From KerryT - A walk down a country lane (270 points)

Morning afternoon & evening all

I seem to have moved away from 3d prints for now and have painted some metals instead. Both units were prepped for last years challenge but never made it to the painting table.

Both sets of figures  find themselves walking down a country lane a few hundred years apart

The first unit to take the walk or ride are a unit of Footsore Arthurian or Romano- British cavalry. They've just crossed the river at a ford and are now on the lookout for an ambush

There doesn't seem to be anyone at home

I came, I saw, I had a look and now I'm going home

Milling around

Ready to charge

The banner is from LBMS but the shields are hand painted but only because I must have previously used the decals that I had. I copied to designs from the LBSM sheet

A few close ups 

I like the flying slug

Arthur Pendragon

I wasn't entirely sure how to base these as my Romano Briton army is based in singles (though I only have foot) but I figure that I'm likely to use these with Midguard or Lion Rampant and figured  multibases would be best, though I wish I'd had another figure that I could have added to Arthur's command stand.

Now imagine that you've somehow fallen asleep under a hedge in that lane for a couple of hundred years and you've just been woken up my the stomp of marching feet. You now find yourself in the 1930's and are watching the dreaded BUF take a stroll down that country lane

The lane has changed a little with a bridge over the ford and now a small village

They're on the lookout for trouble

My VBCW collection started more that 10 years ago when my good mate Giles Allison was visiting NZ and had kindly gave me some figures he had painted for myself and another friend. I added to the collection, basing my back story on the exploits of a pair of twins who I imagined had grown up in my valley back home in Wales. My VBCW back story if you are interested is here https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/vbcf/viewtopic.php?p=31839#p31839

I've played a few games and added quite a bit of WW1 figures to act as opposition to the valley forces but I've since added some BUF figures using the Footsore range and some additional figures from Empress Miniature Spanish civil war range

These guys are attired in blue rather than the traditional black of the BUF

Anyone coming down the lane is going to get shot up

The Empress figures are in shirts

The figures were painted with Vallejo Dark Blue Grey for tunics with trousers in Black Gray, washed and then highlighted. Those in shirtsleeves were given a highlight to the VJ Field Blue

All together say cheese

Once again, thank you for looking and your previous encouragement

In summary

14 x 28mm Mounted figures @ 10 points = 140

25 x 28mm Foot @ 5 points = 125

Total 265 points

2 Squirrels =- Romano-British cavalry & VCBW BUF

(previous Squirrels - Berber Cavalry, Goblin wolf riders, Dwarf cavalry, Spanish Military order knights. Scottish archers, 15mm Napoleonic British, 15mm Napoleonic Naval, 15mm Napoleonic French, 15mm Napoleonic Spanish,100YW French Pavisiers) 

Many thanks and best wishes Valleyboy

From Millsy:

Oh wow! These are spectacular mate. I spent the first 5 minutes distracted by looking at your amazing terrain and then the figures finally broke through my distraction.

The vibrance of the blues and reds on your Roman Brits is wonderful and the hand painted shields are so crisp! I've added 5 points bonus for those because I can only imagine how long that took to complete.

Good to see I am not the only person with a solid BUF force for VBCW. The Empress figs are almost perfect Blackshirts and I have a bunch in my collection too. I assume you have seen Outrageous on the goggle box? It captures the craziness of the times so well and I can't wait for season two.

Wonderful stuff everywhere Kerry. 270 more points added to your tally which kicks you up to first spot in considerable style as well as bringing you within sight of you target with a month yet to go.

Cheers,
Millsy

From Kerry T - "All over the place" - World Cinema or High Adventure? ( 505 points)

 Morning, afternoon & evening all

After a slow start thankfully I've managed to get the paintbrush moving at speed but as you'll see below I'm a little all over the place.

 As I've probably said before one "single period enthusiast" wargamer of some renown once described my collection of figures as "all over the place". I think this was said with just a little disdain but I decided that I would take it as a compliment. The happy consequence of a having a Butterfly tendency is that I seem to have a lot of periods to choose from.

This in itself is quite a handy thing when it comes to chasing squirrels. Thus with last years Squirrel Challenge title in my grasp I feel the only honourable thing is to try and defend that title. I promise to be on my best behaviour and not to bite, scram or spit at my fellow challengers 😀 but at the moment I've been left trailing  in their wake. So this is an attempt to not let them get too far ahead. The only problem is that I also want to finish of some decent size units as well as five figure ones so here we go....

Fist up- Colonel John Lamplugh's Regiment of Foote

First Corps ECW figures

I thought I'd completed all my Royalist foot regiments last year but found a lone set of flags for this regiment (Flags of War) that I'd overlooked. Initially earmarked for Parliamentarian troops these First Corps figures now find themselves as another white coated regiment on the side of the King

Yesterday morning there was a moment when there was the very tiniest possibility that they could have been morphed into one of those turnipy units so beloved it seems of a few lunatics that seem to be around here!

A mad rush to finish basing and blutack "piking" to get them ready for today

Thankfully common sense prevailed and no tufts were stuck to the bluetack either deliberately or by accident

At 37 figures this is one bloody big squirrel!

Thy aren't about to have an easy passage over that bridge though....

Sir Arthur Hessilrigge's Regiment of Horse, unhorsed

Bloody Parliamentarians always seem to block any progress!

Bloody Miniatures, a real joy to paint

I have all the BM releases bar the Scots but these are the first I've painted

Sticking with the First Corps theme, some Dark Age carts

Ye olde trafficke jam

Now the same sleepy village a few hundred years in the future..

My First BUF figures

Footsore Miniatures BUF infantry

Its always good to see Fascists running away

I have  a VBCW collection that started when good mate Giles Allison painted some figures and gave them to me when he called to see me in NZ. 

My VBCW backstory is here https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/vbcf/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=3402&p=31799#p31799. Its the story of the mysterious half-twins Verdun and Ypres born in a mining village of South Wales (its long mind yew and something of a tall tale!)

That's it for the verdant green of England and I'm now butterflying off to the heat of the desert and some plastic Griping Beast Arab Heavy Cavalry - half a box, I would like to have completed the box of 12 but had to settle for 6 as I need squirrels

Thank god for LBMS shield transfers

Half a box of Gripping Beast Plastic Arab heavy Cavalry

Finally with the desert theme I'm finishing off with Artizan Designs Arab Sharifan WW1 infantry. The aim was to shoot another squirrel and I painted 5 initially but eventually added the remaining 7 later to finish off all I have. I still have some of the irregular infantry I painted at the end of last year's challenge to finish

These are regular troops with a standard uniform

Not sure if its reasonably authentic but it will do

 That arid grass is an horrid colour, I wanted it to be more pale

Apologies for such a long post but I had a busy painting week as there was no golf and the weather was too wet to get in the garden. I'm not sure if I want it to rain again this week so I have an excuse to spend a lot of time painting!

As far as bonus points go I'm not sure what to claim - while these Arabs are intended to accompany Lawrence in wrecking Ottoman trains in the desert, he was painted years ago so it might not quite qualify as High Adventure.

If not then maybe I could claim World Cinema for the ECW as I no longer live in the UK. I would be grateful to Tamsin if she would advise

In Summary -

37 Royalist foot @ 5 points = 185

5 Dismounted Parliamentarian Horse @ 5 points = 25 

3 Dark Age carts @ 10 points (they are more like artillery than vehicles I think) = 30 points

10 Dark age civilians and bullocks @ 5 points = 50 points

6 Arab Crusades mounted figures @ 10 points = 60

5 VBCW foot 2 5 points = 25

12 Arab WW1 infantry at 5 points = 60

? Bonus for World Cinema or High Adventure @ 20 points

Grand Total 450 points

(Oooh a points bomb! )

Maybe most importantly a Scurry of  6 Squirrels thereby bringing my total so far to 7

Wow! What a mixed-bag points bomb this post is. Carts are vehicles, so that's how I'm scoring them - they're at least as big as a jeep which scores 20 points! I'm happy to count the WW1 Arab "regulars" as High Adventure, and the Arabs for World Cinema. 

Tamsin

DaveS : The Chamber of Darkness 40pts

 Painting in greyscale is something that I have thought about a number of times, but have never actually tried before.  I've always considered painting it well to be beyond my abilities, and I've seriously considered just skipping this chamber.

Coinciding with the point where I needed to start painting my next chamber, I realised that I had a copy of A Very British Civil War, and that while idly looking through my FLGS's website, I saw that they had a pack of Warlord Games Partisans.  These figures in predominantly civilian dress would be perfect for a start for my forces for that.

For each of these models, I first found that colours that I wanted the items to be, desaturated them using the PC, and then tried to find a colour that was closest to it from the Vallejo paint range.   It's clear that the app that I used to find colour matches wasn't perfect, but it gave a reasonable way to represent the colours on the models.  So without further ado, here are the models.

Having painted the four models in this style, I'm not sure that I enjoyed it enough to do a whole platoon in this style.  But, for now, they will do, and I may expand on this in the future.

I'm calling this 4x28mm models for 20 points, plus another 20 for the chamber.  I'm also going to offer this set up as my Curtgeld, should anyone want them (I dunno if there are additional points for this or not)

From MartinC - Another Army Finished (483 points)

One of my aims this year is to "complete" several armies that need playing with. Today is Normans and some VBCW chaps and chapesses.

The Normans I got last Christmas 2nd hand from Battleground Show. The infantry as a plastic set from Conquest

unarmoured spearmen

Armoured swordsmen

unarmoured swordsmen

Cavalry. These were a mix of Black Tree and 1st Corps (I think) fundamentally different sizes. So the smaller figures are on a double thick base and it works.

More Cavalry. That should do it for the Norman army, space in the drawer for a few more but not loads. Next up some VBCW and pulp figures

Posh old guy and female police(?) driver, think she should be army but think they will work well as a pair of detectives

Some more pulp types

A fat commando, of course

General VBCW types, these are partizans from a variety of manufacturers who I can't remember, probably Warlord and Black Tree

So this is quite a lot of points

Normans

20 cavalry@ 10 each = 200

33 infantry@5 each = 165

VBCW

21@5 each = 105

2 prone@2.5 each = 5

Grand total = 475pts

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A very nice selection of figures and it's always good to hear of figures getting a second life in new hands. Over the years I have bought lots of unpainted lead from Bring-and-buy stands and it always feel like I'm 'saving' the figures from an ignominious end. I like the fact that you've gone to the trouble of painting all the shields by hand. It's awfully tempting to either reach for decals or paint them plain. I'm awarding a couple of bonus points for the shields and another for the pennant. 

I like the eclectic mix of figures for your VBCW component of this entry. However, I think you're doing yourself a disservice by scoring half for the prone figures so I'm counting them as whole figures at 5pts each. So that brings your total for this entry up to 483. 

Lee