AdamC: Black Seas Terrain (13 Points)

 Some Black Seas Terrain from Warlord

Last year I made a Martello Tower this one much nicer. As you can see it's similar in size to a 25mm figure. 

There are also three batteries two of guns and one with mortars. 

These rocks are from the same set area is about 3x3x1 inches that comes out to less than a point. I'm going to suggest a point per rock (so 5 points). I'll further suggest the Martello Tower count as a 25mm figure for and maybe a point each for the batteries. 

So Rocks 5 points; Martello Tower 5 points; batteries 3 points for a total of 13? Minions let me know if this seems reasonable.

From: Jez Todd - Week Five Russian Napoleonic Command (30 points)

 Dear All 

Time for my weekly post and just a useful 30 points to keep me ticking along. Enjoyed painting these few figures for my Blucher 28mm forces. Just 2 cavalry and 2 foot for 30 points.

The Russians have an option to play General Kutzov as a "Character" figure and remembered I had a model but no idea on the manufacturer - I must have picked up from a show sometime in the midst of time - any ideas anyone? The others are Wargames Foundry. 

  I think the aide was a Foundry Austrian General but added the epaulettes to fit. For the other foot officer I decided to use him as a replacement on an infantry base to add a bit more variety into the stand. 

That nicely finishes my Russian rebasing for Blucher - back into the box until can play a game!

All the best Jez

From JamesM: 15mm Canadian Ram OP tank (8 points)

Hi folks,

Slow progress from me this month, due to the birth of my son Alexander at the start of January. Mother and baby doing well but sleep patterns have not survived first contact. 

As part of my current painting plan I aimed to complete another long term painting pile oddity. This takes the form of a 4th Canadian Armoured Division Ram OP tank, as seen in this picture outside Caen during Operation Totalize. 

The concept for this model came from this period photo:

This uncommon vehicle (and uncommonly photographed in NWE) was likely an Observation Post tank with the 23rd Field Regiment (Self Propelled), Royal Canadian Artillery. As such I've marked mine as being from this unit. I've a battery of Canadian Sextons to do at some point to represent this unit more fully on the table - for when I get round to painting Canadian Shermans. 

The hull of the models is a resin Battlefront Ram Kangeroo, with some greenstuff conversion work to turn the hull front into the Ram mk.II version as opposed to the Battlefront mk.1 hull. 

The turret was commissioned by me from Butlers Printed Models several years ago. I understand this company now sells a hull to go along with the turret. The print quality on the turret is not great, so the camo netting is useful to his the worst of the print lines. Compared to some of the resin printing options out there now, this is decidedly crude. 

Camo netting is 1/72 scale, which I think is close enough scale wise to use on 15mm models. Aerials added as usual using fishing line, with two in the turret and one in the hull based on the plans for this type of tank. I added some additional stowage to the turret (again, to help hide print lines), and some bits of plastic to the rear deck to add some shape under the netting. As an OP tank I would have liked a observer in the turret, but with a 3d printed turret, the wasn't an easy option. 

I'm fairly happy with the finished model, and an interesting 'one off' piece for my collection. One 15mm vehicle should come in at 8 points. 

From MilesR: Stalingrad Terrain - The "Central" part of Central Stalingrad (650 Points)

The central section of the Stalingrad table is now complete - well pretty much complete.  The Northern section was completed before the Challenge started and work on the smaller, southern section will commence in a few days.  This central section is 4 x 6 feet and consists of a mixture of scratch built buildings and some MDF kits from Terrains4Games and Gamecraft Miniatures.

This table is being built for a large participation game at Historicon (or whenever the next HMGS convention is actually held) and there's a chance you might see it on a Little Wars TV episode.  Game scale is 15mm.

The second picture features the Soviet State Bank building in the lower right corner.  The road network is a pretty accurate depiction of the battlefield but most of the buildings are more approximate models rather than historically accurate

Looking from the Western (German) edge of the map

And from the other side.  The train station is featured in the lower right corner and I thought it came out very nicely.

When planning a big project like this, it really helps to make a mock up in an electronic format to play around with.  The image shows the entire planned table for the game, and today's submission is located within the black box.  The Volga river is along the bottom of the image.

Buildings in green are iconic historical locations which I'm trying to model as accurately as possible.  The grey ones are more generic and their final locations on the table will vary once I have a better understanding of game flow from some play testing.  The one building in Red still has to be scratch built.  It's the "House of Specialists", by the way.

The buildings are a little stark and need the application of some weathering powders but I'm all out.  Those have been ordered and I'll repost some touched up images later on during the challenge.

There are a total of 21 buildings for this section of the table.

We'll be doing some playtesting of the rules up at the club in the next few weeks and it will be really interesting to see how people react to the table and how it plays.  I am sure there will be a lot of changes required but that's one of the benefits of hex terrain - it's really easy to reconfigure.

So how de we score this monstrosity of a submission?  I was planning on just guesstimating but decided to get out the old tape measure and compute the volume of each building.

So here goes

Hex base 48 inches x 72 inches by 3/4 inch high = 2,592 cubic inches

Total Volume of the 21 buildings  = 4,387 cubic inches

Total submission =  6,970 cubic inches

By dividing the total submission volume of 6,574 cubic inches by 216 (the volume of our holy scoring cube - 6 x 6 x 6), one gets a net of 32.5 scoring cubes - which yields a total points level of 650 points.

I'm glad I took the time to measure out the buildings as my rough estimate of 48 inches by 72 by 3 inches high would have been way bit too high.

I need to go make some more hexes (about 100 more) for the final push to finish out the terrain for this game.

From PeteF: Real Men Wear Pink - The 11th Cuirassiers for the Armoury (140 points)

This is the second regiment out of two needed for the French Quatres Bras army. The 11th Cuirassiers had the fine distinction of pink collars, cuffs and turnbacks, making them a delight to paint. At the beginning of the 19th century pink had not yet become a girly colour and was considered quite masculine.

Cuirassiers were big men on big horses - black horses being preferred when they were available. It is said that one of the tests for new officers was, in three hours, to navigate a 20 mile course (with three available horses), drink three bottles of champagne and bed three willing women, these activities to be completed in any order.

Most of these were part of an EBay batch I got a couple of years ago. The original paint was stripped using simple green before I primed them for the Challenge. One of the primers I used was less then stellar and left some of the surfaces a little gritty - but it's fine if you don't look too closely.

These were my only choice for The Armoury. Minifigs are always fun to paint and it's nice to have another regiment of heavies for the French army.

12 mounted 25mm figures plus a room bonus for 140 points.

Challenge XI shelf is filling up

 

Ian S- British artillery 1812

Well the last post for today.  Here some British rocket bases a must have fo the war of 1812.  The figures are from Minifigs with the RHA crew sculpted to make them a Royal Marine crew. 

Last unit is a Minifigs howitzer with Lancashire miniatures crew. 

So points wise

2 rockets and 7 crew   15mm scale

8 for rockets and 14 for figures gives 22pts

1 howitzer 4 pts and 3 crew 6pts 

So total points 32.

from RayR - Sarah the Sorceress - Sarah's Choice - Urthr 25pts

 

I call on Her Highness Sarah the Sorceress.

 Please send me from Adventurers Landing across Level 2 to land at the Guardroom pleeeeze?

This Old Hag named Urthr, comes from a set of figures from Black Tree Designs that I bought a few years ago. I've gone for the Hollywood green skin, it just looked better than the norm.

Her sisters, will be making an appearance later on in the show!

Sarah the Sorceress Bonus 20 pts

1 x 25mm figure 5 points

25pts total

From BruceR, Witches for Sarah, 28mm German Lamenting Spouses 7 28mm x 7 = 35 pts + 20 pts for witch = 55 pts

 These are foundry figures picked up for Infamy Infamy by TooFatLardies.  The theory is they are extorting their tribesmen to vanquish the Roman invaders or else............  They are great for deployment points in this very excellent game by TFL.  

"The Roman patrol moves quickly to reach the offending tribesmen's village and collect the tax due.  

The legionnaire's neck hair stands on end when a wailing reaches their ears.  What in Mars name is that, the Optio  grimaces.  As they turn the bend, ahead are six women on a hillock with a horses head on a stake.  What the?  An old crone holds a skull while the other beautiful maids wail and make gestures to the clouds.  

The hills, swampy ground, and thickets hold the answer.  Warriors of the local warlord wait to ambush the approaching invaders.   

Infamy Infamy has a system of scenarios allowing forces to deploy from areas determined at setup of the game.  In certain circumstances the ambushers can go right into the fight.  A very excellent set of rules to portray the uncertainty of soldiers on foreign ground.  "

I've not decided where to teleport to as of yet, so if not breaking the rules will hold off on that decision.  I also took 5 points for the horse head, so if too much please adjust.

7 28mm x 5 = 35 + 20 Sarah = 55 pts 

Thanks  BruceR

Ian S _ Goblin wolf riders

 So something different.  Some of us at the decided  to go to 28mm fantasy and one of thoose was Gary, he took alot of stick as the army he uses was not painted.  So some of us decided to help and each took a unit.

I offered to do an additional unit and painted it the put it somewhere safe.  As per I could not find it for around 6 months until I was looking for Christmas presents I had brought in the year, you guessed I could not find thoose either but I did find the wolf riders. 

Since painting them I have used the contrast paints from games workshop and decided to repaint them. 

So here they are, I have no idea of their origin as I believe Gary got them on ebay. 

So 8 goblin wolf riders 28mm figures - 80pts

At some point I will paint something for myself. 

One more post today to go

Ian S - Last of the ancient Indians

 Hopefully this is the last of the Ancient Indians for my daughters army.  I say hopefully i have a habit of buying figures and putting them some where save only to forget i have brought them and order some more.

The army is based for use with a club set of rules written by one of our members Allan aka the hobbit, they can be found on the Farnbough war gaming society web page along with army lists and points system.  This set of rules has also been expanded to included fantasy.

First up i must apologise to the minions as i have no idea how many pts the figures earn me sorry!

These 3 heavy chariots along with a previously painted one make up a four base unit.

Next up are the last of the elephants for this army 

 

 

All figures are from the Z range of museum miniatures.  These elephants are some of the best sculpts i have seen for 15mm figures, the level of animation is not done justice by my attempts at painting.

In the rules we use at the club elephants are single base unit which hit hard and difficult to damage but once damaged they can go berserk and there is a good chance that they will attack there own side.  My family have a fondness for elephants with a Khmer army owned by my son with elephant artillery, not pulled along but a large crossbow on the back so not only is it good in melee but is effective at long range.  The most we have been able to field in a army  is 18. 

From Bruce R Chamber of Challenges Guardroom (40 mm Ogre 7 pts + Chamber 20pts = 27 points)

 Are there extra points for miniatures decades old painted?  I found this figure laying about and decided instead of using some AWI English lights on my paint table as guardsmen, I would get this old boy his due after a such a long time as naked lead.  He is from a citadel boxed set.  A search brings up BC2 Monsters from Citadel.  I seem to remember a boxed set with some chaos type and other monsters.  The food stuffs he is guarding is from Bad Squiddo Games. 

Another piece of scatter terrain done, the Ogre, and the Chamber.

 

  Cheers.