From JonathanO: The SAGAS of Noggin the Nog - At various locations of the Chambers of Challenge XI (150 points)

 I did not intend to do a really late post, but I realised that I still had time to make my points target.  I finished off a few figures that were in progress and completed a few more.  This is a bit of fun to finish off with and I hope you won't mind if I visit 5 additional locations in the one post.

I present some miniatures from the Little Soldier Company that were based on the characters from the children's books and TV series "The SAGAS of Noggin the Nog".

At the Hall of Heroes we have Noggin and queen Nooka:

Retracing my steps through rooms already visited, I get to the Hatchery.  Here we find Nogbad the Bad and his crows hatching a plan:

At the Armoury there are two Nog soldiers:

The Gallery of Ancestors features Noggin's parents King Knut and Queen Grunhilda:

Finally in the Guardroom, NOT keeping a close eye on the treasures of the Nogs are these two sleeping Nog sentries:

The whole group:

I had planned to complete all the figures during the challenge, but plans change!  At least I got most done for this final entry.

So 10 x 28mm figures = 50 points , plus 5 x 20 for new locations visited = 100 bonus points.  For a grand total of 150 points to take me comfortably over my target.  Hurrah!

Thanks to Curt for allowing me to participate in another enjoyable Painting Challenge.  Thanks to Sarah for continuing to support this madness!  This could not be so awesome and big without the wonderful Minions - thanks to you all.  Finally well done all participants and thanks for sharing your superb painting, interesting and amusing stories as well as for supporting each other on this journey through the Chambers of Challenge XI.  

Cheers,

Jonathan

From JasperO: Shermans for The Armoury (63 points)

Hurray! I've made it to the end of the Challenge without burning out and despite waylaying myself with several (still unfinished, of course) projects along the way. These two Shermans, however, had been properly planned before the Challenge started, and had been ready to go, primed and all on December 21st, ready to slot into the Armoury when, actually really if, I got there. But I did, just in time, and I finished them, just in time (about 15 minutes ago, in fact).

Both models are from the wonderful range of Shermans that Rubicon offers. I used to build tank models, a long time ago, and I felt almost stymied by the bewildering quantity of super-detailing options on offer. These are just right: the mix-and-match features of the kits allow you to build just about any Sherman variant you might want, and come with enough detail that is fun to paint without 'requiring' weeks of work to get them finished to some hyper-detailed level. (This is just how my brain work, your mileage hopefully varies).

I'm glad I included some crewmembers to provide scale and color, as an olive-drab tank can otherwise get a bit, well, drab. Rubicon includes driver/radio operator busts that have to be installed during construction which makes painting them a bit awkward, but if you leave the heads separate, it's fine. The shoulder area is hardly visible at all, in the end.

Contemporary photos always seem to show especially American Shermans festooned with stowage and as that adds color and interest too, I grabbed bits from a variety of sets and stuck them all over liberally. It's a bit of extra work in the end, but adds a lot to the final impression, I think. Points-wise, two tanks are 40 points, 20 points for the armoury and one each for the 'head-and-shoulders'?

The Challenge has certainly allowed me to stay focused better than I might otherwise (it's relative, but still...), and a certain pressure does help to get things done. So it's been good! Thank you so much to Curt for organizing it again, to the Minions for being encouraging and doing the hard work, to Lady Sarah for allowing me to skip Chambers I didn't want to deal with, and to all the other contenders for the inspiring work! 

From MartijnN: Steaming along into the Armoury (28 points)

 I think I might manage one or two little contributions this last week. Here’s one for The Armoury. I have been slowly building my 1/3000 fleets for WWI since the nineties. I really can’t think why it is talking me so long because these little ships are not really very challenging to paint , especially when you’re not going overboard with masts, pennants and other fiddly details. They are simple playing pieces to me. As such, the bases are actually the most work.  As the North Sea is fairly dark I try to make them not too brightly blueish. I first texture them, then a black basecoat followed by Vallejo Dark Sea Blue, Tamiya Light Sea Grey, and finally Vallejo Pale Grey Blue. Then white for the bow wave, the wake and the foam around the hulls. The ships themselves are simply Vallejo Neutral Grey for the hull and Vallejo Buff  for the decks. Then Citadel Nuln Oil and sometimes a drybrush if I fancy it. With my older models I have been fairly inconsistent with the colour of  the decks, but I finally settled on the lighter variant. I think. They are all Navwar castings, fairly crude but functional (like my photography skills, really). I actually like them a lot. The models, that is.

So here are some examples of the epitome of the armoured ship, the Dreadnought Battleship. This is  the Grand Fleet’s 2^nd Battle Squadron, 2^nd division, at Jutland, consisting of the four “super dreadnoughts” of the Orion Class: Orion, Monarch, Conqueror and Thunderer. Commissioned into the fleet in 1912, they were armed with ten 13.5” guns in five turrets amidships and displaced some 22,000 tons. Even though they were in the van of the battle line, they were not heavily engaged at Jutland, neither achieving nor receiving a significant number of hits (although Monarch and Orion both hit the German battlecruiser Lützow, that received such a pummelling throughout the battle that she would eventually have to be abandoned by her crew).

From left to right, King George V, Thunderer, Monarch, and Conqueror steam through the Solent, about 1914 (Wikipedia)

 
I do not label my ships (yet), only noting their names on the underside of the base, because I think it adds to the atmosphere of the game when the players have to do some ship identification like the sailors of the day. There are drawbacks too, however, so I might end up labelling them.

 

Here they are with (almost all of ) the rest of the battleships and battlecruisers of the Grand Fleet and an armoured cruiser, light cruiser and destroyer or two. Still got eight dreadnoughts to do, and a few destroyers, but  nearly there!

 

As to points I actually have no real clue, they are 1/3000 scale and each is about 5cm long. Based on previous contributions I would suggest 2 points per ship + 20 for The Armoury for 28 points? However, please  minion away, I’m happy with anything!

 

 

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
 

From SanderS: The Armory (60 points)

 Hoi,

After traversing the dangers of the Hatchery, Arthur and myself have now come to the Armoury and what better to present to you than Battlemechs? Battletech is the Game of ARMOURED Combat after all! For those not familiar with the game check this site for the enormously deep background and universe: link. 

As I grow older and like to play more games that tell a story more then games that are played to winn, I tend to make forces of as many factions as I like to be able to recreate stuff from the books. Therefore I ended up painting two (incomplete) lances of mechs from the Capellan Confederation, led by the noble house of Liao. A lance is a unit of 4 Battlemechs, war-machines with enough offensive power to level entire city blocks. A company consists of 3 such lances and I am on my way to make 2 of those lances only needing 1 more mech. 

The colours I chose are those of House Dai Da Chi, which I liked for it's background story. If you look at the link I provided you will see the mechs painted in the Olive Green I used, but they should actually have been in a more jade shade of green. Oh well I like them.

Arthur is also totally mad about playing CBT, probably even more than playing Heroquest and is building a force for Clan Wolf in Exile for which he is using this captured Clan Jade Falcon (my usual faction) Pinion mech:

So that's another 8 figures of 28mmish scale (yeah I know that CBT is basically 1:286 scale but the mechs are just about as big as a Space Marine so there!) which makes for 40 points with another 20 making up the Armoury bonus. 

Might I suggest to the on-duty minion awarding 15 to Arthur and 45 to yours truly?

 Cheers Sander

 

From TeemuL: Clad in Mithril, the Armoury (35 points)

"What are those strange looking, smallish men, clad in metal and wearing axes? They are a bit bigger than the very small one with a sword, before the encounter with a huge spider, and they seem calm, not poking with their weapons", thinks Shellington while his brains tried to figure out what was happening. As far as he could tell, they were professional warriors, probably hand picked to better fit these underground hallways. Axes seemed a bit old fashioned though, he was quite sure that the Great War in Europe was fought with firearms and such like. "May be this is some kind of honor guard, something related to the history of the Miskatonic University, some detail, which has slipped my mind?", he continued his silent thoughts while he moved across the room, six eyes closely following his movement, but nothing else. He reached the doorway and continued, relieved to leave this stressing room behind.

For the Armoury I present three Khazad Guard, proudly wearing Mithril armor and couple of axes. There's no better armor than Mithril, correct? I think this is the start of my Dwarven army for Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game.

These are painted mostly with Contrast, metal parts are GW metal paints of course, but in general Contrasts. They are not super neat, but quite neat, especially for Contrast job. The base is simple sand with dark brown wash and brown drybrush. I don't like dwarfs to be too uniformed, they are too proud to change their family heritage, personal achievements and stuff like that in order to be better identified on the field of battle - the enemies are most likely a head or two taller anyway and would it be an internal fight, they sure would know who are on their side and who is not. So I varied the colors a lot, but tried to keep a limited palette and paint all the helmets with blue to unify them. The regular warriors (later) might have different colors in their helmets.

Next stop will be the "The Gallery of Ancestors", what kind of ancestors will Uggla find - and whose?

15 points for 3 28mm miniatures 

20 poins for room

Total 35 points, 15 to GW side challenge, 0 skulls, hanging in the TOP-50

Nice work on these Dwarves - I don't think anything they're guarding is going to go walkabouts.

Tamsin

from RayR - The Chamber of Challenge - The Armoury - Sipahi of the Porte 80pts

 

Its Chamber of Challenge time once again and  I've just been dropped off at the Armoury by Sarah 

the Sorceress. 

The Armoury: Paint a figure, a vignette or unit which is armoured - plate, steel, iron, ceramic, chain-mail - the choice is yours.

This unit of 6 x Spahi of the Porte have jumped way ahead of the queue. These originally were going to be painted up right at the end of the Challenge if at all???

But....

I needed a figure or figures in armour for the Armoury and wanted to paint something up I'm actually going to use, rather than stick in a box, never to be seen again for a few years.

The figures are from Dixon Miniatures and match in height wise quite well with Warfare minis who will make up the majority of my Ottoman force.

For my force the Sipahis of the Porte will be an Elite unit using a D10, so even though they're small, they should throw a big punch.........Poles and Imperialists beware!!!

(BTW, I haven't any Poles or Imperialists, yet?)

60 pts for the Sipahi

20 pts Bonus for the Armoury