Shadespyre's Wild Card Month - The Kingdom of The Gnolls (An Orcs & Goblins Army) (50 pts!!!)

OWAC V - Wild Cards - But I've Already Played My Joker?

June

So what's left? A few minis that got left behind, or added at the last minute, and some scenic bits and bobs, I suppose?

Let's take a tour of the left overs! First up, some camp guards and some markers. I would have liked to make a whole unit from these fellas, but Gnolls in this pose are extra-rare and somebody kept bidding £10 each for them, so I gave up trying. I kept these three who I'd repaired with new polearms, however. I wanted to use some more of these shields as I'd gone to all the bother of making a press mould for them, so I made these with them. Might be useful as objective markers or unit fillers, but mostly I thought they'd look nice with my Royal Encampment.

Speaking of which, a bunch of campaign tents:

These ended up being so much work! I was planning to make my own, and then I spotted these resin models on eBay at a really good price. I bought a set, only for them to be broken in transit as the resin was really thin in places. A second set was sent, free of charge, and they survived the trip. Pretty good result, as I was confident I could repair the broken set. Which I did. But the surface finish on all of them was really uneven - one tent even has a thumb print cast into it - that I ended up spending hours filling and sanding and filling and smoothing, to the point where I'm sure it would have been quicker to have started from scratch... then I dropped one and had to re-repair it...

I decided to spray paint them (to save time) and succesfully sprayed three red and three yellow. Then I masked them up and sprayed each set with the other colour to give the pattern. For some reason, painting the tape caused the glue underneath to go all wierd (yes, I tested the tape before hand) and it made the paint underneath gummy. I ended up scraping areas of paint off and hand re-painting the lot... BUT I'm quite happy with how they came out in the end!

Another eBay purchase, this resin cart turned out to be much easier to adapt! The poles and axles are actually wooden skewers cast into the resin (clever!) which you can cut to length as required. I just had to make the yoke for the boar. I'd be tempted to add a driver, and probably another cart, but it's hard to get excited about spending more time and money on non-combatants, if I'm honest.

Back to actual Citadel Miniatures, there are a few more in the range that I haven't included so far. These are the last two I bought, finally losing the willpower to *not* pay way too much for them. Presenting FTG12 Gnoll Children, representing a young Prince and Princess of our royal family

Here's a daft little addition, a pet boar piglet. This is actually an Alternative Armies mini, it came free with an order of 15mm SF miniatures and just happened to fit with this project. So here she is.

And because if it's in the miniature range, it's rude not to: Two Drunken Gnolls (FTG 10)

Filling that role of "unarmed civillians for the baggage train", if nothing else. I made the discarded "Gnoll Beer" bottle as a nod to "Hobgoblin Beer" which is a very popular bottled beer here in the UK. 

Finally, I thought I'd throw in a picture of Ursula the Dwarf for comparison with her Queen Boardica incarnation. I'd forgotten how much I'd changed her face to be honest! Other minor tweaks include losing those odd webbed feet and removing some rather too dwarfy decorations.

Scores for June:       0 points (!)                    19 models

Running Total:             2779 points            211 models

PHEW is that it now? All done?

Coming Next: Wrap Up Post

Somehow I need to get all this in one photo. I also need to balance the army list and maybe produce that unoffical Gnolls & Goblins variant I keep going on about...

Overlord note : I'll put you in at an extra 50 pts for the terrain pieces submitted in a wildcard month

Chris' Empire Army - Month 6 Wild Card! - 12 Flagellants and Baggage Camp (158 points)

Last official unit completed - 12 flagellants, suffering in the cause of emperor and a diorama style baggage camp - not given a points value but improves the character of the army no end.

Flagellants....

And the baggage Camp.....

The entire army is 2699 points and 174 miniatures excluding the camp which probably brings it to around 200 miniatures.

Fastest army I've painted so the motivation of the challenge has been great and made me to think about better painting techniques including GW contrast and AP speed paints.

Note : the Overlord grants you 50 extra points for this especially impressive baggage camp

Copper Oracle | 6 Rank and File. Veteran Tactical Marine Squad (690 points)

The Annals of the 9th Squad mark them as the last to leave the Fire Hawks first homeworld of Cousteau XI and thus lead the honour guard that is stationed on the planets memorial shrine.

March to the Stars. An account of the Fire Hawks.

With a picture in my head of massed ranks, my plan for May was for my second Tactical squad and Rhino. The figures in this squad are amongst my oldest Space Marines and also included the set with Terminator honours.These would work perfectly with the Veteran status and give me some extra detail to paint and help break up the repetition.

Veteran Tactical squad and Transport as well as finishing the Tech Marine I started last month

Rhino needs some prep and repair work, removing the transfers and fixing the Bolter mounts which have been attached backwards

Mid yellowing

Flames added

Start of the Rhino flames to match up with the first from last month. 

I also found an extra front spikes to add to the completed one.

Completed Squad

Veteran marines with Terminator Honours

Stone Terminator Honours

Completed Squad and Rhino Transport

1.  'Fire Walkers' 1st Company, 9th Squad,

Veteran Tactical Squad

7 marines with Bolt Guns

1 Marine with Conversion Beamer

1 Marine with Multi-melta

Sergeant with Power axe and Bolt Gun

Rhino Transport ' Pyre of Insha'

 =690

Grand Total so far = 3,821

Quin’s Rainbow Vale - Giants of Olde (1800 Points)

Rank & File Month IV

This first figure here is a member of the C28 Giants family. This model is made up of the following parts, Body Pose 3, Head 9 and Weapon 6.

This giant was not as pleasant to paint as the others (the chains on the body have more nooks & crannies than I’ve been used to, painting these mostly naked fellows the last few months) I think the struggle was worth my effort though, as in return he may be my favorite of the bunch.

Up next the classic Fiend Factory Giant, George the Giant. Formerly numbered as FF64v2, later in life he was one of the first C28 giants.

Lots of fun to paint this big guy, in many ways my paint job was inspired by Mike Meyer’s “Fat Bastard”

Now we find the Great Imperial Dragon, a massive creature that dwarfs even these giants. Somehow while painting him I broke the tip of his right wing off, never to be seen again :/

Here we have a cousin of George, Fergus the Psychotic Troll Giant. I believe the origination of this model was as a mail order special, the sculpt is based on the torso of George with lots of additions. When I picked this figure up he was painted a dull grey, which I didn’t mind. When repainting I decided to try my hand at a grey skin tone.

Next, here is a C28 Giant, again. We’re looking at Body 2, Head 2 and Weapon 4. I wanted at least one of my giants to have an “orcish” skintone, and this guy fit the part. Another fun one to paint!

And finally, another C28 Giant. This time comprised of Body 6, Head 3 and Weapon 1

Again, I had great fun painting this monster, with a reddish-yellow skin tone and light blue tattooing. This fella might have my favorite of the C28 head options, of course due to the bone through top knot.

5 Giants 250 points each (1250)

Dragon Type 3 with Flight (550)

Total for May - (1800)

I’ve got a few giants still straggling behind, so next month I plan to paint them up, as well as my final unit of orcs for the army. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to touch my Drew Day Williams Bog Trolls,,, if I have time they might get started as well.

Sewers.of.Estark signing out