From StuartL - For the Duels!!! A Final Post - 550 Points

Hello again.

I know that there are still a few hours left to go before the final whistle, but I'm going to say that I'm done. I have nothing that I can get finished between now and the deadline, so this lot will have to be it.

By the kick off for the challenge, I had signed myself up for no less than 3 different side-duels, (though luckily two of them pretty much went hand in hand). To round things off for the challenge, I have been beavering away at entries for all three duels to end on a hat-trick.

First of all, the Squirrel side duel. The aim was to paint up at least 25 points of any given theme to get 1 Squirrel point. However, each theme had to be unique to score the points. For those gamers with a very narrow focus (how do you do it), this might be a difficult duel to enter, but I have dozens of different projects all stashed away awaiting paint.

For the North West Frontier and the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War, some Afghans. I painted up some Afghan Regulars and British troops in previous challenges, but I have loads of these tribesmen and warriors still to do. The figures are all from Artizan Designs. 

This group of Arabians will be joining a small group of their fellows for games of Saga, Age of Crusades. I usually like to paint these models in different colours, but was pressed for time. The next batch (post challenge) will have different coloured robes. The minis are from Gripping Beast.

The second duel I entered was the Skullz Duel. As the name implies, you get points from painting Skulls. Some minis may have a skull on the base, or on their uniform, but the majority of historical miniatures don't really go in for the bare cranium look very much. Luckily one particular range of minis has a massive skull fixation and they are also the focus of my third duel, the Games Workshop Minis duel. From the get go, my aim in this challenge was going to be to focus squarely on painting up some GW figures. When Curt announced the Squirrel Duel, it kind of distracted me, but I've still managed to get some paint onto some GW minis along the way.

Here we have 90 Catachan Jungle Fighters of the Imperial Guard. I have been painting them in batches for some time now. I am soooo tired of painting green uniforms. I have had the bulk of these minis for going on 20 years now and I am glad that they are finally done.

I do have some heavy weapons teams, but even with the extension of the deadline, they just aren't going to get done in time. The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed the chap with the spot-light in the bottom corner of the picture. Back in 4th edition 40K, there was an option to pit small kill-teams against each other. One player would be the attacker and one the defender and both sides would get some extra options like trip-wires or search lights, so I decided to model one up.

I think it was Barks, the originator of the Skullz duel who said that it is scenery that pulls out the big numbers, and that got me thinking. I must have some terrain with skulls on it somewhere....

This is one of the old kits from GW's Cities of Death range. There are skulls all over it. There are skulls on the floors, there are skulls on the interior walls, on the doors and oh boy are there skulls on the exterior.

It would seem that one of the ways 40K architects deal with alien/mutant/daemonic hordes swooping in and murdering everyone on a planet, is to scoop up the remains of the murdered populace and use them as building materials for the next set of cities/targets.

As you can see, they didn't skimp on the skulls here. I think the designer of this kit may have had some issues to resolve.

So points wise we have:

5 Afghans at 5 points each gives me 25 points to my total and 1 Squirrel.

5 Arabs at 5 points each gives me 25 points to my total and 1 Squirrel.

90 Imperial Guard at 5 points a model comes to 450 points for both the GW duel and the total. Most of them have skulls on the sides of their rifles and other accessories, for a total of 99 Skullz.

1 Building which is roughly 8" by 10" by 7", or 560 cubic inches. That is roughly 2.5 terrain cubes rounded down, or 50 Points for both the GW duel and the total. The building contains a mind-boggling 772 Skullz. The two panels in close up above have about 65 each on the side that you can see. 

For a grand total of 550 Points, 2 Squirrels, 871 Skullz and 500 GW points. A hat trick and a points bomb to boot. 

My FINAL duels totals.

GW Points - 1766

Skullz - 1363

Squirrels - 20

I'm going for a long lie down.