From Barks: The bitter end (27 points)

Here's the last odds and sods as I gaze at my distant points target. First, some movement trays from Knights of Dice. These hold either three or five 25mm round bases. The mdf remains are interesting negative spaces, maybe I should save these for swamp terrain?

Next, a wasteland robot. It's the non-seasonal version of the Xmas-o-tron I submitted way way back at the start of AHPC XIII. It's a free stl from Imitation of Life.

Some battlefield stakes, with Middle-earthlings for scale. 3D prints from Asgard Rising. I struggled with warping, even after softening with heat, over-bending and dumping in ice-cold water.

Next, a lone squig.

Penultimately, a sausage dog from Eureka. I have a weird relationship with dachshunds: they're annoyingly yappy but such a humorous shape! The Skirt Swisher & I get points for how many sausages we spot on a given day.* So, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for this little chap. I'd like it to become a pet for a Rogue Trader or Inquisitor, snapping angrily at the heels of eldritch horrors etc. If it's a boy, Fritz. A girl, Heidi.

Finally, I was unable to avoid the Call of the Turnip. I failed to get a proper unit up of Lord Barkington's Brownjackets, the tuber-worshipping tirailleurs. Instead, here are their mascots, the vicious spudlings. Again, 3D prints from IoL.

• Bases: 5"x3"x3" thus 4 points
• Stakes: 10x 4"x1"x1" thus 4 points
• Robot: 1x28mm figures: 5 points
• Sausage/ potatoes/ squig: I'm counting them as 15mm so 7x2 points: 14 points
• Turnip28 Side Duel: 10 points

Thanks, everyone! See you at the wrap-up.

*Current record: 5. It was a pentasausage day.

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Haha! A scattershot wrap-up, Barks! All of these are excellent (though the bases are a bit of a stretch), but I especially like the wasteland robot and the vicious spudlings (checking out that designer after sign-off...).

It's always a pleasure, Barks. Thank you for overseeing the Skull Duel and I hope we can count on your noggin for the next edition of the Challenge. Cheers mate!

- Curt 

From ByronM - Cherokee Indians, Shrine, and Adventurers Landing ( 215 Points)

 It's been a while again since my last post, but at last I have something to show for a few projects.  The first of which is one that I was completely excited to start this year, figures for some games of Cowboys and Indians!  Last year I read a very interesting book called "Empire of the Summer Moon" which was all about the rise and fall of the Cherokee Indians.  

It was a very interesting book that briefly detailed how the Cherokee basically held off expansion to the north from the Spanish and then the Mexicans, then went into great detail about how they held off expansion to the west for the Americans for a long period of time. This led to the creation of the Texas Rangers and that started a extremely bloody conflict that lasted for decades. A very interesting read that really highlighted how in that time there were no good guys, not the Cherokee and not the Texas Rangers. The fights and raids were brutal on all sides.  What a great setting to wargame in!

I started out with the Cherokee as I felt they would be more interesting to paint.  Interesting being a funny word for what turned out to be a month long stall / hate for them.  It turns out that while the figures are awesome and have tons of character, that also meant that each one had to be painted like a character and it started to wear on me pretty damn fast.  As I have mentioned in a few past posts, my eyes have been changing prescription lately and I am finding it really hard to deal with fine details (having 3 different sets of reading glasses kicking around to swap between for different detail levels) and these just became extremely frustrating to deal with.

Over all, I am ok with how the flesh turned out, and with some of the details, but eventually I had to just power through and not put in as much detail as I initially wanted as I just couldn't focus on them anymore.  While they are passable for the table, I will likely have to go back when I get a steady prescription and touch up some things.  While not bad, you can see in the close up how far they are from my normal work... oh well....  But at least they are good for now, and I can move onto the Texas Rangers hopefully before the end of the challenge.

Next up, is an entry for the Shrine challenge room.  These Druidic stones are covered in viking runes and are 3d prints from Asgard Rising.  I printed 3 of them up and then based them on a 120mm base to set the scene.  This should make a great terrain piece for a variety of games. 

Last up is part of a ruined pier and some smashed up viking ships for the Adventures Landing challenge room.  These are again 3d prints from Asgard Rising and are very nice terrain features.  They are shown off here with some 28mm vikings to help with scale.

As for points, there are 15 mounted 28mm Cherokee Indians @ 10 points each for 150 points, the shrine for 0.25 of a cube = 5 points, the pier and ships for about 1 cube = 20 points, plus 2 challenge rooms @ 20 each is 40, for a grand total of 215 points!  Which should take me about my years goal of 1000 points a month early, Hurray!!!

Wahoo! A small points bomb at last! What a great set of entries. Mind you, a Druidic stone with viking runes? Those Nordic types are such vandals! I'll bet their scrawlings obliterated the original Ogham script...

Tamsin