From AndrewS: 28mm French & Indian War French Infantry (60 points)

From Andrew: 

Well having shot through my target in three weeks I have decided to take it a little easier this week.

The first of this weeks submissions are 12 French Infantry from the AW Miniatures range these are part of a fairly substantial commission I have agreed to complete.

I know there are 13 figures in the picture however the officer was completed before the challenge started but he needed basing with his men.

These are substantial 28mm figures in fact they are more the 32mm heroic scale and a couple of the figures needed some plugging with green stuff, looks like a mould defect as a hole runs right through the body and out the bottom of the figure. 

They represent the La Sarre Regiment, wearing the grey white jackets while on campaign in the French Indian wars, they are in a mix of uniform as befits the adaptations made by the men in this period.

Wonderful work Andrew. Those fellows do look well fed but have a nice heft to them, reminding me of the Napoleonic figures from Elite Miniatures.. 

These dozen French from the Sare will give Andrew 60 points. Great job!

From AlanD: Challenge Desperado 'Alias' (30 points)

Alan sends in his amazingly creative Challenge Desperado.

From Alan:

When Curt announced that the entrance fee for the competition was to be a figure inspired by a Sam Peckinpah film, I knew I had to have a go at modelling Bob Dylan in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Dylan plays the role of the enigmatic Alias in the film. I say 'plays the role', but essentially Dylan just wanders around from scene to scene, uttering the occasional gnomic observation. However, I am such an inveterate Dylan fan that I choose to overlook the fact that he can't act for crap in the film. I blame poor direction.

The scene I chose to reference occurs when Pat Garrett encounters three of The Kid's sidekicks (including Alias) in a truly grotty saloon/store in some fly-bitten armpit of a town. To keep him out of the way while he intimidates his two friends, Garrett tells Alias to go over to a shelf in the store and read off the labels from the 'airtights' (ie cans). So the scene ends up being quite funny, Garrett having a tense conversation, while in the background we hear Dylan intoning 'beans...spinach...ahh Lima?... tomatoes...spinach and beans...' and so on.

To evoke the scene I used a bookcase from 4-Ground, stocked with sacks and cans made from greenstuff and bits of bamboo skewer. The figure of Alias was based on a desperado from Artizan designs. To try to make him resemble Dylan a bit more, I repositioned his head and used greenstuff to fatten his face a bit, give him more curly hair, give him an upturned collar and have him holding a can of beans, rather than the revolver of the original figure. Alias wears glasses in the scene, which I tried to give the suggestion of with a painted frame.

Anyway, I certainly didn't do a good job of his face, but I'm pleased with it nevertheless. Hope you like it, Curt!

Whoa, this is amazing work Alan. I love how esoteric and creative this vignette is, and your execution of it has been flawless. The modifications to the figure are excellent and I really like how he is positioned away from the viewer which, in turn, beacons your interest even more. 

This is all quite funny as I actually despise Bob Dylan and distinctly remember seeing this film in my 20s and thinking, 'well, cheer up Curt, maybe he'll get shot in the movie...' Now here I am, delighted and chomping at the bit to have him in my figure cabinet! 

'Alias' will give Alan 30 points, including a few extra for the overall realization of this great vignette. Thanks so much Alan!

From PaulJ: 28mm WWII Kriegsmarine Crew (30 points)

From Paul:

This Kriegsmarine landing party is clearly geared up and ready for action. 

Lead by their dashing, red bearded Captain they pack a lot of firepower (including an MG43) to get whatever job needs to be done and dash back to their Schnellboot or Unterseeboot for a quick getaway with their prizes. 28mm "Grey Wolves" figures by Artizan.

Wow, I love these guys! I think have pretty much all of these castings languishing in the 'lead reserve' and this entry makes me want to dig 'em all up and slop on some paint. Awesome. 

These  six excellent Deutsch Meer-Hunds (Nick, Burkhard, Stefan? Help me out here...) will give Paul 30 points. 

Hmm, that red-bearded captain looks very familiar... 

From DaveD: 28mm Lawmen for Serenity (10 points)

From Dave:

Another between revision submission. With all those extra bandits recently I though time to do another couple of lawmen. These two dandy fellows attending to the hanging of Pete Dalton and keeping order are by Great Escape Games issued as part of the Dead Mans Hand sets.

I have just done a re-organisation of the figure storage for the Old West - and i have nearly 200 figures now for it - it was supposed to only be a small project!

Just some mounted U.S. Cavalry to complete and think I will call it officially closed!

Hey Dave, I remember sending you a link for that gallows model a year or so ago and here it is in all its grim glory - wonderful! I really like the new additions to your lawmen. The one fellow with the red vest has a striking resemblance to Cullen Bohannon from 'Hell on Wheels'. Excellent stuff.

These two chaps will give dave 10 points. Though I sure his will is strong I really doubt he will close off this project after the cavalry - there's just too much shiny stuff continually coming out for this period!

From SamuliS: 6mm ACW Union Brigade (85 points)

Samuli switches gears and so sends in this great Brigade of wee Union infantry for an upcoming Gettysburg project.

From Samuli: 

My next entry is a change in scale and era to something completely new for me. I've never painted anything smaller than 15mm before and ACW is also something I'm not too familiar with. Still you have to try something new every once in a while and as we have a 6mm Gettysburg project going on at my club I decided to pitch in with a Union force and here is the first brigade done.

I was really impressed by the amount of detail on these Baccus minis. Didn't expect them to have any proper faces or webbing on them. Still nice and fast to paint even with all the detail. A good quick project to get some change between larger scale stuff.

Brilliant stuff Samuli! 6mm is great for allowing collectors to put together an army for a relatively small expense and not demanding an acre of room to play a large battle. 

These diminutive bluebellies will give Samuli 85 points. Great work!

From ClintB: Challenge Desperado, Bandito Straggler & Zombie Gunslingers (45 points)

From Clint:

First we have the Last Bandito from the Artizan pack (Bandito's II) that I managed to paint for the villains bonus round. He has been started but was not finished in time for that. Sometimes these things happen. But he will find a home in my Wild West collection and will no doubt get much action on the tabletop.

Then we have 4 Zombie Gunfighters by Foundry. Again these were started for the Villains round but did not get finished in time. Some Weird West zombie games are planned. There is just something so wrong with zombies with guns and yet I could not resist them.

Finally my entry fee to the Challenge. This figures was given to me By Anne O'Leary and is by Reaper Miniatures. I put a yellow stripe down his legs to give the impression that the trousers were from a Confederate Office. Who Knows he may once have been one or he may have gotten them from some less reputable source.

Wonderful work Clint! It's nice that the lone Bandito is rejoining his painted hombres and I love your zombie gunfighters (especially their super spooky eyes!). But my favourite by far is your Challenge Desperado. What better figure to come from you, Clint, than one whose pose virtually screams 'I'm an Eastwood character!'

These fellows of the Wild West fellows will give Clint 45 points. Again, very nice work and thank you!

From GregB: 15mm Arab-Israeli War Infantry & Armour (68 points)

Greg rocks on with more figures and vehicles for his Arab-Israeli War collection.

From Greg:

More Arab-Israeli war stuff for this submission. I finished off nearly all of my Khurasan IDF infantry, based individually for games like "Chain of Command". There is another FN-MAG LMG (with a prone gunner - I hate prone figures), five troops with Uzi SMGs (two of them on square bases to represent NCOs), and the balance with FN-FAL rifles. 

There are two jeeps mounting heavy recoilless rifles. These potent AT weapons were key tools for IDF troops mounting improvised defences against surprise Syrian columns on the Golan Heights. They also provide a healthy AT punch to recon troops. 

There are some pieces of Arab armour - two Syrian SU-100 tank destroyers. I experimented with a slightly new Syrian camo scheme, including some grey to go with the green and yellow. SU-100s equipped the organic AT units of Arab mechanized divisions and infantry divisions. These would have played a role trying to hold back the IDF counter-invasion into Syria after the IDF (barely) stopped the initial Syrian assault on to the Golan Heights. These Battlefront castings were real beauties, a dream to work with.

The T-55 is a Khurasan casting. I purchased a pack of these when they were first released. Over all, I give it high marks. It assembles relatively easy, and the accessories (cupola hatches, cupola MG) are very clean castings. The MG is particularly solid, and this is welcome, compared my experience with QRF cupola MGs (the QRF ones are thin crap). You have the option of building it as a T-54 or T-55, and portraying the tank without the extra fuel drums on the rear, but still with empty mounting brackets - an interesting detail. The only small criticism I would make is that some of the hull detail is inconsistent - most of the lines are clean, but the indents on the fuel tanks are very soft and disappear with a coat of paint, meaning you need to paint them back on. The other issue with this tank is the size of the model - it is a lot smaller than the Peter Pig's T-55 - I don't think they would mix well. I have yet to compare it to Battlefront's T-55. 

This is painted in Egyptian colours, a test model, for use in gaming both 1967 and 1973. There are another 10 to follow, and I'll need even more after that...


Awesome stuff Greg. I quite like the new camo scheme with the grey mixed in - very cool - and those jeeps are very cute (bad term I know). 

This fine collection of infantry and armour will give Greg 68 points. Great job mon ami!

From IanW: Challenge Desperado and 28mm Cowboys (70 points)

Hot of the varnishing board!

After the 6mm Marathon I wanted something a little different so went with my entry Fee and another ten friends.

All are 28mm (well 30 odd mm) Black Scorpion figures from their Tombstone collection of resin figures. 

These should have been a total joy to paint but I had a bit of a disaster with my primer settling on almost like sand. Of course this would not come off. More test firing of the Army Painter primer left me in no doubt that the can was done for and in the bin it's done. Out with a trusty Vallejo can and eventually I got something like a good surface put on some figures it was not great.

I did not so much pick Curt's figure as it picked me, I liked the cool attitude as he holds his hat whilst drawing a bead on his target. I loved the way the shirt went and the jeans so put him to one side mentally and as will be seen he really does not fit the rest. Hope you enjoy him.

Whilst buying one figure for Curt I thought it rude not to buy a few more and that's how I ended up with another ten. The kids showed interest so I soon got the idea of painting these fellow for the kids, something they were really into. So this coming weekend should see them getting used for the first time and if all goes well I will be adding to the collection, for the kids you understand.

The bad guys (my nine year old daughters choice) I decided needing uniformity so these all got buff coloured coats, as a bunch they do look mean.

None of the poses look bad with a few looking really good, though the guy with the loot is my favourite.

I tried to dust up the coats at the bottom but it does not show a lot, three of the guys got jeans the others make do with trousers.

By comparison the good guys are a more mixed bunch though two had similar coloured long coats the two guys with badge's could not be more different. 

The guy with the blue bandanna with a little snow in his moustache looks real mean, a seasoned gunslinger for sure.

Again most of the figures from the set are nice and strong but I am no fan of the guy standing on the rock, I wonder if he takes that rock everywhere in case he needs to fire that rifle?

In the end it was quite a lot of fun to paint them even if the start was a pain, will I buy more Black Scorpion? I think it's a safe bet, just got to make sure the kids have fun playing the game.

Great work Ian and thanks so much for the excellent gunslinger. That hand-cannon he's hefting is quite impressive! I particularly like the veteran gunslinger with the blue bandana and also the dust effect you achieved with the sheriff wearing the long coat. I'm sure your kids must love all these guys.

This group of villains and heroes will give Ian 70 points. Well done and thanks again!