From Paul O'G: Russian Cruiser Reinforcements (30 points)

A small Cruiser Squadron to reinforce my growing Russian Dystopian Wars fleet. After a couple of weeks travelling away from the Hobby bench (for the best of reasons!) its was nice to get these finished and meet this week's deadline.

Disclaimer: I have used AI to generate a more contextural background.
The models themselves are unchanged and are my own work.

Like the rest of my fleet these are an Ebay rescue, and as a bonus they came with nicely magnetised turrets. I've painted them up in more grungy wartime colours to contrast with the rest of my Fleet. I used historical paint schemes again, this time from the Russo-Japanese war. I like to think of these ships are the offensive night patrollers - going out ahead of the main force to screen against marauding torpedo boats

Yes, they're 'nice" I guess but...

The right backdrop makes quite the difference!

3 x Cruisers at 10 points each, for a total of 30. Thank you!

=======================

Sylvain: Paul, you will have to show me how to AI my pictures, it's astonishing what you can do. But the paint job is even more amazing: with a few well applied touches of bronze, your ships seem to be brimming with power. I can foresee fun games for you. Bravo! 

From Paul O'G: Dystopian Wars Russian Fleet (110)

I already own some Prussian and British ships for Dystopian Wars, so with this submission I start another fleet: Russians! 

Yes the background is AI generated but how cool is it!

Here is the original as proof!

I much prefer the older Spartan Games resin ships but they are getting hard to find now. These are an ebay rescue. A modest fleet for a small battle and I'm naturally planning expansions if I can find the ships at a reasonable price. All are painted in colours of the (real world) Russian Imperial Navy Pacific Fleet of the pre-dreadnought period.

Starboard bow aspect, that best is the Moskva!

Moskva Class Dreadnought looks like a floating citadel more than a ship! Large enough to fit the Admiral's voluminous drinks cabinet and dining set (just)

Borodino class Battleship -the manufacturer proudly states that "this industrial nightmare will forever haunt the ambitions of anyone who dares cross the path of the Russian Coalition" - cool!

These capital ships are escorted by 3 Suvorov class Cruisers and 9 Novgorod Frigates to provide AA and close range support for the bigger ships.

Starboard Quarter aspect

Based on previous AHPC Season scoring (which was Tamsin approved, so you know its a quality assessment!) Dystopian Wars ships have previously been scored as:

   1 point for a flyers & tokens

   5 points for Corvettes, Frigates & Destroyers

  10 points for Light & Heavy Cruisers

  15 points for a Battlecruisers & Battleships

  20 points for big Carriers and Dreadnoughts

This Fleet entry is therefore submitted for 20 + 15 + (3x10) + (9x5) = 110 points 

That's it for a little while from me - I'm going back to Australia for my daughter's Wedding!

Happy New Year everyone! May 2026 be good to you all :-)

________________________________

First, congratulations on your daughter's upcoming nuptials! That's very exciting for the family.

Funny, I have a soft spot for the old Spartan games version of 'Dystopian Wars' as well. I find the newer version lacks that historical touchstone of the original and the older models (like these) are much more characterful. I also remember the rules were a riot, with the 'exploding d6' rule, which often made for catastrophic (if highly entertaining) results.

I really like your Russian fleet here, especially the imposing and turret-festooned Moskva and Borodino. The clustered smoke stacks and circular frigates crack me up, but I love the whole aesthetic. It just works. 

I'll not question the authority of Tamsin as past points arbiter, and will acquiesce to your points tally. :)

Safe travels and have a wonderful time at your daughter's wedding!!

- Curt

From MartijnN: The Enlightenment and Romance [Romance] (78 points)

As the Enlightment was followed by the Romance period, it seemed fitting to combine the two in today's entry. So, first I have the second batch of vessels for my Dystopian Wars Enlightenment fleet: three Lovelace Class cruisers and three more Merian Class frigates:

I stuck with my recipe, even though it is rather much work for the effect. I am, however, fairly happy how they came out eventually, and at least they stand out relatively well on the seascape.

Just to prove that I did paint three more frigates here's a picture of the fleet so far. Only the two large battleships to go, and then I can start on the Commonwealth (Russian) fleet.

For last year's Challenge I prepped some figures but did not get around painting them. However, I think they fit admirably into the Romance section of the Library. Here is a romantic couple, perhaps dancing at a Ball at Versailles during Louis XVI's reign, or going out for a stroll in the gardens. They are 3d printed Iain Lovelace figures. I do not really have any purpose for them, but they were nice to paint. Perhaps they will come in handy for a Pirate game or suchlike.

And just to show our Minion that I do in fact paint the backs of my figures:

I struggled a bit with this week's book recommendation, for war is seldom romantic. However, at the very end of the Romance Period there was a war that definitely had some romantic overtones to it. The French call it the Guerre d'Orient, but most people know it as the Crimean War. Fighting the Russians in the mysterious East, on behalf of the Turks, which were still ruled by an Ottoman Sultan with a harem, with soldiers wearing gorgeous colourful uniforms inspired by  Arabian dress, it definitely struck a romantic chord in Britain and France. It is a special interest of mine, but information was hard to come by in the days before the Internet. I was thus very pleased to discover this book in a branch of a now nearly defunct chain of second-hand and clearance books, De Slegte, as a schoolboy back in the 80's. It's Lawrence James' Crimea 1854-1855. The War with Russia from contemporary photographs.

There is something fascinating and melancholy about these early photos of war, even though for the most part they are very posed. In this book, James collected photographs mainly by Fenton and Robertson. Most are readily available on the Internet today, but is still nice to have some background information. There is also a very brief outline of the war itself, and of the history of photography up to that point (when it was of course a relatively new technology). I would not go out looking for this book, it will be long out of print I guess, but if you can pick it up on Ebay or in a second-hand bookshop for a good price it still is a nice addition to your library.

Time for the map:

As for points, the previous frigates scored 6. I have no idea about the cruisers, 10 perhaps? I'll be happy with whatever our minion decides.

2 x 28mm foot @ 5 = 10

3 x Merian frigates @ 6 = 18

3 x Lovelace cruisers @ 10 = 30

Romance library bonus = 20

Total of 78

TeemuL: I was about to my hair when I started reading this entry: first Bruce trying to get Romance bonus for guys in red and now Martijn claiming Romance points for "Lovelace class" cruisers... Well, I soon got corrected, and the Dystopian War was not connected to Romance at all. Martijn nicely shows, that he is not trying to claim points for the same ships again and even shows, that he has painted the backsides, too. The couple fits the Romance section perfectly, no questions asked. I'll score the cruisers as "frigates and other" category, which is exactly 10 points as you hoped for.

The Crimean War is almost local history here in Finland, even though it mainly happened elsewhere. But there was Åland War, which was linked to the action on Crimea: Åland War in Wikipedia. Finland was part of Russia back then (although autonomic country) and those pesky British decided to bombard Finnish islands and coast trying to destroy Russian ships located here and convince Sweden to join their alliance. Interesting side story (from my point of view) and perhaps not that common knowledge to all.

From MartijnN: Finally some Enlightenment [Sarah's Library Cart, Maritime] (81 points)

I really am a sucker for sales. And a hobby butterfly. So when, some time ago, one of our local online shops ran a sale on the VSF game Dystopian Wars from Warcradle I could once again not resist the temptation and simply had to get the Hunt for Prometheus Starter Set. I really had planned to start working on this sooner, but I was put off a little bit by the fact that a) the models had to be built, which I am not a great fan of, and b) I had no idea on how to paint them. However, a few months ago I visited the open day of a fairly local wargames club, and there was a very enthusiastic player demonstrating the game. I had watched several Youtube videos, but seeing the game played out before me made me decide I really had to start building my fleets. For now, they are still fairly manageable, and knowing myself I may well be having a far too large unpainted collection before long. So here are the first of  the Enlightenment Fleet.

These are six Meridian class frigates. Three more, as well as three cruisers and two battleships, are to follow, but I could not get those ready in time for this week. I still struggled a bit to get them right. I primed them in black, then a zenithal spray from above because I wanted to use Contrast paints. I then base-coated them in Apothecary White, but white remains a problem with contrast(-like) paints, at least for me. They turned out a light grey. I then painted on the camo, and applied a wash of Nuln Oil, which of course brought out the details (they are really nice models), but left them even darker. Then I painted all the brassy bits and washed those with Reikland Fleshshade. I then painted all the laser cannon thingies and finished with an overall light drybrush of necron compound. I am fairly happy with the end result, but I am not sure that a very similar effect could not have been reached with much less effort by simply coating them in Leadbelcher or light grey and then drybrush. Oh well, we live and learn.

Now these are fitting for the Maritime section of the Library, but once again I discovered that there is no direct route there from Famous Person. So I will have to call on the Lady Sarah again with the help of this 3D printed Evan Carothers figure of an elven lady:

Not much else to tell about her really.

Back to business. I am hard pressed to come up with a Victorian Sci-Fi book recommendation, so a general maritime title will have to do. Inspired by one of the comments on a recent post in this Challenge, it is Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought. Britain, Germany and the coming of the Great War.

This is a brilliant book on the Naval Arms race at the beginning of the twentieth century, although Massie takes the story back deep into the Victorian era. It is very well written. I know I say that all the time, but I would not soon recommend a book that isn't, and I really like narrative history. This one is a bit traditional, in that it focuses very much on individuals and their stories, but as someone once said "biography is the purest from of history", and Massie does it very well. Did I already say I really like narrative history? It is a massive volume, clocking in at more than 1,000 pages, but well worth the read. It put me on the road (or down the river rather) to WWI naval wargaming long ago (it's from 1992).

Then, the map:

Scoring: 

When submitted previously in the Challenge, I see that Dystopian Wars frigates were scored at 5 points each, so I propose to apply that to these as well. If the minion agrees, we have:

- 6 Dystopian Wars frigates @5 = 30

- 1 28mm foot @ 5 = 5

- Sarah's Library Cart Bonus = 20

- Maritime Section Bonus = 20

For a total of 75 points, which quite surprisingly takes me past my target. I'll take that up to 900.

TeemuL: Very sneaky to use an old entry minioned by the minion and claim points based on that, very sneaky. However, times change, just like the spreadsheet and my memory. There is no clear category for the Dystopian War ships, the common problem with huge spaceships, but I have scored them as 10mm vehicles, 6 points a piece, so you get a bit more than you asked for. I really like the colours on the elven lady, but I do wonder, if you have only painted the frontside? :)

From GeoffreyT: Last Hurrah (185 points)

Hello Challengers,

Having completed each of the studio challenges, it is now time to mop up and try and hit the backlog of forgotten projects.

This first model is a classic Citadel miniatures Eldar dreadnought from the late 80's.  I don't have any other Eldar and no real interest in 40K, but liked the model so grabbed it when I saw it second hand.  Since a dreadnaught is a brain stem in a shell, I reckon 28mm mounted would be the correct classification for points.

Next up I have a dystopian wars fleet. I liked this game, but was a flash in the pan (twice). It left me with an unpainted fleet I picked up. Now it is painted and awaiting a revival for the game.

These guys are The Ottoman Naval Battle group by Spartan games.  Excuse the background.

This bad boy is a foam ball with tissue paper glued to it. It represents in game a "The Great Maw" from Forbidden Psalm.  It is big, about 100mm, (so about size of 28mm vehicle). I'm not entirely convinced by it myself, it is a bit too round.  Nevertheless as it will likely only hit the game table once it is fit for purpose.

I have an aircraft carrier for Starmada.  I painted it in colours to match my NSL Full Thrust ships. Cant remember the brand.

Last of all is a few chaps I collected for Forbidden Psalm monsters.  Two boars by Wizkids represent Morka-Porka and a demon thing from Slave2Gaming as 'The Nagl".

This I feel are the worst photo effort in the challenge to date.  By anyone.  But they are last minute and on the scoreboard.

For scale, the boars are on 25mm bases, so the Nagl is a big guy.

So what we have here is a pile of disparate miniatures, some of which are uncertain points value.

Eldar dreadnaught (28mm mounted) = 10 points

Ottoman Fleet Total = 112 points

    1 x Battleship = 15 points

    4 x Cruisers at 10 each = 40

    6 x Frigates at 5 each = 30

    3 x Bombers at 3 each = 9 points

    8 Mines at 1 each = 8 points

    10 Bases of small flyers at 1 each = 10 points

The Great Maw (28mm vehicle, it can swallow people whole) = 20 points

Starmada total = 20.5 points

    1 carrier = 10 points

    21 small fliers at 0.5 each = 10.5 points

2 x Morka-porka (28mm foot) = 10 points

1 x Nagl (54mm foot) = 10 points

Estimated total = 182.5 points

I really don't know what the ships should be, I kind of estimated them on basis of size and effort needed.  Has this post reached the official threshold to be classified "a points bomb"?  I don't think so, but is probably as close as I will get.

For those who have commented on my posts so far, thank you for your kindness.  I read and appreciate them all, although I usually don't reply.  Special thanks to Teemu for being an excellent minion, for Sidney for the outstanding challenge studio tasks, for Curt for running such a terrific event and for their partners for tolerating such dedication to hobbying.

However, the hobbying never ends, next after the challenge is beta testing of upcoming game "Torch and Shield", written by some friends of mine who have an upcoming kickstarter, check it out.

https://www.grimskald.com/

Kind Regards

Geoff.

From TeemuL: You are not making it too easy for Minions, Geoffrey! All kinds of self sculpted minis on strange scales and now this - all kind of space ships in strage scales. Dystopian Wars have been published in the past and given the average size of the ships, I think you are roughly in the ball park. I'll round it up to 185 in total for all the sculpting and overall amazeness during the Challenge. It has been a pleasure to minion you, I never knew what was coming, but luckily I was most likely the first one to see them while minioning and scheduling them. Have a nice off-Challenge time with Torch and Shield (and painting)!

From ChrisW - Altair IV via Sarah's yacht, 2 more Super, Robots & Eldar Titans! (297 points)

 

I was a little out of sorts this week, unable to focus, unable to act. Not a painting wall, thankfully, just too much of the real world impacting on my life. The hobby, that I rely upon to keep me in my happy place, failed me this week, and my output has suffered. The up side, while painting eluded me for most of the week, I was able to direct some energy towards cleaning up my painting area and I was able to plan out next weeks projects. Hopefully those will advance beyond the planning stage.

Thankfully I was able to work on some of the items that I was unable to complete for last weeks posting. So before we leave Krypton I will submit a few more supers, then we are on to Altair and some robots!

Krypton (part 2)

Dr Argos and his tripod [25]

A bit pulpy but I think I will use him against superheroes, I present Dr Argos and his tripod! Almost finished off a few weeks back it was placed on the back burner when other more pressing projects came to the fore. I already painted up most of his robot minions, but just never got around the the big guy himself. A straight forward figure, not much extra detail, no real reason for him not to have been done much sooner, but there you have it, you can never say what will happen.

You can tell by the bronze paint on the lower legs that I started this figure around the same time I was painting some AQMF tripods. The paint scheme was inspired by the photos at Crooked Dice and the use of two tones does break up the monotony of the metal finish. 

Giant Tess is my ticket for Lady Sarah's yacht! 

Now from Krypton we move onto Altair IV.>>>>>

Altair IV [Old Robots]

Robbie the robot

Robbie himself! A while back I bought a model of the rocket ship from Forbidden Planet. The kit contained a number of crewmen and this clear plastic robot figure. Not much of a figure and sadly lacking any detail inside his head, so there was not much to do but give it a simple paint job. The model was base coated black, leaving the face plate clear, which was then washed with a Vallejo grey wash. The body was painted with army painter metallic paint Night Scales. 

 

 Odd bots

These are multi part, assemble yourself robots made by  Old Glory. They come in a pack of 13 single cast torso/legs, with an assortment  of many more heads and arms than there are bodies. So lots of choices, which is a curse to me as I spend far too much time trying to figure out what to build. Analysis paralysis is a curse of mine, be it in the assembly of figures or making a decision about what colours to paint. Maybe I should just stick with historical figures!

Dr Who - Robot

The robot and 5 UNIT troops. I have many more UNIT figures, but I am uncertain which colours to use. These are the first five off the line, more than a test, but not certain yet if they are the right colours. So, even with historical figures, well 1970's TV military, I still have challenges with paint colours.Anyways, I needed something to pose with the robot to make it more dramatic! In the show, the robot is pretty basic, all shiny metal with a dash of colour on the helmet and the shoulders.

Eldar Titans

Old robots? Well for me you can't get much older than these titans from the 1990's. So this blast from the past consists of 8 Eldar Titans! These have sat largely untouched for 20 to 30 years in a big box with a bunch of other stuff. Well before this challenge started I had pulled out all of my titans, Imperial, Eldar and Orc and placed them on one of my shelves, and there they sat for another year. 

Incidentally, from here on in I will stop talking about how long I have had a given model. I will only mention time frame if the model has been acquired recently, otherwise assume that anything I paint has been sitting on my self for many years yadda, yadda, yadda... I think about 80% of my stuff has been around for a long time without being painted. Nuff said!

So thanks to Curt, the Analogue Challenge and a planet of old robots! I have 8 of them, plus 2 smaller ones,  which have finally managed to migrate over to the painting table! Most of them were not even fully assembled and there are 2 more still in their original packages.

The big question is, how many will I get done this week?

Well the answer was... 8

I have used a variety of colour schemes to paint these as I just prefer variety on the tabletop. I also experimented with colour shift paint on one of the Warlock Titans, still not certain about it.

 

 Adeptus Titanicus styrofoam buildings

Kind out of left field, but in keeping with the epic titans, I decided I needed some scenery for the titans to interact with. These are the styrofoam buildings that came with the original Adeptus Titanicus game back in the 80's. A couple of years ago I was able to pick up a near mint copy of the game at a local bring and buy, doubling my collection of buildings and titans. They promptly joined the originals languishing in a storage drawer, until now. The original plan was to spray them grey and then dry brush them to reveal the details. Dry brushing did not work so well and in the end I painted most of them in a variety of colours.

They actually were fun to paint despite the large number of windows and it was fun to select the colours. 

Now maybe some pics of the titans rampaging through the city!

Dystopian wars FSA John Henry robots.

More stuff that I did not finish in time for other posts. These are the flying robots that are the progenitors of the robots used by the Dominion of Canada, but with fully functional flying jets. These are the all the John Henry robots that I own, in fact two of them were re-primed just for this challenge. They had been 'painted' really badly before, actually one was pretty much just silver primed and the less said about the other one the better. So those two were added into the pile, meaning that once done all models would be in the same paint style if not the same livery. 

Like many of my projects the main barrier to starting/finishing a project is determining what colours to use. It took a while, and a lot of internet searching to try and find something I liked. I finally got some inspiration from Gundam models and my own idea of keeping the colours muted and in line with a post Confederacy victory America, so browns and greys, not Yankee blue!

 

 

Points tally

• 65 points for 13 x 28mm foot 
  
• 20 points for 28mm vehicle/Tripod
  
• 05 points for Giant Tess (gets me on the yacht)
  
• 20 points for Sarah's yacht 
• 20 points Altair IV
• 64 for 8 Epic Eldar Titans
• 40 points for 16 Epic building scenery
• 63 points for 9 x 40mm robots @ 7 points each
  

 Grand Total (new) 297

 

When stacked, they are two 6" x 6" cubes

Squirrel points

I have been very remiss in labeling my squirrel entries. Well that ends today! I doubt my addition to last weeks post was in time to be counted towards the squirrel so I might as well start fresh.

1. Super heroes
2. Epic 40K
   
3. Sci-Fi Robots 28mm
   
4. Dystopian wars
5. Dr Who
   

 

Yoiks! So that was a slow week for you? Yes folks, another points-bomb from Chris. I was certain I saw it marked as "Ready" this morning when I made the list for my post, but when I went to do the minioning it was marked as draft. Either I was mistaken, or Chris decided to return and add some more bits...

Chris - I'm assuming that Giant Tess is a 28mm figure from the points you are claiming for her.

Tamsin

Edit:

It's been pointed out to me that there is precedent for the scoring of Epic Titans - Samuli's Ork Gargants were scored as 15mm vehicles at 8 points each. I've adjusted the score accordingly.

 

EDIT

Thanks for the information and update. Error was based on answer to an earlier question, no harm or foul intended!😳

Sorry, yes she is 28mm, actually taller than 28mm but who;s counting...😀

Almost made it without mitakes! Also forgot my alpha challenge...