'Toy Story' from Millsy - Gaslands - Pimp My Ride!

G'day All,

There are few things I spent more time playing with as a little tacker than Matchbox and Hotwheels cars. Endless hours were devoted to carving roads into the bush rocks around our house or constructing complex race tracks in the sandpit in the backyard.

When Gaslands made its debut I was hooked and have over time I've amassed over 50 cars, trucks and bike making 10 teams or so, plus a range of other vehicles. Quite a few have been painted in previous Challenges if you'd care to look. The opportunity to make another team was not to be sniffed at and so I present for your horror/fascination my latest editions...

High Roller

Riding high and covered in rolled gold, the High Roller will has fat wheels and an even fatter bank roll. 

The Purple Perpetrator

Fast. Hard. PURPLE. Get too close and this bad boy discharges right where you least want it (from its custom oil dropper). I KNOW what you were thinking...

Pussy Galore

Pretty in pink. She purrs like a cat and she'll eat you alive. If you're lucky.

The Mar-a-Lago-mobile

Most cars have blinkers. Not the Mar-a-Lago-mobile, it has BLINGERS. Hideous, tasteless, gold blingers on every available surface inside and out. Because enquiring minds want to know there are 173 nail art "gems" that took 90 minutes to glue to this... THING.

4 x 20mm/1:72 cars = 60 points + 50 bonus points = 110 points total.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Millsy

'Empire' From Millsy: Late Roman Infantry (475 points)

G'day All,

The Battle of Adrianapole (aka Battle of Hadrianopolis) in 378 AD was a pretty significant setback for the Eastern Roman Empire. A crushing victory for the Visigoths, it resulted in the death of Emperor Valens and was a catalyst for the eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire as well.

As such it seems an appropriate subject for my entry for the Empire Theme Round. I've used the opportunity to kick off my Eastern Roman Army with eight units of infantry and a couple of attached generals.

Ostensibly for To the Strongest! they can be used for any rule set that uses units on single large bases. I've been painting these since the first minute of the Challenge this year, and using other entries as a breather.

In total we have...

• 2 x armoured Legionarii (legionaries, duh!)
• 2 x unarmoured Sagittarii (archers)
• 1 x skirmishing Sagittarii (archers)
• 1 x skirmishing Funditores (slingers)
• 1 x skirmishing Lanciarii (javelinmen)
• 2 x deep Franci (allied warriors)

Legionarii

Legionarii

The attached generals are on small half-moon bases so they can be used with a unit or left off depending on army composition at the time.

Sagittarii

Sagittarii

These are all Gripping Beast plastics and although the paint up nicely and are fun with the brush in hand they're an absolute bugger to base. All stand on a 2mm+ thick plinth that means you have to build up all the ground around them to avoid it looking like everyone is standing on a hillock. Not so bad with the lights but increasingly hard with the larger units and frankly a nightmare with the deep warriors.

Lanciarii

Funditores

There's shield decals from Little Big Man studios which were mostly OK although getting the backing off some of the older ones proved a bit tedious. They look great though so worth the effort.

Franci

Franci

All up this is 85 x 28mm infantry - 475 points including the 50 point round bonus.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Millsy

'Water Feature' from Millsy: Naga

Hi All,

Seeing as I'm apparently the only person left on the planet who hasn't bought into Cruel Seas I was left with something of a conundrum for what to paint for the Water Feature bonus round.

Digging through the lead pile I found this ancient sculpt of a Naga. These are serpentine, semi-devine creatures and are "often associated with bodies of waters - including rivers, lakes, seas, and wells". I've no idea where I got it from and have been unable to determine who sculpted it or which company sold it. If anyone can tell me its background I'd be keen to know!

I've worked the casting into a "sea" of green stuff to give the impression its rising from the waves. The casting is, I suspect, almost pure lead given how malleable it is and the detail is extremely fine and soft. That lead (pun intended) to quite a bit of swearing as I struggled to get the outcome I was looking for. In the end I had to accept that it is what it is and be happy with it.

Cheers,
Millsy

'Mercenary' from Millsy: Sgt Kepplers Mercenary Ogre Band

This is one of those submissions where I started out with the intent to do a particular thing (in this case paint just the ONE ogre) and things rapidly spiralled out of control. That's pretty often my modus operandi to be fair so I'm not sure why I find myself surprised when it happens once again. To make things even more fun my idea of a "break" from hand-painted heraldry is renaissance military costume. Okay, so mistakes were made...

Mercenary ogres are amongst the Warhammer Fantasy Old World's most undesirable characters. If there is anything less disreputable, self-interested or happily-go-unlucky violent than an ogre fighting for pay then I've no idea what it is.

Sgt. Keppler worked this out too and turned it to his advantage, collecting himself a small cadre of ugly brutes and farming them out to the highest bidder. They'll do whatever unpleasant duties other troops can't, or more often won't, perform.

They are Sgt. Kepplers Mercenary Ogre Band.

Let's have a look at them in detail!

Maul (on the left) comes from the Marauder Miniatures MM41 Ogres set and is my second favourite of the six miniatures included. He's a hunchbacked monster who remarkably still has all his own teeth! Gorge (on the right) is the Marauder Miniatures MS4 Ogre Hero who was released alongside the MM41 set. He's quite possibly the coolest ogre miniature ever sculpted and although missing an eye never misses a trick.

Maul and Gorge

Krom and Thingo also come from the MM41 Ogres set (I have the rest to paint too). Krom (on the left) is my favourite of the scuplts, wearing wonderfully ornate armour and carrying an impractically oversized sword. Thingo (on the right) did strange things to my mind when painting him - before I added hair he looked disturbingly like Patrick Stewart. Add hair and he's instantly transformed into Vinnie Jones. Weird to say the least...

Krom and Thingo

Sgt. Keppler is an Citadel Miniatures sculpt from the 8561 Empire Heroes and Command set. I've added a plume for extra cool but he's otherwise as sold. He's a difficult miniature to fit into a unit thanks to his pointing sword arm so he's a good choice to lead the ogres.

I've had these in my lead pile for a loooong time and have always struggled to feel it was the right time to paint them. In the back of my head I was worried I wouldn't do them justice. Hopefully I have done now they're painted. Thanks for looking!

PS. At some point I'll paint the remaining ogres from the set, hopefully before the Challenge ends.

Cheers,
Millsy

'Sport' from Millsy: 55 Point Bob the Human Lineman

Hi All,

Despite being a big sports fan, especially football (soccer to some of you) and AFL I don't do much in the way of sports games. Bloodbowl is really the only thing we play as a group and very little of that since the infamous Halfling Re-roll Incident *.

Anyway, I was given an odd human lineman figure a while back but never got round to painting him so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. My human team The Robbie Fouler God Squad has been around for years and reflects my painting skills at the time. I decided I see what would happen if I painted my odd chap in the same scheme but using my current techniques.

Original lineman on the left / Bob (no. 55 - see what I did there?) on the right...

Thanks for looking.

* No, that can't be explained. You had to be there. Really.

PS. Apologies Barks. I know one lineman is an affront to your idea of what an acceptable level of painting effort for Bloodbowl would be :-)

Cheers,
Millsy

'Reconnaissance' from Millsy: Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks

One of my favourite aspects of the Warhammer Fantasy universe is the Dogs of War mercenary regiments. In particular I like those most famous and therefore named regiments which form the Regiments of Renown. And of those, one my absolute favourites is Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks.

Lumpin Croop was an extremely talented Halfling poacher, blessed with acute night vision. Unfortunately not all the locals felt Lumpin's talents were put to best use and a run in at the local pub with an angry mob of gamekeepers led to some fast talking and a very tall story. The gamekeepers were obviously rather gullible because they not only believed the yarn, they completely bought into the ficticious promise of lost treasures and insisted on joining Lumpin on his quest.

Thus Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks were born and the erstwhile poacher inadvertantly found himself at the head of a band of stealthy, woodcrafty Halflings who knew very well which end of an arrow pointed towards the enemy.

Despite his attempts to dissociate himself, Lumpin can't seem to get away from his band and so on they go, hiring themselves out to the highest bidder and performing all manner of stealthy and dangerous tasks from scouting in advance of the army to headlong charges yelling "Hurray! Hurray! The Moot! The Moot!" at the top of their lungs.

Lumpin Croop is accompanied by Neddly "Ned" Hamfist, a musician and seven archers. They have special rules for skirminshing and avoiding traps along with a high skill level with their bows.

I've had these chaps sitting in my lead pile for quite a while now and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to get them onto the painting desk. I've used my usual style of a mix of two or three colour layering and inks. I was tempted to steer away from the canon green jackets but I've always loved them in green and it just seems so right.

Lumpin is missing his original shield unfortunately which is sculpted in the form of the dartboard from the pub. I've replaced with a small heater, appropriately sized and have hand painted a red chicken passant to match the standard carried by Ned.

Thanks for looking peeps!

Cheers,
Millsy

'BFG' from Millsy: Warhammer Empire Hellblaster Volley Gun

My submission for the BFG bonus round follows on from the Flight round in that it is a further addition to my Warhammer Empire army. It's a rather wonderfully named Hellblaster Volley Gun, the Empire's equivalent of an early Gatling, albeit it significantly souped up in terms of calibre!

The weapon design encompasses three sets of three barrels, the set on top being those ready to be fired whilst the others are in position to be reloaded by her "gallant" crew. The Hellblaster is famous for inflicting significant casualties, often upon the crew as opposed to the enemy, hence the requirement for crew with either massive cajones or remarkably little common sense... or ideally, some combination of the two.

This is the second edition model and is significantly larger and more complex that the first edition, with loads of intricate parts and a rather natty late medieval overall feel. I've painted the gun and crew in Altdorf colours to provide a bit of contrast to the other artillery in the army which are mostly from Nuln. You can only paint so much black after all.

The crew are almost as characterful as the Hellblaster itself. The chap with the ramrod is my favourite, ready to swig yet again from his tankard, recently refilled with another heady dose of "Altdorf Courage". Judging by the size of the jug at his feet he's an experienced gunner (i.e. has made it into his third week of service) and knows what's required to get the job done.

Now she's finished I'm quite looking forward to unleashing her on my enemies (or myself most likely!) as soon as possible.

Cheers,
Millsy

'Flight' from Millsy: Castasus Captain on Pegasus

My submission for the Flight Bonus Round is an addition to my Warhammer Fantasy Empire army. As you can see it's a hero mounted on a pegasus, oft times referred to as a "captasus" by the Warhammer community, an odd mash-up of "pegasus" and "captain". Like all the models in my army its a metal Citadel miniature from the early 90s, carefully stripped and reassembled after he was given to me by EvanH, having spent a number or years in his garage.

It would be fair to say I have a love / hate relationship with this model. I knew in advance it would be a trial to paint and it didn't disappoint. I had to paint in three parts as I knew it would be impossible to paint when assembled as it is quite top-heavy and a lot of the detail would be have been obscured or difficult to access.

The pegasus itself was a fun paint. I decided not to paint a grey / white one as you see a lot of these going around and I opted instead for a brown. That gave me the opportunity to use a warm palette for the feathers, starting with the body colour and fading out through a sandy brown to a buff at the win tips.

The seat / saddle is an extravagant piece and I couldn't resist going for a baroque look given the ornate nature and padded seat. It was quite difficult to paint as there's no easy way to hold or mount it so I ended up flipping in back an forth, painting it laying down on a clean plastic lid. The detail required a lot of very fine brushwork to bring out the relief and I'm quite happy with the end result even if it will be obscured by the rider.

When it came to the rider I used the same method for painting it on a plastic lid. He's painted in the colours of the city-state of Carroburg, home of the (in)famous Greatswords I've just finished painting. The banner is from the interwebs, repainted to tie the colours more closely to the rider. The original imagery from Games Workshop never portrayed him with a shield and I'm still tossing up whether to add one.

Assembling the model is where it really started to drive me nuts. The saddle would not sit straight and the super glue leaked out and ran down the sides of the mount, leaving a frosted white effect I had to repaint. It took three efforts to get the saddle safely in place and the rider is still not fixed because I wanted to photograph the seat (and I'd also had enough of super glue disasters for one day!)

In the end I'm happy enough with him and he'll be a constant thorn in the side of my opponent's, flapping about and roughing up opposing heroes, wizards and artillery like a good captasus should do.

Cheers,

Millsy