From BenG: 20mm Ancient Roman Cavalry and Gothic Skirmishers (52 points)

From Ben:

My 20mm late antiquity project is nearing critical mass where I can start exploring the rules. I've returned to the Roman forces in this entry including a stand of light and heavy javelin cavalry. For my Romans, I'll make more light cavalry, including horse archers, than the heavy cavalry. The Goths will have the opposite ratio. Both these Roman stands are by HaT.

The Gothic skirmishers include two Strelets figures, including a conversion where I've removed the original axe and replaced it with a javelin, and one by Miniart. The semi-circular base reflects the unformed nature of the unit while retaining the base frontage.

Very nice Ben! I'm enjoying watching this collection grow week by week. I also quite like your base idea signifying unformed/skirmish units - very clever that.

These Romans and Goths will give Ben 52 points. 

From BrendonW: 15mm WWII German Tiger Tank (7 points)

From Brendon:

15mm Tiger from Battlefront. I have had a desire to paint an early Tiger in Panzer Shadow Grey for a while and I purchased this a while back so the Challenge actually motivated me to finally get him completed. He wasn't ready in time for the Vehicle Bonus challenge but I was considering him for that.

He is on a recent addition to my terrain. Cratered Cobblestone Roads from Gale Force Nine. Should cause some interesting choices in games. The first Tigers deployed was in the Eastern Front in the Leningrad area Late 1942 I think. That's what time period I was aiming for. 

I made a roll for the turret from milliput to help break up the colour a little. I also glued an aerial on. I really like my tanks to look weathered and Tanks with a single colour are just great for adding dust and mud.

That's a great looking Tiger Brendon. I like seeing these Big Lads in early war colours from time to time as it's a nice break from the ubiquitous ambush pattern. The weathering is also very well done, giving this cat a realistic careworn look.

This early Tiger will give Brendon 7 points. Nice job!

From GregB: 40K Crimson Fist Assault Squad (25 points)

From Greg:

Continuing with my Crimson Fist project, here is an "assault squad" - five Marines equipped with many of the features that bring home the silliness of the grim, dark far future of Warhammer 40,000.  The Space Marines are genetically modified advanced warriors with access to incredible weapons, vehicles, power armour and artillery.  In short, they can deal with most any enemy. 

In spite of this, they for some reason see the need to equip squads of troops with pseudo-turbofan jump packs, chainsaws and heavy pistols.  Fellows like these! I guess there are some enemies you just need to bonk on the head, no matter what. 

These models are from the newer GW plastic range of figures - I would love to do Assault Marines from the Rogue Trader era, but the models are just too rare. To try and keep them consistent with my Rogue Trader marines, I used some precious spare "beakie" helmets to equip these guys. 

Since they are new models, I thought I would avoid the free-hand painted Chapter symbols and go with the handy GW decals instead.  Wrong decision - the decals are too large for the surface, and crinkle once you try and put them on the rounded shoulder pad.  They turned out like sh*t.  Complete sh*t - I nearly painted them over but figured it wasn't worth it. So it will be freehand (or fancy cast symbols) from now on…unless anyone out there knows of a better decal supplier??

Nice! I like how the old 'beakie' helmets work with the newer power armour. They seem a bit smaller than the 'stock' helmets but seem to better reinforce how big and bulky these power suits would be in relation to the men inside them.

These five assault marines will give Greg 25 points. Well done Dude!

From PhilH: 28mm Coureur de Bois and Explosions (30 points)

From Phil:

This week, I also took a step back from Victoriana to submit my contribution to the Bloggers for Charity project started by James and Andrew. I hope that they will be put to good use. 

These were a bit of a slog for me as I'm unaccustomed to painting irregulars in an efficient way, but I'm glad to have them finished in time to be based with everyone else's fine contributions. The fine sculpts by AW Miniatures took the paint well and have well-defined detail, though I feel they are in the classic style, with larger hands and weapons akin to some Artizan sculpts I've painted.  

I also offer a recent side-project - explosions and subsequent craters that I've been working on. The explosions are made using the classic wire frame and clump foliage stuck on with a hot glue gun (note - this uses a lot of glue!). Sprayed black, then lightly with white. I inadvertently started using a nearly empty can of white that was spitting blobs of paint, then dusted them with a new can to neaten them a little. I do like the end result as the larger blobs go e the effect of debris. The craters are resin offerings from Warlord Games. 

The nonchalant German was painted last year and is only included for scale. These five markers will be endlessly useful, to note shock in Black Powder (the smaller ones preferably) and pinned units in Chain of Command, or just to add flavour to in game photos. 

Very nice work all around Phil. The Coureur d Bois are great - suitably varied and rustic. I'm sure whomever gets these will be delighted with them. 

The explosion markers are brilliant. I have something similar but I think I will redo mine with your hot glue idea as it sounds more resilient to tabletop accidents. Unfortunately these are not eligible for scoring as I consider them to be terrain... (I know: Boo!! Hiss!!)

These hearty 'Runners of the Woods' will give Phil 30 points. 

From IanW: 28mm WWII German Sniper Markers (55 points)

From Ian:

Last entry for a couple of weeks as work kidnaps me!!!! 

Here we have eleven Blacktree Miniatures WWII German Infantry and again are based on the Sniper Reminder bases. 

Typically nice figures with loads of extra detail. I especially like the camo helmet covers and bareheaded figures.

Sorry the images are not that great but I have not the time or resources to do good ones this time

Still playing with the snow but was a tad disappointed with the results on a couple of these who may get a bit of reworking but I just don't have time at the moment as I am dashing off with work for nearly two weeks and will have little painting time when I come back for a few days  :-(

You all may be a bit relieved as I move onto some other figures for a bit, though I have some more WWII but they will be from the desert though I should also have my first Winter War figures waiting for me when I get back so they may jump the queue.

Great work on these markers Ian - you'v got these down to a cottage industry for yourself! I quite like your snow basing. The only thing I'd suggest, and I think I had the temerity to mention this with Alan's winter Huns as well, is that the underlying grass should be yellow as it would have largely gone into winter dormancy before the snow flew. 

These eleven markers will give Ian 55 points. Well done.