From MikeP: My Challenge

 I had a grand time this year, and I'm glad that I returned to the Challenge after taking some years off.  I was able to meet and beat my 500 point challenge, though the directions I took were largely unexpected.   Originally I'd planned to work on 28mm SYW stuff, so where did that Germanic war band come from?  Likewise I had no plans to do the Frankenstein vignette until it appeared in my mailbox as a late Christmas present and an idea for a visit to Skaro took place.  The Challenge was a great incentive to come to grips with 3D printing, though I have SO MUCH learning curve still to navigate.   But it was a good start.  Half of the 6mm stuff and all the Frankenstein scenery was printed for the Challenge.

More importantly, I've met up again with some Challenge veterans and met some new friends here.  I still hope to look at and comment on every one of your posts, I tried hard to do that but fell off the rails in late March.   I have been constantly impressed by your talent, creativity, and friendliness.  

Cheers and blessings, MikeP (the Padre)

From MikeP (Ready) 6mm Printed Napoleonic Infantry (32 points)

Hello Challenge friends.

This is my last entry for this year, returning to my main line of effort, God's Own Scale and 6mm Napoleonics.   These are 3D printed figures that were gifted to me by the owner of my local gaming store, who wants our group to start playing a Naps campaign.   Being a fan of underdogs and Charlie Brown Christmas trees, I took the Spanish. 

I have no idea who designed these STL files.  They are rather crude, and print in strips, reminiscent of the Warlord Epic figures, with the only the front of the front rank and the back of the back rank given any detail.  They paint very quickly, so perfect for starting an army quickly and for massed battles.  I just noticed the heads on the left most figures in the above shot are missing, I think my cat nibbled on them, so I guess the massed battle has started!

Speaking of massed battles, the rules I currently favour, LaSalle 2ndEd by Sam Mustafa, calls for each regiment to have four stands, to represent Line, Column, Massed and Square formations.  Even in 6mm, with my standard base size, units will take up a lot of real estate, but with these printed figures, it's not that hard to build units.  I haven't tried these four base units in a game yet, so curious to see how it will play.

That's a long line!

Since the flag is printed as a slab of resin flying straight out in the breeze, it was easy to freehand the Spanish crossed ragged staffs.

A final note about the trees in the background, I wanted to up the scenics standard for my 6mm tables, so ordered some regularly shaped MDF bases from Litko, and gathered all the trees I could find to fill them out.  The pine trees are quite large, probably more suited for 10 or 15mm, and probably not found in Spain!

No points claimed for the trees as all I did was prepare some bases.  For the Spanish, there are 32 figures per base, but since I only painted 16 fronts and 16 backs per base, I'll call it 16 figures X 4 stands X .5 points per figure, so 32 points?

Well, my friends, that does it for me for this year.  It's been grand to be a part of this, and to see all your creativity and enthusiasm.  As always, I'm grateful to Curt and the faithful minions, and to you Tamsin, it was an honour to be part of Team Tuesday.  It was very gratifying to get comments and to know that some of you liked my Frankenstein entry, thank you for that.  I did my best to add a comment (and sometimes some attempted humour) to every entry, but there simply wasn't enough time and I am sorry for anyone's work that I missed, I'll try to catch up after this weekend.  Now I'm off to Stratford, ON for HotLead, which we like to think of as one of Canada's best minis events.  

Cheers and blessings,  MikeP

From DaveD . AAhh some fine 6mm - you really can't beat them for a mass effect . Enjoy your visit to a show!

 

From MikeP (Ready): 28mm 18th/19th century German Farm (125 pts)

With the clock running out on this year's Challenge, here is a significant terrain project I've been working on for 18th century Seven Year War gaming in the big scale.   These are both 28mm MDF kits from Warbases, from their Napoleonic Prussia series of buildings.

One is a farm cottage, the other obviously is a barn.   Both were labours of love.  To give the cottage a stucco style look and as bare MDF walls look rather sad, I coated the exterior walls thickly with LePage plastic wood filler, painted the walls an off-white cream colour, and then stained them with Agrax Earthshade.  The slate roof is made of cut-up cereal box, glued in place and painted blue.

Likewise for the barn, a three-story model, I used the cut up cereal box method to suggest that the ground floor was made of field stones cemented in place.  Not sure if that's common in 18th century Prussia, but you still see it in old barns in SW Ontario where I live.

For the barn roof, I saw the error of my ways with the cereal boxes and ordered some roof tile sets from Sarissa.   Two sheets wasn't enough and I had to cut a few strips to finish the job.  The barn is a massive thing, as you can see from these 28mm figures.

The bases were made as well, following a recipe from my friend Joe Saunders, who runs a clever YouTube channel called Miniature Landscape Hobbies.  I had hoped to make some scatter to add to the bases, to make it all appear lived in, but that will wait for another day, along with the three more Warbases buildings still in the flatpacks.  

The barn is a bit of a beast, 7" wide, 10" long, and 8" high.  The farmhouse is 6" wide, 3.5" wide, and 5" tall.  I can supply photos later to verify this, but as I'm pressed for time, I'd be grateful if a kind minion can take my word for this.   Not counting the bases, I would say the buildings would need five 6" cubic boxes to hold them, so I'm asking for 120 points, but honestly, since I pretty much made my goal this year, I'll take whatever you award, and if you want to reward my stupidity for all those cut up cereal boxes, I'll take bonus points for stupid.

I don't think there's a Challenge planet dedicated to German agricultural so no planet bonus claimed.

Cheers and thanks for looking, MikeP

From DaveD. Thats a fine bit of work you've completed = i always like seeing these mdf buildings brought properly to life - lets  call that 125 

From MikeP: Some 6mm Napoleonics (90 points)

 Hello friends:

Frankenstein was a pleasant diversion, but it's back to business, and for the last two weeks I've been working in God's Own Scale, clearing off some old lead and newly printed resin from the Napoleonics side of my workbench.'  I've found that the downside of 3D printing is how easy it is to add to the painting pile!  I'm waiting for a machine that prints spare time.

Here are some French Voltiguer skirmishers, 3D prints from MC Miniatures, which you can find on My Mini Factory.  Several of the rules I currently use, Sam Mustafa's LaSalle 2 and General D'Armee from Reisswitz Press/TFL, allow for most infantry units to throw out skirmishers ahead of the main stand.  These cheap and cheerful prints would allow me to cover a brigade or a division, depending on the scale.

One of the guys in the trio in the centre is a previously painted figure who lost his mate in a horrible crushing incident, so only 12 painted figures in this group.

Next up are two regiments of Bavarian Chevau Legers light cavalry in their distinctive tall leather helmets.  There was a bit of a friendly challenge on historical minis Twitter last fall to paint Bavarian troops, and I'm a bit late to the party.   These are metal figures from Baccus.    They'll either fight for or against the Emperor, depending on the year.

Finally, some printed cavalry, Napoleonic Russian Cossacks.  These are 3D prints, also from MC Miniatures.  They print in long strips, which are easier to handle than the Baccus figures which are cast on strips of three, and they're a lot easier to paint, though the end result is a little wooden.  However, it's a fairly easy way to get masses of troops done, and I hope to be exploring the 1812 Russian campaign in the coming year, so I'm going to need lots of troops.

These are actually two command stands, I need to print and paint two more strips of troopers to get two complete regiments.   A friend on Twitter suggested finding some Orthodox icons, shrinking them, and printing them, to serve as banners.  I thought it worked well.

I gave this unit red lances, to distinguish them on the table top.

Massing figures like this is for me the great joy of 6mm gaming.

Points: 

12 X 4 Cossacks = 48 + 36 Bavarians = 84 6mm cavalry @ 1 pt ea = 84 pts.

12 X 6mm foot @ .5 points ea = 6 points.

I can't think of a clever or even a dumb way to link this entry to a Challenge planet.

Total: 90 points.

Cheers and thanks for looking, MikeP

That's lovely work on the tiny guys, Padre! Those red lances certainly pop!

Tamsin

From MikeP: The Triumph of Frankenstein (Skaro, Death Star) 80 points

 Hammer Studios, Tamsin's Tuesday Terror Talkies, and MikeP, present:

A dear friend of mine knows that I am inordinately fond of fellow Canadian Bob Murch of Pulp Figures and his sculpts inspired by movies and pulp magazines of the 1930s.   A package arrived at Christmas full of Pulp goodness, including Bob's "Triumph of Frankenstein" set.   What could be a better way to visit Skaro, planet of strange doctors, then in the company of Victor Frankenstein.   So be prepared for a spine-chilling, blood-curdling post.

The figures are terrific in their own right, but I wanted some scenery to suggest Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory so I turned to my 3D printer.   I found a mad scientist's lab set on MyMiniFactory, sold by Print Your Monsters, as well as dungeon floors and tiles from Legend Games.  Not entirely sure what the massive steampunk thingy in the corner does - power source maybe? - but it looks cool as does the workbench with the extra brain in the box!  The walls and floors are primed black and dry brushed with successive layers of three shades of gray craft paint, going from darker to lighter.

Dr. Frankenstein's lab coat is a base coat of Folk Art Dove Gray built up with thinned Folk Art Vintage White.  I resisted the temptation to splatter it with blood.  I prefer the idea of the young scientist with pure (amoral?) intentions who doesn't find himself covered in blood and guilt until much later.    The poor monster is mostly brown undercoat picked out with FolkArt Linen, a very useful colour.  Bob's wonderful lifting table is painted in Folk Art Wrought Iron.  Igor and Viktor are painted using the Foundry Triad system for their flesh.

The "set" measures 4.5" by 4.5" and a little over 4" to the top of the power thingy so it fills a 6" cube.

Hi 

I hope you'll agree that Viktor is a natural for immigration to Skaro.   I hope you'll also agree that his handiwork, the Monster (yes, Bob also sculpted the monster as we know him from movie lore) is a creature of very questionable design, when you consider that he's made of dead body parts, that Viktor's henchman stole The Wrong Brain for the monster, and the monster drive up a pretty high body count.  Also, poor hubristic Viktor, who wanted to master the secrets of life and death,  never even gets a sniff of a Nobel Prize, so it all goes rather badly for him.   Hence, with this big green mini as my ticket, we're off to the Death Star.

Poor Igor, he's about to regret terrorizing the poor monster with fire. 

Bob's sculpt of the monster is a great homage to Boris Karloff

The cast of characters.  This project is the first time I've used clear plastic bases, which I felt went well with the printed and textured floor tiles.  I ordered a mittful of them from Litko, and I'm sure I'll find more uses for them.

This was a fun project to do as a diversion.  It allowed me to discover some of the capabilities of 3D printing for scenery and backgrounds, and was also a restful break from the historical painting that I usually do.  I'm grateful to the Challenge for these opportunities to be creative.

4 X 28mm foot figures @ 5 points ea = 20 pts.

1 6" scenery cube = 20 pts.

Skaro and Death Star @ 20 pts = 40 pts.

Total: 80 pts.

Cheers, and thanks for looking,  MikeP

Mad doctor for Skaro? Yes, Viktor is definitely good for that. His "modern Prometheus" for the Death Star - you've made a good argument for that. 

However, trying to argue that 4.5" x 4.5" x 4" fills a 6" x 6" x 6" terrain cube is a bit of a stretch. If we go down that road, someone (you know we're looking at you, Ray) might try to claim that a 28mm bear is a piece of terrain and counts as a terrain cube. By my reckoning the volume would be 0.375 terrain cubes, so 7.5 points for that.

What I will do is count the various bits and bobs (including the animation table the monster is strapped to) as 2.5 figures, so 12.5 points for those. That way your total points work out the same.

Tamsin

From MikeP: Ancient Germanic Warband 2 (190 points)

 On the heels of my first instalment here from January 18, I am happy to present the rest of my Victrix 28mm ancient German war band.  The 38 figures complete the bag of 60 and allow me to take part in my local gaming group's new obsession, Clash of Spears.   When in Rome, fight the Romans, or something like that, as Wayne and Shuster once said

First up, six elite warriors, in either captured Roman gear or Germanic auxiliaries who have had enough of stupid Roman discipline and who miss beer gardens.

Next are 6 javelin armed skirmishers.   I've played COS a few times now and have learned to fear Roman light troops, so I need some fast movers with missile capability to go in, try to win the firefight, and clear my flanks.

As you can see, pants, shirts, and shoes are optional in the javelin corps.  I'm pretty sure the guy with the cloak is happiest on a cold night, maybe the rest just do a puppy pile.  As usual when doing photography, a few errors jump out like pimples on prom night.

Next up are 16 fellows with pointy sticks.  A few of them will supplement the javelin groups on the tabletop to give me two missile groups of 7 each.  The rest will take their place in the mob of battle.

Ten likely lads with choppers, just itching to get close and personal with some lucky legionnaire.

Here are the 38 figures in today's entry:

And here's the whole war band.  At 60 figures, this is the largest 28mm batch job I've ever done, and it's taken my pretty much all of January, but it was a very rewarding project and I'm looking forward to taking this lot to a gaming night soon.

It's a bad day for a Roman when he sees this coming at him.

I can't think of any way to use this entry for a planetary visit, as I used the first lot of 22 to visit Klendathu (invasion gone bad, see Varrus, Quintus), so I'll just claim 38 x 28mm figures at 5 each for a total of 190 points and leave it at that.   Next Tuesday I hope to visit Skaro, if all goes well in the secret laboratory!

Cheers,  MikeP

Good to see this warband completed, Padre! I was going to suggest that some of the javelinmen might also be waving their choppers threateningly at Romans, but a quick scroll back through the photos showed that they all have loincloths at least!

Tamsin

From MikeP: A Few Tiny Napoleonics (24 pts) (Glorantha)

 Hello friends:

I have a very tiny entry as one of Tamsin's Tuesday Tigers, tiny in both scale and points.   It's been a busy week and I'm working on the rest of my Germanic war band for next week, hopefully.

This Christmas Santa gave me an Elegoo Mars Pro 3 printer and I eagerly fired it up to print the test file that comes with the machine.   Alas, my first attempt produced a block of resin, and drained all the resin in the tank.   The best advice I got was that the LCD screen that shipped with the machine was defective and was just pouring light all over the tank.

Elegoo came through and sent me a replacement LCD screen, but the downside was that I had to remove the old one and install the new one, slow trembling step by slow trembling step, watching a YouTube video as I went.  It was nervewracking, because I'm not terribly technical, but I was successful and the test piece printed, so I felt quite heroic (hence the Glorantha part of this post - more to follow).

I know that there are some 3D printing veterans in this Challenge, but I'm finding it all new and exciting, so here are my first 3D prints, from Turner Miniatures.  Henry Turner is a prolific designer of 3D figures that can scale from 6mm to 15mm.  He's primarily known for his two Europe Asunder Kickstarters, the first being infantry and artillery, the second, which I've backed, being focused on cavalry.   

Here are two of Henry's free 6mm cavalry figures, an Austrian cuirassier trumpeter and a French cuirassier eagle bearer.

Until now the only 6mm cavalry figures I've painted are metal castings from Baccus.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much detail Henry packs into these little guys.  They were enormous fun to paint.

I'm calling these figures 6mm, though from the base to the top of the head is almost 15mm.  However, they compare quite favourably to my 6mm Baccus figures and on the table I doubt I could tell them apart. Right, that's the test figures done, can't wait to start printing and painting these guys by the squadron and by the battalion!

So how do I justify Glorantha with this tiny entry?  Because heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and these two dashing cuirassiers are as heroic as they come (really, would you argue with them?), and because I took the 3D printing plunge and then fixed my machine.  QED, I am, to quote Lord Flashheart, a bally hero.

Finally, here's a bit of fun.   Henry Turner offers this free .STL file, "Caporal Frosty".   He's appropriate for this snowy cold day where I live.   I scaled the file up to 15mm before printing.

 Perhaps, before he abandoned the Grande Army in Russia, Napoleon asked for a body double so his troops didn't know they'd been abandoned, and this was what he got?   Or maybe it was bait to lure the Cossacks off the trail?   Hmm, that almost sounds like a Babylon 5 entry, but I'll refrain.

Two 6mm mounted (2 points), and 1 15mm foot figure (2 points) and Glorantha = 24 points, I think.

Cheers, 

MikeP

Smashing work, Mike! Somehow, I don't think Napoleon's troops were fooled for one minute by his body double! 

Tamsin

From MikeP: 28mm Ancient Germanic Warriors (Klendathu) (130 pts)

 In my second post of today, I offer some big brothers to Tamsin's splendid mob of 15mm ancient Germans that graced this page recently.  I'm happy to show you 22 bellicose chaps, Germanic warrior from Victrix.

These guys are the first tranche from a bag of 60 (!) figures that I was inspired to buy because the fellows in the local gaming group are quite taken by the Clash of Spears rules, though of course most everyone favoured Romans or Carthaginian armies.  Being a bit of a contrarian, I opted for wild shouty Germans who would quite happily fight anything anyone cared to put on the table.

These were the first Victrix figures I've ever purchased and I found them quite easy to assemble, with a pleasing variety of torsoes (6 per sprue, I think), many heads to choose from, and quite a few weapons and shield types.   

I primed them in Citadel Corax Gray spray paint, and then gave them a wash in Windsor and Newton brown ink before painting.   This had the happy result of giving me defined lines that I could work around when applying the flesh paint, and that gave me the muscle definition that seems to be a hallmark of the English style of painting that I associate with painters like Kevin Dallimore.   It looks exaggerated close up, but it looks better on the table (not that I'm associating myself with Mr. Dallimore, mind you!).

For how I paint, this is middle to higher-end wargames standard painting.  They won't win any prizes, but they look ok to me.    I used a lot of Citadel contrast paints and washes.

First up are some javelin chuckers, some of whom appear happy just wearing diapers.

Guys with sharp pointy sticks.

Clubby and stabby guys.

Chaps in Roman armour and helmets.  Could be battlefield trophies that they've appropriated, or they could be Germans in Roman service who have deserted.  Either explanation works for me, but you can imagine the teasing from their mates, "Hey, Rolph, what's wrong with a diaper?  Hey, guys, check out Mr Fancy Pants!"

After I brought these fellows home from my FLGS, I decided to invest in some shield transfers from Little Big Man Studios, conveniently retailed by Victrix and sized perfectly for these shields.   They add a lot to the overall look, I think.

These fellows will spoil a Roman's day, and there are more of them lurking in those woods for another post!

So, 22 28mm foot figures @ 5 ea = 110 points.   I'm going to use this entry to visit Klendathu, and if you wonder how these guys qualify for "Invasion Gone Bad",  just ask Emperor Augustus what happened to his legions ("Quintil Vare, legiones redde!") :

So 130 points in all.

Cheers,  and thanks for looking,  MikeP

Well, if Oscar had come across these giant Germans he'd probably have scarpered even quicker than he did from my smaller Germans!

Very nice work on this start to your warband, Mike!

Tamsin