From MartinN: Fallschirmjäger and Firefly (65 pts.)

Another challenge is drawing to an untimely close and once again I come up short a few points. While I had a good start I rapidly lost steam and only were able to pick up speed again those last few days. I'm pretty certain that a lot of you know the feeling only too well. But the ride was a lot of fun and once again I enjoyed myself immensely. I wasn't as active on here as I'd have liked, but I enjoyed watching the daily stream of gorgeously painted miniatures.

First off for my last entry this year is a 20mm 3D printed Sherman Firefly by Arvernes Miniatures. Having painted two regular 75mm Shermans for my Canadians previously I felt the urgent need to add a Firefly for that little bit of extra punch. The stowage is mostly from AB Figures as is the tank commander.

This is then followed by a Squad of 20mm Fallschirmjäger, also from AB Figures. They're a mix of regular Heer figures, mainly with Zeltbahn, and Fallschirmjäger with head swaps as I was aiming for a very late war feel. So these should be more suitable for those battles following the German defeat in Normandy. A time when the Fallschirmjäger were a mere shadow of their former strength. I don't like the hype that surrounds some of the supposedly 'elite' German units and having this hodge podge of grizzled veterans and raw recruits is just my thing.

For points we have one 20mm tank clocking in at 15 points, a half figure tank commander for 2 points and 12 Fallschirmjäger of which two are prone figures for another 44 points. All this should give me 71 65 points.

A huge thank you for goes out to my good friends Sarah, Curt and Greg as well as all the other minions. 

***

Nick I am confident I speak for all Challenge participants when I tell you it has been an absolute treat to have you along for the ride once again. Your brushwork sets the bar, as ever, and combined with top-shelf photography, your entries are a real treat for all of us. I think many Challengers will relates to the ebbs and flows of interest and momentum when it comes to painting all of these miniatures - and many of us will come up short in the face of our targets (certainly I will!). 

But what a treat is has been! And you close out with some absolutely stunning brushwork. Nothing makes me bonkers like camouflage patterns of late WW2 German units, and you have made it look stupendous here, and the blend of the zeltbahns and sky-blue uniforms, of the veterans the rookies, it is all just spot-on and makes we want to get back to painting some WW2 myself!

But my favourite here is the Firefly! When it comes to WW2 tanks, I'm always struck by how dreary so many of the western allied designs were. Even the ones with cool names were disappointing to see. But NOT the Firefly! One of the best silhouettes of the war (and only improved once the IDF started cracking out I-Shermans later on) and you've done it absolute justice here. Even the weird colour pattern at the bottom of the barrel - excellent!

As for your points, the magical spreadsheet tells me this is all worth 65 points - so I'm going to listen to the spreadsheet. Great Challenge Nick, it has been a treat to "minion" your work!

GregB

From JohnB: 20mm MarDav WW2 Italian Weapons Support Group (40 points)

Well I think this is the last posting from me - thanks to everyone involved and hopefully I will return with AHPC17. First up "the one that got away" 1/72 French Dragoons for the Wars of Louis XIVth around 1700 they are made by STRELETS a Ukrainian company still operating despite the Russian Invasion. The figures are produced using plastic injection moulding - a process popularised by Airfix back in the late 1950's. Ironically they compliment my earlier forces made up with Zvezda Russian Great Northern War figures which started my interest in this period back in 2010 when plastics were a cheap entry point to test a wargaming period out. Plastics in 1/72 are still a good deal £8 in the UK gets you about 40 infantry and 12 cavalry. or thats 20p infantry and cavalry 70p.

They come in boxes with nice artwork

only a small logo suggests the country of origin.

The sculpting is great for me and these recent products are now a match for a lot of metallics - AND THEY BOUNCE! Hopefully I will complete this unit soon and then post my AHPC stories on my wordpress blog site "the wargaming erratic". My last offering is a departure from my usual plastic injection mouldings and occasional metallics. This time its a resin product from MarDav of the UK.

The figures have fine layering so the material looks like its deposited. However they look fine painted up and at wargaming distance.

They are actually GOMBARDIANS for my FAUXTERRE wars - 1930 era in this case. I painted them in my chosen style for Italian green uniforms reference being the Osprey Greek Italian War of 1940 - they appear kind of blue green in the artwork. So I went with that. I have an anti tank gun, machine gun and light mortar all of which I inspected at UK Battleground Wargames show at Stockton, Teeside, last Autumn and bought them there and then. Pendraken run the show and this year went stateside for the first time - great products. And they get interesting traders to their free entry show. I think MarDav are mainly an online business so it was nice to see them in the flesh so to speak esepcially in terms of scale.

Basically they get a craft paint mid green base then Citadel CC warp lighting and militarum green(I did 50% of them without Militarum as an experiment) then dry brush Vallejo Air light green for aeroplanes! which actually comes out a bit blueish. The helmets just got militarum over warp lighting to provide contrast. Why? well for Italians it is the case that their helmets are different from the Russian and US "bowls". And I wanted to highlight that.

Points wise its 1 x 8 points for the anti tank gun and 8 x 4 points for the crews. TOTAL points = 40 points and one squirrel I believe. And that wraps up my highest AHPC score to date which simply shows I have been very productive this winter.

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Sylvain: Shotgun posts! Some infantry to add to your cavalry (that I can see lying around in the background). You invest a lot of love in this Fauxterre projectand it's makes your post very interesting to read. Great paint job on these miniatures! Bravissimo!

 

 

 

From MartinN: 20mm StuG III and Opel Blitz (62 points)

This submission has been simmering for a while, but I had a hard time getting started on the weathering.  I quite like the look of the vehicles once finished, but getting there is always a little tedious in my opinion. I'd rather paint some foot sloggers instead. Anyway, here's the latest reinforcements for my German motor pool.

First of a 3D printed StuG III Ausf. F/8 from Night Sky Miniatures with an AB Figures commander. While I was a bit of an early adopter when it comes to resin printing, I never got comfortable with the process. It's smelly, dirty and needs a lot of effort to get right. In short I can stand it even less than weathering the final product. And probably that's the only reason I'm not drowning in unpainted prints and I'd call that a clear bonus. I turn on the bloody machine once or twice a year and that has to suffice.

Anyway, there are certainly upsides to the technology. For one there's lots of niche stuff out there that'd be hard to get commercially and I can scale to any scale I like. So while the file was scaled to fit 28mm originally it was quickly converted to go with my 20mm collection. Especially helpful as I feel that there's less 1/72 stuff available than it used to and if it's available it's just as expensive as 28mm.

Next is a trio of 20mm PSC German trucks. The vehicles are a little too basic for my liking, but went together easily. For a little more variety I printed a box body to go with one of them. Can't remember the sculptor though, I'm afraid.

So, 4 vehicles in 20mm as well as a half figure should give me another 62 points towards my total.

Still quite some way to go to 300pts, so we'll see how much I can squeeze in over those last few weeks.

***

Always such incredible work Nick! I am out of superlatives on the painting, beyond just noting that it meets your usual incredible standard of brushwork and weathering. I love the foliage on the vehicles, speaking very much to the whole "let's hope they think it's just some bushes moving along" amid skies full of Allied fighter-bombers. 

I also love the off-colour look of the barrel on the StuG's 75mm gun. I often don't think of how often barrels on guns like that need to be replaced, and the presence of a barrel which doesn't match the rest of the paint speaks to the under-pressure nature of the German forces late in the war. 

62 brilliant points for you!

GregB

From MartinN: Detroit Tank Arsenal (50 points)

I've to apologize for my lack of interaction here, but I've been busy with job interviews and what not those last few weeks. Also I haven't really felt like hobbying at all. But at long last I've finished something worth posting about. 

First off a 20mm PSC Lend-Lease M3 Stuart for my Soviets. The PSC kit is a sturdy enough kit, able to withstand the rigors of the wargames table well enough I imagine. Personally I'm not a huge fan of those kits as they're by necessity very basic with overblown details. Looks nice enough when painted though.

On the other end of the scale we have a 1/72 M4A4 Sherman from Dragon Models. The kit was fun to build and came with etched brass (which I didn't use) and even 3D printed (some of which I used) upgrade parts. Only let down were the vinyl tracks. First of all I managed to put on one the wrong way round and then they're just a smidgen too short, meaning that when you put them on you might snap the delicate plastic connecting the rear idler wheel to the hull... Of course I also managed to break off some of the more delicate parts during painting, but that's a whole other story full of fat fingers and too little patience. The tank commander is from the ever excellent AB Figures range.

Occupying the middle ground in model complexity is a venerable 1972 vintage ESCI M4A1 Sherman nowadays sold by Italeri. I got this one from a friend, so I can't say anything about how it went together, but looking at it I'd be highly surprised if it was any challenge at all, but as with the PSC Stuart the detail is a little basic. I really love the rounded shape of the cast M4A1 hull and hope to add a few more to my collection at some point. 

So that's about it for the moment. I do have some more half finished stuff waiting in the wings I hope to have finished before the clock runs out in about a month time. 

3x 20mm vehicles plus 1x 20mm figure (yes, it's a full figure, just lacking the boots) should net me 49 points.

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We have missed your work Nick! I'm sure we can all relate when the elusive "hobby mojo" is just not there, owing to real life events. That said, I'm glad you have found a way to power through it, and I know I speak for all Challengers when I say it is always a real treat to enjoy your work!

And, as ever, it looks just...amazing! Incredible stuff. The green is just-right. The shading is incredible, and all of the extra bits and gear give the armour that "live, lived in" look the radiates from the photos of these vehicles on campaign in that era. They look like they have been through weather and rain and dust etc. It's just excellent. 

Plastic kits are a challenge for me too - and I suspect, a bit of a mixed bag for all of us. No doubt many can relate to details or bits being lost in the hobby process. Some of us even straight up drop them - multiple times...anyway, rest assured they have come through the process to look incredible. That is probably why I am prone to preferring a "PSC-style" kit (assuming they are ever in stock, but that is another issue) to others. 

Vinyl tracks? Screw that! You get an extra bonus point for fiddling with that nonsense. 50 points for you!

GregB

From PeteB - Archers - 44 Points

In this post three small projects that come together.

1. Reamsa - Medieval Archer - 54 mm

This figure came with his head of the body, so I first had to repair that before painting. As Reamsa is a Spanish company I gave him a little touch with red and yellow, colors of the Spanish flag. 

2. Britains - Medieval Archer - 54 mm

Like the previous figure of Reamsa, this Britains figure came also in a bad condition. Don't know who gave this figure a base coat, but it took away almost all the details. So it needed some cleaning before painting. This one is painted, it's a Britain, with blue, red and some white, the colors that are also in the British flag.

3. Giant - Indians on horse - 20 mm

These figures missed the cut for the "Toy Story" theme round. That's why I post them here. As said these are 56 years old and for their age they painted really nice. And there is one archer, so it fits the top title! 😊

Unpainted Giant Figures

Thanks for watching!

Points

- 2 x 54 mm foot figure         = 20 Points

- 3 x 20 mm mounted figure = 24 Points

- Total                                    = 44 Points

A grand entry today Peter! You have really revived these old toys excellently. I must say the Archer most, very good.

Cheer Sander