From a PhilH: Viva la Republica at Benito’s Brook (77 points )

Continuing down the Path of History, we come to Benito’s Brook, which is looking for heroism in a brave feat of arms.

My Spanish Civil War project has been a major project for this past year, and I’ve been rounding out my Republican forces to host a game at the ‘Winter Wonder Lard’ TFL games day in Bristol.

Motley group to round  out the platoon 

And how does this relate to a Benito’s task? Well the SCW is characterised by ordinary folk facing down the Nationalist’s trained and experienced Legionaries and Moorish troops. Be they the people’s militias taking up arms to defend their freedoms and democracy, or the volunteers of the International Brigades, making long journeys to face down fascism.

Riflement destined for the militia and IB LMG team

And in spite of the scheming and mistrust between their political leaders and commanders, they achieved great feats of heroism: halting Franco at Madrid, holding at Jarama and so forth.

35 Division standard

Warrant Officer

Demolition team, from North Star

Also sneaking into this entry, shortly before WWL I noticed I’d be short a Nationalist officer if the players took a certain combination of support choices. Thankfully I had one prepped, so turned him around in short order. On the day, not needed!

Nine 28mm models plus the location bonus adds 75 points to my tally. 

The journey so far, a rapid tour around the island to come! 

Excellent work on these defenders of freedom. With a standout standard to boot.

Martin

From AlexK: Hawkins Hill and a long, slow slog into the Arab-Israeli war (38 points)

So for Hawkins Hill I need an entry from a project over three years old, I really only have one project that fits this brief and its my stop/start tank forces for the Arab-Israeli wars. I generally get one or two tanks done a year for this and it has been really slow going, I'm not sure if its even something I want to game when all said and done, but I do like the models and it may well end up just being a painting project over a wargaming project.

So for my entry I present a 15mm T55 painted up as part of the Syrian forces involved in the 1973 war. It is a Plastic Soldier Company model and was nice and easy to finish and paint up, it goes well with my IS III from last years challenge I think.

Points wise I think its 38, 8 for the model and 30 for Hawkins Hill and that should be enough to get me to the Snowlords peak I hope.

This is a lovely figure and you've done a great job on it. The drooling blue Snowlord awaits. Gird your loins

From NoelW: Hold Your Horses: Hawkin’s Hill: (25 points)

We scramble down the hill as quickly as we can, pleased to have escaped O’Grady’s Diner with no more than one casualty. That’s a pretty good result for us.

There’s the sound of horses ahead, and we see a battered old shed, or possibly the offcuts from a woodcutters’ jumble sale, where a couple of horses are hitched. A man in a hat is grooming one of them affectionately.

“Hello,” I say. “I wonder, can you tell us the way to Cook’s Crevasse from here?”

The man moves his mouth, but no sound emerges. Still combing the horse’s mane, he gestures to his throat with his other hand.

“I think,” says my recently elevated sergeant, “he’s feeling a little hoarse”.

I pick up one of the planks piled against the shed and berate him gently with its heavier end.

“I know you like your jokes to relieve the tedium, my dear recently elevated sergeant, but if you're not careful, you're going to feel a lot more than a little bored.”

Everyone laughed when I told them I was going to be a comedian.

They’re not laughing now.

---

Just a small offering today. 

My Cape Wars collection began several years ago. The Xhosa were well developed in about a year, but the Brits have languished in the way of most wargaming enthusiasms. However, the Challenge challenges me, so I've already previously posted a unit of Cape Rifles, who were basically mounted infantry, so they needed troopers to look after the horses. One of these horseholders is painted in an approximation of their uniform, the other more neutrally dressed as a Boer. However, both could easily be used in several different contexts. Figures are Perrys, of course.

Score: 28mm: 2 horseholders, 3 horses: 25 points

Cool stuff. I do like little wars, esp in Africa. 

Martin

From LeeH - Treasure! (24 Points)

Just a small entry today as I have a ton of things keeping me busy (and not all Challenge related, unfortunately!). Following my big building I have a few more Forstgrave goodies, but this time not terrain and not figures, but Treasure Tokens. I bought these from Debris-of-War recently. They are resin and half of them came pre-cast with the base included. The others were free-standing treasure items and I found some nice resin bases in my bits box to mount them on. 

They are scaled for 28mm and are perfect for games of frostgrave or for use in roleplaying games. I'm sure they will be useful, wherever I use them. 

As for points...no idea. They are 28mm in scale but half the size of a full figure so maybe 2 points a pop? I'll leave that particular conundrum up to the unlucky minion of the day!

You must give us a picture of your finished terrain. these are great and worth fighting over, i do like a closed box

Martin

From LeeH - Normandy Utility Poles (32pts)

So these were not on my original plan for the painting challenge, and it's all Ray's fault! Ray suggested our group, Posties Rejects, run a demo game at a very small show called Skirmish based in Sidcup. We routinely go to this show, and we are always saying we should run a demo game there and so when Ray suggested it I blithely said, "yeh I'll throw something together"...not realising I had just three weeks to do it in! In the end, we have decided to run a Normandy/Bocage game of What a Tanker, primarily because I have all the terrain and tanks ready. All except these utility poles; hence their unexpected appearance on the Painting Challenge.  

Now I can't remember where I bought these. I got them last year, but try as I might I can't remember where I got them, which is a shame because they are nicely cast in white metal and pretty good quality. They are suitable for 15mm of course and will fit in nicely with the rest of my Normandy terrain. 

Right, as usual, the thorny issue of points? I haven't a scooby-doo! I guess they will be treated as terrain and they take up about a quarter of a cube in space (they are 3" tall) so about 5 points in total? I'll leave that decision in the hands of the excellent and most learned minion of the day! ;)

You can never have too many all pieces of terrain to snag on jumpers etc. I reckon they are worth 2 pts each so 32 points.

Martin

from PeteF: Transmat and Ghar - a bit home made Awdry's Atoll (90 points)

Having arrived at the trailhead for The Path of New Shiny I was faced with a bit of a stumper. Unused to building terrain I really wasn't sure what might work. I thought about the armies that I'm aiming to complete during Challenge X and the scenarios they might be involved in. One of the more enjoyable scenarios in Beyond The Gates of Antares has one faction defending a transmat. Reinforcements arrive as the scenario progresses and the attackers close in.

Warlord Games sells a nice looking official transmat - and it's about the size of a CD. I also wanted to see if I could do something with LEDs and used one that slowly cycles through different colours to give the piece a beam-me-up-Scotty vibe. The central column is a quip electric toothbrush container.

The Ghar are one of the factions in Beyond The Gates of Antares. Most of them fight in hard to damage battle suits and I had four of these left from my accidental purchase of the Ghar Starter Army a couple of years ago. The theme of the army is my local NBA team, the Portland Trailblazers. Each battle suit represents one of the players - past and future. The one with the big launch tube (the Bomber) is named for Clyde Drexler, their best ever player. Many Portlanders are rabid Blazers fans and local gamers seem to like the army's theme.

I painted one face of the top CD in a colour shift blue metallic from Turbo Dork. Although this should have been a simple task.... what can I say? Take one involved trying to get two colours going in concentric rings. I was handbrushing at this point. It looked, er, terrible. For take 2 I just brushed the stuff on - but the brush strokes rose like giant ridges on the CDs surface. Than I remembered I had an airbrush packed away somewhere - a cheap one. So I tried that. It is called an airbrush because what comes out of the end of it is mainly air. I did my best to encourage more paint to join the air... but it barely co-operated. Not being very handy, I couldn't figure out how to up the air pressure. Eventually, enough paint emerged to call it done. I should really learn how to use that thing. It could be useful.

The end result has a bit of the something-that-they-made feel. It does look quite nice in the dark (no, not just because you can't see it - because of the light which changes colour). I tried to add a short video to the post but, like the airbrush, I couldn't get it to work properly - maybe too big.

The transmat would fit in a 5x5x6" cube so how does 15 points sound? Four Ghar battle suits at 10 points each (what they've scored in the past) plus 30 for a new area would make it 85. Does that sound reasonable?

This is the best cd based bit of terrain so far, i really love it. That coupled with supporting a 2nd rate team, mine are 4th rate, makes it extra special. I'll give it the full cube - close enough to a full size one, especially if you count the one at the other end with the queue of reinforcements

From SimonM: "Wizkids" Rolling Oil and Yochlols (20 Points)

This 45mm tall pre-painted plastic model of some Rolling Oil is produced by “Wizkids” and is miniature number 029 from their Ruins of Lastwall range of "Pathfinder Battles" figures. "A magical compound of pitch and alchemist’s fire", the "volatile and dangerous ooze... hunts in subterranean tunnels and even city sewer systems and waterways for animal and vegetable material to consume."

"Thick, viscous, and resembling a glistening spread of black wax" the mutable creature was re-based upon a "Games Workshop" 50mm circular base and primed using a double layer of "Citadel" Abaddon Black. The Rolling Oil was then enthusiastically dry-brushed with "Vallejo" Heavy Charcoal, before being drenched with "Citadel" Nuln Oil.

Alongside this "usually mindless" monster, I have also pigmented a trio of Yochlols, which are also by "Wizkids", and can be bought as miniature number 012 from their Storm King's Thunder range of "Dungeons & Dragons" models. A chaotic evil creature, this shape-changing demon were able to slam "away at their foes with their numerous tentacles", and introduced in the 1980 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" game adventure module, Queen of the Demonweb Pits by David C. Sutherland III (with Gary Gygax).

"A type of lesser tanar'ri demon", which were also known as Handmaidens of Lolth, each figure was super-glued to a 25mm circular base, and originally undercoated with some "Vallejo" Heavy Goldenbrown. However, due to the rubbery texture of the Yochlols' figure, this extra opaque Game colour simply didn't take to its surface, so in the end I applied a couple of helpings of "Vallejo" Heavy Brown.

Once this had dried, I then re-applied the "Vallejo" Heavy Goldbrown once again, and subsequently shaded each 'handmaiden' with an old pot of "Citadel" Gryphonne Sepia. This seemed to pool really well amongst all the sculpts' soft details, and create precisely the yellow, oozy, effect I was after to suggest how their "bodies seemed to be constantly melting and piling back up like a sickening living candle." Later, I gave each miniature a rough dry-brush of (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Goldbrown and 'picked out' their eyes using a combination of Heavy Red and "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson.

Really cool stuff Simon, the shading is fab on the tree thingy and a bizarre oil slick is a 1st for me
top work

Martin

Thursdays minion

is on duty after work.

although if minion Dave is bored he may post some