From LeeH - More British Airborne

As is my way I bought way too many miniatures when I started this project. In my defence the models are just so nice I couldn't resist and the spare figures have enabled me to paint up a few more support units and spare leaders for my Chain of Command British airborne platoon. I did these as a batch and I'm really happy with how the camo on the Denison Smock's came out this time. 

First off there is a 17pdr Anti Tank Gun with a crew of five men and a separate junior leader. This time if decided to base the whole lot on a single large round base and included a small dice holder to mark off casualties. 

Next, there is a Vickers HMG on a Tripod mount, with a crew of 5 men. One gunner, a loader, two spotters and a spare man. Again I have added a dice frame to the base for marking off casualties. 

Then I painted three Senior Leaders. All my Senior leader models have a clump of red flowers on the base to make them stand out a bit, although I have in the past also painted the rim of the base red. One of the models represents the famous Major Digby Tatham-Warter who went into battle with his umbrella. At one point in the battle at Arnhem Bridge, he disabled a German armoured car by sticking the umbrella through the vehicles vision slit and poking the driver in the eye! 

The remaining models are Junior Leaders and will have a yellow band around the base. Also amongst this lot is a figure with a wireless set hiding behind a log. He will be used as an Observer for off table barrages or air support. 

As I say, I'm really happy with how these turned out and these complete my British Airborne. Hahaha, who am I kidding, no project is ever complete, I'm sure I'll find some other support units to add and I still have quite a few spare Peter Pig and Skytrex figures in my lead pile. 

(Scoring: 18x15mm Foot & 1x15mm Artillery = 40 Points)

From DaveD - A diversion to ‘Nam - 5 points

 Ok - I didn’t see this coming ... and you can firmly blame Martin C of this parish , a zoom chat and a libation or 3 . A few weeks ago we decided to do a large Vietnam skirmish game. . Of course Martin has already been there bought them , painted them  - but hey - I will muller him with firepower in the end ! 

I have opted for Gringos40 sculpts . They are very nice indeed. So I have a stash laid in that will be the focus of the next few weeks . 

So after a little bit of testing and working out my paint recipe here is the USMC  Lt. 

Given I am used to knocking out large 36-48 figure units regularly it’s going to be fun concentrating on a small number of figures. 

  

The proper firepower will be along in due course... who doesn’t love a loaded Skyraider- well apart from Martin..

 

So one 28mm figure - 5 points 

From ArthurS: Into the Guardroom we go! (25points)

 Hoi,

 Ever since Arthur showed an interest in painting miniatures (and the Challenge has been a great motivation for him to keep going) I have tried to coach him in doing it better every time. Coaching mind you, not pushing because he has a really strong mind of his own (must be he got that from his mum) and has for long discarded the notion of painting in between the lines. So lately I have been tryig to get him to take a bit more care in painting more carefully and taking more notice of the details on the figures. What I mean is that he makes almost no disctinbction between a tunic, the belt over it, the pouches on that belt, and so on and so on: it all gets the same basic colour.

For the Guardroom I gave him an old GW Battlemaster Empire Guardsman with the intention for him to paint one and for me to paint 4 more. But things got in the way and he wants to enter the final Chamber of Challenge so we have to press on.

Therefore we only can provide you Arthur's latest effort in painting between the lines with this guard we will be using in Heroquest from now on. 

 

That makes for an easy points count of 5 + 20 = 25 points to be added to the boys talley!

 

Cheers Sander and Arthur

 

From MilesR: Russo-Japanese War Fleets for Graveyard Beach (216 Points)

 

Last year I embarked on another large project - the Russo-Japanese War in 6mm but never got around to finishing the naval portion of the conflict.  One really can't game the RJW without doing the naval side and Graveyard Beach seemed to be a great reason to finish up this project.  I present to you the Imperial Russian Fleet - every capital ship and destroyer or torpedo boat flotilla that participated in the war.  Sadly for the Russians, only a handful of these ships survived the war.

First up is the Port Arthur Fleet.  This fleet had more Battleships than the Japanese Navy and posed a very serious threat.  The fleet attempted to sortie against the Japanese several times but were unsuccessful.  Interestingly - hostilities commenced in the RJW by a torpedo boat sneak attack on the harbor that severely damaged 2 ships.   

In addition to the Port Arthur Squadron, the Russian had 4 Cruisers based in Vladivostok.  While much smaller than the Port Arthur force these 4 ships proved to be very successful commerce raiders.  They sortied 5 times and were responsible for sinking 15 transports including one that carried the only steam engines Japan had that would fit the Russian rail gauge, which severely impacted the ability for Japan to move supplies up to the front.

This small fleet was eventually brought to battle off Ulsan in August of 1904.  3 Russian Cruisers faced off against 6 Japanese.  The result was limited damage to the Japanese and 1 Russian Cruiser sunk (Rurik) while the other two were heavily damaged.

With Port Arthur under siege, The Russian Imperial command decided to send the Baltic fleet to reinforce there Pacific fleet counter parts.  These reinforcements were organized into 2 fleets - the 2nd and 3rd Pacific fleets.  First up is the second fleet which rivaled the entire Japanese fleet in terms of fire power 

The 3rd Pacific Fleet consisted of an older battleship and some armored cruisers.  These fleets joined up right before the battle of Tsushima.  Well, we all know had that turned out....

In addition to Capital ships (cruisers and battleships) the Russians had 8 Destroyer Flotillas and 2 Torpedo Boats flotillas involved in the conflict.

All of these models are 1/2400 resin 3D prints from War Times Journal.  Fantastic models but a bit on the delicate side.

Well, if one is going to do the Russian fleet from the RJW, one should also do the Japanese equivalent also, so please meet the Imperial Japanese Fleet.

The heart of the fleet are its 8 battleships - 6 first class ships and 2 smaller obsolete ones.  Both of the obsolete battleships would be lost to mines while on blockade duty at Port Arthur.

The Japanese Cruiser force did most of the work during the war

The Japanese employed 4 Destroyer and 7 Torpedo Boat Flotillas.

The Russians were terrified of the Japanese Torpedo Boats and often fired on neutral party fishing boats after mistaking them for the enemy.   This included one infamous incident of the Russians sinking one and damaging 5 other British fishing boats in the North Sea.  This little escapade became known as the "Dodger Bank Incident" and almost lead to War between Britain and Russia.  During the same incident, the Russians fired upon themselves and heavily damaged the cruiser Aurora.

Just for fun, 8 transports were added to serve as objective markers for escort types of engagements.

So there you have it - all of the capital ships that were involved in the RJW in glorious 1/2400 scale.  There are 98 total ship bases and I think the going rate for 1/2400 ships is 2 point per so that nets me a 196 points.  Add on top of that the 20 for the room and this little entry will yield me 216 points 

The Battle of Liaoyang.

These fleets along with my 6mm armies will allow me to game just about any aspect of the RJW there is. 

From Mike W, 20 x Orc Big Boyz and 2 Goblin Fanatics (110 Points)

Don't you just hate it when a back-up paint job suddenly becomes the main event, relegating another perfectly good job further down the painting queue!

The finished figures

Well that's what happened here, I am half way though painting another Ottoman Janissary Orta for my Siege of Venice project when, as is their want, these Orc Big Boyz bullied their way to the front of the queue!

Another view of the figures

Orcs and Goblin Fanatics

Oh well, maybe the Turks will be ready by the end of the week...

Figures as the tumbled out of the box that I found

What we have here is a group of 20 Orcs that spilled out of their box, undercoated and ready to paint. They are from the group of figures I found in the bowels of the loft a couple of weeks ago.

As it happens, when I looked at these closer, they are a mash-up of some left over Warhammer Fantasy Orcs and 40K Space Orcs, deliberately brought together to make 20 Big Boyz figures each armed with two hand weapons.

Rear rank of Orc Warriors

A fair number for them seem to be wearing kilts and I did consider giving the unit a Scots highland flavour but I chickened out of that in the end, in favour of a more dour appearance. 

Third rank of figures

These figures were spray painted in black as an undercoat - which I no longer do and ages these figures to be about 8, 9 or more years old.

So the approach I took was to paint in the flesh in green and then applied grey, brown and black paint to block in their clothing. Leather was also applied to belts, boots and straps etc where appropriate. 

Second rank of figures

One of the figures has an interesting body - a Chaos Warrior's body armour - obviously looted from a fallen foe. Many have weapons looted from other sources such as Beastmen and Chaos Warriors. the units banner is a looted Beastman banner, with Orcish paraphernalia added!

Command rank of the Orc unit, with musician, Standard Bearer and Champion

Another figure has been painted to represent a rare beast - an albino Orc! I painted this flesh a light green colour and then dry-brushed in progressively lighter greens and finally a linen and then white before applying a very light green wash. I gave this guy a back banner as well to highlight him even further.

My attempt at an albino Orc!

I gave the figures a matt varnish finish and used a mix of fine sand, electrostatic grass and green flock to finish off the bases.

Also in the box were two old Goblin Fanatics, I have painted these up and given them a red trim so that they can be added to the Red Gobo group I did earlier in the Challenge! 

Goblin Fanatics Close-up

POINTS

20 Warhammer Orcs @5Pts ea                          = 100 Points

2 x Warhammer Goblin Fanatics @ 5 Pts ea    = 10 Points

TOTAL                                                                  = 110 Points

From AlexS: tanks! (176 pst)

Hi everyone! My name is Alex, I am still from Russia and I still love tanks. They are beautiful because they do vroom-vroom and pew-pew. We bring to your attention tanks and self-propelled guns of Germany for the period of the early and late stages of the second world war. They are all produced by the "Zvezda" company and allow either to supplement a large army for this period, or to play according to small rules like "What a tanker". Camouflage and numbers are applied at random, the coloring of the "Mouse" tank is also arbitrary, according to the pattern that is kept in a museum in Russia. I really hope that I can play with them in the near future. Well, or I just walk around the table, saying: "vroom-vrum", "pew-pew".

 22 tanks 15mm [ 8 pts = 176 pts

WOTR Men at Arms 28mm 60 points Matthew Williamson

 War of the Roses Men at Arms

Been a bit quite as I am slogging my way through 304 1/72 Cuirassiers for a customer order, in between I have been painting War of the Roses Men at Arms for another customer and some Gauls for myself. Figures are from Perry miniatures metal and plastic range, lovely figures. Customer wll base them.

28mm Mounted @ 10 points = 60 points

cheers

Matt

From Barks: Cult vehicles at the Snowlord's Altar (75 points)

The Snowlord Challenged me to paint two 28mm vehicles. I shy away from painting vehicles, mostly because of the variety of techniques I'm not comfortable with. There's a balance I can't achieve between my style, a realistic scale model style, and speed. So I've been putting off painting these vehicles for years.

These are civilian mining vehicles, weaponised by my cult for the coming uprising. The predominant colour is a utilitarian grey with some hazard stripes because safety. The kits are nice, with a lot of options in assembly. Because I don't know any better, I made a rod for my own back by trying to make as many of these options viable as possible. I literally chopped and changed several things during the assembly process. I did them in subassemblies, which made painting easier but it was more like painting two dozen models than just two.

Subassemblies before Army Painter Uniform Grey spray.
It took me days to get the models to this stage.

Achilles Ridgerunner

The Ridgerunner is a cool zippy little buggy, with a lot of options. I 3D printed some extra parts to give me all the options, and fiddled around with magnets and superglue and swearing. I experimented with pigments on the tyres (Vallejo European Earth)- I don't want too much weathering, but I still didn't quite get the effect I was looking for.

Missile Launcher and Spotter

Two Heavy Stubbers

The markings are decals left over from old scale model kits.

Spotter

I made antennas from stretched sprue. Two snapped during painting. Pennants were from stickers wrapped around the antenna.

Stretched-sprue antenna and pennant

I prefer grunts to vehicles. The kneeling character has legs from the Wargames Atlantic Raumjäger kit, which were a little too large but not criminally so.

Heavy Mining Laser and Flare Launcher

Heavy Mortar and Survey Augur

Goliath Truck/ Rockgrinder

The second vehicle I inflicted on myself was a Goliath I picked up at CanCon 2019. Again, I spent a lot of time prepping this so I could use all the options. This mining vehicle has two main choices- the Goliath Truck, or the Goliath Rockgrinder.

Goliath Truck

The Goliath Truck is a troopcarrier. I shaved a few bits away to allow three previously painted 25mm-based figures to fit inside.

Troop compartment

Twin-linked Autocannon

Commander has a Heavy Stubber

Goliath Rockgrinder

The Goliath Rockgrinder is a utility mining vehicle, and the back is covered. The mining arm has a dedicated operator, and the main attraction is the Drilldozer Blade. All of these are magnetized. I used some Tamiya 5mm tape for masking the hazard stripes on the blade, and freehanded the rest.

Covered tray

Drilldozer Blade

Heavy Mining Laser

Clearance Incinerator

Heavy Seismic Cannon

Operator's console

I'm relieved to have these vehicles done, but I didn't love the process. The effects I was keen to achieve seem to be done with airbrushes and specialty enamel products that I don't have. There are so many little details that I was quite fatigued by the end. Thank goodness no camouflage was involved! I am amazed at how some of you are able to churn out fleets of lovely big vehicles.

2x 28mm vehicles: 40 points

2 + (2 x ½) 28mm crew: 15 points

Snowlord's Altar: 20 points

GW side challenge: 55 points