From StuartL - I'm Still Here

Um... It's been far too long since I last posted. Sorry.

Over the past few weeks, I have been busy with hobby stuff, just not really very much painting. I've been assembling minis and drafting up army lists (handily doing double duty as shopping lists) and all of the other things that go into this wonderful hobby of ours. I have done some painting, but my inner Squirrel has had me start a batch of minis, get distracted, put them to the side, start another bunch and so on. Thankfully some of those batches have started to get close to completion, so I do have something to post today and a bit more to come sooner rather than later.

This cyclops is from Reaper Minis' Bones range and it was a very easy paint job. Which is actually kind of depressing as it has taken me far too long to get done. He's quite a chunky fellow and stands about 50mm tall.

At some point I'm probably going to use him for D&D, along with all the other RPG minis I have painted over the past year and a bit that my group has been socially distancing.

From SanderS: Epic? Not so much!

 Hoi,

 

As a subscriber to Wargames Illustrated I regularly get their freebies; plastic sprues provided by big brands (mostly Warlord Games) to get the gamer into new periods. One of the recent issues came with a sprue of the new 15mm ACW Epic batlles figures from WG. Now I have literally enough figures in 1:72 scale lying here to make 22 batallions of 24 figures each, so I have no intentions to start the ACW in 15mm but I gave these a try since I had them anyway. I am sorry if my opinions are going to offend any of you, but: I really do not like these figures at all! They are lacking in detail, depth and the fact they are moulded together in rows makes them not only hard to paint but to base as well (at least using my tried and tested way of basing). 

Therefore these are not my best work ever and so I am not proud of them, but since i have painted these within the time frame of this challenge I thought I'd post them anyway.  

Cheers Sander

From GregB: Another Titan - Nemesis Warbringer

More reinforcements for Legio Gyphonicus - a Nemesis Warbringer Titan.

Hello again everyone! Here is another war machine from GW's Adeptus Titanicus. This is "Nemesis Warbringer" Titan (love those names), a multi-part plastic kit from GW. This is another Titan for Legio Gyphonicus, the "War Griffons", a loyalist Titan Legio that fought on the side of The Emperor during the wars of the Horus Heresy.

The new Warbringer, together with the Reaver Titan from my previous submission.

This Titan class is slightly larger than the Reaver in my previous post, and is still broadly a "medium" class of Titan. It is still covered in heavy weaponry, of course! You can see all sorts of big guns all over this thing.

Now THAT is a big gun!

A lot going on up there on top of this Titan...

There are even some anti-aircraft batteries up there...just in case!

Where this machine stands out from the others is the interesting weapon mount on the top of the Titan. This is a "quake cannon" - no need to get into the specifics here, but you can tell that it is a really big gun, and it has really satisfying big-gun-type effects in the game. 

You can just make out the crew access hatch in this view...

This is a beautiful model kit from GW, but the assembly for this requires more caution than the other large Titan models I have built to date. It also needs more painting of sub-assemblies than the other main kits for the model range. Many of the components/armour plates overlap, but do not cover completely, the various sections where they are mounted. I get obsessive about these situations, and end up wanting to be sure everything is painted, even if there is only a 0.000005% anyone will see one of these mostly-covered areas. 

So much great detail on the armour plates...really great job by GW on these kits.

Lots of overlapping plate armour on the legs and torso.

So putting one of these together and painting it is a bit of a slow process, at least for me - I paint a lot of the components (like the armour plates) separately from the base structure, and then assemble afterwards. That takes more time, and is more fiddly for sure. But it is worth it in the end - I really like the model, and I'm glad to have one of these available for my loyalist forces.

Thanks for reading! Hope you are all well out there.  

From SanderS: Home Alone!

 Hoi,

Since I had a week off from work I finally had time to sit down and paint one of the many TTCombat Streets of Venice buildings I have lying around. This builidng is one I put together from several left over bits (hence the missing door) from other kits and I tried out some new weathering techniques involving sponging and washes.

 

 

 

If I learned anything from the process, it's that I need to go far lighter/ brighter in my colours prior to applying the washes as they darken down the whole subject quite a bit.

I am really pleased with how the building turned out and am going to use the techniques on my other buildings as well.

Cheers Sander

 

 

From GregB: Reaver Titan for Adeptus Titanicus

Reaver Titan from Games Workshop - standing with some alternative weapon options. This is a plastic GW kit.

Hi everyone! As ever, there is no vaccine in sight for me here in Northern Ontario, so I hope folks won't mind as my work continues to appear here on the blog! This submission is a little different from a lot of my recent hobby efforts - this is a Reaver Titan, a plastic multipart kit from Games Workshop, for their game Adeptus Titanicus. 

A closer view, showing the various energy weapons mounted on the Titan.

In Adeptus Titanicus, players take command of Titans - very large, city-smashing war machines, blasting each other (and the planets they happen to be standing on) to bits during the Horus Heresy, the great civil war of GW's grim and dark science fiction setting. The Titans move about the table, blasting each other with apocalyptic weapons. Void shields are shattered, reactors are pushed, overloaded and (often) cook off. Players must make some challenging command choices as they try to manage their Titans - it's a great time.

A closer view showing the "Volcano Cannon" on the left arm...a scary weapon, but one that tends to put pressure on the Titan's reactor.

The Reaver is a "medium" class of battle titan - still pretty darn big, but not the biggest machine available to the combatants in this setting. This Reaver is painted in the grey, yellow and blue colours of Legio Gryphonicus, the "War Griffons", loyalists who fought on the side of The Emperor during the Horus Heresy.

Another view, showing some alternate weapons - including a giant chainsword hand! Good times!

These kits are lovely, but there is one issue with them - the design of the model kit does not really allow for the use of magnets in order to swap out the various weapon options for the machine. But there are many determined and clever hobbyists out there - including my good friends Curt and Dallas - and they figured out some easy modifications to this model which allowed for the weapon hard points to be fitted with small magnets. I have copied this approach from them, and I am working to add more Reavers with magnetized hard points to my collection.

Another weapon option - a large calibre, multi-barrel cannon - good times!

You can see in the photos there are different weapon options available for this machine - picking a favourite weapon configuration is a great part of the game, and now players using this loyalist machine will have a choice of the weapons seen here, as well as some others painted previously. 

A "family photo" of my Loyalist Titan collection...Knights in the front, Warhounds behind them, then the Reaver Titans, including the newest one on the left, and finally the Warlord Titans at the back.

Adeptus Titanicus is a fantastic game, a great set of rules and models from GW. It has been fun to get back to this model range over the past couple of weeks, and I look forward to sharing more towering war machines from the grim and dark far future as they come off the hobby desk! Thanks for reading, and be well.   

From TeemuL: Some goblins (20 points)

Some very quick goblins, red this time. These are from the Legend of Drizzt boardgamee and my quick research revealed, that at least some of the goblins of that universe are red. So I painted them red, although they were green plastic. Very small 28mm scale models, very quick to paint with some Contrast paints. The cobblestone took as long as the figures itself, I think. Anyway these usually briefly appear on the board before slain by the adventurer, so even though they are numerous, they don't last long.

As you can, the Contrast paints are very effective on these. I even painted their eyes, evil yellow eyes. And something around the mouth area to represent the vicious teeth.

From MartijnN: Germanic bowmen and sundry

Yes! Invitation received. However, it will be two more weeks before I actually get my jab, so I thought I'd better get on with it. Strangely enough, I seem to be more consistent and faster now the "real" Challenge is over (although I remember struggling a bit too in the Quarantine Challenge a year ago).

Anyway, in keeping with the theme my painting seems to be taking on a bit here are six Germanic bowmen. These too are MTH figures which I printed myself.

To accompany these, and the Celtic bowmen I painted last week, is a unit of ten Celtic warriors, also from the MTH Rome series. I had a lot of fun painting these and I am quite happy with them.

Finally, a Celtic dog handler with two Irish Wolfhound-like characters. I would not much care to come across these chaps, neither on or off the battlefield! I promise to make a bit more of an effort with the next dogs.

Next up are two 32mm thieves from the Arbiter Miniatures range. These are great figures, and supportless too which is quite a boon in my book. They printed without any problems and I like how they turned out. They can be used in a variety of ways, the painting scheme is a bit ranger-like I guess.

Then, there is an armoured polar bear from Wilds of Winterland by Evan Carothers. This is a wonderful 3d print file range with ice giants, snowfolk, arctic animals, yetis, you name it. Shades of Westeros, obviously. I think the bear is a great model.

Next, the only part of this week's output that was not 3d printed: a brigade of Confederate troops for my ongoing Champion Hill project using Altar of Freedom. These are once again 10mm Perrin figures. I try to give my Union troops a more formal character, but I like my rebels to be a somewhat more motley bunch.

Finally, two pieces of terrain. A bridge and a viking burial mound. The last obviously was to have been my offering for the Tomb in the Chambers of Challenge, but I never got there. Both are 28mm figure scale miniatures, but scaled down to somewhere between 6mm-10mm.

So there you have it. For me this is a record production, pointswise:

22 28mm figures @ 5 points is 110 points;

20 10mm figures @ 1 point is 20 points;

and as I don't feel like doing the complex calculations for the terrain pieces I am awarding myself 1 point for each for a total of 2 points;

Which yields a grand total of 132 points; a veritable points bomb for me!