Happy Monday, Challengers!! It's Valentine's Week!!

Good Monday morning, Challengers! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend, and you're all ready for another rollercoaster week in Challenge VIII! This week, by my calendar, is week 8 in the Challenge, and things are hotting up despite (for us Northern Hemisphere dwellers) the cold, freezing temperatures.

It's also.....VALENTINE'S WEEK....

... which is, of course, a time for romance, red coloured, heart-shaped balloons and love-themed chocolates all over the world.  Without getting all slushy on 'ya, Challengers (for us Brush Pilots are notoriously level-headed folk), I'll be particularly looking out for any romantically themed entries during this week.

Some love-besotted romantic medieval knights, perhaps...?

Some sonnet-composing Primarchs and Terminators, maybe....?

Some romantically-entwined Napoleonic hussars, no doubt....?

Who knows what this wonderful week will bring..... except that we have another stunning selection of great Monday Challengers' entries here on the blog today.  So sit back, open that box of Valentine chocolates a few days early, and feast your senses on this wonderful selection of painting prowess.

The Votes are in for the 'Music / Musician' Bonus Theme Round

Hello Everyone!

Our third bonus theme round is complete! We had 34 participants submitting entries providing their various interpretations of the 'Music / Musician' theme. Below are the results of the voting. 

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Here are the Runners Up:

AdamC's 'Four Guys Fiddling Around'

StephenS' 'Soul Music'

and DaveX's 'Polish Vistula Legion Drummer'

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The podium finishers are:

Third Place: DebD's 'Female Bard with Lute'

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Deb will receive another 25 points in recognition for her stunning submission this round. Wonderful work Deborah and congratulations!!

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Second Place: MichaelA's 'Guinny & the Grail Seekers'

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Michael will receive another 50 points to add to his total. Beautiful work and very funny Michael! 

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And in First Place: 

SidneyR's 'The Polish Drummer'

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Absolutely wonderful work Sidney! (The subtle conversions on the drummer and his letter of recommendation are just brilliant.) For claiming top spot on the podium Mr. Roundwood will receive another 75 points and a gift package from Simon over at BigRedBat (who, I should mention, is soon to release the English Civil War expansion to his popular 'To The Strongest' rules). Congratulations Sid, we all look forward to seeing the next chapter describing your fraught but fascinating town of Laarden.

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Once again, a BIG thank you to all the participants of the 'Music/Musician' bonus round for your sonorous interpretations of the theme. Terrific work! 

To end, please remember that next Saturday midnight (February 17th) is the submission deadline for our next Bonus Theme Round: 'Childhood', so cast your mind back, or look to your own children / grandchildren / nieces / nephews and show us your interpretation of this theme!

From ByronM - Yet another unit of Greek Spartans (80 points)

 Once again, more started than finished this week, but then I was out of commission for 2 days with a flu bug so that explains some of it.

All I managed to actually finish this week was the unit of Greek Spartans with black lambdas.  I had meant for the last unit of Spartans to be the third colour of decal that I had, but screwed up and made them red.

This gives me an 8th unit for my Greek forces, so I am technically 1/2 done what I wanted to get done for the challenge this year for them.  Too bad its past the 1/2 way point in the challenge!

With this group of Warlord (Immortal) figures done, it is onto other manufactures for a little while at least.  I have more of these left, but they are still in boxes, and with a bunch of Foundry and Victrix figures here and ready to paint, I am going onto them for the coalition forces that will be fighting the Spartans.

While I am doing all Greeks for the era and making them as two separate forces, they are being done so that they can be used together as a large force against Persians at some future date. The two forces will be Spartans and allies vs Athenian and allies.  With 4 core units of Spartans done, 3 allied units, and only 1 Athenian unit, its time to worry about the Athenians for a while.

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Well  done Byron, you are certainly getting through them and surely you can get the other half done before the end of the challenge?  No need for the shoes and socks to come off for the maths, a straightforward, but still impressive, 80 points! 

From JasperO: Catapults cannot pass! (35 points)

Phew, my ballista is finally done. 'Stuff' got in the way and prevented completion for the BFG bonus round, but having seen reconstructed versions in real life, I'd like to think it would've qualified. German reenactors once told me their catapult was challenged by the local German army unit to launch a projectile at an army jeep parked a considerable distance downrange. The reenactors were proud to relate how their artillery piece did not disappoint and planted several kilos of stone in the jeep's engine compartment...

The Wargames Foundry Caesarian centurio in command of the artillery detachment was shown earlier, but the crew and piece are new. Now I just have to build the rest of a Caesarian Roman army. (25pts)

Tomorrow it's PolderCon 2018 in Utrecht. Guy (also a participant in this Challenge) and I are both running participation games. To make our lives easy, we're using the same table, just alternating Chain of Command (me) and Black Ops WW2 (Guy). Guy's game involves various parties trying to gain objectives around a Chateau in the countryside. Obviously, having been taken over for an HQ, that needed a checkpoint. I had one from an old Warlord set. Painting those black/white/red stripes on an uneven surface is a pita... The checkpoint doesn't nearly fill a 6x6" box, so I'll leave the points to the Saturday victim minion. (The mini is just for size)

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What fabulous work Jasper!  The ballista and crew are just sensational and worth every one of their 25 points.  Lovely additional pieces too and whilst not a full terrain cube the quality is such that I have no trouble in awarding them another 10 points giving you 35 in total.  Best of luck at PolderCon 2018 and we look forward to more splendid work from you in due course.

From TeemuL: More Astra Militarum Cadians (50 points)

Ten more brave Cadian soldiers for my growing Astra Militarum force for Warhammer 40000. Well., the store campaign I was aiming for is almost finished and I have yet to play a single game... Being a sick for over a month (or taking care of the rest of the family which was sick) dramatically reduced my painting time in December. Anyway, these were already primed and I needed something to paint for this week, so I grabbed these.

They are 10 metal Cadian troopers from Games Workshop, in the dirty red-yellow-blue scheme I have chosen. Nothing special in the paint job, but they look decent.

One sergeant, one plasma gun and eight regular troopers. I found out only during painting, that one of them is actually a loader of some heavy weapon team, something I missed, when I primed these. Buying minis second hand has some troubles. Luckily I have some heavy weapons waiting for the paint, so I can fix my error.

Next week there will be something else, Lord of the Rings and terrain have so far eluded me on this Challenge, so may be I try them next. We'll see.

Risky close-up

10 troopers should give me a nice amount of 50 points, getting me above the 500 point line and keeping my target of 800 still in the sights.

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Well done Teemu, lovely job Sir!  You have managed to turn these round in double quick time and earned yourself another 50 points to your tally.  Keep going that 800 points target is now in range! 

From BrendonW - Goblin Cavalry (126)

12 x Goblin Cavalry (28mm) and a dead Dwarf.

This week I present a Cavalry unit to increase my forces for project Goblin Army. These units as most of you would know are probably three projects. The Goblins, the spiders and the large Unit Base. However they all come together at the end. I placed the rider with the strange sickle sword on some rocks leading from the rear which seems correct for Goblins that have a game rule called "Yellow Belly". All of the spiders have become hairy by gluing Flock onto them. I avoided the faces and legs.

Some of the riders I had originally glued to the spiders which did not make it easy to re-paint them. Much easier to paint riders and mount as separate pieces. As a general guide to mount these old GW Night Goblins onto the Spiders it requires chopping off the bottom of them. Use the very lowest part of the hanging belt as a guide. Some Goblins require further cutting to make the lower part a little narrower and it helps to cut off a wedge from the lower back area to help them nestle back further. I did cut some spear points off and repositioned them but its not really noticed in the unit...but I know. The Barrels on the base are a Renedra product and the Dwarf is from Mantic and painted in colours to match my existing Dwarf Army. I did have a plan to place 14 ridrers...then it was 13 riders...but I think 12 is OK in the end.

Cheers from Brendon

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I just love these Brendon, what an awesome unit!  The basing, conversion and little extras just combine perfectly to make a truly unique force, really well done Sir!  I have added some extra points for the prone dwarf, conversion and basing taking this entry to 126 points, cracking stuff Brendon.  

PeteF You're So Thegn (35 Points)

Project 5 is SAGA. I started playing SAGA last year and cobbled together a utility army from Warlord Celts and Frostgrave Soldiers that could - at a stretch - represent most of the factions who don't have horses. They are a sort of celticy, germanic, stripey pants and plaid warband. In the end I'd like to have several actual armies (Jomsvikings and Anglo Danes recently arrived from EBay).

I came around to enjoying playing the Anglo-Danes - a faction that benefits from having large units - so I added some Saxon Thegns to the mix but, shamefully, never got around to painting them. A few months ago I experimented with blocking and dipping one in the hope that fast might work but in the end just kept showing up with these figures grey primed and shieldless.

The Painting Challenge has motivated me to finish these guys - I went for a sort of unifying green cloth and used the Painting War: Dark Ages for ideas and inspiration.

Before I was born my Dad came back from Australia with a boomerang for my brother - on the box it said "Read The Bluddy [sic] Instructions" and this phrase fell into regular family use. I wish I had read Gripping Beast's bloody instructions for their shield decals. I didn't and spent a lot of time gluing heavy plastic decals to the shields and trying to matt varnish them. Eventually I figured out something was wrong and that these were peel, stick then soak decals. They are nice decals but I need to learn more about how these shields were put together to make them work - the nicest looking pro painted ones take the shield design over the rim and have little nails at the back - in future I'll try and make the time to hand paint them.

7 foot for 35 points

Gripping Beast plastic 28mm Saxon Thegns.

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Well done Pete, a cracking looking unit nicely tied together with colour palette and basing.  I share your pain with the decals and have similarly fallen foul of them, cursing what should be a time shaving device and in fact turned out to be a bitter disappointment.  That said, I think you have rescued yours rather well and I wouldn't necessarily have appreciated your difficulty with them if you hadn't mentioned it.  Bravo Sir and another well earned 35 points to your tally. 

From KeithS: Ral Partha spellcasters (75 points)

This week it's more 25mm goodness from Ral Partha.  These are also from their most recent Kickstarter and are a group of 15 spellcasters of varying types.  I decided to base them for use in my (hopefully) upcoming games of Chainmail later this year; thus, all got the outdoor look.  Here's the group:

For convenience, here's a close-up of the lads first.  They're an eclectic mix.  Several of the figures are the same as ones I painted a few years ago.  In hindsight, I should've matched the paint scheme so I could use them in a D&D game both in a dungeon and on the battlefield.  The sword the guy in the foreground has is...a little big?

The first group of females.  They are a bit of a mix between what I would call tribal spellcasters, witches, and more typical sorceress's.

Three more females.  They seem to not dress sensibly for battle, but I guess I never had any sense of style, so who am I to say.

The last one was the Kickstarter's star, The Vampire Queen.  It's a nice figure, though the sword seems a bit huge to me, but what are you gonna do.  Her fangs are hard to see, but they are there!

15 figures at 25mm for 75 points.  I have an even larger batch mostly done, but I'm not sure if I can squeak it under the deadline!  We shall see.

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These a smashing Keith and what a great variety of poses and styles - a witch for all seasons! Cracking work Sir and a well deserved 75 points to your tally.

Must dash!

Must dash, lots to do!  There is always lots to do, and never enough time, but today the exhaustive list of chores needs to be completed before the rugby starts this afternoon.  The 6 Nations rugby tournament is always enjoyable and the clash between Wales and England a particularly tasty affair so excuse the brevity of introduction; on with the Saturday Showcase!

From DaveX: Polish Vistula Legion (95 Points)

I completed what I consider a batch paint of 20 Polish Vistula Legion from Warlord Games.  Last week I showed off the drummer for the Musician Bonus Round.

Well here are the rest of his comrades.

I have loads more of these spiffy chaps to paint and I must say I am rather fond of what Warlord have produced.

This should give me a much needed 95 Points for 19 Models as the drummer has already been counted.  

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Ahh, it's lovely to see some Napoleonics rolling out to wrap up the day, and better yet Napoleonic infantry wearing my favourite headgear: the whacky czapka. Lovely brushwork Dave. I especially like the details of that formidable sapper in his imposing bearskin - superb stuff. I look forward to seeing more of these lads in the future.

95 points for your climb up the roster - terrific work sir!

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