From NoelW: The Hall of Heroes: (186 points)

 And here we find ourselves in the Hall of Heroes. In the red corner, which is very red by now, stand the remainder of our heroes, valiantly launching arrows into the air as if there is no tomorrow. Which there probably will not be, for them.

Because, in the blue corner, emitting blue smoke from the ends of their muskets and language of a similar colour from their snarling mouths, are ranks of invaders from Challenge Island.

 

Now we see the archers about to run out of arrows.

As the enemy now masses its cowardly cavalry, ready to charge and complete their conquest. 

 Those heroic archers are on the point of being overwhelmed, all hope just about lost. It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that – 

Hang on! I was just saying: “It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that - ”

Where are they?

I know they were around here somewhere. They were in the Lair of the Beast, and charging in this direction…It should be exactly at this moment, with classic timing, that -

“Woof!”

Scruff charges in. Closely followed by the huge troll that Gnawbone has become, and hard on his heels the slew of monsters he has gathered together. 

They hurl themselves pell-mell into the mass of invaders, taking no prisoners, biting, chomping, stinging, flailing, skewering, shishkebabing – in short, rather dismaying the hitherto cocky invaders. And in a few moments the fight is over.

The monsters each select what they desire from the pile of the defeated (we better not look too closely at that) and wander off to their selected undesirable dark, dank and dismal corners of the Chambers of Challenge which they’ve just successfully protected.

It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that Titchy and his party come charging in.

“Oh,” says Titchy, “we got lost. All these tunnels look the same.”

“There’s another over there,” says Getrude, watching a sneaky survivor attempting to crawl back to the beach. “Let’s follow Gerald’s lead and put the last of these pesky invaders to the sword/staff/dagger/tooth.”

Here we see a party of not entirely sensible adventurers fired up with blood-lust and consumed with the indignant desire to protect treasure which they have absolutely no right to, racing down the tunnel towards the scent of the sea, sand dunes and something that sounds ominously like a rattle of bone.

 ***

So this is another somewhat eclectic post.

First are 5 Perrys’ Agincourt archers.

I’ve a sort of policy – well, habit, really – of adding to the English army each time I add to the French, so having painted six French knights a little earlier in the Challenge, I had to add another handful of archers. However, these figures are not my favourite Perry pieces – they’re fine, of course, but not exciting to paint – and the archers tend to be a mass of nondescript colours in any case, so I don’t lavish a huge amount of time on these. Basic colours and a wash here and there, and that’s it.

Next we have a badly photographed regiment Zamora, Napoleonic Spanish infantry, in the 1805 uniform (my army is loosely aimed at 1808) – though further research suggests the collar should be white, not black.

Figures by Warlord in their rather strange resin/plastic hybrid. I actually quite like these models, and enjoy painting them, though you can probably see that the relief on the castings is not as deep as you'd get with metal. I will probably buy more, simply because they're a decent price for bulking the army, but the resin has annoying flash which is difficult to spot (until you find yourself painting it), seems to occur arbitrarily on the figures, and is difficult to pare away in reasonable fashion.

The cavalry unit is Hompesch’s Hussars (1801), fighting for the Brits in Egypt against those pesky invading French who for some reason question the hegemony Britain is trying to impose upon the world.

Figures by Perry Miniatures from their Napoleon in Egypt range. I like these figures so much it turns out I accidentally bought the unit twice! I don’t know what I’ll do with the other six, unpainted, figures. Possibly their uniform is similar to a unit fighting in the West Indies. Or else they may merely become some imagi-nations unit. I tried hard to do these figures justice, spending quite a while on them but the photos are mediocre, so you'll just have to trust me when I say they look pretty cool!

Scoring:

21 x 28mm foot figures: 105 points

6 x 28mm cavalry: 60 points

1 flag: 1 point

Hall of Heroes: 20 points

TOTAL: 186 points

I’ve lost track of the side-challenges. But I believe I had a score of 60 points in the Cavalry challenge. This now goes up to 120 points. And my Napoleonic score goes up by 140 points.