From JamieM - Kings of War Ice Naiads (160 points)

In a rarely seen (for me anyway) feat of focus, I’ve kept cracking on with my Northern Alliance for Kings of War. I herewith present a Horde of Ice Naiads.

These are a mixed kit from Mantic where they reuse their Sea Naiad figures and add resin (and now 3d printed) parts to change them into Ice Naiads.

Fairly simple paint jobs, I decided that I wanted them to be wearing leather outfits a bit like the outfits in the Dune films.

Cheeky bit of multibasing and I quite like the way the blue hair/tentacles flow across the unit.

In game these units are annoying as they hinder others attacking them and regenerate and so they hang around whilst their more "hitty" friends pile in to smash up the entangled unit.

And I thought people might be amused at the fact that these are only ready as I had to go for a day to my kids’ swimming gala which meant I only watched when they raced, which gave me plenty of spare time. So I took a paint station and the paints and brushes and got some "Carhammer" painting in whilst catching up on some downloaded series.

Simple for the scoring - 30 x 28mm figures for 150 points.

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Focusing consistently on one project? I would suspect this had been some kind of hack, right up until the whole part about "Carhammer", which was the best and most hilarious part of this submission! I've been known to obsess about painting, but this level of commitment is tremendous, and should be applauded. 

Oh, and I hope the whole swimming gala went well. :-)

Lovely work on the Naiads - sounds like they are real pests on the battlefield! I have tossed in bonus points in order to acknowledge the effort on the hobby side even with 1-to-1 scale life events getting in the way!

GregB 

From JamieM - Wild West Exodus Greys (30 points)

Just a small submission from me this week - some grey aliens from the Wild West Exodus game.

I doubt I’ll ever play them in Wild West Exodus (although the rules are apparently getting a reboot, so you never know) and I’ve used the previous figures I’ve painted from this line in post apocalyptic games. Did they cause the apocalypse? Are they just taking advantage of the carnage? Or did they get shot down and, like ET, are just trying to get home? (I’m pretty sure everyone reading this of a certain generation just said “Phone Home” in their best ET accent…..)

Nice and simple colour scheme and they’re ready to abduct some cows. I’m not a huge fan of all of the sculpts (a little bit too much "Jazz Hands" going on) but I can live with it.

I think this is possibly the last scheduled Thursday round before the free fire starts, so I’ll take the opportunity to thank Greg the minion for being an absolute gentleman and a scholar whilst herding and scoring the Thursday crew’s work! It wouldn’t be the challenge without the minions taking time out of painting schedules to comment and publish the posts, so thank you.

Simple scoring with six 28mm figures for 30 points.

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Cheers Jamie! Great to see you back with another batch of UK Labour Party MPs...I had no idea so many sculpts of them were available in 28mm...oh...wait...ah, I see, these are ACTUAL aliens! Brilliant! 

I enjoy the painting very much, but as is so often the case, is the casual sentiments about the hobby on the side that I relate to so much and are such a great part of the Painting Challenge. Figures for a game that one hasn't played, and may or may not ever play, but might be getting a reboot but...ah, whatever, they look fun and they fit with a different game, so away we go! I've no doubt many here will relate :)

Thinking back to the opening time of AHPC XVI, I seem to recall that you had multiple version of a plan in place - plan A, plan B, plan E, etc. And I bet these fellows were not even "plan F" - but you got them over the line. Well done!

It's been a treat to have you on the Thursday crew Jamie! Keep those brushes moving until things conclude! Until then, another 30 points for you. 

GregB

From JamieM - Northern Alliance for Kings of War (95 points)

This weeks submission is for some troops and a character for my steadily growing Northern Alliance army for Kings of War. Whilst spring is tentatively raising its head early in the UK (after approximately 93 days of rain), it is still winter and so a good time to paint snowy figures.

This first set are Pack Hunters. Much like my previous entry, these are humans living in the frozen North and they carry bows to hunt. In packs, one assumes.

I went for bone bows for the most part because there is a lot of brown on their furs and so it’s a nice spot colour.

I went for red for the arrow feather as it seemed like it would pop and perhaps there’s something to having feathers the colour of blood?

This forms a regiment for Kings of war and are a unit of troops allowing fun stuff to also be taken. Like this fella.

A chimera with a rider. I swapped the axe they carried for a spear - I mean, how on earth are you going to get close enough to hit someone with an axe when you’re on top of this thing?!?!?

From the back you can see it’s a delightful mix of creatures. And there are two things that struck me as especially brilliant about this model. The first is that one of the heads is a goat. Not a bird of prey or wolf or anything, a goat. I should imagine it’s quite a handy head to have whilst not eating your enemies in battle as it increases the range of food the beast can eat a hundredfold!

The second thing is the entirely practical saddle harness. It was only whilst painting this model that I realised that as the sculptors of mythical beast riders don’t have reality to stymie them, they can sculpt entirely inadequate harnesses and nobody can tell them they’re wrong. Not so the sculptor of this bad boy - this is the kind of harness I’d want if I were to ride a three headed mythical creature into battle! There’s no way those straps are coming loose.

Photo of them together. For points I was going to go with 15x5 for the 28mm pack hunters and claim 20 points for a vehicle for the chimera and rider?

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Brilliant work Jamie! While I maintain a sort of vestigial addiction to the classic Warhammer style "one-base-per-model", I think "Kings of War" is tremendous and the multi-based figures make a whole ton of sense. Your archers highlight all of the charm one imagines that comes with life in the high arctic - colourful furs, lovely bows etc. Bone-coloured bows make sense, as one imagines bone might be the primary material available to them to construct the bows in the first place! 

But the Chimera steals the show! What a lovely beastie - and the commentary about both the goat-head and the totally safe harness is spot-on. I'm sure he is just lovely to ride, be that into battle, or into town for a quick latte at the cafe. "Can I pet the goat?" "No, dear..."

Your scoring proposal finds merit with me - 95 points for you!

GregB

From JamieM - Epic Warpath Plague (137 points)

We’ve started playing Epic Warpath at my club and it’s a really rather good game.  This is the 10mm mass battle game from Mantic from their Warpath universe. They’ve essentially taken the rules from the old GW epic game and given it a clean and tidy set of armies and rules that are great fun to play. GW decided it would only refresh the ruleset as its “Legions Imperialis” game where everyone had to play marines, guardsmen or mechanicum in a civil war, so Mantic decided to do what a lot of fans actually want and include aliens as playable factions.

(And have an actual set of rules which doesn't suck - Editor)

These are miniatures for the plague faction, which are infected humans who are a horde close combat army (a lot of them don’t come with guns!) family photo first.

Another one slightly off to the side. Mantic decided to have four (or two for the slightly larger) miniatures to a base, which is an absolute godsend for painting as you can paint them after sticking them to the base without a middle fella to get in the way.

The large chap to the front right is a Corruption, who is a leader for them, what with four arms being better than two.

Behind him are some plague zombies. Now, having painted these I feel like I must have unlocked some sort of an achievement as I’ve already painted the same unit in 28mm during this challenge. I use no idea whether to be proud or slightly concerned about the silliness of painting the same unit in two scales, but I figure I’m amongst like minded people who won’t judge me too harshly……

Whilst the primary quality of the zombies are their sheer quantity (they’re rubbish until they stumble into contact), these next fellas are Ghouls - more or less humans who retain the ability to fire guns. Their main strength though is being quite quick and so can gum up the opposition’s lines until the heavy hitters get in.

And that segues nicely onto these heavy hitters - Leapers. Fast and deadly in combat, they eschew guns to better concentrate on ripping their enemies to pieces.

Some funny sizes going on, so I was going to go for 27 bases of four 10mm figures for 108 points, 6 bases of two 15mm figures for the leapers to make 24 points and a 28mm figure for 5 points for the corruption to get to 137 points.

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Painting the same subject in multiple scales within one Challenge...why, that is just BRILLIANT. I would say you are "in a safe space" when it comes to that sort of behaviour. Why, I might even describe such an approach to the hobby as "wise" and "comprehensive". The smaller figures give a larger scale battle, sure, but within that you think, "wow, a skirmish would be lovely!" - so you paint some larger figures, naturally. Then, while skirmish gaming in 28mm, you think "wow, a huge scale battle with a whole lot of figures would make for a great spectacle". You see - it's all a virtuous cycle. 

Well done Jamie - 137 points for you!

GregB

From JamieM - Kings of War Northern Alliance (110 points)

I thought I painted some figures for this army in the last challenge, but a quick scan of previous posts tells me it was two years ago that I last worked on this army!

My how times flies when new games appear and projects are rudely cast aside….. anyway, there’s a new version of Kings of War that’s just been released so I decided that I should get on with it. First - some troops, tribesmen style.  

These are the foot troops of the army, hardy tribesmen from the frozen North.

They’re pretty standard stats wise in the game and I do like a good multibase, so on one they went.

A mix of leathers and fur for their garb.

Next up, some snow trolls. I painted a unit a couple of challenges ago and now they have some friends.

Nice and simple paint scheme and they’re ready to hide under a frozen bridge and bother some billy goats.

Multibased again and some weapon swaps as they only come as one pose with a choice of two heads and two arms (rock and club)

And the family photo:

As for the scoring, I make it 15x28mm figures for 75 points and 5x 40mm figures for 35 to give me 110 total.

Jamie, I do love me some rank-and-flank fantasy battles and these models look great. It seems you rarely see snow bases on fantasy figures but you've done a super job here. I really dig the Tribesmen and the Snow Trolls look suitably tough!

One-hundred-ten for your tally!

Dallas

From JamieM - Braaaaaains (200 points)

Zombies for me this week. A veritable horde.

These are by Mantic and are intended for use with the Firefight ruleset, which is a 28mm sci fi ruleset that I really like but which struggles to get traction against the 800 pound gorilla that is 40k. Still, if I build them, players will come (to paraphrase Field of Dreams).

There are only five different poses, so they get a little samey and I went for some lab workers, some military and some civvies.

In the Firefight universe, zombies are caused by the Plague, which turns some people into zombies and others into ‘roided berserker creatures of varying types (leapers, busrsters, etc) and this is my attempt to get the cheap troops done so I can field an army.

The largest unit size is 30 so I did ten in the orange jumpsuits so I can easily separate them on the tabletop.

Fairly soft details on these so I stuck with contrast and limited highlighting and detail on the skin/blood effects.

Like a lot of rank and file, it’s good to get them done and whilst individually they’re no great shakes, quantity has a quality all of its own as someone once said.

 Nice and simple for scoring - 40 x 5 points for 28mm infantry for 200 points.

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Great work Jamie! I've never seen such a fine representation of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 28mm before! They are all set to represent their constituents in Westminster, ready to enact Sir Keir Starmer's bold vision of...oh...wait...sorry about that, I should have read more closely. I saw "zombies" and just went from there...

Well done - it is always tricky to wade through a large pile of figures like this - particularly ones which are "samey", but I think you have achieved a proper balance of variety and painting efficiency. And I do expect these fellows are to be targets at the end of the day, correct? So they have the proper intimidation effect en masse here!

That's 200 points for you!

GregB

From JamieM - Daughters of Khaine Spearhead (85 points)

Well, the starting gun has sounded and, as usual, I bit off for more than I could chew at the start of the challenge and only now have something finished. My process during the challenge is to start project A and get 85% done, then start project B as “it’s more efficient that way” and neglect project A. Then start project C before either project A or B is finished and end up with a mess of unfinished stuff lying everywhere

So I buckled on my Hat of Common Sense +1 and actually finished project A - a Daughters of Khaine force for Spearhead by GW (well, most of one as I had some figures already painted).

Age of Sigmar is a ruleset I’ve come to dislike. GW seemingly cannot help but give every a unit a special rule that breaks the normal rules. And don’t get me started on the “Double Turn” which is a d6 dice off to decide the game on plenty of occasions when I’ve played. But the Spearhead game, which uses Age of Sigmar rules but with small fixed forces (so no meta army building!) and also incorporates clever twists using cards and a small board is really rather good fun and plays very quickly. This is my second force for Spearhead and my other consists of three giants. Which is just as awesome as it sounds.

The first unit are the Melusai blood stalkers - five snake ladies with big bows. They were fun to put together and paint.

They pepper their opponent with arrows and sit on objectives quite nicely.

Next up are two units of five witch elves. Because the forces are fixed, I built five each out of the box using the two different build options for variety.

They were, to put it bluntly, a nightmare to build at times. Tiny connection points on the arms and the weight of the hair on the ones that had it dragged the head off the tiny neck if you looked away for a split second when the glue was drying.

I’m not a huge fan of the chainmail bikini aesthetic, but at least they are leaping into action instead of pulling a pouting pose.

This picture is with the rest of the figures that I’m not claiming for and gives me a spearhead to play with.

Points are 5 40mm bow snakes ladies for 35 and 10 28mm ladies for 50 to give 85 points in my opening salvo.

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Great to have you back with us once again Jamie! I've no doubt many Challengers will relate to your "system" that you outlined here: let's call it the "A-B-C" system. I can certainly relate - in fact, I often bolt "D" and "E" on using the same approach! And then there are the "oh, wait, I might fit this in for a theme round" diversions that further f*** everything up...

Age of Sigmar is a game I have only tried a few times, but it does not surprise me to learn that GW would spike their own wheel when it comes to good gaming rules. As you say - they cannot help themselves. But AoS certainly has some entertaining sculpts. Like you, I can do without the stupid chainmail-bikini look - but then Dark Elves always have had that hipster tw*t aura to them, have they not? I'm sure Khain is thrilled with his daughters here. 

But regardless, you have some impressive painting all set here to kick things off. I can't wait for your next submission in two or three weeks time where you suddenly have "B", "C" and "A2" roll off the painting line :) 

85 points for you! I promise I'll update the scoresheet after I wake up :)

GregB

Wednesday From JamieM - The Horus Heresy’s Greatest Traitor and Mythos (62 points)

Something of a small and yet mixed bag today. First up are the Priory faction for "Mythos" by warcradle. One of my friends and I are like moths to a flame when obscure and virtually dead games with pretty miniatures are concerned and "Mythos" is that. Don’t think it was ever big, but it limps along and can be had very cheaply on eBay at times. I have the Priory faction who are nominally the good guys standing against the evil Cthulhu-type entities

These appear to be led by a wise fellow who has dragged along a chap with a flamethrower, an archaeologist lady, a mechanic, a cat and he’s summoned a massive golem! Feels like he’s ticked all of the boxes for fighting evil…..

Fairly simple paint jobs and it remains to be seen whether the game will see table time with so many other games fighting for it. Heck, they’re nice miniatures either way and were fun to paint. Oh, and one of the ladies will be my fee to move to the “Traitor” area of hell……

……Because I’ve also painted this fella, Lorgar Aurelian...

He’s from GW’s Horus Heresy setting and is one of the primarchs, who are super human beings who lead the legions. Lorgar leads the Wordbearers, religious nut jobs who built massive cathedrals to the Emperor (back when he claimed he wasn’t a god) when they took worlds over instead of moving on to pacify the next world. The Emperor slapped them down for this very publicly and used the Ultramarines to do it, which mortified the entire legion (The Ultramrines? Ugh. I would be embarrassed too - GB).

Lorgar responded to this like any teenager would and sought out the chaos gods to worship instead. He then introduced them to Horus and some of his other primarch friends and the Horus heresy began!

Lorgar is therefore a huge traitor (even though the Emperor was also a bit of a git) as he set in motion a war that killed billions and set humanity back and got what would become the 40K universe going. Ironically, it set up a universe where the Emperor really is now seen as a god. So perhaps he’d feel it was all worth it?

Anyway, 5 x 28mm figure, one 54mm figure, one 40mm figure and a Traitor bonus for 62 points by my maths.

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This is lovely Jamie! And with all due respect to "Mythos" - and your commitment to obscure-adjacent games (which I share and respect), I can say "thank god" for some 30k at last! And that is a sentiment I think Lorgar would appreciate!

The Primarch models are a real hoot, and it is so nice to see the arch-criminal of the Horus Heresy rendered here and ready to lead his legion into some manner of "faithful endeavor". Progress demands sacrifice, after all, and Lorgar his chaps can help out with both! While Erebus is still the biggest @sshole in the story, at the end of the day, Lorgar is THE bad guy. You've done fine work here - the cape, the mace, and even the "such-a-shame-that-billions-must-die-in-order-to-show-the-obvious-truth" expression on his face.

And full marks to the "Mythos" team. But why assume the "Cthulhu types" are evil? Why, Lorgar could help you understand that inter-dimensional diversity can be your organization's new "greatest strength"...

62 points it is! We can all celebrate in our next visit to Monarchia. Right....?

GregB 

From JamieM - Kings Of War Salamanders (150 points)

 Nice and simple this week, two regiments (or one horde if I stick them together) of salamanders for Kings of War, along with two salamander heroes.

These will go into my Forces of Nature army with the elementals I’ve already painted as part of the challenge.

Not my most inspired or detailed paintwork, but they’re certainly functional as a unit and I’m going for them as a whole look instead of being super detailed individually.

I like to take the opportunity to multi base for Kings of War as I think it looks great and should allow me to set up and play nice and quickly when I start getting games in.

Simple maths this week, 30 x 28mm figures for 150 points this week.

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Have to say Jamie that when I first saw the title of this post, I was thinking "oh great, he's back at some 30k stuff!". These were not the "Salamanders" I was expecting...

But they look cool all the same, and "Kings of War" is a fine game. Rather distressing to think of "nature" amassing such armoured forces, but they look great, particularly in the big mass/horde as you have them here. That is a fine 150-point bomb for you!

GregB