From DavidL - Better Late Than Never (255 points)

Thanks to spending way too much time looking in the mirror and grooming my ear hairs, I managed to miss my last two deadlines (last week and then the Bonus Round) by mere hours each. As a result, this week's entry is an eclectic mix.

First up, we have the first proper entry in my WWII "East Africa 1940" project, which had its first bow this Challenge with my Matilda II during the Armor round.

Here we have most of an infantry platoon plus support elements, all representing members of the 3rd Battalion, 14th Punjab Regiment.

I'm experimenting with mounting my LMG teams on lozenge-shaped bases. This makes them easier to ID at a glance, and also allows for a variety of poses, including the infamous prone pose! (Not yet featured here.)

Figures are Perry "Desert Rats" with swaps of Perry and Warlord heads.

We've also got a Universal Carrier (from Perry) and an ACV-IP Indian Pattern Carrier (from Company B) to provide some mobile support.

The camo pattern on the Universal Carrier is modeled off a photo from a book about the conflict:

I love how the guy in the back appears to be reclining and belting out a song!

Now, here's where I went a little nuts; if I've got my research correct, in 1940, the 2-pounder would not yet be assigned as a regimental anti-tank gun. Instead, we've got the French-manufactured 25mm Hotchkiss. Imagine my delight when I found someone makes a model of this rather obscure gun in the correct scale! Hooray! Wait, should I be celebrating? I'm going to miss that 2-pounder, I just know it...

The rounds for this gun are so tiny! I had to really file down the 2-pounder round the loader is normally holding.

Crew are kit-bashed from the Perry 2-pounder. Technically there should be two more men (I really can't imagine what for, this thing is so weenie), but 28mm British gun crews in desert fatigues are surprisingly hard to find. In fact, I couldn't find any!

This nearly completes the British contingent of my collection. A couple more squads and done! Then it's onto the Italians...

So that's last week's entry that didn't quite make it. For the "East" Bonus Round, I present just two figures, but they took me nearly as long to paint as a whole squad of those Punjabis. Here are two samurai, characters from an RPG I wrote and play-tested over the summer. I painted up the figures as a gift to a couple of the players who participated in the play-test as a way of saying "thanks."

That's Jiro on the left, Gentaro on the right

The game is set in the early days of the samurai (the 11th century), when armor was especially ornate, and it took me all of Saturday just to get these two guys done. I'm quite happy with how they turned out, but I can't imagine doing a whole army of these dudes!

This one is from The Assault Group.

This fellow is actually a "Legend of the Five Rings" Lion Clan figure, but the armor had more-or-less the right look for the period. I won't tell if you won't.

Next up: I go teenie-tiny!

ByronM: Sorry that you missed the entries the last few times, but personal grooming is important! Kidding aside, this is a fabulous entry and one well worth waiting for. I am never sure what counts as a points bomb, but with this single submission counting for 255 points which is a full 1/3rd of your goal, I think it counts, so congrats!

I love the paint style on the Punjab infantry.  Since their uniforms are normally almost monochromatic (like most British based uniforms of the time), a lot of times any uniform like that looks bland painted.  With your super high contrast highlights though it really shows detail, yet despite the high contrast still looks absolutely correct, it is very nice.

And for the Samurai figures, also very nice!  I like how you look the time to do all the armour plates in various colours like many would have been in real life. Most people just do single colour because it is hard to pull of the look you did.  Great work!