From ByronM - Northern Lights Terrain 28mm European Buildings ( 120 Points )

The first of two posts today and it is something I designed, cut, and started selling almost a year ago through my side business "Northern Lights Terrain".  You have all likely heard the story of the shoemakers kids and how they never have shoes, well that is normally the story around my house with terrain.  I design and cut a lot of different pieces and inevitably end up with most of the test / sample cuts piled in my garage waiting to be painted and used.  This was one of those projects.

Playing a lot of Chain of Command, Bolt Action, and dreaming of one day getting enough napoleonics together to play a game in 28mm scale, I thought I should design my own line of 28mm buildings for a very European look, so I did.

I then got stuck for a name for the line so our snow lord graciously stepped up and gave me a hand throwing out several great ideas.  I chose "Rue de Guerre" as the lines name as I thought it was both a real sounding street name and a clever play on words for a line of wargame terrain.

As you can see from the pictures, the terrain is fairly basic, there is not a huge amount of detail on the buildings.  This was done on purpose for two reasons, firstly the more detail you add the longer the laser cutting time is and therefore the higher cost to produce. A major goal here was to be able to sell a set of buildings cheaply.  The second reason was to provide a base set for people to work from and add their own details.  There are many fine producers of terrain out there, from places that make super basic kits to ultra detailed kits, with prices all over as well.  I normally aim to put enough detail that players can build, paint, use them as is, or detail them how they like, while keeping the cost as low as I can, while still justifying my time to produce.

The painting on them is rough on purpose, as I used a large brush on the beige areas and used a few different colours and just stippled it on to give a rough real world look, rather than airbrushing it on and having it super smooth.  The roof and bricks were done with a base coat and then randomly picking out components and painting them in slightly off colours to form a random look.  I think it worked better on the bricks than the roof, but looks ok for either.

While the buildings are designed to come apart to allow access to each floor, we rarely play with guys inside buildings as we tend to loose track of where everything is, so I just left the interiors bare.

So, I finely have my own Rue de Guerre set fully painted.  Each house is roughly 5" x  5" x 6.5" to the peak of the roof (ignoring the garden on the one with an outside garden), the shop is 6" x 5" x 7", the corner building is 7" x 7" x 8", and the outbuilding (garage) is 5" x 7" x 5".  Each one is almost a 6x6x6 cube, however some needs to be taken off due to the roof not taking up the full space and for the outbuilding that is a little smaller, so this is likely worth about anywhere from 80 - 100 points?  Up to you Curt, I am just happy to finally have them all painted up and done for my own use!

I am tired of getting pictures from people who have bought them from me where they are all painted up and in use, and mine were still bare MDF!

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These buildings really look terrific Byron. Your relatively minimalist approach to the design and painting are very effective and the series of structures together do a great job in giving the impression of a street in a provincial French town. I particularly like the brickwork, chimneys and the sign above the Boulangerie / Patisserie. The way they break down into their separate floors is a great touch - I can see why these are popular with customers. Will you be expanding the range to a few taller buildings, a town square, or perhaps the local Hotel de Ville? 

As to points, let's go with a base of 90 for the base buildings and another 30 for your efforts in the design of them. Lovely work Byron! 

- Curt

From MilesR: Martello Tower (46 Points)

My last submission from the holiday period is this Martello tower.  Like the ships in some earlier submissions, this model is from Thoroughbred Miniatures.  It's a single resin cast piece with metal detail parts and figures.  I love the model and it was fun to paint up.  I'll present a series of pictures rotating the piece in a clockwise direction.  First we can see the entry way side which is easily defensible from and raiding Frenchies

Side two

Side three - why is there a rock face there?  Just wait.

Side 4

and, finally the top where a rather big gun of a 360 degree tavern is waiting to reign fire down upon the French.  This casting was a simple model to build up but I really like how it came out.

The main cast is superb - no air bubbles at all.  However it was damaged during shipping.  The owner of Thoroughbred (Toby) offered to replace the tower for no charge but since it was 95% intact, I declined and used the minor break as an opportunity to customize the model.

A little bit of Extrude Polystyrene Foam (Pink insulation foam) combined with a few minutes of carving and a suitable rock face covers the gap.  I think it makes the model look great.

I do want to be very clear about one thing - Thoroughbred Miniatures has terrific quality products and service and I recommend Toby's services highly.  Sometimes "stuff" happens in shipping and Toby did offer to replace the piece free of charge and free shipping.  Please don't consider this minor breakage as anything negative about Thoroughbred Miniatures.

Points wise, this stout little tower should net me the following:

6, 15mm figures = 12 points
1, 15 mm gun = 2 points (it's not really a "full" gun)
Tower = 30 points
bonus = 2 points

Total 44 points

Why 30 points for the Tower.?  Volume-wise it comes in at 384 cubic inches and the 6x6x6 inch cube equals 216 so that's roughly 1.78x the standard terrain unit.  Let's round that down to 30 and there you have it.

What a thing of beauty....... the calculation for the points of the terrain piece I mean..... We have cubic calculations, volume, roundings.... the only thing that would have made it perfect would have been the inclusion of Pi, but it's the weekend so I shan't be churlish and dock you any points for it's omission but it's good to see that you've remembered what we have all been taught in school and Shown Your Workings!

Anyway, enough of maths and onto the pretty models.  What a splendid idea on the little rockface and I doff my cap to you sir for not asking for a new model (and then using both anyway) as it can't be easy for manufacturers shipping delicate pieces in the post.  The rockface makes it unique which is a bonus so I'm chucking a couple of bonus points your way for the conversion.  The tower itself looks properly ominous to face, so I pity the ships who will have to sail towards it......

From MilesR: French 22 Gun Frigate plus crew (105 points)

 This holiday break has proven to be most productive in the shipyards as the the sixth of seven planned ships has been completed.  In the case a 22 gun French Frigate - with crew!.

As with the previous ships, this model is from Thoroughbred Miniatures Sea Eagle line which I really recommend.  The crew figures are also part of the Sea Eagle product set.

There are 20 crewmen mounted on 10 stands - I'm using a basing standard that I use for Skirmish figures in my Napoleonics as players will have the option to form shore parties.

Still working on the naval rules but am happy where I stand in terms of being prepared for the July convention.  Choice commands will be made available to any Challengers who attend Historicon this year!

The crew figures are "true" 15mm scale so look a little small when compares to my other Napoleonic figures.  They'll still look fine on the tabletop together.  To be honest, the size difference may be a good "jerk detector" - any individual who feels the need to point out the discrepancy probably doesn't need to play in my games.

 Two close up shots of the crew.  I left the basing without ground cover as that looks better on the decks.  I did try to carve some decking on the bases and then remove the figures from their cast on metal bases.  The first task worked fine but the second resulted in a lot of "Long John Silver" figures in need of tiny peg legs.  I went with a basic ground setting instead.

 These base edges will be color coded - blue for French and red for the Brit's - they get pretty mixed up during boarding actions.

Here's a comparison for the figs to some French infantry - the French infantry were purchased painted from GAJO Miniatures and I was very happy with the quality - much better than I can manage on my own.

I've really enjoyed building these models and have reserved the seventh and final one (a lovely Xebec) for the "Mercenary" bonus round.  That ship will get a little but more attention than the rest.

The fleets so far with the French on the left and the Brits (less their hired Xebec) on the right.  The Brits seem a little outgunned, don't they?  Don't worry, there may be some shore batteries and even some fortifications to help out our cousins from across the pond.



In terms of points, based on what Curt allowed for the early ships, I'd say the Frigate weighs in at 65 points and with 20 crew figures at 2 points each, that bring the total to 105 points for this submission.

I need to paint a good deal more crew figures!

What a smashing boat! (Once again, nobody gets twitchy about the whole boat/ship thing, right?!?!?)

That red is absolutely lovely and I found myself looking for the peg legged individuals you mention having created ;)  Not a parrot in sight though, so sadly no pieces of eight bonus points to be awarded..... Good choice on the basing too, from a distance it looks grand and carving 15mm planks sounds like it would have been a job and a half.

I'll bow to your estimate of points as they seem eminently reasonable, so 105 in total it is!

From Barks: French 75 in two forms! (25 points)

The French Canon de 75 modèle 1897 was a spectacular success, with a hydro-pneumatic recoil system allowing over 15 aimed shots per minute compared to the usual contemporary 2 shots per minute. It is considered the first modern artillery piece, and these are the Battlefront 15mm models on 40mm round bases.

It inspired a cocktail, the French 75, the effects of which were like being shelled. In the interests of historical science I made a batch of these for the Skirt Swisher and myself.

• 30mL gin
• 15mL lemon juice
• 3 splashes simple syrup (sugar water)

Shake these three ingredients with ice, strain out from the ice and serve in a chilled champagne glass. Top up with champagne. Enjoy and Repeat! It is rather nice, a refreshing bubbly gin. Apparently being shelled is quite pleasant.

You can see the other project that has occupied my last week, a spectacular Lego Big Ben.

Cheers!

2x 15mm artillery 8 points

8x 15mm crew 16 points

Bonus Minion JamieM here once again....... now then....... frantically checks diary....... I'm pretty sure yesterday was French day from all the postings, n'est pas?  Anyway, enough of that and what a lovely couple of guns.  They look like they'd have smashed up anybody coming near them with that rapid fire!  One bonus point for tying your submission into a related drink and whilst I'd love to award you yet more bonus points for the lego, I'm not sure what scale it is and I can see you haven't painted it anyway ;)  Looks great though, lego is rather relaxing after gluing miniatures together.

From DaveD , Cruel Seas , WW2 Normandy - 133.5 points

This weekends first top up gives me the completion of the starter set with with another 3 MTBs , 4  S Boats, and 15 torpedoes in the water

crew , rigging , flags and number decals added to these MTBS

7 1/300th boats = 56 points
13 crew = 6.5 Pts
Extras with 9 flags and aerial rigging on the MTBs 10pts
15 torpedoes 15 Pts

Next up , a top up for my US forces in Normandy

3 x M8 armoured car , 6 x 1/2 point crews
2 x Trucks

Guest Minion JamieM here to post a few entries (including DaveD's who is industriously posting as I type!)

Absolutely brilliant dinky boats (nobody minds whether we call them boats or ships, right?!?!?) - the torpedoes really add a lot to the look and.... wait a minute..... it looks like you actually added rigging and teeny tiny little flags..... you did! Are you insane sir?  Doing that would tie me in knots and probably result in little boats flying across the room in frustration.  I've used the (temporary) powers vested in me to up the bonus points for all that as it looks properly awesome.

Nice armoured cars and trucks too, those GIs will be glad to be able to hitch a ride, I'm sure.

From LeeH - Polybian Legion and Carthaginian Elephants (140 Pts)

Way back in the sixth Analogue Hobbies Winter Challenge I painted a Polybian Roman Army. I'd always wanted to expand it with more Hastati, Principes and Triarii but as with all good intentions it never happened. So three years after I first started this army I am finally getting round to expanding the ranks of my Romans. 

I had planned to paint these one group at a time but after working through masses of Zulu's last year that felt a bit lazy so I have done the whole lot as one entry. As you'll probably notice the last rank (the veteran Triarii) are just two bases. That wasn't intentional, I had ordered a pack of 96 figures, enough for four bases, but was only sent 48 and didn't realise until I was ready to start. My wife gave them to my for Christmas so when they arrived over a month ago I just handed the pack to her and didn't check my order. Rather than delay working in these I decided to paint what I had got for now and worry about the two missing units later. 

 

I made a concerted effort to paint and base them exactly as I did the first legion. The only exception for this second legion was giving them a different colour banner. When I put them side by side with my 'old' bases I was amazed how well they matched up. I always keep a painting diary when I start a new project and I was able to refer to those old notes when I started these new models. Just to prove I have indeed painted these (not just rephotographed the minis I did three years ago!) here they are side by side... Two legions separated by three years. 

And here is a picture of them deployed for battle in a pattern approaching the Quincunx formation with the seasoned Principes covering the Hastatii in front and the veteran Triarii at the back covering the Principes. I was a bad day if the Triarii were ever called into action because that meant the front two ranks had been beaten and fallen back. 

I've also completed some more Elephants for my Carthaginian army. I painted four of these back in Challenge VI, basing them in pairs. Almost from the moment I finished them I wasn't happy with the way they looked, and felt I ought to have more per base. So this time around I have bought another four Elephants and combined them with the four I painted back in 2016. Thankfully I was able to remove the originals without damaging them and now that they are mounted four per base I am much happier with them. 

The colour is a shade darker on the four new Nellies but its close enough. The finished bases look a lot more intimidating and much more how I envisaged them three years ago. 

240 infantry, four Elephants and 12 crew should net me 134 points and propel me a significant way towards my modest target.

From DaveD 

I just love your 6mm projects Lee . there is just something about the mass effect of really well painted and consistently based armies - and these are cracking - I have have topped you up to 140 points for the extra size of the elephants - and i do like seeing elephants in a submission - nearly as good as camels.

From PaulO'G: Dark Age Dwellings (40 points)

Continuing my theme of distracting side projects, here are some Dark Age buildings I have been meaning to get to for a few years. I have a large village worth now and should probably stop, but I do love building them so I wont...

They are lovely resin casts by Gripping Beast, sold as Large and Medium sized Wattle and Daub Buildings, but the cute elevated storage building seems to be no longer available.  All painted up in multiple washes and dry-brushes in various acrylics.

Together in a block these three buildings occupy the table area of two imperial terrain blocks (noting they are measured in anachronistic, non-metric units!), so I suggest 40 points for the lot.  Figures for scale only, not for scoring.

From DaveD 

Lovely pieces , and with uses i think in a range of historical periods - 40 points it is 

From PaulS: Random selection of work part 1 - 65 points

This week has been a bit... bitty with the first bonus round coming up, running out of undercoat for terrain and running out of basing materials.

The first selection finished are 10 anti-walker bollard-things. These were collected from multiple sets of DUST tactics and were one of the few things I kept when I sold it all on as they are useful bits of terrain for any game that involves big tanks. You can see the Strawbear ably demonstrating scale once again.

After those, I decided to revisit Imperial Assault. Inspired by Samuli's excellent work on his Vader, here's mine. Not quite as neat, but not bad for 10 minutes work. The 4 guards were also pretty quick, taking another 20 minutes to complete. I forgot to cut them off their bases before painting though, so they are still on their original solid bases. At some point I may go back and try to cut them off, but for now they are on concrete.

Lastly is a little worm from Shadows of Brimstone, which should be useful in a number of different games, especially things like Strange Aeons where Cthulhu monsters are everywhere. The Burrower is a simple little kit with about 5 pieces, including the rockery base that it comes with.Sadly this leads to the typical problem of some of the earlier Brimstone kits in that the detail is a bit soft and there are some obvious joins in there that can't really be covered up without obscuring the detail that *is* there.

To give you a sense of scale on this little worm, the Strawbear had offered to kindly act as a scale point again. This thing is terrifyingly big... I have no idea where I'm going to store it... but should cause carnage whenever it appears in the mines!

The terrain takes up just under one box, s is 20 points. Vader and his minions should be another 25 points... the Burrower? I have no idea! I leave that up to the minions to decide as it is a 28mm monstrous creature about 3.5 times the height of the Strawbear!

From DaveD, stand in grognard minion..or is grognard minion standing in... who knows

A nicely eclectic mix. I do like Vader and his guards , and as for your Burrower , that looks like the stuff of nightmares ... I have done this a 40mm vehicle at 20 points - so a grand total of 65!

From StefanK: Cruel Seas - Armed Trawler (23 points)

The fleet boxes for Cruel Seas really provide a nice selection of models. The Royal Navy for example come with the mandarory Vospers, some Fairmile MTB and an Armed Trawler. After rushing through the Vospers and E-boats I took the trawler as a more special model and painted it during the last days:

It's a large ship (though 'large' in 1/300) that comes in resin with metal parts. Overall the parts fit very well. Only the masts needed some deeper holes to fit in the hull proberly. A really nice add-on is the metal crew. They come in strips of three seamen but can be cut into single crewmembers or pairs easily. Since there were more then enough seamen for the trawler I transfered two of them to one of my Vospers to man the bridge appropriately.

The flag is again from the generic Royal Navy flag sheet by Warlord Games. But this time I used the Red Ensign instead of the White Ensign. Although I know that the Red Ensign is appropriate for British merchantmen I didn't check it on historial material. I just followed Warlord Games example...

Anyway, the ship comes with two 3" guns and appears properly armed to scare some E-boats. The guns are nice metal pieces as well and have crew figures on them. Very nice little bits. I'd wish to see them available individually to have them available for the plastic boats. Making the guns available individually would - by the way - solve the problem with the missing 37mm gun in the German E-boat sprue...

As usual I used mostly my trustworthy Vallejo paints. Starting with a basecoat of Uniform Grey spray primer (by Armypainter) I applied VMC 70.924 Russian Uniform WWII. It's a rather light greyish green because I wanted to try a different colour scheme on the trawler. On some Warlord Games pictures their trawler looks slightly greenish so I chose this colour. Anyway the result looks even greener then desired but I'm happy with it anyway. After the colour was dry I applied some of the AK washes to get some shadows. Then drybrushing with VMC 70.821 German Camoflage Beige and VMC 70.884 Stone Grey. Finally some more AK washing for weathering especially on the lower parts of the hull.

That's it for now. I hope you like it.

Cheers

Stefan

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Beautiful work, Stefan. Right now I'm desperate for tankers and trawlers for Cruel Seas, so I'm looking on very enviously of your fine example here. I really like how crisp and clean your brushwork is, especially with the crewmen alongside the ship's rails and bridge - they , along with the subtle weathering, does such a great job of bringing the whole model to life. 

As to points, I'm going to put this trawler in the same realm as a 28mm vehicle, so 20 points, with a few extra added for the crew. Again, lovely stuff, Stefan. 

The Weekend Begins!

Finally, the weekend is here! 

I probably should not be celebrating too much as it looks like I have my work cut out for me for the next couple of days. Thankfully, I have a strategic reserve of our Old Guard Minions who have graciously agreed to step into the breach to allow me time to get our first theme round organised for display tomorrow. Many thanks in advance to my Grognards for all their help.

I've really enjoyed reading the short bios of this year's merry band of deviants, and so to stay in theme I thought I'd say a few words about my history with the hobby. 

Like many, I collected and played with Airfix soldiers as a young boy (Afrika Korps and British Paras). My mother, who was a teacher and head of our regional library, brought home 'Little Wars' for me to read, which I absolutely loved. The first figures I painted were Ral Partha and Grenadier adventurers for our D&D and AD&D campaigns in the early 80s. I ordered those direct from TSR in Lake Geneva and painted them with toothpicks and sewing needles (pathetic, I know). 

A 15 year old version of me and my first painted minis. 

In senior high I was a big enthusiast of Avalon Hill's boardgames (ASL, Arab-Israeli War, Wooden Ships, etc.) which I often played solo for lack of opponents (tiny town = low nerd quotient).  After graduating I moved to Winnipeg and upon securing a government grant for young entrepreneurs, started a game store, 'Medieval Works', with two other friends - I turned 19 when we opened the shop. It was around the same time that Rogue Trader was released. We were completely fearless, feckless and fierce - lambs to the slaughter, really. Many of the friends I made while at the store I still have today - it was an absolutely fabulous time. 

Me with part of our first big order; the interior of our shop; and a group of us playing a game at the front of the store.

During the store years, and amongst those early, heady days of Warhammer/40K, I fell hard for Napoleonics, which remains my favourite historical and gaming period to this day. Anyway, we ran the store for about 3 years before growing bored of being perpetually broke and so moved on to other distractions. At around 25 I took a hiatus from the hobby to chase girls and go to uni, but came back to it with a vengeance in the midst of graduate school. I hosted a gaming group at my home on Thursdays which became The Fawcett Avenue Conscripts. This group is still going strong after 20 years and is made up of several current Challengers (GregB, ByronM and MikeF, to name but a few). After moving to Regina I started another group, 'The Friday Night Raconteurs' which is composed of another band of terrific guys (PeterD, SylvainR, JeremyM and StacyS). Great years filled with great friends.

There you go, a silly snapshot of my nerd years. 

Okay! Enough banter, let's get on with today's posts!  You're going to be spoiled with the wide variety of wonderful eye-candy today, so stay tuned throughout the day as the entries roll-out.

Curt