From ArthurS and SanderS: Tribute at the Altar of the Snowlord or The Final Post! (330 points? )

 

 Hoi,

It has come at last: The Final Post... and it should be the result of our combined efforts to appease the almighty Lord of Snow. 

As I regaled earlier this Challenge, Arthur has got it stuck in his tenacious little mind that the Challenge equals the Chambers of Challenge and so he really wanted to try and paint something for every chamber. Luckily more sensible voices kicked in (yeah I can be sensible sometimes) and we decided to skip some chambers as time or figures were lacking. But Arthur got stuck in anyway and when Curt tasked him with painting anything if it had but more than 4 colours, he rummaged around, found 2 more Space Marines and finished these for the Lord of Blizzards and Icetea.

 A sergeant and Heavy Weaponstrooper are added to the Powerwing Space Marine Chapter.

As Arthur and myself neared the Chamber of the Altar, travelling along the other Chambers, a plan (cunning or not) started to form in my mind. Before the start of the Challenge I had let Ray persuade me to enter his side duel of painting Napoleonics and I agreed to this because I had a large amount of Napoleonic Peninsular British lying on the Pile of Shame since last year's Challenge. These figures in themselves are a nice tale: some years ago I was trying to complete a boxed set of Warhammer Quest (the old one) and in my search stumbled along an almost compleet exemplary, the only niggle: it was a French Language version. It was cheap so I ordered it over and used all the parts to complement my English version. Now I was left with all the books in French...mais je ne parles pas Francais, parlez vous Anglais, Allemand ou Neerlandais? So What to do with them? At that time I also had a GI Joe side duel with Iannick in the Challenge of that moment and so I had to sent him the figure and if memory serves me right I sent the books along to him, for he surely speaks French. Some time later I received my figure from him and along with that some British Napoleonics marched from the windswept and frozen wastes, loosely called Canada. 

There were enough figures to build 2 regiments if I would but buy some extra officers and musicians, I don't know the source of the miniatures Iannick sent me, but I think they resembled Wargames Foundry's figures, so an order with them was placed.

Up comes last year's Challenge and I thought a smart move to enter them in the Challenge Island location of Tamsin: Piper's Peak. At this location one had to paint something that concerned figures taking a peak, are on the look out etc. Now I had a Wellington figure lying around and we all know he liked to play a game when on the road called: "Guessing what was beyond the next ridge" that should be appropriate enough. Time escaped me and I was never able to compleet or even start any of these figures. 

Therefore I was glad Curt asked me to finish some more Napoleonics because these figures are in fact a Tribute to 3 very important members of our Challenge Comunity: Iannick with whom I share a love for 80 Pulp figures and who is MIA from our ranks this year.Tamsin without whom everything would surely come undone as she keeps both the minions and Ray in line and then there is Ray himself. Not only am I going to ask him to add my 320 points to the Napoleonics Duel but he's actually responsible fo me being here at all since it's his blog that first alerted me to the Challenge's existence. I followed his blog mainly because of the commody factor of Fran and Ray harrassing each other with some awesome gaming goodies mixed in but the Challenge was the best thing our Oneloverray provided for me.

So there we have it some Napoleonics for the Snow Lord but really a tribute to some awesome Challengers that deserve it perhaps even more ;-) 

Now with these figures comes the final points math:

Arthur has painted 2 Space Marineswhich adds 10 points to his total to make 203 for his grande total.

Having painted 56 foot ( i.e. 280 points)  and 4 mounted figures ( i.e.40points) 320 should make me a nice fat 1387 points to finish the Challenge this year. 

We hope to have shown ourselves worthy of receiving those excellent Dwarf adventurers the Lord of Laarden himself kindly provided.

We will not say goodbye or thank you all so very much yet, that will be spared for the traditional  final "Challenge Wrap Up" post!

 

Cheers Sander 

 

From HerrRobert (Robert H): Seeing Red! (45 Points)

Next on our journey, Piper's Peak! Or should we say, Piper's Pique?

This entry could also work for Roundwood's Tower, seeing as how it's also influencing an imaginary world, but honestly the pun was just too good to resist.

Tamsin would like you to paint anything that is (or could be): 

i) associated with mountains; or
ii) taking a look (a peek); or
iii) displaying anger ('a fit of pique')

(Or a cheeky airline stewardess - ed.)

And so I give you a sight that thrills Goblin generals everywhere, and inspires dread in all their foes in the Old and New Worlds . . . Night Goblin Fanatics!

These gobbos don't quite qualify as cheeky airline stewardesses, yet, but they're definitely seeing red! These are three Games Workshop plastic Night Goblin fanatics I picked up back for Challenge Ate, and have been sitting on ever since. 

While I do miss the nostalgic Old World of my late teens, my gaming group has been breathing new life into their fantasy miniatures with Warlords of Erewhon.

Rather than Night Goblins, I've decided mine will be Snow Goblins, fighting it out with the Dwarves of the Gray Mountains and occasionally raiding down into the plains of Bretonnia.

Painting was relatively easy, if slow. I relied very heavily on Games Workshop Contrast paints, especially Blood Angles Red for the cloaks, Orc Flesh for skin, and Snakebite Leather for the leather work. All went over base colors, not white, except the Blood Angels Red, which I used to blend together an otherwise three color highlight that just wasn't working. Red is fast joining yellow and white in my hated colors list.

These fellows had such fun faces and facial expressions, I had to get a little silly. So, instead of painting eyes and teeth, I did them in red. It reflects the effects of the hallucinogenic mushrooms they consume quite nicely, and literally leaves them seeing red.

So, three Snow Goblin fanatics for Piper's Pique!

_____________________________

Grey Mountain Snow Goblins? Noice!

I have to admit the red stained teeth kinda creeps me out, but I still love 'em. Those twirling wrecking balls are mental.

15 points it is. Next!

-Curt

From PeterD Pic-a-nic at Pipers Peak (55 points)

Hey, hey Booboo it looks like a Pic-a-nic over at Piper's Peak....*

Ok I'm making for indulgence from our flight attendant here.  It's a horrible pun, put so was the Peke (or alleged Peke in that case, since the model certainly wasn't a Pekinese).   But I wanted to post these figures and I knew that Tamsin is a big fan of Annie Norman's stuff.

This is a set of five members of the Women's Land Army, see the article at the IWM for info, on a lunch break from working the fields during WW2.  They are from Bad Squiddo games' wonderful Women in WW2 range.

Not a whole bunch to say on these.  They are wonderful casts, with lots of character and paint very nicely.  They are in regulation green jumper and Khaki overalls, but a couple sport non-regulation head wear.

I enlisted my wife's help in getting the hair colours right and she suggested toning down the red head and adding more colour to the blonde.  She was of course correct on both counts.

Lynne also had me adjust the colour of the girls' tea as the first attempt looked "strong enough that a mouse could trot across without getting a foot wet".

* I did honestly look for a Yogi Bear figure to add to this post but no joy.  The closest I could find was a 200mm multipart figure on Thingverse.


Assuming that I haven't appalled Tamsin too much with the pun, that's 5 figures at 5 points each plus 30 for the location.

I haven't subject you to my musical tastes this challenge so will rectify that with appropriately titled "Me and the Farmer" by the Housemartins.  This band ticked a lot of boxes for me - jangly guitars, poppy tunes, lovely harmonies and biting lyrics.  Half the band went on the form the Beautiful South while the bassist became Fatboy Slim.  May I present the boppiest song about bonded servitude ever written.

So, they're having a peek-a-neek to qualify for this location? OK, I'll let you off then.

Smashing figures and the hair tones do look good - you should be very thankful for having Lynne around to advise you on such things. 

TamsinP

from RayR - Piper's Peak - I spy with my little eye... 40pts

This is another figure that's been sitting around for a few years, he is actually Capt Kidd and was purchased along with Arr Jim Lad and his pal Monkey, from 

North Star's Fantasy World's Pirate Range 

"Tamsin would like you to paint anything that is (or could be): 

i) associated with mountains; or

ii) taking a look (a peek); or

iii) displaying anger ('a fit of pique')"

I thought the figure taking a peak through his telescope would fit into Tamsin's Island 

very well.

I did do a little conversion work on the figures hat, it originally was a tricorn,

so I cut away some of the hat and turned it into a floppy hat.

Then gave him a new peri wig for good measure too!

So there we are 30 points for the Challenge Island, 5 points for the figure and perhaps a few 

extra points for the conversion work??

Beg Beg Beg, Ok so you have done a great conversion job upon him so a bonus it is. Good job the beer was nice

Martin

From MartinC Piper's DON'T Peak (79pts)

Like most of us during the challenge we acquire random figures that we don't get round to posting. Most of these are started when we squeeze out too much paint.This year we use them to navigate around the island but I have now run out of different figure types to fulfill other locations. I am sans boats, 15mm scifi or even floppy hats and I had to look up Horus Heresy (think I may be a heretic!).
So in an effort to clear my desk so that I can produce a massive 10mm paint bomb - that may be an oxymoron - I have decided to post them now.

This beauty is a 40mm high Balrog from Grenadier made in 1986 (been to Millsy's Millpond). I didn't buy it then but acquired it in the last few years in a job lot

This 40mm Amazonian Warrior also came in job lot and was an entry figure for Salute - never been there either. I've also been in a balloon and although Sarah is an amazing pilot the inflight bubbles go up my nose

This Damsel is from Dark Sword Miniatures. They are very expensive - £7 each but I bought this and many others in a Northstar sale for £1 each. 

Alex posted some Neanderthals he had made earlier in the challenge and he very generously sent me some. So I painted them up and they look cool

Finally the optimistic theme of the post

Another Medusa. DON'T PEEK. Hope that passes muster and as the Chief Flight Attendant is on duty tomorrow I'm optimistic

Scores on the Doors

2x 40mm = 14

7x 28mm = 35

Peaky Bonus = 30

= 79pts

Well, she definitely passes muster even though the theme is "taking a peek" rather than "not taking a peek". An excellent collection of random figures.

TamsinP