From TomC: Ranging In [History] (38 points)

Hello everyone, good to see you all again and to see the Challenge off to a wonderful start! I myself have been a little slower off the mark, a period away with family has kept me otherwise occupied so looking to make up some lost time with my first entry, four 28mm IJA infantry from Warlord Games's Bolt Action range.

 These are three artillery spotters from their forward observation team and a slightly incongruous flamethrower-armed soldier. He did ship with an assistant but said assistant is in much more of a 'spotting' pose so I have reassigned him to a mortar team and left his flame-throwing comrade on his lonesome (perhaps safer?).

 I found all sorts of different painting guides online but little consensus other than that Vallejo English Uniform was more appropriate than the more temptingly named Japanese Uniform WWII, so that was about the only element I relied on, the rest is improvised from squinting at various sources and I make no representations as to accuracy! I did enjoy painting this little group, it's been good to get back into the swing of painting after a preparatory period of sticking my fingers together...

The scoring should be relatively simple for today's gang: three upright 28mm miniatures at 5 points apiece with a further prone 28mm miniature at 2.5 points, in the History section for a bonus 20 points and a grand total of 37.5 points. 

 Now to keep this up!

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Welcome back Tom!

Fabulous work on these Japanese infantry. Your brushwork is wonderfully crisp and smooth, really benefiting these models. I especially like the fellow on the rangefinder and the one with the binoculars, looking back and signalling to his mates. As he's semi prone I'm going to round your score out to an even 40. Well done!

- Curt