Challenge X: Entries 2 & 3 Buetts and Camels

AdamC: Cooke's Crevase Desert Buttes (36 Points)

These two buttes started life as packing material. The shapes suggested rock formation of the American southwest to me.

They just needed some filling of holes with card board and then some paint. I decided to us texture paint for the first time. The results seem satisfactory. 

A quick wash and some highlights and I have couple of pieces for high ground to use on desert table. The dimension are 4 x 3 x 2.75 inches which comes to about 1/7th of a 6" Cube so 3 points each 6 points in total plus the extra 30... 

That said despite my best efforts I don't think I have ever gotten the terrain points right so I'll take anything! 

Now we shall turn to Docherty's Dock to secure a port before moving on the Islands interior. 

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Excellent work Adam, and a creative approach to designing tabletop buttes. Well done!

36 points it is. Now, lets see what you come up with for Docherty's Dock. :)

From AdamC: Docherty's Dock "Camels" (35 points)

So Camels are a big part of the challenge, We see them all the time. I've never painted any and rolled my eyes as a I read Dave''s location , but my brain had an itch the use of the words Nautical and Camels together were stirring up an idea.

A few days latter I knew what it was as I was listening to the book 1812 the Navy's War describing how a ship was take over a sand bar using "camels" thus a project was born. I'll confess that I didn't do a lot of research but made something I thought would look right based on a few images I found and recollections from books I have read. It seemed to me that Camels were often improvised in the field so I did much the same. 

Another scratch build: two old plastic bases to raise the ship up with some craft stick to represent the barges, a dowel cut down to make points for lashing to the side of the ship.

Two more Dowel to represent barrels and tar impregnated canvas for raising the barges and the ship.

The Camels will accommodate the 1/700 Scale ships for the Black Seas Game both the frigate in the first picture and the brig shown here. I don't know if I'll use them on the table but I might just have to come up with a scenario.

Over head view. I'm not sure exactly how these should be scored but if 1/2400 ships are 3 point each 5 points seems reasonable. If so that would get me another 35 points with the points assuming Mr. Docherty likes may painting camels without painting a camel sorry it wasn't quite ready for Hump Day.

Next up is a return to Cooks Crevasse on my way to Hawkings' Hill as I continue up the path of the Forgotten.

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Adam, this is a brilliant interpretation of the theme, well done! I'm completely ignorant of this process and love it when the Challenge provides me with something new to learn. Wonderful! 

As to points, let's double the modelling aspect to reflect the effort and creativity, so 40 points total. Well done, Adam!

Challenge X Entry Number 1

From AdamC: Victory Ships begin off loading from Douglas' Shallows (48 Points)

Hello folks its nice to be back for another Challenge. This years I open up with a little scratch built project that would seem to count as messing around with boats right? If not I guess my first entry will run aground...

Six Cargo Ship Objects (CSOs for short a play on a friends joke about using TLOs truck like objects in World War Two land games). I mean occasionally you want some merchant ships for a game but usually you want spend your money on something a bit more combat oriented. So I built my own.

They are loosely based on the profile of the Victory Ship. Each ship is built with two short craft sticks (popsicle sticks) and some additional bits a pieces of wood for the superstructure and cargo hoists. The smoke stacks are made out of old plastic spear hafts.

Up front you can see the one Tanker type ship I built the. I did the ships in a sort of "Dazzle Camouflage pattern" I don't know if Victory ships ever had this sort of paint scheme but I didn't want them to be too boring.

The goal was to make them approximately 1/2400 scale which is the scale I use for World War II naval games. Shown here with a Benson Class Destroyer, so they might be a bit shorter than they should but close enough.

Here is an over head view. The should have some 40mm or 3" deck/AA guns but weapons that small would be hard to model from scratch (you don't see the 40s on the Destroyer above) so I just didn't worry about these. They'll mostly play targets/objective anyway. Points since 1/2400 scale isn't listed I'll suggest 2 points each as that is the smallest vehicle scale available so 12 points (But please adjust as you feel appropriate).

Plus the 30 for collecting the Map Point for 42 Points to start my campaign... now to hump these supplies inland to Cooke's Crevase.


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First, welcome back to the Challenge Adam!

Well, I definitely applaud and envy your ingenuity and craft skills - this fleet of Victory Ships definitely look the business. As you say, we often end up spending our hard-earned sheckles on stuff representing the 'sharp end', whereas the important support elements frequently get neglected. I also like your take on the 'dazzle' camoflage and rest-assured that some Victory Ships did indeed sport this type of paint scheme during the war.

In the past we've scored 1/2400 ships at 3 points each so with that being the case this will give you a tidy 48 Points as you lay anchor in Douglas' Shallows. Well done Adam!

-Curt

Ayer Con 2

 This weekend I ran a game of Frostgrave at AyerCon 2.  This is a gaming event hosted by a local Cub Scout Pack 32.  As an Eagle Scout I'm always on the look out for chances to give back to Scouting getting to run game was a bonus.  My players were quite young and so it was a challenge to keep them focused at times but they caught on to the spirit of the game very quickly even if mechanics were a little harder to grasp.

 Still we all had a good time as you can see two of the war bands well engaged with the Lich Lord and several of his Frost Knights.  I'm going to simplify the game a little more for Ayer Con 3 or 4 (if I can't make 3) and maybe see about getting some other GMs to come along.

 My Elsa figure painted a few years ago got used in a D&D grand battle where she played the roll of the big bad (with Let it Go playing in the background)

Chanlenge X

The 10th challenge is going to start if only a few days (on 12/21) this year we have a spiffy map with a big X in the middle of it. I've got several project including two naval project (two of them acutely) that I am excited to get working on.  Painting time will be tight and my 750 point target will be hard to manage but with more than 500 bonus points available on the map I should be able to do it.  Mind you I have no clue what to do with some of these (War Hammer 30k not my game and I don't even know what fits with it). Check out all the spiffy destinations here: https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2019/12/come-adventure-on-challenge-island.html

I'm going to be painting up some Black Seas Ships.  I plan to focus on the Quasi War painting up US and French ships.  I have been thinking about doing French ships from the American War of Independence but maybe I'll just try to figure out a way to swap flags.

 I got a couple of extra Brigs and I have used them to make a couple of alternative builds with guidance form Guy Bowers over at Karwansaray

A sloop of war and a schooner made from cutting a and recombining two Brigs.

I've also felt I might need a few merchant vessals to work with my World War II ships so I have been doing some simple Ship like objects.  I'm pleased with the prototyp above
I've got some more Dark Age troops to paint up "civilians" for a game I want to run. I have been scratch building some terrain and I'm pulling out a bunch of dead lead 15mm figures to paint up. Some ACW, Some 18th century and maybe I'll finaly paint some of the those World War I guys.

Henry Hill second go

John and I decide to try a second test game with our armies form last game.  I have 3 new units while most of John's men have been promoted to Regular.   I have two regular infantry, and One veteran infantry but my other troops are green.

John goes at both flanks of the hill, I move to counter the advance on my left (my best troops are here)

While holding the defence on the right and using my two batteries to hit Johns troops as they move into position.

The 3rd South Carolina stands off a powerful charge by Union Regulars.  The Yankees have already taken hits form rebel artillery and now  musket fire by two confederate infantry regiments.  They are driven back the following turn the South Carolinans advance  and disperse the surviving Yankees.

They 3rd SC is out in font and the Yankee Zouaves attack them but both sides are unsupported and the rebel troops are good  marksmen and hit them hard.  John rolls poorly for his charge test my roll is good.  Another Yankee regiment skedaddles tot he rear.  I managed to drive back the troops on my left, John's troops hold but are fully engaged while his right flank is thoroughly cut up and unable to advance.  John chooses to withdraw.

Discover Mexico's amazing "minatures"

As part of our recent vacation we visited Cozumel and made a stop at a cool little museum called Discover Mexico

These are all 1/50 Scale (or so I remember) models of various Mesoamerican monuments as they we believe they would have appeared in their glory days.

Complete with people (though no human sacrifices)

This was an interesting one a colonial church built on top of an Aztec temple (a pulp adventure just waiting to be written.

There are also many models of modern churches and other significant buildings.  All and the location is well worth a look.