OWAC V ; closing curtains

Well here we are, another OWAC has just ended. It's crazy to think this was our fifth edition already! And it was another resounding success! Every year it seems the quality of the entries and army produced gets better, and this was no exception. But what surprised me this year was the productivity of challengers. Big units, huge projects and just a general desire by the challengers to surpass themselves and push it to the limits (Walk along the razor's edge But don't look down just keep your head, or you'll be finished).

The readers of this blog do not see it, but the camaraderie and help displayed by the challengers in our (secret) Facebook group is my favourite part of this endeavour. It's fuckin' contagious. And it's why I keep at it, as the OWAC created a great community I'm proud to be a part of.

As a closing word, a big congratulations to all this year's veterans, and also to those who died trying. And thank you to all the readers, all those who lave comments, the challengers really appreciate it.

And if you are still thinking about joining, what the hell are you waiting for? Challenge yourself! The reward is beautiful, in all its painted glory. (just look for the OWAC page on Facebook, and send a PM to be added to the waiting list).

There will be a next OWAC in 2023. And it's going to be a special one.

Until then, this blog is closed. Enjoy the Fall. 

ZeroTwentythree's May Undead (333 pts)

May Entry

Rank & File Month

 

As explained in my intro post, aside from Donovan, the other big inspiration for painting undead for this OWAC was my purchase of three Carrion from a semi-recent Knightmare Games Kickstarter. Awesome looking figures, but a bear to assemble! I kept putting them off and figured that an OWAC project would help motivate me into it... or retiring in shame to the Field of Bones.

Apparently it worked! Although it did come down to the later end of the OWAC before I finally picked up drill & wire & glue and finally got them prepped. So now I subject you to excessive photos in celebration of finally completing the death turkeys!

 

 

 

  

The one that gave me the most trouble is also my favorite, the one with feathered wings. My favorite rider, though, is the one with the outstretched scythe, on the right in the first photo. Feathery puts me in a mood...

 

And just for laughs....

I previously painted  an Overlord miniature. When the figure on the right, from Oldschool Miniatures, arrived I figured it was the perfect Assistant Overlord! Here are both of them, at the Field of Bones, discussing the fine print of the Old World Army Challenge Rules. (Actually, more like what you'd call guidelines...).

 

 

 

Finally, I managed to get the rest of this month's entry done at the last minute thanks to and in spite of the US Memorial Day holiday weekend. Five more Death Riders. Slightly different variety of flamingo served as the inspiration for these.

 

This figure was painted earlier, but I didn't want to reveal it until the rest were done. This was my first test model for the flamingo cavalry. Although I liked the idea, I decided I didn't want full squads of Necron 99/Peace inspired cav, so he will serve as a champion.

 

In spite of the last minute rush to finish painting, I still had time to relax by a fire on a beautiful Spring night and contemplate the completion of the OWAC next month.

 

May Rank & File Month
 

3 Carrion........................................................ 135 pts
1 Assistant Overlord (lv. 5 necromancer).....   60 pts

6 Death Riders w/Lances, Shields................   138 pts

May Total: 333 pts

Total So Far: 1,466 pts

ZeroTwentythree's March Undead (198 pts.)

March Entry

Rank & File

6 Death Riders w/lances and shields ......... 138

I really started this project with a 100% serious fast attack type strike-force  in mind. Somehow that devolved (or is it evolved) into skeletons on flamingos. There's a viral photo to blame.

The concept behind this year's OWAC project was born around Halloween 2021. We had a Halloween music station playing in our dining room for weeks. There were two triggers for me. The primary one was Donovan's "Season of the Witch", which became Season of the Liche. The other, which lurked in the back of my skull for a while, was a photo shared on Facebook of some plastic skeletons riding on flamingo lawn ornaments. Not only did I stumble upon it myself but several friends shared it with me. I *think* this is the photo:

I had every intention of rehabilitating some old Citadel plastic cavalry, as explained & photographed in my introduction post as well as some behind the scenes pics in the private OWAC FB group. At some point, for better or for worse, I found these Playmobil flamingos, started experimenting with a couple of test figures, then cutting up & repositioning legs... and here we are.

Except that was not the end of it.

 

Because my garden will now have these (as soon as it stops snowing).

 

And when I needed to travel to Florida for work a few weeks ago, instead of staying at a hotel as I normally would, I booked this Air B&B, specifically because of the decor.

And that's not the end of it... But why dump all the flamingo obsession in one entry. No, best to save some for next time. ;)

 

I had plans for more of my core project, plus bonus figures, terrain, etc. but all I managed this month was another necromancer, The Overlord, Master of the Field of Bones, seen here explaining the rules of the Challenge to the members.

I figured if I'm going to model the Field of Bones (and I'm not done with that yet), it should have an Overlord.

March Rank & File Month

6 Death Riders w/Lances, Shields....... 138 pts
1 Overlord (lv. 5 necromancer)........ 60 pts

March Total: 198 pts
Grand Total: 883 pts.

Iannick's Red Templars Wrap-up

 Well here it is, the end of the line! And another OWAC project completed from yours truly. Woo!

It was a fun ride, although a very different ride for me. Painting 40K, something I hadn't done since the early 90s when I was listening to to Guns N' Roses and drinking copious amount of Mountain Dew, was a completely new experience. 

What did I learn? Well a few things :

1. I'll admit I cannot understand how people can paint huge armies of Space Marines. I was pretty burnt out by the end of it. So monochromatic! 

2. Remind me to never do a project that involves massive amount of edge highlighting

Still, I'm super happy with this force, I'm going to use it for sure (I'm coming for your purple false marines Blue). It was clearly an "out of my comfort zone" project, and I like to push myself here and there, so success!

The completed force. Yep, all infantry. No shortcuts, pretty proud of that fact.

My original list looked like this :

- Lieutenant Commander Martin (Major Hero) : 94 pts

- Lieutenant (Minor Hero) : 50 pts

- Chaplain (Champion) : 19 pts

- Librarian (Epistolary) : 50 pts

- 2 Techmarines : 34 pts

- 2 Medics (Champion) : 68 pts

- 3x Tactical squads : 750 pts

- 1x Terminator squad : 450 pts

- Terminator Captain (Hero) : 150 pts

- Contemptor Dreadnought : 201 pts

- Conqueror Robot : 160 pts

So, what did I painted?

The Terminator squad and hero

First Squad

2nd Squad

3rd Squad

The Medics

The Techmarines

Standard bearer and Captain

The Librarian

The Chaplain 

So the final list looks like this :

- Lieutenant Commander Martin (Major Hero) : 94 pts

- Lieutenant (Minor Hero) : 50 pts

- Chaplain (Champion) : 19 pts

- Librarian (Epistolary) : 50 pts

- 2 Techmarines : 34 pts

- 2 Medics (Champion) : 68 pts

- 3x Tactical squads : 750 pts

- 1x Terminator squad : 450 pts

- Terminator Captain (Hero) : 150 pts

- Contemptor Dreadnought : 201 pts

- Conqueror Robot : 160 pts

- Terrain !

So basically I managed to paint almost everything I wanted, minus the robot and Dread. I'll probably have to paint these two one day to round out my force. But still, pretty happy with my focus.

And here's a few extra pics of the boys in action amongst the ruins of Fortuna III :

And the mandatory Warhammer Armies pose pic

So, next year? Nothing concrete yet, but in all probability, I expect to be back in the Old World. I missed the units.

And so this conclude this edition of the OWAC, our fourth and without a doubt our best, both in terms of numbers of participants and quality of armies and entries. It was spectacular (and also very demanding from yours tuly, I probably reached my participants limits!) Congratulation to all participants who managed to finish the challenge, let's do it again next year!

Iannick's terminator squad and specialists (702 points)

Do not fail your Brothers. Though their bodies die, their spirit must return to the Chapter. That is your charge.

Medic credo

Rank & file month #2

Woo! I finished this month's entry at the very last minute, with barely an hour left in February. In hindsight, doing the Terminators in the shortest month of the Challenge was probably not the best idea. These guys are not only big, but they have so much details!

It was also an extremely difficult month for me as last week I had to say goodbye to my best friend, my cat Leto. 19 years together is a very long time, and his passing really hit me hard. I had to muster all of my discipline to finish my February's entry as, frankly, the last few days the OWAC and painting little miniatures seemed trivial.

Anyways,  here they are, my squad of Terminators, including the iconic Terminator captain model, which was a blast to paint. I purchased these models, I believe in 1990 or 1991. They were not part of an army or anything, just a classic impulse buy I would so often back in the days (age hasn't made me that much wiser on those I must admit). I just thought they look really, really cool. Well, they still do. 

But I never did anything with them. For two reasons :

1. I remember having the toughest time gluing them together, the arms especially. My two part epoxy glue skills were a mess, and my father's trying his glue gun on them didn't achieve the results I was hoping for, either! 
2. Man were they indimidating! These guys were in every golden demon book and white dwarfs, and they had so much details I was so afraid I would screw them up!

So I did what any young hobbyist does, and put them back in the book, never to apply paint to them. 30 years later, they were overdue!

And while the gluing part went pretty well (death to two part epoxy!), they were still intimidating to paint. Those figures have a ton of details, and I would've liked to have a bit more time to work on them. Notheless, they look bad ass!

Close-up on Captain Leto 

I obviously went with my red templars colour scheme, but gave them the white left pauldron of my elites. I didn't do checkerboards or stripes, as is the tradition, but rather used my chapter's iconography and my trusted transfers. Time was a factor in that decision, but also I'm just not a big fan of hasard stripes. I know, pretty shameful for a Oldhammerer. I also wanted to give them a clean look and keep to my gold-red-white colour triad. I like them.

Close-up on some of the iconography

Next up we have a quatuor of specialists. I gave the Techmarines golden helmets and backpacks to give them a different look than the regular marines. Metallics seemed like an appropriate choice given their role. I'd love to know why the GW crew at the time thought techmarines should sport creature claws on the pauldron, it's a weird choice. But they are just such iconic miniatures.

The inspiration for my medics colour scheme came from the Ultramarines (Filippo will be proud) with a change or two. I really like them. The white and the red just pops. Although the white highlights are lost in the photography. I wasn't really happy with my previous white recipe so I tried something new and used GW's white contrast as recess shading, along with an off white as the main white and pure white for the highlights (did the same with my termies and techmarines) and I quite like the final results. My first attemps at using contrasts were quite disappointing but that white is a great tool. Good job GW. I may not like a lot of your new figures but your painting tools are often super useful.

I'm not sold on that banner...I realized at the last minute that I had no plans for that banner and I really didn't want to publish an unfinished figure! Panicked, I looked online for a printable banner and had little success. Even worse I realized I was out of red in my ink cartidge. Doh! So I came up with this. Not great but it will have to do. 

• 2 Techmarines : 34 pts
• 2 Medics (Champion) : 68 pts
• 1x Terminator squad : 450 pts
• Terminator Captain (Hero) : 150 pts

Total for the month : 702 pts (lol)

Next month? I'll probably take a break from the rank & files entries.

Iannick's Red Templars - An introduction

And they shall know no fear

So when I decided to include Rogue Trader\40K to the OWAC (after some polite lobying from a few members) I decided I would join that wave. 

I have a complicated relationship with the 40K universe. Like many 80s Oldhammerers, I started with Fighting Fantasy books, then RPGs, then Warhammer Fantasy (3rd edition). After some fantasy gaming with mostly unpainted figures, I got Rogue Trader in my early teens and I played a lot of it for around 2 years with my best friend, my Imperial Guards vs his Eldars. Then puberty came, along with parties, drugs, girls and we stopped playing. When I came back to the hobby in my college years I didn't really like the direction 40K had been going, and I plunged back into fantasy, never to look back.

Since then, I painted a few sci-fi figs, lots of Epic, but never 40K, although the aesthetics of Rogue Trader, and to a lesser extent 2nd, still pleases me. 

I figured this edition of the OWAC was my opportunity to get back into the far future, after more than 25 years! I contemplated rebuilding an IG force, but quickly settled for Space Marines. When I was younger I always wanted to paint marines but I found them intimidating. Lots of flat surfaces, edge highlights, and the need to do free hands on those pauldron put me off. No more! 

The real and agonizing choice came next. What chapter to do?! I didn't want to do one of the classic ones, I wanted something unique, and none of the Badab wars colour scheme really tempted me that much either. And there was also the question of transfers, as I'm still shite at freehands.

So I decided to go with my childhood dream and build my own. Looking at my favourite iconography, I settled on using Fleur de Lys (I'm from Québec, with french ancestors, and I have a soft spot for them). And then while perusing the Web I realized there was already a Chapter sporting the Fleur de Lys, the Red Templars. I even liked their colours, which were classics and had an old school RT vibe to them. So a decision was made! Even better, transfers were easily available from a number of vendors specializing in historical transfers. Case closed.

The Red Templars are also a very obscure Chapter, and its lore has never been explored by GW. That leaves me tons of creative options when it comes to its history, markings, etc. Yes, the pieces of the puzzles were coming together nicely.

Then it was just a question of putting a force together. I wanted to stay true to a Rogue Trader force as much as possible and wanted to make it infantry heavy as a core. Obviously painting all those classic models I saw in WD as a kid. Beakie heavy, as I still don't understand to this day the dislike GW has for that fine helmet. 

I almost had a huge disaster late November, when I realized the 20 odd plastic beakies I had were pretty much useless, but fellow challenger John Ratcliffe came to the rescue and saved my ass with not only a squads of RTB01 beakies, but a RT dreadnought to boot! One of the many things I love about this hobby, the helping each other out!

So, let's look at that project shall we?

1st Company, Red Templars, Harrowing of the Night Reapers campaign

2nd Tactical Squad (crappy picture, as you can see these are already sitting pretty on my painting table. Just a few hours left before paint is applied)

3rd Tactical squad (all RTB01 plastic marines)

1st tactical (veteran) squad, with Lieutenant. Bit short at the moment, I know. I'm waiting for reinforcements before deciding the other figures I'll use. My plan is to use helmetless marines, marines with weird armours, terminator honours marines, etc. to make this a bad ass looking veteran outfit.

Terminator Tactical Squad, with Captain

Specialists (Medics, Techmarines)

My Wild Card stuff; Dreadnought, Robot and an Assassin. Because it's Rogue Trader and I want an assassin!

Command group; Lieutenant-Commander Martin (with the mechanical leg, of course), Company Standard Bearer, Chaplain and Librarian

There might be a surprise or two depending on how things go

Tentative Army list (I went pretty vanilla on upgrades. After all the goal is not the min-max a list but to paint) :

- Lieutenant Commander Martin (Major Hero) : 94 pts

- Lieutenant (Minor Hero) : 50 pts

- Chaplain (Champion) : 19 pts

- Librarian (Epistolary) : 50 pts

- 2 Techmarines : 34 pts

- 2 Medics (Champion) : 68 pts

- 3x Tactical squads : 750 pts

- 1x Terminator squad : 450 pts

- Terminator Captain (Hero) : 150 pts

- Contemptor Dreadnought : 201 pts

- Conqueror Robot : 160 pts

For a nice total of 2026 pts! 

The OWAC can now officially begin in a mere two hours. They are 39 challengers this edition, which is our record (what have I done?!) and they are some truly great and unique projects this year. I wish best of luck to all the challengers ballsy enough to join this event, and a personnal thank you for all the great offerings you worked on. Now, fuck 2020 and let's get this party started!