'Monstrous' from IannickM: Lord of Change

Lords of Change, more fully known as the Watching Lords of Change and also as the Eyes of Tzeentch and the Feathered Lords, are the Greater Daemons of Tzeentch. The most powerful servants of their master, Lords of Change are in many ways essentially minor embodiments of all the characteristics of Tzeentch, renowned for their long-running and intricate schemes that weave across time and fate. Lords of Change are notable for being allowed access to Tzeentch's very own reserves of wisdom and for essentially being expressions of his cunning, which gives them great power. As individuals, they are all said to possess the attitude of wicked children; playful but mischievous and even openly malicious towards the lesser beings they delight in manipulating. Nothing is more pleasing to a Lord of Change than to break open fate and re-shape it, fate and re-shape it, be it by manipulation of individuals or direct action. Even without access to Tzeentch's knowledge of fate, they are said to be deeply intelligent and understanding of life's mysteries.

While I haven't been able to submit many bonus round entries this year, mostly due to real life issues and work, there was *no way* I'd miss the Monstrous round! Fantasy is my thing, and, well, monsters are a big part of it. From Dragons to Hydras, they are everywhere. But obviously, with my love of all things Oldhammer, it is in the depth of 80s sculpts that I would pick my candidate. The first painted miniature that wowed me and made me want to not only paint miniatures, but also be good at it, was a Lord of Change on the cover of the "Citadel Painting Guide", a small booklet which Games Workshop sold, at the time, for a buck! 

The Lord of Change, upper right

I just loved the vibrant tropical colours and the awesome look of this chaotic beast. So for the Monstrous challenge I decided to paint me one of those! I figured there would be a lot of dark stuff in this challenge, but I would go with a full blown display of colours! I find it a bit sad nowadays seeing people paint their Lord of Changes in mono colours of blue or purple, this is Tzeentch goddammit, the God of Change and mutations, and his servants should be as vibrant and colourful as possible!

At the time, Citadel made three bodies, with randomly available heads and tails. My favourite body was this one, and the two headed was also my favourite head. I waited for a while on Ebay until I found my perfect Lord of Change, and this guy's been in my collection for a few years now. 

So I obviously went with a full tropical colour scheme, inspired by the classic paint jobs of the 80s. I especially like my ultra bright green and the pale blue of the wings. This guy took me a while to paint, what with all the textures and the many details. He was also a pain to hold while painting! But I'm really happy with him, and I believe my 10 year old self would be very happy with his look.

He's going to have a place of honour in my future Tzeentch and Slaanesh allied force I've been collecting and planning in the last few years (my current force is Nurgle, undivided and Khorne). 

Hope you like him, cheers!

(10pts for the Lord of Change, a rather tall and big figure on the 50mm side of things, + the points for the bonus round).

'Monstrous' from JamesM: 'The command is given, the command is WALK!'

Hi folks,

In a change from what I had planned for this round, I've strayed away from my 15mm stuff and reduced scale slightly... down to 3mm! The quote from the title comes from one of my favourite Warhammer 40k books, Titanicus. that should give a clue as to what (at least some) of these models are!

At 3mm scale, my 'Monstrous' entry therefore consists of pretty small models! But I consider these to be monstrous for a reason! Here's some pictures with some of their smaller, infantry, allies.

Standing hundreds of feet tall, these walkers would shake the earth when they moved, light the skies when they fired and make any infantryman wonder what the point of being on the battlefield actually was!

These models are from Vanguard Miniatures 'Defeat in Detail' 3mm range - although the two types of 'Stalkers' I've painted are prototypes and not available for sale currently. The walkers are massive when compared to the Novan Elite troopers I've added to the bases above to help show scale (the Novan Elites are in power armour and are 7 meters tall - Vanguard's 3mm range is true scale). I've included a Novan Elite 'Trojan' APC as well as a couple of Gladiator infantry walkers.

While I'm using Vanguard's models, my concept is to use these models as proxies for a Warhammer 30k game set during the Betrayal of Calth. My Novan Elites are painted as Ultramarines, while the Stalkers are Reaver Titan Proxies for the Legio Praesagius Titan Legion who supported the Ultramarine Legion.

Two of the Stalkers are 'Dreadnought Stalkers', the 'Medium' or 'Main Battle' tier stalkers in the Cybershadow's faction armies. One is armed with an arm mounted Plasma Array and Triple Laser Cannon and dorsal Twin laser Cannon, while the other has a dorsal Multiple Rocket Launcher and arm mounted Hyper Laser and Heavy Rotary Cannon.

I've added decals to them to try and make them a bit more heraldic and individual, while still keeping them part of the same army. The decals came from various W40k sets I've picked up over the last few months! I viewed them as having their own heraldry, while trying to stick to the Legio Praesagius colours - although reference pictures for these Warhammer Titans are few and far between.

The third stalker is a currently unnamed model, but is a conversion kit for a 6mm Scale model which was sold by Vanguard (I believe it might be switching to a 3mm model with the conversion kit added). It's described as being a 'Battle Cruiser' Stalker, that uses shields, agility and speed to get up close and personal. I've built mine as a 'duelist' or ambush hunter, with close combat weapons and a light twin rotary cannon. While it might not make sense something this size being an ambush hunter, if you've read the Titanicus book you'll understand how it's possible!

The three Super Heavy Tanks are 'Punisher' tanks for my Novan Elites, equipped with various Anti-Tank and anti personnel weapons:

 Again, to give some idea of scale...

So 3 models that qualify as 28mm models, and 3 that probably count as 6mm models!

'Monstrous' from JamieM: Dark Eldar Monster/Vehicles

Hi all, it's been a while.... sometimes the painting gods smile on you and you get all the time you need (well, at least some time anyway) and sometimes you get absolutely no time at all..... and that's kind of what the last few weeks have been like for me - a combination of work and personal stuff has conspired to rob me of time.  There's probably a wall of text coming, so feel free to jump to the pretty pictures if you prefer ;)

Now, before I complain too much, I should point out that one of the things getting in my way was entirely self inflicted... namely a gaming tournament I'd agreed to play in.  I don't normally play in tournaments, they're too much like hard work and "winning" can become the thing, so I'd rather spend time with my mates playing normal games.  The one exception I make is the Doubles tournament for Warhammer 40k at GW HQ in Nottingham that they run a couple of times per year.  The reason I like it is that it gives me a chance to buddy up with a mate of mine who lives the other side of the country from me, about 3.5 hours drive away and we Brits consider that to be "a long way away" aalthough I appreciate it translates in American/Canadian to "virtually next door".  As I don't see him too often, it's a great excuse to make us get together for a weekend of geeking out.

The other thing related to this post is that I absolutely LOVE converting models.  It's one of the reasons I like fictional stuff so much, I can just do what I want to and not be constrained by real life.  The Games Workshop stuff is perfect for this as I maintain that GW produce the widest range of quality kits on the market - not necessarily the best pieces, but the widest range.  And sadly I've gotten out of the habit of converting.  I think this is because I have so much stuff on the shelves of holding that I feel like I don't have the time to convert and should just "get stuff painted" instead as converting is very time consuming.  What I like about converting is when you show your mates of someone passes the gaming table, spots what you've done and says "that looks cool".  I hadn't done anything worthy of that for quite some time I felt like that was an important part of my contribution to the hobby to hopefully inspire others as I certainly enjoy and am inspired by other people's conversions, more so than a good paint scheme.

Anyway, after the last doubles tournament I'd promised myself that I would do a bunch of conversions for the next one, so I dutifully purchased all the parts that I needed...... and left them on the shelves.  Three weeks to go until the tournament and I finally badgered myself to do it, despite the lack of time!  It did mean the converting used up a lot of my painting time, so instead of painting all of the figures I'd prepped and undercoated for the challenge, I was prepping again..... anyway, thanks for sticking with me, here's the first one

"So what is it?!?" I hear you ask through the magic of the internet.... well, it's a dinosaur with a howdah holding three evil elves with massive guns.  It's a Ravager made primarily from a Troglodon.

GW has two parallel worlds, Warhammer Fantasy (now Age of Sigmar) and Warhammer 40k.  The fact that both are exactly the same scale and essentially copy standard fantasy tropes for races (elves, dark elves, humans, ogres, etc) means they are ripe for conversion across the two systems.

The Howdah is totally scratch built from a variety of other kits, both fantasy and 40k.  I needed two Ravagers for my army, so here's the second one....

I tried to make them as different as possible by converting the neck to go look the other way and use a different tail and the Dark Eldaar (Dark Elves in space) are all different on the howdah and steering.

The Ravager is essentially a gunboat, intended to take out opposition tanks and heavies with three massive guns, hence the three Dark Eldar on the back, dancing around to get the best shot.

I lost track of the amount of kits I took things from for these conversions, but boy was it awesome fun and has reignited my creative spark.

On the weekend they fared very well and tallied a lot of kills.  The also died a lot as the Dark Eldar are the epitome of "glass cannon" armies and use wet cardboard for armour.

Next up is another conversion for the same army - this one is an Elf Griffon (no longer available so picture attached instead of a link) to be a Raider

As you can see, this is the troop transporter version of the gunboat and the theory is that the Dark Eldar are agile enough to hang around on the outside of it.

Another scratch built howdah (using the bottom half of the steps used on the Ravager conversion) and just the one lunatic with a massive gun on this one.

The hard line highlighting wasn't perhaps my best choice as I'm not really neat or patient enough to make it work really well.  I am pleased with the overall effect though as I've learnt that often with painted figures your eye will make up for it by seeing what it "should".  I got plenty of "dude, that's cool!"s through the weekend, so mission accomplished!

I do have another Griffon/raider converted , but I didn't quite get the hard line highlighting done (it's one of those jobs that's hard work so I tend to shy away from actually sitting down and doing it) so perhaps I'll pop it on in another post in the next few weeks if I get it done.

Overall then, 3 28mm vehicles for 45 and 10 full crew for another 50 to add 95 to my slightly anaemic looking total...

'Monstrous' from KeithS: The Chimera

So, I’m stuck in Albuquerque of all places thanks to the big storm yesterday and I’m desperately figuring out how to make a post on my phone - no easy task! Anyway, travel and technological woes aside, I present a Chimera by Ral Partha for the final theme weekend.   He was a fun one to paint!

I really like the sculpt - great detail, personality, etc. I went with a dungeon basing as this guy is gonna get used one of thes days for a D&D game!  He’s a looker, some goat, some dragon, and a whole lot of lion.

I wasn’t quite sure about the wings so made them fit closer to Mister Right Head (i.e. the dragon).  Seemed only fair since goat and lion got the lion-share of the body (I kill me!)

 All three heads look pretty angry and open for business (as in eating adventurers).

Well, that’s it for old school goodness. I’ve been traveling a lot so I only managed this guy for the theme weekend. I should have some more old school chaps before the end, but on Wednesday it’s off to Garycon in Lake Geneva WI where it all began for some serious gaming, including miniature games!

'Monstrous' from KentG: Tatsu Gigamek

So for my Monstrous themed round i went for this rather large Samuia robot called

Mishima Raiden Class Tatsu Gigmek from Probos games warzone chronicles

i painted over a two day period take eleven and a half hours there was almost no pictures except for the box art which was a front view picture so it took a bit to work out the colours, like the blue silver which was a bit of a guess on how to achieve.

when finished i was actually rather excited with what i had achieved and when my friend Martin saw it he was very pleased as this is the first of hundreds of figures i was to paint for him

so 160mm tall I think is 30 points

'Monstrous' from LeeH: Blood on the Snow

I bought this model at Salute last year with the express purpose of using it in this years Challenge, one way or another. The figure is a multi-part resin casting from Heresy Miniatures. The figure needed minimal cleaning and removal of a handful of cast lines was easily achieved with a sharp knife and some needle files. The parts where then given a thorough wash and scrub in detergent before assembly. As this model is for display I just glued the parts together but I would recommend drilling and pining if the figure is expected to be handled on the games table. The last stage before undercoating was to use GreenStuff putty to fill some of the join lines and blend the fur together so the model looks like its been cast as a single piece. 

The next step was building the base. The figure stands about 50mm tall but is designed for use with 28mm figures so this Snow Troll is actually looking down at its lunch (presumably someones character model!). Instead I wanted the troll to be looking at the viewer so I tilted it up at the front by about 20°. I then built the base up using layers of dried bark chippings, wood filler and grit. The base was then painted with PVA to seal it before applying my usual brown base coat to the whole model. 

Heresy have a picture of this model on their website and I referred to this photo before deciding how to paint mine. I found their interpretation too white and on my version I wanted to see the wonderfully sculpted fur so I used a dark base-coat and built up the white with about five layers of dry brushing followed by an ink wash and more dry brushing to emphasis highlights. A similar layered dry brushing method was also used on the rocky base.

After painting and varnishing comes the groundwork. Once again I pulled out my pot of Tamiya Snow Effect textured paint (its more like a grainy paste, than a paint) to lay down some fresh snow. This stuff dries hard in a few hours but while its still wet it can be brushed and sculpted to whatever effect you want. More importantly for this project, once the snow has dried hard, paint can be applied to the surface without fear of it soaking in or spreading. I didn't want to cover the whole base so I left some of the rocky crag exposed. I then finished off with some frost covered grass tufts. I bought these at Salute last year and have been keeping them for just this type of project.

Overall my favourite Bonus round so far and probably the project I am most pleased with. Now its heads down for the final weeks to finish more Zulu War units in the sprint to the finish line.