From DaveD: MTB'S and Target (50 points)

Well , just time to get a starting entry in under the Xmas radar to kick off my 8th challenge. Like a number of people I jumped into Cruel Seas with a starter set. I had an interest in this genre already as last year I picked some bargains at a bring and buy and was just looking what to do with them .

3 x Vosper type II MTBS 

I have added 9 crew figures to these - they are full 6mm figures so a few points for them?

I modified the masts , drilling through to add a metal pin stay as I don't think they will last long in combat conditions - the twin purpose of this was that it also gave me a nice place to fly the ensigns from. 

1 Vosper type 1 - no crew figures added to this yet until I find some! 

The first of the "targets" - this is the tanker supplied with the warlord starter set - its about the size of 4 MTB's so not massive - , but does look nice. I had to reinforce the base as the resin was flexing alarmingly - so I added a cardboard base and it seems to have added some good support. 

hmm - maybe is should have entered the Naval duel! 

The tanker "S.S Challenger" 

the scale for this game is pretty flexible and when working it out something like a liberty ship should be about 35 centimeters long you guess why.  - so larger ships are going to be interesting -and tempting!

If you are interested the mat I have , it is the one from Deep Cut in mousemat material , at  8x4 size. I bought last year too before a proper use - build and they will come as they say. 

Some of the other merchants I picked up last year (dirt cheap) are on the prep desk along with some Germans .. we have a game next Sunday (MartinC and JamesM will be along) to try this out .

As for what else I have in the wings this year - well I have some Sudan - obviously , some WWII 15mm stuff, lots of terrain items, and some thing a bit different - so you can wait for that! 

I also have a little duel on the go with my old sparring partner Millsy - looking forward to a bit of a laugh... 

We will be running some paint and chat sessions - I will stick a post up as I get sorted with them .

All the best to you challengers this year - cheers -DaveD - right then Petty Officer Millsy pass the Rum ration

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Those are some lovely Vospers, Dave, and that tanker is ace as well. I think I may nick your idea of reinforcing the MTB mast with a steel pin for the ensign - good one. I'm also looking very enviously at your lineup of freighters as 'Cruel Seas' demands many floating targets for the raiders to hunt. 

Hoping I can sort out the time difference to attend one of your paint and chats this year. Such a great idea.

We'll count the Vospers as 15mm vehicles and the tanker as a 28mm vehicle, so that puts them at 44 points. Also, I'll give you a few extra for the crew and flags. 50 Points! Cracking stuff.

From VictorC: 1/35 Italeri M13/40 (35 Points)

Here is my first post for the 2018 Analogue Painting Challenge, an Italeri 1/35 scale M13/40 tank. I picked this up at the local IPMS show this past October. I decided to try building a model again after not doing one since I was a teenager. I've always liked Italian tanks and when I was gaming WWII Italians I always portrayed them as they were on the Eastern Front against Russia.  

So this tank is done in the Eastern Front Grey and then weathered heavily since the snow and rain would have taken a toll on the metal. It was fun to do something like this again. I may have to do some more.

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Wow, what a beautiful piece of armour, Victor. You can almost smell the diesel and dust what with the fantastic weathering you've achieved. I too have always liked the design of Italian armour, with my first big-boy kit being a M13/40 in North African livery (with many decals being crooked and fingers glued together). Much like their cars and motorcycles, they have great design, but end up spending a lot of time in the shop. ;)

We'll equate this fellow to a 54mm vehicle, so that gives it a base of 30 points, with a few more added for the terrific execution on this clanker. Well done!

From PaulSS - Pair of Battletech Mechs (16 Points)

Continuing the mad burst of activity at the start of the Challenge I had some Battletech Mechs that I wanted to get painted during the Challenge, but in time to give as a gift tonight (Sunday).

I only have scant interest in Battletech so have no idea what these Mechs are, maybe somebody with more knowledge of the canon could let me know what I've painted.

The brief was bronze and gold, I thought metallics would look pretty nasty, so went for a base-coat of Vallejo Chocolate Brown for the 'bronze' and Vallejo Gold Brown' for the gold. Additional areas were picked out in red or black to give a bit of contrast.

Everything was then washed in Army Painter Strong Tone.

After the wash was dried I repainted the base colours then highlighted, adding a couple of highlights with Beige Brown added to the Chocolate Brown and a couple of highlights with Yellow added to the Gold Brown.

Finally Windsor & Newton Peat Brown ink was used to pick out the panels and detail.

We play on a black arena, so the bases were painted Black with a light highlight of Black-Grey.

The final photo shows all three members of the 'Lance' the third Mech was painted before the challenge started.

Not sure where these stand on the scoring table, they are rather big to count as a 6mm Vehicle, maybe either a 15mm Vehicle or a 54mm foot figure?

They also should give me some points in the Squirrel duel too.

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Ah, Battletech. Now that's an old chestnut from the 80s - gosh, back when I had hair! A fun set of rules, if I remember. I wonder how they've held up over time? The brown and yellow-gold livery is very eye-catching. Great work Paul and good luck with them on the tabletop!

From Curt: Czech Legion Rifle Squad (55 Points)

While my last entry was focused on the German coastal forces of WWII, this time I give to you a squad of hard-bitten veteran infantry from the Czech Legion. These hard nuts fought their own private war along the breadth of the Siberian Railway during the end of the WWI and well into the Russian Civil War. These are the same chaps who, riding on a series of armoured trains, captured the Imperial gold reserve, soundly defeated every Red force put against them and inadvertently caused the Bolsheviks to panic and execute the interred Romanovs.  The Czech Legion was ultimately evacuated out of Vladivostok in 1920 and formed the core of the new Czechloslovakian national army in the interwar years.

The rank and file are from Mark Copplestone, one of my favourite sculptors in the market. (Why, oh why can't he be more prolific. His stuff is absolute gold.) They have great heft, possess wonderful character, and have such clean lines which are a joy to paint. I did them up in a mish-mash of coloured greatcoats. The only cohesive thing about them is the red and white Czech colours on the fabric top of their fur caps. 

I can't remember where I sourced the leader from. Maybe Artizan? Tsuba? Beats me. All I know is that he looks hard as nails striding purposefully ahead, all grim faced, brandishing his artillery Luger sporting the all-but-useless-but-oh-so-cool wooden stock.

These fellas will give me 55 points to add to my total and another notch to my Squirrel tally. Yes indeedee, I'm on a roll folks!

Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year everyone!

From BenF: Cold War 1984 - West Germans in 6mm (80 Points)

Merry Christmas all! I'm thrilled to be taking part in my third Painting Challenge. For my first entry of number IX, I've got some 6mm Cold War Bundeswehr ready to defend West Germany from the communist hordes. These are the final pieces of a force based around I. (German) Corps in 1984. We've been playing a lot of Cold War Commander at the local club, and I've begun working on a campaign based around a Soviet drive to the Rhine across the North German Plain in the spring of 1984.

One of my personal targets of this painting challenge will be to finish off the forces needed for this campaign - Dutch, a bunch of Soviets, and a small French force.

First off, here's the whole force. This really is an 'odds and sods' collection, as i've already painted up the majority of the infantry and armour needed.

Here's a Panzer battalion of Leopard 1A1A1s, to compliment the battalion of Leo 2A1s  which I have already completed. According to my research, the majority of the Germans were still using the upgraded Leopard Is in 1984, at least in the 11th Panzergrenadier and 7th Panzer divisions which will be the main Bundeswehr combat arms of the campaign. The panzers are GHQ and the M113 'Beobachtungspanzerwagen' is from CinC. The camo netting is done using slices of soft foam 'melted' onto the vehicles using superglue. Aerials are nylon bristles from a cheap dustpan brush. A random Leopard 1A4 was included accidentally in one of the GHQ blister packs, so I painted it up as well, albeit in the NATO three colour camo rather than the Gelboliv of the rest of the force.

Next, here is a battalion's worth of Unimog U1300L trucks. These can be used for lots of different roles, as transport for Jäger, Fallschirmjäger, or Heimatschütz Reserve battalions, or as tows for artillery pieces. The trucks are GHQ, the VW Iltis and the command figures are from Heroics and Ros. The quality and detail of the new 6mm Heroics sculpts are superb.

Next up, here is a Bergepanzer 2, the armoured engineering vehicle based on the Leopard I. This is a Heroics and Ros vehicle with some decals from Flight Deck Decals 2400.

Below are a few Tpz Fuchs transport vehicles which I will be using for pionier assets. I may add another 5 at some stage to provide enough transport for a battalion of Jägers. These are from CinC. 

Next, here is a 'Beobachtungspanzerwagen M113A1G'. Name really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Anyway, these are forward artillery observer versions of the M113 unique to the Bundeswehr, and are from CinC.

Finally, a selection of artillery, self propelled and stationary. The M109A2Gs are from GHQ, the rest is from Heroics and Ros. The field guns are the 155mm FH77, which were used by many NATO forces. The huge gun-on-tracks is a M110A2. The tiny little AA guns are 20mm Flak FK20-2s, and the M113 variants are an M125 (81mm) and M106 (120mm) self-propelled mortar vehicles. 

So, by my totalling the points should be 75 points :

32 x vehicles (64 points)

5 x artillery pieces (5 points) 

12 x infantry figures (6 points)

That's it for the first entry. Next up will be the soviet hordes - all 82 odd of them......

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Welcome back, Ben! 

I've really enjoyed your microscale work in past years, and so you don't fail to please this time out either. Geez, these are lovely little models. 

One mod that I'm very taken with is how you did the camo scrim on the Leopards - that effect is just terrific - consider it unabashedly stolen.  The command stand is another highlight, with the vehicles just having pulled off the autobahn and the officers conversing - very cool. The tiny decals are just icing on the cake as they really finish of the models nicely. Fabulous stuff.

I'm going to give a few extra points for the creative detail work and nice compositions - well done! 

From JamieM: Blackstone Fortress Adversaries (100 Points)

It's fantastic to be back in the challenge once again and for the first time ever, I've actually completed a submission before Christmas!

Now, I've always been a bit of a Games Workshop fanboy - Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battle were what brought me into this hobby.  It's no great secret that GW diverged somewhat from what made them so successful during a lot of the 2000's....... but they've recently rediscovered a lot of what made them such a big draw in the 80's & early 90's - actually giving the customers what they want instead of telling customers what they should want and utterly ignoring them.  Mind blowing stuff, for sure.....

One of the things they've rediscovered is that wargamers rather like full games in boxes with great figures and so they've recently been churning boxed games out as often as they can.  A couple of years ago I bought the reinvented Warhammer Quest game (basically a dungeon crawl where you're all on the same side against AI controlled enemies) and our gaming group really enjoyed it, so when GW announced the next Warhammer Quest game would be in the 40k universe, I was absolutely in!

I decided to do something a little different though and despite the lovely figures GW were including in the game, I decided that this was a great opportunity for me to instead convert all the required figures from miniatures and parts that I already owned.  This would give me something unique, save a bit of cash and scratch the converting itch I always have.  Oh, and attempt to ever so slightly rebalance the wargamers scales, which are always heavily weighted towards buying shiny things instead of painting them.  So, I picked up all the game parts you needed to play for a song from eBay and got converting..... and I now present the first completed figures.

These first chaps are my take on the "Negavolt cultists" - lunatics who seem to have taken to electrocuting anyone who strays into their territory.  As you do.  I had some bodies from the old empire flagellants and having found some oversized power arms, they reminded me of fiddler crabs so I went with one massive arm and almost nothing on the other side.

Weird electro machinery on the back finished the look.

These next ones are my version of spindle drones.  The "proper" ones are a little metallic and clean for my taste, so I added some 40k weirdness with odd little robed individuals.  Are they robots, cyborgs or something else entirely?  We may never know....

Now, having said I was going to convert ALL of the figures, I now must admit to not converting these next four.  At all.  In any way, shape or form.  I stuck to that resolution about as well the one I periodically make to stop buying figures until I've painted a load of what I already...... I just really liked the figures and so caved in and bought myself some.

Anyway, these unsavoury fellows are Ur-Ghuls - ghoulish monsters who seem to use warp space to stalk their prey.  Or something.  Anyway, I suspect I wouldn't like to meet them down a dark alley, but they were delightfully easy to paint and hence why they leapt to the head of the painting queue.

And here they are, all together in the class photo.

They're all 28mm figures, but as they're for a board game I paint the bases plain black instead of trying to match the game so I'm happy for the points to be reduced to account for this.

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Wow, what wonderful work, Jamie. I knew we'd be in for a treat when you described what you were planning for this project earlier this autumn. 

Your execution of these various conversions is just brilliant. I'm especially taken with the asymmetrical 'Negavolt cultists'. You know, some cultists get a secret decoder ring, others a groovy pointy-headed cowl. These poor gits get turned into lobotomised self-propelled arc welding amputees. Sure, nice gig if you can get it. Sheesh...

Even though the Ur-Ghuls are 'merely' stock figures I love the way you have their hands as flesh coloured counterposed to their alabaster white bodies. That's quite creeptastic.

Okay, lets say double points for the drones and Negavolt guys due to their substantive conversions. That makes it 100 points for all these loons. Nicely done, Jamie. Let's see some more, eh?