My Tribute to Tamsin - Penelope McFadden: Pulp Adventuress

Tamsin's been a great supporter of the event ever since her first Challenge (back to the 3rd edition, I believe). As many of you know, she's quite a competitive lass and very driven to succeed. Over the past four Challenges she's participated in she's accumulated 7946 points. Yeah, no matter what scale you divide that into that's a huge heap of painted miniatures. This year she's done a terrific job in stewarding the Tuesday group and we've all enjoyed her great sense of humour, unflagging enthusiasm and good will.

My Tribute figure for Tamsin came to me quite easily. Last year I was in on the Kickstarter for RAFM's new range of Cthulhu miniatures, and one of the character figures from that was an excellent sculpt of an adventuress which you see here. As soon as I looked at the figure I said to myself, 'Oh yeah, she's definitely a redhead. Tamsin would get a kick out of her.' I also thought Tamsin would like the figure as it's a little off the beaten path, not being an especially well-known range.

When I was painting her I thought she'd make a great 'Penelope' and with her red hair I thought a good Scots-Irish name was in order. So here is Penelope McFadden, adventuress extraordinaire.

The figure is quite charming, very willowy and elegant in her pose. To me she seems very self-possessed and unflappable - quite ready for the next thing to come her way. Much like our Miss. P I think!

I hope you like her Tamsin. Thanks again for all your help this year, you made our Tuesdays terrific . :)

Curt

From TamsinP: NAC Fleet (90 points)

From Tamsin:

Well, it turns out that the Mongols weren't my final entry, but this one really, really, really is.

I was looking at what I had that I could be able to finish before the deadline and realised that some more spaceships might just be my best bet. So here they are, 12 lovely ships from GZG to upgrade my NAC "intro fleet" to "mega fleet" size. The "intro fleet" was painted up before the challenge and was my win from Seb's prize draw last summer.

This flotilla consists of a super dreadnought, a battle dreadnought, a battleship, a heavy cruiser, 2 escort cruisers, 3 corvettes and 3 scout ships. The 4 larger ships and the corvettes have an extra bit of detailing - some yellow and black striped hazard panels on the undersides and aft. I've included a pic of the underside of the BDN to show these.

As this is my final final entry, it's time for some parting words.

To my fellow Challengers of the Wild Bunch: Thank you all for the great competition, the words of praise to each other, the banter and the sheer lunacy of some entries. The standards from everyone have been fantastic this year and I sit here in awe of the quality and quantity of your outputs over the past 3 months.

To the various prize donors and sponsors: Thank you for your generosity. I'm sure that everyone would have competed anyway, but your prizes add a little something to the proceedings.

To Curt: A massive thanks for keeping up with the Heraclean labour that running this Challenge surely involves, especially with the addition of the fortnightly bonus rounds. On top of that, you have treated us to some absolutely stunnign entries throughout. How on Earth did you find the time? By the way, my mate King Augeas mentioned that his stables could do with a good cleaning....

To Sarah: My sincere sympathies for the last few months. Just make sure Curt treats you to his full attention, roses, chocs and lots of TLC to make up for his absence looking after us.

First, thank you Tamsin for your thoughtful words. Its always a pleasure to have you join us in this little bit of silliness. Your enthusiasm, verve and talent serves as a benchmark for the rest of us.

In regards to your entry... I really so like these ships Tamsin. They have such a wonderful old school look about them. In fact, I think I may actually like them a smidge better than the last fleet you did. That may be because they are using lighters tones or perhaps the lighting, hmm, whatever it is they look fantastic.

This fleet will give Tamsin 90 points. A lovely bit of work that! 

From TamsinP: 15mm Mongol Cavalry (108 points)

From Tamsin:

For my 18th entry in this year's Challenge I've gone for something a little different - some Mongol mounted troops. The figures are all 15mm from Donnington Miniatures.

"Why Mongols?" you ask. Well, the Korean army lists in FoG allow you to take nomad troops either as an allied contingent or as mercenaries/auxiliaries within the main list. This provides a very useful addition to the main Korean troop types.

First up we have 24 light horsemen. I went with fairly muted colours for these, with some splashes of colour.

Next up we have a command group for when I use them as an allied contingent.

"Hang on a second - that drummer's horse's head looks a bit strange"

"Oh, that would be because it's a camel, not a horse!"

It has come to my attention over the past few weeks that there was a rule for this year's Challenge that I'd missed in Curt's email to us late last year. It appears that every Challenger must submit at least one painted camel. When I realised this omission from my plans I promptly ordered one and here it is in my Mongol command group.

I do have some more Mongols for this small force - some foot archers and some heavy cavalry - but they won't be painted until after the Challenge.

I should also note that this will probably be my final entry, unless I manage to find enough time over the next few days to complete my buccaneer dragoons or command groups.

That is a very cool add on to your Korean list Tamsin and I quite like the way you've painted and arrayed them.  Of course the star of the group is the kettle drummer on the shaggy camel - wonderful.

These Mongols will give Tamsin 108 points. An excellent finish to your Challenge run this year. Well done Ms. P!

From TamsinP: 'Lady Christina' Recovery and Repair Ship (15 points)

From Tamsin:

"Good morning, you're through to the AA*. How may I help you?"

"Hi, we've broken down outside the jump point from Antares IV to Excelsior II. We need a recovery ship"

"Can I take the name and model of your ship please? And your name."

"Yes, this is Captain Keith Remen of the NAC heavy cruiser London."

"And can you confirm that you or a member of your crew are a member of the AA?"

"Yes, the New Anglian Confederation Space Navy has corporate membership."

"Hmmmm. It appears that your government failed to renew the membership when it was due for renewal last month. Do you have a crew member with individual membership?"

"They didn't renew?!?!?! The useless, penny pinching, pencil pushing, tight fisted *&%$£&s!"

"You can always charge it to a credit card...."

*Astromobile Association

This is a Lady Christina class recovery and repair ship from GZG. Just as a bit of fun I decided to paint it up in the livery colours of a well known roadside rescue organisation from the UK. The company logos are hand-painted, but I might go over them with black as they look a bit crap. Maybe at some point I'll make some decals up. I'm tempted to buy another of these ships to paint up in the colours of their main UK rival.

I've included a couple of pics showing it in action, attempting recovery of the NAC heavy cruiser.

That is a very cool looking ship Tamsin. I like the clampy bits and that you've painted it in the UK motor league colours (ours here in Canada are in white and blue). I wonder what the towing charge is per parsec?

This inter-galactic tow truck will give Tamsin 15 points.

From TamsinP: 15mm Pirate Army(!) (500 points)

Tamsin, like Prometheus bound to his rock, has been tied to this monstrous pirate entry for the past few weeks. The force is sooo large that, like Dave's, it has to be split up into smaller sections. So here is Tamsin with the first group:

"Aaaarrrrrrr me hearties! Splice the sails! Hoist the timbers! Shiver me mainbrace! *hic* 'Tis pirate time!"

After my fun units submitted earlier in the Challenge, here are the proper pirates. The bulk of them anyway - I still have the commanders, artillery and light troops to do. The figures (248 of them!) are a mixture of Blue Moon and Rebel Minis.

For the Buccaneer army in FoGR, there are three main troop types. "Disciplined" and "Veteran" buccaneers are medium foot musket/-/sword, differing only in quality; "Other" buccaneers are warriors musket*/impact foot/sword (musket* have less shooting dice than musket). I've chosen to represent the disciplined/veteran guys as having two figures with firearms and one without on each base; the warriors have one figure per base with firearms and two without on each base. 

'Disciplined Buccaneers' a wonderful oxymoron.

In total there are 36 bases of disciplined/veteran buccaneers here and 44 bases of other buccaneers. To enable me to distinguish between disciplined and veteran units, I've also done two command bases with 4 figures each which I can swap in instead of a 3-figure command base (you can have a max of 12 bases of veterans at 6-8 bases per unit).

The 'Other' Buccaneers

Carmen Miranda with a brace of pistols. 

Wow. 

Yep, there's no doubt about it: That is a huge freakin' heap o' pirates... 

Bluebeard's holey trousers, Tamsin, what a tremendous amount of work! These guys are a wondrous riot of poses and colour. I particularly like the stout fellow in the third pic from the top, with the long coat and eyepatch. And then there is the bare chested lad with the brace of pistols in a classic Carmen Miranda pose - he just needs a fruit salad hat, a tight floral skirt and he'd be ready for The Copacabana. 

This horde of faaabulous pirates will give Tamsin 500 points (because not giving her the extra 4 points for this lot would somehow seem churlish). This entry will see her smash through her initial 1200 point target and she's already set her sights on the 2400 point mark for these final weeks of the Challenge. Great stuff!

Again, an amazing bit of work young lady!

Form TamsinP: Waste Reprocessing Ship 'J Peasmold' (15 points)

From Tamsin:

Just to prove that I am alive and still painting, here's a single spaceship which I painted up as a break between batches of pirates.

This is the J Peasmold waste reprocessing ship from Ground Zero Games. As you can see, some convoy traditions still hold in space, even though aromas can't travel through vacuum - the convoy leader, L.A. "Tex" Mallard, has asked "Septic Sam" to back off another 10 AU as the smell was getting intense.

I decided to go with base colours followed by a dirty grey wash for this ship. I think that has given it a nicely grungy look.

Oh well, back to painting pirates....

Eww... You gotta love science fiction. In science fiction you don't have to explain why you'd have a ship transporting crap across the cosmos when you could simply vent the stuff out into it. Then again, perhaps it's legal tender on some planet starved for fertilizer and methane. 

'Sooo, how much does this sh*t go for?"  Literally.

The J Peasmold will give Tamsin 15 malodorous points which will also give her enough points to claim victory in her duel with Ian and Burkhard to see who could get to 1066 points first. Bravo Tamsin!