From ChristopherS : Fallschirnjäger leaders, radio, forward observer + AWI casualty markers (35 Points)

Last post of the challenge! I'm ending it by adding some leaders to my fallschirmjäger in form of a Leutnant and his right hand man an Unteroffizier in addition to a radio operator and a forward observer.

I'll probably end up using the radio operator as a pressed in medic for most games until I actually paint up one for it.

The figures are all Artizan which are my favorite WWII models as I like both the character and extremely painter friendly design. The colors were mostly Vallejo with some Mig pigments for the rocks and such.

When I decided to do fallschirmjäger for this challenge I knew I would struggle to meet my points goal and alas I didn't make it, but I'm not disappointed as I mostly achieved what I wanted to get finished. I still have some more left to go and would have liked to get them done as well, but I'm still content with my progress.

After fallschirmjäger I may take a crack on painting some British or move on to Germans and Americans to Italy, but I cannot just decide yet.

I also decided to add some much needed AWI casualty's for my AWI project. I already have 4 for my Americans but decided I needed at least 4 more. Later I'll add some British and Germans as well to my collection.

The figures are of course Perry miniatures which constitutes  a great deal of my AWI collection to include my entire American forces and likely the Germans and French as well in the future and my British are a mix of Perry and Front rank for those curious.

I painted these with mostly Foundry paints with some Vallajo plus the usual Mig pigments on the base.

As for keeping track of casualties I prefer to use a number system on the base where you can turn the complete base as a kind of dial if you like instead of a dice construct as I find it blends a bit more and you don't lose the dice picking it up.

So that's 5 standing figures and 3 prone all in 28mm for I believe 32.5 points.  
Well that's it. Thank you very much Curt and the minions as well for making this excellent event happen again!

Thanks for viewing!
Minature Company Artizan, Perry

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As usual, Christopher, you treat us to your patently beautiful brushwork. All these figures are absolutely gorgeous. I'm with you on Artizan's range of figures - they are wonderfully characterful and such fun to paint. Your work on the various uniform details is remarkable and I always like your lush groundwork. 

I'm also admiring your AWI casualty stands, though, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of the numbered sides - I find it's too easy to loose track of what side points where when moving units and then the stand during gameplay (keeping track of this starts out so well, but as the night wears on we often get sloppy). Nonetheless, they look terrific.

32.5? Hmm, I say we call it 35 due to the extra work on the casualty bases.

I'm delighted that you joined us for another year, Christopher. It's always a pleasure. I hope you're in the ranks with us for our next assault on the points roster. 

-Curt

From MilesR: George Washington - Side Duel #4 with Martin C (10 points)

 My part of the side duel was to paint up George Washington and here he is.

This is a 28mm figure from Fife and Drum Miniatures.  They make some fantastic miniatures and I do have a few battalions of Hessians that will likely have to wait until Challenge IX to see pigment

 I went with a Spring theme for the basing.

And there you have it!

Another 10 points for the till












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From SidneyR (stand-in Minion): Fantastic work, Miles! He really is a fantastic figure, painted with some lovely brushwork, and top-notch basing. I love how, with stately - even Presidential - grandeur, he's one of the final arrivals in your exemplary and awe-inspiring Challenge this year. And, I love the way you're already looking forward to Challenge IX - gosh, I think my painting fingers just spasm-ed at the thought!!

Great work, Sir - and another well-deserved 10 points for your mighty total. Bravo!

ChristopherS: Very Angry Bear (10 pts)

Not a good time for a misfire!! Johnny decides a retreat is a wise idea and takes flight in the face of what now is a very angry bear! This was going to be submitted in the flight bonus round, but in my typical absent minded way I forgot to re-read the corrections e-mail and submitted it to late. A lesson in paying better attention.

I wasn't sure if I was going to enter this round as I didn't plan on doing anything flying, but decided I do need some more deployment points for Sharp Practice so this little funny idea popped into my head....

After digging around in my boxes of lead I came up with a 28mm Perry militia figure and a 28mm  bear from Conquest (Warlord now I think) to do the little diorama. It was quite fun to do and I'm looking forward to doing more deployment pieces for Sharp Practice as they allow you to find use with all those extras that don't quite fit into units.

The figures were painted using mostly Foundry colors with some Vallejo here and there. The bases is natural wood, stones and mixed sand with various grasses and tufts plus my trusty MIG pigments and a bit of craft paint, Foundry and Vallejo to finish it.

They are 28mm figures so should net me 10pts.

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company-Perry, Conquest(Warlord)

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Exit, quickly, pursued by a bear.  And a very angry one at that!!  What a great deployment point, Christopher.  That really is quite a beast, coming at you, lumbering through the woods, enraged and confused, grumpy, disorientated and hungry.  (It reminds me of myself after my last cross-country "fun" run).

The colours really work perfectly, and the variety of paints you've used work well together.  And, of course, none of your figures would be complete without your fantastic, trademark tufts and flowering grasses - although I doubt that Johnny's going to be lingering long to enjoy them.

Terrific work, Sir, and another 10 points to your total!

From TomF: AWI 24th British Foot (38 Points)

The first unit of the British forces comes off the painting table for the AWI Battle of Hubbardton project.

The 24th regiment was the only regular Foot unit for the British at the battle.  The other units were converged light and grenadier companies. There are 36 - 10mm Pendraken figures (AWB21 and 38)  in this submission.  They have the Saratoga campaign cut-down tricornes and coats (lack of supplies forced them to do this for spare material for repair) and have dark-green facings.

According to the Perry miniatures web site painting guide, it is quite likely the flags were left behind especially since the 24th was assigned to the Advanced Guard Brigade.  But I didn't have the heart to field the unit without their colors. The flags were modified from images found at the British Regimental Drums and Colors web site.

Earlier in the Challenge JasperO submitted this same unit in 28mm.  If you missed his submission, he did a wonderful job and it is interesting to compare the different scales of our submissions.

This unit marks a milestone in the 20+ years since I started painting historical miniatures.  I have painted a lot of horse and musket period miniatures, but this is the first unit of Redcoats to ever come off my painting desk.  And there are more to come!

Next up another American unit for the Battle of Hubbardton project.

Thanks for viewing my submission.

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20+ years of Horse & Musket and you've never painted Brits up to this point?! I don't know how that even happens... ;)

Geez, these are lovely. Such fine brushwork and excellent attention to detail. If someone had said they were 15s I would not have questioned them. 

I can completely understand wanting to keep the colours with the unit. They would seem so incomplete without their brave banners waving above them. You did a great job on the base flag prints.

These 36 fellows will give you 38 points, with a few extra added in for the need-to-have flags.

Well done Tom!

From BenF - It's highlanders laddie, the Campbells are coming (48 Points)

Well, the weather is still sweltering here just north of Sydney, Australia, but despite the rolling heatwaves I've managed to get some painting done. These are the first of my major project for 2017, American Revolutionary War era British and Patriot forces for Sharp Practice 2. While my force will be designed around the Philadelphia campaign of 1777 (Including the battles of Brandywine, Paoli, White Horse Tavern, and Germantown), my interest in the period was piqued by reading Bernard Cornwell's 'The Fort'. This book is based around the surprising victory at Penobscot Bay and Bagaduce of a tiny British force under Brigadier Francis MacLean in 1777. 

The narrative follows a number of characters, including the young John Moore who commands a scratch skirmish company tasked with defending Fort George and the town of Bagaduce (now Castine, Maine) against Patriot Massachusetts Militia and Continental Marines. The British forces in this battle were drawn from the 74th (Highland) Regiment of Foot and the 82nd (Duke of Hamilton's) Regiment - both drawn from Scotland. I wanted to paint up Moore as a Leader for my Sharp Practice force and a couple of units of skirmishing Scots. 

Now, all good historical gamers know the value of research. Moore served in the 82nd, which I discovered was not a 'kilted' Highland regiment, but was instead a lowland regiment equipped as regular British troops. Unfortunately I discovered this only after purchasing some of the lovely Perry and Kings Mountain highland figures. So, these are all painted up NOT as Moore's skirmishers, but instead as men from the 74th Regiment.

So, below we have two officers, one a line company man and one a flank officer with a rifle. In the novel, Brigadier MacLean comments on the prevalence of officers called Campbell in the 74th, so for my SP2 games, these officers have been dubbed Archie and Angus Campbell  (no relation). 

It just wouldn't be right to paint up highlanders without having a crack at a piper, so I decided to do one of them as well. These Perry figures are lovely a sculpts. This was also my first crack at tartan, and I followed Giles Allison of Tarleton's Quarter's excellent tutorial on how to paint government sett, the standard AWI tartan.  

Finally, the chaps who will actually do most of the fighting, six hat company men serving as a skirmish group.  I painted the officer's tunics in a bright scarlet, and the men's in a more faded brick red. Apparently at Breeds Hill, the Patriots aimed for the brighter tunics through the smoke, knowing that only officers would be wearing such fine quality material. I'll be painting up Moore and his skirmishers in the correct lowland uniforms, along with a two groups of 74th hatmen in line formation for good old Angus Campbell to command  in the game.

As I mentioned at the outset, my goal with this challenge has been to speed up my painting without losing too much of the quality. I completed this lot using a basecoat/wash/highlight method, and with the exceptions of the eyes (on some of the figures -the piper particularly) and flesh, I'm very happy with the result. My plan from now on is to paint the faces using my older technique of layering, and then paint everything else using the much faster wash/highlight method. For a glacially slow painter, I'm very happy to have taken this unit from bare metal to finished figure in one week.

For the basing, I went for a rather bleak, Autumnal look, which for me works for the battles around Philadelphia and in New England in 1777 and 1779.

I've actually played a few games of Sharp Practice 2 this past week, using my Peninsular war kit. I've noticed a few odds and sods which my forces could benefit from, so next week's  entry will be a mixed bag of Napoleonic Peninsular Brits, French, and civilians.

Well, that lot should be a couple more points towards my goal. Also, if possible, could these be added as an entry for me to the Sharp Practice side challenge?

Alan and Paul: Coincidentally, I am re-reading Bernard Cornwell's 'The Fort' at the moment. Great book - one of Cornwell's best, in my view. Wonderful work on these challenging figures. I think you have nailed the wash and highlight approach - if you can produce figures of this standard at a pace you are happy with, you are doing very well. Congratulations on the dicing around the cap bands, and great effort on the dreaded tartan. The leaves on the bases are a very nice finishing touch. That's 45 points for the figures, with a couple extra for the tartan.

From TomF: 10mm AWI Green Mountain Boys (38 Points)

First Challenge, first entry!

I've thoroughly enjoyed The Challenge over the last two years as a spectator.  But I really wanted to get off the sidelines and into the game this year.

The primary motivation for participating this year is that I have a project that needs to be completed by the end of March.  A colleague at the local university I work at is teaching a course on the American War of Independence (AWI) and has asked me to host a game.

I've decided to run the Battle of Hubbardton which was a small (but important) rearguard action during the Saratoga (New York) campaign that immediately followed the British capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1777 (see Wikipedia summary here).  I chose this battle because it is fairly small and has some very colorful (both in uniforms and leader personalities) American and British/German units.  This is my first foray into AWI miniatures so I need to paint all units involved in the battle by the deadline.

The first AWI unit off the painting desk is an American regiment, the Green Mountain Boys (aka - Warner's Extra Continental Regiment).  A reenactment group of this regiment has a nice summary of the unit's history here. Click on the photo gallery link on the left of the web page for pictures of the reenactors in their uniforms.

All 35 minis are 10mm Pendraken.  

The regiment had dark green coats with red facings.  All other clothing and accoutrements varied based on what the individual soldiers brought with them.

There is a nice variety of poses that came in the Pendraken pack (AWA 7) which slowed me down in getting this unit finished. 

Close-up of the command stand.  The paper flag is an altered image that I borrowed from the internet.

Finally, a picture of the regiment from the rear.  Loved the sculpting of the hair on these minis.

Thanks for viewing my first submission.

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Really lovely work Tom! I've not seen the AWI range from Prendraken so this is a real treat, especially with how excellently you've painted them. 

A funny coincidence is that my wife, Sarah, is a direct descendant of Ethan Allen, one of the leaders of the Green Mountain Boys, drawn through her mother's line. I've always bugged her to join the 'Daughters of the American Revolution', but she won't budge (she'd look quite fetching in a tricorne and ruffled shirt).

I quite like the bold green, white and red you've used on these guys - they really do a wonderful job in drawing the eye to the figures. I also like the chunky bases - their thickness will help keep fingers off the boys. I know many of us are looking forward to seeing this project develop over the course of the Challenge!

38 Points, including one extra for the brave banner. Well done!

From JasperO - It's over, but I'm not done! (66 points)

My main project for this Challenge has nothing to do with my previous submissions. Instead, the idea was to get as much of my share of the Dutch AWI Project done. I'd started on a 'multi-purpose' militia unit of 24 figures with two command bases, one for Loyalists Militia, the other for Patriots. I was pretty well on schedule to finish the whole thing by the end of the Challenge, but then work interfered. I do, however, have quite a few of the figures completely done, though they're not based. So I'll leave it to the gentle overlords to judge the points value of this final submission. It does taste like more however, so please sign me up for next year (and the Curtgeld will be forthcoming too!).

Perry 'hired hands' of the 33rd regiment. They're actually done!

From Minion Tamsin:
Blimey Jasper - that's a lot of photos. Almost as many as I usually post with my entries. But with such lovely painting, I'm not going to complain.
I make that 15 standing figures and one casualty with only two of the figures based. I've deducted a few points for the unfinished bases and added a couple for the stripey trousers and the quality.
I'm glad you've enjoyed the mayhem and want to come back next year.