From TomC: Victory At Sea USN [Maritime] (34 points)

 Ahoy fellow challengers, like the Loch Ness monster, I've been out of sight for a while, sorry I haven't been able to comment on all your wonderful work!

 I at least have a contribution to offer, this week is another brace of ships from Warlord Games's Victory At Sea starter set, USS Northampton and an accompanying Fletcher-class destroyer, both hopefully wet and offshore enough for the Maritime section.

 As a bit of context, the Northampton class, of which this was the lead, were all built in the '30s under the auspices of the Washington Naval Treaty, which restricted both their weight and armament (and which was also quietly disregarded by the Japanese navy). Northampton herself had a busy career, first with Enterprise for the Doolittle raid and Midway, with Wasp at Guadalcanal (where she was lucky not to be torpedoed), then Hornet at Santa Cruz, before being torpedoed by Japanese destroyers in her first surface contact at Tassafaronga. 

The photos I've seen of Northampton in 1942 show a simple single-colour scheme but there's a series of images of Northampton in 1941 in this unusual camouflage scheme with a fake bow-wave and countershaded forecastle. Couldn't resist! 

For completeness, there are some liberties I took with the scheme for my own amusement, the orange lifeboats in particular but also the edged smoke stacks (it's a lot of grey otherwise!). Tangentially, the teak deck is a bit of a guess, I couldn't find many images of such things and I have previously had mixed results from eyeballing colours...

The destroyers in Victory at Sea aren't named, but one can never have too many of them! I'm trying to keep them all distinguishable, luckily the Americans had plenty of different schemes to choose from, this being one of the simpler.

 This makes just over half the American vessels from the starter set, which definitely merits a group shot.

In terms of accounting, although the scale is off, the cruisers are c. a 15mm vehicle for 8 points, the destroyers less so at 6 points. Together with the Maritime bonus, that should make 34 points, otherwise known as very slow progress... onwards!

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Sadly for you Tom, you are stuck with a minion who is, in general, quite ignorant of all things naval when it comes to historical gaming. I will happily charge into all sorts of new periods, but when it comes to ships from WW1 and WW2, I may remember the names and some high-level info about the battles, but am otherwise laughably ignorant...

All this to say while I love these pretty ships, I have nothing to offer as commentary...although so many seem to come to a bad end. Torpedo in her first surface engagement? That sucks...

Fine brushwork here, and great effect of the water vs. the ship. I have seen people struggle with the names of the ships cast right on to the bases, but you seem to make it work nicely! Well done, 34 points for you.

Polite reminder: please use the labels when composing the post! This helps ensure the data/meta data etc. for the Challenge meets the requirements of our Cthulu-like statistical gods...

GregB 

 

From DaveD - It’s a bitsa week - (67 points)

Bit off an odd weeks production with bitsa this and bitsa that . 

One of the guys at my local group was off loading a few unpainted Sherman’s and an M26 Pershing at our last meet up so I nabbed them to do for the winter collection .A rattle can of Tamiya TS28 olive drab ( rattle  can of choice for my US armies)  , some track colour, oil wash and decals and they were ready for “winterising”

First up 4 heavily winterised M4s , for hunting/hiding from that King Tiger I showed earlier .

Some of these models are Battlefront and some I think are old Skytrex as they are hefty chunks of lead .

Unfortunately one of the tanks turns out to be a British Sherman version , however I am not that much of a rivet counter . If looks like a Sherman, quacks like Sherman, has stats like a Sherman, (burns like a Sherman - ed) it's  a US Sherman in my army .

The “whitewash” on the tanks was done with an old tin of enamel white just thick and dry enough to drag across with a large brush.

feeling chilly yet?

 

In addition I have completed the Pershing , though left it with a more frosty ground tuft basing as they didn’t get to front line units until Feb 45.

 

The Snow and Mud effect on the M4s is the acrylic snow effect from AK and the muddy ground one too . For a first stab I am pleased . 

So 5 x 15mm tanks = 40 pts 

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And now for something different . I have picked up some “pup” tents (from Pendraken) to make some camp areas for the ACW stuff , for no real practical reason other than they will  add some nice set dressing. I have completed the first one for my Reb cavalry 

Points = 8 horses , 3 foot , = 22 , tents I would suggest 1pt a piece =5.  Total 27 

I have another 3 of these large bases to do with some infantry , wagons etc to complete in due course.

This keeps the scoreboard moving this week and every week of the challenge . Huzzah.

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We are always pleased to see another submission from you DaveD, however "bitsa" it might be. The tanks look fabulous, and the whitewashed ones emit a suitable sense of bone-shattering winter chill, familiar to anyone who grew up in or lives near the Canadian prairies. Sadly the government always prevented me from mounting 75mm guns on our trucks - because of "the law" or whatever - but seeing those snow clad tanks immediately takes me to January in Winnipeg.

As for keeping track of which sort of Sherman is which...whatever...I don't actually believe anyone can, regardless. They all seem the same to me...

So, the impressive armour, along with the random little 10mm camp piece (very nice) nets out to 67 points. Lovely stuff.

GregB

From JamieM - Conquest Spires Force Grown Drones (245 points)

I didn’t own these figures when the challenge began. I’m not sure I’d heard of the game “Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings” before the challenge began. But here they are to once again prove that the painting gods laugh at painting plans for the Challenge - some Force Grown Drones for the Spires faction for the game.

I blame my mate. He’s a master at finding bargains on eBay and some of these started as this; just another bargain 2-player starter set that he found. He then gave me the Spires half and kept the human faction half and said “put them on a shelf, we’ll probably never play the game”. And so I did... but… because I had them, I started looking into the game. The rules were free online. There’s a free army builder online. The models are really nice… So I started stalking eBay and found another bargain starter set. One cheeky bid later and I passed the humans from it to him and we now both had big enough forces to get going.

The Spires appear to be an alien race who came to the world of Ea to colonise it. Some vaguely defined catastrophe later and only a few more of the race made it and, as there were so few of them, they started making clones and drones. These ones are apparently “force grown”, which sounds pretty horrible and are the lowest of the low, with terrible stats in game.

Their massive shields will hopefully keep them alive for a little bit whilst their masters do nasty things to their enemies, like release plagues, or have these fellas explode when they die which damages their opponents.

All contrast paints for these androgynous individuals and I didn’t want any of them to stand out, so I gave them the same colour chitinous armour and used slightly different browns for their wraps.

The shields I tried to make look slightly like meat with dry brushes and washes. I used a splash of colour on the loincloths and shields as the colour represents the colour of their owner, but as they’re the lowest of drones, only a little colour would be spent on them.

35 of them done so far. The maker of the game (para bellum) have done that annoying thing of creating their own scale (35mm) and so they’re chunky fellas, but I’ll score them as 28mm for 175 points in total.

It’s not a hugely popular game in the community, but I’m rather enjoying painting (and buying) figures for it, so hopefully we’ll find time for a game at some point. And I’ll be able to get some more figures painted for the Challenge too.

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"...the Painting Gods laugh at painting plans for the Challenge ..." oh my goodness, do they ever! I had a whole "plan" for some figures that I won't even name again out of shame, and I still hear the mocking laughter of the Painting Gods in my head...

A great submission all around Jamie! While the painting is nice, the best part is the whole "well, hey, I'll just dip my toe into this, what might happen?" approach to this project. I think many of us - and by "many" I mean "99%" - can relate to such projects. But the seeming randomness of the hobby animal spirits are a critical part of what make this a "hobby" in the first place. No need to worry about the stuff you had "planned" for this round...there is always the next...one evening in August, you will turn to them, wonder why you had not painted them, maybe check some painted examples online and suddenly it all begins again!

As to scoring, I too despise the boutique scale creep moving through the hobby (I'm looking at you, Warlord Games, although there are many other offenders - Fantasy Flight Games among others...) but we have some precedent for these larger chaps generating larger scores. On that basis - the "Star Wars Legion Precedent", you shall be awarded 245 points. Well done! 

 GregB 

From Millsy: Bolt Action Italian vehicles for the Western Desert (125 points)

G'day All,

Having knocked off my Aussies for the Western Desert I have started work on the Italian opposition. I decided to mix things up this time and paint all the vehicles first and really enjoyed working on these, especially the weathering and battle damage.

M13/40 Tank(ette) x 2 (40 points)

Technically classed as a medium tank these mobile pie tins were loaded with MGs and most effective against infantry and soft skins. These are both the Warlord Games plastic kit (licensed from Italeri), one for me and one for a mate.

AB41 x 3 (60 points)

One of my favourite WWII vehicles is the ABx range of Italian armoured cars. There's just something about the lines and the huge sand tires that really appeals to me. I've got one each of the twin MGs and 20mm autocannon by accident. Perry Miniatures mistakenly sent me the wrong one twice(!) so I ended up converting the turret on one of them to the autocannon rather than ask for yet another one. Green stuff to fill the holes intended for the MGs, plus wire and paper to craft the gun does a pretty convincing job I think. These are Blitzkrieg Miniatures models, all in resin and with a nice weight to them.

The third version one is the Warlord Games version painted for a mate. It's quite different from the Blitzkrieg Miniatures version and appears to be closer to the real thing, especially the wheels.

One of these ACs is not like the others...

Fiat AS 37 Sahariano Truck/Transport x 1 (25 points)

This will be a transport vehicle for my engineer section once painted. It's also Blitzkrieg Miniatures via Perry Miniatures and a nice looking vehicle overall, although the cab assembly needed a lot of work to make it fit and still has plenty of flaws which I am treating as battle damage. The cab is resin and paper thin in places which caused a few hairy moments when cutting to fit. It had to be painted separately and glued on at the end so I could reach the driver but the alternative was painting him through the windows and that was never going to work.

Next up all the infantry and support weapons. Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Millsy

 

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Fantastic work on all of these Millsy, what a treat to start the day here in North America. You have really nailed the colours and the weathering on all of these vehicles. I can feel the heat of the North Afrcian sun radiating from the hulls and engine blocks, and imagine the sand and wind wearing the paint and primer right down to the metal. Also some fine conversion work after the retail fiasco with the Perrys - I never would have noticed the difference unless you had mentioned it. 

 

Look forward to the poor foot sloggers to follow - great job!