From Mike W - My last post of the Challenge or Odds & ends on my Workbench (45 Points)

Well this is my last post for this challenge, as ever it had been fun and as the name implies - challenging!

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in running the challenge, great work! And let's all join the two wee guys below and raise a glass to all our beloved minions...

As the title of this post suggests  I have literally looked to clear all those stray items on my workbench that have stalled and hit a backwater in the last few months.

First off are two Warlord Games ECW Highlanders who along with their compatriots are being readied for a potential future game. These two seemed to have been waylaid at the pub and were missed when I completed their friends last summer.

Two Highlanders celebrating the end of this year's challenge!

Although the figures give a sense of wearing tartan, actually bottled out trying to pait full tartan on these guys. instaed after doing a base colour of green or blue, I used marker pens to draw lines in a chequered pattern over the base colour. I tried to make the lines follow the flow of eth cloth but didn't worry too much about making them too acurate.

A couple of spots in contrasting colors before applying a varnish - the imporatnat thing here being it was an oil based varnish as the markers were water soluable and using water based varnish literally wipes teh lines out! Once the varnish was dry (overnight) I was then able to apply Army Painter washes & Inks to add shading to the cloth and it turned a dodgey child like tartan into something that is in my opinion tabletop passable!

The reverse view

Below is a test figure I did based upon a sprue of figures on the front of a magazine some time ago, I forget now if it was a Perrys or a Wargames Atlantic product....

Later War MP34 infantryman

Finally painted and based!

Another view

At my Wargames Club we are gearing up for a campaign set in the Marion Wars (Mary Queen of Scots) period of Scottish history. The crossbowman below us another figure that got separated and lost from his parent unit on my workbench...

.... yes, my workbench can get quite chaoticat times and usually only gets sorted and cleaned when my wife puts her foot down!

Completed Crossboman

He could be on either side of teh conflict

These Zombicide Invader Survivors have finally been completed, I started these when I was doing my Xenos earlier in the challenge.

Five more Zombicide Survivors

For some reason, I always struggle with doing the survivor figures in these post Apocalyptic games - the monsters always seem more fun to paint. That said I'm almost decided to use North Star figures to provide the Survivors for scenarios I put on as I will develop stats cards for them to be Mining Corporation Marines, providing security for the Corporations mining sites - I like the figures better and I find them more fun to paint!

In case you wondered, Commander Amadi in the Yellow Power Suit
and Madame Singleton to his right

Left to Right: Cloud, Emma & Val

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So there it is  another year and another challenge. Until next year  happy painting everyone!

POINTS

5 x 28mm Zombicide Invader Survivors @ 5Pts ea                25 Points

2 x 28mm Highland DRinkers @ 5Pts ea                                10 Points

1 x 28mm German WW2 Infantryman                                      5 Points

1 x 28mm Border Riever Crossbowman                                   5 Points

TOTAL                                                                                       45 Points

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Great work for your final volley, Mike! Though I like all of these minis, I must say the two Jocks with their ale are my favourites (but being a Campbell, I'm a bit biased). 

Thanks for joining us this year, Mike, and I look forward to having you with us for the next Challenge!

- Curt

From BillA: A Face Only A Mother Could Love (10 pts)

 I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to get another post in this week. I wasn't expecting to finish another figure in time! So rather than delay it a week, I figured I better get it in. 

This is the "Babyface Abomination" from the board game "Zombicide: Invader." I don't know a whole lot about it - I know Zombicide is a cooperative game with players taking the role of zombie apocalypse survivors fending off endless hordes of zombies, and Invader replaces the zombies with aliens of varying types and abilities. There's a variety of these Abominations, and I guess some of them were exclusives you could only get through backing the Kickstarter for the game. I bought five different Abominations secondhand from a guy on social media that had spares for use with the game Majestic 13 (see my previous post for more on the game). I'm trying to get in a minimum of two games a month, solo or otherwise, and in determining what my next game of Majestic 13 will be, I realized I needed to paint an appropriate monster for it! 

I kept things pretty simple with this one; I primed white, and did some pre-shading around the larger folds of flesh with GW Druchii Violet. Once that was dry, I went over everything with "Guilliman Flesh" contrast paint. Once that was dry, I started drybrushing with Reaper "Tanned Skin" to smooth out any blotchiness. The guts, mouth and tendrils emerging from the hands were cleaned up with white, then washed with Druchii Violet and gone over with GW Baal Red contrast. 

Spiky bits and the armored shell on the head got two coats of Reaper "Midnight Blue" before drybrushing with "Twilight Blue." A little more Druchii Violet around the mouths and in the deepest folds of fat, and all that was left was picking out the teeth and nails. I think it turned out pretty good and gnarly.

And here's a shot of him with the 3-Card Monte Guy for scale; I'd say he qualifies as a 54mm figure.

"Sorry pal, them's the breaks. Play again?"

So that'll be another 10 points, and no new Squirrels.

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Sylvain: You monster is disgusting, but in a well painted way. I could almost hear and smell any gaseous emanations coming from the multiple orifices of this... thing. It has been an honor to be your minion; "à la prochaine".

From Mike W - More Zombicide Invader, Skaven plus other stuff (175 Points)

 Following on from my first post, I can now present some more Zombicide Invader figures, this time I'll start with some Survivors, in this case a group of five humans and a friendly alien.

In white we have two soldiers in power armour, on the left a nobleman in his own power armour suit, whlist to the right we have a green  insectoid aliean and a young civilian human woman.

Close-up of the nobleman in red body armour, a balistic pistol in his right hand and a chainsword in his left hand.

Close-up detail of the chainsword and attached 'cutter' at his left elbow. He wears a fur lined red cape.

First photo of one of the mining stations, soldiers, who provide local security for the facility. in th egame each survivor character has their own stat card and background lore, this is a guy called 'Inshish Vak'.

Slightly different view, you can see his balistic carbine, breathing apperatus and bionic eye

This is Lt. Jee-Hye, a South Korean officer in the Galactic Armed Forces.

This guy is armed with a balistic pistol and a 'stun stick', basically an electrified club, used in hand combat

This alien is 'Ix-Nix-Zik', armed with a sword and a balistic pistol, this insectoid is a friendly at the mining station.

Allyson, is a civilian worker at the mining station, arned with a balistic pistol and carrying her small pet furry  in her backpack!

Next we travel to ancient Egypt for a short interlude!

Here we have the first of a few undead cat swarms, that I will be using with my Undead Egyptians Army.

You can see that there are four distinct creatures on the base, I'm only claiming points for the combined casting!

Other side view of the Cat Swarm....

Next we have a group of Warhammer Skaven, this is an army that I have been toying with for some time now and I finally took the plunge to paint-up some of these horrible little ratmen.

Two units of 10 x 28mm Skaven, on left areth enewer models and to right are the slightly larger classic models.

Close-up on the newer figures, all carrying spears and shields, unit includes a musician, standard bearer and a leader.

View of the classic Skaven unit, armed with hand weapons and a shield. Note the skull hanging form the banner, see points claims below!

These little guys were fun to paint, the group has a mix of old school models and the relatively new models released by GW in the last couple years. All were undercoated in a cream colour and then Army Painter Flesh tone was used to add definition to all feet, hands, tails and hads before highlighting with regular flesh coloured paint.

First of a couple more views of the Classic figures, as I expand this army I'll mix and match newer and older figures within units.

Second shot of Classic figures, albeit with a standard painted to tie in to the newer ethos!

All fur was painted with GW Gore Grunta Fur contrast paint. Steel was painted using GW Lead Belcha and leatherwork was added using GW Snakebite Leather contrast paint. All was then given a light watered down black ink wash to add with definition before varnishing.

Lastly a shot o fthe newer unit, I have about 20 more of these little guys ready to go, but I might be tempted to do some Orcs first!

I deliberated long and hard on how best to base these guys, my usual fine sand and electrostatic grass combo for figures in the Warhammer world seems so tame for ethese putrid guys, so instad I opted for a dark brown muddy appearance with a smattering of grass and debris. What I was really going for was for them to look like they'd just crawled out of the naerst sewer, not sure I have achieved this!  Worst case I may change it! 

Now back to some more Zombicide Invader Xenos, with eight new guys to add to the growing horde. This goup includes 5 more Drones / Workers, 2 new Tanks and a huge Abomination that will hopefully only make occational appearances...

The eight new figures.

I'll not repeat the painting process in thi spost as I went into this last week, the Drone and Tanks were painted in exactly the same manner as before. It's worth noting the size of teh Abomination, this figure stands 40mm tall toe to head, but it is about 60mm across! Hence I have taken the liberty of claiming for a 40mm figure in this case.

Two new Tank figures, both in same pose. For future figures I'm going to have to immerse them in boiling water to reposition some of the limbs & tenticles to add more variety!

Five new Drones. Four of these are in the same pose,
so again additional figures will get the boiling water treatment!

Painting the Abominationwas a joy to do, basically the same approach as the other figures except that its on a bigger scale! Lots of lovely detail to pick put. This figure seems to have some kind of loincloth cvered in paterned disks, I interpreted this as a brown cloth with broze coloured disks.

Having made that choise it answered a couple of doubts I'd had when doing the TAnk figures previuously, in that they also seem to have loin cloths with a smattering of disks on them. THus these new to Tanks have been similarly painted - I will need to go back to the already painted figures from last week where I left these areas grey...

The monsterous Abomination! I interpreted the three large domes on his body
as huge puss filled boils - sorry if you are eating whist reading this!

The back view, lots of tenticles and claws

Final view, overall I'm pleasewd with this guy

Size comparison of the three Xenos types painted so far.
The Drone / Worker is a regular 28mm figure.

I'm waiting for some more Xenos to be delivered, I enjoyed painting these so much - I have to get more. Also looking t invest in a second hand copy of the game to get all the playing aids....

The Xenos Horde so far

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Skull Points 1 Points

28mm Skaven Banner

Squirrel Points 3 Points

28mm Skaven, Zombicide Characters, Zombicide Xenos *

* I made he mistake of posting 'Squirrels' as the keyword in my last post instead of 'Squirrel', so they didn't coumt! Luckily I have some more Daleks to do as well, so I can recover from that error!

POINTS

7 x 28mm Zombicide Xenos @ 5 Points ea                                                 35 Points

1 x 40mm Zombicide Xenos @ x Points ea                                                    7 Points

5 x 28mm Zombicide Characters @ 5 Points ea                                          25 Points (on 25 not50! Nice try)

1 x 28mm Egyptian Undead Cat Swarm @ 5 Points ea                                 5 Points

20 x 28mm Skaven @ 5 Points ea                                                              100 Points

TOTAL                                                                                                        175 Points

From DaveD . Well there is an eclectic mix of items indeed . Lots of variations here indeed . I do like the big old abomination , so let’s call that one a 10 , so 175 it is .

From Mike W - Various 28mm Sci-Fi Figures (130 Points)

 Well I managed to get some time together to do some painting between Xmas ad New Year's Day and this post is my baseline in the sand to get things moving for this year's challenge. Given that I had limited time to do anything, I opted for some simple figures to get going, hopefully I'll be able to tackle some more challenging subjects in the coming weeks!

The start of my Zombicide Invader Xenos Brood.
10 x mysterious aliens, determined to destrroyeverything in their way. 

A closer view of some of the Xenos.
Bases were painted to tie in to the game components,
anything outside the protective buildings is an arid, orange desert!

Here you can see the relative size of the Xeno Drones, Hunters and Tanks

I start by presenting 10 x 28 mm Zombicide Invader Xenos, hopefully many of you will be familiar with this game - basically a remote mining station ion some far flung planet that has been attacked by a mysterious alien race, helbent on destroying all human and other alien life fto be found there....

So the Xenos are the baddies in the game, they com ein many shapes and sizes but here we have just three forms - the Drones/Workers, the Hunters and the Tanks!

Three Xeno Drones or Workers

I approached painting all of these in a similar way, attempting to stay true to the artwork in the original game. All figures are undecoated in a cream basecoat to which is applied a coat of Army Painter Runic Grey speed paint. This dries quickly and I then drybrushed the figures' heads, hands, chest and feet with the cream & somewhite paint to bring out the highlights.

Four Xeno Hunters, much speedier than the Drones and Tanks.

These areas were then given a watered down black wash to pick out contrast details before painting the tenticles with a purple speed paint, to make these stand out even more. Further details such as boils are picked out in yellow, where exposed brains are on show I have used green for these areas and finally after a matt varnish, red ink is used tto cover hands, claws and teeth to give a suitably horric finish.

Three Xeno Tanks, massive, powerful beasts with tenticles and claws....

Next we have 10 x 28mm Dr Who Weeping Angels, these figures were embarrassingly easy to paint and complete, I almost feel bad claiming the points but on the up side there are no more of these to be painted now!

The group of 10 x Weeping Angels, basically animated statues!

The weeping Angels are one of Dr Who's many adersaries who basically maifest themselves as statues until looked upon by their victims, at which point the Weeping Angel animates its-self and takles control of it's victim's mind.

Close-up of some of the group

These figures were all undercoated medium grey before taking a watered down black ink wash. When dry the figures were drybrushed with a lighter grey and then varnished and based - as simple as that! 

And the other end of the line

My final contribution today is a group of 6 x 28mm Daleks, now some older challenge readers ay remember back in 2019, I painted a number of Daleks for the challenge at that time. I was sure that the guys at my local club would see the light and join in for a few Dr Who games. Sadly, I was wrong and the games never materialised so a couple years ago I sold all my Dr Who toys.

The group of 6 x Daleks. Eagle-eyed readers will see that the front two figures are from Warlod Games (now discontinued), others are from Dr Who Moster Army packs, originally supplied on magazine covers in the UK.

Imagine my surprise, 6 years after I blazed the trail, the club decided the next new period would be Dr Who! Hence I am re-acquiring and painting a whole new set of Dr Who figures....

The six Daleks in line

So these Daleks are undercoated in gunmetal, before black bumbers are then added and black ink used to add definition to the gratings around the Dalek heads. All the silver work is then drybrushed bright silver, before adding details for the orange head lights, sky blue domes and lenses in theis viewing devices.

A final view!

The figures were then varnished and based.

So that's it for my first post for this year's challenge, what else have I on the go? Well more Daleks, some renaissance crossbowmen, Korean War & Arab/Isreali tanks and lots and lots of Orcs!

Big Stompy Robots of Death & Squirrel Points

I'm claiming a Squirrel point each for the Xenos, Daleks & Weeping Angels, so 3 in total!

I'm hoping that Daleks will count as Big Stompy Robots of Death, they are robotic and they deal a lot of death, so I'll leave that decision to David Bromley and his minions.

6 Big Stompy Robots of Death pointys for the 6 Daleks.

Challenge Points

10 x 28mm Zombicide Invader Xenos @ 5 points ea.                        50 Points

10 x 28mm Weeping Angels @ 5 points ea.                                        50 Points

6 x 28mm Daleks @ 5 points ea.                                                         30 Points

TOTAL                                                                                                130 Points

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First, welcome back to the Challenge, Mike!

Your opening entry is quite impressive and industrious! I especially like your xenos - the pink tentacly bits contrast nicely with the grey. The Daleks are iconic as well and look like an ominous EV charging station when all ranked up. I look forward to seeing the next foray on your painting list!

- Curt