From ChrisP: 28mm ACW, Taliban & Ronin #6 (368 points)

From Chris:

Just like the title says, more American Civil War, more blue bellies.

This time we have the 56th Pennsylvanian to complete the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Corps, along with a skirmisher stand.

Then we have the beginning of the Iron Bridge, the 1st Brigade of the 1st Corps resplendent in their Hardee Hats. These are Perry Plastics, which have been given new heads from Steve Barber Miniatures. The command figures also come from Steve Barber. I do like the changing of the heads, it makes them nice and different from the other (hordes) of Union infantry. These two units will represent the 6th Wisconsin and the 2nd Wisconsin.

The 1st Maine Cavalry gets represented too, just union blue troopers on horses, nothing extraordinary! The 1st Maine Cavalry were the provost guard for the 1st Corps at Gettysburg.

Lastly we have three of the major Union commanders from Gettysburg. On the left, Hancock who commanded 2nd Corps and who was with 1st Corps briefly on day one. In the centre, Meade himself, riding a white charger, saving the day (and all that). If I cared to, I could have found out what colour his horse actually was, but I liked the idea of him riding to save the day! On the right, we have Abner Doubleday who was in command of the 3rd Division, 1st Corps. He was also briefly in charge of the entire Corps, when Reynolds was killed.

Then to a lonely Taliban with an RPK light machinegun. I needed another one of these guys for Skirmish Sangin (LMGs are great), so I picked one up when I did the order from Eureka for the NVA previously seen here.

Here is my 10th Helicopter, this one to support my Modern US and British armies in Skirmish Sangin. To be fair, you don't strictly need to have the helicopter, but you know what? It looks way cooler to have the model!

This is an AH-64A Apache helicopter, which has been upgraded with the Longbow Radar equipment. The kit is 1/48 from Academy, and was a bit of a pig to make actually. There were needlessly complicated pieces (4 parts to make something which could easily be one) and there was also no pilots given with the model. But, it looks damn cool, a couple of decals to make the it looks less drab, it is ready to go, with it's 30mm cannon, hellfire missiles and rocket pods!

Lastly is the Green Samurai, another Eureka figure. He was originally red, but I just couldn't get excited about the colour scheme. So, here he is in a nice earthy green. Should be enough to pay my way, right Curt?

This will probably be my last entry, there is one thing I am working on currently, but i am not sure it will get done before 7pm tonight (kiwi time). So, thank you Curt for running an excellent competition once again, thank you for making me get off my lazy ass and get painting, I have completed projects which have been looming for years, started some new ones and thoroughly enjoyed sparring with James with the top spot!

I am most happy with...Refinding the enjoyment of plastic kits, that HMMWV was great fun to build and looks damn good too.

I am most annoyed about...Putting big fat thumb prints all over my MH-6 helicopters. Although it made me do better with the Huey, so it had a purpose!

Next time I will...Paint my Thirty Years War! I had so many plans to get them done! But I got distracted by EVERYTHING ELSE.

Great work again Chris. You've got a great start on your Iron Brigade which I'm sure you'll have done within the week. :) Ronin #6 is fabulous. I really like the green and light yellow combination (and a great sculpt to boot!).

This great selection of figures will give Chris 368 points securing his place at the lead. 

Thanks again Chris for treating us to your blistering pace and tremendous enthusiasm for the hobby. Bravo to you!

From ChrisP: 15mm WWII American Infantry & Vehicles (373 points)

So as we head into the last hours of the Challenge my inbox begins to 'ping' like a German sub running the straights of Gibraltar...  Life is good! (And thank goodness I took the day off.)

From Chris:

So, remember when I decided to repaint my whole 15mm US army? Well, I forgot. Which was good (I went a bit loopy there), but I remembered that I hadn't quite finished!

This is the last of my repainting, there are a few vehicles which I need to do, but all the infantry is done, plus most of the vehicles. All figures are battlefront.

First up is the third rifle platoon. Exactly as the other two, one command base, 9 rifle bases and a bazooka team. Nothing really to say about them!

Next is a mortar platoon, with 4 81mm mortar tubes. A full platoon is six, but I couldn't for the life of me find the other two mortars. They are liable to be lost in the move I would expect. They will probably turn up tomorrow no doubt...

Then onto some artillery. First battery is made of 4 105mm howitzers, with staff team, command team and observer.

Supporting them is a battery of T19 105mm howitzers, which is the same cannon, but this time bolted onto a M3 Halftrack! Offering mobility, but due to the extra weight, poor cross country ability and the limited traverse offered by the mount, the T19 was a stop gap measure before the arrival of the M7 Priest. Cool model tho.

The big guns are 155mm, crewed by African American soldiers. With the US army segregated in WW2, the African Americans were often relegated to supporting roles (transport, artillery) rather than combat roles (with exceptions). By all counts, they performed admirably and with heroism, in spite of the army's segregation policy. The 104th was supported by one such battery, so I chose to represent them.

In case any nasty German fighters appear, there are four Anti-Aircraft halftracks. 2 are the M15, with a 37mm autocannon and twin 50cal, the other two are M16, with Quad 50 cal. By the time they entered the war, the Luftwaffe was all but gone, so the terrifying firepower was turned onto ground targets....

The US army was well equipped with the Jeep, and here are six for various purposes, recon, command etc.

A mixed bag of vehicles, a T30 75mm GMC, a Greyhound and a British Priest round out my 15mm painting.

Oh, and a 1/144th scale P-38 Lightning! Invasion stripes hand painted by me, they are less... vibrant in real life, my camera had a hissy fit with the colours. Doesn't help that the weather is naff.

For all those who have thought I have just recycled the same infantry, perhaps put them in a different order, hoping you wouldn't notice (shame on you for thinking that), here is a group shot of all the 15mm US I have painted...

Whew! That is an awesome amount of work, Chris. I particularly like the T19 Halftracks and the African-American 155 gunners. Very, very cool.

For his efforts Chris will get a very well-earned 373 points for this entry. 

From ChrisP: 28mm Early Imperial Romans (455 points)

As we see here Chris is not sitting back to see first place slip from his grasp.

From Chris:

I have been doing my best Kent impression, painting a whole lot of Romans at once! This entry is made of Romans, Romans and more Romans. All from Warlord Games. There is...

3 Bases of Legionaries

1 Base of Praetorians

4 Romans who will make up numbers on other bases

1 Base of Baeleric Slingers

3 Bases of Auxiliary Cavalry

1 Carroballista (complete with donkeys)

1 Generals base, complete with Russell Crowe (good New Zealander that he is!)

I spent so long painting them, I can't think of anything to say about them. Except to say that they are done! And that I am bad at photography. And I have just seen that some flock has attached to random places. Sigh. But, they are pretty cool now that they are done!

Anyway, enough from me. I am not done yet for the competition, there is still a bit more to do...

Excellent work Chris! You definitely are channeling the Kent mojo this year - bravo!

These soldiers of Rome will give Chris 455 points, giving him enough not only to vault him back into first place in the points standing but also to achieve his second points target goal. Amazing work and well done!

From ChrisP: 28mm North Vietnamese Army & US Pilot (55 points)

From Chris:

So, back to Nam.

First up is another squad of NVA troops, again from Eureka Miniatures. These represent the NVA rather than my other unit which was far more like the Viet Cong or Local Force troops. Eureka have done a good job on these, they are typical of them very well cast, have some animated poses and a cool variety of weapons (SKS Carbines, AKs, an Enfield). The RPG is slightly anemic, but I guess that would be an excuse for it being bad in game terms?

I do like the Eureka Vietnam range, but it really is 25mm more than 28mm, so I am likely to get grumpy about it when I try to mix other ranges with them. Although, I do now have 21 North Vietnamese- so how many do I really need?

I am going to game with them using a modified version of Skirmish Sangin, which I am currently writing. 

I saw this pilot figure from Airwaves for sale on a local trading website, and thought, 1/48 Pilot? Heck yea! What a cool objective marker! But when he arrived, I quickly realised that he was GIANT! He positively towers over the poor NVA next to him! So, I simply painted him up and put him on an airstrip-style base, where he can just stand looking pretty cool. Not a bad figure, shame he is so ginormous.

Anyway, just the 11 28mm (ish) models, I will have a big update next....

Great work Chris. With his kepi-style hat the pilot looks more French Foreign Legion than American, then again that would still work for Vietnam (or more accurately, Indochine).

These eleven figures will give Chris 55 points to widen his lead at the front of the pack.

From ChrisP: 28mm and 15mm Vietnam Era Helicopters, Phantom II & F16 Jets (84 points)

Another great Vietnam War entry from Chris:

Back to Vietnam (and beyond) for this stack of painting, from a whole variety of manufacturers!

First up, is the big boy, the 1/48th scale Revell UH-1. I made it basically exactly out of the box, leaving off the parts for the gunship variant, but also leaving off the side doors. In combat, the slick pilots left off the doors, they wanted to get as much power to weight as possible! Not the safest if you are the guy on the inside, but there it is. This is painted up as a US Army bird, even though there are two Eureka ANZACs sitting inside! The reason for this is despite Australia sending a fleet of it's own Hueys, the helicopters were forbidden by the government from going into "hot" LZs. What this meant was that when ANZAC troops were dropped into combat zones, it was done by American aircraft. Overall, I am really happy with how it looks! So many lessons learned from making the MH-6s went into building this one, so I am much happier with how it went together. The rotors are magnetized for easy travel, but also because it is cool to spin them.....

So from big, to small. My 15mm US Airborne needed some transport for Vietnam, so there are three Flashpoint miniatures plastic UH-1s. Made straight as the kit asked, with the doors left off like the big Huey. While moving to a new city, like a muppet, I threw away the plastic for the canopy windows! So the manufacturer is hunting me some more down, but it looks like it will arrive much after the competition finishes, hence me putting these up in a non-100% finished state. The kit also came with some door gunners and a few seated infantry, which really add to the model, plus add some weight so that the helicopter sits on it's skids properly!

Fire Support comes in the form of a second Huey Gunship, again armed with a chin mounted 40mm Grenade Launcher, plus the massive rocket batteries on either side! This one I have affectionately named Smokey the Bear, and is a standard Battlefront kit. Size wise, it is comparable to the Flashpoint plastics, but costs twice as much, and has less detail. But then again, it is in resin not plastic, so you get that! I still like it, and it will be a partner for the one that I completed earlier in the competition.

Close Air Support comes in the form of a 1/144 F4 Phantom II, from Academy. This was a cool kit, nice and simple and painted up really nicely, which my photos don't really show (my camera is terrible, and it saddens me). The underside shot is to show off the four centerline mounted sidewinder missiles, which were blue! I am not that happy with this aircraft, but for $3, I can't really complain!

So, there you have it. Air Power! I might be getting a reputation as the "Helicopter Guy", so next update will be something less airmobile... Although I do have one helicopter to go in the competition, any guesses what?

Very nice work Chris. I admire your tenacity in getting that trio of Hueys done up (even taking account the delayed canopies). The 1/48 scale 'Slick' is awesome but I can't imagine doing enough for a proper platoon insertion in 28mm.

This submission will give Chris 84 points. Great stuff!