April Hobby Wrap Up: Black Templars

During the recent AHPC 13 I got into some more of my slow grow Black Templars force but forgot to post them here. While I was in the zone I kept going and churned out some more additions to the force, including this Redemptor Dreadnought (with some fancy 3d printed additions)

And these outriders:

And finally, this Judiciar (with a head swap) - with this guy finished I have FINALLY completed painting ALL of the models from my 40k 9th Edition 'Indomitus' boxed set - and did before 10th edition 'Leviathan' was revealed. Ok, about 48 hrs before, but that still counts :-)

Naturally, that doesn't mean ALL my Astartes are painted, just the origional Indomitus ones...

Anyway, here are the other recently finished Templars from the Challenge:

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2023/03/from-paul-og-black-templar-characters.html

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2023/03/ready-sunday-from-paul-og-black.html

AHPC XIII: Crab Bisque

Yes - more Turnip madness! Introducing Lenny Krabbitz and Miss Shelly Snippins, a pair of Scuttling crab monsters for the "Feast of Charybdis" cult in Turnip28

Scuttlers are a unique burrowers that can manoeuvre in the subterranean filth and emerge unexpectedly to grab your turnips from behind. Bit of a nasty shock that. The howdah riders assist by helpfully pushing would be victims toward the claws and mandibles to ensure their Scuttler gets a good meal. Its a win-win for (nearly) everybody.

Lenny proudly cultivates his eyebrow tufts

I 3d printed these and in my typical fashion then obsessed with intricate details for an excessively long time. More importantly though, they were FUN to make!

Poor Lenny sports metal patches on his carapace where he came off 2nd in previous battles

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2023/02/from-paul-og-crab-bisque-50-points.html

Crustacean conga line!

AHPC XIII: Last War Trenchers

The Living will Envy the Dead...

The battleground of the Last War is inhabited by the despairing, entirely without hope. Former causes have now been extinguished by an endless struggle for pointless survival. Equipped with the failing relics of industry produced by once proud nations, these scavengers now scrap over the dwindling remains of this once proud world...

I enjoyed making this base and the mysterious signage...

The Last War system has players controlling small bands (5-6 figs) of Trench fighters in narrative style scenarios to fight battlefield horrors in a desperate bid to win resources to enable their continued existence. Encounters can be head to head, coop, or solo, which provides a lot of great play options.

Posed in front of the pdf rules cover

My first trenchers are styled after the Kaiser's army but now reduced to desperate survivors.Models are by Knucklebones miniatures and I have added some extra bits (stick grenades, Grenade satchel, backpack, trench shield) to customise them. The dog came from another sculptor on 3dcults.

I've painted them in a thematically Grimdark style, experimenting with adding textures and using some Abteilung 502 oil washes.  I also spent far more time than usual scratch building each base and liberally applied Vallejo water gel effects to give it all a sodden, miserable vibe.  

The glow from the gasmask lenses and complete lack of visible flesh tries to convey their devolution and reduced humanity. But I could be overthinking it.  On the bright side, they have a puppy to keep their spirits up! ('Trench companions' play a valuable role in the game).

Love the tattered rags adorning these models

In their bunker they have a damaged pianola, salvaged from a long destroyed Chateau and now haunted by a powerful but unknown spirit.  And if one wishes to hear it play, homage must be paid to the duck with the curiously bleeding eyes inside its rasping gasmask...  (Piano also by Knucklebones)

Yes, in my obsessive madness I painted each of those keys individually...

I had a lot of fun obsessing over these models, so yes it was (yet) another of those 'sweat all the details well beyond any points efficiency which is irrelevant' projects :-)

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2022/12/from-paulog-last-war-trench-squad.html

Trencher Modelling Notes

Digital sculpting by Knucklebones Miniatures, printed at 95%

Trench Shield https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/riot-shield-bobbo01
Duck with Gas Mask https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/gas-mask-duck

Basecoated in Acrylics and Oil Washed with Abteilung 502 Burnt Umber and Smoke

Uniform Basecoat is Army Painter Uniform Grey

Helmet Camo colours: Red Leather 70818, Green Brown 70879 and Cam Olive Green 70894

Eyes Glow - Uthuan Grey base overlayed with Blood Angels contrast 

Basing - Home made duckboards from coffee strirrers, water effects, Stirland Mud (GW texture paint) drybrushed with GW's Zandri Dust

AHPC XIII opens with the Last War

AHPC Season 13 has opened this week and I've had a submission scored before Christmas- always a win!

My opening entry for Season XIII is also my first salvo for a small side project. Last War is a small indy produced skirmish level game with a Weird/Horror WW1 theme, with the premise that the War goes on, never ending, with only death awaiting all. You can find a digital copy here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/396497/Forbidden-Psalm-The-Last-War

On that cheery note - Merry Christmas!

What really got me was some wonderful digital sculpts by another small indy company called Knucklebones Miniatures (whom you can find on Facebook, Patreon, and MyMiniFactory).  I just couldn't unsee them, and so (with Reilly's technomage assistance with our 3d printer), here we are. 

Pics thematically taken in front of the Rulebook Cover

While my first Section of Trenchers is under construction, here are the first of their battlefield antagonists - barbed wire beasts. These "Spandau ballet" undead are kept in agonising pain by the cursed barbed wire that is now enmeshed in their bodies as they hunt the living across No Man's Land...  

I sculpted the bases to represent the eternally muddy and moist Western Front 

Great to be back and always good to get onto the scoreboard before Christmas - hope you all have a great one!

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2022/12/from-paul-og-last-war-barbed-wire.html

Modelling notes

Digital sculpting by Knucklebones Miniatures, printed at 100% (would probably drop to 95%)

Bascoated with ArmyPainter Barbarian Flesh, Brybrushed with Pale Flesh

Buboes washed with GW Cathonian Camoshade Green, Drakenhof Nightshade Purple and Vallejo Transparent Red

Highlights with Pale Flesh

Puddles are a mix of Vallejo Water effects gel tinted with GW Zandri Dust

Turnip28: descent into madness

Its been a bit busy of late, as usual, with lots of travel, but we did get to go to the local show last weekend - Mother of All Battles, aka MOAB. Nice to have it back after 2 years of pandemic cancellations.  Caught up with lots of gamer mates, bought way too much at the bring & buy - none of which I will admit to regretting - and it was a welcome injection of hobby invigoration.

My first foray into Turnip28...

Over the last month I have been drawn inexorably down the twisted and strange path of Turnip28. It started as a laugh to annoy certain historically focused gamers who frequently decry the lamentable 'space pixies', but its really grown on me.  People cleverer than I have described Turnip28 as a "delightfully dreary setting" and:

Turnip28 is a tabletop miniatures game and setting developed by British artist Max FitzGerald. The world of Turnip28 is a combination of postapocalyptic with napoleonics and root vegetables, and it's "about turnips".  (From the fab Gardens of Hectate blog: https://gardensofhecate.com/)

Its not meant to make sense. Its mad.

Toady (Leader) Porthos d'arTurnip and his faithful roothound, Vloorti.
Yes, that is a bunch of turnips attached to his fancy hat

More broadly, I am trying to develop better creativity, confidence in kit bashing and modifying figures, and just using up spare bits from old kits which might go together well. I can also take a baggie of bits and some tools with me on the road - the ability to sneak in some hobby time here and there has been great.

Making the troops look miserable in this tepid and squelchy realm is a sign of success

Hobby skills speaking, its a chop and then slap-chop paint process, which focuses on texture and grimdark appeal. Thus, its quite liberating at the hobby desk and has been a lot of fun.

Just prior to completing the basing so you can see the detail - there are bits from all sorts of sprue in there, and 3d printed bits

The rules are free (and fun looking), there is a discord to chat in, and there are free STLs available here:

https://www.patreon.com/Turnip28

Expect to see more of this deranged insanity

AHPC XII: Stalingrad Apartment Complex

28mm Soldat shown for scale

This 28mm scaled apartment complex building occupies a 1 foot square tile and has 5 seperate (and detachable) floors. It was 3d printed* in small sections by Alan on his filament printer last year, after which I then spent some 30 odd hours glueing, chopping and drilling to give it that pristine Urban Combat look. Quite a labour of love in which I took my own modicum of injuries!

WIP build pics here: http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2021/10/october-hobby-roundup-terraintober.html

 Each floor was modified to make it is quickly removable to allow whole skirmish games to be played just in this building alone.

The building breaks down into five separate floors - I added framing to the underside of each so that it doesn't inadvertently revert to this state mid-game...

I wanted a balance of dioramic destruction vs playability, so tried to portray a holdout building in which defenders have cleared the worst of the rubble to keep their fighting positions effective. It took quite a bit of time to do this sensibly (and of course with obligatory research of actual Stalingrad buildings - Alan's high standards require nothing less than primary source evidence, which makes one really lift one's game!). All this took well over a month so I then quietly packed it away so I could enjoy painting it during the Challenge

Undercoated in black, I then got my airbrush into action (with coaching assistance - thanks Marty!) to finally start adding pigment to the project. I really wanted to bring some colour to the table amongst all the usual urban grey wreckage, so went with a timeless brick red vibe with some coloured internal walls. I added floorboard beams and other detritus from scrap balsa. Final layers on the brickwork were traditional drybrush method, while internal floors and walls were stippled to give a bedraggled look.

Junkers-eye view of the building

Overall, this construct netted me 140 points for the painting challenge. 

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2022/01/from-paulog-stalingrad-apartment.html

* commercial stl files by WOW Buildings, here: https://wowbuildings.net/

Hail Hydra! (Red Skull was my AHPC VII Character bonus round submission :-)

SpaceX Dragon capsule for Moongrunt

Space X's Dragon system currently operates from Earth to Orbit with 7 pax payload. For my Moongrunt setting, I can imagine that some of these could be modified for lunar operations. Without the issue of escaping earth orbit, the weight saved can be utilised for additional payload (troops). Maybe two or three of these could be strapped into a lunar cycler from Earth orbit / Lagrange points and released in Lunar orbit for independent (but limited duration) ops.

But thats all rationalising and hand-wavium really,  I think they just look cool; a nice balance between Cold War utility and too much SF tech, and size wise it wont overly dominate the table. So this week I 3d printed one and am pretty happy with how its come out.

I will be using this as a USMC Lunar Landing Craft - Personnel

Just a small update, but it feels good to get this project going at last.

https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/dragon/

Beast of Nurgle

Last year I painted up a Nurgle Team for Blood Bowl that Reilly gifted to me for father's day: https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2020/12/ahpc-xi-nurgle-blood-bowl-team.html

...thanks to my third but mercifully shorter period of quarantine for this year, I've finally gotten to painting a Beast of Nurgle (or Rotspawn, as the position is now called) for the team. I wasn't a fan of the GW model so using our new 3d resin printer we made our own. Its quite large and would probably be better printed at 90%, but this guy is super imposing on the pitch :-)

This model is "The Maw" by creator Dark Gods. Priced at only a few dollars, the pre-supported stl is really great and I highly recommend it.  It also comes with a bunch of options so you could build a whole Fantasy unit with none of them the same: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-the-maw-dark-gods-166164

Painting wise this was a pretty quick and dirty project with lots of washes I started with a dark green base and added a white zenithal highlight. Flesh was as per my team using Celestra grey with Druchi Violet wash. Slaneshi Grey drybrush and then highlights with Ulthan Grey and Palid Wych Flesh. Mouth was a basecoated in Screamer Pink, highlighted in Emperor's Children, a patchy red wash and finally a gloss finish.

Concurrently, our DungeonBowl set has arrived and we are getting set for even greater mayhem underground. I've started churning out some thematic bases on the resin printer too.

Ahhh, that new game box smell!