From AndrewS: 28mm Dark Age Skraeling Warband (200 points)

Andrew sends in this wonderful warband of Skraelings for us to gaze at in gobsmacked admiration.

From Andrew:

Here is the Skraeling limited edition warband box set from Gripping beast, these are all 28mm miniatures.

The force consists of 37 figures total: 1 group of 12 levy figures, 3 groups of 8 warriors and a Warlord. Overall painting these went well, I chose a simple method of defining the warrior groups by having three different coloured breech cloths and giving some a simple border to them. The war paint made each one within the group different as did the random allocation of shields. 

The shields proved to be a little troublesome as I had not thought to try them on the hands first, and after having painted them all they did not fit so I had to cut the backs out and re work the painting, again I wanted the shields to be more than just plain disks so took to stippling a variety of colours to represent buck skin and seal skin covers.

The Warlord was a complete joy to paint and a lot of fun, though I always like to give them an Impressive base as they form the centre piece of a war band, so I carved a piece of dense stryene and created a split level rock outcrop in which to mount him.

The whole force has been finished as if running through a flower meadow.

Wow, gorgeous stuff Andrew - very colourful fully realized. The extra work you put into the shields and groundwork has really paid off and the warlord looks suitably ferocious with his red warpaint and bone fetishes.

This very impressive warband will give Andrew a base of 185 points but I'm going tip it to 200 for the wonderful basework and shields. Bravo!

From MichaelA: Elephant-Drawn Indian Mutiny Artillery, Injured Grey and 'Hildy' (90 points)

MichaelA begins his ascent up the Challenge ladder with this amazing entry ranging across the Indian sub-continent, the American Wild West and all the way to Area 51.

From Michael:

Having had the good fortune and foresight to have the school holidays coincide with the start date of the challenge, I have been blessed with a couple of days of dedicated painting time (once, of course, a substantial amount of family and festive related duties were completed first!)  so without further ado, I can present my first entries.

A combined post of Mutineer Miniatures, 28mm Indian Mutiny range finally sees the completion of a the Elephant towing carriage, complete with Mahoot and an 18/24lb siege gun.  This was quite a chunk of metal and in some ways not as well sculpted as the resin version I had previously done, with the two halves of the body needing a fair bit of filling but once prepared it proved to be an enjoyable project that then inspired me to paint up the Naval Brigade crew, again from the same range, with another 18/24lb siege gun. 

Now it may seem a ridiculous leap from the Indian Mutiny to a Zombie Alien, but it was all to do with the paint!  Yes, British gun carriage grey seemed such an obvious choice for this poor infected freebie from the good people at 'Tengu Miniatures'.  Part of their 28mm zombie range, it is a little smaller than the others, but still holds the same exquisite attention to detail that I have come to expect from the company.

And then there was Hildy, my entry fee to this year's challenge.  What could be simpler than painting up a 28mm cowboy and sending it to Curt, saying inspired by Sam Peckinpah?  But then I started having a closer look at the man's oeuvre and came across the lesser known masterpiece that is 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue'.  Now as luck would have it, I still had a couple of those rather scantily clad cowgirls from the 'Black Scorpion' range and thought - perfect, Stella Stevens immortalized in resin!

I imagine that, like a good many of us, my carefree hobby days are about to become a tad problematic; progress may be hampered over the next week,  so I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Brilliant work Michael! The elephant-drawn artillery team is wonderful, the poor 'Grey' is suitably spooky-yet-pathetic, but 'Hildy' is the piece de resistance for me. She has such sass, such poise and such impressive...erm, guns! (Sorry, it was just crying to be said) And those embroidered 'Daisy Duke' shorts are something to behold as well!

This wonderful selection of models will give Michael 90 points (with 65 counting towards your 'Victorian Duel' with Phil and Greg). Great stuff Michael and thanks again for 'Hildy'!

From DaveD: The Wu Family from Serenity (40 points)

Dave adds to the local colour of 'Serenity' with the Wu Family.

From Dave: 

The brushes are flying!

"Serenity" already has Mr Wu (Blue Moon Tombstone set) and his pig pens - you have not watched Deadwood you need to! . I wanted to add to him and make a a little area of chinatown - the laundry will be along shortly-  so here we have the addition of the "Wu" family ,8 figures.

These are 28mm Obelisk Miniatures from the various merchant sets - there may well be some slightly less innocent ones along later. 

Really nice figures to paint,and generic enough that I should be able to slip them into some Pulp games that may be along next year. I have myself a pre Xmas target to meet and I am pleased with progress so far - it's been great to be back painting.

As I mentioned to Dave, Mr. Wu, in the 'Deadwood' series, only had a few words of english, but they were very memorable words, if not particularly polite.

Beautiful work Dave! An innocent business, eh? Hmm. I wonder if Serenity's hogs are as well-fed as Deadwood's...

The Wu family will provide Dave with 40 points. Great work Mr. Docherty.

From LeeH: 40mm Rogue Trooper (7 points)

From 'Dave the Wizard from Bromley' back to the pages of 2000AD, Lee brings us the grim blu-skinned Rogue Trooper!

From Lee:

I bought this excellent figure of Rogue Trooper from Foundry a few weeks ago along with the Judge Dredd model I have already entered into the Challenge. As with Dredd it stands 32mm foot to eye and 36mm overall so its quite a large model. The casting was excellent with virtually no mould lines or flash needing to be removed and all the details were crisp and finely sculpted, all of which made it a joy to paint. 

I have tried to stick to the colour scheme from the original comics but as with most of these characters some of the colours changed over time and with different illustrators. I have gone with a slightly darker interpretation of the blue skinned genetic warrior. 

This was a fun model to paint and will join Dredd in my modest (ie far too small) display cabinet. So all that remains is for Rogue to scour Nu-Earth for the Traitor General and avenge the Quartz Zone Massacre! 

Awesome entry Lee! As a teenager I spent many a toxin-fueled evening reading 2000AD and thoroughly enjoying the adventures of Rogue and his biochipped equipment: Helm, Bagman and Gunnar. From these photos Rogue's skin tone looks quite vibrant, which seems a good fit for this scale. Nice!

Rogue will give Lee 7 points - well done!

From BurkhardS: 28mm WWII Soviet Snipers (8 points)

Burkhard debuts with this pair of snipers to provide support for his WWII Soviet collection.

From Burkhard:

These are just two Soviet snipers from Victory Force Miniatures. While I have almost 300 WWII Russians painted up, I only have one scout sniper and always wanted some regular snipers. 

Now when I painted those other Soviets up a few years ago, I forgot the subject and their uniforms were extremely boring, so they simply received the base colors with a homemade brown wash. To make sure these two match, I went he same way. So essentially a very poor paint job, but a fast one, since these were done while I was waiting for the filler on the first fortnight theme to dry. But I promise my other entries for the challenge will look better!

They look great Burkhard, though the prone fellow has been sculpted with a face only his baba would love. ;)

I will follow my standard practice and give half points for the prone fellow (rounded up) so 8 points total for these lads. Welcome back to the Challenge Burkhard!

From BenG:1:72 Napoleonic Bavarian Cavalry (56 points)

Ben sends in his first entry from sweltering Australia, a wonderful regiment of of Bavarian Chevau-Leger cavalry from the Napoleonic Wars.

From Ben:

These are Bavarian cavalry for Eugene's IV Corps command using 1/72nd figures by HaT. We're fighting the battle of Borodino in early Jan, so I'm speedily finishing the last few units, hence the quality of this unit. I've just made them wargames ready without putting a lot of the detail l usually add on these chaps.

The fellow with the guidon (blowing in a very stiff breeze by the look of it!) originally had a little peg sticking out of the pole to hold which looked very odd, so I trimmed the peg and twisted the arm so that he held it at an anatomically correct position.

I toyed with the idea of putting a Bavarian blue diamond pattern down the white stripe of the guidon, but my skill level wasn't up to it. If I had more time, maybe I would have persisted, but I settled for a white diagonal stripe instead.

Ah, it's great to see our first Napoleonic entry - thanks for this Ben. While you say these are a rush job  I think they are very fine. I hope they do Eugene proud when they meet the Russians at The Moskova.

This regiment of cavalry will give Ben 56 points. Great job and welcome back to the Challenge Ben!

From ByronM: 15mm WWII German 88 Anti-tank Guns & Prime Movers (45 points)

Byron cracks on, but changes subject, with this excellent battery of German 88's.

From Byron:

Seeing all Greg’s 15mm stuff lately, has reminded me that I have a TONNE of Flames of War Germans left unpainted from my foray into the game back when it first came out.

One piece that I always meant to paint up was the 8.8cm Flak platoon.  However, due to their cost in game, I never got them any further than assembly, as I never used them.  I dug them out and primed them the other day so that I would have some 15mm stuff to contribute to Gregs 15mm games that he is running lately.  

They are not my best work as they are done to match the rest of the Germans I did 10 years ago, I could likely do better, but then they would stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the army.  I might have to go back someday and clean up the whole army, but at this point in time they are more just to have them done.  I am using this “event” as a way to clean up so many Gamer ADD induced unfinished projects.  Hope you don’t mind if my submissions are a little eclectic over the course of the event.  The main focus will be my Great War force, but there will be some odd ball entries as well.

The Platoon consists of a Command SMG team, a KFZ 15 field car, 2 8.8cm Flak36 guns with crew and sd KFZ 7 8tonne half-tracks.  I still have the transport carriages “someplace” along with the guns to mount on them to show them as limbered for transport.  Not sure they are still call limbered when being transported of if that is just for older horse drawn artillery, so continues my historical weapon “edjumacation" I guess.  When I finally find the transport carriages / guns I will get them painted up and post them as well.

Beautiful work Byron. There are few things more 'eyelid-closing' for your opponent than revealing an '88' from an ambush position (much less two of them).

These two guns, their crew and their attendant vehicles will give Byron 45 points. Well done!

From TamsinP: 15mm Seleucid Cavalry (48 Points)

I was getting a little concerned that we had lost Tamsin amongst the rampaging herd of painters crashing out of the starting gate but here she is with her debut entry for the 4th Challenge.

From Tamsin:

Slightly delayed due to a nasty gut bug, here is my opening entry for this year's Challenge. These are twelve 15mm Seleucid xystophoroi cavalry from Donnington Miniatures.

I'm not currently planning to build a Seleucid army of my own, but my doubles partner didn't have enough elephants or cavalry for the army we are planning on taking to a tournament in January, so I volunteered to buy and paint up the missing units.

Unfortunately, I began work on the nellies before the Challenge started, so they don't count for points, but I have included them in one picture for their sheer glamour...

That's a fabulous unit of cavalry, Tamsin and I agree, the nellies do add that bit of something (well, a lot of something if you're the poor bloody infantry walking behind them...).

These finely arrayed xystophoroi will give Tamsin 48 points. Well done and welcome back Mlle.P!