Here we are with Wave 2 of January. For each entry you can see on the name tag whether it is a Painter (Red P; comitted to painting quality) or Gamer (Green G; committed to painting quantity). The little flag over each name tag tells you where the painter is currently operating.

The first month of the challenge has ended and it has been fruitful. The slice for this month was one quite basic: three guardians with lasrifle and a couple of “Space elfs” with a flamethrower and an Energy sword.

I wasted too much time deciding for the colour scheme and I almost painted the guardians as the Alai Mercenary Corps, but in the end I settled with a modified Altansar colour scheme (who knows if future corsairs will be from the Alai?) with colours I barely used in all those years of miniature painting. The Eldar models represent quite a challenge for me since I am not used to painting smooth surfaces or “clean” models, so this slice I have practised layering without the usual help from the model’s “anatomy” as well as adding some minor hand painted decoration, with mixed results in both instances I would say. Clearly, further practice is needed. Another area I had almost no experience before was the gems, and the Eldar have plenty of those! I have been aware of the Eavy Metal way to paint them since… almost twenty years ago, but never really implemented it. Well, this month has been the time, and I must say this is the “new” technique I am most satisfied with the results so far.

I also experimented with Contrast paints and inks in some areas, messing around with colour variation. Finally I played with some old decals in order to create the Altansar symbol (incomplete, I know) which all of them. This is because the guardians are a citizen militia and, as such, I do not imagine them being as regular in attire as more regular forces, but I wanted to add something that binds them together with both other guardians and the craftworld itself. Anyhow, these have been a pain in the ass as no matter how much decal softener I applied on them, almost no decal remained smooth! I have camouflaged the damage with paint, but it does not stand a close inspection…

The bases themselves are nothing really new: I was about to do some alien wilderness bases when I realized the Eldar can (and will) ally themselves with Imperial Guard, Squats and Space Marines. So, they needed similar bases in order to give the whole force a cohesive look. Because of this, they ended up being my usual Urban debris bases, made with sawdust and random junk mixed together. Here and there some of this junk and bits have been placed purposely in order to flesh the bases out. The main innovation here (for me) is the use of enamel based pigments, both dry and liquid, in order to represent the rusted metallic trash. Again, I find them ok, but improvable. I found myself somewhat confused about how I should apply the pigments… to begin with.

After finishing those models, I found myself with enough time to push some bonus into the month: five more lasgun wielding guardians and a weapon platform with its two crewmen. The guardians have nothing new to add, it was just more of the same. The crewmen had some variations to the theme, like those black leather jackets I was obliged to give them (all in all, they are from the 80s!). The platform itself was a new level of the layering challenge I mentioned before, but I think I managed to do a decent paint job. Also, lots of gems and some free hand decoration, but most of it is just decals painted over with some very minor chipping as weathering.

To summarize:

Slice 1

5 Eldar Guardians (Flamethrower + Power Sword) = 70 points.

Bonus

5 Eldar Guardians = 55 points.

Scatter Laser in Grav Platform = 59 points.

Total = 184 points.

This is it for the first month. If you have reached this point after all my ramblings, I am most grateful. See you next month!

Viden

Phuu I made it! Been a busy month and Almis thought imI would fail on the very first month. 

But luckily I started easy with only one model. 

The paint scheme is quite simple. Airbrush, and some details and colours to make it pop! 

Not quite hally with the glowing effect on the jetbike, might go back and fix it later on. Aswell to find a backpack with a banner pole to finish of everything. 

But I did manage to finish 143p. 

Master of the Ravenwing [143pts]: Bolt Pistol, Power Sword

. Power Armour

. Space Marine Bike

Next month I will take on one of the attack bikes in the list. 

For more wip pic check my instagram middlehammer_sweden 

Right, well I’m pleased with myself for not falling over at the first hurdle.

The Curse Of The Wulfen is REAL! Everyone else who has previously attempted to paint Space Wolves for this challenge has either;

a) Gone crusading into the Eye of Terror

b) Gone holidaying into the Eye of Terror

c) Gone foraying into the Eye of Terror

d) Got stuck in the queue for petrol for their ship to take them to the Eye of Terror and so miss the deadline.

So far, I am avoiding the Eye of Terror (for this challenge).

So as it was my first month I decided to start at the core and I painted up a unit of 10 Grey Hunters plus a bonus Wolf Priest type bloke (made up of later plastic pieces). All of my Wolves have the later/current plastic arms, weapons and shoulder pads as they are easy to get and have some lovely Wolf-type stuff.

They were all sprayed with Army Painter’s “Grey” and then had the various colours added, then a black wash all over, THEN painted the raised areas again in the original colours, THEN drybrush/edge highlights in places and THEN the armour got a coat of Horizon Blue that I’ve had knocking around since the early 90’s and is both full and liquid. Winner. This does mean I have to paint up my whole army before the paint dries, so got to be quick!!!!

Points total (WYSIWYG only)

Grey Hunter Squad & Power Sword, 8 Chainswords (comes with 1 power sword too) – 338pts

Wolf Priest & Plasma Pistol (counting Thunder Hammer as Crozius) – 95pts

11 models

At some point I’ll have to contemplate the extra goals I signed up for.. whatever they are..

Hello there again.

For this month I went with Part 2 of my pledge, which means I painted 2 Tactical Squads, a Terminator Captain and a Librarian in Terminator Armour. No stretch goals or bonus miniatures this time around.

Pointwise I think everything has gone a bit overboard here. In my initial pledge I just statted up the bare bones, but now statting up WYSIWYG it changes a lot.

Space Marine Captian in Terminator Armour, he carries auto launchers and digital finger weapons on his Power Fist which brings him to 156pts, here I am not counting his sheathed Power Sword, it is probably just for looks, right?

The Librarian has been “upgraded” to Epistolary rank since he is wearing Aegies Suit with a Psychic Hood and carrying a Force Axe. A Librarian of lower rank would not be able to have enough wargear to represent what is on the model. Also it kind of feels natural that this Terminator Armoured Librarian is not a total n00b. But this will bring him up to a massive total of 254pts.

The two Tactical Squads also ended up more expensive than I initially reported in. both Squads have Flamers and Missile Launchers and one has been marked out to be Veterans and on top has a Veteran Sergeant sporting a Power Fist. This brings them to 354pts and a whooping 399pts individually.

In the end counting points through WYSIWYG brings me to a total of 1169pts for first month. This is of course a lot more than I actually reported in for my entry in the first place, so I have no idea how this will work in the statistics.

1169pts

Models painted 22 (-10 already tabletop standard painted models)

Total models painted 1st month 12

To give a bit of background to my process.

I painted up one Veteran Squad in desert camo, their helmet stripes mark them as veterans and I tried giving them as much extra gear so they would look like experienced warriors who had seen a fair share of combat. I have given them some of them bone symbols to denote that they fought in the uprising at Alpha Baculum and other markings tell that the veteran Sergeant has been away on three campaigns and such.

The regular Tactical Squad has a rookie Sergeant to lead them, but they also have a veteran Marine Squad Leader so they will be able to break up in two 5-man units for more diversity. This Squad was mostly painted already, but I cleaned up their paintjobs and added Blood Angels logos and they all sport a Spades symbol on their right greave to mark them as the Spades Squad.

Not so much to say about the two characters. I tried matching up the Terminator Captain to look like my regular Power Armour Captain. In this way I can play him as the same guy but depending on which of his armour he choses to wear on the occation.

All for now. I look forward to continue on the journey and see what the other participants come up with.

I hope to post a bit about my army on my own blog too, probably with a bit more pictures of markings and details along with more far out stories about why and how they got to where they are now.

http://deathworldadventures.blogspot.com/

I knew from the outset I wanted the riotous schemes common to Rogue Trader rather than the simpler schemes more common recently. I also wanted some sense of the models belonging together in squads.  I settled on using a limited scope of colours on their Holosuits. For this squad I went for red, blue, and purple with black and white being used across the army. To further mark the squad out I painted their sashes and pauldrons yellow. I will vary that colour for each unit in the army. The weapons, armour, and gems (blue, purple, and green) match the Eldar army I painted oh so many years ago, and along with the bases will help tie the whole force together. The hair on the other hand I would just paint however I felt at the time, which will hopefully help make them feel a bit more distinct.

When painting I would normally work up from a black undercoat (even for bright vibrant colours like yellow). The sheer brightness and variety of colours this army would have meant that working from white would be much quicker and easier option. I undercoated them grey with a zenithal white prime, This would give me some extra shading since they would be painted mostly with Army Painter Speedpaints. I’m not exactly sure why but Speedpaints and Contrast paints are amazing for fine detail work. That Speedpaints can reactivate if you reapply water makes them amazingly useful for the patterning I have done on the Harlequins as you can very easily correct any mistakes. 

Most of my Eldar are mounted on Dragon Forge Lost Empires resin bases. I don’t have the funds to get the same for my Harlequins, but that provided the perfect opportunity to do scenic bases for the challenge. I got to chopping up some plasticard and before too long I had some awesome bases that fit the theme nicely. 

Harlequin Squad (6) 224pts
power axe, shuriken pistol
power sword, shuriken pistol

power fist, shuriken pistol

chainsword, shuriken pistol

handflamer, shuriken pistol

power fist, hand flamer, pack grenade launcher

https://www.facebook.com/ThisWayMadnessLays is where you can find my usual hobby work going on and where I’ll also be putting my progress for the challenge.

Gamers Challenge-Month 1

Sub goals- NA 

Models-5 

Points – 288

Thanks for having me back and I’m glad to be here! 

This challenge and like all the others I started off with the HQ slots 

1st up was my Chaos lord  with the Mark of Nurgle and not one but two Lighting claws (power fists)-

This was actually an old convention of mine from back in the day, so gave him a new paint job and really happy with how he came out . 

Pts 121

Next up is the Aspiring Champion also with 

Mk of Nurgle and an old rusty chain sword .

I got the model all beaten up and his helmet and Sword just looked like it was rotting away so I had no choice but to make him a champion of Nurgle for my Iron warriors. 

Pts 47 

And Finally 

Three Flamers of Tnzeench

These guys are great and take me back to my child hood and all I wanted to do was try out new painting techniques with them. 

Pts 120 

Can’t wait to see everyone’s amazing work!

Please follow me on Instagram @ebpminis 

It’s official, I’m in a 2nd Edition Challenge with something other than Imperial Guard!  As my boys say Let’s GOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I spent a fair bit of time this month getting everything for the challenge assembled, primed, and base coated in the distinctive Space Wolves grey.  After a few years of trying to figure out how to use my airbrush off and on I feel I mostly got the hang of it.  I had some issues with the prime I used which slowed me down but everything is based for the challenge so that’s a serious step out of the way!  Initially I had planned on making this the slice with three terminators but I changed my mind as the deadline approached.  I probably could have finished three in time but decided to try something different this season by not pushing the deadline to the last minute.  The third terminator has the yellow done which takes the most amount of time so I’ve made some good progress for next month!

Wolf Guard x2  One with Storm Bolter and Chainfist, One with Assault Cannon and Power Fist – 207 points

I just realized how big a difference a Space marine challenge is compared to an Imperial Guard challenge.  Two terminators were the same amount of points as a fully upgraded squad of guardsmen!  

-Wachtmeister

https://www.hmgs.org/blogpost/1767208/The-Wachtmeister-s-Patrol

For the first month of the challenge, I decided to work on the brood I feared the most; the termagants! In my challenge entry, I promised to paint 24 of the critters, knowing full-well that I had an additional 8 up my sleeve. I have never painted 32 models in a month. What was I thinking?! The paint scheme I chose was roughly based on a flabellinopsis iodinea nudibranch (“Spanish Shawl”). These colourful sea slugs store the stinging cells of the anemones they eat, to use later against their own predators. That sounded like such a Tyranid thing to do, and I have a couple of big Tyranid “slugs” to paint, so the idea stuck. 

Painting the 32 Termagants was a bit of a slog, but they were enjoyable to work on.

I had to decide when I was going to focus on brush control and when I had to just smash out some base colours that would need to be tidied up later. Washes and glazes were my friend in the later stages, adding much needed depth to all of the solid colour. Tyranids, with their organic shapes, really lend themselves to these painting techniques. A big shout out to all of the folks who joined us on the Crown of Command discord chat, the day I was busy base coating that blue colour, it was great fun talking to you and you kept me (mostly) sane! The most difficult stage of the paint job, for me, was highlighting all of the teeth… individually… 

In total, I ended up painting 26 Termagants armed with the basic Fleshborers (156 points), 3 with Spike Rifles (21 points) and 3 with Stranglewebs (36 points). Having some Stranglewebs in the mix can be really handy, particularly for trapping exposed vehicle crew and sending open-topped vehicles out of control. 

Challenge points: 144

Challenge models: 24

Actual points: 213

Actual models: 32 

Hello! Here’s my first month’s entry for the challenge!

Just a simple squad of 5 Chaos Space Marines to get things started. Leading the squad is a barely converted Space Marine Captain, similar models with the imperial aquila intact but blacked out can be seen in the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex. The eagle-eyed will notice a Plasma gun from the Mk IV Armour Horus Heresy squad and a metal Autocannon / Havok from 3rd edition, but don’t shoot me – there are 3 metal 2nd edition Havocs coming up soon. 

Points for the models:

5 x Chaos Space Marines – Autocannon, Flamer, Plasma Gun, 2 Boltguns – 168 pts

Cheers!
Mark