From JohnE - 28mm Town Crier [Babylon5] - 25 Points.

Just cruising around the Quadrant at a scorching sub-light speed. Here's a Town Cryer [sic] from Foundry. Same old bag of tricks - Scale75 ScaleColor and InstantColors. Makes a pretty good animated character for Sharp Practice and seems operatic to me, so fingers crossed.

Points Summary:

1x28mm foot @ 5 points = 5 points

Babylon5 (Outer Ring) bonus = 20 points

Total = 25 points

From DaveD

Oj yay, oh yay,,i can hear him shout from here - lets add another 25 to the tally!

From JeremyM: Solar System, Demon Donoldium Drumph [Death Star] (60 points)

  Hi All,

Procrastination (and waiting on a birthday to not spoil a surprise) has me starting a bit late this year, but I was painting pretty frantically right at the start of the challenge. I’ll start my first entry with something that might fall under the terrain category perhaps?

3D Print of Solar System to scale

So this first entry is a model of the solar system I made for my nephew who just turned 7 this past weekend. He loves space and when I saw this model on thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4656228) I just had to print and paint it for him. So I’m a little unclear at what scale the figures one might play with on this model as the scale of it is 1: 1,250,000,000, so umm figures the size of dust might be too big. That being said Curt pushed me to include this in the challenge as it fit this year’s theme to a T!

Earth and the moon are 3rd from the left

Saturn's ring was rather thin, but survived shipping

I printed the overall structure (the two halves of the base and the two halves of the partial sun) as well as the big planets on my ender 3 max in PLA filament. It’s a pretty big model with the base coming in around 40cm wide, 20cm tall. Jupiter is about 10 or 15 cm alone. The small planets and all of the writing were printed in resin. I had to learn how to make text 3d to do this, but it was worth it to add the planet names for him even if it did start to make the base look a bit busy. Fun to also learn a new 3d modelling skill as well. Researching how to paint the planets was a challenge. I’m not sure I got it completely right as the online photos and colours vary depending on when they were taken, the light etc. Overall this took me about 1 month to print and another month to paint. My nephew loved his birthday present…despite it not really being a toy. He told me on videochat that “I have the whole world in my hands!”  Made me a pretty happy uncle to hear that! The model does an excellent job giving a real sense of scale. Since I completed the final parts of this right around the start of the challenge I’ll claim 1 terrain submission for 20 points as a lot was done prior to that but the model is pretty darn big so at least 6” square would have been painted near the end. And now onto my Hubris entry for the Death Star…and what a more fitting entrant than the embodiment of “excessive pride or self-confidence” than the former legitimately not re-elected U.S. President.

Demon Donoldium Drumph

This model I call Demon Donoldium Drumph. He is a kitbash of a great old one on a scooter (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4057326) and a caricature of Donald Trump (https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/donald-trump-pooyanofsky ).  He was made for a campaign game I was running using OnePageRules GrimDark Future setting. Over the course of the game there were multiple variations of Donoldium Drumph as he morphed into ever more evil versions until he finally met his demise fittingly sent back to the warp by Curt’s Inquisitor model. I’ll post a synopsis of our campaign on Curt’s blog soon (thanks Curt!).

Various versions of Donoldium Drumph from our campaign

Since he is riding what is effectively a death guard blight-hauler I think he likely counts as a 28mm vehicle. So I'll start my journey on the Analogue Hobbies galaxy on the Death Star....hmm where to next?

1 Terrain @ 20 points
1 28mm Vehicle @ 20 points
Death Star @ 20 points
Total  = 60 points

Thanks, JeremyM

From DaveD 

A welcome to another of the Friday crew - great to have you along. I agree it certainly fits the theme alright! Even better you got to be the cool uncle! The Demon Donoldium Drumph is to me weirdly scary.. and rightly so i reckon. Good to have you off the mark - 60 it is!

From TomG - On The March To Salem via Arda - 640pts and lots of ACW (Arda) (Sarah's Yacht)

Hey all, I have returned with many figures to share with you all. I have however decided to go no further on the planet rings until my American Civil War project is finished, and yet I wanted to get the outer ring completed. 

So here we are, first port of call is a trip on Sarah's Yacht with this female mouse figure out of the board game "Mice & Mystics", measuring in at the 28mm mark. 

Although not my favourite model I have ever painted, it went quickly and, I feel, turned out quite nicely. Sadly it wasn't until too late that I noticed the photos are slightly out of focus... whoops. 

But with this ticket bought (properly this time) I shall sail all the way to Arda, and bring out this fantastic Highlander Cow, which admittedly is my wife's, but I was given permission to paint it for her. 

He was a delight to paint, and a fun challenge to get the hair as ginger as possible. This was also my first time painting tartan, and it was both terrifying and fun, all at the same time. 

Now on to the project at hand! To join in with the two stands of Union troops from last week, I bring you the final 60 Yankees. Again all of this project will be painted with GW Contrast Paints, in an experiment to see just how quickly I can get them done. 

Now to this week's main focus; 2 sprues of Confederates, each sprue containing 100 infantry, 1 mounted officer, 1 cannon and 4 crew. Although rough and ready, the speed in which an all grey force comes together is very motivating for me. 

All told each sprue takes about 3 hours, with breaks, which allows for one an evening if I knuckle down, and the kids go to bed on time! 

So there we go, a grand total of 277 figures in one week, which is definitely a personal best for me, and one I will try to beat for next Friday!

Points Breakdown - 

15mm Infantry x 272 @ 2pts = 544pts

15mm Mounted x 3 @ 4pts = 12pts

15mm Artillery Piece x 3 @ 4pts = 12pts

28mm Mouse @ 5pts + Star Yacht @ 20pts = 25pts

28mm Mounted (monster) @ 10 pts + Challenge 20pts = 30pts

See you all next week. 

Tom. 

From DaveD

Did you hear that one coming people! Its a whole lotta KABOOM from Tom. That's a fine Highland cow - I am sure James from the chat will be impressed! Its been great to have you around on the evening chats this week and watch you work through the sprues while chatting the tedium away - the way you have chosen to do them is certainly working. I have topped you up with extra points for being a tartan virgin for a grand total of 640!

From: PaulS - Highway to... somewhere? (90 points)

As you saw in the last update, I've been making modular tables during lockdown as it's been fun creating little vignettes on a single hex to drop into tables. In February I have a 7TV event coming up and challenged myself to take two complete setups with me for people to use. The first was the swamp you saw, the next one is a fantasy(ish) village that has... well. I'll leave that for a later one for a surprise. One of the things I wanted for the layout is a wide country road that would allow carts to go side by side, rather than the thin footpath that was through the swamp. So that's what this lot make when they are laid out properly. There are enough road tiles to do a wide road across a 3x3 layout, which pleases me. There are also some additional grass and mud tiles to flesh out the rest of the table layout.

Scale figure this year is a GW ghoul so you can see how large one of the hexes is. Each hex is a 3d printed ridged plate that fits into a riser to form a modular gaming table. This makes for really easy additions to the table and easy storage/transport of basic tiles. Each hex is then treated with various basing techniques scaled up a bit and industrialised for batch creation. Each ridge and scuff of the mud is carefully sculpted to give that perfect earthen effect... or not.

Out the back you can see the graveyard that was build about a year ago. There are some extensions to this for later in the challenge so we'll come back to that later!

And this is the layout that I'm working on for the event. The road and grass tiles can be seen just to the right of the first house. The three houses on the right need painting/basing over the next couple of weeks, along with making all of the missing/blank hexes. This needs to be finished by the 4th of Feb... so there's a bit of work to do... wish me luck! The below photo is from before I finished the other half of the roads to take it all the way across, but the photo above shows the full road in all it's glory

Each hex is 86x100mm. There are 22 tiles to add, 19 are roads, 3 are grassland/grazing. Scoring depends on how you want to lay them out. After a debate on Facebook with some of the Minions, I decided to follow PeteD's decision (rather than AdamC's grab as many points as you can!), which was that it should be if they are laid out for use, rather than put away. If I put them out in the most compressed form (rather than Adam's gaming the system and laying them all end to end, for a 96x4 inch layout) it comes out as a more reasonable 19x16 inches... so that's just over 9 cubes (180 points), but they are flat and pretty basic, so I'll go for 90 points please! Feel free to downgrade if that seems ridiculous!

From DaveD

Oh boy , i may need to call on a mathemagician - the minions favouraite how much is this terrain worth ploy eh... I am happy tp go with the general minion consensus as per the FB chat - so its 90 points on hexagonal goodness!

From DougM: Ambush in Normandy - (60 Points)

This one I thought would be a dawdle, just whack some Late War German 'Ambush Camouflage' on a couple of vehicles, Caprica sorted, bish bosh, jobs a good 'un.  

Except that when I checked, the Ambush Camouflage scheme didn't come into use until September 1944. And as I am building these for use in a Normandy campaign, well, that's kind of torn it. So I must add some foliage, claim they are in ambush for the Allies, and throw myself on the mercy of the Minions!

Rubicon 1/56 Panther & a Resin SdKfz 250 of unknown Provenance

The 12th SS Panzer Division was almost completely re-equipped before redeploying to the Normandy battles, so I kept the weathering to a minimum, just some dried mud/dust and a bit of very light chipping. 

The Rubicon Panther is a very nice model, with the only thing that I felt could have been improved would be the inclusion of some PE for the engine grille as Rubicon did with their Tiger II. I picked up the halftrack second hand, so I have no idea where it is from. It's actually quite a nice little model but it looks absolutely tiny next to modern 28mm figures. I sometimes regret going with 1/56 instead of 1/48 for my vehicles, but then I think about all the ranges I would miss out on. 

Anyway - still on 1 Squirrel Point, and a total of:

2 x 28mm Vehicles @ 20 = 40

Caprica - for another 20 =20

For a total of 60 points.

From DaveD

aaah the old 28mm scale debate chestnut - I have some sympathy with that - I think 1/48th (or even it seems 1/50th) look better overall than the 1/56th stuff but of course the better  availability makes a difference - any way you've done a grand job on a big cat and its little friend. Ambush!! hmmm ok i will just about go with that - though i think they might get spotted!!

From BenitoV: Having Fun with Smoke at Babylon 5 (30 points)

 Greetings, Galactic Hitchhickers. Today's destination is Babylon 5.

After a pleasent flight in a third class cabin in Sarah's Yacht shared with some disturbing aliens, we arrived to this planet well known in the whole Galaxy by its joie de vivre.

The submission today is a 2-inch mortar team for my Chain of Command Canadian infantry platoon core project in this year's Challenge. 

The small 2-inch mortar was an ubiquitous support weapon at platoon level in all the British and assimilated TOEs during the Second World War. Tipically, many armies in the early stages of the conflict displayed similar weapons; but over time these were discarded as the "punch" from such a small caliber was ineffective, while tactics evolved to offer better support from the higher echelon artillery (medium and heavy mortar units)

 

The British army however kept these small mortars in TOE through the war; but the main tactical use shifted from pinning enemies to mainly providing smoke coverage to the advancing infantry squads. In fact, the Chain of Command rules allow a very accurate historical use of these mortars and every game with a Commonwealth army in play, usually ends with the table filled with lots of small cotton balls representing the smoked areas.

 

Why Babylon 5? As the planet theme is "low budget fun", you'll probably agree with me: what would be funnier that smoking your enemies with such low cost weapon XD.

The mortar team belongs to the 28 mm multipose Warlord's plastic British and Canadian infantry box. One of the head alternatives in this box is a guy wearing glasses that I found also fun to become part of this lively and smoky team.

 

According to my calculations this entry is worth 30 points that adds to my total score so far in this year's Challenge

2 x 28 mm models @5 points each =         10 points

Babylon 5 (outer ring) bonus =                   20 points 

Total =                                                          30 points

From DaveD

Indeed the ubiquitous 2inch mortar and whole lotta smoke to come . Fine additions to your core project alright - 30 points it is .

From MartijnN: At last on firm ground - Elves on Vulcan (68 points)

Wow. That was a lot more trouble than I supposed it to be. Talk about life getting in the way, or rather about my unusual talent for procrastination. However, we seem to be off at last! My first contribution to Challenge XII concerns pointy ears. Yes, I know, the pesky little subjects I present to you today have gone to great lengths to hide there earish disfigurations, but you and I know a wood elf when we see one, don't we? So conceal them all they can, we know that those pointy ears are there, beneath those fancy hoods! Thus, we may safely proceed to Vulcan!

These 15mm Chariot Miniatures Wood Elves are actually a quite recent addition to my very ancient DBA/ Hordes of the Things fantasy armies. I bought a fair number of orcs and elves back in the nineties, painted some up, and then largely forgot about the rest, until I discovered a few years ago that Chariot Miniatures are still being produced and sold by Magister Militum. Thus these Spears and Light Cavalry were drafted into my Elven Army. They are rather nice figures, if somewhat traditional and monoposed of course, in the old fashioned way.

As usual, this is a rather basic paint job; after all, these are wargaming figures (also, actually I am hardly capable of anything more sophisticated!). I used mostly Citadel Contrast paints, using every single shade of green I could find, and some of the Instant Colors by Scale75, more or less their variant on the contrast theme. However, I must admit that although I am a huge fan of the Contrast range, I am less impressed by the Instant Colors. Most of the paints are so translucent to almost be washes. Still, they have their use. I gave the figures a protective coat of The Army Painter's Soft Tone, and coat of varnish to dull down the gloss finish that provides, though they may need another coat of that to remove all shine.

So there you have it. Pointswise:

- 8 15mm foot @ 2pts = 16

-8 15mm horse @ 4pts = 32

- Vulcan bonus: 20

For a total of 68 points. And a squirrel ;-)

From DaveD

Welcome along , one less for the great cut!! . Interesting to hear your views on the contrast versus instant paint. That kicks you challenge off and onward!

From JohnE - 28mm Second World War Vehicles - 42 Points

As primarily a Second World War gamer, the bulk of my "pile o' shame" consists of vehicles - lots and lots of vehicles. In an attempt to motivate myself and ostensibly others in 2020, I created the #vehicluary hashtag on Twitter (feel free to liberally sprinkle groans, boos and thumbs down) with the idea of devoting all of January hobby time to vehicles. As one might suspect, it got zero traction.

However, being a stubborn git, I rebranded it in 2021 as #danktankuary (feel free to liberally sprinkle praise, cheers and thumbs up). "This is it!" I thought - one of the greatest hobby hashtags of all time. Viral in no time.

Alas, again, I rolled a zero BUT I am continuing this year with DANKTANKUARY (see "stubborn git"). Here are my first "Dank Tanks" for this year.

Here's a French AMC-35 from Shapeways. This was sprayed with the MIG French Armor Colors. Not the greatest print, but on the table it looks ok.

Next is a Warlord Jagdpanzer IV, sprayed with AK Real Colors and foliaged up with Green Stuff World Tall Shubbery. This was my first time using these AK acrylic lacquers and, apart from the odor, they were a complete delight to airbrush.

Points Summary:

2x 28mm vehicle @ 20 points = 40 points

Total = 40 points

From DaveD

Now that's a fine pair. The AK products are good to use i agree and you've got a great result. Love the camo and foliage too  - which handily I have a pack of and will nick that idea! I will give you 2 points for tank commander too.