RobH - Anyscale Models - RAM Badger (20 Points)

The Badger was a flamethrower equipped tank used in NW Europe by the Canadian Army. The first Badgers were Ram Kangaroos with the Wasp II flamethrowing equipment (as used on the Universal Carrier) installed in place of the bow MG. Later models were turreted Rams with the equipment in place of the main gun. 

 

I don't have a lot of experience with weathering vehicles so I went with a basic black (Vallejo German Grey) followed by brown (Vallejo Beastly Brown) washes. I made sure that some texture paint was smeared over the tacks and boogy wheels to represent the muddy conditions the army fought through in the fall-winter of 1944-45. 

According to Wikipedia, the Ram was a cruiser tank designed and built by Canada in the Second World War, based on the U.S. M3 Medium tank chassis. Due to standardization on the American Sherman tank for frontline units, it was used exclusively for training purposes and was never used in combat as a gun tank. The chassis was used for several other combat roles however, such as a flamethrower tank, observation post, and armoured personnel carrier.

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Excellent work, Rob! You've provided a great bit of Canadian armoured history here (I didn't know that they produced a flamethrowing variant). I think you've done a terrific job on the weathering, especially the cloying mud in the tracks and mechanicals. Well done.

- Curt

KenR : 28mm Mentana French Chasseur a Pied (30 pts)

Hi Everyone welcome back to my favourite time of the year, the AHPC and thanks once again to Curt for organising this wonderful event. 

I always like to try and get some points on the board before Xmas, with a load of Podcast releases I am a little slow off the mark this year and have just managed to scrape 6 figs in before festivities begin.

So my main Project this year will be Italian Wars (again) I have a mix of Italian and Spanish units in the mix ready to go but I thought I would book end last years Mentana Project with a unit of French Chasseur a Pied, 28mm metal figures from the Perrys FPW range (I'm still waiting for the French Infantry to come out).

Here we have 6 figs at 5pts each for 30 pts and they will be used as a small skirmish screen, I'm working on a main body of 24 figs to go with these. These figs are on 60 x 30 bases.

I'm unlikely to have my usual laser focus this year, I have my 1/700 WW2 Naval to work on and I have a few ships built and undercoated including the Bismark, on top of that I've been using 10mm Malburian as a bit of a palette cleanser between units recently so that might continue during the Challenge.

That just leaves me to wish you all a brilliant time over Christmas and New Year and hope you don't lose focus on the true meaning of this time of year. And by that I mean painting like mad to get your points up before you go back to work 😉

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Ken, it's wonderful to see you back and treating us to your amazing Italian Risorgimento project. I really like the piping on these Chasseur's uniforms, along their loaded-to-bursting packs (must be all the wine, cheese and baguettes). I look forward to seeing the rest of the regiment once it leaves your workbench and your talented brush. Lovely work.

Welcome back to Challenge, Ken, and Merry Christmas!

- Curt

From GeoffreyT: Iconic Dungeon and Dragons Beasts (Black and White) (50 points)

Hello Again Challengers,

From the "Under Construction" Studio, I saunter east into the adjacent "Black and White" studio, where I show off some more home made creations (and not the last). Rather than sculpted I would call these crafted.

Whilst perusing the interweb for scratch building methods, I came across a very good you-tube tutorial from "Wylochs Armoury", which demonstrates how to make a Beholder from a ping pong ball and hot glue. For those not familiar with the genre, the Beholder is an iconic DnD monster, which is a giant floating eyeball, with 10 smaller eyes on stalks, each of which has a powerful and deadly magical stare. Perhaps it is eye-conic.

I don't partake in DnD these days, but could not resist the urge to try the tutorial. I didn't have a ping pong ball, but did have a LD polystyrene ball which I turned into this.

Pretty much just copied the tutorial ad nauseam, and got a great result. Below is an oblique shot. However, this is not in greyscale I hear you say, and I agree, but please hold on for a bit ...

After finding this easier than I expected, I grabbed my ready-to-hand monster manual and searched the pages for more monsters that could be made from polystyrene and hot glue. My next choice was the roper. The roper is a monster that pretends to be a stalagmite, and traps careless passing adventurers with its tentacles and eats them in its stony jaws. The rock is carved from HD polystyrene, and textured with PVA and garden soil (in Western Australia we call it soil, most of the world would call this sand). The tentacles are wire covered in hot glue, and the eye is a blob of grey stuff putty.

This heinous fake rock is kind of grey, but does have shadows with a purple tint and a yellow eye, so not really grey scale either. I do wonder how these things survive. Perhaps they eat more than just passing adventurers, or maybe they go dormant when adventurers are thin on the ground. It should have six tentacles, but I was happy enough with the two I added.

The next polystyrene creations is the grey ooze. For some reason the grey ooze is always depicted in the art as being on a wall, so on a wall it was made. With a grey monster on a grey wall, what could be a better subject for greyscale painting.

The wall is carved from a piece of HD polystyrene and the ooze is a blob of hot glue. From the reverse angle you can see unsurprisingly looks like a wall.

All three of these "creatures" are between about 50 and 65mm tall, despite nominally being in 28mm scale. After all, they are large and ferocious. I am happy enough with this trios, and polystyrene and hot glue is a simple and effective technique to try out. Nevertheless, I think polymer clay and/or epoxy putty will be more my jam for future sculpting.

Points:

3 x 54mm figures = 30 points

Black and White Bonus = 20 points.

Net = 50 points.

That is all, now I must go check on the Christmas cooking.

GT.

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Geoffrey, I'm loving these bespoke creatures you're treating us to. I'm especially taken (transfixed?) by the blue-eyed Beholder (great work on the eyes!) and the Grey Ooze, both wonderful classics from the original Monster Manual. Bravo!

- Curt

From KyleC - Ork Meganobs - (49 Points)

So a quick one as I process some models for a friend. 

He needed some Orks painted up, and I had gotten some of it finished already, but still have a few left over. Here is the first batch of them.. 

Ork Meganobs! Along with some MegaOrk Meks! 

Plenty of airbrush work on these boys here. Primed with the airbrush, but then dual layers of yellow laid down to get the main colors sorted. All done with.. GW contrast paints!!! They airbrush really well and smoothly!

Helps to get a good even coverage especially with yellow. 

I did attempt the skin with airbrush but has to rework it afterwards. But it's all a trial and error on some bits so why not. 

All were gloss varnished before applying a black oil wash. Then a ultra matte varnish from AK once it dried a bit before tackling the details and highlights. Like the reds and metal highlights. 

For the big Meks, I tried some OSL on the generators and such. Airbrushed in some white to the areas I would be trying the blue in. Then hit it with GW contrast pylar glacier. A horribly thin color that took many layers to get even a tiny bit of coverage. I then with the brush hit the recesses with GW contrast Talassar blue. Bedford a touch of white ink for the highlights. 

End result turned out ok though. And gives the glowing effect I was looking for. 

Only issue is no bases done. Since it's for a friend and he wants to do them to tie into the rest of his army. So normally this would be 35 PTS but now.. no idea. But glad to have them done, and looking at some Star Wars models for the Sci Fi Category next. This could have worked but I haven't done a female tribute as yet (but working on a few now). 

Have a great Christmas all! And see you all on the other side. 

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Wow Kyle, you have a very lucky friend, but then again I've been the recipient of your kindness more than once in the past, so this generosity fits very much in your wheelhouse.  These nasty Meganobs look brilliant in all their yellow, teeth-gnashing glory. I especially like the glowing effect on the generators. It's interesting as I've heard from others that GW's new 'Pylar Glacier' is a real challenge to use, but as we can see here, it's wonderful for some effects.

I'm going to count each of these Meganobs as 7 points each, as they look like they have the height (if not mass) of a 40mm figure, if not larger. Great work and Happy Christmas!

- Curt

From SteveK: 6mm French Infantry - Blucher (144 points)

 Hi all,

A bit of a diversion... (already)...

I thought id kick off the challenge by knocking out a few brigades of French troops for my never ending Blucher project. Ive been chipping away at this project (one way or another) for about 12 years, and despite being able to paint them quickly, I just as quickly get fed up of them!

Anyway, here they are.

A total of 12 battalions worth of Adler 6mm Napoleonics.

Scores on the doors!

273 Infantry @ 0.5 points each = 136.5

1 mounted @ 1 point = 1

Total = 137.5 points

Cheers and merry Christmas!

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Brilliant work Steve! I have a soft spot for Adler Napoleonics as I had a large collection in the past, all based for 'Grand Armee'. Great little models. I really like how orderly and neat your bases are, with their serried ranks of beautifully painted miniatures, waving brave banners, and all augmented with clearly designed labels. A nice and strong division of French grognards, ready to put the enemies of the Emperor to flight. Well done!

I've added a few extra points for the flags as I know how challenging they can be at this scale.

- Curt

From ByronM: 15mm Striking Scorpions and Wizard's Tower (35 Points)

For today's post I have a few items, but first up are some more 15mm Warhammer 40k items.  These are some of the left over models from last years Eldar project.  These are 11 3d printed resin Striking Scorpions and a Wave Serpent for transport.

 

While normally only 10 models are in a squad I painted up both versions of the squad exarch (leader) so that I have options in game.  One version has twin swords and shuriken pistols and the other has a huge two handed chain sword.  I also have the Wave Serpent ready to transport them into battle at a moments notice. 

 

 

I tried to go with the original green and yellow paint scheme but I tried several times to get the swords and guns to look good in yellow and I eventually had to give up and go with black and silver for them.  I did leave some markings and the hair in yellow, although it just would not pop bright yellow no matter what I did, so not thrilled with them, but too frustrated to do any more.

Next up is a 3d printed tower that I printed at 10mm scale to use as terrain for my 10mm Kings of War project.  I tried to give it some character by painting the stones in various shades, and think it worked out well.  It should look good on a hill top in a game soon. As for size it is about 4" tall and has a base about 2" square.

As for points, I come up with the following:

11 15mm Scorpions @ 2 points = 22 points
1 15mm vehicle @ 8 points
1 10mm tower @ 5 points (by terrain math its less than that, but it surely counts as at least 1 28mm figure as its several sizes larger than one)

For a total of 35 points.

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Fabulous wee Eldar, Byron, and that wizard's observatory looks wonderfully baroque and, um, architecturally 'forward thinking' (ie unsafe). I love the helipad with the pentagram landing zone (never know when you're going to have winged daemons dropping in for an unscheduled visit.) With three entries under your belt over these opening few days, you've been absolutely on-fire this edition. I look forward to seeing what you have for us next.

- Curt