From StephenS: Iron Man visits Sander's Sand Dunes (37 points)

Hi,

Iron Man arrived with a blast upon the sandy dunes of Challenge Island expecting to stand out in his shiny red armour, only to find it already clogged with people sporting the same red look. To make matters worse, he has had to hand in his jet boots after being sternly told that Lady Sarah's balloon is the only sanctioned form of aerial transport. So he has trudged off to join the queue in an effort to make it to the next location before closing time...

This is another figure from the Marvel: Crisis Protocol boxed game. He was actually painted up near the start of the challenge, but has been patiently waiting for his owner to reach the right location. It is a shame that I didn't take the photos earlier too, as my 3 year old has fallen in love with the figure and the paint now needs the odd touch up.

A 40 mm plastic figure and the bonus should be 37 points.

Cheers,

Steve

What a Stark looking figure...OK, I'll get my coat!

Nice clean painting on this figure Stephen.

TamsinP

From JamieM - My Tribute to Nat (20 points)

Just a quick post from me today.  As you may recall, I have painted some aeronefs and a shuttle as part of this challenge.  These were designed by a close gaming mate of mine, Nathan, who had them produced through Blotz.  He really enjoyed designing using CAD and didn't want it to feel like a job, so getting them designed and made was part of his hobby.

Unfortunately, Nathan passed away from a heart attack at the back end of last week, leaving a wife and two young children.

I've been lucky enough to have a really close bunch of wargaming mates for about the last 15 years since I got back into the hobby and Nat was an absolutely key member of that group.  We're all absolutely devastated.

As part of trying to process the situation I decided to finish another one of the shuttles he designed and make it a tribute to him.  I fully intend for it to be on the battlefield whenever possible when we play games going forward.

A slightly battered shuttle that still does the business.

Blinged up a little

I know Nat had a whole load of designs bouncing around in his head, including expanding the sci fi range.

20 points for the 28mm shuttle and I'll leave you with some encouragement to let your fellow gamers know how much they mean to you the next time you see them, I know I will be doing so.




That's a nicely battered shuttle Jamie and a splendid tribute to Nathan.

TamsinP

From TomG: Going All Medieval/Renaissance (45 points)

Hello one and all, I hope you've been well and enjoying the awesome content, as I have, when you find time to. 

In my long awaited return to posting, here are some War of the Roses minis I had painted at the beginning of the year, but, as you'll see in a minute, I've been a bit preoccupied. 

The models are from Perry Miniatures, and we're both a delight and easy to paint. These are just the armoured infantry, leaving me with a number of archers to get sorted in due time. But until they are all sorted the banners will stay off... mainly so I can decide which design to put on them. 

From the back you get a better look at my red and yellow chap, who I was very happy with, but he mainly came out from an unexpected experiment with the GW contrast yellow paint, when I mistook it for their yellow wash. I wanted each man to look different in an effort to give them a more mercenary look, which I feel has been achieved to some degree. 

Now, as for my absence, my wife and I were very fortunate to welcome our 5th child in to the world on the 18th Feb, so I present to you all Kalliope and her very proud Dad. 

Mummy and baby are both doing really well, so I'll be back to painting very soon, and hopefully with a bit more late medieval/early renaissance for you all, even my first attempt at a hand made banner! 

Points - 9x28mm = 45pts (I think haha)



Firstly, congrats on the new addition to your clan! Secondly, nice work on the MAAs - gotta love some WoTR heavies!

TamsinP

From PaulSS: Sarah's Balloon - Self-rescuing Princess (7 points)

So it had to happen, Victoria and I celebrated our wedding anniversary at Disneyland this past week and got quite immersed in the whole Galaxy's Edge "Batuu" thing.

Before we went I had already bought Victoria the Boba Fett model so that I could paint it up for an anniversary gift for her.

Next thing we know we are back in the Hoth-like Wisconsin and at our local game store and we decide to drop some cash on getting started with Star Wars: Legion:

As Victoria had already bagged playing the Empire and had the aforementioned Boba Fett I thought I should start off with a character too and decided to go for the Princess Leia command booster.

Who cannot turn down "Her Worshipfulness" to be leading your troops?

It's a fairly nice figure but the pose does feel rather awkward, she is sort of crouching, sort of running.

Like Boba Fett it was a really quick paint job of base-coat, wash, highlights that did not take too long at all.

As I've now embarked on a new project I suppose that the logical destination for a Lady Sarah Balloon Tour would be Reidy's Reef on the Path of the New Shiny.

A 40mm figure should be another 7pts to my total.

The pose may look awkward, but you've doe a great job of painting the Princess nonetheless. Now, where's that scruffy looking nerfherder?

TamsinP

Battle of Shrewsbury 1069; Watchtower Interval! (80 points)

Darrell H

About 12" in diameter (so 12" x 12") and over 12" high- 80pts(?)

The Normans within the Motte and Bailey at Shrewsbury in 1069 were safe and sound from the excesses of Eadric the Wild and friends. As added protection and to give early warning of any oncoming attack I am going to include a watchtower on then hill. The piece is too nice not to utilise! Though an imaginary scenario it is not inconceivable that in the three years since the Norman invasion, with much of England only nominally under control of William I of England that early warning outposts would be built to keep one eye open for potential trouble makers. In other words that's my excuse and I am going to use it anyway! :>)

The tower will be under the control on Eadric's Anglo Danish force and manned by his Welsh allies under Kind Bleddyn and Rhiwallon. More on the history of the revolt in a future post.

The tower was painted up in the usual way. The upright wooden superstructure and outer structure of the pieces were painted using a craft paint that is more or less the equivalent of Vallejo Model Colour German Cammo Black Brown (perhaps a little lighter) and highlighted up using craft paint creams and finally with Vallejo Model Colour Ivory. This time I tried having a darker tone on the thatch as I wanted some contrast between the 'painted' wattle and daub and the actual thatch. The wattle and daub is just Miniature Paints Earth (I don't know if they are still around[?]) and highlighted up with Ivory. The spikey bits on the parapets are Vallejo Model Colour Beige highlighted up again with Vallejo Model Colour Ivory.

Hopefully I will have a terrain tile ready at some point to sit these pieces of terrain up in a decent setting.

That's a great looking watchtower and definitely makes a change from all those wall sections. I think scoring it as 4 terrain cubes is about right.

TamsinP

From DaveD - Wednesdays minion

Yours truly is otherwise disposed today . I have to interview people for a job.. good part is telling them they got it .. the bad part is telling lots of  others they didn’t..

So to enable me to concentrate on doing the right things today I am handing things over to the minion collective for a free fire minion day .

3 wise minions.. if you believe that ..look up gullible in the dictionary 

There will still of course be coffee...

Have fun peeps

From Curt: Diana Stanley 'The Reformed Cultist' for Mansions of Madness and a Trip on Sarah's Balloon (5 Points)

Hi All,

As I've been away for the past week I thought I'd get my eye in with a small entry for Sarah's Balloon. Here's Diana Stanley 'The Reformed Cultist' from 'Mansions of Madness'. 

'Reformed Cultist'. Such a great tagline. Really, who wouldn't want that on their CV for 'past work experience'? 

Diana's special ability allows her to tangle with particularly nasty monsters with minimal sanity loss. All this being said, her strength stat is fairly low, so she needs a heavy-hitting spell or a spiffy magic item to really make her tick along. She's best run by an experienced player who knows how to finesse her abilities, otherwise she'll be more of a burden than a benefit to the party.

Not learning from past experience, I just picked her up and started painting without really looking at the character card. The results weren't as bad as before, as I at least got her auburn hair right, and besides, I reason she'll still be pretty distinctive on the tabletop with her long hooded robe and howitzer shell-sized candle. 

Next Up: Sander's Sand Dunes! 

MikeW Makes Snow Lord's Peak

Dressed as a Polish winged hussar, Mike flutters down from Sarah's Balloon onto Snow Lord's Peak.

This week's Snow Lord's Peak brought to you by Mount Goodsir, British Columbia.

The Snow Lord looks at him appraisingly. 'That's a pretty neat getup.' He points to the czapska resting precariously on his massive head, 'Those Poles really know how to make cool duds.'
Mike shrugs, 'Yeah, my regular cloths are in the wash so I had to make do with this. Trouble is that I always get caught up going through doorways and chickens follow me everywhere.'

'It must be real rough being such a... 'chick magnet'.' The Snow Lord snorts and slaps his knee, clearly enjoying his own unique brand of humour.

Mike rolls his eyes, 'Riiight. So, I understand I need to provide a boon to get to the treasure up here. What do you have in mind, oh mirthful Blue One?'

The Snow Lord wipes a tear from his eye and points to Mike's feathered wings, 'People have been enjoying your Siege of Vienna project, so I say let's see another unit from that colourful period - something for the brave defenders.'

_______________________________________________

Okay Mike, you have your marching orders. Let's see what 17th century goodness you come up with.

-Curt

From ScottM: A Balloon Ride to O'Grady's Gulch (64 Points)

A somewhat eclectic post this time. First off the last of my ladies will be chartering a balloon ride to O'Grady's Gulch.

This is from Sash & Saber's French & Indian Ward Female Civilians pack. 

Next up is a pack of Rebel Fleet Troopers. These are from Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars Legion.

I really like the Legion figs, they're nice evocative sculpts and are fun to paint. Now if only they'd do Imperial Navy Troopers and Mud Troopers...

And finally is this rocket bike from Bombshell Miniatures. This is a Barracuda rocket bike from the Lancer's faction for their Counterblast game.

So that should be:

Rebel troopers & Lady = 8 x 28mm foot figs = 40 points

Rocketbike = 1 x 28mm vehicle & rider = 25 points

For a total of 65 points

By Paul: Some great stuff here Scott - love the Rocketbike in particular. What a sweet ride!
I feel compelled to score it as cavalry vice a vehicle though, for a total of 50 points


Edited by TamsinP:
Star Wars Legion figures have been consistently scored as 40mm, so I've updated the spreadsheet and points in post title.

From MattK - Sister of Battle for Sarah's Balloon and odds and ends. (95 points)

As mentioned last time, I've got two larger project I've been working away on and one of which is a new Sisters of Battle Army. This is the first figure I've totally completed for that project and will act as my ticket fee for a ride to Snow Lords peak.

I'm blown away by these new figures and have a ton of them on my workbench now. I simply love painting them as well.

In addition to the actual ride on the balloon, I broke open a bottle of champagne for the bonus points among other celebrations, so included is an unflattering photo of me from the tail end of said bottle.

This location will mark 5 on my map and I'll be taking the balloon to Snow Lords peak.

This Sister of Battle is far from all I've been working on though. I was hoping these would be done in time for the last entry but they're done now. The final batch of boats for my trireme project. As I said at the beginning (and I'm sure every post since) I want to end the challenge having actually tried some of these new games and with this final batch of boats we did finally play Poseidon's Warriors so included is a small photo of that.

On the subject of adding to projects, In my ever growing Uruk-Hai army (which is now closing in on big enough for a proper game of War of the Ring) I've added another banner to the force and will now probably make it a tradition to add another LoTR banner to my collection with each challenge.

Lastly, I've finished one new scenery piece for This is Not a Test. This is a Shanty Town building I printed off thingiverse. I'm writing a tutorial for my own blog about it so there's a few extra photos.

The building is approximately 6"x5"x3" so for scoring purposes is comes in at just 10 points but it was a blast to paint. I have more printing at the moment but with how close the end is I'm unsure if there's time to get it submitted.

Here comes the math:
Sister of Battle - 5 points
Sarah's Balloon - 30 Points
Champagne Bonus - 5 points

12 Boats -  36 points
Uruk Banner - 5 Points
Shanty Town Building  - 10 points

For a total today of 91 points.

------
By Paul:
Well that is quite an impressive menagerie of projects!  That Lady of Battle looks quite focused - I'm sure she will lead her sisters to Victory soon.

Your triremes particularly grab my interest - I was aboard the only one in existence late last year, the Olympias, in Piraeus harbour.  Quite a special day.

The Uruk is great - I particularly like the hand painted...hand. Better give you a few bonus points for that.  The 3d printed terrain is also very nice, you clever chap.

95 points in total, with particular emphasis on the "bottom of the bottle" pic of bubbly!

From TomM: Sarah's Balloon: To the Peak! (5 pts)

And so it comes to the moment we move to the Snow Lord's Peak!

After tasting a lot of the locales of Challenge Island, I take the balloon of the lovely Lady Sarah and hitch a ride towards the central part of the island, dominated by the large mountain and the home of the mysterious being known as the Snow Lord.

The model is from the germanic dark ages range by Wargames Foundry, and great looking for standersby in Middle Earth, especially in Rohan (which is what I am using them for).

Which means that this will be my 5th and final balloon trip for the Challenge, that yields another 5 points to the total for this year, and the 1000 point mark.

Now let's wait and see what daring challenge the Lord lays before me!

By Paul: Congrats on the 1k achievement!