From Curt: 'Quack' from Moonstone (27 Points)

Well, as we are just about to close the holiday season's 'Free Fire' period for submissions, I thought I'd slip in  another of my own before Peter takes over with his Monday crew.

Pilot Jenny has set me down on the world of Skaro where I've met up with the very odd, but in ingenious Dr. Quack.  

Quack is a wizard/cleric in the Moonstone game. He's aligned with the Commonwealth faction, which are largely composed of humans and gnomes (though they do have some characters from other races as allies as well). He's not very powerful in combat, but is a terrific support character, being able to heal members of his troupe at a fairly good range (Moonstone is played on a 3' x 3' surface, so a 8-10" range is quite respectable), and to give his 'Foresight' ability, which provides a nice bonus to him or his allies for shooting and spells.

I had a lot of fun working on Quack. Looking at the figure, I imagined him as as sort of a ragamuffin, ill-kept fellow, so made his clothes and gear rather dirty and manky. For his bottles and the trippy smoke emanating from his potion I used some of the excellent Colourshift Paint from Greenstuff World. You'll probably see me using more of this stuff when I work on the upcoming faeries from this range. 

I understand that Quack has some excellent, ahem, 'non-prescription herbal medication' for evening relaxation. Now, where did Sarah hide the bong...

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Alrighty, being a 40mm figure, Quack will give me another 27 points, including the 'strange doctor' bonus for the planet Skaro. This will be my forth planet on the outer ring, which will allow me to travel to the middle orbital cluster. Weee!

Also, I can't ignore the chance to use up 'Q' for 'Quack' for my alphabet Soup Challenge (6 letters done now!).

Next time I promise I'll part from my norm and submit more than one figure. :)

Thanks for dropping in folks. Peter, take it away!

- Curt

From JohnS - Not As Many Spaniards As You Think - Solaris - 50 points

Hiho Fellow Challengers!

It's great to be back on the brushes again, among such august company. The Challenge is one of the highlights of my year as I get some motivation to finish more miniatures, as well as a chance to be part of the greater miniatures community on a purely social basis.

My first entry for this year is an optical illusion from the Peninsula on Solaris.

Are you seeing double?

To the untrained eye it might seem that there are twelve Spanish infantry of 1809 in this picture but you would be incorrect. Kind of.

You see, only SIX of these Spanish have been painted during the Challenge, the other six were painted previously so they're not really there! Your eyes have been deceived!

I have been painting my Napoleonic Spanish army for longer than the war went on it seems and have been mixing up different manufacturers to give it a little more ragtag and individualistic look. I painted a couple of dozen infantry earlier this year and when I went to base them I realised that there were only limited poses and brands involved. So I prepped a pile of the Warlord Spanish for the Challenge and have been working my way through them.

I finished six this week and based them up with six from the pre-Challenge lot but I am obviously only claiming painting points for the six.

Waiting for their turn at the painting table

I have gone a bit crazy with my prep for this Challenge, this is about a third of what I have cleaned up and primed. Go hard or go home I reckon.

I have an entry for this year's ABC Side Duel!

Plus this would be my first SQUIRREL! point.

And I cheekily try for the Solaris 20 point bonus to give me a total of 50 for this entry.

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Oh, those are some very nice Spanish, John, even the poor misbegotten six that you painted before the Challenge look terrific (and great hook to give them some press here, btw). :) These fellows look rather chic with their muted grey uniform, set off by their dark blue facings and red plumes.  I've always liked the Napoleonic Spanish as they had such incredibly colourful grear and a wide variety of jaunty (and crazy looking) headgear for us hobbyists to enjoy. 

Great work John!

PS: I think I may rip off your excellent Alphabet Soup table as I love visuals. 'P' is for Plagiarism... 

From DaveS - The Cream of French Nobility - Death Star - 120 points

The french army is nearly finished.  When I was looking at the next planet in the challenge, I came next to the Deathstar.  Now, when I think of the French Knights, they seem perfect for the theme of Hubris.  Since I needed to paint some anyway, they seemed like the perfect way to continue my journey.

Without delay, I present the unit of French Noble Cavalry.

Like the rest of the army, these are made from the Perry Plastic boxes.  The cream of the army, these were, like most of the Perry models, really fun to assemble and paint.

I have also painted a unit of "Brigans", light infantry with Long Spears.  These are, again Perry plastics

In total, this comes to 

5x28mm Cavalry =50pts

10x28mm Infantry  =50pts

Death Star Challenge Points =20pts

Total of 120 points.

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Wonderful work Dave! 'Hubris' and French cavalry (of pretty much any period!) seem to go hand-in-hand. Good one!

- Curt

From Kerry T (Valleyboy) - Project P - P is for Pious (70 points + squirrel)

Before I begin I must say how impressed I am by what I have seen posted here on the forum, there is such a superb and varied range of figures and the place is simply oozing painting talent. Its hard to keep up with it all but its certainly a real impetus and an incentive for me to keep stirring my lumpy Vallejo!

That said it leaves me to confess that it's always a problem when you promise to do something isn't it - this is because one is meant to keep their promises.

For this my second entry under my Project P (12 units with a link to the letter P). I've knocked off P for Peasant in my first post so my second offering is Pious

So here we go

I don't suppose you're going to let me get away with showing my wife's cooking are you? 

I thought I would choose something from Footsore Miniatures Barons War range this time. I love this range having signed up for the most recent Kick-starter.I'm regretting having not backed the first one and as a consequence I have almost caught up and bought much of what was previously produced and available. These lovely figures are sculpted by Paul Hicks.

Pilgrims on the road- the white cloaked figures are from the Templars pack

Here we have the Bishop of York 

The Bishop is accompanied by the Priest of St Oswald

The picture above shows both the mounted and foot version of the Priest of St Oswald, I have no idea why I have two foot figures though.

Ideally I would have liked to have added additional clergy to this band but unfortunately I had already slapped a little paint on both the Stephen Langton and Peter de Roche (Bishop of Winchester) figures before the challenge started and had not bought the Aymeric de St Maur figure and  Milities Christi Monks as I thought I had. Never mind, I'll just have to buy more, though its a shame that there is only one pack of Templars. To date I have just been buying figures as I fancied from the range but I think I'll now look to build a specific Pious retinue in the longer term. I'm sure these could be supplemented by a few outlaws and peasant levy from the range top make a decent force

It will be nice not to have to paint so much white next time, I've already started on some cavalry for my third entry which has been a nice change.

By my calculations I presume this is worth (10 x 5 plus 2 x 10) for 70 points. I'm not sure how the squirrel works but I assume its another 

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Lovely work Kerry (and moreso to your wife with that delicious looking strawberry pie). The Bishop is excellent and that dismounted St. Oswald is rather formidable with his big club and shield. Also, great work on the white tabards of the Templars - it can often be such a grind to get right. Of course, this is all helped along by the marvellous sculpts by Paul Hicks - the guy is a genius (and amazingly prolific!).

Well done Kerry. Now, go enjoy a slice of that pie for us. :)

- Curt

From IanS: Yet more 15mm Additions

 So second week in and painting still at a pace although the hand shakes still causing trouble with fine detail, but as these figures are for wargaming and will be used weekly I am happy with how they have turned out. 

Ancients:

Another unit of Ptolemaic Phalanx, in total there will be 4 of these units as Egyptian Militia and another 8 units of regular phalanx.  Again figures from Outpost wargaming services.

Nest up some ancient British slingers again these are from my ebay box so have no idea who the company is.  You can never have too many slingers especially as they are about the only missile arm units you will have for this army.

Seleucid reinforcements, another Cataphract unit figures from Outpost Wargaming again.  I like these figures they have a nice feel to them, and they come with open hands so you can add spears.  Revenge is sweet as there is a club member who has all his armies armed with piano wire which has left numerous injures to gamers hands.

And last but not least the Cataphract Command.  Outpost again these are from their Parthian Command figure set.

Napoleonic now, more Wurttemberg units.

Infantry Battalion again figures of unknown origin from the good old ebay box.  Every year I buy figures on ebay with no real intent on what to do with them.  Thank you Curt for allowing me to join the Challenge as it is helping to clear the large lead pile in the ebay box. (Also a big thankyou from my wife).

The last regiment for the 1809 8^th Corp cavalry division, the 2^nd Horse Jaegers, Pink facings you just do not see this enough in armies.

Here is the command for this Division on the left the Divisional commander next the Brigadier for the Horse Jaeger brigade and then the Brigadier for the Chevauleger brigade.  

Here is a view of the entire Division with Cheavaxleger on left then the Horse Jaegers and finally the Horse artillery.

Two of these regiments painted prior to the challenge.

As stated in last post all the cavalry and guns come from the Warlord Games Epic Waterloo range.

So, points I would like to claim:

Ptolemaic Phalanx - 16  x 15mm figures = 32

Ancient British Slingers  – 8 x 15mm figures = 16

Seleucid Cataphracts – 12 x 15mm figures = 48 

Seleucid Cataphracts  Cmd – 2 x 15mm figures = 8 

Wurttemberg Cavalry – 12 x 15mm figures = 48

Wurttemberg Infantry – 24 x 15mm figures – 48 

Wurttemberg Cavalry Cmd  – 4 x 15mm figures – 16                                      

Total claimed – 216 points.

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Wow! You've been very industrious Ian, colour me impressed!

Great looking ancients. I love open-handed figures as they avoid the much-hated (well, by me) spaghetti spears and lances. The Napoleonics look terrific as well. I've always enjoyed the Wurttemberger uniforms as they add nice colour to the tabletop (and the French always need allies to die for them from time to time). :)

Oh, a reminder to you and others: please remember to add metadata notes on your entries in the right sidebar when you're drafting your post. Thanks!

Great work Ian!

- Curt

KenR : 28mm Garibaldi Firing Line (122 pts)

 

No surprises here as the second unit of Garibaldi Infantry rolls off the production line, I am in a bit of a groove with these and as I have 6 units of 24 prepped I may as well keep going until I get bored !

The figures are from Gringo 40 who do a really good range for the period, I have chosen to pose this unit as a firing line, which reminded me why I had gone for deeper 60 x 60 bases. This time I moved the ranks of figures to the rear of the bases to protect the muskets !

They are well detailed and give a nice "uniformed" but a bit revolutionary look. For this unit I have randomised the facings a bit more than the first unit. I've mixed in full, piped and no facings, the addition of kepi troops (both piped and un-piped) also adds to the look. This unit has been given white trousers with red stripes, I like to have some sort of theme for units like this, not for any historical accuracy mind, just to make putting thousands of the little guys away in a box in the same units at the end of a big game !

This is a full unit for the Challenge, unlike the last one which I had done a test base for prior to the start so this one is a full claim of 24 figures at 5pts a piece for 28mm and that adds another 120 points to my total.

I've decided to give the planetary journey a miss this year to try and keep my focus on this Project so I have already started on the next unit of Garibaldi, aiming at 6 figures (or a base) each day I'm off work. I've also got a small amount of Cavalry / Mounted Officers so the horses for those figures are being oiled up as we speak.

Just to finish here is a picture of the Project to date

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Fabulous work again, Ken! The firing poses give a nice variation from the previous advancing unit.  I also like the addition of the red-striped trousers to give them a little more uniqueness. GregB and I have based our Napoleonics much the same as you, with a more elongated base to help protect the muskets and bayonets. It's certainly paid-off over the years! 

I've added a couple of points for the banners as I'm not sure if I did for the previous unit.

You'll be missed in the starlanes Ken, but I understand the need for focus (though I rarely follow it). I look forward to seeing this project move forward in leaps and bounds during the Challenge.

- Curt

From MattK - Villains for Crisis Protocol (28 Points)

Hello everyone,

Glad to be back for another year.

One of the games I've been playing regularly in the last while is Marvel Crisis Protocol. With the slew of excellent movies lately I decided it was time to get a few of the villains done.  

This time I painted up Green Goblin, Carnage, and Doc Ock. I love the figures for Goblin and Carnage though I find the (included in the starter box) figure for Ock a little on the bland side. I wanted to get him done though because I just got the new rival panel bundle (with an updated sculpt) in the mail. 

I also took this time to paint up Jean Grey to go with my X-Men stuff.

Another cool sculpt. I'm a huge fan of the game and am looking forward to putting a dent in my pile as I've actually picked up most of the available figures so far and have only painted a chunk. 4 40mm figures at 7 points each for a total today of 28 points.

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Lovely work on these Sups Matt! I particularly like the exhaust on the Green Goblin and Jean Grey's 'magical' effects lifting her from her base. Too bad they didn't do Doc Ock with his pods keeping him aloft, like the early Spiderman animated series (but maybe that's coming). 

Anyway, very cool minis and wonderfully painted. Well done Matt and welcome back to the Challenge!

- Curt

From PeterD Vulcan: Pointy Eared Goblins (36 Points)

I am continuing a clockwise orbit round the outer rim with a stop at Vulcan, with he brief of something logical or pointy ears.  Well nothing logical about this crew but lots of pointy ears.

I have 4 28mm scale Goblins from Wizkids.  These have a real old school feel to them and delightfully mischievous faces.  I kept the paint schemes muted and minimalist but there is a fair amount of detail on these little charmers.  They would to pose a serious opposition to an adventuring party in an open fight, but they are not likely to get into to fair fight are they?  They could be a major pain in the tuccus sniping from behind rocks or in a forest.

Normally I put some foliage clumps on my bases but this lot might just as easily be found in caverns or dungeons as on the surface so went for plain rocky effects.  They are sold as 28mm figures but are vertically challenged, so I'll look to the Snowlord for points (maybe treat them as 15s?)

Here's a shot of them surrounded Father Padraig to give an idea of scale.  Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

if we treat them as 15s, this is 8 points for 4 goblins plus 20 for Vulcan making a total of 28 points.  The 8 base points should count for the fantasy side duel.  That's four posts in the first 10 days of the Challenge, when I am normally hard pressed to get one in- a combination fo cancelled travel plans, frigid weather and staying healthy over the Holidays.

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Haha! These a wonderfully charming little blighters, Peter. I particularly like their characterful faces - very Jim Henson. I suspect Father Padraig has some fast talking ahead of him. I also think your choice for dungeon-themed basework is spot-on. 

I do have a suggestion though: I notice that you sometimes have your groundwork coming off during play and transport. What has worked well for me is to mix a small portion of white glue with water (aprox 50/50), and then add touch of suitable colour (say a dark brown, or sepia for these little chaps). I then liberally apply it over the basework.  It will create a coloured wash with a glue binder, that when it drys, will be concrete-hard and give your bases a bit of tied-in colour as well. To add a little more depth, you can drybrush it up a tone before you add anything like tufts or foliage. Again, just a suggestion. 

I'm going to count these little fellas as 20mm models, so 16 points for the quartet, plus location bonus.

Great work Peter! I see that you'll be on-point tomorrow (thank you very much!), so I'll look forward to your next entry for next Sunday!

- Curt

From SimonG: The Jewish Revolt in 28mm (80 points)

It's great to finally be back and posting for AHPC XII! Thanks so much to Curt for expanding the roster and letting laggards like me in. For those that don't know me I'm a UK based returnee to the hobby having picked up my brushes two years ago after being out of the wargaming field for over 40 years. I've very much enjoyed getting stuck into my (now complete) 28mm HYW project and an ongoing 1980s cold war 10mm UK/USSR setup.

This time it's something new and actually something very close to me personally -- the Jewish Revolt CE 66-74. My introduction to this period in history comes from living in Israel as an eight year old in 1973-74 (which btw may lead to another modern war project as our stay involved living thorough the '73 Yom Kippur war). A highlight of our time In Israel was visiting Masada which made a great impression on me. Since picking up Josephus I've always been fascinated by this doomed rebellion and it's aftermath. The poster in the picture below dates from that sojourn in Israel and has been one we've always had on our walls in every house we've lived in.

Embarking on a Jewish revolt project I had to decide a) whether to go for large scale (e.g. Impetus) or skirmish rules, and b) what scale. As there were few real large scale battles I opted for Skirmish (Clash of Spears) and that pushed me to 28mm. Unfortunately no one makes 28mm jewish revolutionaries. The classic solution is to take Numidians and do some head swapping. 

The 28mm bodies I used are mostly Victrix (all of the ones with spears or swords) then slingers from Crusader. 

Many suggest using Germanic heads but these are rather too hirsute so after some hunting around I found Anvil make some suitable heads intended for modern US Ranger types but actually pretty good for First Century Jews. They're a bit larger than classic 28mm but once painted up work fine. A few of the heads (e.g. those with helmets) are original Numidians with an attempt to rough up the corn rows and one head (I'll let you spot the very hairy fellow) is a haircut I made up out of Milliput!

Anvil also provided cloaks which worked well once cut down and messed up, I had to build up the front parts with Milliput (still working on that I'm afraid). 

The final touch is to add tzitzit which I made out of small pieces of my ubiquitous button thread (used for stringing bows) -- I quite liked giving the pieces some dynamism with the whipping strings!

With a suitably muted palette and attention to faces and hair I think these came out OK and I'm looking forward to building out the force and adding the Romans.

Anyway hear are some close ups -- hope you enjoy them and thanks again for welcoming me into this great community.

Points wise I think that's 60 for the figures (12 x 5) plus I'll claim 20 points bonus for a landing on Caprica -- I think we can definitely hold this out as a doomed rebellion the consequences of which we can still feel today on the Temple Mount!

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First Simon, welcome back to the Challenge. I'm delighted we could find space for you in the ranks.

This is a wonderful project with such an interesting personal connection ( I love that poster, wow.).  I find your modifications to create Jewish revolutionaries to be brilliant. Modern US Ranger heads?! Who would have thought that would work? Well, they work brilliantly as it turns out. Amazing. I'm going to add a few bonus points for the mods as they are certainly deserved. 

Excellent and inspired work, Simon. I very much look forward to seeing this project develop over the next few months!

- Curt