From MikeF - Vertibird from Fallout - 28mm Vehicle - 20 Points

 I painted a set of 10 Brotherhood of Steel miniatures  from the Fallout video game for the Toy Story Theme. The Brotherhood are the high tech force of the setting and have access to one of the few flying vehicles in the game - The Vertibird. It’s a rototilt aircraft which seems to just want to be a helicopter. There isn’t a commercially available model in 28mm so I had to grab the next best thing. The Hornet from Mantic Games is fairly close and I had one already in need of a repaint. In the original game, all the brotherhood equipment is left over US army gear which was still painted in the US army green. I painted it the same green as the brotherhood figures and added the appropriate decals. As the vehicles are meant to be old and worn, I went to town on the weathering. It’s far more than would be acceptable for an aircraft, but there’s no FAA in the wasteland to threaten decertification.

 28mm vehicle - 20 points.

This is definitely it for the challenge, so I’d like to thank Curt, the minions and all challengers for making the challenge happen.

See you later this year!

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This is awesome, Mike. I loved the vertibirds in the TV series (in fact, I love saying the word: 'vertibird', much to Sarah's annoyance). Great work on the painting and weathering. Your power-armoured knights will be able to travel (or crash) in style now! 

'Remember folks: It can only get worse!' 👍

- Curt 

From Curt - Sci-Fi Rogues (25 Points)

Hi All!

I stutter-steped with these guys at the beginning of the Challenge, and they've been waiting on their paint holders, half done, balefully staring at me, willing me to pick them up to get them across the line. So, I finally relented, and here they are, done.

These rogues can fit in for a multitude of sci-fi skirmish games (Five Parsecs from Home, Kill Sample Process, Galactic Heroes, etc.). A cast of characters from Sci-Fi Central Casting.

This yellow-spotted green alien dude is from Knucklebone Miniatures. 

The sculpt is great (love the re-breather and chunky blaster), but I found that my initial colour blocking really sucked. Nonetheless, the vibe finally hit and after a few washes, blends and highlights he staggered into his own. I quite like him now. 

The beastman is another great sculpt (From Imitation of Life). He looks a very capable and no-nonsense kind of fella. Very much the veteran mercenary. 

If I were to do him again, I'd snap off one of his horns midway to give him a more hard-bitten, down-on-his-luck look. 

'Don' and 'Sancho' were must haves for me when I first saw them. Thes are prints from Imitation of Life as well. 

The Quixote figure has this terrific disheveled-but-oddly-regal beard, like much of the art depicting him. I thought I'd make his armour a multicoloured hodgepodge to reflect his somewhat hapless background. I made his visor rose-tinted, which I think is suitable for this particular romantic knight.

I added a power-feed to his rifle as it seemed the thing to do.

As to poor Sancho, I especially like his lugubrious face, seen here faithfully schlepping Quixote's kit without complaint, his BAR rifle as the ready to support his slightly crazed master when needed. 

His pasta strainer helmet and oxygen tank cracks me up.

The gunslinger, also a 3d print from Imitation of Life, is a bit soft in some of his detail, but I think his pose is spot-on.

I think of him as a young desperado, constantly getting into scrapes, eager to make his mark. 

So there you are, five more rogues ready for high-jinx and adventure in the far-off starlanes. 

These should give me 25 points and a squirrel for my tally.

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt

Fantastic looking models as always Mr Curt. The sheer variety of these is great and they will will doubtless come in very handy in various Rogue-Trader-like roleplaying-adjacent miniatures games. The details on these models crack me up too - loving that colander helmet on Sancho as well. It's amazing how far 3D printing has come isn't it!

Twenty-five for your tally.

Dallas

From MikeF - Tyrant’s Legion Hellhound Tank (20 Points)

I promised one more vehicle for the Tyrant's Legion and I'm happy to be able to deliver. I was thinking of doing a rhino for the Retaliators I painted last week, but a recent Ebay purchase arrived in record time and I decided to paint it up. I managed to grab a hellhound tank from Ebay for a relatively decent price. The current hellhound tank is readily available from GW, but I wanted the model they produced in the mid 90's with the metal fuel tanks! I managed to find one being sold in Vancouver for what seemed like a decent price  It was already assembled and painted, but I could tell it wasn't assembled particularly well. That didn't matter as I planned to strip and repaint it anyway. 

After a soak in some isopropyl alcohol, the model came apart and I was able to strip the paint and fix up the shoddy assembly work. The one problem I noticed was that the turret was a real mess. The turret consists of a metal lower half that connects to the plastic upper portion of the chimera turret. The metal piece had several rectangular open spaces on each side that is normally covered by metal extra armor pieces which run along the bottom half of the turret. These pieces were missing and had been replaced with plastic tank tracks that were poorly fitted to the turret. In addition, whoever was wielding the hobby knife must have been a lumber jack because there were large cuts and gouges all around the plastic turret component. This was why I got it for a decent price I guess. I managed to use some plastic armor tiles from a Gaslands conversion sprue I had in my bits box and cut them to shape to fit around the turret. It turned out ok I think.  It has the look that the armor was applied in the field by a crew that wasn't quite confident in the standard armor of their rolling barbeque! Only the best for the Tyrant's Legion!

28mm vehicle for 20 points.

I'm not sure I'll be able to finish anything else before the end of the challenge, but in case I don't, I'd like to thank Curt and the minions for their hard work during the challenge. I'd also like to give a general congrats to all the challengers for all the great stuff they've completed. Well done everyone!

You know how much I love these restoration/reclamation projects Mike, and you've done an outstanding job with this one. Yes, isopropyl alcohol is a miracle liquid and I cannot believe how long it took me to discover that... plastic or metal, everything that gets stripped at Conscript Towers starts out in IPA. If necessary I use some Castrol Super Clean after, but it's often not even necessary. The Hellhound is suitably old-school (METAL!) and it looks great! The little hazard decal on the back is the finishing touch!

Twenty for you!

Dallas

From MikeF - Astral Claws Retaliator Squads - 10 x 28mm Miniatures (50 points)

 

The Tyrant's Legion wasn't only composed of normal humans. Space Marines from the Astral claws chapter were assigned to every detachment to ensure loyalty and take advantage of the "ablative" armour offered by the Legion Auxilia. It was also a way for the Tyrant of Badab to hide his ever expanding marines complement which was numbering well beyond the 1000 marine limit as dictated by the codex astartes. Some of these units would be formed into Retaliator Squads, which were primarily concerned for enforcing discipline within the Auxilia. They are close combat oriented and equipped with chainswords and combat shields. I painted up 2 units of 5. 

I hope to complete at least one more vehicle for the Tyrant's Legion, but we'll see how it goes.

The combat shields are from Kromlech

10 x 28mm miniatures for 50 points.

Thanks for visiting!

An Astral Claws Retaliator Squad sounds like something best avoiding, and looks that way too.  Those are some bruisers, and very nicely painted too.  I really like the blue with gold should guards.  50 point for you sire, and looking forward to their AFV.

From MikeF - New California Republic Truck and Tank - 2 x 28mm Vehicles - 40 Points

This week I have 2 vehicle for my Fallout inspired Xenos Rampant side project. During the toy story theme round I completed 10 models to represent the Brotherhood of Steel. These vehicles are for their rival, The New California Republic. The NCR are one of the first stable nations to form out of the post-apocalyptic wasteland and occupy a portion of the former state of California The NCR are on the low end of industrialization and field mostly light infantry units. Any vehicles are largely scavenged and refurbished from the ruins of the old world. They're a credible military power however and I wanted to strike the right balance between scavenged, but operational.

First up is a 3d printed model from Watcorp Designs. It's a basic transport vehicle that looks at home in the wasteland.

 Next is another 3d printed model directly copied from Fallout 4. This is from Etsy and appears to be a limited print. The world of fallout portrays the future as it was envisioned by people of the 1950's. This tank captures that retro-future design really well. In terms of its real world functionality, this tank is a complete disaster! Too may tracks, a ridiculous 2 gun turret and a front facing that doesn't appear to be armoured and has a large opening in it that appears to go right into the crew area. I guess you can't be too picky when you procure your vehicles from a scrap heap!

I think those are the fuel tanks right on top of the tank.

   

That's 2 x 28mm vehicles for 40 Points.

Thanks for visiting!

Great vehicles Mike.  You say SciFi, but the way things are going, we may have a New California Republic any day now.  I agree that the tank would be a disaster IRL, but it look wonderful.  Very Popular Science magazine from my Junior High School Library.

From MikeF - Imperial Guard Regimental Advisors- 28mm x 2 - 10 Points

My Tuesday post is a small one this week. I'm working on a few vehicles and it was a bit tight getting them done in time.

During previous challenges I've added models to my mostly done, never really done Cadian Imperial Guard. I'm past the point of adding any big units, but I still have a few odds and ends to add. One of these is Regimental advisors! These are a neat little buff you can add to your command squad to help you on reserve rolls or to drop a big ordnance template on the enemy. They include the Astropath, Master of the Fleet and Master of Ordnance. The Cadians already have an Astropath, but the other two have been absent for far too long. I've always turned away from purchasing the actual models from GW due to the cost. Fortunately, I've been able to source a few alternatives. Over the years I've accumulated a large number of bits and I was able to throw together a Master of Ordnance. He has a large back pack communication device, an auspex and he's holding a document containing coordinates...or maybe his lunch order. Everything is GW, except the head which is from Pig Iron Productions.

Master of Ordnance 

The red star features throughout the army. I think of it as more of a regimental badge and not an indication that they are space commies!

For the Master of the Fleet, I purchased a model from 3rd party manufacturer, Chaostemple Miniatures. He comes with two head options, mask or no mask. My entire army has gas masks, so I went mask. It's a resin and metal model and is nice quality. Unfortunately, Chaostemple will cease trading at the end of February, so get him soon if you want one. I did a first with this model and gave him grey hair! I was inspired after looking at myself in the mirror!

Officer of the Fleet

That's 2 x 28mm models for 10 points!

Thanks for visiting!

Love these Mike!  I always like to see some kit bashing, and here you'v cobbled together a whole figure from the bits box.  I hope he got hi extra pickle and the correct type of mustard on his Smoked meat sandwich.  And you've nailed the great hair on the Fleet advisor.  Is this true to life, dare I ask?  I dunno much about 40K, but on reading the term 

"Imperial Guard Regimental Advisors" I was thinking of a SciFi equivalent of the French Revolutionary Representatives of the Peoples, but these guys look and sound like they might actually be useful.

From MikeF - Tyrant’s Legion Tanks and Turrets - 3 x 28mm Vehicles and 2 small turrets - 68 Points

After completing a few infantry units for the Tyrant's Legion, I decided it was time to add some armoured support. The TL army list has a few interesting options unavailable to normal guard units in 5th edition. These include twin-linked lascannon turrets for the Leman Russ tanks and Thunderer Siege Tanks equipped with a demolisher tank. I sourced the lascannon tanks from Kromlech which are designed specifically with the classic Leman Russ tank for 40k. The thunderer is a conversion using the 30k Leman Russ tank designed for the Solar Auxilia and a kit from Tiny Panzer Studios (through Etsy) which adds the hull mount with gun and top plate to hide the turret ring. It's a very nice 3d printed part that required very minor cutting and sanding to make it fit properly. The conversion kit does NOT fit the classic Leman Russ model however and is designed specifically for the Horus Heresy version.

I also painted up two chimera turrets to swap out the ones for my Steel Legion Imperial Guard. I included a photo of the two chimera's for display purposes only and only the turrets were painted during this challenge. I went with 4 points for each turret, but I'll accept Peter's final judgement on what he feels the turrets are worth. 

The vehicles use the same grey formula, but they're a little busier with decals and markings than the Tyrant's Legion. I may pick up some new transports in the future, but they should work for now.

That's 3 x 28mm vehicles for 60 points and 2 x 28mm vehicle turrets for (maybe) 8 points = 68 points total.

I think I'll take a break from the Tyrant's Legion for now.

Thanks for visiting!

Those are great looking tanks Mike, love the 1918-1940 look to these clunkers.  Great blue too.    

From FrederickC - Sci-Fi Command Outpost with Turret (10 Points)

 

Finally, my second piece of the challenge is complete, which is also my first post-op submission.  it consists of a roughly cylindrical base with a dome on one side with radar dishes, an a twin gun turret that can sweep the space through an arc of approximately 127°. This is another structure that I bought from Scotia Grendel that was prepped to last year's challenge but not used.

I originally thought I shouldn't have any problem getting this done, but I have found that the fine motor skills in my painting hand are still a bit rubbish. It felt like it did when I first started painting Airfix ACW infantry with a cheap plastic bristled brush and a tin of Humbrol enamel.

 

eight of the structure is 4 inches with a height, not including radar dishes of 4 inches as well. Points claimed: Whatever Byron says.

 

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Nice to see you painting already Frederick!  This is a nice little terrain piece and choosing it to fit in with stormtroopers makes it look even better, I like the simple colour scheme as it makes it look like it would fit right at home on Hoth.  I am going to guess at a few hours to get something like this done and score it at 10 points.  Keep up the good work Frederick and hopefully the fine motor skills return quickly for you.

- Byron