From IainW: Romagnol Pike Block (184 Points)

Here is a unit of Romagnol pike, the best native pike of the Italian wars.

They were prominent in the armies of both the Papacy and Venice, I've shown them with Papal flags but I can easily swap those out for Venetian if needed. These are a mix of mainly Perry plastic mercenaries and the Pro Gloria/Warlord plastics,I wasn't that keen on the plastic landsknechts to start with but I really like the kit now, its given me a nice mix for an early 16th century unit. There are also some Foundry landsknechts and conquistadors mixed into the unit. There's also a few Artizan dopplesoldiers.

They've been great fun to paint (in the colours of my football team, Arsenal) and even though they're late, they were meant for the mercenary bonus round, I'm glad to have them. Thirty six 28mm figures and four flags and yes looking at the photos I realise I need to touch up the edges of the flags!

All the best Iain

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Wow! Fabulous work Iain and a bit of a points bomb to boot! This year's Challenge has certainly been rocking the Italian Wars - lots of character, colour and fashion faux pas - all wonderful things. The unit's red and white livery is very eye catching, the papal banners are glorious and the mix of manufacturers' sculpts really brings the entire unit to life. Bravo!

Now, seeing your sterling efforts, I think I need to shamelessly plagiarise your work and try my hand with that great colour combination (Go Arsenal!). 

184 well-earned points for you, Mr. W!

From EvanH - Witch Hunter (5 points)

A late entry for the week, a Witch Hunter figure from the Games Workshop board game Talisman. He'll definitely be getting employment with my old Mordheim warband, The Brotherhood of the Cleansing Flame.

He's a great figure, bristling with amulets, protective scrolls, and (most importantly) weaponry. I've painted his buff coat in Vallejo Heavy Khaki, and highlighted the black clothing in Vallejo Black Grey.

Although he's in the grimdark biz of hunting Chaos and Undead in the far reaches of the Empire, I've given him a cloak lined in red to give him a bit of a flash dress sense. Black does benefit from accent colours, after all!

The flagstone base texture was sculpted in black Milliput, and drybrushed in grey.

The sword hilt is painted in Vallejo Brass and inked with Citadel Agrax Earthshade. Silver metalwork  was inked in GW Nuln Oil

That's all for this week - regiments are proving more time-consuming to paint than I had anticipated!

Will I have anything ready for next weekend? Stay tuned...

Ev

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Great work, Ev. GW has done very well with this figure as I think they've issued it in about six different variants between WHF and 40K. In your interpretation, his dour puritanism is challenged by the posh red silk lining of his cloak and hatband. Maybe there will be a rival Witchfinder dispatched to bring him low for being too fashion conscious. Sigh, they make it hard to cut a dash in Mordheim.

 5 points for you Mr. Hughes.

From: PaulS: Plague and Fury (136 Points)

Over the last few weeks I've been slowly churning through the Deathguard infantry and characters from various boxes and sprues that have been cluttering up the hobby room for a while.

The first batch are 8 small gribblies from the Rogue Trader Kill Team set and some extra nurglings that I found in the bitz box

Next up we have the Dark Imperium Blight Drone. This is effectively a giant fly stuck in some machinery with great big guns. What a creepy thing...

Conquest magazine came with two sets of easy build Plague marines. A bit of hacking apart of figures and we have two different sets of figures that look different enough that they don't stand out next to each other too badly.

There were 5 Death Guard in the Dark Imperium box that are a bit more interesting than the easy build ones.

Lastly in the Death Guard block we have 4 characters; three from Dark Imperium and one from Conquest.

As I was getting more than a little bored with nurgle green, I decided it was time to have a go at some red instead and painted up the Bloodhound from the first Age of Sigmar box set. He should be on the same base as the main boss, but I'm intending to use this more for Warhammer Quest, so he needs to be on his own

So this is 16 28mm figures, 1 small vehicle and 9 small 28mm figures that are probably only worth half points due to size?

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Wow Paul, what a great dose of Chaos goodness, um, vileness? Hm, whatever, I just know these are wonderfully creepy. I always like how you do your shading, highlighting and weathering - very effective. My favourites of this lot has to be the Blight Drone and the Bloodhound. Nasty, nasty creatures (I hope the Boss has a bag or two for that pup).

This bad lot will give you 136 points for your fine efforts. Well done!

Curt

From DaveD - Bridge and Hedges (35 Points)

This weeks terrain progress is another 15mm sized girder bridge and 25 feet of hedges.

First up is a MDF bridge sourced from e-bay for £3.50.  It was a simple kit bash job. This means I now have a range of bridges by type and length to add to the terrain collection - size is 1/2 a terrain cube 10 points

Next is the never ending battle with hedges ... as I am going to be doing some large games set in the bocage area of Normandy the mantra of “you can never have enough hedges “ comes to the fore.  So here is another 25 feet of hedges

I have done some with bits of fence and gates in using some mdf fencing from Blotz

They are made from 1/16th ply (a range of lengths  3 , 4 , 6, 8  9 and 12 inch) with a section of rubberised horse hair hot glued. This is all then sprayed a dark colour and a suitable flock applied. This takes me to about 60 feet of hedging . I reckon I need about another 40!  its 300  cubic inches worth so 25pts

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Another excellent Saturday terrain entry! Dave, you are just cracking on with your 15mm WWII Normandy project. The bridge is very nice, but I have to say that I'm loving your horsehair hedges. I particularly like the irregular way you cut the top profile to give them a more natural, rustic look and the addition of the fencing adds visual interest (and handy access to the fields within, no less). Best wishes on the next 40 feet!

Curt

From MilesR: Buildings in Various Scales Saturday (204 points)

 The past week has seen a lot of scenery work and a hobby disaster of epic proportions.  How's that for a teaser opening?

Lets go with what has worked.  First some 15mm Spanish themed buildings.

These four were 3D printed by yours truly and come out "OK" - you can see the striations if you look closely but I'm still happy with them.

 The next are some laser cut kits fro Empires at War and they are amazing - really the best MDF kits I've run across.  There are LOTS of detail parts so assembly is time consuming but the finish product is superb.  You may see a few more of these gems over the next few weeks.

Lets go back to both the Old West and 28mm with these kits from Sarissa Precision.  8 buildings in total - 6 Mexican Village buildings and a foundry and barn in the upper left.

A close up of the four smaller Mexican buildings including a small Jail and Catina

and the jail even comes with Prison cells!

A Mexican bank - it does feel a bit big compared to the other buildings

 A nice little Church.  Whats that in the back upper right corner?

And ,finally, a barn and foundry.  This pretty much completes the Old West portion of the Challenge and I'm now set to run a few games of deadman's hand up at the club.

My points estimate is based on volume and if you push all these building together they occupy a space that it 24 inches wide, 23 inches deep and an average of 4 inches high.  Using my mathematical skills, that computes to a volume of 2,208 cubic inche.  Remember, our base cube unit of measure is 216 cubic inches.  Ok here the exciting part: 2,208 divided by 216 equals 10.2 units, so that's 204 points.

So what was the disaster?  Well, I've been wanting to redo my sectional terrain to both lighten the weight and change to a base size of 2 ft x 2 ft squares - those are easier to transport and provide a lot flexibility design wise.  I've come up with a neat design and was planning to "unveil it" next week with the river sections as part of the "Water Feature" bonus round.  There's a reason resin pours are a bit nerve racking.  After building out the river sections and doing the base ground work, it was time to mix and pour the resin.  Now I've used the resin mix many times before without a hitch but this batch must have been bad because it cured a distinct pink color. To be honest I'm not sure if it's bad resin or color leaching from the base or I'm just a moron. It's pretty much even odds between the three choices.  Never-the-less, I need to redo do 8 ft of rivers and will not get them done in time for the bonus round next week.

Necessity is the mother of invention so lets see what I can come up with the following "raw" materials:

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Wowzers, that's a heap of lovely terrain Miles. I agree, Sarissa produces a nice product, as clearly exhibited by these Western-themed buildings (especially liking the jail and foundry). Your 3D prints also look excellent. Where did you source the files for them?

I would have liked to have seen the 8 feet of pink river, but look forward to the Big Unveil of the 2.0 version.

10.2 cubes, is it? Well, we won't cross examine the numbers of a Financial Products Professional. What possibly could go wrong? 204 points it is.

From PaulO'G: Barbarian Auxilia (42 points)

This week sees me adding to my Orci Invicti army, but with something a bit different. Later Roman armies were known for incorporating warriors from conquered lands and using them as Auxilia to increase the fielded strength.  I have always liked using Bellicose foot units in Dragon Rampant, so this seemed like a perfect excuse to get some into my army.

This unit of fur clad Shield Breakers is from a Hill Tribe that was recently (and violently) incorporated into the growing Orc Empire. Now they fight for something greater than their loose collection of villages.

They are old Grenadier Orc "Big Uns" from the 90s - and big beefy chaps they are too weighing in at a hefty 40mm. I picked them up at a Bring & Buy at MOAB last year and really like the old, characterful sculpts.

The Bigs Uns showing their size next to my Sattagarian Goblins from earlier in this challenge

Thats six 40mm figs at 7 points each for a total of 42.  Yes - the answer is indeed 42!!!

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Paul, this is some beautiful brushwork on some old school (Grenadier no less) miniatures. What absolute brutes! I especially like the skin tones and how they starkly stand-out from the winter-themed groundwork. I look forward to the next instalment of this creatively themed force.  

42 points it is.

'Veni, vidi, Orci!'

Curt

From LeeH - Natal Native Mounted Contingent (54 Points)

Earlier in the Challenge, I painted some Natal Native Contingent and described how they were given relatively little equipment and their uniform consisted of a red bandana to wrap around their foreheads. Fortunately, there were some native troops that were better equipped. The Natal Native Mounted Contingent were relatively small in number and were formed into six Troops of approximately 50 men each, lead by a European Lieutenant and a native NCO. They were largely recruited from the amaNgwane (a tribe from Natal) traditionally hostile to the Zulus. 

These troopers were much better equipped than the Native infantry; troopers wore a tan-coloured European style uniform, their mount had full equipment and each trooper was issued with a breech-loading carbine. The European officers usually wore a blue jacket and white helmet although there was some variation. I decided to give one of my officers a soft hat similar to the troops under his command. This involved cutting the pith helmet off, then filing down to the brim and using a tiny dab of greenstuff to form the new core of the hat. A bit fiddly on a 6mm model, I'll grant you, but it means my two officers look a little different to each other. 

Five troops were present at Isandlwana under Colonel Durnford. They fought well against the Zulu's, but late in the battle Colonel Durnford dismissed them in order to save as many of his men as he could as the battle descended into chaos. Being mounted they had a much better chance of escape and many are credited with having stopped to give rides to desperate British Soldiers fleeting the massacre. Around 200 NNH survived the battle and were reformed later in the war. 

The newly formed Troops of the NNH went on to see action at Hlobane; the Battle of Kambula; and at the Battle of Ulundi. After the war, the NNH was retained as a police force in conquered Zululand and saw action during the Zulu civil wars which began in the early 1880s. They were finally disbanded during the Second Anglo-Boer War, due to a growing fear that they could side with the Boers.

I have painted these as both mounted and dismounted troopers. There are 32 mounted troopers, 4 mounted officers/NCO's and 32 dismounted troopers. By my math, that should net me 52 Points.

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Modding 6mm figures with greenstuff?! That way lies madness my friend. Nonetheless, its  all good for us as we get to see more of your excellent Zulu project. Fabulous work Lee and a nice snapshot of their storied history as well. Lovely stuff. 

52 points plus a couple more for your modifications to the two officers. Well done Mr.H!

Curt