Copper Oracle | 8 Round Up

The Completed Fire Hawks force

My first OWAC completed! 

The challenge has been a fantastic drive and incentive to get my Space Marines, which had been slowly accumulating over several years, finally painted. I have a habit for working on multiple projects which means finished projects tend to come in bursts and then nothing for months as they all crawl forward. Being this focused one group (bar a couple of exceptions when the inspiration was on me!) is not something I am used to doing but has been a rewarding experience and I will certainly be trying to be a bit more focused going forward as a result. The challenge has also impacted on my painting as well, feeling more confident in blending (sooo much yellow!) and also more confident in working freehand, not necessarily any good, but more willing to try and get better for the trying! 

The community element has been a great support as well as seeing everyone else's armies grow. So much talent and inspiration that I will certainly be coming back to again to help with future projects I have lined up.

Where I began at the start of the year, all assembled, based and undercoated. 

Six months have gone by quickly and although a couple of the middle months were a last day ( and night until 11.59!) dash due to work/life I am very glad I was able to avoid the Field of Bones and make the finish line with 76 figures including 4 tanks and 5 Dreadnoughts all painted

'Fire Eaters' 8th Company, 2nd Squad

  'Endurance' 2nd Company. 3rd Tactical Squad

 

'Fire Walkers' 1st Company. 9th Veteran Tactical Squad

'Devourers' 1st Company.5th Squad. Squad Kempler

'Dominus' Field Police Tactical Squad 

Rhinos 'Pyre of Insha' , 'Zhoros Endures' and ' Intolerance' 

Grav Tank 'Lance of Zhorus' 

'Sky Shard' 8th Company land speeder Support Squadron

Bomb bots

Techmarine Corps

Medical Corps

Chaplaincy 

Librarian Haze

8th Company Standard

Lieutenant-Commander Thrace, 8th Company

Command Group

Force Command

The "Ansell' army pose 

👑 KORAG RISEN – Benjamin's Wrap Up Post

I've actually got a fever whilst writing this - but apparently it's not COVID.
Could it be OWAC withdrawal? Ask me again in 2023.

We're finally here! It just seems like yesterday that I was hurriedly pouring my heart out to you guys about all things beast and Bob. It's been an amazing learning curve, figuring out pretty much everything from painting, converting, sculpting, and it's been really thrilling to see these skills develop. I'm certainly not new to these skills, but I've never really FINISHED anything at this scale before. Seeing the army completed now is a little surreal, and it's hard to imagine life not working on it.

Will we see a version 4?

Loose Ends!

So I had a few bits and bobs left over, specifically to join the Pestigor and Spearman units...

Spot the Ral Partha AD&D figures...

I also wanted to finish these guys before I forgot what colours to use...

Beasts on beasts!

And some other guys got a touch up...

Consistency is key...

I was also obsessing over Bryan Ansell's 1987 Golden Demon t-shirt, so ended up making something silly to commemorate the event...

Wait until those nerds at work see THIS.

Korag's Horde

The photography set up in my cluttered dungeon really struggles at this scale!

So what's the final points roster? Let's just admire them all one last time...

MONTH ONE - KORAG OF THE PITS (unit 1)

NAME	TYPE	pts
KORAG OF THE PITS	Level 10 Hero	113
MURFANG’S MARAUDERS	Level 5 Hero Beastmen x 23	363
	TOTAL	496

MONTH TWO - THE PIT KING’S DESPOILERS (unit 2)

NAME	TYPE	pts
THE PIT KING’S DESPOILERS	Level 10 Hero Minotaurs x 11	688
	TOTAL	688

MONTH THREE - GARTHOR'S WILD HUNT (unit 3)

NAME	TYPE	pts
GARTHOR, LORD OF THE CRAGS	DRAGON OGRE	247
GROGER HEXHOOF	Level 10 Wizard	170
BLUDGER BLOODMANE & THE WILD HUNT	Level 10 Hero Centaurs x 23	1120
	TOTAL	1537

MONTH FOUR - THE IRON CLAWS (wildcard)

NAME	TYPE	pts
THE IRON CLAWS	Chariots x 4	448
	TOTAL	448

MONTH FIVE - THE ARMY OF KORAG (unit 4)

NAME	TYPE	pts
KORAG THE DESTROYER	Level 15 Hero	174
AUROG, BATTLE STANDARD	Level 10 Hero	213
GROB’S HORDE (PESTIGORS)	Level 5 Hero Beastmen x 23	363
RAMBROK’S ELITE GUARD (SPEARMEN)	Level 5 Hero Beastmen x 23	388
	TOTAL	1128

MONTH SIX - KORAG THE CONQUEROR (general)

NAME	TYPE	pts
KORAG THE CONQUEROR & THE WINGED TYRANT	Level 25 Hero Level 10 Wizard Level 5 Hero Massive Chariot	684
	TOTAL	684

GRAND TOTAL - 4991 (or 5303 if you include this month's extras!)

In Conclusion...

It's been really fun to work on this, and the monthly deadlines and community support has been excellent throughout. Seeing everyone's projects develop at such an inspiring level has left me feeling very lucky to have shared this experience in such rich and valiant company.

Will I do it all again? Certainly! But maybe not quite at the same scale. The sheer quantity of figures, conversions and sculpting required did cause this to take over my life a little more than expected, and at times the creativity and quality control became sidelined to just get the stuff done. But I'm sat on a big hairy horde as intended.

A big thank you to everyone who reads these posts, the courageous and inspiring challengers, the enigmatic Bob Olley, my patient and supportive girlfriend and to the mighty overlord himself for creating this platform for us to showcase our labours. It's been fabulous, frantic and most of all fun.

So what next? More beastmen? Possibly. More Olley stuff? Certainly!

See you next time...

You're doing it the wrong way you idiot.

AdamH’s Skaven - Wrap-up – Indelible ink and ravenous rodents

Another OWAC down and another mass of metal painted by me. I mentioned it to our glorious overlord over messages at the start of the challenge but without a doubt this is the most productive period of the year for me painting wise. Furthermore I have painted more during the three OWACs I have been a part of than pretty much the rest of my (long) painting history. There is something about group challenges and the motivation of everyone pushing themselves together that really jells with me. I don’t think I have said it before but I am really thankful to be a part of this challenge each year and I honestly enjoy seeing all of the wonderful models everyone comes up with.

Anyway, enough soppy stuff, I know what you are here for, to see my awesome bod:

So had a bit more work done on the tattoo, top was finished minus the background and had the lower part added with a bad-ass assassin kicking some empire dude in the head. Next up is joining the two pieces together and then adding some background.

And yea the force looks great altogether, love how the big blocks of troops look, especially the screaming bell unit. Although to be honest I always planned to have the screaming bell inside a unit of Stormvermin.

Here are the totals for everything painted during this challenge:

UNIT	EXTRAS	#	TOTAL
CHARACTERS
Vermin Lord (600)		1	600
Warlock Engineer (56)		1	56
Grey Seer (340)	Screaming Bell (200)	1	540
Battle Standard (77)		1	77
UNITS
Rat Ogres (40)		8	320
Packmaster (10)		8	80
Stormvermin (9.5)	Halberds (2) Shields (1)	13	123.5
Giant Rats (2.5)		60	150
Packmaster (10)		10	100
Slaves (2.5)	Musician (2.5)	25	65
Clanrats (6)	Standard (6) Musician (6)	37	234
TOTAL			2345.5

I resisted the urge to get all of the models out at the same time during the challenge, including those I painted in a previous OWAC so getting everything together for some group shots was actually really exciting! Check out this mass of diseased fleebags:

Pretty much as soon as I finished in June I started planning the next (and possibly final) expansion to the army. I still have enough clanrats, slaves and plague monks for additional units as well as a few other units I haven’t painted any of yet (mostly Skyre), so probably not next year but the year after you may well see the return of the rats for one last squeak.

So all in all this has been another successful challenge, I have painted almost exactly what I set out to at the start and I am super happy with how the army looks altogether. Now I just need to crush some stinky greenskins with them soon…