From StuartL - Battletech Mechs - Gift Store - 50 Points

For my fourth and final post today, I am going to drop by the Gift Store.

In my local group, I am one of the only current members who plays Battletech, the other only shows up once in a blue moon, so we are never really able to play. However, a good friend of mine who is really into the game is moving to the area in Spring this year. So, I have been looking for other people who might be interested in getting into the system, so that we have some variety in our match-ups. Another friend of mine has tried a game and kind of liked it, but he is one of those hobbyists who almost never buys into a new game and when he does takes an absolute eternity to get anything painted. So, to help get him up and running faster, I decided to buy and paint a small starter force for him.

Wolverine, Archer and Locust

My friend likes to play the goodies in most games, but those are hard to find in the Battletech universe where the definition of 'good guys' is 'doesn't indiscriminately nuke civilian targets for giggles.' My friend also really likes wolves, for whatever reason. Taking those two nuggets of information, I eventually settled on painting a bunch of models from the mercenary unit Wolf's Dragoons.

Blackjack, Awesome and Spider

In the lore, the Wolf's Dragoons were sent to spy on the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere by the Clans, a group of eugenics loving, honour crazed nutters who thought they should be in charge of everything. The Dragoons worked as mercs for each of the Great Houses, and eventually decided that while the houses were despicable tyrants they were still marginally better than the clanners. When the Clans did invade, Wolf's Dragoons sided with the Great Houses, making them kinda, sorta one of the good guys???

These minis are all 3D printed, I found a designer (Syllogy) on My Mini Factory who is releasing most of the basic mech STLs for free. The smallest of the mechs is about the height of a 28mm infantry model, with the Archer and the Awesome being a fair bit bigger.

Scoring time:

6x28mm models (I know that they are nominally 6mm vehicles, but they are much bigger than that)

=30 Points

Gift Store = 20 Points

Total = 50 Points

My side duels

Squirrels +1 = 21

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, WW2 Japanese, Teutonics, Lizardmen, Gnolls, Arabs, Space Marines, Kung Fu Chinese, Wolf's Dragoons

Skullz - 200

Turnips - 85 Points

And that is all from me for this week.

Love these, not a game I've ever played but these are really cool. If you've done for the week does that mean i can relax

From StuartL - Hell Hath No Fury - Lady Sarah's Limousine - 35 Points

And here I am again needing another ride in the Limousine. This time, I am taking a detour from the studio to head in the direction of the gift store. It's not actually all that far from the High Adventure studio, but a star like me is hardly going to walk like one of those common folks.

So, I need to pay my way and once again I'm breaking into the stash of Reaper Bones minis.

As I mentioned before, civilian NPC's are a must. In this case I have another peasant, this time armed with a rolling pin and a burning torch. Has her husband gotten drunk at the tavern again and she is off to fetch him home? Is she part of a mob going to burn down the evil lord's castle? Is she some sort of proto-anarchist? Who knows, but I wouldn't want to stand in her way.

And just for fun, I have painted a large catapult. This is again from Reaper's Bones range and while all the parts don't quite fit perfectly, it still looks pretty cool. There aren't any crew with this, I guess Reaper figured that players could use it with goblins, dwarves, gnolls or elves at their own discretion. It is pretty chunky though, the base is an old CD.

Points wise:

1x28mm mini = 5 Points

1x28mm artillery piece = 10 Points

Limo ride = 20 Points

Total = 35 Points

And nothing for my duels.

More battle-axe action and I love the catapult. We used to play with one from a Star Wars set, think it was an Ewok one.

From StuartL - Big China in Little Trouble - High Adventure - 65 Points

Hello again,

It is time for me to finish off the Green Zone of the studios with a trip to the High Adventure stage. I was um-ing and ah-ing about what to paint for this, but finally settled on some minis to represent that most important of elements to a good adventure, the bad guys. All of these models are from Northstar's A Fistful of Kung-Fu range. 

Any good protagonist must have an equally despicable antagonist to fight against. In this case we have a sorcerer versed in all of the darkest magics and a Jiangshi, or Chinese Hopping Vampire as his bodyguard.

Providing the real muscle for the sorcerer are three flying demons and a minor demon. Armed with deadly weapons (or just really sharp claws), these four will be a challenge for any hero to overcome.

Finally, every good bad guy needs some talentless mooks to throw at the hero to keep them on their toes. These three gangster/cultist types should provide just enough of a distraction so that the sorcerer can make good his escape, ready to come back in the sequel.

In total there are 9 figures here, all of them were fun to paint up. Having read the rules for A Fistful of Kung Fu after buying the models, I sadly decided that it wasn't for me. Instead my gaming friends and I have been using some rules we knocked together for modern-ish skirmish games, so now I will need to figure out something for these guys.

And that brings me to the end of the Green Zone.

Scoring

9x28mm minis = 45 Points

High Adventure = 20 Points

Total = 65 Points.

My side duels:

Squirrels +1 = 20

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, WW2 Japanese, Teutonics, Lizardmen, Gnolls, Arabs, Space Marines, Kung Fu Chinese

Skullz = 200

Turnips = 85 Points

Fantastic, one of my favourite movies, and I now know where the limo was going to

From StuartL - Cleaning Up - Lady Sarah's Limousine - 30pts

Hi all,

So last week MartinC ended my last post telling me to 'work harder'. As he apparently needs me to do more than 3 posts per week, I have obliged and this week I have 4 posts for you. Perhaps he didn't realise that the more work I do, the more he has to do to?

Anyway, I left off at the Historical Drama stage of the studios and I have places to be. So, a quick trip in Lady Sarah's Limousine is called for.

This figure is from Reaper's Bones range of figures. One of the problems with most RPG ranges is that there are loads of Elven wizards or Half-Orc fighters, but more often than not you also need a lot of civilian NPCs. So, whenever Reaper did a kickstarter, I made sure to pick up any non-combatants on offer. This cleaner should pay for my ride over to the High Adventure part of the AHPC Studios, GmbH.

And just to add a little more diversity to this post, I also painted a campfire and its surrounding environment.

The fire, stump and log are all from, you guessed it, Reaper's Bones range. The rock is a piece of tree bark painted grey. The whole setup is mounted on an old CD. Now when the players in my D&D group get attacked in the middle of the night, we will have somewhere to stage the fight. 

For scoring, the campfire set is probably about 0.001 terrain cubes, and is mainly just base colours, a quick drybrush and a wash, so I will leave it to my minion to assign a score. (Am I working hard enough now Martin?)

Scores:

1x28mm mini = 5 Points

1x Limo ride = 20 Points

1x campfire = 5 Points

And nothing for any of my duels.

Call that hard work. Also you don't have to submit loads of posts, you could group them! Lovely work on the domestic and 5pts for the cool camp fire. Also where are you going

From PhilH: Typecast at the Casting Couch (27 Points)

With a breakthrough role in a wildly and unexpectedly popular new sci-fi movie, it’s easy to bask in the fame and fan adoration that comes with success. But while George has grand plans for a trilogy, it’s best to line up some other roles to keep one’s star power on the up.  

Hollywood Director, shouting: "I don't want Luke bloody Skywalker in my film! NEXT!

Yup, end up in the wrong role in the right kind of movie, get typecast and your career is messed up from the start. And to make things worse, your co-lead picks up plum roles as Indiana Jones and Blade Runner’s Deckard? Things can be tough in Hollywood. 

Of course all’s well that ends well in this story, with Mark Hamill going on to a highly successful voice acting career, mostly famously as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series.

Here’s Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars: Legion core set, in his Cloud City gear and defensive lightsaber pose. I wasn’t much of a fan of this model originally, but it grew on me as I worked on him.

As usual I added subtle OSL from his saber and as he’s our titular hero, I even did his eyes (quite pleased with how they came out tbh)

Not much more to say, but have some more photos to complete the 360. I’ve a Han Solo to paint that may feature (though it’s a 3D print as the official Legion Han Solo model suuuuucks).

7 points for my tally for Luke, plus 20 for the Typecasting Couch location. That’s it for me this week.

Next!

Aren't glad you aren't famous, you're not are you? Another great figure

From PhilH: Retro Space Combat (65 Points)

Staying on theme, we're back in a Galaxy Far Far Away for my stop in the Retro studio. Of course Star Wars itself is firmly Retro, and 1980s media, but as a child of the 90s, one of my fond memories and touch points for the franchise was the wonderful X-Wing (1993 on floppy disk!)  and TIE Fighter (1994 CD-ROM) computer games. My brother and I played these endlessly, dogfighting through outer space and taking down Star Destroyers in an X-Wing like true heroes of the Rebellion. 

In homage, here's a 3D printed TIE fighter from Thingiverse. 

I painted some detailing into the cab to represent the instrument panel and intimidating red glow / emergency lighting. 

It's Legion scale, about 1:43, so quite a sizeable piece. Duros for scale. Yes, it doesn’t fit in my light box, so here it is on the shelf. 

I spent ages trying to wrangle this onto a magnetised flying stand, but the 3D print turned out too heavy. I gave up on that, and instead ran off a landing platform (also Thingiverse) as a piece of terrain for it to sit on. It was designed for a different TIE model, so it only narrowly fits and I had to resize the cradle, and it doesn't sit perfectly. Serves the purpose though, I guess I’m building an Imperial forward operating base board now.

I painted the platform entirely by airbrush, I wasn’t getting the best consistency through it, but it was a pretty quick job.  

As far as points go, the TIE as a 40mm vehicle is 25 points.

The Landing pad is eight inches on its longest side, but less than six tall, so roughly fills a terrain cube, for 20 points

20 points for the Retro studio 

Totalling 65 points, a fourth studio and third squirrel (if terrain is its own category?)

Fantastic, love the Tie fighter, now I've got the distinctive doppler effect running through my head

From PhilH: SciFi from a Galaxy Far, Far Away (74 Points)

AHPC Studios has provided great impetus to revisit my stop-start Star Wars project. Most of my Imperials were painted a couple of years back, but I've a suitably motley collection of Rebels that I hadn’t got round to. For the SciFi Studio, here's a squad of them ready to fight for freedom and democracy and all that good stuff.

These are one of the original Rebel squads from the Legion Core set, done in forest camo and basing. I aimed for a slightly rag-tag look, I’m thinking I’ll do a second squad probably in brownish camo, similar colours to oak leaf and mix them up.

I was pleased with how the blue-skinned duros came out, I went over his skin a few times before I was content, working from purple shadows, through blue. There's quite a bit of stippled texture to his bald head, that doesn't really come out in the photo.

Also the Rebel he's with got his screen accurate white beard, apparently that’s obscure named character 'Nik Sant'.

They are joined by an Astromech droid. This was going to be a future Studio but I decided to do something else instead. This is a 3D Print, I don't recall the source, probably Thingiverse. The off-white on black played merry hell with the photos.

Seven 35mm infantry at 7 Points each = 49

The Astromech is a bit diddy, so say 5 points for it

20 Points for SciFi Studio

For a total of 74 Points, a third studio and my second squirrel.

Nice to see Star Wars stuff that isn't just white and black. Great job on this squad

Sunday Minion Reporting for a bit of a nap

 Morning all, hope you have had a good week. I was looking forward to a quiet weekend, bit of shopping, loads of rugby on TV and a little painting.

However the normally chilled Sunday slumberers have decided to have a bumper day with 11 posts, including several from the same people. Normally I would moan "Why couldn't you just put them all in the same points bomb" but I'm doing the same to Tamsin on Tuesday so carry on.

We are expecting a visit from the Director General himself today of shape up

From Steve K Saturday, Wolf Riders 165pts .

 

Now then, 

First up this week I have some Oathmark wolf riders, that I'm using as warg riders for my lord of the rings project. 

The first 8 are armed with melee weapons, ready to support the foot sloggers.

The next 8 are armed with bows.

I also painted up this Rohan foot character, which I'll add to a unit as a horn blower.

The whole lot together. 

16 x 28mm mounted - 120pts

1 x 28mm foot - 5pts

Total 125pts.

Cheers

Steve.

Sorry for being a little late posting these up, I only noticed after my minioning shift had ended. 

Great work on these wolf riders, the Oathmark models really fit the LotR aesthetic nicely. I think you have under-scored them though, 28mm cavalry are worth 10 points a piece.

From GregB: Director Krennic and Death Trooper Bodyguards (49 points)

Director Krennic and his Death Trooper body guards - figures from Fantasy Flight Games

For my last submission today (sorry Stuart!) we have the antagonist from the film "Rogue One" - Director Krennic, accompanied by his bodyguard squad of sinister Imperial Death Troopers. These are all figures from Fantasy Flight Games range for Star Wars "Legion". 

One of the many things that made "Rogue One" so awesome was the non-supernatural nature of the protagonists and antagonists. Clearly, it was a sci-fi setting of course, with all that can entail, but Ben Mendelsohn's portrayal of Director Krennic, leader of the Death Star development program, was so well done. Thankfully, the Death Star or the Galactic Empire do not exist in the real world (at least, not yet), but Director Krennic types are everywhere in our increasingly futile-o-crat bound society. Krennic is a pencil pusher, a super bureaucrat, adept at navigating and climbing in the bureaucracy of the Galactic Empire. Never mind The Force, he has a Program with a Budget. Never mind Order 66, Krennic could have simply buried the Jedi order with TPS report audits. 

Director Krennic, prepared to sort out a few bureaucratic SNAFUs personally...

Sure, he is working on a genocide-level terror weapon, but for him it's all about getting the credit - even after Vader nearly strangles him! Will the Emperor be told I did a good job? Switch out "Death Star" and replace it with "Winnipeg Regional Health Authority" or "Competition Bureau of Canada" and his movie dialogue is depressingly close to real-life. Death Stars and Sith Lords are products of our imagination, but there are Director Krennics all over the place, right now, in our world, accumulating a defined benefit pension obligation that your taxes will have to somehow fund.

So look, he makes an awesome character for a Star Wars game! And Fantasy Flight did a great job on the miniature, although having his pistol drawn is a touch aspirational - I would have preferred him to be holding a stylus or a file folder. But the sculptor captured Krennic's near-constant annoyance with his subordinates, and for that, deserves praise!

The Imperial Death Troopers, on the other hand, are thankfully NOT a common feature of our real world. I believe the idea for these Troopers came from one of the Star Wars FPS video games from the 90s? I'm not certain on that, but they sure looked cool in "Rogue One".

No need to panic! The Death Trooper are here!

Not only is their armour black, sleek and sinister, but they are festooned with all sorts of different blasters - which they carry with them everywhere! The "Rogue One" film handled them brilliantly - I mean, sure, a small child DID manage to out-whit them (they didn't seem too intent on burning up calories to search for young Jyn Erso, did they?), but notice how the Death Troopers never have any silly Stormtrooper-esque dialogue (i.e. "they're over there!" or "get them" or whatever). Rather, when they are present you catch the faint audio snippets of some kind of closed-channel radio chatter, and that's it. They are communicating with each other, but the only message they'll send to you will come from the barrel of a blaster. I find it makes them more sinister.

I love these poses - Curt described them as having a real "special forces" look, and I think that description is perfect.

Finally, when they are sent to combat, they actually hit pretty hard, exacting a heavy toll on the brave Rebel's making the raid on Scarif.

A handy DLT-19D blaster on the left, while the fellow on the right prepares a grenade...they are going to clear that room...

Great firing poses - they might actually hit something!

Once more, I have to hand it to the sculptors employed by Fantasy Flight Games - they really nailed these models. The blasters, the grenades, the grenade launchers, the harnesses, the cool helmets, it's all there.

Now painting these all-black sinister SOBs was a bit of a head scratcher....how to capture the look? Maybe this called for some grisaille? Hah! Hell no. In the end, I did my best with grey highlights and a lot of black washes. Thankfully GW's new "Nuln Oil" is not as f*cked over as its new "Agrax Earthshade", and so still has applications on subject like this. I also added some red for the eye lenses and scopes, and touch of green on the helmets. I considered attempting some kind of gloss varnish, but decided against it in the end. 

The garrison deploys...

So, these seven 40mm figures should be good for another 49 points - and should also bring today's journey through the Star Wars setting to an end. Thanks for reading - if work travel allows, I should have something next week, but if not, well, we'll catch up on another Saturday after that. Keep up the great work everyone!

If only the world rewarded/punished all of its bureaucrats based on their actual performance, maybe the world would be a better place. Sadly this is not the case and we probably aren't that far off having our first Sith Lords (minus the magic powers) running the place.

These figures make a nice icing on your Imperial cake, hopefully they serve you well on the tabletop and the Emperor will be pleased.  

From RayR - 25mm Border family - 15 Points

 

We leave the sunny hills of Portugal and head for the grey rainy weather on the Border of England and Scotland for my third post of the day.

Any show I attend I always try to pick up a few figures from Col Bill's Wargaming Depot  as do the rest of the Rejects. I'm not 100%, but I think I picked these up last year at one of the Partizan shows.

These are 3 figures from Col Bill's very own Border Reiver range. They are a Border family, minus the Mum!

I do like a few civilians, so thought these would be a good addition to my Donnybrook collection. 

Now I'm not gonna paint up an army, Postie already has 25mm Border Reivers, so I don't need them.

They are beautifully caste figures and almost paint themselves!

The 3 men of the family will earn me 15 points.

Mum will turn up later in the Challenge, I'm sure of it?

Models that can paint themselves could explain those challengers who can manage scores in the 3000+ points range, but I think you may be exaggerating. These minis do look great, civilians are a fantastic way of making any miniature battlefield look more interesting. I like the natural earthy tones you have used for the figures, I doubt the folks living along the border were well off for the most part. Nice work.