From PhilH: Obsolete at the Armoury (50 Points)

Rattling through these Chambers now. The Armoury, a miniature that's armoured. Well barely, say I: how's about an obsolete WWI-vintage tank, thrown desperately into the fray in the Spanish Civil War? As I mentioned in my recent entry about the tizano improvised armour, in the inter-war Period, Spain was slow to adapt to new forms of warfare. Cutting investment in the armed forces, at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, Spain's armoured forces totalled a handful of obsolete tanks, primarily a couple of squadrons of Renault FT and Schneider CA1. Domestic development and production of tanks was sorely lacking. Hence, the most common armoured vehicles of the Civil War were hurriedly provided by larger powers keen to swing the conflict in their favour: German Pz1, Italian tankettes and Soviet T-26.

I wanted to reflect the bonkers variety of armoured vehicles that were used in my collection, so have a fair stash of them to paint. While innovative for 1917, the FT is so delightfully obsolete, dorky and useless, I'll have to get it to the table soon.

I used this sheet from FC Modeltips for the camo pattern. Interestingly, other versions of the pattern working from black and white photos concluded green-on-green, but I much preferred the green/brown. This 1:56 resin model in is from Blitzkrieg miniatures, with nice touches of a vision port that can be open with driver visible and both the cast turret with Hotchkiss MG, and the Berliet design riveted turet, with 37mm gun. Spain's models were MG-armed, though later shipments were recieved from Poland and France, dumping obsolete hardware on the depserate Republic, so plausibly they could have had the 37mm: Steven J Zaloga's Spanish Civil War Tanks by Osprey makes no mention, but Chain of Command Espana has an entry for it.

Then finally for reasons, I had a second MG turret, so I painted that one to be a captured vehicle, with Nationalist Spain flag design around the turret, and St Andrews cross aerial recognition marking on the cupola.

This was varnished with AK interactive ultra matte, so has a suuuper matte finish. I wouldn't use it on infantry, but it seems passable on tanks. Pleased with how the exhaust rusting came out, so have another shot of it:

One 28mm armoured vehicle for 20, plus two spare turrets say 5 points a piece and the Chamber bonus. 50 points please, Wednesday Minion!

I really like the muted WW1 tones on the paint job and the weathering is really great Phil! I'll grant you 2points for each spare turret (they just aren't the equivalent of a whole 28mm figure with basing) for a total of 44 points

Cap'n Wednesday
 

For MikeW: The Altar of the SnowLord

Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South)

 

Alright Mike, I've really enjoyed your excellent Siege of Vienna and Tomb Kings submissions this year, but I'd like to see more of your Texas Revolution project. How about some flashy Mexican cavalry to whet our appetites? Once you treat us to, say, half-dozen of those brave chaps then you can claim your well-earned prize.

Mike's Prize: Fervent Mullah by PaulSS

From ChrisF - Chamber of Challenge The Tomb - 15mm tomb (25pts)

 I made this tomb a few years ago for my gaming table. I produced the original out of foam and clay, and made the silicone mold for repro. Not super detailed , but functional. Since the roof is a 2 part cast, it was always on standby to use up any extra resin, along with the baseplate and building, so I ended up with quite a few. 

After primer I painted the whole thing with white liquitex, and just used a variety of stains.

I've developed a much better way to make rubble, so I may make another one in the future, but as of now its a fun scatter piece for the gaming table.

Not counting any points for the 15mm mini inside as he was previously painted, but wanted something to show scale. Should have painted a new one, but I really, really like this vampire mini and wanted to use him. 

From RayR: Chamber of Challenge - Graveyard Beach (62 points)

 

Sorry folks but I've kinda ignored the second word Beach and gone with the first word, Graveyard.

 Graveyard Beach: Spooky, ghostly, undead and undying things arrive, or resurrect, here under 

Challenge Mountain. Bonus points if combined with a watery or nautical theme.

Its been an interesting Challenge for me this time around, I seem to have got the terrain bug?

Debris of War make a fantastic Graveyard set, but I wanted mine to be more rustic with a countryside look, so I bought their gravestones and different walls.

My original plan was to make a permanent model but after having a chat with Postie, I changed my mind and made it modular otherwise I think I think it would get broken. This way I can store it more easily.

The Debris of War gravestones were rather elaborate affairs only for the upper class. I wanted some plain ordinary worn out looking ones, so I bought some MDF ones from Ebay. I painted them with very watered down polyfiller to give them a stone look. I even left some unbased  to lean against the walls.

This dashing looking fellow was going to be a Ghoul/Zombie in my Shrine post, but I changed my mind and painted up the Col Bill's Ghosts. So he's moved into the Graveyard as an extra figure.

I'm not sure of the manufacturer as he and some other chums were gifted to me by me ol pal Fran, before he buggered off back to Ireland. He's part of a collection climbing out of toxic waste barrels!!

The Gravedigger is a Foundry figure from their SYW Prussian  labourers, sorry I can't find the pack on their site? The wheelbarrow and coffin are from Black Tree Design here

Now here's the really difficult bit.....the points!!

The base boards are 16 x 16 inches x 0.5 inch

The walling measure 4 x 14 inch x 1 inch high

There are 27 based Gravestones with another 5 unbased.

1 x 25mm figure

1/2 x 25mm figure

1 x coffin

1 x wheelbarrow

If the base walling and Gravestones are piled up the should make a rough box of 16 x 8 x 2.5

making a total of 1.5 boxes. giving me 30 points

1 x 25mm figure - 5 points

1/2 x 25mm figure - 3 points

1 x coffin - 2 points

1 x wheelbarrow - 2 points

Challenge Bonus - 20 points

Making a total of 62 points I think?

Well, at least you did get an undead revenant in to fit the theme. Will we be seeing these in a future game report?

Amazingly, your maths is correct. Although I am surprised that you didn't try to claim the ghoul is female and qualifies for "Sarah's Choice"...

Tamsin

From NoelW: Lair of the Great Beast (183 points)

Without even a click of ruby slippers, but with a most palpable magical whooosh! they are instantly transported to the Lair of the Beast.

“Sorry, can’t take you any further,” wails the disappearing purple-haired sorceress, “you don’t have enough air miles.”

For a moment, looking around, Titchy suspects they might be in trouble.

“Er - “

“Woof!” says Scruff.

“Oh, yes, of course he is!” agrees Titchy, peering upwards. “It’s Gnawbone, and he’s all grown up.”

The great troll leans down and pats Scruff on the head. Then he pats Titchy on the head. Elfbow gets out of the way.

“So who are all your friends?” asks Getrude, surveying the sundry monsters clustered around them.

“Hulk smash!” says the giant Gnawbone.

“Yes, well, obviously. What else would you do in circumstances like this? But, the question is, who are you going to smash?”

“Gnawbone meet invaders in Hall of Heroes. Final showdown. We show them. They down soon enough.”

“Sounds great, old pal, old friend,” says Titchy. “So we’ll just hang around here until you’ve pushed the invading hordes back into the sea, shall we?”

But no – that’s not what happens, you’ll be surprised to hear. With a sudden cry Gnawbone raises his iron hammer, gestures at the tunnel leading to the Hall of Heroes, and the whole maelstrom of monsters follows suit, screaming, screeching, roaring and, yes, it seems, woofing!

“Come back, Scruff, you’ll get yourself pulverised.”

“It’s no good,” says Getrude. “Gerald is of the very definite opinion that we’re going to be swept along with the monstrous tide of nationalist – well, Chamberist – sentiment, and must follow where these valiant monsters lead, to do or die.”

“I’m pretty sure I know which I’d prefer,” says Elfbow. But he’s outnumbered, and before you can say “Shot to death by a hundred invading muskets”, the whole party finds itself carried bodily along the tunnel towards the Hall of Heroes.

***

As I’m playing more fantasy games lately, such as Oathmark, Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep, in odd intervals through the Challenge I’ve been painting monsters, with no particular plan, other than the expectation that one or other of them would do for the Beast. It turns out, they all wanted the job, so here they are.

First, the mighty Gnawbone himself, finally transformed into the creature he always knew he could be, if he only realised his full potential.

 

Compare him with this model, properly a minotaur, but probably really a minitaur – he’s intended for my 10mm fantasy setup (Lord of the Rings et al. ‘Al’ is the name of Sauron’s successor), though he stands 20mm high.

 

Another small giant is this octopus – ancestry unknown but I think he might just belong to the GW Man O’ War game. Anyway, he’ll be a hazard for my Black Seas games.

 

Next we have a pair of monster crocodiles. I’m quite pleased with how these look, as I was experimenting with different contrast paints and washes on them, and whilst they look quite different, I feel they both also look quite realistic.

The first is a Reaper Bones nasty:

 

The second is simply a Playmobil creature from one of the pirate sets (don’t tell my kids) and turns out to take a paint job surprisingly well.

 

Next two monsters also “borrowed” from my children’s collections of old toys. A giant spider creature which, rather scarily, has humanoid features. This is made from that sort of jelly resin that cheap children’s toys are made from (that’s toys which are cheap for children, not toys for children who are cheap. I’ve found that children are actually extremely costly) and doesn't paint up that well (that's my excuse, anyway).

 

The other is a yeti-esque creature. Rather scarily, this also seems slightly familiar.

 

 Then there’s this sort of chaos dog, which came amongst a set of chaos dwarves on the cover of Miniature Wargames. I don’t really like this figure and I think the mediocre paint job rather tells you that.

 

I’m much happier with my eagle. Well, I call him an eagle. Could be any noble raptor, really. No idea of manufacturer, as he’s been in the collection for decades.

 

 And another ancient, unattributable creature, a sort of winged snake (coatl?) which has painted up surprisingly well, too. Some of these ancient models have real character.

 

Next two giant rats. Very animated poses, and very large rats. Made by Reaper Bones.

 

Another Reaper Bones figure is this nicely sculpted Giant Scorpion. And it really is giant. There’s no need for it to bother with venom – a sting from this thing would be like being felled by an axe. And not a soft, gentle axe, either.

 

 And next another Reaper Bones fortissimo of a figure: I’m not sure what sort of dragonesque creature is intended, but I’ve made her a blue dragon. I really like this model, but I’m also quite pleased with how she’s come out, as I mainly used Contrast paints, with added highlighting, and I find they’re often too patchy to be very pleasing.

 

 And talking of dragons, here’s a gold dragon by Wizzkids. I’ve not attached the flames, so the dragon can be calling plaintively  for Mummy, or making toast, whichever is most appropriate for a game.

 

Finally, a brazen bull. Weirdly, this creature (or a cognate) exists in D&D as a gorgon, but the model is great, whatever it’s called.

Scoring for this miscellany is a bit unclear, especially as several of the figures are much wider or longer than they are tall. I’m tentatively suggesting, the following, but I throw myself on the rare and tender mercies of our much-beloved Minions:

Octopus (10mm monster): 2 pts

Minotaur: (20mm foot): 4 pts

Coatl, eagle, dog, 2 giant rats: approx. 30mm = 5 x 5 pts = 25 pts

Bull, spider and 2 monster Crocodiles: (80mm, 90mm and 110mm long, but only 30mm and 40mm high, so suggest treat them as 28mm artillery): 4 x 10 pts = 40 pts

Yeti: 40mm x 60mm: 7 pts

Gold dragon (54mm x 80mm) and Scorpion (50mm x 60mm): suggest 54mm artillery = 40pts

Troll: 65mm high, 80mm at widest point: 15 pts?

Blue dragon (100mm x 140mm): 30 pts?

Lair of the Beast: 20 pts

Grand total: 183 pts, perhaps

What a grand collection of beasties. I'm sure they'll give a good account of themselves against the Hall of Heroes.

I'll go along with your scoring of these, simply because I reckon any scoring I came up with would quite closely match your suggestions.

Tamsin