Armoured/Army April ’19: Community Painting Challenge – Community Round-Up

Dave Stone’s Imperial Forces

Kicking off this month’s challenges for Armoured April/Army is Dave Stone of Wargames Terrain Workshop. Made up predominantly from Imperial Assault figures from FFG, seeing them all collected together certainly has an impact beyond what the individual models can convey, as nice as they can be individually. I think this is something we’ll see repeatedly throughout this round-up.

Dave Stone’s Imperial Riot Stormtroopers

Dave has also completed a few models for the Armoured aspect of the month’s challenge, starting with this squad of Riot Stormtroopers.

Dave’s Stormtroopers.

Next up, Dave has a squad of regular Stormtroopers, adding to his armoured troops completed in April. Quite a nice collection of dirty-white armoured troops completed in a single month!

 

ssspectre’s Thracians

ssspectre from The War For The End of the World gives us a shot of his beautifully painted Thracian force. With them, he’s achieved something very similar to what I’m aspiring to with my Vikings, in a colourful and characterful that also retains a link to reality and how things may have actually looked in the day. The details apparent on his warriors’ shields and the patterns embroidered on their tunics and cloaks look fantastic, and even moreso when you go in close to look at them more closely. There are a number of close-in photos of them on his blog post, and I think it’s one that is definitely worth checking out!

ssspectre’s Thracian heavy hero – Anathaetes.

ssspectre also put together an individual model for Armoured April – Anathaetes, a Thracian Hero in heavy armour. Anathaetes can also be seen on the right-hand side of the group shot above, alongside his fellows.

 

Steve’s Relictors Space Marine Dreadnought

Steve from Dreadaxe Games completed a pair of models for the Armoured April challenge – reinforcements for his Relictors Space Marine Chapter. The first being an Ironclad Castraferrum Dreadnought. I really like how smoothly he applied that decal for the banner’s skull-icon.

Steve’s Relictors Primaris Chapter Ancient.

Steve’s second submission for the month is another Relictor – this time a Primaris Chapter Ancient carrying a captured Chaos Icon. I can’t in any way see why other Imperial Forces might think the Relictors’ loyalties to be a little suspect.. can you?

 

mcmattila’s Warzone Capitol Light Infantry Captain #2

mcmattila of mcmattilaminis painted an Old-School WarZone model. The figure is Light Infantry Captain #2, though he’s armed as a Capitol Special Forces Trooper with M516D Shotgun. Back in 1e WarZone, though – you could equip your heroes with pretty much anything from their faction’s wargear list rather than them having bespoke gear, as many current 40k models have, which explains the confusion. Either way, he’s done a great job with the Star-Spangled Pauldron, as well as the dented and scratched armour.

 

Dave Kay’s Reaper Bones Wights

Dave Kay from Scent of a Gamer completed this pair of Reaper Bones Undead figures for Armoured April. I’m not sure of their exact “official” names, but Dave has painted them as a pair of Wights, which works for me! In order to achieve that Undead glow, he’s used the new(ish) technical paints from Games Workshop, Hexwraith Flame and Nighthaunt Gloom – and to great effect!

 

steinbergshedspace’s Death Guard Chaos Legion force.

Another hobbyist who has contributed something for both Army April and Armoured April is Steinberg of Steinberg Shed Space. He’s firstly shared a shot of his impressively-sized Death Guard Legion force.

Steinberg’s Death Guard Plaguecaster Pete

Next up, Steinberg also completed this Death Guard Plaguecaster (named Pete) – geared up in his Powered Armour.

Steinberg’s Death Guard Myphitic Blight-Hauler

Finally, Steinberg completed and submitted this Death Guard Daemon Engine – a Myphitic Blight-Hauler. I don’t know who names these things…

 

Wudugast’s UR-025, Man of Iron.

Wudugast, from Convert or Die completed UR-025, the Man of Iron player character “hero” from the Blackstone Fortress Board Game. As Wudugast rightly points out, UR-025 is basically a walking suit of armour, and so qualifies quite nicely for Armoured April.

Wudugast’s Khorne Bloodrager

Wudugast also completed this heavily iron-looking Khorne Blood Warrior as part of Armoured April.

Wudugast’s growing Khorne Warband.

That same Blood Warrior features in Wudugast’s first of two shots for Army April. The AoS Khorne Mortal Warband inspired by Alex’ challenge from earlier in the year.

Wudugast’s mob of 75 40k Boys

Finally, Wudugast shows us what 75 footslogging Ork Boyz for 40k looks like.

 

Sunfire’s Age of Sigmar Tzeentch Warband

Sunfire, from Rhoda’s Reach has shared his Age of Sigmar Tzeentch/Tzaangor Warband, for Army April – along with some intricate custom scenery. The details of these can be seen much mroe in a series of posts over on his blog.

Sunfire’s 30k Death Guard Legion

Sunfire also shared his Death Guard Legion army shot for Horus Heresy/30k gaming. A pretty sweet looking shot of the earlier iteration of the Death Guard here!

 

Carlo’s Dirz

Carlo of Deuteros Games completed a trio of Dawn Warriors from the Alchemists of Dirz faction from Confrontation. The soft pastel shades and subtle tones within the NMM that Carlo used on these models is reminiscent of Rackham’s artwork for the game at the time.

 

mcmatilaminis showcase features 5 different Warhammer Underworlds Warbands.

mcmattila of mcmattilaminis has chosen a “compilation” shot of 5 Warhammer Underworlds/Shadespire Warbands. The shot features Bonerattle, Stormcast, Ironjawz, Khorne Bloodbound and Skaven.

 

mcmattila’s Revelators Ironclad Dreadnought

mcmattila also completed this Ironclad Dreadnought for his Revelators Space Marine Chapter. This model obviously covers the Armoured portion of April for mcmattilla, and the machine looks all the more impressive for the heavy weathering and chipping that has been applied.

 

Warbringer’s Mollog’s Mob

Warbringer, from the Krakendoomcool blog completed Mollog’s Mob, a Troll/Troggoth-themed warband from the Warhammer Underworlds game. If you’re interested in seeing how Warbringer achieved the vibrant look on these models, he happens to have included a series of WIP photos with a walkthrough on the post.

 

Eloth’s Space Wolf Force

Eloth, of Eloth’s Endeavours has submitted his Space Wolves Force as an Armoured Army this month. A nice mix of Thunderwolf Cavalry and infantry, along with a kitbashed Wolf Priest on foot to lead the force. Eloth has gone to lengths to make each of his Space Wolf models an individual.

 

Pete's IS-7 Heavy Tank

Pete S /SP from SP’s Projects Blog completed this IS-7 Soviet Heavy Tank. This beast is certainly a piece of armour that qualifies for Armoured April! Makes me want to dig out my 28mm scale one from Warlord and get started on it!

 

Argentbadger’s Druze Bayram Security force

Argentbadger, from The Bovine Overlord this month shares a shot of his Druze Bayram Security force from Infinity that he has been diligently working on over the past several months. We kept asking for a group shot, and now that we have it, the wait was certainly worthwhile, as I’m sure you’ll agree!

 

Krautscientist’s Original HeroQuest Collection

Krautscientist from the Eternal Hunt provided the final submission for Army April – his completed Old-School set of HeroQuest models, along with a couple of custom extras to cover some of the characters that GW/MB never supplied unique figures for. The project has been a clear labour of love for KS, as it was something that readers could watch take shape over the course of several months. A pretty spectacular achievement!

 

So of course, I missed some models, as I was working down the comments and missed some of the stuff up top.

Alex’ Zymot Thrallgash, the Ork Commander of Station 2

Alex’ Old-school Armoured Orks

Alex of Leadbaloony finished off rather a fair few old-school armoured Orks of different types. There’s Zymot Thrallgash, the Commander of Station 2, followed by da Yellow Skwad

Alex’ Rulko, Captain of the Guard

Alex’ Kalug – the boss for Station Three and his cronies.

These boyz were followed by Rulko, Captain of the Guard, and Ork engineer Kalug, the boss of Station Three – along with his power armoured entourage.

 

 

 

And me? Well, I didn’t get an army shot taken, and I only finished a small few of the Armoured figures I had hoped to. So here’s what I got done for April’s challenge. There’ll be another month for army shots down the line, so I’ll catch up later on…

Speaking of… is your own Armoured or Army April Challenge work missing from here? If you left a link in the announcement thread, then it should be here and I apologise. If there’s no link there, then leave one here. I may seen, read and even commented on your post, but I’m damned if I can remember each and every blog post I go through each month! Broken links, etc – just bring it to my attention and I’ll also fix them up ASAP.

The Jewel of July ’19: Community Painting Challenge

Yeah, I’m WAY behind in posting all of the things. Both my own and the community round-ups for the past couple of months. I’ve been dealing with family bullshit, family health issues and I’ve been sick twice (still on the second one) and had an injury in between the two. Still getting past bits and pieces slowly, not looking for sympathy or anything like that – but that’s why I’m still behind. Yes, it’s been a fucking relentless year so far.

Still, not the purpose of this post. What is the purpose is to announce the Painting Challenge for July, and following on from last year’s positive reaction, we’re doing Jewel of July again. What’s that, you may or may not ask? Well, luckily, I’ve got last year’s announcement post that I’m going to mostly-recycle. I simply updated all of the images and left the text, because as I said, I’m still sick, and besides – the rules are the same as last time!

And so….

……………..

Something different for next month. To celebrate the middle of the year, I thought that July’s challenge should be something a bit more open than Squads or Neglected Models (don’t worry, we’ll see a lot more of both of those!) Based somewhat on Decembruary, but more open even than that, since Decembruary was all about centrepieces, so it excluded small hero models and scenery. This coming month, we open it right up.

Oh – and all of the images I’ve used in this post are illustrative of things that do indeed count for challenge purposes. July is a wide-open month that above all, aims to be fun. Just as importantly, all images are clickable and will send you to that person’s blog post. So do indeed check out some stuff that’s new to you!

Alexis West’s Keeper of Secrets

Marouda’s Fimbrethil, Entwife.

I’m under no delusion that everyone I’ve linked here will have the time/inclination/etc to participate this next month, so don’t feel “called out”, but I did feel like this post would be a good opportunity to provide a ton of examples of stuff that can be considered valid models for June July. JULY, and rather than just populate it with models from my own collection – use models from your collections instead with links so people can check out more of one anothers’ blogs. Because community and all that.

Ellen’s Idoneth Deepkin Eidolon

Krautscientist’s The Hound, Enkidu Lance, XII Legion 4th Assault Company.

Thomas’ Aramis the Skullstalker.

TIM’s “Fantasy Island”

The Jewel of July is about painting (almost) anything you want that you think will be cool, or impressive, or just nice.

It’s for Heroes. Big or small. named or otherwise. A Lieutenant or a Medic or a Warlord Riding a Dragon. An Inquisitor’s aide or a Star Player or a Bounty Hunter.

It’s for Vehicles. A Motorcycle or a Maus. A Starship or a Gaslands Car. A Panzer IV to a Kettenkrad. A Rhino APC or a Konigstiger or a War Rig or a M’ak I. (or M’ak II?)

It’s for the more impressive scenery pieces. A desert oasis or a (ruined?) temple or a bunker complex or a single bunker or a skyscraper or a Ferratonic Incinerator or a Kwik-E-Mart. A forest worth of trees or a jungle worth of plants.

It’s for Monsters. Ogres or Ogors. Dragons, Giants, decent-sized Daemons. Bronze Bulls and Dinosaurs and Great Wight Sharks and Goremaw and Cthulhu.

It’s for Dieties and Demi-gods. Primarchs and Titans. Atlas and Aeres and Abaddon. Horus and Hercules. Venus and Vulkan. Saturn and Sanguinius.

It’s for Mechs and the Mechanicum. Steampunk walkers, Dreadnoughts, Imperial Knights, Warjacks, Tripods, Titans.

It’s for Dioramas and Vignettes. Historical, Fantasy, Sci-Fi. It’s all good. Even better if they also feature something from the above!

So yes. Anything from a USMC Corpsman to a 28mm scale Warlord Titan counts for this coming month’s challenge.

Mark Morin’s Cavalry Squad of Power Armoured Frinx, riding Glyptodons. Because OF COURSE they are.

Caseyrog’s Chaos Minotaur for BloodBowl.

Jason’s Volturnos, High King of the Deep.

Wudugast’s Skaven Warp-Lighting Cannon.

Ann’s Yellow-Moldy Poxbringer

Just Needs Varnish’s custom Panzerjäger V Ausfuhrung A Kobra.

Argent Badger’s Carrion Emissary.

Krakendoom Cool’s “Horny Toad” Nurgle Helbrute.

Pandora’s Bitz Box’ Norris Thing/Possessed Marine.

Pandora’s Bitz Box’ Imperial Assault AT-ST.

Warbringer’s Magni Warbringer, Techmarine of the Salamanders.

Alex’s Kal Jericho and Scabs

Backtothehammer’s Garagrim Ironfist

Mr.White’s Terrorgheist and Ghoul King.

Sfjy’s Knight Castellan, in all its imposing glory.

EJ Henries’ Night Lord Renegade

Imperial Rebel Ork’s Bruiser and Bully.

Redboarwiiingers’ Blood Bowl Ogre.

What isn’t it for? It’s not for the truly small stuff – units of line infantry, or barrels and crates. Little bits of scatter terrain.

Units are okay, if they would individually fit in with the above categories. This means units of tanks, or Inquisitors’ retinue members, or units of Ogres or Carnifexes (Carnifii?) or what used to be Space Marine Command Squads all work, but an Imperial Guard squad, or a Space Marine Squad, or a unit of Fallschirmjaeger don’t.

Not this…

…or this.

As always, the biggest distinction between this painting challenge and many others out there are that I only care about you completing these models. It’s not a “start-to-finish” challenge set during a single month, so regardless of whether you just missed out on finishing that diorama or tank this month, last month, or six months ago – or you’ve got stuff that you’ve been chipping away at for six months – or, indeed – if you’ve got models that have been shelved for months or even years, feel free to dig them out and join in.

Similarly, if you want to go start-to-finish, then feel free to go right ahead. It’s about completing cool things. The challenge is designed to easily fit into your (and my) painting schedule and be flexible enough to encompass quite a lot, and hopefully just act as a bit of an impetus or inspiration to get this stuff completed.

As I said up the top of this post, I don’t expect that everyone shown above will be able to join in, but if you’ve been on the edge of joining in on one of these challenges, or just painting some stuff anyway that fits into the many categories, please do feel free to join in. This goes for you, too Marouda!

Once again, I will NOT be posting regular updates over the course of the month on it. I WILL do a round-up of all the participants I’m aware of following end of the month, though – so once again – please DO LINK to this post when you finish something that you want counted in the round-up – because I WILL forget your post otherwise. It happens every single month. Also, if you’re doing the Terrain and Neglected Models: June 2019 Community Painting Challenge, be sure and link your finished units over there. There’s still a few days left to go!