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Rollover, I'm crowded...
Great work, everyone! You all constantly astound me.

What excellent entries. Good Show!

Whats next Gits?

 Camkierhi wrote:
Whats next Gits?

Good question. At the moment my painting needs are really scattered across the plethora of armies I'm currenting working on... which makes painting both interesting and kind of frustrating at the same time. What I'll be painting will kind of be driven by the needs of the various campaigns I'll be involved with over the summer.

1. First priority is to paint up a blood thirster for my continuing campaign with Yorkright. This started with just my Mantis Warriors vs. his Blood Angels, but the story arc is morphing to include AdMech, Chaos and God only knows what else. It will however move back to include both of our marine chapters again... probably fighting WITH each other against a common foe which I'm anticipating with great relish. If you want to watch my progress on the blood thirster, you can check out my Halloween-themed Chaos army blog (see link in my sig). After that, the next project for that army is an awesome giant bat the Cam (you) made for me to serve as a Heldrake. It will help to close a glaring weakness in the CSM sub-group of my army.

2. It is my intention to finish my EC enough to play in the 30k tournaments next Adepticon. At the moment I have two airbrushed dreadnoughts waiting for brush painting. Getting those done will be my first priority, followed by a unit of terminators which will at least allow me to field a legal army (they'd be my second troop choice).

3. I'll be involved in a campaign this summer at my FLGS playing my orks, and will want to do a couple of new pieces over the summer for said campaign. Now... orks are really bad at the moment... so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on them... but I've got a FW Mecha/Mega dread and a couple gork/mork-anauts that I'll think I'd like to get done... just because. Additionally, I might try to squeeze in another Cam special... a really cool ork themed landing platform!

4. Now that the scout army is done, I don't really have anything that NEEDS to be done for my Mantis Warriors... however, I've got a predator and a land raider that are airbrushed and just waiting for detailing. I'll do the pred first as I amazingly don't have a predator in my army. The land raider will be next. After that, I'll probably put together the three RT era land speeders which I'll be running as attack bikes... that's a project I've been wanting to do for a long while & now that the scouts are done... they've got a FA slot just waiting for them!

5. Nerdfest09 is painting up the bulk of my Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus forces, which leaves me (at minimum) a squad of troops and a squad of rust stalkers to complete. These will probably be a pretty high priority in the short term as I'll be desperate to field the army once I get the models back from Nerdy.

So there you go.... a little bit of everything. Not sure how much I'll actually get done... but these are my goals for the summer. Sorry there isn't more MW stuff but when you've got 5 different "active" armies to work on it really spreads things out. OH, and I promised my son I'd work on some more Hordes figures, but I'll just hose those down with the airbrush so they shouldn't take too long.

Thanks for asking Cam. I really am looking forward to finally getting some paint on those fantastic models you've made me!

That's a heck of a list bud, looking forward to so much of it. No matter what you do I can't wait.

Also looking forward to the Batreps for all that goodness.

Thanks for the thoughts, I am just kidding making any comment on unpainted mini's, you know I do not worry at that really. Just glad you are getting into the swing of it. You sound quite motivated, and that I am happy about more than anything.

Can't believe you do not have a Predator, what the heck!

Gentle readers and tireless contributors... the time has arrived for the winners of the Mantis Maker Challenge to be announced!

Before I get to things... I just want to say "thanks" again to the nine intrepid and very talented individuals who entered into this year's competition. It was a joy to see the results and your talents, skill and hard work gracing the pages of my oft-neglected (by me) blog. I also want to thank all of the readers that supported the artists throughout the length of the contest and voted for the People's Champion. You guys are all my heroes... keeping me going and motivated for all these years.

OK, enough with the small talk. Let's get to it, shall we?


People's Champion:



Judge's Champion:



Keeper of the Way (best theme):



Champion of the Mantis Warriors (best overall):



Special Mention:



I guess that's it until next year. Thanks everyone for going along for the ride & would like to say a special thanks to the judges who helped me this year. I wouldn't have wanted to do this one alone. One of the judges has kindly offered to give critiques on specific pieces, as am I (though I didn't vote in any other contest aside from best theme). Just contact me if you're interested and I'll hook you up with him.

I'll be sending each individual their scores by PM.

Ta for now!

Gitsplitta - Pimping Mantis Warriors on the web since 2010.

Perfect results.

Well done and Congratulations all. Fantastic competition and well played to all.

Congratulations especially to Nerdy, well won, and against some amazing work. You are now among "THEM!" those who us mere mortals aspire to follow.

And agreed, Bebops is just one of the most amazing marines I have ever seen. Sublime.

Roll on next year when I can expect to be thoroughly thrashed again.

Congratulations Nerdfest, a lovely piece of work. Great job to all the rest who had submitted. Cant wait till the next go round.

Huge congratulations to Nerdy, and many thanks to all the judges, I eagerly await the feedback on my entry as while I'm proud of it, and particularly pleased that I managed to hold my own against the likes of Insaniak, Minus and Bebob, but I do think there was room to improve it, if I can come away from this with a few pointers going forward then that's the icing on the Mantisy cake!

Roll on next year indeed... Gits, if you could send Nerdy another massive AdMech commission around the time of the next challenge so the rest of us have a chance, it'd be much appreciated! A Warlord Titan ought to just about occupy him for the month!

Love the results, although I just missed voting due to traveling! Looks like the top spot was kind of walked away with by Nerdy (sweet job!) but man, bebop's "special mention" really is mesmerizing

Such a close grouping of many entries after the first, which is awesome to see! Congrats to all who participated, very nice work Dakka

Well done to all participants. Really great seeing all your entries (and extending Gits' blog about 5ish pages ). Everyone's entries were great and were all really close!

Thanks Gits again for compiling all the entries and involving the community in a unique challenge. Cheers!

Congrats to all and huge thanks to the judges and of course Gitsplitta in particular. Having just come from judging the last League contest it's an onerous and surprisingly stressful task. Slightly agog to have won a category! And to be in such illustrious company of masterful painters. Nerdy, a most deserving grand prize winner on all counts. Mantis rising!

Congrats to everyone! Thank you so much Git for making this contest possible!

Congrats everyone! Especially to Nerdy. And to you as will Gits - well run, and judging must've been one helluva task

Indeed, congrats to Nerdy, and well done to all!

Congrats to all! Those were some awesome models and nice judging Git.

What the!? really? that's AWESOME! I seriously didn't expect to win anything this time I had m money on Para and Bebop for sure! Bebop just blows anything I do outta the water and Para had a really evocative entry painted gritty and real, every other entry was great too and I think each and every deserve a prize with the ideas and thought they put in, I'm really honored to win this comp as it means a lot to me having followed Gits for many years and I really enjoy thinking of how to interpret his themes into something a little different or cool each year I enter So I'm pretty keen for next year now, and I'll be trying my hand at a more Bebop style entry as his style just inspires me!

Congrats everyone for really great entries and another fun comp!

Excellent entries. What a tough competition with so much painting talent.

Go ON Damo with your bad self!!!! Congrats! Personally, i couldnt be happier with the results! While my entry was heavy on the technique, it lacked the heart and soul that the other entries had! The little vignets (sp?) especially were really capturing the spirit of the comp and had so much character, each with its own style respresenting the individual taste of the artist. truly awesome work, inspiration and creativity was put into this. Congrats to you ALL <3. Gits, id be blushing, clearly this community loves you!! Personally, I had visions of grandeur that immeadiately that were never fully realized because i began leaving town and just couldnt find a zone. my only regret truly is that i didnt properly base my entry, but will do so, for my own display case. I appreciate the kind comments and a forum to share my works because, sadly, in the real world, not as many "normal folk" appreciate what we do here. Cheers and love everyone!!!

BB

Bebop's base is great !



Congrats to everyone. I'd be happy to have a feedback on my entry if the judges have time for this. If not, no problem. Gits told me he liked it and I had fun converting and painting this, that's what matters.
I should do more contests, that's fun. ^^

Some very pretty toy soldiers in this comp, well done everyone

Great work everyone, congratulations to the winners.

I particularly liked the Dreadnought, Minus. That model has never looked so good.

I thought I'd share a very funny gaming moment with you guys.

On Wed I took my MW scout army to the local gaming night and fought a friend with his loaded GK. Two units of termies, 3 dread knights, a libby and 4 squads of infantry. I deployed my sniper scouts and TFCs with everything else in reserve. By his half (top) of turn 2... I only had 1 TFC left alive on the board. Everything else had been wiped out... primarily from the flamers from the dread knights. Thank God on my half (bottom) of turn 2, all of my reserves came in at once.

Now look at this picture.



What turn would you say this is? Perhaps my half of T2?




P.S. OH, and I caught a 17" walleye tonight... fresh fish for dinner... yay!!


P.P.S. Did some tweaking last night after having multiple games now with this build under my belt. I've got a version now that is a bit less "scouty" but should be better. I scrapped the 10th company formation but bought back the bikes. Also dumped the tech marine which was really an extra-points add-on anyway. Added a unit of drop podding grav cents and a bare bones libby to give them prescience. While not as fluffy and much lower on troops (which weren't objective secured anyway), it'll give me a potent threat which should improve my tactical flexibility. Going to miss all those sniper units with MLs, but they're just too easy to take out... even with the 2+ cover save from shrouded.

A win is a win.... must have been your keen mind for strategy as well to come back for such a pounding.

Perhaps, though my opponent Adric was very generous, allowing me to have "air superiority" even though we weren't really playing with the new flyer rules (which improved my reserve rolls to a 2+ and reduced his to a 4+) and allowing a unit that I'd forgotten to bring in on turn 2 to come in on turn three but act as if it had been on the board for a turn (i.e. charge). I just love playing a good natured opponent with a beautifully painted army. Makes the game so much more fun.

I think the smartest thing I did was to completely abandon my original position with my fast moving reserves. I brought everything in on the lower right of the board (as you look at the picture above) and took out a dread knight that was rampaging through my troops, then ran like mad up that side of the board, away from the immediate threats. The longer range of my weapons allowed me to continue to noodle away at his units in relative safety while I tried to catch up on some maelstrom points.

The flyer formation is just really bloody good... and even though they didn't last long, the two TFCs did a good job of chewing on his marine squads to the point where two of them ceased to be combat effective, which was very helpful in the end game.

I also have come to really appreciate the land speeder formation from the KauYon(sp?) book. It's pretty darn handy. LS Storms can move 12" and then the scouts can still disembark & charge (and might be ObSec... can't remember), and the Storms get +1 to their jinks if they are within 6" of one of the LS from the formation. It's cheap, fast and flexible with some real hitting power. If only the LS were classified as "escort craft" so you could be guaranteed they'd come in from reserve at the same time as the Storms... then it would be perfect!

Funny and good read. Let's play table swap!

It's always nice to catch fresh dinner!

Sounds like a cracking time was had. It's when I read things like this that I think actually 40k's not a bad game...

Have to admit I envy your gaming. Long time ago I used to have friends that made it an enjoyable game. Yes there were heated discussion and dark looks across the table but it was good.

Great to see you having fun.

Can we get a picture of the fish?

I echo Cam's envy of your games. I too had a solid group of friends that were in it for the story and the fun to be had, but time and life has reduced my games and finding a gaming group with similar attitudes to mine is hard.

So let me live vicariously through you and your Mantis Warrior exploits. Looks like great fun and fully painted armies on good terrain makes for some awesome photo opportunities.