From IanW: 6mm French Napoleonic Infantry (200 points)

From Ian:

I finally finished the Grand submission, well it's from the Grande Army. Followers of my blog will not be surprised to see 6mm Napoleonic figures from me as a mate had the idea that we should do Waterloo in 2015 (for some reason?????) OK I said not realizing the idea was to have every battalion from the battle so here is a shot in the arm for my French.

Thirteen 28 figure battalions of the new Baccus infantry with four Adler Infantry mounted commanders for a total of 364 PBI and 4 mounted. You see I was not doing nothing this last ten days.

I really like the new Baccus French figures, they retain the same ease of painting but the castings are nice and crisp as the old moulds were getting tired. These are not really Waterloo figures and I have used the 1804 flags as they will see a lot more action away from Belgium such as Spain and Russia.

When the Waterloo French are released by Baccus I will of course buy into these and I can't wait for the figures in greatcoats to come my way for something a little quicker to paint.

I ran close to running out of flags as I have just two left so until I restock the other five battalions I have prepped will have to wait their turn. I think I just have a total of twelve unpainted battalions left so will have to order more. I have a bunch of Adler yet to be worked but these will wait till after the challenge as the amount of time to prep and paint are much longer and I would prefer to do them at the more relaxed pace.

Thirteen Battalions was a little (lot) more than advisable and I am glad to have finished them and will be taking a break from 6mm for a few weeks before I tackle the Zulu's or Landwehr I have in my to do boxes. So next up will be some of the 28mm figures I got in for the challenge then probably back to Rome.

Wooo! Grande Armee indeed. Ian, that there is a boat-load of Napoleonics, make no mistake. This lot will give Ian 200 points, with a little sugar added for the brave banners. Well done Ian!

From KevH: 28mm Two Crusader Orders(!) (358 points)

We continue with KevH's Winter Paint Offensive. Look out Andrew!

From Kev:

Next up are two Crusader military orders.

Once again these are 1/72 (or 20mm) - mostly Strelets with a few Italeri. These are for 'Hail Caesar'.

Each order has 6 mounted knights.

16 foot knights with spears.

...and 2 sub units of 8 archers and 8 crossbows.

The Hospitallers are in black while the Templars are in white.

Total of 12 mounted and 64 foot.

Whew! Another massive submission and this is not the last from him so stay tuned. 

These two warrior orders of Christendom (with all the trimmings) will give Kev 358 points. Woo! 

From PaulS: 28mm Zombie Horde (222 points)

This fabulous Zombie herd provides Paul with a huge points haul.

Here are one or two more zombies for the Challenge.

The horde continues to swell with the addition of 26 new walkers, 14 runners, 3 fatties and a massive Abomination. The Abomination is, as you can see from the last shot, absolutely huge, towering over the standard walkers. 

Just to prove that I've not cheated and stuck the last batch of zombies in again, there's a full crowd shot at the bottom with the original 14 walkers, 2 runners and 2 fatties from last time. 

I wanted to submit the finished batch of normal zombies from Season 2's Kickstarter today, but I wasn't happy with the last 3 fatties and Abomination, so those will come soon. Only another hundred or so zombies left to paint :/

Wonderful work Paul! All of them are so characterful, but that Abomination is pretty nasty indeed (and good lord, please tell me that's a belt hanging between his legs...).

This horde of Zombies will give Paul a monstrous 222 points! Wow! Great job Paul.

From DaveD: 54mm Cowboy (12 points)

Dave treats us with another of his 54mm cowboys.

From Dave:

Here we have a further 54mm addition. "Poncho" man...he is by  Pegaso Models. While not as absolutely finely detailed at the Andrea equivalents , still very well sculpted and cast. Of course the increased scale means no easy options with the poncho patterns. 

I really enjoyed the challenge of this one. I have spent some time perusing various catalogues and now have. "Little list" of target figures. I want to take this Old West adventure on a stage from the the 28's shoot em up to something perhaps a little more personal for the characters.  My mind is full of ideas with this, as much as the possible spectacle of the larger scale. 

So I am looking for a name for him people.. Let's have your ideas..

Oh and I think there was a certain other character who wears a poncho... :-)

Hmm, he looks like a Charlie to me. 'Charlie Harlson' perhaps? Anyway, he's brilliant and I really like the pattern you created for his poncho.

Charlie Harlson and his amazing poncho will give Dave 12 points. Lovely work Mr. D!

From TimB: 28mm Feudal Japanese

Tim sends in this stonking submission for his Feudal Japan project.

From Tim:

STILL More Feudal Japanese in 28mm. This is a mix of 37 Perry, Dixon and Black Hat Miniatures.  Finishing this batch up last night put me at 1000 28mm foot painted in 2013. 

The temperature in Saskatoon is -30°C with a windchill of -40°C... I damn near froze my fingers off trying to arrange these for picture taking - I do like taking pictures of my minis outside in the natural light whenever possible. Sometimes when I don't get one that's totally in focus I'd go back out and set them up again... not doing that today... so one or two of these pics aren't totally in focus. 

Four assorted armoured Ronin from Black Hat Miniatures. 

The backs of the Black Hat Ronin (to show off all their annoying... er... highly detailed cording) 

A merchant and two ronin I imagined as his yojimbo (bodyguards) - all from Dixon Miniatures

The backs of the Dixon Miniatures Merchant and Ronin. 

A few female samurai from Dixon Miniatures

The backs of the female samurai from Dixon Miniatures

A couple teppo gunners from Dixon Miniatures

Ashigaru teppo gunners from Perry Miniatures. 

I have about seven Bushi buntai that I am working on - the colours for each are based on the clans form the Legends of the Five Rings games (as many of the miniatures are from their old Clan Wars games). I thought I'd get a few Teppo gunners so they could all have the option of fielding one if they wished - hence the wildly different colours of the Ashigaru above.

The rest of the batch I finished up is a (more or less) complete Ikko-Ikki Buntai for Ronin. The entire buntai - all from Perry Miniatures. 

These are the leaders The Hanshou (the big boss - on the left) and a Monto Gashira (on the right) 

Four Monto (foot soldiers) armed with teppo

Five more Monto with various armour and close combat weapons. 

Eight Peasants with a mix of yari and improvised weapons. I also have a few other Perry Miniatures peasants I painted earlier with the "villagers" that I could add in to pad out the ranks. 

In the game the Ikko-Ikki buntai adds up to a little over 200 points - unlike the Bushi or Sohei buntais that would, for the most part, only be able to field one teppo gunner - due to the high point cost of their significantly better troops and thus low number - I could probably field three or four of these in a 150 point buntai. I am curious to see how swarms of totally crap troops do against the considerably smaller but hard-hitting and well armoured Samurai/Ashigaru of a Bushi Buntai.

Now... to find some "Villains" to paint...

Awesome effort Tim! These are all just wonderful. The samurai corded-armour is excellent but my favourite is still your patterning on the kimonos, robes and trousers. Very nice.

This group of 47 ministures will give Tim 200 points, with some points added for the detail work on the armour and the various patterns on the clothing. Well done!

From AndrewS: 20mm Nubian Infantry (200 points)

In an effort not to let Kent rest on his heels Andrew comes in with this great entry featuring Nubian infantry for his Hail Caesar collection.

From Andrew:

These were given to me as part of my Christmas Present from my boys. This year I want to build Several biblical period armies for myself and KevH to play with Hail Caesar. I decided to start with the Nubians as a long time adversary of Egypt, they were top of my wish list this year.

These 48 figures are all Hat 1/72 Nubian Infantry, and these have been split up to make three light infantry warbands. I have had do some conversion work to a few of the figures as the box sets lack enough spear/javelin-men in the boxes. A relatively straightforward task of taking a sharp scalpel and removing the clubs before drilling the hands and replacing with a blunted dressmakers pins. These 3 warbands took 8 hours to paint from scratch and I spent another 2 hours on the bases. 

I have kept the painting too a base colour and highlight over the primer. At this scale two colours can often be more effective than full 3 colour work and certainly at gaming distance there is no significant difference.

These 3 units will form part of the 1st Division so I have colour coded the loin protectors, in this case they are all green, however each unit has its own pattern, one with plain another with a stripe and the third with a series of dots so as to be able to distinguish them apart.

I have also given each units shields a different set of colours, one is plain hide another is brown and cream and the third brown and white as further definition. As with the Skraelings I decided to use the stipple effect to represent the hides, I was quite pleased with the final results. 

The hardest choice too make was for the bases something I do like to have just right as they can make or break the look of any army. With these being a step down from my usual painting style also a little bit of extra work on the bases give a better overall finish to the whole army, also I have been researching and at the time of the conflicts Nubia was a very fertile land, so I did not want to have the bases feel too arid.

So I raided my supply cupboard and mixed a blend of three various coloured flocks, to give a look of sun bleached grassland and a dryer feel as they will be played with on a desert table. I also scattered patches of rocky ground throughout the bases, painting them as bits of sandstone so in brown shades rather than the black and grey usually seen. They were then finished with a few tufts used sparingly.

What a great gift from your boys, Andrew! They look fabulous and I really like the basework you've gone with as the colour-tone works well with the figures.

These three units of Nubian infantry will give Andrew a cool 200 points, with a few points added for his conversion work for the spearmen and the great hide shields. After a little over two weeks into the Challenge he is less than 100 points away from his initial target. Well done Loki!

From DallasE: 28mm Warhammer Fantasy Skaven (75 points)

From Dallas:

Here are some quick pics of my next submission - 15 28mm Skaven. Sorry about the quality, still trying to figure out the new camera...

Nice work Dallas! These will be a nice reinforcement to your impressive Skaven collection. I think it's really great seeing all these Warhammer Fantasy models coming out of mothball storage and getting some paint-love.  

These 15 models will give Dallas 75 points to add to his tally. Well done buddy!