From BrendonW - The Black and the Red with a Big Gun (145 points)

4 x Knights (Mounted), 6 X Light horsemen, 1 x Gun and 4 Crew, 3 x Heavy Pikes (28mm).

All Plastic except the Gun and Crew and all are Perry Miniatures products to expand The Red and the Black, Wars of the Roses (and Beer trade and Bacon secrets wars).

First the Foot dudes and the thing that goes Boom! The metal gun crew needed a bit of prep work.

Next is 4 Knights. I completed 11 of these last year so had 1 left from last years Challenge unpainted. I decided to get another box though as they are the Abrams tanks of their times.

Next is my new favourites in the Army. Light Horsemen. Two sets will give me enough for eventually 2 units of Spears, 1 of Crossbows and 1 of bows, (Six in each).

So that's it for this week. Just two larger posts as requested by the rowing slaves.
The Bomber has been parked and has the cover pulled over it.....for now. :) 

Enjoy your painting everyone. Cheers

You really can crank these lovely red and black high medieval troops out Brendon! I think the thing that strikes me in this batch is this alternating bands on the lances which always looks good and in red and black seems especially eye catching.

Another 145 points sees you take your tally to a very healthy and nicely rounded 555 points which is over 1/3 of your target. Nice one! Cheers, Millsy.

PS. Thanks for parking the bomber. I was starting to understand what life during the blitz must have been like :-)

From BrendonW - Arabs on Horses and Feet (110 points)

10 X Mounted Gripping Beast Plastic Arabs and 2 Foot Arabs (28mm).

My painted Arab forces grow this week with these additions. Only 2 shields are hand painted with the rest being LBM decals. I also hand painted some of those upper arm patches. Not sure what they are about. Probably say SLAYER or MOTORHEAD or other fav bands. They actually help break up large areas of one coloured cloth.

If you are going to build these here is some advice. Almost all the shield arms actually have the fist ending up centred in the chest. Easy enough to fix by cutting the arm at the point it meets the armoured area to rotate and glue back on. Otherwise it will be a problem to fit shield and arm behind the horse mane.

One of the Arabs above with the upright spear uses arms from the Gripping Beast Viking set with Chainmail on the upper arm.

Blue Curved blade fella above uses arms from the FireForge Mongol set.

Another wonderful addition to your growing batch of Arabs Brendon. I'm always impressed to see modellers who think about how things look when assembled and your advice on shield arms is a perfect example. How do you find the LBM transfers? There's no doubting the quality of the final result but I've heard mixed reports on how easy they are to apply. Chalk up another 110 points on the tally mate! Cheers, Millsy

From JohnSh - The Slowpainter gets some runs on the board (60 points)

Well, I knew that this was going to be a Challenge with a capital C from day 1 and I am so glad that I have finally managed to finish a few figures. There is a reason that my blog is called A Slowpainter's Progress.

My eyes have thrown a bit of an extra challenge in this month with my increasing long sightedness combining with hayfever season making it a bit of a struggle to focus.
I have invested in one of those drop down lens visor thingies and painting has become an option again.

I recently swore a vow to never paint anything smaller than a 28mm figure again.
So here are my 20mm AB US WWII miniatures. Yep, I'm a wargamer, I can't pass up a well sculpted miniature. I already have a US army in 28mm for Bolt Action or Chain of Command but a friend let me know that he was also playing in 20mm, and since I have all those tank kits I have bought over the years, well, here we go.

It is my intention to build this force a squad at a time (what fun I've had making lists and bagging squads together!) along with a support weapon or weapons team at the same time. This breaks the painting task into bite sized chunks so I don't get overwhelmed and grind to a halt. I have used primarily AB Miniatures with the odd other brand mixed in for variety.

This first squad is a US Armoured Infantry Rifle Squad supported by a 60mm Mortar team. As these are primarily for Chain of Command, the Mortar team has a crew of five. I wanted to be able to remove casualties from the team so I have sculpted the team base with only one figure attached to it, the others all retain individual basing but with depressions left in the basing for them to fit into.

So that's a total of 13 x 20mm figures which is 52 points as an icebreaker. I think I might paint some 28s now...

Welcome to the scoreboard John! I must say you've made a grand entrance with some very convincing Yanks. I especially like the basing on the mortar team and the way you can remove casualties. I've never considered doing casualty removal that way, preferring to leave individuals on separate bases but it's not nearly so realistic looking. 

You missed the fact the mortar is a crew served weapon so your opening salvo is actually 60 points. Well done and keep them coming! Cheers, Millsy.

From StephenS - Rebel Saboteurs (10 points)

Two more models (and the last ones) for my Imperial Assault board game.

These guys are Rebel Saboteurs in the Star Wars universe, though I'm not sure how successfully bright turquoise aliens would be at sneaking around facilities belonging to the famously xenophobic Imperials...

I was originally just going to paint them up as a bright blue, but have copped a bit of good natured schtick from some of the playing group over my interpretation of the canon with some of my other colour schemes. So, I went out and bought a pot of the right coloured paint - I am a true believer!

All up that is a whopping 10 points!

Cheers,
Steve

I find it highly amusing that even in the Star Wars hobby community there are button counting uniform geeks, ready to call people out for having the wrong shade of brown on a bantha harness. Perhaps I should not be so surprised by that. Accurate or not colour-wise, you've done a wonderful job Steve and can add 10 points to your tally along with the warm glow of having finished a project. Nice one! Cheers, Millsy

From EvanH - 28mm "The Man Skilled In All The Ways Of Contending" (20 points)

What a contest it's been so far! Not even a month in, and we've already seen so many amazing submissions.

I'll be honest, I'm working pretty much as an artisanal producer of painted figures rather than a Stakhanovite like so many of my fellow Challengers. Well, I've not really gone in to win this thing; I have a realistic idea of my own capabilities, and I am fully aware of the speed and dedication needed to reach the dizzy heights of a Martin, a Miles, a Tamsin, or even a GIMP...!

I can but present my own humble submissions, and hope that they meet with the approval of my peers. So let's get the mandatory entry out of the way now. The estimable Mr Campbell has devoted a considerable chunk of his time to running the Challenge (now in its SIXTH big year, can you believe it?), and all he asks of us in return is a single painted figure to add to his collection; the Curtgeld!

So here is the price of my admission, my own 'thank you' to Curt for going to such trouble to herd ever-increasing numbers of cats each year. We've all been asked to submit a figure which represents a gambler or risk-taker, and I think I can say that my entry meets the requirements. He's a character whose exploits are famed in legend, a man skilled in all the ways of contending, the hero who conceived the stratagem which took Troy; Odysseus of Ithaca, my favourite character in the Iliad.

A prophecy said that Troy would never fall as long as the statue of Athena remained in its sanctuary. Never one to let prophecies stand in his way, Odysseus risked life and limb to enter the city by night and take the statue. We see him here upon his return to the Greek camp, his trophy in hand, having brought the doom of Troy just a little bit closer...

"I'd like to thank the Academy..."

 The figure is from Wargames Foundry, and was sculpted by Alan Perry.

I took my cue for the colour scheme from the illustrations in Peter Connolly's excellent book, The Legend of Odysseus, a must-have for any fan of the Aegean Bronze Age.

The statue in his left hand was sculpted by me from green stuff, and was based on the lovely ceramic cult statuettes from Mycenaean Greece. They're almost like modern art in their stripped-down forms, and I hope I've done them justice.

The base has been textured with sand and slate, and the Tajima Tufts have been drybrushed with light brown to give them a more Mediterranean look.

So that's another 20 points to add to my princely total! Yay!

Now Odysseus, it's time for you to go on another voyage, this time to the fabled isles of the Saskatchewoi! Penelope will have to wait just a little bit longer, methinks...

Stay tuned!

You mightn't be the most prolific of painters Ev but you never fail to impress me when you do produce something. Never mind the depth of colour on the bronze armour, or the most convincing stripes on the tunic, you've only gone and sculpted an amazing statue to boot! You clearly have a real attachment to Odysseus of Ithaca and I'm sure Curt will appreciate your efforts. 20 points mate and well done! Cheers, Millsy.

From AaronH - 54 Uruk-Hai (285 Points)

This entry is the majority of the remainder of my Uruk-Hai. As before these are 28mm Isengard models for Lord of the Rings by GW.

This entry is a mix of plastics and metals and from many different sources. Last year I spent some time on E-Bay collecting Gondor and High Elf models for my boys. A remarkable number of those lots came with some Isengard models.

Some were painted, badly, most were gray plastic. Any that were painted got a re-paint to match them to my army. Even among my troops they were a mixture of models assembled over the last ten years. Some had black primer, two different shades, some gray, some metal.

First up are eight pikes. As always I prefer the vertical ones. One of these lads had a broken pike which its previous owner fixed.

This is nine berserkers, including three with torches to light off the black powder under the Deeping Wall. Nine of these is probably enough for my purposes. The metal models are very nice. The plastics are acceptable, a little soft in places but mostly better than the run of the mill LotR plastics.

These six are engineers. A couple of the local guys built an amazing Helm's Deep model and we will need these for the siege game that is coming up "some time".

Also in this group are two of the crew for the siege bow, which is still un-assembled on my desk.

The engineers are followed by a battering ram. This is a very nice models and I'm very pleased with how the wood came out on it.

Next up are twenty one warriors with shields. Sword and board is the most flexible build for these guys so you can't really have too many.

Last up are two banners and a shaman. He will go a little way towards making the Uruks more resilient, and is a nice model on his own merits.

This is a total of 54 28mm models, for 270 285 points.

I feel rather privileged to step in for Dave and comment on such an impressive entry Aaron! This is an absolutely smashing set of Uruks and I'm sure will terrify more than one opponent into submission. That initial photo en masse really reflects the unstoppable tide kind of feeling I get watching them in the films. That tree-trunk surely qualifies as a "crew served weapon" and the banners are worth a few extra points too bringing the total up to 285. Cracking stuff! Cheers, Millsy.

From Barks - WW1 British Support Weapons (72 points)

Here are some more 15mm plastics from PSC for The Great War. Again, I have based them on washers. The Vickers MGs are on 25mm washers and the Stokes mortars are on 20mm washers, with the rest on 15mm washers.

I'm wondering if I should rebase the mortars (after The Challenge!) so there are two figures and a tube on a 25mm base?

It's easy for you Northern Hemispherians to concentrate on The Challenge at this time of year, being all snowed in and stuff. Down Under we have a few more distractions. Today it was 41.5C when I left work (106F if you're in Bahamas, Belize, Caymans, Palau or the US) when I left work so I had to go for a swim in the surf. Due to the heat, the Drop Bears and Great Whites had called a truce and were lazing around in the shallows, and the shrimps were throwing themselves on the barbie to cool down. There's a southerly coming through now, and it should drop to the high 20s later this arvo.

My local beach, I live about 50 metres away.

More 15mm goodness Mr Barks! I'm continually impressed by how well you paint both at this scale and with the WWI palette which is limited to say the least. I'm not sure you need to rebase the mortars as this way casualty removal is nice and simple but then it's as much a matter of aesthetics as it is rules I suppose? 72 well earned points for your total. Now go have a cold one and put your feet up. Cheers, Millsy.

PS. We seem to have a weather report theme developing today so I've added a new label. :-)

From AlanD - French Wilderness Force for Muskets and Tomahawks (115 points)

It's 39 degrees here in Sydney today [It got to 42 at my place - Millsy]. I did have a whole lot of other lead figures painted, but unfortunately they melted. Nevertheless, I did manage to finish off my first figures for yet another new project. So here's a French Wilderness force from Northstar Miniatures, ready for our planned forays into Muskets and Tomahawks at the gaming club this year.

The force is led by a Compagnie de la Marine officer, and includes ten of his men.



Supporting them are six Coureur des Bois, trappers sporting impressive hipster beards.



The force is completed by six Hurons.



The French Indian Wars is a new period for me, and I'm not entirely confident about various things I've painted such as the Compagnie de la Marine uniforms, Huron skin colour and their war paint. Any feedback is appreciated!



I went for an Autumn feel with the bases, thanks particularly to some leaves Paul O'G gave me about two years ago. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be today than strolling in a nice cool New England forest in Autumn. That's 23 figures, so 115 points please Millsy!

Impressive work Alan, all the more because you're obviously not convinced about how accurate you've been with skin tones and uniform colours. They *look* right to my relatively untutored eye and just as importantly the colour choices and tones work well together. I'm especially impressed Huron face paint and skin tones and since you asked so nicely, 115 points it shall be! Cheers, Millsy