From ClintB: 20mm Arabs Mounted on Camels (80 points)

From Clint: 

These are 10 Camel Mounted Arabs by IT Miniatures WW1 in 20mm. I will be using them for a show game in June and if I get them all finished, in March as well. The game will be set in the Arab Revolt 1916-1918. Most people are only familiar with this conflict due to the recently departed Peter O'Toole and the film "Laurence of Arabia". 

These figures come in a mix of rifle and sword armed and a choice of standing or walking Camels usually supplied in a random mix. That being the case and as I will need between 35-50 of them in all I will have to vary the colours in later batches.

I saw the first test models of these and I'll say now what I said then: beautiful work Clint! I love the whole idea of this project. One of those, if he wasn't doing it I would scenarios. I look forward to seeing it develop over the next few months.

These 10 camel jockeys (wow, I can actually say that in good conscience) will give Clint 80 points. Well done!

From BenD: 15mm WWII Lend-Lease Soviet Armour (130 points)

Ben has his Challenge debut with this excellent herd of Lend-Lease Soviet Matildas.

From Ben:

Hello All,

Been a few weeks since the last time I did an update for my Soviets, so here is a nice little Matilda horde made up of 21 Zvezda Matilda models with a little conversion work. These are also my first models for The Fourth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. So hopefully a nice up chunk of points for me!

I have to be honest I have completely fallen for the current "meta" with this purchase. With the new Red Bear the reduced cost, top armour 2 and a surprisingly good all around armour, the Matilda is a great infantry assault unit.

The Zvezda models come with no open hatches, a problem as I want the commanders to be visible to make it easier spot them in the middle of the game. This was solved by cutting off the modeled off hatches and replacing the whole section with some spare Battlefront T-34 hatches I was given by my friend Robin.

Overall I'm happy with the models and the paint job. The Zvezda model is a pretty good model, I would say one of their best when a few of them have been a little hit or miss.

Next up I have a company of Stuarts and 21 Soviet Shermans. Thanks for looking and until next time...

Brilliant work Ben! Did you use an airbrush for these models, the finish is very smooth. Great decals and weathering as well.  I also really like the Soviet tank commander signalling with his special, 'What did we say? All Together! What did we do? One at a time. ' flag.

These 21 (!) Matildas will give Ben a base of 126 points but I'm adding a few more for the hatch mods and commanders.

From AaronH: 28mm Early Imperial Roman Auxiliary Cavalry (63 points)

Here’s six 28mm medium auxiliary cavalry for my EIR Romans.  These are, again, from Warlord Games.  The difference is that I was very unhappy with these castings.  They are, without question, the worst models that I’ve gotten from them and I will not buy any more.  The flash was unbelievable.  There are large areas that are just formless lumps.  The white metal spears are crap.  I’ll be investing in a bunch of brass spears for all future uses.

Having said all of that, I’m pleased with how they look.  I love playing with cavalry.  I hate painting horses.  I used this batch as an exercise in painting horses.  I still have some things I’m not happy with; definitely room for improvement.   The faces need work and I still need to figure out how I’m going to do the highlighting and depths on them, I didn’t get it right on these six. 

I have another six of these to finish up and I’ll be done with my Romans, unless I strip the command models and re-prime them.  It’s tempting, hmmm…

Lovely work Aaron (though it would have been nice to have a better depth of field to better see all six models). I too find cavalry a bit daunting but I always feel great when they get completed. Good to know about your troubles with Warlord castings. I find one of the unplanned byproducts of the Challenge is that it can be a great resource for getting information, samples and opinions of a wide range of products.  Whiles these were real b@stards to clean-up I must say you did a wonderful job on them (I really like the cavalry mask on the standard-bearer) - well done.

This half-dozen cavalrymen will give Aaron 63 points, which includes a wee bit for the nice groundwork and shields.

From PeterD: 28mm War of 1812 American Militia (48 points)

Peter debuts with these great dismounted dragoons for his War of 1812 project.

From Peter:

I signed up for Curt's 4th Painting Challenge, but was much later off the starting line than many others.  I plead an acute case of real life - 120 Stats papers, 30 Financial mathematics papers, swapping the furniture between two bedrooms in our house and the return of our daughter after a storm delayed flight home from University.  I swear that Curt sets the timing up to put me at a maximum disadvantage - really Curt I have both Final exams and Christmas to deal with.  [Douglas, you don't fool me for a minute. I know that even if the conditions were absolutely perfect you'd still be a drag-ass paint slug...- ed. :P ] 

Anyway, this year I've decided to keep my submissions to bite sized morsels rather than full meals.  First up are these 8 members of the Trojan Greens, a War of 1812 Militia unit from upstate New York. Figures are kit bashed from the Perry 28mm plastic dismounted French Dragoons.  Construction wise I quite like the Perry plastics, but I am rather ham-fisted in my approach.  

In this case, the major bashing involved trimming the boot detail off of the rank and filers to represent trousers.  I left the officer in boots and breaches as this seems to be a unit composed of uppity upstate mucky-mucks, and I figured that the officers would be trumped up Johnnies who would dress like gentry. Otherwise, I swapped in arms from the mounted figures for the trumpeter and officer.  I left them with the cavalry belts and cartage box, I'm sure a button counter will tell me that's not accurate but it works.  

I don't have a lot of info about the unit - they were rifled armed and from the Albany area.  They appear to have served along the St. Lawrence frontier and I believe that they were one of the volunteer units that existed pre-war - with the members providing their own uniforms and drilling on their own time.  I found a uniform plate here, and references here about an existing officer's coat.  The black belts on black facing and plastron always blurs details but I think that the yellow lace shows the difference well enough for my purposes.  I am not 100% happy with my lace work, but decided it was close enough and experience has told me that fussing about with yellow on black just makes things worse.  There is a similar black on black effect with the helmets and crests, but I find that a wash effect on the horse hair shows a difference in texture to get the effect reasonably.

Great job Peter! It's always nice to see something outside the main tropes of figure gaming. What system are you basing these for? Black Powder? 

These eight New Yorkers will give Peter a base of 40 points but I'm adding another 8 for the modifications he did. Welcome to the roster Peter!

From AndrewS: 28mm Napoleonic French & Dark Age Saxons (290 points)

Andrew hasn't let Kent's challenge gone answered and so submits this fine Napoleonic French battalion and a large Dark Age Saxon warband.

From Andrew:

The first unit of my Napoleonic French collection, I thought I would break the ice so to speak with the simplest unit of the lot a battalion of 16 line infantry in greatcoats!

These are a mix of 28 mm Perry Plastics and Foundry Metals, they do seem to go together quite well although the Foundry have come in a tad smaller, but I am happy with the overall look of the unit.

The version of Black powder myself and Kevin have adapted means that we only need 12 or 16 figure Infantry battalions, which helps keep down the costs of building an army in this period but the biggest bonus is that we do not have to paint 24 or 36 detailed figures to make a battalion.

The second lot I have for you is a small commission I agreed to take on, the client only told me he had purchased some Saxons via eBay and just asked me to paint them up in my usual style.

The vagaries of such instruction escaped me until I saw what he had sent, the whole lot was a real mixed bag of figures, so my first task was to try and sort them into types and then try to make it look like a force. In all there are 42 Foundry 28 mm Saxons of various types and quality, some of the moulds used to cast these figures were past there best and they were the devil to clean, two actually retain a mould line, it was that or lose most of the face trying to sort it. I have managed to disguise the issue in the painting though.

The first picture is an overview of the 42 figures, I decided the only way I could tie these together was to have a colour scheme on the shields that brought them together.

Whoa! What a stonking submission! Fabulous work Andrew. I really like that French battalion. I too have Foundry and Perry castings mixed together within units and find they work quite well with one another (not totally surprising since they are from the same sculptor). 

These two fine groups of figures will give Andrew an impressive 290 points, enough for him to claim the lead once again. Well done!