From MattW - French Chevau legere Lanciers (200 points)

 3e Chevau Leger Lanciers Limbo MattW

Great to be back on board for Challenge XV, thanks again to Curt, the Minions and Ray. 

I am really looking forward to cracking on with 28mm Napoleonic’s, WW2 and a few of the side challenges too, plus my normal ww1 aircraft and the oddball figure. 

My first entry is a limbo, the horses have been completed for at least a month as I like to complete horses first, but with renovations on the third floor of the house in full swing for the last 6 weeks since returning from Australian Holidays I have found it difficult to hit the table much and was supposed to have completed these at the beginning if December rather than at the end. 

The 3e Chevau Leger Lanciers are based for 1/20 rulesets (General de Brigade - In the Grand Manner)  for the 1814 battles which I visited this year in Spring walking 5 of them, whilst sipping champagne and dining in nice restaurants all together a fabulous holiday. The miniatures are Warlord, the horses have funny puddle feet and the commanders horse is made from quite soft metal that snaps easily at the hocks, so pinning was required. They paint up easily and do look very nice IMHO. 

1st Squadron of command and elite company red plumes are from Bavarian Inf plastics set

2nd squadron of lancers  

3rd squadron swords and dragoon muskets 

Total points 

18 mounted cavalry @ 10 points 180 points 

Limbo                                           20 points 

Total points 200 

Napoleonic challenge 

180 points 

On a sad note my mother passed away this week so I did think about dropping out completely. However I found solace painting and picked up the brush in the last two days and completed the 18 lancers quite quickly, and managed most of Christmas Day at the desk. I am returning now to Australia for two weeks to attend the funeral and see family and friends before returning to France in mid January. 

Best of luck to everybody

Cheers

Matt

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Sorry to hear of your mother's passing, Matt. I hope you have a good trip back home in order to take some solace with family and friends.

Your lancers look beautiful, what with their green jackets and pink facings. A nice sized unit and very sharp. I hope that once you get back we'll get to see some more from your paint desk in late January. Take care.

- Curt

Merry Christmas Challengers! David B (25 points)

Greetings all! I hope everyone is having a grand time this holiday season. I am presenting a very humble chimera chassis from 40k as an open vehicle for Necromunda or for 40k games. I bought it used and primed at Adepticon last spring and added an Autocannon, flame thrower and plates to give it the appearance of a ramshackle salamander. I added some stowage and bits as I have been watching Rogue Heroes on SAS inception in Africa 1941.( great show and makes me remember how miserable the desert is) I dusted it in copious amounts of weathering powders to give it a hard worn look of rust and possible fire damage as well as environmental weathering from the necromunda ash waste. 

It was already in rough shape when I acquired it, so I leaned in to the lopsided tracks and only covered the most egregious glue seams.

You might need a tetanus shot if in the rear bay!

This was a fun, quick project. I got to use the army painter metallics and metallic speed paints....then cover up the bad experiments with the weathering!....and my wooden stool, it adds to the texture!

I am certain that these are lego knockoffs, but this is the intro of the fastest turn around of any miniature in my collection. Two Primaris lego Marines and a marine bike were given by my children today. A White Scar on bike and another which had plain grey armor and weapons.

 

a very festive shot in the christmas lights.

I have a lot of fanatic paints from my birthday and had to paint him as an Iron Snake. Cool and warm flesh, black and grey, ruddy browns,red, yellow, and blue triads...or mega triads as army painter has them in six shades for each chroma.

a bolt pistol, plasma pistol, a bolt rifle, bolt carbine, plasma gun, and a chainsword... I could have painted him and equipped him in most any chapter colors.

Instead I chose to freehand a snake in the vibrant blue fanatic paints

I do not have the complete line of fanatic army painter paints, but did give them a good initial workout on this and the miniatures this marine jumped in the painting queue. As an Iron Snake, I used most of the metallic fanatic paints too and they are possibly the smoothest metallic paints I have ever used. 

Quite a lot of little bits to the kit, I do not regret the time spent on them all. He will join the biker in overseeing work on the hobby desk.

I am very glad I had the time to play the past few days with the new paint. Some Swooping Hawks are almost complete along with a warcry band that were selected because of the hues that my family purchased. I would have completed them, but this little marine was just too cool not to paint up.

one Tank of dubious nature - 20 points

a not-lego space marine of the Iron Snakes....not a wargame mini so I will only claim the skulls on him which number two. One on his chest and the other on the pommel of his sword.

the tank has 5 skulls so a grand total of 7 skulls for the skull throne....er skull duel

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Welcome back to the Challenge Dave! I really like your repurposed Chimera. While rather humble on a 40K battlefield it would be quite a formidable support platform to a Necromunda gang. I love the absolutely filthy, ill-repaired and rusted look of it.

The Lego Space Marine is very cool as well (cripes, they do EVERYTHING don't they?!). I really like your repaint to conform to your Iron Snake Chapter. I also appreciate the thumbs up on the Army Painter Fanatic range. I've just sent a sample order to my FLGS. Cheers!

It would be churlish not to award points for the Lego Marine Christmas gift, so let's say 5 points for him. Added to your Chimera makes a nice 25. Great work Dave and Happy Christmas!

- Curt

From MartinN: 1940 French Patoon Command (20 points)

After a two year hiatus it feels great to be back in the fold again. I have several projects I want to work on during this years Challenge, ranging from some Fantasy Orcs and Undead over 3rd Century Romans to French and Germans for 1940. Also I'm sure I'll mix in some odds and ends as I go along.

So to start things off in my usual style - meaning slow - here's my first entry for this year. A set of Senior Leaders for my fledgling early war French force for Chain of Command. All figures are 3D prints from the excellent Colonel Muller Miniatures over on www.Wargaming3D.com

First is the Big Wig, the Commandant de Peloton, probably a Sous-Lieutenant. To distinguish him from his (even) more junior 2iC he got a big hex base and a second figure added, symbolizing his personal aide/ runner.

Second is the first of two Sergent-Chefs who will be classed as inferior Senior Leaders in CoC terms. This one is armed with a German made Erma sub-machine gun, large quantities of which came into French possession after the collapse of the Spanish Republic and subsequent internment of soldiers fleeing Franco's revenge in France.

And lastly the second of those two Sergent-Chefs, a rather fatherly figure by the looks of it. This time armed with an obsolete Lebel Model 1886 rifle, he probably already carried during the previous war given de Croix de Guerre he's wearing on his left breast. The Lebel was being phased out at the time of the outbreak of war. But given that its successor, the MAS-36, was not in sufficient supply to equip all units, it was still in widespread use. Especially in reserve formations.

So with that, I'm done for today. All that's left for me to do is wishing all of you a Merry Christmas.

Total:

4x 28mm figures = 20 pts

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First, welcome back to the Challenge Nick! As usual you tease us with some of your absolutely stunning painting. Your brushwork it typically on-point, with rich colours, clean lines and smooth shading. Truly wonderful stuff. Of the group I particularly like the veteran senior sergeant with his aged rifle and trusty pipe. Such great character!

20 Points to put you up on the roster. Well done my friend - let's see some more, thank you!

- Curt

From QuinnM - Age of Sigmar (20 points )

QuinnM-AgeofSigmar-15 points


Hello this is my first time participating in the painting challenge. Thank you Curt for putting it on. I am relatively new to the hobby I started painting about 6 months ago so I am looking forward to feedback. I decided to start off with a few Age of Sigmar models as that is what got me into panting.

  

3x28mm foot@ 5 Points = 15 Points

First up we have the GW model of the month, a Skaven storm vermin. It was a quick paint job. I realized there is a tiny bird skull on its waist in the process. Skull one down I think?

Up next we have the little gryph-hound Balthazar from the savers of Cinderfall box. I finished the rest of the models of this unit a week ago but left this as a simple model to start off with.

lastly we have a Troll (old world). This was on my pile of primed models to paint over the challenge, but when i learnt we have a skull count i panted it up early. so add a second to the skull count here. 

Also I saw my dads(ByronM’s)post about needed to get something in before me. I had to pant the troll to at least have more points before his next post.( I am going to act like I don't see the unit of germans he has painted on his desk and hope this goes up before).

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First, Merry Christmas and welcome to the Challenge Quinn! For someone who has only been painting for 6 months your brushwork is amazing. The talent for the brush must run in the family. :)

As a disgruntled old-school Old World fan all I can say that the less said about The Age of Sigmar the better, BUT your storm vermin and gryph hound are great, especially the armour on the Skaven and the fade effect on coat of the hound. 

And to mollify my delicate (and nonsensical) sensibilities you provide an excellent Old World troll for us to admire. Great work on his skin - a nice departure from the typical blue and green that you often see.

I'm thinking that the troll is probably at least 54mm so we'll score his accordingly. 

Great work Quinn. More please! :)

- Curt 

From BruceR - Epic Iron Brigade, Zombie Camels, Chaos Warriors, Limbo, (117 pts)

It’s great to be back for Challenge XV and all the positivity associated with the hobby we share.  

As we all do, I have a number of different ways to go this year and was sitting reading Curt’s first post and I was drawn to a couple of primed epic ACW infantry stands that simply sat on my painting area.  I’d continued from the Challenge last year and completed the Guts and Glory box of epic ACW and the crew here played a couple of Black Powder games with the newly finished forces.  One of our crew had moved away a number of years ago, but manages to return once or twice a year to game.  He played ACW this summer and started painting the Army of North Virginia.  This got my juices going so why not paint the Iron Brigade (Midwest toughs) for the Union.  We, like many others, we have  paired down the number of stands in a regiment to 3 from the Warlord 5.  I was able to find a box on ebay and was surprised when they arrived in this wee box.  20 strips of Iron Brigade ready for the brush.  I had to create a command stand as only 2 are in the box.  I cut up a strip and placed some 10mm Kallistra ACW metals in to make it happen.  The buddy returned two weekends past and we put his new force and my additional troops on the table for a battle.  A long story as to why there were 3 stands sitting unloved.  They were not used or needed and so I return to the Iron Brigade.  Perfect for the first level of hell “Limbo”, returning to a project.  I whipped them out and with only 3 strips I had to dig in the bits box and decided to add some Kallistra officers and a standard to create another base.  So another 2 bases of Iron Brigade lads to the collection. 

Iron Brigade

Continuing Frenzy:

Zombie Camels

Yesterday, the gang came over for the last game of the year as I’m traveling for the holidays.  We have enjoyed The Silver Bayonet, and I had set up the 2^nd scenario from the Egypt book.  We had a blast and when finished one of the boys passed out little Xmas packets to the 3 of us.  These were resin printed “Zombie Camels”.  I had used some nurgle troops to represent them previously as I did  not have Camels of any sort.  So, while the war department watched the Kennedy Center production Sunday night, I painted Zombie Camels.  I kept to the nurgle theme as, well they are zombies.  Used speed paints for most of the work and I actually like how they turned out.  We will have to replay scenario one to get the zombie camels back  on the board. 

Gift Painting:

Chaos Warriors

While putting some gifts together of miniatures for the gaming crew I noticed two original metal chaos warriors/champions sitting on a figure shelf.  Probably been there for 15+ years (actually I have no idea where I would have obtained them from) Perfect, one of the group has an  old chaos warrior army and I had nothing for him.  Well get the brush going and two old school chaos warriors ready for Xmas giving and Mordheim, WHFB, WtOW etc… 

Good to be back

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Bruce! I've always really liked your 12mm ACW efforts and these do not disappoint. Love the undead camels; a terrific addition to your Silver Bayonet collection and definitely a good reason to revisit a scenario. This all being said, I have to admit that my favorites of the crowd are the two Chaos Warriors. Love these guys. They have that wonderful old-school wide-stance look about them. What an awesome gift. Well done!

- Curt 

From PeteB - Hagen-Miniatures Wild West Townsman - 28 mm - Limbo - 25 Points

This figure is a 28mm figure from Hagen-Miniatures which I started long time ago but never finished. And now I did. They have some more of this Wild West townsfolks but I’m not sure if I will get to them this challenge.

Painting this figure was fun, and for the first time I painted eyes on such small figure. Normally I only do this on my bigger 54 mm figures but this time I couldn't resist trying it on this one. And I like the result. He is part of a small project where I'm working on.

I wish you all and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Points: 

1 x 28 mm foot figure        = 05 points

Limbo entry                        = 20 points

Total                                    = 25 points

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Hey Peter. I can see that it's a figure, and probably very well painted, but the lighting is so off that one cannot really discern much of the details. Similar to my advice to Gavin, I suggest you not photograph your work against a white background as the camera will often underexpose the figure. Try using a darker background and good frontal lighting and the contrast balance should correct itself.  

- Curt