version 1 and Version 2, this game and the new Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps. I love the film but perhaps that is a bit much...at least until the next one comes along especially if it has minis! Of all of them I think Bug Hunt has the lowest theme value but it seems to still be a reasonably fun simple game, good enough for zoom I figure so it has its place at least during the pandemic.

The figures aren't great to be honest. A bit smaller or at least thinner than the others I have in my growing collection and definitely less detailed. I started by replacing their bases with 3d printed ones so they fit the sci fi theme a bit better, and a lot less work than trying to add theme to their plain plastic ones. I was lucky that these ones fit the base rings, although they are a bit loose. I tried a few different skin tones and once again am not totally happy with the results but you have to stop somewhere and move on. The camo is also a fairly new thing for me surprisingly for a mini painter, but I think it turned out okay, certainly good enough for board game pieces.

The one figure I'm very happy with is this guy. He came with this blob of plastic that vaguely resembled a pulse rifle, and he's the only one of the 4 armed with one. Rather disappointing for the most iconic gun from the film. Thankfully I had a hasslefree miniatures version that I was able to swap. I also was able to use some hot water to bend his head back a fair bit and make his pose slightly more reasonable than the overly awkward one. Now it looks to me like he is firing backward as he kind of shuffles away from some horrible acidic bloody creature.

Here is his original pose where he is looking down at his boot laces or perhaps staring at what should have been pulse rifle. Seriously it is so bad some reviewers thought there was no pulse rifle mini included with the game.

I'll end with a quick thank you to my wife. I had a bit of an accident while finishing these guys and managed to spill almost an entire new bottle of Agrax Earthshade on my khaki pants. Somehow she managed to get the stain out, likely because we acted fast. [Insert joke about brown stains on my pants here_________]. Bloody hate those GW pots, I may have to decant it into some dropper bottles given how clumsy I can be. So 4 28mm figures is 20 more points to my tally.

Jeremy