Fellow participants of the Challenge know Noel well from his wonderfully creative, loquacious and hilarious submissions to our little event (he was a poet after all). I always knew, that when a Noel entry was posted, that I'd be entertained by his great wit, impressed by his furious industry and invigorated by his ebullient enthusiasm.
He will be greatly missed.
Wishing you smooth sailing and open skies, Noel.
-Curt
Firstly apologies to all involved with my lack of updates on these two Duels, Time just ran away with me, as well as I was painting like a man possessed!
The Challenge is all over for another year, only another 9 months to go for Challenge 12!! I'd like to thank all who appeared in the Napoleonic and Donnybrook Challenges, I had a lot of fun in both.
We have a clear winner in the Napoleonics, Noel lept in at the death and squeezed Paul out of the top spot and 2 adventurers failed to post a Napoleonic figure.
So here are the final tables
Napoleonic
Apologies if I've missed out any posts or points, it would have been easier for me if everyone had labelled their posts with the Napoleonic Duel, sigh......
And now it's a wrap from a Yorkshireman.
Nice to come full circle. Here's me with the accomplishment of the last three months:
You can see that one thing that hasn't improved since this time last year is my photographic skills. I must get round to reading the manual. And that smirk suggests that the subject has never seen a camera before.
On the table is everything I've painted during the Challenge, apart from two items: one ship was, rather like its owner, too highly strung, so when it received a little knock, mast and bowsprit sprang asunder - the perils of using fragile 3D print tech, I guess. So it's sitting in dry dock at present. And my favourite piece of the entire Challenge is not here either: I scratch-built a Poe-esque pendulum early in the Challenge, and was so pleased with it I carefully stored it away in this secure cupboard - I mean, that deep drawer - my mistake - probably in the Really Useful Box with all the Frostgrave - no? - er...did I even build the thing? Well, it must be here somewhere. Maybe I'll rediscover it before December.
I was very pleased with this year's painting and modelling, even though the points total fell way short of the last two years. I'd planned to advance 12 projects, and am happy to find that 10 of them are better off now than they were when we began.
Here's a couple more shots of the figures.
Pretty impossible to make out individual pieces, but I've managed to work on terrain, ships, 10mm, 28mm, historical in 10 theatres/periods, sci fi and fantasy. No 15mm, though, nothing later than Napoleonic, and no vehicles, so those are things to start planning for when we rebegin in December. Knowing me, I'll have that planning well under way by midday tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone again for brilliant posts, excellent painting, imaginative gaming and some inspirational work. I think this Challenge is a model for how people can, and should, get on with each other online, so I'm hoping Curt will be rolling out the paradigm to the UN real soon now. Meanwhile, failing that, I'll see you all again in December.
And so we face the final curtain. I’ve been tidying up the painting desk. Look how clean and pristine it is, with no more than 2 or 300 half painted figures scattered around. So much better than 3 months ago.
So I’ve
four final offerings.
Firstly, 15 Byzantine infantry by Fireforge. I bought these
on a whim, thinking they’d give me another infantry unit for Oathmark. But, not
knowing anything about Byzantine warfare, I’m now thinking abut building a
Byzantine army starting here – so, any tips would be more than welcome.
I've painted the shields white because I don't know any better, and I'm hoping to be able to source decals which will fit these shields, but so far no luck.
Next, 12 Late Roman cavalry by Gripping Beast. I’m not clear
if “Late Roman” and Byzantine are in any sense connected – does Late Roman
immediately precede “Byzantine”, for example? Or could both units be used in
the same army?
My aim with these figs was to add a cavalry contingent to a handful of Wargames
Foundry Arthurian foot which I bought second hand and am slowly repainting. Again,
these figures will firstly be used within Oathmark, but gradually built up into
a (small) army of the period. I like the idea of being able to fight hordes of
huns, though my collection currently contains only 3 (unpainted) huns. I’ll
probably end up squinting at a Mongol horde and calling it “hunnic”.
Shields and standard (which I fear is almost invisible) are
by Little Big Man.
Third up: 6 more cavalry. These are all Perry plastics, consisting of one more Agincourt French knight (Jean, Baron of Ligne – I quite like the fact that his escutcheon consists of a “line”, but I guess French nobility maybe did not think of it like that) and 5 mounted archers. The archers are, of course, later in period than Agincourt, suitable for the Italian wars, which is where they’ll end up but they may also occupy a place in an Oathmark force for a while.
And finally Esther (reference only to be understood by UK citizens of a certain age): 13 Perry Afghans, a mix of metal and plastic. As usual with Perry figures, it’s quite difficult to tell plastic from metal, which is always a sign of decent castings. One or two of the poses I’ve created are a little melodramatic, because I intend some of these figures at least to serve in fantasy pirate games as well as the NW Frontier. I’ve tried to paint them in relatively subdued colours, as seems to be most accurate, but my brush continually strays towards the vivid and bright, so it’s been difficult to make them both interesting and reasonably realistic.
And that's my lot for Challenge XI. I wonder where we'll find ourselves in Challenge XII. Wandering a Victorian mansion where weird Chthuluesque creatures award bonus points in the basement? Trapped in a mad time machine that demands we interdimensional palettes? My bet is we'll be heading out among the stars to visit unexpected planets where paintbrushes grow on trees, volcanoes spew out Contrast colours and the only communication is through puns.
I can't wait.
Scoring: that’s 18 x 28mm cavalry: 180 points
28 x 28mm infantry: 140 points
1 flag: 1 point
TOTAL: 321 points
I’d like to thank Curt for keeping this crazy challenge going despite the obvious impact on his sanity; Lady Sarah, of course, for keeping the crazy Snowlord going despite the almost inevitable impact on her sanity; the many manic minions for their administrative brilliance (cough), irrespective of their sanity; everyone who has taken a couple of minutes to wade through my verbiage or to comment on my posts; my wife for not complaining about the paint that somehow found its way onto the living room curtains; my son for barely mentioning the bristling fragment of sprue embedded in his cushion when he sat down to watch evening TV; our cat for recovering from what seemed to me a terminal illness halfway through the Challenge; my agent; all of the production crew; JRR Tolkien; my friend Napoleon; Mr Harrap, my history teacher, for illustrating how badly a man could shave when he should have been telling us about Saratoga; all of history for just being there when it was needed….a white van has just drawn up….there are men in white coats getting out….one of them appears to have a taser….interesting…
Grovelling before the Awesome Lord of All Things Snowflaky Titchy’s bloodspattered party of hardly adventurers sacrifice a snowman in his honour.
“O Great and Merciful bringer of chilblains and
sniffles, O Mighty Hailsneezer, O Spitter of That Sort of Chilling Rain that
Goes Right Through You, Snowboarder on the Celestial Tundra of the Darkest Cumulo-Nimbus,
Bringer of Mighty Avalanches and Trivial Snowglobes, O Glorious Dribbler of
Icicle-Breath, we abase ourselves before you. We beg the smallest of
microscopic teeny weeny little favours from your Allpoweful Snowangelness –
yea! it’s such a small favour you’d probably be able to do it in your beauty
sleep, which, we understand, you need a lot of, but who are we to judge?
Please, Great Arbiter of All Things Frozen and Slippery, help us to rid the
Chambers of Challenge of these evil undead recidivist reactionary revenant
sergeants who’ve invaded our fair and otherwise virtually conflict-free lands.
Oh, and here’s a bit of treasure for you.”
Hoping the Snowlord doesn't recognise where the treasure was discovered, the party empty their pockets, heaping trinkets of
gold and silver, diamond and Wensleydale before the feet of the mightily
snoring Overlord.
He stirs!
Or does he?
His little finger moves. He groans with the effort.
He’s about to open one eye.
Or is he?
He rolls over in his sleep, shaking tender
snowflakes from his hair in a way which in no sense resembles dandruff.
He breathes a great gasp of rasping icy breath,
raises one mighty finger in their general direction – not sure what that’s
about – and lo! before them stands a group of rather bedraggled figures.
“Oh no!” says Getrude. “Not more elves.”
But it is. A group of elves, brushing frost from
their delicate brows, and mumbling some song about hey nonny nonny northerners.
“We are the magical elves of the Tyger Woods,” says
the tallest elf, plucking on a harp and gazing at imaginary stars (they are a
couple of miles underground, after all). “With our arcane and unfathomable
powers, we can banish all unwanted creatures, all evil, everything nasty slimy and
creepy crawly. Be not afeared of the yucky! And that treasure will just about do, thank you
very much.”
“No need to part with your hard-earned treasure,”
growls another voice from a darkened corner of the Snowlord’s cave. “We can do
the job merely for honour, i.e. for half the price.”
For a moment they look like dwarves, this hitherto
unnoticed group of armoured warriors skulking in the depths.
“We are the noblest warriors ever to grace the ungrateful soil. We will dispense with these unholy intruders for you.”
“Hang on a minute,” says the lead elf, breaking a
harp string. “We were here first. If there’s any heroic rescuing to be done,
we’re the chaps for the task. Hey nonny nonny.”
“We, however, are the greatest wielders of katana,
naginata, passata and carbonara the world has yet to see. We will slice these
bony intruders into the dusty atoms they came from.”
The samurai draws his sword.
The elf sharpens his harp.
And, right on cue, there’s a bony knock at the door. Minute by minute it seems increasingly insistent and increasingly bony.
“Gerald thinks,” says Getrude, “this might be a
good time to find our way back to the Caverns’ Entrance. We don’t want to get
underfoot as these two groups of clearly mighty warriors carry out the task the
Snowlord has charged them with.”
“Wait until the skellies charge in, then whilst the
elves and those tinned warriors take care of them, we can sneak past.”
“You just keep on thinking, Butch. Is everybody ready?”
The door opens.
And there we must leave them.
Does the party escape
with their lives, wending a cautiously confused way back to daylight, to
discover they’ve accidentally neglected to clear a few rubies and sapphires
from their pockets – but they’re only little ones, who’s going to miss them?
Do the elves and samurai fight it out amongst
themselves for the honour of being the first to be overrun by the impending
undead?
Or do they, perhaps, unite and resoundingly smite
the bony invaders, clearing the Chambers of Challenge once and for all, and
sending a resounding message of doom back to Challenge Island, whence they came?
To find out, tune in again this time next year,
when everything will be completely different. I hope.
I’ll leave the last word to Scruff -
“Woof!”
***
In the olden days, when my kids were young, the whole family played Warhammer and, between us, we had just about every GW fantasy army. Then GW moved the goalposts once too often, the children grew (somewhat) and the family interest in mass-family battles waned. Most of the armies deserted to Bring and Buys across the UK, though my wife held on to her much-loved dwarves and elves.
Both those armies, as nature dictates, still have more unpainted figures than
painted, and for many, many years I’ve been meaning to complete a couple of outstanding elven
units for her (Waywatchers and Scouts) which each had four figures missing. Of course, my painting style has changed over the years, so the task of matching the remaining figures to the
existing unit became harder and harder, and therefore less and less likely.
Meanwhile, one of my favourite wargame arenas, the Samurai of the
Sengoku period, also languished for very similar reasons – painting samurai has
to be a careful labour of love; there’s no point in a speed painting, get
them finished as soon as, approach if you’re wanting samurai. The whole idea
has to be to build beautiful armies, so I've kept putting them off. Eventually, I'm going to get around to learning how to procrastinate more effectively.
So, the Snowlord challenged me to work on both these neglected areas.
And, actually, the challenge has proved a great stimulus. Rather than trying to
amass as many points as possible (which has been my approach in the last two
challenges), I’ve been directed to apply myself to two particular challenges
which have daunted me over many years, and which I dearly wanted to work on.
It was our wedding anniversary yesterday. According to one website, the 46th is celebrated with presents of Games. It turns out, though, that it's also the WoodElven anniversary. My wife was
delighted to find I’d completed her two outstanding units, and the
paint job I’d done was good enough for her to be unable to distinguish the
newly painted figures from those done a dozen years ago.
Here's the rear of the two elven groups, 4 figs in each.
And the waywatchers:
And I have discovered a renewed enthusiasm for my samurai. Okay, this little command base is only a small step forward, but I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s Perry Miniatures Tokugawa Ieyasu command group. I’ve largely followed their painting, plus details from the relevant Osprey, and I’m quite pleased with the results, though I’ve not been adept enough to render the mon on the Ashigaru with convincing skill – merely a gesture in the right direction.
So I’ve now laid out quite a few more samurai to be working on once I’ve polished off my last few figures for the Challenge.
Thanks, Curt. I’m really pleased you gave me this challenge.
Scoring: 8 elves and 5 Samurai, plus 2 flags = 67 points
Not a Noel points bomb, but magnificent nonetheless. As for points, you forgot to include the 20 for the Altar, which takes you up to 87. I also think you deserve some extras for the freehand pattern on the Daimyo's robes and for the lacing on the Ashigarus' armour. Let's call it 90 points total.
Tamsin
| Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South) |
Alright Noel, I understand that your anniversary (46th!) is in a short while. Well, nothing says romance like, um,... Wood Elves! So let's have some of those pointy-eared loons for your long-suffering partner.
Also, since you're such a glutton for punishment, let's have a two-lash challenge, with a small unit of those tricksy samurai.
I would say this is a fairly stiff challenge for one week, but we are talking about Noel here. I'm sure we'll see something in a couple days...
| Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South) |
Okay Ray! I heard you mention that, in the long and distant past, you and the Rejects collected 15mm Italian Wars figures to do Pavia. Well, colour me intrigued - I'd like to see a unit of these done up. What say you?
“There’s more sand coming in under the door. And through the keyhole.”
“Another minute and there’ll be an Undead Assembly in here.
We need that sorceress.”
“Okay. Okay. Don’t confumble me. How did Merlissa’s spell
go? Er – ‘Sorceress’. ‘Can you guess?’ ‘In
a mess’. ‘Under duress’. ‘Atishoo! Bless.’ Will that do?”
In a puff of half-eaten Wensleydale sandwiches, a halfling sorceress
appears before them.
“Hey!” she says. “Brunchtime, gents. Give a halfling a break!”
“You’re not Sarah the Sorceress,” complains Elfbow. “She’s twice the woman you are.”
“I take it you don’t want any transport, elf,” says the
halfling, recovering lumps of cheese from the floor.
Titchy is mesmerised.
“Wow!!” he says. “A last. We’ve truly found it. Her. You. You
must be the Greatest Treasure the World has Never Known!”
“You can give him a slap, if you like,” says Elfbow.
“No time for flirtation,” urges Getrude, “We need help and
now!”
The half-sorceress sighs.
“As you appear to be in dire need, at your wits end (“Not
far to travel,” says Getrude.), desperate for help and about to be overwhelmed
by your undead little friends, I’m guessing you’d like to make best speed to
the Altar of the Snowlord?”
“Can we just go?”
***
I know that technically I don’t need to call on another Sorceress
to get to the Altar, as I’ve now covered the entire dungeon so could backtrack,
but if you’re trapped in a Treasury with undead filtering through the door, I
think a sorceress is definitely in order. In any case, I’d painted up this
rather nice, if coy, Mithril halfling maiden, so I thought I might has well recruit
her for the rescue. Unusually for me, the colours are rather subdued, though
not quite drab. An accidentally pleasing outcome, in fact.
She’s obviously not really a sorceress figure, though, so I
don’t think I can claim that bonus. Does that mean 5 (as I didn’t actually need to call
her), 20 (for calling her nevertheless) or 25 points (for both the calling and the figure)? You decide!
They run and they run. They run heroically back through the Hall of Heroes. They run beastily back through the Lair of the Beast. They run all the way to the Snowlord’s Treasury where, surprise, surprise, they find – wouldn’t you know it? – Treasure.
“Is this the treasure that launched a thousand ships?” quips
Titchy.
“Never mind that. Find something to beat off angry animated bags of bones.”
“How about this?” says Elfbow. “Looks awfully familiar to
me.”
He points to a golden statue. A statue, it would seem, of
Merlissa.
Getrude laughs.
“Her spell must’ve backfired. Instead of turning gold to
air, she’s turned her to gold.”
“I didn’t know magic could pun.”
“It can in this story, or haven’t you been paying
attention?”
“What about the Spear of Density?”
“It surely won’t have turned itself into something, would it?”
“It’s there. On the floor.”
“I’d better just check it still works,” says Elfbow, pointing
it at the statue of Merlissa. “She’s as two faced as a pair of lizards. So, let’s
see…”
With a tap of the spear, the statue instantly dissolves
into:
“There must be something else magical amongst all this golden rubbish. Something really powerful that will incinerate bones in a blast of celestial power and doesn’t require a pant-wetting elf to wander over and poke them with a stick.”
“I’ve found this,” cries Titchy, holding aloft a half-eaten
Wensleydale buttie. “It may not be the Greatest Treasure the World has Never
Seen, but it’ll do me.”
He wolfs it down in one. And what instantly happens?
Absolutely nothing.
“Bit of an anticlimax,” mimes Clerihew.
“You don’t need to mime any more, Clerihew. We know you’re
not really a Trappist.”
“Sorry,” he mimes.
“Woof!” says Scruff.
“I know they’re only bones, Scruff. But they’re far too many
bones, even for you. Besides which, every time you bring one down, it’ll just
spring back to life.”
“There’s only one thing that can help us,” says Getrude.
“The Snowlord. We must abase ourselves before his altar and hope he’s not either
hibernating, inebriated or over-indulged on Easter eggs (especially as it’s
nowhere near Easter yet).”
“I can hear them coming. We’ll have to fight our way through
to get there.”
“Then fight we will,” cries Elfbow. “Ladies first!”
“Alternatively,” says Titchy, “we can fill our pockets with
this gold stuff, and get the sorceress to help us to the Altar. Then, hopefully,
we can lay all this treasure at his feet and it will be his disposition which alters.”
There’s a rattle of bones at the door. Sand begins to flow through
the cracks.
***
One pile of treasure is Terrain Crate, the other Wizzkids.
The lizards are from the old GW Lizardmen army, and another of uncertain origin.
Scoring: I guess 1 point each for the treasure pieces, 5 each for the lizards, and 20 for the Snowlord’s Treasury.
Total: 32 points
And here we find ourselves in the Hall of Heroes. In the red corner, which is very red by now, stand the remainder of our heroes, valiantly launching arrows into the air as if there is no tomorrow. Which there probably will not be, for them.
Because, in the blue corner, emitting blue smoke from the ends of their muskets and language of a similar colour from their snarling mouths, are ranks of invaders from Challenge Island.
Now we see the archers about to run out of arrows.
As the enemy now masses its cowardly cavalry, ready to charge and complete their conquest.
Hang on! I was just saying: “It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that - ”
Where are they?
I know they were around here somewhere. They were in the Lair of the
Beast, and charging in this direction…It should be exactly at this moment, with
classic timing, that -
“Woof!”
Scruff charges in. Closely followed by the huge troll that Gnawbone has become, and hard on his heels the slew of monsters he has gathered together.
The monsters each select what they desire from the pile of the defeated (we better not look too closely at that) and wander off to their selected undesirable dark, dank and dismal corners of the Chambers of Challenge which they’ve just successfully protected.
It’s exactly at the moment, with classic timing, that Titchy and his
party come charging in.
“Oh,” says Titchy, “we got lost. All these tunnels look the same.”
“There’s another over there,” says Getrude, watching a sneaky survivor
attempting to crawl back to the beach. “Let’s follow Gerald’s lead and put the
last of these pesky invaders to the sword/staff/dagger/tooth.”
Here we see a party of not entirely sensible adventurers fired up with
blood-lust and consumed with the indignant desire to protect treasure which they
have absolutely no right to, racing down the tunnel towards the scent of the
sea, sand dunes and something that sounds ominously like a rattle of bone.
So this is another somewhat eclectic post.
First are 5 Perrys’ Agincourt archers.
I’ve a sort of policy – well, habit, really – of adding to the English army each time I add to the French, so having painted six French knights a little earlier in the Challenge, I had to add another handful of archers. However, these figures are not my favourite Perry pieces – they’re fine, of course, but not exciting to paint – and the archers tend to be a mass of nondescript colours in any case, so I don’t lavish a huge amount of time on these. Basic colours and a wash here and there, and that’s it.
Next we have a badly photographed regiment Zamora, Napoleonic Spanish infantry, in the 1805 uniform (my army is loosely aimed at 1808) – though further research suggests the collar should be white, not black.
Figures by Warlord in their rather strange resin/plastic hybrid. I actually quite like these models, and enjoy painting them, though you can probably see that the relief on the castings is not as deep as you'd get with metal. I will probably buy more, simply because they're a decent price for bulking the army, but the resin has annoying flash which is difficult to spot (until you find yourself painting it), seems to occur arbitrarily on the figures, and is difficult to pare away in reasonable fashion.
The cavalry unit is Hompesch’s Hussars (1801), fighting for the Brits in Egypt against those pesky invading French who for some reason question the hegemony Britain is trying to impose upon the world.
Figures by Perry Miniatures from their Napoleon in Egypt range. I like these figures so much it turns out I accidentally bought the unit twice! I don’t know what I’ll do with the other six, unpainted, figures. Possibly their uniform is similar to a unit fighting in the West Indies. Or else they may merely become some imagi-nations unit. I tried hard to do these figures justice, spending quite a while on them but the photos are mediocre, so you'll just have to trust me when I say they look pretty cool!
Scoring:
21 x 28mm foot figures: 105 points
6 x 28mm cavalry: 60 points
1 flag: 1 point
Hall of Heroes: 20 points
TOTAL: 186 points
I’ve lost track of the side-challenges. But I believe I had a score of 60 points in the Cavalry challenge. This now goes up to 120 points. And my Napoleonic score goes up by 140 points.