ZeroTwentythree's June Eldar Pirates (376 points)

Squad Month  #4

Again... started the month with the best intentions. I even got the first of two squads of finished in the first week! Then work & work travel unraveled the rest of my plans.

In the end, I was once again up way past bed time, but managing to finish the painting -- but with two days to spare this time! The next two days were packed with work & family stuff, so I figured I'd better use "the weekend" as a good excuse to stay up late and finish.

Back to Troops, I painted two Dragon Squads. Dragon Squads are like the baseline Serpent Squads, but with even more flamers and plasma. Rogue Trader Eldar really liked the heat/fire more than ballistics or lasers. Outside of the usual shuriken weapons, they were heavy on the flame, plasma, and melta weapons.

 

I was on the fence about using the harlequin figure in one of the squads, but really wanted to add more variety and think it's sort of OK with the pirate theme. Plus they had the right equipment, and when painted in the same colors as the rest of the squad, it feels less harlequin-y.

Sort of a blah way to finish the challenge, just more vanilla troops. But I did some cool stuff in the middle part of the challenge, so it's OK I guess. This month it was two by the books Dragon squads, a bookend with the first month's Serpent squads.

 

I have also inadvertently (music on shuffle) ended the 2021 challenge the same way as its inception, with "Drive My Rocket" by ASF blasting through my headphones) as I put the last of the last of the paint on the figures. (NSFW, probably.) So that's a good omen, I suppose. I wrote about the inspiration, musical and otherwise, a bit before, I may elaborate  (/ramble) further in my wrap-up post.

 

Squad Month #4:.

Dragon Squad.................188

Dragon Squad.................188

 

June Total............ 376 pts.

Grand Total........ 2,013.5 pts.

 

ZeroTwentythree's May Eldar Pirates (237 points)

Leader Month

 

I started May with the best of plans. May was going to be squad month #4. Hot off the last-minute completion of my April figures, I just kept painting the first few days of May and got half way through a new squad of five troops for May, and even completed the second murder-bot. But then work and personal stuff came up and weeks went by. Earlier this week I acknowledged that there was no way I could finish my goal, and the day before I left for a few days out of town I prepped and (barely) started painting two command figures.

 

I had initially planned for three command figures, but the third involves some kitbashing/sculpting and I wouldn't have time for that (and still haven't sketched out exactly how I want to do it.) So a lieutenant and champion would have to do -- plus the 'bot I had already finished. So here I am, back home for a couple of days before heading out on the road again, and I spent a bit of my holiday (Memorial Day here in the US) hiding out in my damp, funky cellar trying to paint a couple of figures before the deadline.

I had them planned out in my head -- the colors, etc. I could "see" them. I just needed to get the paint on them. The Prefector (lieutenant) is the most senior leader of the crew to be painted in the OWAC. I had planed on a lot of color for the pirate crew when I first started, but ended up limiting the number of colors on my squads of rank & file. I figured the characters in the could exhibit a bit more individuality (I'll post a separate pic of all of them together in my final wrap-up post -- provided I can complete my June entry in time and avoid the dreaded Field of Bones.) Tar'El, the prefector, should stand out but doesn't entirely break the color palette of the rest of the force. Kell, his aide/minstrel/Probati is a bit of a reference to the lone squad of Eldar I kept from my original RT era army. It was a squad painted black with flame colored accents, mostly with flame weapons. I happened to notice this time (having painted the original musician a good 20 years ago....) that the harp also has a pistol weapon on it.  I guess I'll have to call it a las-pistol, that's what he comes equipped with in the list. Cool little detail that I enjoyed discovering as I painted.

 

The second murder-bot of the crew is an executioner class ghost warrior, One-Arm. I don't have the energy to post my usual fluff in the form of a few lines of fiction/narrative, but the gist is that he lost one arm and had it replaced with a saw blade and is the BFF/nemesis of last month's Goblin. Inspired by my recent choice of reading material, which may be obvious to some who are not so behind in their fantasy fiction library as me. ;)

 

Click to enlarge!

 

So that means my last entry -- June, will be the rank & file # 4 that should have been done in May. Wish me luck. Falling in the Field of Bones in the final month would be embarrassing.

 

May's addition to the crew of the Cold September is...

 

Leader Month:.

Tar'El - Prefector (lieutenant)........ 94 pts.

Probati............................................. 25 pts.

Executioner Class Ghost Warrior... 118 pts.

May Total............ 237 pts.

Total so far........ 1,637.5 pts.

JohnR's Estalians - Heroes of Might and Magic (632 pts)

 Leaders (and cannon) Month. 

Born the penniless son of Estalian fruit sellers, Diego Monte decided at an early age that peddling oranges in poverty wasn't for him and ran away to seek his fortune in the New World.

Decades later, Don Diego El Comte Del Monte (as he now calls himself) has returned. Commander of  the Galleon 'War Bastard' and captain of a powerful mercenary company.

Del Monte (pictured here with his army standard bearer Matias) is everything a mercenary captain should be: ruthless and brave but with a strong streak of pragmatism and a keen sense of self preservation.

This month I painted command groups for the crossbowmen and handgunners too:

Crossbowmen

Handgunners

The army has also acquired a cannon - probably from the deck of the War Bastard.

The cannon's name is Isabella. (She's named after the gun captain's eldest daughter). She's powerful and dangerous and the gun crew love her, though they admit she's pretty ugly. The cannon's not that good looking either.

Accompanying the army is the Magister Santiago Espinosa 'The Fray Bentos' and his assistant Pedro.

'Fray Bentos' is an honorary title from the Estalian College of Sorcery, of which Espinosa is a senior member. His years of study have given him great power but recently he has become obsessed with his own mortality and has begun to dabble in the dark arts in an attempt to delay the inevitable. So far Espinosa has managed to keep his new knowledge secret, though it has cost him an apprentice.

Pedro is Espinosa's new apprentice. He suspects that his predecessor might have learned an unpleasant secret about his master and that his death may not have been an accident. Pedro is clever and ambitious and determined not to suffer the same fate.

El Comte Del Monte: Level 20 Human Hero, light armour, shield, warhorse: 114 points
Matias: Level 5 Hero, light armour, shield, warhorse, army standard: 89 points

2x Tilean Crossbowmen (+2 Missile Elite) inc Standard : 36 points

2x Bandolleros Gringos (+1 Missile Elite) inc Standard: 33 points

'Isabella': 3 Man Cannon: 60 points

The Fray Bentos: Level 20 Human Wizard: 240 points
Espinosa knows the following spells: Battle Magic 1: Leg Breaking, Ignite Missiles, Enthuse, Cause Animosity. Battle Magic 2: Raze, Lightning Bolt. Battle Magic 3: Animate Sword, Cause Fear. Necromantic 1: Hand of Death, Zone of Life. Necromantic 2: Control Undead. Necromantic 3: Life in Death.

Pedro: Level 5 Human Wizard: 60 points

Pedro Knows the following spells: Battle Magic 1: Immunity from Poison, Cause Animosity, Fireball.

Here's how the army looks now:

I've almost run out of stuff to paint. I had planned to add a couple more regiments to the army but they're not Estalians and I'm worried that they won't really fit. Maybe I'll just mulligan June :-)

ZeroTwentythree's April Eldar Pirates (526.5 points)

Rank & File #3

"Kel!!"

The stories always seemed to start out this way. 

 

The drop crew had been hunkered down outside an isolated refinery for half a rotation, observing the defenses. All automated. Big, heavy armored mechs. Company policy was to only go in with overwhelming odds & minimal losses. Luckily the crew was equipped for this sort of finesse.

"Sir?"

Get the murder-bots. One of them. I don't care which. I've got a job.

 

"Find a ghost warrior?"

 

"Two of them. They probably won't be far apart."

 

"But how will I..."

 

"There will be a quiet ruckus. Signs. You'll find them."

Another half a rotation later, Kel was approaching forward observation, a hunched but elegant mechanical unit striding just in front of him. They approached the Captain.

"Goblin..."

"I think I shot One-Arm, he's stuck in a gulch. He came out of nowhere and jumped onto Goblin, flames..."

"He'll be fine," the Captain replied.

Kel had only been with the crew short time and was still sorting out the two ghost warriors. On the craftworld they were revered. But these two... The constant pranks, the bickering. Enough to jeopardize the entire crew. But the Captain and most of the rest of the crew seemed to take it in stride. He was trying to do the same, but it was a difficult adjustment. Anytime he had to deal with them it was as if he was dealing with wayward infants...

"Goblin," the Captain struck direct, "take down that mech pacing the nearest quad, then jam the comms-main. We'll be right behind you. Grab whatever wave assets you can after that. Whatever catches your fancy."

The lithe ghost warrior darted away in an instant. Not five pacs later, the nearest lumbering mech toppled over, onto the perimeter fencing creating a gap for the crew to cautiously surge forward...

This was the toughest month so far. Not because of the painting, just the time. We had a four day family vacation at the beginning of the month. That was a very good thing. After that it sort of went downhill, I had my second vax shot, got the expected side-effects, and then two weeks of mystery illness that was not covid. I don't even remember a lot of the second half of the month, which is when I painted the Viper Squad and the Ghost Warrior.

 

Yes, the inspiration for the Ghost Warriors might be obvious to some. ;) As with everything else, I've got more backstory & fluff for them in my head.

 

One of the exciting things about this Challenge is that I acquired one each of the Ghost Warriors. They were figures I really wanted when I was young, but was never able to lay my hands on. For whatever reason, getting Eldar as a kid in the '80s was difficult and I just had to settle for whatever I could find until the first boxed set of Guardians (metal bodies, plastic arms) and the Craftworld/Aspect Warriors were released & easy to find. I never had D-Cannons before, either. So this is another bonus!

 

There are a couple of quirks to the list again. As with last time, the Venom Squad is my own invention, based on the existing Serpent Squad, but making use of more figures that are part of the original Eldar range, but didn't fit with the list in Chapter Approved. (MOST of the figures available didn't match the list -- a mystery to me.) This one was to make use of the lasgun & las-cannon equipped figures. Click the template (and all the other pics) to enlarge.

In addition, the D-Cannon was the first released artillery piece for the Eldar. Shortly (a month or two later...?) they released a new platform design for las-cannon, scatter laser, and plasma cannon. But as far as I can tell, there were never any rules or Chapter Approved unit entries released in White Dwarf to accompany the new release adverts like they did with the D-Cannon. Not only that, but there's no official points for the scatter laser until later editions. Even the D-Cannon left the crew up to your imagination. So a bit of reverse-points-engineering, and I've got crew and scatter laser costs...

 

Eldar Artillery Crew ("Crewdar"):

Eldar.... 8 pts.

Mesh Armour.... 1 pt.

Refractor Field... 1 1/2 pts.

Knife.... 1/2 pt.

Laspistol.... 1/2 pt.

Photochromatic Visor.... 1/2 pt.

Communicator.... 1/2 pt.

Respirator.... 1/2 pt.

 

Total per Crewdar.... 13 pts.

 

 

So, for April, the crew of the Cold September is up to...

 

Troops Month #3:

Venom Squad................. 178 pts.

D-Cannon Platform........ 96 pts.

Scatter Laser Platform.... 96 pts.

Assassin Class Ghost Warrior... 156.5 pts.

April Total............ 526.5 pts.

Total so far........ 1,400.5 pts.

JohnR's Estalians - Count the Hooves and Divide by Four. (414 points.)

Rank and File Month 4 

My late uncle's go-to joke when we had to count sheep or cattle in a field.

Feel like I made good progress this month.

Estalian Caballeros led by Rocco 'The Tilean Stallion' Sindaco.

Among an army of swaggards and braggards Los Caballeros are the most boastful and rambunctious of the lot. Rumour has it that Rocco shares a certain characteristic in common with his horse. His comrades joke that he's a mutant; but the luckiest mutant alive!

Border Horse - 'Los Escorpiones' led by Estofado De Carne.

Invariably found in the vanguard of the army the life of a cavalry scout can be brutally short. On the upside, with a little luck, you can be the first amongst the enemy's baggage train and first in the queue at the whore house at the next town.

Rocco Sindaco: Level 10 Human Hero, light armour, shield, lance and warhorse: 66 points.

9 Estalian Caballeros (+1 Shock Elite): light armour, shields and lances, standard: 200 points.

Estofado De Carne: Level 5 Human Hero, light armour, shield, spear and warhorse: 40 points.

5 Border Horse: light armour, shields and spears, standard: 108 points.

It's starting to look like an army :)

The plan is to do characters next. Though I'll probably wind up painting more rank and file 😂

ZeroTwentythree's March Eldar Pirates (347 pts)

Rank & File #2

The prefector and the main body of his troops were pinned down by a small group of private security troops hunkered down behind a makeshift strong point of  heavy cargo containers and industrial equipment. "Kel!!"

 

"Sir?"

 

The quick reply from just behind nearly made him jump. The rest of the crew tended to drift towards individualism, he often forgot that his new aide, Kel, was more likely to shadow him.

"We'll never get anywhere til we root those mon-keigh out of their shell. Bring up the D-cannons."

 

"But sir, we can't. The D-Cannons haven't been painted yet."

 

The prefector wasn't sure what irked him more, being called "sir" or the fact that the D-cannons weren't ready. He made a mental note to demand the ship's artisan to paint them for his April entry. Hammering away at them with the D would have been perfect for opening a gap in their defenses.

"Well, if we can't give them the D, send Noods."

"Sir?"

It was possibly a risky proposition. The Danger Noodles were an odd bunch that favored close combat and gory weapons. He suspected that more than a few were former Scorpions. But they were good at what they did, rivaling the Vipers in terms of skill and experience. Nobody liked to be on the receiving end of unexpected Noods.

"Send Noods. One squad. That will throw them off guard."

 

March was another rough month for me. My goal was two squads of heavy (for Eldar pirates) infantry. Very rough. I won't bore you with the details. I probably made it worse by drifting off into working on other things besides OWAC Eldar.

 

The first of my goals was a squad of Vipers. They're an upgrade from the Serpent squads, get power armour and all troops count as champions. So I picked through the figures with the heaviest looking armour and weapons to match the squad build. The only one that seems off is the melta trooper, but that;s the only figure produced who has the right weapon. I'm OK with that. As I was painting these I realized that I never quite made the connection before -- the two "pointing" figures aren't actually pointing. They both have Jokaero digital weapons on their fingers!

 

I decided to paint all the power-armoured figures in a different color from those equipped with mesh armour.

 

Next I worked on a new, custom addition to the pirate list... 

I'm guessing the way the list in Chapter Approved: Book of the Astronomican were created is similar to the way early WFB lists and regiments of renown were created -- they were generated by early games & play-testing by the author(s) & their friends (studio team?) So the lists are specific -- not just "orks" or "space marines" or "eldar" or whatever, but a specific group of ork raiders, space marine chapter, or eldar pirate crew. So, in RT fashion, I'm customizing the list. I will have no "Zoat Terror Squads" but I'm going to make a couple of new squads to utilize the RT era Eldar figures that have no other place in the Chapter Approved list in the hope of fielding most, if not all, of the old range.

I came up with two squads. Sticking with the serpentine naming conventions, one is the Venom squad (not yet painted.) The second was a squad using some of the heavy armoured & melee equipped figures. I opted for "elite" status similar to the also power armoured Viper squad upgrade. At first I was going to name them Rattler squads, since several figures have chainswords. But after further consideration, that seemed too "wild west." So I went to the ultimate cultural reference: memes & t-shirts. "Rattler Squad" was now replaced by... Danger Noodles!

I also made a small photo/display board and started working on a skirmish board and terrain so they wouldn't look so awkward being photographed on my fantasy terrain. Also working on a 3x3 terrain board for small skirmish games.

So I made it through March. Barely.

Troops Month:

Viper Squad..... 179 pts.

Danger Noodle Squad..... 168 pts.

March Total....... 347 pts.

Total so far........ 874 pts.

JohnR's Estalians - I need re-training (313 points)

 Rank and file month 3

A month is too long. After a couple of days I've forgotten my passwords, how to use blogger, the settings on my camera, what the OWAC rules are, the name of my missus and where I left the dog...

Anyhoo, here is this month's offering:

Estalian Hombres Villanos led by 'El Destello Corazón!'.

Mystery surrounds this infamous swordsman. Some say he's the illegitimate son of the Emperor Karl Franz and an Estalian serving wench. Others that he's seeking the six fingered orc who killed his father. Whatever the truth he's a dashing swords-master: irresistible to women, deadly to his enemies and adored by his men. 

'El Destello Corazón!' Level 15 hero, light armour and additional hand weapon: 83 points

21 Hombres Villanos +2 Shock Elite, hand weapons, light armour and shields, standard and musician: 230 points

The army so far:

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a group shot yet. If I'm not I'm sure The Overlord will delete it. Like I said: I can't remember the rules 😁

JohnR's 252 points, not bad for an evening's work.

Rank & File month #2

 I'm kidding of course.

Actually this month was a bit of a slog so I'm pretty happy to have added 22 mini's to the army:

It helped that the crossbowmen were started in January :)

These comprise the bulk of the army's missile troops and are used as skirmishers, or to support the infantry blocks in battle. As such they don't have their own command groups, though I might add these later.

10 Tilean Crossbowmen (+2 missile elite), light armour and crossbows: 120 points.

12 Estalian Bandolleros Gringos (+1 missile elite), light armour and handguns: 132 points.

Total: 252 points

Onward and upward, bring it on March !

ZeroTwentythree's February Eldar Pirates (289 pts)

Discordant engines struggled to keep the awkward vessel on a smooth trajectory. The coffin-like slab of reinforced plasteel eventually settled among the smouldering corpses that it's multi-laser had annihilated moments before.

The lone bio-meat crewman jumped out of the hatch and surveyed his surroundings. "Mrs.! Up on the ridge, 70 degrees." A fusillade of red laserfire lit the dim haze and the pieces of three more guards fell to the ground. He sat down on the hull of the GOTHMOWER and waited for the rest of the raiding party to catch up.

GOTHMOWER is the fusion of several  sources of inspiration. Rather than recount the initial brainstorm here, I will just direct you to the story I posted on my personal blog. When I received a mystery package from Shadespyre that included the plastic housing from some sort of remote-control, I knew I had the chassis. After the model was put together and primed, I decided to stick with a good & gothy black, black, dark grey, more black, and little bit of red color scheme.

I had initially planned to paint another ten infantry for February, but that didn't work out for various reasons. During one of the brief painting sessions in which I tried to paint some infantry, one final reference for inspiration hit me.

While not part of the original plan -- at least not on a conscious level -- I was already 90% of the way there. So I painted a face and glued decapitated statue head (from a more suitable subject matter). After far too much whiskey, I painted a checkered band on the ass-end of it as one final nod to the Deathmobile. I had previously been planning to paint the "GOTHMOWER" name on it in similar lettering, but decided that would detract too much from the Eldar-ness of it.

 

The grav attack technically doesn't need a crew. It's equipped with auto-drive & auto-aim. But if I stick with the minimum requirements of the army list, I've got more heroes than I know what to do with. The list gives the option to make heroes crew for the grav attack, and it inspired me to convert a figure as such.

 

Nik is a former cargo pilot who worked the most dangerous sectors of the galaxy before joining the crew of the Cold September. More comfortable in a pilot seat than on his feet, he saw an opportunity on one of his first raids with the pirate crew and captured an imperial PDF grav attack. Space being confined on the September, the crew were initially reluctant to bring the captured machine on board. Since then, they have come to appreciate the additional quickly deployed fire support it offers.

GOTHMOWER has been modified from its original imperial configuration, shuriken catapults and a multi-laser replacing the original bolt-weapons, and new auto-drive & auto-fire system installed -- an infinity circuit Nik refers to as "The Mrs."

Wild Card Month:

Probati (Officer)..... 25pts.

Grav-Attack..... 264 pts.

February Total....... 289 pts.

Total so far........ 527 pts.

ZeroTwentythree's January Eldar Pirates (238 pts)

Tar'El landed with two serpent squads to plunder fuel and food in a quick raid on a small agri-world. Somewhere in the planning, something must have got jammed up.

What he found on the surface was even more backwater than the typical fringe world near the perimeter of the Void. Contrary to intel, there were no settlements anywhere near the drop site exceeding tech level 3. It was like they had transported back in time and where looking at the ancestors of the mon-keigh as well as their own. No fuel, no food fit to travel, no tech....

Until a scan of an isolated forest considered "cursed" by the locals revealed several heavy stone structures with a small power source triggering sensors even through the thick earthworks. With little trouble, the raiding party overwhelmed the lone inhabitant. At first little information or tech of value was found, but buried in a primitive hillside tomb, they discovered that their trip wasn't entirely a loss.

Rank & File month #1

I like to start each new wargaming project with a solid foundation. That usually means the rank & file troops that should form the core of a given force. So my choice for January was a pair of basic Serpent Squads.

The two squads are identical, due to limited figures. I took some liberties with the leader -- his "flamer" is more like a flame pistol, but close enough for me. I stuck with the palette and look of the test figure that will be send as tribute sign of appreciation to the Benevolent Overlord. I don't think I quite hit the same level of quality working on ten figures as I did on just the one, but given how busy this month has been I'm happy with the results and glad to meet the deadline at all!

I've even managed to find some time to work on derailing my plans right out of the gate, as expected...

+++ Intercepted transmission, showing unknown agents retrofitting a stripped fringe world variant Imperial grav-attack. +++

 

 

January Total..... 238 pts.

 

Total so far....   238 pts.

ZeroTwentythree's Space Elves - Introduction

Cold September

 

Any free port, but especially one the size of the Void City, Carcosa, is bound to see its share of troublemakers and unwelcome guests. But when the crew of the Cold September disembark, a lava flow of tension creeps through the city. The erratic whims of the eldrich pirates are a danger to anyone in their vicinity. They have time and again worn out their welcome, yet the oligarchs of Carcosa have yet to banish them, even when others have been barred entry to the city for less serious (and frequent) offenses.

They do not wield great influence. They are a small band of unpredictable outlaws whose motives are completely alien, even among the other bands of self-serving pirates and petty potentates of the northern outer rim. They are not powerful. They have but a small fleet and are incapable of anything beyond small (yet efficient) raids. And to all observers, they owe allegiance to none but themselves.

Introduction

Hey.

I'm ZeroTwentythree. I'm back again. And I'm painting more elves. Space elves this time. Three Challenges, three elf projects. I'm not really an elf fetishist. Honest. So why a third year of elves? Not sure I can explain.

Er, maybe I can.

OWAC2: Sea Elves. I have a Marienburg army, and a whole alternative Warhammer setting/campaign centered around that. And I had this idea for a sea elf faction -- which makes a ton of sense. So I painted a bunch of Marienburgers, plus the primary antagonists (undead) and a bunch of smaller supporting factions... Except I never touched the sea elves. So joining the Old World Army Challenge in year two was a great motivation for me. And it worked! After (many, many) years of sitting on those elves, they're now painted. 95% painted. Solid.

 

 

OWACIII: I looked at a couple of options, and even further out on the periphery of the above setting/campaign, I had and idea to breathe life into some wood elves I had been hanging onto for... decades. Most were painted, but in dire need of new paint. I had a couple other options under consideration for OWAC3, but the wood elves seemed like a more focused force than the other options I was considering, and my plans were for a big contrast to their more colorful and regimented kin, so.... it kind of worked out. I even took it way beyond my original plan!

OWACIV: OK, so I painted some elves and then some more elves. Time to evaluate what else I've had waiting in the wings. Most of my remaining projects were either mostly done already, or not terribly "Old"hammer. But I had these five Space Elves from my youth. I mean, that's a solid foundation for an army, right? A chopped up & converted hero, a heavy weapon guy who's never been a valid option in any version of any Eldar armylists, and three musicians. Solid start to the next Old World Army Challenge now that it was being opened up to RT/40k!

Before I even bought the Rogue Trader book in my youth, I picked up a few packs of Space Elves because I really liked the figures. I pained them, some friends bought some plastic beekees and orc raiders and... I switched to Mantis Warriors Space Monkeys because they had a playable list and a cool WD article about the Badab War. Eldar, on the other hand had only a bunch of mismatched WD articles and a list that didn't quite match the figures available. My Eldar languished until late RT & 2nd ed, and even though I loved the aesthetic of the early Space Elves they only ever found a home as second class citizens --"Guardians" fighting alongside the far better... well, every other unit in the Eldar codex. They never seemed to enjoy the spotlight like they deserved.

Now I'm sounding like one of those long winded recipe web sites. The ones where you're just looking for what's cooking, not the author's life story. So enough with the background, here's the chicken piccata:

I started looking for old RT Eldar, got discouraged at first, but a couple of awesome fellow OWAC brothers got me hooked up. Add in a  few (occasionally drunk and misguided...) eBay purchases later and I'm set for OWAC4 and beyond.

With more elves. Space elves. OWAC4(0k).

Here's the rundown. Picture first, because I just wrote a bunch of words and you probably need to stop reading and see some pictures.

This is my tentative project based on the Chapter Approved: Book of the Astronomican pirate list. Two serpent squads, one upgraded viper squad, two dragon squads, the (4) minimum characters, two D-canon platforms, one each of the ghost warriors, and a war walker.

I will probably swap out the walker (which is the slightly different 2nd ed. variation) for a dreadnought or a spirit warrior depending on my whim at the time. Or maybe I will scratch build a (non deodorant container) grav-attack. Some of the other individual figures may also get switched up by the time they're ready to be painted.

I've painted one test figure so far. My inspiration is coming from several sources, but largely from the art of Pascale Blanché. I'm not going to stick to it religiously, but I think I'm going to

borrow heavily from his style and color palettes. For me, this year won't be a challenge of just getting figures painted, but a challenge to try new techniques & aesthetics.

The test figure turned out much better than I had hoped, so that's good news! She will also serve as my offering to the that great Warrior of the Wasteland, the Ayatollah of Rock & Roll-ah, the Benevolent OWAC Overlord.