From JonathanO: The SAGAS of Noggin the Nog - At various locations of the Chambers of Challenge XI (150 points)

 I did not intend to do a really late post, but I realised that I still had time to make my points target.  I finished off a few figures that were in progress and completed a few more.  This is a bit of fun to finish off with and I hope you won't mind if I visit 5 additional locations in the one post.

I present some miniatures from the Little Soldier Company that were based on the characters from the children's books and TV series "The SAGAS of Noggin the Nog".

At the Hall of Heroes we have Noggin and queen Nooka:

Retracing my steps through rooms already visited, I get to the Hatchery.  Here we find Nogbad the Bad and his crows hatching a plan:

At the Armoury there are two Nog soldiers:

The Gallery of Ancestors features Noggin's parents King Knut and Queen Grunhilda:

Finally in the Guardroom, NOT keeping a close eye on the treasures of the Nogs are these two sleeping Nog sentries:

The whole group:

I had planned to complete all the figures during the challenge, but plans change!  At least I got most done for this final entry.

So 10 x 28mm figures = 50 points , plus 5 x 20 for new locations visited = 100 bonus points.  For a grand total of 150 points to take me comfortably over my target.  Hurrah!

Thanks to Curt for allowing me to participate in another enjoyable Painting Challenge.  Thanks to Sarah for continuing to support this madness!  This could not be so awesome and big without the wonderful Minions - thanks to you all.  Finally well done all participants and thanks for sharing your superb painting, interesting and amusing stories as well as for supporting each other on this journey through the Chambers of Challenge XI.  

Cheers,

Jonathan

From JasperO: the Hatchery (35 points)

I'd switched back to the 18th century for the Larder, but the Hatchery requires going back in time quite a bit more. This one required a bit of thought again, until Christy suggested the obvious answer. To the editor of Ancient Warfare (apologies for the shameless plug), one bird is supreme, of course: the eagle. In other words, an aquilifer had to be the subject of this blog. Unfortunately, those are all in silver or gold (yes, we had an article about a possible live eagle carried by II Parthica in the early 3rd century AD, but I don't have an appropriate figure), but I hope that's forgivable. And besides, these Foundry Caesarian Romans are just a joy to paint.

Three figures plus the Hatchery bonus should get me 35 points closer to my goal.

From PhilH: Wildlife at the Larder and Hatchery (60 Points)

A couple more Chambers to hit up before I hit the sack tonight. First up, the Larder had me stumped for a while, and I nearly begged a boon from the Witches to skip it. But then I was struck by inspiration for my main project of the Challenge, North American woodland tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. As well as horticulture, the male warriors hunted extensively for food and goods and maintained extensive hunting grounds in modern New York State and beyond.

So I ordered a few bits from the Warbases animals range. Pity they don't sell turkeys, but the deer work well enough for woodland hunts.

I painted these as White-tail or Virginia deer.

And of course, there is a link the the wargames we play too: loss of hunting grounds was a cause of Native American frustrations that erupted into conflict with European settlers. The British government had a policy of preventing settlement West of the Appalachian mountains to preserve tribal lands after the French-Indian war, but couldn't practically constrain the colonies from westward expansion. This loss of traditional hunting grounds to settlement and encroachment came to a head with involvement in the American Revolutionary war. While there were losers on all sides from the frontier warfare, the Iroquois were devastated by death, destruction and disease, their ancient confederacy broken, extensive loss of lands and forced westwards to destitution.

Moving on to the Hatchery, more North American wildlife in the form of the ubiquitous Canada Goose. Seriously, these things are everywhere.

These were a delightful diversion to paint, I had a blast and am majorly pleased with how they came out. I just noticed I should to drop some gloss varnish on their little goosey eyes.

I was playing the daft Unitled Goose Game on the PS4 at the time, where you play an obnoxious (British) Goose harassing a quaint village.

Not sure how to score these, but there's two Chamber bonuses, plus 10 or so for the critters? So two little bits of table dressing and two more Chambers down, and into Level 2.

Those deer look simply splendid, and as for the geese, well, you've done a cracking job on those too.

I've scored the deer as 28mm foot and the geese similarly but for each pair, so that makes 60 points all told.

Tamsin

 

From Martijn N: The Hatchery (26 points)

 

All my Challenge painting plans, as Moltke already famously predicted, have not survived contact with the enemy. However, having somehow succeeded in reaching my (admittedly modest) target I feel free to do more or less as I feel. And although it is very unlikely that I will get to the lowest level in time I must admit that the journey inspired my to paint things I had not even considered before. So far my first Challenge is thus a very fun experience!

For the Hatchery the protocol specifies “anything hatching - ideally, out of an egg.” So here is the very first female (of sorts, then) figure I have ever painted:

 

This figure is from the The Scourge of Valtan Forest Kickstarter and is described as a Female Half-Snake Fighter. I printed her at 80% on my resin printer but she is still the size of a 28mm figure, standing 40mm tall on her tail. She was painted using Contrast paints, but I used the corresponding washes (i.e., Dragonshade for the tail) and some drybrushing. Not sure the washes were an improvement in all cases (Leviadon Blue for instance is a very nice dark blue straight from the pot), but there you go.

As a half-snake I’m pretty sure she was hatched from an egg, perhaps from these:

 

This is my first FDM print. Not entirely happy with how it turned out, and the print lines are very visible, but I still have got a lot to learn about the right settings en post-print processing procedure. Since I had it lying around and it fits the theme I decided to paint it up anyway. Consider it a piece of alien terrain and the print lines become a feature, no? It’s on a 60mm round base and about one inch tall.

I’ll ask for a single point for the terrain piece, 5 points for the figure and 20 for the Hatchery for a total of 26 points. To the Armoury!

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 SanderS: The Hatchery... (60 points)

 Hoi,

 Let me introduce you to Tom, he is peeping. 

Yup he's a Peeping Tom! But when he's looking through the  keyhole, expecting to see scantily clad young ladies, he's actually in for a bit of a surprise:

As with a lot of other Chambers in this Challenge, I had to really think hard what mini's I had to use for them, to end up with stuff I can actually use in a Dungeon game after all!

These monsters are from the last Frostgrave Nickstarter I participated in; The Perilous Dark. This is the same Nickstarter (a North Star Miniatures version of a Kickstarter) in which the Ballista from the Golem's Haunt was obtained.

Gathered here to jump poor Tom, are two Hellcrows, 3 Vapour Snakes, a Magmite and a Matriarch, if I am not mistaken. Tom himself is a resin figure I got with a set of two ladies without cloths bathing and using a towel in front of a big standing mirror. The ladies have yet to be painted but Tom seemed appropriate for the Larder, yet I couldn't find him until after I had posted the figures for it. So I thought I would turn him into a part of this post.

Next op are the Hellcrows, according to the Frostgrave supplement Perilous Dark, they are a flying kind of minor demon often in the guise of a bird like entity. I had to paint them like a kind of Fenix. 

The Vapour Worms are ethereal creatures made up of magical chemicals or something. They are Arthur's favourites.

 The Magmite is a sort of magma monster made up of lava, but my youngest son (Hugo) likes Ornage, it's his favourite colour so I indulged him and made the magmite orange. 

The Matrarch is described as a huge Ice Spider, but I kinda think it looks like a huge tick... YUK! I hate ticks. So anyway I tried to paint it like one and I think it worked out fine.

That's the miniatures out of the way but I thought you might also like to see us in action playing a game of Heroquest. 

Here's Arthur rolling the dice in the dice-tower he was kindly given as a prize by the Snowlord and the Lady Sarah some Challenges ago.

Here his heroes (Lodjar the Wizard and Aldor the Axewielding berserker) are confronting the Boss in the Boss Chamber only to succumb to his noxious breath and get captured!

 Points are easy this time: 8 figures of 28mm is 40 points together with the 20 for the Chamber makes 60 points.

Cheers Sander