David B - Warcry- more skullz for the skull throne (60points)

I could have used this for lust, but I will save that for another entry. My wargaming buddies have been trying to get me in AoS by using the underworld game and WarCry. of the two Warcry is a great skirmish game, but the Sig marine knights were too strong and did not need a lot of effort to pilot in game. They are a great warband for new players to figure out the game though. The skirmish game is supposed to be small scale skirmish in the chaos wastes of competing warbands. The smaller chaos tribes sending out champions to build the next army under a new champion.

I bought a used box on ebay minus the starter warbands, but it came with books, compediums, extra cards, dice, and all the terrain. I did not care for the starter warbands so it was a good deal for me. The terrain was primed in a terracotta and in rough shape. it was also assembled a bit incorrect from recommended assembly which makes a little bother for setting up games.

I have been using up my version one army painter speedpaints and a boatload of craft paints as i worked shadows and highlights over these. Entirely brushwork with no airbrush and the bigger and sloppier the brush the better!

I spent a bit of time working the blues and greens on the terrain to match the included game board so that the terrain matched up to be more immersive.

I think I did get it close, but I still think I may use some black and grey on the tree timbers as the sculpt seems to lend to fire damaged timbers. for now I am happy with the effect.

The Corvus Cabal with a leader, a hero, and two champions with 4 standard cultists.

They are a lot more fun than the knight warband I have since there is only 4 heroes and even they can be eliminated quick if put in bad places.

This fellow is my favorite and has proved deadly with the right combos. A ninja that is quick and can fly from heights. In my game group he has a high price on his head.

All of them have feathers and bird skulls. I zenthial highlighted them over black then fully painted the feathers in blue with highlights and the cloth in purple with highlights. I then covered the areas in black legion contrast paint with gave them the blackened hue I wanted for evil ninjas. The feathers a cold black and clothing a warm one.

They were Primed since summer, but the leader needed repair and rebasing as she has been smashed in a truck door and later was stepped on.I fixed her many times and her bird now has a beak made from a plastic spear tip as the door or foot flattened the beak. 

She is a very capable hero and only has died twice...not including the two smashing incidents. but i had to use a slap chop to get the zenithal highlights after I based her again. I hope that she won't be smashed again now that she is painted. As a veteran of susch smashings, I made her skull mask nore aged than her underlings

A couple of champions to lead the rabble. one male and one female with a bit of red warpaint to seperate them from the others

I quite like them as some glass cannons.

some of the chaff cultists, they work best as pairs and with one of the four heroes. Sometimes as ablative armor, but quite capable in dealing damage with pile on attacks.

of this pair the one with the raven is a tracker that can aid in improving attacks.

I used the army painter deep skin tones which run from a cold umber to a very pale flesh tone. i wanted them to look like pasty skinned ninjas who work most in the night. I picked this bunch of cultists because of their dynamic look and they do remind me more of animated Naruto Ninjas than chaos cultists.I kept their basing simple to also tie in with the battle board 

I think  I spent a little too much time on the terrain than I should have.

it is some wonderful terrain though and will be used in other games as well

It was a lot of fun leaning into the damaged terrain theme with the weathering

I spent way too much time painting the damaged bell tower

with all the oxidation and rust and dust, the grime streaks. really nice terrain for such a small game and worth the price paid. I have found some 3d print terrain that can be added to it to make the card setup of the game closer. except for the barricade terrain only the bell had skulls. With the bricks, metal, timbers, and improvised repair, really evocative terrain with lots of different textures to paint.

so that is 8 chaos cultists for 40 points

a full set of game terrain for 0 points...but there was 49 skulls

add the avian skulls if allowed for another 25 skulls  plus the seven already in and I have a new total of 81 skulls in the skull duel! that makes one more skull than the points earned for this post!

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I feel that Warcry is an underrated game. Sure its got some shortcomings but I really like the fast paced, almost elegant way it compresses and speeds up the GW system from which it came.
 

I really like your Corvus Cabal warband and what you've done with the terrain, upon which the whole game relies. I'm awarding you bonus points for that on top of the figs - enjoy David!

- Paul

From BruceR - Epic Iron Brigade, Zombie Camels, Chaos Warriors, Limbo, (117 pts)

It’s great to be back for Challenge XV and all the positivity associated with the hobby we share.  

As we all do, I have a number of different ways to go this year and was sitting reading Curt’s first post and I was drawn to a couple of primed epic ACW infantry stands that simply sat on my painting area.  I’d continued from the Challenge last year and completed the Guts and Glory box of epic ACW and the crew here played a couple of Black Powder games with the newly finished forces.  One of our crew had moved away a number of years ago, but manages to return once or twice a year to game.  He played ACW this summer and started painting the Army of North Virginia.  This got my juices going so why not paint the Iron Brigade (Midwest toughs) for the Union.  We, like many others, we have  paired down the number of stands in a regiment to 3 from the Warlord 5.  I was able to find a box on ebay and was surprised when they arrived in this wee box.  20 strips of Iron Brigade ready for the brush.  I had to create a command stand as only 2 are in the box.  I cut up a strip and placed some 10mm Kallistra ACW metals in to make it happen.  The buddy returned two weekends past and we put his new force and my additional troops on the table for a battle.  A long story as to why there were 3 stands sitting unloved.  They were not used or needed and so I return to the Iron Brigade.  Perfect for the first level of hell “Limbo”, returning to a project.  I whipped them out and with only 3 strips I had to dig in the bits box and decided to add some Kallistra officers and a standard to create another base.  So another 2 bases of Iron Brigade lads to the collection. 

Iron Brigade

Continuing Frenzy:

Zombie Camels

Yesterday, the gang came over for the last game of the year as I’m traveling for the holidays.  We have enjoyed The Silver Bayonet, and I had set up the 2^nd scenario from the Egypt book.  We had a blast and when finished one of the boys passed out little Xmas packets to the 3 of us.  These were resin printed “Zombie Camels”.  I had used some nurgle troops to represent them previously as I did  not have Camels of any sort.  So, while the war department watched the Kennedy Center production Sunday night, I painted Zombie Camels.  I kept to the nurgle theme as, well they are zombies.  Used speed paints for most of the work and I actually like how they turned out.  We will have to replay scenario one to get the zombie camels back  on the board. 

Gift Painting:

Chaos Warriors

While putting some gifts together of miniatures for the gaming crew I noticed two original metal chaos warriors/champions sitting on a figure shelf.  Probably been there for 15+ years (actually I have no idea where I would have obtained them from) Perfect, one of the group has an  old chaos warrior army and I had nothing for him.  Well get the brush going and two old school chaos warriors ready for Xmas giving and Mordheim, WHFB, WtOW etc… 

Good to be back

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Bruce! I've always really liked your 12mm ACW efforts and these do not disappoint. Love the undead camels; a terrific addition to your Silver Bayonet collection and definitely a good reason to revisit a scenario. This all being said, I have to admit that my favorites of the crowd are the two Chaos Warriors. Love these guys. They have that wonderful old-school wide-stance look about them. What an awesome gift. Well done!

- Curt 

From EricM: A Chaotic Diversion--Games Workshop Slaves to Darkness (60 Points)

Its official, I have fallen to Chaos.  Games Workshop is the devil.  While it has been quite sometime since I have been interested in Games Workshop. I do really like the changes they have made in the last few years, improving their model range, bringing back some classic games.  I have been able to avoid falling into the eye candy trap they set for me and just observe from the shadows... until now.  A month or so ago they released their new Slaves to Darkness line, it's game over now.

I picked up the start collecting box which has a Chaos Lord, 10 Chaos Warriors and 5 mounted Chaos Knights.  They have made some huge improvements to their design and production processes, which has allowed them to make some incredibly dynamic and interesting poses.  All this while making a snap fit kit, this whole kit can be (in theory) assembled without glue.  For me it required some glue and a lot of cursing and gnashing of teeth. While it took a bit of patience the kit went together pretty smoothly, its a bit of an engineering marvel in my opinion.

The first figures I attempted were the Chaos Warriors.

These guys were a blast to paint.  I had to learn how to do the extreme edge highlighting, which as you can see is still a work in progress.  I think I need to go one level brighter on the edge. Here are some close ups

I think its a little bit sadistic to make models with huge spikes and advertise it as push fit.

These guys are supposed to be heroic 28mm (I think) but they are massive compared to the older Chaos range.

Next up was the Chaos Lord.   He was a tougher assembly but man he is a cool figure.

This guy was a challenge to paint.  The way he is constructed makes it hard to paint in sub-assembly and the amount of detail on him is daunting. He was like trying to paint a baseball that weighed as much as a feather. But I am really happy with him.

Here is the full class picture.

Chaos Knights and my Challenge Island award figure are up next.

Here is the tally: 10 x 28mm foot, 1 x 28mm mounted.

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Hello again Eric - while Chaos is not my "thing", I can certainly relate to the feeling of caving in on many, many other GW products and lines (*cough* Horus Heresy *cough*).  I think its great that you have found some figures that you clearly love and are having so much fun painting (challenges about spiky-push-models aside).  Your energy really shines through, and you should be pleased with the results - these fellows look more than ready to go torch villages throughout the Empire fight hard for their Chaos Gods in whatever version of GW's setting that is current. 

I did laugh at your mention of allegedly not requiring glue - the push-together model that works for gaming is an urban legend, and I have yet to encounter such a model that doesn't actually require glue in order to hold together and be used on the gaming table.

We look forward to your next submissions...and judging by the "New Posts" screen, it looks as though we won't be waiting long...

GregB

From TeemuL: Slambo (5 points)

After not winning the side duel, I have been slowing down. And still running out of prepped minis and hobby time. But as always, I managed to get something done on this week (in addition to the bonus round entry). Let me present mister Slambo to you.

Slambo has visited this challenge blog earlier this year, too, but he has just seems to like attention, so here's my interpretation of him. Although the two axes might hint to the Khorne, I decided to paint him Nurgle colors. Quite strangely, with the current rules of the Age of Sigmar, he can't take Mark of any Chaos god, he then fights for all of them - or no one. He is the one man army anyway.

He is a resin model from the Games Workshop. Sculpted and released last year, but based on the original Slambo miniature from the 80s. I really like those old plastic Chaos Warriors, so he fits nicely with them.

Painting was actually quite simple and fast, but looks very good - in my opinion. Especially the horns on the helmet are something I personally like.

He is a big taller than average 28mm miniatures, but I think 5 points is good for him.

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What a beast Teemlu, you certainly wouldn't want to upset this chap in a bar!  Lovely use of colour, especially the blending on the horns.  Nicely done Sir. 

From TeemuL: Last Odds and Ends (61 points)

Ok, so the Blogger ate my entry. Quick rewrite, much shorter than the original.

German Shepherds?

Odds Ends has been my running theme this year, so let's continue with that. Here are 6 Lizard Nazis from Crooked Dice. With these 6 my Crooked Dice Nazi force is all painted - there were 3 Human Nazis painted earlier in the Challenge and 3 before.

3 Different sculpts, one with MP40, one with MP-40 and cigarette and one with Stub Gun.

I used the again the camo scheme on these, camo pants and white collar shirt with tie looks crazy enough for (Lizard) Nazis.

 

This is my 3rd Challenge and 3rd time I post Mouflon Sheep from Warbases. Good for objectives or giving some life to battle boards?

 

Then the rest of the Gorechosen, three other pieces of the game - the Slaughterpriest was the first one. I didn't feel like finishing these, because they were so detailed and large, but the final day of the Challenge finally inspired me to finish them. I happy now, they are finished.

Skullgrinder, Aspiring Deathbringer and Exalted Deathbringer - GW really knows how to give names? :)

Then some scary closeups...

I'm glad I just read an article about drybrushing the flames, it was really useful.

I like the cloths on all three, but couldn't get a good focus

Some fresh scars on the back, first highlighted with brown, then with reds.

8 times 25mm and 3 times 40mm should give me nice 61 points, which don't really matter, since I'm over my target anyway. 

Thanks Curt, minions and fellow painters, see you next year! P.S. It's time to start thinking about the theme of the next year, I was sure the VII would be about the 7 deadly sins, but it wasn't... :D

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You know Teemu, funny thing is I was THIIIIS close to doing the Seven Deadly Sin, but watching the news was enough to spoil my interest on that subject. The topic of camaraderie won out in the end, big time and I'm happy I stuck with it. :)

The animals and Chaos dudes are excellent (great scars btw) but the Lizard Nazis are the bomb! I love these guys, especially the one with the MP-40 and cigarette. (How the hell does a lizzard smoke a cigarette with no lips? Who cares! It's just cool.)

A great final entry Teemu. As you've tabulated, this lot will give 61points. 

Until next year then? :)