From PhilH: Armour Inspired by MartinN at Mudry’s Mesa (83 Points)

As soon as I saw the task for Mudry’s Mesa, I knew what I’d enter: in Challenge IX, MartinN entered a stunning T-26 tank for his gorgeous Spanish Civil War Nationalist force. He made the Rubicon kit sound excellent, so I ordered a pair.

Martin’s work on vehicles is peerless among the challengers, so I took the opportunity to learn a few new techniques and (mostly) follow his method, that was detailed in the second Setting the Scene book.

I didn’t have any fancy modulations, or an airbrush, so the base colours were all hand painted, which was time consuming. I consciously chose a darker, less vibrant green to Martin’s entry, and also wanted them to look a little cleaner like a fresh delivery by boat from Russia.

Republican tanks also  offered less scope for colourful markings, just some numbers by decal, freehand hammer and sickle and political slogans. I did add some baggage and a tank commander nonchalantly reviewing the battlefield, taken from a Perry metal set.

I’m pleased with how the exhausts came out, less rusted up, so I made up my own method.

Trial and error of new techniques, and waiting on new supplies meant these took me weeks to get finished, but I managed to do so for both tanks to make a debut last weekend.

There are a few things I’d do differently, but it was a learning process and they’re waaay better than the few vehicles that I’ve painted previously.

The kit comes with enough parts to make the 1938 pattern turret, so I built those as well, in case I should ever game the Eastern Front.

So deepest thanks to Moiterei for both the inspiration and guidance. I had such a blast I’ve a third tank on order to do as a captured Nationalist vehicle.

Two vehicles is 40, plus the extra turrets lets say another 10 and tank commander for 2. Then the location bonus for 30, makes a tidy 82 plus any Minion discretion for the freehand work.



You've certainly done a great job on these for brush-painting Phil. A fine pair of light tanks for your Republicans. I'm scoring the commander as 3 points (half-a-figure, rounded up).

TamsinP

From PeteF: Cenobite Dream Hunter (35 points)

Mudry's Mesa is truly the newiest and shiniest location on the Path of the New Shiny. This chap arrived shortly after Christmas, along with some other horror themed nasties, to become part of my Kings of War Nightstalkers army.

Kings of War is great for miniature collecting - Mantic (the rules publisher) doesn't make models for all of the units in the game and players are encouraged to use what they like to represent the different factions.  My Nightstalkers army is built around a core of Mantic models but most of the units have some clue to a movie (usually a horror movie). Studio Miniatures make a bunch of look-alike minis, including this pinhead-esque Cenobite. He will be a Dream Hunter - a heavy infantry hero who can help your other infantry really get stuck in and who can deal out a fair amount of damage in his own right.

I vaguely remember being horrified by the original Hellraiser - and the Cenobites, creepy pain-loving creatures from another dimension. Main lesson: it is a Bad Idea solve strange looking puzzle boxes. The pins on his head made this guy quite a challenge to paint. The skin on the head is supposed to be sliced into squares with each of the intersections pinned. The pins got in the way of painting the grid of scars and required a very gentle touch to dab with metallic paint. I could do with some instruction on painting black robes - I'm not very comfortable with highlighting black. Happy with the end result though.

One 28mm foot figure and a new area explored (2 to go) for 35 points.

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By Paul- that is creepy as hell! 
That movie freaked me out as a young teenager too- take your 35 points and get the heck out!

From BrettM: See you on the Beach (250 pts)

So far on Challenge Island

Now onto Mudry's Mesa I was inspired from last years entry from DaveD and his great job on his "hit the beach" entry.

I've had these since the competition ended last year. In fact pretty sure I went to Miniature Mart site and bought them right away. After seeing the post. So what better time to get them painted up. First up are the Tanks.

I enjoyed painting these and probably the quickest things I have painted in a while as far as from when I started to when they were completed

Think the commanders that came with the tanks look more like Brits than the US Commanders. Guess they could be either though. I haven't put any decals on them yet for this reason and not sure if I am going to. May just leave them how they are.

Now I would ask, do I have have enough? I believe I said I needed more last year, and was told by Dave I do. So I suppose I still need more

Now onto the landing craft.

I already had 3 boats painted previously, However I never did paint the infantry for them. Since I was painting these other 3 boats and infantry. Just painted them all together to knock them out.

Always torn on whether I should base tanks on bases or not. So far I have not, and leave them as is for the tabletop. I think I will always question myself on this anytime I paint any vehicle smaller than 28mm

In total the infantry for the boats were half models. Think they were awarded to Dave last year at 1pt per. So there is a total of 144. Then 3 boat drivers and 6 half models on the guns. So another 6 models if you combine the half ones. Total point wise 156 for figs and 64 points for the vehicles.

MilesR: A very nice invasion force in 15mm,  Lets us all hope these men are bound for Utah rather than Omaha Beach!  A very nice form of preparatory points bombardment in the form of 250 total points!

From Barks: Fallschirmjäger. In. SPAAACE! (50 points)

I picked these figures up at CanCon last month on a whim because they are great value. They are Wargames Atlantic Raumjäger- unapologetically FJ with some scifi trimmings and a G36-esque lasrifle. You get 24 in a box- six sprues of four poses, each including a variety of heads and weapons. I assembled four as a test and painted them to match some of my other figures- they could be Imperial Guard, or bulk out my Genestealer Cult, or corporate mercs, or some kind of paramilitary. I may try some different heads next batch. I may test the waters of Victoria Miniatures. I would like to see some support weapons in the future. I struggled a bit with the goggles and masks. The helmets were a bit plain and light, so I added some flecks.

I used some spare GSC arms on the leader- they're OK. 

I had to convert this figure to hold a rifle in his left hand.

Importantly, they've kept the Y-Tragegestell. 

4x 28mm 20 Points

Mudry's Mesa 30 Points



Those chaps look nicely creepy Barks. Well worth 50 points.

TamsinP

From TeemuL: 4 winds at Mudry's Mesa (51 points)

-There is a sign!

-Thank god we are finally there.

-Lady Wonger and her retinue will continue, we will land here, thank you very much, Lady Sarah.

-A nice mesa, but I hope those samurais are friendly...

-No worries, they seem to disappear to the four winds, just like the sign shows.

-Okay, nothing to see here, just a plain mesa. Take a closer look at a sign and decide where to go next. I want that treasure!

One option to enter Mudry's Mesa is any figure bought after the Challenge was announced. Well, I built this handy sign this week, so I hope it qualifies. It can be used almost anywhere, but of course it is very handy at Mudry's Mesa, since it shows the four different destinations next to Mudry's Mesa. But I'm sure there are lots of similar landscapes around the multiverse and time. I guess there is someone using some rules to play games on this Challenge Island, so some scenery is needed at some point. I'm not going to make any measurements, but boldly claim 1 point for the sign. It is based on 25mm round base and painted mostly with Contrast paints (I seem to paint pretty much everything nowadays at least partially with them...).

Just in case the jury is feeling strict about the rules, I throw in 4 samurais as well, arrived in mail earlier this month by YourModelBox. So if the sign is not accepted, these samurais (painted in Contrasts mostly) should do the trick. Here they are shown running to the four winds like mentioned above. Beware of samurai invasion around the island.

Here's another picture of them, neatly in line. Two running guys on the left are from Steel Fist Miniatures. The tall one in the middle is an exclusive model by Model Box, Yasuke the African Samurai - the first foreign samurai in Japan. The guy on the right is a Warring Clans Character by Footsore Miniatures. They are bit different scales, Yasuke being the tallest, but I based them in same way (but forgot to tidy up the base trims, need to fix that).

This is Yasuke, I like how the pinkish purple works with his darker skin and yellow and green equipments. I added some freehand to the cloak (or what it is called), since I have seen that samurai were not only colorful, but decorated as well. I'm sure the cloth would not fold that nicely to show the pattern, but it looks nice this way.

This is from Footsore Miniatures, bright and colorful chap ready to fight. His skin tone might be a bit dark, but paler than Yasuke anyway. He is almost much smaller and was provided with a thinner base. I tried to paint some triangles on his cloth, but after a while decided to keep it in one color.

These two are from Steel Fist Miniatures, they came with separate hands and heads. I used some contrasts and some rarely used metallic paints on these. Let me point out, that I have no idea about the colors, is there any meaning with them, any uniformity or any rules, I just picked some colors and painted what looked nice. My very quick research showed, that the colors used were not similar to what I have been used to in European history or in Fantasy settings. Their color schemes seem to match some Space Marine Chapters in their color oddity. But yes, I don't know much about the Samurais or history of Japan. I don't know what to do with these, but at least they are out of my unpainted mesa and matched this challenge requirement.

4 roughly 28 miniatures for 20 points
Mudry's Mesa bonus for 30 points
Sign for 1 point

Total 51, and then to think where to go next (three locations done).

Oh Lord send us a sign!  Excellent take on the Mesa theme Teemu.  I would have accepted the signpost on its own (love the Challenge island references BTW) but am happy to see the four samurai.      I have a lot of respect for anyone who tries Samurai figures, I am simply not up to the challenge.
Anyway enough blather -51 points it is.

From ScottM: Soviets at Mudry's Mesa (50 Points)

A short quick post for Mudry's Mesa. I went with the brand new shiny figs picked up after the challenge was announced. I picked these 28mm figures up back in early December along with some samurai figures from The Assault Group (TAG). A friend of mine is starting an early war Soviet army for Chain of Command and one of the support options let's you change out some regular rifle armed troops for some armed with the SVT-40. So here's a pack of 4 SVT-40 armed infantry.

Nice clean figs, not a lot of equipment, they painted up nice and quick. That completes Mudry's Mesa as we head back out towards sea.

So that should be: 4 28mm foot figs = 20 +30 (location bonus) = 50 points.

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Welcome to the mesa Scott, nice to have the company.  These guys should certainly add some firepower to any formation.  It is great to hear of more people playing CoC as it really is such a good set of rules.

Enjoy your trip around the island.

-ByronM

From SanderS: Mars Exulte! Mudry's Mesa (173pts)

Hoi,

Onwards to Snowlords Peak we travel, passing by Mudry's Mesa we need to paint something inspired by another Challengers entry from previous Challenges. Last year Noel has painted a cr*p load of figures much as he's doing this year and amongst them were some awesome Romans. Now I have always had a keen interest in the Roman/ classical era, but just never had the courage to start painting the huge numbers of troops needed to portray the conflicts of Rome in any serious manner. I have a 1:72 army for Hannibal in the cabinet at school but never did finish the Romans needed to fight them.

Anyway, I ended up buying a bunch of Victrix/ Warlord plastic frames with a Roman Civil War idea in mind. In order to get the kids at the Heroquest club interested in Historical Wargaming I am thinking of making cards for a Roman hero and a small group of soldiers to help him fight in the ongoing civil conflicts in Rome during any change of power. The Caesarian period or the Claudius-Nero period, being high amongst my favourites.

I already have some painted gladiators and a few sprues of Gauls are ready for construction as wel.It's fairly well possible that I end up doing something like the Footsore Gangs of Romegame eventually but for now this is as far as I will go. Let's take a closer look at the figures okay? Now usually I like to err on the side of historical authenticity with subjects like these but I felt like going a little crazy and using colour schemes for the scutums (scuta? scutii?) so I painted four units of 5 figures each with a distinctly different scheme. Each unit also has at least one leader model (sometimes 2) and I used Renedra/ Frostgrave bases in order to recreate the pavements of Rome, while it's not really visible in my (really bad) pictures: the bases have several layers of colour including a mossy green that also shows on my pavement mat. Okay so let's look at the figures themselves.

The Black/ Praetorian unit. I painted these to accompany Cato and Macro (I have been reading Simon Scarrow's latest book Blood of Rome while painting these).

 Since I am not capable of painting on the eagle wings or the lightning bolts (believe me I've tried) I did as many non-wing designs as possible.

The Green unit: actually this is my rendition of the Legio X Gallica (or 10th Gaulic Legion) the boar on the shield is a transfer the rest is painted on. Also, Benito has mentioned that we have prove that most Roman soldiers wore off-white tunica's under their Lorica hamata or Lorica segmentata. I think this to be true as well, but I also have learned through an experimental archeologist, Bernard van Daele, that the richer soldiers were allowed to buy and wear their own tunica's and those often were red. so I included a few other coloured tunica's for diversity.

 My favourite bunch of the lot are the Yellow unit, mostly due to the fact I love these yellow and red shields with the horsey on them. The horse and waves are again a transfer.

The last unit is the compulsory Red-shield-unit. I used all at rest poses for them because I am going to use them as the NPC guards in scenarios if and when needed. 

Well that's the plastics done with, mostly...I also have some white metal Foundry figures from two of their character sets painted up for general use. There's a guy on horse (basically he's an emperor, but I've forgotten which one) he's talking to a high ranking officer, tribune or legate.

There's a cornicen and standard bearer from plastic which I have done up in different schemes as the units above so they can be used with any one of them. Then there's 3 more white metal characters. Among them are 2 high ranking officers and a nobleman in toga.

What amount of points does this entry leave me with? Well 26 foot figures and one mounted figure should be good for 140 points and together with the 30 bonus points that is a total of 170 points. These should see me pass the 1000 points mark and on my way to the end goal of 2000.

Cheers Sander



That's a great looking bunch of Romans you've painted here Sander. As there are a couple of hand-painted shields I've added a couple of points.

TamsinP