From JamieM - Aeronefs Away! (55 points)

This post sees my majestic rise to the top of Snowlord's peak and what better way to do it than accompanied by a couple of Aeronefs and their pilots?

These two are from the treasure trove of figures that is the Bombshell miniatures range.  As soon as I saw these two in the lead mountain, I knew I wanted them to be VSF pilots as it's an area my gaming group is very keen to get into.

In the yellow is Pilot 3rd rate Raven Skye.  Newly promoted to the rank, she's wearing the recommended armour for Aeronef pilots in the Covenant of Antarctica fleet.  In the jaunty hat is pilot 1st rate Betty Owens, who is far more experienced a pilot and has, as with many pilots, replaced her recommended armour with more comfortable flight attire.  The CoA is very open minded for a Victorian society and so has no problem with either gender flying combat craft.

I decided to go for clear bases given they'll be on their 'nefs or elsewhere as scenario objectives and I managed to mess them up in totally different ways.  One is messy and one is frosty, so clearly some more patience needed next time......

But onto the 'nefs!

These beauties are MDF, designed by one of my gaming buddies and available through Blotz. He's designed about 8 now I think for the different factions in the VSF that we're going to do one day - we have a bunch of figures from the now defunct Dystopian Legions range from Spartan games. As we couldn't find any available commercially the clever chap got some CAD software, taught himself how to use it and offered the designs to Blotz! He also did this shuttle and is beavering away on other things

The 'nefs get their power from the fans and engine and are great fun to paint. The coloured panels indicate which division and theatre they are in and also have numbers to identify them. We're planning to play VSF on Mars, hence the red bases.

I decided that as Antarctica doesn't have many trees, they would be all metal.  It's a classic iron and brass scheme.

They're chunky old things, here is Raven at the controls of "Dauntless"

And this is Betty at the controls of the "Iron Duke".

As this is my second trip on the balloon, which will net me no points as I've used it before and haven't achieved frequent flyer status just yet, I decided that my shameless points grab would involve a glass of bubbly.  This will hopefully provide the moral fortitude that I may just need whilst quaking before the all powerful Snowlord himself......

As for scoring, 2 x 28mm figures and 2 x 28mm vehicles scores me 50 points I think and 5 extra for the bubbly?  For insurance purposes I am required to state that Blogger put the picture sideways and it is in no way a comment by myself on the somewhat unconventional flying style of the Balloon's pilot.....!

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Oh wow, these are just fantastic, Jamie! I love the saturated colour palette you've used for the pilots, especially that yellow jacket and the literally painted-on jeans. :)

While the pilots are undeniably terrific, my attention is absolutely riveted by these groovy aeronefs you're treating us to. Those are so darned cool. I like how you did the wood planking, which also shows off your clear acrylic bases you used for your figures. I've been wanting to do something like this for garden wargaming and I think I may need to get out my credit card and pay a visit to Blotz. Brilliant work Jamie and a perfect entry fee for a passage on Sarah's Balloon. Enjoy your flight to Snow Lord's Peak!

-Curt

From SebastianR: Catching Air On Hawkins' Hill (40 points)

The engine roared as we reached the edge of the mound and departed, the tracks running freely in the air. My stomach lurched and my bag left the seat as my driver whooped with joy. We cleared the crevasse and the tracks slammed into the dirt; the suspension on the road wheels absorbed the shock, more or less, but I was still almost thrown out of my seat.

We tore into the dirt and continued to drive into the foothill below Hawkins' Hill.

My driver had promised a quick ascent, but he hadn't mentioned anything about the smoothness of the ride, and his vehicle was as dated and oddball as the rest of the equipment on this island. It appeared to be the remnant of some long-ended war, designed by a committee who did not understand what it was like to be shot at.

Nevertheless, I'd heard rumors of a significant badger infestation, and hadn't wanted to fight my way through them. From time to time I spotted their spoor or the shredded carcass of some beast which had wandered into their territory.

***

Finding a miniature prepared at least 3 years ago was harder than I expected. I had some Para jeeps, also in 15mm for Flames, but they already had a base coat, and not just an undercoat. So here we are; the spotter carrier for... I want to say... the 25-pounder battery? Now entirely worthless with the latest edition, but still.

 

Again, for technical reasons the mini will be flocked at a later date - as well as have anti-shine varnish applied.

 

All in all, a simple paint job, one that I've applied to most of my WWII vintage British vehicles.

From my previous run in the Challenge I make that 40 points. 30 for the challenge, 8 for the vehicle and 2 for the chap in the drivers seat.

***

Nice work Sebastian. It was great that you managed to excavate something for this location.   can't speak to the utility of this vehicle in any current edition of the Flames of War rules - but if they are not that good, I wouldn't worry, you can expect a new version of the rules should be along any time now. :) 

40 points it is, well done!

From Curt: 'The Vengeful Spirit' - Flagship of Horus Lupercal - for Burch's Bluff (50 Points)

First, I apologize in advance for the rambling intro. Nonetheless, I think it perhaps helps to 'set up' the submission, but if its too geeky for you feel free to skip to the bottom for the moneysh... the final pics. :)

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Greg and I share a love of the 40K setting that extends back to the original 1st edition 'Rogue Trader'. While my interest in the 40K core game has waxed and waned over the years, I've always remained a big fan of  the whole operatic 'grim dark' feel of the setting, especially when done through its boutique periphery games like Epic, Titanicus, Necromunda, and the various role playing titles.

In 2006 Dan Abnett wrote 'Horus Rising', a novel which tapped into fans' interest in the 'Horus Heresy' and the early history of the Imperium - stuff that until then had only been peripherally alluded to in the margins of the rulebooks. Forge World, sensing an opportunity from the interest, began to issue a series of related figures, rule books and vehicles focused specifically on the Horus Heresy. It's turned out to be a great success for them. Now, with over 60 novels in print and a separate division created exclusively for this 'early period', the Horus Heresy now stands as its own unique entity in the GW stable. 

Mark Strong as Horus. Art from 'The Emperor and His Primarchs' by Miguel Iglesias

In a nutshell the Horus Heresy charts the fall of Horus Luprecal, 'The Warmaster,' chosen son of the Emperor. Horus is one of  20 genetically engineered 'sons' of the Emperor, called Primarchs. Each of these Primarchs controlled a legion of Astartes (Space Marines), huge formations which were far larger and more powerful than the later Chapters found in 40K. 

The Emperor utilized his sons and their forces to conduct a 200 year long Great Crusade to reunify the areas of space previously controlled by mankind. After this huge campaign, the Emperor decided to relinquish control of the Crusade to his chosen son Horus and return to Terra to attend to other duties - activities which, for his own reasons, he kept secret from his sons. Though Horus and the other Primarchs initially embraced this new mission and Horus' role within it, they began to feel abandoned and betrayed by their father's decision to keep them out of his confidence and seemingly left to whither on the vine. 

Horus's ego and plaguing doubts to his father's intentions were preyed upon by eldritch powers within the Warp and he, along with eight other Primarchs, turned against their father. Under the direction of Horus, they rebelled against the Emperor, beginning a galaxy-spanning civil war to install a new Imperium of Mankind where these newfound powers would take up a central role. Thus the Horus Heresy was born. 

The campaigns of the Heresy stretched over 9 years, killing billions, burning out numerous planetary systems and culminating in the cataclysmic Siege of Terra. The siege reached it's  endgame when the Emperor himself teleported aboard Horus' flagship, 'The Vengeful Spirit' to face his wayward son...

Whew! Well, with that little bit of background behind us, I can now show you what I've done for Burch's Bluff. Here is the flagship of Horus Lupercal, 'The Vengeful Spirit' in the livery of his personal legion, 'The Luna Wolves' before they became 'The Sons of Horus'.

When we fanboys think of 'The Vengeful Spirit' we often imagine it as the evil, hulking chaos-ridden flagship of the Arch-Traitor; the place where Horus and the Emperor finally meet their tragic destinies. So I thought it might be interesting to depict the ship just before Horus' fall from grace, when his beloved Luna Wolves were the Emperor's finest, when they were the first before their fellow brother Legions. 

This model was sourced as a print file from Thingiverse and generated on my Photon DLP printer. It's a nice multi-part model. I found there were a few small issues with deflection, but they were easily corrected - otherwise it printed and assembled quite well.

The prow fresh from the printer.

It's a pretty neat model, with magnet slots built into its design to allow one to swap around the weapons modules and prow configurations. I have it here with docking bays, gun batteries and a nasty Nova Cannon on the prow. 

For inspiration to the colours I referred to popular artwork depicting the Luna Wolves in their bone white armour. As a contrast to the white, I decided to 'gild' the weapon points and command areas on the hull. 

It's a fairly simple painjob, where most of the effort was in edge-highlighting the various nooks and cranies.

It's all ready for its voyage to the Isstvan system and points beyond.

Speaking of points, as the ship has the same mass as a 28mm vehicle let's go with 50 total (20 points with another 30 added in for Greg's location).

I hope you like her Greg. She was great fun to work on.

Curt

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Wow dude, she's a beauty! What a wonderful submission.  This is really, really cool. I must say I have been really anticipating what you might bring forward for this particular "Challenge Island" location, trying to guess what you might have come up with. You have not disappointed - creative, unique, perfectly on theme and well-executed.  It invokes Horus' Legion in its early times, kicking @ss and taking names in the name of The Emperor, all united in a long-term vision of galactic order...what could go wrong?

"Battlefleet Gothic" was another fabulous rule set unfortunately left to whither by the clown car inhabitants who ran GW for so long.  So to see a model warship that touches both the 30k setting and a long-lost rule set is spot on perfect. 

50 points for you my friend, this is just great!

GregB

From PeterA: WW2 Winter US Infantry & Romano-British - (96 Points)

Since the end of the Christmas holidays real life has resumed with a bang. I have tried to squeeze in a few minutes painting here and there during the week, but it has been slow going getting things completed. Finally, this weekend I have been able to put the finishing touches to a couple of things I have been working on.

First up is a platoon of US Infantry in winter gear i.e. greatcoats. These are all 15mm Battlefront figures that were released several years ago as part of their range to re-fight the Battle of the Bulge. They are very nice figures but unfortunately are no longer available due to the re-organisation of BF lines that accompanied the release of V4 of FoW. Hopefully, the range will be re-released in the future, as it had pretty much everything you could want for the Bulge.

I got a company box (actually two platoons' worth) when they were first released but, unlike my first platoon which uses multi-basing, these are all singly based, as I will use them for Chain of Command. Each section only has 11 figures as the twelfth figure is a prone rifleman and I have to figure out how to base them. All the others are based on 1 cent (Euro) coins - but these are too small for a prone figure and leave his legs floating in the air, and a larger coin base has an incongruously large footprint.

As well as the three sections, I have a small three man platoon HQ. To help identify leaders in the game, all NCOs plus the platoon CO are mounted on small hexagonal mdf bases from Warbases. I have also done some support weapons - a bazooka, 60mm mortar and a couple of .30cal MGs (The latter two should have more crew figures for Chain of Command; but this is enough to be getting on with).

Finally, I have done a two-man FOO team. In Chain of Command they will normally be calling in mortar fire; in larger games like IABSM and Battlegroup, they can double up as artillery FOO team and call in the big guns!

As well as finishing off this lot, I have done a couple of Footsore Romano-British figures (mainly as a diversion from all that Field Drab!). These are for my warband for Dux Britanniarum and are really there just to add a bit of colour. First up is a musician and he is joined by a standard bearer (flag is from LBMS - stunning quality as always). Footsore Miniatures are absolutely superb and these two are no exception - cleanly and crisply cast with virtually no clean-up required. It was only as I took the photos that i realised that I need to add some static grass/clump foliage to the standard bearer's base!

Points-wise, this is 43 x 15mm figures (I have counted the two-man prone teams as one figure each), for a total of 86 points, plus 10 points for the two 28mm figures - 96 in total.

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Great work Peter.  Battlefront's now-lost 15mm WW2 winter ranges were indeed fabulous...I wish I had taken the chance to grab some US infantry from them back when I had the chance, before they debased themselves to the false gods of plastic 15mm infantry (ugh).  You have done excellent work here. 

And more Romans! Such nice Romans! Taunting me! Footsore do indeed look the part...lovely stuff. 

In terms of your score, we will add 96 points for now. I know you had asked about confirming your current tally - as we speak Challenge mathematical experts are sourcing the blood of a unicorn necessary to complete the blood rituals required carefully reviewing our spreadsheets and will advise this week if, indeed, there is any issue.  

GregB

From AdamC: Quasi-War Ships Constellation and Sloop (30 Points)

More Black Seas a frigate and an armed sloop.  The sloop (not to be confused with a sloop-of-war) was built using guidance from the "Too Many Brigs" by fellow challenger Guy Bowers.

First up the USS Constellation one of the "Original Six" American Frigates  One of the three smaller 38 gun ships (originally rated 36) and saw as much or more action as any US Frigate in the Quasi-War taking the L'Insurgente in a single ship action.  She later battled La Vengeance to a draw.  Her nick name "Yankee Race Horse" was apparently given by the French who were impressed with her speed (given that the French were known for building fast ships this is a compliment).

Detail shot of her stern gallery. I'm pretty happy with with the over all results.  I arranged the flag so I can change her allegiance if needed.  

Between the Frigates and Brig set and the Master and Commander sets I have lots of brigs so it made sense see how I could use some of them and as I mention above Guy Bowers' had some suggestions. I decided to make a single masted sloop. It can work as a merchant, privateer or letter of mark.

She might also serve as a revenue cutter. She carries 12 guns and should be prefect for representing smaller ships used by both sides of the Quasi-War.  

Points we've scored frigates previously as 18 points I think the cutter though smaller than a brig should be scored the same as brig because of the extra knife and glue work that is to say 10 points. Both ships have two flags and flags usually result in an extra point or two I'll call these 30 points in all.

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More great "Black Seas" content! Well done Adam. I love playing games with sailing ships, but can only play games with sailing ships when others do all of the hard work of preparing the model sailing ships - so great job! Hopefully one of the members of our group here in Winnipeg jumps on this...

GregB

From KatrinaS: 28mm '92 Eldar Warlock Burch's Bluffs (35 Points)

I was unsure on how to proceed with the map so I just moved to the next location which was Burch's Bluffs. To be honest with all of you, I don't really game much more than a quick historical skirmish, so this Warhammer 30K/40K universe stuff is a bit over my head.

I showed my husband the map and he quickly disappeared into our miniature room and returned with a single Eldar Warlock with a Force Staff. He said "I must have been saving this for you". He purchased the miniature back in 1992 (he was 7) from Book and Game in Bend, Oregon (which is no longer around) and held onto it for all these years.

Since I am not well versed with the Warhammer 30K/40K universe, I am going to argue from what I have read that because of how ancient the Eldar are, living more than a thousand years, and their advanced neurological system in turn possessing far superior technological advancements to the rest of the Imperium, it is possible for the Eldar/Aeldari to be present during the Horus Heresy. Although much of the lore has the Eldar relatively uninvolved in the Heresy, players of 30K seem to accept the idea of Eldar participating as Xenos factions in games. Therefore, this Eldar Warlock could as easily fit in the 30K universe as the 40K universe.

Because LVO was happening this weekend I took a little longer than I had intended, but none the less he is completed for the Burch's Bluffs space on Challenge Island.

So here he is...

I ended making his cloak the same color as the original box art but was not digging the bright red mask so I went with black and added contrasting eyes.

I also added contrasting teal to the gun, force staff and gems.

 

I attempted a non metallic approach to the armor and think it turned out okay.

 

I ended up using a new pigment on the base and think it fits the theme well and the color scheme. 

 

Here is what I started with. Do you notice the oval shaped solid metal base? Not a normal GW mold but it being from 1992 could be the reason. 

Katrina S. 

Points: 5pts= 28mm 30pts= Burch's Bluffs?  35pts?

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Hi Katrina - fine brushwork, on a classic metal GW figure! I painted one of these myself, back in the late 1990s/early 2000s.  It is a lovely casting, and your fine brush skills have done it justice here.  Great colour selection...I can easily see an entire Guardian Warrior section painted up in matching colours, fine stuff.

You are correct, the Eldar don't typically pop up in 30k gaming - most of us 30k-types are more interested in the civil war aspect of the story, which pits the human(ish) loyalist and rebel forces against each other.  But the Heresy spans the entire galaxy, including all of the various alien races. Your reasoning is dead-on, the Eldar were of course present during the entire Horus Heresy - watching the whole thing from the sidelines, trying to work out how to impact things for their own benefit, and as such your figure is more than fitting to ascend Burch's Bluffs. 

A reminder - remember to use the labels on your post - since I was shot-gunning some Coke Zero I had the excess energy needed to cover it off this time - I'm sure you'll cover it on your next posting :)

Well done, that will be 35 points for you!

GregB

From TamsinP: Kreelers and LEOs (56 points)

You may recall that one of my submissions last year was a big batch of minis for Warlord's Strontium Dog game. Well, this year I will be treating you to more of them in dribs and drabs over the next few weeks.

For today we have some Kreelers and some Law Enforcement Officers.


Kreelers

The "Kreelers" were a paramilitary force established by Nelson Kreelman, the anti-mutant politician (and father of the mutant hero Johnny Alpha). They were responsible for rounding up mutants into ghettoes and labour camps. After the first mutant uprising they were disbanded, but somehow all of them overnight became part of the official police "Anti Mutant Squad".


Law Enforcement Officers

S/D agents, being bounty hunters, will frequently come into contact with the local law enforcement on the planets their contracts take them to. Sometimes the contact is respectful, but mostly the LEOs are typical mutie-despising norms.


For scoring
8 x 40mm foot @ 7 = 56 points

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Well done Tamsin, some fine brushwork on figures for another interesting game (I can't wait to spend time looking up "Strontium Dog" while enduring another conference call).  The "Kreelers" definitely have an ominous paramilitary look to them, and the local law enforcement figures have some great colours - particularly I like the little police-style shields on their uniforms, you did a great job there. 

56 points for you Tamsin, we look forward to more!

GregB