From ByronM: Steaming through Douglas' Shallows (47 points)

Well, it took a while but I finally found a way to get across the Douglas Shallows, a shallow-hulled Dwarf steamship!  For something nautical to match the requirements of the map space I once again dug into my copy of Dreadfleet that has been sitting waiting to be painted for way too many years.

The ship itself is very stereo-typically dwarf, it is stout, heavy, and likely a bit slow.

To make up for a bit of the ship's slowness it employs scouting air ships so that it can spot and target enemies at range.  The game provides a deployed air ship, and you can see there is a second in the actual paddle wheel ship.

These were once again painted in a very plain and dwarfy style, meaning lots of metal!  There are some wood features picked out just to add some warmed colours to the model along the rails, but it is mainly multiple silvers and golds, then just washed and re-highlighted.

For points this is similar sized to the Dwarf submarine, so I would assume similar points (15), but there is really no set scale for me to reference this against for a set point score, so whatever is good.  In addition it is for my next map space, so a bonus 30 points there, for a total of 45.

I may be back again later to my copy of Dreadfleet, as the ships look so much better painted, and the others are getting jealous in the box.

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Well done Byron - as a Dwarf ship, I assume it has other Dwarf characteristics as well - lots of guns, lots of metal, and never shows up or actually contributes anything useful to its side in the game? 

The results are excellent as usual Byron - and the water effects on the base finish it off perfectly. Are the bases already textured, or is that something you did on your own?  Certainly the overall effect is fantastic, a fitting means to travel Douglas' Shallows. For points, I will toss in a couple of extra for the little flying contraption.

Your notion of unpainted figures becoming jealous is a bit terrifying, I expect, for many of us...for my part, I am now imagining half a legion of angry unpainted Space Marines in my basement getting tired of my recent "historical" painting and becoming angry...if they teamed up with my wife, that would be it for me...

GregB

From ByronM: Landing on the Reidy's Reef in a sub? (45 Points)

Well, it has taken a while, but I am finally ready to land on Challenge Island.  With holiday season and family events it has taken longer to arrive on the island than I had originally planned, but at least I am here now!

To be fair, a lot of the delay was about not really being sure where to land and what path to take.  In the end I figured I had to take the path of the new and shiny since a) I have a space on that path bearing my name, and b) as anyone who knows me will attest..... SQUIRREL!!!  I kind of get distracted and jump onto new projects pretty damn fast.  So, overall it makes sense to follow this path, at least for a while until I get distracted again.

To make landfall, I went digging through my pile-o-shame looking for something that would fit the Reidy's Reef nautical theme requirement.  While I had a bunch that I could use, I had not planned ahead for the island challenges and therefore didn't have anything assembled or primed for the spaces.  I had lots of ships kicking around but nothing ready to go.  Then I happened across my box of Games-Workshops Dreadfleet, which I had bought, assembled, primed, played a few games, found out how bad it was (despite having some really cool looking figures) and then sat in the box for years.  At least I had everything there assembled and primed though!

So I pulled out something simple to paint and away I went....

May I present to you my Dwarf submarine war machine.  It is basically a mechanical kraken and is a great example of the cool models in the Dreatfleet box.

While I painted it up in a super simple steel and brass colour scheme, I think it works.  After all it's underwater most of the time so any real life paint details would very quickly corrode away and be gone anyway.

Hope you all like it.  Not sure I will get to any other Dreadfleet models this challenge, but I may simply because they are all ready to paint, so any time I hit a nautical theme space, they may become my go to choice.  Also, it would me nice to have them all done at some point.

Oh, and size wise the game has no real set scale, but the base is 32mm x 75mm.

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Oooh, how very cool! I've always wanted to pick up a copy of this game as the minis looked so groovy. Great work on this 'sub', Byron. as you say the craft itself is fairly straightforward, but I have to say I really like what you did with the water and wave effects - very nice. 

As to points, we'll count it as a 28mm cavalry figure with a few points added in.

Welcome back to the Challenge Byron!

-Curt