From KentG: 28mm Napoleonic French Artillery (120 points)

Kent switches from the Seven Years War back to Napoleonics with these wonderful French guns of the line.

From Kent:

Here we have four 28mm Front Rank French artillery and crew. Two are line foot and two are horse artillery. 

They were very nice to paint - slightly bigger than my Perry guns, but I quite like them. Sadly they don't get to stay at my place.

Lovely work Kent. I base my stuff on thin steel in order to have a low profile, but I must say I really do like the chunkiness of your bases - they give a great aesthetic.

These four guns and their crews will give Kent 120 points. Great Guns!

From MilesR: 28mm ACW Confederate Artillery (60 points)

Two more 28mm Perry ACW artillery pieces and crews. These are metal figures and represent the last of my metal artillery sets on the “ye lode lead pile”. I’ve seen the greens for the upcoming plastic Artillery and I’m very much looking forward to them. 

 

Theses two guns and their crews have been painted as “generic rebs” and don’t really belong to any specific unit. They’ll see good use on the tabletop and bring my Confederate artillery arm up to six guns and crews - almost a match for those damn Yankees!

Great work Miles! I've typically based my artillery along with their crews but I can see the attraction of individual basing for its flexibility of placement on the tabletop and for skirmish gaming. I quite like the look of these, all arrayed to punish some Yanks.

These two guns with their crews will give Miles 60 points. Well done!

From TamsinP: 15mm Thirty Years War Artillery (40 points)

Tamsin submits a group of ten regimental guns for her Thirty Years War collection.

From Tamsin:

After the mammoth efforts of the Swiss halberdiers and Korean missile troops, followed by the highly detailed work on the coureurs de bois, I fancied a quick win. Looking around the mass of lead I had primed ahead of the Challenge, my eyes fell on two projects  - a bunch of 10 regimental guns for my 30 Years War army and another project.

I wasn't expecting these to be ready quite so quickly, but the basing gunk had dried by Saturday evening so I decided to finish them.

These ten guns are 15mm from Donnington Miniatures. In FoG:R they are quite handy attachments for infantry units (where permitted by army lists) as they give an extra dice during shooting and impact phases for very little cost. 

These are mounted on 25x25mm bases as they are treated as markers rather than bases. I've included a couple of pictures of a marker with a unit of pike & shot.

Very nice Tamsin. They look very cool when combined with your pike and shot units, though perhaps a lone gunner with each piece would help to complete the picture? 

These ten guns will give Tamsin 40 points to pop her over the 500 mark - great work!

From MilesR: 28mm ACW Artillery (40 points)

Miles starts off from where he left off last year with an ACW entry featuring two pieces of artillery and some crew.

From Miles:

Here is my first entry in the Challenge - a 28mm Perry ACW artillery crew and 2 guns (a rifled cannon and a 12lb smoothbore). The gentlemen firing the cannon has a bit of a holiday theme what with his red coat and white beard. Could it be that Santa took sides in the War between the States?

Up next is another regiment of ACW soldiers in the background.

I'm sure Santa was a rebel at heart so the theme fits. ;) These fine two guns with their four crewmen will give Miles 40 points. 

From Tamsin: 15mm Renaissance Swiss Artillery (48 points)

From Tamsin:

Just to keep Ray rattled, here is another entry from me - some artillery for my Swiss. I knocked these out over the weekend while I was waiting for the gesso to cure on the 256 Swiss pikemen I'm about to start work on.

In FoG:AM, the Swiss are only able to field 2 bases of light artillery but you will notice that I have done up 4. I've done this so that I can mix and match as I see fit.

There are two bases with cannon and two with ribaudiquin (organ guns). AS always, I've tried as far as possible to represent the colours of all the cantons, but with only 12 figures some of them are representing more than one canton or aren't present.

Great work Tamsin, these look fabulous! What are the make of the figures BTW? They look like very nice castings.

These four artillery pieces, along with their various bits & bobs, will give Tamsin 48 points to add to her tally. Nice job!

From GregB: 15mm WWII Soviet Heavy Artillery (56 points)

From Greg:

The WW2 15mm submissions continue as a I purge my "pending pile" for this scale and period.  Of course, the pile just grows again afterward...but whatever.

Earlier I had submitted a pile of Soviet WW2 infantry and included an artillery "staff team" as part of the submission.  Well, here is the gun battery that came with them.  I think the inclusion of heavy artillery pieces right on the table is one of the many, many terrible elements of the "Flames of War" "game".  But this was a Christmas present from my brother, and I always feel like it is good painting karma to finish off figures that non-gamer family members get for you as gifts.  They don't care about my gaming hang ups - and why should they? - they are thrilled they managed to find figures that are roughly in the orbit of my interest, and I am touched when they try :) 

Besides, if anyone is going to use 122mm and 152mm towed guns in a tactical situation, it would be the Soviets.  And there are times in Spearhead games when the heavy divisional guns are represented on the table, so it is not a total wash.

The box set gives you enough trails and guns to make four 122mm or 152mm howitzers.  I think the "Flames of War" intent is that you would do all guns in the same calibre, but I mixed it up - three 122mm howitzers and one 152mm howitzer.   I did one gun with the barrel levelled off, imagining the crew ready to engage over open sights against a German spearhead that has come unexpectedly upon the battery. 

Whatever I think of their rules, I must once again give Battlefront compliments for literally giving you everything you might need - a command team, a staff team, an observer team and four guns with crew.  The staff team has a nice designer resin base, and so do each of the guns, which have all sorts of little extras sculpted on to them - ammo crates, shell casings, bits of scenery - it is a very nice effect. I wish I had done a little better placing the crew figures in their spots on the bases - often the round tabs on the crew do not completely fill the hole, and the seam really stood out once I started painting.  I tried to cover these over with ground work where I could, but the smarter move would have been to cover the seams with liquitex gel before I primed them. Next time. 

My WW2 Soviets now have some pretty serious firepower to stop and/or stomp the German invaders/defenders on the table. 

The pictures include the whole battery as Battlefront imagines it, but only the guns and crews count for this submission - the staff team was submitted earlier, and the command team and observer team were painted prior to the challenge. 

Beautiful work Greg. I completely sympathize with your hang-up of FoW insisting on having heavy artillery on the table - it just looks and plays so wrong. Nonetheless, these are marvellous models and you've done them great credit with your painting.

This fine collection of Soviet guns will give Greg 56 points. 

From BenG: 20mm Napoleonic British Rockets (16 points)

From Ben:

Here's a small entry I completed just for the hell of it. I bought this set on a whim ages ago and haven't actually painted any of the figures a) because they're butt-ugly, and b) our rules don't cover rockets! I'll check with the rules gurus to see if any of the big January games I haven't been involved in have special rules for rockectry, or else I'll have to make some up. I like the idea that any green troops or cavalry would have to undergo an automatic morale test to see if they are spooked by the hissing and screaming of the rockets on the first fire. Also some sort of randomised targeting that can even result in friendly fire would be the go, too! 

I like to add a little cotton wool to the end of artillerymen's portfires to give a little more detail, though I've learned not to add it til after the varnishing process. I've added it before spraying on the varnish but it collects in the fibres making a bit of a soggy mess!

The mold lines were pretty severe and required a bit of cleaning up, but the firing figure's face is pretty much obscured by the line. The set is an early HaT production which were only a slight improvement from Airfix's gnome-like sculpting, but I think they'll do for a novelty stand!

I dunno Ben, I think they turned out really well. I love smoke from the portfire - nice touch! I believe that when we've used rockets in the past we virtually had an equal chance of the opponents being able to choose the target, which made them quite fun (well, for me anyway).

These two rocketeers will give Ben 16 points.

From JohnM: 28mm Napoleonic Brunswick Artillery (150 points)

John has unlimbered his guns and entered the fray with this entry of two batteries of Napoleonic Brunswick artillery ('The Black Brunswickers').

From John:

Here is my first submission, the Brunswick Artillery at the Battle of Waterloo. The Brunswick Corps had 2 Artillery batteries, one Foot Artillery unit under Major von Moll and one Horse Artillery unit under Captain von Heinemann. Both units were comprised of six 6 pd cannon, I use a ratio of 1 base for 2 actual cannon, so here we have 6 bases. My research indicates that the equipment were captured French or Westphalian cannon, so I have gone with an olive green colour for the woodwork. I am not sure how much action they saw that day, but I am sure that they will see action on the wargaming table.

I must say the submissions to the Challenge have been impressive so far in both quantity and quality, I almost feel like a British Infantryman at Badajoz, trying to surmount the breach!

Beautiful work John and your excellent terrain really flatters them as well. They are Perry models, correct?

This veritable artillery park of guns will give John 150 points to mark his entry into this year's Challenge. Well done, mon ami!

From RayR: 15mm French & Indian Wars Limbers, Caissons, Wagons and Guns (678 points)

Ray sends in this very large and impressive assortment of caissons, limbers, wagons and artillery for his French and Indian Wars collection.

The 15mm wagons, carts and caissons are from Hallmark.

Ray is missing three guns from this British artillery group. He's wondering if Fran is somehow behind them having gone AWOL...

Here is the French artillery with their distinctive red-painted limbers and guns.

All the 15mm limbers and horses are from Essex whereas the guns are a mixture of Essex, Frei Corps and QFR.

There is no doubt about it, this was a HUGE submission from Ray. There are 86 horses, 46 limbers, wagons and caissons and 24 guns. All tallied this give him 678 points! EEP! Wow, excellent work, Ray! This firmly places Ray in second place - well done!

From Curt: 28mm Napoleonic Artillery Casualty Marker (15 points)

Here's another Napoleonic casualty marker I've made up. This one depicts a knocked-out French 12-pounder along with an unfortunate crewman and soldier. I plan to make more of these kind of vignettes to indicate damaged units, or particular spots that have seen hard fighting.

This is a relatively new 28mm resin and white metal set from Offensive Miniatures. The pack includes two separate models, but I cut them up, rearranged them to fit and added a Perry casualty to compose a larger scene.

A sobering scene, to be sure, but one I would assume to be fairly common during that period.

I'm going to give myself 15 points for this one.  Next will be some more markers and finally, perhaps the last of the Normans...