From IanS: 15mm Palmyran (184pts)

 

Well, I remembered this week to do the post, work was hectic and I forgot last week.

 Palmyran Army

 This army came about as I fancied painting a new ancient army as for the last two years I have been repainting existing armies.  I had heard about the Palmyrans and looked on the DBA army list and started from there.

So First up is the General and his standard bearer for the Palmyran Army, I have no idea what company the figures came from as they were part of a job lot on eBay a couple of years ago.  The Draco standard is home made from green stuff and the lance could have been thicker.

Next up is the last unit of Cataphracts the figures are from Forged in battle.

Then we have the last two units of Light horse archers.  In my last post I mentioned I could never tell which way round they were facing, well it was only when basing I noticed that one rider is actually stuck on his horse the wrong way round.  I am fine with this and he is obviously a parthian.

Last but not least are two heavy infantry units again figures from forged in battle.

So here is the finished army.

 

On the left the heavy hitters:  5 units of Cataphracts with the Army general with 3 units of light for screening those Cataphracts

Infantry consists of 4 Heavy archer units.  Yes there should be 4 figures to a base but I did the maths wrong when ordering.  3 Heavy Infantry to give backbone to the Infantry Line and last but not least 3 Light infantry archers for skirmishing 

This army equates to 1250pts in our local rules which is a club night sized army. 

Next up some roman allies for this army if they had such a thing.

So points being claimed:

Army General - 2 x 15mm figures each 4pts = 8pts

Cataphracts - 12 x 15mm figures each 4pts = 48 pts

Light horse - 16 x 15mm figures each 4pts = 64pts

Heavy Infantry - 32 x 15mm figures each 2 pts = 64pts

Total 184pts

May I also claim 3 squirrels one each for Cataphract, Light cavalry and Heavy Infantry

I was wondering if you'd forgotten to finish the post last week - I saw it sitting there marked "draft" all day (and it had been there the previous day when I checked). That's a great looking army.

As for the squirrel points, sadly you just get one for these as they are all from the same army.

Tamsin

From MartinC: The Highland Horde (78pts)

My tiny Scotsmen (or are they just far away) continue to assemble. I've been away for 4 days so only a small amount of painting done.

My imaginary Scots army doesn't have cavalry, but it does have the highland horde

The Highland Horde is a large, inferior infantry unit with no guns but a fast move rate. The plan is to get them into combat and create bloody hell.

This is the clan Glenbucket

These are the Elsick Bannermen

Go get em, or some other Scottish  war cry

It's not strictly true that there is no cavalry

These are the Scots Hussars, good for scouting but hopeless at anything else

These will probably be fielded as 3 separate units to just be in the way

Only 1 more brigade to paint

Scores on the doors

48 x10mm infantry = 48pts

15 x 10mm cavalry = 30pts

total = 78pts

It's good to see more of this project - it's a shame there's only one more brigade to come.

Tamsin

From BenitoV: Dark Age Warriors ... and Your Father (87 points)

Back to the early Middle Ages from the 2WW era last week. Continuing with one of my different Saga warbands, today I have a unit of 12  Dark Age archers. These are usually classed as Levy in the Saga books, the cost is 1 point in terms or armies configurations and must have at least 12 models.

These are in principle to be part of and Anglo-Danish army. But the truth is that the models are so generic that can be used for any type of warband i starting around 400 AD;  and in my opinion, they could also pass the check nicely in my future Reconquista/El Cid unit.

As in my first entry to the Challenge this year, these are Gripping Beast 28 mm plastic multipose models from the Dark Age Archers box. You may remember a few  models were used to beefup my Arab/Sarracen archers unit, providing more variety to that unit simply by using arab heads.

Now back to the future... the second part of the post today is the "father" of many of us "of a certain age", who were teenagers in the late 70s and very early 80s.

 

This is a resin 3D printed model, a gift from one of my club friends trying to lure me into a StarWars project, but I have no idea about the brand. Despite being a fan of the movies saga since November 1977 when it was released in Spain's theaters, I'm still resisting hard to get hooked in this period (... but we'll see for how long).

 

This Darth Vader is a towering 45 mm height model,  using as a painting guide some films' screenshots found in Internet. 

 

The model will score in the SciFi studio (Green Pass) of the Challenge Studios. With this entry I have already checked in three of the four needed Green Pass studios before getting my access to the Blue Pass.

If my maths are correct I should be adding 87 to my Challenge Scoring:

12 x 28mm Archers @5 points = 60

1 x 45mm Darth Vader @7 points = 7

Bonus Sci Fi Studio = 20 points

Total = 87 points 

I also score 1 point in The Squirrel duel for the Dark Age Archers

        

Nice set of levy archers, Benito. As you note, they could be used for pretty much any army over quite a long era. Nice model of Anakin too.

Tamsin         

From Kerry T - "All over the place" - World Cinema or High Adventure? ( 505 points)

 Morning, afternoon & evening all

After a slow start thankfully I've managed to get the paintbrush moving at speed but as you'll see below I'm a little all over the place.

 As I've probably said before one "single period enthusiast" wargamer of some renown once described my collection of figures as "all over the place". I think this was said with just a little disdain but I decided that I would take it as a compliment. The happy consequence of a having a Butterfly tendency is that I seem to have a lot of periods to choose from.

This in itself is quite a handy thing when it comes to chasing squirrels. Thus with last years Squirrel Challenge title in my grasp I feel the only honourable thing is to try and defend that title. I promise to be on my best behaviour and not to bite, scram or spit at my fellow challengers 😀 but at the moment I've been left trailing  in their wake. So this is an attempt to not let them get too far ahead. The only problem is that I also want to finish of some decent size units as well as five figure ones so here we go....

Fist up- Colonel John Lamplugh's Regiment of Foote

First Corps ECW figures

I thought I'd completed all my Royalist foot regiments last year but found a lone set of flags for this regiment (Flags of War) that I'd overlooked. Initially earmarked for Parliamentarian troops these First Corps figures now find themselves as another white coated regiment on the side of the King

Yesterday morning there was a moment when there was the very tiniest possibility that they could have been morphed into one of those turnipy units so beloved it seems of a few lunatics that seem to be around here!

A mad rush to finish basing and blutack "piking" to get them ready for today

Thankfully common sense prevailed and no tufts were stuck to the bluetack either deliberately or by accident

At 37 figures this is one bloody big squirrel!

Thy aren't about to have an easy passage over that bridge though....

Sir Arthur Hessilrigge's Regiment of Horse, unhorsed

Bloody Parliamentarians always seem to block any progress!

Bloody Miniatures, a real joy to paint

I have all the BM releases bar the Scots but these are the first I've painted

Sticking with the First Corps theme, some Dark Age carts

Ye olde trafficke jam

Now the same sleepy village a few hundred years in the future..

My First BUF figures

Footsore Miniatures BUF infantry

Its always good to see Fascists running away

I have  a VBCW collection that started when good mate Giles Allison painted some figures and gave them to me when he called to see me in NZ. 

My VBCW backstory is here https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/vbcf/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=3402&p=31799#p31799. Its the story of the mysterious half-twins Verdun and Ypres born in a mining village of South Wales (its long mind yew and something of a tall tale!)

That's it for the verdant green of England and I'm now butterflying off to the heat of the desert and some plastic Griping Beast Arab Heavy Cavalry - half a box, I would like to have completed the box of 12 but had to settle for 6 as I need squirrels

Thank god for LBMS shield transfers

Half a box of Gripping Beast Plastic Arab heavy Cavalry

Finally with the desert theme I'm finishing off with Artizan Designs Arab Sharifan WW1 infantry. The aim was to shoot another squirrel and I painted 5 initially but eventually added the remaining 7 later to finish off all I have. I still have some of the irregular infantry I painted at the end of last year's challenge to finish

These are regular troops with a standard uniform

Not sure if its reasonably authentic but it will do

 That arid grass is an horrid colour, I wanted it to be more pale

Apologies for such a long post but I had a busy painting week as there was no golf and the weather was too wet to get in the garden. I'm not sure if I want it to rain again this week so I have an excuse to spend a lot of time painting!

As far as bonus points go I'm not sure what to claim - while these Arabs are intended to accompany Lawrence in wrecking Ottoman trains in the desert, he was painted years ago so it might not quite qualify as High Adventure.

If not then maybe I could claim World Cinema for the ECW as I no longer live in the UK. I would be grateful to Tamsin if she would advise

In Summary -

37 Royalist foot @ 5 points = 185

5 Dismounted Parliamentarian Horse @ 5 points = 25 

3 Dark Age carts @ 10 points (they are more like artillery than vehicles I think) = 30 points

10 Dark age civilians and bullocks @ 5 points = 50 points

6 Arab Crusades mounted figures @ 10 points = 60

5 VBCW foot 2 5 points = 25

12 Arab WW1 infantry at 5 points = 60

? Bonus for World Cinema or High Adventure @ 20 points

Grand Total 450 points

(Oooh a points bomb! )

Maybe most importantly a Scurry of  6 Squirrels thereby bringing my total so far to 7

Wow! What a mixed-bag points bomb this post is. Carts are vehicles, so that's how I'm scoring them - they're at least as big as a jeep which scores 20 points! I'm happy to count the WW1 Arab "regulars" as High Adventure, and the Arabs for World Cinema. 

Tamsin

From PeteF: Minifigs! French Line Infantry for Historical Drama (140 points)

If you've read my previous Minifigs posts - apologies if there's some repetition here!  This battalion of fine French fellows is one of the last units I need to complete my Quatres Bras project.  It has been a journey - one started by my Dad in the 1980s when he embarked on a project to paint Wellington's 100 Days army on a ratio of 25:1.  I haven't yet counted all of them but I think it's around 3 thousand meticulously painted Anglo Allied Minifigs.

He also painted  few French for me when I was a kid - these joined my Airfix on the wargaming "table" - a whole lot of big boards balanced together in the dining room - sometimes for a couple of days, which mum didn't love.  

My brother introduced me to wargaming - and he inherited the Minifigs army, adding French units to try and achieve some balance with Wellington's masses.  He even repatriated some of the soldiers I brought across the Atlantic.  Sadly he passed away in 2016 before we could play Waterloo in his English garage and all the Minifigs came to me here in the States - it took several trips.

The Waterloo French army seems a bit of a stretch - the 100 Days even more so - but Quatres Bras is within reach at this scale: 33 battalions and around 10 cavalry regiments.  I did a bunch two Challenges ago but in the interim have been distracted by other projects.  With this battalion I'm nearly there - 2 more infantry units, 1 big cavalry unit, completing 2 other halfway finished cavalry units, plus some command and work on the bases.

Then I'll have to see if any of my friends want to come and play! These Minifigs will represent the 3rd battalion of the 1st Light Infantry.  I always enjoy painting Minifigs with their distinctive chunky sculpts.  It takes me back to wargames of yore.  Good times. 

24x25mm figures plus a studio for a total of 140 points.

 

It's a treat to see more of this ongoing project of yours, Pete. Those French chaps look great. Just a reminder - if you are doing the studio tour, please include a progress map in your posts (see my admin post from yesterday).

Tamsin

Tamsin's Tuesday Tintinnabulations

 

"Good morning Ladies, Gentlemen...and Ray! Well, I must say that things seem to be hotting up here at AHPC Studios GmbH. Another 17 apprentice Directors and Producers have had their first releases in the last week, bringing us up to 66 working apprentices. For the 17 who haven't had a release yet, just a gentle reminder that you must have released at least one film before 20 January - failure to do so will see you booted off the studio lot."

"In the past week, an there have been 62 new releases, grossing $6,346 million on release; that takes our total gross to $12,763 million from 165 films."

"We have a very full day of releases lined up for you:

• PeteF has a Busby Berkely-esque musical featuring Napoleonic French line dancing
• KerryT has been making good use of the same English village set for films set in various eras
• BenitoV has a historical/SciFi mash up involving a tall, black-clad wizard wielding a magical sword (seriously guys? How did this one get past the studio lawyers? Beware the litigious Mouse!)
• MartinC has films about the Swamp Queen leading her horde of hairy highlanders to battle
• IanS shows off his "Xenobia, Warrior Queen"
• DaveD continues his Kubrick/Stone eulogy with a pair of 'Nam films
• AlanD brings us a tale of armed vehicle combat 
• SimonG has a weird fantasy film involving a dwarf, a giant and a priest
• MattW shows his love of Carry On films with a comedy drama called Infamy, Infamy!

Phew! That's a busy day for me then, sorting out all these releases!"

Toodle-pip!

Tamsin