From SylvainR: 28mm Tau Battlesuits for Grim Dark (50 points)

 

This is the end of the journey for our valiant Blue Cleric. After meeting with the forward reconnaissance of a Tau battle group, the Cleric meets with the heavy elements, namely Tau battlesuits.

I am always amused to see how GW, a very British company, very jealous of its intellectual property, shamelessly integrates elements of Japanese robot design in their own Tau miniature lines, pushing the limit of copyright infringement. The term "battlesuit" is obviously inspired by the expression "mobile suit" from the Series "Gundam". There are also many other similarities in design, like the thrusters in the back, the pilot located in the chest, the elf-ear-looking sensors on the heads, etc. Don't get me started.

After playing Grim Dark at JeremyM, some time ago, I realized that my little Tau army did not have any commander in battlesuit, or heavy support battlesuits for that matter. Shopping for some, I found on Kijiji a second hand lot for a good price. Alas, good price often means poor condition... There where 3 XV8 Crisis battlesuits in the lot, but I had to use one for spare parts. I don't mind, it's part of the game. I used on these figurines the same dark grey/purple pattern adorning the rest of my little Tau force.

 

I like the look of the XV88 Broadside battlesuits, bristling with weapons. I might have been a little too heavy on weathering though...

And the pièce-de-résistance, the commander in battlesuit armor, the reason why I acquired these figurines in the first place. In its flight pose, this model really evokes Gundam and all the other flying "mobile suits" from the famous Japanese anime series.

 

Points claimed:

5 x 54mm foot figurines at 10 points each = 50 points

Total = 50 points

This is my last post of the Challenge. Thanks for reading!

 ________________________________________

Fabulous work on these Battlesuits, Sylvain, and some impressive additions to your Tau force. The purple and grey are a nice combination and I like the pose of the jumping commander (mind those fragile ankles on the descent!). I look forward to seeing them on the tabletop when we next play 'GrimDark Future'. A great parting shot for your Challenge this year - bravo!

- Curt

From Mike W - 15mm, 28mm Historical, Fantasy and more! Squirrel (520 Points)

 I'm back from my travels and back to this year's challenge! I have a fairly wide range of items to show and tell this week, some of this is left over from my shorter than usual week at home, last week and the rest is this week's output.

I'll start with a quick nod to Lady Sarah's Trolley with another female Tau Gue'Vesa fighter who will help me to travel to the DIY section.

Female Tau Ge'Vesa, carrying a Combo Weapon and dashing to next objective.

The figure is based upon a Wargames Atlantic Sci-Fi figure with a head from their biker gang kit and GW Weapons and shoulder armour.

Another view, the figure is depicted wearing sun glasses but I'm not sure that my painting
skills have not resulted in her looking like she's having a bad make-up day....

And the rear view, showing backpack and the dark grey under-armour

Under the DIY banner I present a group of Medjai, or Pharoah's Guard, think as per the film 'The Mummy' or other archaeological adventure films. As with posts on this subject in older challenges, I must again apologise for the Hollywood style misrepresentation of culture and dresses etc. That said these guys are to be used in a number of scenarios ranging from the 19th - 20th Century, thus the mix and match of weapons etc.

The completed group of 14 Medjai Warriors.

Another view of the Medjai group.

These fourteen figures are based upon Warlord Atlantic's Afghan warriors with various heads, weapon and equipment from Gripping Beast Arabs or other suitable figure kits. The paint job is black robes with blue accessories and pretty much as described in my older posts. This group is to be used to re-enforce the figures I completed previously.

Close-up of 5 or the Medjai, including a Standard Bearer carrying
the 'Eye of Horus' banner, plus an archer.

In actual fact the original set I did a couple years ago were based upon the Perry Miniatures Afghan boxed set - now comparing the two sets of figures, I must say that I prefer the Perry versions

Five more Medjai, including swordsmen, archer and clubman.

Last four Medjai, a musician, spearman, swordsman and a guy with a Jezail.

Next up are 90 new 10mm Flodden Scots figures. That is 30 x Archers on three bases as per my previously posted Hand Gunners, plus 60 x Pikemen on six bases that will form one of the Scots Pike Blocks. Front ranks (bases) are fully armoured with the rear ranks either unarmoured or only partially armoured. I envisage the block to be deployed in a 2 x 3 rectangle, much as shown in the photos below.

30 x Scots Archers, 10 to each base!

Painting of these tiny figures is as per previous posts. I've added a lot of flags - just because I can and these make the bases look better in my opinion. I've done a bunch of generic St Andrew's crossess then some varied other banners to make up the numbers...

Archers in column, from their right flank.

Archers in the same column, from their left flank.

The pike blocks are based in the same manner as the Archers and hand gunners, however in line with my view that 'its the bling' that catches the eye, I have given the pike blocks a lot of flags. At this scale the flags are what is noticed, not much else!

Completed 60 figre Pike Block

A view form the left, I have added a lot of flags, two Crosses of St Andrew on each rear flanking base and a family banner, Roayl Scots banner and Cross of St Andrew on the centre rear base. Not sure how historically accurate this  but it will help to identify units on the tabletop!

A view form the right, this block is under the command of the Stewarts,
you might just make out their family banner in the centre rear of the block

I have tried to have standing figures at the back and those with pikes ready to the front

Another view

And finally a close up of the centre bases of the block, the Stewart banner is obscured by the Royal Scots banner.

Next, off on a flight of fantasy I have completed a small group of 10 x Skeletons, these you will quickly see are in the ancient Roman style. I recently saw a video on YouTube where a guy was doing an Ancient Greek themed Warhammer Old World army, based upon the Tomb Kings army lists. 

Ten armoured Roman Skeleton Infantry, all armed with Gladus and Scutum 

These guys are all on the old style 20mm square bases, ultimately if I go down the route of getting the Old World Rules, I'll have to get some base converters to meet their new frontage rules

I thought that was cool and then thought why not do something based on Romans, as ever my thoughts appear to not have been that original and I found some suitable 3D modles on eBay and invested in thes eto see what they looked like.

Another view, with the rear rank brought forwards

In general I'm really pleased, the shields - having moulded designs - are tickly to paint, but the overall effect is fun. I'm definitely going to invest in a Command Goup and another 20-30 rank & file to complete the unit.

Last photo showing the fiddly shield details

If I go down the route of  raising a whole ancient Roman themed skeleton army I might go to Wargames Atlantic skeletons (who are ironically Greek themed) and then add in Warlord Games Roman shields and weapons etc. Benefit here is that I can then use shield transfers and save my eyesight!

Next back to the Tau factory and a group of 16 x Tau warriors and/or drones. These are all painted using the same recipe as I have described elsewhere. Sadly, I'm pretty much at the end of my Tau journey, I have a couple of odds and ends to do, figure wise, and at some point I need to look at getting some vehicles.

The completed batch of 16 Tau Warriors and Drones.

A slightly different view

Again I have created a number of unarmoured Tau Jueveniles, just to stretch out the figures in my army and indulge in some kit bashing! I decided to make one of these a Medic, as I found a nice little piece which appeared to be a bunch of medical instruments - waste not want not....

5 x scratch built unarmoured Tau, In the right an unarmed Tau Medic, others with a variety of weapons

I had a few arms left over which were in the act of throwing a grenade - thus you will see these in this week's group. Also a couple of arms that had drone control devices!

Close up of 4 x Tau, all with a range of weapons

Three more close-ups of the Tau figures,
painted with the same scheme as others in this army,
On the right is a human Gue'Vesa

A Tau warrior with a device to control the armed drone to the right.

So just as a hint as to what I may look to do next is a paint job on a very old lead Necron figure that I had kicking around, it is now nicely completed and based on a terrain that is similar to the Tau figures!

A hint of things to come?
An old lead Necron painted up to face off my new Tau army!

Slightly different view

And the rear view!

Another divergent route I have explored is toying with the Italian Wars of Independence using Warlord Games Epic ACW & Napoleonic figures. This has been inspired by KenR's submissions in previous challenges and realising that I probably shouldn't do these in 28mm - not least for space considerations!.  Here is a test regiment of Garibaldi Volunteers, 100 figures on 5 bases.

5 x Bases each of 20 figures, unit in line of battle. Generic Italian flags on command base.

I undercoated these little guys in a 'Linen' colour and then drybrushed the trousers white, before applying an Army Painter Grey wash. Jackets and Kepis were done with AP Speed Paint and then when dry any figures that I had mistakenly overpainted their trousers with red, had grey/blue trousers added to cover the mistakes!

Straps were a nightmare - done with GW Contrast Paint but really hurt my eyes doint this. Blanket rolls and accoutrements were added before doing muskets in their natural colours. Green cuffs were added as best as possible, as were a variety of slouch hat colours

Unit with the bases at front and two behind

Three ranks deep, with command base to the front

And in column of march going => way

and going <- way!

So that's all that time allowed for this week. I have very nearly finished my mounted Lizardmen, but they are not quite ready yet! And I hope to dig out some old Necron plastic figures, if I can only remember where I last saw them. I also have another Epic 15mm unit to test paint - this time an Irish-American  Fenian Regiment from the invasion of Canada.

Rooms visited & Bonuses claimed to date!

POINTS

Lady Sarah's Trolley Bonus                                              20 Points

Female Tau Gue'Vesa                                                      5 Points

90 x 10mm Flodden Scots @ 1 Point ea                                    90 Points

14 x Medjai Infantry @ 5 Points ea                                      70 Points

10 x 28mm Roman Skeletons @ 5 Points ea                                 50 Points

16 x Tau Warriors @ 5 Points ea                                         80 Points

Necron Warrior                                                           5 Points

100 x 15mm Warlord Epic Garibaldi Infantry @ 2 Points ea               200 Points

TOTALS                                                                 520 Points

+3 Squirrel (Undead Romans, 15mm Italian Garibaldi Infantry, 28mm Medjai)

 

Sylvain: Every week, you impress me with your productivity and your squirrelness. You seem to be so at each with different genres from historical to science-fiction. All these are very well painted and it makes me which I could one day peek at your gaming table with all the goodies in battle order. I have a soft spot for samller scales and I really like your tiny Garibaldi infantry. Expertly done!

From Mike W: 28mm Marian Wars figure, Tau Ge'Vesa [Lady Sarah's Library Cart, Biography] (52 Points)

 Real life has intervened this week, impacting my painting prodction line, resulting in me travelling for three days this week, leaving me with little time to paint and prepare this post.

Hopefully this means a bumper post next week as I get the backlog cleared but as a stop gap gere are a couple of figres that I have painted, photographed and written up for this post.

So first off this week, I submit a new female Tau, Ge'Vesa. She is a scout, armed with a Longshot Pulse Rifle and holding a device to enable her to control Drones on the battlefield. This figure is based upon a Wargames Atlantic 'Eisenkern Stormtroopers', with GW Tau weapons, comms device and arm pad added.

Female Tau Gue'Vesa with Longshot Pulse Rifle and hand held Drone Controller

Painted as per all the others in my rapidly expanding Tau Army.

Another view!

Lady Sarah's Trolley will transport me to the Biography section within the lilbrary and here we find a figure from the Elizabethan age - namely John de Quitfurd & Milntoun, a distant ancester of mine who participated in the Marrian Wars, siding against Mary Queen of Scots.

John de Quitfurd & Milntoun, he died in 1579

The figure shows John standing with his banner, waving his sword in the air to encourage his men! He is wearing plate armour, painted GW leadbelcher with an Army Painter watered down dark wash, the armour is highlighted with a bright silver.

The standard is based upon the Whitefoord coat of arms,
three diagonal black stripes with bushels of wheat on the wider, central stripe

Next week, not ready to be published this week is a return to some 28mm Medjai, last seen by myself in the AHPC XII Challenge - these will go in the DIY section of the library. Additionally there will be some more Tau, 10mm Scots at Flodden and maybe some Lizardmen....

Points

1 x 28mm Scots Noble                       5 Points

2  1 x Tau Figures @ 5 Pts ea      10  5 Points

Lady Sarah's Bonus                            20 Points

Biography Famous Person Bonus     20 Points

TOTAL                                                55  50 Points

Great work, Mike! Your T'au lady looks very impressive, I like the white and orange uniform. And the story about your famous ancestor is great too! A very personal addition to the Biography section (although I would have loved to learn more about him!) and that is fine. Also, your Ge'Vesa grants you a ride an Lady Sarah's cart. However, unless I am very much mistaken, there is only a single T'au figure, so the total comes to 50 very efficient points. I will throw in a couple of points for the nice hand-painted banner though. I am looking forward to the promised points bomb next week, and perhaps you can provide an updated map then as well!

Martijn

From MikeW: More Tau and Orcs plus lots of Odds and Ends. Squirrell, Skulls (227 Points)

This week has been one focused on building and preparing more figures for the painting production line, as such I have a handful of Tau, a group of Savage Orcs and a smattering of other periods and scales to keep the paint flowing whilst the glues, undercoating and basing materials dry!

I have concentrated on getting my Tau Commander completed this week, accompanied by a few Tau Troopers. I'm also being cheeky and painting up a few female Tau Ge'Vesa to enable me to flit from my current Library location (Maritime) to go straight to the SciFi selves and claim the Sci-Fi Bonus, then on wards to other shelves!

I guess I should therefore start with a Tau Gue'Vesa for Lady Sarah's Trolly. This female human fighter is with the Tau as a Ge'Vesa helper. She is depicted as unarmored, carrying a rather large Combi-Weapon and dressed in her underarmour trousers and vest.

Female Gue'Vesa in  underarmour carrying a Tau Combi Weapon

Rear view, showing ceremonial sword and Tau inspired hair braids

From her waist hangs a ceremonial Tau Sword and you may note that her hair is styled with a typical Tau 'pig tail' or braid at the back.

The figure is based upon a Warlord Games Zombie Gang Biker model with Tau accoutrements from GW.

Now on to the main course - for which I will claim the Sci-Fi bonus, the Tau Army Commander. This is a again a large power suit and painted in my army's colours of white and orange with black lowlights and sky blue lenses and digital displays etc.

Front view, with three weapons systems and a force shield deployed on the suit's hard points.

.

The figure was again from eBay and so painted as built, the base incldes a skull for my Skulls tally and some basic battlefield scatter that came with the model when purchased.

Side view, showing shoulder monted combi-weapon and a plasma gun 

The other side, showing sholder mounted shield and a Fusion Blaster weapon.

And the rear view, the 'figure is flying using the suit's onboard propulsion units,
a clear view of the base finish can be seen in this shot. 

 To accompany the commander I have completed a couple of Tau Troopers.

Two Tau troopers with hand grenades.

Another view...

More Tau under construction!

This batch of Warhammer Fantasy / Old World Savage Orcs fortuatously landed on my doormat last week, saving me the problem of trying to source and build additional Ocs for my ongoing Orc Army project. The batch cosists of 10 x Savage Orc plus a War Boss, between them a measley +2 skullls when oainted.

The whole gang, painted and based!

These guys arrived partially undercoated and requiring some basic first aide to fix figures to bases, limbs to bodies and hands & weapons to arms. This was achieved pretty quickly and then the batch was undercoated in black before getting a heavy dry-brushing of grey then white to highlight.

Close-up of theree Orc warriors, notice the focus on mouths, bone items and bright lizardskin clothing

I used GW 'Goregrunta Fur' to paint all the wooden items (spears, shields & handles) followed by GW Leadbelcher to do all the metal work. Not surprisingly I used GW 'Snakebite Leather' to do all leather work and GW 'Skeleton Horde' to all the bone items, before then applying Army Painter 'Orc Flesh' - logically enough - to the flesh areas!

Another three guys, again a lot of bones and teeth!

I generally try to work from light to dark when painting these guys but it doesn't always work out that way - I often miss items and have to go back out of sequence, or I make errors and have to fix painting messes after the event! Anyway after all the base colours are in place I then set about highlighting all the figures with lighter versions of the base colours as well as adding in the all important details to catch everyone's eyes and save them looking at the rest of the model to closely!

These two Orcs, had whip hands added and will be treated as Discipline Masters to keep the unit in line during battle.

As ever with Orcs the eye catching detail is usually their mouths and impressive teeth plus any gold bling. As these are savage Orcs, they don't appear to have much in the way of gold bling, so instead I have concentrated on their bone items, treating these items as if they were skeletons and trying to do a good job on these!

Two more Orcs, with Lizardman loincloths

As noted some of the figures had no weapon hands, I managed to replace all but two of these from the spares box, with Savage Ork items. However, two of the figures had to have other replacement hands - I landed on a pair of hands holding whips (from the Grot Herder kits), my rational being these guys would be Discipline Masters within these Savage Orc units.

The War Boss, on a tiles base, just to help him
look bigger and stand out on the tabletop

The War Boss has a huge Axe and a lot of teeth! He is on a slightly different base, that give him some extra height. I did think of replacing this but n the end decided that the flagstone base helps to single him out as a leader, so the base it came on stayed in place....

Next on my list of completed models are some10mm Scots, from the  Pendraken Flodden Range. I'm not convinced that the Scots had many hand gunners at Flodden but these models were included in an army pack I purchased from a Games Show many years ago and its high time I started painting them,especially as I'm scrambling to ready other figures.

The completed unit of Hand Gunners, based to use Warmaster rules

I undercoated these guys in white then applied GW Snakebite Leather all over, before again picking out faces and hands in white. Skin was painted using GW Darkoath Flesh,which in turn had a highlight of Army Painter Barbarian Flesh.

The unit in column of march,                                  I've long fancied doing a Flodden game, now might be the time!

Trousers were picked out in blue, brown or grey at random, with most in blue. Jackets were left as brown leather but sleeves were mostly painted with GW Slaughter Red, with some left as grey. Muskets were painted using GW Goregrunter Fur, metallics were added with GX Air Leadbelcher and socks were painted grey, before a watered down wash of brown ink to tie everything together.

Another view!

Based using my patent brown gloop and fine sand before adding a mix of self adhesive tufts to finish them off. 

And next for Flodden?! Trying to prompt myself to do a unit of Scots Archers next!
If I show the picture I feel more inclined to get the job done... maybe.

                                         

Next we have a base of Warlord Games 15mm Epic ECW Scots Covenanter dismounted dragoons. Just five of these guys to the base, all in Hodden Grey with blue bonnets!

5 x Scots Dragoons in Epic 15mm scale

Another view, the don't look that great close-up but do the job en-masse!

Another quickie, with a base of  20 x Warlord Epic ACW Rebel 15mm figures, these are late war troops and painted up as an Alabama regiment, likely operating in the western theatre of the war. 

Head on, view of the figures.

Side view, with the Alabama (nofficial) state flag and regimental banner.

The other side view - unfortunately one rifle snapped off on the
back rank and has dissapeard into the carpet!

A quick return to an unfinished batch fom last week - namely three more 20mm British WW2 infantry, these guys got seperated from their comrades on the painting prodction line and ths I didn't have time to finish them off ready for last week's post.

Left to right - Bren Gunner, Greade Thrower and Rifleman

These guys were painted in exactly the same manner as last week's batch - just a week behind ther comrades.

These guys were dressed in a variety of kit - battledress, shirt & sleeves etc, to reflect the theatre of operations

Again all the figures were based for the Italy / Greece theatre of war.

Next on the Historical side are some Warlord Games (I'm pretty sure) 28mm US Infantry, they were painted using the Warlord Games painting guide found here.

The completed US Infantry men, Normandy '44

So undercoated in white before Khaki jackets and gaiters, US Green for trousers and Dark Gree (actually Russian Green) for helmets - all Valijho paints. Guns were GW Goregrunta Fur and Leadbealcher and the skin was done in the same manner as noted for other figures here - GW Darkoath Flesh followed by highlights in Army Painter Barbarian Flesh.

Close-up on a Captain, Lieutenannt, riflemen and a BAR gunner.

I used a watered down GW Agrax Earthshade to blend all the colours together before highlighting the khaki items with the base colour agiain.

and an NCO and three more riflemen

Bases were the usual fine sand and electrostatic grass combination on MDF discs.

Probably more familiar to the British and Astralian/Kiwi readers I have just completed two characters from the 1960s TV show Captain Scarlett. Namely these guys are Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet, from the TV series Catptain Scarlett.

Captain Blue, aka Adam Svenson a former astonaught
and Captain Scarlett's right hand man

Captain Ochre, aka Richard Fraser
a British former policeman

These Captains were special operatives of an organisation known as Spectrum who were engaged in a deadly conflict with an alien race called the Mysterons.

The two painted models

Captain Blue

Captain Ochre

I believe that these are old board game pieces that fit really well into 28mm scale, although both basically the same figure they have been painted in different colours to accompany a Captain Scarlett figure I did back in AHPC XIII.

Finally a quickie - a Classic Empire Archer, undercoated in white, I decided on a blue and yellow livery.

The classic Empire Archer

And the rear view

POINTS

Tau Commander                                           10 Points

2 x Tau Troopers @ 5 Points ea                          10 Points

1 x Female Tau Gue'Vesa @ 5 Points ea                    5 Points     

11 x Savage Orcs @ 5 Points ea                          55 Points

30 x 10mm Scots Hand Gunners @ 1 Point ea               30 Points   

5 x 15mm Scots ECW Dismounted Dragoons @ 2 Points ea    10 Points 

20 x 15mm Rebel ACW INfantry @ 2 Points ea              40 Points  

3 x 20mm WW2 British Infantry @ 4 Points ea             12 Points

2 x 28mm Captain Scarlett Figures @ 5 Points ea         10 Points

1 x Classic Warhammer Empire Archer                      5 Points

Lady Sarah's Cart                                       20 Points

Sci-Fi Bonus                                            20 Points

TOTAL                                                  227 Points

+ 3 Skulls

+ 3 Squirrels (10mm Flodden Scots, 28mm US WW2 Infantry, 15mm Epic ACW Infantry)

 

Sylvain: A very good harvest of points for you this weeks. You are fluent in many genres of games and it's a pleasure to see all your various projects coming together. I really like how you round up your weekly production with little side projects, as a way to expand your painting skills. Your Captain Scarlet related figurines brought me back to my teenage years when I was watching the show in French. A very productive week!