Monday 22 February 2021

For ScottC: The Altar of the Snowlord

  

Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South)
 

Scott enters the frozen chamber of the Altar of the SnowLord, scratching his head in wonder. 

'Gee, I guess only dorks would get this.

_____________________________


Scott, I know you have a 1:48 scale (yes, the proper 28mm vehicle scale) helicopter that has been waiting patiently in your to-do pile. Let's see you get that bird done-up and then you can claim your prize.


Scott's Prize: 'Man of Mystery' from Codsticker (RobP)





From Dallas: Mad Max in the Hall of Heroes (26 points)


The Hall of Heroes! The last Chamber in my journey through the terrifying Chambers of Challenge. And what better "hero" to appear in the Hall of Heroes than that greatest of the Main Force Patrol-men, the bronziest of the Bronze, "Mad" Max Rockatansky.  


Max, a 20mm casting from North Star, is pictured here with his Ford Falcon XB-based "V8 Interceptor" diecast car.


You even get a "driver" figure with the two-model pack from North Star. It did take quite a lot of work to fit this model into the cockpit of the Falcon XB. The car is pretty easy to take apart, you just need to Dremel out the rivets holding the body to the chassis. Comes right apart.


The roadway is actually a roll of tape from the toy section of Wal-Mart, made for kids to play with their Hot Wheels cars. I stuck the tape down to the sticky side of a stick-down vinyl tile and trimmed it up.


It was a bit of a challenge painting this basically monochrome model...


But that's Max for you. These figures were actually finished some time ago, but I was waiting for Max's base to arrive, which it did today. Like many Challenge participants I base some of my figures on pennies, and that was the plan for Max... but I wanted an Australian penny. Not so easy to come by as it happens! 


Australian currency was decimalised in 1966; before that it was a confusing British-style system of pounds, pence, shillings, florins (!), etc. At first I bought a 1959 penny on eBay - 1959 for the birth year of Mel Gibson. But when it arrived it was an enormous pre-decimal coin! That wouldn't do for a small 20mm model so I found a 1979 decimal penny commemorating the release of Mad Max in theatres. Done!


So that's 4 points for full-size 20mm figure; 2 points for a half-figure, and 20 points for the Hall of Heroes. Now - on to the Altar of the Snowlord! See you on the road, Bronze!



"Look. Any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, you know? A terminal crazy... only I got a bronze badge to say I'm one of the good guys."

Nice work on Max and the Falcon.

Tamsin

From ScottC: Atst + Gav tank (55 pts)


To continue with my airbrush kick I have painted up my Atst (which has been on my shelf of potential for about 2 years, staring at me longingly in grey primer) and my Gav occupier tank, which is only about 6months old. In either case I have grown more conifent with my airbrushing and having purchased an Iwata eclipse hp-cs I felt more confident to do smaller areas. [previously only owned a badger patriot 0.5mm].






I experimented with some streaking effects and rust, I wanted him to look used but not resistance level of rust. 






I'll claim 30pts for the Atst as Byron did previously and 25 for the Gav for a total of 55pts. One day, we might even have an At-St Duel! 


Very nicely painted vehicles for the Imperials. I'll go along with your suggested points and trust that they are what Byron was awarded.

Tamsin


From BruceR Lair of the Spider Chamber 40 pts

Shushhhhhhhhhh  we are nearing the Altar of the Snowlord.  We have pushed many challenges and overcome some strange tasks to reach this point.  Go ahead open that last chamber door, its only a spiders lair................SPIDER MY A--!!!!!!! 

Well as I said before I had the Spider's Lair beat until I read the Challenge Chamber Scroll.  Back to the drawing board.  What self respecting hobbyist of decades does not have an unpainted dragon sitting on the wall.  The good news it had been put together some time ago.  
The model is metal and without markings so I'll leave it to the other adventures to throw out guesses as to its origin.  Reaper?  






 I'm thinking it is a youngster in the red dragon breed as smallish.  The model is very nice.  Some excellent holes in the wings for effect and the metal ribs make it easy to highlight.  I confess I did the bulk with the air brush and then to the brush for highlights.  How surprised will the gang be if we pull out Frostgrave again and a new foe awaits!
GW figure for size demonstration. 


Size wise it is similar to 28mm vehicles I have painted so I've tallied 20 points for the beastie.  If too much O'Wardens of the Chambers feel free to deduct.
20 pts Dragon
20 pts Chamber 
40 pts total


AndrewB - Zulus! Dozens(barely) of them!

 As some of you may remember, I recently completed some AZW figures for a large game of Fistful of Lead focused around the Hospital at Rorke’s Drift.  Alongside the Brits, I was painting Zulus, although their painting took slightly longer due to the higher number of figures and addition of shields.  These figures are Old Glory, and they match the Perry figures for scale delightfully!  The bases are done in one fell swoop using the fast drying basing glue and Arid Grasslands base ready mix. I finished the shields up this week, and am happy to present you the finished results!





These unmarried Zulus are painted(mainly their shields distinguishing) as the iNdluyengwe impi, who traditionally were marked by a white mark on the bottom half of their shields.  For ease of recognition on the field during games of Fistful of Lead, I have gone with three distinct groups, with a mark on the low left, low right, or both.   Each group has a leader with a club, as well as the large gentleman on the left side to replace one of the grunt groups from his player’s force.  In any case, keep checking for more updates on progress on the hospital and I their parts of the engagement. 

I believe these 28 figures contribute an additional 140 posts to my total!  Now all I need to do is figure out what that darn snow lord needs from me.  

Happy Painting!

AndrewB- More 2mm ACW goodness!

 Hello everyone!

I have finally completed my ACW Union infantry and cavalry elements to begin playing Altar of Freedom!   Having scaled the figures down from the recommended 6mm to 2mm, I have rescaled the maps by half, meaning a series of 2x2 cloth mats work well!   I can’t wait to jump in on them. 

But without further ado, my union forces(and the two union and confederate test pieces I forgot about last post)!  




Here one can observe 16 infantry units and 10 cavalry, as well as the two two-stand units I originally painted to test the colors and paints!  I can’t wait to get these onto the table and start gaming!

My points for the last installment of 26 bases resulted in 60pts, or approximately 2.3/stand.  As such, the additional four stands would bring me up to just over 69pts.  69 being one of the more hilarious numbers around suits me just fine!  

Happy painting, look for some Zulus coming soon!

From TeemuL: The King, Guardroom (45 points)

"Silence! King is here!" Somehow Shellington understood bits of the strange language he was hearing, low grunting voices, very similar to those voices in the previous room. "Oh, I thought I had seen last of those small people", he sighed. He vaguely remembered something about a distant land, where there lived short people, pygmies or something, could these be them? If they had a king and they were visiting his highly reputable university, it would all make some sense, at least for... Well, something. Nevertheless, despite being the professor of Chemistry, Uggla decided that this was not a proper situation to meet a king of some far away country, especially when those ceremonial axes were swinging here and there. S.N Owl-Ord quietly continued and slipped into the shadows. Where in the heck was he and where was that principal's office, who on Earth could help him?


I'm continuing with my Lotr dwarfs here, more of those blue helmets. Khazad Guard is my choice for the Guardroom and they are guarding their king, Balin. Lots of Contrast paints again and basically the classic tri color combination of red, blue and yellow with some black, silver and leather brown. It is difficult to get horrible results with this combination. Blue and yellow are quite bright, but the Flesh Tearer Red is a bit darker, creating a nice contrast (I hope) of hues.

Nothing special here, a quick and short post today, so I can continue Uggla's travels tomorrow. I'm behind my schedule on the Chambers, but now I have finished four rooms on level 2, so I just need to find a way down. And the third level is all planned as well, so I hope to enter the bottom of this Challenge early March, so I have enough time for the cunning requests of the Snowlord. S.N.Owl-Ord out.

4 28mm GW miniatures, 20 points (20 for GW side Challenge)

20 points for the room

5 room bonus points for the king the guards are guarding

45 points in total, 0 skulls

From MartinC Back in 'Nam (25pts)

 This is my final post of the day (out of painted figures, but give me an hour). These are the final planned Vietnamese to complete the NVA platoon


Once again these are the brilliant Empress Figures and I have 2 squads in green and 2 in khaki

All battlefields need colour and interesting characters, Empress have just released elephants for Vietnam but I think I'll go the water buffalo route. In the meantime you need someone to capture this colour

The war photographer is a classic from Vietnam War

This wannabe is from The Assault Group and obviously Dennis Hopper

Maths is easy 5x28mm figs = 25pts




From MartinC Chambers of Challenge The Orc Pit (25pts)

This one was always going to be tough. I have no greenskins and don't want any. I search through the bits box found this figure. This came in a job lot I bought for £10 from the market.


I think this is a Goblin, it is very old so probably somebody like Ral Partha. Needs a brush to get rid of the flock stuck to his head.
Rubbish Figure, quickly painted. Probably worth a fortune on ebay

5 points for the figure and 20 for the chamber


From MartinC Chambers of Challenge The Guardroom (25pts)

I was sure I'd already posted this but it's not on my blog roll so I'll try again.

The best sort is guard is one who never sleeps, can withstand all conditions and doesn't need paying


This guard is so good that he is outstanding in his field (sorry)

This scarecrow is from Bad Squiddo and will liven up any field

5 points for the figure and 20 points for the chamber



From: AngusW - 28mm 'John Wallace & pals' - Gallery of Ancestor - 40pts

This is my grandfather John Wallace and three of his pals. 

John Wallace volunteered for the military in September 1914. Leaving with the rank of Colour Sgt, he served with the 18th Yorkshire Regiment. This battalion never left Britain, it's thanks to John Wallace and his comrades that the North East Coast and Margate were defended. 

These 28mm figures are from Footsore and were absolutely lovely to paint.





x4 Soldiers (20pts),  + Gallery of Ancestor (20pts)

KenR : 28mm Italian Allied Cavalry Part 2 : 120 points


Its been a while since I posted anything ! I just did a 9 days out of 10 working stretch which put the painting and commenting on posts for the Challenge to the back of the pile.


Thankfully I managed to get through the vast majority of the Italian Allied Legion Project at the start of the Challenge so I have a bit of slack time and I am well on target to finish the Legion

So here is the second group of Cavalry for the Project, 12 x 28mm Aventine Miniatures at 10 points a piece for a grand total of 120 points.


Here is the fan favourite, Project Progression Picture and there is not a lot of MDF left, the 8 missing Velite are next up (I've picked some up from Gripping Beast) which will just leave the Triarii and the Main Commander to do. I'm going to do a Utubes painting tutorial for the Triarii if that is of interest to anyone.


Above is all 24 Cavalry together. If you enjoy Yarkshire Gamer I have entered the world of Podcasts and would love to have you all along as listeners. Search for Yarkshire Gamer on Spotify or click the link below which will take you in via Podbean. See you soon with some Velites.

From LeeH - 6mm Dark Age Round Houses

A long while back I was casting around for some 6mm buildings for use with my Ancients collections. I wanted some roundhouses and I think I got these from Timecast (happy to be corrected). They're nice little models although the integral cast resin base is really very thick. I think I bought these ahead of Challenge IX and although I had primmed them I never got round to actually painting them. 


The roundhouse is a simple structure made from wattle and daube with a timber frame and a thatch roof. The result is a structure that rarely leaves any physical remains and can only be identified from circles of postholes and the remains of drainage ditches and hearths. Anyone that has ever watched the excellent Time Team archaeology series will know these structures are ephemeral at best and perfectly epitomise why the period in which they were most common came to be known as the Dark Ages. 



I think I may be making a punt for the least amount of points given out in a single entry in Challenge XI (or maybe all time?). The dimension of these three bases is only 4.5" x 2.5" x 1.5" so a total of 16.87 square inches... a little over a tenth of a terrain cube, rounded down is 2 points. I'm happy with that, especially as these models have sat primed and waiting for my attention for close to three years! 

(Scoring - 1/10th Terrain Cube = 2 Points)