From PeteF: Undead Army Descends Upon Graveyard Beach (160 points)

One of the best things about wargaming conventions is the bring and buy. It's a sort of shame shuffle where you can try and offload one lot of unpainted minis in exchange for the option to paint a different group. Depending on where the new shiny urge is taking me and what is being sold at a bargain I can really end up with anything.

These old school plastic skellies (from the Evil Empire) caught my fancy when I was thinking about building an undead army for SAGA Age of Magic. I've since landed on a different faction - but you never know. Right? Plus - can you really have too many fightin' skeletons? No. No you can't.

At least the skellies have given me something to paint for Graveyard Beach. It felt a bit cheaty using Skeleton Horde (Does exactly what it says on the tin) contrast paint on the main bodies with a little dry brushing, so I went to town on the rust for the weapons. 

Five mounted skellies and 18 foot plus a room bonus for a total of 160 points. This is my fourth room on the third level so it must be time to approach the Snowlord's Altar (dramatic drum roll and sinister base music playing in my head).

Classic GW Bones ahoy! Lovely job on these and while no Cap'n likes to see rust on his ship, youve done a grand job of it.

Cap'n Wednesday

From TeemuL: Clad in Mithril, the Armoury (35 points)

"What are those strange looking, smallish men, clad in metal and wearing axes? They are a bit bigger than the very small one with a sword, before the encounter with a huge spider, and they seem calm, not poking with their weapons", thinks Shellington while his brains tried to figure out what was happening. As far as he could tell, they were professional warriors, probably hand picked to better fit these underground hallways. Axes seemed a bit old fashioned though, he was quite sure that the Great War in Europe was fought with firearms and such like. "May be this is some kind of honor guard, something related to the history of the Miskatonic University, some detail, which has slipped my mind?", he continued his silent thoughts while he moved across the room, six eyes closely following his movement, but nothing else. He reached the doorway and continued, relieved to leave this stressing room behind.

For the Armoury I present three Khazad Guard, proudly wearing Mithril armor and couple of axes. There's no better armor than Mithril, correct? I think this is the start of my Dwarven army for Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game.

These are painted mostly with Contrast, metal parts are GW metal paints of course, but in general Contrasts. They are not super neat, but quite neat, especially for Contrast job. The base is simple sand with dark brown wash and brown drybrush. I don't like dwarfs to be too uniformed, they are too proud to change their family heritage, personal achievements and stuff like that in order to be better identified on the field of battle - the enemies are most likely a head or two taller anyway and would it be an internal fight, they sure would know who are on their side and who is not. So I varied the colors a lot, but tried to keep a limited palette and paint all the helmets with blue to unify them. The regular warriors (later) might have different colors in their helmets.

Next stop will be the "The Gallery of Ancestors", what kind of ancestors will Uggla find - and whose?

15 points for 3 28mm miniatures 

20 poins for room

Total 35 points, 15 to GW side challenge, 0 skulls, hanging in the TOP-50

Nice work on these Dwarves - I don't think anything they're guarding is going to go walkabouts.

Tamsin

From SanderS: Entering the Golem's Haunt (35 points)

 Hoi,

 

Like Curt said in an earlier post of his: as we are nearing the highmark point of the Challenge we either find our rhythm and go all the way or we falter and get bogged down. I definitely kept on in the painting department, but got bogged down in actually making pictures and blogposts of the painted miniatures. While I fully expect to get some pictures made tomorrow, I would like to get Arthur and myself a bit further along in the Chambers of Challenge and so we enter the Golem's Haunt.

3 is their number and their number counts 3, for awaiting us is not 1 but 3 Golems in their lair. 

From left to right I present: An Iron Golem, Jade Golem and Earth/ Clay Golem. While I suspect most of you will recognize the Iron Golem as a Frostgrave Balista construct, I have no idea what make the other two actually are. They were part of a huge secondhand lot of fantasy figures used for DND and such games. Perhaps quite a lot are old Grenadier figures but I couldn't really say. The Jade Golem I will use as an elemental for my Jade Wizard in Hero Quest. Since Hero Quest has really strong ties with GW WFB, there are Magic decks for all colleges of magic of the Old World as well as some of the Dark arts. I intend to paint up wizards for all the colleges so a Jade Elemental will come in handy. The Earth Golem looks like he's really a sort of Ogre type but since I need an Earth Elemental that's how I have painted him. 

I really like these chaps and they will surely come in handy in the HQ games both at home and at school when Covid Permits. Now has anyone come up with a Covid demon? Nurgle anyone?

Pointswise these 3 figures are from a 28mm range so that's 15 points together with the location bonus that makes 35 points.

Cheers Sander

A terrific trio of golems, Sander. Good to have you back and I'm sure it won't be long before the entries come flooding in again from you and Arthur.

Tamsin

From: AngusW - 28mm 'Mutton today, mutton yesterday...' - The Larder - (45pts)

I've struggled on the best way to negotiate 'the larder'. I considered a WWII era German 'goulash cannon' but struggled to put together the bits in either 20mm or 28mm (I know WWII is two scales!). I was going to evoke the sorceress to avoid the room completely. It then occurred to me sheep, and from a pack of camp followers, I have have a lady eating what is most certainly a piece of dried mutton (that's how I'm interpreting it).

So, we have here the lovely Heidi and her sheep (all 28mm). She is tasked with looking after this mobile larder (the small flock of sheep) as she traipses after the French army as it romps round Europe. All are individually based so I can remove sheep as Heidi scoffs them.

Heidi comes from Foundry 'Prussian Camp Followers'. The sheep are a sprue I picked up from ebay, they could be Warlord?

x4 sheep (20pts), Heidi (5pts) + 'The Larder' bonus (20pts) 

Clearly your attempts to put together a "goulash cannon" have driven you a bit baaaa-my.

Tamsin

From LeeH - 3D printed 8.8cm Pak 43/41 Guns (8 points)

A couple of weeks ago I panted up some trenches from Ironclad Miniatures but the gun emplacements were missing their ordinance. I'd ordered some 3D printed models but they hadn't arrived so I finished the trenches knowing I'd be revisiting them in due course. The printed guns arrived last week and here they are. Two 8.8cm Pak 43/41 guns from Butlers Printed Models. I've never bought any 3D prints before so I was interested to give these a go and I'm pretty impressed with them. The printing layers can still be seen in some areas and the models needed a lot of cleaning up when they arrived, but they were half the price of a plastic or metal equivalent. I bought these primarily as 'terrain', simply to put into the trenches so my British Para's could attempt to knock them out. So while the quality isn't as good as a metal model, I'm pretty pleased with them as terrain, especially at the price I paid.

When you read accounts of the battle in Northern France and tankers describe being attacked by 88's, these are probably the weapon they are talking about. Krupp designed this weapon in direct competition with the Rheinmetall Flak41, and they produced a very successful weapon indeed. The Krupp gun was the most powerful anti-tank gun in service with the Wehrmacht and a modified version (the KwK 43) became the main gun of the Tiger II tank. 

Its relatively low profile meant it was ideal as an ambush weapon and the wheeled version (the original had a cruciform mount) meant it could be moved quickly from location to location. I once talked to a British veteran who served in Normandy as the driver of a Cromwell tank, and he described a single hit from a Pak 43 which split the engine block of his tank clean in two. Fortunately, all the crew were able to escape, but the tank had to be abandoned. 

(Scoring - 2x15mm Artillery Piece = 8 Points)

Aah! So the unboxing video I watched earlier was recorded last week then. Sneaky, sneaky! These 3D prints certainly do the job as terrain.

Tamsin

From Mike W, More Undead Egyptians (130 Points)

 

Finished unit of 20 Spearmen

Another view of the unit

Unit in process of being built

Having shared that I found a source of more skeletons in the loft I thought it would be rude not to make them up and post them as soon as possible, so here they are!

The finished unit 

A unit of 20 spearmen plus the first of the three chariots that I found.

Rear rank of spearmen

Now the only disappointment was that on closer inspection of the frames, some grave robbers (well presumably me, many years ago) had already stolen many of the shields in the box for some other project! So back to square one and you'll see that most of this unit is currently without shields as a result.

3rd Rank

Figures were built and painted in just the same way as the previous batch of archers, sticking to the distinctive colour pattern that I have used for the whole army to date.

Second Rank

As these guys lacked shields I used some of my rapidly diminishing pile of desert grass tufts to make their bases look nicer.

Front rank / command figures and the last of my shields, standard bearer, musician and champion

Next is the Chariot which I rather like, the base colour is an old Citadel Enchanted Blue paint job, with gold trim washed in Army Painter Blue and Strong Tone ink respectively. Skeletons of the guys and the horses were done as per other figures and then all finished on the base with fine sand, and desert grass tufts.

I opted for the long thrusting spear option for the crew on this model,
will do another as an archer version and we'll see what I fancy for the last one...

From the left side

And Front on view

In terms of skulls then the Spearmen have 30 skulls and the Chariot add another 12, so a total of 42 Skulls

POINTS

20 x 28mm foot figures @ 5 Pts ea              = 100 Points

Chariot

    Crew: 2 x 28mm foot figures @ 5 Pts ea = 10 Points

    Horses: 2 x 28mm figures @ 5 Pts ea      = 10 Points

    Chariot: Guessing at                                 = 10 Points  

TOTAL                                                         = 130 Points

"Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones"

What a great bunch of skellies. Thoroughly deserving of the points. But does the grave-robber who's done away with the shields know about the ancient curse?

Tamsin

AndrewB - 2mm ACW (60 points)

 Hello everybody!

Today’s figures are brought to you by Irregular, the finest purveyor of 2mm miniatures at a great price!   Additionally, Ian runs one heck of a company, and the customer service is great.  Today’s figures are some confederate infantry and cavalry bases for a scaled down version of Altar of Freedom  

First, sixteen infantry brigades!  These are blocks of 50something men in three ranks, which lead to a decent look on the tabletop, much like 24 6mm based on a 60x30mm base. These are on 0.5x1 inch bases instead, but that’s ok, I’ll either halve the ranges used, or just use centimeters.  

This scale reduction also allows most games to be played on either a 2x2 or 3x2 playing mat, a whole bunch of which I am in the process of making.  

These 10 stands are cavalry!  This is more than I’ll need to play nearly any scenario in any of the books for Altar of Freedom, so while I’ll have to complete more infantry, I should be good on these horsemen.  

Look forward to more of these bases in the future!  I’m basing up the same number of Union infantry presently, and then they’ll be posted!

I have no idea how to score these guys, but there’s 26 bases total, however the scorer chooses to total those up!  

Happy Painting!

Hmmm! Now how do I score these? The Spreadsheet of Doom (TM Miles) is based on 60x30 mm bases for 2mm so I guess if I count each of your bases here as half-bases that should be about right. That comes out as a nice, round 60 points for this entry.

Tamsin

AndrewB- Lair of the Great Beast (40 points)

 Sorry for the lack of posts recently ladies and gentlemen, work has been nutty, and the delightful weather the Midwest has been dealing with has been...fun.  

Anyhow, my pulp adventurers have a few new beasties to face down on their adventures!   These crocodiles/alligators (usually just call em big-ass lizards, not a herpetologist over here) will surely give them fits.  

These three big boys or girls have big teeth, crashing tails, and appetites for goobers in pit helmets!   The smaller markets are for submerged actions.  I have a couple for hippos as well, but I haven’t found any hippos outside the water like I have for these guys.  Sometimes painting tropical creatures tends to make you feel a little warmer, and these guys sure brought the warm and fuzzies on a snow day, just like they’ll bring butterflies to my pulp figures’ stomachs. 

I don’t know how the last chamber, AKA level four works, but I’m ready for the challenge!  

Not sure about the head markers, but the reptiles are big, especially for 28s, so I’ll chalk up a tentative 20pts for the figures and 20 for the chamber!

Happy painting!  See you soon!

Well, those leftovers from the dinosaur era should be enough to give most people the fits. If I score the two smaller ones as 28mm foot and the big one as 28mm mounted that should cover the heads as well.

Tamsin

From SimonG: Infiltrators at Graveyard Beach - Soviet Reconnaissance Troops in 10mm (50 points)

Hopefully not stretching the rules too much my offering for the first part of Level III in the Chambers of Challenge is an amphibious landing on Graveyard Beach. The infiltrators in question is a Soviet GSFG recce platoon comprising four amphibious BRDM-2 armoured cars and their crews. 

They also have  AA support from a ZSU-23-4 and BRDM-2 SA-9. The former is also known as the "Shilka" which is of course a river in Russia so continuing the aqueous theme!

One of the key challenges in this case was capturing the essence of a mid 80s camouflage one piece in 10mm -- a few splotches and it seems to have come out ok 👌.

The ZSU-23-4 has always been my favourite piece of Soviet ironmongery and I've modelled these in 6mm, 54mm and pretty much everything in between over the years. I even took a special trip to Bovington for research last time I did one in 1:35 back in the mid 1990s. While all the other models are from Timecast the ZSU-23-4 is from Red3 (as the Timecast model was OOS at the time I ordered). The Red3 models are all metal and have excellent detail, especially in the wheels and tracks, but lose out in other areas to the Timecast -- either are a good choice and you can mix and match although probably not the same vehicle as the Red3 seem a shade smaller in scale.

I think this should be good for another 50 points (12 10mm figures at 1 point each, six vehicles at 3 each and 20 for the challenge) which takes me exactly to my original target! Next up a video game hero for The Hall of Heroes!

Great work on the camo in 10mm - I'll have to take your word for it that the chaps are there! *lol*

Tamsin