From MikeF - Horus Heresy Militia Tanks - 85 points

 One of my ongoing projects is my Imperial Guard / Traitor Militia for Horus Heresy. It's a simple olive green paint job that goes on quick and looks decent. Late last year I painted up some Alternative Armies Ion Age Retained Knights to represent Rogue Trader humans in power armor to be used for the Age of Darkness H H rule set.  I decided they needed some transports, so dug out some old rhinos and gave them a 30k makeover with bits from Blood & Skulls Industry. The rhinos are about 20 years old and were originally for my Salamanders Army. They were then repainted and then stripped. As such, they were in rough shape. Here are some work in progress pictures.

The resin parts come in several pieces and you have to saw off the Rhino exhaust pipes to fit the new bits on. It was actually pretty easy, so long as you have a small saw. Here are the completed rhinos:

28mm Infantry is for scale only

The Eye of Horus displayed prominently.

I also picked up the new plastic Land Raider Proteus for Horus Heresy and painted it up for the command squad. I went light on the upgrades as this army is lucky Horus gave them a Land Raider at all!

 

4 x 28mm vehicles for 80 Points

I also added up my total points to date and I should be at 410 including the above submission. Not sure where those extra 140 points came from, but I fear someone else may have been shorted.

Not sure if I'll get a final entry done in time, but I'll do my best.

Thanks for visiting.

Fantastic looking AFV's for your Militia, your men must be honoured by the Warmaster's generosity in granting them a Land Raider.

Miles has only been absent for a day and already there are claims of points irregularities and abuse of the system. Luckily for you, Miles didn't pick just any old minion to cover his shift, he picked me! After a thorough search of the Spreadsheet of Doom, I managed to track down the culprit, assign the points to their rightful owner and wrap things up with a neat little bow on them for Miles upon his return from the financial frontlines. It looks like another minion entered the wrong number into the spreadsheet and you were awarded the points by mistake. As a reward for your honesty, I have added a few bonus points to your total. 

- StuartL

Chaos Centaurs, the Laboratory, Mark Backhouse, (52 points)

 For the laboratory I had a nice conversion I wanted to make. I’d always liked Chaos Centaurs, although proper 80’s Citadel ones go for an arm and a leg. Instead these were made from old Westwind horses that had sat in a box for about 15 years collecting dust. I chose them as they were expendable but also a bit on the small side. They were combined with the fearsome looking Foundry Viking figures that I had doubles of. A bit of drilling and pinning later and the line between the two were blended with some green stuff to pass as a hairy area. 

To make them look properly chaotic I decided to give them some exotic patterns on his skin. These tiger stripes were great fun and makes the centaur look suitably wild and ferocious! The pattern on his beard helps to tie it all in together.

The zebra stripes came out a treat too!

This chap has a really fearsome looking club!

Annoyingly I painted these up for my Realms of Chaos project and then realised you couldn’t actually roll them on the warbands table! Not that it’ll stop me using them. I’ll probably just swap them for another choice costing roughly the same number of points. 

Such crazy experiments tick the laboratory box for 20 points. Centaurs aren’t quite cavalry - so I’m claiming 8 points for each conversion totalling 32 more points. 

So a grand total of 52 points.

Cheers

Mark Backhouse

Mudry's Messa - From Mike W. 28mm Imperial Guard Walker and crew (60 Points)

I've wandered over to Murdy's Messa

I'm loving this Grand Tour of the Challenge Island, it's really getting me to drag out old lead and plastic from the mountain to create new entries.

One of Greg's inspirational Titans

This is a case in point, moving to Mudry's Mesa the challenge is to use an inspiration from last year's challenge to create an entry for this year.

When I saw GregB's Titans <here> I thought wow! How Cool!

These Titans were something I'd liked the idea of years ago when they came out bit never got around to doing anything about.

The nearest I got to doing my own Titans, back in the day, was to do some Imperial Guard Walkers, modelled straight out of the box, and painted to conform from my view on the Cadian forces that I had raised for 40K games.

Some of the 'spare' parts used.

Later I found some cheap generic Sci-Fi figures that included two out of scale 'Titan' like models - these where handed over to my sons, 20+ years ago to play with they were battered beyond recognition. Luckily, when it came to throw away the battered toys, I put a few spare parts in my spares box where they have languished for many, many years.

On seeing Greg's entry last year I dug out these parts but decided that I did not have enough other 'spares' to build a Titan of my own.

This year round I thought - why not do a new 'Locally built' Imperial Walker rather than a Titan scale model. With that change in perspective I was able to pull in other Imperial Guard arts form the 'Spares Box'

So the basic generic figure this was built on stands about 65mm tall, it was missing it's right arm, back and head.

Finished scratch built Imperial Walker

To this base figure I have been able to add an armoured cockpit from an Imperial Walker model, to replace the head, this is perched upon a box like body, made from an old Warhammer 40K Supply box kit and the lower body and back is a re-visited Oil Drum from the same kit. Final model is around 90mm tall, and nearly as wide!

Rear view, showing reconstructed
back of the model

Left side view, not sure what this weapon or
equipment represents, possibly high powered
search lights?!

To this was added weaponry from spares that I have for an Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons section, the pre-existing left Arm Weaponry was removed at the shoulder and fixed to make a new right Arm, whilst an Auto Cannon was deployed under the left shoulder, with a rocket launcher inserted into the left shoulder its-self - for some extra punch.

Top down view, showing base details

Additional power packs, ammunition boxes, cable and chains were added to taste before painting the whole model charcoal grey. I highlighted the figure with a couple of progressively lighter shades of grey and added wear and tear to the model on the form of silver lines along joints and edges.

The shoulder pad was painted a muted yellow - to tie in with the colourings I use on my Cadian troops, decals from an old Imperial tank were added to taste before washing in Army Painter Dark tone.

The base was created in my usual manner with sand, static grass and tufts plus - as it is bigger than usual - some other bits and pieces I found in the spares box to give a view of some wire defences and a hint of destruction beyond.

A quick note on the crewman. He is one of the toy figures that came in the toy Sci-Fi set mentioned above, he is wearing some sort of body hugging number that suggested he might be inserted into the cramped cockpit of such an Imperial Monster. Painted grey and with similar muted yellow webbing and washed to give definition and shading.

Another view - showing the waist line articulation on the model
still works plus a view on the Auto-cannon and rocket launcher
in the right shoulder housing.

I found his friend in the box at the same time and painted him up as well, whilst i was at it! I have included one of my previously painted Cadian Guardsmen for reference and hopefully it 'explains' why the colours are not usual Cadian colours - I'm just akward that way!

Crewman, his friend and old Cadian Model,
to show colour scheme I was tying into...

I remember for the first ten users or so playing Warhammer 40K I had a Space Marine Chapter called the 'Imperial Tigers', they had lime green armour with a blue and black tiger stripe - a nightmare to paint and on reflection, pretty horrible to look at!

So there it is, not worth very many points in the challenge but a huge amount of fun building this beast and adding to my Cadian forces, shame is I haven't used them for years now, maybe I should dust them off


POINTS
1 x 28mm Vehicle = 20 Points
2 x 28mm Crewmen = 10 Points
Mudry's Mesa Bonus = 30 Points
TOTAL 20+10+30 = 60 Points


Your second splendid entry of the day! Nice going Mike!

TamsinP

From MikeW - 20 x 28mm Balkan Infantry, Late 17th Century (110 Points)

I originally got this idea form a post on the 'Wargames Warrior' Blog' that I spotted a few months back and with the Challenge drawing nearer I ordered a box of Perry plastic Zouaves to see what could be done.

Original picture that caught my eye!

The basic idea is that basis these Zouave figures can be converted into passable Ottoman figures - Adam who posted this idea, had gone to the trouble of casting additional arms for the figures to depict them carrying swords etc.

Casting additional limbs is well above my modelling skills grade so I adapted the idea and have sued the concept to create a unit of Balkan Infantry in Ottoman service.


So, the basic Zouave figure does have a lot going for it when you compare to pictures of the Croat Infantry of the period in Osprey or similar sources, see right. There are some obvious differences - namely the bayonet and percussion rifle, the length of the coat, the lower legging and foot wear etc.

However I determined that for the purposes of 'bulking' out my tabletop Ottoman Army with a couple of these regiments, these figures should work fine.

Finished Croat / Balkan Regiment

So For each figure I cut off the bayonet and bayonet scabbard and then used a supply of spare 'Gripping Beast' Arab heads to swap with about half of the heads supplied in the Zouave box. This would give a more eastern feel to the figures and visually tie in the unit to other units with similar heads in the army - in my opinion.

The Gripping Beast heads are a little bigger than their Perry counterparts but not too bad en-masse. For the eagle eyed ones of you out there there's even a Space Wolves head, with a fabulous beard,  in there - see if you can spot it!

I decided to simply ignore the other details as changing the leggings and foot-ware would have been way to fiddly and the length of the coat is something that I have seen as both long and short in various sources, depending on the exact time period.

Focus on Musketeer Stands

More Musketeers

After that it was a basic paint job on the figures - I varied the colour of their dress but tried to keep a similar range of colours across the whole unit to tie them together, all leather-work was done in a buff finish.

Focus on Officer and Drummer

Standard Bearer

I spent some additional time and effort on the command stand. The Officer was in fact the basic Zouave Officer with a 'Trent Miniatures' Ottoman head (available in separate packs, as are Ottomn muskets!) substituted for the kepi version that came with the box, I added a Sword arm from the Gripping Beast Arab Cavalry bow and a shield from the same. The rest was simply giving the figure a more colourful paint finish to reflect his higher rank.

Trumpeter

The standard Bearer and Drummer were as per the kit, on reflection sourcing a more eastern looking drum would be better, I'll do that next time. The standard was sourced from the internet. The Trumpeter was again a quick conversion using an appropriate arm from the 'Gripping Beast' Arab Cavalry box.

So with 44 figures to a box, I have enough figures remaining to field another Balkan Infantry regiment, keep watching this space and I'll likely get them done in the next month or so!

POINTS TOTAL
20 x 28mm figures @ 5 Points each = 100 Points

Next on the list - more floppy hatted silliness followed by some 1/144 Israeli Shermans! Stop Press: I even dug out more 18mm Crimean War cavalry...

***
Great to see more Ottoman goodness from you Mike, and I am impressed at your commitment to the setting is such that you would do all of this "faffing about" with conversions in order to make progress - but that is one of the things that makes this hobby so damn cool, are the folks who "get into" a setting and push forward to make it work, to keep building their beautiful collections. 

I always recoil slightly when someone suggests that conversions might be simple are also the ones who can cast their own bits...way beyond my skill grade, for sure!  And while there were no parts cast here, there is a lot of thought and effort which has gone into making the conversions work - including a Space Wolf head! Amazing! Those don't even work for Space Wolves, in my opinion...so making even one of those bits fit for purpose with Ottomans is wonderful :)

OK, so that's 100 points, yes, but I'm adding 10 points for conversion work, as a subsidy to encourage you to produce more inspiring Ottoman figures, and for finding a use for a productive use for a GW Space Wolf head. Great stuff. 

GregB 

From JamieM: Blackstone Fortress Adversaries (100 Points)

It's fantastic to be back in the challenge once again and for the first time ever, I've actually completed a submission before Christmas!

Now, I've always been a bit of a Games Workshop fanboy - Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battle were what brought me into this hobby.  It's no great secret that GW diverged somewhat from what made them so successful during a lot of the 2000's....... but they've recently rediscovered a lot of what made them such a big draw in the 80's & early 90's - actually giving the customers what they want instead of telling customers what they should want and utterly ignoring them.  Mind blowing stuff, for sure.....

One of the things they've rediscovered is that wargamers rather like full games in boxes with great figures and so they've recently been churning boxed games out as often as they can.  A couple of years ago I bought the reinvented Warhammer Quest game (basically a dungeon crawl where you're all on the same side against AI controlled enemies) and our gaming group really enjoyed it, so when GW announced the next Warhammer Quest game would be in the 40k universe, I was absolutely in!

I decided to do something a little different though and despite the lovely figures GW were including in the game, I decided that this was a great opportunity for me to instead convert all the required figures from miniatures and parts that I already owned.  This would give me something unique, save a bit of cash and scratch the converting itch I always have.  Oh, and attempt to ever so slightly rebalance the wargamers scales, which are always heavily weighted towards buying shiny things instead of painting them.  So, I picked up all the game parts you needed to play for a song from eBay and got converting..... and I now present the first completed figures.

These first chaps are my take on the "Negavolt cultists" - lunatics who seem to have taken to electrocuting anyone who strays into their territory.  As you do.  I had some bodies from the old empire flagellants and having found some oversized power arms, they reminded me of fiddler crabs so I went with one massive arm and almost nothing on the other side.

Weird electro machinery on the back finished the look.

These next ones are my version of spindle drones.  The "proper" ones are a little metallic and clean for my taste, so I added some 40k weirdness with odd little robed individuals.  Are they robots, cyborgs or something else entirely?  We may never know....

Now, having said I was going to convert ALL of the figures, I now must admit to not converting these next four.  At all.  In any way, shape or form.  I stuck to that resolution about as well the one I periodically make to stop buying figures until I've painted a load of what I already...... I just really liked the figures and so caved in and bought myself some.

Anyway, these unsavoury fellows are Ur-Ghuls - ghoulish monsters who seem to use warp space to stalk their prey.  Or something.  Anyway, I suspect I wouldn't like to meet them down a dark alley, but they were delightfully easy to paint and hence why they leapt to the head of the painting queue.

And here they are, all together in the class photo.

They're all 28mm figures, but as they're for a board game I paint the bases plain black instead of trying to match the game so I'm happy for the points to be reduced to account for this.

__________________________________

Wow, what wonderful work, Jamie. I knew we'd be in for a treat when you described what you were planning for this project earlier this autumn. 

Your execution of these various conversions is just brilliant. I'm especially taken with the asymmetrical 'Negavolt cultists'. You know, some cultists get a secret decoder ring, others a groovy pointy-headed cowl. These poor gits get turned into lobotomised self-propelled arc welding amputees. Sure, nice gig if you can get it. Sheesh...

Even though the Ur-Ghuls are 'merely' stock figures I love the way you have their hands as flesh coloured counterposed to their alabaster white bodies. That's quite creeptastic.

Okay, lets say double points for the drones and Negavolt guys due to their substantive conversions. That makes it 100 points for all these loons. Nicely done, Jamie. Let's see some more, eh?

From KyleC - Possessed Reinforcements (30 Points)

Been very lucky today that the family is all split on other tasks and had freetime to just sit, watch movies, and paint!

Got these 5 bad boys done now, and really had fun both converting them and painting them.

I will use them as possessed in my Death Guard forces. Slightly larger than the normal folks.

Based off of the Blightking Chaos models, and then converted to hold Plaguebearer heads and such on them. Small but effective conversions.

Painted like the rest of my forces, and my slender attempts at NMM silver on the metal sections. Not the best, but good enough for a table top force. And easy to do... usually.

Now to begin assembly or sorting out the titans until I have time tomorrow to prime up the Deamon Princes.. yes.. plural...

_________________________________________

What a wonderfully nasty pack of bad lads, Kyle. Again, I'm not a huge fan of Nurgle models, but there's no denying the skill of your conversions and painting here. I particularly like the over-saturated colours you used for their rusty and corroded weapons. A very cool effect.

Considering conversions and basework, let's say 30 points. Great work, Kyle.

From GillesW - Welcome back to the Circus! 15mm Carthaginian Elephants (67 Points)

Hello everyone.  In my last submission, some of you spoke  about carthaginian elephants on the comments.  I'm weak and very easy to influence, so I went in my Circus ( the Lead pile ) and I prepped, converted, undercoated some beast for the parade of this Friday.

The figures are from a variety of ranges, such as Old Glory, Covus Belli and Essex.  I have tried to note the ranges where I can.  I changed the heads of the Corvus Belli figures because I don't like the heads with separate ears.

I hope you will like them.

The "circus" on the move - are those Romans up there?

This figures is from Corvus Belli, but the head is Essex miniatures

An Old Glory figure

This features another combo of Corvus Belli and Essex head.  The archer is also from Essex, and the man with javelin is from Old Glory.

An Essex Miniatures elephant converted - the back has been filed to fir the howda

The elephant is from Alain Touller figures - the fellow with the javelin is from Corvus Belli, and he is joined by a lybio-phoenician from Essex

A good circus always need to have some clowns, I have painted few staff slingers for a side project and some Sardinian archers for my "second life" project to do the task of amusing the crowd.

stay tuned, more will come soon....

Eléphants - la terreur de l' ancien champ de bataille! Bien fait encore Mr. Gilles! Another very cool ancients submission.  I'm mostly a sci-fi and modern geek, but I envy you guys and girls doing ancients because the stuff looks so cool, and you obviously know your history! I can picture those elephants running down some hapless Roman soldiers, or perhaps simply running amok among their own forces - either way, a lot of fun on the gaming table.

Another great entry Gilles.  I'm sympathetic to anyone who will go convert and paint a bunch of stuff on the whim of some comments (I know what you mean!) and the work going into these elephants, with the wide array of figures and good conversions, is very impressive - and that's before the brush work! Since elephants seemed to be the tanks of the ancient world, we'll score them as vehicles, and I will include a few extra points for the conversion work - for 67 points all together.  Looking forward to next week's submission!