Monday Rogues' Gallery

Australia's largest tabletop gaming convention, CanCon, was held last weekend. I caught up with a few bloggers and challengers:

• Comrade James (The Tall) of the Man Cave
• MartyH
• DaveX of Left Handed Panzerfaust
• AlanD of Dux Homunculorum
• Paul O'G of the Man Cave
• I also caught up with Slowp8nter JohnSh from War and Peace, and we had a yarn about maintaining focus and drive in our hobby.

I've got a few more pics and my loot over at my own blog.

It was a tad warm.

Today, we have a real variety show including ancients, horse and musket, WW2 in three theatres, and some dear-to-my-heart Blood Bowl!

Barks

From JamesL: The final Dacians and a tank (160 points)

In the dash for the finish line I finally finished my 28mm Dacian army for DBA 3.0. These lads are the final push from their brethren with whom I started this challenge. Completing them means I have managed to complete 3 forces for three different game systems this Challenge, which is one of the great things about the Challenge I really enjoy. There are 24 figures and 3 horses in this final batch; 5 Fast Warband stands, a Psioli stand, a Knights stand and the command stand.

The more observant amongst you may have noticed that the warlord has only one arm....now I only noticed this as I was painting him, and thought I would leave him as is, Decibila the One Handed Warlord, truly feared for his ability to wield his faulx with one hand as well as normal men wield it with two.

And the final piece of the puzzle for my 28mm DAK force for both Bolt Action and Chain of Command is this Warlord games Pz 111.

So that would be 24 figures, 3 horses and a tank all of 28mm , which I believe to be the 150pts to carry me over my target of 750 :-) . Thanks for an awesome challenge everyone, and especially Curt and the Tuesday Minions for arranging it all and keeping us on track !


Tamsin: Lovely Dacians and a spiffing tank James :)

I'm assuming that the shields are hand-painted to avoid incurring the Wrath of Dux, so I'm going to add a few bonus points for those.

By JamesL: Stuh 42 with infantry support (18 points)

Been a while since I have made my weekly submission, but thought I would escalate the cuteness challenge started by PaulOG and his lovely photobombing beagle pup, with these shots of our 2 week old ducklings providing (amphibious) infantry support to a Warlords 28mm Stuh 42.

This Stuh has been sitting around undercoated for a long time in my collection, and I finally thought it was time to bring it into action.

Around the same time we had 4 ducklings hatch from a collection of duck eggs we had inherited from a friend, and upon which we sat our broody duck to hatch them. We decided to hand rear these ones as there were other older ducklings who were showing signs of jealousy and safety could not be assured.

This one is training to be an Assault Gun rider, although more practice required.... The Stuh itself was painted with an Army Painter spray then Vallejo paints and wash for the rest. No ducklings were hurt in the making of this post, although I did have to clean duck poo off the tank commander afterwards.....

By Paul.  Unfortunately, you've chosen the wrong week to try and out-cute my puppy photobombs.  Hell hath no fury like a Minion scorned! -100 points :-)

From JamesL: A Pair of Pak40s (55 points)

So you may have noticed a theme running through all my recent submissions....in fact I have indeed been painting up a whole bunch of late war German troops and vehicles that have sat in my to do box for a couple of years. One of these is the Pak40 75mm ATG presented here.

These lads have been a despondent all over black undercoat for about three years now, and finally have received some decent colour. After the joys of painting and using a 88mm in a recent Bolt Action tournament, I thought I should paint up the next in line for most feared gun, as another variant on my list.

I kept the uniforms a neutral field grey so that these chaps and their charge can be used in a Heer list or my developing SS list.

The second instalment this week is the last of my Becker conversions for the 21st Panzer div, and again courtesy of Mad Bobs Kickstarter. I painted this SOMUA MCG S307 in a slightly different camo, based on a short video clip from the period. Don't blink you will miss it...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uHJdRCQYsFc

Included in this vehicle are two crew members who actually came with the Warlords Lorraine I showed a week or so ago, and I use them with all three SPGs. Quite the cross trained chaps they are.....

I could promise this is the last of my Germans....but I'd be lying :-)

Paul & Alan: Nice work on these, its been great to watch your German BA force grow over the challenge and I love all the 21st Panzer funnies you have.  What they miss out on in the rules for being open topped they gain in their unique character.  And you just know that the PaK crew's aim is twice as good once painted :-)

6 crew, a gun and a vehicle net you 55 points this week

From JamesL - Lorraine Schlepper and friends (25 points)

Another small contribution, this time to add some firepower to my LW Germans in Bolt Action.
First up is the excellent Warlord Games kit for the 155mm heavy howitzer armed Lorraine Schlepper converted tractor

The Germans converted a number of captured French artillery tractors into self propelled anything towards the end of WW2, and one of these designs included mounting their heavy howitzer onto a lightly armoured cab.

This Warlord kit is superbly detailed, with the crews jacket and helmet stowed away, cartridges protruding from their stowage in the floor, and rivet work around the hull.

I've painted mine in one of the many camo schemes used by the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy, in order to fit in with my Bolt Action force. Next up is the last of my units that I had painted for my recent CanCon Bolt Action tournament army, a Veteran SS sniper team.

Another excellent kit from Warlord Games, the sniper is in a very purposeful prone position, and even has some clever hat camouflage to protect against enemy heavy machine guns (cue PaulOG ). Bravo!- ED

I tried a variant of the Oak Leaf camo for the sniper himself, and kept his spotter in Spring, whilst having the sniper wear a combination of Spring and Autumn Oak Leaf.

I finished these chaps the night before CanCon and they went on to earn their keep throughout the tournament

Paul & Alan: Nice job mate - that Schlepper is wonderfully detailed and clearly the effort you put into those snipers' camo paid off on the table!  Congrats on making the top 10 in the CanCon Bolt Action tourney- great stuff!  Enjoy the infamy of being "That guy who brought an 88...."

From JamesL- 28mm Waffen SS squad (35 points)

Just a small contribution this week, the final squad for my Bolt Action force. I've tried to take better pics to show the Oak Leaf came scheme better.

These figures are Warlords from the German Grenadiers box, and I went for the Oak Leaf as slightly easier to paint than Pea Dot, as well as seasonally correct for the later period of the Normandy campaign where my force is set.

I base coated the smocks in MournFang Brown then used Skrag brown for the final base colour, which is a lot lighter than it may have looked for real, but for gaming at a distance it should allow the camo to stand out a little better. Similarly, I used Luftwaffe Camo Green, then Sick Green (an old GW bright Green) for the leaf pattern.

So 7 figures, a modest 35 pts, but at least my lads are ready for battle now :-)

Paul & Alan: Great job with that oak leaf camo scheme James, it can be tricky to do complex schemes in small scales but you've pulled off the right effects overall I think.  And finished just in time for CanCon too! 

35 points toward your total.  I hope they bring you luck in this weekend's Bolt Action tourney and that they dont succumb too often to the curse of newly painted miniatures... 

From JamesL: Tractors true love and friends, and something completely different (187 points)

I've recently had a few days off work which has enabled me to get some good headway in the painting queue. This time around I present the Tractors True Love, the 88mm Flak/ATG from Warlord Games, that will be towed by the Sdkfz 7 I presented previously, and 21 infantry that make up my Bolt Action (and Chain of Command) army. And for something completely different, I've also included 7 of the 35mm scale Jokers Crew from the Knights Models range for their Batman Miniatures game.

The gun is 28mm scale with 6 crew, painted with predominantly Vallejo paints and Army Painter wash. I went for a grey scheme rather than Dunkelgelb (yellow) as I wanted it to blend in a little better with the field grey infantry that will make up the rest of my force.

The infantry, all Warlord figures from their excellent German Grenadiers box, comprise 3 squads, two Heer infantry and one Waffen SS in Oak Leaf camo. This was my first crack at painting Oak Leaf, or any SS camo scheme for that matter and I'm fairly pleased with the results.

5 Strafbattalion (Penal Unit) and Leutnant

8 Heer Grenadiers 

8 Waffen SS in Oak Leaf 

The Joker Crew is a real departure for me, both for being 35mm and the genre. I mainly paint historical or fantasy, so painting a guy in a giant Panda suit holding an assault rifle provided endless amusement. The BMG itself is a surprisingly tactical game, and although I'm not usually a DC comics fan I have enjoyed using these guys in their first outing the other night. 

Joker,Harley Quinn and the Cosplay Crew...Pandas with assault rifles,what's not to love ?! 

The Eyeball guy gets a bonus if he focuses fire on a single target...given he only has one eye and all.....

I'll leave it to the minions to decide the points value of 35mm figures :-), but this is 27 figs at 28mm, a 28mm arty piece and 7 at 35mm.

Alan And Paul: A panda with an assault rifle? That's taking Open Carry to surreal new levels (although Open Carry is pretty surreal already). But I do support the right to arm bears (thank you!) I worry a bit about the eyeball guy's depth perception... Nice entry James! The tooled up cosplay crew is cool, but the 88 is my favourite. An impressive looking beast, and I love the basing. I've given the cosplayers 6 points each to reflect the larger scale. 

From JamesL: First entry, Dacian 28mm DBA3.0 element and Sd.Kfz.7 Tow (30 points)

Finally the holiday festivities are over and I can start the challenge. My first very modest entry is the first element for a DBA 3.0 slow grow league, a Dacian Blade element from Warlord, and a German Sd.Kfz.7 halftrack tow for my developing Late war German Bolt Action army.

The Dacians are painted with a combination of Vallejo and GW paints, with the blood effect on the signature falx being GW Blood for the Blood God technical paint.

The halftrack will be joined shortly by its towee, an 88mm Flak/ATG which will be the central focus of my BA force.

The grass tufts on the Dacians are actually hand made by a mutual friend of mine and PaulOG, who very generously donated a veritable horde of different coloured and sized tufts completely free of charge. As thanks I will be incorporating the tufts in as many projects as I possibly can, as they look amazing and work exceptionally well on any base surface.

I think this is a modest 30pts to get me on the scoreboard.....

Paul and Alan: Good to see you get some runs on the board mate - it was like watching England bat in an Ashes test match...

Lovely Dacians and they are certainly in action packed poses.  The tractor is nice too but I fear what it might be towing in future games! That is indeed 30 points lodged.

Paul & Alan