Khamdrim Sky-Master's Battle Against the Grey [BATG 2022]

The challenge has been issued, and my competitive nature (when I’m not scared of losing) always responds! I will be logging and hopefully completing those items that are unpainted (or insufficiently so) that are in my ever growing collection of shame.

Some of the projects that I will be, at least hopefully, tackling this year are:

BUT: Received 5 Bull Centaurs from @Hashoooot, and printed 4 Iliad Heroes and received another character from @Reaver that I’ll hopefully be painting up soon. Also fortunately or unfortunately printed another 16 guys, and received another 1 from the Artisans…. Slowly accruing interest here, and not of the good kind. Plus, I received a bunch of Grenadier DND miniatures from one of the in-laws as a surprise gift. Tallied the ones that I’m planning on keeping, adding another 24 to the list….Finally, I received one more metal model and printed 29 gobbos, bringing me down to the flat -200.

And this will be the location for the list of shame that I will have to paint to break even if/when I purchase things…

RECEIVED/BOUGHT: +81
PAINTED: -281
TALLY: -200!!!

Let the painting begin and may the odds be ever in our favor.

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All right @BATG_Warriors!!! Kicking off the BATG with a 15-man LotD Kill Team. A while ago, a good friend of ours sent @Reaver a box of goodies to sell or keep. At the same time I found myself salivating over the LotD models and happened to mention to him that I was considering buying some, but was annoyed at the pricetag. It just so happened that among that box of goodies there were 10 full unpainted LotD guys. So I sucked it up, bought a 5 man OOP Pewter team and added them to the 10 I got from Reaver as a trade-in. Pretty sure I lucked out in that trade too.

It seemed only fitting, therefore, to give these guys the honor of being my first painted miniatures of the new year.

First of all I didn’t really like the absence of good arm poses (and by good I mean tacti-cool af). So I chopped a bunch of Space Marine squad arms and reassembled them. Then I made some random bits and bobs out of greenstuff (i.e. joins, armpits, and the occasional pointing hand):


Once I was done, they got assembled once I figured out how to properly pin with the pesky little superglue that stuck to my hands more than the models (go figure…). For basing, I just crushed some rocks and used greenstuff to make some light flames so that it looked like they were walking on lava. A gallery of them pre-painted in all of their “glory” is posted HERE.

Once assembled and primed, it was time to paint!! I started with a light blue zenithal highlight (light in the application, dark in color though), and then hit them with a very light drybrush in a slightly lighter blue


Then it was time for the wet-blend session for the flames that quickly became the bane of my existence for about two weeks while I slowly chugged along. Then came the bones.

Then finally the lava, which took less time than I thought. Then all the tiny little details. So here they are, in all their glory.

First set down, with a solid -15!!!

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Placeholder for DG KillTeam

So let’s start with the three randos. Along with the beautiful bounty I got ages ago that included some OG daemonettes, I got the Death Guard Dark Imperium portion. That inspired me to make my kill team (more to follow on that), inspired by both Dead Space and the 7 dwarves. I still don’t understand how I thought that would be a good combo. But this also gave me an excuse to look at and paint the other characters too, just not in that theme. So, I primed and painted the three characters that came with the set to start with, and tried to do something different than what I usually do.

I started with a brown basecoat added with my airbrush, followed be a heavy “zenithal” (just because of how heavy and all covering it actually was) of a mix of bone and ork skin green.

I then “carefully” stipled lighter mixes of the same highligh colors onto the models to give them that dirty motteld look. I found out that it didn’t really give them a lot of shading, but eh, you live and you learn.

So, after probably waaaay too long, here are the three characters. I did not realize just how many details the f-ers had.

Noxious Blightbringer

Lord of Contagion

Malignant Plaguecaster (Yes I know it’s the wrong backpack, haha. I realized that when I got online to see if I could get inspiration for the fly… herp derp)

And one last time, all together now! All we need is love … doo doodoooo doooooo!!!

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Started, or rather continued, with my Emperor’s Children army for 40k (my first love), by making two units of 3 havocs each. These would finally carry a little more umpf that my infantry badly needed. From some Kromlech (I think) legs and some old metal devastator arms and backpacks I fashioned three lasgun and three heavy weapon havocs to allow me to increase the firepower output of an already firepower heavy army. I gotta thank @MichaelX for the idea of using yellow for the weapon body… I may have to repaint some units since I like it so much. Yay rework!!! Anyway, here they are:

And here they are, fitting into the rest of the army:

That’s another -6, hopefully followed soon by some bikes (woooooo speed) and another set of 5 terminators…hopefully

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teams of Chorfs

Scavenger tanks

Pegaso Rusky knights

Gloomhaven progress

my cheaty-cheaty 1:72 napoleonic armies (easily -200 here)

It all started with 18 Scot Greys. They turned out to take way more time than I thought they would.

Then we added a small contingent of 36 Old Guard Grenadiers (with about three times that amount looming over me as I struggled to slowly get through the first contingent alone)

That adds another -18 to the score (for infantry I am counting 2:1 for now)

Then there were more as another detachment of 36 guard showed up as reinforcements… they multiplied!!!

The last contingent of 72 grenadiers joined the fray, to complete the unit of 144.

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So good!!!

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After all of that tiny detail painting, I decided to move to something super simple and quick: TERRAIN!!! My first effort was in 4 old ruined building pieces from an old bits box, which are also my first terrain pieces ever.

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moved the post to my army post, since I was a dumb dumb and forgot that I even had that. If you want to see the post you’re gonna have to go HERE

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The death guard squad is crazy good! Seems almost about to jump out of my computer screen!

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Thanks man! Hopefully your centaurs will be up there soon! I did some gap filling yesterday. Such awesome models! thanks again for them!

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Now it’s time to add the redcoats.I had two boxes for a total of 98 mixed units (I think it’s three so I’m going to have to brush up on the types). These guys took a lot more time to paint, since there were significantly more bits of detail on these than either the Zvedzda or the older Italeri kits.

I am eagerly awaiting another two kits of these from back home, since it is clear that the grenadiers have a solid numerical advantage (being 3 kits vs 2).

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Man… that scale does really make models look like an army!

Lovky paintjob mate!

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After staring for countless at @Oxymandias’s Roman legions, I got the urge to paint some. Luckily I had a small contingent of my legions here in the US, so this testudo and two ballistas got some love.

The biggest pity here is that the formation itself hides all of the details of the soldiers… probably shouldn’t have spent too much time painting all the tiny little details. No-one was going to know…. BUT I WAS GOING TO KNOW. The thought drove me to paint them anyway.

With another 30 legionaries and 2 ballistas, it’s another -18 to the BATG score. Slowly getting there, gents!

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Great stuff @KhamdrimSkyMaster . Those barbarians aren’t going to conquer themselves now are they?

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@Oxymandias, no they definitely won’t! And their first challenge will be taking on the 38-strong macedonian phalanx of Alexander the great (yes, yes, I know the timelines are off but you tell me which memorable greek leader ever fought against post-Marian reform roman legions). In a make-believe world where the fall of Corynth in 146 BC never happened, the romans must face this wall of spikes!

Disregard how crooked these sarissa are…it was hard enough to get them to look even remotely straight after having been in boxes for 10+ years

These count as another -19 in the BATG. More to follow!!! (and maybe some bonus photos of older painted republican romans and gauls)

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I’m also continuing the Napoleonic War theme going with more cavalry! This time 7th Brigade Hussars. These 17 riders will slash through the allied lines, or so Marshal Ney was hoping…history doesn’t remember him so fondly.

They are still very clearly in the WIP process, but I’m excited to add my first french cav unit to the fray. I’m aiming to give the horses leopard skin saddle cloths.

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