SteH First Post - "Don't you know there's a challenge on?"

This is my first and possibly last entry in the challenge this year as it turns out I was completely unprepared for how busy I've been this summer (that's right all you northern hemisphere types, its summer here in NZ!). Here was I with lots of great aspirations to paint the heck out of my lead/plastic pile and join in the general insanity that is the challenge when lo and behold life decided to get stupidly busy. Work got mental, the in-laws came over from the UK for 3 months and an unrelated hobby took up a load of my time.

However I have still kept my painting eye in (so to speak) and have just not been able to find the time to blog about my acrylic/plastic/lead adventures (I know, shocking!)

So this model was planned to be my first entry (and also my Nostalgia theme round entry!).

A circa early 90's GW troll model that has lingered in my bist box for many years. This is nostalgic for me as I started out like many of you playing 3rd edition Warhammer and my Dwarves faced these comedic beauties many times.

So keeping in theme I also painted up a couple of GW Plaguebearers that I found in the same bits pile.

These are the old metal ones and until recently had no purpose other than to gather dust. Enter Frostgrave and suddenly the desire to play with silly fantasy models has been revived and I find a reason to paint some old models (thanks Joe McCullough!!!)

And finally another GW cast off, one of the early 2000's chaos warhounds, who sadly lost a hind leg in the aforementioned bits box however a little sculpting of fur and clawand hey presto my evil Frostgrave Summoner has a couple of demons and an ugly warhound to back him up!

Ok so I said finally however I mean't for the nostalgia theme round! My next entry was going to be for the L'amour round – three Orcs from Mantic's Dreadball.

“How the heck is that L'amour Ste” I hear you mumble in between trawling youtube for crazy cat videos. Well I'm slowly inducting my eldest biy (Noah age 6.5 years) into the wonderful world of wargaming and thought that Dreadball would be a good intro game. However Noah won't play the game unless the models are painted orange so I set to painting the weirdness that is Mantic's resin plastic hybrid thingy!

The things you do for LOVE (see what I did there?)

So on to my next planned entry (which seemed to take ages to pull together), Four of MoFo Mini's US Rangers Platoon HQ.

I loved painting these guys and they'll be deployed soon in support of these Radio Dishdash US Delta Team, possibly using Skirmish Sangin or Osprey Black Ops rules.

Whats better than than a good piece of hard terrain to take cover behind when the bullets start flying? How about a piece of armoured terrain that moves (my terrain bonus round entry).

This Humvee is a diecast repaint, sort of. I actually picked this up in one of NZ's chain discount stores and I'm surprised I haven't seen more of these online painted up for modern gaming. It came in the camo scheme however judicious application of various washes, highlights and drybrushes have brought it up to an acceptable standard.

And now my current project, a two section recce platoon of 15mm universal carriers by Battlefront.

I think I may be a sadist when it comes to Battlefront mini's as I loved painting these things in the same way I enjoy painting there jeeps. In Flames of War they have a low points value and very little impact but I love painting them so use them whenever I can.

These boys are painted up in a basic desert scheme and will accompany my 4th Indian division at this years Panzerschreck where I expect to have my ass handed to me! However it is a team event so I can always blame buddy Ash!

So thats my challenge to date, I said this may be my last post simply because I've totally run out of time to complete any more figs. So if I get chance I'll post pics of my Curtgeld once its done, however only once Curt has received it so he gets first sight (as per the rules!)

Anyway this post should net me around 36 for the Universal Carriers, 55 for the 28mm minis, 28 for the troll and orcs which are all around 40mm, I'd say 10 for the humvee as it was already coloured when I bought it. So that comes to 129 in total. Considering I did originally target 1000 pts I'm a little behind my target. But its better than 0pts so I'm happy to at least got on the board.

Crikey! You wait weeks and weeks for Ste to submit something to kick off his Challenge and just when you think he's not going to make it he submits a month's worth in one go!

Where to start with this? It's all wonderful and each item has plenty to recommend it. I don't have time to exhaustively address each item so I'll pick the recce platoon as I have a soft spot for them and I really like your choice of colours and weathering. The troll is absolutely marvellous too!

Thank goodness you did the math and all I had to do was check it mate! You're spot on and can bask in the glow of 129 glorious points to start you off. Cheers, Millsy