From SidneyR - The Scene in the Grote Markt, 1688 (45 Points)

Have you ever had a hobby plan which became diverted? Ah, yes ... I thought you might have had that feeling! Well, among painting up my themed submissions for the Challenge, I had hoped to be finishing some of the French forces for Flanders 1688. It's good to have a plan, but sometimes its hard to keep to it.

I've had some of these figures for years. A Citadel poacher from the 1990s with a head swap with a Foundry ECW gunner.  A Foundry housekeeper.  And a couple of serving maids which I picked up on Ebay in the early 2000s. I had a feeling that they would come in useful, one day. 

And here they are, handing out refreshments for some of the Flemish civic militia from 1688 as they march to the field of battle outside their town. I'm not quite sure what the poacher is doing, although he does seem to be carrying off one of the chickens which was happily roaming in the Grote Markt (again). He's also seem to have purloined a couple of (very nicely sculpted) fish. 

I've enjoyed carrying some of themes over from the previous two submissions - and there's a couple here.  Chickens (yes, again) and the pelican civic motif on the drum, which is being used as an improvised card table.  

I should really be painting regiments of French cavalry of course, or finishing my "Defensive Terrain" submission. I should really stick to what I planned to do in future. No more silly vignettes. I promise. Until the next one.

Eight figures (two chickens), 28mm - 40 points of vignettes!

Stunning work once again Sidney. I've always had a soft spot for these 'scene dressing' vignettes. They often have no purpose in a game but they end up making he game somehow complete. Again, I admire the cobblestone basing (I definitely need to pick some of that up) and I'm particularly taken by the scene of the girl selling drinks to soldiers passing by. Wonderful stuff. 

These vignettes will give you a base of  40 points but I'm adding a bit more for the little extras that help along the narrative. Well done Sid!

From TamsinP - 6mm Reb Firepower (22 points)

For my 11th entry I've added some firepower for my 6mm Confederate army, mostly because I knew they'd be a quick paint.

Now, the observant among you will have spotted that one of the bases is missing something.

Hint - something big, made of metal and wood.

Yup, one of the guns went missing from the tray it was it. I'm sure it will turn up eventually.

I actually painted (but didn't submit) the guns during last year's Challenge, so I'm not counting them for points in this submission.

Some close-up pics:

As before, the figures are 6mm from Baccus. For points, only the 44 crew figures count, so it should be 22 points.

Edit: I found the missing gun! It was hiding underneath some bags of flag sheets in the drawer they were originally in - it must have fallen off the sheet of mounting card I had everything on when I moved them into a different drawer, then got buried.

Here it is on the base:

And here's a pic of all 11 bases with guns, just to prove that I did find it!

*phew!*

Great guns Tamsin!! What, well, great guns these are! Very clean brushwork and I like seeing all the little red kepis amongst the grey and butternut. I'm happy you found the other artillery piece as those four fellows were looking a little hapless standing on the four corners of their base. I suppose you could have modeled a tiny hackey sak suspended between them to give them something to do.  :)

Another 22 points for you but, wait, I see another Ms.P entry on the horizon...

 

From Millsy - Forest Goblin Spider Riders (150 points)

Growing up in Australia it's damn near impossible to avoid two things...

1. Being constantly warned by all and sundry about the numerous indigenous non-human life forms which have made it their personal mission to kill you, often in a painful and likely ignominious fashion. One of these is the Red Back Spider.

2. Our irreverent response to point one, typically in the form of song. Say for example, this old classic by country legend Slim Newton:

So what could possibly be nastier than a single, normal sized red back spider lurking in the thunder box and waiting to ruin your only moment of peace in the day? Fifteen of the buggers obviously, man sized and being ridden by spear-wielding goblins. See? And you thought it couldn't get any worse!

These jolly chaps are yet another addition to my now ridiculously large Warhammer Fantasy Savage Orcs & Goblins army. They are, as usual, the classic edition of the miniatures and packed with character and attitude.

For some reason Games Workshop never saw fit to make a musician for this unit so I modified a figure which arrived broken by removing his arm and replacing with the horn from a plastic set. On top of that I also drilled and pinned all 15 spiders to the bases and all 15 riders to the spiders. Tedious and time consuming work but the only way to ensure ham-fisted gamers (i.e. yours truly) are not constantly tearing things apart in the heat of battle.

So that's another entry under my belt. I didn't think I'd get these done in time for today's deadline because I've been slightly preoccupied this past week. You'll understand what I mean shortly. :-)

Anyway, they've taken an age to paint but now they're done and I can start yet another unit for the army.

Cheers,
Millsy

To be honest, I couldn't even look at the video as the thought of it totally creeps me out. (Shiver) Nonetheless, these are awesome figures Millsy. I really like your greenskin army as it's so wonderfully vibrant and screams FANTASY. (The guy with the feathered headdress totally cracks me up.) Also, I feel your pain on the drilling and pinning, but we all know it pays its dividends in the games to come.

AND a very tidy 150 points for you Mr. Mills. Well done mate!

 

From TamsinP - 28mm What's New Pussycat (32 points)

No points bombs this week, so here's the Welsh "sex bomb" himself, Tom Jones, to sing a little ditty introducing this post.

Curt asked in his comments on my last submission whether I was going to be painting up any beasties native to the region for my Mexicagrave project. Well, here are some pussycats especially for him.

First up, four Jaguars. Well, Jaguar warriors. These were among the elite of the Aztec soldiers, having captured at least four enemies in battle. If the Aztec was a commoner, they entered the ranks of the nobility. In return for that, they became full-time soldiers and acted as the cities' guards and police as well as being sent out to accompany merchants on trade missions.

It seems that these virile young men have attracted the attention of a pair of cougars. Not predatory older women with a fancy for young men, but the feline variety. Also known as pumas or mountain lions. They might be big cats, but they aren't "big cats" as they can't roar.

And a group shot:

I'm not entirely happy with the jaguar suits. The spotted look was achieved by adding sepia washes to fill the dimples in the texture in between each layer of the main skin colour. I am presuming that the texture was intended to represent feathered suits rather than animal skin. I might go back and repaint the suits to add larger spots of brown similar to those on the helmets.

The Jaguar warriors are from The Assault Group; the pumas are from Wargames Foundry. I make that 30 points for this entry.

Very, very nice Tamsin! You're doing a marvelous job with this 'Mexicagrave' project. The warriors' cloth armour is excellent (with their vibrant shields) and the herb groundwork is truly inspired.  I'm especially delighted to see some local fauna added to your collection - the cougars are brilliant. When will we see a few Pumas and perhaps a huge snake? :)

These will give you a base of 30 points but I'm adding a couple more for the shields. Great work!

From JaccoK - 28mm early war Germans (135 pts)

My second entry this year is a one of my longest standing projects that never started (until now that is). 

Command

Ever since Mike, Rob and I started with 28mm WWII gaming it has been my wish to paint an early war German army.

MG34 teams

MP40's

Over the years the collecting of figures has been very successful. The figures are mostly Crusader, but the connoisseur will recognize some Artisan and even the odd Black Tree figures. The Crusader range is still the most complete one I know.

Rifleman

5cm Mortar

You've done a fabulous job on these early war Germans Jake. I really appreciate your attention to detail in regards to their uniform marking and helmet insignia - these things really add that finishing touch to the figures as a whole. Will you be doing any early vehicles for these during the Challenge?

135 points for your roster Jake - well done!

From GregB - "Bannon's Boys", 15mm M1s and Friends for "Team Yankee" (54 Points)

"Bannon's Boys" - 15mm Moderns from Battlefront

Switching a few gears, in this submission we head over to another favourite period of mine (I seem to have a lot of those) - 15mm "Cold War Gone Hot".  Of course, the big news in this space has been the release of "Team Yankee" by Battlefront.  While I can't say much about the novel which inspired the rules, (I had to settle for the comics, and they weren't great, although I wish I still had them), and "Flames of War" style rules have a lot of warts, I am pleased to see a serious entity like Battlefront enter the space, because it means some consistent access at last to a consistent line of figures of decent quality. 

"Army" box from Battlefront

M1 Abrams sprues...I, for one, do not bow down to our new plastic overlords

Battlefront's first releases for this range were "Army Boxes" (another term I hate, because an "Army" is thousands of soldiers, etc. and we're talking about less than ten vehicles, but I digress) for the US and Soviet sides.  The US box is called "Bannon's Boys", named after the US Commander of "Team Yankee" from the novel.  This submission has the whole box painted - six M1 Abrams tanks, two AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships, and a resin terrain marker, an M577, a command variant of the ubiquitous M113 armoured personnel carrier.

Seriously...f*** plastic, I tell ya....this was the mounting for one of the flight stands

With the exception of the M577, the models are all plastic, multi-part kits.  So many gamers seem to be thrilled by this, but I have never seen a plastic model in 15mm that would not have been better in metal, or even resin, and these were no exception.  Battlefront has improved the quality of its plastic (although that's faint praise), but the assembly, while straightforward, is a real, fiddly pain in the @ss.

After all the cursing is done...an M1 Abrams, ready for action

Each sprue of M1 tanks has two of each MG you will need (I stupidly interpreted this as an option to mount two .50 cal MGs on the cupola, seen on my first test model here - oops!).  But they actually do this "in case one of them breaks".  Um...isn't that telling you something about your plastic?

AH-1 Cobra - assembly of the rocket pods and TOW missiles is super fun - NOT

Assembly of the Cobra helicopters was even trickier.  Again, in many ways - wow! Having useful helicopter models is cool - and hey, if these were metal, mounting them would be a serious pain - but multi-part rocket pods and TOW missile racks for a 15mm model? Who is out there going "yay, can't wait to glue my fingers to these! F*** that!!!  Just make one piece castings for God's sake!

Tank commander in the cupola, good way to mark out a command tank

I have a photo up above there in the post of what happened to one of the plastic flight stands during assembly.  That was the mount for one of the helicopters...shattered...so had to be glued to the stand in pieces! That was a lot of fun!

Col. Reynold's Command Post - this is a one-piece deal done in resin

They give you magnets for the helicopters - very thoughtful - but again, sooooo tricky...I just went without them.  The rotors will last as long as they last, and they sit well on the flights stands, even the broken one, without the magnets. But you hobby aces out there will be able to detach your rotors for storage - a neat idea overall.

This was a neat piece, nice for the table

So, anyway, voluminous amounts of cursing aside, it all got built, and primed, and under the paint brush over the past two weeks. I tried to copy the "MERDC" paint used by the US forces in the time period the "Team Yankee" novel is set...the results are OK.  I don't like to bother with airbrushes, so I just used the plain old brush, and it turned out alright, good enough to stand against the Soviet hordes! 

Propaganda photos - the M1s have knocked out some T-80s and are rolling out...

The decals on the ground vehicles are hard to see...would have been nicer if the numerals and chevrons were white, but I'm not sure they actually were...I don't know the US forces of this era well (hence my screw up with the .50 cal over the loader's cupola).  They also did not include enough decals for both helicopters, so one of them is missing the hilarious "danger" sign pointing to the rear rotor - a more danger-mind crew, perhaps?

Looking forward to a game with these fellows

I already have a smattering of Russians in 15mm, so I wanted to paint some US troops first in the hopes of getting the rules out for a test drive sometime soon with our group.  Since I have run out of Americans (the infantry and other models are still riding on whatever snail-managed hot air balloon Battlefront uses to ship products to retailers), the Russians will be up next. 

The command post is a great little item

Battlefront is planning to do West Germans and UK forces for this setting as well.  Both sides are way more interesting to me (Chieftains! Leopards!), so I hope those models appear soon, but with Battlefront, it could be six months at least before we see anything - so for now, we will prepare for the US and Soviet Union to fill the table with flaming tank wreckage!

Cobras cover the US advance

So, nine 15mm vehicles should give me 54 points for my little side race with Byron and Curt. It's good to see a jolt of new modern 15mm stuff rolling out into the market, and I'm looking forward to getting these fellows on to the table.  As newly painted miniatures, I'm confident they will dominate the tabletop. Hopefully we'll have some WARPAC Soviets ready for submission next week, and a game in a couple of weeks!

Holy smokes, is this ever cool Greg! Your wholly justified plastic peccadilloes aside, you've done a marvelous job on these models. The camo looks very convincing and the Cobras are just ace. I particularly like that command vehicle with it's attached 'pup-tent'. I also really like seeing the models set up in amongst your terrain - it looks spectacular.

I have to stifle a bit of a rant about Battlefront's sycophantic focus on certain nationalities and themes as I'm sure it would brush many people the wrong way.  I will simply say I agree with you in your hopes to see more nationalities (and, heaven forbid, infantry) come online for this range soon. :)

A very well-earned 54 points for you Greg. Now I need to scramble to get some more stuff together for our Modern duel...

'And Get a Haircut!'

Vader is awesome. I'm glad I'm not a father as I'm sure he'd be my role model.

Saturday is here and, jeez louise, not a moment too soon. I don't know about you folks but this week was a complete grind for me - by Friday I was ready to bite the heads of bats. Anyway, the blessed weekend is here and we have a wonderful assortment of entries to take in. So get your favourite beverage, sit back, and enjoy the show.

Oh, one more thing: I've awarded the bonus points for the 'Epic Fail' round, which is just in time as our foray into 'Defensive Terrain' begins tomorrow. I've seen some of the entries and I tell ya, they're pretty darn cool.

Have a great weekend everyone!