From Millsy: 28mm OldHammer Kemmler's Undead Army of the Cairns (514 points)

When Millsy first sent this submission in I was about ready to kill the f*cking git. But I consider him a good mate and since he's flying us down to Australia for a visit I thought I'd give him a pass. ;) Anyway, Millsy starts the escalation of what I'm sure will be the beginning of the huge, two-fisted entries of the Challenge.

From Millsy:

Name dropping and a challenge of sorts

Last Thursday was supposed to be our fortnightly D&D session. Vinnie Jones and Rutger Hauer had already cancelled (man flu and crochet club) but it still left us with our minimum of three plus DM. At the last minute the Dalai Lama rings and says Hauer has been ragging him all week on Facebook, going on about now that Mandela is gone HE has to be the cleric cause that's for pussies and nobody else will do it. Anyway, long story short and the Dalai says he isn't playing any more. He's going to play X-Wing with Di Caprio and the Beckhams instead. What a big girl's blouse.

So I've just hung up and I hear the door slam. In walks Mr T and Clint Eastwood all ready to play. What do I say? I skirt round the issue but after T puts me in a headlock I eventually fess up (I can call him "T" cause I've know him for ages, don't you try it). Fortunately the lads are pretty ambivalent about the whole thing and before I know it we're doing shots and watching Ferris Bueller.

Eventually conversation turns to the painting challenge and T wants to know who's dropped the biggest points bomb. I answer someone did a 350ish I think and he just snorts. He turns to Clint and says "Yo C, tell Millsy what you think of 350ish." Clint doesn't answer, he just looks at me like this...

T responds "Ha! Nuff said. Millsy, you need to set an example brother. Do something impressive. 500+ or nuthin!" Anyone who knows T knows you don't argue with him after the third bottle of tequila, and well, the rest of this submission is history.

My good friend T wants to know if any of you have the cojones to try and take me down (his words not mine). Anyone got a bigger points bomb in their locker? T says not...

NB. Some of this may be a slight exaggeration. It was only two bottles of tequila. Plus I don't really know Rutger Hauer either. I wish I did though, he'd play an awesome Fighter/Magic user multi-class.

Submission info

Right, that's the bant over, time for some facts. This "rather large" submission represents the remainder of my Undead Army of the Cairns project, plus some stragglers that have been hanging about clogging up my painting desk. If my Mathhammer is correct it's 510 points worth. Woot(!) plus apologies to Curt, I reckon this might finally slay Blogger. :-)

First up we have four additional command stands for my 28mm Royalist ECW army. These are intended so I can field some of my muskets as units of commanded shotte. I can only count 12 of the 16 towards my point total though as the other 4 already had a couple of colours on them. They're a mix of Renegade and Wargames Foundry miniatures.

Next up we have a unit of 5 knights for my Warhammer Dogs of War army. These are Empire plastics with old skool Empire plastic spearmen shields as I wanted a lion motif. I've named them the Regimento Los Liones de Lustria (please bear with me and my bad Lustrian-mock-Spanish). I made the banners myself in Photoshop to finish them off.

Now we move onto the remaining units of my Undead army, starting with another unit of 20 Skeleton Warriors armed with spears. These are mostly plastics with a metal command from the Cursed Company Regiment of Renown. These will be one of my standard core regiments in the army list.

Rolling along we have a rare 20 figure unit of Glooms. In the WD article these were represented by Spirit Host miniatures but they are flipping expensive figs to buy so I've used a combination of Empire skirmishers and undead bits instead. With the weapons clipped out and their hands still clutched into fists it looks like some sort of ghostly pub brawl. Awesome! Not sure how much use they will get but hey, they're in the list so they get painted.

Following on we have 10 figure unit of Unquiet Horsemen. These are the older Black Knight miniatures commanded by a Wight King. The Wight Kings is possibly the single most badly cast GW model I've ever built and he required oodles of green stuff to line up the two halves of his steed. Things worked out OK in the end though. They're rubbish stats-wise in the list but I've got 10 and I needed something quick and mobile in the army.

Lastly we have a 20 figure unit of Barrow Guardians, a kind of elite infantry formation. These were built using Empire state troop torsos and skeleton weapon hands and heads. I've continued the red skull shield theme on these guys too. I will eventually replace these with decent metal figs of some description but they are fine for now and clear another pile of plastics off the paint pile.

So that's it. Kemmler's Undead Army of the Cairns is complete at a total of 108 infantry, 10 cavalry, 2 monsters and 1 chariot, all done as part of the challenge. I have to admit I'm rather chuffed with it overall, especially the character figures and the Winged Nightmare. Now to get a game or three. Thanks for the inspiration Curt!

I know, what a ultramaroon, eh? 

Seriously, Millsy, this is amazing. I can't believe you got this whole freakin' army completed in under one month - that is an astonishing amount of work and they look brilliant. Bravo to you!

Okay, points wise, what do we have here? Hmm, I make it at a whopping 514 points, which includes a few points extra for the nice ECW banners. Awesome work Millsy, that puts you in third place (for now). Best of luck with your first time out with these lads!