From Kerry T - Not little Gingerbread men and a bunch of guys all called Norman (420 points)

Morning, afternoon and evening all

With apologies to Miles Millsy! [Whilst Miles is a decent enough chap his Aussie "accent" is truly horrible] for my late post I have once again reminded myself that I have not learned from last year's challenge - again I've left it until the last minute to finish an entry, thinking I had sufficient time to complete this a few days ago only to re-discover that the finishing touches take much more time than I normally allocate. Maybe next week I'll bite off less and finish an entry in good time.

This is my second entry  so I've tried to keep it simple (my minion after all is an Aussie so I better had 😁- couldn't resist - wonder how many points he'll knock off for that😟!)

Below the belt eh? Yep and so are these...

Dwarves - Dwarf slayers from Avatars of War to be precise

See yoo Jimmy, you may be made of metal and GW but I'm bigger than yooo

The Dwarf Slayer Regiment

I rediscovered my old GW Dwarves last year and have been rebasing and tidying them up and decided I needed some more slayers and because of the unavailability or prohibitive costs of the old GW sculpts from the 90s looked around for an acceptable and affordable additions. These came in the shape of this Avatars of War plastic regiment which I think are quite affordable at 35Euros for 20 figures (for some reason mine were 4 short but with their GW cousins this will give me a regiment of 24 figures

second from left figure shows some "one upmanship"!

A reasonable match, the middle figure is from GW 

These 16 dwarves make up my Fantasy entry for the library

Next up some unimaginatively named blokes called Norman

These are my new acquisition entry, having  been purchased only recent from Victrix

Plastic Norman Crossbowmen

 

There are 36 figures in the box, 18 armoured and 18 unarmoured giving a reasonable variety of poses that are quick and easy to paint - just as well as you can'y have too many Cross Normans

As usual I can't make up my mind about basing

12 are based singly in case I want to play a skirmish game

Finally the reason the post was late- as usual the cavalry arrive just in the nick of time...

Victrix plastic Norman Cavalry - a pack of 12 figures in a mix of mail and scale armour

Shields from LBSM

These are lovely figures to paint, the horses especially, my only concern is the passible brittle nature of the plastic lances, I broke two while painting. I've held off giving them a standard in case I end up replacing the spears with wire ones.

In Summary

16 x 28mm Dwarf figures @5 points = 80 points

36 x 28mm Norman Crossbowmen @5points = 180 points

12 x 28mm Cavalry figures @ 10 points =120

Fantasy bonus @ 20 points

New Acquisition bonus @ 20 points

Total 420 points

2 squirrels

From Millsy: Sneaking in at the last moment Kerry! Given you must have needed a week to photograph this lot I'll forgive you this time :-P

The Slayers are brilliant and I'd bet on them vs. a bunch of Normans any day, even ones painted as well as these. I think (speaking from experience) that you'll find the lances more robust than you think. I've bounced more than my share of plastic cavalry across the room with little in the way of damage.

This lot bumps you up to second place at least for the time being. Well done!

From StuartL - Everyone Knows Me - Statue of a Famous Person + Library Cart - 100 Points

Hello again,

    My second post for today is for the Statue of a Famous Person section, or in this case, a statue of a  famous anthropomorphized concept. Looking through my various boxes at the start of the challenge, I came across this piece of terrain by Reaper that I thought would fit the theme, a statue of death. Since everyone who ever has or ever will exist, will eventually meet death, I think it counts as being pretty famous. It also adds 1 skull for my total. 

 

    At the same time I painted the statue, I also painted a second piece of terrain, a Japanese o-haka, or a grave in English. In Japan they don't really bury their dead, nor do they fully cremate them. Instead they burn the bodies until only the bones remain. Then, the family select some of the bones and place them inside a specially prepared box. This box is then placed inside the o-haka. Once a year, during August, they believe that the spirits of their ancestors and departed family members return to their homes. Families go back to their hometowns, clean up the o-haka and pray for the souls of the dead. It is a good way to remember those who have left us and it gathers the whole family together. 

    If you have been following the news about Japan recently, we have had a pretty awful start to the year with a big earthquake in the prefecture of Ishikawa, followed by a plane crash in Tokyo. I have in-laws who live near Ishikawa (who are thankfully, all safe and fine), but this has been quite a worrying time for us all. Japan lies atop several major fault lines and big earthquakes are a constant risk unfortunately. It is a wonderful country to live in, but at times it can be terrifying.

    On a rather more positive (and miniatures) related note, as well as the statue above, I also have some Anglo-Saxons that I painted up on a whim.

    The figures are all from Gripping Beast's plastic range and are fairly simple and straightforward to assemble and paint. 

    And to pay for my trip on the library cart, I have another Reaper mini, a rather grim and gritty looking axewoman. This should pay for my jaunt over to the Maritime area.

For scoring:

11x 28mm minis = 55 points

2x small terrain pieces = 5 points (because I hate math and it seems right - Millsy)

Statue of a Famous Person = 20 points

Sarah's Library Cart = 20 points

TOTAL = 100 Points

For my duels:

Skulls +1 = 33 Skulls

Legions +0 = 140 Points

From Millsy: A fine second entry for the day Stuart. You may be the first person to ever use the words "Anglo-saxons" and "on a whim" in the same sentence but I have no proof of that so you will have to just trust I am right because I am a minion and we're never wrong :-P. You gave yourself a measly 1 point for the terrain which seems daft so I upgraded you to 5. What's not to like about a 500% increase?

From Geoffrey T: Library Rampage (New Acquisitions, History, Children's Books, Overdues, 170 points, 1 skull)

 Hello Challengers and happy new year to all.

After a belated start to the challenge with visitors for the festive season, I am now underway with two submissions, both for the silver bayonet game.

The first is a new acquisition, which is two monsters for the Canadian war of 1812 supplement written by Ash Barker.  Brand new miniatures from North Star to go with a brand new supplement.

Here we have a Wendigo and a Baxbaxwaluksiwe, the latter of which I have never heard of before.  It is quite bizarre, covered in many hungry biting mouths.  It was quite hard to paint.

The second submission is some napoleonic Spanish fusiliers I sculpted moulded and cast myself.  They are pretty basic.  They lost a fair bit of sharpness when drop cast as well.  But still making your own figures makes one feel like a real naploeonic wargamer.  These I am claiming as historical, because I even looked in a book to find the uniform design and colours rather than just making it up.

Third I have classic protagonists from Children's books, goats and trolls.

Here is 5 goats from Eureka Miniatures.  Livestock is surprisingly useful in a number of games.  Sharp Practice 2, Ghost Archipelago and here I expand my collection of goats for Forbidden Psalm's expansion campaign.

Then we have three trolls.  One troll can be defeated by three goats.  I do not know how 5 goats goes v 3 trolls.  These will be used in Frostgrave and silver bayonet, and anywhere I use a cobblestone gaming mat.

They are from Grenadier miniatures, of which I picked up a hundred or so old metal minis at a game shop moving sale, they dredged out their old stock and put it on sale.  I was stoked.  It is what I like to buy anyway, to get it on sale was great.

Finally for this week I have five old skool miniatures to add to my 'slow grow' Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition armies.  These are certainly Overdue projects, by about 30 years.

Four empire halberdiers my marauder miniatures, circa 1991 or so.

One skeleton standard bearer from Grenadier, about the same age.  I was quite pleased to pick this one up as I was short a standard for one unit and had been using a gibbet as a substitute.

This skeleton also has a skull for the skullz challenge.

Total for this post is

40mm - Five monsters about 40mm tall = 5 x 7 = 35 points

28mm - three fusiliers, four halberdiers and one skeleton = 8 x 5 = 40 points

15mm - 5 goats, nominally 28mm scale but quite small = 5 x 2 =10 points

New acquisitions, History, Childerns books and Overdue books shelves = 4 x 20 = 80 points

Grand total = 165 points and 1 skull.

King Regards

Geoff.

From Millsy: Silver Bayonet is such a great game and its wonderful to see others playing. I've not yet managed to get my hands on the new wave of minis but your wendigo in particular is seriously tempting me Geoffrey!

Having cast my own minis way back when I started gaming I can attest to how much fun it is. Kudos to you for going the extra mile and making your own minis though, that is seriously impressive especially given the elegance of your sculpts. These are fit to grace any table and worth another 5 points bonus for being your own work.

The Empire halberdiers are also gorgeous and a subject dear to my own heart. Please can we have more???

From PaulO'G: Vive La Garde! (200 points)

G'day all, its great to be back for my 10th Challenge! This year my target is a curiously specific 603 points, which is what I need to get me to 8,000 lifetime points.

"Mon dieu! Tre magnifique!" say the swooning Mesdemoiselles!

My Season 14 opening salvo is the start of my new Crimean War project. I'm starting with a French Brigade, and the Grenadier Garde is up first! As a larger, well equipped battalion it musters 36 Guardsmen and Officers. 

Allons enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !

Why the red bases you might ask? Because they will serve on Mars for our Space 1889 VSF campaign first - obvious really! Once thats done I'll redo the bases for a more routine deployment to the Crimea.

Their features are wonderfully sculpted - doing them some measure of justice was a challenge!

Models are by Great War Miniatures, distributed via Northstar. Painted in classic triad style - no speed/contrast paints were harmed in the making of this unit. I also discovered a new technique for painting small buttons - a toothpick! (Thanks for the tip John, and for the emergency flag resupply!)

A Brigade Commander's view of their march to Victory!

So off the mark with a 36 figure mini-bomb @ 5 points each, plus 20 points for shelving in the History section. While these are the first Guard figs I've painted for any era, I understand they are not be the only French Grenadiers likely to be posted today - hopefully they pass muster! :-)

From Millsy: A French guardsman is impressive in any setting Paul, be it terrestrial or otherwise! I'm sure these fine fellows will do sterling service wherever they may fight, even lightyears from home.

The greatcoats are presumably for night operations as they'd be a serious hazard in the heat of Martian day! Lovely work on the red/blue combo which works really well with the bases. It is almost a shame to think they'll be repainted eventually as they really do look great.

200 points to kick start your challenge!