From MilesR: 28mm French & Indian War Infantry and ACW Union Dismounted Cavalry (125 points)

From Miles:

First up are 13 French and Indian War figures from AW miniatures.  They're a bit bigger than 28's and appear to be 32mm high - let's call them "heroic scale".  These figures are painted up as the 60th Royal American regiment and are my contribution to the Bloggers for Charity effort.  The figures are well cast but I found painting 18th century uniforms a bit of a challenge.  I think i'll go back and touch up these figures but they're good for now.  

The second set of pictures are of some 28mm Perry Union dismounted cavalry figures - I've completed 12 so far so have enough for a fully dismounted regiment.  As with all Perry figures, these are wonderfully done and were very easy to paint up.  

It has been nice to paint up some Union figures before going back for a few more Confederate infantry regiments - I will finish up Hood's Brigade as part of the "Challenge".

Very nice work Miles. I really like those F&IW infantry, though a closer-in photo would've been nice to get a better look at the detail of the figures. Nonetheless I know they will be a great contribution to the good folks over at Bloggers for Charity. Well done.

These two units will give Miles 125 points. Great job sir!

From BrendonW: 28mm Gladiators (65 points)

From Brendon:

This bunch of circus entertainers are 28mm Foundry and Crusader figures. The dude with the winged helmet on the left hand side is a Hermes Psychopompus. He is near a figure on his knees asking for mercy. Hermes is an arena official (non-combatant) and his job was to stab downed gladiators to check if they are actually dead! His right hand is gloved because his stabber was usually a red hot poker. I went for white loin cloths (except 1) as I wanted to see how it would turn out. I figure for entertainment purposes it would help display any blood spilled all the better. It's kind of a classical look perhaps. 

There are a variety of fighting styles in this bunch. Myrmillo, Secutor,  1 Thracian, 1 Scissor. I found these figures seemed to come with a lack of Scutum in the blisters. The large rectangular curved shield. So one is a plastic shield from Warlord Legionnaires. 

The standard description of these styles is with a Scutum except the Thracian (small shield) and the Scissor. I went for no colour on the shields to see how it would look as well. This challenge is excellent as it motivated to get these figures completed after having them in my lead stash for a long while.

Excellent stuff Brendon! That Hermes chap must have had a lot of friends amongst the gladiators. ...Not. I've long wanted to get into gladiator gaming and your submission is making it very hard to resist. 

This ludus of gladiators will give Brendon 65 points. Great work!

From AaronH: 28mm Early Imperial Roman Auxiliary Cavalry (60 points)

From Aaron:

The last six of my Roman cavalry.  Not much to say about these that hasn’t already been said.  These guys were done pretty quickly, but only because of the way I paint.  When I’m working on a set of models I like to have the next set standing by.  

If I have too much paint then I’ll transition to the next guys in the queue and use it up.  This works best, of course, when they are getting the same paint scheme.  In the case of this unit these models were about a third painted when I started on them this morning.

I also included a shot of all twelve of the cavalry.  They’ll be a nice big unit on the table.  With all of the newly painted units for this army I’m sure to lose the next game but it should look good at any rate.

You may loose next battle but your army will leave fabulous looking corpses. Great work Aaron! It's nice to see the whole unit all ranked-up and good on you for preserving through the lot as I know that painting cavalry can be a bit of a slog.

These six cavalrymen will give Aaron 60 points. Well done!

From IannickM: 28mm OldHammer Chaos Dwarfs (75 points)

Iannick debuts with this fabulous unit of Old Skool Chaos Dwarfs for OldHammer.

From Iannick:

Finally my first submission, a unit of 21 Chaos Dwarfs. I can only claim 15 painted figures however, as 6 of them were already painted before the competition started, but I wanted to show-off the complete unit anyways.

When I decided to start an Oldhammer Chaos army, these guys were high on my wish list, so I couldn't resist and did them first. There is 21 of these guys, a mixture of Marauder figures sculpted by Ally Morrison and Citadel figures sculpted by the Perrys.

The Marauder date all the way back from 1988 and the Citadel from 1986! I have a soft spot for the Marauder ones, especially the sorcerer in the front row. But really all of them are amazing sculpts full of character and reeking of nostalgia. Ahem, that's how proper Chaos Dwarfs should look like!!

Of course, not a single duplicate in this unit. Those were the days.

As expected, the figures were a lot of fun to paint. I decided to paint them in a very traditional blackened armour, as will be most of my Chaos Warriors. My first contact with Warhammer Chaos was a plate of a Chaos warrior in black armour (in the Warhammer RPG rulebook)  and that's how I envision my Chaos, at least the undivided kind. I used a bright green to give a splash of colour to this evil bunch, and I'm quite pleased with the results. 

A banner will be added to this unit later, but I intend to do all the army's banners at the end, as I have to do some tests and I have no time to spare at the moment (yes, Curt, that's on you ;-) ).

Awesome! I love Chaos Dwarfs and remember many great games with Dallas' collection back in the day. These guys are wonderful and I really like their super-green shields (very 1988).

I can completely understand your desire to have them all arrayed as a unit as they look great Iannick. Jeez, I'm really feeling the urge to roll out with some Warhamer stuff as well...

These eeevil dwarfs of the 80s will give Iannick 75 points to enter onto the roster. Well done mon ami!

From JuanM: 28mm Crusader Spearman & Arab Civilians (40 points)

From Juan:

Here is my second entry for The Challenge. I have a lot of minis half painted on the table, from very different projects and ideas, so it is a bit mad!

I have painted a Crusader spearman, a 28mm plastic figure from Fireforge Games. I don´t like plastic figures because they are, in spite of all the complements they have, a bit basic and "plain". I prefer the white metal ones, but these ones have some interesting poses and are really fun to paint. I´m reading "Deus Vult" in this moment, so I´m testing also some figures I have...

Finally, there are the Arab civilians I was unable to paint last week. They are 28mm Perrys. Small and very fine figures that I´m going to use from Palestine to Afghanistan.

Lovely work Juan. Civilians are such great figures to have on the table as they really help establish the setting and these are a real treat. 

The Crusader and civilians will give Juan 40 points. Well done!

From TimB: 28mm Sohei Warrior Monks (55 points)

From Tim:

Here are another 11x28mm figures here, all Sohei monks.

This batch finishes of a Sohei Buntai for Ronin – Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai. All of the figures are from Perry Miniatures.

Two Senior Sohei 

Three Sohei

Four Initiates with Naginata (well…  one actually has a Yari….)

Two Initiates with Teppo

I also have a Grand Master that I finished up previous to the start of the Challenge. The force so far totals about 300 points – depending on what optional attributes were taken. There is a bit of a lack of missile weapons in this list. Perry doesn’t make any bow-armed monks, but I was looking at their catalogue again yesterday and noticed some of their ashigaru with bows could easily be converted to look like monks… so I may be adding to this force in the not-to-distant future.

Wonderful work Tim! I like the posh Samurai well enough, but my favourites have always been the warrior monks - they always seem like such bad-asses going into combat with their minimalist robes and head scarves.

These Sohei lads will give Tim 55 points and keeping him within striking distance of the top three positions...

From ByronM: 15mm WWII German 88s, PAK 75s and HMG Platoon (120 points)

From Byron:

Here is another batch of 15mm Flames of War Germans, that continues my “pile of lead” cleanup attempt.  These, as with the last were cleaned, based, and primed probably 8 years ago and then sat…  After doing up the 88’s last week I figured I would finish off a bunch of the rest of my primed 15mm’s.  This pretty much cleans the ones that I have together, so after these it is back to work on my 28mm WWI project. 

Here are the 88 carriages, with guns in transport more, that I couldn’t find in time to include in the last batch of painting. 

Also included are a pair of PAK 7.5 cm guns with crew, and two command squads with transports.  I know there should only be one, but I came across two and figure, why not paint them both.

Also rescued from the pile of lead in my closet are 4 HMG squads and their command squad, along with 5 half-tracks as transport and support for them.

OK, back to work on finishing a squad of 10th battalion Canadians and a squad of Germans.  Should be done those in a few days.

Lovely work Byron. I really like the subtle weathering on the vehicles and its nice to see some 88s on their carriages for a change - very cool.

This group will give Byron 120 points, enough for him to slip into third place in the overall points standing to date. Well done!

From SamuliS: 15mm WWII American Paratroopers (91 points)

From Samuli:

Back from the holidays and at the painting station again. Starting to fall behind my schedule a bit, don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing this early. Either I have time to catch up or then I'll miserably fail... 

Anyhow here is the first part of my effort to paint up my Flames of War US Airborne army during the challenge. It's a full rifle platoon based with Kerr and King and Peter Pig products. Being a big fan of Saving Private Ryan, I had to include a bunch of dead cows on the bases. Luckily Kerr & King makes some in resin. Most of the bases for this platoon are Kerr & King resin with some small additions of Peter Pig stuff and then a few ones with only Peter Pig products. 

Maybe a bit too much to paint in one huge bunch as I did get quite frustrated at times when I had to paint the exact same stuff on 44 tiny minis at a time. First time I painted any 15mm without using metallics on rifles etc. and instead went with a mix of greys and blues to get a good shade. I think it turned out nicely and looks better in this scale than anything shiny. I also painted a representation of the US flag and 101st Insignia. The red was maybe a bit too bright, but looks good from a distance.

Next up a change in period and scale again by turning to 6mm ACW figures for a club project. Never done anything in that scale or era before so should be interesting.

Great work Samuli! Those resin bases work a treat and your non-metalic metal effect looks very good as well.

These US Paratroopers will give Samuli 91 points. I look forward to seeing your upcoming ACW entry...

From ChristopherS: 28mm Dark Age Early Saxon Gedriht (37 points)

Here is another wonderful unit of Dark Age Early Saxons from Christopher.

Here is my second unit of those elite Early Saxon Gedriht who look like ZZ top on steroids who are just as proficient with their weapons as the others are with their guitars. It's what I think of when I look at them and partly why I like them so much. 

Bill(the sculptor) just made these guys look cool and are a must for any painter interested in early Saxons imho. I added a banner to these guys even though in Dux Brittani rum they have no effect, because I think banners add a bit extra in terms of looks to an army. 

These superb figures are again Musketeer with the equally superb LBM for the shields and banner. The weathering on the rocks and shields is done with MIG pigments which I really enjoy using.

Lovely work once again, Christopher. I agree with you in that these fellows absolutely demand a banner as they're such hard-asses. 

These six warriors will give Christopher a base of 30 points but I'm adding a few more for the excellent banner, shields and groundwork. Well done! (But you're still behind me. Y'know, just sayin'.)  ;-P

From Millsy: 28mm OldHammer Fantasy Undead (100 points)

From Millsy:

Back to the Undead Army of the Cairns and Oldhammer now as Heinrich Kemmler raises a unit of skeleton warriors from their unquiet graves.

This is nominally a unit of 24, however I ran short of a few figs so it is really something like 20 (when you add up the "halves"), plus some tombstones and graveyard detritus. That worked for me anyway as I wanted this unit to be in the process of crawling out of the ground to represent Kemmler's bad ass necromantic powers.

The figs are all plastics with the exception of the leader and drummer. They were spray undercoated white, sprayed cream and then dipped (painted on), followed by dry brushing and over painting. They took longer than I expected as I really wanted depth on the skeletal parts which isn't easy when there is so boney goodness much on display. People who rubbish dipping as "cheating" amaze me as it achieves a very particular effect which is just one more weapon in the painter's arsenal IMHO.

I've got a second unit on the table now armed with spears. I really only need one in the army list so these guys with hand weapons will serve as the spell-raised unit(s) during play. More undead coming soon!

Great work Millsy! I love the guys emerging out of their graves and the bright red shields give a nice splash of colour - well done.

These boney chaps will give Millsy 100 points to add to his tally. Nice job mate!