Blog Wars 3 Painting Competition

As ever, alongside the dice rolling was the hobby side of things. This time around there were three prizes on offer: Best Painted Army, Best Painted Special Character and Best Army Theme. The first two would be voted for by all of the competitors but the army theme award was decided by yours truly. Before I get to the results I wanted to say that unlike the first two Blog Wars there was a disappointing number of votes cast with only just over half of people voting. This is probably partly down to people not knowing where the voting slips were (though I did say!).

Anyway, here's a selection of the armies on display. Apologies to their owners for the crappy pictures but it was a case of rushing round with the camera in between other things I had to do! If anyone else has better pictures feel free to post them up and then link them in the comments.

The winner of the Best Painted Army was my good friend Jamie (I'd like to point out I'm not eligible to vote). His army was a beautiful Iron Hands force with Cassius and a Master of the Forge. There were some well executed conversions including an attack bike, full track land raider amongst others. Overall it was a very cohesive force and I think the precise line highlighting and details were what made it stand out despite it being black! More pictures of the conversions are over on his blog.

The Best Painted Special Character award went to Chris Benstead (WeeMen) with his Swarmlord. He won the best painted army at Blog Wars 2 and that's where this image comes from since I didn't have chance to get a shot myself.

Finally, a new addition this time around the Best Army Theme went to Ian Connolly (Need More Tanks) for his Star Wars themed Imperial Guard. You can find more pictures of it over on his blog. The reason I chose thise for the best theme was the sheer attention to detail that went into it. It would be simple to make an army full of white stormtroopers and call it a Star Wars army but to create AT-STs, an AT-AT, C3PO/R2D2, Han Solo frozen in carbonite and pretty much every major character from the series really sets this arm apart. A well deserved prize.

There were some excellent ideas for army theme. I'd like to give special mention to a few of the runners up. The simean Grey Knights army from James Lamb with everyone represented as a monkey, the catachan force from John Holland and the Rebel Alliance/sci-fi list with massive x-wing vendettas from Luke Fogg.

Congratulations to all of the winners. As I've alluded to in the results post things will be a bit different for Blog Wars 4 so keep an eye on the blog for details of that.