DRAFT Steve: KoW 10mm Heavy Calvary, Wizard's Tower on a Hill, Old Ral Partha & GW Minis, FrostGrave

 Hello again Analog Painters!  I have been painting since first day of challenge, but this here is my first post.  I am keen to visit upon many of this year's Themes as I endeavor to paint up forces of  playable armies/gangs/regiments or whatever name may be applied to a group of miniatures depending on the table top rule uses,  cults/troops/pods/flocks/herds/gaggles etc...

LIMBO:  This year's first theme is cause for some joy as I have many partly painted minis for which in years past I have had inspiration only to start and now for small few some of those neglected mini-souls, this challenge has given me an inspiration to complete! 

These models for my 10mm Kings Of War table have ignominiously drifted in partly painted Limbo since last year's AHPC.  When playing Kings of War with ByronM we used 10mm models on the same regiment base sizes as for the 28mm KOW game, with the intent of having more minis displayed on each base to make the battle field appear more well attended with larger forces.  By using 10mm in place of 28mm we forward the rule of cool without negatively impacting the rules of the game.

The Heavy Cavalry are 3d prints available from Forest Dragon (https://forestdragon.gumroad.com/)

The Wizards Tower atop the outcropping is 3d resin print, not sure from where the print file was from.  To the recollection of my Limbo fogged mind, a couple years back I saw ByronM had printed one of these Towers for himself, I thought it was cool and he was good enough to print another for me for a modest reallocation of coins from my pockets to his. 

The hill beneath the tower I built from 2 layers of 3' foam scrap I found in the back of my Dad's garage, which I sculpted (hacked up?) with a foam cutter, and thereupon glued a variety of small stones and sand acquired from my backyard in preparation for painting.  

Also emerging from the misty haze of Limbo is another hangover from my last year AHPC  incompletes,  a couple of Games Workshop Ghouls hailing from the 1990s.  These 2 minis are among a couple dozen or so old GW minis that I have stripped and repainted, only to re-strip and re-paint again so often, that now I had to either paint them with their final layer of paint or stuff a dollar bill in their waist band if I wanted to have them stripped again. 

So I decided they could now best find a path to a final lasting paint job by joining my growing menagerie of  baddies that could potentially wander upon a FrostGrave game table. 

Since I have yet to build up a sufficient mass of wintery ruins and environs to host a properly appointed FrostGrave game, I also painted up a couple of my first proof of concept winter scatter terrain pieces that had also suffered some incomplete experimental pigmentation last year.

 

Departing Limbo.... and hailing to Sarah The Succubus  to bus me past the Theme for NSFW minis and deliver me unto the Theme of Gluttony, with a 'bus ticket I purchased by this Cultist Executioner Lady.

Both she and her fellow cultist executioner recently escaped Limbo via the winding paths around the Wizard's Tower, to return to their service under their Gluttonous and Demonic master.

GLUTTONY: The chubby (and toothy) Daemon, Cultists and scatter terrain have languished in my pile of shame for about 30 years, used in many a Role Playing game with but a base coat of black but never until now painted to proxy and participate in a miniature table top battle. Thusly assembled for this challenge, I think these minis and terrain bits represent barrels of food being cracked open by cultists hoping to gain favor from a Gluttonous Deamon to whom they seek to provide a feast.

  

The barrels are wood cut items I unexpectedly found in a hardware store back in the 90s. While poking around the store isle for replacement door hinges and drawer handles, I unexpectedly stumbled upon an assortment of plain wooden Christmas village craft bits, the barrels seemed RPG mini compatible so I bought 10,  never found them again, wish I had picked up more.   The tables minis are from some interior RPG mini terrain blister pack I also picked-up in the 90s as an impulse buy from a local hobby shop that ceased to exist many years back.  

Daemon Ral Partha 1983,  Executioners Ral Partha 1994. 

The Dwarf is a GW  mini from the 90's that was part of an WFB cannon crew, which recall was given to me in the late 90s as within a box of mixed of unwanted miscellaneous minis from a friend who was moving in with a lady and had need to downsize his pile of shame. 

Total 142 pts

   Theme: Limbo  =  20 Pts

        10mm Mounted Calvary  (24x3pts) = 72pts

        28mm Ghouls (2x5pts) = 10pts

        10mm Terrain Wizard Tower (0 pts),  Winter Scatter Terrain x2 (0 pts)

  Theme Gluttony = 20 pts

     28mm Chubby Daemon  x1 = 5pts

     28mm Cultist Executioners  x2 = 10 pts

     28mm Dwarf x1 = 5pts

     28mm Scatter Terrain Barrels x10 and Tables x2   (0 pts)

ByronM - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Daemons, Warcry Warband

 For this entry I am submitting my pestilent Maggotkin of Nurgle: Daemons warband for the Games Workshop game of Warcry.  Warcry is never a game I really wanted to get into as it is really simplistic and doesn't have much tactical depth, however...  I ended up jumping in on it for two reasons.

First, both of my sons started playing it recently and kept bugging me to play it with them.  Since they have never before really shown interest in many miniature games, despite years of trying to get them to play, I figured I kind of had to jump in with them.  Secondly, I have lusted after the Nurgle Plague Drone models since they came out years ago, thinking they looked too cool and would be a challenge to paint.  

So with those two reasons I jumped all in and got some Plague Drones, and dug up a box of Plague Bearers from my endless pile of GW shame and got to work on my warband.   With my slightly evil and warped sense of humour, I affectionately refer to my warband as "The Vaccinated" as they have lovingly accepted every injection of filth that Grandfather Nurgle has offered.

These models were a lot of fun to paint, but a pain in the @$$ to photograph, and the pictures still didn't turn out well after almost a whole afternoon of trying to get good ones.  The issue is that they are missing so much of the glazes that show up in person.  They have multiple glazes of greens, oranges, blues, and purples in different shades that show up as rotted/bruised flesh, but no matter how many pictures in different lights I take, they just do not show up well.  So the images you see are all you get, as I gave up in frustration.  

The painting method was pretty simple, I primed brown, then zenithal highlighted bleached bone.  From there it was a matter of various Vallejo Xpress colours layering over the primer to build up greens and then reds around wounds, then blues, purples, oranges around the sours and various skin areas.  Once all that was done and dry I used dead flesh to highlight all the edges and the pustules.  It was a fairly easy process that looks great (to me at least) in person, but shit in these pictures, sorry guys.

For the weapons I used silver then build up layers of browns, reds and oranges for a super rusty and old look.  The banner was done as bronze and then a layer of verdigris was added to give it that old weathered look.  I might have to go add some more, but I haven't decided for sure yet.

The Plague drones were something I have wanted to do forever, hence the Lust points for them, but was never sure I could pull them off, and unfortunately I don't know if I really have.  They are certainly filthy and disgusting, but I am not sure I got the wings or carapace right, but not sure what else to do with either item, so am open to ideas from you guys.

Overall though, while there are parts of these models that I know others could do better, I am actually happy with them (which is very uncommon for me) and proud to show them off, although I wish they showed up here as they do in real life.  But I still think they look good and feel the plain grey base helps make the figures themselves pop a bit more, and the brightly coloured flowers help add a bit of an alien feel to them.

Lastly, if anyone out there wants to try Warcry, in a very NON-GW move, GW has all the rules and faction lists up online for free here: Warcrier.net.  Overall it's not a bad game, and I get the appeal of a lot of the rules and how it plays, it's just not my cup of tea, but for a chance to play with my boys, I had to paint up a force for it.

Steve - Thorsday Ragnarok with Dirk The Daring, and some dead guys (45points)

 Original post on AHPC 2023 March 16

For my final post in this year's AHPC challenge,  my first foray into joining all ye fine painter people participating in the AHPC has seen me stare into the abys that is my piles of long undone miniature shame  and raise my paint brushes high to slay some old grey.

 I may not have reached my lofty painting points ambitions, but even in falling short on points I am riding high on the satisfaction from adding some new minis to my display shelves, with my old painting passions rekindled and ablaze anew from this year's challenge.

 

The final feature I shot at AHPC studios is a 1980s style flick,  a miniature interpretation of the original 1983 Dragon's Lair Video (laserdisc) game.  ( Available now on Steam)

 

Some of you may recall Dirk The Daring, and some of you may have also disappeared more than a many few quarters into Dragon's Lair at the Arcade  to see Dirk battle foes, dodge traps, slay the  Dragon and rescue Princess Daphne.

Sometime last year I was watching one of the YooToob videos by the 'Miniature Hobbyist' and I learned this model was available as a 3D print from Thingiverse  (Search Thingiverse for 'Dirk The Daring'), and  I felt the ghosts of nostalgia call to me, so I called ByronM to hit him up for a print job.

At about 6.5 inches and without a supporting game rule set, I suppose Dirk is more a display model than a mini, but Dirk will be homed in my miniatures display cabinet because painting Dirk gave me a new appreciation for how many layers of paint an action figure sized model needs to obtain solid color, and for how easily on a larger model errant brush tips accidently add unwanted color  driving a surprising amount of repaints and corrective touch-ups.

During the challenge many a model in my old stables received a new dab of paint or two on the long path to done but far from complete, a few had a paint job go sideways, while others just fell short of moving out of the in progress pile to the display shelf.

What last crossed the finish line for this challenge is these 3  Undead Warhammer Fantasy battle minis out of my long queue of paint overdue.

The Tomb King is cast from the GW variety of 1990s pewter, and the  Zombie may be old enough to be from when GW still cast with lead.  The skeleton was build from the first GW Fantasy battle Skeleton horde box. 

I will wrap up my final post this challenge with a nod to the comments TeemuL provided me on my first post  -  (noting how my old  green Citadel paints  dated back to when the minis in White Dwarf  often featured green trim bases),  so rather than sticking to my black trim base scheme, my oldest GW Zombie mini now done gets an olde tyme citadel snot green edged base.

28mm undead Foot Figure x3

    Tomb King           5 pts 

    Skeleton Solider   5 pts

    Zombie                 5 pts 

Dirk The Daring,  

- display model 6.5 inches high (score as 54mm Foot Figure) 10 pts 

- AHPC Studio 1980s   20 pts

Total 45 pts

I enjoyed seeing everyone's contributions to this year's challenge!

Thanks!

ByronM - Necron Indomitus box set

 

I went into this painting challenge with a plan, really, I did.  Part of that plan was to get my Necron force started, which consists of the Warhammer 40,000 V9 Indomitus box set showcasing a pile of new and cool looking Necron models.  However, it was very low on my priority list as there were other things I wanted to get done first in case I ran out of time.  Well, after doing the one model for the Golems room and seeing how fast they painted up and how easily I could get them out of the queue, I had a squirrel moment and moved them to the top on the list.

Below is an image of the brand new Skorpekh Destroyers squad led by the Skorpekh Lord.  This unit should give the Necrons a much needed boost in hand to hand combat, which illogically is apparently what rules the new edition of 40k.  Seems odd that in the far future melee is better than shooting, but since when has GW ever made sense with their rules (except in almost every NON core ruleset they put out).

 

Next up are the new scarab models, which I really like as they used to be separate models but are not all connected and snap into the base as one piece.  I think it gives more of a swarm look than the old 3-4 individuals on the base.

 Next up are the Necron warriors, which are also new models (about time).  These warriors are pretty close to the old ones in body style but change the guns significantly, gone are the transparent green rods you had to glue in, now the guns are solid, which is much better for assembly and hopefully how long the models hold up (the old ones broke all the time).  I painted up 2 units, but am only showing one here, since they are almost identical.  I did one with purple flowers on the base and the other with blue flowers so that I can easily tell them apart.  When I get more I will boost both squads to 20 man squads, but for now they are each 10 so that I have 2 troop selections.  The one thing I dislike about the new models though is they are on 32mm bases.  I have no idea why everything keeps going to bigger bases, they take up way too much tabletop space.

The image below shows most of the characters and individual models that come in the Indomitus box.  Starting from left to right are: 2x Cryptothralls, a Plasmancer, a Plasmacyte, a Royal Warden, and an Overlord.

Here you can see two of the characters closer up for details.  The lighting sucks a bit so the glows do not show very well, bur are there around each red spot.

As you can see from all of the images, the paint scheme is very simple and basic.  However, I feel that is OK with Necrons as they are mainly metal anyway.  The paint job was essentially painting the silver, bronze, and red then washing with Agrax Earthshade.  Then coming back to repaint the red and shade around each red feature, then highlighting it up to  yellow to make them pop.  Do some basic ground work and call it done.  The whole force was done super quick, but I think it works well due to the colour scheme and basing.  

There are a total of 37 models in the force, 36 being submitted here.  Of those most count as normal 28mm models and the other 5 count as about bike or mounted infantry size.  This means I should end up with 205 points for the submission.  Overall, not a bad haul for about 2 days of work!