Congratulations to our competitors coming in strong with wave 2 of the 5th 40k 2nd Edition Challenge! I know you all want to check out the armies, so without further ado here they are!

Greetings fellow Waaagh enthusiasts! How goes the muster of boyz to your banner? Is everyone wearing their banner pole correctly? No Gazwanga, you do NOT attach it to the front of your pants… yeesh.. let us begin!

Another year, another challenge done and dusted! This final month was the chance to finish the last few Snakebite boyz I’d been struggling with and also to round up a couple more areas in my list. Being that this is a heavily Snakebite-focused army, I could not with a clear conscience leave out good old Zodgrod Wortsnagga. While I ran out of time to paint more gretchin, I do have twenty already done who will feature in some games hopefully soon as super gretchin 😀 I also rounded out the ogryns with two more members of the squad and also threw a squig catapult in the mix for good measure!

All up, I managed 57 models and 1908 points I believe! Strangely, for a horde army they actually took a lot of different colours and effort to get together and so it is a little less than what I had initially imagined. Still, I am immensely happy with what I have achieved for this challenge and will no doubt add to this army in the future! Hope you have had fun following along and will catch you next time 😀

Tain

Slice 6:

4 Snakebite boyz with bolters (leftovers from slice 3) (48pts)

Bonus models:

Zodgrod Wartsnagga (65pts)

Squig Catapult (40pts)

Runtherd (18pts)

2 Ogryns w. ripper guns and mesh armour (100pts)

Total: 271pts

Wachtmeister: Martin finished strong bringing his army up to almost 2,000 points this challenge.  He did a great job of finishing off the Snakebite boyz after letting them sit for a little while.  Sometimes it’s best to put a project on hold for a short period of time to get rejuvenated.  Despite featuring different colors across the army he still has a very coherent force and one I’d be thrilled to play against!

The last month is here and so is the final slice. This time another five Seraphim, three with bolt pistols, one with hand flamers and a Veteran superior with bolt pistol and plasma pistol. All the same colour scheme and added bits as the five that came before. In slice 5 I forgot to mention that I changed the base to new 32mm bases with a transparent plastic rod to support them. I did this because I think this looks better than the original attachment to the slotta bases and the bigger bases give more stability to the models (and in our wargaming group we tend to use 32mm bases for power armour even if we play 2nd edition). Here I did the same, this time using some scenic bases from Age of Sigmar ghosts I had laying around without any purpose, with some bits added to give a 40k look.

I expected to add more bonuses, such as an Eversor assassin, an immolator and a Frateris militia mob, but Real Life and hobby distractions joined forces to stop me from that. This makes the final army list as follows:

– Redemptor Kyrinov with Master-Crafted Bolt Pistol, Mace of Valaan, Icon of Chiros, Rosarius and Litanies of Faith – 129 points.

– Priest with chainsword, laspistol and mesh armour – 15 points.

– Sister Hospitaller with carapace armour, medicus ministorum, laspistol, chainsword – 34 points

– Battle Sisters Squad with Heavy Bolter, Meltagun and a Veteran Sister with Bolt Pistol and Power Sword – 225 points.

– Battle Sisters Squad with Heavy Flamer, Flamer and a Veteran Sister with Hand Flamer and Power Sword – 241 points.

– Seraphim Squad with one sister with two hand flamers and a Veteran Sister with Plasma Pistol and Power Sword – 204 points.

– Seraphim Squad with one sister with two hand flamers and a Veteran Sister with Plasma Pistol and Bolt Pistol – 200 points.

Total: 1048 points.

As a final note, I want to thank Dennis for the chance to participate in this year’s challenge and congratulate my fellow participants for their awesome work. I hope we see each other again in the next one!

Wachtmeister: These new bases are terrific, and I bet they go a long way to solving some of the tipping over issues metal models on flying stands have.  Plus the dark paint job does a terrific job of complementing the ivory power armor.  I’m also a big fan of the skeleton tombstone on the backpack, grimdark level 1000!  There is always more to add to an army, and rumor has it we will be doing this whole thing again next year so maybe the assassin and militia will make the painting table!

Vehicles galore! The final block is finished, and what a relief it is. Another set of vehicles for Kor’s fast attack force. I painted up 5 wartracks and 1 scorcher. Initially I planned on painting 2 scorchers, but during assembly I realised that I’m missing 2 parts for the second scorcher (the driver’s legs and a rear wheel for the towed fuel tank). Upon further reflection, I think I used that missing rear wheel when I made the hop splat gun a couple months ago. I’m sure I’ll come across more parts somewhere down the line.

There’s not too much to say that hasn’t already been said about the previous Rogue Trader era ork vehicles (fiddly to assemble, but characterful as hell). Probably the only special item of note is that I used the new 30x60mm cavalry bases to mount up the wartracks. The traditional 25x50mm cav bases were too small. The new bases are a perfect fit. And I built the scorcher’s base from thick plasticard (30x100mm). I like the wartrack gunners, and had some fun painting them each a little differently from one another. It’ll be an interesting experiment to actually play with this army, since I’ve never had so many vehicles in any Warhammer 40k army.

Thank you, Wachtmeister, for arranging this painting challenge! Participating in this challenge was a huge motivator to get my models done. And as ever, thanks to Dr.TV for getting the ball rolling on my painting renaissance!

Models for Month 6:

Scorcher – 50

Wartraks (5) – 300

Total Models: 6

Total Points: 350

Total Points for this painting challenge: 2473

Models completed for the Mark 5 painting challenge: 92

Scorcher – 50

Wartraks (5) – 300

Ogryns (5) – 235

Ork War Buggies (5) – 295

Zodgrod Wortsnagga – 65

Zodgrod’s Super Gretchin (40) – 200

Bad Moon Nobz Mob (8) – 433

Mekaniak with Shokk Attack Gun – 43

Snotling Herd (6) – 30

Hop Splat Kannons with Crews (2) – 120

Warboss with Plasma Gun on Nobz Bike – 91

Evil Sunz Boyz Mob on Warbikes (7) – 329

Evil Sunz Boyz Mob on Warbikes (6) – 282

More photos of my miniatures can be found on Instagram @pygmyhippo and on my blog https://giantpygmy.com

Wachtmeister:  Once again PygmyHippo did an outstanding job bringing these Rouge Trader miniatures to life.  They look superb and have so much character.  I’m going to have to prepare some templates to take on this horde for sure!  I’d like to thank PygmyHippo for the support with this challenge.  He helped me get the blog up and running and is responsible for the cool graphics you have seen.  I couldn’t have done it without him!

The final month of the challenge for me has been a very difficult one. Due to a significant medical issue, I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to be around at the end of the month. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on the things that are important to me. I thought back over the times we have spent doing this challenge over the past 5 years and can honestly say that I have no regrets. It has taken a lot of time and energy; a lot of late nights. It has also been an expensive hobby at times (looking at you Centurius, and the Armorcast Haruspex from last year). The friendships and the things we have created have all been worth it. The Wachtmeister has done a brilliant job keeping the challenge going and it has been great to reconnect with the veterans of the challenge and to meet some new folks. I have to say that I have missed the good Dr and I hope that our efforts have done the challenge he envisioned justice.

My recovery is ongoing, so I haven’t had much time this month to paint. I had a number of little projects and bonus models planned but, with a couple of days left to go, I realised I would be struggling to even finish one model. Not wanting to end on a bad note (or fail the challenge!), I decided to do something completely different. An idea that I have had for a while is to paint an old school model in the “Blachitsu” style, using the kind of colour palette the John Blanche regularly used in his amazing, gritty, artworks. It would allow me to be a little more creative with the final paint job and literally just go with the flow. I didn’t spend any time thinking about what colours to use and where; I just filled the palette up with a bunch of pigments and went for it. I’ll let you decide whether I succeeded or not.

Taking the final photo was worse than that time my Dark Angels squad stepped out of a Landraider into an orbital barrage and got pasted. I just could not get it right and didn’t have much energy for moving lights and backdrops around. So I apologise for the quality of the final photo. When I get the last little bonus models done, I’ll take the time to do it properly and post it. The final army is just over 1000 points (1068), adding to the sizable collection I completed last year. I don’t imagine I will be painting many more of these critters after the last couple are done, though I am really looking forward to using them in a game. As for the next challenge, I will have to see how I am going health and energywise. I would love to paint some Blood Angels commanded by Brother-Captain Tycho and even have some Grey Knights stashed away somewhere…

Wachtmeister: I love the change in direction M4cr0Dutch took with this Lictor, and yet the colors are similar enough he fits in with the army.  He looks like part of the same Hive Fleet but is sneaking around in the dark, just like he should.  We are all glad M4cr0Dutch pulled though, and I have to say I have been honored to have met him and shared many conversations throughout the last 5 challenges.  I look forward to his next army and would love to see some Grey Knights painted up!

It is astounding that we are at the end of another 2nd Edition Army Challenge!  The fifth such challenge that has been held!  Thanks to these challenges, In just 4 short years I have painted more miniatures than I had painted in the previous twenty-five years of gaming.  In the first three challenges I painted 3,000 points of Dark Angels, and now at the conclusion of the 5th challenge I have 2,000 points of Orks to ravage the battlefields of the 41st millennium.  This fantastic challenge has forged friendships as well as armies for I have found a great community of far flung friends online along with local friends to game with on a regular basis.  From the long reign of the good Dr The Viking to the watchful eye of the current Wachtmeister, the coordinators of this challenge have done a fantastic job of keeping the train on the tracks and facilitating the participation of many talented gamers and deserve hearty thanks and appreciation  Getting to be a part of this great project so many times has been more fun and productive than I ever could have imagined when I started.

This month I tackled the classic 2nd edition Ork dreadnought, along with a Evil Sunz Boys Mob. The Dreadnought was a bear to assemble but very fun to paint.  In the past I have often put my own spin on classic paint schemes but with this dread I wanted to paint it exactly as it appears in the codex.  As I painted it up it became obvious that the reason it had been so hard to assemble was due to the model being a recast.  The bad mold lines and soft details became very apparent in the painting process but I think I was still able to pull off a paint job I was happy with on the sizable mini.  It also gave me a chance to add a scenic base that matches the other large bases in my Ork army. After spending so much time on the dread, the boyz mob were only able to reach a tabletop finish but I know from prior years that I’ll use the downtime between challenges to complete their highlights.  

Thanks to all my fellow participants for the fun chats and endless encouragement.  It is my honor to be in the mix with so many talented painters.  Thank you to Dr The Viking for hatching this community from the chaos of Covid and great thanks to Wachtmeister and PygmyHippo for picking up the banner and keeping the challenge running.  I hope to finish off the last 1,000 points of my Ork army in a future sitxh army challenge and although it probably gives the Watchmeister night terrors, I have enough models and plans for a 7th army challenge… and an 8th…  and a 9th……

Warboss Gortslob – Snakebites Warboss mounted on a Cyboar, Flak Armor, Kustom Shoota, Kustom Force Field, Power Axe, Steel Skull         132 points

Ragnak Gutzsmashah – Evil Sunz Mekaniak, Shokk Attack Gun                      43 points

Brazdram’s Boyz – 6 Evil Sunz Orks including Nobz champion, 5 boyz w/ Bolt Pistols and Axes             90 points 

Muzzleskar’s Biker Boyz – 5 Evil Sunz Boyz including Nobz champion on Warbikes           258 points

Wildspittah’s Mob – 12 Goff Gretchin w/ Autoguns              60 points 

Krookslashah’s Mob – 13 Snakebite Gretchin w/ Auto Pistols and Knives                65 points

Rabidfang’s Stunties – Evil Sunz Snotlings, 3 x Snotling Bases               15 points

Da Brainkrusha – Goff Dred, Heavy Bolter Lascannon, 2 x Power Claw         145 points

Da Gloomkrakah – Evil Sunz War Buggy, Multi-Melta            65 points

Da Ragewhacka – Evil Sunz Wartrak, Twin-Linked Heavy Bolters               50 points

Da Eadrippa – Evil Sunz Splatta Kannon                  60 points 

Da Glumsmasha – Evil Sunz Traktor Kannon           40 points 

Army Total             1,023 points 

Wachtmeister: Jon did a terrific job with this months entry.  While the dread may be a recast you can’t tell by looking at it and that’s all that matters.  I think I figured I have another 9 challenges worth of Imperial Guard alone so Jon planning out the next few challenges isn’t as scary as he thinks.  Jons superlative would be “last over the plate” coming in at the last submitted entry in last/almost last in all six months.  Someone has to be the caboose and I don’t hold him using my early bedtime against me!  I look forward to our traditional end of challenge battle report!

After almost 28 years my Tactical Squad is finally painted. I realized after gluing them together it was going to be difficult to get to the chest eagles so I popped off the bolters and went to work. I’m still not great at edge highlighting but I think these are quite passable. I’m sure 17 year old me would be happy to have them painted to this standard! With this unit completed I finally have a legal Dark Angels army for 2nd edition. I guess I can run some Lion versus the Wolf scenarios now too! I had planned on getting a squad of Cadians painted up that have been half painted since just after the second challenge but it was not to be. I couldn’t not paint any guard though and I remembered I had this Leman Russ that needed finishing so I made sure to complete it. Besides, I figure Jon and his Orks will be real glad to see another template weapon when we have our traditional end of challenge battle! I still need to add banners to the Deathwing Master and the Deathwing Sergeant. The banners I printed up were too big so they weren’t finished quite in time. I had figured once I finished school this would be easy but despite having the lowest model count of any challenge I’ve been in so far I was finishing this up at the last possible second. Maybe I should stick with a lower model count next challenge as well, going back to guard might be risky! Still, I do need to finish those Cadians at some point….

It was a great honor getting to run this 40k 2nd Edition Challenge, Mark V. Once again we saw our contestants paint some great armies and I was really impressed with how hard everyone worked. I’d like to thank everyone who joined us this year and made it relativley easy on me. Sure, I occasionally had to ask for some additonal informaiton but I didn’t feel like a chicken with my head cut off so I have that going for me. Once again I need to thank PygmyHippo for all the help in setting up this blog and making the great graphics. I’d also like to thank Dr. The Viking for entrusting me with carrying on with his vision. It was a great privelage and I hope I did him proud.

Not exactly finishing strong, but I have a fair amount of other stuff I want to finish this month.  

I’ve been working on this second limo since month 2 but just kept delaying it   I actually really like how it has turned out.  (Although significantly lighter than the first).

The magus and 2 hybrids are from hybrid miniatures and were a joy to paint.

I really enjoyed painting this.  I will add some minor support elements eventually.  

Wachtmeister: Adrian’s not finishing strong is the rough equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger having an off day in his prime and only benching 450 pounds. Sure his max was 525 pounds but 450 pounds is still a ton of weight. Yes, Adrian didn’t paint more models in 12 days than some of us painted the whole challenge but it is still a very strong entry. I love the character of the Hybrid miniatures cultists and the limo is just terrific. Check out that horde of crazed cultists! Seriously, Adrian painted more in this challenge than I did in any two challenges, and I’ve been painting Imperial Guard!

Unfortunately, not everyone made it over the finish line.  Let’s take a moment of silence to honor those who received the infamous Sanction Redactus.

I hope you all enjoyed our adventure, thanks for hanging out with us! I’ll have one more post about the final months data and then I get to take a little break from the madness for a few months. I’ve already had a few people tell me they have plans for the challenge Mark VI….

-Wachtmeister