From RayR: 1/1200 Ark Royal Advice Yachts [Maritime] (40 points)

 

Last year, the Rejects joined Barry Hilton of the League of Augsburg fame, at the Rapture Show at Chatham Dockyard to refight the Dutch "Attack up the Medway" in 1666, using Barry's very own Mad for War rules, we all bought some ships, which I had been painting up prior to the Challenge. It was pretty apt to see the Maritime bonus round, so I quickly painted up two ships!

Maritime: Something wet and offshore

The ships are from Barry's Ark Royal Miniatures for the Anglo-Dutch Wars and can be found here. on the League of Augsberg website.

The other Rejects, Lee, Rich and Steve have chosen to use a water effect paste as the sea, but me and Postie are going rogue with the old method of polyfilla and paint.

The figures are Advice yachts on the left we have a Dutch ship and on the right their foe, the English.

The Yachts would usually carry messages or perhaps the Admiral of the fleet!

Ark Royal Miniatures are 1/200th scale, so are rather dinky, so I thought I'd have a Warlord paintpot added for scale. as for the points, I used this green wash mixed randomly with a blue was to try and get a decent sea colour, not too blue, not too green but a bit of both.

 Reject Lee Hadley posted up his Blue squadron of English earlier in the Challenge and was awarded 15 points each, although most of his ships were bigger ships??

So its a definite 20 points for the bonus round, but I'll let Teemu decided my fate on the points per ship.

TeemuL: Good looking ships, Ray, and a fine selection for Maritime. And this time you didn't just buy some random minis hoping to use them for the Challenge, but they are actual gaming pieces, too! I'm not expert on naval games, but I like how you have painted these, especially the sails. Looks very real and I thought they are bigger than they apparently are. I scored them as 10 points a piece, less than Lee got, but still quite a lot. You need couple of more stops before going for the final topic, but of course there are quite a lot of bonus points still available.

From TomC: Victory At Sea USN [Maritime] (34 points)

 Ahoy fellow challengers, like the Loch Ness monster, I've been out of sight for a while, sorry I haven't been able to comment on all your wonderful work!

 I at least have a contribution to offer, this week is another brace of ships from Warlord Games's Victory At Sea starter set, USS Northampton and an accompanying Fletcher-class destroyer, both hopefully wet and offshore enough for the Maritime section.

 As a bit of context, the Northampton class, of which this was the lead, were all built in the '30s under the auspices of the Washington Naval Treaty, which restricted both their weight and armament (and which was also quietly disregarded by the Japanese navy). Northampton herself had a busy career, first with Enterprise for the Doolittle raid and Midway, with Wasp at Guadalcanal (where she was lucky not to be torpedoed), then Hornet at Santa Cruz, before being torpedoed by Japanese destroyers in her first surface contact at Tassafaronga. 

The photos I've seen of Northampton in 1942 show a simple single-colour scheme but there's a series of images of Northampton in 1941 in this unusual camouflage scheme with a fake bow-wave and countershaded forecastle. Couldn't resist! 

For completeness, there are some liberties I took with the scheme for my own amusement, the orange lifeboats in particular but also the edged smoke stacks (it's a lot of grey otherwise!). Tangentially, the teak deck is a bit of a guess, I couldn't find many images of such things and I have previously had mixed results from eyeballing colours...

The destroyers in Victory at Sea aren't named, but one can never have too many of them! I'm trying to keep them all distinguishable, luckily the Americans had plenty of different schemes to choose from, this being one of the simpler.

 This makes just over half the American vessels from the starter set, which definitely merits a group shot.

In terms of accounting, although the scale is off, the cruisers are c. a 15mm vehicle for 8 points, the destroyers less so at 6 points. Together with the Maritime bonus, that should make 34 points, otherwise known as very slow progress... onwards!

***

Sadly for you Tom, you are stuck with a minion who is, in general, quite ignorant of all things naval when it comes to historical gaming. I will happily charge into all sorts of new periods, but when it comes to ships from WW1 and WW2, I may remember the names and some high-level info about the battles, but am otherwise laughably ignorant...

All this to say while I love these pretty ships, I have nothing to offer as commentary...although so many seem to come to a bad end. Torpedo in her first surface engagement? That sucks...

Fine brushwork here, and great effect of the water vs. the ship. I have seen people struggle with the names of the ships cast right on to the bases, but you seem to make it work nicely! Well done, 34 points for you.

Polite reminder: please use the labels when composing the post! This helps ensure the data/meta data etc. for the Challenge meets the requirements of our Cthulu-like statistical gods...

GregB 

 

From TeemuL: Cirdan the Shipwright [Maritime] (25 points)

A quick post this week, because I was travelling last week. Happily I was a bit prepared and had this Cirdan half painted when I got home and finished him during the lunch break. He is a metal mini from GW for their Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. A very small role in the movies, seen getting the ring Narya and then in the Grey Havens. Painted mostly with Contrast paints, seemed to work very well on all the elven robes, cloaks and other elven clothes.

Cirdan, or Cirdan the Shipwrigth, is my entry for the Maritime section. He was also the Lord of the Harbours of Falas and later Guardian of the Grey Havens.

In the book he has a beard, but in the movie he has not, and the mini is based on the movie, so no beard. I have not read his rules recently, but I have played against him once and if I remember correctly he was a powerful support hero when used correctly. I don't know if I field him, since he is not really a warrior and was not mentioned to take part in the wars in the books or movies. Might be nice to try in one scenario or other.

A simple entry, 5 points for a single mini and 20 points for the Library section. I think I visit couple of the finished sections next week before heading to the final section.

 Sylvain: You are just motoring through the library sections! Your justification for "Maritime" is well argued, so you can bag that extra 20 points. I like the effect you obtained with the contrast paint on the clothes of your figurine. I have not tried such a technique yet, but I'm getting more and more tempted. Nice entry for Monday.

From SteveA: Grabbing 3 Challenge books and putting them on the book cart! (108 points)

Heya there,   for my post this week I want to take a bite out of my painting backlog shaped by the  very kinds of themed painting challenges that first drew my attention to the AHPC.  Also I want to over come some slack in my points progress as end of the this year's AHPC draws near.  Thus my model count here is few, but each parcel of panting  does ding its own challenge point check box..

I delved into my blues, greens and brown colors to paint up a Troll (akin to the Trolls of children's stories such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff ) to serve as wandering monster in future games of Frost Grave, and to enable me to  pull a  "Children's Book" for Library Challenge.

The female Wizards apprentice I painted up for my FrostGrave Warband - will spin the wheels  of Lady Sarah’s Library Cart  to carry me to a new section in the Library.

I jumped off  of Lady Sarah’s Library  Cart to meet the Maritime challenge with a Star-Spawn of Cthulhu mini that Wizkids Games put out for Pathfinder a few years back.  According to the pathfinderwiki.com, the smallest Star-Spawn stands nearly 30 feet in height, (cited from "Wake of the Watcher," a Pathfinder RPG adventure) Thus, I am assuming this elder thing bursting up from deep waters can be scored as a 54 mm mini and also ding me a check box for the Maritime Library challenge   ( or if not the Maritime Challenge, then I submit this old one mini for consideration under the Romance Novel challenge... after all who  among us does not  harbor a mad dark love within their spoiled hearts for the remorseless cosmic might of Cthulhu and his spawn)

The tank may at first seem a little out of place between an aegis of cosmic horror and a couple figures for frozen fantasy, but for me to meet the challenge for Local History, this Sherman Tank M4 model  (2002, ArmourFast, 1/72 plastic kit,  No 99001)  is very similar to the Sherman M4 Tank War Memorial  that still stands proudly in my old  childhood neighborhood.

I aim to be somewhat brief and concise with my posts, so rather than recount the Local Tank War Memorial's history, I will instead provide link to a site describing the real M4 Tank of my childhood memories.

The Sherman Tank Memorial: https://www.rclwinnipeg100.ca/2010/03/06/80/

Thus with a load of  3 Library Challenge books pulled from shelves and placed upon the Lady Sarah’s Library  Cart, I believe I have made some overdue progress to paint me up some challenge points.

 5 pts  x1 Troll Foot Figure 28mm

20 pts Challenge Library: Children's Books

 5 pts x1 Wizard Apprentice (Female) Foot Figure 28mm

20 pts Lady Sarah’s Book Cart

10 pts x1 Star Born Foot Figure 54mm

20 pts Challenge Library: Maritime

 8 pts x1 Sherman M4  Tank 1/72 Scale, (score as Vehicle 15mm) 

20 pts Challenge Library: Local History

Total = 108 points

TeemuL: No worries, Cthulhu is a well known maritime entity. In fact he could easily be pretty much anything he wants... Iä, Iä! (Yes, I have nice Finnish keyboard, where there actually is a key for "ä"). And like Cthulhu embraces everything in the end, you grab quite a lot of Library locations and thus points. I guess the troll is an old WHFB troll? And your local Sherman looks business, but in the end doesn't have a chance against Cthulhu. Or Wizard... May be a small change against a troll. :)

From KenR : 1/700 HMS Calcutta - Maritime Library (80 points)

 

When I saw the Maritime section in the Libary it wasn't too hard for me to think of a suitable entry, after all last years 1/700 WW2 Naval Project won the Challengers Choice ! I hadn't done much on the Project after last year's Challenge and I have been mostly working on the Mentana Game so it was lovely to get back on the water again.

This is a 1/700 scale model from Trumpeter representing HMS Calcutta, a C Class Light Cruiser of the Royal Navy as she would have looked in 1941 whilst serving in the Mediterranean.

The ship was built at the end of the first World War but was commissioned too late to see action. Calcutta served in Norway, at Dunkirk and in the Med where she was sunk by German aircraft on 1st June 1941 off Alexandria.

Initially armed with single mounted 6" Guns the ship was re armed as an AA Light Cruiser in 1939 and was fitted out with 4 dual QF 4" Guns as well as a quad 2 pounder in the front superfiring position (which looks a bit wierd !)

I've painted the ship in its dazzle camo pattern from the Med, rather than just go for a straight grey with a ship I prefer to go for a more interesting look and I'm getting to be a bit of a dab hand with the masking tape and air brush after a bit of practice.

Points wise I've gone for 60 for the ship. Last year I didn't do any Light Cruisers but was scoring 40 for Destroyers and 120 for Battleships so 60 is about right, added to that is 20 for the Library Maritime bonus, giving a total of 60. I've started a Liberty Ship as well as the Pike Block I have on the go.

***

Great to see your 1/700 naval efforts making a return to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge once more Ken! The model ship looks incredible, and as always it is fun to read about its service - although it seems depressing to be refitted specifically for anti-aircraft duties, and get sunk by aircraft anyway!

What I love most about these 1/700 ships is that you can really see them and get a feel for them - and your basing really adds to that sense too. I gather that this large scale throws a wrench in things when trying to have the models on a table of any sort of size...but wow, it looks great!

If you say 60 points for this, that works for me! Toss in the Maritime bonus, and that is 80 points for you. Well done!

GregB

From JP - 28mm Afghan Cavalry and 1/600 ACW Naval (178 points)

I've slowed down a bit due to some travel, but I'm having another run at things this week.

First off, I have half a dozen Afghan cavalry from Foundry. I remain very partial to this range in spite of other, more recent manufacturers - maybe nostalgia, or just good solid sculpts by the Perry brothers?

They are meant for the cut down version of The Sword And The Flame (by which I mean units of 6 horse and 10 foot vs 12 horse and 20 foot). I have slowly built these up after getting out of the Indian Mutiny as I am still attached to the NWF.

 

Having completed the Section, I will walk over to Maritime. These are 1/600 STLs of ACW vessels by David Manly, from the Wargames Vault.. The detail level is astounding, with areas you can literally look through. I collect ACW naval in 1/1200, my buddy here collects them in 1/600. So I decided to paint these up for him as a gift, which he collected this weekend. My son-in-law printed them in both scales. I highly recommend them, though the masts and flagpoles are fragile and should be replaced with fine (read very fine) hollow copper tubing.

I was not sure how to count them, due to size. I am tentatively counting them as one mounted 28mm fig each, and one foot 28mm for the small vessel. The last photo contains a 28mm pack mules for scale. Please correct if necessary.

 

I have used Sarah's taxi to take me to the Gift Corner and another one to come back. These are Otherworld Miniatures - and you already know they are my favourite manufacturer of fantasy figs. 

So, points wise, if I am doing this right:

    6 x Afghan horse             =  60 points

    4 x large 1/600 ships       =  40 points

    1 x small 1/600 ship        =   5  points

    2 x 28mm fantasy foot    =  10 points

    Maritime                         =  20 points

    Gift Shop by taxi            =  20 points

    Total                               =  155 points.

Thanks for looking them over. All thoughts for improving them are welcome!!

***

Great to have another submission from you JP! Lots to enjoy here, but for me the standouts are the Afghan cavalry. As you say, the Foundry sculpts are great classic figures, and I do find myself in a somewhat odd situation in a couple of the historical periods I collect where I get 28mm from the Perrys' current company, and supplement it with sculpts from Wargames Foundry which were...sculpted by the Perrys! 

Naval scoring is always the worst, and makes me long for all naval submissions to just be banned from the Challenge, but based on my research into other 1/600 precedents this morning, I would rate your larger ships at 15 points each. So all in you have another 178 points toward your total.

A reminder to please include labels in your draft post, to help with the data for the site and the Challenge!

GregB

From SanderS: A futuristic take on the Maritime Theme (33 points)

 Hoi,

And so we wander into the Maritime Department of the Library. Now I do not have any real blue navy vessels to paint in my collection at the moment, but I did have a few space SHIPs to paint as part of a commission.  So I guess these will have to do, even if it is only a small entry this week while working on a bigger entry for next week. 

The vessels you see here are part of the Space Dreadnought 3000 range made by Kalistra. The game is a very strategic game rather than the usual tatcical games, there's a big part of the game in which you have to deploy your fleets (= nautical term) and supply vessels etc, before fighting out big battles in space. 

The pictures below show a Deep Space station which I have painted (as per instruction of the client) in a generic way so it could belong to either faction or be neutral. 

 Next up are 3 pirate vessels which are rather "organic" in nature (think Tyranid Bio-ships) and I painted them in the colours specified by the client (i.e. green, yellow and white). 

I must confess that I like the space station best and really had fun doing all the lights, glass domes and other bobs and bits. 

Regarding to points I have no idea what to score them, my browser doesn't show the lables for Challenge entries on the righthand side of the main page anymore so I couldn't look them up. But I guess I would go for 10 points for the station and 3 each for the smaller craft so 19 points together. That coupled with 20 bonus points would make 39 more to add to the roster. I guess it's up to our masterful monday minion to decide! 

Cheers Sander

Not really your usual masterful minion, but it's Monday Martijn for you I fear. Those spacecraft look fabulous, Sander! The yellow is great, and the all the little details on the Space Station really pop. Excellent work and your client should be well pleased with them. However, I feel the link with the Maritime section is just a little too tenuous for me. There is very little wet or offshore about these models, in the spirit of the Library section, and placing these on the shelves here would definitely get me a reprimand from the Head Librarian. To soften the blow a bit, however, having checked the dimensions I will score the smaller craft as 10mm vehicles at 6 points each and the space station as a 20mm vehicle at 15 points for a total of 33 points. Well done Sander!

Martijn

P.S. don't forget to mark your draft post "Monday", in case you get to deal with a replacement minion who could easily have overlooked it ;-)