From PhilH: Millsy’s Millpond, Prizegeld for DavidB (60 Points)

My second Island location continues down the Path of History to Millsy’s Millpond. Millsy demands a model from before 2000.

I was fortunate that my parents moved house last year, and dumped returned an ancient and long forgotten ‘bitz box’ from my teens. Chock full of 1990s GW, including loads of spares from plastics and leftover junk from conversions, and some treasure too.

Classic GW ahoy! 

(If anyone can spot anything that they want, its mostly on its way to less neglectful homes via eBay, so give me a shout and we can work something out)

From here came inspiration for my Prizegeld, for a Challenger who’s painted a whole Waaaaargh!-worth of GW Orks in the past: the ever-enthusiastic and industrious David Bromley.

The box contained my old GorkaMorka trukks and minis and some 3rd edition plastic Orks. I liked David’s Bad Moon-funded Blood Axes in Challenge VIII  post, so picked out a suitable mini. It was from when I started a unit of Blood Axe commandos, not long after GorkaMorka was released in the late 1990s.

It’s a Boy with a converted Big Shoota (looks a bit MG34 to me, even) and helmet complete with big Teef. I tried to match David’s colour scheme (though I’ve no Goblin Green for his skin..) and left the basing so David can match him to the rest of his collection.

One Ork might be a small contribution to your impressive Waaaaaaaaaargh! David, but I hope you like him.

Points: 4 basic (for not being based), plus 30 for a visit to the Millpond, plus 25 for Prizegeld, for 59.

My Challenge Journey

***
While one ork may be small by itself, a WAAAAAAARGH starts with just one and grows!

Great work on this old figure Phil, I remember them well from the Gorkamorka game, and thankfully you did not use the retarded bases that came with that game.... wow were they horrible!  For anyone who has never seen them, the were small ovals 25mm x 10mm (ish)...  they never kept anything standing upright for more than 10-15 seconds.

Despite not having the Goblin green for the flesh, it looks pretty close to the right shade.  The yellow is awesome too, such a painful colour to work with.  I am sure David will enjoy the addition to his force.  Oh, and I am not deducting the point for not being based, as it is pretty common to leave gifted figure unbased so people can match them.  I see no reason to take a point away.

-ByronM

Mark B’s - 1/300 Islands (50 Points)

Hi all,
The campaign continues over the island to O’Grady’s Gulch.

I am preparing for a Lard Day I am organising in Southampton next month called ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re LARD enough!’ There are 16 games in it and one of them is a 1/300 Kiss Me Hardy game based around a Danish archipelago with smaller brigs and gunboats. My mate Bob has a very nice sea mat but no islands - so I offered to make him some. I might add some more if I get the time? The islands are off cuts of MDF with insulation foam on them. I’ve then covered them in PVA glue and sharp sand. This was then painted brown and dry brushed along the coastal bits and a darker green on the central areas. It was then all dry brushed with shades of cream. Various scatter materials have then been glued on plus 1/300 home made trees made from florists wire and clump foliage.

At the end I sealed them in with scenic spray. I hope Bob likes them when he gives the scenario a playtest next week. Annoyingly I won’t get to play the game as I have a parents evening! Size wise these don’t really fit a cube shape. Width and length wise they are a total of 18 x 12” roughly but are fairly low - only an inch or so because of the 1/300 trees. So I’ll only claim 15 points for them.

Islands = 15 points

Completing O’Grady’s Gulch = 30 points

Grand total = 45 points

I think I might need to wet the brushes and go for a balloon ride next?😜

***

Hello Mark, as a terrain guy myself I have a great appreciation for having nice terrain on the table.  These islands look awesome and will surely make the game a whole lot better.  While they are technically small I can see the effort that went into scratch building these and am going to round it up to 20 points for them.  

Keep up the great work!

- ByronM

From SanderS: I wore a tunic... (220 pts)

Hoi,

Ladies and gentlemen prepare yourselfs for an utterly boring entry which has as sole purpose: getting soldiers on the table and points on the board. In my on-going fight to get my kakhi clad troops painted I have tried to finish 55 figures of 1:72 HäT early war British soldiers.

These are based on 20mm round plastic bases from Renedra for use in trenches on table and I will be using them with the old OOP Warhammer Historical rules of "The Great War" and "Over the Top". 

 In a bid to spruce up this little mono-colour post a bit, I thought I'd share two little painting habits of mine. First: when I have bases that allow it I write my initials and the date of finishing under the figures. I started this after some of my soldiers went "missing" during a demo game at a convention.

My second habit is that, in order to maintain interest in the subject I am painting, I read a book concerning said troops.

Music can be another great inspiration and I have several CD's of WW1 soldier's songs and play them while painting, hence this posts title.

Pointswise these chaps should earn me 55 x 4 = 220 points right? On to more colourfull things!

Cheers Sander

***
Great entry Sander, and no need to apologize for a monochromatic look, after all that is what things looked like then.  Probably even worse after a few hours in the trenches!As soon as the troops started entering the trenches they were just covered in that soupy mud that permeated the area.  I have no idea how people fought in that.  The painting on these looks good and they will certainly give you a great start to any battle in the era.

While I have played the OOP Great War, I strongly suggest at least trying Through the Mud & the Blood as a rule set.  The GW based Great War rules just never felt like WW1 to me, they just felt like very bland 40k rules, but hey to each their own as the TTM&TB rules are pretty hard to get into.
 

On a side note, if you are looking for more good books on the period I can highly recommend "Baptism of Fire : The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada, April 1915" and "Brave Battalion: The Remarkable Saga of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) in the First World War".  Now as you can tell, I am a proud Canadian and am keenly interested in the Canadian contribution to the war, but I figure that since you are reading Passchendaele you should like these as well.

-ByronM

DaveS - Continuing the Civil War (80 points)

So, work continues to steal as much painting time as possible.  Despite this, I have managed to get the next 2 groups for my ACW Sharp Practice force painted.  Same simple paint job as before, although I did notice that the first group I submitted before hadn't had their bayonets painted, so I had to fix them too.
As always seems to be the case, I had the figures finished for a few days, while I tried to motivate myself to get around to finishing the bases and doing the movement trays.....

Anyway, to the pictures....

 And finally, the new ones in column with their friends from the previous post.  Only another 16 of these to go, along with some officers to have a basic force.  Then I can think about adding all of the fun things (Cannons, flags, cavalry etc) to round the force out.

So that should be 16x28mm models which makes 80 points.

***
Something is up with this Saturday and the civil war, is there something I don't know about today?  This is the second of at least 3 posts today related to the civil war, and there is still more time for entries to come in today.

These look very nice Dave and I like the basing so that you are able to use them separatly or in formation.  Good work, keep more coming!

- ByronM

From PaulSS - ACW US Colored Troops 1864 (130 points)

Our Longstreet campaign has reached 1863 and US Colored Troops are starting to appear, which is a bit of a problem as I had none painted, this goes some way to redressing that.

These are made using the bodies and arms from the Perry Miniatures American Civil War Union Infantry in sack coats Skirmishing set with the heads from their black Union heads pack. It's quite a simple conversion to swap the heads, the old head is snipped off with wire cutters, a pilot hole drilled with a pin vise and then enlarged with a Dremmel, the new head is then super-glued in. Some of them are a bit of a rough fit, but I found fixing them with paint easier than using superglue.

The officer in the command group is the only unconverted one, I do like the sergeant with pistol one, I think he came out rather nicely. The flags as usual are from www.warflag.com

I probably painted a few too many with non-regulation canvas haversacks, but don't think I'll be going back to fix that any time soon, or indeed ever.

Output these past few days has been rather slow, but this morning I managed to get these dull-coated and photographed.

I thought I'd show the low tech photography setup I use; it's our breakfast bar, a Daylight lamp and the camera sits on a 'pod' which is basically a beanbag with a screw fit for the camera.

If my sums are correct, 25 x 28mm figures plus a couple of flags should be 127pts which gets me dangerously close to my target.

***
These are great looking figures and mobbed up with the banners in that first shot the look amazing.  Great work Paul!    The drum is also a great piece as I know how hard those are to paint cleanly, having tried to do several for Napoleonic figures.

As for your output, I think many of us are in that slow middle phase of the event.  If you are like me, you get all excited for the challenge, get tons prepped and ready to go, then blast through a bunch at the start.  Then kinda hit a wall for a bit, or run out of assembled and primed things, and it takes a while to get back in the groove, only to hit a mad rush near the end of the challenge to get everything completed in time!  Maybe just me...

- ByronM

From TomM: Sarah's Ballon: Flying to Sander's Sand Dunes (5 pts)

After exploring the Path of Imaginaton for the largest part, is is time to once again make use of the Lady Sarah and her lovely Balloon.

And this time, I am paying the fare to fly me to Sander's Sand Dunes, starting point of the Path of History.

For the toll, I painted up this viking lady that I still had lying around for a Dux "civilian hanger-on".  Except that the Dux campaign already ended last june and the model still was lying on the Lead Mountain.

The model was produced by Wargames Foundry in their Viking range, and looked like something suitable for this AHPC... as she can still make appearances on my Rohan set games!

And as to that, she yields 5 points for the tally, as a single 28mm figure.

 

***

What a great way to start the weekend, with a balloon ride.  She looks great Tom, good luck on your new path.

- ByronM

From NoelW: Upwardly mobile : Sarah's Balloon (31 points)

Tied off to a knotty thorn, the basket is completely empty, its balloon rocking gently above the spray of the waterfall. I guess we could simply clamber in and sail away, couldn’t we? Just step into the basket and hey presto! untold treasures, here we come! Not that we would, of course, obviously. Of course not. 

For a start, that knot looks fiendishly difficult to untie.

And we’ve no idea how to fly a balloon.

Oh, yes, and it's quite possible that it belongs to Lady Sarah. Didn’t think of that. Silly us.

Over the hedge, there’s the clippity clop sound horses make, Either that, or a lot of champagne bottles being opened. Could be either, really. Two riders come through the greenery: the Lady herself shiningly riding a white palfrey, champagne glass in hand, escorted by her faithful knight, banner in hand. She greets us courteously. He greets us curtly.

“Oh – hi - fancy meeting your here, Lady Sarah - is this, perchance, your balloon?”

“It is.”

“Ah – we thought it – er – must’ve blown away. We were just about to haul it along to the local sheriff.”

She looks pointedly over the edge of the cliff, where the water falls, down, down, down to the jagged rocks below.

“Can we drop you somewhere?” she says, smiling giacondally at her companion.

“Well – if you happen to be passing near Roundwood’s Tower, we could use a lift.

I’m not sure exactly how they get their horses into the basket, but soon we are on our way to our almost final destination.

---

One of my objectives for Challenge 10 is to create some command bases and other vignette-like pieces to enhance some of my armies, rather than just build more units. This is the first of my planned pieces: Jean d’Arc, with her banner carried by Guillaume de Trie, Lord of Fontenay. Not knowing who actually carried her banner, I chose him for his simple but attractive heraldry. He may, in fact, have been killed at Agincourt, given that my authority for his shield is from info on that battle, which would make carrying her banner rather difficult, but I've no info either way.

They’re Perry figures, of course, from their Hundred Years War range. The banner is by Ancient and Modern.

Another objective has been to visit every location on Challenge Island before ascending the coveted peak. This seemed a fun idea as it forced me to find quite a few painting tasks that I wouldn’t normally have planned on – but it also meant my original plan more or less went out the window from the start. Also, I couldn’t work out a route which didn’t depend on using Sarah’s balloon. I think, like the seven bridges of Koningsberg problem, there’s no such solution. In the end, I’ve had to call on her Uber-ship three times.

But now, the end is nearly nigh.

Scoring: 2x 28mm cavalry, 1 flag: 21 pts



Another excellent entry on Noel's whistle-stop tour of Challenge Island. Very nice work on this command stand. I've got a funny feeling that you may be missing out on the frequent fliers points. Checking back through the spreadsheet, I see that this is indeed your third flight, so that's an extra 10 points for you!

TamsinP

From KatrinaS. Commissar Annaka Sage - Sarah's Balloon (40pts)

This week was slow going for me. I have been solo parenting and still have another week to go. I still found a little time for myself to paint and prep for upcoming projects.
 This was the first time painting a Victoria Miniatures model and I can see myself doing more in the future the detail is top notch. I picked her up while at LVO last weekend specifically for this challenge. I completed this single 28 mm Commissar Annaka Sage miniature up last night and based this morning. I will be using Annaka to ride Sarah's Balloon across the Island to O'Grady's Gultch.
 

I opened and finished a bottle of bubbles (in a plastic Skye cup) the first night of painting. Which may or may not of contributed to being so slow.

 That power stance is so great!

I again worked on non metallic metals, I don't think I am there yet but it is looking better, for some reason I am scared of too bright. I felt like I was struggling with her skin tone but now that she is all finished I like the pale complextion.

 The detail on this miniature is like I said earlier amazing! 

Points:

28mm: 5 pts.

Sarah's Balloon: 30 pts.

Bottle of Bubbles: 5 pts.

Total: 40 pts.



That's a very nice Commissar - I love the uniform colours and that's some nice highlighting on the sweeping folds of the coat.

TamsinP

From PeteF at Benito's Brook: We Don't Need Another Heero (35 points)

This is the final miniature from the Blitzkrieg Germans starter army box. This box sat on the shelf for a while, a squad got painted, then some stuff was primed for Challenge IX, a gun was painted. For Challenge X I decided it was high time to finish the job.

Early war Germans did not have the panzerfausts that were common later on. The infantry used a modified potato masher grenade as an antitank weapon. They would cut off six charges and strap them to one grenade for seven times the power. I did the same thing on a miniature scale to represent this relatively primitive solution to tank-busting.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to go up against armour - even crappy early war allied armour - with one of these modified grenades. Although I grew up on a diet of jingoistic trash mags that extolled the virtues of the Tommy and didn't have anything good to say about their enemy, with a bit of perspective you can appreciate courage whichever side it comes from.

The whole starter army - finally painted

Now I'm ready for some Bolt Action or Chain of Command. I thought I'd pretty much finished my WW2 stuff but a local guy was selling a bunch and I saw his Facebook ad... now I have late war Americans, Germans and Brits to add to the pile for Challenge XI and beyond.

Paths of history and forgotten complete

30 points for a new area explored plus 5 for the mini for a total of 35, taking me just past my 1,000 point ChallengeX target.

The "Panzerknacker" must have been as scary for the soldiers employing it as for their targets. And you have reached your target - surely that means you will be increasing it in due course...

TamsinP

From MikeW: 18 x 28mm Dark Ages Archers (90 Points)

A cheeky, quick submission here that sees me complete 18 Dark Age Archers, these little guys were found in the same box in the Lead and Plastic mountain that my last submission of Norman Foot Soldiers were packed away in.

Figures ready to be built, earlier this week

As ever I have other batches on the go as well - specifically 4 new Dragoons to join my recently painted late 17th Century Dragoons see <here> and a full Tercio of late 17th Century Spanish infantry - The Tercio os Blancos - who are proving to be a real challenge as they are in mostly white uniforms and I'm not good with white!!

The finished Archers

Anyway these Dark Ages guys are  undercoating in white - by hand this time as spray can has run out - and painted in a variety of muted colours to reflect their lowly status.

Close-up of six of the little fellas

Thinned down, Army Painter Dark wash wash applied and Matt varnish was used before basing to my usual method.

Another six, on left a handy axe to protect himself,
right of centre arrows ready to fire in the ground

I added a few bits and pieces to the bases,a couple have axes in the ground - placed there by the archers, in case of needing a handy weapon in a hurry and a couple have arrows stuck in the ground - maybe more familiar in medieval times but my guess if it worked then it would have worked before as well.

Final Six, on left arrows in ground, ready to fire

POINTS
18 x 28mm Foot Figures @ 5 Points ea = 90 Points



A nice collection of bowmen Mike. Good luck with the white tercio!

TamsinP