From StuartL - The Boys in Blue at The Hall of Heroes (277 Points)

Hello again everyone.

Today I'm submitting my entry for the final Chamber of Challenge on my to do list, The Hall of Heroes. Unlike some of the other chamber themes where it was tricky to find something that fits, I actually had a lot of options here. When I considered that this was likely to be the last stop on my journey, and what I wanted to achieve in terms of models painted, I decided that the best option was to go big for this one.

A while back I posted up a bunch of Warhammer 30,000 World Eaters and explained at the time about how I enjoyed the setting and how I got started with it. I'm not going to go back over that here and just jump straight in to posting up the minis I painted. One of my targets for this challenge was to get the core of my 30K collection finished up so that I can start to play more games once social contact becomes a thing again. As I had started my World Eaters, I needed suitable opponents for them on the table. With the title of the post, it should come as little surprise that I have painted up Ultramarines.

As the starting point for the army, I painted up 20 Tactical marines, or two squads in game terms. To support them I added a 5-man Tactical Support Squad and a 5-man Heavy Support Squad, armed with Melta-guns and Missile Launchers respectively.

To add a little more punch to the force, I added a squad of Seekers, a specialist team of Snipers/Assassins with the role of hunting down the enemy commanders and eliminating them. For those of you familiar with 40K, you may notice that these guys are in different armour to the other figures. I have used a mix of Mk.V torsos with Mk.VI armour to make them stand out a bit more on the table.

Finally, I built some close combat troops. The Ultramarines list allows them to field a unique unit called the Locutarus Storm Squad. While I prefer to use all plastic minis, these guys needed some extra bits and pieces such as resin jump packs, though I used the cheaper options from Spellcrow, rather than the official Forge World models.

I don't have a lot of vehicles for the setting yet, but I did get an old Rhino APC from eBay ages ago. The front of the Rhino had a lot of junk stuck to it, and when I tried to remove it most of the front hull went with it. A raid on my bits box later and I had enough to repair it after a fashion. By adding some guns to the front along with some extra armour, I cobbled together a tank hunter. A dreadnought was also added to the pile for extra fire support.

Finally, any force needs some officers to lead it, so I painted up a Tech-marine and a Captain. The Tech-marine is covered in Ultramarine Icons, so I could either use him for this army, or spend hours grinding down the metal details. The Captain has a resin torso, (also Spellcrow) and a plastic Jump Pack from a Blood Angels kit. 

All of the minis had transfers applied where necessary. Unlike the issue I had previously with the decals for the World Eaters, I had some suitable sheets in my collection for these guys. Luckily their insignia don't change much between 30K and 40K, and there are some 30K insignia available for them in the boxed sets I bought. 

Anyone familiar with the Warhammer setting will probably agree that despite all the stick Ultramarines get for being the poster-boys of the game, the lore does tend to depict them as being heroes, so probably suitable enough for the entry for this chamber. However, I did have one more model that I wanted to add, particularly because I have had it for ages. When I first became interested in the setting, way back when, GW had stated that they would never, ever do anything for the Horus Heresy (except Epic, but that had long since died as a game system anyway), and they especially would never release models or rules for the Primarchs. Luckily for me, other companies could see the value in making models for them and selling them. I spent a fair bit of money with a company called Kabuki Models, a small boutique company that appears to have closed it's doors (some minis are still available from Levelup Hobby). One of the figures I picked up was an unofficial figure for the Primarch of the Ultramarines Legion. The original head was tiny compared to the rest of the figure, so I substituted a standard GW head. Even without the base, the figure is taller than a standard GW marine mini, with the troops above only coming up to his shoulders. 

So, as the submission for the Hall of Heroes I submit The Avenging Son, The Master of Ultramar, The Blade of Unity, The Victorious, Robute Guilliman, (unofficial) Primarch of the 13th Legion Astartes.

By my count, that is 42x 28mm minis, 1x 40mm mini and 2x 28mm vehicles, plus the chamber for a total of 277 points. For my side duels, 250 of those points go towards the GW minis tally and there are 36 skullz painted on the minis. As I have already submitted a Warhammer 30K themed entry for the Squirrel contest, these don't add anything to that count.

My running Duels totals:

GW Points - 1266

Skullz - 492

Squirrels - 18

Fabulous! A points bomb! Just a few more of these and we'll be on our way to reaching the grand target.

I know very little about the Warhammerverse, but I do understand that your Primarch does have a rather uncharitable nickname.

That's 277 points in your bag for this entry.

Tamsin

From DrQ: Some more fancy ork boyz (25 points)

 While I'm still working on my monstrous Kharadron Overlord Ironclad for the Lair of the Great Beast, I did finish off some more fancy steampunk boyz for my increasingly dapper WAAAGH.

These boys are built from leftover parts gifted me by an in-law who ran a bit shot for years. As a result, I had sprues low on both legs and heads. I've made up for that with Spellcrow Orc Steampunk Heads and Orc Freetbooter legs. I rather like how they turned out.

As far as points, just another 25 for these five 28mm ladz. 

Now, back to the Great Beast...

From DrQ: Orks and Chests in the Snowlord's Treasury (70 points)

 

For the Snowlord's Treasury I've painted up some lovely little treasure chests. These five are from an old CMON kickstarter-exclussive box for Masmorra: Dungeons of Arcadia. 

Not really much to say about these, aside from the fact that I painted them in the standard cartoon style I do for all chibi miniatures (see earlier posts). I decided for a group shot showing all the sides in one image, since there were five of them to paint up. 

Additionally, if there's going to be loot, there needs to be someone(s) there to do the looting. As such here are five more 40k Ork Boyz.

These boys are a fair bit more dapper than the blokes I have been painting. I picked up some steampunk heads from Spellcrow, figuring that a head swap would be an easy way to distinguish between units when the Greentide of 3-4 units of 30 models comes in on the charge. Oh, and I used a different colour of tufts as well. 

Aside from the head swap, I painted these boyz in my standard troop scheme, which I'd best describe as "Evil Suns Lite." I could have upped the glow on the one boyz' head coils, but I don't want him to stand out too much—it's not like he's got a forceshield or any other bonus for those blue coils. He's just a very dapper lad. 

As far as points, there's ten 28mm miniatures for 50 points and another 20 for the area challenge, for a total of 70 points.

From here I move into my penultimate challenge area: the Lair of the Great Beast. I've been slowly working on my Kharadron Ironclad for this area, and hopefully I'll have it finished by the end of the month.

From LeeH - Assorted Frosgrave Debris (54 points)

I have been collecting together all manner of bits and bobs and now have an eclectic collection of 28mm 'fantasy' debris that I can use in my Frostgrave games. Some of this is the stuff that I have made myself; some bits are leftovers from other kits; a few items I bought without any particular use in mind (oohh Shiney! etc); and a few items are freebies given away with other purchases. I decided I needed to have a big clearout of this growing hodgepodge of items and paint them up. No idea how to score them so I'll leave that particular conundrum to the unlucky minion on duty today! 

Bits from Spellcrow 

I bought a few items from Spellcrow late last year and after some issues with Royal Mail I ended up with two sets of stuff. So you'll see there are two ruined building corners in duplicate. They also sent me a few freebies with these parcels, including useful items like the Ladders, and some more eclectic stuff like the Mushroom! I'll find a use for it all one way or another. 

Collapsed Walls

I saw something like this on another website (sorry can't remember where) and decided to make some myself. I can use these around my other buildings to block roads, create cover and provide little elevated positions for line-of-sight. All are made from offcuts of foam as I'm trying not to waste anything that could conceivably be repurposed at a later stage. Incidentally, I have run out of my usual 'frosted' grass tufts so I found some similarly shaped tufts, recoloured them and dry brushed the frost on them. They match pretty closely the commercial ones I bought and won't look out of place on the table. 

Reaper Funerary Sculpture

Back at the end of November, I went to Dragonmeet in London with my daughters. This show is primarily aimed at roleplayers but it has always had its fair share of miniatures to buy. I bought myself a new set of dice for roleplaying (one never has enough dice!), and also picked up models and these excellent graveyard sculptures from Reaper. 

It's school half term next week so I'm taking my stressed teacher wife away for a short holiday to the wilds of Sussex. Little does she know I have a list of museums that I want to visit, but I'll broach that subject when we get there! I won't be getting any painting done but I will be spending some time assembling a load of plastic 28mm figures for the latter weeks of the Challenge. Not six millimetre and they are fantasy figures for Frostgrave...Ray's going to love them!

Your Frostgrave table is going to look fantastic. Painting tufts is above and beyond. As for points - no clue. There are 18 pieces of random shapes and sizes and the terrain pts are harsh. I think that 54 pts is sensible.

Martin

From LeeH - The Collapsed Cloister (25 points)

Another day and another ruined building from my growing Frostgrave collection. This one is made from an assembly of resin terrain pieces from a Polish company called Spellcrow. I stumbled upon this manufacturer back in November while I was looking for resin terrain and I was immediately impressed with the look of some of their offerings and put together order the same day. What followed was an epic journey that ended up with me purchasing more from this company.

So the saga... I placed my order early in November and sat back awaiting delivery. I was expecting a couple of week wait but time slipped on and eventually, I emailed the company for a tracking number. This showed that the parcel had left Poland and was awaiting receipt from Royal Mail for the second leg of its journey. I waited a few more days but Royal Mail continued to show the parcel as having not left the country of origin. After a flurry of emails with Spellcrow, they agreed the parcel must be lost in transit and would send me a replacement. This turned up less than a week later and I was very happy, both with the quality of the models and the excellent customer service. Fast forward nearly five weeks and a mystery parcel arrived on my doorstep (literally!). You could have blown me down with a feather when I discovered it was my original order! Either it had been circling the North Sea for a month or (much more likely) Royal Mail had lost it in their system and only rediscovered it after the Christmas rush was over.

I was so happy with the quality of the resin models I had received in December (and the freebies they had included with my order) that I decided to keep the duplicate order. I hasten to add I emailed Spellcrow and have now paid for the duplicate items as I don't see why they should be out of pocket because our postal service is incompetent! In fact, I'm also in the process of putting together another order from their excellent catalogue. Quality products and good customer service should always be rewarded.

The dimensions of this building are 9½"x6½"x4" so a smidge over one terrain box which should add another 20 points to my tally. The figures, of course, are just for illustrative purposes and aren't part of the entry. I have yet more terrain for later in the challenge including more resin building ruins from Spellcrow, so my Frostgrave (mis)adventure is not over yet!
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By Paul- well I do love me some Terrain building and Frostgrave both. 

Lovely job here Lee, 20 points well earned plus take another 5 for your honesty regarding your duplicate deliveries!