Jaakko and Forin - Leader month

To guard against the misuse of Brotherhood troops by unscrupulous stronghold Lords, a Brotherhood force is always led by a close relative of the Lord, known as the Warlord. Under his personal command is a unit of the Hearthguard, drawn from the Lord's loyal retainers, who form an aristocratic class in the stronghold.

Warhammer 40.000 Compendium

And so the final month of painting for OWAC VII has passed! I had to finish ahead of time due to family holidays and didn't get to paint everything I would have liked, but, nevertheless, I'm very happy with this months output. It's a leader month so I spent most of the time painting leaders but managed to squeeze in some other models too and a small surprise.

I finished two sets of Warlords with their Hearthguards (one regular one and one in exo-armours), four Squat troopers, a Tarantula and a Termite tunneler to carry the exo-armoured heroes into battle. I ran out of tufts and my LGS didn't have the right kind so some of the bases are a bit minimalistic.

Warlord Forin Leadenshield with his Hearthguard. A land raider is allocated to these guys but I couldn't quite get it finished before time ran out. There's a bit more patina in the metals than with regular Squats as I figured their gear would be ancient artifacts.

 

These guys have access to a large variety of equipment but this one trusts the dreaded laspistol.

Next we have the still unnamed Warlord with his Hearthguard in exo-armours. I'm glad that I could find enough of these models to make a full set.

The power gamer's choice for leaders bursting out from a tunneler

I fell a bit short of painting a full Combat Squad and it needs a further four models. This unit will be a close assault one and I have a nearly finished chainsword wielding Squat to join these guys.

 

Vollmer Adams leads the squad with an iron fist

 

Gunner Karl equipped with a multi-melta. He will stay in the rhino while his mates charge the enemy with their pistols and chainswords. I modelled a rhino with a hatch mounted multi-melta (as in the art piece by Paul Bonner) to represent this but it's still only partially painted.

 

Krag Jorgensen kindly gifted to this project by George

 

Smoothbore Sten

 

This Tarantula was kindly gifted to this project by Graeme. There's no such thing as too many heavy weapons in a Squat force.

In the very end of May I found out that Ramshackle games makes tunneler models. I've always liked the Epic scale Squats and had to include one tunneler in the force. Luckily the delivery was fast and I managed to finish this one in time.

I figured it's a Termite class tunneler. There are no rules for these things but I thought to use the rules below for them (which are essentially the Rogue Trader landing pod rules with the word tunneler substituted for landing pod).

Tunneler assault:

Roll for each tunneler at the beginning of your turn. A score of 5 or 6 indicates that it emerges somewhere on the table. A score of 1 indicates that it has emerged off-table. Scores of 2-4 indicate that it has not emerged yet and should be re-rolled in the beginning of your following turn.

Tunnelers emerging on the table surface at a randomly determined point (divide the x and y axis of the table and roll randomly along each). The tunneler will be travelling in a randomly determined direction and will plough through D6" of ground before coming to a dead halt. Work out damage from collisions immediately. Surviving tunnelers will burst open immediately and the crew can disembark to any position within half their normal move from the tunneler. Tunnelers emerging off-table are assumed to survive intact and the crew will enter at a random point on a random table edge on the following turn.

Termite:

So it's a completely random and potentially risky means to enter the battlefield and I love it.

This month in points:

What's next? I don't have a lot of time to paint before the wrap-up post deadline but might be able to finish some models that are nearly done. It would be great to add some tanks and possibly the terrain piece I built last month, but I'm not taking any stress about it as I'm very happy with this project already.

Until next month!

Graeme's Formidable Fimir - May's Leader month (388 points)

 Graeme's Formidable Fimir - May's Leader month

OWAC4 - May

Leaders

I came dangerously close to the field of bones this month.  I had grand visions of a glorious array of leaders and fluttering banners for May. So I made a start on painting 9 leader/command figures, played around with some conversions for a banner, and started prepping some interesting stuff for June.

These grand plans slowly ground to a halt, as real-life graciously provided the rusty spanner which was dropped surreptitiously into my finely-oiled (if whisky counts) painting machine…

It seems May was a pretty tough month for most people in the challenge, either with distractions from work, or waning motivation.

In the end, I had a real last-minute rush to get these finished off. I'm not completely happy with the results, so I suspect I'll go back and tidy them up at the end of the challenge.

The Meargh is an optional character in the Fimir army list, but I couldn't imagine my army without one. It's one of those iconic Nick Bibby models, that everyone (of a certain age) recognises...

For the Meargh, I went with a colder pallete, to give a contrast with the rest of the Fimir I've painted so far. In a similar way to the Chaos Hounds, I went for a higher contrast with the skin colours, especially on the face and hands, to give an impression of a gaunt old Fimir witch-hag. I went with colours I've not used before, to push myself a little. I would have liked the highlights of the mauve to be a little stronger, but it does make for a suitably intimidating figure, and it makes the gold/brass ornaments stand out quite well. The moss skin tones worked out a little darker than I was going for - I was aiming for a paler, more sickly look. The contrast with the robes seemed to work out fairly well, though, so I'll take it.

1 Meargh (Level 15 wizard) :194 pts

Hand weapon

I'm very glad I started the Warlord figure in April - the armour and weapons gave me a fair challenge to achieve the look I was aiming for. Again, I wanted to suggest ancient weapons and armour dredged out of the marshes, with some scraps of mail scavenged from the victims of previous battles.

The chainmail hasn't turned out so well in the photos - the lighting emphasizes the brown ink wash I used, and the metal drybrush doesn't show up too well. I do like how the other metal turned out though. There was a lot of experimenting with different colour inks, some washes, verdigris, and drybrushing, which I think gave it a bit of depth and an ancient look. The skin did turn out a bit darker than I was expecting, which gives a good contrast to the metals, but not much contrast with the verdigris, which went from a shockingly bright blue, to almost green with the washes and inks. I had to give it another layer in a few areas to try to make it stand out.

1 Warlord (Level 15 champion) :194 pts

Hand weapon, additional hand weapon, light armour

Army total so far:    930 pts

May:                          388 pts
April:                           150 pts
March:                        202 pts
January:                     190 pts

Yet again, I delivered a lot less than what I was hoping for, but it’s another small step forward in the quest to finally build a legit Fimir army. This month's points were sorely needed. I'm tantalizingly close to the 1000 point goal. However, I’m determined to continue after this OWAC and build up a truly impressive force out of them.

There’s plenty in the pipeline for June, but I'm worried I'm not going to get through June's rank-and-file quota. I’ll need to do some serious time management to meet the deadlines. I suspect some late nights will be in order. It's worth it, though - the finish line is in sight! Fingers crossed!

AdamH’s Month of rest – (239.5 Points)

“Our time together grows short, it seems like just yesterday you stumbled drunkenly into my warren looking to make a name for yourself, now you barely cling to life; I expect to see the last of my brood come forth.

Well I have a treat for you this day, you will get to meet my chief gnasher, the claws and teeth of my army as well as a few more familiar friends, and who knows, if you manage to live long enough you might just get to see one of my crowning jewels.”

So this was the month I thought I would take a bit of a break, I decided to paint a couple of high cost models (three of them in fact that compromise ¾ of the monthly total) however half way through the month I thought I should also probably get started on the pile of Slaves that were waiting for me. So in the end what was supposed to be a low model count month ended up being just as high as all of the others.

We start once again with a few more Gutter Runners, taking my total to ten and a decent unit size to harass warmachines and lone characters on the battlefield:

Also, this month sees another Warpfire thrower, the first of my high point cost models designed to give me a bit of a rest. Although after taking this picture I saw a few areas I missed so I will have to go back and tidy them up before I varnish this one:

Next for the units is again more Slaves, 15 of the blighters making a dishevelled 37.5 points… I have the scheme somewhat down after last month which meant that actually these didn’t take me as long as I thought they would, although I do find their lack of details or colours, part of what makes them slaves, also makes them quite dull to paint. In a 2,000 point army I would probably want to field at least two units of 20 of these so I still have a few more to paint if I expand this army:

And finally, only the second Character choice to appear in the army, a Warlord General. He is technically the lord choice/leader of this force although I believe his strings are being pulled behind the scenes by someone else. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to get to meet that particular puppeteer during the challenge but who knows what next year will bring. Anyway, onto the model, classic Skaven sculpt this that I tried to bring a bit of extra colour with some poisoned wind globes, which were also practice for something a little…. larger that may just roll onto the scene soon:

To summarise, this month’s entry is:

Gutter Runners x3, Additional Hand Weapons, Throwing Stars [42]

Warpfire Thrower [70]

Skvenslaves x15 (Inc. Musician) [37.5]

Warlord [90]

  

Total – 239.5 points

After taking these pictures I put the models away in my small carry case and discovered I have actually now almost completely filled it with painted rats. A great feeling indeed but also means I need to buy more storage.

We are in the final stretch now, just one more to go (technically I have now passed the challenge goal however I like to try and make a big splash in the final month so I am not going to rest until the brood mother sings!

Best of luck to everyone in these last few weeks and I hope all you following along at home are still safe and sound.