From JasperO: One man and his Lard (the Larder - 50 points)

With 10 days to go until the end of this year's Challenge, it's high time to get myself across the half-way point towards my own goal. To do so, I present my entry for The Larder. 

This vignette consists mostly of two sets from the Black Hussar Miniatures 7-Years War bakery range, but I figure it'll work well in a corner of my AWI tables. I've painted the workers in various colours that might be parts of a uniform, especially if this is the Continental Army.

The thief making off with a piglet is a Foundry figure from their civilian range. Size-wise, I suppose this is meant to be a child in torn pants. I painted his clothing as a sort of random combination of items he 'found' here and there, just like he did the piglet (and I see I forgot to paint the buttons on his vest - better do so quick!)

Overseeing the entire operation, perhaps the personification of the Larder, is a figure from a Eureka Miniatures 18th century civilians set. I find their range is very fun to paint, and it was interesting to attempt a fat face, generally a rarity in wargaming (figures).

This was a nice, colourful variety on all the green and brown that I've painted recently and with six figures and the Larder bonus, should net me 50 points and neatly across the midway point to my goal!

From ChrisF - Chamber of Challenges Larder 25mm (25pts)

 This is a Grenadier Miniature circa 1980 from the Hireling Crew box set for D&D. 

He is 2004f - potion drinker.

I wonder if this guy was hired for this particular skill, but since he has a sword and shield, I'm guessing it's just an additional duty or maybe he's multi-tasking.

Maybe its something you add to your resume to increase the chance of getting hired.

Can't be fun to hear "Say Bernard, come on over here and try this stuff we just found so we can see what happens to you". Hopefully he negotiated for a decent health plan. 

Bottoms up!

From TeemuL: Halflings in Larder (45 points)

S.N. Owl-Ord takes the right turn on, the left side smells like sea and has a moist feeling, while the right side smells of food and has a warm feeling. He leaves the greyish bard behind and continues his walk towards the principal's office. He starts to hear noise. "Larder", he thinks, "Where have I come?" Nevertheless, he continues and to his amazement, he sees two of those smaller people again, but these are not paying any attention to him, they are just shouting and yelling towards the window and seems like they are going to throw their hot pot out of the window. There is another doorway, leading to the stairs, so Uggla quickly leaves this confusing place behind and goes downstairs.

This of course is the famous Halfling Hot Pot, which I bought some years ago, but without the head chef. Anyway, fully knowing, that my painting time is limited for this Challenge, I knew this would be a perfect piece for the Larder and bonus points. I decided to base the hot pot and chefs on a large round base, so I can position them in the way I want and have some scenery and make it strong enough.

 

This was a joy to paint, mainly using the regular paints from the Citadel range, some light and bright colors for the cheerful halflings. I added an old jungle tree trunk and some other stuff (the gun is now with "timbers", if you get the poor joke). Different kinds of basing materials to keep the big base interesting were added and as a final detail I sprinkled some orange sand here and there on top of the green areas to create and illusion of small flowers (take a look at the last picture, please).

 

I'm bit behind my schedule, since I was hoping to finish the Level 3 by the end of February and I have now just finished the first level. However, the level 2 is well in progress now and since I don't have anymore holidays or holiday activities I can spend more time painting. And I'd like to paint something non-Chambers stuff as well. I'm also sorry for not commenting much of the other posts, most of the time I have had a backlog of 40-60 posts and constantly reading posts released couple of days old. Now I have caught up quite nicely, so I expect to comment more.

 

Two 28mm miniatures, 10 points

Crew served weapon (very small, even compared to the crew), 10 points

Larder, 20 points

Halfling cooks in Larder, 5 bonus points

Total 45 points, 20 for GW Challenge, 0 skulls

Edit: Updated the points to make spreadsheet happy.

AndrewB - ‘Cave’ people and Larder Challenge (30 Points)

 For today’s episode of catching my posting up to my painting, I have two fine residents of a prehistoric cave or somesuch, including a little fellow bringing back some food!  

These fine models are from Reaper’s Bones line, a part of a four pack which will all be shortly completed.  I am still unsure of whether they will be based in a jungle or more temperate setting, so for now, a basic cave floor type will have to suffice.  I have recently been making a lot of good use of the textured Vallejo basing gels, and am consistently quite happy with the results.  My layering on skin appears to be coming along, but that’s an uphill battle that I cannot roll dice to fix   

I know the gentleman with the club shouldn’t have a metallic anklet, but it looked alright, so here we are   The other two models from the set should be completed shortly, and will be posted as soon as they are   

By my calculations, between the two 28mm figures and the last room of level one on the Challenge(woooooo!), the total should be 30pts for this post   

Happy painting!

From SidneyR: In The Larder ! (25 points)

After my flurry of postings around Christmas and New Year, it's been back to work for me - with, sadly, reduced painting time.  I've been trying a spend a few minutes a day with the paints and brushes, and there are a few things in the pipeline.... but, until they make it here to the Challenge XI Blog, here's my post for 'The Larder'.

It's a dwarf, well on the way to being drunk in a dungeon larder, enjoying a pipe of Old Toby (or Old Socks, perhaps).  I've had the figure for many years, being part of Bugman's Cart from Citadel/ Games Workshop.  For some reason, I didn't make the cart, and the dwarf has been glowering at me from my spares box ever since.

Hopefully, he's happier now, being positioned in a far preferable location with a plentiful supply of beer and pouch of tobacco

As for the points, a very modest 5 points for the dwarf, and 20 for "The Larder", to add a few more clicks to my total.

And, in keeping with this beer-y entry, I finished the 'The Larder' last night with a very pleasant bottle of Straffe Hendrik - a strong, dark, but excellent Belgian beer which goes well with just about anything.

I think that's the first level of the Challenge Chambers completed for me, with hopefully a lot more painting to come!

From TomG - Epic ACW and a trip to The Larder Challenge Chamber - 73 points

Hi all, I hope you've all had a good week, and that the universe has treated your painting sessions kindly. Having taken a few days off painting due to poorly kids and grown ups in our house, I was greatly relieved to hop back in the chair and get some colours down. 

First on offer is the next stand from my Warlord Games ACW sprue, this time including the command strip. As I have zero confidence with banners, I made up a placeholder just so I got a feeling for what may one day be when I can print some off. 

These guys are turning out to be more fun to paint than I thought, and it is converting me to want to look at more 15mm (or there abouts) scale gaming. My only other experience is Flames of War, and that's mainly vehicles. 

I tried to keep a variety of colours in use for their uniforms, in an effort to give them a campaign look, but I know that I may benefit from a simpler scheme when I get a lot more of them. 

Our courageous leader got a small amount of extra detail, but not much, however I love how he came out. 

My only issue was that I ended up finding the highlights got super desaturated as I went along, but luckily it's not present in the finished article. 

Oddly the cannon crew were the first things I painted but I didn't post them with my other chaps as I wanted to tweak them.

Mostly those tweaks were the red details and repainting the cannon to a darker bronze tone, but I'm not sure this was the right thing to do. What do you think? 

So now we move back in to the Chambers of Challenge, and after a lengthy campaign it's time to hit up that Larder! 

This little number comes from, the now dead and unsupported game, Guild Ball from Steamforged Games. It was classed as terrain for the game, however it'll now function nicely as a challenge entry, forever to live on the shelf of unknowns. 

As painting it goes, the colours were fun to play with, and I even you to use my Christmas gifts of some Pro-Acryl paints, namely purples and oranges. The chicken is my second bird of Challenge XI and I'm sure it won't be my last 🤣

Anyway, I hope you like what I had to show you and I have scored it as follows:

20 x 15mm infantry = 40pts

1 x 15mm mounted/officer = 4pts

1 x 15mm artillery piece = 4pts

1 x small scenic (under 6" area) challenge entry = 25pts

Total - 73 points