From StuartL - Inquisitorial Team

Hello again,

Despite my best intentions, my painting pace hasn't picked up by much, but I do have some finished figures to show off. This Sunday I will be attending my local gaming club to pick up some 3D printed minis from a friend. Since I am going to be there anyway, I figured "Why not take some minis along and play a game?" I've been toying with the idea of trying out Inquisitor again. Inquisitor is a game released by GW a couple of decades ago, intended to be a cross between a skirmish game and an RPG. For whatever reason, GW sold the game alongside 54mm scale minis, which meant that it didn't do very well. The figures (while nice) were expensive and nobody really wanted to build a whole new set of terrain at that size. Luckily the rules were pretty good so a lot of players simply played with their existing 28mm collections, an hence Inq28 was born. 

I've played the game before and the rules can be fairly solid so long as players don't try to abuse them and you have someone running the game. I've managed to rope two friends into playing, so I plan to be the GM this time. 

The above figure is an Imperial Navy officer which came with one of the old 40K intro sets for the game, along with a crashed shuttle. For a monopose figure, it's really nice and painted up really quickly.

Inq28 is popular online for it's weird and often grotesque conversions. Inspired by the likes of John Blanche, GW's lead artist, the hobby side of the community is very active in producing all sorts of oddities and nightmares. This is my attempt to kitbash something for the theme. I see this guy as being a prisoner who has 'volunteered' to aid the Inquisition to reduce his sentence. Sadly the Inquisitor's interpretation of reducing a life sentence is simply to reduce the amount and quality of life you get.

For those situations where a gun isn't the answer, we have a heavily cybered up savant. This scrawny looking fellow and his companion come from one of GW's old metal Inquisitor sets. Loads of character and details in the sculpt, and they fit the theme perfectly.

Including the Guardsman I painted recently we have the full team of 4, plus the servo-skull. Will they be enough to get the job done this weekend? I'm not sure, but at least they look the part.

See you all next time.

From MartijnN: Medieval Bowmen

 As you now, I am really one for the smaller scales. As a matter of fact, before Challenge XI began I had not painted a figure larger than 15mm since the eighties, apart from some few Warhammer 40K figures bought on impulse in 2018. Mind you, I do have a sizeable (unpainted, of course) stack of  GW fantasy figures and some medievals for a fantasy project that has been on the backburner since time immemorial, but I had not yet come around to painting any of them. However, more inspired by following the Challenge during the last few years than anything else (I guess I, too, can blame Curt), I bought some medieval figures. I prepped them for the "main" Challenge, but you know how it goes. Now seemed as good a time as any to get them done, so here are no less than eight medieval bowmen:

 

They are plastic Fireforge figures. Now I am not a great fan of building figures, nor am I very adept at it, so please excuse the somewhat irregular poses. I am sure that it is more due to my poor modelling skills than to the quality of the figures themselves that some of them look like they have been overindulging in Mister "Cut me own throat" Dibbler's fine sausages again. Still, as a group I am not too dissatisfied with them. Of course I had to drop one of them on the floor, causing the bow to break. I'll have to find an alternative way to repair it, as I have lost the missing piece, but I wanted the post to go up today so that will have to wait.

Needless to say I used Contrast paints again, as well as some colours from the Scale75 Instant Colors range. I find the Scale75 paints a little fainter, or less opaque, than the Citadel paints, but they generally work ok. Obviously, I had to finish the figures with a coat of your friend and mine, as Youtube miniature painter Sonic Sledgehammer calls it (check him out, he is great): Agrax Earthshade.

So, as if I needed another project, eight 28mm figures for 40 points. Yeah!

From TeemuL: Ten Martians (50 points)

Still alive, still painting. Like mentioned before, I have moved and started a new jog, so everything is bit of a mess, but I have managed to paint something on my temporary paint desk. I assembled and primed these Martians from the Kill Team starter about the time I bought them and then put them in a box. Since they were almost ready, I thought they would be a quick paint job, they are basically just red robes and so on, correct?

Well, they are Games Workshop models, so they have quite a lot of details... I skipped most of them, but not all. I like the finish, the colored purity seals and other stuff brings them alive and bit individual, should be good for Kill Team, I think.

Contrast paints and metallic paints and they were done. Picking up the bright details makes them look much more finished and tidy than they actually are. :)

I have new "photo-booth", which means I don't have a photo booth, just taking photos in the most well-lit area I can find in the new home, kitchen. I also have a different mobile than during the Challenge XI, so everything is different. They look quite cold, but there's a nice mood, I hope.. Purely unintentional.

10 28mm models should give me 50 points, if I am counting. There are skulls on the chest of each of them, painted black on basically invisible in photos.

From ScottM: French & Indian War Indians

I've been slowly plugging away on these figs the past few weeks and finally got them finished yesterday. These figs are all 28mm metal. The first group are from North Star Military Figures' Muskets & Tomahawks line.

The next group, with the exception of one of the figures, I don't remember who they are from.

The second figure from the left is from Warlord Games and came with the A Dark and Bloody Ground book. The other three, I'm not sure where they're from. They're either from Warlord, North Star, Sash & Saber or Galloping Major. No idea. Anyway they're pretty nice figs to pad out my Indian units.

So that should be an additional 50 points for a total of 190 points.

From SanderS: I blame Curt and Sidney! and some Germans (50points)

 Hoi,

 2021 just keeps on giving... While I thought I was able to get some more painting done, here I am correcting papers again. 

In the few moments of spare time I have managed to finish 10 WW2 Late War Germans that I had started already but wasn't able to finish during the Challenge proper. The Stalingrad Collectors edition box from Warlord games that I am painting as a commission, has sooooo many plastic Germans that I promissed my employer Martijn, that I'd paint him a squad of late war troops for use in his store demo-games. 

The fun part for me was getting to try out the Valhallan Blizzard snow effect from Games Workshop. Now and then they actually get something useful done and this is some awesome stuff indeed! It is so easy to use and gets a really good and rather realistic effect of snow on the bases. I am going to try the snow on some of my SW Legion Snowtroopers next, when grading permits.The pictures are rather dark due to a lack of light over here and with artificial light on they were too over-exposed even for photoshop to get right.

In the catergory "Other News": a round of calling 3 different Public Health Services during 2,5 hours of my day off last week, I found out that I MIGHT get a summons to be shot, eeeehh get a shot somewhere in May. So it's possible I get the summons in May but probably later and the actual shot will be set even further away because I was set up to get Astra Zenica, which due to the Trombose thingy is now on-hold for people under 60 years of age, lucky me. That means I will be here a while longer which is great since there's two gentlemen from the Challenge that have gotten me in trouble. 

First up is our beloved Snowlord Curt; I asked him what glue he used to stick metal figures to clear acrylic bases without getting the haze on them due to the super glue fogging over. Greenstuffworld says he, the result may be guessed:

And than there's mister Roundwood who has done such an awesome job of creating the Laarden Project. I read Arthur his posts and the Lad has now persuaded me to visit Laarden in the future so quite a lot of orders have gone out. One of those was to Colonel Bill's shop and has arrived over here by the time of writing.

There's a lot of prepped figures left over from the Challenge and I will get as many of those done during the coming weeks but first I have to get all the papers graded so I am off!

Cheers Sander

 

From MartinN: A premature end to my Vaccination Challenge [108 points]

I wouldn't have thought to be one of the first to drop out. But apparently miracles do actually happen as After a single entry to the challenge blog I already had my first jab. Long before schedule. 

Originally I had big plans of "finishing" my 20mm Soviets, getting the opposition to a playable size as well as doing lots of other things that now will have to happen elsewhere. But in this case I certainly will not complain.

So first for my final submission we have some more Soviets to go with those I painted earlier. Again these are lovely sculpts from AB Figures. 

Then we have the first squad of German Infantry to oppose those above Soviets. Again these are AB Figures. For flexibility I painted up enough men to either field them as regular Infantry with just one LMG or as Panzergrenadiere with two LMGs.

While I went with a completely different paint scheme with my Soviets than in 28mm, for the Germans I very much stuck to my standard recipe .

26 upright and 2 prone figures in 20mm make for 108 points to add to my total. So 611 points this year thus far.

Apologies for this rather short post but I don't really feel very talkative today. So I hope all of you stay safe and get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

From Curt to Nick: Fausto Rodriguez - Rogue Trader

That's it, I'm out of the pool. I received my first vaccination (hooray), so this will be my last post for the VC.

For quite some time now, Nick and I have enjoyed exchanging painted figures to add to each other's collection. For those familiar with Nick's skills with the brush, you will know that I am definitely the greater beneficiary in this arrangement. :)  Anyway, I muddle along and try do something for him that I think he'll like.

This year, Nick had mentioned that he'd like something Warhammer Fantasy themed, so I dug up several items from my stores that I thought might fit the bill. The thing is, I just couldn't find the mojo to get them done (I know, I'm such a princess). 

While all this was (not) happening, I found that this 40K Rogue Trader kept drifting across my desk during the Challenge, slowly getting worked on in fits and starts. It's the classic story: While beavering away on other projects I would put down a colour here, and add another a week down the line. Slowly he came to life. The figure is from the excellent Artel W. I have tons of their stuff for my Dark Heresy collection and always love working on their models.

We'll call him Fausto Rodriguez.

I asked Nick if he would be okay with a 40K figure instead of something from WH Fantasy and his response was typically accommodating, saying, 'ScFi is just Fantasy in Space, isn't it?' 

Well Nick, here you go. A burly Rogue Trader for your 'space fantasy' collection. Cheers mate, I hope you like him.

My thanks to all those who visited the blog and commented on my posts, its very much appreciated. I won't be that far away as I will continue my participation as moderator and cheering participants on in the comments. 

Be excellent to one other and have a great spring.

- Curt