From PeterB - A drag race through the Abyss (125 points)

I have been busy this week checking off some of the challenge locations. One post per location is probably a bit much, so here is a quick run through.  Last week I was at Gluttony, so in my own personal need to try and visit each location without skipping, next stop Greed.

Greed is reserved for those that put money over anything else, willing to be a cold hearted killer just for a few credits for example.

Cad Bane the bounty hunter was an associate of the bounty hunter Jango Fett. When Jango was killed by Mace Windu in the battle for Geonosis, Jango's son Boba Fett swore revenge and asked Jango to train him as Bounty Hunter. Taking Boba under his wing and raising him, Bane eventually turned on Boba Fett when employed by the Pyke syndicate to "deal" with Fett.  

After a dramatic showdown, Fett killed Bane in the dusty streets of Mos Espa. Showing all that greed is definitely a path to the dark side.

Dramatic shot from below.

The model is from the Star Wars Legion range. These models can be a bit pricey as they come with a bunch of cards and tokens as well. I'm probably not going to collect too many, but as a family we love the Mandalorian series, so a Mando showdown may be in the future.

Next stop Wrath. How does that phrase go? Hell hath no fury... Well, this barbarian from Bad Squiddo miniatures certainly seems wrathful. 

In full berserk rage, forgoing any kind of shield, this warrior is up for maximum carnage by wielding two axes at once.

Next stop, Heresy. Well, when it comes to toy soldiers, there is one Heresy you cannot fail to consider, the Horus Heresy from the 40K universe when Horus turned against the God Emperor. This cultist is clearly a follower of one of the Heretical Gods of this universe, possibly a member of the Blood Pact with his red robes.

Next stop Violence. This poor cowboy has suffered double. Not only did he suffer a violent death at the hangman's noose for crimes we can only imagine, he has been brought back to an undead existence and is being violently attacked by a crow!

If he could just work out how to fire that six shooter, maybe he could scare the crow off and keep some of his brains.

The model is from Black Scorpion miniatures. They do a great range of dead and live Wild West characters.

Our last stop this week is Fraud. The bane of dungeon explorers everywhere. This could have been a candidate for greed, but this chest doesn't contain any treasure. Any unsuspecting adventurer that isn't careful will lose a limb to this mimic. It's fraudulent disguise tempts in unsuspecting explorers keen to find that plus one sword of smiting or magic spell scroll.

And that is it for now. 5 locations and 5 28mm scale models.

So points, 5 locations 5 x 20 = 100

5 models, 5 x 5 = 25

Total 125 points.

Now, that is what I call an effective bonus bounty hunt, Peter! Five miniatures for five locations, clever. You have chosen them well, I must say. There's another zombie to give me the creeps, and I like your Cad Bane, but the axe-wielding barbarian is my favourite. Good job!

125 very efficient points it is.

Martijn

From StuartL - Naughty-cal Types for the Aquifer (55 Points)

Hello again.

Having left an offering at the Altar of the Snow Lord, I thought that I would head back through the Chambers of Challenge and finish up the ones that I had passed by on my mad descent into the lower depths. Starting from the 1st level, that left me with the goal of painting up something nautical for the Aquifer.

With that in mind, I dug out 5 pirates figures and did my best to get them all shipshape for this post.

First up we have a couple of character minis, a dangerous buccaneer and a smartly dressed captain. The captain is from Reaper minis, so he's pretty large compared to the other minis here. The buccaneer and the crew below are all from Black Scorpion Miniatures. (Note the skull on the buccaneer's belt and the skull shaped belt buckle on the captain's right shoulder). I do like the Black Scorpion minis, they have a fair amount of detail and paint up easily. Sadly BS switched over to resin a while back, which has really put me off buying more. (That's not to say anything bad about BS's minis, I just hate resin).

Of course, no pirate captain would get very far without his trusty crew. Here we have 3 scruffy looking seamen intent on loot and plunder. I have so far used the Cutlass rules from Black Scorpion for pirate related games, but they are designed for small skirmishes with only a handful of minis a side and require a few house rules to make them playable. On the plus side, they are a lot of fun and also include options for more fantastical crews should you want to use them. I'm thinking of scaling up a bit to have full sized pirate crews on the table along with some royal navy types. Due to one challenger's constant promotion of them, I am looking at maybe trying out Donnybrook as that seems to allow for slightly larger games, includes rules for muskets and the like, and I want to see what all the fuss is about.

Rather than make a separate post, I have also included a non-pirate mini here. I painted up a Necron Cryptek mini between other batches of figures, and finished it off alongside the pirates. This figure came in a big boxed set, though I think it is available by itself now. The Crypteks are the mad scientist/engineer caste among the Necron forces and often have access to strange and incomprehensible technologies. This one has attached himself via his spine to a spider-shaped, hovering roomba. I guess those old space tombs get very dusty. 

If today's minion agrees, as a 28mm figure mounted on another mini, I have scored him as a cavalry figure. The precedent has been set that Necron heads count as skullz, so I will add one to my tally. (The spider thing probably shouldn't count, right).

So, that comes to 5x28mm infantry, 1x28mm cavalry and 1 chamber bonus for a total of 55 Points.

The pirates add one Squirrel point to my tally, the Necron adds 10 to my GW duel and there are 3 skullz for that side duel.

My running Duels totals:

GW Points - 676

Skullz - 374

Squirrels - 13

Well, you managed to sneak this one in just before I logged off, so I guess I have to minion it. What a rotten crew of reprobates. No, no, no - I'm talking about this year's minions, not those nicely painted rascals of the high seas!

55 points for you to close out my shift,

Tamsin

From StuartL - Challenge Island Safari Journal - 6th Jan - (35 Points)

Avast shipmates and C.I.S.T.ers!

Well, after feeling a bit under the weather yesterday, the party has set off once again. Perhaps a stroll across the famous Rousell's Sandhill would be good for us. After a breakfast of penicillin and a shower with as much disinfectant as we could find, we are on our way. 

Arriving at the Sandhill, we found a lonely looking figure looking a tad lost at the top. Upon exchanging greetings and pleasantries, he introduced himself as Midshipman Andrew "Sandy" Baggs.

From what we could gather he had left his previous employer and was looking for some work. Having heard rumours of numerous pirate factions converging on Challenge Island he had made his own way here. With infamous groups such as the Pirated Pirates and even the legendary Captain Hook at large on the island, it seems like he has his choice of employment.

It was at this point that we saw a group of Royal Navy Marines cresting the Sandhill. "There he is," yelled the officer, "That's the filthy badger botherer!"
Seeing he was outnumbered, Midshipman Baggs took to his heels and ducked down over the side of the hill.

With the marines in hot pursuit, we set up camp and prepared our plans for the assault on Snow Lord's Peak. What would we find lurking up there? What was the best route for our ascent? And how exactly does one bother a badger?

----------

The pirate was originally going to be named Andrew "Overly-pedantic-requirements-for-a-challenge-location" Baggs, but it didn't really roll off the tongue. Of all of the locations, this one posed the biggest conundrum for me, as the 1660-1699 period is not one that I had any figures for, or would be able to get in time for the start of the contest. So I started looking around for alternatives. I have some buildings by Sarissa that match the architectural style introduced in that period, but none of them are wearing a big floppy hat. Likewise, the list of odd little wars suggested didn't give me anything  from my collection that I could easily paint up. Knowing that I wanted to cover every location if I could and being a stubborn/stupid (delete as appropriate) individual, I knew that I had to find something for Rousell's Sandhill. So, I started looking a little further afield and found that the Golden Age of Piracy covers the period suggested (1650-1720) and can potentially include big floppy hats. Now, while I have a few pirate models with nice, pointy tricorns, I had none with the required floppy hat. So, I took an unhatted figure, mixed up some green stuff and formed (or deformed) a hat onto the mini's head. 

The mini is from Black Scorpion and, aside from the green stuffed hat, is a nice metal sculpt of a piratical type rapscallion. Assuming that it meets the strict requirements for the location, the figure should get me 5 points, plus 30 for the Sandhill. (The marines weren't painted for the challenge and aren't based either, so don't count). That should get me 35 points and a run at Snow Lord's Peak for getting my 5th location.  

***
How, indeed, does one bother a badger? The mind reels.

Well done Stuart, I certainly enjoyed sharing in the process you followed to find a figure that could fit the Sandhill's strict requirements! That said, I expect even a bothered badger would concede that the Sandhill pales in comparison to the doom-laden centre of Challenge Island.

Another 35 points for you, another journal entry completed. 

GregB

From TomM/ de Seguiran, a pirate lady, a silly kid... and more Dux (115 points)

Continuing with a project I started in the past bonus round, I`ll be trying to paint up one of the Crisis limited edition entrance figures for all of the remaining weeks of this challenge.

And of course, some regular forces as well to go along with the entries, though as we enter the final month, it's going to be more of a hotch-potch of era's and themes x-D

But first things first, the notable Marquis de Bouc, de Seguiran.  An officer of the french Regiment de Maine, as a colonel-lieutenant, he fought in the Battle of Ekeren in 1703.

Being the only non-Belgian entry model we released so far, what was so special about him?  Well, the battle was fought on the fields where our TSA clubhouse stands, and poor Joseph literally drew his final breath on our doorstep...

Sculpted by Paul Hicks, he was given to the attendees of the Crisis wargame show in 2013.

The second part of this weeks entry consists of more troops for my Dux Britanniarum force.  The first lot is the remainder of figures I had from the Gripping Beast Late Roman box set, and form a unit of 12 archers, good for 3 more groups if needed in the campaign.

Secondly, a fresh unit of 8 Dark Age warriors, again by Gripping Beast plastics, join the ranks of my Dux / SAGA force, as you can never have enough Irish for a party.

On a totally different note comes this Pirate lass by Black Scorpion.  When backing their Tombstone kickstarter, one of the stretches was a model of choice from their site, and I just loved her look with the long flowing hair.  She just had to be a redhead to my mind's eye!

The last part of this weeks entry is a dumpster with a monsterlike figure in it.  I got no clue where I  got this nor why, but I decided to paint it up as an objective marker for my Chaos Legion.  While technically "scenery", I just count it as a single 28mm figure, which is about right imho.
Because we all know that the used Tide Pods are even more delicious for the challenge, don`t we kids...

That`s it for this week, mix and match and hotch and potch, but in the end that should come to 23 models of 28mm infantry scale (12 + 8 + 3 singles) for another 115 points to my tally if i count correctly...

From Ray

Excellent work Tom. I love the Marquis de Bouc, de Seguiran figure, what a great sculpt and paint job!!! And how fantastic (not for him) that your club is on the battlefield where he died!!
Lovin' the Oirish once again and the Pirate Lass looks a handful too!

Your Math is correct 23 x 5 is indeed come to 115 points!

From LeeH : Bromhead (5 points)

Today's entry is both a departure from and dedication to my big winter project, the Anglo Zulu War. This figure by Black Scorpion Miniatures is most definitely not 6mm in scale and has been sitting in my lead mountain since I bought it at Salute in 2012. I initially base coated it for use during my first foray in the Painting Challenge (AHPC IV back in 2013/14) but never got round to starting it. It was again rolled out as part of my to-do list when I entered Challenge VI and again for Challenge VII so its high time I finally put some paint on this figure!!

Lieutenant (later, Major) Gonville Bromhead was second in command at Rorke's Drift in January 1879 when a small garrison of just 139 soldiers repulsed repeated assaults by over 4000 Zulu warriors. Bromhead was immortalised by the actor Micheal Cain in the 1964 film Zulu and this figure is based on that theatrical version.

The figure was originally produced in a limited edition Resin casting for the 2009 Salute show and was initially a limited edition of just 100 castings. Fortunately Black Scorpion decided to produce the model in white metal and I'm really glad I snapped up my copy.

From Ray

You're only supposed to blow the bloody... Sorry wrong film!
Well well Mr Hadley, are we going to see more 25mm figures from this period??? I do hope so, skirmish Zulu's sounds like a plan?
Bloody good show on Bromhead ol' boy, a very cool looking figure that I've not seen before.
A very well earned 5 points to your total!

From AnneO'L-28mm Billy the Kid (10 points)

For the most part, I want to avoid posting singles, but there are some figures that I wanted to paint that are not part of a unit or a team.  This figure is one of them.

The figures is from Black Scorpion and is 25mm.  I do not know who the sculptor is as the name is not listed.  Not listing the sculptor, is to me, an unforgivable sin.  In my opinion, they are the real talent in this hobby and without them, we'd all be sitting around with our thumbs up our arses.

What drew me to this figure is the way the head is cocked back with that chin up in a defiant tilt.  That feature alone carried the sculpt for me.  This was cast is resin and the texture was quite rough.  This made getting smooth blends on the face difficult, but it helped when trying to make the jacket look rough and worn.

This gives me another staggering five points.

Whoa that is Billy the Kid, that's two for two on nailing iconic characters today Anne.  Great figure with superb painting!  Billy has a real maniacal look to him, I wouldn't want to cross him.    I also really like the effective basing

I get  to dole  out some bonus points and have done so here because, well just because...

From ClintB - Dwarven Rejects on Tour (20 Points)

Rae and Posti

"Kurt's has got this Challenge thing going on!" Garbles Rae the Master ! It is partially the beard that make him hard to understand, but mostly the Grog. His diction is also shocking and the screeching monkey voice of Posti who Rae happens to be carrying is not making it any easier to hear. Rae would say that that he does all the heavy lifting and that Posti just goes along for the ride. I will let you decide if that is right .
"I Know Kurt is challenged what are you on about?" Frank spueaks out as he tries to hide closer to the bar, the ale and the pork scratching's. Yum Yum!. Which all agree is the best place to be. But Frank and Rae have a special relationship even when they are on different islands let alone on different boats. The other crew had commented on it before but only in Private and not to their faces for fear of reprisals. Personally I don't know what "Omo-erotic " Means and I am sure I don't want it explained. Big Twee used the term, not me!
Rae continues. "I said Kurt is running a challenge again this year!"


FranK

"That's up in the FROZEN North!" Seaman Millsie half chokes on his frothy southern brew he likes ales that are all head and no body.  "Running you say?" The Southern accent is thick and slurry as we all know  those on the southern most Island do nothing but drink weak beverages and whinge about the true nations sporting prowess. "I aint running no where!" Seaman Millie carries on.
"Of course you aint running! You Southerners are only good at the sit down sports!" Rae was quick of the mark with the comeback. "Fook off!" The Monkey spat back always happy to swear at Rae even if he had not been the target of any jibe!

Big Twee the Short arse!

"You Fook off you piece of Shite!" Rae squeezes the monkey as he answers him. "You may have a tricorn on but your eyes are still brown because you are full of Shite!" The Monkey Posti chatters on and on and to be honest while amusing I do fade out of hearing focus.
 "Yeah King Kurt lives in the frozen north. Even more North of Frostgrave! And Frostgrave is cold enough!" Four eyed Klint is slumpt in the corner drowsy with beer, his eyebrow twitches and a little bit of drool escapes his mouth but he knows far batter than to speak. But Big Twee, the shortest of the dwarfs Loudly slurs "I aint going eiver! I will go to Frost grave, but not the frozen frozen North!" The short arse then changes the subject to gold and we all listen. He is the "Rich Reject after all and knows all about gold treasure and that sort of thing. "Yeah shipmates there is treasure in Frostgrave so that is where we should go. Maybe stop In on King Kurt afterwards and see if he has any provisions we can eat."  Like all rejects matters of the stomach were always of interest to all of us except the monkey.


Four eyed Klint

"Right that's settled then we all go to Frostgrave's Cold Harbour and then on to the Frozen North to see King Kurt. Maybe we can get some treasure from him as well!" Rae takes charge even if only leading through mutual agreement as we all swig more and belch, eat pork scratchings and fart (we all look at Posti when that happens but we are all secretly blaming someone else!). "The 'Neptune's Harlot' "Our ship although the monkey calls it a shed but we all call him a shit so it's fair! "The Harlot's stocked and ready to sail and we my hearties, are looking for treasure or points at the very least!"

The names have been changed to protect the innocent!  (Innocent, who am I kidding!)

All the figures are 28mm Black Scorpion Miniatures and cast in resin some of the details are a little soft but would have been crisp in metal. Somewhere tucked away I have 4 more but at this juncture in time I can't find them so let me know if you want to appear in part 2 should I find them. I hope no offence has been taken by anyone as it was not at all intended and if it has please feel free to take any revenge on Rae! Not Klint, Klint is not guilty at all its is all Rae's fault! Remember Big boys done it and run away. Yes Blame Rae, 'cos he is to blame, honest! Would I lie to you?

This is wonderfully cracked Clint! I for one would like to see a Part 2 if you find the other castings. All of them are great but I think my favourite is FranK. He has a certain maniacal glint that I can appreciate.  Hmm, I wonder what sort of reprobate this King Kurt of the Frozen North must be? I guess we'll find out in a future chapter, eh?