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 DavidB: Under Construction part-2 (120 points)

This is Mongol-Hu

Like all sequels, this is a continuation of last week as I wrangled with the airbrush and fought for room on my hobby desk as my squirrel brain just gets distracted too often from minis at hand to minis in boxes.

Last year I was knee deep in white scars and iron snakes so this epic is a bit more than a trilogy. I had a few white scars left over as I only had them mostly base coated after the last AHPC ended. Since they were only nine, I will only count every third of the following.

The White Scars now have a Capt, another Lt, Blade Guard, outriders, and a company ancient with banner.

I used a very watered down pale blue to set the wings on the relic banner from the white scar armor as he really looked very white after I cleaned up his armor with some corax white and P3 white.

I also went darker khaki on the purity seals and went up to a parchment color to keep the seals from being too close in hue to armor.

Soooo many skulls on these guys. I seen some 30k elite terminators for the white scars that used black on their armor and so all the robes were painted black in reference. This was P3 coal black with a highlight of P3 denim then glazed with Black templar contrast paint. The red leather was flesh tearer contrast paint glazed over a mid brown highlighted with tan previously.

The bases are just asphalt craft paint and astrogranite texture paint weathered with rust and grime then a few clumps of valhalan blizzard scattered to look like melting snow.

The outriders had the valhalan blizzard delicately forcibly rubbed in the tire treads

The shoulder and bike white scar icons are from Pop goes the monkey and installed after the challenge began.

while base coating them last year, I played a little with markings for some reason, I kept them, but may re-coat them white later as I'm not convinced the markings are needed.

This trio was a Christmas gift from my daughter last year, built, customized and now freshly painted...very fresh She is still distressed that I already have an outrider squad as she wanted them to be something I didn't have. I will say these are from the first wave of individual boxed outriders separate from the game. They are the same mono pose kit though. To make them stand out I bought a white scar upgrade sprue and delicately  brutally hacked away their sculpted shoulder pads to fit the white scar ones.

I also used all three white scar heads, but all of them have helmets nearby.

I used a spare sgt helmet for this outrider who has it mag-locked to his bike.

I added some knives also as you can never have enough blades.

They also have snow impacted into the treads and wedged where the tires may through the slush on the bike. I did not spend much time on the bases as I really can't see any of these bikes sitting still( at least until Razor starts smashing them)

The White Scars also got a Gladius tank tooled up to wreak dreadnauts and other armored vehicles.

Over a black primer is six shades of grey and white shot through the airbrush. Unfortunately the camera hides the nice fade on the panels. I did shoot contrast white on the sides and shadow areas which adds to the pure white of the top surfaces.

All red lights were highlighted to yellow to separate them from the red trim.

The icons are also from Pop goes the Monkey.

The White Scars still have a few units left, I hope to get started on them soon, but there are a lot of further units needed so you may be seeing more this year or next.

A stormtalon gunship to counter Razor's storm ravens and their airdrops of terminators and dreadnaughts. I may get another two or three of them.

From a black undercoat I went up to a pale blue focusing the color changes with the airbrush on the upper parts of the model.I did not keep track of the colors used, so that will be fun to figure out on other flyers.

The airbrush did get the NMM effect I wanted for the Iron Snakes, I should've treated all of the Iron Snake models in this fashion, but they were a painting experiment and I like the cold raw brown armor of the infantry models. Although the blue metal is the look I wanted for them, I will only treat the vehicles to this hue.

I free-handed the number and icon last night and really should have used a pencil first as the wing icon is not centered, but I will let it stand for now.

The I really like the look of this craft especially the all business face of the model, very very A-10ish air-support(CAS)!

The pilot and cockpit were fully painted, you can see the more brown armor on the pilot.

I always intended on using green on the glass as it replicates the green used on the Iron Snakes helmet lenses. The canopy is now glued in place, so these photos are the only evidence of the completed interior.

The Terminus Ultra is a Land Raider devised by the Ultramarines when repelling a tyranid invasion of Ultramar. Transport capacity is sacrificed for the batteries required to power eight lascannons. The termius ultra is only available "now" to ultra marines and is only found in the Lords of War detachment as a chapter artifact. Iron Snakes being an Ultra Marine successor should have one, and since mine are all primaris marines which cannot use a land raider for transport, They should have plenty of batteries laying around.

This was painted in tandem with the storm talon and the Icon is also pop goes the monkey but in the form of Iron Snakes storm shields.

One lone tail light, In addition to the other small details, I picked out every light and small detail with brush as this is a chapter artifact an worthy of the additional detail.

This has fought a few times and Razor does not like it to exist too long in the game as it kills stuff dead. I indicated the Iron Snakes lineage with the banner, but it will be updated with kills from Razor's Blood Angel army. (so far 5 baal predators, 26 terminators, and 7 dreadnaughts)

Crotalinae is the Latin name for the pit-viper family of snakes.

soooo many lights.

Iron Snakes are completed( no more in the house)White Scars still have a few to go. I did finally get a score on the airbrush side duel better than 0 but am still behind. I haven't finished the necromunda part of the post, but that may happen later or in another post. for Now I am going to ponder a ride in Lady Sarah's acid green limo into the next zone and maybe see if I can pound out a few more studio films.

Outrider squad 1- 3 marines and 7 skulls for 10 points

Blade guard- 3 marines with 34 skulls for 5 points

Captain- 1 marine with 13 skulls

lieutenant- 1 marine with 12 skulls

company ancient- 1 marine with 12 skulls

Outrider squad 2- 3 marines with 11 skulls for 30 points

Gladius- 7 skulls for 20 points

Storm Talon- 5 skulls for 20 points

Terminus Ultra- 14 skulls for 20 points

Only counting every third model in the the older white scars gives a total of 110 points for the studio with studio points being claimed last week. 115 skulls for this week bring the skull pile to 374 skulls.

Friday Minion: Gosh David, you're back AGAIN? Isn't it about time you took a week off or something? 

Nah just kidding, I'm super glad you're here to pad the stats of the Friday crew, and save me from being embarrassed on their behalf. 

Thanks for the points tally, I'm going to add an extra 5 for the pilot and cockpit in the stormtalon, and another 5 for the conversion work to make the outriders your daughter got you special.

I was always fond of the White Scars, definitely one of the cooler chapters, my brother made some way back when. They're way superior than Dork Angels Ravenwing, who take themselves way too seriously (note to the 40K lore nerds here: my lore knowledge is probably two decades out of date). 

That Terminus Ultra though, now that's evidence of GW totally jumping the shark. I love me a lascannon as much as the next person, but really?! THAT many?! I'd hate to see their electricy bill after charging those up.