Iain W 28mm Napoleonic French 20th Chasseurs a cheval (120 points)

 Here are twelve Warlord games mostly plastic chasseurs a cheval . They are the 20th chasseurs a cheval in a rather utilitarian uniform for Napoleonics , they famously broke an Austrian  square at Wagram. I've converted them to wearing the pre 1812 kinski coat except for the trumpeter who us is A metal and B I wanted him to be a bit fancier and C I got fed up carving off stuff to make them kosher for 1809, needless to say the next unit retained their lapels! Interestingly they don't have light horse bridles, except for the metal officer's horse which I've had to add a metal rod to it in order to keep it upright, if you do it like the cover art it collapses after a while, I don't know why he's dynamically charging while everybody else are plodding along? There also isn't any elite distinctions, no epaulets which is a little disappointing, there are sabertaches for some reason so I figured I'd  keep them even if they weren't that common.  I got them long before the Perry plastic version came  out, there really is no comparison to be honest, the Perry set (which I'm still assembling) has everything you could want, the only benefit with the Warlord set is they're relatively rapid to assemble.

Having said all that they're pretty nice to paint, no doubt it helps that the chasseurs uniform is pretty simple , I've added in some Perry hussar heads for a bit of variety and am happy with how they've turned out, especially as I  think they've been undercoated for about five years!

12 x 10 points is 120 points no flags for light cavalry.  Still haven't finished scratch building elements of my renaissance post so I think I'll still be on Napoleonic cavalry for the rest of the challenge!

Final Monday post, thanks Peter for being an efficient and informative Minion, much more than I ever was and apologies for the lack of renaissance and late Roman figures, still it's restarted my Italians war project as I've bought more landsknechts, maybe next year!

All the best

 Iain 

No flag for light cavalry, man?  What  madness is this?  

This unit came out very nicely Iain.  I am a fan of the 1809 era uniform and the Kinski jacket.  Chasseurs lack the fashion style of Hussards but probably worked harder for the lack of it.  I chuckled over you converting the jackets because I  was pretty sure that there were Kinski options in other plastic kits.  I do like the Colpacks for the Elite company.

Great basing on them too.

Great to have you back even if there were no Late Romans or Italian Wars entires from you.

From EdwardG - A final Fantasy Book stop for Challenge XIII (208 pts)

 Hello all,

As we are fast approaching the end of the challenge, I am going to be conservative and say this is the last post from me this year! Although I am already think what should be my project for next year :D and it might be Turnip flavoured (I am always behind the Zeitgeist curve ;) )  

For my final few weeks of painting, my "OOOoH Shiny" urge has gotten the better of me. Rather than concentrating on my 6mm Waterloo project, I focused on painting up the other packs of 10mm minis that I had purchased with the ones from the previous post!

In an effort to maintain a small possibility of playing with the minis one day, I have based the majority along HOTT/DBA lines. My little gaming group does occasionally play HOTT and up until now I have had no minis, and despite the fact we normally play in 15mm, these chaps will work. The basing scheme has been done, on the small potential assumption that everyone is underground, perhaps in a mine...

In addition I am hoping that this entry will allow me to tick off two more studios, in the form of Fantasy and Books.

Without any further ado, I present: The goblin horde and the Nine Good Fellows standing in the way!!

For the Fantasy studio, I would like to claim the Goblin Horde. It contains some fast wolf riders including the Goblin's war-chief on his black wolf! An uncountable number (90) of massed goblins with sharp pointy things. And finally the heavy hitters, a band of cave trolls, because, you know, all self respecting Goblin armies have to have a cave troll or two!

For the Nine Good Fellows, one might even call them a Fellowship if you are feeling fancy. I would like to claim the Books  studio. This does mean back-tracking through the film studios I have already visited, so I am not sure if it is even possible. But these chaps bear an uncanny resemblance to a cast from a recent book adaptation by Peter Jackson (not in any copywrite infringing way though, honest!!)

And the point tally for this final post comes to:

• 11 wolf riders x 3pts = 33pts
• 90 little goblins on foot x 1pt (PBI!) = 90pts
• 9 cave trolls (20mm tall) x 4pts = 36pts
• 9 Good Fellows x 1pt = 9pts
• Fantasy Studio bonus = 20pts
• Book Studio bonus = 20pts

Total = 208pts

As always a HUGE thanks to the Snow Lord himself for running this Challenge. Also to Peter my Monday minion for being a brilliant chap and a great organiser of posts! And then thanks and best wishes to all who take part, read, lurk, or just support us Challengers while we undertake this annual effort and exercising! 

Cannot wait to see you all for the post Challenge wrap up photoshoot! :)

Best,

Ed

P.s. (At the time of writing this post we had ~21,000pts to go to hit the 91,000 stretch goal! I believe our plucky band of brush addicts can make in the remaining seven days [only 3056pts per-day]! A couple of juicy points bombs will do it! Go GO!)

Those 10mm fantasy figures are great Ed, love the movement on the wolf riders and the gallant band of 9.  It's been great to have you on the Monday crew, I've enjoyed your 6mm and 10mm work.    I have faith in some huge paintbombs this week and Challengers pull out all the stops to get large projects finished in time.

From SylvainR: Tray 12 - "Polish" 1939 - Infantry Battalion (110 points)

 

This week, I have a tray of Polish Infantry to complement my French Battalion. It's complicated, so you better sit down.

Because of the delays at Royal Mail, I have not yet received the stuff I ordered on December 12th from Heroics and Ros. So I can not complete my French army at this point in time because I need staff cars for the battalions HQs.

So I started working on the next project: Allies Minors, which is an umbrella designation for the Poles, Greeks, Norwegians, Dutches, Belgians, etc. My plan is to use the French army as a core to create these early European armies and then add units that are specific to each nations. The HQs will have little flags to identify the nations.

Polish squads (or sections) of 1939 had 19 soldiers. So instead of creating special rules to simulate this fact, I thought I could simply double the number of squads when the Poles are in play. This means that each of the "companies" you see in the tray will be added to a French company and voilà: a Polish company.

Polish companies have 3 platoons, so one of the French platoons will stay in the tray when I will transform them into Polish platoons. I will also leave in the tray the French "Capitaine" with a képi and replace him with a Polish "Kapitan" wearing a “rogatywka” garrison cap. Each platoon will also have an anti-tank rifle and a light mortar. The bases are practically identical. There were enough leftover French infantrymen to create another infantry battalion.

Here is a close up on a Polish "complement" to be added to a French platoon. This will bring the total to 7 elements per Polish platoon.

Here is a close up on an infantry element and a "weapon" element with one anti-tank rifle (wz.35) and one light mortar (wz. 36).

And a close up of the company HQ.

This will be my last entry for this year's challenge. Over the next months, I will be basing painted miniatures while putting aside unpainted miniatures for next year's challenge. So you will see more French and Polish 6mm minis next year. And maybe early German stuff along with elements for the BEF.

Points Tally:

There are 291 figures in this batch, but about 1/4 were painted already.

220 (6mm figures @1/2 point) = 110 points

 

Thank you for reading!

 

Clever boy reusing French as Poles!  The things that you can get away with at 6mm, although I do like swapping the out the Officer in kepi for the one in the Czapka.  A fine battalion of valiant Poles.  I have a soft spot for the Poles as they fought longer and harder than anyone but got the short end of just about every stick going.  I've been tempted with 20mm Chain of Command so I'll be interested in seeing your 6mm O Group (or whatever rules Curt lets you use) Poles in action. 

You are not alone with your mail issues, as I expect that this has caused me some issues and I expect that same is true for other Canadians.  

It’s been great watching this project unfold Sylvain, I know you put a lot of love into reworking your friends work.  Looking forward to seeing more and playing with your toys.

AdamC: Iroquois Warriors Western (62 Points)

 

These guys have sat in my pile of shame for a few years now.  Needing a Western entry I figured it was time to paint them. 

Mind you they are from a period where "the West" was located in the Hudson River valley, not Dodge City.  

I think they are Essex miniatures there are a total of 21 mounted on 11 bases 10 with two and a command stand with one. They will make a nice little command for French and Indian War or AWI games. 

21 15mm figures is 42 points and another 20 for the Western Studio.  I hope to have more the weekend is getting away from me so we'll see.

You said that this was a small post Adam, 60 points is my normal points per post!   

The beauty of living on a spherical globe is that everywhere is West of somewhere else.  And I’ve certainly read enough histories where Ohio was the Wild West.  It’s great that you got these guys out of the pile of shame and ready to raid.

A very useful set of Woodland tribes suitable for FIW, AWI or 1812.  

It’s been great to have you part of Team Monday again Adam.  I know that having a second kid has slowed down your work a bit this year, but you’ve had some good results.

From Matt T - Seven Dwarves [ 35 points ]

 Seven Evil Dwarves , Muahahaha.

Now that I have finished my main project for this years painting challenge I am using the remaining time to finish some minis stuck languishing in the Lead Pile. These Dwarves have been there so long I have forgotten where I got them from.  

I gave them a quick paint job of dark armour and dark grass on the base to give them a moody look.

7 x 28mm mini @ 5 points each = 35 points total.

Nice (sic) dwarves Matt.  They do look a moody and grumpy lot.  I'd be tempted to assign Challengers names to some of them, but I'll leave that to you....

You've been rather single focused this Challenge (not there's anything wrong with that) and this marks the first post of yours that hasn't made e check the spell of Kwaza-whatchamacallits!  It was great to watch your army develop over the Challenge.  I’d like to see an AAR or two once you’ve got them in action.

KenR - 1/700 HMS Ark Royal (120 points)

 

Just the one ship this week, but its a Big One. I've been chipping away at this for a few weeks now so I am glad to get it in before the finish post.

The model is 1/700 scale from a company called Aoshima (I have no idea how they are different to Tamiya) and compared to say the KGV model I did earlier in the Challenge has a lot more detail.

HMS Ark Royal is one of the iconic ships of the WW2 British Navy and the name has been used on a number of other iconic Aircraft Carriers. Launched in 1937 within the limitations of the Naval Treaty, she was involved in many actions at the start of the war until she was sunk in the Med in late 1941 by a torpedo from a German U Boat.

My main interest is in Ark Royals involvement in the Chase for the Bismarck and will be integral in any future campaign I do around that ship.

The paint scheme is basic, but the sheer size of the ship meant a lot of weathering work was done on the hull and its well worth a zoom in to have a look. 

The base is my standard Capital Ship Base Size of 42 cm x 10 cm and as with other ships of this size I've claimed 120 points.

The first three photos have been done without aircraft, the kit does come with 6 Swordfish (2 with folded wings), 2 Skuas and 2 Fulmars, however I was very disappointed with them, the Swordfish especially have very little detail and I spent an entire day trying to get the planes to my liking and failed. So the planes in the photos are likely to be ditched but I thought I would put some pics with them on deck to give you an idea.

I've picked up some Flyhawk planes which are much much better (they have Photo Etch machine guns !) but there is no chance I will get them done anytime soon. I also plan to have crew on deck but the Swordfish are slightly under scale and don't work with the slightly over scale Eduard Figs.

I also plan to do an "in the air" fleet of planes for the gaming table but again I need to obtain and paint the miniatures for that.

I don't think it will be an issue on here but the deck colour is the official Bronze Grey Colour used by the RN for decks at the start of the war, when I asked about it on a Naval Gaming Forum WW3 nearly broke out 😄

I hope to get Prinz Eugen done before Challenge End as a final sign off for this years Italian Wars  WW2 Naval Project.

I will also put an additional post before the end of play on Monday especially for Peter, it won't be a full Colunela but it will be some Italian Wars !

Oh my Ken, the Ark is absolutely stunning!  What a wonderful job you've done with her.  Again the weathering and the sea effects are museum quality stuff.  I won't argue on your choice of deck colouring but I know that these details can be a sore point for the rivet counters.  All I know is that it looks great.  BTW it sounds like you touched more than one nerve on FB this week!

The planes that you've included look fine to me, but I'm not going at them close up.  t the sale you're working at it would be nice to have planes that are in keeping with the magnificent flat top.  What scale to you plan to use for the airborne planes?  I always find that it works well to up decrease the scale ratio (so increase the model size) for planes that are aloft. 

Looking forward to the mythical Italian Wars post but I believe that MartinC and DaveD will post Turnip28 projects before that happens.  However, I’ve really enjoyed watching indulge your over the top crazies and build up these 1:700 fleets.  

Monday Minion Signing Off

 

Sad to say but we've less than one week left in the Challenge.  It looks like we've got almost all of the Monday crew making an appearance this week.  So far we have:

• Adam taking a break from "Pimp My brig" to go back to his Colonial era roots.
• Darrell bring us more Byzantine Epics
• Ed has an epic scale fantasy
• Iain has another Napoleonic costume drama
• Ken has a salty adventure and hopefully a Renaissance bodice ripper
• Matt presents a tale of seven grumpy dwarves
• Richard enters something in the short film category
• Ross adds to the mystery
• Sylvain has a Central European tragedy

Based on my Pulp magazine title, you may be expecting some dreary Euro-metal musical accompaniment, but I've got something different planned.  I've been concerned with the anti-vegetable sentiment present in certain vocal Challengers' rhetoric and I've decided to leave you with this plea for kindness to all vegetables and Peas on Earth from the Arrogant Worms.

SkullWatch XIII Chapter VI

Tempers fuggit! DavidB leaps into the lead of the prestigious Skull Duel! Can TeemuL reclaim the throne in the remaining week? Thrilling times!

• DavidB 600
• TeemuL 512
• StuartL 359
• Sander 97
• ChrisW 72
• Barks 29
• MikeW 29
• PeteF 26
• GregB 18

Skullz from DavidB

Oh look- more Skullz from DavidB! Over 200 the last two weeks

There have been more skulltastic entries the past fortnight, including:

MikeW's Red Gobbo

BruceR's lovely knights

Curt cannot resist the call of the turnip

Skullz from PaulOG

More skullz from PaulOG!

GregB's heresy forces

StuartL's skeletal pirates

StuartL's oni

GuyB's ghost

Skull of the Week:

RossM's Citadel skellie from 1984!

Is it done and dusted, or will there be a last minute upset? Find out in the final Challenge XIII skull tally!