From DavidB - Into the Trenches (215 points)

 

For the recent Christmas, my family gifted me two of the Army Painter John Blanche sets. John is a retired illustrator who very much influenced Games Workshop. The only black he would use was the ink in his pen and ink illustrations. He worked with a limited pallet of dark natural colors with vivid red and yellows. Although his art is dark and foreboding, the colors are those found in nature. I very much wanted to get these paints and do the Blanchitsu style painting that several hobbyists established to mimic his style as even his miniatures used the same palette. Army Painter made these sets with John to mimic his reduced palette. if you wanted a lighter color, an Ivory white would lighten the tone or you could darken with midnight olive, the coal blue-black darkness. all these paints mix well together, and you can tint them further with the special contrast paints included. probably my two new favorites are the darkness which is even better than the coal black from P3 paints and the turnbull turqouise which is a very dark blue almost black and I used on some robes for Necromundia gangers and their robes(still working on them)

I grabbed two factions Trench Crusade and all my Necromundia Cawdor gangers (still working on them) to try out the Blanche style.

First up is this massive war machine and with this one, I used a lot of ivory white to reduce the darkness into a turquoise like copper cathedral tiles patinaed in verdigris. Even for a chonky boy, I probably spent more time making the lighter tone that painting him as most of the colors are very dark.

The Trench Pilgrims are a bunch of fanatics and not too adept at equipment maintenance so I also used Vallejo rust and grime paints to dirty him up

These fellows are the cannon fodder for the trench pilgrims, and those pointy hats are a device that removes their sense of self...they are in their own echo chamber. 

I used the blanched berry and the vermillion red for spot color. as there is 11 of them, their capes are different in tone due to the constant mixing of blanched berry and ivory white which really gave them a uniformed but individual look which I consider a happy accident.

The Trench Pilgrims are true fanatics and looking for converts to swell their ranks, some are like these unfortunates and are captured folk deemed sinful for real or imagined slights. They may or may not cause damage in battle and may survive! 

perhaps they will be given the pointy hat or a new bomb....

The prophet and the castigator. You have to have the prophet to lead this particular force and why not as her polearm has an antitank mine! The Castigator whips the other pilgrims and has a shield with hands of the fallen attached...I think he also selects an unfortunate to power the shrine as that warmachine kills it's pilot during battle as it is powered by the pilot's pain

For the prophet I used blanched berry mixed with browns to make her padded armor look like reddish leather. Blanched berry mixed with red gave the castigator a more reddish-purple look.

This is the creepiest of the lot and was a lot of fun to paint with the candles and trinkets.

I am not sure if it is a trench pilgrim or something else, but I think it's tortured look fits well with the pilgrims.

I know very little of trench crusade. All of these models were printed up by my gaming group, and I was given bags of Trench Pilgrims, New Antioch, and Heretic legions. Although freely given, I have to have a force ready to try at Adepticon. Trench Pilgims are not faction I like. I searched the internet to figure out the background, and a decent force build out of the models I have. I found a lot of toxicity; The capote helms have led to a group that sees them as racist clansmen and MAGA...others as those groupthink liberals. I see them as mob of fanatics and are only needed so I can use the two models above.

The stigmatic nun is a wonderful model and where the masses were dirtied up, I painted her clean and crisp. The big fellow next to her is a devote augmented by faith and science into a monstrosity I really wanted to paint. Trench Crusade is a grimdark game and I do not need the politics when I game with friends just some nice painted models and escape from the politics. 

So, I have nineteen Trench Pilgrims ready to venture into No Man's land. The trench prophet is their nominal leader, but really it is a bunch of rednecks out for kicks with the boys fighting for the opportunity to do donuts with the quad (the shrine) the true leader is Bob (the big mutant fellow) he peaked in high school as the star football fullback and now gets rowdy with beer induced visions of his glory days. Grace, his beautiful wife (the stigmatic nun) tolerates the shenanigans until the boys mess up the house then she "cleans up house". ;)

A lieutenant and four yeomen for new Antioch

Once again, the browns and darkness where mixed and blended to leather browns and blue.

Sniper priests are my favorite of this faction as these monks have given their eyes to God and use faith to aim.

I kept them in neutral tones as befitting a monk.

Besides the mutant and nun, I really liked these sculpts.

A trench cleric, a sapper, and a trench doc.

Even with the limited palette, there is a great range of colors possible with the sets. from the various browns on the doc to the red on the trench cleric made by mixing the red and yellow of the set.

The new Antioch shock troopers are better than yeomen and I have plenty of options for the more elite troops. 

I can only use two, but once again I have options with the power suit troops.

I painted them up then weathered them with scratches and weathering.

I spent the most time on this one...

but all three were worked up to a nice used look

I have a large batch of the Red Brigade, so I added some duplicates to my New Antioch pool

The power armor knight was painted as a knight hospitaller with attendant yeomen from the chapter house.

Twenty-four New Antioch for my force pool. I will probably use them at Adepticon just to avoid politics and figure out a force from the lot. The Hospitalier will be going! Being the last bastion before No-Man's Land and the Gates of Hell, New Antioch is defended by the forces drawn from the Christian regions, perhaps the trenchcoat yeomen game from Britian...I am keen on getting some of the plastic sets to add to them.

19 Trench Pilgrims and 24 New Antioch will give me a grand mix of Trench Crusade forces for a good game. They are all 3D printed miniatures and some of the time painting was spent repairing. Still, it is a very fine game system and now that I only like to play with painted minis, I can game with my family when not figuring out a way to transport them without breaking them!

 19 Trench Pilgrims for 95 points

24 New Antioch for 120 points for 215 points

squirrels- White Scars, Fantasy Orcs, WW2 US infantry, WW2 German Infantry, battle mechs, wood elves, storm troopers, Iron Snakes, death guard, Modern Us Infantry, WW1 French, Trench Pilgrims, and New Antioch

skulls 91 plus another 10(9 on the big mutant and one for the hospitaller knight) for 101 skulls

stompy robots of death- 8

David, nice little points bomb from you here. Trench Crusade is/was a pretty popular kickstarter and did get a lot of traction with gamers. You've done up some suitably grimy trench fighters here for sure. The John Blanche paints look interesting, Blanchitsu is definitely a thing nowadays isn't it! As you noted John was the prime influence on the look of the 40K universe and good for him for monetizing that a bit, I'm sure he hasn't gotten rich off GW.

Two hundred and fifteen added to your tally.

Dallas

From MattT: Trench Pilgrims, 55 points

For my first post of the challenge I have completed some Trench Pilgrims for Trench Crusade. I had a lot of fun kit bashing these in the summer. So much so that I have made way more than I will ever need for the game. The silly helmets and some other bits are 3D printed, the majority of the body's are from Wargames Atlantic WW1 French Infantry sprue and some odd bits and bobs from other sprues. 

They have been sat on my painting desk for several months now and the challenge has given me the impetus to get them painted. I bought a horizon blue paint especially for them, but I've given them several washes to give them that grimy look and based them on a reddish brown base to represent the hellscape they are fighting on.

Couple of sergeant's and bell ringer.

 

Rank and file troops.

Specialist's, machine gunner, sniper and flamethrower.

I still have some more troops as well as characters and a couple of the big boys yet to paint for future posts.

10 x 28mm figures = 50 points

From DaveD . Welcome along Matt . One of the benefits of doing this is getting those paint table lurkers out of way . I love the French Horizon blue connection with the figure build . The basing certainly does look like that horrible mud we associate with the trenches . Great start and 5 extra minions award points for the whole look . 55 pts it is 

From QuinnM: Trench Crusade (New Antioch Red Brigade) - Treachery and Fraud (101 points)

I didn't post anything last week as I was not done with the full unit for my Trench Crusade war band and decided to wait till they were all painted. 

 I spent a lot of time painting each model as I quite enjoy panting in the dark and gritty style. I took a lot of inspiration from the official art when painting them with the darker greens and red accents. 

I like the designs but the models have a few issues. Some of the details are too small or not designed for 3d printing. 

The models I am most proud of are the lieutenant and the combat medic. If they were not for Trench Crusade I would say I did too much blood splatter on the combat medic and I feel I really got the grim and mud right on their dress. 

Now onto the model I painted up for Fraud, we have a “Dragon born” adventurer for DND made by Sordane Publishing. To the untrained eye it may look like this “Dragon born” adventurer is in fact three Kobolds in a trench coat. But that is a lie propagated by the guards. I'm not sold on my color choice. I initially painted the cloak a bright yellow but couldn't get the shading down right and decided to paint over with a thinned out Brown as I was just trying to experiment with actually getting yellow to have any form of Highlights (I hate yellow paints with a passion).

For my last circle of hell treachery, I painted up my two favorite space Marine legions Alpha Legion and the Salamanders and I fit it all in one model. This is actually a paint scheme I have wanted to do since I started painting inspired by a painting video by heresy for heretics. I didn't do mine nearly as well as his but I think if I would paint more models like this I would have a much better plan. I did try layering several glazes to get a green and blue shift effect over metallic so I'm not 100% happy with the final result but it made me do some experimentation and that was good in the end.

 

 

 

 

8x 28mm-footman@ 5 points = 40 points

3x 40mm footman@ 7 points= 21 points 

Fraud 20 points 

Treachery 20 points 

TOTAL = 101

Sylvain: Wow, you were not inactive since two weeks ago. Your Trench Crusade war band looks great and your paint job really brings out the despair and constant suffering of the setting. I wish you could have provided us with close-up pictures of all the miniatures you painted as they look terrific in the group photo. Fraud and Treachery are spot on and the colors you chose are definitely in line with the grimdark ambiance of your whole entry. Great job!

From SteveA: Trench Crusade Hell Knights (21 points)

Fresh from the Trenches of the Crusade and the Court Of the Seven Headed Serpent I bring you HELL KNIGHTS!

I had a painting plan.... I had mapped out what minis to paint every week to progress thru the AHPC Devine Comedy themes and I had a hand full of minis in stuck on dowels being painted for that plan.... but then after a few recent inspiring chats with ByronM and our friend Mike, and after  the STLs from the minis from the Trench Crusade Kickstarter became available (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1405364378/trench-crusade),  well dang nabbit I went and done shot myself with the Squirrel Gun point blank to my paint brushes!   These minis presented here are less than a week off ByronM's  3d printer and fell into me grubby mitts just last Thursday, all while I have my modest pile of unpainted grey lead and plastic that have been 'round 30 years  still awaiting a loving lick o' paint...

I don't think I am using Speed Paints and the slap-chop technique to their intended efficient use, as I started with the foolish assumption that I could bang out these with a quick layer or two of slap-chopped speed paint action, then return to my original paint plan for this week... but after the first layers of Army Painter Speed Paint (Enchanted Steel, Slaughter Red, Bony Matter, Hoplite Gold)  my old 'Eavy Metal inspired painting habits kicked in as hard as an alcoholic falling off the wagon into a beer-fest where beer cures cancer and multiple layers of dry brushing, regular paint detailing and speed paints used as washes ensued for a few many more hours than I can in good conscious call a 'quick paint' ( and yes... I also confess to 2nd degree aggravated use of  GM's Agrax Earth shade and Nuln oil) .  I chased a moderately rusted look, and desaturated colors aimed to reflect these Hell Knights do not return to base for an armor polish and a shower, but they ain't falling apart from ill repair  any time soon.

Rust and weathering, many are the techniques and tools and products to make a mini look abused or ancient, and it seems many are the rusty lessons I must learn to well serve many of the minis in my queue.  Happily I found that a dry brush of Vallejo 'Orange Fire' game colour dry brush over a metallic based pre-treated with a layer or two of speed paint browns provides me a satisfying rusty orange that I can confidently use to succeed the role of my ancient pot of old 90's Citadel Orange Ink in my rusty endeavours. 

Trench Crusade, another game for more minis and a deepening of the back log of grey to slay, a happy problem to have!

Total 21 Points

x3 40mm Foot Figure, Trench Crusade Hell Knights (3x7pts) 

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Trench Crusade is certainly building up quite the following isnt it! Is is rather neat looking, but IS a bit lacking in Turnips and rooty goodness, which cold quite add to the appeal, just saying...

Your Hell Knights look good Steve, and I quite like the effect the layer of Orange provides too

- Paul

ByronM - Trench Crusade - Azebs and Alchemist [25 points]

This weeks submission is a little small as I have mainly been working on a big project that should hopefully be ready for next week.  I still wanted to get something up this week, so here are 5 more models for my Iron Sultanate warband for Trench Crusade.

These are 4 of the basic troopers for the faction called Azebs.  They are the basic troop and are not really good at anything other than filling out some bodies into the force.  They are also once of the only models that are breaking my limited palette of colours that I am trying to use.  Most of the force will be done in bronze and red, but these being in robes I wanted to do them in some traditional desert colours.  So they are in my attempt to create a linen colour/texture and tans and browns.  I did still tie in some of the red to help tie them in with the rest of the force though.

Next up is one of the elites of the force, an Alchemist.  I stuck with my very limited colours of bronze and red for her, but added in some very rough OSL for the blue flame coming off of her alchemical bomb.  I didn't want to spend too much time on this model as I am waiting to find a more accurate model for my warband as I have outfitted mine in game with a machine gun to make use of her alchemical ammunition that lights things on fire when hit.

Overall this is 5 28mm models for 25 points.

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This project is really looking good Byron! I find OSL challenging at the best of times but your subtle effects there work nicely to contrast around the warmer colours. Good stuff!

- Paul