Wednesdays Minion

It’s that time of the week once more .

I see some posts are ready for your entertainment.

I reckon this is one that  BlaxCleric has repainted ..

Let’s start the run down to the weekend in style , and get this show on the road!

Right time for coffee...

Lee clambers atop Snow Lord's Peak

Lee a couple dozen tiny pachyderms crest Snow Lord's Peak, looking much like a gargantuan Alexander traversing the Hindu Kush.

This week's Snow Lord Peak brought to you from Mount Joffre, Alberta.

The Snow Lord gets down on his haunches and gazes at the lilliputian phalanx of elephants. 'Wow, Lee, those little guys are just amazing. I've been watching your work with these little guys these past few years and I have to say, colour me impressed.'

Lee, chuffed with his handiwork, rubs his hand together to keep them warm,  'Thanks mate. Say, where can I stash these wee chaps?'

'Put them by the pond. I have a few of Tamsin's teeny lizardmen still hanging about. They can get them sorted from their trip up.'

Afterward, while enjoying a couple of cigars, a good scotch and admiring Snow Lord's new landscaping, Lee asks the fated question. 

'So, I hear there's some treasure up here... You don't happen to know where it is, do you? Perhaps I can offer you some sort of boon in exchange?'

The Snow Lord looks at Lee appraisingly, 'Sure, I think we can strike a bargain.' He looks over to the tiny elephants having a bath the shallows of the pond. 'I think I have a challenge for you. You've built a well-earned reputation working with these tiny guys, but I think you need to break the mould and give us something upsized to enjoy. Something big from Big Lee. What do you say?' 

Lee smiles, 'You're on.'

______________________________________________

Well Lee, Let's see what you come up with that's a little more el grande in scale.

-Curt

From PaulSS - Iron Brigade Command (27 points)

One thing our recent Longstreet campaign has taught me is that you can probably never have enough command stands, so when I made a recent order to Perry Miniatures I added a couple of extra frames of Union command.

As one of the units in the campaign is the 2nd Wisconsin I modelled these all with Hardee Hats from the command sprue.

There was a single infantryman left over from the recent box I had painted so he had some paint slapped on at the same time as these four.

Flags as usual are from https://www.warflag.com

Five 28mm foot and a couple of flags should add 27pts to my total.

By Paul
Your ACW collection is really building up this Challenge Paul! And this Command stand is another lovely addition. 27 points it is!

From MikeW - 17th Century Landing Craft! (40 Points)

Having meandered around Challenge Island, I found my-self at Douglas' Shallows and needing to do something faintly nautical...

... being a land lubber that posed a bit of a problem - until I realised that one of the Scenarios that I have been hoping to put on as a game at the SAS Wargames Club  was a 17th Century Amphibious Landing - and I need some suitable barges to offload the invading forces.

As an aside - the SAS in the club name does not refer to the famous British Special Ops Regiment, rather it originally stood for Sussex Association of Simulators and later Southern Association of Simulators, in more recent times it has stood for Sussex and Surrey! 

Thus reflecting English counties our members are from... we also have a member who lives in Somerset, but as that begins with a 'S' as well he's still allowed in!

Back to Douglas' Shallows, next I had to source an appropriate number of barges, I did briefly consider scratch building them but after a browse on eBay I found a set of barges from AnyScaleModels.com that would do just nicely and they were really good value for money.

5 x 28mm Landing Barges

The models duly arrived and I proceeded to undercoat the resin models with a Grey Primer spray, once dry I painted the outside of the boats / barges brown and then highlighted and applied washes to give a natural wooden feel, before varnishing.

The inside of the boats were painted grey, then again highlighted and washed to give the models a more 3D visual when on the table top.

Close-up view of Barge - which could equally be used as a ferry

The resin models were well cast and had very little flash that needed to be cleaned-up, in a couple spots near the water line I left some of the flash in place and painted this blue with white highlights to give a hint of water.

Another view, highlighting grey interior

As to the scenario I plan to use, it is based on one by Barry Hilton and is the Battle of Camaret Bay, 18th June 1694, when a British and Allied force landed outside Brest, France only to find their mission compromised and they were thrown back into the sea....

And finally in action, transporting a regiment of
English Foot, spread across two barges!

Not sure on how to score the Barges, they are approx 14.5cm (6") x 5cm (2") so have assumed that they are equivalent to a 28mm mounted figure so 10 Points each. Treating them as 28mm vehicles @ 20 Points each, seems a little over generous...

POINTS
5 x 28mm Barges @ 5 Points each = 50 Points
Douglas' Shallows Bonus  30 Points
Total Points 50 + 30 = 80 Points

By Paul:
They look very handy bits of kit indeed - would love some of those for my FIW chaps doing some river assaults.

Happy with your map location bonus but noting their construction, painting requirements and lack of basing I am going to score the boats as terrain to maintain consistency.  Overall in volume I shall round up to half a terrain cube for 10 points, making a total of 40.

Good luck messing about in your boats

From GregB: German WW2 Hanomag APCs (80 Points)

1/56 scale Hanomag APCs - models from Warlord Games "Bolt Action" range.

Well, I now have some marching orders from the Snow Lord himself. But as I set myself to that worthy hobby challenge, I want to finish off some of the pending things from projects familiar to the fellow participants and visitors of AHPC X - namely, my late WW2 winter Germans.  I have painted up a nice basic force of infantry, but they will need some vehicles to get around the gaming table.  These Hanomags should do the trick - they are 1/56 scale plastic kits from Warlord Games "Bolt Action" range (and I think Italeri is involved somehow too).

Seated plastic figures to be used showing some troops are embarked.

When I started this project, one hobby quirk I needed to make peace with is the use of 1/56 scale models in 28mm gaming.  I laugh at how consistently the gaming world insists that 1/56 scale is the "proper" scale for 28mm figures. So many manufacturer go to the length of adding "1/56" right after "28mm".  And yet, even the most cursory observation on any gaming table shows the link doesn't hold up.  A better scale would be 1/50 or 1/48...

The 28mm infantry look huge compared to the 1/56 APC...oh well.

And yet...while 1/50 and 1/48 options exist, they are either too much fuss (complex model kits with too many parts), too expensive (the rare Solidos) or made of puke-laced resin (#flakegate).  1/56 is the least-bad option, and because so much of the hobby industry remains committed to this group hallucination, 1/56 scale offers the most options in terms of available vehicles to choose from. Thus I swallow the blue pill...1/56 scale is perfect for 28mm!

AA MG mounted on the backs of two of the APCs. 

The Hanomag is an iconic piece of German WW2 kit.  They built thousands of these things, but there were never enough to meet the enormous demands created by all-out war on two fronts. They would typically be found among one of the battalions of the Panzer and Panzer Grenadier divisions, and among "favoured" units.  These are 251/Ds, later models of the half tracks, apparently easier to build.

Bring on the winter muck!

Don't look too closely...the license plates all have the same number. I wish Warlord would vary their decal sheets...

I suppose one can go too far when it comes to weathering vehicles, but when it comes to winter AFVs, as far as I'm concerned one cannot go far enough. Winter is beautiful, but the pristine white snow lasts for so long as you stand still and never move...winter conditions are somehow still muddy, dirty and - yes, it's true - somehow even DUSTY.  I know this, I have grown up with it. I have been blessed to live in peaceful times in a city with concrete roads, and yet in the winter my red truck turns grey about 72 hours after any snowfall, and a grey-brown about 15 minutes after any thaw.

Vehicle 412, ready to roll out.

Another view, showing the optional embarked infantry models.

These vehicles would be driving through mud, on dirt roads, then snow...seeing snow, dirt, and even rain (it happens in the winter, after all).  The white-wash would have been applied in a hurry, at a depot, probably with one eye on escape as the Russians could arrive at any moment...I want my winter German AFVs to "look the part", and so I have mucked them up here.

Tried to put some muck and snow inside the halftracks.

Open-topped vehicles are always an extra challenge in large scales...after all, you can see inside them! I tried to muck up the inside a bit. I also painted a few of the seated infantry figures that came with the kits, so as to use as markers to show when an infantry unit is aboard the APC.  I see that Warlord sells winter MG-34 gunners for the Hanomags...wish I had thought to order some.  Oh well.

Out for a walk in the forest with my dogs - it was so nice to see the sun!

These three vehicles, plus the four seated troops, should total up 80 points. Up next...just a bit more WW2, before I move the clock back a little further...

By Paul:  
A lovely trio of iconic German vehicles and you've done a cracking job with the snow camo too- looks spot on.  80 points well earned Greg

Not sure my Beagles would like walking in that snow though! 

From Barks: Napoleon back from the dead (35 points)

"My Lord Wellington! The devil is back from St Helena!"

"What? Who? Old Boney? But he's dead, man!"

Waterloo wasn't the end, as Napoleon Bonaparte raises his dead soldiers and aims to conquer Europe again.

I don't think Lord Sidney knew what he was getting into with his alternative history location. This figure is Napoleon Blownapart from Eureka Miniatures. I do think he could have had his hand in his innards.

1x 28mm figure 5
Roundwood's Tower 30

Skull-o-meter™: 1
Cumulative Skullz: 13

By Paul:
What a fantastic model - Boney old Boney ! Looks alike a roundshot from a 12 pounder went right into his guts too. Nasty...  Thats a pretty weak reading on the Skull-o-meter, but I'll allow it :-)

35 points Sir! 

From MikeF: 30K Militia Armored Sentinels - (30 Points)

Continuing with my 30k Imperial Militia army, I've completed a squadron of Armored Sentinels armed with lascannons (and chain weapons for funsies). The cool thing about the 30k period is the technology is more diverse and in some cases more advanced than 40k. I imagine that equivalent vehicles like sentinels would be developed independently from the Forge Worlds before and during the Great Crusade with innovation subsequently being declared tech heresy after the Siege of Terra. This allows for a more liberal use of proxy models (not that I could ever use it in a GW tournament, but when would I ever go to one of those!)

I used models from the now defunct game AT 43. These are UNA battlesuits with bits added from Ork Meganobz and Lascannons from Anvil Industry. I think our game group had a copy of AT-43, but it was "permanently borrowed" by a former member.

Although the saws look dangerous, these guys have no business being in close combat.

I figure 30 points for this unit. They are technically vehicles, but are only a bit bigger than the Ogryns I painted. They're more in line with an artillery piece or cavalry model.

***
Great work Mike - it has been really neat to see how you fuse a variety of different bits - some from GW, but many from other sources, and still bring it together very nicely in a way that fits so well into the 30k/40k setting.  I know they shouldn't be in close combat, but perhaps the chain saws are more likely intended for use on the more common targets of the Auxilia, things they would "handle" before the Horus Heresy started...like protesters, or people who fall behind on rent payments, academics who missed a comma in their papers praising The Emperor...

I do recall our brief flirtation AT 43...ah, those were the days...anyway, 30 points for you. These are looking great, can't wait to see them on the table. 

GregB

From DaveS - Yet More Union (80 Points)

The ACW Union project for Sharp Practice continues.  Nothing earth shattering here, but with these last models, I have completed the line infantry for the starter force.

They've all been painted in the same manner as the rest of the infantry, and based in groups of 8.

With these, I have finished the last of the Line Infantry, and so I have included the obligatory group shot.

Next up, we have the officers (also made from the Perry Plastic's), a standard bearer, musician, and perhaps something else that I have been after for a while now, and finally picked up at Beachead on Saturday.  (Funny story, this is the third time I have tried to buy this miniature, and both previous times, I have failed because the retailer was either too busy or didn't have enough change to sell it to me.)

So that's 16 models at 28mm, for another 80 points I think.

***

The Union machine continues to bring recruits into the line! Good work Dave, the mass effect of the group shot is excellent. While you mention you have more aspects of this project pending, I hope you are feeling a nice moment of achievement as you prepare to swing over to the next phase of the project. 

And we can't wait to learn more about this figure you needed three tries to acquire...

GregB

From Adamc: Corvette Schooner (35 points)

Another set of conversion made from two brings "surgically" separated and then reconnected.   The main mast was again the biggest problem.  The main mast is actually slightly cocked to the side, I was able to get it almost straight with the rigging but it’s still there even if no one but me can see it (at least I hope you can’t see it).

First up is a 24 gun Corvette, a favorite light warship of the French Navy playing much the same role as the Sloop of War in the English and American Navies. This one is a little bigger than the Berceau captured by the USS Boston and then returned to the French and later captured again by the British.

I cut down an extra stern plate from a frigate to make cabin windows for which I think really adds something to the ship's appearance, sort of wish I had done it for the Sloop of War.

Here is the Berceau alongside the USS Delaware the corvette is slightly bigger 24 guns vs 22 guns.

Another combination of brig parts, this time built as a topsail schooner a popular design for trade vessels and Privateers.
  

I had to build the mizzen mast from scratch, and it came out look pretty good I think its a little large but not overly large. Rigging was a challenge on this one since there are no guides, but I think it came out pretty good. 

She's painted in generic colors because she will probably switch sides fairly often serving at merchant in need of protection.  

This ship started life as a 1/1050 GHQ ship a frigate, I believe it’s on the small side but should work as a small coasting vessel. The ships didn't have masts which made them hard to manages but this one at least now has new life. The jib sails are from tumbling dice the other sail is a piece of cloth.

Here are the two merchants’ side by side the smaller ship looks reasonable even if it started as a ship of a very different scale.  Points I figure 15 for the Corvette, 10 points for the schooner and another 5 points for the coasting vessel.  There are a few flags that might be worth a few extra points. 

***

Reconnecting corvettes? Sounds crazy, and I don't even know what a "mizzen" is! Well done Adam, you continue to impress with your nautical efforts. I'm going to toss in an additional 5 points for the general nuttiness of boat surgery, a home-made "mizzen", and all of the other conversion work you have done here to bring us these fine vessels.  Great work.  

GregB

Snowlord's Peak - Tamsin To The Rescue! (Again!) (92 Points)

Extracts from the journal of TamsinP, Time Traveler, Society Girl and Adventuress


27th January, Some Time, Some Place

Sitting down to plot my route from O'Grady's Gulch to Snowlord's Peak, I observe the tiny lizard warriors shyly peeking from the edge of the long grass. I guess that curiosity has overcome their initial fear at my appearance. I beckon them over and a small group step forward.

"Excuse us, lady, but could you possibly help us escape from this gulch?" a very squeaky voice utters.

"My word, you speak English!"

"Indeed, lady. We used to be human, but were captured by an evil sorceror who experimented on us. Something to do with variance and deviants that he was trying to fix."

Variance? Deviants? That could only mean one thing - the evil mathaumaturgician Miles had been at work, building yet another abominable spreadsheet. How many cats had been sacrificed this time?

"My little green friends, of course I will help you. I am off to seek out the Snowlord, perhaps he will be able to assist you further."

"The Snowlord? But he's a scary ogre, why would he help us?"

"Scary ogre? What utter tish-tosh! I've known him for years and he's a real softie; the scary ogre thing is just a front he tries to put on."

"Well, if you're sure, then we'll accompany you. Perhaps we could carry your luggage for you?"

My luggage. Hmmm, it would be rude to refuse, but I don't actually have any luggage. After a bit of quick thinking, I realise that I do have a few hankies in the pockets of my shorts and use those to wrap up my stripped-down Glock. That creates some suitably sized parcels for my companions.

We set off for Snowlord' Peak. Progress is very slow, as their tiny legs mean they don't move very fast at all. Eventually, though, we do reach Snowlord's Peak and ascend the lower slopes. 


29th January, 2020, ascending Snowlord's Peak

A loud "roar!" breaks the peace and my reptilian train starts shaking.

"Oh do knock it off. That roar is about as convincing as, well, I can't think of anything as unconvincing as that at the moment."

"Ahh, Tamsin, Tamsin, Tamsin. I should have known. Unconvincing? Do you really think so?" the Snowlord says, appearing from behind a rock.

"Utterly unconvincing. And almost as ridiculous as some of your headwear. Speaking of which..."

"So what do you think? I got this from Pete, he was just here. Pretty fetching, isn't it?"

"You look ridiculous."

After a brief discussion, I find that I have been assigned a most important and peculiar mission. It appears that adjustments to the Spreadsheet Of Doom created a time-rift, sucking many veteran challengers to somewhere in the past. It has also split the Snowlord in two, and his memory has gone with the part that slipped back in time. Maybe the lack of memory could also explain why on earth he might think that he doesn't look a complete berk in that czapka...

The Snowlord has had a technician look at the SOD and they have identified coordinates for where everyone has been sent. These are now programmed into my device, along with those for my return.

"Before I forget, could you do something to help out my little green companions? It seems they are the result of one of Miles' experiments."

"Miles' experiments? Not again. Oh, well, I guess I'd better do something to help them out, but I wish he would stop tinkering with that SOD."


30th January, 17xx? the Caribbean?

With that sorted, I head down the mountain to a suitable location and activate the coordinates in my device. Stepping through the rift, I find myself on a sandy beach. I check my clothes - corset, bloused sleeves, tight breaches, jaunty feathered tricorne, cutlass, flintlock pistol - I'm going to guess the golden age of piracy, somewhere in the Caribbean.

Following footsteps in the sand, up the rise I see several gentlemen in piratical attire. They look familiar and then I realise that these are some of my fellow minions. 

"What ho Greg! Is everyone here?"

""My word, Tamsin! Good to see you! I take it you are the rescue party?

"It certainly seems so. Now, where is Captain Campbell? I need to discuss with him the arrangements for getting you back."

"His Lordship is up there under the palm trees, sitting  on his sodding throne, keeping out of the sun."

I trudge up to the trees and hail the *cough* mighty captain.

"Ahh, Tamsin, Tamsin, Tamsin. I should have known I would send you back to rescue me."

"To rescue you all."

"Ermm, yes, I suppose the others should be rescued too."

"Now look here, Curt. I need to know what has happened before I can return you all. So, tell me - how did you all end up here?"

"Well, you see, it was mutiny. Vile, terrible mutiny..."

"OK, so what was it you did to make them mutiny?"

"But it wasn't me!"

I arch a disbelieving eyebrow at him.

"It wasn't just me. It was the minions too."

"Look, I think you'd better start from the beginning here. Maybe a glass of wine would help?"

"Oh yes, I could do with one of those."

"I meant for me!"

"Oh, of course, where are my manners? A glass of wine for the good lady Tamsin, chop-chop!"

I take the proffered glass of wine and ask Curt to start from the beginning.

"Well, I arranged a sailing cruise for a few of the regulars. Everything was going swimmingly until I allowed you to go off travelling on your own..."

I fix him with a "do you really, honestly think you can try to lay any blame for this on me?" look. He reddens and continues his account.

"I guess it was always a silly idea to take the ship through Reidy's Reef. Who knows what strange effects all those mathaumaturgical practices are going to have? Anyway, we passed through some sort of rift and became a pirate ship. A bit of a shock, but everyone aboard seemed quite happy. At first anyway."

"So, something happened after that?"

"Well, as everything seemed to be tickety-boo, I decided to leave the minions in charge while I worked on some hat designs in my cabin. Here, what do you think of this one? I call it a "czapka"."

"It will look bloody ridiculous on you." I reply, recognising it as looking very like the hat I had seen earlier, back on Snowlord's Peak.

"Oh!" He looks crestfallen, but then brightens again - I can tell he will ignore my opinion on that hat. 

"Anyway, leaving the minions in charge was a bit of a mistake. First of all Byron scared the bejeezuss out of the passengers with his tales of monsters from the kingdom of death. Mind you, he's not all bad - he found some wood and knocked me up this chair."

I nod approvingly at the workmanship. "What went wrong after Byron?"

"Aahh, now, then there was Miles..."

"Miles. Hmmm, he's to blame for many things."

"Quite! It all seemed quite innocuous at first. He appeared just to be trying to interest them in some investments. "Collateralised Inverse Future Switchback Derivative Mutualised Aggregated Flipper Insurance-Linked Sub-Prime Industrial Commercial Domestic Retail Madeupword Multi-Layer Personal Interest Plan". I've no idea what that means, but his sales pitch had me hooked - all those bar charts, pie-charts and things were quite convincing."

"I would imagine so. So what was the problem?"

"Well, it was the price - twenty cats, 100 hamsters and your last-born grandchild."

"Hmm, is he here? MILES!"

I see one of the "pirates" look up from his notebook full of equations and mystical symbols. "You called, milady?"

"Yes. Curt has just been telling me about your investment product. Well, more about the price you were charging for it. Cats? Hamsters? Last-born grandchild? Really?"

"For my Spreadsheet Of Doom. The cats are necessary to make the formulae work; the hamsters spin the wheel that powers the spreadsheet."

"The grandchildren?"

"That was simply a sales ploy - I'd have allowed them to negotiate me into dropping that and thinking they'd got a bargain. The weird thing is, none of the suckers even tried to negotiate - they just signed them over to me."

I despair at the gullibility of my fellow challengers. Surely they know better than to trust these investment types? I return to quizzing Curt about what led to the mutiny.

"Then it was Greg. He started spreading heretical literature around. There were lots of mutterings, but I managed to quell things by convincing them it was all a big bluff."

"The real disquiet began when Paul came on duty. Speaking of Paul... I say, Captain Paul - is there any sign of those scoundrels?"

"Aye, Captain Campbell!" Paul calls down from the rock. He is looking out across the sea through his telescope. "They have The Challenge anchored off that island a couple of miles away. It appears they've elected a new Captain; you're not going to believe who it is!"

"Pray tell, what vagabond have the fools chosen?"

"It's Master, I guess Captain now, Rousell. He seems to have them all ashore, digging up sand and filling bags with it."

"The damned fools. I'm sure that rascal must have been behind the mutiny. I don't think he ever forgave me for stopping him smuggling budgies in badgers and trying to claim bears were women. Still, I can't believe that such sensible people as Sir Michael and Sir Sidney would have gone along with such idiocy. Nor can I credit that Frances o'Feck would vote for him."

"So, Paul - what did he do which might have led to the mutiny?" I ask, to get the tale back on track.

"Well, he had this mad idea that the passengers and crew need to practice beach landings from dawn to dusk. It might not have been so bad if he'd allowed them to use the boats to get ashore..."

Beach landings without using boats? That makes about as much sense as...

"After Paul it was Dave. Although the fault there was at least partly with Miles. You see, when I took aboard an extra passenger, rather than adding them to the end of the list Miles put them in the middle of the roster. When Dave came to do the medications, the list was off by one place for half of the passengers and they all got the wrong drugs. It was pandemonium."

"Hmmm, and partly your fault too, for not telling Miles to add them to the end of the list." I interject. Typically, Curt ignores me and continues. I realise he won't really accept that any of the blame lies with him.

"But what finally caused them to crack was when we tried to calm them down by handing out wax crayons and rocks. It turns out that Martin had ground up all the rocks and eaten all the crayons..."

"I was hungry. And drunk. And hungry." Martin pleaded.

"With no crayons and rocks to pacify them, the riotous behaviour got out of hand and they marched us into a boat, rowed us to this island and abandoned us here. Fortunately they were kind enough to  leave us some food and drink. It would have been nicer if they could have left us on a larger island, one with a bit more shade. This place is really far too small."

"But what about the Lady Sarah. Was she with you?"

"Now, there's a tale. It seems she was with us all along, but we didn't know until the passengers mutinied. After beaching us here, they removed the figurehead and threw it into the water. That's when it transformed into a living, breathing, swearing mermaid. I can tell you honestly that I have never in my life heard such foul language being uttered. Or strangeness - something about "No more hot air balloon rides for you rotten sonsofbitches". I mean, what is a hot air balloon?"

"So, the Lady Sarah was a figurehead and is now a mermaid?" I ask, somewhat incredulous.

"Yes. It appears that she didn't trust me and decided to secretly join us to keep an eye on my millinery choices. To do that, she made a deal with Calysto to turn her into a mermaid figurehead for the ship. Anyway, now she spends most of her time round that rock over there, sometimes sunning herself, sometimes diving into the water to catch fish, sometimes tormenting the gulls..."

I take a gulp of the wine and try to gather my thoughts. This weird event must have some significance, maybe it was necessary to renew the Challenge, provide a better way to tap into the imaginations of the challengers? Maybe...

"Do you know, Tamsin, I've been thinking. This experience - marooned on an island, perhaps we could learn from it, do something to improve morale."

"You know what, I was thinking much the same. Pray, what do you have in mind?"

"Well, instead of those fortnightly bonus themes, people could submit bonus point entries whenever they want. We could have a lot of different bonus themes, each at their own location on an island map."

"That actually doesn't sound completely daft, Curt. Maybe you could persuade those mutinous dogs to return to your benevolent Captaincy by allowing each of them to set a theme for a location and name it after them?"

"Those rotters don't deserve it!"

"Look, do you want to get off this island and back to 2019?" I counter.

"Yes!" Curt sulks.

"I say, chaps, do you think you could summon those rascals over here?" I call to the minions.

"They're already on their way back - I think they got fed up of filling bags with sand and piled them all on top of Ray!" Paul calls down from his lookout rock.

The mutineers weigh anchor just off our island and come ashore. I explain the proposal to them and they all welcome it. The rash of ideas they come up with for themes is quite invigorating.

With everything settled, we once more board The Challenge. I select the return coordinates on my device and the ship passes through the rift, returning to 2019 just ahead of the tenth running of the Challenge. Curt retires to his cabin with Sir Sidney of Roundwood to begin work on a map for this new idea.

A thought suddenly strikes me and I make my way into the Captain's cabin.

"Curt, do you realise that this is going to transfer the burden of scoring bonus entries from you to the minions?"

"What? Really? The thought had never crossed my mind!" he lies, unconvincingly.

"Well, you'd better make sure that there is a location that only you do the scoring for..."

"My dear, I am far ahead of you. There will be one, and I shall tailor the task to each individual who makes their way there."

"Well, OK, then, I suppose..."

As I leave the cabin, I can't help thinking of the evil glint in his eye when he mentioned individualised tasks...


10th February, 2020, Snowlord's Peak

Having returned Curt, his crew and his passengers to 2019, I check my device and select the coordinates that will return me to Snowlord's Peak. The Snowlord greets me on my return and we retire to his "den" where I give my account of what took place.

"Well, so there you have it Curt. That's the full story of what went wrong, how you lost your memory and why all these weirdos are trampling over your island."

"I see, I see. I guess that all makes sense. It was all Miles' fault. And those mutinous dogs. And those mad minions. But all's well now and people seem to love my spiffing idea of "Challenge Island."

I roll my eyes, tut loudly and make my excuses to leave, fully accepting that the Snowlord won't learn anything from this experience and that he will continue to try out mad ideas.

________________________________________

OK, a few more pics:

Our heroine

This piece has taken much longer to finish than I'd originally anticipated. First of all, a really heavy cold stopped me painting for about a week and I couldn't do much on the next couple of days. Then the next few steps had long down-times (although I did make use of those to paint some figures). And then there was a problem with the water effect that meant I had to add some more to fix it.

But I got there in the end, finishing it off this afternoon.

There were some other bits that got painted, but I found that I didn't really have space on the "island" to include them:

As for points, I haven't a clue. In the main diorama there are nine 15mm foot figures plus the terrain (it's just under 6 inches square, the island is about 1/2 " high, the rocks an inch, the trees 4 " - I'll leave it to Curt to figure out how many points to give it).

And then I guess a few more points for the bits which didn't make it into the vignette, plus the points for completing my Snowlord's Peak challenge.

Before I forget, the figures are a mix of Blue Moon, Rebel Minis and (I think) Essex.  "Curt" is actually meant to be in the Sedan chair, but after painting I found it wouldn't fit!

Edited because I forgot something quite important:

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Hahaha! This is brilliant Tamsin. I knew you'd come through with flying colours and give us more than a few laughs along the way. 

I'll let the rollicking story speak for itself, though I must say that any allusion to me designing 'Challenge Island' merely to avoid work is complete and foundless conjecture. No, really, it's utter tosh. Ahem.

As to the vignette, I think it's spectacular.The figures, the island, the water effects (especially the waves) - it really is quite marvelous. It's a pity the other accouterments couldn't be used, but I'm happy you included a photo of them for us to enjoy. (I really could get used to the idea of being trotted around in a sedan chair!)

As to points, I think it only proper to include the other bits that didn't make the final cut and provide a few bonus points for your creative perspiration. 

Finally, for your efforts I think it only suitable (and in-theme no less) that you receive 'The Captain' painted by your's truly. I hope you like it Tamsin. Well done.

-Curt