Codsticker: 8 28mm Crusader Crossbowmen (40 points)

 Switching tracks once again, I am looking to finish off two Saga warbands this winter. These 8 Crusader Miniatures crossbowmen will be 1 point of Warriors for my Normans.

They are actually from Crusader's El Cid range but aside from the lack of tonsure they are suitable for Normans.

I specifically wanted un-armoured crossbowmen as armoured figures are reserved for Hearthguard and Warlords in Saga.

Basing is a combination of Woodland Scenics 2mm static grass; Peco 4mm and 6mm static grass; tufts from Raincity Hobbies and SuperTurf from Scenic Express.

Rom JeremyM: Aliens for Pit of the Pendulum

 Hi all,

So one of my goals during this year's challenge was to start painting my collection of aliens minis, so expect to see a few crop up as I shoehorn them into the various theme rooms of the chambers. When thinking of the impending doom of a slowly descending pendulum-blade, I decided to go try something with facehuggers. 

Here are a 4 different astronaut 28mm 3d prints, as well as 2 scared civilians. All but 4 also have a 3d printed 28mm scale facehugger added. It was another attempt to kitbash some 3d prints from thingiverse. I still have a lot to learn on this front, as I've only just started 3D editing, but I'm still pretty happy with them. And since getting a 3D printer at the start of the pandemic I've been printing like a madman only to realize you still need to paint what you print. Thank God for things like the painting challenge to motivate us!

Here is a dead astronaut alongside a second copy of the same 3d print this time with a desiccated facehugger lying beside him...hmmm wonder what will happen there? 

Here are two more astronauts this time running scarred. I posed the copy of the 'scarred astronaut' lying down with a facehugger looming over him. While these spacesuits aren't exactly like the ones in the Alien film I still like them, and tried to paint them using a few different colours, somewhat similar to how the suits in the film had different colours. That being said the white and yellow suits were my favourite by far, but variety is the spice of life.

And finally here are two scarred civilians that I added facehuggers to. The green shirted fellow is actually trying to push the facehugger back with his hand its just rather hard to see with the horrible spidery thing attacking him. The Woman lying down is clutching her stomach in fear as another crawls toward her. I made a couple other copies of these two for use in other scenes later in the challenge.

So that is it from me for this room...rrr wait now that I look at them guess I'll have to go paint the lip of each base black, guess they aren't 100% more like 99.5. So I have 6 28mm figures and the points for the room for 50 points. Now where to next?

Iain W Fast and dirty gendarmes 28mm (220 points)

 We have here 22 x gendarmes for the great Italian wars, three units of eight, it's just that two were painted earlier, in fact they've been cluttering up the paint desk for something like eight years! They're metal Perry war of the Roses command figures. The rest are all Perry plastic with the addition of spare Steel fist heads from their gendarmes set.

I've painted up two units as Spanish gendarmes which were less heavily armed than their Italian and French counterparts, the Perry set is for the War of the Roses and goes up to the end of the 15th century, the Great Italian wars starts at the end of the 15th century, they might be a bit old fashioned but in the  words of Rod Stewart, I don't mind, they wear it well!

The other unit I will be using as French and I have given them a French flag I did in a previous challenge, those gendarmes are currently flying Papal/Venetian flags in two of my To the strongest  armies, I wanted to be able to field four armies on my two tables but I have a dearth of gendarmes, hence these 24 gentlemen,  I have a further 24 moving on to the painting table, gosh this laser focus on Napoleonics is going well don't you think? 

I've changed techniques on these chaps,previously I would prime black, dry brush white and then paint with washes, giving me a kind of highlighting.  In an effort to increase speed and productivity I have continued to prime in black and then wet brushed the colours on using the black as shadow,  I think it's worked alright, I'm calling them good enough!

The Spanish flags are by Pete's flags, they're ace!

So a unit of Steel fist gendarmes and two units of plastic pound shop gendarmes  have now hit the painting desk, more French gendarmes (they need a lot!) to come!

The barded horses are warlords plastic English civil war horses with their heads replaced by Perry's ,first post of 2021, that's 220 points,charge!

All the best Iain 

From Gary Amos: AB Prussians

Some points for the board at last! Despite a few unexpected events, I've got two units done and for me that's an achievement, especially since they're both the same nationality and (almost) the same period. The first unit of two AB 18mm battalions of Prussian I/R 13 'Arnim' C1806 (36x2=72pts):

 The second units is AB 18mm 1st Silesian Landwehr Cavalry Regiment c1813 (8x4=32)pts:

That being a total of 104 points.

I think that's a bout it. Nothing to add, but if you want any spiel about the unit backgrounds etc., I'll post something on my blog soon enough.

 

From MichaelD - Renaissance Infantry and a Giant

Even in 2020 I feel like my Challenge doesn't begin until after New Years day. I get prepped and ready but can't find the time to get stuck in during the holidays. So as usual my first drop is in January. 

Also as usual my personal theme is making a dent in the pile of stuff that 'I had to own' but apparently didn't 'have to paint', and this year is the Renaissance edition. First up, I've got these Steel Fist Landschneckt pike and knights, most of which I think I bought during their original Kickstarter. They're beautiful sculptures although like a lot of people I've got into the habit of painting mostly plastics over the past few years. These guys are definitely Full Metal Soldiers. For scoring, it's 27 28mm foot @ 5 pts each.

Good citizen that I am, I've also completed my prize ante. It's the Frostgrave (defrosted) Frost Giant, complementary pig included. Again, I loved this sculpture and it was a pleasure painting it.

Ok, that's the ice broken now for me!

From GeorgeS - Sniper in the Moonlight - 30 points

       Wow! Never thought that this would take me so much time! This is my first ever try in greyscale , or to try painting something in the dark and thank you to give me that opportunity :) This guy took me a bit more than the normal colouring and the blending and layering was a bit tricky!

      So, here we have another Airfix 1:32 scale figure, from " British Paratroopers" set.

     The Sniper!

    I've painted this figure using the original colours ,as I would do with the normal figure but mixing all of them with heavy amounts of dark or light grey( sometimes black or white). I wanted to give the feeling of light from above by the moonlight. So a small idea of the original colour should be visible. 

   I don't know if that is well depicted in pictures. Hope you like him :)

     So , I believe this will take me out of the Chamber Of Darkness and I score 30 points for it.

 

 'Till next time

Keep Up The Brushes!!

From MilesR: 2 Chambers of Challenge Submissions - Minefields, Boats and Panzer III's (110 Points)

 

It high time I had some submissions for the very creative "Chambers of Challenge" course.  First up is a set of six mine field hexes for the Stalingrad project as part of the Hall of Traps chamber.  What you say these hexes look blank - well look a bit closer and you might see a hasty placed mine or two sticking out

Maybe you can see them better in this picture - look in the lower right hex and you'll see a black dot.  There are at least 10 mines in each hex.  During the game players will have the ability to replace "clear" hexes with mined ones and it their opponents stumble on them, well boom.  But if they're vigilant, they just might spot them.  We'll see if this works but I think it will be a fun way to add a little tension to a game.

The dark splotches will lighten a bit as the glue /grout dries over the course of a few days.

I guess I can show you my "no painting required" hex terrain making method.  I take some blank hexes (see the hex making tutorial here) and use a small hole punch to make some "mines" form thin black matt board and glue them down.  Once the glue sets, each hex is covered with a very thin mix of flexible tile grout (earth tone color) which has a little bit of mod podge mixed in maybe a 1/10 ratio) as that extends the working time.  The hexes are set aside to harden - that takes a few hours.

While they set, I mix up my secret formula of dry sanded tile grout with some pigment - this is used to add a much fine texture to the surface.

After the grout sets, place the hex in a tray so it can the texture materials that falls of.  I use 5 different types of texture in making these hexes - mostly different grades of model railroad ballast and talus.

Spread a little undiluted modge podge on the hex

use a plastic spoon to sprinkle a little of the grout mix and then toss on a little of each other type of texture.  Once done use an eye dropper to drip diluted modge podge (1/3 modge podge and 2/3 water) and then set aside to dry.

Once everything setup up its rock solid terrain and there is no need to paint.

For my second Chamber, lets visit the Aquifer.  I present to you a US River Monitor and Patrol Boat from the Vietnam War.  These are 15mm models made by Battlefront which I am painting up for a club project and maybe a upcoming LWTV video.

These were pretty big for 15mm scale models but were a nice little detour.

Plus this is also my first entry in the Naval side challenge.  I doubt it will be my last......

Finally,  my last submission is 5, 15mm Panzer III J's - again part of the Stalingrad project.  These are from a Plastic Soldier Company box set which I, frankly, forgot I had and stumbled across cleaning up for the Challenge in early December.  

No fancy late-war German splinter camo paint jobs for these workhorses - just bog standard German field grey.  Old school, baby.

The details are not as good as other 15mm alternatives but these will do.  Especially since the life expectancy of a tank in urban combat is pretty short.

In terms of total points, I suggest the following

Hall of Traps: Minefields!

Lets go with 10 points of terrain (they do fill most of the six inch scoring cube but the design is really simple) plus 20 bonus points yields a total of 30 points

Aquifer: Vietnam Boats

These models are bigger than most 28mm tanks so let's go with 10 points each rather than the standard 8 for 15mm vehicles.  Thats a total of 40 points including the chamber bonus

Panzer III J's - this one's simple 5 tanks, at 8 points per tank is 40 points

All three sum up to 110 points.

There are a lot more hexes coming your way in the near future....