From Kerry T - "All over the place" - World Cinema or High Adventure? ( 505 points)

 Morning, afternoon & evening all

After a slow start thankfully I've managed to get the paintbrush moving at speed but as you'll see below I'm a little all over the place.

 As I've probably said before one "single period enthusiast" wargamer of some renown once described my collection of figures as "all over the place". I think this was said with just a little disdain but I decided that I would take it as a compliment. The happy consequence of a having a Butterfly tendency is that I seem to have a lot of periods to choose from.

This in itself is quite a handy thing when it comes to chasing squirrels. Thus with last years Squirrel Challenge title in my grasp I feel the only honourable thing is to try and defend that title. I promise to be on my best behaviour and not to bite, scram or spit at my fellow challengers 😀 but at the moment I've been left trailing  in their wake. So this is an attempt to not let them get too far ahead. The only problem is that I also want to finish of some decent size units as well as five figure ones so here we go....

Fist up- Colonel John Lamplugh's Regiment of Foote

First Corps ECW figures

I thought I'd completed all my Royalist foot regiments last year but found a lone set of flags for this regiment (Flags of War) that I'd overlooked. Initially earmarked for Parliamentarian troops these First Corps figures now find themselves as another white coated regiment on the side of the King

Yesterday morning there was a moment when there was the very tiniest possibility that they could have been morphed into one of those turnipy units so beloved it seems of a few lunatics that seem to be around here!

A mad rush to finish basing and blutack "piking" to get them ready for today

Thankfully common sense prevailed and no tufts were stuck to the bluetack either deliberately or by accident

At 37 figures this is one bloody big squirrel!

Thy aren't about to have an easy passage over that bridge though....

Sir Arthur Hessilrigge's Regiment of Horse, unhorsed

Bloody Parliamentarians always seem to block any progress!

Bloody Miniatures, a real joy to paint

I have all the BM releases bar the Scots but these are the first I've painted

Sticking with the First Corps theme, some Dark Age carts

Ye olde trafficke jam

Now the same sleepy village a few hundred years in the future..

My First BUF figures

Footsore Miniatures BUF infantry

Its always good to see Fascists running away

I have  a VBCW collection that started when good mate Giles Allison painted some figures and gave them to me when he called to see me in NZ. 

My VBCW backstory is here https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/vbcf/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=3402&p=31799#p31799. Its the story of the mysterious half-twins Verdun and Ypres born in a mining village of South Wales (its long mind yew and something of a tall tale!)

That's it for the verdant green of England and I'm now butterflying off to the heat of the desert and some plastic Griping Beast Arab Heavy Cavalry - half a box, I would like to have completed the box of 12 but had to settle for 6 as I need squirrels

Thank god for LBMS shield transfers

Half a box of Gripping Beast Plastic Arab heavy Cavalry

Finally with the desert theme I'm finishing off with Artizan Designs Arab Sharifan WW1 infantry. The aim was to shoot another squirrel and I painted 5 initially but eventually added the remaining 7 later to finish off all I have. I still have some of the irregular infantry I painted at the end of last year's challenge to finish

These are regular troops with a standard uniform

Not sure if its reasonably authentic but it will do

 That arid grass is an horrid colour, I wanted it to be more pale

Apologies for such a long post but I had a busy painting week as there was no golf and the weather was too wet to get in the garden. I'm not sure if I want it to rain again this week so I have an excuse to spend a lot of time painting!

As far as bonus points go I'm not sure what to claim - while these Arabs are intended to accompany Lawrence in wrecking Ottoman trains in the desert, he was painted years ago so it might not quite qualify as High Adventure.

If not then maybe I could claim World Cinema for the ECW as I no longer live in the UK. I would be grateful to Tamsin if she would advise

In Summary -

37 Royalist foot @ 5 points = 185

5 Dismounted Parliamentarian Horse @ 5 points = 25 

3 Dark Age carts @ 10 points (they are more like artillery than vehicles I think) = 30 points

10 Dark age civilians and bullocks @ 5 points = 50 points

6 Arab Crusades mounted figures @ 10 points = 60

5 VBCW foot 2 5 points = 25

12 Arab WW1 infantry at 5 points = 60

? Bonus for World Cinema or High Adventure @ 20 points

Grand Total 450 points

(Oooh a points bomb! )

Maybe most importantly a Scurry of  6 Squirrels thereby bringing my total so far to 7

Wow! What a mixed-bag points bomb this post is. Carts are vehicles, so that's how I'm scoring them - they're at least as big as a jeep which scores 20 points! I'm happy to count the WW1 Arab "regulars" as High Adventure, and the Arabs for World Cinema. 

Tamsin

DaveS : The Chamber of Darkness 40pts

 Painting in greyscale is something that I have thought about a number of times, but have never actually tried before.  I've always considered painting it well to be beyond my abilities, and I've seriously considered just skipping this chamber.

Coinciding with the point where I needed to start painting my next chamber, I realised that I had a copy of A Very British Civil War, and that while idly looking through my FLGS's website, I saw that they had a pack of Warlord Games Partisans.  These figures in predominantly civilian dress would be perfect for a start for my forces for that.

For each of these models, I first found that colours that I wanted the items to be, desaturated them using the PC, and then tried to find a colour that was closest to it from the Vallejo paint range.   It's clear that the app that I used to find colour matches wasn't perfect, but it gave a reasonable way to represent the colours on the models.  So without further ado, here are the models.

Having painted the four models in this style, I'm not sure that I enjoyed it enough to do a whole platoon in this style.  But, for now, they will do, and I may expand on this in the future.

I'm calling this 4x28mm models for 20 points, plus another 20 for the chamber.  I'm also going to offer this set up as my Curtgeld, should anyone want them (I dunno if there are additional points for this or not)

From MartinC - Another Army Finished (483 points)

One of my aims this year is to "complete" several armies that need playing with. Today is Normans and some VBCW chaps and chapesses.

The Normans I got last Christmas 2nd hand from Battleground Show. The infantry as a plastic set from Conquest

unarmoured spearmen

Armoured swordsmen

unarmoured swordsmen

Cavalry. These were a mix of Black Tree and 1st Corps (I think) fundamentally different sizes. So the smaller figures are on a double thick base and it works.

More Cavalry. That should do it for the Norman army, space in the drawer for a few more but not loads. Next up some VBCW and pulp figures

Posh old guy and female police(?) driver, think she should be army but think they will work well as a pair of detectives

Some more pulp types

A fat commando, of course

General VBCW types, these are partizans from a variety of manufacturers who I can't remember, probably Warlord and Black Tree

So this is quite a lot of points

Normans

20 cavalry@ 10 each = 200

33 infantry@5 each = 165

VBCW

21@5 each = 105

2 prone@2.5 each = 5

Grand total = 475pts

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A very nice selection of figures and it's always good to hear of figures getting a second life in new hands. Over the years I have bought lots of unpainted lead from Bring-and-buy stands and it always feel like I'm 'saving' the figures from an ignominious end. I like the fact that you've gone to the trouble of painting all the shields by hand. It's awfully tempting to either reach for decals or paint them plain. I'm awarding a couple of bonus points for the shields and another for the pennant. 

I like the eclectic mix of figures for your VBCW component of this entry. However, I think you're doing yourself a disservice by scoring half for the prone figures so I'm counting them as whole figures at 5pts each. So that brings your total for this entry up to 483. 

Lee

From: MartinC - More Randomised Figure Colouring In (165 points)

As the end approaches i'm getting towards the end of my Lead Mountain. Scary I know and there are probably 450 figures still in it. You know the ones that are poor quality, hard to paint or the ones you just aren't interested in at the moment. I still have a Norman army to paint and I may start that but we will see.
In the meantime I've been painting stuff that takes my fancy. It's another hotch potch of stuff.

1st up some 1930s - 40s civilians. These will double for VBCW and some possible gangster future games. These are mainly from the defenders of the realm set from Warlord.

Some rural and worker types. I swapped out a lot of the improvised weapons for rifles

A couple more Gorillas for Mr Lee - Cheers Kyle. These are very nice figures,  harder to give good hair tones to than their King but they look very mean

3 ancient Greeks, no idea where I got these from

Warbases Tachanka (or something like that) Looks great from afar but close up the crew and horses are not very well modelled

That is

15 infantry - 75pts

3 cavalry - 30 pts

2 40mm gorillas 14pts

Tachanka == 3 horses, 3 crew, maxim gun and cart = 45ish

Total is 165 or something like that.

Finally thank you Sander for being my minion. The kind words are much appreciated, sorry about the maths

Deary me Martin, I was just joking about the math, no harm done ;-) Ow wow, this is a truly nice mix of subjects. I just cannot choose what I like best but the Gorillas are really awesome. Those civvies will come in handy in a lot of different styled games indeed whether it be gangsters, VBCW or even something Pulpy, do you game that to? ;-) The Russian machine gun on cart is a great model and you have done it proud. 
The pleasure, as they say, has been all mine Martin I do hope to see some more of your work next week before Challenge's End and perhaps next year?! 

Cheers Sander

From MartinC. - Of Secret Santas and Sealions (60pts)

I was part of the Secret Santa thing this year run by RoyW, standing in for the Wileys. I do find this fun and received a great present from my Santa in the form of a couple of Bad Squiddo female figure packs for VBCW. They are great. Sorting out my light box (not quite right yet) and painting getting better although the eyes look they've all had a very bad night. it is New Year's Day so they can be forgiven

Medics - great figs

Land Army Girls. Again very nice but I always think that they look like Grayson Perry. We'll see what Lady Sarah thinks of them

 At Partizan earlier in the year Warlord launched their Sealion range for Bolt Action and these are from the Defenders of the Realm set. Very nice figs. The Tommy gunner originally came wearing roller skates but even I'm not that barking so i just built up the base. The Bren Gunner in overalls was originally carrying a different weapon but I raided the bits box.

Defenders of the Realm

That's 12 figures for 60 pts

Happy New Year Martin! 

Gosh, that's one cool collection of VBCW related figures indeed! Having seen the series "Land-Girls" those figures actually are my favourites. That said all these figures have a charm all of their own and are slightly reminiscent of Dad's Army as well.Personally I would have removed the skates as well, so good choice as are all the other conversions. I also like the way the basing ties all the figures together, well done!

A well earned 60 points! Cheers Sander