Challenge Day 46 - Yo Ho Ho!

I went with the hats. I've decided to take an evening off from painting, but will put in a good session tomorrow night. Hopefully I'll get the remaining colours and the belts & scabbards done, leaving just metals and lace to do on Friday.

Just to prove that the hats are done:

Challenge Day 45 - ....On The Dead Man's Chest

Loki's Great Hall has a giveaway at the moment, with some fantastic prizes!


I'm still making progress on the big batch of pirates. The drawback to doing large batches like this is that each step takes a long time to do. The upside is that the end result is worth the patience and drudgery.

I've just completed the third colour set this evening and will be making a start on the fourth after writing this post. This should be a lot quicker as not all the figures need this step. Or I might do the hats on those wearing them. Once those stages are done, it just leaves me with belts, scabbards, metals and lace to paint before they are finished.

Some WIP pics:

Challenge Day 43 - 15 Men....

....and 141 of their mates. Yes, I'm still working on the big batch of pirates. I'm not that quick that they're already finished!

I've made good progress today, more than anticipated. I've managed to paint the hair and footwear on all the figures. I also got the bases painted with yellow ochre. And I've made a start on the third colour set, with 2 of the 9 colours in this round done; I should manage to get at least one more colour done before I go to bed.

So, some pics. I've gone in close with these.

Vehicle Bonus Theme Round

Well, the poll closed an hour or so ago. It appears that someone had posted a link on Cool Mini Or Not which resulted in a massive surge of votes in the last few hours that the poll was open. I was quite pleased to see that my NSL fleet managed to garner a total of 39 votes.

Challenge Day 42 - Paint Table Saturday #2

Aaaarrrrr! 'tis Paint Table Saturday again me hearties!

So, what is on Tamsin's paint table today?

156 x 15mm pirates from Rebel Minis. On the left are 3 packs of pirates with melee weapons, on the right are 4 packs with firearms.

So far I've painted the weapons, flesh and first 2 colours on every figure. To ensure that there is a lot of variety, I'm semi-randomising the colours I use at each stage for the clothing. The next step will be to paint hair, then I'll do shoes and boots, followed by painting the bases yellow ochre. I expect I'll manage to get those stages done tomorrow. These should be finished painting-wise this week, then it will be onto the next batch (slightly smaller - 96 Blue Moon pirates and sailors).

Challenge Day 41 - PyRats

Well, they're up and people seem to like them. These 24 PyRats from Rebel Minis earned me 48 points which took me past the 1000 point mark.

I've continued work on the 2 batches of human pirates this evening. Did anybody spot the stupid mistake I made last night? Need a hint? OK. I should have done the oily steel drybrush before painting the wood on the firearms and axes. This meant I had to waste some time this evening going back over the wood.

I've made a start on the flesh. So far, I've managed to do all the non pink-flesh shades. This took a while because I was rolling dice to randomise which figures would get each shade. Doing the pink-shade flesh should be a bit quicker as I just have to paint the figures that don't already have flesh!

Challenge Day 40 - Making a Start on the Pirates

Well, gentlefolks, last night I did indeed manage to finish of the PyRats and my Hero figure, photograph them and send them as submissions to Curt. Hopefully the PyRats will appear later tonight; the Hero won't appear until Sunday's bonus theme round.

I also did a bit of work on my entry fee figure at lunchtime today - hacking off and filing down details that I don't want, drilling out some holes for pinning, cleaning up flash and mould lines. This weekend I'll wash and dry the various parts and start assembling the figure. I'll also make a trip to 4D modelshop to get a few bits that I need for the base.

This evening I've begun work on the main part of my Pirate army. So far, I've done the black basecoat on the metal of weapons and painted the wood of firearms and axes. I've got two batches of figures out right now - 156 pirates from Rebel Minis (4 packs = 84 figures with firearms; 3 packs = 72 figures with melee weapons). The next step will be to drybrush the metal of weapons with Oily Steel.

Tomorrow evening will see me doing the flesh. I'll be including some as non-Europeans. If I have time, I'll start work on the clothing.

Anyway, here's a couple of quick workbench shots:

Challenge Day 39 - Points, Progress and Shinies

Points, points, glorious points,
Nothing quite like them for soothing your joints.... 

(with apologies to Messrs Flanders and Swan)

Yes, somewhere beyond 48 hours after posting the vehicles bonus theme entries, Curt managed to calculate the points for all of them and update the league table. I suspect it would have been much sooner if not for my entry which must have had him scratching his head, tearing his hair out and hitting the bottle. So - apologies to my fellow Challengers for the delay.

Anyway, my NSL fleet scored 218 points for the ships themselves plus the 50 theme bonus points. This has taken my score to 960, a welcome boost. It also means that my next entry should see me safely past the 1000 point mark, thereby winning the side challenge. Unless of course Ian has been secretly working on a huge entry of 28mm figures and gets them in before me.


Progress

The PyRats are very nearly finished. I've just got to drybrush the bases, spray them with matt varnish and do the flocking.

My Hero figure - Egil Skalagrimsson - will be sprayed with matt varnish at the same time. Tufting and flocking will be done alongside the PyRats, so I should be able to get both entries submitted before I go to bed.

I've decided to abandon work on the berserkers for now, which means that I can focus on the rest of the pirates straight away.


Shinies

The correct bits from Warlord Games finally arrived yesterday. So now I can (and already have to an extent) set to work on my entry fee, which will also be my submission for the favourite character bonus theme round. This will involve a bit of hacking, drilling, filing, adding bits of Milliput (I don't have green stuff) and sculpting. I want to make the base special for this one and have a good idea of what to do, but I need to get a couple of bits and bobs. I've got almost 6 weeks left before the bonus round, so there's no great rush. I'll be able to do a lot of the work during my lunch breaks.


Along with the small package from Warlord Games was one of those little red cards from the Royal Mail which we all love so much. I knew what it had to be and wasn't disappointed when I picked it up this morning.

That's right - my rather large order of spaceships from GZG. So, what's in those bags?

Extra ships to upgrade my NAC and FSE into fleets to mega fleet size
An ESU mega fleet
Some more NSL ships for the 5th fleet (including Big Poppa - the super dreadnought)
A bunch of civilian ships
2 packs of 15mm Kra'Vak warbeast riders

The last bits are to try out a silly idea I had for a participation game. I won't have time to work on that until the Challenge is over though.

Challenge Day 37 - NSL 5th Fleet (pic heavy)

I think that everyone was amazed at how quickly Curt managed to put together and post the gallery for this fortnight's bonus theme. There were some truly inspired* and inspiring entries for this theme.

* referring to inspired interpretation of "vehicle" to submit giant spiders and camels. I won't mention names (*cough* Loki and DaveD *cough*)

As always this round included some absolutely wonderful work. Head on over to the galleryhttp://analogue-hobbies-theme-rounds.blogspot.ca/2014/01/the-third-fortnight-them-bonus-round.html to take a look and don't forget to vote for your favourites.

Well, that's enough of that blather, here is my entry, the NSL 5th Fleet (elements of).

Subsector 029/16, ESU Core Systems
Command Bridge, Battleship Gagarin (Flag, 3rd Core Defense Fleet, Eurasian Solar Union)

"Admiral, sensors report ships have jumped in-system at 340 fore, 28 declination"

"Identify"

"Admiral, sensors report NSL ships in large numbers"

"How many? What are they doing here?"

"Identified as elements of 5th Battle Fleet. Sensors confirming types and numbers"

"The 5th? Elements? Not the whole fleet?"

"No sir. Initial tactical analysis reports 2 large and 2 small carriers, 4 ships of the line, 4 large cruisers, 6 medium and 6 light cruisers, 10 destroyers, 5 small escorts and large numbers of fighters deployed. Also some fleet auxiliaries."

"How did they get past our border defense fleets?"

"Admiral, detailed analysis incoming. 1 heavy carrier, 1 light carrier, 2 escort carriers, 1 battle dreadnought, 1 heavy battleship, 1 battleship, 1 battle cruiser, 2 heavy cruisers, 2 attack cruisers, 6 escort cruisers - 2 Frankfurt class and 4 Danzig class, 6 light cruisers - 2 Kiel class and 4 Emden class, 2 heavy destroyers, 4 missile destroyers, 4 fast destroyers, 2 frigates, 3 corvettes, 2 fleet tenders, 1 fleet tanker. They have launched 4 full wings of light fighters. Tactics advise that they have at least one more wing available, probably heavy fighters."

"Comrades, we are a little outnumbered but at least it isn't their whole 5th fleet and most of their ships of the line aren't with them. We can stop this incursion. Set course for intercept."

"Admiral, sensors report two more groups of contacts emerging from jump at 190 aft, 45 inclination and 100 starboard, 05 declination. Sir....I think it's the rest of their fleet."

"Holy Mother Russia! Comrades - say your prayers."

The Fleet Arrayed:

 The Fighter Swarm:

Small Escort Group
(3 Nibelung class Corvettes in front, 2 Pola class Frigates behind)

Destroyer Group:

Lutzow Class Destroyers:

Sachsen Class Heavy Destroyers:

Rottweil Class Missile Destroyers:

Light Cruiser Squadron:
(2 Kiel class leading 4 Emden class)

Escort Cruiser Squadron:
(2 Frankfurt class leading 4 Danzig class

The Big Cruisers:
(2 Helgoland class Heavy Cruisers, Von Der Tann class Battle Cruiser, 2 Rommel class Attack cruisers)

Ships of the Line:
(Hapsburg class Heavy Battleship, Maria Theresa class Battle Dreadnought, Graf Spee class Battleship)

Fleet Carrier Assets:
(2 Prinzessin Hannah class Escort Carriers, Wien class Light Carrier)

Fleet Logistics Vessels:
Odenwald class Fleet Tender, Odenwald-Q class Q-Ship Fleet Tender, Walchensee class Fleet Tanker)

and last, but most definitely not least....

Big Momma:
(Neu Salzburg class Heavy Carrier)

A rather large fleet of spaceship here for you folks - why go for one vehicle when you can have an armada of them? This is my Neu Swabian League fleet from Ground Zero Games. Some of these ships had been languishing in my lead pile for over 2 years, some since Salute 2012 and the rest were acquired just before Christmas. I've had good fun painting these up and look forward to getting them on the table for some games of Full Thrust in the coming year. Not all at once, obviously - each turn would take a couple of hours! Besides, I don't think any of my potential opponents is stupid enough to will have a fleet large enough to match this one.

I will be adding some more ships to the fleet (in fact, I've ordered them this week, along with some more ships for my NAC and FSE fleets, some civilian ships and a ESU fleet) but they are unlikely to be painted during the Challenge.