From SylvainR: 1/300 German Boats (96 points)

 

Another flotilla for Cruel Seas, to buff up the German Kriegsmarine. This will be my last entry of the Challenge.

 

First, a close-up on three of the five S-100 from the first picture, in simple basic light grey.

 

Two R-boats (Räumboote). Wiki says 424 were built and they were originally conceived as minesweepers but performed a wide range of duties throughout the war. They look stocky compared to the streamlined E-boats. They were fitted with directional propellers so, in Cruel Seas, they get an additional opportunity to turn at the beginning of their activation. 

 

A Vorpostenboot, also known as "flakship" or "VP-boat". It is very well armed with an 88mm and lots of 20mm guns. A good option to escort slow convoys and an excellent target for torpedoes.

An M-class minesweeper.  I've added some crew on the deck as I find it makes the miniature feel like a little diorama. I might have smeared too much rust on this model. Oh well. At least, it will make a good target for torpedoes.

So far, I have less than 10 games of Cruel Seas under my belt, and I feel that the most fun and satisfying part is to see your "carefully" launched torpedoes hit a target and detonate (you get to roll 16d6 for damage!) with a spectacular plume of water. However, in the game, tiny, small and even medium boats are immune to torpedoes because of their shallow draft, so to enjoy hitting something with torpedoes, you need to have large and huge ships in your collection. I find large models are lots of work to put together and paint but hey, you need to provide something for your friends to shoot at!

I am curious to hear other Challengers' experience with playing Cruel Seas.
===============================
Points claimed: 
 
In past submissions, the Snowlord awarded 8 points to small and medium ships, and 20 points to large ones, plus points for the crew, but I will not claim points for the crew; I'm already over my goal of 1000 points.

7x 15mm vehicle @ 8 points = 56 points

2x 28mm vehicles @ 20 points = 40 points 

TOTAL: 96 points

Thanks for reading!

 
Very nice ships here Sylvain! These Cruel Seas models look great, glad you're having fun playing the game. I really like the dazzle camo on the Vorpostenboot. The basing is great too, I love the sea colour and how you've done the wakes.

Ninety-six for you my friend!

Dallas

 

From MattW: StarCraft and Renaissance ships (35 points)

 MattW Statcraft and Renaissance ships 

A bit slack over the last week with too much opportunity on the deck and not completing much! 

First up completed some 1/600th renaissance galleys 

Then completed some skirmish figures. First up and old Paranoia Citadel figure from the 80s, “the blue trooper” painted up as as a block riot control for my Judge Dredd collection. 

Finally 3 figures for Tomorrow’s War futuristic skirmish game, two are crusader and the single I think is Infinity? 

Four 28mm @ 5 points = 20
Five 1/600th galleys @3  = 15 points 
Total points 35 points 

Squirrel points 
Renn galleys 1
Tomorrows War 1
Total 2 

Cheers

Matt

From Millsy:

Wow, what a blast from the past! We played a lot of Paranoia back in the day and really enjoyed it. Such a fun game and so far removed from anything else we played. I never had any miniatures for it though. Your miniature really suits the Judge Dredd vibe, so much though I do wonder if that was where the inspiration for the sculptor came from.

Your galleys are especially nice, really crisp lines and great colour choices. Will you add sails and if so made from what?

35 more points for you mate. Nice work.

Cheers,
Millsy

From SylvainR: 1/300 Cruel Seas flotillas (104 points)

 

With the end of the Challenge only 10 days away, I'm trying to get as many Cruel Seas boats as possible done before the deadline. This week, I was able to finish some core units for the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine.

 

 Three Vospers Type I. This will bring my total to six boats. 

 

Three Vospers Type II, to join the three I already have. Again, I allowed my evil creative twin to sculpt some crazy waves, sideways this time. I guess it brings variety to the bases, but no captain in his right mind would take a torpedo boat to sea in such rough weather. 

 

Two Fairmiles D MTB 624. These boats were originally designated as MGBs (Motor Gun Boat), but when torpedo tubes were added, they were renamed MTBs (Motor Torpedoe Boat). These baddies are bristling with guns and, contrarily to the undergunned Vospers, could deal a significant amount of damage to enemy vessels. I'm sure PeterD would love a pair of these to protect his convoy against pesky enemy torpedo boats.

 

Here is a close up on three of the five S-38 I painted. The type of camouflage they are sporting was used in the Baltic Sea. Eventually, I will have to paint the Russian flotilla...

===============================

Points claimed: 

 

In past submissions, the Snowlord has given 8 points to all these smaller ships, plus points for the crew, but I will not claim points for the crew; I'm already over my goal of 1000 points.

13x 15mm vehicle @ 8 points = 104 points

TOTAL: 104 points

 

Thanks for reading!

 

I case anyone hadn't figure this out, Sylvain doesn't do things by half!   I've seen the backlog of Cruel Seas ships in his basement and I'll be interested to see how many of them that he cranks out before the end of the Challenge.  As also ways, wonderful work on all of these ships mon ami.  I really like the basing and camo, but your anvil twin should be put in a small boat in steeps seas.  Your crazy waves remind me of the time that my nDad tried to go through the Alderney Race with wind against tide.  I'm not bothering to count figures from your photos, so I'll go with your points suggestion. 

From SylvainR: Regia Marina at 1/300 (52 points)

I'm such a sucker when I think I will make a "good deal". Last year, I was googling for 1:300 landing crafts for my Canadian army and I "re-discovered" the game Cruel Seas, launched in 2018 by Warlord Games but now under the banner of Skytrex. Anyway, I was using Facebook's Marketplace to look for adapted equipment in the area of Montreal and, just for fun, entered the search words "Cruel seas". Lo and behold, I found a guy who was selling 14 unopened box sets for all nations for $200, shipping included. I thought that for less than $2 per ship (about 100 in total), that was a "good deal" and ordered the whole lot, which included many landing ships I was looking for. I'm such a sucker.... 

Above is a starting fleet for the Regia Marina: 4 MAS boats and a Gabbiano-class corvette. 

I like to base my ships and there are two reasons for this. First, it protects the miniatures because players are manipulating the base instead of the model. Second, it creates the illusion that the boats are moving, which I find very satisfying.

 

For fun, I wanted to have one of the MAS boat jump off a huge wave, holding on the crest by the tip of the stern. But then I realized that these models are cut at the waterline and it would look silly to have what is obviously only the upper hull flying out of the water. Deception. So I sculpted a smaller "big wave" and kept most of the hull in the water.

 

I did similar big waves for 2 of the Vospers I painted last year. They look nice in rough seas, but the truth is that these fast ships would never be allowed to go out in this kind of weather. If there is any interest, I could write a short tutorial on how I created my sea bases. 

Here is the Italian corvette with her unmistakable "barber shop" identification mark. I admire painters who can do a clean paint job on these small ships, but my own personal preference is to do heavy weathering with rust spots and rain stains. 

 The little life rafts add a nice touch of color.

I like the little crewmen. The whole boat feels like a diorama to me :-). 

 

The AA crew keeping a watchful eye on the sky.

 

A aerial view on Capitano Paolo Schettino. His grand-son, Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, obviously did not inherit his seamanship...

 

Points claimed: 

I looked up past entries for reference:

4x MAS Boats @ 8 points = 32 points

1x Gabbiano-class Corvette @ 20 points = 20 points

Total = 52 points

Thanks for reading!

 [P.S. Paolo Schettino never existed.]

 

Wonderful looking WW2 small craft Sylvain, kinda like aquatic micro armour.   I agree on basing ships and love the planing MAS boat.  Well done on the barber strips and other fine details.  FYI, I a one point planned to do some Gabbianos in 1;2400 scale.  I'll trust your research on the points.

 

From JamesM: 15mm limbered Pak40s (12 points)

Hi folks,

A quick little entry for me this week, in the form of the towed guns for my previously completed half-track prime movers. 

These are 15mm metal models from Skytrex, who kindly provided three of the limbered gun versions on my order (rather than their usual mix of limbered and deployed). 

A simple paint job, and angled so that they match up with the tow hook placement on the half tracks. Basing done to my usual style to fit with the rest of my collection. 

And here they are with their transports:

Not sure that these will see the table frequently, but I like having this type of thing as part of the collection. They form any official part of the rules for Flames of War, it's purely a modelling thing on my behalf, and I have 6-pdrs and 17-pdrs done like this.

We had one interesting game pre-Covid where the allied (Canadian) force had to rush forward limbered A/T guns to provide infantry with support against marauding Panthers, which then deployed into useful positions. Those looked cool too!

It'll be nice to give the Germans a similar option, or to scare the players with sight of this unit dashing down a road somewhere off in the distance... The joys of very large tables, bwa ha ha. 

These three guns at 15mm come out at 12 points. 

___________________________

Excellent guns, James. I like that you did these just for being a completionist and the hobby-joy of it. I can definitely get my head around that. They especially look great being towed by the tracks. They could also provide some wonderful targets of opportunity for air attack games with Thunderbolts and Typhoons clouding the skies, doing their thing. Lovely work!

- Curt

From SylvainR: 6mm RAF and Luftwaffe airplanes (64 points)

 

Bonjour,

It has been a while since my last Challenge, in 2017. I am back and my goal is to clean up a few of my boxes of unpainted miniatures. About 10 years ago, a friend of mine sold me part of his huge collection of WW2 miniatures in 6mm scale. If many models are painted, and quite well, the majority are not and I also decided to re-base everything. Anyway, the first project of this new enterprise is to paint the British and German airplanes from the lot and use them to play aerial combat. I tried “Watch Your 6" with my group, but the rules did not feel very intuitive nor fluid. I am looking for a fun set of rules for WW2 aerial combat and suggestions are welcome.

I already painted (or refreshed) 30 airplanes before the Challenge, so what I am presenting today are models I painted since December 21st, 2021.

Here are 10 airplanes from the RAF collection.

First, there are 4 Spitfires. The planes are from different manufacturers (and most of them are quite old models) and I can’t identify the origin of most of them with certainty. Except for CinC because assembling all those minuscule parts on those tiny flimsy models always make me swear a lot. The Spitfires in the background are painted in the livery of No. 144 Wing, which was made up of Canadian pilots.

Now 3 Typhoons. Please note the “D-Day” pattern on the under part of the fuselage, to help Allied AA gunners avoid friendly fire. Since the models are so tiny at this scale, I decided not to add numbering on the wings or fuselage. I just used decals for the roundels, that I got from GHQ. The Typhoons are from CinC and just a nightmare to assemble.

The larger plane in the back is a Fairey Battle, a single engine bomber that was soon relegated to training duties. The other plane is a Hurricane with markings for the Belgian air force. Only 18 such planes were ready when Germany invaded France in 1940. 

This is an Avro Lancaster in night bombing colors and the model is a very, very  old, with sparse details. I had to “suggest” the various canopies and turrets with light blue paint. This model is also made of pure lead. I hesitated for a while about throwing it away, but finally decided to keep it and paint it. It’s not like I’m going to lick it or ingest bits of it. Hey, a model is a model and it looks good in the game. Now in regards to points, I would like to suggest that a single engine plane is worth 2 points, a twin engine plane be worth 3 points and a tri- or quad- engine plane be worth 4 points. So the 10 RAF planes would be worth 22 points.

Sorry about this photo, I did not realize when I took it that it was so blurry. I just wanted to show the planes of the Luftwaffe collection together.

 

 First are six Focke-Wolfe 190, including four “Dora-9", also known as “Long Nose”. I decided to paint my planes in pairs of the same color. Note the tank in the background, mounted on a now obsolete Canadian penny, for scale reference.

Next we have four Messerschmitt 262. Note how the too large decals on the darker planes, in the background, make them look like toys. Oh well, lesson learned. I should have kept the larger decals for larger planes.

Two Messerschmitt 410 and one Junker 88 P-4, with a ventral 50mm gun. I decided to use Citadel colors for camouflage on the Junker, but immediately regretted my decision. It turned out way too bright. Almost all the colors I used are from Tamiya, because their color palette, although very dark, is well adjusted for military models.

Two Messerschmitt 110. I really like how the camouflage turned out on these ones.

Two DFS 230 gliders. With these, I now have 12 German gliders completed, and I will have to design a scenario involving paratroopers on a voyage gone bad.

Two Ju-52, also tenderly known as “Aunt Ju”. Big models made of lead, again. I chose for these guys the camouflage used for the assault on Crete. Now for the count, there are 12 single (or no-) engine planes worth 2 points each ( I will count the Me 262s as single engine planes, because of their small size), 5 two engine (3 points each) and 2 tri-engine (4 points each), for a total of 47 for the Luftwaffe, and 69 points for this whole project.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading!

***

Hello Sylvain, and welcome back to The Challenge! I still fondly recall your "Viet Cron" from back in the day...

Anyone undertaking 6mm aircraft is either very committed, or maybe should just be committed? Very tricky stuff that - very tricky. And there are some favourites here as well, from the crackers-looking JU-52s to (my favourites) the Typhoons - such a fine ground attack craft! Points-wise, there is a slight adjustment, as most all of these will score as 6mm vehicles - however, for the super big ones I count each as two vehicles, giving a total of 64 points. 

Looking forward to more!

Greg

From LeeH - More British Airborne

As is my way I bought way too many miniatures when I started this project. In my defence the models are just so nice I couldn't resist and the spare figures have enabled me to paint up a few more support units and spare leaders for my Chain of Command British airborne platoon. I did these as a batch and I'm really happy with how the camo on the Denison Smock's came out this time. 

First off there is a 17pdr Anti Tank Gun with a crew of five men and a separate junior leader. This time if decided to base the whole lot on a single large round base and included a small dice holder to mark off casualties. 

Next, there is a Vickers HMG on a Tripod mount, with a crew of 5 men. One gunner, a loader, two spotters and a spare man. Again I have added a dice frame to the base for marking off casualties. 

Then I painted three Senior Leaders. All my Senior leader models have a clump of red flowers on the base to make them stand out a bit, although I have in the past also painted the rim of the base red. One of the models represents the famous Major Digby Tatham-Warter who went into battle with his umbrella. At one point in the battle at Arnhem Bridge, he disabled a German armoured car by sticking the umbrella through the vehicles vision slit and poking the driver in the eye! 

The remaining models are Junior Leaders and will have a yellow band around the base. Also amongst this lot is a figure with a wireless set hiding behind a log. He will be used as an Observer for off table barrages or air support. 

As I say, I'm really happy with how these turned out and these complete my British Airborne. Hahaha, who am I kidding, no project is ever complete, I'm sure I'll find some other support units to add and I still have quite a few spare Peter Pig and Skytrex figures in my lead pile. 

(Scoring: 18x15mm Foot & 1x15mm Artillery = 40 Points)