From JasperO: One man and his Lard (the Larder - 50 points)

With 10 days to go until the end of this year's Challenge, it's high time to get myself across the half-way point towards my own goal. To do so, I present my entry for The Larder. 

This vignette consists mostly of two sets from the Black Hussar Miniatures 7-Years War bakery range, but I figure it'll work well in a corner of my AWI tables. I've painted the workers in various colours that might be parts of a uniform, especially if this is the Continental Army.

The thief making off with a piglet is a Foundry figure from their civilian range. Size-wise, I suppose this is meant to be a child in torn pants. I painted his clothing as a sort of random combination of items he 'found' here and there, just like he did the piglet (and I see I forgot to paint the buttons on his vest - better do so quick!)

Overseeing the entire operation, perhaps the personification of the Larder, is a figure from a Eureka Miniatures 18th century civilians set. I find their range is very fun to paint, and it was interesting to attempt a fat face, generally a rarity in wargaming (figures).

This was a nice, colourful variety on all the green and brown that I've painted recently and with six figures and the Larder bonus, should net me 50 points and neatly across the midway point 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 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: Entering the Larder (30 points)

 Hoi,

 

As we continue our journey through the Chambers of Challenge Arthur and myself enter the Larder. 

 

I do not have food specific stuff lying around but I do have pieces that could contain food. So here are some of my Dungeon dressings that I will use to furnish the Larder with.

There's a nice mix of Heroquest, Terrain Crate and home made stuff in this lot. First is one of my Heroquest cupboards using the original topper with a 3D printed housing. 

 

The two skullz are specially added for Barks of course!

Next up some Terrain Crate stuff with boxes, barrels, a table and benches to use when eating, a pile of wood to cook on and some barricades (one of which is homemade) to protect the Larder from invading monsters, adventurers and Ray. 

 As points are a bit of a thing with these, let's be honest: easy to paint, terrain pieces; I am going with 10 points for the stuff and another 20 for the Larder.

Cheers Sander

From MartijnN: Provisions and properties: The Larder

 Although I love food,  I have never felt the need for any food-related figures in my gaming or collection. As a result, I found myself hard-pressed to find a suitable figure for passing through the Larder.  However, once again the 3D printer and Kickstarter came to the rescue. In the glorious Desert Adventures Kickstarter are some very nice figures, among which is this Arabian merchant selling his fine gourmet foodwares at cut-his-own-throat prices:

 

I am quite sure he will “make very special price for you, my friend”! I let myself be inspired by this 19^th century illustration:

 

By now it should not come as a surprise to anybody that I used Contrast Paints on this one again.

Obviously, a merchant needs to live somewhere, and so here is his humble dwelling in 6mm scale:

 

As a matter of fact, not far off is the little town where he is wont to sell his fine fruit:

 

These buildings are one again 3d printed, this time from a small Kickstarter simply titled “3D Stl Desert village Tabletop 6mm 1:285”. Just what it says on the tin, really. They are nice models that print up well.

So how much are we talking here?

Well, one 28mm foot figure at 5 points + the bonus for the Larder= 25pts. Easy.

But then: one 6mm dwelling at 10 cm³ (2.5x2x2cm) and one 6mm Arabian village at 150 cm³ (10x10x1.5 cm) for a total of 160/3375 (that's about a 6” cube in cm³ for us non-Imperials, if my reckoning is right) or almost 5% of a 20 points 6” cube or 1 point, rounded up. I'll just have a little lie-down now, thank you.

Total 26 points, which sees me passing my goal! Yippee! 

And what's more, I can go a level down!  And take some time to think about upping the ante for the remaining month of the Challenge...

From MilesR: Chambers Catch Up Submission (359 Points)

 

I've been a little remiss in wandering through the Chambers of Challenge - having posted only a measly 2 chambers to date.  Well this weekend was a catch up weekend for me and now I've got 6 additional rooms to report.

So sit back and prepared to be bored as you follow me on my tortuous logic for meeting the the stated themes of the Challenge.  Where I could, I tried to keep things related to my Stalingrad project.  

Chamber of Darkness:

The first submission is a greyscale version of a ruin for the Stalingrad project.  Now the base isn't fully greyscale as it couldn't use it in the game, but the building is completely greyscale .

The base of the building is a MDF kit from a Polish company called Terrains4Games and I highly recommend them -shipping can take a few weeks but the product is very affordable and of superb quality.  You've seen other versions of this same building and I've got 2 more to build.

It has a dark grey base color and medium grey highlighting for the exterior.  I started with some black paint and just kept adding white to lighten it up as the painting progressed.

The floor is a lighter grey and the ways a white-grey.  Some black and grey weathering powders were added at the end and voila a greyscale building.

The building is a little over 4 inches high so lets go with 10 points plus 20 for the room.

Larder:

Next up is a stroll through the Larder.  Submitted for this room are 2 Soviet Supply Dumps that will be used during the Stalingrad game.  The Soviets were forced to keep stockpiles of ammunition and other supplies along the Volga river banks and these would occasionally blow up due a stray German artillery round - sometimes in spectacular fashion.  The supply dumps are resin casts from JR Miniatures that have been in my lead pile for over 10 years.  These are nice but simple terrain pieces so how about 5 points for the two supply dumps along with the 20 point room bonus.

Hatchery: 

Ok this one is a bit of a stretch - Aviary is pretty close to aviation and these to HS-129's are definitely birds of prey.  These were specialized ground attack aircraft that saw extensive use on the Eastern front.  The model on the right is armed with a 30mm cannon while the one on the left has a 75mm PAK gun.

These models are from Battlefront and, like the supply dumps above, have been in the leadpile for about 10 years.

Technically the one with the 75mm gun was not available until after the Battle of Stalingrad but it was just too cool looking not to build.

Lets score these as 15mm vehicles so 8 points each along with the room bonus.

The Armory:

How about a bunch of 15mm Soviet tanks and rocket truck?  All of the models are from Battlefront

First up 5 KV'1's - these are my favorite tanks from WW2 and I can't wait to see them rumbling through the streets of Stalingrad

4 T-34's to reinforce the 5 I already have painted (pre-Challenge).  These are later model turrest (I messed up) but still will work for the game

4 T-70 light tanks.  Not the most effective of vehicles but they will be useful for searching out spot in the fascist lines.

Lastly 3 BA-10 armored cars and 2 Stalins Organs.

That's a total of 18 Soviet vehicles for the Armory and at 8 points each gets nets 144 points along with the 20 for the room.

Gallery of Ancestors:

How about a break from Stalingrad?  This gallery of ancients submission consists of 14 15mm US Infantry form Vietnam.  My father served in the war along with most of my male relatives of his age.  None of them had a lot of good memories from that conflict and would rarely speak of it.  My father passed at a relatively young age (56) and I always regret not fully understanding what he went through.

It was nice to do something that had a lot of green in the basing.  These miniatures were given to me by Ed from the club and I hope to get them on the table for one of his games soon.  

The Guardroom:

The last stop on my chambers walkabout is the Guardroom and (surprise!) we're going back to Stalingrad with another platoon from the 13th Guards Division.

The basing was done to match the terrain table and I like how it came out.

There are a lot more Soviets to paint up but I could get these 18 chaps done today.  At 2 points each thats 26 points plus another 20 for the room.

Well there you have it.  To help the minions enter all this into the spreadsheet of doom, a summary table of the points is provided below:

Total Number of Chambers: 6 for 120 points

Terrain "Cubes": 0.75 for 15 points

15mm Infantry figures: 32 for 64 points

15mm Vehicles: 20 for 160 points

Total Points: 359