From BenitoV: Go West! (85 points)

It took some time to think out what I could paint that was properly aligned with the Western Studio... until in a friendly discussion with some of my club mates about our next Chain of Command project, someone said " Why don't we go West and invade France?"... and suddenly EUREKA!

So today I bring the first models of my German Blitzkrieg-era Army motorbike unit!

 

This is the first batch of the my squad, with the individual motorbike riders. Next in line will be the some motorbikes with sidecars and LMGs.

 

The models are 3D printed and are designed by Eskice miniatures. This is a French designer that has released an impressive array of 2WW related models (infantry, armour, vehicles, artillery, support units)  including a very complete early war French range, Polish, early War Germans and British, and many more. Worth taking a look of you are in the 3D printing side (or to buy the printed models too).

The sculpting style (specially the faces) is a little bit cartoony but full of character. Some of you may remember a previous submission from this same brand with some German Fallschirmjager models.

 

 

With the submission today I score 82 points, calculated as follows:

• 6 x 28mm models riding motorbikes @10 points each = 60 points
• + 2 points for a second rider in one of the motorbikes = 2 points
• Western Studios Bonus = 20 points
• Total 82 points   
  

 

 

Those look great, Benito - a smashing start to your new project. I'm counting the pillion rider as a full figure for scoring, so that's 85 points total.

Tamsin

  

From PeteF: Charlie Don't Surf (on the Casting Couch) (25 points)

 

It's been a tough couple of weeks for hobbying - a family wedding took me back to the old country and I was assured there was not enough room in my luggage for paints. I've also had to put some time into a model I started before the challenge (see below) which I'll need for a tournament at the end of the month.

Nevertheless - I had time this weekend to get to work on Lt Colonel Kilgore.  The model is from the Wargames Illustrated Giants In Miniature series.  I was ordering from North Star as the challenge started and had to have this one for the movie theme.

Vietnam war gaming is a little too modern for me so he likely won't be seeing action in that conflict - maybe there'll be a place for him in a Death Fields game when Wargames Atlantic finally publish the rules.

He was a lot of fun to paint - but it brought to mind a lot of the movie - not just "that gasoline smell..." but Captain Willard's whole journey.  

One 28mm foot figure for 5 points plus 20 for the Casting Couch. No skullz or squirrels.

Speaking of squirrels - this is Bill Kilgore next to a giant that distracted me this weekend.  I've been working on him since October - or was it August?  Nearly ready for the table but sadly not eligible for Challenge Points!

That's a great figure, Pete! As for the giant, it could count for the "Under Construction" studio, even if only for the studio bonus points.

Tamsin

From MartinC: The Dwarven Hills (720pts)

 All tales of fantasy, well those that count, contain tales of dwarfs and their mountainous kingdoms. As I teased last week I have some dwarfs to paint to complete a 35 year old army.

These are Oathmark plastic dwarf spearmen, I have more to make. Simple Saxon style shields

Next a command section, Northstar

Mad dynamic berzerkers from CP models

Original Citadel dwarfs, had these 37 years.

much more recent 2nd hand rifleman

On the diet of dwarfs. There is no scale creep in dwarfs, it's massive leaps for dwarfkind. Why!! Couple of pistoliers, raided the bits box, and a Hasslefree dwarf

A dwarf general on a wolf. I hand cast the body and legs and added arms and head from Oathmark kit. Then gave him milliput chainmail armour

The wolf was old school in the 1980s and used to pull a goblin chariot

Time for a change of pace with some 3D printed machinery

these will be used for gangster and modern games, probably Nam -obviously

Gangsters need mass transit so

a file box is perfect for....

a subway station

the train is from earlier in the challenge

you need a newspaper stand to to get pushed into and a set of stairs to recreate the end of The Untouchables, or the Battleship Potempkin. This one is 14.5 x 10 x 3 inches = 2 cubes

I did mention hills and I built a really big one earlier in the challenge for massive games of Nam, or anything else

this one is much bigger, using 1,2 and 3 inch insulation board. Painted with spray cans and an obscene number of tuft curtesy of Dave

Cover it with Jungle and we are in business

A very lost Turkish WW1 officer wondering how to get down. So this is 2ft wide by 6ft long and a max of 9 inches high. pile it all together and it is 24x24x10 = 26 cubes

Scores on the doors

26 dwarfs on foot = 130

1 mounted dwarf = 10

5 machines = probable 2 each = 10

1 station = 40

1 massive hill = 520  530

gives 720 pts

Well, today is already looking to be a bumper points day for the Tuesday Terrors, maybe even making up for the shortfalls from some of the other crews!

Those Dwarves look like great additions to your collection - is it now complete? Great work on the terrain as well - that filing drawer subway station is a brilliant idea and the machinery looks great - do you remember where you got it from? As for the hill, your maths is slightly off - I make it 26.5 cubes; however, that still keeps your total as 720 points as your maths was also off when you totaled up the scores!

Tamsin

From DaveD - the BUFF and the chickens (207 points)

Keeping Tuesday Turnip Free! I have enlisted the help of General Cheeseburger . 

And what better to make roast vegetables than one of these bad boys - a B52 or a Big Ugly Fat F****r Carrying 30 tons of destruction. Oh this is a big boy. 

So big I had take it outside to get proper pictures !

Biggest decals I’ve ever worked on - at least they were decent quality . Nice big 2nd Airforce markings on the tail 

It’s painted up in South East Asia camo . With a black underside and tail .

Yes this is true madness - a B52 in 1/72nd - I had to compromise from 1/48th  in the end .I picked up the kit on  eBay with some bits missing hence it was cheaper than normal . I had to make the transparency for the cockpit from bits of yoghurt pot etc . Its a 32 inch wingspan , 28 inches long and 6 inches high . About the size of 12 normal 1/72nd fighter kits . Or if we apply the rule of Ken and multiply lots who knows how many points this is  ! So I will leave that with Tamsin to work out points .I certainly used a lot of paint through the airbrush !

 

Cue Major Kong - is that a major root vegetable site down there?

I might just have to throw it off the shed roof to “to destroy” it . 

Now what’s it for I hear you say . Well it’s for Nam , but not obviously as flying playing model - the flight stand would be worth all the challenge points in the world on its own . Well I have two options at the moment . Having dug around there is scenario fodder in that while these were based in Thailand the VC did do some commando raids , destroying some other aircraft on the ground  . That will all look cool, so  I have the wheels kept separate to use for that if need be . The other option which I had originally intended is to wreck it up into multiple parts to make table dressing and for scenario fodder for special ops etc . This is the most likely next step , but for now it’s left complete as can be .Time to raise the communist airforce - or a least a SAM2 battery or 7  . 

Just to prove what a bonkers week it has been at the paint table - here is the opposition air force . 

Now we go from the ridiculous to the other end of the scale - here we have 40 x 28mm chickens . Pendraken has a great range of animals (Link) in a range of scales and these are just the thing to have running around the villages . Now I’m not sure there is category they fit in at 28mm - as 200 points at 5 per chicken is a great bonus! So again I will leave these to Tamsin . I won’t count the chickens to Never Ending Cold War .

That is a totally bonkers model, Dave! I think you need to get yourself a second one though to do as wreckage - that way you can still do both scenarios you mentioned. 

Now for the scoring. There is a precedent for 28mm chickens - set by me, I think...ahh, yes, here's the post linky-link. They got scored as 2 points for a base of three chooks plus one chick so let's say 27 points for your 40 chickens (13x3x2 = 26, plus one for the 40th bird).

As for the B52, I'm not sure I should really be the minion setting precedent for scoring huge models, given that I'm working on a huge 28mm spaceship. Nevertheless, I'm happy to go with it being the equivalent of twelve 20mm vehicles as you suggest.

Tamsin

Tamsin's Tuesday Tributes

 

"Good morning Ladies, Gentlemen...and Ray! The February doldrums are still with us, I'm afraid - just 41 releases in the past week, grossing $4,520 million, taking our total gross to $59,699 million."

"Fortunately, there are no signs of slacking from the Tuesday apprentices, and we have a busy release schedule today:

• DaveD continues his Vietnam War saga with a biopic about some chap called Arvin, and a comedy about a bunch of chickens escaping in a B52; he may also have a Prohibition era film.
• MartinC has a travelogue set in the Dwarven kingdoms
• PeteF joins in on the Vietnam War action with a biopic of Colonel Kilgore
• BenitoV goes West!
• SimonG remakes The Odd Couple

plus, hopefully, another Italian Wars drama from KerryT and potentially four releases from the indomitable MattW."

Toodle-pip!

Tamsin

Iain W 28mm Napoleonic French command 50 points

 Here are two command stands. Murat , Ney and an aide de camp, Murat and Ney are Foundry, not sure of the ADC, similar size, they were part of the mixed command collection I picked up from ebay, Murat was fun, a bit like a fantasy figure to be honest and a nice contrast with Ney who I gave a grey coat to, to make him seem a bit more dour! I've added some plastic under all three of these to help them cope with their 28mm colleagues, I don't think the ADC 's horse is quite right, he's on a light cavalry mount but I figure he'd have to use whatever remount he can at some point? 

The 28mm Perry figures are Marshal Soult and one of Murat's aide de camps converted from one of the spare chasseurs de cheval of the Imperial Guard, he seemed a bit big with Murat and the other ADC seemed a bit small with any of the Perry figures so that's why we have the arrangement we do, Murat's ADC's uniform is nice and bright and interestingly there are other Marshal's ADCs which are similarly coloured.

 

Five 28mm cavalry is fiftey points towards my total, more mounted Napoleonics on the way, I'm still scratch building my renaissance entry, so we can safetly say that won't get done!

In my haste to photograph them I couldn't make it to the shed, so they we're photographed held at eye hight on a board in the kitchen, for the light,apologies for the background!

All the best

Iain

Lovely set of commanders Iain with some heavy hitters from the Grand Armee.  Interesting putting New and Murat on the same base, those personalities must have clashed!  We tend to think of them based on their later more erratic years (in both cases leading to death by firing squad in 1815) but in their prime they were fine commanders.  Soult was a first class commander (and looter).  

Both humans and horses come in various sizes so the mismatches look fine on the finished bases.  I'll forgive your photography issues if you promise more figures next week with proper pictures.

KenR : 1/700 Z25 German Destroyer and Crew (41 pts)

 

Just the one post this week and it's a continuation of my failed Italian Wars Project, and yes you guessed it, its another ship ! But just to spice things up I've added some 1/700 scale crew, about 50 of them, that seemed like a good idea after about 10, the enthusiasm quickly went.

It looks similar to last weeks German Destroyer but this is Z25 a Type 1936 A Class ship and is shown in its late war format, with a turret removed at the rear which has been replaced by additional AA mounts. The model is a 1/700 Trumpeter kit which as I mentioned last week are considerably more detailed than Tamiya Equivalents, this model has 230 parts, not including the crew.

The crew come from a company called Eduard, them come pre coloured and are 2d Photo etch, they need a touch up on the top of the heads and the hands as its impossible to remove them from their sprues without damaging them. I think they really bring the ship to life and give you a real sense of the ship being a real thing rather than just a model.

The colour scheme is a basic one, but as with last weeks ship, I think this really allows the weathering to shine, I've also painted the lifeboats in a Green Ochre colour which is an alternative to the grey on my previous German Ship.

 Points wise its the usual 40 with 0.02 points for each of the 50 crew making a total of 41 points 😄

I have a bit of time of work as the Challenge enters its final month so I hope to reach my 1500 pt target with a bit of graft over the next 3 weeks. On the WW2 Naval Project front, I have Prinz Eugen and Ark Royal Built and ready to paint but I've nearly made a huge mistake on Ark Royal (revealed on Twitter soon) so there is a bit of a delay on that. However I would like to get both of those larger ships done before the Challenge ends. If I had planned this Project I would have built and primed the ships before we started !

I plan to do a live tweet event as I attempt to complete a destroyer from scratch in a day later this week. My subject will be the Canadian Tribal Class Destroyer HMCS Huron in honour of our Host Curt, so if you are on Twitter have a look out for @yarkshiregamer on Tuesday at 9am UK time for the off.

Until next week (or maybe Tuesday !)

Fresh off the win we have Ken with another stunning 1:700 ship.  Excellent weathering and ocean effects and adding crew members is totally bonkers, but looks great.  Looking forward to more ships AND Italian Wars stuff.