Rousell's Sandhill From Pete F: Tour Complete - Bruce for G'Day Donnybrook? (40 points)

The grand tour of Challenge Island comes to an end at Rousell's Sandhill. It has been an adventure and taken me to several obscure crevices on the shelf of shame that I would not have otherwise visited this winter. This entry is no exception.

Although I love Pikeman's Lament and bought up a bunch of minis to make ECW armies, the project has slipped down the priority rankings since my friends have plenty of troops for this period. On the upside this meant I had a few floppy hats to choose from.  This figure represents a Monmouth Rebellion rebel - whitish coat with oak leaves for unit identification. He's from the depths of Warlord's For King and Country box. I gave him the floppiest hat I could find. 

I didn't have a badger for the badger bonus points so Bruce got some, er, badger substitutes. The echidna and platypus were bought from a vendor at our local annual wargaming convention (Enfilade!) who sells various metal figures by weight. I got them for a Kings of War unit of woodland critters which has not yet come together.  

The Sandhill requires a story and this is Bruce's: there was an accident with a teleporter and a time machine. Bruce was impressed that, producing both eggs and milk, his new companions could make their own custard. The End.

Challenge Island Challenge Complete

One foot figure for 5 points - new (and final) location explored for 30 points. Anything else up to you.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I did minion this post last night. I can only assume that Pete decided to edit it at the same time and finished after me, reverting it to draft. Oh, well. Never mind.

That's a great character and I love the basing. The two critters get scored as 2 points each and I've added an extra point for the basing to give you a nice round 40.

Well done on visiting every island location. Now, you have six days left to do a Noel and revisit them all in reverse order!

TamsinP

From ByronM - Revisiting the Thirty Years War - Rousell's Sandhill - (240 Points)

I have been looking for my next spot on the map and trying to figure out what on earth I would do for Rousells Sandhill, and then realized "wait a minute, the figures I am using for the 30 years war are actually from the 'By Fire and Sword' game that is all about the Polish wars from 1640 through 1676"!  Even though I am using them for the 30yw that was preceding the period Rousell wants, the figures are exactly what he is looking for!

Therefore I present to you a pile of men in "floppy" hats....

This group of figures makes up the start of my force from the Holy Roman Empire, which actually doesn't mean that much given the period.  Pretty much EVERYONE involved in the conflict were morally corrupt back stabbers.  The armies were mainly mercenary forces that fought for whomever paid them the most, many forces switched sides multiple times over the course of the war.

Worse, as far as I can figure from all the reading I have done on the subject, the whole war and all the deaths involved in it was pretty much about if you believed the Pope was a representative of God on earth or not.  It was not even about which imaginary being you believed in!  Both sides believed in the exact SAME imaginary being, just differed in how they thought you should worship him.... WOW.  I could at least understand if they believe in different Gods, I couldn't agree with killing each other over it, but could at least understand it.

I mean there is a lot more to it than that, but that was the basic jist of it.  A lot also had to do with Royalty of the time being a bunch of inbred back stabbing power grubbing maniacs that cared little about the actual population that died fighting their wars.

Oh well, enough ranting on a subject I can't possibly truly understand since I am obviously an Aethist by the comments above!  Back to the reason we are all hear.... toy soldiers!

These figures are a mix of several manufacturers.  Most are from Wargamer Games Studio (makers of By Fire and Sword), but there is a mix from Blue Moon, Peter Pig, and at least one other that I am forgetting.

All of them are pretty nice with the WGS ones being the best sculpts to me.

Since the mercenaries changed sides so often they never really used uniforms, hence most of the units being in random coloured normal clothing.  I did however paint one unit in a uniform colour trying to replicate Greg's painting style that he showed me last year when I was struggling with this project.  I think I did a not bad job on them and they look better than the rest of the units.

The flags are just place holder, home printed ones as I have misplaced the much better quality ones I had printed last year, so until I find them these will have to do.

Overall I have 90 infantry figures and 6 guns, so by my math that should be 204 points, plus 30 points for the map space.  I don't know about you all, but 15mm seems like much harder work for the points than 28mm!  I guess I am still trying to paint them too much like 28mm figures.


I know this isn't one of your favourite scales to paint, but you do a fantastic job on them Byron. Whilst religion (or rather, which Christian doctrine) was certainly a major factor in the war, for the leaders at any rate, the big issue that began it was about who got to elect the Holy Roman Emperor and the rights of (the rulers of) the various states - in the early phase protestant Saxony was on the same side as catholic Bavaria and the catholic Hapsburg Emperor.

I'm going to add a point each for the flags, even though they are "placeholders", which takes your score to a round 240 points.

TamsinP

From SebastianR: Vermillion, Pathfinder Character (35 Points)

"Look mate, 'e's go' a floppy 'at, what else do y'need?" Geezer sniffed and wiped his nose.

He flicked an uncertain look at me. The guardian of the sandhill looked, likewise, uncertain.

I cradled the foot long idol in my arms as the awkward silence spooled out.

The tribute demanded by the guardian had taken a while to recover. The first one had snapped off at the legs. A second had also snapped at the legs, but this time it had been a clumsy acquaintance rather than myself.

The guardian licked his lips and coughed. "The donnybrook theme was very clear."

"e's a fantasy bird form a fantasy land ma'. With the elves an' goblins an' all tha' nerdy stuff. Look I'm no' 'ere to judge. Maybe he was figh'in' one of them wars bu' wif gandalf or summat."

"It could at least have a badger" muttered the guardian, clearly in retreat.

"e's go' a rat. It's basically a tiny badger."

We shook on it and I handed over the idol, paid geezer his fee and began my climb towards the top of the Sandhill.

***

So this is Vermillion, my other Pathfinder character, this time for Pathfinder Society. He's a Tengu Archaeologist (the horrible misnaming of what is effectively an arcane rogue) and was also procured in return for beer cider. The comments about it breaking aren't a joke. The first print, I managed to break while block colouring. The second was crushed by a fellow player. Those legs are... not robust.

The spell effect in his left hand is my best impression of the shiny spell effects I see on various fantasy models. I think it's passable.

In other news, I got a marco lens. For my my phone. It cost like 10 quid off eBay and the effects are... interesting.

I basically got it in lieu of putting together a proper photography set up, which I don't really have space for.

Pros, I dont need to crop the photos afterwards.

Cons, not significantly better than cropping photos after the fact, closer photos means higher res means my mistakes are bigger, probably made by child-slave-labour.
 

So that's 35pts methinks; 30 for the challenge and 5 for the mini.

***
Hi Sebastian - wow, a lot going on with one figure! I enjoyed the story, but breaking three times...yikes! On the plus side, the brushwork here is very, very sharp on a very cool looking figure.  The spell effect is pretty neat in particular, and works wells with a character working along something as cool-sounding as the "Pathfinder Society".  I've enjoyed looking this up online, and it will help me delay doing work for at least another couple of hours :)

And your new lens helps us appreciate your work. I sympathize when it comes to those who find taking photos frustrating - the lighting is almost always a hassle. But the notion of a macro lens for the iPhone is pretty cool, something I should look into. As long as it's only "probably" made by slave labour...

35 points for you, well done. 

GregB

From StuartL - Challenge Island Safari Journal - 6th Jan - (35 Points)

Avast shipmates and C.I.S.T.ers!

Well, after feeling a bit under the weather yesterday, the party has set off once again. Perhaps a stroll across the famous Rousell's Sandhill would be good for us. After a breakfast of penicillin and a shower with as much disinfectant as we could find, we are on our way. 

Arriving at the Sandhill, we found a lonely looking figure looking a tad lost at the top. Upon exchanging greetings and pleasantries, he introduced himself as Midshipman Andrew "Sandy" Baggs.

From what we could gather he had left his previous employer and was looking for some work. Having heard rumours of numerous pirate factions converging on Challenge Island he had made his own way here. With infamous groups such as the Pirated Pirates and even the legendary Captain Hook at large on the island, it seems like he has his choice of employment.

It was at this point that we saw a group of Royal Navy Marines cresting the Sandhill. "There he is," yelled the officer, "That's the filthy badger botherer!"
Seeing he was outnumbered, Midshipman Baggs took to his heels and ducked down over the side of the hill.

With the marines in hot pursuit, we set up camp and prepared our plans for the assault on Snow Lord's Peak. What would we find lurking up there? What was the best route for our ascent? And how exactly does one bother a badger?

----------

The pirate was originally going to be named Andrew "Overly-pedantic-requirements-for-a-challenge-location" Baggs, but it didn't really roll off the tongue. Of all of the locations, this one posed the biggest conundrum for me, as the 1660-1699 period is not one that I had any figures for, or would be able to get in time for the start of the contest. So I started looking around for alternatives. I have some buildings by Sarissa that match the architectural style introduced in that period, but none of them are wearing a big floppy hat. Likewise, the list of odd little wars suggested didn't give me anything  from my collection that I could easily paint up. Knowing that I wanted to cover every location if I could and being a stubborn/stupid (delete as appropriate) individual, I knew that I had to find something for Rousell's Sandhill. So, I started looking a little further afield and found that the Golden Age of Piracy covers the period suggested (1650-1720) and can potentially include big floppy hats. Now, while I have a few pirate models with nice, pointy tricorns, I had none with the required floppy hat. So, I took an unhatted figure, mixed up some green stuff and formed (or deformed) a hat onto the mini's head. 

The mini is from Black Scorpion and, aside from the green stuffed hat, is a nice metal sculpt of a piratical type rapscallion. Assuming that it meets the strict requirements for the location, the figure should get me 5 points, plus 30 for the Sandhill. (The marines weren't painted for the challenge and aren't based either, so don't count). That should get me 35 points and a run at Snow Lord's Peak for getting my 5th location.  

***
How, indeed, does one bother a badger? The mind reels.

Well done Stuart, I certainly enjoyed sharing in the process you followed to find a figure that could fit the Sandhill's strict requirements! That said, I expect even a bothered badger would concede that the Sandhill pales in comparison to the doom-laden centre of Challenge Island.

Another 35 points for you, another journal entry completed. 

GregB

From MilesR: Swedish Dragoons for Rousell's Sandhill - 84 Points

I really had a hard time figuring out what might pass muster for Rousell's Roost given his rather exacting time period restriction of 1660 - 1669.  Sadly, when one has a leadpile as big as mine, there's likely a figure for any time period.  In this case there are a ton of them form my Kkstarter for the game system "By Fire and Sword".  I present to you a unit of Swedish Dragoons (mounted and dismounted) which the rule books say go all the way up to 1660 - just making it into Ray's time band.

 These are metal castings in 15mm scale from Wargamer.Pl - the Polish based entity that publishes the by Fire and Sword rule system.  BFAS is a really fun game that I've played about 5 times but it never really caught on with my gaming groups.  It has a very innovative command control system and works for both skirmish level as well as army battles.

I've got a ton of unpainted Swedes, Poles and Ottomans to paint up and you may see a few more over the next few months.

This submissio has nine mounted and dismounted figures which totals 54 points.  That goes to 84 with the bonus points.

Rather than head straight to the Snow Lords lair next, I think I'll make a left turn and take the scenic route.




Gordon Bennett Miles, haven't you got anything else to do! These are lovely. Begrudingly stands back and admires the output