From TeemuL: Getting to the Squirrel Island (63 points)

Once upon a time in this historically accurate, scientific-fictional oriented pulp world with a hint of fantasy spice was an island, Squirrel Island, or Challenge Island, as it was better known.

A group was heading for that Island, they had been on their way for many weeks now. We don't know yet who they really are and we don't have a complete story, only fractions of discussions and so on...

"What, Border Patrol wants something in order to grant as land? No gold, jewels or anything valuable is accepted?"

"Give them the useless priestess, she has been with us for weeks without no use!"

"Land ahead!"

"This is no island, this is a bloody Atol!!¤#"&¤"

"You say now, that the useless priestess could have landed as anywhere on the island and instead we got into this hostile looking atoll?"

"We can only get as far as to a some Reef now? that's not a proper landing site for us!"

"I guess we go there, then..."

"Let's rest a while, make a camp next to that broken whatever next to those spiky plants."

So, this post marks not only the participation fee, but my landing on the Challenge island. The fee can be seen above, a Mithril Miniatures Wose Priestess, MM249. She has rather simple paint job and the washes are still glowing in the pictures, I need to doublecheck them later and make any corrections if needed. It is glued on 25mm MDF base with same sand and tufts glued on.

I believe she can be used in various purposes, MESBG as one option and other fantasy themed games of course as well. She is a true scale model, still available on Mithril webstore, if someone likes to get one. And of course this one goes to someone as well, if you like her, feel free to make comment and I will let the Snowlord know. (I know I could have used that for Sarah's balloon ride, but I really liked to land on the Atoll, since building stuff on CDs is great fun.)

After the fee business, it is time to make the landing, I'm going to the Awdry's Atoll with this piece of scenery on an old cd. There's an odd piece of packing material looking like a part of sewer, some venerable styrofoam ball cactuses with dangerous spikes and general rubble. Some parts from my bitz box as well, mostly WH40K parts, but the vegetation implies to a ruined area, which has seen some action, but not recently. We'll see where I'll use it.

There's also a bit of mdf building frame on the ground, two sorts of sand, old paintbrush brush cover as pipe and dried white glue "ring" taken from the bottle. Yes, you can use everything...

The last picture shows one model (painted for Challenge IX) in the terrain, so yes, it is a working piece.

Terrain piece is about 2 inch high and given the size of a normal CD, the volume should then be about 35 cubic inches. That's about one sixth of the terrain cube, which would mean about 3 points... Doesn't sound much, so may be I have made an error somewhere...

1 25mm miniature - 5 points
Participation fee bonus - 20 points
Terrain - 3 points
Challenge Island location - 30 points


That's some interesting terrain and a cool priestess, Teemu. There's a slight miscalculation in your scoring though - the 25 points for the Curtgeld is being scored in addition to the figure, so that gives you 63 points for this entry.

Tamsin

From Barks: 15mm WW1 artillery crews (62 points)

I painted one of these guns and crews in 2016 for AHPC VII, my first Challenge. I painted the guns in 2017. For Hawkins' Hill, I've pulled my finger out and painted the remaining crew. Silver Whistle convinced me to go 40mm round bases.

16x 15mm +32 (just the crew, not the tubes)
Hawkins' Hill +30

So this leaves me with five locations complete, and I'm bracing myself for an attempt on the northeast face of Snowlord's Peak.

PS: FYI there are no apostrophes in Australian placenames.


Those gun crews look spiffing. Five locations done? I'll pass you over to the tender ministrations of Curt for your next Island challenge.

Tamsin

From MikeF - Entry Fee and Prize - Ork Deffkopta (50 points)

The entry fee for the painting challenge this year is to paint a prize for winners of Challenge Island. I used the opportunity to paint a model from my collection that I always wanted to paint, but always seemed to get pushed further down the painting queue. I purchased the model from Puppets War several years ago and I believe it represents an ork deffkopta. It’s very orky and completely bonkers. It’s literally a jet engine with wings and the pilot is sitting on the combustion chamber. That would normally be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that there is no fuel tank! This lends credit to the idea that ork technology only works because they believe is does. Hopefully it can be a nice addition for someone who is more motivated at painting an ork army than I am.

By the Snowlord, that's a bonkers contraption. Nice battering of the paintjob too! You forgot to sum up the points so I'll do it for you:

28mm crew figure - 5 points

28mm vehicle - 20 points

Curtgeld bonus - 25 points

Total - 50 points

Tamsin

From MartinN: Millsy's Millpond - Jackboots and Coal Scuttle Helmet (90 points)

At long last another entry in my challenge log. Since before Christmas Eve I'm plagued by a nasty cold that, while having eased off in between just enough to get in a game with mate ChrisS and meet up with some friends, is restricting my painting output severely. Sneezing and coughing all over half painted miniatures all the time isn't exactly my idea of fun, so progress is slow to say the least.

Whining aside, I've actually managed to paint up my Submission for the "Millsy's Millpond" location on Challenge Island.

With eleven men this squad of jackbooted German Landser is maybe a little on the big side, but an extra rifle man could well come in handy here or there. The figures are from the Wargames Foundry small but excellent range of WW2 Germans sculpted by the Perry twins back in the day.

I'm not exactly sure when the were first released but am rather confident that it must have been well before the change of the millenium. If they also qualify for the pre-1990's bonus? Frankly I don't know. So if one of my fellow challengers has some idea as to their release date I'd be keen to know.

While a tad on the small side when compared with more recent castings I'll happily mix these with the current Warlord Plastics which make up the bulk of my Early War German force. In my humble opinion the sculpts have aged well and the figures were a joy to paint.
As for a background story, well, there's not much to be said. The riflemen were part of a deal for some British Paras I made a while ago while LMG and NCO were purchased recently during the Foundry Christmas sale.

So if my math is correct these fine fellows should net me:
- 55 points for eleven infantry type figures
- 30 points for the completion of the hobby task
- plus whatever our esteemed minion of the day judges hand painted insignia to be worth


Those Heer troopers look simply spiffing Nick. Handpainted helmet insignia? My word! That deserves some bonus points, so I'll round you up to 90 points.

Tamsin

From DaveD: 10mm ACW - Bluebelly Artillery - 164 points

I am following my winter painting plan, so its a move up a scale to 10mm. This time a top up for my ACW collection. This is the 3rd year of adding to this one and its starting to build up nicely . All figures are by my local company Pendraken.

My Union artillery has been heavily re-inforced. 9 guns and crew , each of them with a limber or caisson team to provide the mobility. One of the things I like about the 10mm is the economic viability of providing these bits - so infrequently seen in larger scales.



There are a mix of 6 and 4 horse teams



Boom, boom , boom !



these have has thin coat of satin varnish as I like to brighten them up - and it does help the colour pop.

Totals :-
27 gun crew . (27 pts) , 24 unridden horses (24 points)
9 guns . (18 pts)
9 vehicles - limbers/caissons (27 pts)
24 mounted figures (48 points)
20 crew on limbers/caisson (10 points)

total 154 points .

Right off to do some accompanying infantry.


The satin coat really does make them pop! Nice bluebelly gun teams there - difficult to believe they're 10mm scale. I've decided to score the crew on the limbers and caissons as full figures, just because I can!

Tamsin

Tamsin's Friday Flights of Fancy #2

"Good morning gentlemen (and Ray). Senior Flight Attendant Tamsin here. I do hope that you are enjoying your flight with Snowlord Airways. Flight AHPC-X out of Challenge, Blogland is currently cruising at 13,476* points towards our target altitude of 64,358 points. 56 of our 68 passengers are now aboard; the other 12 had better pull their socks up and join the flight before we climb too far."

"There were some slight disturbances yesterday. Rookie Attendant Martin had to leave his shift early on (something about "I can't connect with this thing") - hopefully "Nurse" Docherty's extra doses of medication have made up for those of you who didn't receive rocks to bang together. We also almost had a mutiny when the Captain set a passenger a task which he was unwilling and unable to perform. Thankfully, I was around and made an eminently sensible suggestion which does appear to have calmed things down. Well, that's what I'm paid** for."

"Today's in-flight entertainment may look a little sparse right now, but I'm sure that more performers will come forward later on. So far we have Dave D sowing off his new blueberries (well, that's what it sounded like - he was scoffing a big pie while he was telling me); Nick is dragging coal to the Millpond; Mike F is trying to Deff-en us; and Barks is going to share around his bottle of "grey gunners" (I do hope that's like Grey Goose")."


* I know that the table is showing a higher figure - it's been updated with today's first five entries (and the one which Curt posted overnight but didn't enter into the spreadsheet until just now!)

** "Paid" Ha-ha! As if!

From StephenS: Ironskull's Boyz (20 points)

G'Day,

You know when you see a 'z' instead of a 's', it can only mean some Games Workshop Orcs, Orks, Orruks  are inbound!

I have for you the Ironskull's Boyz, a band sold for Games Workshop's miniature/board-game/deck-building game - Warhammer Underworlds.

These guys have a pretty straight forward play-style, no prizes for guessing what they like to do. This should keep it pretty easy for me as it's not a game that hits the table too often, so I shouldn't need to remember too many tricky combinations.

All up it is four 28-32 mm plastic miniatures. They have been sitting in my pile for a while. A recent down sizing (Monday) of my hobby room into a hobby cupboard to make way for a beautiful baby, due very soon, revealed them to me again.

Cheers,

Steve

___________________________________

Nice, clean brushwork on these Boyz, Steve! The yellow armour is very striking next to their green skin and black accents. 

Well done and congratulations on the upcoming arrival.

-Curt

StuartL's Challenge on Snow Lord's Peak (Redux)

As Stuart scales the last few feet to the summit of Snow Lord's Peak he can't shake the feeling that he's done this before. Deja vu? A bad dream? It's of no consequence, he is ready to face its dread challenge.

Stuart looks upon the glowering visage of the Snow Lord. 

'Have we met before?' Stuart asks the blue skinned monstrosity.

'I doubt it,' the creature growls, 'I make a point to remember all who rove this land.' He then stops, ponders and furrows his brow... 

________________________________________________________

The Snow Lord knows that Stuart lives in the Nagoya area of central Japan and so tasks the brave adventurer to provide an entry that illustrates this region. A bonus 10 points are available if it is winter themed.

Once this challenge is complete Stuart can claim his prize:

'Che, the Red' from Sander's Sand Dunes.

_______________________________________________________

The Snow Lord turns his back, growling over his shoulder, 'Okay kid, I wanna see something about this Nagoya place. Show me what you've got.'

Good luck Stuart!

From Pete F, Docherty's Dock- The Mutatawwi'a - Has Anyone Seen My Camel? (75 points)

SAGA is one of my favourite wargames. You don't need a giant warband but it gets enough troops on the table that they stand out on a 4'x3' table. It's truly a skirmish as opposed to a scuffle with 40-50 figures per side. Most of my games have been from the "Age of Vikings", but I bought the "Age of Crusades" some time ago and have been admiring the Gripping Beast Mutatawwi'a faction for a while. Because of the camels.

They had a 30% off Black Friday sale (Gripping Beast also don't charge us foreigners VAT and shipping is reasonable) so I was unable to resist. I thought it would take a while to get to the Mutatawwi'a because I have Normans and Anglo Danes in the pipeline and most of my opponents field Dark Ages armies. But Doherty's Dock provided a compelling reason to paint my first ever camels and get this warband started.

Camels were fun to paint - the distribution of light/dark on their fur is very different to horses. Like donkeys, camels have a lighter underside which lessens the absorption of reflected heat and allows them to be a little cooler in desert conditions.

I'm not sure about my basing, which ended up on the busy side. I went all in on different techniques using the GW technical Agrellan Earth to get the cracked surface effect as well as various bits of rock and sand, applying a wash, dry brushing and pigments. Too much going on.

I took inspiration from Little Bigmen Studios Islamic shield transfers for the shield designs.  I went for more elaborate shield designs for these four as they are hearthguard - the elite of Saga. The warriors got plain fabrics and a green/yellow/white colour palette.

The Mutatawwi'a faction doesn't really reflect my usual play style. They are good at running in fast and furious - and have lots of ways they can deal out additional damage by accepting more damage themselves. I get the impression that there will be few survivors on either side after a clash with the camel riders and their warband,

I generally love Gripping Beast sculpts - these ones had more flash and mold lines on them than usual - and I didn't spot all of the problems in the preparation phase. Bah! I also screwed up drilling one of the hands (the casts have to be drilled to fit spears) which will need a complete replacement at some stage. I'm not sure about the size of the dudes compared with the size of the camels... the animals seem on the small side in relation to the figures compared with camels I've seen in real life.

We have a SAGA tournament in Portland OR this weekend - the Mutatawwi'a won't be ready so I'll be fielding a Jomsviking warband. Gripping Beast were kind enough to send us a few blisters as prize support - very generous of them since it's a small tournament and the organizer would gladly have paid for them.

4 mounted 28mm and the Docherty's Dock (The fourth area I have explored) bonus come to 70 points. I'm not going to claim the bonus 5 points even though that's supposed to be Millsy in the turban.

From DaveD - You have broken you camel cherry YAY! (thats sounds so wrong!) . They are fine beasts - i have some of the same to do somewhere. That is some nice detail in the shields and covers  too - and there is an uncanny likeness to Millsy in there somewhere - 2nd  camel on left maybe.... - lets make that 75 points! Fine start to your warband.

From TomM: Zarbag's Gitz (45 points)

Well, funny little story here for these guys...

Because they weren`t really planned to be entered this Challenge, more on the pile of "if I have time left after the planned entries".

But then last saturday, I read about an Underworlds tournament here in Antwerp taking place beginning of february, and decided to sign up.  Realising I only played with the starter decks and bands of season 1 so far, and that more then a year ago, I asked someone on the club to give me a crash course tomorrow evening.

Only to realise then I don`t have any painted warbands, and I`m not playing anything unpainted ever...  And it got better in that I only had sunday morning, wednesday end thursday evening to paint, varnish and picture them.

So these pictures are literally made half an hour after the final colour and varnish dried...

But I pulled it off, and they are now ready to take to the strange lands of Underworlds.

And knock 45 points to my tally ;-)

From DaveD. Now thats what we like to see - the power of a deadline is always great .. of course they run away -- but you know that! 

From JamieM - A Delicate Balancing Act at Cooke's Crevasse (38 points)

Wizards.  What on earth are they about?  Usually stupid sparkly stuff, trying to impress the local wenches/muscle down the local inn most likely.

Take this one for example.  What benefit could it possibly have if you balance a load of rocks on each other and then stand on them?

Bloomin' wizards...... always standing at the back chucking fireballs around or taking no interest in magic armour and only worrying about dusty old books......can't trust an adventurer who thinks like I don't reckon.

What?  Me?  Ever been adventuring?  Not a chance.  Much safer to stay here at the farm.  Probably more fun too.  Right?...... right?......

I thought that was rather a good fun wizard, it's by GW and was originally an Elf, but with a quick headswap with a Greatsword figure, he's now Magnus Purple-Eye (and yes, that was the name of a D&D character I ran back in the day :)  Sadly the original Magnus died in his first dungeon with the exit in sight and so lasted less time in the dungeon than he took to roll up, but that's RPGs for you sometimes!)

But I digress.  He's standing on several pieces of Geology and so I thought he'd be perfect for Cooke's Crevasse and so here he is!

Having enjoyed the rocks, I think I'll be off to Hawkin's Hill next as I have a frankly embarrassingly large choice of figures to paint for there......

5 points for the 28mm figure and 30 points for the location I believe.

From DaveD. aah , our resident telecommicationally challenged geologist has missed a treat here... that just brilliantly executed. The yellow is particularly well done - so lets call it 38 points .  Enjoy your rummage at Hawkins Hill!

From MikeW - At Benito's Brook - 12 x 18mm Crimean War British Hussars (126 Points)

This entry is my step into the realms of Benito's Brook, and it was quite some challenge to figure out what from my lead mountain would qualify for this post!

Post Marked 2006!

Eventually I opted for a box of 18mm Eureka Miniatures I'd rather rashly ordered back in 2006, whilst away from home on a business trip, during which time, I was finishing reading the rather good 'Hell Riders' by Terry Brighton.

A few lessons learned by this experience, don't order figures on a whim after reading an inspiring book - by the time these little chaps had landed on my doormat from Australia, my fickle fancy had moved on to other areas of interest!

I did try to paint up some lancers - maybe 5 or 6 years ago but this came to nothing and I'm not even sure where these half painted chaps are now.

Finished 11th Hussar Squadron of 12 x 18mm Eureka Figures

So now for Challenge X - I took 12 troopers from the package and determined to paint these up as a squadron of 11th Hussars - or for those that remember the film - these were Lord Cardigan's 'Cherrybums', on account of their red trousers. It was also the regiment from which the unfortunate Captain Nolan, was detached to HQ duties and led to the late unfortunate mix-up.

For those who are not sure of the story of the Light Brigade - On 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War, the Light Brigade of the British Cavalry Division made the most magnificent and most brutal and pointless charge in military history.

Fantastically detailed book
on the Charge of the Light Brigade

Almost 700 men armed with sabre and lance, charged straight at the muzzles of Russian cannons and massed Russian Cavalry and Cossacks behind. But it was a blunder, they charged down the wrong valley, into the Russian guns instead of scaring off Russian infantry men that were stealing away allied guns in the adjoining valley!

All because Captain Nolan and Lord Cardigan hated each other and could not communicate properly.

As soon as I started painting these guys, I remembered why I'd given up on the lancers, at 18mm scale they have fantastic detail but are so small my ageing eyes really struggle. Difference now is that I've accepted wearing glasses when doing figure painting and results are better.

View from the flank

These Eureka figures are significantly bigger than 15mm counter parts - you do have to get the detail done to make the most of them but they are still smaller than 25/28mm figures that I have been mostly painting recently. I persevered but they were hard work!

A bit more detail

Since my last post - where I detailed how I paint horses - I got some great additional tips on horse colours from Tasmin - so I have tried to incorporate those tips in this batch of horses (See below) - allowing for 'Chestnut' colouring. Thanks for the advice Tasmin! See Chestnut horse below...

Anyway here they are - hope they are presentable as part of the famously futile 'Charge of the Light Brigade' and as such qualify for Benito's Book brief of a Forlorn Hope!

Hopefully a 'Chestnut' horse - without Black fetlocks!

I changed my usual basing technique for these figures, I felt that static grass and flowers would be out of scale and not look right. Instead I found a pot of old 'course scatter' in a light green finish and used static grass very sparingly in clumps. I like the effect at this scale.

Despite my complaining I do like the final result, I did plan to do two squadrons per regiment, plus officers and character figures. Maybe I might take another look and see if I can find those Lancers again!

POINTS (Controversy?)

So The Challenge has points rates for painted 20mm and 15mm figures but not 18mm figures. The gap between the two scales is quite significant for mounted troops - either 4 points for a 15mm figure or 8 points for a 20mm figure.

I have opted for the following scoring system - score them as 20mm figures (nearest scale) but subtract 10% score as 18mm is only 90% of 20mm - Minon of the Day please feel free to adjust according to you r guidelines or Whim - ed - "ah lets confound Miles spreadsheet  I will round these to 20mm "

12 x mounted figures at 8 points each = 96 Points
Bonus Points for Benito's Brook = 30 Points

TOTAL = 96 +30 = 126 Points

From DaveD . Its not often you see Crimean war stuff, its certainly something that keeps piquing my own interest - but i haven't found figures to match the desire yet. I will have to look at these. Nice job . Also you may need to check the pictures as due to sausage fingers I think i deleted one as i posted ..so feel free to add it back in! 

From MikeW. No worries Dave - happens to us all. Have added the photo back in as suggested!

From JohnM: WWII Terrain

This will be my last terrain pieces for this challenge, I do have a lot of figures in the painting queue, but these pieces take a lot of room so best to get them out of the way.

These models were printed by myself on a CR10S. The STL files are from 3D Print Terrain. They are good quality and the author responds almost immediately to any enquiries on facebook.

Destroyed Houses

 

  

 

Bunker Compound

 

 

I find the calculations always tricky but I would say that the pieces roughly fill a 6x6x12" cube, so give what you may!

 

 

From DaveD - That is indeed a nice bit work John - did the rubble come as part of it? - I reckon its a good 40 points there.