from RayR - Haitian Revolution - British 14th Light Dragoons 80pts

 

My last unit from the Haitian Revolution for the Challenge and its back to the British regulars.

Two troops of the 14th Light Dragoons were detached and joined 8th Light Dragoons in the Low Countries in 1794 for service in the Flanders Campaign. Then seven troops were detached and deployed to the French Colony of Saint-Domingue in 1795 during the Haitian Revolution, they took part in an action at Mirebalais in June 1797 in which they helped defeat 1,200 ex-slaves who were sympathetic to new regime in France.

The figures are British Light Dragoons with Tropical helmets and of course are from Trent Miniatures.

Now I'm off to try and finish my last unit!!! Fingers crossed!

8 x 25mmmounted figures @ 10 points each

for a total of 80 points! 

From NoelW: The Hall of Heroes: (186 points)

 And here we find ourselves in the Hall of Heroes. In the red corner, which is very red by now, stand the remainder of our heroes, valiantly launching arrows into the air as if there is no tomorrow. Which there probably will not be, for them.

Because, in the blue corner, emitting blue smoke from the ends of their muskets and language of a similar colour from their snarling mouths, are ranks of invaders from Challenge Island.

 

Now we see the archers about to run out of arrows.

As the enemy now masses its cowardly cavalry, ready to charge and complete their conquest. 

 Those heroic archers are on the point of being overwhelmed, all hope just about lost. It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that – 

Hang on! I was just saying: “It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that - ”

Where are they?

I know they were around here somewhere. They were in the Lair of the Beast, and charging in this direction…It should be exactly at this moment, with classic timing, that -

“Woof!”

Scruff charges in. Closely followed by the huge troll that Gnawbone has become, and hard on his heels the slew of monsters he has gathered together. 

They hurl themselves pell-mell into the mass of invaders, taking no prisoners, biting, chomping, stinging, flailing, skewering, shishkebabing – in short, rather dismaying the hitherto cocky invaders. And in a few moments the fight is over.

The monsters each select what they desire from the pile of the defeated (we better not look too closely at that) and wander off to their selected undesirable dark, dank and dismal corners of the Chambers of Challenge which they’ve just successfully protected.

It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that Titchy and his party come charging in.

“Oh,” says Titchy, “we got lost. All these tunnels look the same.”

“There’s another over there,” says Getrude, watching a sneaky survivor attempting to crawl back to the beach. “Let’s follow Gerald’s lead and put the last of these pesky invaders to the sword/staff/dagger/tooth.”

Here we see a party of not entirely sensible adventurers fired up with blood-lust and consumed with the indignant desire to protect treasure which they have absolutely no right to, racing down the tunnel towards the scent of the sea, sand dunes and something that sounds ominously like a rattle of bone.

 ***

So this is another somewhat eclectic post.

First are 5 Perrys’ Agincourt archers.

I’ve a sort of policy – well, habit, really – of adding to the English army each time I add to the French, so having painted six French knights a little earlier in the Challenge, I had to add another handful of archers. However, these figures are not my favourite Perry pieces – they’re fine, of course, but not exciting to paint – and the archers tend to be a mass of nondescript colours in any case, so I don’t lavish a huge amount of time on these. Basic colours and a wash here and there, and that’s it.

Next we have a badly photographed regiment Zamora, Napoleonic Spanish infantry, in the 1805 uniform (my army is loosely aimed at 1808) – though further research suggests the collar should be white, not black.

Figures by Warlord in their rather strange resin/plastic hybrid. I actually quite like these models, and enjoy painting them, though you can probably see that the relief on the castings is not as deep as you'd get with metal. I will probably buy more, simply because they're a decent price for bulking the army, but the resin has annoying flash which is difficult to spot (until you find yourself painting it), seems to occur arbitrarily on the figures, and is difficult to pare away in reasonable fashion.

The cavalry unit is Hompesch’s Hussars (1801), fighting for the Brits in Egypt against those pesky invading French who for some reason question the hegemony Britain is trying to impose upon the world.

Figures by Perry Miniatures from their Napoleon in Egypt range. I like these figures so much it turns out I accidentally bought the unit twice! I don’t know what I’ll do with the other six, unpainted, figures. Possibly their uniform is similar to a unit fighting in the West Indies. Or else they may merely become some imagi-nations unit. I tried hard to do these figures justice, spending quite a while on them but the photos are mediocre, so you'll just have to trust me when I say they look pretty cool!

Scoring:

21 x 28mm foot figures: 105 points

6 x 28mm cavalry: 60 points

1 flag: 1 point

Hall of Heroes: 20 points

TOTAL: 186 points

I’ve lost track of the side-challenges. But I believe I had a score of 60 points in the Cavalry challenge. This now goes up to 120 points. And my Napoleonic score goes up by 140 points.

From NoelW: Outnumbered in the Oubliette (1159 points)

 [INTRO: This is a longish post with quite a few photos, so I’ve only given one or two photos for each item, and I’ve scored the probable points as I go along. ]

But first…

***

“Stop shoving!”

“Where are we? I can’t see a thing.”

“More to the point, who are we?”

“Well, I don’t know who you are. But I know I’m – definitely – someone.”

“Or something, judging by the smell. And you’re holding a big shiny stick.”

“I am, aren’t I? I wonder why.”

“Oy! Keep the witty conversation down, will you? There’s a legion trying to get a bit of shuteye in here.”

“There must be a way out. Stands to reason. We got in somewhere. Just find that place and reverse the process.”
“Hey! Watch where you’re treading!”

“Sorry – if only there was a light.”

“Get your foot out of my mouth!”

“Must be an elf, if it’s foot in the mouth time.”

“Who you calling an elf? You take that back this minute!”

“If we had a couple of sticks we could rub together, we could make a fire. Or at least a spark. Like a boy scout.”

“No thanks. I’ve just eaten.”

“Ok, that’s an ogre, or I’m a person who identifies as man from the Netherlands.”

“You got something against ogres?”

“No! No. Apart from my chin, that is.”

“I wish I could remember – something…”

“I think I’ve found a couple of long knotty sticks. Possibly elven legs. I could rub them together, see what happens.”

“What have we got to lose?”

“Let go of my ankles. I’ve a great deal to lose.”
There’s a grating sound, like sandpaper rubbing against grandma’s stubble. Nothing happens.

“If there was a sorceress or a cleric, they could shed some light on the situation. Even a halfling with a bright idea.”

“Unlikely.”

“Hang on. Maybe one of these sleeping people is a magician. I’ll have a look. Let me just light this torch so I can see better.”

For a moment the oubliette – for such it is – is as thick with silence as it is with darkness, a silence broken only by the snores and whimpers of thousand bodies, suddenly illuminated by the blaze of Titchy’s torch. Rows and rows of sleeping warriors.

“Ah! Tread softly, or we’ll tread on their screams.”

“There’s a lever over there, by that small wooden wall.”

“If only we had someone who could pull a lever…”

***

I thought Oubliette was a character in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, because I’d forgotten what it actually meant. I read French as part of my degree, tutored by a very French lady called Mme Grillet (which is French for ‘grill’, which she frequently did to me). I learned one thing: that parapluie meant ‘butterfly’, so that on my very first trip to France I could declare, brightly, to demonstrate my erudition, “Voila les parapluies dans la jardin”. Highlight of my polyglottism.

At my age I forget many things but, fortunately, one of them is how many things I forget. There was a time, almost forgotten now, when I thought 10mm was the answer to every wargaming need. 10mm figures weren’t too expensive, didn’t need lots of storage, could fit on the smallest of gaming tables and enabled massive battles, yet weren’t so small they could not carry detail worth painting. I planned several massive setups: Borodino, Leipzig, ever battle in Tolkien.

Well, of course, you know what’s coming next. I acquired drawers full of 10mm figures, only to decide that 28mm was where I really wanted to be. The 10mm figures were assigned to miscellaneous receptacles, languishing for years in forgotten corners of the parallel world that is my attic.

Until last year I sorted out some of the figures for the Joshua Project, and was reminded of how much unpainted 10mm I had. These days, with my declining faculties (no comments, please) I find it hard to see the detail on 10mm, and get bored with painting them. So this time round I decided I’d do some bulk 10mm painting between working on posts for the Chambers before it's too late, and post whatever I’d managed when I reached the Oubliette, focusing on two of the unfinished projects: Borodino and fantasy.

Eh, voila!

Borodino

All Old Glory figures.

For the Russians: 90 infantry, 90 points

For the French I’m working towards nominal units to represent each of the Corps:

90 Poles (Duchy of Warsaw): V Corps (90 points)

30 Westphalian Garde-Grenadiere: VIII Corps (30 points)

(There are 9 hand painted flags in these units, but they’re such poor quality, I’m not asking any bonus for them).

TOTAL: 210 points

[So that's also 210 points for the Napoleonic Challenge, and I guess three armies gives me 3 Squirrel points.]

Tolkienic Fantasy

Most of these figures are 10mm plastic from GW's Battle of the Five Armies set, comprising humans, dwarves, elves and goblins, including wolf riders. The individual figures are from various sources, and of various sizes. 

Elf archers: 84

Elf spears: 210 

Dwarves: 210

Humans: 42

Goblins: 252

Wolfriders: 12 figures, 24 points

Unicorns (unknown manufacturer, possibly Pendraken): 3

Trolls: (The trolls and Black Riders are from Lord of the Rings Risk. The trolls are 25, whilst the Riders are really 15mm rather than 10mm, but as they’re supernatural creatures, I think they look fine and as the painting is simply black with a drybrush, I'm scoring them as 10mm):

3 x 25mm Trolls: 15 points

Black Riders: 9 cavalry: 18 points

Ghosts: (I think these are Kallistra)

9 x 20mm figures: 36 points

Sea monsters: These are from GW's old Man O' War game. I regret getting rid of the ships from this game, which were lovely models, but I did keep hold of these four monsters. The range in size from 25mm to 50mm, but I'm scoring them all as 25mm.

4 x 25mm figures: 20 points

TOTAL: 929 points
[Not sure how to compute the Squirrels here: maybe 4 for the main races, and another one for all the “Specials”?]

20 points for The Oubliette

Grand Total: (210+929+20) = 1159 points