From HerrRobert (Robert H): Hey Doc (35 Points)

Next stop, Bromley's Butte:

As you must know by now, it is always wise to consult the guidebook when venturing about Challenge Island:

Recon, Surveillance, Target Acquisition (RSTA) was my first job in the the infantry and is still the most exciting and best experiences I've ever had. A job held by small teams of light infantry and scout snipers that are experts on stealth and stalking. Moving unseen, hidden when halted, and deft with all infantry skills as well as radio and camera use. Some of the best are are hunters, native born tribesman, like Tommy Prince. 

In homage to the light infantry, skirmishers and recon: 

An individual figure or squad of tactical stealth troopers. Any period, any scale, extra 5 points for hiding a warpaint Amer-Indian in a Napoleonic regiment. :)

For this, I present an undercover operator, the very definition of tactical stealth and recon:

This figure is another from Spectre Miniatures. He's one of their Undercover Operators (second from the left).

I found this figure quite spooky. With the exception of the pistol, he's wearing my usual "Dr. Herrick" uniform, when I have to look professional, but not full-on suit. Even the cut of the hair is right. As I said, spooky. So I painted him in my usual "look nice" garb - brown sports coat, blue polo, khakis, outrageous shoes.

The shoes are modeled after a pair of red Penguins I just bought. They're not the most outrageous shoes I have worn, though:

So, five more points!

__________________________

You're right, those are outrageous shoes (I'm more of a Fluevog man myself). I'd want to shoot him just to stop his fashion sense. 

Nice job Robert!

-Curt

From StuartL - Challenge Island Safari Journal - 20th March (80 Points)

Greetings and salutations sturdy C.I.S.T.ers!

Today the Challenge Island Safari Tour is heading inland a bit to Bromley's Butte, another famous local landmark.

Once again it appears as if there are already some tourists in the area, let's go see who we are meeting with today.

Hmm, it appears to be a squad of British commandos, specifically a troop from 42 Royal Marine Commandos. If memory serves, this unit was part of the 3rd Special Service Brigade and served in India and Burma from 1943 until 1945. While their brethren were storming the beaches of France, these fellows were carrying out amphibious landings along the coast of Burma. I guess that explains the rolled up sleeves, these guys are used to tropical weather.

I see their sergeant is reading some sort of proclamation.
"To the individual known as StuartL, you are ordered to turn yourself over immediately to stand trial for your numerous crimes and misdemeanors. You are charged with the following:
Theft of a boat,
Aiding and abetting a known badger botherer,
Illegal possession of an anti-aircraft weapon,
Consorting with demons,
Making light of a speech by the US President,
Numerous counts of reckless endangerment of lives,
And finally, impersonating a tour guide.
If you surrender now, you will not be harmed!"

Ah! I guess that is my cue to leave then. I know this island like the back of my hand, it should be easy to give these guys the slip and hide out here for a few months. I'll wait until the heat dies down before heading back to the mainland in time for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI.

So long folks, thanks for following along on the safari. Just remember, all tickets are non-refundable and they'll never take me alive!
Bye.

----------

The figures above are a mix of Warlord bits. The bodies, heads and backpacks are all from Warlord's Commandos plastic set, the arms in short sleeves are from their 8th army set. Interestingly, Warlord decided to have the two plastic sets be incompatible. Well done Warlord. The torsos from the 8th army set are a little narrower than the older Commando box and taper inwards slightly. This meant that I had to do a spot of creative trimming to get the arms to fit. Even so, the bergen backpacks obscure some of the gaps at the back of the shoulders. I have quite a lot of minis for the Burma campaign in various stages of assembly, but I was only able to get these ten ready in time for the Challenge. 

Anyway, 10x 28mm minis plus the bonus for the location (the target being elite light infantry, which I think applies to Commandos) should get me a reasonable 80 points, enough to clear my challenge target.

That about wraps things up for me. I didn't get to visit every spot on the island, but I hit my personal points goal and painted a bunch of cool minis up.

Best of luck to everyone working on their last couple of entries. Thanks for reading my nonsense over the past 3 months, see you all in the summary posts.




Another day, another Safari Journal entry from Stuart. Good luck with your escape from those spiffing Commandos!

TamsinP

From MartinC Schoolboy error at Bromley's Butte (85pts)

So in my last post I submitted all my female figures as I had run out of submission possibilities for the other locations.
Obviously I found some suitable figures in the back of a cupboard. Luckily I am next to the relevant location so it's off to Bromley's Butte with some recon types

These are French Indian War colonial rangers. Good for attacking indigenous types defending their homes

Luckily one has a telescope. The figures are Warlord picked up at a bring and buy

They need some enemies (or allies). These were at the same B and B and are probably Warlord. Also meet the criteria of warpainted Native Americans.

2 Geordie cowboys are walking through the woods when they hear drums

"are they war drums"

"No I think they are theirs"

Translation - in Geordie (Newcastle Dialect Wor = Our)

Sorry

Scores on the doors

11 x 28mm infantry = 55

Location = 30

Nice work on these Martin. Now, if one of those warpainted figures had been hidden in a Napoleonic unit, you'd have got yourself another 5 bonus points.

TamsinP (now handing over the minion reins to Martin)

From SamuliS: Panzeraufklärung scout out Bromley's Butte (84 points)

After a quick balloon ride I find myself at Bromley's Butte ready to gather intel for my next move on the challenge trail.

My take on the recon aspect might be a bit unorthodox, but hopefully it is deemed justified. Like Bromley I found myself assigned to reconnaissance while doing my military service. I actually applied for it after being inspired by my grandfather who served in WW2 in one of the long range recon troops in the Finnish army. However the unit I served in was part of a mechanized brigade and as such I served in mechanized reconnaissance with us recon guys being carried into operations either in IFVs or dropped off with helicopters (which unfortunately only happened once in training). So a ton of firepower packed into a compact unit to be able to punch through towards the rear areas to conduct the reconnaissance there or hit support troops when they least expect it. And the IFVs can be surprisingly stealthy if you just drive them slowly and apply enough camouflage on the vehicles.

 A pic from my archives showing enough camouflage stuck to one of our IFVs

Slight change in between the picture in my military pass and over ten years later at a retraining exercise that I attended some years back.

So with that explanation out of the way I think it's time to share my entry with a continuation on my Flames of War German project. Two patrols of halftracked recon. Both with a command 250 halftrack and two 250/9s with their 2cm autocannons providing some firepower to get through any resistance they encounter.

 These are the older resin ones that I'd acquired years ago and now revitalized with a new paintjob to improve on the ones I had done some 10 years ago. Like all my other German vehicles it has a modulated yellow basecoat with camo applied by an airbrush. After chipping there is a heavy wash layer and even heavier layers of mud effect. I maybe went a bit overboard on them as the tracks are nearly completely covered.

So that's 6 vehicles and three crew to add to my tally with 54 points and then 30 bonus points for the challenge island step.
---------------------------
By Paul

Its always a treat to minion your entries Samuli! John Marsden famously said that "Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted" and your pics (real and miniature) bear that out!  I love the weathering you have done and based on my time washing military equipment, that mud is not overdone at all :-)  

No doubt those AFVs will come in very handy on the tabletop and I pity any enemy infantry in range of those autocannons.  84 points it is!

Bromley's Butte From PeteF: Hordes of Gribbleys (142 points)

The challenge for Bromley's Butte mentions "experts on stealth and stalking" - which brought to mind the Nightstalkers faction within Kings of War. Every unit in the faction enjoys the "stealth" special rule - which makes them hard to shoot and these creatures of horror "stalk" you in your sleep.

Guess the film (easier clue later)

These gribbley horrors are Butchers from Mantic games. They are large infantry (about twice the size of normal infantry) - that can both absorb and dole out punishment. The Mantic aesthetic (if you can call it that) for Nightstalkers is of eyeless hordes of tentacled monsters and the three armed Butchers come at you with a variety of sharp objects.

The original plastic models are monoposed with only two options for the double right arm. I did some chopping and changing to break up the monotony - adding a few weapons from the bits box here and there for variety.

I used a home brewed bluish purple contrast paint on the bodies, "flesh-tearers red" contrast in the mouths and "gore grunta fur" on the furry pants (or whatever is covering that area). The advantage of the contrasts is speed - I guess they look OK all together as long as you don't get too close - at some point I might go back and do some more highlights - I was watching a video of how to add dripping blood using resin that cures in UV light... that might look good on these too.

Screaming (and puking) banner 

Fleshtearers' Red Contrast worked quite nicely on the textured banner

The Butcher Fleshripper is one of the faction's heroes. He provides some extra punch when they go go in for the attack. To model him I found a banner from another faction (Basileans - paladin types) and modified it with some screaming heads from a different Nightstalker sprue and a couple of heads from Dungeon Saga models. The pile of entrails and small pile of skulls are from a Wizkids pack that found itself in my hands when I was at the store with some Christmas money.

Most of my Nightstalker units are going to contain a movie reference and the two main units here pay homage to the best horror movie ever made.

Second film clue - didyagettit?

These are just over 50mm tall with 5 to each (horde sized) 120mmx80mm base plus the Fleshripper hero. How does 10 points each plus 30 for the new area sound?

Right so I have no clue what the movie is, not my genre. These are fantastic, loving the colour, and that banner is great

Martin

From Barks: 15mm modern Australians (54 points)

I have a very soft spot for Australian infantry, and Eureka released these lovely 15mm modern diggers a few years ago. I snapped some up, whereupon they mocked me as I held off painting them because I wasn't sure I could do them justice.

They are wonderfully detailed and posed Alan Marsh sculpts. They've got the latest kit with all the add-ons. If I must nitpick, there should be more eye protection and night vision attachments. I selected a variety of figures to represent a sniper team and other observers with a protection detail, to fit with the RSTA theme here at Bromley's Butte.

Commander and signaller

F89 Light Support Weapons

F88 with underslung 40mm

F88

Sniper with SR-25

I've painted them in DPDU, the desert version of the iconic jellybean Auscam. They're unusual in that their uniform, webbing, body armour and helmet covers all match! DPDU was seen in Iraq and Afghanistan from ~2003-2013ish, but has been superseded by other designs. I'm not sure if the inbuilt-kneepad uniform even comes in DPDU.

Afghanistan 2008. Source

Moderns can be challenging for the painter to show different details on the figure, and to get that tabletop presence- particularly in 15mm. I'm pretty happy with these.

I think they could be used as Irish or Austrians with the Steyr AUG.

12x 15mm figures  24
Bromley's Butte, 30 points

From DaveD - Barks that's another fine effort, very nice!

From JezT: Challenge Bromley's Butte - Dispatch Rider (40 Points)

Hi All,  Second Challenge post – I floated in on Sarah’s Balloon and landed at Bromley’s Butte.

Here I am presenting a 28mm Dispatch / Recon motorcycle rider. I kept this figure back from my last AVBCW submission specifically for this challenge. The figure is the motorcycle part of a motorbike and sidecar combo from 1^st Corps. I may present the sidecar later in a different submission. In the meantime I used the head from the guy in the sidecar to create a dismounted rider figure as well (this was a head swap from an infantry submission last challenge so not counted for points).

Points wise that should be 30 for the challenge and 10 for a mounted figure - so just 40 and it moves me on the the next square ...........

Cheers Jez

***

Well done Jez.  There is something classic about those old motorcycles, isn't there? Who knew goggles could look so sporting?

40 points for you, sir! We look forward to your next Challenge Island stop. 

GregB

From TomM: Bromley's Butte: Lothlorien Elves (85 pts)

Making way around Challenge Island, one has need for good intel as the area needs to be reconoitred.

And that is exactly the task set upon us, brave explorers, in Bromley's Butte: scouts, hunters, light infantry... those that know the terrain and sneak around it...

And for that entry, I selected to paint up some more MESBG figures, because, well, I have a mountain of lead, resin and plastic for the game rivalling Smaug's pile of gold.

More precisely, the unarmoured troops of the Lady Galadriel's realm, Lothlorien.  Elves are already stealthy guardians of the woodland realms, but these even take that to a higher level, all equipped with their elven cloaks, to sneak through the underbrush and hunt intruders into their lands.

Produced by Games Workshop, the entry contains six of these elite hunters, which are all plastic models.

I also printed five "spider cocoons" to go with the models, to make it all look just that bit more threatening and grimm on the tabletop, as the Elves hunt the large spiders in service of Sauron.

So that makes a nice total of 6 Wood Elves for this entry, while I counted the cocoons as a single 28mm model as well seen their size and bases "footprint" , tallying me 55 points in addition to the 30 points for the location.

Our second batch of snooty, pointy-eared gits fey folks today, this time in a larger scale. These chaps look fab Tom, as do the spider cocoons. 

TamsinP

JamesM: 15mm Sci Fi Drones (Bromleys Butte) - 46 points

Hi folks,

Another quick entry for this location - a couple of GZG 'Grav Vane' Hornet Drones.

These have been painted up in what I consider a very corporate paint scheme, rather than a military one. They will be the exterior scouts and patrol drones of a 15mm sci fi project I am working on.

These are cool models with a cluster of sensors, the flying grav panels and a chain gun of some description in the tail.

I used some thick large paperclips cut up for the flight stand.

I've some bigger drones to paint, a drop ship and various infantry.

Scores on the doors:

2 x 15mm vehicles = 16 points
Location bonus = 30 points

Total: 46 points

These are fantastic, really menacing.