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Welcome all to the 120th round of the Dakka Painting challenge. For the unfamiliar, this is a friendly painting competition open to members of all skill levels and experience, whether your entry is your first or you thousand-and-first time painting miniatures. Each month, finished entries are collected into a thread where the community can vote on their favorite pieces, and those votes go towards an annual overall League that runs for 12 rounds.

This month the topic is: SURPRISE! - Stealthy troops, cavalry reserves, guerrilla fighters, etc. These models don’t work in a straight forward manor. The come from odd angles, from the shadows, other dimensions. Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects them. Your entry should be something that exemplifies the element of surprise.
How To Enter

- You may enter up to 5 MODELS as a SINGLE ENTRY, and are permitted one entry per member per month. If you enter multiple models, they should ideally be related in some way, such as part of the same squad, unit or scene if you are doing a diorama
- You may enter at any time during the month, up to the last minute. We do encourage people to enter early, as to be part of the community, but if you can’t start until the 11th hour, that’s OK.
- You MUST post a 'proof' picture of your entry in the thread of the state it was in before you started working on it; this must be either unassembled, unpainted, primed or coated a single colour. Entries that do not submit a valid Proof Picture will not be eligible for voting.
- After this, you may post WIP pictures in this thread and your own if you wish, and on completing the entry, you may post up to 6 final pictures IN THIS THREAD that will then be used for voting. Please note that pictures in a montage or collage picture will be considered individual images for this purpose, so while these types of presentation are certainly acceptable, please keep the image limit in mind when compiling them. For example, a collage of 5 images and one separate image would count as your 6 picture allowance.


So What Do I Win?
- Points... and points mean... bragging rights for the next month! Following the vote, points will be awarded to every entrant. This year, the Points you receive will be equal to the Percentage of Votes your entry receives in the final Voting thread; if you get 10%, you get 10 points, if you get 6% you get 6 points, so on and so forth.

These points will be used to form a league table, which will be updated month on month as the results come in.

How Long Do I Have?
This challenge begins 1st of February and will end at midnight EST on February 28th. After this, I shall compile the finished entries into a new thread, and voting will run for 5 days.

A totally normal Biovore and Spore Mines:



So what's surprising? Well, that'd spoil the surprise... (But since I speed paint Tyranids, you shouldn't have to wait that long.)

This is a raft. It is definitely not a shark in disguise.

My entry is a five-man Fallschirmjager squad. I'm sure Germans falling out of the sky is surprising.

The stunties have marched their little legs off and finally dropped a grudge stone in the centre of the field. Your lads are pummelling them at range with dubious accuracy when… SURPRISE!

Stunties on Goats!

Even unpainted, dwarves on goats gets a vote from me

 Daia T'Nara wrote:
A totally normal Biovore and Spore Mines:



So what's surprising? Well, that'd spoil the surprise... (But since I speed paint Tyranids, you shouldn't have to wait that long.)

The surprise is that your entry will be SFW?

I have a couple of options:


The three on the left are some sneaky halfling rogues, crossing over from my Fistful Of Bone project. The three on the right are very old Citadel ninjas. I'll be painting them all, and entering the set I like the most.

This sounds like a good motivation to finally paint my stealthy Ork Kommandos and go all Schwarzenegger on you.

I hope I am not too far ahead with the start - I primed them yellow from above and blue from beneath and applied one layer of green orkscin...
If that`s a problem, I could go ahead and do all of them in the same period?

Okay, sorry, got something better, that really applies to the given rules!

I won`t tell what it is - scratchbuilt and it is orkisch and at least the Orks think it is stealthy and I just built it and base coated it so far...

What is more surprising than being decapitated by an Eversor!? Not much, probably.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
The surprise is that your entry will be SFW?

As much as Tyranids ever are, what with all the pulsating weapons muscle-spasming out gouts of living ammunition... But no, not this time - may I instead present:

Daia T'Nara - Lord Bentley Spore-Mine and Associates





Bet you all weren't expecting that.

...I dunno why, I was just putting the spore mines together and thought, hey, that's about the size of a Lego minifig head. Like I was saying over in their gallery thread, the utter lack of personality makes Tyranids the ultimate straight men to bounce jokes off of.

(Special rule, Lord Bentley must be deployed via Biovore, as no respectable member of the Spore-Mine family would lower himself to deploying at the start of the battle like a commoner.)

Edit: I decided on reflection that the Biovore's mobility body was kind of just a big blob of grey, with its head so tucked away and the pose concealing almost all the red underbelly, so I put it back on the table and added in little red edges to the limb armour - I tried that when I painted the Termagants and felt it was pretty underwhelming, but with the legs being more prominent here and the colour desperately needed, I think it's worth the extra step in my bug speed paint routine.

How dapper! Love it.

My stormhawk found a bowler hat he refuses to take off. Sometimes you need to bring a little fashion sense to the battlefield.

I’m adding “Nice Hat!” to the list of potential challenge topics. Lot of potential there across multiple themes.

 Dr.Botnik wrote:
Okay, sorry, got something better, that really applies to the given rules!

I won`t tell what it is - scratchbuilt and it is orkisch and at least the Orks think it is stealthy and I just built it and base coated it so far...

Is it base coated in purple? I'm looking forward to seeing it. I always enjoy ork stuff.

I'm planning to finish making and then painting a Raven Guard captain.

My entry this month will be Boomdakka Snazzwagon. So far parts are glued together and pained with base.

proof:

Seems like a waaagh! of sorts is underway, so I'm in with these two. Big lads, but they're sneaky kommandos, and when the fella on the left smashes in your door and the fella on the right fills the room with lead, it be like, "SURPRISE!"

Sadly my own Kommandos are too far along in their painting to enter them. Indeed, I'm not sure what I've got left that's unpainted that would qualify as surprising. Most of my stealthy stuff across my armies is painted already! My Kruleboyz need primer, and the weather is kind of sketchy this time of year, so I'm not sure I'll get to bust out the rattlecan in time for them.

And then as I type this I remember, I've got 20 Genestealers and 3 Von Ryan's Leapers that are primed and ready. I'll probably do some Genestealers, as they'll be simple enough and they fit the bill of sneaky.

In with Tanya Shadowbane from Limbo Division. She seems properly surprise-ish. Looks like an assassin or ninja of some kind. I think the fluff supports that assumption. 75 mm resin. Plenty of delicate parts. Should be fun.

I have three Cawdors left to paint.

Cheers,

CB

 Gulgog TufToof wrote:
Seems like a waaagh! of sorts is underway, so I'm in with these two. Big lads, but they're sneaky kommandos, and when the fella on the left smashes in your door and the fella on the right fills the room with lead, it be like, "SURPRISE!"

There is deffenetley a Waagh coming (looking at my just finished and unfinished Orkmodels...) And it's going to be a crazy big one

As I was putting the first green down on these guys I realized I forgot my proof pic. Grabbed a quick snap and finished the other 4 basecoats.

Striking scorpions.

You know what's conspicuously absent from the theme description? Surprise parties! But worry not, folks. Alice is here to rectify this oversight.

Having a full, hardly painted Raven Guard army, I have so much stuff I could do this month... If that wasn't enough, I've also got several assassins of various types (maybe a snow themed callidus or vindicare?) and an Alpha Legion praetor. Plus Eldar. I have rangers, scorpions and a metal warp spider exarch nicely reposed on a rock I've been meaning to do for ages. I've got so much choice, I'm struggling to decide what to do!

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
Having a full, hardly painted Raven Guard army, I have so much stuff I could do this month... If that wasn't enough, I've also got several assassins of various types (maybe a snow themed callidus or vindicare?) and an Alpha Legion praetor. Plus Eldar. I have rangers, scorpions and a metal warp spider exarch nicely reposed on a rock I've been meaning to do for ages. I've got so much choice, I'm struggling to decide what to do!

I get that. What about thinking of it in terms of colours you fancy working with? Or perhaps an effect you fancy trying out. Something like that. Maybe a style of base you have an inkling to create and choose a mini you think would sit well on it.

I know how it is when you’re stuck on what to choose.

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
Having a full, hardly painted Raven Guard army, I have so much stuff I could do this month... If that wasn't enough, I've also got several assassins of various types (maybe a snow themed callidus or vindicare?) and an Alpha Legion praetor. Plus Eldar. I have rangers, scorpions and a metal warp spider exarch nicely reposed on a rock I've been meaning to do for ages. I've got so much choice, I'm struggling to decide what to do!

Paint it all and enter your favorite(s). You can prevent hobby burnout and reduce the Mountain of Shame at the same time.

Do you have hobby goals you need to work on? Like trying to get an army painted for an event, or finishing your company by the end of the year? Is there a unit you want to get to the table for games? What does your heart tell you? When all else fails, put them all out and go with the ones that sparks the most interest.

Or paint them all and choose the ones you think turned out the best.

It looks like the ork kommandos are coming out of the wood work! I have an old, metal snikrot that could use a fresh paintjob. And hopefully a birthday present.

 XvArcanevX wrote:
I get that. What about thinking of it in terms of colours you fancy working with? Or perhaps an effect you fancy trying out. Something like that. Maybe a style of base you have an inkling to create and choose a mini you think would sit well on it.

I know how it is when you’re stuck on what to choose.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Paint it all and enter your favorite(s). You can prevent hobby burnout and reduce the Mountain of Shame at the same time.

 Nevelon wrote:
Do you have hobby goals you need to work on? Like trying to get an army painted for an event, or finishing your company by the end of the year? Is there a unit you want to get to the table for games? What does your heart tell you? When all else fails, put them all out and go with the ones that sparks the most interest.

Or paint them all and choose the ones you think turned out the best.

Ha ha! You all have a lot of faith in me if you think I'm able to paint more than a mere handful of models in a month!

@XvArcanevX The Raven Guard are all either on snow bases or snow/glacier bases. There are a few kitbashed characters I could paint up that would have fairly interesting bases. There's also an effect I've been wanting to try on some lightning claws... Only problem is, I've locked myself into painting matte black armour for the army and I'm not sure I can face trying over and over to get the matte paint to cover smoothly... plus it might not look great on the character models I have in mind. Maybe, though.

@JoshInJapan I realise you're not saying paint ALL of it (I'd be lucky to get all that done in a year, let alone a month), but the problem with selecting some units or characters from each army/project is I'm likely to end up with several units and characters half painted at the end of the month and nothing to enter! That's just how much of a hobby butterfly I am, unfortunately. Maybe if I restrict myself to trying that for the first half of the month and then force myself to decide and finish something from that mid point on.

@Nevelon I have SO MANY hobby goals I need to work on... I really want to finish enough models for the Raven Guard army to be able to play them (though that's also the case for the Eldar) but I'm terrible at remaining motivated through batch painting. I'll probably do as you suggest and put them all out on the desk and mix that with Josh's suggestion and start painting all of them then see which one I want to finish.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

As a reminder, March is the start of the next cycle, and will lead off with Space Marine. So you can always paint Ravenguard next month.

Hmm, nothing I'm currently working on screams "surprise"... Gotta look again at the current workload.

CancelledApocalypse wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Paint it all and enter your favorite(s). You can prevent hobby burnout and reduce the Mountain of Shame at the same time.

Ha ha! You all have a lot of faith in me if you think I'm able to paint more than a mere handful of models in a month!

@JoshInJapan I realise you're not saying paint ALL of it (I'd be lucky to get all that done in a year, let alone a month), but the problem with selecting some units or characters from each army/project is I'm likely to end up with several units and characters half painted at the end of the month and nothing to enter! That's just how much of a hobby butterfly I am, unfortunately. Maybe if I restrict myself to trying that for the first half of the month and then force myself to decide and finish something from that mid point on.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

Actually, I was suggesting that you paint all of it (-.< Or at least a selection from each, er, selection. Personally, I get bored these days when I have to paint units of essentially identical models, so a variety of individual models really keep me motivated.

Whatever you decide to enter will be top-notch, as always.

KidCthulhu wrote:Hmm, nothing I'm currently working on screams "surprise"... Gotta look again at the current workload.

Is there anything in your backlog that you have forgotten about? That could potentially be a surprise for you.