Andrea's High Elf Spearmen and Great Eagles (306 points)

Hy guys,
so this is the last montly report of the OWAC3! And, to appropriately conclude these messy six months, I unsettled what it was scheduled to do and changed completely the subjects to paints.

As per introductory post, I should have painted 8 High Elf warriors... well, it's not that I don't like them but I make a huge discovery! Digging deep into the recesses of my dark cabinet, where the sun cannot shine, I found a once-believed lost bag of elves and eagles! And, since an old style High Elf army without spearmen unit is like a sky without stars, I decided for a change: no more warrior unit, welcome 12 elves-worth spearmen unit with two Great Eagles!

Here, for inventory, a couple of picture of unpainted models:

Moreover, the presence of a banner bearer calls for a new banner! Therefore, here we are:

 

Now, after all due premises, let me introduce first the spearmen unit. As usual, I revisited the classical color palette. I had to confess I had a problem with priming the models, and this unfortunately affected a bit the painting. I relized it only at the end but, overall, I am satisfied enough about the result! I also discovered I hate painting those shields... OMG how much I hate painting those shields!

First rank:

Second rank:

 Then, Great Eagles! I always liked these models and I enjoyed a lot painting them. Back in the days, when I used to play the Wood Elf army I had a lot of eagles and I am also sure I had one or two heroes riding them (...you never now what the cabinet can hide and what can re-emerge during the next OWAC!).

Finally, all June entries together:

Recap of the month: 12 Spearmen with banner bearer 156 pts + 2 Great Eagles 150 pts (75 pts/each), for a total of 306 pts.

Ok, next step the wrap up post, where also the future project could (or could not) be revealed! ;-)

Ciao, A.

Brendan's June Clan Moulder (30 points)

It's is Complete!

For the competition I really only had enough models owned or purchased for 1000 points, so I technically finished my army in May, however I went searching and painted up an agent from Clan Eshin to help surprise my enemies:

Skaven Assassin: 30 points

Grand total of my army came to 1089 points, and I'm happy with the way they came out!

Jaeckel and the Lost Crusade - Month VI (188 points)

No pressure for the sixth month, as I have already painted my 1000 points. So, I came back to my initial plan (meaning before introducing the cannon-bell and its crew), and painted the bunch of beggars and fanatics I had prepared last December: the infamous Dirty Eight.

A golden opportunity to finally use some of the ugliest miniatures of my Citadel pile: the C46 villagers (I know I know, nobody forced me to buy them). Anyway...

Illustration by John Blanche

Let's start with two modest conversions, to represent the standard bearer and the musician. You'll recognize the usual bits of the flagellant plastic sprues.

MM62 - CZ6

C46 - Bolg

Then the beggars:

C46 - Beggar

C46 - Wiggle

C46 - Beggar

C46 - Leper

And finally two fanatics (allowing me to count these poor guys as flagellants):

F2 - Flagellant

F2 - Fanatic

Beware the Dirty Eight!

 I have also found some time to paint a couple of monks to strengthen the procession:

C3 - Wild Angus

C46 - Monk

While preparing my move and rummaging in my storage boxes, I found an old Harlequin model. I have glued a few candles on top of it, and tadaa! let's say he bears the army standard...

June's painting job:

In terms of points, we have:

• 8 flagellants with musician and standard bearer: 90 points
• 2 monks: 18 points
• Lvl 5 army standard bearer: 80 points
• TOTAL: 188 points

ZeroTwentythree's June Wood Elves (203 pts)

I optimistically planned for a full six months, no mulligan, and I made it. And then some. Sort of.

For June I painted 10 scouts that were part of the original core OWAC force. To round out my numbers, I painted an extra wardancer I discovered in a box, as well as one of the six archers that were donated to the OWAC cause by Shadespyre and his gaming group across the pond.

I was looking for six more so I could field three units of 10 archers. Originally I was going to paint all six of those archers, but I got sidetracked by random "extras" that I thought could find a home in the army... a faerie dragon familiar, and a small/young forest dragon. I'll paint the remaining five archers in the next few months. I'm just not in the mood to race through them the next few days.

The faerie dragon is from a pack of familiars from Reaper. Scouts are all old Citadel.

The small forest dragon is from Grenadier. It's on a 50mm square base, if that helps with scale.

The two stragglers, just so I could say I made 200 pt. min. for all six months. The plastic archer is the only "newer" figure in the force, and I hate saying it but this is one of my least favorite Citadel figures. The proportions are way off the rest of the figures, and don't make sense anatomically. If you look at the logical meeting place of the legs, it's up around the belt he's oddly wearing on his chest. Like he's built of shoulders sitting on a pelvis, with the rest of the torso missing. The hands are larger than his head, and the bow is ridiculously thick. I give a pass on a lot of proportions & quirks as being part of the stylization of the sculpts. But this one just looks... alien.

At any rate, below are my numbers. I'm not counting the two extras as anything. They may work their way into games in the future, but don't have a place within the Warhammer Armies list. On that note, I may go back and remove some of the other "extras" I did in my final wrap-up post and end up with a revised point total. I overshot the 1000 point goal by a longshot, and even doing six 200 point months, I'm over.


10 Glade Runners (scouts) w/longbow, hand weapon, shield...... 170 pts

1 Archer w/longbow, hand weapon, shield...... 12 pts
1 Wardancer w/additional hand weapon........ 21 pts
Dragonfly.....  0 pts
Young Dragon...... 0 pts

June Total ............. 203 pts


Previous Months: 1,611 pts

OWAC3 Running Total: 1,814 pts

Lissanne's Undead-The Black Queen chants the Funeral march (103 pts)

OWAC goal done- completing a 2000pt army in 6 months!  Oh wait, did I get the number wrong?  But I did finish up all the undead in my stash (well, the ones that don't have a piece missing) including all the odds and sods.

Finished the Zombies of Karr-Keel!  Done till they put out more, LOL!  that would be
1 Death Rider- Dennis Moore, the Dandy Highwayman!

And the last 5 Zombies of Karr-Keel
The violinist, done to match the other musicians

the Zombie Highwayman

Zombie Puppeteer

Zombie Witch

And the zombies aren't done until the Bagpiper plays!

And also

I finished the 15 hobbit zombies that were a gift.  I don't know what I will do with hobbit zombies, but it's probably like a sharknado, if I have it, I will think of something! (Do I have sharks for a sharknado?  Why yes!)  They were an odd slick plastic not easy to paint, so a tabletop job.

And on to the 0 point models!
First the podium, last of the Catacombs of Terror figs.  It is a terrain piece, I guess.

AND---my big 0 pt contribution, the Throne of Bones.  IMHO, one of the most ludicrous models ever marketed, and I bought it!  This monster has been sitting unbuilt and in addition has suffered at least 3 serious failed starts over the decades, but it is finally done!   What a horror to paint and build!  If you are thinking of getting one, I recommend don't.  Probably the most difficult assembly I've ever done, and I've done a few.  Plus I did a whole lot of painting on parts that don't show at all. A WHOLE lot.  But it looks pretty cool now that it's together!    Dirge certainly will need another necromancer in back to control all those skeletons that are falling down and shifting apart at odd moments, so she can relax in front!   Dirge the lich, celebrating her victory!

Dirge is victorious!  The citizens of Merchant's Reach who remain are now have become part of her undead army.  Surrounded with the bones of the vanquished, she appears in the form of a beautiful woman.  Onward to build and destroy another temple!

For this final month of OWAC III
1 Death Rider  23 pts
20 zombies  4pts each  80 pts (final)
1 podium   0 pts
And...the Throne of Bones 0 pts
total 103 pts

So- OWAC goals achieved
Finish all the Catacomb of Terror figures- done!
Finish all the Zombies of Karr-Keel figures- done!
Paint all the huge undead models lurking around the basement- done!
And if I had to paint 60 skeletons to do that, so be it.  Praise be to Skeleton Horde contrast paint!

And on to July, wrap up post and the picture of the army if I can find someplace big enough to lay it out!

Paul's Border Princes Months Five and Six (798.5 pts)

Having taken the difficult decision to cash in my first ever mulligan in May (having been quite proud of not missing a month throughout the whole of  the last challenge) I'm happy to say the decision paid off and I've finished off two months worth of minis and completed my OWAC III challenge (bar the wrap up post and obligatory Bryan Ansell impersonation photo. Obvs.)

Even though I took my mulligan in May it still makes sense to me to treat these as two months worth as they were very much tackled in two distinct batches.

First to be finished (though not first to be started) were a mixed race unit of Greatswords made up of 4 x metal 4th Ed Empire Greatswords, 6 Plastic Warlord Games Landsknecht Zweihanders, and 4 x ex-Short Wars Conquistadwarfs (hopefully soon to be available again via Macrocosm Miniatures) and the Bob Olley sculpted Champion. These may become their own Dwarf infantry unit once I can up their numbers, but for now I thought including them in the Greatswords made the unit more viable and brought out the diversity of the Border Princes force that I had been seeking.

First to be started (though not first to be finished!) were the Shortwars Halfling Halberdiers. Their all metal components provide loads of detail and I'm not sure I got the posing quite right for the unit ranks. To be honest these ended up being quite intimidating as time seemed to drain away and looking back I probably should have split it up a few each month, but that hasn't been my approach this time round, going more for batch painting whole units. This posed a problem as the detail and size of the Halflings demanded some time and attention and I just didn't have the gumption for them throughout most of May. It was these little blighters that took the wind out my OWAC sails and led to me taking a mulligan. I'm glad I did though because once I got my mojo back the detail on the sculpts really repaid a little bit of TLC.

Here they are as a complete unit with the unit command and other Halfling characters I painted up in a previous month. Now they are done I feel like I can love them again. I'm done with puff and slash for a while though, that's for sure.

Month Five Total

26 Halfling Halberdiers (inc. Standard Bearer) - Light Armour, Halberds (6.5 pts each) = 175.5 pts
14 Mixed Race Greatswords - Light Armour, Two Handed Sword (9 pts each) = 126
Great Sword Champion (Light Armour, Two Handed Sword) =  34

Total for the month = 335.5 pts

On to month six then and it was finally time for the cavalry to arrive!

First up were 10 x Halfling Goat Riders from TT Combat's Warlords of Erewhon range. I'll be using them as equivalent to Kislev Horse Archers, so they'll be armed with shields, bows and hand weapons but no armour. Pretty much exactly what you see on the models except the spears will have to count as hand weapons as Horse Archers aren't allowed to take them. Booo!

I'd love to be able to recommend these minis to others but I just can't. They are made of a pretty poor quality resin (in my view) with so many casting faults and bubbles it really hampered my enjoyment of putting them together and painting them up. Plus the resin hates paint even after a good wash and a thorough undercoat. The only plus side in all this was that I ended up bashing them out pretty quickly as I knew they were never going to be great, so it let me move on to the more prestigious heavy cavalry and my army general...

The Knights' Panther have also been a real prestige unit in my mind. The rich blue and exotic animal skins on otherwise fairly standard Medieval style knights seemed the perfect marriage of historical and fantasy and the studio paint job jumped off the box art in a way that always made them catch my teen aged eye. They were not originally part of the plan for this army, although I had a couple knocking around and was thinking of adding some Battle Masters plastic knights to make up a slightly rag tag unit of heavy cavalry on the cheap. However after a trade for some BM knights feel through and some opportunities came up to get some actual KPs for a reasonable price... well my head was turned and I splashed the cash. I'm very glad I did as I feel lke this unit really gives the army some presence and some hitting power. The simple shield designs are in the colours for the whole army, and loosely echo some of the designs used on the unit banners.

Having the unit of Knights' Panther also made sense given my plan for the army general as I wanted my Border Prince to be a renegade Grand Master, returning from one of the southern crusades and deciding he would rather set up his own little kingdom and enjoy the spoils of war rather than cart it back to pay tithes to Sigmar and the Emperor. Obviously a few of his retinue decided to stay with him, and painted their armour red to emphasise their break with the order, which then becomes the army colour for his new forces.

To pay respect to the challenge and all my fellow challengers who helped me along the way with encouragement and motivation, I decided to make the moto on his shield read OWAC. I hasten to point out this is not proper freehand. It was done with a 0.5 Micron pen and still took two attempts not to look awful. the shield itself is embossed plastic, I think from a later Bretonian Knight(?) but it seemed to fit the general perfectly.

Month Six Total

10 x Halfling Goat Riders (proxy for Kislev Horse archers) - Shields, Bows, and Hand weapons (16 pts each) = 160 pts
5 x Knights Panther - Barded Steed, Heavy Armour,  Shield, Lance, Sword (39 pts each) = 195 pts
Army General - Barded Steed, Heavy Armour,  Shield, Sword = 108 pts

Total for the month = 463 pts

Combined total = 798.5 pts

So there we have it, my OWAC III Border Princes army is finished and I can finally look at some of the other models on my desk without feeling guilty. That said I'm probably going to paint up some Halfling Villagers and livestock, and possibly the start of a baggage train to flesh out the background scenery a bit.

Now, where did I put that mullet wig ready for the final army showcase picture?