From StuartL - Challenge Island Safari Journal 55 Points

Ahoy fellow C.I.S.T.ers! After a narrow escape from some 'orrible Ogres last time, we borrowed a boat from over at Douglas' Shallows and we spent the rest of the day looking for somewhere safe to land. Mudry's Mesa seemed like a good spot, so we set a course for the mesa and a stop along the Path of the New Shiny.
Getting out of the fishing boat, we set up camp for a spot of lunch, only to find that another group of tourists was also paying a visit to the mesa, so we invited them to join us. While they seemed quite heavily armed for tourists, they were fairly friendly and were eager to sit and chat with us.

Honestly, I think they were on some sort of religious pilgrimage as they kept talking about spreading the word of Father something or other. It was difficult to hear exactly what they were talking about as some of our party seemed to have come down with something, or were maybe just sea-sick from the boat.

As we were eating lunch, one of our group very rudely dissolved into a horrid green and brown sludge, which quite put most of us off our meal, and caused several bouts of nausea. Our guests were far too polite though and quite merrily chatted away with us as if it were a common thing for them. After a while they packed up their gear and said their farewells. A very merry bunch I must say, even if they were a little scruffy.
Anyway, I think I need to go have a lie down for a bit as I'm feeling a little feverish myself. Probably some tropical bug I picked up from a mosquito bite.

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The goal for Mudry's Mesa was a set of models purchased due to someone else's submission last year. Well for me, it was these Death Guard marines from GW. TeemuL (Here) and PaulS (Here) both did a great job with their minis last time around. Shortly after that I was at my local hobby store which had a large selection of Death Guard available. Sadly my willpower has never been that good and I wound up walking out of the store with rather a lot of new plastic.
The models are all unique sculpts and have soooo much detail on them. I could have spent twice as long painting the models and I still would have found more to do. The models were first painted in medium grey and then given a couple of drybrushes with lighter shades. After that I watered down some green ink and washed it on, which has added a lot of shading to the figures. After that I used a fairly dull palette of colours for the armour and equipment, with the exception of the tentacles which got a bright coat of Citadel Tentacle Pink and then a gloss varnish to give them a moist appearance. After all the paint was dry, I used some Tamiya weathering powder to add some soot and grime effects to the exhausts and random patches of armour.

As for scoring, I guess 25 points for 5x 28mm minis, plus 30 for the location on the map for a total of 55 points?

MilesR: Love the infected space marines - really nice painting.  55 points for you!  Don' beat yourself up for making an impulse purchase.  I think it would have been very rude to the store clerk if you didn't buy something.  Good manners are nothing to be ashamed of!