From SteveM: 15mm WWII D-Day Assault Craft & American Artillery (365 points)

Steve has been busy as well bashing-out these excellent troops for an upcoming D-Day event at this local club.

From Steve:

'I have some D-Day LCVPs that will go into services for a big D-Day event in June at the local store. This is the first batch of many that I need to do. On one of them I'm playing with adding some water effects to show the waves hitting it and water running of the top/sides.'

Then I have a battery of 105mm US howitzers.  These are us570 models by Battlefront and will be attached to some paras that are primed, but not getting painted by the deadline.

Excellent work Steve! I really like the look of the landing craft with the troops crammed inside - pretty sobering stuff. This group will give Steve an impressive 365 points, vaulting him into 4th place - Great job!

From RayR: 15mm Russian and Japanese Machine Gun Teams (320 points)

Ray tells me that he is punch drunk with painting but sends in this great submission of Japanese machine guns to keep the pressure on.

All of these models are 15mm Irregular Miniature castings. This first group are the Russians.

Ray makes us wonder how the Japanese won the war with their apparent inability to load their machine guns...
:)

Next are eight teams of Russian machine guns.

Excellent stuff, Ray! These guns and their crews will give you 320 points which places you just in front of Kent! You have First Place! But wait, I think I have an entry from Kent in my email folder...

From PhilH: 28mm Gun Moll & Napoleonic Spanish Clergyman (10 points)

Phil sends us his last entries to the Challenge with this excellent 1930s gun moll for Sarah's Choice and a Spanish clergyman to give some spiritual fervour to his Napoleonic Guerillas.

From Phil:

'I wanted to finish a few bits this weekend and here they are. Compared to some of the Challengers, I might seem to be slacking on final straight, but I actually ended up having quite a lot of hobby time over the weekend, which I ended up spending prepping for future projects.'

'So, for my final set, part one: a 30s lady as my second entry for Sarah's Choice.' 

'She is from Copplestone's gangster range. I found a pack of street characters and a pack of ganster's molls in a bargain bin at the Cavalier show the other month. I picked them up for a future Pulp scenario planned involving a crowded scene, like a train station. This fashionable lady is the first of those.' 

'And finally, a certain elegance in my final entry, coming full circle with my last Spanish clergyman, if you recall I started the challenge with a miniature from the same pack - Perry Miniatures (who else?)' 

Excellent work, Phil! These two will give you another 10 points to add to your total. Its great that you reached your point-goal in the Challenge. Perhaps next year I'll challenge you to 1K?

From ChrisP: 28mm Greeks

Chris sends in his last entry of the Challenge with these ancient Greeks to bolster his great mod to SAGA.

From Chris:

'Here are my final offerings for the competition, just enough to crack the 2000 point mark! These are my last (and slightly rushed) offering because I am off to the south of NZ to look through really, really big telescopes at the stars and planets. Which will be awesome, but unfortunatly will be the end of my painting time!

First we have Four more Hoplites for my SAGA Greeks, these guys are more of the Myrmidon elites (bronze shields with curtains), giving me the chance to have 12 Hearthguard! All pretty standard, sorry for the shiny shields- I have run out of time to let the varnish dry on the shields, they are (and will be) much less shiny in person!'

'Next up is 4 kitbash Peltasts, converted from the unarmoured Hoplite bodies, married up with Illyrian Helmets with some green stuffing to make them not have a large hole in the back, as well as arms (again) from some Warlord Games Ancient Britons. I am not super happy with them- again they are (and will be) much less shiny in person, but they sort of lack a bit of "pop". I will revisit them in the future once I work out how to build some shields for them.'

These lads will give Chris 40 points which will indeed push him into the 2K territory - Bravo, well done!

From ChristopherS: 'Sarah on Safari' 28mm Victorian Adventuress in Africa (5 points)

Christopher sends in this great entry for Sarah to admire - she tells me that she's going to have a very challenging job ahead in her choosing her favourite female figure with so many excellent submissions. 

From Christopher:

'Here is my entry for "Sarah's Choice" part of the competition titled Sarah on Safari.  In exploring the Dark Continent and establishing settlements women in addition to organization, teaching and running households also took part in the defense of the community against dangerous animals and hostile natives. To sum it up these women had true grit and should be admired.'

'The figure is 25mm Foundry sculpt and was quite enjoyable to paint. I used a traditional color scheme of the time for traveling in Africa and the paints used were Vallejo.'

'Hopefully Sarah finds something of interest from this and I think the category was a nice and original idea.'

Great job, Christopher! I really like the dappled mud on her long skirt - very nicely done. This will add 5 points to Christopher's tally.