From TimB: 28mm Feudal Japanese Infantry (85 points)

From Tim:

Here's my latest:

17 x 28mm foot 

More Samurai for my various Ronin buntai

The first two are peasants armed with sharped bits of bamboo from Black Hat Miniatures. They could be used in Peasant, Bandit or Ikko-Ikki buntais but I picked them up with the idea of actually having enough for a peasant Buntai. 

Three Samurai (or Ronin, I suppose) with No Dachi (Great Sword). Again, from Black Hat and these, as with the others below, could be used in a number of different buntai. A couple will probably end up in the Peasant Buntai as hired Ronin, others may end up in a Bandit Buntai, others will likely end up in one of the Bushi Buntai I am putting together. 

Two Samurai/Ronin with yumi (bow) - also from Black Hat.

Two more Samurai from Black Hat - one with just his Katana and one with a yari (spear) 

This is the odd one out - this samurai is an old AEG Legends of the Five Rings: Clan War miniature. He's earmarked for the Lion Clan Buntai. 

Beautiful work Tim. The red/yellow kimono on the one swordsman is lovely and I really like the 'hedge' of bamboo shafts featured with that first peasant unit. Wonderful stuff indeed.

This great selection of Feudal Japanese will give Tim 85 points. Wonderful stuff Mr.B!

From KentG: 28mm Napoleonic French Lancers, Imperial Headquarters & F&IW Civilians (172 points)

Kent keeps on rollin' with more lovely Napoleonics. This time it's a unit of French lancers and the Little-Big-Man himself (with attendant flunkies, er, I mean staff).

From Kent:

I've fired up my paint brushes and well what to you know here we have my next entry.

These are all Front rank miniatures 12 Chevau-lager lancers, once again for my friends collection.

.... and painted up a French Generals Staff set and some children playing (which if I had remembered would have gone into the first Theme challenge) but thats life. Anyway 6 figures, 28mm Perry and 4 figures 25mm cant remember make. This is the second time I've painted this staff set its really quite an enjoyable set to paint.

Wow Kent, you have a very lucky friend! I'm quite envious. Beautiful work once again. I really like the pennants and lance-heads on your lancers - how did you achieve the look Wonderful stuff.

This impressive submission will give Kent 172 points, enough for him to seize first place in the overall standings. Well done Mr. G!

From ByronM: Uncharted Seas Dwarf Fleet & Flame Spirit (30 points)

Byron changes pace again and submits to us this great Dwarf naval fleet and a very interesting looking Flame Spirit.

From Byron:

Part of my reason for entering this painting challenge was to reduce some of the clutter of unpainted items kicking around in my supposed walk in gamer closet, I say supposed because the mountains of lead and plastic usually prevent me from walking into it.  With that in mind I have two submissions that help clean up my to be painted list.

First up is a Dwarf Starter fleet for Uncharted Seas from Spartan Games.  It is a fun game, and simpler than the more popular Dystopian Wars, but one that both my kids prefer due to its simplicity.  This is one of the fleets that they play with, but has never gotten painted, as I can not convince them to pick up  a brush.  The pictures on the game mat just didn’t want to colour balance properly, so I have included an image to show the real colours against a white background as well.

Since these are gaming pieces, and generally played with by my teenage sons, they are quick paint jobs.  Just enough to add some colour to them and not have them pushing around white resin pieces.  I hope to get to the elf and human fleet sometime later in my cleanup process, but we will see.  

For anyone that hasn’t played a Spartan Games ship game, you really should give them a go.  Fun, fast, and massively destructive.  In them any 6 you roll for a hit, counts as 2 hits instead of 1 and lets you roll another die!  It’s called exploding 6’s and allows mass destruction to occur quickly at any time.

The second part of my cleanup is a single flame spirit figure from the Ten Thunders Clan from Malifaux.  I painted up his master over the summer (so do not give me points for her Curt) and I believe she came out pretty well, however, painting flame is not something that I think EVER works out well. Therefore the flame spirit has sat primed up waiting for paint since the summer.  I finally broke down and figured I would give it a go.

  

While not thrilled how it turned out up close, as a gaming piece from tabletop distance it does look pretty good and portrays the correct look.  Maybe I will figure out a better way to do flame someday, but until then this is it.

Lovely work Byron. We've played a lot of Dystopian Wars and quite enjoyed it but have not tried Uncharted Seas but I understand that they use pretty much the same core mechanics. May have to give it a go.

I really like your Flame Spirit as well. For the furnace-like 'Balrog look' I'd suggest adding both black and white to the base and highlights respectively.

This eclectic entry will give Byron 30 points. Nice job!

From EdwinK: 54mm WWII British Infantry (120 points)

Keeping to the Old Skool theme Edwin sends these marvellous 54mm plastic toy soldiers he's done-up for his nephew.

From Edwin:

Now Santa's been and gone, I can submit these.  They are twelve 58mm plastic figures (two prone) from Steve Weston's D-Day pack.

They're here because my wife thought it might be fun to paint them up as a Christmas present for her nephew.  Of course, she didn't realize that I wasn't going to start until 15 Dec and how long it would take me!

They're obviously in a 'toy soldier' style with limited detailing and a high gloss finish.  Hopefully they will survive contact with the enemy (an eight year old boy!).

Great stuff Edwin. I've always had a soft spot for that dorky straight-arm-grenade-throwing pose. Wonderful.

These  D-Day Tommies will give Edwin a very nice 120 points. A lovely gift Uncle Edwin!

From MilesR: 28mm ACW Dismounted Confederate Cavalry (90 points)

Miles decided to take advantage of early quiet time amidst the Christmas hubbub to sneak in this entry.

From Miles:

Why am I sending you an entry on Christmas morning at 6:46 am local time?  While many of your readers may respond with a phrase along the lines of "because there's a man with his priorities straight", the real reason is that I'm the only one up in my house at this time.  With my son now a college freshman, gone are the days of an excited little boy waking me up at 4:30am to ask "can we get up now?".  Now I'll be lucky if he's up by 10:00am.  Of course, I could always "accidentally" spill some water on him but at 6'4" 240lbs that might be a dangerous proposition.  So I'm left to wandering down to the workbench and finish off some troops.

Please find the attached photo's of my 4th entry into the challenge, 18 28mm Perry Dismounted Confederate cavalry.  These are metal figures and are up to the usual Perry standards of excellent quality.  I really like the range of weapons they are depicted with - shotguns, revolvers, carbines and rifled muskets.  They are not modeled on any specific unit but are used as stand-in's when ever a cavalry unit dismounts in a game.  I've got 9 Union counterparts to finish and then will have dismounted figures for all my cavalry regiments.

I do find painting metals to be a bit harder than plastics but am happy with how these chaps came out.

Wait! I hear the young academic prince stirring - maybe, just maybe, holiday greed can overcome college morning sloth!  If so, it's a true Christmas Miracle!!!!!!

Excellent work Miles. I as well often find I get the most work done during the 'quietest moments' - though mine are usually late at night when most of the world sleeps except me and (other) ne're do wells.

These eighteen dismounted Reb cavalry will give Miles 90 points, and placing him amongst the top three in the points race. Nice use of holiday time Mr. Grinch!

From PaulJ: 28mm Troll

Paul enters his 'blue period' with this excellent troll for his son's Blood Bowl team.

From Paul:

To be honest I thought I would have been generating a lot more historical entries during this competition but the massed ranks of 28mm Brit Paras and their denison smocks is proving to be more confronting than I thought they would be!  So here a Troll player for Blood Bowl instead.

Its a plastic Reaper fig and to be honest it was a bit of a pain to prepare and the mold lines didn't come off completely which was a bit disappointing.

I'm also not convinced that the paint won't crack and fall off when the plastic of the figure flexes underneath either, but we'll see.

He is destined to see the pitch with my son's Underworld Team comprised of Skaven and Goblins. Whether or not he survives his first few matches remains to be seen...

Great work Paul! I am curious as well to see how these new plastic Reaper models hold up. They have some wonderful sculpts but I'm not too crazy on doing repaints.

This Blue-Meanie Troll will give Paul 7 points. Nice stuff!

From GregB: Rogue Trader Imperial Guard Penal Detachment (55 points)

 

From Greg: 

Inspired by Lee's Rogue Trooper, I decided to go "Rogue Trader".  Over the years I have managed to accumulate a small pile of Rogue Trader era Warhammer 40k figures.  While the original Rogue Trader rules had many issues, a Rogue Trader game is gaming paradise compared to the current excrement pile that passes for the current 40k rules.  Our group in Winnipeg has played Rogue Trader games fairly often, and I'm quite chuffed about my small collection of old Imperial Guard figures.  This submission includes 10 28mm scale Penal Battalion troops and an Imperial Guard Lieutenant. 

In the grim darkness of the far future, a lot of things could happen if your'e bad. Or you might just get transferred to the penal battalion!  And not just any Penal Battalion, but the one where you are "equipped" with an explosive collar around your neck that your officers/social betters will use to blow the heads off of you or your companions should your unit falter in battle! Gotta love the dystopian world of the Imperium of Man… 

These models are from the late 80s/early 90s.  My favourite feature on the penal battalion troops (not really visible in the photos) is the inscribed belt buckles that read "PB".  As if the explosive collar and shaved head weren't enough, at least you get a pimped out belt buckle, right? Consistent with my other plastic guardsmen I equipped them with lasguns from the current range (after scraping the stupid skulls off of the guns).  It's far from a perfect fit, but they look a lot better than the old lasguns. 

The Penal Battalion squad was an option for an Imperial Guard player of the Rogue Trader/Compendium era.  They were armed only with lasguns, the collars and could also have drug dispensers to whip them into a suitable emotional state for whatever mission they would receive.  These squads did not have squad leaders per se, so I did a rough conversion on one fellow to have one stand out from the rest, which sadly suffer from monopose syndrome. 

The officer is a Lieutenant.  Like all of the beautiful officer figures from this lost era, he wears a breastplate as a symbol of rank.  Rather than arm him with a pistol I gave him a full-on regular lasgun in the hopes of giving him a bit more of a frontline vibe.  A platoon commander, he's still close to the frontline action.  For example, he'll need to keep an eye on that Penal Battalion squad…

As I always say, there's no school like the Old Skool. I remember these models very fondly from my salad days. I owned a hobby store in my early 20s when this figure range first came out and I recall the sale of them financing many illicit habits.  :)

These lads will give Greg 55 points. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Greg!

From ClintB: 10mm Peasant Samurai (31 points)

Continuing on with the revolting peasants, we now turn from medieval europe to feudal Japan with these fine archers from a lower socio-economic class.

From Clint:

I have managed to finish an additional 32 Peasant archers. You will note that 15 are in blue/grey Hats and 15 are in brown Hats. The other two figures are a couple of spare low ranking Samurai each with a Sashimono Back banner to designate command bases. While this may not be historically accurate it is something which works on a wargames table and that is the function these troops are destined for. Needles to say the different coloured Hats will represent different armies, again while not totally historically accurate it does make it clear from a wargames point of view.

I have settled mostly on pastel shades as darker colours would be harder to dye and thus be more expensive to produce. I have also disregarded uniforms as I wanted a rag tag feel to the peasant troops feeling that they have probably come from the fields and workshops and their Lords have not decided to equip and train them to the level of Ashigaru.  As with the last lot all these figures are by Pendraken (code SAM 10) and were acquired as part of their starter army pack.

Lovely work Clint! I'm quite impressed with these, particularly the wonderful sashimono banners.

These lads will give Clint 31 points which includes a bit extra for the banners. Well done and Merry Christmas!