From MilesR: A Little Slow Off The Blocks This Year (575 Points)

 I had great plans for the first few weeks of Challenge XIII but fate had other ideas for me.  On the morning of Dec 19th, I was on a board call with a UK company when there was a knock at my door.  It was a Maryland State Trooper informing me my wife had been in an auto accident and that I needed to come with her.  My lovely yet fierce Dr wife was taken to the county ER after her car crashed while driving into work.  The car spun around, rolled and the air bags deployed.  More importantly, the car did it's job protecting her as the trooper thought it was going to be a much worse outcome when they first rolled up.  She did have a concussion, a back injury plus some cuts and bruises and stayed in the hospital for that night. I was told by the ward nurse she was a difficult patient as she wouldn't let the nurses work on her until they had seen to their other patients and she could treat herself.  All I can could say was "tell me about it".

Anyway I lost week or so of painting time doing the more important tasks of caring for my wife and handling the insurance and related matters.  We are now life long fans of German Engineering and Audi's in particular and my wife has a shiny new 2023 A8.  I doubt we'll buy any other brand of car going forward.

My nursing duties are now done, which is good because I look horrendous in those white nursing outfits - here's a picture of me in "action".  I know, I know it screams "care-giver".

Anyway, now that MB is doing better, I've managed to sneak in some painting time and have the following submissions for your perusal.  These will be organized as part of three green badged studio tours.

High Adventure:

For the High Adventure Studio I have this groups of 28 WW1 Anzacs from Brigade miniatures.  These are intended for one of my silly game concepts called "Anzacs and Aztecs" which involves some WW1 Anzacs getting lost on their way to Egypt and running into all sorts of trouble in the mystical jungles of central America.  The concept is a follow on from my previous convention games of "DAK and Dragons" and "SOCOM and Sorcery".  There will, of course, be dinosaurs involved and a large model of a Mayan Pyramid which you may see later in the challenge.  There may be some Germans from a U-boat involved too but those were done in during Challenge X

The figures are from Brigade games and where painted use Army Painter "Speed Paint" I liked using the product but did find the color palette a bit limited.  There were two test figures painted a slightly different shade prior to the start of the Challenge which I'll repaint at some point.  To be honest my first foray with speed paints were a pre-XIII disaster and I stripped these figures to redo them.  There is a large 25 pound cannon, a machine gun and nice grenade "tosser" - Since they're small I'll combine the machine gun and tosser into a single gun submission for points.  So thats 28 figures, 2 guns and 1 Studio for 180 points.

Historical Drama:

Next up are some some 10mm Byzantines left over from last years big project (Manzikert).  These are a mix of Magister Militum and Pendraken figures and represent the the last of the lot I had primed from Challenge XII.  Don't worry there a good number of bare metal Byzantines waiting in the wings - there are ALWAYS more Byzantines.

The lot include 8 medium infantry, 32 slingers and 24 Buccelari (my favorite).  That's a total of 108 points including the Historical drama studio bonus

World Cinema:

OK this one is a bit of a stretch but its an homage to those rather awful Hobbit movies and the Dwarven armies at the Battle of Five Armies - here is the start of my 10mm Dwarven army project, which starts with a core of 18, 8 figure infantry bases plus some Human allied light cavalry archers.  Don't worry, you'll see some Dwarves mounted on Rams (assuming I get my resin printer working again)

The figures are metal casting from Copplestone and may be some of the finest 10mm figures I've ever painted.

Opposing them are some test paints of some Copplestone Orc and Warg riders

I am still debating what is the right color for orc skin and tested a variety of tones on the 3 infantry stands.  I'm leaning towards green but that is not aligned with the Peter Jackson canon.  

Oh yes, the Orcs brought along some trolls which while 10mm figures are actually 28mm tall - they're big fella's

The studio tour consists of 9 28mm figures, 174 Infantry and 24 cavalry in glorious 10mm plus 1 room bonus which nets out to 287 points.

So that's it for my first submission - sorry to be a little late this year but it was unavoidable.  I'll help my minion, Phil, by providing a summary of all the scale to make it easier to put in that spreadsheet which surely was created by some lunatic.

28mm

37 Infantry

2 guns

10mm

214 Infantry

48 Cavalry

3 Studios Toured

I believe that sums to a nice total of 575 points

So what's next?  I think we'll be making a detour to the South Pacific for some really tiny miniatures and a  rather large terrain project.  

Minion Phil: Welcome back to your twelfth (?) Challenge Miles. I was sorry to hear about MB's awful accident before Christmas, but am very glad that she is on the mend and spared more of your tender care. 

I like how you say this is slow off the blocks, but two week's work is higher than many challengers' winter ambitions. I do not know how you manage it but your quantity has a hugely impressive quality of its own, let alone your tidy brushwork. 

Great to see you're back at the DAK and Dragons series, I thought we'd lost you to teeny tiny scales. Those Anzacs look great and a mayan temple is something to look forward to. I'm sure it'll be hugely impressive as always. Who doesn't like more Byzantines, and a visit to Tolkien's world. All in one post - marvellous! 

Well, as you've done all the hard maths for me, my role as data entry clerk is done. Onwards!