From MarkB: 6mm American Infantry for the War of 1812 [History Section] (144 points)

 Hi again!

Well after being sick for a week after Christmas I have been back to painting again. 
So for today's installment I will show you the 248 6mm American Infantry that I have painted up for a War of 1812 project that me and a friend are working on this year. I am painting up the US Forces and you will see much more from this project as time goes on.

These are all Baccus 6mm British that I have painted to represent the troops from General Scott's brigade at the Battle of Chippawa in 1814. There are 4 Regiments in Scott's brigade and with the rules that we are going to use for the battles there are 7 stands for the 9th, 22nd, and 25th Infantry and 10 stands for the 11th US Infantry Regiment. 

Each stand has 8 miniatures on them so it is a lot of 6mm miniatures in this first batch of miniatures for this project.

So for the scoring:

248 x 6MM Infantry =124 points

History section bonus = 20

Total of =144 points.

I hope you are all doing well in the New Year and I hope to have some more miniatures painted up for you all soon!

More 6mm goodness, we are getting spoiled today. And something different as far as the subject is concerned as well, very nice. The War of 1812 is often a bit overshadowed by the events in Continental Europe, but it is one of the charms of the Challenge that it can and will bring us all something new now and then! Brigadier Winfield Scott may be of heard again, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this project, Mark, but you really should tell us what rules you are going to use instead of tantalizingly alluding to them! 144 points for you.

Martijn

From TomC: Phil's Phriday Phletcher Phleet [Historical Drama] (40 points)

 The Minion Expeditionary Force sent up a flare and so I have done my best to send ships to get in the way help...

 Hi again everyone, only took a desperate plea from our beloved Minion for me to try and get another post in, some quick disclaimers about the title, only two Fletchers, but also one Portland class cruiser, which is what I'm using for the historical drama studio. This is the USS Indianapolis, which, to loosely summarise, was torpedoed whilst in transit, sinking in twelve minutes. The distress calls were ignored, the ship's failure to arrive neglected and forgotten about. Those of the crew who survived were left to the mercy of nature until a flying boat spotted them four days later. Once rescued, the Navy then tried to throw the captain under the bus, making him the only US ship commander to be prosecuted for losing their ship in action during the war in an attempt to cover the Navy's own mistakes. Nimitz reversed the sentence, but it took until 2001, well after his death (in 1968), to exonerate him.

 The miniatures themselves are from Warlord Games's Battle for the Pacific starter set, cast in their resin, and went together very quickly and could have been painted up very quickly if I hadn't thought that the Rule of Cool should prevail and that jazzy camouflage was in order. I must confess that I threw research to the winds and simply squinted at the studio paint scheme, which has had mixed results in the past (I am colourblind and my US Marines therefore have brown uniforms). I did have fun though! 

 I was inspired by some lovely NVA armour I saw recently here with yellow stars and so did use yellow for the ship information as I thought it would aid recognition for when I eventually get around to the Japanese half of the set, I can then do their script in red.

There are six Fletchers in the main set so I thought it'd be worth getting a couple in alongside Indy. There seem to be quite a few schemes available so I'm hoping I can outfit each with something slightly different as they're not named. The above Fletcher was in a simpler scheme to make the home run feel downhill when painting!

This was used as a test platform for Indy, the different greys are mostly Citadel: Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue, Administratum Grey mixed with Fenrisian Grey, and Ulthuan Grey for highlighting. The water was Vallejo Prussian Blue, with Blue Green to highlight, up to white for the various waves.

 In terms of points, I am afraid that there's no precedent for the Victory at Sea 1/1800 scale* ships. I have put forward 6 per destroyer (x2) and 8 per heavy cruiser (x1), as they're roughly a 15mm vehicle or so, subject to Minion's discretion. 

 The location is Historical Drama, Indy is mentioned in Jaws! So, in total, 20 for the ships, 20 for the location, 40 all in.

*I originally gave the scale as 1/1700 - apologies!

Phriday Minion: Tom, glad you popped up to keep me on my toes this Friday. I rank naval gaming well at the bottom of my wargaming interests (though I'll stretch to NebulonB frigates and Star Destroyers if that counts), but you've done a mighty fine job with the dazzle camouflage on these beauties. I think the bright blue sea and picknig out the wakes helps them pop, and the yellow lettering is a great idea. 

20 points seems very reasonable to me, so I have wrangled those numbers into the Spreadsheet of Doom and onto your tally. Thanks for dropping by!

From PeteF: Adventurers' Landing - Antifa June1944 (70 points)

The US contributed 73,000 of the 160,000ish troops that landed in Normandy on D-Day. The size and scope of the largest naval/air/land operation in history  is mind boggling. This Bolt Action/Chain of Command Squad represents just a few of the many anti-fascists who took part in Operation Overlord.

For this challenge I tried a different, faster, painting style based on a Pete The Wargamer video for painting GIs. It's a block and wash technique - I usually do layering and add a fair amount of detail. For these I went for something that looks OK from 3 feet away - they aren't going to win any awards!

In the Before Times thanks to Facebook marketplace I scored a large lot of WW2 minis from a guy who was giving up on the hobby. He even threw in his paints and brushes. It made me sad to see someone leave wargaming but happy to restock The Shelf of Shame with WW2 figures after finishing off my Blitzkreig Germans in Challenge X.

The figures are from Warlord and to be honest I don't love them. I threw them together a little too quickly when I was scrambling for something to enter for Adventurer's Landing in the preparation phase of the challenge. Not only did I do a poor job on the gluing and mold line removal, I screwed up the priming. As an experiment I went with a cheap auto primer and it came out very grainy on some of the minis - either wrong temperature or spray distance or both. I'm becoming a fan of brush on primers!

 

However, Pete the Wargamer's guidance is great for getting figures on the table quickly and with desaturated WW2 uniforms it works well. I learned a lot about US uniforms in the process - there's a surprising amount of debate about the variations in the colours. As usual the Osprey has too many pictures of specialists and not enough of the ordinary infantry.

Ten 28mm figures and a room bonus for a total of 70 points.

From Brettm: Marines, Cars and more Pirates (215 points)

Been  painting on these Cars for a while now. Got stuck on how to do the windshields. Smaller vehciles I easily paint black with some grey streaks etc. However for these 28-32mm Vehicles I would love any and all recommendations on windshields.

Looking to pain them fast as they are really just terrain pieces. So I stuck with black and did a grey outline around edges of the front and rear windshields/windows. The passenger ones I just put grey on the bottom of the windows. 

 These are from Mantic and a kickstarter I backed. Kickstarter was from Kore Aeronautics. Still have about 8 other vehicles to paint. 

These guys I picked up on another sale a while back. First stuff I have painted anything WW2 for Pacific theater.

 Didnt do much work to the bases. Was trying to make it look like rocky beach.

 May end up putting some decals on the front of those Jeeps. Don't have any at the moment though.

Finally some Pirates. These are from Firelock games and are from the French faction.

 All of them together

One of the models from this group actually snapped off at the foot. I don't have any pinning materials so didnt finish painting him till I get some. 

I'm trying not to paint all these pirates in generic colors so I can use them in any game and be able to mix match them. I have painted a few to the countries actual colors so far. Rather leave it open to use them in any pirate game.

I believe we are looking at 36 points for the 15mm infantry. 24 points for the 15mm vehicles. 55 pts for the 28mm pirates. Not sure what the vehicles would be point wise. Total of 115 points plus whatever for the Vehicles.

__________________________________________________________________

And Brett brings us more French, more allies of . . . the French, and well, the French drive cars, oui? That's why it's called a Grand Prix, and not some silly English words. Oi, you in the Peanut Gallery, yes, we know English is a violent thug that beats up other languages in back alleyways for a few bits of vocabulary.

I wouldn't say you need to do anything to change the windshields on those cars. You've done a very good job with them. 28mm vehicles are 20 points a pop, so those are a cool hundred.

I'm not quite sure what those things on the trucks are, aside from 15mm vehicles. But I've been out of the Flames of War world for a while, and will probably find a different set of rules for may 15mm WWII. Look Sarge, no Charts! and Battlefront are my two leading contenders. Still, they're quite spiffy. 

Ah, yes, the drama of legs popping off. I know that sad feeling well. I generally use flower wire to fix them, especially if you have other parts of the miniature to secure to the base.

215 points in the bin for you, sir! 

From MartinN: A last hurrah (62 Points)

Another challenge is drawing to a close and what a blast it was once again! So here I am with my last submission for this year. I feel a little drained by now I tell you.

So, in order to cash in some easy points I changed scale and went 15mm.
After having painted a US Paratrooper force for the Battle of the Bulge over the last two challenges, I decided it was about high time to give them some opponents...

... oh well, bugger that.

No, in fact I started work on some US Army guys ready to invade Tunisia/ Sicily/ Normandy. Figures are the current Battlefront plastic offerings. I got them for a steal which meant instead of painting up some Brits for a change, I was stuck with US... again.
The figures are OK-ish. Better than most of their metal ones but still there's the odd miscast in the mix.

And as if that wasn't OCD enough I also decided to paint a ISU-122. It's also from Battlefront and compared to the figures it was a joy to paint.
And truth be told it's all about tanks in 15mm - for me at least.

While being able to paint up whole infantry platoons in 15mm in the same time it'd take me to paint a squad in 28mm is certainly a boon, I definitely don't enjoy it half as much.

With tanks it's a completely different matter. In this scale they have just enough detail to look interesting while still being big enough to make best use of all the different techniques out there.

With 28 infantry and a tank this submission should be worth 62 points, thus lifting me comfortably over the 500 points barrier.

From Byron:

Wow, what an excellent last submission!  I am with you on feeling drained after a busy painting season, but what a way to end it!  I wish you had included some closer up images of the infantry though, because if they are anything like the tank destroyer... wow.  So much to love there with all the subtle shades of green and what I assume are brown or sepia washes and streaks over it.  Simply stunning work in 15mm. 

Also, congratulations on meeting your points goal.  With super high quality entries like this, that is no simple achievement.

From: Brettm - Riflemen and Artillery (226 points)

Finished up some more Flames of war stuff. First up is the remaining Russian riflemen and MG teams.

 The rest of them all lined up

 A close up on the command units

 Some MG's on wheels in the back. Didn't count these as any points but are about the size of a 15mm guy. Easy to paint though.

Think I'm covered on the Soviet infantry. Just need some Artillery and ready to hit the field

Here are some 105mm Artillery. Have a decent amount of USA 15mm put together. However finally got some artillery now to add.

 All lined up

Side shot of them. All of them had the same figures so tried to switch it up on how they were placed on the base.

Not to much to do with the guns. Put some highlights on them and painted some wood logs on the sides.

Now to get to shelling the enemy!

All together I have the Soviets clocked in at 84 Soviets, 20 USA Artillerymen, 4 Guns. I count it at 208 points for the 15mm men and 18 pts for the guns. Total of 226 points.

Hoi there Brett, what a great entry of WW2 Allies today! While I am partial to the Western Allies these Soviets really are very good, great job on them. You got the uniforms spot on and I like the way you've mixed the figures on all the bases (including the Artillery) to get more diversity. Pointswise You have 104 x 2 = 208 points for the foot figures and 4 x 4 = 16 for the guns, that said you did leave out the HMG's when counting so I'll give you another 2 points and hey presto you get 226 points ;-)

Brett, it has been a real pleasure to be your minion this Challenge, you have brought as a very good mix of subjects in an awesome finish! Thanks heaps and hope to see you next year! 

From ByronM - Last Post - Canadian WW1 and USA/Soviet Modern 6mm (51 points)

Well this will be my last post for this year's challenge as my wife and I leave in the morning for a week away relaxing and doing nothing.  This post is very rushed as I had to finish the figures and get some hurried pictures together, all while supposedly packing and getting ready to leave in the morning.  Shhhh.... :-)

The figures turned out pretty well, but the picture didn't and I don't have time to redo them, so I apologize for that.  Since I am short on time, you also will not be subjected to one of my long "how I painted them posts", so that is probably a win for you all by now.

Anyway, I had fun this year, met my goals, and learned some new things painting wise so it was all good.  I hope everyone else had fun and thanks again to Curt for running this circus!

6x 28mm inf = 30 points
8x 6mm vehicles = 16 points

total: 46 points

Thanks again Curt!


Tamsin: beautiful work Byron and you deserve a break - we won't tell the missus that you were painting when you were meant to be packing! For a consideration of course... ;)

I'm going to count the MG as a foot figure, so that gives you an extra 5 points, giving you 51 for this submission. Even though you haven't provided a painting guide this time!

Enjoy your holiday!


By the way folks, this leaves us exactly 20 points shy of achieving our overall target of 75,950 points and I know that there are a lot more points in the posts waiting in the queue so I think it's fair to say that we've cracked it! Now, let the points bombs drop, sandbags away, tanks roll and let's see just how far we can penetrate behind enemy lines...