From EvanH - An Adventurer, An Archer, and An Ounce (15 points)

My last weekly submission before the floodgates open and the final mad rush of submissions pours through (and I'm looking at you, Mr Docherty...). Thanks are in order to our Thursday Minion, the estimable Mr Mills, who has been an invaluable aide to Snowlord Curt in organising the Antipodean Contingent; well done, Millsy, you've been juggling live squid with all the aplomb of a professional live squid juggler!

But to business - my painting has slowed to an even slower crawl with the hot and humid weather, but I did manage three figs this week.  First up, a Copplestone Miniatures Armed Archaeologist from the excellent High Adventure range;

This chap is more tropical in his kit, but I didn't really do a lot with the base this time round owing to time constraints.

Still, he's probably up for some Lost World action on Skull Island or in Ancient Opar, and I'm quite happy with the textiles on this one. I'm learning a lot in the course of the Challenge, mostly by shamelessly plagiarising the work of better painters than myself!

Next up is a chap I've had in the lead pile for a while now; the Salute 2015 Agincourt Archer by the Perry Brothers. I've never been to Salute, but winning this fig on Pendragon Without's blog was the next best thing! PW has been off the radar lately, but if he's reading this, hope you're doing OK and that things are sorting themselves out.

The figure is a gem, as one would expect from the Perrys. He came with a number of posing options, but as soon as I saw that this gesture was on offer, there was no question. The old heraldic device, A Hand Dexter, Two Fingers Rampant. 

Now there's been a bit of debate as to the provenance of this gesture, but in this instance, I'll have to disagree with the experts and say that I like the notion of it originating during the Hundred Years' War - in your face, QI elves!

His hose are rolled down, I suppose to avoid unpleasant accidents while on campaign - that French pond water will get you every time!

Finally, the second half of last week's submission, the Snow Leopard (or Ounce, if we're in medieval heraldic mode) from North Star Miniatures' Frostgrave range, and the stablemate of the Nice Toad.

This was quite a challenge for me, as I rarely paint fur, let alone patterned pelts, but I think I've managed a reasonable approximation.

Good enough for the tabletop, if not quite the Golden Paintbrush of Montreux...

So that's all from me until the next Bonus Round (paint gods and weather permitting!).

Stay tuned...!

Ev

I'm sure there's a gag in here somewhere about an Archaeologist, an Archer and a Snow Leopard going into a bar but honestly I can't for the life of me think of a punch line. Anyone? Anyone?

Whilst I absolutely laughed my thongs off at "A Hand Dexter, Two Fingers Rampant" I have to say the best bit of this entry is the Snow Leopard's pelt. You've probably earned yourself some commission work from me on that one mate. It's bloody brilliant and I *loathe* painting stuff like this.

15 points for you and congrats on passing your initial points target as well. Cheers, Millsy

From JohnSh - Anglo Danes and more 20mm Yanks (42 points)

I attempted a points bomb this week but it turned out more of a firecracker. I managed to complete four 28mm Anglo Danes for Saga.

Hang on - that chap on the right is a Norman infiltrator!

After some comments from fellow Challengers who are in my regular gaming group about my use of shield transfers on other Dark Ages minis I decided to try and hand paint the shields.



Here's your handpainted shields chaps.

I'm pretty happy how they turned out, especially the Raven and the Grendel. There are more to come in this group, still trying for the last minute point bomb.



Still struggling with the size

I also finished a further five 20mm AB miniatures for my Chain of Command platoons. These Yanks are lovely figures and are a pleasure to paint.



But happy with the result.

Now, I have to report a disturbing incident of Paintfressional Jealousy. You may remember the halberdiers with the purple plumes that I submitted last time. I used them in a game of Lion Rampant recently with the above mentioned Challengers who made it their mission to kill them first because they had been my Challenge entry.



Dan d'Lyon surrounded by his purple plumed bodyguard.

Slaughtered they were, to a man. Just not cricket chaps. We will have our revenge. :)

So that should be 40 points by my reckoning. I'm going back to the pit to dig more paint, I have a bomb to build. Thanks for your minionating Millsy.

Good to see some more Dark Ages stuff making an appearance before I knock off John. I love the period and I very much like your style, especially the hand painted shields. The Yanks are jolly nice too and if I ever see an AB Miniature I don't like I fear the shock to the system might be too much.

As to the last man standing efforts of your purple-plumed halberdiers, let's just say I know who the scoundrels are who perpetrated this most evil of crimes and if they ever venture into my neck of the woods they will be harshly dealt with I can assure you.

This lot nets you a round 40 points but I'm throwing in an extra couple for both your hand painted shields and as a salve to your wounded heart. Cheers, Millsy

From BrendonW - Here Come the Wolves (65 points)

13 x 28mm plastic wolves produced by Games Workshop.

I purchased these through a Facebook buy and sell group as I don't even know if these are still produced anymore. I think originally they may have been mounts for Goblins when first released. I chopped them from the bases they had been glued to and repainted them.

I painted these for use in Kings of War. The Varangur, which I will use Vikings from my collection, have an option for 'Tundra Wolves'. The lone wolf may find himself as a Mongol Hero companion. So these wolves are works of fantasy and not reality.

Excuse the bad photos. The white areas are actually not one solid white colour in real life.

Cheers from Brendon. 

It's not often you see something like a decent sized wolf pack which makes them all the more fun when they do present themselves. I very much like your approach to these nasty canines Brendon, especially the variation in coat colours. The ridge backs are particularly cool! I think you are right BTW, these are now OOP and getting quite hard to lay your hands on in good condition. 

This high speed wolf pack nets you another 65 points for your total. Cheers, Millsy.

From Barks - Battlelore Monsters (40 points)

I struggled a bit this week, but pushed myself to finish these guys. I had plans to finish another 30, but that didn't happen... Maybe next week?

These are Grotesques for Battlelore, to expand my existing forces. I had to revert to the older painting style I was using back then. They're a quick no-frills paintjob befitting a single piece monopose boardgame figure, but are infinitely better than unpainted plastic!

This is their heavy hitter, a Doombringer beetle. I'm wondering about adding a bit more red to tie it further in to this faction, maybe some freehand icons or a deaths head on the carapace?

Barks treats me to something I've never seen before to finish up my minion duties. What a thoughtful gent he is! In addition to being previously unseen it may also be the spikiest entry of the Challenge so far...

Monopose or not mate I very much like the Grotesques and they very much live up to their name. The pick of the entry though is the Doombringer and I really like the grey flaring you've added to the edges of the exoskeleton or whatever you call it.

I'm judging the Doombringer as a 28mm vehicle so in total this nets you a tidy 40 points. Well done! Cheers, Millsy.

From BrendonW - Curtgeld Dwarf Berserker (25 points)

This Dwarf maniac is my Curtgeld. A Dwarf Berserker which is no doubt inspired by the Viking sagas that tell of men who threw all caution to the wind and would enter into combat either naked or only clothed in the skin of an animal. Shield biters that seemed immune to pain. Was a crazed state induced by the intake of certain mushrooms and/or large quantities of alcohol? Maybe.

".....the berserkers often wore special clothing, for instance furs of a wolf or bear, to indicate that this person was a berserker, and would not be able to tell friend from foe when in rage "bersærkergang". In this way, other allied would know to keep their distance."

".....This fury, which was called berserkergang, occurred not only in the heat of battle, but also during laborious work. Men who were thus seized performed things which otherwise seemed impossible for human power."

" ....This condition is said to have begun with shivering, chattering of the teeth, and chill in the body, and then the face swelled and changed its colour. With this was connected a great hot-headedness, which at last gave over into a great rage, under which they howled as wild animals, bit the edge of their shields, and cut down everything they met without discriminating between friend or foe."

"...a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fiery coals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of crackling fires..."

The Miniature is plastic from a box set made by Avatars of War. The set gets you twenty loonys with some extra bits for a standard, horn blower and champion. Options also include Mohawks but I prefer a shaved head. It's possibly enough bother for a Dwarf Berserker to maintain a beard let alone a hairstyle. I purchased this premium set for including them in my Kings of War Dwarf army but I have taken a long time to make any progress on them. The challenge though is great for motivating me to make progress.

The base has been left blank for Curt to make his own (I did glue a strip of paper over the slota hole though). The feet of these miniatures are flush so I cut some sprue about 1-2mm and glued to his soles to provide space for any basing material. Alternatively those could be cut off and he can be glued directly to a base. As usual my photography does not do justice to reality but you get the general idea of how he looks.

Gotta love that beard style he's rockin. Rumour has it that he consumes large amounts of MacRoyd special brew. It is said that is a contributing factor to his MacRoyd Rage.

Cheers and thank you from Brendon W.

There's something wonderfully crazy about your Curtgeld entry Brendon. I don't know if it is the massive moustachios or the ridiculously large axes but he's obviously compensating for something. 

Either way I'm sure Curt will appreciate all the attention you've lavished on both the miniature and the back story. Well done, that's a corker of a submission. Cheers, Millsy.

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

From AlanD - Fallschirmjaeger Test Figures (15 points)

It has been a busy start to the school year, with my marking load literally doubling compared to last year. That combined with all the compulsory start of the year fun has meant painting has taken a back seat over the past three weeks or so. I even had 12 days without picking up a paintbrush at all, which did nothing for my mental health.

It is pretty good to be able to make a little submission this week. At Cancon I bought a Fallschirmjaeger army box from Warlord Games, destined for Chain of Command, and have been enjoying putting together the plastic figures. They really are excellent, my only criticism of the box being that it includes an overabundance of FG-42 assault rifles (which were always rare), but no StG-44s, which were much more commonly found by the end of 1944.

Of course, the downside of painting Fallschirmjaeger is the need to tackle the infamous camouflage pattern referred to in hushed tones by pale wargamers as 'Splinter B'. These three figures are my test figures for the camouflage pattern. I'm very happy with how it turned out, although I might make the background shade of the smock a bit lighter next time. These should give me 15 points, along with another 100 points each for painting Splinter B :)

I both pity and respect anyone willing to give splinter camo a try Alan. The fact these are test figures and hint at lot more to come makes me want to adopt a foetal position in the corner. 

It's clearly already had an adverse affect on your reasoning as you need to bribe a minion for extra points. Simply suggesting you should get a bucket load of loot isn't going to cut the mustard I'm afraid. 15 points for your total. Next time don't forget the case of beer mate. :-) Cheers, Millsy