From MartinC - 'and now for something completely different...' (80 points)

Firstly a confession. I don't really like Monty Python. To the 20% who now hate me sorry, but to the 80% who like their comedy to be less bloody smug, you know who you are, there is no shame in admitting it.

Anyway back to the point. Having basically finished the ACW, even I was getting bored of the same layouts on the photos, I purchased loads of figs over Christmas. These are the 1st I've painted up and they are 8 Mtd Carolingian Warriors by Gripping Beast. They were a bargain in the North Star sale (£9 I think) even with the massive hands.

They are OK and helped me to tweak with the flesh shading, still a little orange but picking out cheek bones and noses works well, lighting on photo still dodgy though, Shields are obviously hand done and I quite like a couple of them. I've also just noticed that the horse above is missing an eye.

Overall they are a little rushed as I like to start and finish a unit in a couple of days (note to self paint smaller units). Moving forward I'm going to slow down my rate to improve further and play with the painting styles. I want to tweak my style to better incorporate the things I've learnt and try to emulate some of the cool things done by others. At the moment I still paint solid blocks of colour and then shade later. Want to play with washes to build up the colour, at moment I only do this on the legs of bay horses.

From JuanM - 28mm Goblin Champion, SCW Brigadistas & Pulp Adventurer (25 Points)

Hello.

I´m here, at last, with a new entry. I have been a bit busy these days, so my painting list is full of "must-be-done" notes...

First one, my second figure for the Fantasy project. He is a true old guard, a 28mm resin dwarf from Scibor Miniatures mounted in on their wonderful bases. A pleasure to paint, really.

Second one, a Goblin "champion" also from Scibor Miniatures. He is going to be Gorb, a mighty captain under the command of The Prophet.

Third, more (yes, more) SCW Brigadistas from Empress Miniatures. I would like to have finished an AT gun than rest from this commission, but it is in the "must-be-done" group...

Fourth, Lance, the first Dr Newton´s assistant. Another wonderful miniature from Pulp Figures.

This secondary project, born thanks to The Challenge, is gaining steam. I have received a lot of natives and other figures from Bob Murch, and I have the first cultist ready to be painted (he was going to participate in this week´s Bonus Challenge, but... he is in the must-be-done group).

Cheers!!!

From KevinH - T-34/76 and T-34/85 Squadron (42 pts)

As many will know by now, GregB has re-introduced 20mm WWII to the Fawcett crew (quite possibly, God's one true WWII gaming scale!).  So, wanting to help add to the gaming possibilities, I bought some items from the Plastic Soldier Company's "Black Friday" sale.

Along with a Rubicon Panther G (I wanted a PzIV, but they were sold out), I picked up a box of 20mm PSC T-34's, some 20mm PzIV's, and some 20mm Shermans and a Firefly to do a unit to support my Canadians (more on that, if my Warbases order arrives before the Challenge winds up!) 

These kits were pretty quick to build, but being plastic, they were a bit light and I didn't want them bouncing around on the tabletop.  I super-glued three mid-sized washers into the bottom of the hulls for added weight, and mounted all of them on plastic-card (I started basing my 15mm vehicles, after FoW started releasing vehicles with cast-on bases - they just looked better with all the based infantry!).

And as much as I love the Late Fall/Early Spring camo and basing GregB did on his models, I thought we should have some options for doing battles in other times of the year - so I went for simple "Steppe" grasslands basing and paint.  The bases were great too, as I was able to depict the churned up turf of the tank tracks!  It's just Liquitex Resin Sand smeared on the bases, with "track ruts" left open.  Then, paint and flock as desired.  I think the effect turned out quite nicely.

Oh, and all the turret numbers and slogans were painted - no decals (didn't have time to order any - and it's pretty straight-forward for the Russians!).

The great thing about these T34 kits, is that they come with BOTH turret options!  This allows you to build both the '76 versions, or the '85 versions.

Here are the same kits, with the '85 turrets.

And finally, all the components of these kits!

These are great kits - good detail, pretty quick assembly, and a decent price!  I would heartily recommend them, if you're looking to do some 20mm Russians.

Now... where is that Warbases order? --I have some FAA Russians to paint as Tank Riders ("Tankovy Desantniki") to go with these tanks!

Thanks for looking!


From Curt:

Great looking T34s Kevin! I like the hand painted numbers and slogan - ace work! (and  I'm adding a few extra points for this and the additional turrets)

With this entry Kevin has breached his initial points target of 300. Congratulations Kev, great work!  Let me know what you'd like to target running in to the conclusion of the Challenge.

From MartinC - ACW Finished (ish) (140 Points)

I have completed my 2 ACW brigades (pause for applause). When I started the Challenge many lifetimes ago I planned to paint the Harry T. Hays Brigade of Early's Division of Ewell's Brigade circa 1863 and Graham's 1st Brigade, 1st Division, III Corps. I had purchased 2 brigade sets of Perry's plastic 28mm ACW infantry with 2 artillery pieces for £45 each about 12 months ago and had based them, undercoated them and then hid them. In addition to these I had a box of zouaves and I purchased a box of cavalry over Christmas.

The Challenge gave me the opportunity to paint them otherwise they would have stayed there. I thought that it would take me all the challenge but I have finished them already and greatly improved my skills and standards.

Firstly I finished the 4 artillery pieces, 2 each.They are nominally the Louisiana Guard Artillery and the 1st New Jersey Light Artillery. I have added spare officers to command each unit from the infantry boxes. There are far too many officers in boxes and I've been turning them in mad scientists and fighting vicarsetc .

Next I needed to finish the commanders. The brigades each came with a mounted general but they were Stickles and Pickett so needed some conversion. Hays just needed a beard trim but Graham has an mad beard that I made out of the packing material, that came with the artillery, dyed black. This worked well but picture is rubbish, need better lighting and better camera.

BG Charles Graham

BG Harry T Hays.

These are the forces. My house has a design fault such that the painting room has the head space for the stairs in it. Seller was very apologetic and price was lower than similar houses. It is a 4x3 foot waist high flat space that is perfect for skirmish gaming on. I didn't let on how delighted I was.

The rebel brigade has 1 unit less than the Union but I have enough figs left to paint reinforcements, once I've picked an interesting unit. I also have dismounted cavalry to paint - 30 figs to go.

I'll have to find other things to paint now but have loads of things sitting and staring at me.

Thanks for all the help.

From Curt:

Great entry!  I particularly liked the final shots of your ACW collection to date. That is an impressive amount of work and a testimony to the hobby pressure-cooker that the Challenge encourages.

From MartinN - 28mm German Support Weapons & HQ (38 Points)

I'm still adding to my Blitzkrieg Germans and this week saw me finishing two more Support Weapons teams and some HQ selections. All figures are Warlord Games again. Beeing metal figures they originally feature heads from Warlords 'Seperate Head System' but as I didn't like them, due to their over exaggerated facial expressions, I used left overs from my plastic Blitzkrieg Germans.

First of all is the "5cm leichter Granatwerfer 36". This light mortar was introduced into the Wehrmacht in 1936 as platoon support weapon. Production was stopped in 1941and officially removed from the frontline as it's general performance was deemed to be insufficient. Still it was pretty popular with the common soldiers and therefore  remained in active service till the very end.

Second is the MG 34 Heavy Machine Gun. The MG 34 was also introduced in 1936 and was superseded by the MG 42 which was both cheaper and easier to manufacture. Both weapons were so called multifunctional machine guns.

For the light machine gun role they were mounted onto a bipod and used as squad support weapons. In this role it had a maximum range of 2000m.
For the heavy machine gun role however it was mounted onto a tripod and had a range of up to 3000m respectively 3500m for indirect fire.

While the MG 42 had a theoretical rate of fire of 1500 rounds per minute the MG 34 was 'only' capable of 800 - 900 rounds per minute.

Next is the Zugführer (Platoon Leader) and his personal aide. The latter will be promoted to Truppführer (Squad Leader) once I paint up another squad.

And last but not least are the Arilleriebeobachter (Artillery Forward Observer) and the Sanitäter (Medic). For each of them I plan to paint up an assistant in the future.

If I'm not totally wrong this entry should give me 37.5 points to add to my tally.


From Curt:

Stunning work again Nick (and interesting info on these German light squad weapons). Great job!

From IanW - Curtgeld - Bob the Anti Hero (22 Points)

Spent a lot of time thinking about the correct figure to supply Curt. I really wanted something that would span the whole period of war and as such would be timeless and yet up to date. Then it struck me.......

Here we have a wonderful (if I say so myself) depiction of what I consider the biggest Anti-Hero of all time. The deserter, the man who slips from his post late at night leaving a hole in the line and his so called comrades at risk.

This side view I feel captures the scene perfectly, from the Roman looking out past Hadrian's wall all the way too and past Monte Casino.

From behind he could be any soldier from any period, indeed he even has a place in roleplaying as the PC who always leaves the other players to face the monster. I just hope Curt realises the immense work that went into this piece and suitably rewards me.

OK assuming I am still in the Challenge  :-)

I did think hard about what I would do for this round and you can blame my wife Cath for the above diversion, she was the devil whispering in my ear. I wanted something a little different and I remembered the Black Scorpion miniature I had seen the year before and thought I had my man.

In 1966 Bob Dylan toured for the first time using an electric guitar, his core fans revolted some threatening violence and he was considered by many as a traitor to his music. Of course not everyone felt this and he also received praise for the step so I feel Bob Dylan fits the role of Anti-hero rather well.

Mind you if I had researched what he wore before ordering the figure I am fairly sure I would have picked something else, it was a bugger to paint and repaint and strip and repaint. I had a devil of a time trying to get the pattern right and in the end settled for close-ish. 

He was listed as 30mm but here he is against a Foundry cowboy so he is a rather tall 30mm. Made of resin in two parts he took only a little cleaning up and went together with only a small grinding of teeth.

Here is a photo of that damned suit, the guitar I painted is one of the ones he used on that tour. I hope the choice was not too left field and Curt forgives me my little joke.


From Curt:

When I saw this come in I almost dropped out of my chair laughing. For those who do not know the story, last year AlanD created, as his 'Curtgeld', a Bob Dylan vignette inspired from the movie 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' (where Dylan played the character 'Alias'). I loved Alan's vignette but had to come clean that I really can't stand Bob Dylan (whom I often call 'The Nasal Drip with Ray-bans'). So when Ian sent in this figure I thought he was taking the p*ss out of me - which is all fine and good. But when I sent him a followup note congratulating him, he admitted he'd completely forgotten about the 'Alias' vignette and submitted this one innocently. Hilarious! So, I really can't get away from this little guy, he just keeps showing up, literally! 

Anyway, thanks so much Ian! This is brilliant. I can't wait to put him in with the other Antiheroes that are massing in my display cabinet (who knows, maybe he'll learn how to sing). 

'A Haaaard Raiiiin Gonna Fall...'

From DavidB - 40K Cadian 7th Cav, Blue Platoon (140 Points)

So, my third and last post this week. I finished up a command squad with extras and a tactical squad I began in December. I tried to find the rest of Blue Platoon, but I could only find a squad plus that didn't have any paint applied. I'm not certain where the rest of the lads are lurking, but they are probably up to no good!

Blue Platoon features a lot of the Rogue Trader models with some of the Perry and Morley models mixed in as well as a few bits and whole troopers of the current edition.

The command squad is entirely metal and all Old School sculpts. The Lt lost his jump pack, but I found some old las pistols and Imperial Guard arms in my reclamation box of useful stuff( which my wife refers to as plastic junk) I decided to paint his armor in the trusty battle green like his troopers and not in the NMM like the Capt of Red Platoon. I did paint his decorations in yellow to signify he is a proper gentleman though! he has a commlink trooper, two meltagun troopers, a vet sgt with bolt pistol and power fist, and another vet sgt with a boltgun. he also has an old RT medic he can add. He can only take four, so he better pick wisely!

1st squad has a sgt with chainsword and las pistol,(I really, REALLY like that model) an ancient grenade launcher and a trooper with a shoulder carried lascannon. I still have several of those ugly misshapen lumps of lascannon and heavy bolter, but this fellow is the only one who never surrendered his kit. He was very lucky as he was still in white primer from the 80's and slightly yellowed. I just had to leave him armed with his toy. In games it's range is halved now as is it's strength, but it still has the armor penetration to wreck tanks!The barehead trooper in the front rank has an autogun arm from the Necromunda plastic Orlock set and a robotic arm which used to be an Eldar power fist.

Although a little washed out, you can see I can occasionally get the NMM technique right!

Another favorite is the bareheaded trooper above. His ancient lasgun suffered a barrel break.I found a broken current edition barrel in my' useful box of reclamation' and simply cut the muzzle from it and glued it in place. his snub nosed carbine looks really nice now!( I may dive in the useful box and see how many of these carbines I can make!)

The sgt model above has another orlock plastic arm with a current space marine plasma pistol. I also replaced his chainsword with an elder powersword to make him look like a true swashbuckler!

2nd Squad does not have a heavy weapon, but they do have a plasma gunner! Some of the lads needed parts from the newer models and a few of the newer models had to step in as fresh meat to fill squad vacancies.

Like the commlink trooper above. Back in the day, a commlink was used by officers to call in artillery strikes. Now you can do that, but only with the army commander's master of ordinance. Commlink troopers only let you reroll leadership checks and allows for some of the officer special orders.

My Cadians are primered in white, black, and a few are in grey or terracotta. The different primers really affect the model color, and I am finding that I really like the effect as the hue does vary much like it does in a real unit.

Blue squad has most of my oldest models representing the 7th.(I'm really wondering where the heck I placed the rest of the lads...)Some of the old plastic troopers still have licks of blue paint on the bottom of the bases from when I initially began to lay out my squads in order of battle. Although I use colors and not numbers for the platoons, Blue Platoon is my 1st platoon. It is an understood order of pride that anyone not in the designated 1st Platoon is really in the TRUE 1st Platoon as those in 1st really are unworthy of the perceived place of pride. This keeps everyone in a constant state of friendly rivalry as each platoon tries to one-up the other(s). I choose Blue Platoon to be my 1st Platoon as Blue is the color of the infantry and blue is the cord I wear on my shoulder. The 7th are Cav but they are a mounted Cav Inf. Although an outlandish cartoon caricature of a SciFi host, I found by accident that my perceived superiority of Infantry has infested the Cadian 7th. Red is Artillery so of course they are support! ;) Black platoon is huge and is 99% new plastic troops. They are Cav though, so they have to wear the yellow! I betcha in 40k they still sing Fiddler's Green! ;)

So, twenty-eight 28mm troopers and Blue Platoon is completed....at least until I find the stragglers!;)