From SylvainR: D&D - 28mm NPCs, Bugs and Manticore (45 points)

Here is a new bunch of very colorful miniatures for my Dungeons & Dragons collection.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I have been running a D&D campaign for my daughter and her friends for about 6 months now. Four weeks ago, my son expressed an interest in playing as well and since sibling rivalry makes it improbable that they would play together, I am running a second campaign for him. Thus, there is a need in my family for new monsters (that last sentence sounds weird).

I decided that a few NPCs were needed, especially since the hero avatars of my underage children visit a lot of taverns where they drink beer and smoke pipes. So an inn keeper was hired. That model was given to me by one of the local gamers, PeterD maybe? She was intended to be a queen, but I cut out the scepter and lowered her social status. It's a metal model, but I have no idea of the maker. The flute player is a Reaper model I found in the huge "JeremyM donation".

I tried to do a stone tile pattern on the base of the inn keeper, but it looks more like a weird carpet pattern of the 70s.

Before JeremyM gave me a pile of cool D&D miniatures, I started to gather cheap options for monsters. My kids had a game with insect models (I forgot the name of the game, so I can't credit the model maker). Since many parts were missing, it ended up in the garbage but I saved the beetles and the caterpillars.

For colors, I found inspiration from photos of actual beetles but also added details like golden trims in order to fit them in a future Egyptian-theme adventure I have in mind.

For the caterpillars, there are so many colorful options in nature, I just picked two that looked cool.

I am sure the heroes will not be pleased when these buggers will entangle them in silk. By the way, I want to thank Anibal Invictus for suggesting in a previous post to paint bases in a lighter color. It does, indeed, help make the models stand out.

The last model is a Manticore that was given to me by my daughter for my birthday last year. It's a Wizards of the Coast model that I finally got to paint.

It looks scary and I hope it will give the heroes a good fight.

The business end of this model is the tail...

I like the spiky bits coming out of the mane.

Points claimed:

If Dallas agrees, I think the Manticore is big enough to qualify as "mounted".

7 x 28mm foot figurines at 5 points each = 35 points

1 x 28mm mounted figurine at 10 points each = 10 points

 Total = 45 points

Thanks for reading!

Those monsters are great, love the giant bugs and the manticore especially. Your innkeeper and flautist are cool and will certainly come in handy. I think it's perfectly appropriate to paint her base like a '70s carpet given that this was the floor covering of choice for the basements in which many of us started our D&D careers. 

45 points pour vous mon ami!

Dallas 

From PaulSS: Local History - 2nd Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers - 110pts

 

I currently live in Wisconsin in the heart of the Midwest and one of the most notable Union formations of the American Civil War is the Iron Brigade. One of its founding units was the 2nd Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers raised at Camp Randall, which is still there and although it's now the UW Badgers Football stadium, but there are plenty of Civil War era cannons on the grounds, so that is a bonus!

The regiment was heavily engaged with the Army of the Potomac and suffered more casualties as a proportion of its total enlistment than any other Union Army units.

The models are all from the Crusader Miniatures range are both characterful and a delight to paint. However, although the frock coats and 1858 Dress Hat are great, but they probably should have linen gaiters to represent the 2nd Wisconsin.

To give a bit of variety I did some of the men in the older issue dark blue trousers and some in later light blues, I also mixed it up a bit with the water bottle and strap colours.

The flags are from GMB Designs, and after previous efforts I managed not to get a chalky varnish effect on these ones, by the simple expedient of not sticking them on until after the matt coat!

Eighteen 28mm figures, plus the Local History location bonus should add another 110 points to my tally. 

Wow Paul, I am more and more impressed with your work on this project - not only the quality but also the quantity of models is noteworthy! Always great to have a little variety to distinguish the old sweats from the FNGs (did they call them that in the Civil War?) and the flags look super as well. Nice historical notes here too, and congrats are due to your Badgers in finally overtaking the Golden Gophers last year in wins in their nearly 135-year rivalry! The Camp Randall Stadium entry on wikipedia led me down a bit of a rabbit hole too... JUMP AROUND!!

110 points added to your score!

Dallas

From KyleC - Khorne Kontinues (Sarah's Cart) ( 60 pts )

So another week, and I was able to get a few more models painted up for this Khornish raiding party here... 

Worked on a few Heroes ( Lord, BSB, Aspiring ) for my character section, and then another 5 of the marauders to bolster the unit a bit further. 

Big boss on foot here.. again from the Age of Sigmar range for Blades of Khorne. I have like 4 or 6 of these models due to how many of the starter boxes I procured way back when I first wanted to try building this army ( spoiler.. never got too far off the ground ). So now I have a few that I can chop up and use for different projects like this one. He is normally accompanied by a flesh hound, but chopping the reins off, he just looks to have a nasty hand weapon there instead. 

Same red armor I have on the newer models, but I tried a stippling/lines approach to the cloak to make it a bit different, even though the colors used are exactly the same here. 

Another model I have multiples of from the starter box. In Age of Sigmar he is a cool model buffing those around him to new heights of frenzy... in the Old World.. he is just a Battle Standard Bearer but can take magical banners up to 100 points. Combined with the other model, and stuck in a unit of Warriors, I suspect they will have some lasting power for smaller games. 

Tried to use more purples/reds in the skintones here.. not fully sold on it.. 

The Warqueen Marakarr Blood-Sky! A figure I have no idea why I picked up, but she's for Warriors of Chaos, and will look great leading some marauders, so figured she was a good model to paint up! Again playing with the cloak, but going a bit brighter in the red as she doesn't have a lot of armor that I could or would paint red here. 

She is also my contribution to Sarah's Cart.. to travel to the Rotunda First floor.. just not sure which section, but most likely Sci Fi.. unless I score something on my trip coming up.. 

5 more Marauders made from the Blood Reavers. And the Banner boi getting a massive banner from the Juggernaut set.. Practical in Age of Sigmar as they are individuals and don't need to rank up.. in ToW.. not so practical.. but one unit of Marauders can be skirmishers, so that might be these in the end. 

Thankfully they are still able to rank up so far, and this now gives me 15 of them. 5 more and that will be a full unit, and I can then go and focus on something else! I am liking that the extra effort/time I am putting to the multiple skintones is making the unit look more interesting. And that the few parts of red painted really are vibrant on the overall unit. Going to have to be careful when I get to the warriors then, and see how to keep it up!

But for now, I am off to India for a work conference. So one of our other minions will take on the Sunday role, and I am unlikely to have any post of models to showcase next weekend as I won't have anything hobby related with me next week. Though depending on what socials, I might have a few snaps from the trip itself. 

Total for today's post then are:

- 3 28mm Infantry Heroes - 15 pts

- 5 28mm Infantry models - 25 pts

- Sarah's Cart entry - 20 pts

Total 60 pts for today

Some more excellent kernels (geddit??) from you here Kyle. They all look quite nasty and ready for some skull-taking and blood-spilling. The Blood God will be pleased and Sarah's Library Cart will transport you to the First Floor Rotunda and the Sci-Fi stack!

60 points for your tally as well!

Dallas 

Can you feel the Saturday

Here's a cat pic from the summer. Good thing the glass is there or that would likely be one ex-squirrel for the squirrel pile.

Here's what we can look forward to this Saturday!

• A classic ghostly post from SebastianR!
• Some Local History from PaulSS!
• Another tray and some great D&D from SylvainR!
• Square-based goodness from KyleC!
• More 15mm Mercs and rodents from ChrisW!
• And maybe more, who knows!

Enjoy your Saturday all!

Dallas

From KentG: 28mm English Civil War Parliamentarian cavalry (240pts)

Well I didn’t think I was going to get anything else completed

This week, foolishly instead of completing a set of Napoleonic cav I 

Had already started on I started a bunch of ecw cav instead

Stayed up till 12 pm last night and the got back up at 5.30am 

This morning to try and finish them, here is three of the 4 regiments of

Parliamentarian cavalry

Some light cav to start with, all the cav are 28mm 

Warlord games figures

The cuirassiers are one of my favourite s in this batch

They are metals figures on plastic horses

The dragoons are also metals on plastic horses

Whoever sculpted these just didn’t know where to stop with 

All the extra stowage

Points

24 x 28mm cavalry =240pts

From Millsy: Quite the force of cavalry you have here Kent and although they are Parliamentarian and are therefore the "bad guys" I still love them. The horses are just wonderful, right down to the details like socks and muzzles, and the rich red of the coats on the dragoons really pop against the blue facings. Great work mate and a decent sized addition to your points tally.

From TomL: Sci-Fi on the Cart (60 points)

 

Bringing us to the Sci-Fi section is a undercover officer I have named Lightning in my pulp scenario (Thunder will be along shortly).  This Angel of Justice is a Crooked Dice miniature and no doubt pays homage to another great TV series I have never seen.

Speaking of TV series we have our Sci-Fi entry with Robo Minions!

Follow me! Wait. They are still taking pictures.

These dangerous formerly living human minions now serve the evil genius Dr Ulysses Argo from Crooked Dice’s Argonauts line.  These were painted with Reaper, Foundry, Two Thin Coats and Vallejo metallic acrylic paints. They too will be making an appearance in my pulp scenario.

4 28 MM figures @5 = 20.
Library SCi-Fi section -  20.
Sarah’s cart - 20 points.

From Millsy: More lovely character figs from you Tom. The Robo Minions are pretty cool and I can't help but think the one on the left is inspired by the Cybermen from Dr Who. Nice work!

From GeoffreyT: A very big recalcitrant book and other monsters (Oversized books, Self help, autobiography, 85 points)

Hello Challengers,

This week I have only a few miniatures, but quite a few bonus points.  This will be tempered in future weeks when all the bonus points are gone.

The first is a home sculpt of the Agrippa, which is an oversized book.  

According to "A book of creatures" website, it is from folklore of Brittany.  It is a malevolent grimoire the height of a man, which must be beaten and fought by the reader or it will not reveal its secrets and will just show blank pages.  I made it from two bits of plasticard and some milliput between them. 

The sculpt is 30+ mm tall, as shown next to its mates.

For the Autobiography section we have a Tasmanian Devil, by Grenadier Miniatures, sculpted in the 80's.  I too am from Tasmania where I was born and bred, although I no longer live there. Indeed the reason I have not much painted this week was I was down in Tasmania visiting relatives.

And next we go to the Self Help section, where I browse through books on painting and sculpting of monsters.

My interest in miniatures is primarily derived from the Hobby Art aspect of the genre, gaming is mostly a social outlet for my hobby.  I have enough miniatures for the games I like, but I still do like to create.  I find it quite relaxing and calming.  In particular I like monsters.  These two below are home-sculpts inspired from fantasy gaming art.

An 'Axebeak', a large flightless bird with an axe like beak and a goblin with a moon shaped head, moon shaped glaive and moon shape on his shield.  The former is more a D&D style monster, and the latter more in keeping with Warhammer.

The library map update

So this week we have:

4 x 28mm miniatures = 20 points

3 x library sections = 60 points

Total = 80 points.

Kind Regards

Geoff.

From Millsy: There's just so much to enjoy here I almost don't know where to start Geoff. Your sculpting skills clearly exceed mine and the book of creatures is a really cool choice of subject for the Library theme. The clasp and embossed cover motif are brilliant and really give it a feeling both of something that shouldn't be messed with! The Tassie Devil is also a great mini and very evocative of the Looney Toons incarnation. Have another 5 points for your sculpting efforts. Awesome work mate!