From NoelW: I see no Butte : Bromley’s Butte (45 points)

“I like big Buttes and I cannot lie,” as the old folk song has it – and that Butte ahead is certainly a big one. Big and butte-iful.

Our slight contretemps at the crossroads has sent us the wrong way again. Wouldn’t you know it? So, we embrace our fate like men who realise the only certainties are death, taxes and choosing the longest queue in the supermarket. 

Some might call it an inselberg, or perhaps a mini-mesa. Some might mistake it for a volcanic plug, or even an acclivity. You might even think it’s a bluff – but we’re sure it’s real.

Now, you may remember that, in our exploration of this island, we’ve more than once stumbled upon unanticipated armies. Not this time. We’re going in prepared. I chose three of our nosiest, quietest, eavedroppingest companions to secrete themselves among the scrubland, see what they can spy out, report back and, probably, be the first to run.

But there’s nothing there. Our intrepid observers report that the butte is as bare as a grisly, as uninhabited as a flock of ex-nuns, as unsettled as jelly in an earthquake, as covered in tenuous similes as a pensioner attempting to use emojis.

It’s only after we’ve turned away, heading once again towards the sea (The sea! Oh, how we’ve missed it!) that our highly trained patrol realises there are such things as lens caps, and that all our binoculars are as fully equipped with them as our observers are with stupidity.

(I only decided to write this little story this way after, in first trying to photo these figures, I had a serious panic that my camera had packed up. You may be able to guess why.)

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Here are three more WW2 Italians, slightly more on the ball than my reconnaissance team. Or, indeed, me. Like my previous post on the Italians, they’re Perry figures (what else?) and there’s not much else to say. I rather like the prone figure, hidden amongst the scrub, and I’ve a certain fondness for the tropical helmet – which is surely amongst the weirdest of military headgear – so there may be more of these later in the Challenge.

Scoring: 3 x 28mm figures= 15, Bromley’s Butte: 30 = 45 points total

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By Paul: 

The Italians in WW2 are certainly underrepresented by Wargamers in relative terms. After all, Mussolini did boast of his "8 million bayonets".  So its great to see some of the plunky little fellows in 28mm.  Personally, I think the tropical helmet is rather dashing - not far at all from the iconic pith helmet of the British!

That is quite an impressive Challenge Island map you've constructed there Noel - well done indeed
45 points chalked up for this submission.