Ste's Challenge Smorgasboard!

I recently took part in the 6th Analogue hobbies Painting Challenge and in true challenge tradition I thought I'd post my entries on my own blog once they've featured on the main blog. So below is one of my two submissions. 

This is my first and possibly last entry in the challenge this year as it turns out I was completely unprepared for how busy I've been this summer (that's right all you northern hemisphere types, its summer here in NZ!). Here was I with lots of great aspirations to paint the heck out of my lead/plastic pile and join in the general insanity that is the challenge when lo and behold life decided to get stupidly busy. Work got mental, the in-laws came over from the UK for 3 months and an unrelated hobby took up a load of my time.

However I have still kept my painting eye in (so to speak) and have just not been able to find the time to blog about my acrylic/plastic/lead adventures (I know, shocking!)

So this model was planned to be my first entry (and also my Nostalgia theme round entry!).

A circa early 90's GW troll model that has lingered in my bist box for many years. This is nostalgic for me as I started out like many of you playing 3rd edition Warhammer and my Dwarves faced these comedic beauties many times.

So keeping in theme I also painted up a couple of GW Plaguebearers that I found in the same bits pile.

These are the old metal ones and until recently had no purpose other than to gather dust. Enter Frostgrave and suddenly the desire to play with silly fantasy models has been revived and I find a reason to paint some old models (thanks Joe McCullough!!!)

And finally another GW cast off, one of the early 2000's chaos warhounds, who sadly lost a hind leg in the aforementioned bits box however a little sculpting of fur and clawand hey presto my evil Frostgrave Summoner has a couple of demons and an ugly warhound to back him up!

Ok so I said finally however I mean't for the nostalgia theme round! My next entry was going to be for the L'amour round – three Orcs from Mantic's Dreadball.

“How the heck is that L'amour Ste” I hear you mumble in between trawling youtube for crazy cat videos. Well I'm slowly inducting my eldest biy (Noah age 6.5 years) into the wonderful world of wargaming and thought that Dreadball would be a good intro game. However Noah won't play the game unless the models are painted orange so I set to painting the weirdness that is Mantic's resin plastic hybrid thingy!

The things you do for LOVE (see what I did there?)

So on to my next planned entry (which seemed to take ages to pull together), Four of MoFo Mini's US Rangers Platoon HQ.

I loved painting these guys and they'll be deployed soon in support of these Radio Dishdash US Delta Team, possibly using Skirmish Sangin or Osprey Black Ops rules.

Whats better than than a good piece of hard terrain to take cover behind when the bullets start flying? How about a piece of armoured terrain that moves (my terrain bonus round entry).

This Humvee is a diecast repaint, sort of. I actually picked this up in one of NZ's chain discount stores and I'm surprised I haven't seen more of these online painted up for modern gaming. It came in the camo scheme however judicious application of various washes, highlights and drybrushes have brought it up to an acceptable standard.

And now my current project, a two section recce platoon of 15mm universal carriers by Battlefront.

 

I think I may be a sadist when it comes to Battlefront mini's as I loved painting these things in the same way I enjoy painting there jeeps. In Flames of War they have a low points value and very little impact but I love painting them so use them whenever I can. These boys are painted up in a basic desert scheme and will accompany my 4th Indian division at this years Panzerschreck where I expect to have my ass handed to me! However it is a team event so I can always blame buddy Ash!

So that was my challenge, I got nowhere near as much done as I'd like however I'll make sure that I tackle it properly next year. Now to play with my toys!

Warhammer On A Budget - where I got the bugs!

After posting the pics of the last project I've been bombarded with requests for clarification on the actual toys I used.  So in true open source, free IP, no copyright and careing and sharing fashion here's a pic of the offending article sat on the shelf in Poundland.

Enjoy!

Warhammer On A Budget Part 2

So after much tinkering, messing and gluing and the occasional splash of paint I have now completed my little Warhammer Fantasy army on a budget (barring two character models which my mate Chris is buying for the princely sum of £0.48p each from the museum giftshop).

I began this in part as a giant screw you to GW (which is kind of pointless as they couldn’t care less) but also to see if I could do it to any level of acceptable quality. I did preview these lovely little creepy crawlies at the club last week as they shall be my Daemons of Chaos army for the tournament this coming Sunday and I was a little shocked at the response:

“So guys what do you think” says I all innocent like

“What are they“ says one, “What do they represent” says another.

“Oh that’s a plague bearer unit, that’s a Beast of Nurgle and they’re Furies”

Choruses of “I’d think they were all swarms, I don’t get it” and “where’s the champion and standard bearer” and “you can’t tell what they are”, oh and this was the best “I wouldn’t play it because they aren’t WYSIWYG!”

So it would seem that there’s a lack of imagination at my club. I did explain that each unit would have a nice little label on the base identifying the unit choice, but that was ignored in favour of the general reply of “it’s not GW”.

Huh?

I really did think this hobby was about imagination however it would seem that there’s a group out there that don’t want to use it but would rather have the “official” imagination foisted on us by a corporate entity aimed at maximising profits for shareholders……….rant rant rant.

Sorry got sidetracked, so without further ado here’s the finished article

The full 1500 pts Daemons of Chaos

Plaguebearers

Ooh look - Standard!

Plaguebearers again

And another Standard!

Beasts of Nurgle

Fleshounds of Khorne

Second unit of Fleshounds

Furies of Nurgle

Nurglings

Sorry for the pics, took them on my phone.

And for reference here's the costs:

6 x pack of childrens toy insects  - £6

Sheet of 3mm balsa wood - £2.10

Mixed sand - Free

Twigs, moss and flock - Free

2 x Auto spray paint - £2

Uhu adhesive - £0.99p

Old GW paints that had dried up - As I was throwing them I’ll say free.

So that’s a grand total of £11.09

Warhammer on a budget.

Have you ever had the urge to do something just to see if it can be done.  Well thats the subject of this post and begins over two years ago when i decided to abandon Games Workshop following the release of Wargaming for Dummies... err I mean Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th Edition. Since the release of that weighty but vacant tome I've played Wfb 8th twice and purchased nothing other than a tin of chaos black spray and stocked up on Devlan Mud wash.

Anyway getting back to my original topic a friend of mine at my local gaming club runs a WFB tournament every year called the Pennine Pillage (it's based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, middle of the Pennines). It's a low points competition and is always good fun so I decided to enter this year however I thought I should do something a little weird.

So this was my self appointed challenge - at a time when a GW fantasy army costs as much as a medium sized nuclear reactor, how cheaply can I put together a 1500 pts army.  Now in previous editions this would have been a doddle - old hands at the game will surely remember the days of between 3 and 5 model armies (argh Tzeentch chariot mage craziness). But that's not for me, I wanted something that was fair and would be interesting to play with. So I could have cruised evilbay, Mantic or even the Bring And Buy at conventions and shows but I thought "no not hard enough".

So how did i overcome this mammoth task I hear you ask. Well first of all I picked a force,  namely daemons as I have the book and for reasons that shall shortly become obvious the models should be easy to source. Then the evil overlords of GW nastiness released a new edition if the army book. As I'm not willing to sell a kidney to by the darn thing I plugged for borrowing a copy of a mate whilst writing a list using Battlescribe (you gotta love it).

Then on to buying the minis.  Here's where it got  fun:

• Five packs of  kids toy insects - £5
• Balsa wood for the bases - £2.10
• Cheap auto spray - £1
• Sand for texturing - free (i nicked it from the the park)
• Paints - Old GW Paints that had dried out.
• Flock and base dressing - some leftovers from a terrain project (so kind of free).

So far so good. All I gotta do is convert it, paint it and label it so my opponents know what the heck each unit is. Below are a couple of pics of the task in progress, I'll post more as i get out completed.