More Spaceships Prepped

I didn't fell like re-starting painting last night, nor again this evening, so I've been prepping some more spaceships. Last night I spent prepping a bunch of civilian ships; this evening I did the extra ships to upgrade my FSE intro fleet to mega fleet size.

The Civilian Ships

In the left rack we have (L to R, top to bottom) a Merino class livestock hauler, Olympus class short-haul passenger transport, 2 yachts, a Glow Worm class free trader, a Kestel class free trader and 2 Tradewind class freighters.

In the right rack we have 2 Tradewind class tankers, a Dallas class refinery ship and a Princess class starliner.


The FSE Fleet

In the left rack we have 3 corvettes, 3 scout ships a battle dreadnought and a battleship. In the right rack are a heavy cruiser, a super dreadnought and 2 escort cruisers.


I'll probably wait for the weekend before priming these, then start painting them next week. Tomorrow night I'll have a crack at re-starting work on the pirate dragoons and commanders.

My Challenge in Review

Well, what a challenge this year's Challenge was. And thank goodness it's over! I've taken a break from painting over the past few days, but should pick up the brushes again on Tuesday. Maybe I'll break the block I hit with finishing the pirate dragoons and commanders?

I ended up in 8th place with 1959 points. Taking out the 300 bonus points I gained from entering submissions for six of the bonus theme rounds, that leaves me a touch over 300 points down on last year. I'm actually quite happy with that as I was aiming to take things a bit easier. However, I might have managed to do a bit more if it hadn't been for a few factors beyond my control - ill health at various points and being on a very intensive course for a week certainly played havoc with my painting.

I guess it is time to do a pictorial review of my entries. These are in the order of submission, rather than their order of appearance.

First up, a medieval picnic scene as my Swiss camp (15mm). This was my entry for the first bonus round "non combatants"

Next up were some Seleucid Xystophoroi cavalry (15mm). I've since sold these (and the Nellies) to a friend from the club - that should keep me from the temptation of building a Macedonian/Successor army!

72 Swiss Halberdiers (15mm). These complete my Swiss army. Unless I show extreme lunacy and paint up more halberdiers so that I can field a very early Swiss army.

For the Villains bonus round, my entry was this jolly lovely Ogre (28mm). He is now in the possession of Michael Awdry who won him in my 2nd Blogday prize draw.
*Any resemblance to any living blogger is entirely deliberate. Animals may have been harmed in the production of this figure and photograph.

Koreans - 72 medium foot handgunners, 18 crossbowmen and 8 light foot handgunners (15mm)

Coureurs de Bois painted up for the Bloggers For Charity game (28mm)

Ten regimental gun markers for the FoGR 30 Years War army (15mm)

How long have we been looking for the treasure? Skeletal pirates from Rebel Minis (15mm)

The NSL 5th Fleet was my entry for the Vehicle bonus round. Just a few ships here....

"Big Momma" - the heavy carrier

6 limber teams for my 30 Year War army (15mm)

My entry for the Casualties bonus round was this collection of cohesion markers for my 30 Years War army (15mm). With 16 "disrupted", 8 "fragmented" and 6 "broken" (the graves) markers this should be enough to see me through to the end of turn 3 of most of my FoGR games

What a scurvy (or should that be leptosporotic?) bunch these are. PyRats from Rebel Minis (15mm)

Egil Skalagrimsson was my entry for the Heroes bonus round (28mm)

Septic Sam the Sewer Man - a J Peasmold waste recycling ship.

Just a few pirates (not of the undead or rodent variety this time). 248 of them to be precise (15mm).

"Errrr, skipper - I think we filled up with the wrong type of fuel"
"Better call the AA then for a tow"
Lady Christine repair/recovery ship

Unteroffizier Feldwebel Rolf Steiner was my entry for the "Favourite Character" bonus round. I had to do quite a bit of conversion work to get the look I wanted (28mm). this figure is also my entry fee and will be wending its way to Canada at some point. I need to do a little bit of touching up first and give it another spray coat of matt varnish.

My final entry was a group of 24 Mongol light horse and a 3-figure Mongol command stand, which included a camel, thereby satisfying the secret rule that all Challengers must submit at least one camel as part of their output.

My final final entry was some more spaceships, this time a flotilla of NAC ships to add to the intro fleet I painted last year and upgrade it to a mega fleet.

As you can see, quite a varied bunch of entries again this year. I'm glad that Curt decided to expand beyond the historical theme this year as it did allow me to get some of the spaceships which have been sitting unpainted for ages done. I've now got some reasonable forces for playing games of Full Thrust and some civilian ships to use as objectives.

I did manage to complete my Swiss and Korean armies at last and got very close to finishing the Buccaneers. I've made a good start on my Mongol ally force as well, which will provide a useful addition to my Koreans (and may form the base for a full Mongol army in the future. What is it with me and irregular cavalry armies?). I also added some useful bits for my 30 Years War army.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to paint up any of my 6mm ACW armies. I think that might be a project for the summer.

Challenge Entry #19 - NAC Fleet

Late last year, I painted up the NAC intro fleet I'd won in a prize draw on Seb's blog. Moving on a few months, my final final entry to this year's Challenge were the extra ships I'd ordered to upgrade it to a mega fleet.

With the intro fleet I'd made a bit of a booboo at the early stage (I was a bit too heavy with the wet brush stage) and had to go back and do a wash step to add some depth to the base colour of the hull. With these ships I learnt my lesson and the wash step wasn't needed (nor the preceding gloss varnish step) - quite handy really, as otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished them before the deadline!

That's enough blather from me though - you want to see the pics.

The Fleet:

Scout Ships:

Corvettes:

Heavy Cruiser and 2 Escort Cruisers:

Battleship:

Battle Dreadnought:

Super Dreadnought:

Tomorrow I'll be posting a review of my Challenge with pics of all my entries (and my hall of shame).

Challenge Entry #18 - Mongol Light Horse and Commanders

Well,
the fat lady has sung
the deadline has passed
Curt has counted the votes for the Last Stand and totted up everyone's final points
this year's Challenge is finally over*

*apart from the various votes for favourite entries

I'll be doing a full review of my Challenge this year on Sunday, but tonight ans tomorrow I am posting my final entry and my final final entry for your pleasure

My final entry** was a bunch of 24 Mongol light horsemen and a Mongol command stand of 3 figures. These were 15mm figures from Donnington Miniatures and netted me 108 points. These will be the start of a useful addition to my Korean army as they can be fielded as either an allied contingent or as mercenaries/auxiliaries as part of the main list. I'll also be painting up some light foot bowmen and some heavy cavalry.

So, here are the pics

** as in "these are probably my final entry" but which turned out not to be

Light Horse

Command Group

"That horse in the background has a funny looking head!"

"And a funny looking body and coat!"

"Oh, I see! It's a camel!!"