From StuartL - Challenge Island Safari Journal - 15th March (70 Points)

Greetings once again doughty C.I.S.T.e....

"Excuse me! I want to make a complaint."

One moment please, I am trying to update everyone.

"No! I want to register a complaint now. I've had enough."

Very well Mr. Biggleswiff. What exactly is the nature of your complaint?

"Well, where to begin? This tour has been awfully slow as of late, we've been chased by Ogres, infected by Plague Marines, nearly eaten by the Snow Lord, and to be quite honest, I'm not even sure you know where you are going."

I see Mr. Biggleswiff. Well, let me assure you that the Snow Lord was only joking about eating you, probably. As for the Ogres, they were a bit of a surprise for me too. And I have a map.

"That's beside the point. I want my money back and I want off this island pronto."

Is that right? As luck would have it we're at Sander's Sand Dunes, we have a regional office here. I'll just pop in a call to head office and they'll deal with you ASAP. One moment.

Good news Mr. Biggleswiff. They are sending the Director of Customer Services himself to deal with your complaint.

"WHO DARES SUMMON ME?"

Mr. Biggleswiff would like to register a complaint sir. Apparently he isn't happy with parts of the tour.

"IS THIS SO, MR. BIGGLESWIFF?"

"Um...er... well, it's just that... um... the Island is pretty dangerous, and um...."

"I SEE. PLEASE ACCEPT MY MOST PROFOUND APOLOGIES. ON BEHALF OF CHALLENGE ISLAND TOURS I CAN OFFER YOU A FULL REFUND AND IMMEDIATE CANCELLATION OF YOUR CONTRACT. WE HERE AT C.I.S.T PRIDE OURSELVES ON MAINTAINING THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE. JUST INITIAL HERE AND YOUR CONTRACT WILL BE VOIDED AND A REFUND SENT TO YOUR ACCOUNT."

"Well sir, that's very reasonable of you. Thank you."

"YOU'RE VERY WELCOME. NOW THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER A PAYING MEMBER OF THE TOUR, IT WOULD APPEAR THAT YOU'RE NO LONGER COVERED BY THE C.I.S.T'S 'NOT HAVING YOUR SOUL DEVOURED BY AN IRATE DAEMON' POLICY. GOODBYE MR. BIGGLESWIFF."

#Crunch#

"ANY OTHER COMPLAINTS FOR THE CUSTOMER SERVICES DEPARTMENT TO ADDRESS? NO? GOOD!"

Has he gone? Phew, He's a very hands on manager I must say. He takes the role as head of Customer Services very seriously. Trust me, he's a riot at office parties though.

Anyway, who would like a trip on a balloon?

----------

When I saw the entry requirement for the Sand Dunes, I knew that this model would be ideal for it. The figure is from a Reaper Bones Kickstarter and is massive. In fact, here is Battle Brother Proportionis Comparicus of the Ultramarines to show the scale.

The model stands over 4" high and has a 7" wingspan. Painting him was quite challenging as the wings make the figure quite heavy to hold as you're working on it, plus they get in the way a lot.

I have no idea how many points he's worth, so hopefully today's minion can figure something out, (plus 30 points for the Sand Dunes please). As the last line of the journal indicates, I hope to be availing myself of the services of Sarah's Balloon in the very near future.

MilesR: Wow a lot of people are leaving the scoring discretion up to me.  We;; some people just have to learn the hard way....  Using my completely malicious scoring decision making methodology, I deem this spooky entry worth 8 28mm figures or 40 points.  That nets you a tidy 70 for the whole shebang!

From NoelW: The Strawberry Has Flown: Sander’s Sand Dunes (65 points)

To cheer you up on this dismal Friday (or it may be Saturday where you are, which is never dismal, of course), here’s a joke from my schooldays (yes, I did go to school. Sometimes two or three times a week).

(1)

What’s the difference between an elephant and a strawberry?

I don’t know. What is the difference between an elephant and a strawberry?

Elephants are grey and strawberries are red.

(2)

What did Scipio say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?

I don’t know.

“Here come the elephants over the hill.”

(3)

What did Hannibal say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?

Er – “here come the elephants over the hill”?

No. “Here come the strawberries over the hill”.

He was colour blind.

---

As we spit sand from our mouths, and drag marram grass from various intimate declivities of our persons, Lady Sarah busies herself rounding up errant geese before the red-garbed soldiers wandering here experiment with goose a l’orange. They seem to be searching the dunes for something. Goose feathers are everywhere.

A bearded soldier approaches me, a puzzled look on his face.

“You’ve not seen my strawberry wandering around here, have you?” he asks.

“Strawberry?”

“Grey* thing. Tail at each end. Ears the size of a carpark. Likes peanuts.”

“I’ve just fallen out of a balloon. I’ve just had an argument with a goose. I’ve just flown a million kilometres in precisely the opposite direction to the one I want to go. I’ve neither time nor inclination to identify wandering fruit.”

“Goosefeathers! The sky! Of course. I’m such a dumbo.”

“ I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“It’s well known that feathers are magical, isn’t it?”

I give him the look I've recently learned from Lady Sarah.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure that’s what some people believe.”

“If my strawberry has got hold of one of those feathers, he could’ve flown away. He could be anywhere.“

“Well, I think I’ve seen about everything if I’ve seen a strawberry fly.” This is getting me nowhere. “I tell you what – why don’t you have a quiet word with that nice lady over there. Maybe in her balloon she’ll help you pursue your missing – er – strawberry.”

“Excellent idea!” He waves his arms excitedly. “Men! Assemble in the basket over there. The beast has flown. We’ll follow in the balloon, catch him and soon we’ll have a basket full of strawberry. Remind me to send you a punnet of elephants when I get home.”

“Yes, of course. But I move around a lot. A great deal, actually. I'm all over the place, in fact. Maybe you should just send me the address of your sanitorium and I’ll be sure to forget all about it.”

[*Or, for our US audience, “Gray”.]

---

So my "something red" vignette is Hannibal, to lead my developing Carthaginian army.

I began this army during the Challenge IX, but have not painted a single figure for it since! So I’m hoping that I might finish a few more this time round, perhaps enough to give me a decent fighting force.

The Hannibal figure was the freebie show figure at Salute many years ago. His standard is a Victrix spare, carried by a figure of yet another unknown manufacturer. Supporting him are 11 more of these figures, who’ll be Hannibal’s Companions, his Guard.

I’m not sure whether to leave the shields plain red – I think it will make the unit quite distinctive in the Punic army, but my Roman troopers currently have red shields, too, so this may lead to some confusion on the battlefield. However, I hope to finish a few more figures for both sides before the Challenge is over, so this may change matters overall.

***
Well, these figures may have had to wait a while to get painted, but the wait was worth it.  Cracking job on these Noel.  As for the shields being red, that is entirely your call, but I would maybe try to find something to make them completely separate from your Roman force.  Adding a design may or may not do that though, it may make them blend even more, so up to you.  They look great as is though.

-ByronM

From NoelW: The Red and the Black: Sander’s Sand Dunes: (550 points)

We climb these sandy sand dunes and gaze to the beyond.

Well, there’s the sea again. Hello, sea. Long time no sea.

Yes, we’re all getting a little sea-sick – sick of seeing the sea, that is, when we’re aiming to be at the top of that mountain that seems to recede even further every time we make a decision. Like my hairline. Or life. (Life! don't talk to me about life!)

From the top of these dunes, it’s hard to tell which sea we’re seeing. There’s certainly a sea of something milling around. Is it the Red Sea?

Or is it the Black Sea?

It’s neither, of course. We’ve found two more armies. What a surprise! Were you surprised? I was surprised.

Here they are battling away directly in our path, blocking the beach and any prospect of boat-based rescue or even a little sandcastular architecturing. If we try crossing that strand we’ll be trampled to death like ants under a pirouetting pachyderm. What we need is the unexpected arrival of interventionist aerial transport…

And lo! from above there descends upon us a melodious voice, lyrical as the sound of a karaoke angel: “Would you like to fly in my beautiful balloon? Way up in the sky, in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon?”*

Would we? Would we ever! All this sand is way too much for us delicate warriors - let's away out of here! Where are you heading, Lady Sarah? 

Rousell's Sandhill.

Oh. Great.

---

None of my planning for the Challenge involved any Lord of the Rings figures at all. However, I ambushed myself in a previous post by submitting some Minas Tirith Gondorians and so now I'm committed to working through as much of my backlog of LOTR figures as I can during this challenge. Like an idiot! (No thanks, I've already got one).

I'd been working hard on more Gondorians, but Sanders’ requirement for “red” was a good reason to work on the Easterlings, too. So here are both. This creates a long post, photo-heavy, so I've tried to keep the text down, and only included one photo per topic for most of them.

The main aim here was to get figures painted suitable for the tabletop - so artistic creativity is not much in evidence. The only figures I've given particular attention to are the Gondorian Citadel Guards and the two Easterling command figures.

Even so, the red and gold combination for the Easterlings is rather effective, I think. Essentially I undercoated them white, used Blood Angel red Contrast paint for all the cloth, painted the armour and shields black, varnished the lot, drybrushed the black with gold, gave all the gold a flesh wash (which makes it more bronze-like and dulls the shine) then highlighted some of the red with Foundry British Red Coat Light, and the “bronze” with touches of gold. A little more colour for weapons and quivers, and that was about it. Although a simple approach, I like the results, especially in the mass.

The archers:

Sword and shield:

Spear and shield:

And command:

The Gondorians more or less follow the GW colour scheme: black, white, silver; though I’ve kept the decoration of the specialist units relatively simple. The bulk of the troopers, hand weapon and spear:

Archers

Command figures and three crew to man a trebuchet (yet to be painted)

Citadel Guards

Guards of the Fountain Court

All in all, that's a tidy 104 figures. Almost certainly, that's going to be my biggest post of this Challenge.

*(A popular music reference to tease anyone who can remember the 60s.)

Scoring: I’m not sure if the two flags are scorable, as they’re integral to the figures. Otherwise: 104 x 28mm figs = 520; Sander’s Sand Dunes: 30 pts: Total 550 pts

I feel a little sick. This is a monster entry and some really nice work on these guys. Couple of point for flags as well Top effort that man, now please stop and take up chess