From SanderS: The last post! (190 points)

 Hoi,

Dear Challengers, if you do not fancy a sentimental post please skip this one, because it will get emotional.  This will be my last post this Challenge which is mainly due to two reasons: firstly I have to pack up my man-cave in order for a building crew to get going with our home renovation and secondly because my painting juices have drained after my Dad passed away. Last Saturday we laid him to rest and  while he was sick, Dad passed quite suddenly and even though I thought I would be able to keep painting as a distraction from it all, I find myself really tired and not able to find my mojo. Most figures shown here were already mostly finished and I only had to put the last strokes of the brush to them. 

Let's start with some 25mm Old School DnD figures.

 

My friend Martijn (main sponsor of miniatures and main beneficiary of this post) will get these to give away at the DnD sessions he's hosting at his shop to players who have no figures. These figures I obtained in a big lot from ebay that contained a lot of old fantasy figures amongst which were a lot of old metal GW figures.

  Specially for Greg, I have converted and painted one of my Horus Heresy Dark Angel Praetors, I am really happy with how he turned out. This is basically the Praetor with the double-handed weapon from the Age of Darkness boxed set which I gave a Terranic Greatsword and a pistol as well as a hooded head to tie in more with the Dark Angel esthetics. For the same reason I gave him a Scribor resin shoulderpad featuring a lion, making him a Calibanite Dark Angel.

 

 After these rather random figures it's time for one last stop in my Studio tour, I had rather liked to stay in a bit longer and visit more halls but it isn't to be. So I will visit the World Cinema with Stalingrad! This battle has been put on the big screen several times but the one I like best is the 1993 version.

These WW2 Russians from Warlord's Stalingrad set, are also for Martijn . I have painted them up as demo army for the store and these are the last of the Russians. A few Germans still remain undercoated till after the renovation. 

 

There's also a Panzer IV in the big box and I have painted it up to go along these chaps, you'll notice that it is lacking markings, this is mainly because I didn't have any but also because Martijn and myself still have to decide what unit the vehicle will belong to.

 

With this last post I am well shy of my 1000 points target, but that would always have been a problem this year due to the renovation. So I am happy with what I have finished this season and will strive to come back with a vengeance next year. As to the calculation of the points I calculate the following:

3 DnD figures 15 points

1 Praetor (4 skullz by the way) 5 points

22 Russians 110 points

1 vehicle 20 points

Studio bonus 20 points

Is 160 points total. 

Next year I will surely do some sort of tribute post for my Dad, but I can't do it just now it's a bit too fresh and I want to take my time to come up with something fitting and not hurry it. Have a good last few weeks everyone!

Cheers Sander

 

It's a shame we won't get to see more from you this year, Sander, but we all understand the reason. Your arithmetic was slightly off - the total comes to 170 points, and as the D&D figures are a gift for Martijn I'm going to give you the Gift Shop bonus points for them, so that's 190 points total for this post.

Tamsin

From PaulOG: Stalingrad Apartment Complex (Klendathu) (140 points)

28mm soldat shown for scale, not scoring 

Making landfall at our next planetary stop of Klendathu, we find ourselves in the theme of "An Invasion Gone Bad". For this I offer the following themed terrain build for Stalingrad, an invasion that went as badly for the Germans and Klendathu did for the Humans in Starship Troopers. Its been a labour of love so please excuse if I spam with a few more pics than usual :-)

This 28mm scaled apartment complex building occupies a 1 foot square mdf tile and has 5 seperate (and detachable) floors. It was printed in small sections by Alan on his filament printer last year, after which I then spent some 30 odd hours glueing, chopping and drilling to give it that pristine Urban Combat look. Quite a labour of love in which I took my own modicum of injuries! Each floor was modified to make it quickly removable and allow skirmish games to be played just in this building alone.  

The building breaks down into five separate floors - I added framing to the underside of each so that it doesn't inadvertently revert to this state mid-game...

I wanted a balance of dioramic destruction vs playability, so tried to portray a holdout building in which defenders have cleared the worst of the internal rubble to keep their fighting positions effective. It took some time to do this sensibly (with obligatory research of actual Stalingrad buildings - Alan's high standards require nothing less than primary source evidence, which makes one really lift one's game!). All this modelling took well over a month (in lockdown, of course) so I quietly packed it away to enjoy painting it during the Challenge.

Undercoated in black, I then got my airbrush into action (with coaching assistance - thanks Marty!) to finally start adding pigment to the project. I really wanted to bring some colour to the table amongst all the usual urban grey wreckage, so went with a timeless brick red vibe with some coloured internal walls. I added floorboard beams and other detritus from scrap balsa. Final layers on the brickwork were traditional drybrush method, while internal floors and walls were stippled to give a bedraggled look.

Junkers-eye view of the building

Overall, I put some hours into this and am really happy with how its turned out.  It weighs in at six full 6" terrain cubes for 120 points, plus 20 planetary theme bonus points, for a total of 140. 

And finally, welcome back Millsy as our Saturday Minion!

* commercial stl files by WOW Buildings, here: https://wowbuildings.net/

Hail Hydra! (Red Skull was my AHPC VII Character bonus round submission :-)

From Millsy

Crikey, what a monster building! It's an gorgeous piece Paul and you've done an amazing job on getting it ready for the table. The colour is spot on, a perfect match of muted earthy tones. It almost looks like it has been lifted straight out of recoloured period footage. I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time fighting over it for years to come. Good to see Alan is keeping you honest on the history side of things too!

6 cubes worth of terrain plus the location bonus is a well earned 140 points. Nice!

From MilesR: My Last Submission - More Hex Terrain (139 Points)

 

My last submission for Challenge XI is yet more Hex terrain - not Stalingrad themed but useful for all types of wargaming.

On the left side are some forested hexes and a test for a field.  The trees are removable - there's a plastic sabot inserted to hold the trunk and protect the foam from wear and tear.  I want to use these hexes with 6 to 15mm scale miniatures and you can see they look pretty good with some of the 6mm ACW stuff form my Snow Lord Altar submission.

I like how the field came out - its a little bright so needs to be toned down but size wise it works well (I think).

The right side has pine forested hexes and some streams.  The gloss gel is still drying so you can see some of its original white color.

There are some 15mm Soviet tanks to show how the terrain also looks works with that scale of miniature.  Having terrain that can serve multiple scales is a must if you are a gaming gadfly such as myself.

I'm really happy with the streams and made a little over 5 feet of them.

The road sections are all standardized and are really fun to make.

Here are some additional hexes that just didn't fit on the table.

I did sneak 1 Stalingrad related hex into the mix - the final building from the Russian Village set made by "Things-from-the-Basement". They make really well designed kits and I recommend them for 15mm scale WW2 scenery.

One of the reasons this post is a little rushed is I have a 1:1 scale project that I promised my wife I would finish soon.  As you may recall, we had a bit of a flood in the basement and had to remove all the carpet.  My wife really wanted to put in some "wood vinyl" flooring and I have started the project but have a ways to go.  The past 12 months have been difficult for her being a Dr and treating covid patients, especially this past winter.  She told me she's lost more patients during the 3 months of Nov-Jan than she has in 30 years of being a medical professional.  If she wants a new floor, she gets a new floor.  

As for points, this will require a little math and I share your collective excitement at that prospect!  Each hex is 4 inches across flat side to flat side.  The formula to calculate the area of a hex is:

Area = 1/2P(a) where

P is the Perimeter and a is the apothem

I'll spare you the gory details and just say the area of each hex is 13.856 inches and there are 80 of these hexes in this submission.  We now need to measure the average height of the hexes.  These range from 3/4 of an inch for flats and up to 3 inches for the trees.  The weighted average height of all 80 hexes is 1.354 inches (and yes, I did measure it out).  

So the total cubic inches of hex terrain is 80 hexes x 13.856 x 1.354, which equals 1,501 cubic inches.  We now divide that volume by the 216 inches which comprise the "holy terrain cube of quantification" and that yields 6.950 terrain cubes.  Multiple 6.950 times 20 points per cube and one gets 139 points for this final submission.  See, isn't math FUN!!!!!!  No need to thank me for my magical mathematical ministrations - that's just the kind of guy I am.

As always, the Challenge is an event I truly cherish, especially in these difficult days and I want to thank all of you, the participants, who make the Challenge such a wonderful event through your  grace, camaraderie and astonishing painting skills.  I am deeply grateful to all of you and appreciate the privilege of being a fellow participant.

I also want to thank my fellow minions and, of course, Curt - it was a blast to be part of the team and I want to thank you for not blowing up the spreadsheet.

Now to begin work on the incantations for the final statistical summary in a few days.  I'll need to order extra kittens to sacrifice this year

From MilesR: Good Lord, Not Another Stalingrad Related Post (1,720 Points)

 

Ha! made you look, this entry only really has 172 points!

The grind continues - In this submission there is yet another full Soviet Infantry Company  in 15mm scale.  The figures are from Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) and I'm almost done assembling and painting the Battalion box.

The company consists of 3 platoons (2 equipped with rifles and one with SMG's).

The 1st platoon, complete with 50mm Mortar section

The 2nd platoon and behind it the Company HQ (3 figures) plus the Companies heavy Machine gun section.

Lastly the 3rd Platoon.  These are based using the "no-painting" basing technique and I think blend in well with the terrain.

I am short of 50mm Mortars and will need to scratch build some.  I've got plenty of crew from the PSC box so hopefully they will not look too silly.

For a change of pace - how about some Germans.  8 snipers from Peter Pig.  The bulk of the German forces are being provided by friend and club member Tony M.  Thats a real boon for me as he is a MUCH better painter than me and it makes this project a bit more feasible to pull.

A little light armor support for the Germans in the form of 3 Panzer II's.  These are also Peter Pig models.  I really like PP's infantry but the vehicles leave me a bit cold.  They all have molded on storage which limits their utility for larger games.  If you only need one of two then these are fine models.

In terms of points this submission has 74 Infantry at 2 points each and 3 tanks at 8 points per panzer so that nets to 172 points.

I'm getting pretty close to done with the Stalingrad project and think, maybe a little break is in order.

Hmmm, what to do next.  maybe something of aquatic nature from a past undertaking?  Why, yes that is the ticket.

From SanderS: BOOM! Stalingrad update! PICTURE HEAVY (347,5 points)

 Hoi,

Remember my Deathwing Terminators a while back? And remember how displeased I was with them? Oh I am not displeased with today's post for sure. Here's just about 71 Russians and Germans for the Stalingrad commission I am painting.

The complete lot together:

Let's start with Stalingrad's defenders. The first vignette is the Russian HQ from the big Collectors Edition box from Warlord Games (all figures are from said box) I have used a lot of stuff from the Warlord Games battlefield debris box that is not included in the big box but looks great like the corner of the house seen on this base. The base itself is homemade by a friend on the laaser cutter at school. The base is MDF with two small 20mm bases cut out and a cardboard disc underneath the prevent the separate figures to fall out. This will look great on the table but is also easy for casualty removal.

This vignette is more of an objective marker with the medic and casualty from the HQ set combined with a sidekick to the Vasilli Zaitsev figure included in the big box. The wall section is again from the Battlefield Debris box.

Some of the larger bases in the box I used for the heavy weapons teams in the set. Here are some of the Russian LMG/ MMG gunners. The two Russian plastic sets are awesome due to their compatibality, you really have a lot of options with all weapons being separate from the hands. Sadly the Germans lack this option.

The Anti-tank gun team.

A Russian sniper. It's a white metal figure also included in the big box.

There's two squads of Russians today and they are not put together according to any rules or something just as they came to hand after putting them together.

The German 6th Army is next.

First up the HQ for the German Army:

 

 

 

Squad LMG

Mortar Team

 

HMG Team

 

Specialists: Medic, Sniper, Sniper's Spotter and Artillery Observer all white metals.

 

And just like as with the Russians, I have painted up two random squads worth of Germans. 

To liven up the table I also have made some scatter terrain and some of it was painted up in this batch. First up are som craters and a barricade straight from Big Box

These two vignettes I made myself using all kinds of leftover stuff even some support material from 3D print projects.

Doing the math on this one was a real chore I can tell you! If I am not mistaken I have 11 prone and 60 regular figures in this lot. If I split the Russians and Germans I think there are 6 prone and 26 regular Russians, for the Germans I count 5 prone and 34 regular figures.  I will give myself 10 points for the assorted scenery bits and that should amount to 347,5 points for the lot.

Cheers Sander

BTW: I managed to hide an Easter Egg inside the German part of this lot, can you find it?