From DrQ: Onto the Chamber of Darkness! (50 points)

So for the Chamber of Darkness I've painted up a fellow who is familiar with the monochrome grey palette of the Underdark: a duergar warrior.

This guy is from the new Reaper Bones Black line (which is of course fitting for the locale as well). In generally the new Bones recipe is much better than the first generation of these miniatures, which are extremely bendy and somewhat hydrophobic. 

Additionally, I've finished up my first five Ork Boyz. 

The painting is really basic here. The colour scheme is still a work in progress, but I think I can successfully paint another 85 or so of these Boyz without losing my mind.The meta right now is to run your Greentide as Evil Sunz, and hence the red. I wanted the bases to read urban black top, but there might eventually be more to the basing than Vallejo texture paint. For now I'll call these 'finished.' 

As far as points, I've got 20 for the Chamber of Darkness, and 30 for the six 28mm foot soldier, for a grand total of 50 for the post. 

Also, I'm not sure what became of the paint duel for Games Workshop miniatures, but so far I've painted 8 foot soldiers and one vehicle total.

Onto the Aquifer! 

From JezT: Week One - "Starter for 10" Russian Napoleonic

 Hi All 

My first post for this years challenge and just a single mounted Russian Napoleonic Officer to get me going. Although this is my 5th year of  this great Challenge experience this is the first ever Napoleonic figure posted! My Russian army has been pretty redundant but I have re-started playing Blucher and now decided to rebase my 28mm figures for Blucher use - I'll probably use them in Blucher 200 point type pick up games which you can easily play in a couple of hours. 

This figure is  a Wargames Foundry odd mounted commander I had. 

 It is just the one mounted figure painted but especially wanted to do this to complete the rebasing of a  Russian Jaegers brigade - I think having the mounted commander just adds more to the base. 

Week one completed and just 10 starter points for me. 

Cheers Jez

KenR - 28mm Allied Italian Velites - (120 points)

 

A bit of a disaster at the start of my Italian Allied Legion Project, I've lost 8 Velites ! I prepped everything over a month ago, stuck it in individual unit boxes. I come to the painting stage and 8 have deserted 😤 the word decimation has been whispered in a number of little plastic ears over the last few days !

So if anyone has 8 Victrix Allied Italian Legion Velites they don't want let me know and we can do a trade ! So this unit has 24 figures rather than the planned 32, hopefully I can get them up to full strength before challenge end, unfortunately Victrix sell the figs in boxes of 60, so that would be a massive waste.

A nice basic paint job, I will probably need a bucket full of white paint before I'm done. I've based these on 60 x 30, 2 figs per base to reflect the skirmish role of the unit.

Very happy with the Victrix figures, really nice detail and lots of lovely contours to work wonders on.

So that is 24 x 28mm figures at 5pts a pop for a grand total of 120 points. Next up are my 4 16 figure Hastati Maniples, providing that is that none of them have decided to do one in the middle of the night !

From SimonG: From out of the marshes a slimy Yokai! (25 points)

For my initial foray into the Chambers of Challenge I offer a Kappa -- just emerged from the stinking marsh of the Aquifer and still dripping with river water.

This is a 38 mm PVC miniature from the "Black Rose Wars" game from the Italian Ludus Magnus studio. Overall these are great sculpts and it is a pity the casting material doesn't do them full justice -- I wish we could get the resin higher quality master castings. I also failed to remember that they need a good washing to get rid of the mold release compound that is a pretty effective water based paint rejector!

I should have gotten creative and added a water effect to the pool he carries on his head (as you all know a Kappa dies if he spills this small pool of water!)

I'll be mixing up a number of these figures alongside my HYW and my 10mm scale project so look for some more interesting fantasy figures to come -- it's fun to try some different colour combinations and work on technique a bit but I do hate the integral bases -- unfortunately as these are key for the game mechanics there's not much I can do about that.

By by reckoning that should be another 25 points towards my target (5 for the figure and 20 for the chamber) -- on next to my work on greyscale!

From GeorgeS - GW "Ugluk" 28mm

    Hello and Merry Christmas (delayed) to everyone ! 

  I thing this guy here fulfils the requirements to get me out of the second chamber of challenge. A small addition with cork on the base just to make him more...terrifying and imposing !  So,  if I'm correct , 25 points gets out of this for me .

  That's all for now..Hope you like my Ugluk :)

 

 'Till next time...

 

Keep Up The Brushes!! 

From AlanD - Gallienus & Co. (43 points)

Hello fellow challengers - it is a pleasure to be back with you again this year. 

My main Covid project in 2020 has been to chip away at painting a 28mm 3rd Century AD Roman army, using the delicious figures from A&A Miniatures. I've been painting them mainly to play Soldiers of Rome, but also doing up extra figures so they are suitable for Basic Impetus, as well as sabot basing a unit or two so they can fight for me in Infamy! Infamy!

My first couple of entries in AHPC XI will be the last of my pile of A&A figures. For my opening salvo, here is the emperor Gallienus with a standard bearer and musician, along with another mounted musician to use for something. The trumpeter with the yellow shield is finished with a decal of Mithras from Little Big Men, the other two shields are hand painted, showing Mars and Sol Invictus. 2020 has been a year where many of us have faced new challenges and have had to embrace new ways of doing things, and for me this has included using shield decals for the first time. I feel a bit dirty.

From Bruce R Golems Haunt (45 pts)

 Back to the Chamber of Challenge.  As the adventurers delve deeper into the Chamber they come upon a very quite room.   Whew, finally a safe haven, until some shuffling draws the parties attention to the back of the room.  Poncho the Cleric blows life into his holy relic and illuminates the far alcove in dull light.  All they can make out is some shambling noises and all of a sudden the word "get em".  Into the light comes a little man with an oversized ead screaming take them my pretties.  Arrghh, Zombies in uniforms and carrying some strange type of pole arm.

As a wargame butterfly I've loads of old projects in the man cave.  No Golems, (Frostgrave is a something we like, yet all Golems painted, shame) but remember I had Alternative Armies figures for Flintloque.  I'd gotten my group to play a few games ages ago and picked up some of the boxed set adventures.  This one I pulled off the shelf is titled Lady Wintermore's Fangs. Sixteen miniatures in the Napoleonic theme in the Alternative Armies scale.  So paint 1 or 5 zombies, 5 it is.  Might have to break them out once we are able to game again with a small skirmish game with the group.  Maybe others will fit into the Chambers future rooms.  

So here is a start to the boxed set with the four Russian militia zombies and the big headed little henchman.  

20 points for the Golems Haunt and 25pts for the figures.  Enjoy.

Bruce R.

From ChrisF - Curtgeld Mini 28mm (5pts)

 This is a Grenadier Dungeon Raider #8119 by Julie Guthrie circa 1993. A nice dungeon party figure as he has a couple of bags and some rope as well as the lantern. 

I was able to get some lantern glow on him, better than some of my past results. I wonder how come it takes six coats of yellow for a decent shield or cloak base, but the minute you want just a subtle shade of yellow for a light source, it leaps off the brush with a vengeance and coats like lane marker paint?

With my entry mini done, I'm back to some 15mm for a bit. 

From PeteF: Minifigs Light Infantry for Quatres Bras (120 points)

Old School Battalion

Old school Napoleonic Minifigs are one of my favourite things to paint - I love gaming with them too - but get to do so only rarely. I'm building up the French Minifigs army so that it can take on the Anglo-Allied army that I inherited from my dad and brother. Waterloo at 100ish French infantry battalions seems too much of a stretch but Quatres Bras at 30 battalions is within reach. I'll need  a total of10 light infantry battalions and this one, the 2nd/2nd, is number 7 (the other 3 are primed and ready to paint).

4th Company and Voltigeurs

Most of these minis are from a batch I got a few years ago from someone who could no longer wargame and was breaking up their collection to pay medical bills - an aspect of US society I'll never get my head round. Technically FN68 is a Croation infantryman advancing - but their trousers and pom poms together with the rest of their equipment makes them look a lot like 100 days campaign legere. 

The 2nd/2nd was a pleasure to paint - I tried a new recipe for light infantry blue, which worked and a new approach to doing the buttons, which didn't.  I'm still experimenting with highlights - I want to like the way they look close up and 3 feet away. Not sure if that's compatible.

Carabiniers with Sapper

Santa was good and managed to fit a lot of 7litre Really Useful Boxes down the chimney - some of them color coded blue for the Frenchies. Each one can hold about a division - around 10 infantry battalions of 24 Minifigs each.

Really Useful Boxes of Fun

I was lucky this year and hit the French Napoleonic Minifigs mother load when a wargamer moving away from the state decided to let go of his mostly unpainted Minifigs.  I think there are enough for around 2 infantry divisions and there were a bunch of cavalry too. Maybe I can get started on Waterloo after all.

24 Infantry for 120 points.

The Challenge XI shelf begins to fill. 

From Curt: Lily Hill - Pulp Adventuress (25 Points)

Being too crafty by half, I've landed in the Aquifer, but much to my embarrassment, I've discovered that I'm no where near ready to take on the 'Chamber of Darkness'. So I'm going to call upon our friendly sorceress, Sarah, to teleport me to the 'Hall of Traps' instead.

This is Lily Hill. She is a wilful dilettante, an adventuress, a raider of tombs, and a breaker of hearts.

Lily is a daughter of an oil magnate who desperately wanted a son to take over the family business. Wanting to be accepted by her father, Lily became a tomboy as a young girl, learning to shoot, ride, drive, fly and use very, very uncouth language. Nonetheless, she has grown into a beautiful young woman and has discovered she can use her feminine wiles as yet another tool in her ever growing set of of skills.

Lily has developed a deep fascination of ancient cultures, and so has undertaken several expeditions into uncharted jungles and mapless deserts, looking for artefacts and treasures of lost civilizations. 

These adventures often get Lily into tight scrapes, but she is more than up to the task of getting out of them (or making them even worse).

'Nazis... I hate these guys.'

Lily Hill will give me a total of 25 points, which includes the Sorceress bonus.

Before I take on the 'Hall of Traps' I'm going to take a detour and make an addition to one of my many standing projects. Hopefully more on that soon.

-Curt