Sunday, January 21, 2018

'BFG' from AaronH: Bombard and Crew - The Original BFG

This entry is for the BFG bonus round. This is a 20mm Bombard from Zvezda. I left off the small crew and added crew from some Hundred Years War artillery from Black Tree Design.



The bombard was the original big gun. They were laid out on the ground because they didn't have a carriage that could handle the beast.



These were wall breakers, but also prestige items. Henry the VIII had twelve of them cast for his war in France, the Twelve Apostles. Due to their high cost they were often heavily decorated.



The model itself is nice enough, though the canon has some unfortunate casting errors; which, come to think of it, is fairly accurate from an historical perspective.



The BTD figures are nice. Simple, easy to paint. Good clean casts as is normal for their stuff.



Looking at this I realize that I failed to cover a couple of the holes for the tabs on the 20mm figures. The timber bracing behind the gun is my favorite part of this model. It really looks the part.



The barrel is removable in case I want to do a wagon for it at some point.



The 28mm crew look just fine on this. Since there was not really a standard size for these guns this could easily be a smaller example of the breed.

I'm not at all sure on points. The three figures are 15. The terrain is about nine inches long and seven wide at its widest, but it is only an inch tall.

'BFG' from AnthonyO: Da Ork Nob

When thinking about big guns it is hard to go past an Ork, the bigger the better because size has a direct correlation to noise and noise is directly related to effectiveness, or something like that.


 

For this challenge I did not have anything prepared and it took a dive into the bits box to bring this Nob together. Although it is not a large or impressive miniature I thought I would try my best to make him look good.



Going back to old school painting styles I did not use any washes on the skin and tried to blend it up through about 7 layers. I even tried for the first time to give a hot barrel effect to the muzzle of the flamer using a bit of sponge.





Well here he is, angry, excited and eager for a fight.

'BFG' from Barks: Exitus Longrifle

The Exitus Longrifle is the signature weapon of the Vindicare sniper assassin. It can take Shield Breaker, Hellfire, and Turbo-penetrator rounds. It is a BFG.


Vindicare Assassin with Exitus Longrifle





I picked up a 'cheap' second hand copy of Assassinorum: Execution Force last year. The figures had been assembled and the assassins sprayed black, so I had to deflash and paint this figure whilst already assembled! Bit of a pain getting around the back. The synskin was painted in shades of blue and washed black, and came out better than I had anticipated. I wasn't going to do the facemask white, but it really adds a focal point to the model.

At my regular blog, if I paint a 40K figure I fire up the Skullometer to count how many skulls are on the figure. This one reaches 10.

1x 28mm figure

'BFG' from BenitoM: Kaiser Franz's Little Daughter

I'm lost with the deadline for the BFG Bonus Round so I'm writing this at an insane 1AM Sunday in Spain, not sure if I'm late or not. I have spent most of Friday afternoon and Saturday after lunch hurrying to finish this artillery piece, which of course would have to be ... Austrian!

This is the first gun of the first battery for my Austrian Napolenoci Army. Quite remarkable uniforms, it took a lot of time to find the satisfying brown tone for the coats of the crew. I finally used a mixed of brown chocolate and orange brown.



The gun is a six pounder. I'm planning to use 2 models per battery for my General d'Armee units, so hopefully at least will paint another model before the end of the Challenge.



Still undecided about the basing, likely I'll leave as they are now and put them on some large generic gabion bases that can be used with any other armies.



The models are Perry 28mm

'BFG' from ByronM: 30K Mechanicum Thanatar Siege-Automata

I had a few possible entries lined up for this week's theme entry for BFG (Big F@$#ing Gun), but in the end decided that I would keep with my ongoing projects and do something that helps progress one of them.

I therefore decided to paint up my 30k Mechanicum Thanatar Siege-Automata.  This thing is a BEAST that towers over everything and has a main gun that is bigger than a Space Marine, so I think that should count as a BFG, right?  The main gun is a Hellex Pattern Plasma Mortar, that is described as being able to arc huge balls of plasma over defensive structures into the enemy lines.  Now, I am not sure how you arc plasma, but OK sounds like a hell of a lot of fun! It then has two huge mauler bolt cannons as it's secondary weapons to help lay down suppression fire if anything is left standing after the mortar hits them.

Not only is the guns on this thing freaking huge, the whole thing is!  To give a sense of size the base is a 120mm x 92mm oval base and a marine barely reaches to his knee! 



This is the model that made me fall in love with the 30k Mechanicum army in the first place, so I wanted to make sure I did it justice when I got to it, so I took my time on this one.




I started it by airbrushing in various layers of browns and working up to reds to get the right shade and pattern to the armour.  I then went back and cleaned up the black under structure of the model with fresh black paint, and then started painting in the metal with gun metal and oily steel.  Once that was done, I washed it down with armour wash and black ink, and then highlighted it again.  I then added some AK engine grime around all the pistons and bolts.  I hope this gives the metal enough depth to look realistic rather than just shiny like metallics tend to come out.



I then went onto the couple of lights and sensors that are on it and painted them as blue gems.  Then the servo skulls and helmet bronze, washed, ad then highlighted copper.
 
 Once that was all done, I put the decals on and then started some weathering.  While I have decided to keep a fairly new look to the armour with no scratches, dents, or rust, I did use weathering powders to dirty up the edges a bit, and really coated the feet and leg plates.  I will be going back to do this on all the other Mechanicum robots that I have done so far to match them up.




Last up was the weapon glow on the mortar and bolter.  While technically not needed on the bolters, I wanted to keep a consistent look across the army so did it anyway.  I think the blue / white gives some good high contrast to help make the figure pop a little more than it would if it was just red and metal.

Overall, I am very happy with how they came out.  Oh, yeah, didn't I mention that I did a matching pair for my entry!  Yeah, in my madness, I decided I needed two of them.... 



I so can not wait to get this force on the battle field.  However, from everything I hear they will suck...  But at least they will look cool doing it!

'BFG' from ChristoherS: Hessian Jaeger Amusettes


An  Amusette was a very high caliber rifle that could be anywhere from 90 to 200 caliber and weigh some 50 plus pounds! Due to it's weight it was often attached to fixed walls or gun carriages. However it wasn't so heavy that single infantry men couldn't carry it and in fact they often did, but if possible in teams to help with firing, loading and carrying.





Typical amusettes were huge at around 7ft in length to a standard 5ft Brown Bess musket although they could be shortened to make them more portable. They could fire up to 10x the distance a normal musket and with accuracy. A standard musket could fire up to 50 to 100 yards and an amusette could fire 500 to 1000 yards giving it not only greater punch but range as well.




When available these weapons proved popular in North America during the AWI because they could go places artillery had difficulty in traversing in the hilly, wooded terrain that commanders had to deal with.



This one is mounted on a pivot and is probably not what the Hessians used, but is similar in purpose as a super high caliber rifle


A few Hessian Jaegar re-enactors showing Amusette's in action
Hessian Jaegers were elite light infantry that served in the German Hessian mercenary forces hired by the British Crown in the fighting in North America in the AWI and gained a reputation for excellence in the field. It's recorded that the Jeager's did have some Amusette's and were used in some actions, but as to how wide spread or often is difficult to say.





The figures are 28mm from Perry Miniatures painted using Foundry paints with some Vallejo and Mig pigments for some dusting.




Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Perry miniatures

'BFG' from DavidB: Heretic PDF Tank


One of the advantages of being military for life ( besides aching knees, back, feet, all the MREs I can eat...) you get to make lots of life-long brothers ( friends but better). Shared memories of bad days and good days, they get to know all you like, love, and dream as you get to know their's. 

The military does throw out lots of stuff that may be junk, but for some is treasure. 

A brother lucked into some old target identification models that had broken parts and we're off to the dumpster. He figured it was a waste, and figured I could give them a new home.


This M60 A1 Patton is a nasty heavy piece of wood resin. The main gun and machine gun were broken and bubbles and flash abounded everywhere upon it.

Kinda sad for a MBT that at 40 plus years of age is still in service with Egypt( 1700 plus) Israel, Turkey, and a few more besides. 
Quality in the real world Detroit built slugger was not matched by its miniature doppelganger. 



I was going to make it an Ork vehicle, but I didn't want to start tacking on plates and parts all over it. I removed the bulk of the flash, filled a few of the many bubbles, cut the nasty spots out, then salvaged the machine gun with a nail and replaced the broken main gun with a spare 40k cannon.

A few chaos plates and a chain with some skulls* ( the previous crew)  and the Patton was ready for priming and a new life as a deserting PDF MBT.

This particular tank is now rebel with the Hours for Hope crew. The accompanying PDF squad is a mostly stock war games factory longcoat Scifi infantry with a special weapon trooper holding a GW plasma gun.

Both MBT and infantry are part of a growing cult army to bolster a Black Legion force. They will be part of the Nurgle faction and will also support my Death guard marines



The conversions were kept simple and I left much of it intact. It'll be a war game piece for me, but it also has a bit of history from the Fort Knox Cav Scout school.


* skulls are required decoration in 40k. The more skulls the model has the tougher it is. If a model has skulls, chains, and spikes; it's probably chaos and best left to be sorted out by an inquisitor or nuked from orbit.


'BFG' from DaveX: German Winter Pak 40

Progress continues on my winter German forces for WW2.  These chaps can be used in many a winter theater for WW2. For the themed bonus round of BFG I decided to paint up a Warlord Games 7.5cm Pak 40 with a winter theme.  Its a pretty Big Freakin Gun with 7.5cm of doom being fired at any allied armour! 





















Points wise this should be 4 x 28mm figures= 20 + 1 x 28mm Arty Piece = 10 plus bonus round of 50 points, so a grand total of 80 points? One can only hope!  

'BFG' from DebD: Jailbirds Heavy Weapons Team #03

Meet the Jailbirds and my first entry to have more than 1 mini!

Scale: 28mm
Mfg: Raging Heros
Product: Jailbirds Heavy Weapons Team #03
Material: Resin

Hold up there team, I see the enemy!


I think I could do more robots in the future... the metal and wires add all kinds of new color possibilities.

I had to stop on the terrain, even though I wanted to add rocks and rubble. Maybe next time.

Thanks!

Deb


'BFG' from EdwinK: Humanity Needs a Hero!


The Terminators have done it again!  Skynet has sent a whole squad even further back in time than before in order to kill the ancestors of the leaders of the Resistance (Skynet's forte has never been originality).



With Sarah Connor less than a twinkle in her grandfather's eye, who is going to step up to save the future, and possibly even delay Judgement Day once again?



Here were have eight 28mm Terminator Endoskeletons from the Warlord Games/River Horse Terminator Genysis miniatures game.  These are described in their blurb as being in "two different posses, advancing and… relentlessly advancing!".  In practice, this means that some of the Terminators carry their BFG in their right hand and some in their left.  Box sets can now be picked up cheaply, and for me the Endos will serve as generic BFG-Wielding Robots.



Queen Victoria is from Westwind Productions'  Empire of the Dead range.  A nice, fun sculpt.

Nine 28mm figures = 45 points.