From DavidB: Battletech, Space Marines, Wood Elves (76 points)

 

            Kaleo- way down we go                

I had to clear my desk of some debris and push out some minis to make room for a new batch using my new paints. I suppose if there is a theme, it is that my mind is as cluttered and hectic as my desk.  

Up first are some battlemechs for BattleTech. An Inner sphere Heavy Lance from Catalyst Games and a group of mercs from my Elegoo 3d printer.                 

                     

I painted the Heavy Lance in urban camouflage and some nice blue markings that will match up with House Steiner 

a Grasshopper, Hatchetman, Banshee, and Centurion.

I have a load of files and selected a few of my favorites for 3D prints

Two Hunchback variants, an Atlas, and a Longbow.

I painted these in an arid camouflage and secured them to bases also 3D printed. I have a few more prints in the wings and they all need bases. I textured the bases in sand and gravel and dry brushed them up in successive tans and ochres for that nice sun blasted scrub that becomes a boggy mud in rain.

The scheme was inspired by a Mechwarrior Merc video series I seen on YouTube.

Squad Justarian. For Christmas I received the Killteam starter box which featured Ultramarine and Deathguard killteams comprised of old blind buy boxes. Both are considered old models being 5 or so years old and way cheaper now with a bonus of terrain and basic rules. I am just chuffed that I have a long wanted killteam. They were almost painted as Ultramarines, but since the Iron Snakes are a successor Chapter and since I still have a few Iron Snakes insignias.... Iron Snakes they are now.

A Heavy Intercessor and an Eliminator sniper led the charge, The sniper got a similar camouflage to the German Vicks as i painted them at the same time with the same colors, but less ochre for the marine.

I painted the bases up as they have wonderful, sculpted bases that tell the story. 

scattered brass and for this fellow a grenade pin.

When building them I had a choice of helmets or bare heads, the two intercessor warriors with boltguns( different bolter configurations) are flanking the assault intercessor. The fellow with the smoke grenade had a wonderful scarred mohawk head which I felt matched better his cybernetic arm. 

I did paint his face inspired by Dembinski illustrations.

A veteran Intercessor Sgt and the Capt. Justarian. I can only take one either or the other to lead the squad then 4 more marines from the ones above.

I painted the captain's tilt shield in ultra marine checkerboard, and the other half got a partial Ultra U

They will see a game soon!

Now for something very different. I do not much care for elves very much, and my daughter Valerie really wanted these as they are wood elves.  But I have wanted this set of Underworld models for a long time just for this wood elf centaur. In the 90's I played a Sega game "Shining Force" where my favorite troops were the centaurs that were the heavy horse knights and the light horse archers. This model reminds me of that game and the animation is grand.

I painted his helm to like it was carved from wood and treated the armor as if woven from leaf and grass.

He is accompanied by some satyr-ish elves like this fellow leaving a ripple in the water from his wake (pun intended).

I used all the vibrant colors from the army painter fanatic set for them as it does not seem right for wood elves to be drab.

The lady with the bow was used to perfect the orange and yellow hair to contrast with the vibrant green armor.

The last fellow has a horn and seems to be a mage of some sort.

They also have a cat whose base was a little neglected as he was missed when buried by unpainted minis on deck.

I will punch up his base this challenge after I finish up the next group. The Centaur kinda took precedence over the cat, but if a forest dog...I would have probably kept a better watch for him;)

So, a mixed bunch of minis cleared for some room on my desk.

7 White Snakes for 35 points

4 wood elves and a cat for 25

and 8 battle mechs for 16 points

squirrels- White Scars, Fantasy Orcs, US Infantry, German Infantry, Allied Vicks, Axis Vicks, Wood elf                   warband.

Stompy Robots of Death- 8

Skulls- I got to add 25 more skulls thanks to the killteam for a new total of 44

I will have to clean up his chest eagle and blue cords, but I really liked those wax skulls on the purity seals.  ;)

Quite a variety here David, and nice work to boot. I particularly like the colourful Wood Elves, I'm sure your daughter will love them too!

Seventy-six points for you!

Dallas

From KillianF: Fantasy Elf Heavy Infantry (40 points)

 Good day all,

Thank you for the nice comments on the Orcs & Dwarves previously. I am following them up with 8 Elf  warriors. These are for the most part from the Oathmark Elf Heavy Infantry, which is one of my favourite renditions of elves in plastic. The bodies are dynamic, the armour interesting, and there are far more posing options than the other Oathmark Elf kits. Additionally, I have used arms from the Wargames Atlantic Armoured Late Romans, which are a slightly different style of mail, to create even more poses. I also gave one of the greatsword bearers a crest from the old Warhammer High Elf Archers kit. These old High Elf kits provide a fantastic range of gubbins and decorations to create some really ornate panoplys. Here's the group: 

 

 

This then inspired the leader in his massive dragon helm. 

I made the dragon itself by carving one of the High Elf Spearmen banner pole toppers, with the wings coming from another piece, some sort of winged gem. Judicious filing and application of miliput hopefully has hidden the gaps sufficiently. The arm was made by chopping some various bits and pieces to straighten it, and then more miliput to fill the gap in the armpit. I used a small amount of terracotta putty for the initial fill, and then after a day some black miliput on top. I then carved a cocktail stick to the desired size and sculpted the mail. I essentially poked holes in the black until the orange showed through. Miliput is not the best for such fine detail (I'd rather green stuff), but it's what I had on hand. Overall I'm quite happy with him.

The painting is pretty simple, given the quantity of armour they wear. The cloth was either blue or turquoise, and the leather was either red, turquoise or brown. I always try to give my elves a green tinge to the skintone. I much prefer it when elves are characterised as somewhat alien, so I try to avoid painting them as just "humans, but better". These guys were based with a skintone mixed with yellow ochre (a fantastic colour), washed brown-green, and then highlighted up with Titanium Buff. I have yet to decide how I'm going to do the shields, so for now they're remaining plain blue.

My Elf army will have one unit of greatswords and one unit of axemen. These may or may not have similar stylings to Warhammer High Elf White Lions and Swordmasters. Sometimes in life you just want to recreate the army you badly painted at the age of 12. I have 2 additional fantasy elf armies to paint yet. One day when they are complete I will be able to field a massive host with several different types. But for now, I've got to finish off these Oathmark ones......

Points:

8x 28mm: 40 points

Squirrel: 1 point 

Squirrel tally: 7

Zona Scavengers, 10mm Black Orcs, 10mm Skeletons, 28mm Goths, 28mm Elves, Dwarves and Orcs 

From DaveD . That a fine addition for this Sunday Killian.good work on the kit bash elements here . 40 it is 

 

From KillianF - War in the Mountains (53 pts )

 Good day all,

Finally finished a variety of fantasy figures. These Orcs and Dwarfs are Medbury Miniatures(again, STLs 3d printed by myself. I would be remiss not to mention they can be bought in metal from Mr Medbury himself).

 

Firstly, four Orc archers. These guys were painted to be grungy and dirty, with lots of brown and desaturated colour. Indeed, after a zenithal prime of dark grey-grey-tan-white, they got a watered down umber ink wash to shade the entire model. Basecoats were then applied, leaving the brown in the recesses to make them dirty. Quite a few more brown washes followed.

 

The last orc is a banner bearer. The model is essentially a Roman legionary style orc, hence the wolf pelt, single greave and manica on the right arm.

The banner is tomato puree foil, covered with PVA soaked tissue to provide texture and an easily paintable surface. I freehanded another banner, because I like painting evil eyes in bright red on a backdrop of Payne's Grey. I added the traingle border on a whim, which was ultimately a silly idea. Painting that many tiny triangles is a recipe for insanity. However, it's an orc banner so I did not worry myself with making it neat.

Next are five dwarf rangers, also from Medbury. I enjoyed adding colour and texture to their clothing: I wanted them to look fitted out for running around a cold mountain. I really like Medbury Dwarfs, they're very serious, with clear (but not overwhelming) historical influences. I've got another 15 or so rangers, and a lot more heavily armoured dwarfs. I may dip into a few more before the challenge is over.

I've just noticed a few bits of kit I forgot to paint

Points:

5x 28mm Orcs: 25

5x 28mm Dwarfs: 25

Total: 50 points

2 Squirrels (5 total) 

From DaveD . Still the great work continues from you . The camera never lies does it ! Great work on the Tomato Purée foil banner . It’s a perfect media for it So it’s 53 points from me 

From TeemuL: Elven Heroes (25 points)

My last entry for AHPC XV are these metal High Elf heroes from Games Workshop's LotR range.

There's Elladan and Elrohil (or vice versa), Erestor and then two different sculpts of Glorfindel. All painted with blue cloaks, golden armour with bluish mithril chainmail and green pieces of clothes to mark their nobility - my high elf infantry are coloured in similar way, but they don't have any greens.

They are bit rushed here and there, but on the other hand I'm very happy with some of the details or colours, the cloaks look quite like what I intended for example. The golden armour too, especially the helmets. They are all heroes, but they all from the same force, so limited palette was chosen. It might be easier to game with these if Elladan and Elrohir would have different colours for example, but not me!

Erestor and armoured Glorfindel are very similar, clearly sculpted at the same time, I assume. The newer Glorfindel is a different thing, very heroic and massive cloak compared to the other two. The cloaks of the brothers are similar to this one, probably from the same era. Although there are newer sculpts of the brothers, so I might be mistaken.

I believe 25 points is correct for 5 minis. Now I go to sleep and wake up tomorrow morning about an hour before the Challenge ends. I hope Curt and other minions can handle the barrage of remaining hours! 

___________________________________

Lovely work Teemu. I really like saturated blues and greens you've used for these figures - it gives them a very regal air. As time passing from the release of the first LotR movies I am constantly astonished at the number and variety of models GW has created describing Tolkien's character, with some having many different models depicting them at different times in their lives. It's amazing. 

Teemu, thank you for your participation, your faithful and kind comments to others and your minioning of the Thursday crew. It's all very much appreciated by myself and others. I look forward to seeing you with us for the next edition of the Challenge.

- Curt

From TeemuL: Haldir's elfs (35 points)

It is March and I present you the first LotR minis of the current AHPC from me... I guess that shows how varied, unfocused and distracted my Challenge has been. Anyway, here they are. Seven of Haldir's elfs, one carrying the banner and rest holding dangerous elven swords. I painted Haldir himself and six archers late last year, so these models quite nicely wrap this small project up.

Gold and blue work very well together, I even gave the chainmail a blueish tone applying a watered down blue ink over metallic paint. It gives an elven feel to the armour, I guess. One problem is that golden armour, yellow hair and pale skin get easily looking quite the same, especially when all of them got a Reikland Flesh Shade treatment.

The banner was painful, it has very fine sculpted detail which I tried to follow with golden paint. Of course there are folds, too. It looks quite ok in photos, but do not zoom or came here to take a closer look. :) If you take a close look, you might notice that there are two slightly different sculpts of warriors. They are very minor, but still. I have three of each. Same story with archers. I guess they were made in a hurry with very little film material to work from. Anyway, quite nice metal minis, the swords are rather thick, but that's understandable.

Previous elfs were happy to have base colour and wash, but I thought giving the banner bearer couple of highlights on his cloak and then carried the same, very quick and dirty, approach to rest of the group, too. Archers will stay darker, but maybe they are in the shadows aiming Uruk-Hais...? The hightlight could have been stronger, but at least it is better than nothing.

In other news, I'm stuck in Paradise after finishing the first circle, but I do have some plans. I hope I have enough time...

7 28mm minis for 35 points, please.

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Oh what lovely additions to your LOTR collection! The Blue Gold colour palette is striking  and I do see what you mean by the elves looking too uniform. 

The banner was definitly worth the pain, it looks terrific :)

Another 35 points to your scoreboard

- Sarah

From Mike W - 28mm High Elves & British Sudan Infantry (130 Points)

So this week has not been as productive as I'd hoped, with real life commitments getting in the way.

However I did finish 2 batches of figures and I have quite few 'in progress' on the workbench - more 28mm Arthurian Cavalry, some ECW types as well as some AWI figures and a bunch of Warlord Epic 15mm Carthaginians...

21 x Highland Miniatures, Aegean (High) Elves

Another view of the unit

And another....

But this week's main event are 21 x 28mm High Elves, which are 3D Prints from Highland Miniatures. They were a joy to paint and as such I have tried to align their colour palette withe the classic Games Worksop figures I completed earlier in this Challenge.

The command team, I love their long flowing hair, caught in the wind.

Group of four elves, in a variety of clothes
but all with the same colours to bond them together in a unit

I was originally going to leave their waist sashes white but these did not scan well, I then tought of doing them in turquoise blue but that would clash with the rest of their outfts so in the end I settled on yellow sashes.

Four more elves, in a variety of positions.
The figures come fully moulded with a set of inter-changeable heads to allow added variety

Another group, bases are 25mm MDF squares

Final two Elves

And a close-up on the standard bearer,
symbol was taken form an online illustration.

The other batch of figures that I completed were 5 x British 'Post Office Riflemen' from the 1885 Sudan Campaign. 

Five Riflemen in Sudan

These 28mm figures are old Wargames Factory guys, they are a bit crude, sculpt wise,  compared to more modern plastics but I fancied doing them due to an obscure family connection to this little known unit. 

Two riflemen in close-up

Two little guys shooting - I'll refrain from saying that
'the postman always shoots twice!'
Oops! I didn't!

Close-up of the final figure - although rough and ready,
by today's standards,  the sculpt does the job

It turns out that my Great Grandfather was a Post Office worker in 1885 and we'd always been told he was a Rifleman. He would have been 19 years old at the time of their second Sudanese campaign in 1885.  However, I have not been able to find any records of his service - so we are now thinking that this was a bit of a rather over-embellished story!

POINTS

21 x 28mm Elves @5 Pts                  105 Points

5 x 28mm British Infantry @ 5 Pts     25 Points

TOTAL                                              130 Points

I always like Wargames Foundry, even though the sculpts may show their age a bit. These are very good too, and I like your paint job. A pity that you couldn't find anything about your ancestor, but perhaps in the future you will be able to confirm his heroic history! Those Highland Miniatures Elves look great also, in their somewhat traditional but rather splendid colour scheme. They are great designs, and the fully painted unit looks marvellous. 130 points it is.

Martijn