From EdwardG: A sprint through three Challenge Chambers! (78 points)

 Hello all,

I hope everyone is having/have had a great Sunday. Today is the first warm(ish) day of the year. The wife is already making long to-do lists for the garden in the coming weeks. So I can foresee hobby time taking a slight battering. So with this in mind I made a conscious effort to get the three Chamber entries that have been sitting around on my desk for a while finished off. 

First up, the Chamber of Darkness! I am sure everyone is now well aware that this is a grey scale challenge. I must admit, I have never tried painting in grey scale, but I found it to be a very interesting experience. There is something simple, yet tricky, when using such a reduced pallet. In hindsight, I am quite please with my entry, but tbh, he certainly is not the best grey scale figure I have seen. I am in awe of the skill of several of my fellow challengers. 

My entry is a strange figure, he is made by Foundry (I think) as part of their Gallic Priests/Druids pack. He is a short 28mm figure, nearer 25mm in size. When I first found him lurking at the bottom of the lead pile I thought I had a figure of a dwarf, which would have been most odd as I am purely a historical gamer! 

Next up on my sprint to get as far through the dungeon Challenge Chamber crawl as possible before the Spring time of the Garden. Is my entry to the Larder! I have to admit, I struggled with this one. I finally decided to take the larder theme and stretch it a little, in the hope that I could paint something that could squeeze in. 

My entry is a simple one, it is as a generic 15mm camp for one of my many DBA armies. In DBA the camp is something to be either defended to the last man or used to bait and switch an opponent into falling for an overly complex and totally flawed plan. I think it is a great, if poorly written and edited, set of rules and my gaming friends and I have a wonderful time playing it. The actual wagon is from a Mirilton set, that I bought with the idea to one day create a Communal Italian army complete with Carroccio. Sadly to say, that army has never managed to make it to the table. So in an attempt to bring some of the lead to life, I thought to use the wagon for this piece. I had misplaced the traces, and thinking back I am not sure if it ever came with them. So I improvised some with a tooth pick that gallantly sacrificed itself under the knife. 

I only took one photo, as it is a very simple vignette.  

Finally! I have made it to the Second Level!! 

In an attempt to keep this going, I managed to finish off my entry to the Hatchery as well this morning. It is another figure from Scythe, as I had no figures with any kind of bird in the lead pile. The figures in the game act as avatar character pieces for the players. Each one represents a faction and has some kind of animal. Luckily for me, the avatar for the Crimean Khanate has a falcon. The figure is made of a soft plastic, and was a struggle to paint compared to my normal metal figures. The details are not very well defined, but I think I managed to get an acceptable figure out it. The faction colour is yellow, hence the main colour choice for the mini. I have now painted 1/5th of the Scythe set (from two different factions), and so now I think I am required to finish the set although sadly I am not sure I will be able to do them all before the end of the Challenge! Possibly something for Challenge XII...

So as for points total. I think I have the following: 

3 x Challenge Chambers = 60 points

2 x 28mm mini = 10 points

1 x 15mm vehicle/camp = 8 points 

Total = 78 points! 

Stay safe and hope to post again soon!

Best,

Ed :D 

From EdwardG - The Golem’s Haunt Entry (40points)

 Hi all,

A slightly delayed upload of my next Chambers of Challenge entry. I am still working away at my two main projects, but a mix of work and DiY home improvements have taken up a lot more of my time recently. It is a very familiar story, known to all. 

But I have managed to get these chaps completed and based. 

I must admit, as a normally purely historical painter, the Golem's Haunt chamber really had me panicked on what I could do. Add to this, the fact that I have zero female minis to use as payment for witch rides and I was worried I was stuck only two chambers in. At one point, I was thinking of mashing together some spare plastics in some kind of Frankenstein's monster, but this really was not appealing. But, then I realised that we have the boardgame Scythe sat on the side, and I have promised to paint the miniatures within the boardgame for the past 5yrs (basically since it was released) and that these miniature would make a perfect entry! As the boardgame is set in an alternate 1920s, and involves warfare, I think the definition of wargame can stretch to cover it. 

So, my entry, is 5 Mechs (think 1920s scrap yard AT-AT walkers). These are very much bolted together and in the artwork, certainly look like they are as dangerous to the crew as the enemy. When I asked the wife (Scythe is her favourite of our boardgames) if she had an opinion on colour scheme, she pulled a picture of a transformer from the web and said it should form part of my inspiration. So I tried to stick as close as I could to the transformer aesthetic, with lots of bright sliver and blocks of colour. 

The Mechs are roughly equivalent size to a 28mm foot figure, so I have scored them as such. Which gives the score for the entry at:

4x Mechs @ 5points each = 20points

Chamber bonus = 20points

Total = 40points

The hope is to be posting some more minis, with less of a delay than this one!

Hope you are all staying healthy!

Best,
Ed