Greed- DavidB( 245 points)

So Greed is often associated with wealth, but also can be for power. Probably my favorite book I have read ( without pictures) is the History of Florence by Nicco Machiavelli. He with his unique insight and wit identified the new wealth( business owners) the nobles, and the papal forces of the Vatican as the the main three forces causes strife in the known world and Italy. Machiavelli also wrote in that tome "there is always two parties. The party who has the power and the party that desires the power, neither is working for the good of the state." That is certainly a bit of greed on those parties and those same ones still pull the strings ,although fear of Bourbon kings has receded,  the push and pull of power remains. 

In the Battletech lore, House Steiner is an Inner Sphere power. They are the remnants of European power and nobility with many of House Steiner tracing their ancestral lines to Knightly lords and Napoleonic generals. They have kept power and in books by Michael Stackpole and others that I read in the 80's and 90's, they can be altruistic heroes or power brokers and power junkies. All forces in Battletech can be similar in their greed for power and it is quite easy to find a plot devise to make an entertaining wargame,

My greed is a touch different. I am a wargaming packrat. Up first are these wonderful trucks that I ordered from the Wargamers Vault. I found some very inexpensive files of 28mm scifi trucks and since the were modular and interchangeable, I paid less for those files than a space marine tank kit. These trucks were the first files run through my 3D printer in October. They are brilliant, really nice kits easy to put together.....and look entirely too small for Necromundia and other games workshop games.

Still, I love these trucks in their detail and simpilcity, and being perfectly fine trucks there was never a doubt of making more...but larger.

I painted them for two reasons... I do hate painting vicks. I would much rather paint a bunch of infantry as that is a noticeable squad, regiment, or army with noticeable progress.a truck or two is just a truck or two. Vicks are a part of wargaming especially in the genres I like most.

I paired these trucks with a House Steiner platoon that has been laying around for a very long time.

A platoon commander with his platoon sgt, aid(driver, scribe, runner) and two heavy laser teams

These are old Ral Partha sculpts and are more 25mm than 28mm, but look fine with the trucks.

The platoon has three squads of troops with smaller "man portable" heavy lasers and the rest with laser rifles and carbines. With eight man squads, perhaps the heavy laser is kinda portable....from experience I can honestly remind you that man-portable is not synonymous with easy or fun. At least this platoon has access to two trucks from which the troops can place the man-portable weapons in.

They are very fine sculpts and had very little flash and cleanup needed. Poses are often repeated and the weapon crew guns made me glue my fingers together many times

The platoon Sgt has a pack on his back which could be a radio for the commander or his bag of useful items to disperse to the squads.

And finally, the whole platoon together. I have a few more trucks and Kurita troops to paint, but now I can use 5150 Star Army or any other rule set for platoon vs platoon skirmish and they wont look like lilliputians. I even have a few pieces of terrain that match them, so the battles will look proper and be more immersive. Perhaps a 25mm mech or two in a future game...  

I bought these after I first left active duty in the late 80's and when some college friends wanted to play Battletech when Rogue Trader and warhammer 40k were still new. My mistake was I liked soldiers and painting them even then and my friend who was supposed to help me find some stuff for our games thought they soldiers were cool and did not show me the mechs or even a lance worth of recommended battle mechs to use in the game...and it was RPG and not a wargame, so miniatures were not needed.

From 1989 they have been unpainted and now they are ready for the table, after Kurita is completed. So 40 years later they have a use besides collecting dust! I should have purged them from the collection of the mountain of neglect years ago.

two 28 mm trucks at 20 points each  for 40points

27 troops at 5 points each...135points

5 big guns at 10 points...50 points

225 points plus 20 for the greed of a gaming hoarder

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Great to see these classic BT Battletroops get some love Dave! 

Your project is really coming together well

- Paul

From Lorenzo: Mixed Bag - Noggin, Nottub and Namreg (Points 75)

So I don't forget here is my library map.

Well this is certainly a mixed bag this week.

First up back to my childhood and as it happens a friend who likes Oliver Postage, Smallfilms and Noggin the Nog. My friend will be getting this figure as a gift, it is a subject they still enjoy despite the ravages of dementia.

This was a sudden purchase from the little soldier company. Very prompt service.

I painted the 28mm Noggin conventionally although I did use snakebite leather Citadel Colour Contrast to "line/shadow" the white primer.I also played a bit with citadel washes and contrasts on the red tunic. Frankly the 20 year old Baal red on his shoes was as good as last weeks blood angels on his tunic. Elsehwere I used a traditional mix some paint to get three purple colour for the cloak. And I used Citadel Colour Contrast Nazreg Yellow over some Vallejo gamers colour gold. A contrast over the conventional green leggings does not show as they were too close together. You do have to plan your overcoats of contrast and experiment. That is less attractive for large numbers of figures in production I guess.

Then it was some Peco railway grass and a GW sand mix to finish the base. I would like 5+20= 25 points for this childrens character please. Turning to Sci Fi I offer up "Namreg the Breather". a 28mm character He came from a free sprue of Panzergrenadiers off a recent Miniature Wargames Magazine? or maybe it was WI? Except he did not look this way on the sprue. I took a basic figure then tweaked a luger with some spare sprue and also cut some more for the face unit. Plastic rod from the bits box provided the cyclinders while the hose was a discarded flosser minus its handle. A spanner got painted up as some sort of "whizzy doctor who type sonic screwdriver" tool.

I primed the result in white and shadowed with snakebite leather. Then the trousers are a VJ bright blue covered in a dark blue citadel contrast while the jacket was done in VJ game colour beasty brown again covered in snakebite contrast. The cylinders were finished in Magos purple while I felt an armband was required to show he is a militia type.

I did a couple of highlights - the gun barrel got game colour heavy black green then VJ lime green spot and VJ ivory white spot. while the visor unit got good old (20 years!) Citadel Mechrite Red then VJ Game colour orange fire and again VJ ivory white spot. The breather unit gauze was VJ gamer polished gold with nazdreg yellow contrast on top. I could see these for real but the photos don't show them very well even in close up. I would like 5+20 points for this character and library section. Finally I am taking a chance here to visit the manga/graphic novel section courtesy of DeathZap wargaming pastor

I was really taken with the Hominids on his blog and as it happened also saw some "crappy soldiers" at a toy fair in Doncaster at Xmas and thought why not have a go. Here is another link to the Pastors "how to make Hominids" I copied his method just mixing up the top highlight with GW Mechrite red and some white to make a nice pinky colour over blood angels contrast over GW mechrite red over snakebight leather contrast. Maybe there is no story book yet..... - but the Hominid, in my case Nottub Reidlos looks suitably odd and scary for this library section?

So thats my contribution to manga etc. and just maybe they will appear in my own TACFOS story I reckon my 28mm hominid Nottub Reidlos earns me 5 + 20 points = 25 points. so if all is permitted thats three figures and three sections 25+ 25 + 25 = 75 pts. Not sure if I will manage another submission before we end the challenge which is currently a set of figures that are not quite working for me. Anyway its been a great challenge for me and very satisfying. Thanks especially to Sylvain for all his ideas, themes and assistance to this rooky. 

 

Sylvain: That Noggin is a cute little fellow. You have an interestingly weird submission this week, well served by your paint job. I hope you enjoyed your first participation in the Challenge! 

From AaronH: Star Wars Legion (294 points)

There was no entry last week because Rhys and I were off to play in a Star Wars Legion skirmish tournament on plains east of Denver. We had fun but do not really like that format. We really went to support the locals as they are trying to get a Legion group going out there.

This week's entry will be a bit larger than usual as a result. First off is Clan Wren for the rebels. 

Clan Wren. All three of them.

Rebel Mandos are not a great unit. Clan Wren is a bit better, two wounds each and some slightly elevated rules, but they just can't punch in the same weight class as the Shadow Collective Mandos.

They are devilishly fast and get a little bit better if Sabine Wren is on the table as a hero.

Action shot.

I have two more units on the table. I'm not sure they'll be done before the end of the Challenge though.

Next up are two CIS repair droids. These are an upgrade to B1s and are annoying since there's almost nothing worse than finally killing a multi-wound model and then having these guys pop it back up.

I tried to do the lens like it's reflecting the dark ground and the lighter sky.

These are small models, half the size of a B1. They tend to get lost in the crowd so I painted them green to help them stand out a bit.

They are holding B1 heads.

Today's third unit is a Super Tactical Droid, two T Series droids, two Viper recon droids and one heal-bot, which is just as annoying as the repair droids but for the few meat bags in the army.

Leaders and more unit upgrades

The T Series Tactical Droids can be a unit leader or a commander in the faction. They have the unit colors for two units, but I can pull them out as needed.

The rear view. Droids don't panic easily so not something their enemies see much of.

The Super Tactical Droid is a really good commander. There are two named droids and a generic but all three are worth taking. They support the army rather than doing the fighting themselves.

My skills aren't up to the intricate designs on these but I approximated them with gold paint.

Next up are more B1s. These bring me to six units, which is the most you can take outside of a special battle force. I'm done with these for now, though I may have some more upgrades to add in.

First up is dark green squad. I call them this because their unit markings are, dark green.

There are twelve B1s in this unit. I ran out of unit leaders with these two batches, though I have the B1s for the rank in file in the final two units that the battle force can take.

These guys are light green and there are only  eleven of them. The unit leader's arm was broken off and I just couldn't get it to stick, so now it's been shot off and is resting at his feet.

Arm shot off; still holding his blaster.

Really glad to see the back of these models and move on.

The last unit is two squads of B2s. I'll need to add one more model to each of these since my son is running them at five droids.

B2s are not much better than B1s. They definitely need a little love from the devs in the next update to the game. Still, I have two units so I might as well get them painted.

I need to paint eight more models and my younger son can show up for his first game at the game store next week with a fully painted army. 

Points wise this is a pretty big entry.

3 x 32mm Clan Wren x 7pts = 21 pts

2 x 32mm PK Droids x 7 pts = 14 pts

6 x 32mm Commanders and add-ons x 7 pts = 42 pts

23 x 32mm B1s x 7 pts = 161 pts

8 x 32mm B2s x 7 pts = 56 pts 

Total = 294 pts

Wow Aaron this points bomb should get the gang fired up for Star Wars: Legion! Great production here, I particularly like the Clan Wren group, they look really nice.

A 294-point tally for you!

Dallas

From Rhunt - Crashed X-Wing for Star Wars Legion (40 pts)

 This week I painted a crashed X-Wing for Star Wars Legion. I painted the pilot last week, she's blue.

These pieces are 12 inches by 12 inches and 3 inches tall.

The B1 is for scale. There are four sections. This is the biggest.

This set has four pieces and came with cards for playing a scenario. We haven't played that yet but I really liked painting this model.

The area around the ship can be difficult terrain and the ship is hard cover and blocks line of sight. Those are very important in Legion.

This piece is the tallest part, along with the other wing on the big piece.

It can't hide a whole unit but a hero can get really hidden behind this.

This piece is pretty boring but does give hard cover.

I painted these like there was fire or lava around where the crash happened. It just destroyed everything.

This piece has a dead astromech droid on it. That made me sort of sad.

All together these break up the battlefield a lot for movement and some for cover and line of sight. 

For scoring if we stacked these they would be six inches by six inches by 12 inches, so two Terrain Cubes (t) for 40 points.

Great work here Rhys! And perfect terrain pieces for Legion. I can already see Obi Wan and Anakin fighting near it, with Obi Wan having the high ground shouting something about being friends or something. 

The lava aspect is really well done here. If I were to give any advice to improve it, would be to perhaps give the brown rocky areas a bit of a drybrush in a slightly lighter color nearer the lava. To show the glow more, and to add a bit more to the transition there. 

Overall great effort here, and a cool 40 pts for you!
Kyle