From RayR - Last Post - Greek Mythology - Heracles & Chums!

 

Well I stared this years Challenge with some Jason and the Argonauts figures.....and I'm ending it with the same.

Well not actually the same figures, but more from Wargames Foundry's range.

I painted them up again, in the same black armour that Foundry painted theirs in.

Here we have the Mighty Heracles, who's a very large chap, in the middle its Canthus the Euboen and Ascalaphus.

Then we have Lynceus, Peleus the Myrmidon and Idas.

Then we have 5 more Children of the Hydra

Although I got a different figure in my pack, a left handed spearman!!

I'm pretty sure my Nephew Zac's gonna love them!!

Its his Birthday at the end of the month, I've bought him some Victrix Greek's, so look out for them on my blog soon.

I took a few shots of the figures having a fight....as you do?

So this is it, my final post of the 16th Challenge, the points are pretty easy to work out on this one.

11x 25mm figures at 5 points each will give me 55 points!

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Fabulous work, Ray! How wonderfully Harryhausen this bunch is. Your nephew is going to be over the moon to have these and think what an ace uncle you are! You know it will all come down to that left-handed skeleton being the nasty one of the lot... 

Same time next year, Ray? I hope so! :)

- Curt

From BrianC - Next Level Miniatures, Flames of War, werewolves, Guild Ball (57pts)

Ok. My last turn in with 3 hours to spare! This is a mish mash group of minis! I did not hit my goal, by I'm happy to have less grey in the collection! Here we go!

Next Level Miniature 40mm Minotaur

Next Level Miniature 28mm Rock Elemental

Guild Ball Union Veteran 32mm

Alternative Armies Werewolves 20mm (2)

 

Flames of War BA-64 armoured car (3) from the starter set, Clash of Steel.

It would have been nice if the starter sets provided decals.

Flames of War T-34 tank

That's it. All done and look forward to the next season!

POINTS

1 X 40mm = 7pts

2 X 28mm = 10pts

2 X 20mm = 8pts

4 X 15mm vehicles = 32pts

TOTAL POINTS = 57pts.

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A great last burst to the finish line, Brian! These all look great but I have to say my fave is the Guild Ball Union Veteran. With the grim grin, cleaver and top hat, he definitely has a 'Bill the Butcher' vibe about him! Well done!

I look forward to seeing you with us all next time we roll out!

- Curt

From StuartL - Finishing at the Start - 75 Points

Hi all,

Despite a lot of real life stuff going on, I was able to finish off some minis just in time. Both of the batches below represent new projects for me, hence the title of the post.

Many years ago, I got into Napoleonics with some friends at my local gaming group. I bought a few brigades of Waterloo era British, while those around me collected French, Russians, Austrians and Prussians, though mainly for the slightly earlier period. Unfortunately, all of my opponents moved away or changed hobbies completely. This left me with a bit of a problem. Having only one force meant that they would never see the table. So, I figured that I would have to start collecting a second army. While I was tempted to get a Waterloo era French force, I decided to go for the earlier uniforms. I got a couple of boxes of Perrys 1807-14 French for Christmas, but I haven't had time to start building them yet. I did want to do something for the challenge, so I had a friend print me some artillery.

    These are some French Foot Artillery from Battlecat Miniatures on MyMiniFactory. They were fairly easy to paint up and the details were nice and sharp. The gun limbers have very deep grain on the wood, which doesn't look so realistic up close, but at tabletop level it should be fine.

    I did have some trouble getting all of the minis onto the bases I had, especially the guy adjusting the wheel position. Some parts of the figure are sticking out over the edge of the base.

    
    These are really nice minis and I am thinking to have my friend print a few more for me. I have a couple of French generals printed as well, but sadly time was not on my side. 

    The second new force is more Space Marines. I have way too many Space Marine armies, (cough, 14 different armies including this one), I think I may have a problem. My armies come in two types, Horus Heresy armies and Badab War armies. These are both primarily Marine Vs. Marine conflicts, which explains why I have so many. I have dabbled with the new Primaris figures, but sold them on as they weren't really my thing.

    These five minis represent half of an assault squad for the Star Phantoms Chapter for the Badab War. Painting this much white was not as much fun as you might expect. 

    The Star Phantoms' background hints that they are an offshoot of the Dark Angels Legion, from the Dreadwing formation, which uses the same iconography. Their preferred tactical doctrines are 'Scorched Earth' and 'War Crimes'. They lean heavily into the 40K skull motif too.

     I have a bunch more models for this force lined up, so hopefully there will be more to come in the next challenge.

    Well, that is about all from me for this year. So, this final group should score me:

2x artillery pieces = 20 Points

6x French gun crews = 30 Points

5x Space Marines = 25 Points

    That should add 75 Points to my tally, taking me well past my target number, though not as high as previous years. 

    This lot get me two last Squirrels and the Star Phantoms have 32 Skulls between them.

  My ongoing duels information:

Skulls - 271 (+32)
BSRoD - 17 (+0)
Squirrels - 20 (+2) - D&D Animals, 30K Militia, Plague Clowns, Afghans, Robots, Anglo-Saxons, Medieval Polish, Clan Smoke Jaguar, 81st West Africans, Undead, 10mm FPW French, Daemons of Khorne, Modern Vehicles, Turnip28, Space Wolves, Free French, Arabs, Snake Folks, French Napoleonics, Star Phantoms.

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I know you've been very busy as of late so it's nice to see you back for a final volley, Stuart. 

The Star Phantoms are very nice in their stark white livery and close combat weaponry. That being said, the stars of this post (at least for me) are the French artillery. I've seen several examples of Battle Cat figures during this year's Challenge and they look very nice (I think the deep woodgrain is a nice feature as it helps with painting). You've done a great job on this small battery and I look forward to seeing more from this project next Challenge! 

Until then have a great rest of the year!

- Curt

From Mike W - My last post of the Challenge or Odds & ends on my Workbench (45 Points)

Well this is my last post for this challenge, as ever it had been fun and as the name implies - challenging!

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in running the challenge, great work! And let's all join the two wee guys below and raise a glass to all our beloved minions...

As the title of this post suggests  I have literally looked to clear all those stray items on my workbench that have stalled and hit a backwater in the last few months.

First off are two Warlord Games ECW Highlanders who along with their compatriots are being readied for a potential future game. These two seemed to have been waylaid at the pub and were missed when I completed their friends last summer.

Two Highlanders celebrating the end of this year's challenge!

Although the figures give a sense of wearing tartan, actually bottled out trying to pait full tartan on these guys. instaed after doing a base colour of green or blue, I used marker pens to draw lines in a chequered pattern over the base colour. I tried to make the lines follow the flow of eth cloth but didn't worry too much about making them too acurate.

A couple of spots in contrasting colors before applying a varnish - the imporatnat thing here being it was an oil based varnish as the markers were water soluable and using water based varnish literally wipes teh lines out! Once the varnish was dry (overnight) I was then able to apply Army Painter washes & Inks to add shading to the cloth and it turned a dodgey child like tartan into something that is in my opinion tabletop passable!

The reverse view

Below is a test figure I did based upon a sprue of figures on the front of a magazine some time ago, I forget now if it was a Perrys or a Wargames Atlantic product....

Later War MP34 infantryman

Finally painted and based!

Another view

At my Wargames Club we are gearing up for a campaign set in the Marion Wars (Mary Queen of Scots) period of Scottish history. The crossbowman below us another figure that got separated and lost from his parent unit on my workbench...

.... yes, my workbench can get quite chaoticat times and usually only gets sorted and cleaned when my wife puts her foot down!

Completed Crossboman

He could be on either side of teh conflict

These Zombicide Invader Survivors have finally been completed, I started these when I was doing my Xenos earlier in the challenge.

Five more Zombicide Survivors

For some reason, I always struggle with doing the survivor figures in these post Apocalyptic games - the monsters always seem more fun to paint. That said I'm almost decided to use North Star figures to provide the Survivors for scenarios I put on as I will develop stats cards for them to be Mining Corporation Marines, providing security for the Corporations mining sites - I like the figures better and I find them more fun to paint!

In case you wondered, Commander Amadi in the Yellow Power Suit
and Madame Singleton to his right

Left to Right: Cloud, Emma & Val

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So there it is  another year and another challenge. Until next year  happy painting everyone!

POINTS

5 x 28mm Zombicide Invader Survivors @ 5Pts ea                25 Points

2 x 28mm Highland DRinkers @ 5Pts ea                                10 Points

1 x 28mm German WW2 Infantryman                                      5 Points

1 x 28mm Border Riever Crossbowman                                   5 Points

TOTAL                                                                                       45 Points

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Great work for your final volley, Mike! Though I like all of these minis, I must say the two Jocks with their ale are my favourites (but being a Campbell, I'm a bit biased). 

Thanks for joining us this year, Mike, and I look forward to having you with us for the next Challenge!

- Curt

From AdamC: Grand Old Ladies and their American Cousins (49 points).

 

First We have three Queen Elizabeth Class Battle ships in their World War II guise after modernization in the 30s.  

Queen Elizabeth, Warspite (nick named the Grand Old Lady) and Valiant.  All three had very active careers in Two World Wars.

Warspite is of course one the most active ships in world history with 15 battle honors in Two World Wars. The Museum ship that should have been government bureaucracy being the only enemy her "plot armor" couldn't overcome.  

Four Omaha-Class Cruisers these were built by the US after the Great War and were the first cruisers The USN had built in 10 years.  It was clear that the USN needed Ships to Scout for the Battle fleet and initially these ships were called "scout cruisers" (later they were classed as Light Cruisers) and included two air craft to help with this scouting. 

They had an odd combination of  6" guns with two mounted in twin-turrets, one fore and one aft as well as four more mounted older style sponsons on each broad side.  Almost as if the designers couldn't make up their minds so they did both.  Unlike Most other US cruisers the Omahas have torpedoes.  

Next up are four ships of one of my favorite classes The Brooklyn Class Light Cruisers.  These ships were developed as a response to the Mogami and share that classes original armament with fifteen 6" guns mounted in fife three gun turrets. 

These ships were light in name only being of similar size to existing US Heavy cruisers. They were built to be fast and pack a punch.  The guns of this class could fire 10 rounds per minute meaning one of these ships could absolutely drowned and enemy in 150 shells in sixty second! Small wounder they were nicked named the "machine gun cruisers."  They were good ships, with several serving in the 1980s in South America. (Again why didn't one of them become a museum ship?!) 

Finally we have 4 Bagley class destroyers and 4 Mahan class Destroyers both good 1930s American destroyers, which as I have described them elsewhere I will not discuss them now.  Most of these ships will see action at up coming convention (Mayhem and Huzzah)  here in New England this year, maybe I'll see some of you there.

If I have the points right it should be an additional 16point for the Destroyers (8 at 2 points each) and then 33 points for the larger ships (11 at 3 points each) for an additional 49 points.

I'm glad I was able to come back this year its been great fun and I am as always in awe of the quality and quantity of work one can see here. 

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Wonderful work Adam (and great mini-histories on these storied ships). The painting is crisp and clean, and I really like the clear basing. Well done and I look forward to having you with us the next time we hoist anchor. 

- Curt