From GrahameH: WWII German and Ancient Numidians (820)

As soon as the challenge started real life got in the way and this is my first entry. My painting has slowed considerably compared to last year, but have managed to completed some painting.

First. Two captured Sherman tanks (Battlefront 15mm) for my 21st Panzer Div 1944 for Rapid Fire.

 

Second.

A battalion of infantry, again for the 21st Panzer Div (Battlefront 15mm - HMGs Forged in Battle) (Total 31 Figures and 2 HMG)

 

 Next 15mm German Cavalry Regiment 1940 - Rapid Fire

(52 Mounted Figures - Peter Pig)

Dismount (Battlefront and Peter Pig Horse Holders)

(15mm 38 Foot - 2 Guns with 3 crew each - 18 Horses and 6 Horse Holders)

Finally 

15mm Numidians (Essex)

A hut, 36 mounted figures -102 Infantry - 2 Elephants and 5 Crew each)

 

4 Warbands

1. Warband

Skirmishers

Hopefully the next posting will be the transport for Infantry 21st Panzer and German Cavalry Regt.

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Welcome to Challenge Grahame and what an entry!  Staggeringly good work Sir and I can't thank you enough for the handy breakdown of units to help with my awarding of points!  I have to confess that I know little of working with 15mm miniatures, but when I look and my beloved 28mm and try to imagine working on something half the size my admiration for your post increased ten fold.  Tremendous start to your campaign and I am happy to award you an impressive 820 points!

From ByronM - 30k Death Guard Jetbikes and More Greeks (170 points)

For this week's submission I have the two units, some more Death Guard and Greeks (Spartans). 

First up is the unit of 30k jet bikes that I was trying to complete last week, at the last minute for submission.  They ended up taking longer than I thought with last minute details like all the control buttons and screens, the seats, and getting the bases just right.

This unit is made up of 6 scimitar pattern jet bikes from the Horus Heresy era.  I fell in love with these when they were released a few years ago, but the price kept me from buying them until recently.  I didn't want to do a small squad of 3 since they would get wiped out too quickly like that, and I wanted them to have some staying power, so I did 6 of them.

Similar to all my other 30k Death Guard units, they have been painted to show heavy damage as they fight against the traitor Horus on Istavan IV at the outbreak of the war.

The bikes are supposed to be mounted on the normal GW 50mm clear round flying stands and come with those along with 30mm tall mounting posts.  I thought both of these looked like crap with them, and the normal pill shaped bike bases are way to short at 50mm long for these behemoths.  So, I custom laser cut some 32mm wide (the new standard marine base size) x 100mm deep bases.

I picture these bikes hovering along barely skimming the ground, rather than flying around like the Eldar jet bikes do.  Therefore, I put some short brass rod into the bases to mount the bikes on at various heights, but all low to the ground.  While 1 or 2 are a little too low when view up close from the side, I like the effect overall and think they look much better this way than the official "up in the sky" look.

Next up, I continued along on my Greek project, really trying to make sure I complete enough over the challenge to host a valid game with them for the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts and not have to wait until next years challenge to finish them up.

This is another unit of 16 of the Warlord (Immortal) 28mm Greeks, once again done up as Spartans.  I am pretty sure I will paint the remainder of the armoured Warlord figures as Spartans to keep the look consistent for them.  I will keep the Victrix ones that I have for Athenian and Thebian units as they are already supposed to look slightly different.

This unit is once again done up on 40mm wide x 60mm deep bases to help protect the spears and allow bases to meet in combat rather than trying to line units and breaking spears off while trying to intermingle them.

While I really don't care for the figures, the lack of detail and the uniformality of them certainly make the units fast to paint, and they don't look bad once they are ranked up.  Four units down, only a LOT more to go.

16 x 28mm greeks = 80 points
6 x bikes = 90 points
Total = 170 points

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Another fabulous post Byron, but the stars of the show, for me, are the jet bikes - they are so cool!  I love the basing solution and when I went back to have another look at them found myself making all sorts of silly sound effects as I imagined them buzzing around the battlefield.  Tremendous painting, basing and detailing and so I will be awarding points for full vehicles giving you a healthy 170 points to your tally.  Bravo Sir! 

PeteF The North Remembers - Stark Bannerman (6 points)

I'm a big fan of Game of Thrones and have wanted to do some conversions for a while - I have some Dothraki that I started, gathering dust on the shelf of shame, which I'll get to after the Challenge.

I was assembling some Saxon Fyrd for my SAGA army and saw that one of the bodies had a diamond quilted jerkin (or is it a surcoat? Jacket? leathery tunic?) like the ones the Stark footsoldiers have on the show. I got his head from a Perry foot knight sprue. The helmet was the closest thing I could find to a Stark lid.

My other SAGA shields are decals - I decided to hand paint this one - Winter is Coming! I might be getting a magnifying glass for my birthday to help with this sort of thing.

I enjoy the occasional game of SAGA and think it would be fun to have Game of Thrones factions - one day I'd like to make up unique battle boards (and dice?) for them but in the meantime you could just use the existing battle boards. Anglo Danes for the Starks. 

Aiming to post something every week - even if it's only for 5 points. 

Wargames Factory Saxon Fyrd foot soldier with Perry Foot Knights head.

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The joy of the Painting Challenge is that it keeps us all motivated and, well painting, and if that means one at a time then so be it.  Who is going going to quibble at a post of one miniature when it is done so well?  Fabulous job Pete, the freehand on the shield is sublime and a lovely conversion to boot so I am awarding 6 points to your tally for this.

From KeithS: Irish Spearmen (80 points)

Ho hum, more spearmen!  Today's batch is my first group of 16 Irish.  They are all from Gripping Beast.  They're a rough crew, to be sure!  How are they different from the Welsh I recently did?  Well, they have even fewer shoes and fewer shirts.

A few up close from behind, including one of the more natural lads sans shirt.

I rather like the poses...very much action oriented!

And some more.  I think that the tassels are supposed to be fur tufts for decoration...anyone out there know?

Yes, yes - I cheated and used shield decals!  However, in my defense, I bought them ages ago and it really would've been a waste not to.  And, they are specifically for the Irish and not just generic Dark Ages stuff.  I promise to hand paint a hundred shields as penance!

That's it.  I have another largish batch of Irish to do as I can find he time (work is a real nuisance, making me travel to such wonderful winter destinations as Omaha and Albuquerque!).

That's sixteen lads at 5 points a head, so an easy 80 points.

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Cracking post Keith and I love how we now are distinguishing between the Welsh and Irish by a lack of shoes and shirts.  You really can't knock the sculpts and poses and you have done another excellent job.  As for the shields, I think the decals look great and I know how hard they are to get right - fiddly little things - so well done again.  Another 80 points to your tally and best of luck next week. 

From AlexS: Hundred Years War, Fantasy, Civil War in Russia (630 points)

Hello everybody! My name is Alex, I'm from Russia, and I'm a Stakhanovite.

The fact that I'm going to move to another apartment and about a month I can not paint. Well, or I can, but not so much and quickly, as usual. So I decided to meet the monthly rate for a week. Let's see what happened.

Firstly, I finished my concept project called "One hundred miniatures for the Hundred Years War." This project will allow me to play small games for the period of the hundred-year war in Europe. Until I was determined who it would be - the French, English, mercenaries or just bandits. So I did not draw any symbolism on clothes. Most likely it will be a big gang (or even two) of tuschenov or jakery.

The next part of my work - these are two large additions to my collection of fantasy and miniatures for a visual novel for the period of the civil war in Russia.

I really love this event because it is possible to paint miniatures that have been in the closet for years and decades.

For example, this Bretonian knight, made up of a warrior of chaos and an oldschool ogre.

Or an old necromancer and a miniature from the firm "Rackham"

Or here is such a strange set: the barbarian from the Russian manufacturer "Technologist", the elf of the work of a Czech master and a goblin made from a skaven.

Well or here such classical and new miniatures from GW

I paid special attention to miniatures for the period of the Civil War in Russia.

Blacksmith and French (?) pilot

Crazy with a shaft and an old Cossack.

Junior officer of the White Army.

Two Orthodox priests. The one on the left is made by the great Russian sculptor Presnukhin. On the right - also a Russian sculptor, they both made these miniatures for Siberia Miniatures. Since they are molded by Russian sculptors, in details they correspond completely to reality.

 Cook and hand bear. Some of the villains in my visual novel are a cannibal cook, and a bear eats people (in Russian it is connected with the play of words, but I'm not sure that it is understandable in English).

Farmer and his wife with children. Miniatures do not quite fit in appearance to Russia, but I have a German colonist with his wife and children.

A woman in a national Ukrainian suit and a veteran of the Russian-Turkish war.

Many thanks that you read this great post and looked at all the pictures. I think now you can give my wonderful curator Michael a break from my endless posts.

total
124 inf 28mm - 620 points
1 monster creature - 10 points

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Wow!  No, seriously wow, Alex!  Your posts are just amazing and always so varied in content.  The 100 Years War project would have been stunning enough, but the characters that you have selected for your visual novel are really intriguing and I can't wait to hear more about it.  I am more than happy to honour your 630 points.

Best of luck with the move and we hope to have you posting again soon.

Quiet, perhaps too quiet?

It is suspiciously quite around here this morning!

Not a huge amount in the inbox for Minion Michael to deal with, I can only assume that everyone is entering the second bonus round, due to be submitted by midnight tonight, I know that’s what has been taking a lot of my time of late.

That said we have some noteworthy additions this week with Keith, another massive submission from Alex, (how does he do it?) and a debut post from Grahame.

 Anyway enough wittering, let’s get on with the Saturday Showcase!

From RayR: 28mm 17th Century English Horse & Mounted Civilians (95 Points)

 Phew! Finally got some figures done!

The first 6 x 28mm figures are from Warfare Miniatures and represent a generic English of Jacobite

Horse regt at a pinch they could be French as well. These will be used for Donnybrook, when I can get my butt in gear!!

The next 3 figures are from Col Bill's Depot Battalion

selling as C17th Century Mounted Peasants

Once again these will be used for my Donnybrook games......yeah I now?

Not too sure how Mr Campbell will score these as there's an extra lass on one of the horse's, but I guess you already noticed that! 

Now I gotta take the kids swimming for 2 1/2 hours. Wonder if I'll get time to finish my 

BFG Bonus round figures!!

Fingles crossed!

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It's great to see that you've come out of your sick bed, Ray, brush in hand and purpose in your heart! :)

Personally I'm not a big fan of Warfare Miniatures' castings, but you've done them great service here. Besides, who can go wrong with a bunch of red-coated donkey-wollopers, wearing floppy hats, festooned with pistols and swords? I like those mounted civilian models as well, especially that one of the young girl riding side-saddle behind her father. An excellent series of poses and quite useful for the tabletop, I'd expect. 

These nine equestrians, plus passenger will give you 95 points for your tally, Mr. Rousell. Well done sir!

From MilesR: 28mm Pirates Unaligned Faction (125 Points)

My first of several Blood & Plunder Factions for this Challenge - the rather unsparingly named "Unaligned Faction" - 25 28mm metal figures.  These are really "beefy" sculpts with lots of character.  I did find cleaning them up to be a bit tedious.

Not being part of any faction allows lots of variability in how to paint the figures and that was a lot of fun.  I decided to base them on a simple "sand" base using a vallejo textured sand. I tried a few sceniced bases but they just didn't look good on the ship models.

More scurvy pirates .

The Captain of this motley crew.  Hmmm, I wonder where his ship is?  Perhaps she'll show up  in a future post?

A peek and some new terrain with LEDs - the light flickers like a flame and will be partially concealed under some coal.  What dungeon doesn't need a still?  The still parts were all 3D printed.

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This is a great looking mob of pirates, Miles! I've only seen the promotional ads for these figures and it's nice to know that the models live up to the original 3D renders. I like the vibrant colours you've gone with and sand effect you've achieved from the Vallejo product looks very...Caribbean! Another similar product (and perhaps a bit cheaper than Vallejo) is Liquitex Texture Gel. It's acrylic based, so you can mix colour directly into it and you can get it in a 8 fl oz / 237 ml tub for around $8 US. Greg, Byron and I have been using it by the gallon for years now - love the stuff.

Is this for a new participation game you're planning, Miles? With the hint of an upcoming barque in the offing I sense a Miles-Proportioned Level of Escalation to this project. :)

125 Points for you, Mr. R!