From Dallas: Evil Lord in the Pit! (25 points)

Another model from Midlam Miniatures' Metal Magic back catalogue... a very scary Evil Lord sculpted by Josef Ochmann.

At first I painted him with the "shoulder dragon" as part of his armour, but later reconsidered... I think he looks rather menacing with his pet dragon perched on his shoulder like a Tonkinese cat.  

Herr Ochmann put some great detail into the faces of these MM sculpts and I've got a few more in the pipeline. I particularly like his range of female adventurers and I've got a few of those lined up for the Lady Sarah challenges.

Stay safe!
 

From BruceR 28 mm Wargames Foundry Old Sweats dismounted 40 pts

Back to my Battle of Little Bighorn project for the local game group.  I've painted the eight dismounted Old Sweats from Wargames Foundry and tried to match the eight mounted troopers I had painted and posted previously.  I shot the photos and noticed a couple of the little comedians had switched hats.  So maybe Curt will give you a few extra points if you can quickly find the offending old time jokesters.  I may go back and repaint, but for now they stay.  

Wargames Foundry Plains Wars, Old Sweats.  Eight 28mm infantry 5x8=40 pts.  

Here they are.

Here they are with their mounted counterparts.  

My previous post showed photos of the Battle of Little Bighorn site visted by myself and my spouse.  Custer left from the Dakotas, Fort Abraham Lincoln.   Similar to other sites in the US there is a partk around this fort just outside Mandan, North Dakota, with the Custer house replica, a native village replica and three blockhouses.  Now North Dakota winters can be brutal and I can't imagine living in this area without the comforts we have now.  Crazy as it was 40 degress here today and I took the hound for a favorite walk to Fort Lincoln, which has a paved walking trail and a mountain biking trial.  Here are some photos of the block houses and the hound.  Come and visit, don't gamble, come during the summer months.

The ham/hound.

The three blockhouses in the distance from the trail.  Hope you enjoy.

Cheers, BruceR

from KyleC - Viking Warband for the Armory (205 pts)

So it's been a hectic holiday season here with much going on as always. But since the new year kicked off I have been a bit busy. 

I was able to get a bunch of Vikings printed up here over the holidays though, and now painted up. This will give me a chance to play some Viking SAGA once lockdowns here in the UK finish. 

The first batch was a collection of Sheildmen and Sheildmaidens for the Jarl. Tried to keep the colors muted with the odd greens and blues for the tunics, and tied them altogether with reds on the shields. 

These three valkyries were interesting to paint up and wanted them to have a bit of mystical looks to them with the blues.

The riders need reinforcements still as they seem a bit small to take a proper charge but luckily I have the files to print more later :)

And the last batch is a collection of berzerkers and 2 handed welding maniacs! Should be good fun to see them get into combat then!

This also brings me to Squirrel #5 so far... 

So the collection works nicely to get me through the armory chamber netting me 20 pts there. 5*29 figures making 145 pts. And 4 riders for 40 pts. A nice 205 pts post holidays and we move onto Gallery of Ancestors where I will dive into my War of the Roses York forces. Quick shot being of them below..

Let's see how this all goes! 😂 

From BenitoM: Pit of Pendulum - Barbarian Warlord and Retinue (60 points)

The sound of galloping horse hooves can be heard approaching fast just at the other side of the hill... The small Roman patrol freezes in place... friendly Romans? Barbarians?... The tall horse shape of a bronze standard at the tip of pole is now clearly seen... Doubts dispelled: the signum of  Carnificurus the Savage, warlord of the barbaric German tribes and his retinue are heading towards you... there is only one thing to do: run for your life!.

 My second step in the Challenge Island vaults took me to the Pit of the Pendulum, where something terrifying had to be painted and presented. After much consideration I had an idea: what could be most terrifying than a mythical Germanic, blood-thirsty, mounted Warlord charging against your small Vexillum detachment in the foggy border lands of the Rhine limes?

 

 

The three cavalry models here presented belong to the Wargames Foundry Germanic Tribes range in 28 mm. I like this range more than the Victrix equivalent. They have a sort of "cartoonesque" design style; but that also provides a  lot of character to the models.

 

These three models will have a potential twofold use in my Infamy! Infamy! Germanic army, serving either as leaders or as part of the Nobles cavalry contingent (a calvalry unit = 6 models). 

 

I'm also correcting a mistake made in my previous entry (Roman Archers). I mentioned that a Roman skirmish unit had six models when in fact it has eight (Barbarian units are made of six models). I have painted the two remaining archers and now the unit is finished.

 

With this entry I add 60  points to my overall Challenge scoring and 40 points to Rome and its Enemies duel.  

3 mounted 28mm models @ 10points each = 30 points

2 infantry 28mm models @ 5 points each = 10  points

Chamber Bonus  = 20 points

Total = 60 points

   

AdamC: Adventures Landing Lighthouse (25 points)

 Welcome to 2021! Pretty much the same as 2020... For now. 

This lighthouse is from the Black Seas terrain box generously gifted to me by Will Hunter for hosting on line games. It's located on top of a hill I made from foam last spring.

I created my own paint scheme for the light house each lighthouse is supposed to have it's own look so it can be easily identified day or night to guide ships to a safe landfall.

For points I'll count the lighthouse as a 25mm figure making this entry 25 with the points for the room. 

From PeteF: Napoleon's Old School 7th Dragoons for Quatres Bras (180 points)

The next unit for the the Quatres Bras project is the 7th Dragoons - most of the figures for this project (and all of the 7th Dragoons) are 25mm Minifigs from the 1980s/early 1990s. The idea is to build up a big enough French army to take on the Anglo-Allied army that I inherited.

My dad followed a 25:1 ratio for the Anglo Allied army including the cavalry. Since I like to base them in 3s and think units of 12, 18, 24 and 30 work best on the table top I'm being a bit more flexible with the ratio - also, large cavalry units like this take me a long time to paint!

A lot of things didn't get done last week so that I could finish these guys before starting a new job next week - from the dogs being walked less to taking down the Christmas decorations. We may have eaten more fast food than usual. However, I'm mostly happy with the result. 

I found it quite tricky to get the shade of green I wanted - back in October I nearly sprung for a set of Napoleonic paints from Foundry before the Challenge.  Maybe later this year. The purpley red was a bit tricky too. With horses I made all the non bugler horses bays using a fairly simple recipe - I may change it up in one of the forthcoming regiments to have a bit more variation - my understanding is they tried for a degree of uniformity - at least on parade.

Anyone familiar with the N10 charging heavy cavalry horse may notice that I left one of the supports on the front legs. If you cut both of the supports then the front of horse slowly droops over time so a lot of my dad's cavalry has to be reset before each wargame. In some cases the hind legs eventually need repair.

Most of these figures are from a load that I scored for a great price this summer from a local wargamer selling off their French Napoleonic collection - since a horse, rider and postage comes to around $5.50 I was very lucky to find these. Calivers is great for filling gaps but even though I love Minifigs, the price for whole regiments is a bit tasty - even for the high nostalgia value.

18 x 25mm cavalry for a total of 180 points.

 

From ByronM - Necron Reanimator for the Golem's Haunt

As I venture deeper into the chamber of challenge, I came across the Golem's Haunt.  This location requires something that is re-animated, stitched-together, bolted-together, re-created from steel, clay, earth, etc. 

Hmm, what to do.... Dig's through pile-o-shame looking for something.... Ah! How about painting something that is both a golem itself and a reanimator as well!

May I present to you the Necron Canoptek Reanimator.

This model is a relatively new one to the Necrons.  It is a huge model based on a 65mm base and standing over 125mm tall.  Being a Necron it is animated metal so fits the requirement of the room, but is also used by the Necrons to reanimate other models that die, keeping the endless tide of Necrons flowing over their enemies.

Shown with a normal Marine for scale

I once had a Necron army years ago when they first came out.  However it was all the old metal models and were painted back when I didn't even know that you NEVER EVER use paint straight out of the bottle.  So as I got to be a better painter I sold off the old army thinking that I would paint up a new one at some point...  

Fast forward probably 10-12 years and I am finally getting back to that project, with this first model for my replacement Necron force.  There will be more to come throughout the challenge.

I did not want the standard all silver and black for my force, nor did I want the standard green glows on the models, so I started looking for something else, something I liked painting and would look good.  I glanced over, saw my Spartans in their glorious bronze and crimson and a colour scheme was born.

I am going to keep all the under armour and mechanical parts the simple metal and black that necrons are known for, and to keep painting fast and simple.  However, I am going to paint all of the upper layers of armour in bronze and all the glows in crimson red and yellow highlights. 

The painting method is to get all the metal work done (both bronze and gunmetal) then wash it all with Agrax Earthshade (I put that shit on everything!) to tone down the shine of the metal and give it a worn / dirty look.  After that I start off at a deep crimson on all the gem type areas and then shade them up through 4 different reds and 3 different yellows, adding glow effects around them to bring some warmth to the otherwise cold pallet. I then added a few alien coloured plants to the base, to both add some colour and to allow me to distinguish units later on (one unit can have purple flowers, another blue, etc).

Overall, I am really happy with how the model came out and can not wait to paint up some more Necrons to go with it.  The effort vs reward on this scheme is very high (at least in my mind) as it is both quick and attractive looking.  Many more Necron's to come over the course of the challenge!

From SanderS: Curtgeld and a gift (21 points)

 Hoi There!

We're all supposed to enter some painted figures as an entry fee and here's my submission for that. Last Challenge (and mostly during the Quarantaine Challenge) I have painted a lot of Star Wars Legion figures as part of a commission for a friend of mine called Roel. At the same time Paul Scrivens-Smith was painting up his forces and we started a "discussion" through the replies-section on both our posts and on facebook. 

These figures are inspiring and so I liked painting them a lot. As it happens I stumbled along a young firm in Belgium doing legit prints for creative 3D designers which has a lot of Legion compatible figures LINK. I ordered some stuff and along with the order came the two figures presented below, that I will be entering as entry fee.

First is Lama-Su, the Creator of Clones, the sculpt is a very close likeness and paints up a dream. 

Second up is a Republic Jedi General, not unlike Fantasy Flights games Obi-Wan figure this one has a general's battle armour but a clean shaved face so it's not a different version of Obi-Wan himself.

The light-sabre is supposed to be purple, but that isn't very clear in the pictures.

The third and last figure for today is a TIE-fighter pilot-ish figure, I have painted him as a Royal Guard fighter pilot. I am not sure whether it is intended as such but I think it looks cool and every 'un knows: "RED UNS GO FASTA!" ahum anyway this figure is not part of the entry fee, it's a gift for my friend Roel who might be able to use it in his games of legion for sure.

All the figures were incredibly well cast, very crisp and without any air-bubles. The service was prompt, shipping fast and packaging good too. I can recommend the firm Perikles.be wholeheartedly.

As for points, I believe it was Tamsin herself who pointed out to me that these figures are more akin to 40mm ones and as such I have put them at 7 points each netting me 21 if I am not mistaken.

Cheers Sander