From RayR - Last Post - Greek Mythology - Heracles & Chums!

 

Well I stared this years Challenge with some Jason and the Argonauts figures.....and I'm ending it with the same.

Well not actually the same figures, but more from Wargames Foundry's range.

I painted them up again, in the same black armour that Foundry painted theirs in.

Here we have the Mighty Heracles, who's a very large chap, in the middle its Canthus the Euboen and Ascalaphus.

Then we have Lynceus, Peleus the Myrmidon and Idas.

Then we have 5 more Children of the Hydra

Although I got a different figure in my pack, a left handed spearman!!

I'm pretty sure my Nephew Zac's gonna love them!!

Its his Birthday at the end of the month, I've bought him some Victrix Greek's, so look out for them on my blog soon.

I took a few shots of the figures having a fight....as you do?

So this is it, my final post of the 16th Challenge, the points are pretty easy to work out on this one.

11x 25mm figures at 5 points each will give me 55 points!

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Fabulous work, Ray! How wonderfully Harryhausen this bunch is. Your nephew is going to be over the moon to have these and think what an ace uncle you are! You know it will all come down to that left-handed skeleton being the nasty one of the lot... 

Same time next year, Ray? I hope so! :)

- Curt

From MarkE: Romans and a Lady for Sarah's choice (45 points)

Squeaking  in under the deadline and before running out the door for another fun filled night at work, I present my last couple of submissions for the challenge.

A base of 25mm Old Glory Romans and a 28mm Dark Sword Miniature.

These Romans continue a project I started way back in the '90's  Here they are beside a base I completed somewhere before the century turned: New work on the left, old stuff to the right.

I had actually forgotten about this project until I started scouting out my lead mountain for the challenge.  If I recall correctly I was basing them for dual use for the old Chipco Fantasy rules and Classical Hack.  So a real blast from the past.  I've got at least 1.5 more bags of these to clean up, prime and paint so it will be Romans for a while on the bench.  It will help be get more of my brush skills back before moving onto some Perry Napoleonic that have been hanging around getting dusty for at least 10 years.

Last but certainly not least for this year's challenge is my submission to Lady Sarah.  She's a 28mm Dark Sword mini from their Elmore line that I purchased for the first time I entered the Challenge back in 2012.  Life intervened at that point and I failed to get one entry in.  I had to complete at least one mini from that failed effort.

I've always loved the artwork from that classic era of TSR.  I grew up with posters from Elmore, Easley, and the rest of that studio on my walls, and their evocative art fueled many a weekend D&D session with my high school friends. She was going to be my submission for the Toys theme round but I didn't manage to get her done by that deadline.

I'll be making my Curtgeld contribution to Doctors' without Borders.  I've worked with several physicians who donated their time to that organization over the years and they truly do great work.

Points:

8 x 25mm Romans @ 5 pts  = 40 points

1 x 28mm Lady      @ 5 pts =    5 points

                                            total = 45 points

It brings me to 229 for the challenge so a bit short of my 300 goal.  

Well it's off to work.  Unfortunately my night shifts don't afford me time to chip away on my hobby like (I think it was) Ray's epic nightshift challenge year.

Cheers,

MarkE

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A fabulous final entry Mark! Those venerable Old Glory Romans look the business (and the mentions of Chipco rules takes me back!). That being said, the female dancer takes the cake here. Wow, what a lovely job you did on her. Well done Mark. Also, thank you for the donation to Doctors' Without Borders - a very worthy organization doing important work.

- Curt

from RayR - DaveD's Favourite! Sandbags at 12 paces!!! 15 pts

  

DaveD and other always rib me over Sandbags, so as for the fist time in any Challenge I've painted WWII figures, I thought I'd have some sandbags!!!

I only bought these last week on Etsy, from The Forge Hub. They were only £3.41 plus postage. So I can't complain about the price at all.

They were very easy to paint up, firdtly with a stone colour, the drybrush white.

I wasn't going to base them, but last night thought again. I used artists card and cut out the shapes needed and them based them up in my usual way.

I'm very pleased with them and can't wait to use them in a game.

Once again I'm not really sure how they'll be scored, so I'll leave that up whichever Minion has the job.

 

From DaveD … who me , who me!… well yes me . I do of course refer you to the end results of very early challenge young Raymondo!  Of course you need winter sandbags . These are of course excellent , the basing helps for me / You will thank me in the end as Lee’s Soviet hordes advance and you have extra cover . Good lad - 15 pts it is .

From RayR Donnybrook - Vienna 1683 - Polish Dragoons 135pts

 

Well, it wouldn't be a proper Painting Challenge with one of my Donnybrook entries now would it?

So just to keep you all happy.....here's one!!!

My green coated Polish Dragoons were prepped and undercoated at the start of Challenge 12 in 2021!!!

Isn't that bad that its taken me until now to put some paint on them?

My 9 Polish Dragoons, painted up for my Donnybrook Allied Army for the Relief of Vienna in 1683.

Check out my last post from March 2022, where I painted some Polish Command figures.

The figures are from Reiver Castings and were a joy to paint.

I'll be using the chap in the centre holding his pistol in the air.

There 9 figures will give me 90 points.

Then we also have the dismounted version of the Dragoons.

Unfortunately at the time Reiver didn't have a dismounted Dragoon figure, (not sure if they ever did)

So I had to fall back to my old favourites, Essex Miniatures.

A you can see, my leader is wearing a clock on the dismounted version and not on the mounted version.

I could have sculpted a cloak on the mounted version, but couldn't be arsed!

And here they are all together, the 45 points for the foot figures will be added to the 90 points for the mounted giving me a total of 135 points!!

From DaveD - I wondered when the Donnybrook would kick in properly . They do look fine figures and a grand paint job Ray .135 it is . The only thing left for you to do now is sandbags isn’t it 😆

From Millsy: More circuit breaker fantasy minis (25 points)

G'day All,

Progress is steadily happening with the Late Romans but again there's nothing ready to show this week, largely because the weather has been appalling and both varnishing and basing is a real pain to fit in. There will definitely be a crop for next week though.

In the interim I'm still filling gaps with ancient fantasy lead. This week it's a small batch of Grenadier Models orcs and goblins. Some searching on the truly wonderful Lost Minis Wiki has allowed me to clearly identify four of these five as Lesser Orc w. Sword, Goblin of the Mount 1 w. Sword, Goblin of the Mount w. Axe and Lesser Orc w. Waraxe. I don't have Goblin of the Mount w. Spear unfortunately but a hunt has begun!

The last chap (on the extreme left) I believed was a Denizen Miniatures goblin but cannot locate him online anywhere. Answers on a postcard comment if you can identify him!

5 x 25mm greenskins = 25 points. Importantly (to me at least!) this takes me past my initial 1,500 point target, so I'm upping my target to 1,800 to push myself these last few weeks.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Millsy

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Well done Millsy - this is another lovely little "circuit breaker" while your late Roman troops continue to muster. All of these little green fellows have a classic look that will inspire a jolt of nostalgia for Challengers. The fact that the painting is sharp, and green "just right" is just an added bonus - great stuff!

And well done smashing through your points target!

Greg

From Millsy: Retro goblin circuit breaker (50 points)

G'day All,

Apparently you can only paint so many Late Romans before it starts to melt your head. I've kinda hit a wall and while I still have more of the buggers on the go I just needed to do something else. Anything else.

Having started a new OSR D&D campaign with the family on the weekend I was inspired to get back to repainting some of my stock of late 70s and 80s lead, purchased way back in my early teens when I was first getting into gaming.

These Essex Miniatures goblins were bought sight unseen from an A5 photocopied paper catalogue that you requested from the UK by snail mail with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. You sent of a handwritten list of items with an international money order and waited. And waited. And WAITED. Literally bursting at the seams to see if "FAN79 Goblin: Chieftain" was what you imagined because you had zero chance of seeing one before buying down under. At this time there was one store in Sydney, 2+ hours from home, where I could buy minis directly.

Gobbo Quixote is armed with two maces, short sword, katana and bardiche.

Yes these are a far cry from what you can buy now. Do I care? Not one jot. I still absolutely love them.  I think this is their third or possibly even fourth paint job as old ones have chipped or worn off over time. Amazingly these are still for sale and would rank amongst the longest running lines of miniatures still available. I may just have to buy some more.

The paint job was fast and high contrast as they need to look good on the table, not sit in a cabinet. The details are rough and they're packed with character because of that as much as anything. I have some Grenadier goblins also on the go and may dip into the lead pile again for some Essex "great scaly orcs" or other vintage weirdness before the Challenge is done. 

8 x 25mm goblin infantry (40 points)
1 x 25mm goblin cavalry (10 points)

Total: 50 Challenge points and 1 gazillion nostalgia points.

Cheers,
Millsy

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Well Millsy, I am a huge fan of your late Roman project, but I think we all understand the need to take a break and enjoy a little "palette cleanser" in the midst of larger projects. And you have found a fine one here - nothing cleanses the palette like a little mini project that is worth - as you cite, correctly - 1 gazillion nostalgia points! 

The painting is great, and we can all relate to wanting a little variety, but the best part of this post is the description of the waiting. Reading that I was almost ready to order some goblins myself, just to relieve the tension!

Well done Millsy - 50 points (and 1 gazillion nostalgia points) for you!

GregB

From AdamC: Coyotes (15 points)

A very small and unimpressive offering this week 

My friend Dave from Bloody Scotsman Games made these up as part of the wild animals for his various Devil in the Wilderness games. 

Having some scruffy looking animals is always handy for the table. 

You can see one is lacking a tail, I'm happy to use the guys who don't print out quote right.  They are 25mm scale so if we count them as 'infantry' they would be 5 points each for 15 points in total. 

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Sylvain: This might be a first: there is no label "coyote" in the index of the Painting Challenge.  A very interesting idea to add wildlife in the background. You did a great job at representing the fur on these miniatures. Extraordinaire!

 

RayR & LeeH - Terriany Day's & Sundays (120 points)

 

I'm not sure if this is a first or not but today's Terrain entry is actually from two Challengers. You may have seen on our respective blogs, that me and Lee got together a few weekends ago and spent the day making and finishing some Winter terrain for our Retreat from Moscow shenanigans, now of course this can also be used for our new Winter period, the Russo-Finnish War.

Here are 2 boxes of trees, that we winters over with a spray of white paint and also a flick and drybrush, with a very large 3 inch brush.

We also had to sand, paint, drybrush, add grass tufts and finally add the snow mixture 

We are both pretty chuffed how they all came out, there are a total of 76 basses of trees, some smaller trees have 2 or 3 trees on them. The bases are 70mm circles from Warbases.

I have no clue how Byron will work out the points for these???

Next up we have some road, or trackways.

This is how we left them after our days terrain building.

And here's how they ended up!

They were painted twice with our earth brown mix, then drybrushed white before adding our winter snow mixture.

We cut out some different shapes and bends, but stupidly forgot a T-Junction?!?!

The straight long lengths measure 15 inches long and 3.5 inches wide, all in all the measure approx. 17.5 feet in length.

Once again, I'm not really sure how Byron will work this one out??

But as its a 2-Man project the points, whatever they are will be split down the middle, half for LeeH and half for me!

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Hello to both Ray and Lee, and well done on a huge submission here that will I am sure literally fill a table with terrain.  It is however a second entry for terrain today that has a bunch of parts that are light on the "painting" aspect with the trees.  However, once again I will score some points for the bases being painted up, and there is some paint on the trees to give that winter effect.  I have don't this exact thing in the past though and while it is certainly some work due to the pure number here, it is fast and easy.  Therefore for the 76 bases of trees I am going to say a bit over a point a base and go with a 80 points, as they are very quick as I think you will agree.

As for the roads, those have a lot more painting and work going on with them (although again very simple to do, but highly effective).  When I did my roads up like this I was able to do a few sections an hour, so I am going to count 2-4 of them as a figure, and award 40 points for the lot.  

That gives 120 points for the huge batch of terrain, which in my mind is the same as painting about 12 figures each that day, so works out probably a bit to your advantage points wise, as I know I can't paint a dozen figures in a day, but I feel is fair for such a huge amount of terrain being done here.

- Byron