from RayR - Winter War/Retreat from Moscow - Roar!! 32mm - 15 pts

  

I bought this furry hap last year and thought he could come in handy.

She's a 3D print and I'm sorry to say, I can't remember what the name of the company was that I bought him from. Only that it was at the Warfare Show in Farnborough last November.

Here he is standing next to a poor Fin, who she's eyeing up for breakfast.

And note I called her a her, I have been lambasted before about painting up female bears!

She will be deployed not only in Finland, but close to the Berezina attacking both French and Russians in the Retreat from Moscow.

Not sure of the points for this young lady, as I'm not sure of her scale, maybe 32mm or bigger??

From DaveD . Well done Ray another nice little addition .As if your lads haven’t got enough of a bad time with Rooskies of each era , you now give them hungry animals , which must have been woken from their slumbers. I bet they are Hangry . I take it you still have the sandbags post to finish 😆. It’s a biggy so 15 it is .

RayR & LeeH - Terriany Day's & Sundays (120 points)

 

I'm not sure if this is a first or not but today's Terrain entry is actually from two Challengers. You may have seen on our respective blogs, that me and Lee got together a few weekends ago and spent the day making and finishing some Winter terrain for our Retreat from Moscow shenanigans, now of course this can also be used for our new Winter period, the Russo-Finnish War.

Here are 2 boxes of trees, that we winters over with a spray of white paint and also a flick and drybrush, with a very large 3 inch brush.

We also had to sand, paint, drybrush, add grass tufts and finally add the snow mixture 

We are both pretty chuffed how they all came out, there are a total of 76 basses of trees, some smaller trees have 2 or 3 trees on them. The bases are 70mm circles from Warbases.

I have no clue how Byron will work out the points for these???

Next up we have some road, or trackways.

This is how we left them after our days terrain building.

And here's how they ended up!

They were painted twice with our earth brown mix, then drybrushed white before adding our winter snow mixture.

We cut out some different shapes and bends, but stupidly forgot a T-Junction?!?!

The straight long lengths measure 15 inches long and 3.5 inches wide, all in all the measure approx. 17.5 feet in length.

Once again, I'm not really sure how Byron will work this one out??

But as its a 2-Man project the points, whatever they are will be split down the middle, half for LeeH and half for me!

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Hello to both Ray and Lee, and well done on a huge submission here that will I am sure literally fill a table with terrain.  It is however a second entry for terrain today that has a bunch of parts that are light on the "painting" aspect with the trees.  However, once again I will score some points for the bases being painted up, and there is some paint on the trees to give that winter effect.  I have don't this exact thing in the past though and while it is certainly some work due to the pure number here, it is fast and easy.  Therefore for the 76 bases of trees I am going to say a bit over a point a base and go with a 80 points, as they are very quick as I think you will agree.

As for the roads, those have a lot more painting and work going on with them (although again very simple to do, but highly effective).  When I did my roads up like this I was able to do a few sections an hour, so I am going to count 2-4 of them as a figure, and award 40 points for the lot.  

That gives 120 points for the huge batch of terrain, which in my mind is the same as painting about 12 figures each that day, so works out probably a bit to your advantage points wise, as I know I can't paint a dozen figures in a day, but I feel is fair for such a huge amount of terrain being done here.

- Byron

from RayR - Retreat from Moscow - Survivors 85 pts.

  

Its back to the Retreat from Moscow once again for my next entry into the Challenge.

Yet more bedraggled French foot figures!

The 16 figures on show are a mixed bag of manufacturers.

Mainly being Perry Miniatures with a smattering on Murawski Miniatures just to make up the numbers.

Me and Lee were busy this week building more terrain for this period, including some ice as seen in the pics above.

The figures are mainly from Perry's Dismounted cavalry marching, pack FN174 and I thought I'd go for something different and bought a pack of  Armed Russian Peasants pack RN58. The fleeing French would pick up anything they could be keep warm, so why not a peasant coat of hat?

There are 4 Murawski figures in the group 2 Officers and 2 Sappers, which were spare figures.

Added to this post are 3 small barricade bases from Ironclad Miniatures

Just to help fill the battlefield with.

16 figures@ 5pts each gives me a total of 80pts, plus whatever Dave gives me for the barricades.

From DaveD. These are looking great Ray a proper frozen rabble indeed .no two figures the same . I love the setting too - that ice on the river is great . Certainly time to man the barricades - I’m make that 85 .

from RayR - Retreat from Moscow - 72e Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne 40pts

 

I'm quite enjoying trying to paint up 4 projects at once.....he says!!

Its back to last years first love, my and Lee's Retreat from Moscow project with this post, my 5th of Challenge 16.

The 72nd French line was part of Mashal Ney's Third Army Corps, They were in the 10th Division under Ledru, they joined their fellow Frenchmen of the 129th Line in Bruney's Brigade

Prior to the Retreat, the 72nd fought at the Battle of Borodino on the 7th September 1812, where it suffered severe losses but survived as an organized unit.

The regiment was involved in rearguard and defensive actions, helping to shield the retreating columns from Russian regular forces, Cossacks, and partisans as the army struggled toward Smolensk and beyond.

Their recorded battle honours show that they were present during the critical engagements of the retreat, notably Krasnoe in mid-November and the crossing of the Berezina River at the end of November 1812. (Hence the pics on a bridge.) At Krasnoe, French infantry units were repeatedly attacked by Russian forces under Kutuzov, suffering heavy losses and disorganization. At the Berezina, the shattered remnants of the Grande Armée fought desperately to cross the river under intense pressure.

The figures are from Perry Miniatures and I chose a drab earth brown coat this time, quite different from the last regts grey-blue coats.

Points wise, there are 8 figures@5 points each giving me a total of 40pts!

From DaveD. Four projects at once you say - excellent , that great commitment and we all know you are as mad a bid of frogs anyway . Ah yes Frogs , these are most excellent . They exude the chill of winter . How long before you get to a game ?  40pts it is 

from RayR - Retreat from Moscow - Illyrian regt 40pts

I've been chasing my tail over the Christmas festivities, painting whenever the chance came my way, which to be honest was quite a lot, but due to a spilt pot of uniform grey, instead of painting just one unit like I planned, I've ended up starting a few units at the same time, so today, I put most of the figures aside and chose one unit to complete, which i did in the last 5 minutes! Its not my planned unit of WWII Finns either.

Here we have another unit for my and Lee's Retreat from Moscow project and no, before you ask, we haven't had a game yet........

Four regiments of the Illyrian regiment served in Marshal Ney's 10th Corps, in Razout's 11th Division, under Brigadier Compere, along with two regiments of the 2nd Portuguese.

The figures are a mix of Front Rank and Perry Miniatures, and some have a distinctive blue/grey cost, for no real reason other I wanted them to stand out .

Trying to find any info on the units proved quite difficult, I hoped that they'd have a different uniform colour, like the green coated Croatians, I'd have used different figures if that was so, but it seems they wore an identical uniform to normal French line......how boring!

Points mean prizes

My Illyrians will give me 40 points

8 figures x 5 pts each.

From DaveD . Welcome back to the fray Ray. Thats not such a disaster I feel.. you are now ahead of the game for next week. Those lads look suitably chilly . I like the choice of the blue grey greatcoat . I certainly works . 40 points it is .

From: LeeH & RayR - A combined project round-up (and punch-up)

Ray and I got together yesterday to bring both sides of our Retreat from Moscow project together in the Rejects Shed-o-War. Laid out on the table we are more than a little amazed at how much we have got done during the painting challenge. Once again this amazing event has stimulated our creative juices, whipped up our enthusiasm and kept our brushes whirling in a way we never normally manage to replicate at any other time of the year. 

Ray beat Lee on points... so we recreated that beating in
front of our combined output from the Challenge 🤣

We've had a good long chat about our respective armies and have already made a list of extra units we want to add. We have already started making some of the terrain we want for this project and yesterday we made agreed what to buy next and exchanged ideas of items we would like to see on a future battlefield. So while the frenetic pace of activity during the challenge will abate a little over the next few weeks, we are hoping to keep that enthusiasm burning throughout the year. Ray summed it up perfectly when he describe our efforts during the Challenge as "phase one of the project". 

From LeeH - It's a Wrap! : The Russian army for the Retreat from Moscow

That was probably one of the most fun Painting Challenges I have done for years. I left my 6mm comfort zone to team up with Ray for a Retreat from Moscow combo, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. My initial target was 300 points which reflected the models I had bought when the challenge started. I didn't officially increase my target but once I had breached the 300 points and had a clearer idea of what I wanted to complete I set myself a private target of reaching 1000 points. I did indeed achieve this yesterday so you can see I bought a few more figures along the way! 

I have managed to complete one, sometimes two units a week, while still keeping up with posting here on the Challenge blog, on my own blog and still getting a weekly video for my channel in on time. Time now to dial back the workload, take a deep breath and have a tidy up... my Operations Room is a complete mess and unsurprisingly there is snow everywhere! 

My trajectory during this challenge has been pretty consistent,
netting my third highest tally.

Grenadiers

Musketeers / Line Infantry

3 units of Jáger skirmishers

Mounted officer

Another Musketeer / Line infantry unit

Three junior officers /  NCO's

12 Pounder Artillery and crew

Don Cossacks

Moscow and St Petersburg Opolchenie

Two mounted officers

Smolensk Dragoons

Two units of Jágers

Opolchenie 3 pounder gun & limber

Opolchenie 3 Pounder Gun Team

Cossack Opolchenie

6 Pounder Artillery piece & crew (and a Water Cart)

6 Pounder and 12 pounder Guns side by side

Water Cart

Two units of Carabineer's

Very angry peasants!

Phew!

Well done to Curt and all the Minions for a terrific job on this years Challenge. As always it is a highlight of my hobby year. And congratulations to all the participants this year. Your work has been inspirational.