Lee clambers atop Snow Lord's Peak

Lee a couple dozen tiny pachyderms crest Snow Lord's Peak, looking much like a gargantuan Alexander traversing the Hindu Kush.

This week's Snow Lord Peak brought to you from Mount Joffre, Alberta.

The Snow Lord gets down on his haunches and gazes at the lilliputian phalanx of elephants. 'Wow, Lee, those little guys are just amazing. I've been watching your work with these little guys these past few years and I have to say, colour me impressed.'

Lee, chuffed with his handiwork, rubs his hand together to keep them warm,  'Thanks mate. Say, where can I stash these wee chaps?'

'Put them by the pond. I have a few of Tamsin's teeny lizardmen still hanging about. They can get them sorted from their trip up.'

Afterward, while enjoying a couple of cigars, a good scotch and admiring Snow Lord's new landscaping, Lee asks the fated question. 

'So, I hear there's some treasure up here... You don't happen to know where it is, do you? Perhaps I can offer you some sort of boon in exchange?'

The Snow Lord looks at Lee appraisingly, 'Sure, I think we can strike a bargain.' He looks over to the tiny elephants having a bath the shallows of the pond. 'I think I have a challenge for you. You've built a well-earned reputation working with these tiny guys, but I think you need to break the mould and give us something upsized to enjoy. Something big from Big Lee. What do you say?' 

Lee smiles, 'You're on.'

______________________________________________

Well Lee, Let's see what you come up with that's a little more el grande in scale.

-Curt

From PaulSS - Iron Brigade Command (27 points)

One thing our recent Longstreet campaign has taught me is that you can probably never have enough command stands, so when I made a recent order to Perry Miniatures I added a couple of extra frames of Union command.

As one of the units in the campaign is the 2nd Wisconsin I modelled these all with Hardee Hats from the command sprue.

There was a single infantryman left over from the recent box I had painted so he had some paint slapped on at the same time as these four.

Flags as usual are from https://www.warflag.com

Five 28mm foot and a couple of flags should add 27pts to my total.

By Paul
Your ACW collection is really building up this Challenge Paul! And this Command stand is another lovely addition. 27 points it is!

From MikeW - 17th Century Landing Craft! (40 Points)

Having meandered around Challenge Island, I found my-self at Douglas' Shallows and needing to do something faintly nautical...

... being a land lubber that posed a bit of a problem - until I realised that one of the Scenarios that I have been hoping to put on as a game at the SAS Wargames Club  was a 17th Century Amphibious Landing - and I need some suitable barges to offload the invading forces.

As an aside - the SAS in the club name does not refer to the famous British Special Ops Regiment, rather it originally stood for Sussex Association of Simulators and later Southern Association of Simulators, in more recent times it has stood for Sussex and Surrey! 

Thus reflecting English counties our members are from... we also have a member who lives in Somerset, but as that begins with a 'S' as well he's still allowed in!

Back to Douglas' Shallows, next I had to source an appropriate number of barges, I did briefly consider scratch building them but after a browse on eBay I found a set of barges from AnyScaleModels.com that would do just nicely and they were really good value for money.

5 x 28mm Landing Barges

The models duly arrived and I proceeded to undercoat the resin models with a Grey Primer spray, once dry I painted the outside of the boats / barges brown and then highlighted and applied washes to give a natural wooden feel, before varnishing.

The inside of the boats were painted grey, then again highlighted and washed to give the models a more 3D visual when on the table top.

Close-up view of Barge - which could equally be used as a ferry

The resin models were well cast and had very little flash that needed to be cleaned-up, in a couple spots near the water line I left some of the flash in place and painted this blue with white highlights to give a hint of water.

Another view, highlighting grey interior

As to the scenario I plan to use, it is based on one by Barry Hilton and is the Battle of Camaret Bay, 18th June 1694, when a British and Allied force landed outside Brest, France only to find their mission compromised and they were thrown back into the sea....

And finally in action, transporting a regiment of
English Foot, spread across two barges!

Not sure on how to score the Barges, they are approx 14.5cm (6") x 5cm (2") so have assumed that they are equivalent to a 28mm mounted figure so 10 Points each. Treating them as 28mm vehicles @ 20 Points each, seems a little over generous...

POINTS
5 x 28mm Barges @ 5 Points each = 50 Points
Douglas' Shallows Bonus  30 Points
Total Points 50 + 30 = 80 Points

By Paul:
They look very handy bits of kit indeed - would love some of those for my FIW chaps doing some river assaults.

Happy with your map location bonus but noting their construction, painting requirements and lack of basing I am going to score the boats as terrain to maintain consistency.  Overall in volume I shall round up to half a terrain cube for 10 points, making a total of 40.

Good luck messing about in your boats

From GregB: German WW2 Hanomag APCs (80 Points)

1/56 scale Hanomag APCs - models from Warlord Games "Bolt Action" range.

Well, I now have some marching orders from the Snow Lord himself. But as I set myself to that worthy hobby challenge, I want to finish off some of the pending things from projects familiar to the fellow participants and visitors of AHPC X - namely, my late WW2 winter Germans.  I have painted up a nice basic force of infantry, but they will need some vehicles to get around the gaming table.  These Hanomags should do the trick - they are 1/56 scale plastic kits from Warlord Games "Bolt Action" range (and I think Italeri is involved somehow too).

Seated plastic figures to be used showing some troops are embarked.

When I started this project, one hobby quirk I needed to make peace with is the use of 1/56 scale models in 28mm gaming.  I laugh at how consistently the gaming world insists that 1/56 scale is the "proper" scale for 28mm figures. So many manufacturer go to the length of adding "1/56" right after "28mm".  And yet, even the most cursory observation on any gaming table shows the link doesn't hold up.  A better scale would be 1/50 or 1/48...

The 28mm infantry look huge compared to the 1/56 APC...oh well.

And yet...while 1/50 and 1/48 options exist, they are either too much fuss (complex model kits with too many parts), too expensive (the rare Solidos) or made of puke-laced resin (#flakegate).  1/56 is the least-bad option, and because so much of the hobby industry remains committed to this group hallucination, 1/56 scale offers the most options in terms of available vehicles to choose from. Thus I swallow the blue pill...1/56 scale is perfect for 28mm!

AA MG mounted on the backs of two of the APCs. 

The Hanomag is an iconic piece of German WW2 kit.  They built thousands of these things, but there were never enough to meet the enormous demands created by all-out war on two fronts. They would typically be found among one of the battalions of the Panzer and Panzer Grenadier divisions, and among "favoured" units.  These are 251/Ds, later models of the half tracks, apparently easier to build.

Bring on the winter muck!

Don't look too closely...the license plates all have the same number. I wish Warlord would vary their decal sheets...

I suppose one can go too far when it comes to weathering vehicles, but when it comes to winter AFVs, as far as I'm concerned one cannot go far enough. Winter is beautiful, but the pristine white snow lasts for so long as you stand still and never move...winter conditions are somehow still muddy, dirty and - yes, it's true - somehow even DUSTY.  I know this, I have grown up with it. I have been blessed to live in peaceful times in a city with concrete roads, and yet in the winter my red truck turns grey about 72 hours after any snowfall, and a grey-brown about 15 minutes after any thaw.

Vehicle 412, ready to roll out.

Another view, showing the optional embarked infantry models.

These vehicles would be driving through mud, on dirt roads, then snow...seeing snow, dirt, and even rain (it happens in the winter, after all).  The white-wash would have been applied in a hurry, at a depot, probably with one eye on escape as the Russians could arrive at any moment...I want my winter German AFVs to "look the part", and so I have mucked them up here.

Tried to put some muck and snow inside the halftracks.

Open-topped vehicles are always an extra challenge in large scales...after all, you can see inside them! I tried to muck up the inside a bit. I also painted a few of the seated infantry figures that came with the kits, so as to use as markers to show when an infantry unit is aboard the APC.  I see that Warlord sells winter MG-34 gunners for the Hanomags...wish I had thought to order some.  Oh well.

Out for a walk in the forest with my dogs - it was so nice to see the sun!

These three vehicles, plus the four seated troops, should total up 80 points. Up next...just a bit more WW2, before I move the clock back a little further...

By Paul:  
A lovely trio of iconic German vehicles and you've done a cracking job with the snow camo too- looks spot on.  80 points well earned Greg

Not sure my Beagles would like walking in that snow though! 

From Barks: Napoleon back from the dead (35 points)

"My Lord Wellington! The devil is back from St Helena!"

"What? Who? Old Boney? But he's dead, man!"

Waterloo wasn't the end, as Napoleon Bonaparte raises his dead soldiers and aims to conquer Europe again.

I don't think Lord Sidney knew what he was getting into with his alternative history location. This figure is Napoleon Blownapart from Eureka Miniatures. I do think he could have had his hand in his innards.

1x 28mm figure 5
Roundwood's Tower 30

Skull-o-meter™: 1
Cumulative Skullz: 13

By Paul:
What a fantastic model - Boney old Boney ! Looks alike a roundshot from a 12 pounder went right into his guts too. Nasty...  Thats a pretty weak reading on the Skull-o-meter, but I'll allow it :-)

35 points Sir!