From MartinC - I Built a Forest (120pts)

 So another challenge draws to a close, and its been another good one. I've painted loads of Bloodbowl teams, 9 I think, and some random other stuff. Somehow I have more stuff to paint than I started with, bet I'm not the only one. Many thanks to my wonderful minion, you've been great mate.

I thought I'd close with one for Byron, he obviously doesn't have enough to do.

Like all wargamers terrain can be a nightmare, my collection of trees is mainly rubbish. Old, tired and tatty, kinda like their owner. Whilst playing a game a couple of weeks ago, 28mm Naps, we had a damascene moment. You could built trees using expanding foam. So I bought some tree frames, Woodland Scenics. These are ok and flexible. So I bent them into the required shapes. Once ready I sprayed expanding foam onto the frames.

Gravity is not your friend, I tried a couple of different ways to do this but both gave the same result. Too much foam.

Luckily it is easy to cut and crave

Cleaning up the base gives a nice canopy effect

Paint with cheap acrylic paint

Paint with PVA, spray glue would work better, or melt the foam. Then cover in scatter, i used 4 different colours of this and blended them together incrementally to give different colours 

Finally do loads of them. I think they look good, and suitably random. 

So they are 28mm scale and took me about a week to do them. I think they are about the same effort as a 28mm foot figure. So

24 trees x 5pts = 120pts

Have great year everyone and I'll see you for the voting. Obviously it is going to be a bloodbowl year

 

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This is a great idea for trees and should hold up great over time without getting damaged too much from packing and moving them.  Being 28mm scale I have to assume they are fairly large and will therefore go with your suggestion of 5 points per.  Great job Martin.

 

- Byron 

From MartinC Schutztruppen (200pts)

 So after a week off last week, retirement is so busy, I'm back with some WW1 German colonial troops. Don't remember the manufacturer, but the figures have separate heads that don't really fit very well. Still they are a simple paint job

10 man squad

Another 10 man squad

5 man squad

Some officers

Machine gun team

These may find action the back of beyond, in a similar African version.

29 x28mm infantry = 175

1 x machine gun with 3 crew = 25pts

Total 200 points 

Right I'm off to make trees using expanding foam, more of that next week.

Last minute update. I'm a massive Port Vale fan and yesterday we knocked Sunderland out of the FA Cup to reach the quarter finals for the first time since 1954. For those in far flung parts of the world, i.e. not Burslem, Port Vale are pretty rubbish in the grand scheme of things and are bottom of the 3rd tier of English football and 60 places below Sunderland. I'm a very happy bunny and we have drawn Chelsea in the quarter finals. The income from that one match will be about 25% of our annual attendance income. UTV

They may be of unknown origin and they might need their heads adjusted, but they painted up very well.  Love the basing too.  Plus Schutztruppen is just one of those German words that fun to say, even though I probably get it wrong.  Good luck for Port Vale against the Blues in the quarters.  Making trees out of expanding foam sounds like it will give you quite a buzz - let us know how it all works out.  

FYI, you forgot to add labels so I've added a couple.

From MartinC The Waikiki Sharks (85pts)

This could be the last bloodbowl team I paint for a while. I've said before one of the great joys of bloodbowl is the none standard teams. The lizardman team is one of the best teams with a big guy, lots of blockers and stunty linemen and throwers. So obviously my team is sharks not lizardmen. 

I present the Waikiki Sharks

The big guy, with his kills on his shoulder

Very much a life guard vibe

The blockers

Very much a mafioso on holiday vibe

The lizardmen have chameleon skins as throwers. So my team, obviously has starfish

The stunting, kids on the beach 

Love the at play poses

Finally a cheerleader 

The whole team. Could be my favourite team

Scores on the doors

17x28mm sharks =85 points

My god Martin, there is no end to the weirdness is there?  But what wonderful wacky weirdness there is.  I love the Hoff from Baywatch vibe on the big guy and his kill tattoos.  The beach going middle rankers are wonderful too.  Can the Pickleball paddle be used as a weapon?  Any team with Starfish gets my backing.

From MartinC Flag Sh@ggers TUESDAY 90 pts

 I am nearing the end of painting far too many Bloodbowl teams. This one is my 10th and I have 1 more in the post (which could be the best one ever).

In recent times the UK, like much of the world, has lurged to the right. Although we have a centre left government, the centre right opposition has become right or far right. For a man of my beliefs this is somewhat depressing. Last autumn the right decided that the best way to show your "patriotism" was to tie union flags (often stupidly upside-down) and St George's crosses (an Armenian) to flag poles. The people who did this became known as flag sh@ggers.

Present to you the Flag Shaggers, an ogre Bloodbowl team comprising 4 brutish bone head ogres and a bunch of useless hangers on

The ogres

The Knowles, titchy and basically useless. The ogre team is one of the worst in bloodbowl.

My Mexican shambling undead team was lacking decent players, I added a fat mummy last week and this week I've added a couple of resin ghoul runners from Etsy. These are really good players and should improve the team

They are very cool, and very infected with horrible pustules 

That's it from me this week, been very busy. Next week either my last Bloodbowl of a brand new project

Scores on the doors

18 x 28mm figs = 90pts

You know there's a lot of Blood Bowl teams when even Martin thinks he might have too many!  I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this particular rock Martin, but we have similar idiots here too.  Believe it or not, we probably have Trump to thank for not having one as our PM.   These brutish morris dancers our nicely done and look I'll look forward to the next best one yet BB team.

From MartinC Fat pTony Not a Typo (200pts)

 My twin themes of Napoleonic Bavarians and Blood Bowl continues

We use Valour and Fortitude to fight Napoleonic and ACW battles. The rules prefer you to have limbers on the table, but they are big so we have moved to 2 horse limbers

3 Bavarian ones, the limbers are warbases and the horses Pendraken

And 3 Russian ones

Not feeling very verbose today so on to the blood bowl stuff. Boxed set comes with 2 teams, these are the Tomb Kings. Like all undead teams they are ok at tackling and rubbish at everything else

This is a crappy picture

My Mexican undead team is short of good players, they lost badly today, with most getting injured at least once. So they needed a mummy, but they are Mexicans and none Egyptian mummies are hard to find. I picked up this one on Etsy

He is quite chubby, and will be name Fat pTony

Finally a wraith star player, she can't have the ball and is there to spook out the opposition

She is named Gretchen Walter

Scores on the doors

16x28mm blood bowl players = 80pts

6x 2 horse limbers ( 5 per horse and 10 for the limber) = 120pts

Total = 200pts

Nice work here Martin.  I love to see limbers on table, even if I seldom represent them myself.  Find looking team you have, and I agree with the simplified teams.  yet another Blood Bowl team, what's your team count up to now?  I can't see enough of the Tomb King players, but I like Fat pTony.  I don't know what effect Gretchen will have on your opponents, but she scares me plenty!  I agree with your nose counting, so 200 it is.

From MartinC Bob Gnarly and the Bambi Wood Elf Stripper (190pts)

 Hope the title has sparked your curiosity.  But first the undercard.

Bavarian artillery, 2 6lb and a 12lb gun.

These are mainly Perry figs with a couple of kitbashed figs as I had a spare gun already. Perry ACW plastic gun set was helpful here.

And I've had a new cutting mat

Next up a Warlord M20 scout car. Really need a gunner but the one with the set was a bit rubbish

Still no stripper yet.

The Bloodbowl mania continues, we have started a league to see how that works.

Couple of lizardmen players, they could be star players or the start of a lizardman team, I have figures i could use.

Next up is the Khorne team. These guys get extra experience for causing injuries, to keep the blood god assuaged 

Marauders, the backbone of the team. All have frenzy

The Blood Spawn, big guy, big hitter, also with frenzy

Khorngor. Beastman blitzers, no frenzy!

Blood Seekers, tough, strong and with frenzy. Basically this team is mad.

We have recently spotted that some of these resin teams come with star players

The Khorne team comes with Lord Borak the Despoiler. A massive guy but very expensive to field.

Finally the main event. I present Bob Gnarly.

*

The Khorne team comes with this player, can't find him in the star player list, any guidance would help. He is a great figure on roller blades. So he is being fielded as an experienced marauder with +1 speed

I have a wood elf team made from repurposed resin wood elves. The figures are all in ballet dance poses, odd enough, but I needed an extra player and finding suitable figures in dancing attire and poses is hard. So I present Bambi the wood elf stripper

As you can see, she is definitely a stipper, her main armour is boob tape

The pose is very dynamic and I really like it. Would be better with bigger pants, although there was a nude option, and I dread to think.

Scores on the doors

1x28mm vehicle 20pts

3x28mm cannon with crew 75pts

19x28mm bloodbowl figures 95pts

There are times is I wonder if I really want to pick up that From:MartinC rock to see what scuttles out.  Not this week however, that title had me hooked.  A typical all over the place post Martin with lot's to enjoy, or make you avert your eyes.   Fine stuff all around but I think my favourite is Bon Gnarly.  He's going to have a challenge with those rollerblades on a field however, he should have limited mobility unless he's on a floor or paved surface.  I concur with your tally.

 

From MartinC Quite a lot of Saxons and some more Tripods (218pts)

12 months ago my brother in law, also name Martin, ruptured his achilles playing a full game of football. He is 58 and everyone took the piss out of him apart from my sister, who was less than impressed, to say the least.

Very quickly he got very bored and asked me to teach him to wargame. So I taught him how to play Kings of War Historical, the maddest set of rules and the most fun. We played Picts vs Saxons and he really enjoyed it. So I started to build him a Saxon army. This is the next part, and probably the last of the infantry. The figures are a box of Gripping Beast dark age warriors, and a simple paint

Regiment of warriors

Regiment of spearmen

Troop of singers, these are a simple conversion with a hand swap. The slings are in the box

My dalliance with tripods continues, and will probably end with these 3 small scout tripods from Pendraken 

The are about tree height, and I bent some metal trees over to give a sense of movement, and to help support them

Scores on the doors

40 x 28mm infantry = 200pts

3 x10mm vehicles = 18pts

Total 218pts

Great that you able to get your BIL into ancients Martin, and those are very nice Saxons you've done for him.  The GB plastics are a cost effective way to get some armies together.  Have you looked at the Victoria saxons (or late Romans)?  The two makes go together well, even for kitbashing.  Not sure about using slings in close formation like that, looks like a good way to get brained by your neighbours.  Really like the tripod tree surgeons too.

From MartinC Really Big Ship and Crane (90 Points)

 My club, much debate about if we wanted to be an actual club as we are all a bit Groucho Marx, is running an insane Back of Beyond campaign and DaveD (umpire and man who knows the rules) told me last week the Japanese and Brazilians (not a typo) are invading Vladivostok at my house on Friday and we needed a port. Luckily I had a ship and a dock crane that needed painting. 

The ship is an mdf kit from TT Combat and is massive

Made it look suitably rusty and dirty.

Told you it was big, 20 inches by 6 by 6. The deck holds 3 28mm shermans and 3 M3 half tracks.

Any dock needs are crane, this one is from Sarissa and a pretty big mdf kit, the body is twice the size of a tank

Painted in a dull red, it's a crane and seemed a suitable colour.

I've got no clue how to score these, crane about 3 times bigger than a tank and the ship about 12 times bigger than a tank. Helpful guidance much appreciated. 

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Wow, not that is a huge piece of terrain there Martin! 

Let's start with the simpler one first, that crane is a big piece but in my mind fairly simple to paint up, so due to its simplicity even though its much bigger than a tank in 28mm I am going to consider it as a vehicle for points so 20 points for it.

 

As for the ship, wow.  Again very massive, and I have seen one of those kits in person it kinda fills a table!!  Again though it its a very low detail model, so while its massive, its pretty simple and does not require a ton of fiddly detail work. Then again, it is almost 2' long!  I am going to go with 70 points for it as I see that you have tried to do a lot to the kit (like the lines and weathering).

 

Both are great pieces of terrain and will dominate a table and make for some interesting fights.  Great work!

 

-Byron