(From RossM) The Chambers of Challenge - Level 1 (72 pts)

This is the first of five posts this morning (00:42 Scotland) so I'll keep these short. 

The Pit and the Pendulum: 

When looking for an idea of this I kept coming back to swinging blades and this figure made its way out of the lead pile. A Crusader from Gripping Beast, the blade he swings is terrifying. 

25 points

Lady Sarah - Sorceress of the Chambers

This was a straight forward choice, sorceress, chambers, dungeons equals Dark Elves. The figure is from Reaper Bones and my first venture with this product range. It won't be the last. 

The colour scheme is limited and deliberate; close to gray scale but not there. That was for the assassin who is still in its blister, such are the trials of the Challenge.

26 points (1 extra for the skull)

Hall of Traps.

This little piece of resin terrain for 28mm WWII is worth 1 point (0.67 round up to be exact) however nets the extra twenty points  as it is cheekily a trap. Your standard 10 foot pole isn't going to help much though unless its to try and replace broken tracks. 

21 points

So, one down, four to go

The points for this post are 72 taking my running total to 184 (31% completed to date)

Stay safe and thanks for looking

From PhilH: War Parties at the Pit of the Pendulum (68 Points and a content warning)

Finally got there with this one, building on my first entry to the Challenge but which will now unlock a flurry of Chambers for me to post this week. As soon as the Chambers were revealed, I knew I had just the ticket for this Chamber, courtesy of the recent Brigade Games French-Indian War Kickstarter. Befitting the savage frontier wars in the American Wilderness, the Kickstater included a couple of gruesome models to represent some of the unpleasentess visited on both losers of a skirmish or battle, or the defenceless settlers. They are bolstered by more warriors from Perry Miniatures.

Probably the most common incidents of violence were scalpings. Wile considered distasteful to the European commanders who struggled with the nature of wilderness warfare and tried to fight traditional linear battles (particularly the British) these incidents were actually encouraged, with native allies paid for the scalps of opposing tribes.

And this guy is pretty recognisable for those of a certain vintage of 1990s blockbuster films:

Ahhh yes, the infamous Magua heart-eating scene from Last of the Mohicans.

These are meant for Sharp Practice FIW and AWI, bringing me to two groups and Magua as their leader and the scalping vignette as battlefield clutter or a Jump-off Point.

Nine 28mm models, plus one prone, and the Chamber bonus makes 68 Points for my tally.

From JasperO: Stretching the Pit of the Pendulum (42 points)

I may be stretching even other attempts to shoe-horn a project into a Challenge description a bit with this entry, though in a more literal sense: I need the pit to fit a vehicle about 7.4m long, 3.8m wide and just over 3m high. It's got to be a big pit to fit a King Tiger! That said, the description does say "something torturous and terrifying" and I imagine seeing a King Tiger slowly rolling in your direction is exactly that. 

The model is Warlord's plastic K/T with the Zimmerit moulded on. From a historical perspective, I very much appreciate it when manufacturers supply the stuff (I've applied it myself once on a 1/35 scale model, that was enough). It is almost guaranteed to be overscale, however, and I find it requires careful painting not to overdo any weathering effects. A general wash and dry-brush would make the hull and turret sides look like they'd been raked by a diligent gardener! The Zimmerit gives an interesting challenge with the decals too. A (very) liberal application of decal softener and then gently pushing it into the surface with a cue-tip seems to have worked pretty well.

For weathering, I've been having a lot of fun with pigments recently. They're designed for scale modelling - i.e. models that nobody's going to touch after completion - which means it'll rub off over time if you don't fix them. There are specialist fixatives, but turpentine seems to work fine too. Varnish through the airbrush works as well, though you have to be careful not to have the pressure on too high or the pigments will detach and cover your work area instead of the model.

The commander is a Perry Miniatures tanker. He's wearing shirtsleeves, which limits the vehicle to the Summer of 1944, I suppose. That's okay though, I figure this vehicle will serve in sPzAbt 503, which used the early turret in Normandy. Points-wise, this is one 1/56 vehicle, plus barely a half-figure for the commander and the Pit of the Pendulum, making it 42.

Oh, and the bucket has been painted since I took the photos...

From MartijnN: Trolling the Pit of the Pendulum - Finally! (27 points)

 

I had been following the development of 3d printing for some time and had even backed some Kickstarters for digital files, even though I did not yet actually own a printer. Last December however I decided to take the plunge and bought an Anycubic Photon. Actually installing the infernal machine a few weeks ago and then getting it to work was not entirely self-evident for me though. I have had more failed prints than I care for, although the successful ones were very satisfying!

While wondering how on earth I was going to get through the Chambers of  Challenge, however, I remembered my Kickstarter files and decided to try some experiments.

Thus I now proudly present my first painted self-printed figure. It is a rather terrifying troll to get me through the Pit of the Pendulum. This figure is from the Scourge of Valtan Forest Kickstarter. The print itself was moderately successful; I think it is a bit soft in some of the details, and the base is not entirely as it should be, but I it works for me and I am still amazed at the fact that one is able to print figures of this quality, at home!

It is a rather modest paintjob. I undercoated the figure in white, but not in an even coat. Using contrast paints  that meant that the different underlying shades made for a rather uneven effect on the skin, which I quite like. A quick wash and a drybrush to finish.

So there we are. It is nominally a 28mm figure, but as it is a large creature I will claim it as a 40mm figure. So 7 points for the troll and 20 for the Pit and the Pendulum should add 27 points to my total. On to Golem’s Haunt!

From SanderS: Entering the Pit of the Pendulum (25 points?)

 Hoi,

 

"Paint something torturous" well yeah I can do that, I still have a lot of stuff for my HeroQuest scenery left to paint so here we go. Most of the pieces in this post are from the Terrain Crate Dungeons scenery except for some HeroQuest furniture complimented with 3D prints, I'll explain later.

First here are the horribly painful assecoires:

Here's the table with it's original cardboard legs:

 

 

As I won two and a half HeroQuest games (1 for at home and one for use with the club at school) I need to paint a lot of furniture pieces. Originally the furniture came in the box as a plastic top with cardboard undersides. The 3D printing community has thrown up some excellent STL files for the undercarriages to be printed and I have printed some for almost all my furniture. Here is a picture of some of the unpainted stuff, the orange pieces are 3D printed.

 Left is another torture table, in the middle is a bookcase and to the right is an alchemists or sorcerer's desk.

As for points I'd say 5 for the actual pieces and 20 as the Chamber's bonus, making 25 points.

 Cheers Sander

From HerrRobert (Robert H): D'Kuhl and the Pit of the Pendulum (50 points)

 

Lights dancing down the hall ahead of them, the party moved through the chambers with some rapidity. Padded boots softly tapped on the greenish-gray slate, the air stale and musty. Dust, left undisturbed for unknown aeons, or perhaps only days, swirled into the air as they moved. Iolas stifled a cough, brushing dust from the fur lining his bolero jacket. He wished he'd thought to bring a cloak, or at least something with sleeves. Maybe one of those waistcoats halflings were so fond of.

He opened the door and moved into the chamber. Two wooden posts rose from what looked to be a bare wooden bed, perhaps the most uncomfortable bed Iolas had seen since that Orcish lass and her boudoir made from what had to be concrete. The two poles rose to a crosspiece, where a roughhewn iron blade hung from two pulleys. Dark though the iron be, the edge glinted in the purple light.

A figure in a pink cloak spoke. "At last, you have arrived at the Pit of the Pendulum . . . "

 

My next entry for Challenge XI is for the Pit of the Pendulum:

Paint something torturous, terrifying - or just something with a slowly descending pendulum-blade… swoosh… swoooooshhhh….. arrrghhhh!! 

I give you both: A not so slowly descending blade, and probably the most terrifying villain the D&D world can muster!

First up, I have the Reaper Bones Bathalian D'Khul. While Reaper calls him a Bathalian, we all know what he is, a mind flayer, or Illithid.

I picked up this figure sometime in 2019 and prepared him for the 2019 challenge, though he sat primed for a long time. For some reason, the primer ended up super sticky, and that probably contributed to not wanting to paint him for a while. I'm generally not a fan of the Reaper Bones, preferring the metals, and the cast was still somewhat bendy.

However, I needed a suitably terrifying figure, and, well, there's not much more terrifying than a mind flayer. Unless of course you don't mind your brains being eaten. 

 

Oddly enough, I picked the same color scheme - pink, blue and yellow - that I used for Iolas. Sometimes mind flayers retain vestigal memories and bits of personality from the host whose brain they ate as a tadpole. Maybe D'Kuhl had been an illusionist prior to changing his life priorities?

I painted D'Kuhl first, and so experimented with the yellows and pinks. I think they turned out okay. I used Games Workshop contrast paints, and really wasn't too fond of the yellow. I salvaged it by drybrushing Delta Ceramcoat Sunburst Yellow over the contrast. That did bring out a lot of details in his collar. 

 The robe is GW Volupus Pink over Vallejo Old Rose, and the long tunic is GW Terradon Turquoise. The absolute success was recreating the iconic mind flayer skin. I used Army Painter Gorgon Hide as the base, and then hit it with GW's Magos Purple. It really did the trick.

 The other bit for this submission is a Wizkids guillotine on a Renedra cobblestone base. A quick glance through the challenge archives indicates this is only the second guillotine submitted for the Pit of the Pendulum, so it's not as copycat as I thought. I saw it in my LGS and snapped it up, along with some other kinds of furniture. 

Painting went really quick, since it was pre-primed. All I had to do was glue it to the base and get cracking. I initially hit it with Vallejo German Dark Camouflage Brown, then a 4:2:2 mix of Charred Brown, Neutral Gray and Vallejo Dark German Camouflage Brown to give it a grayish tint. Finally, I washed it with Army Painter Strong Tone to bring out the woodgrain. The ropes were GW Skeleton  Horde contrast over Delta Ceramcoat Bamboo. The stone cobbles are my usual Hippo Grey, but I washed it over Charcoal Gray instead of dry brushing. 

Yes, I hear you fellow DMs wondering why the Big Bad reveals himself to the party so early. Well, mind flayers are right sadistic little gits, so they like toying with their food.

So, there we go. I am offering D'Kuhl as my Curtgeld for Challenge XI, so snap him up in the comments. With that, It's five points for D'Kuhl. I'm rating the guillotine five as well, since it's roughly 25mm figure sized. With the bonus points for chamber and Curtgeld, that's a total of 50 points.

 

From TeemuL: Terrify me, The Pit of the Pendulum (30 points)

"Uggla" continues towards the principal's office, he thinks when he hears something coming from the tunnel. Something big. Something many. After the previous dagger incident he starts to feel a bit nervous and checks that his badge is visible and moves closer to the wall. In the end the something is actually someone with many legs, she speeds past our brave Shellington, who has never seen this big a spider. "Tasty hobbitses" can be heard again from the direction where the spider queen runs. Shellington scratches his head and wipes away a tear of sweat and decides to continue his journey without worrying too much about the pest management of his university.

That was something terrifying, wasn't it? Huge spider queen running past you when you least expected it. Yes, S.N. Owl-Ord continues his walk in the Chambers and passes by Shelob, who is going to eat some tasty hobbitses (she thinks). She is a metal miniature from the Clutches of Shelob box by Games Workshop, sculpted by Trish Morrison, if I'm not mistaken.

On the post regarding Valhallans, I said don't use Black Templar Contrast to paint black and here I did exactly that! I painted the whole thing black, then gave it a light drybrush with medium grey. Then using Druchii Violet I painted the whole thing again, making the grey areas quite violet and black areas with a tone of violet, just to make her look more sinister and terrifying. I could have painted some eyes, fangs and whatever, but I like it how is now. Very happy. Assembling was a bit pain, but using superglue and greenstuff makes wonders and the legs are now firmly in the place. In short, super glue on the other part and a ball of green stuff on the other part and stick together. Green stuff keeps the parts together until the glue hardens the stuff and makes the bond strong. Hobby hint, please use and make it better.

Pointswise I would ask for 10 points for the cavalry sized miniature. She is not cavalry, but the size is pretty much correct. And then 20 points for the room. Total 30 points, my friend minion.

10 points to my GW side duel (total 147).

This one is a named character, clearly a she, so I'm labeling her as Sarah's Choice as well, this isn't a random werebear or anything.

From MartinN: The Pit of the Pendulum [75 points]

As we step into the chamber, portentously named Pit of the Pendulum, we stop dead in our tracks. "What's that? That's no bloody pendulum!" we mutter to ourselves as from out of the dark comes a trio of men in camouflage smocks. Their faces, half hidden beneath their helmets, curiously distorted by the dim flicker of a flame not bigger than a candle. It's only when they stop just a few feet away that we realize with horror it's no candle but the pilot flame of a flame thrower...

Well, admittedly it took me a moment till I found a way to somehow shoehorn my current project into the Pit of the Pendulum. But honestly, I can't think of many things more terrifying than be burnt alive. The flamer is a support choice for British Paratroopers in Chain of Command (and probably any other WW2 platoon level ruleset) and has a crew of three. One man carrying the blasted thing with two others probably busy staying away as decently possible from their unfortunate fellow in case he might somehow attract the attention of their intended victims.

Second part of todays submission is another squad of Paratroopers as yet another support choice for the platoon. With these done I think it's on to a little bit of AT-capability to round out the force. 

Two of the figures were started before the challenge, so that makes for 75 Points for this submission.

11x Standing figure = 55 points

1x Themed Bonus Points = 20 points

from RayR - The Chamber of Challenge - The Pit of the Pendulum 25 points?

 

Another downward step towards The Alter of the SnowLord.

This is my second entry in the Bonus Round of The Chamber of the Challenge.

The Pit of the Pendulum: 

 "Paint something torturous, terrifying - or just something with a slowly descending pendulum-blade… swoosh… swoooooshhhh….. arrrghhhh!!"

I've had this Gibbet & Gallows made by Black Tree Designs for some time now, waiting

for the opportunity to paint it up for the Challenge and this year is it!

Its a fairly easy paintjob to be honest and I've added a figure for scale only. 

(Who will be seen in a later entry) 

So my Gibbet will get 20 bonus points plus I guess 5 points for a 25mm figure?

Over to you Mr Minion....