From StuartL - Of Paint and Squirrels (275 points)

I had thought about posting this lot up as separate entries, but I am sure that Curt and the Minions are all pretty busy today, so here we go, my final post of the challenge.

One of my favourite periods to read about, research and play is the British Colonial period. I have a small but growing collection of figures for the Anglo-Zulu War and this challenge was a good excuse to get some more minis added to both armies. Above is a Zulu InDuna, or commander. The mini is from Empress and will be used as a command figure for Black Powder. Strangely the picture shows white marks around the left eye and mouth, but when I went back to double check the figure, there are no marks. I guess it must be a reflection from the camera.

This second unit is a group of the Natal Native Contingent. The NNC were local volunteers who agreed to serve with the British in the hopes of getting some revenge for years of oppression from the Zulus. Each unit of the NNC was given a European officer, though many of them couldn't speak the native languages very well. The NNC were not deemed to be very good troops by the British high command, but this can be attributed to a lack of firearms, a lack of training and poor leadership in many cases. As I am collecting both sides of the conflict, I am tending towards slightly smaller unit sizes than those recommended in the Black Powder rules. Each of my British units is 16 men strong.

My next entry is a set of  12 Japanese infantry for the war in Burma and the attempted invasion of India. If you aren't aware of it, in the Spring of 1944, the Japanese launched an offensive through the jungle and across the border of Burma into India. The British raced troops to stop them and a close and brutal battle was fought out at Kohima and Imphal. At times the front lines were scant metres apart. Eventually the British, Indian and African troops were able to break the Japanese invasion force and this paved the way for a counter-invasion of Burma.

These figures are all from Warlord Games' Bolt Action range. They painted up fairly easily and I tried to give them some variation in how I based them to better represent the jungle terrain they were fighting in. I had planned to do a unit of Gurkhas to oppose them, but ran out of time.

And here we have another set of Bolt Action figures, 5 early war Polish infantry. I was given these by a friend as a trade for some old 40K minis. I never had much interest in the early stages of WW2, but these figures painted up very quickly and easily.

Usually, I paint up one figure as a test piece, making notes as to colours used and so on as I go along. With the Squirrel duel, I have made the effort to do 5 test models, as that is the target to get the Squirrel point. It has been challenging to try and find enough different projects to work on, but now I have these models done and a recipe for doing more should I find the time.

These models were painted up on a whim. I had read a tutorial recently about painting black. Some rummaging around in middle of the mountain of unpainted figures netted me 5 Black Templar space marines and the perfect figures to try out the tutorial on. I used to play 40K a few years back, mainly when 5th edition was at it's peak. At that time I didn't really enjoy painting marines too much. These guys were surprisingly fun to paint and I love how they have come out. I'm still undecided about the bases, but those can always be changed.

All of the models were painted in Vallejo Black and given a few highlights in Basalt Grey. I have tried to line highlight every panel on a marine before and it drove me nuts, so with these guys I just did a few random spots here and there. Once that was done and I had painted in the metals, I gave everything a glaze of blue ink. (1:10 ink & water). This helped make the highlights seem more natural and has given the black a bit of depth. Whereas the standard colour for the shoulder pads is white, I have gone for a warm off-white shade with a mix of Vallejo Bonewhite and Sky Grey. I used a fine tipped marker pen to add some religious script to the sides of the pads to better demonstrate the zeal of these crusaders.

And to finish off, some D&D monsters. As this was the theme of my first entry, it seemed fitting that it would also be my last. The large fellow above is a Chain Golem. The figure was originally an old D&D pre-painted mini, but I gave it a new coat, a wash and a drybrush to bring out the detail more. He is very large, standing nearly 100mm high on a 70mm base. 

To accompany him are a Were-bear, a Marilith Demon, a goat-man, a wraith a dire rat and a dire weasel. Most of the models were done with a simple Base>Drybrush>Wash technique, but the Marilith I spent a little more time on. The figure is a little NSFW, so I have added a black bar to the picture for decency. The Were-bear and the weasel are pre-paints, but the others are all from Reaper's Bones range.

And in a final shot to give you an idea of scale, you can see a rather confused looking Japanese NCO standing with the three big monsters. Both the bear and the demon are on 40mm bases.

And that is it from me for the challenge. There is still some time remaining, but right now I can't even stand to be in the same room as a paint brush, let alone think about picking one up. I have beaten my target by a mile and had a good shot at the Squirrel duel too.
I'm looking forward to seeing the final scores after the dust settles.

So, to end my post, a tally of points for the Minions.
The NNC and InDuna get me 17x28mm models for 85 Points and 1 Squirrel.
The Japanese get me 12x 28mm models for 60 Points and 1 Squirrel.
The Poles get me 5x 28mm models for 25 Points and my final Squirrel.
The Black Templars get me 5x 28mm models for 25 Points.
And finally the D&D figures are where I have to ask the minions to step in. 4 of the figures are roughly the same size as a standard 28mm model, but as you can see in the last picture, 3 of them are a bit bigger.

So that gives me a total of 195 Points, plus whatever the minions see fit for the D&D figures, plus 3 Squirrels.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my posts. I tried to comment on other people's but never had enough time to look at all of them. Thanks also to Curt for organising this and to Evan for being an awesome minion.
I believe a recap post is usual, so I will have a rest and come back after the end of the challenge.

Thank you!


TamsinP:

I have enjoyed your large, mixed-bag entries throughout the Challenge, and this is no exception. Lovely work on all of these Stuart.

I'm going to score the D&D figures as four 28mm foot and the big monsters as 28mm vehicles. That gives you a grand total of 275 points for your final entry.