Welcome to the first month of the Wachtmeister’s Warmaster Challenge!  Let’s dive right in and check out the awesome entries this month! 

Tuggug is I and I tells the tale. WAAAGH is me trade. Me bruder, Wampgud, says I gets the troops to the plains and I has the troops in the plains. I goes to the swamps and tells the Trolls they bring theyself to the grasslands. Zuljin is leader here. He owes blud det to Wampgud and he bring his clan.

 I tells swamp Goblins theys come too. They owes Wampgu two clans. Gnarlak is clan master. He says, “no come, Wampgud not boss.”

Me says, “No lies, here.” I raise me axe to split Gnarlak into gobby bits. I feels Zuljin hand on me shoulder. I turns and thinks me going to die. It wuld be good ded, but still ded.

I sees Zuljin, he’s huge hand around me axe. He shakes he’s hed and press me axe down.  I wait to see what happen next.

He looks at Gnarlak. “Two frenz come.” Says he. Gnarlak, his eyes wide, jus’ nod he’s hed.

 Some orc, some smartty orc, he mus’ think he a shaman, he says “they is three clans there!” pointing to the Gobbo fightin’ over some dinner.

“Yes,” I says,” Gobbos can’t count!”

 Hooman scribe here. This week I count Tuggug, Orc Hero, 3 units of Goblins, and 1 unit of Trolls for a total of 245 points.

Wachtmeister: Todd did a terrific job on this months entry.  I really like the purple cloaks on the Night Goblins, they add a nice pop of color to what could be very bland troops, especially at this scale.  I can’t wait to see what he has for us next month!

One month in and I’ve already deviated from my original plan.  I had intended to submit a unit of Chaos Warriors, and a unit of Ogres, for the first month.  I didn’t quite get the warriors done, but I did finish the Ogres (105 pts), as well as a unit of Harpies (65 pts) and a Sorcerer (90 pts), for a total of 260 pts.  The Ogres and Harpies are based on 40×20 Warmaster bases, I drilled small holes in the bases and put in neodymium magnets so that they would stay put in their eventual storage box.  The Sorcerer is on a 1″ fender washer, again with a magnet in the center of the washer.  Next month I should have two units of Chaos Warriors done, as well as the General.

These miniatures have been waiting for me to paint them since the game was originally released.

RW

Wachtmeister: No plan survives first contact with the enemy and in the painting challenge adapting is all part of the game!  It’s ok if things get rearranged, it’s all part of the process!  I’m so glad RW has painted these figures, this year is the 25^th anniversary of the game so it’s great timing!  I’d like to see RW’s Ogres meet up against Todd’s Trolls!

I’ve been home literally 5 days for the entirety of August: Canada for 2 weeks, then directly to a week-long work conference, then straight to a 4-day reenactment, and now a 5-day multifamily weekend away. Still, I managed to finish 2 units of ashigaru bowmen for my Nippon army. If I hadn’t brought my paints and models to Canada, I would’ve been cooked! I’m still not sure how I want to do my bases: green sand, flock, or something else. I think I might wait until I get some more units done and then decide on color and terrain. Forgive my primitive photo, I’m currently in a hotel room.

All that aside, Warmaster scale is very challenging for my eyesight. I’m very surprised at how satisfying the finished models look. I now understand the attraction to this scale. It’s cool to see so many models in such a small area. These Wargames Atlantic figs are very cooperative in terms of the application of paint, edge highlighting, etc., but one issue so far is that very thin parts have a tendency to break during the removal from sprues. I snapped off 4 limbs of bows just getting them off the sprue. I’ll admit that I was initially worried about painting this scale, but I no longer have regrets about joining this challenge.

Next month I will be far more productive, and will try my hand at some ashigaru handgunners.

Wachtmeister: Wow.  I am so glad PygmyHippo decided to join in the challenge, he is already blowing me away with the quality of his work!  I can’t believe he did all of this while on all of those trips.  I took my figures to a five day work training and barely got everything cleaned up, I didn’t get even close to getting paint on anything!  Normally I wouldn’t count a mini as finished without it being fully based but with the month PygmyHippo has had, and the fact he is still making some decisions I’m going to count this as more than good enough for the month. Oh, the fact that I’m waiting on flock for my entry as I type? Totally unrelated.

Well, I’m definitely behind the power curve this month.  I thought I was right on schedule until I realized chariot units have three chariots, not just one so my pledge was six chariot models not two.  I had planned on adding a hero on eagle and a hero on chariot to the three eagle models and two chariot models this month also.  Well, when I saw it was actually six chariots I realized I wasn’t going to finish on time so I focused on the eagle unit and the Hero on Eagle.  I’ll have to settle for 170 points this month, with only 70 of those points being the initial pledge.  I guess I need to up the productivity if I’m going to get back on track! I have to say I wasn’t thrilled with the Eagles as I was painting them. I don’t normally use many washes and I feel these guys look a little dirtier than I’m used to. With that said I am thrilled with the noble and can’t wait to paint more elves!

Viden

Viden had a slow painting month so he has to use his Mulligan.  I have faith he’ll rally and finish up his army though!

With that let’s do some quick math and check out our stand and points total.  For the purpose of this challenge a stand counts and thing on a stand as a stand, whether it be a horde of goblins, a foot hero, or a mighty dragon.  Let’s see what we get done next month!

August total stands: 30

August total points: 785

-Wachtmeister

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PS A big thank you to PygmyHippo for coming in and adding the new graphics!