The Seventh, and Final, Fortnight Theme Bonus Round: 'Last Stand'

Well, here we are. The 'Last Stand', the seventh and final theme of the bonus round series. 

Below you will find many desperate final moments from both history and fevered imagination. From Boudicca to Gordon of Khartoum, from zombie survivors to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - what you'll see below are a wide assortment of wonderfully imaginative, fully realized vignettes. 

Please remember to leave a comment or two for the participants and take a bit of time to vote for all your favourite 'Last Stand' entries (using the panel to the right). For this last round voting will close at Thursday noon (CST) so I can tabulate the final point totals for the entire Challenge, so make sure you get your votes in!

Enjoy the gallery and thank you for visiting.

AaronH

Here’s my entry for the Last Stand.  It’s Boudicca being done in by a Roman auxiliary all in 28mm.  Boudicca’s ultimate fate is not recorded, but I prefer to believe that she died fighting on the field of the Battle of Watling Street.

The dead Celt and the Roman are Warlord Games.  Boudicca is from Wargames Factory and is the worst model I own.  She came with their Celt chariot box set.  The base is left over from the Drizzit do-Urden model I bought my son for his birthday.

The Auxiliary infantryman and the casualty were both easy and quick paints.  I’m enjoying painting the Celts, so far.  I may have to put some effort into that army once the challenge is over.  Boudicca was just a chore.  By and large I’d say that Wargames Factory lives up to its reputation for poor quality.  Some of the models are good and a lot of them are complete crap.  Being the cheap value conscious fellow that I am, I am mixing my warbands with different models.  The front rank is the best of the plastics and metals.  The second rank will be Warlord plastics.  The back rank will be the Wargames Factory.  As such the models will be buried behind their less ugly brethren and their flaws should be unnoticed on the table.

I find it ironic that I now have a painted command base and casualty markers for my Celt army, which doesn’t have a single painted unit, but none for my Roman army which is fifteen units strong.  The Challenge makes for some odd twists, much like story telling.

Thanks Curt.  I appreciate all you have done to make this happen.  It’s quite an event and an important part of the blog calendar, at least for me.

AlanD

For my last stand entry I thought I'd stick with the western theme, especially as the past couple of weeks have been too busy to allow me to paint up the platoon of Volkssturm I originally had planned!

Gorgon Miniatures make a lovely set of figures sculpted by Mike Owens that are based on the characters from the Cohen Brothers' remake of 'True Grit'. Each figure comes with a mounted version and one on foot, and they are very nice indeed.

My main figure here is Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, launching his one man attack on the outlaw gang near the end of the film. OK, he should be holding the reins in his teeth, but I wasn't up to modelling that this week. It is a great scene in the movie, and an epic last stand. But I've also included the figure of Rooster on foot, because during the film he goes through a process of redemption that can probably qualify as a last stand, given that a big spider can be a vehicle. 

So there we have it - one character, two figures, and both a physical and metaphysical last stand. 

AndrewS

My original intention was to do a druid themed piece, but sadly I never got around to that. so I changed direction originally this was part of a larger set and I had all intentions of completing that for this round. However, I then had another idea and set about attempting to complete that. I soon realised I had bit off more than I could chew there and hurriedly went back to plan A with improvisation.

So this is King Leonidas of Sparta.

AndyM

For this round I continued the rummaging in the ancient depths of the lead pile! These lot come from early/mid-eighties when I as doing a lot of RPG with Runequest and Bushido. Needless to say I bought lots of figures and few, if any got painted. So here we have three from the range that Grenadier released to go with the Bushido RPG.

The Samurai Lord, his camp attacked in the night by the feared Ninja hired by his mortal enemy, flees along the banks of the raging river. Eventually his pursuers corner him and there is nowhere to run!

The base is the usual piece of blue insulation foam offcut with tufts from Tajima (eBay). The water was done with Woodland Scenics water effect. I tried building it up in thin layers but it still wanted to 'crack' a little. Looks OK though...

AnneO’L

Originally I had a five figure diorama planned for this Bonus Round, but a couple of weeks ago, whilst browsing through the Reaper catalogue I saw a figure of a wild eyed dwarf riding a battle boar. And in that figure I saw myself.  

What I saw was myself engaged in a battle against Winter itself.  

Without heat, without water and without family or friends to help out, I felt alone and would have felt helpless had I not been able to draw on an inner rage to power myself from one day into the next.

And after about three weeks without a bath, I certainly smelled as bad as any dwarf would.

Every day felt like a battle against "Old Man Winter" and I lost sight of the fact that the season would end, that the battle would end. 

By the end of it all, the eyes that looked back at me from the mirror were as mad as the eyes of this dwarf. But I had my battle boar and together we made our Last Stand against Winter. 

This is a 25mm figure from Reaper Miniatures and was sculpted by Jason Wiebe.

BrendonW

King Alfred with his retreating warband. All are plastic 28mm Gripping Beast except two. Alfred is metal (waving the sword) and the mounted army standard is metal from Conquest Games with a Banner from Little Big Men. Shield decals are also LBM.

In January 878, Alfred was attacked by the Danes (heathen Viking types) at Chippenham. Alfred retreated from there with a small group to a hill in a swamp. It wasn't to be his very last stand though. He continued to resist from there and eventually went on to have successful campaigns against the Danes. So I present to you King Alfred making a last stand before his retreat to a stinking swamp.

I enjoy building and painting the dark ages and the shield wall is an iconic image of that time. I came up with an idea of squeezing two figures per 25mm round base instead of my usual singular way. I am very happy that doing that achieves a nice shield wall look. This submission may well be my last stand in this challenge as I have reached my target and submitted the entry fee figure. It's been a blast.

BurkhardS

Now that we have come close to the end of the Challenge, I think there could be no more fitting theme than a last stand stand. I think there are many fitting examples of a last stand in history, be it 300 Spartans at Thermopylae (sadly I did not have the time to paint those) to the last defenders of Berlin. But I wanted something, that painted a universal picture. And one that really does it for me is an unhorsed cavalryman, left with nothing but his saddle and fighting attackers off at close range. 

And luckily Warlord Games did a lovely little vignette showing just that for Historicon last year. No I was not there myself (my last visit to Historicon was already nine years ago), but I found a fine gentleman, who had been willing to buy me a mini and send it to me. The annoying thing for me though was that Warlord sold the overstock through their website shortly after… so much for exclusive mini! :-(

Anyway, the mini itself is really nice in dynamic pose, accuracy and detail. Unfortunately i had the mother of all mould misalignments (2mm) so there was a fair bit of cutting and filling required to make it look fine. Anyway, here is the final result.

ByronM

For my last stand entry I took my inspiration from several places.  First of all from Curt and his terrific grey scale WWI.  Ever since I saw them, I wanted to give it a shot.  Next up, from PaulS’s entry earlier on in the challenge where he showed off what could be done with the zombies from Zombicie in grey scale. And lastly from his inspiration Carmen’s Black and white zombies.

Having all 3 Zombicide games and having bought them through the Kickstarter and therefore getting a ton of extras, I needed a way to paint up over 300 zombies quickly anyway.   Using grey scale on the zombies and colour for the heroes would let me get through the zombies quickly and would allow the characters to stand out in a big way on the game boards.  It also gave me a chance to try out grey scale painting.

So, my last stand entry is the zombicide character Nick in colour facing off against 30 various walkers, runners, fatties, and even an abomination!  Nick is of course a blatant copy of Bruce Willis’s character John McClane from the original Die Hard, and I thought a great last stand character.  "Yippee Ki Yay Motherf….er”

The grey scale overall went pretty well I thought.  It is a lot harder than I would have liked, but the Zombicide pieces have so much detail on them that it makes it pretty easy to pick out separate areas, and since the zombies come on and off the board so quickly, they don’t have to be done to a super high standard anyway.  Most are pretty quickly done, but look ok for a board game figure, as shown in the pictures of the 2 fatties and abomination.  It’s also one of my kids favourite games, so it sees a lot of use by young teens and their friends, none of whom paint or know how to take care of figures :-(

So, 30 zombies down…. TONS more to go, especially since I just got my shipping notice for the second part of Season 2’s shipment.  

I thought this was a good start though, and would make a thematic entry for my Last Stand submission.

ClintB

I have decided to take these 6 Arabs mounted on Camels to be my last stand. Give yourself a pat on the back if you guessed that Camels would be involved. Clearly they are no diorama however they are the last stands of Arab Revolt Camel riders I will need to do so for me they are the last stands. 

As with all the other figures in this project they are 20mm (1/72nd scale) IT Miniatures. By the time this is goes on Curt's Blog they will have gone to a show and been in a game. So thanks for putting up with my camel obsession this year and I bet 9 months will come around very quickly!

DaveD

So its "Last Stand" time. Where to start , so may famous events to choose from. However given Curt had started this challenge on a cinematic theme I kept being drawn back to that and had thought of a number of colonial type entries. However having found a rich vein of 54mm goodness in the form of Andrea Miniatures when i found these lads in the catalogue the choice just seemed natural. So here we have the final moments of "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid". 

The sheer amount of movement in the castings is wonderful , and I have found these two a real challenge to paint to do justice to the look i wanted, but i think i got there in the end. 

They are on an interlocking basing set to form the vignette piece but they can be separated for use in some of the large scale games i have planned.

EdwinK

I know I won't get any points for originality here, but my last stand is the death of Gordon in Khartoum in January 1885 - or at least his death as imagined in George William Joy's depiction.

There are a total of ten figures, Gordon and the three on the staircase are from Perry's set-piece, but I wanted to augment them in order to capture the sense of Gordon being over-run by a mob that Joy gives.  The extras are from Perry's plastic Ansars.  If I were to do it again, I would add even more.

This was my first vignette, and I enjoyed doing it a great deal.  

FranL

This is the The Last Stand of Humanity?

I love my shambling slow zombie genre and always will but two things enlightened me to the viral zombie, the quick zombie, the rager, the spreader of the disease and that was World War Z and the hopelessness of the horde (this was highlighted by Vampifan) when he highlighted the metahorde books. These books spoke of hordes crossing continents and would possibly number between 10 million and 100 million strong!

Then how to depict the viral horde, I went with a form of greyscale to show that colour would be absorbed within the horde and everything they touched, they would trudge through ash and consume all......

This depicts for me the last stand of humanity, possibly with a chance still of survival, a chance of rescue, a chance of a cure within a tube or the last of colour gone.These pieces while depicting a scene are wargaming pieces and will be used for viral zombie games.

Not particularly well painted, there should have been more casualties but the rotter Ray picked up some Peter Pig casualty figures and some needed grey paint for me at a show but they still lurk somewhere in his dwelling, I would have liked to add more military figures to the scene but I had no new stuff to add as it's already been painted well before.

So I give you 265 15mm zombies, 13 survivors, 1 T-55 tank, 2 cars, a streetlamp, a skip, some wheelie bins and 5 explosion markers!

This picture depicts the last stand desperately defending a small ruin, police defend the civilians and scientists while a shadowy figure makes a radio call.

We see a closer view of the saviour of humanity?

This shows the viral attack

We see some closer views.

Again with this picture.

Shows some of the casualties, all from Peter Pig

This pic shows some of the greyscale zombies but also a little colour here and there as mother nature tries to fight back, some from Khurasan, Rebel Minis and Oddzial Osmy.

This depicts the body bag horde base with an explosion in its centre as the dead restore to life, figures from The Scene.

This depicts another horde, I tried to depict items being dragged along within the horde and added some scenery to highlight the base.

This depicts the third horde base with more scenery yet again added to the mixture of zombies, the greenery yet again to depict mother nature, the figures again are a mixture again of 15mm.co.uk, Khurasan, Rebel Minis, Oddzial Osmy, some modern British from Old Glory too!

The colour in the zombie figures comes from the movie Schindlers List which is a black and white movie but the little girl in the red coat has always stuck with me.

A lot of these figures I had from last year lurking in a box but unsure whether I still liked the zombie period or not and I'm still unsure?

IanW

It's not the big planned final challenge piece I had planned as a mix of a work promotion and being away playing with counters means I just don't have the time.

The figure was given away as a free gift at a Partizan from a few years ago and lay in my lead pile waiting for good reason to be painted and when my original last stand was shelved for lack of time I thought of Crete and the battle against the German paratroopers which included lots of civilians and even Monks. Well the figure is of a Monk but for the Very British Civil War and I had the idea that it was not too big a stretch for such a Monk to have got hold of a Greek Helmet and whilst it's not 100% accurate I thought it close enough.

The German Paratroopers felt they were really misused in the battle and it unfair that they were not allowed to gather themselves before commencing battle and the civilians joining battle was the last straw. Many of these brave civilians who took up arms against the Germans were rounded up and shot, truly a last stand in my mind.

KevH

I will apologize now for my free interpretation of the Last Stand.

I was going down the Custer route, but thought of something a bit more, erm, different. So I though about my days as a WotR re-enactor. I remembered a stand we used for kit to keep it off the wet, muddy floor. It was useful especially for Armour. It was also in the shape of a cross which was quite apt, as it signified that we had God with us.

Well, I never have been a religious person, but we all have to pretend for the good of "Arfenticity", lol.

I remembered a fellow re-enactor placing his armour on a stand and the thing collapsed and his helmet squidged into a fresh cow pat. There it was sitting on the top of a cow style mr whippy.

Bang!! Eureka. I used 28mm Perry plastic WotR. Two sets of arms by Wargames Factory 28mm Saxons and some bits of Florist Wire. The Base is a Sabot Tray from Warbases.

I didn't do the cow pat thing, but this sums up my last stand, especially with the beating the servant is going to get. Making and painting this brought back fond memories. It is a little different, haha, sorry. Hope you all like my attempt at a bit of light hearted fun.

KevinS

We are getting to the end of the painting competition, and I wanted to make sure I had my "Last Stand" entry in on time.  You might be aware of the story of the Mark IV tank "Fray Bentos", named with typical British Great War humour after a famous brand of tinned meat.  

In July 1917, during the Battle of Passchendaele, 'Fray Bentos' under the command of Captain Donald Richardson, became bogged down in mud just short of the German trenches.  For three days and nights, the isolated crew of Fray Bentos endured a series of intense German attacks.  Richardson would eventually lead all but one of his men to safety.  They became the most highly decorated British tank crew of the First World War.  The story has now been made into a short film.

This diorama was made as an insert for a larger terrain piece.  I envisage it being used as an objective or strongpoint.  The tank is an Old Glory Mk IV, too large to fit in with my other 25-28mm collection of tanks by  Wargames Foundry.  

LeeH

My Last Stand entry is the Salute 2009 free figure, a great multi-part metal model of a Zulu Warrior leaping over a miele bag barricade at a British infantryman.  I'm not sure who's last stand this is as both protagonists look like they are in a precarious position, which makes this a very dynamic vignette. 

This 28mm model is one of the best free figures given out at Salute and the sculptor - Adam Clarke of Black Scorpion - has done an excellent job of conveying the tension and movement of the scene. 

I really enjoyed painting this model mainly because its been in my Lead Mountain for far too long. Like much of what I have painted I know it would have continued to languish untouched had it not been for the painting challenge. 

MarkG

So for the final themed round I decided to use the lovely Warlord Games Centurion “Titus Aduxas” that you get as a bonus if you order a few of their Ancients rule books and army lists.

When I look at this character I think of the last stand of the remnants of the famous three lost Legions in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. During the closing stages of the battle, most of the senior Roman commanders either abandoned their troops or surrendered, all were killed anyway.

Only one commander, Praefectus Eggius, led the remainder of his force on to a small hillock, where they fought heroically to the last man. So this figure is a good representation of one of his Centurions during that last desperate fight. If you’ve ever seen the opening battle in the film “Gladiator,” or Michael Fassbender in “Centurion” then you get the idea.

MartinN

This was maybe the only themed bonus round I knew what to submit for from the beginning. Originally I had intended this set for use on a scenic base for Impetus but as I had it lying untouched on my desk for what felt like ages the "Last stand" themed round gave me the excuse I needed to finally paint it. The set is called "Death of Arthur" and is from Westwind Miniatures nice 28mm Arthurian range.

As Comitatus didn't show up with their Gripping Beast and Musketeer stuff at Tactica (Yes, I'm still a little pissed off) I had to cancel my plan for doing an Impetus sized (and styled) base for lack of miniatures. Instead I decided to go for a larger round base and maybe use it later as some kind of rally point or opportunity marker. For the standard I originally planed to use a more stylish one. It was attached to the pole already, weathered and battle worn but due to some nasty incident including glue and me being all fingers and thumbs I had to switch to this one.

MichaelA

The final bonus round is here and I'm delighted to say that I've completed my side challenge of entering something for each one!  As soon as I read the title "The Last Stand", I knew that I would finally have the impetus to paint up my 'Perry Miniatures' vignette representing the final moments of one of Britain's best loved heroes.  Based on the painting by George William Joy in 1893, this depiction had been challenged by historians and eye witness accounts, yet it remains an iconic image.  I had intended to simply realise it as the painting would indicate, but a chance comment by 'Edwin King' got me thinking, what if this wasn't the end - who could come to his aid at such a time?  This of course was a job for her majesty; her majesty with a very big gun!  So we have four 28mm 'Perry miniatures' (one of them prone) and one 28mm West Wind Queen Victoria from the Empire of the Dead range making up a ridiculous alternative 'Last Stand'.

All very straightforward in essence, the addiction of Vallejo red oxide paste to the staircase gave a little texture to the piece whilst affording a key for the paint.  The figures themselves painted as you would expect and will allow me to redistribute them at a later date if I chose to complete the vignette as it was intended.  

Through the heat of battle, a lone figure emerges, a grim defiance in her eyes.  As the frenzied masses fling themselves towards the General we hear the now immortal words, "Say hello to one's little friend!"

MichaelF

For the last stands in this years Challenge I finally managed to get a decent sized unit done.  

I love firing lines in an army. They are not the most practical for gaming but any of my armies needs at least one.

These Eureka miniatures are initially painted for the Wars of the Third Coalition but I will allow them to be fielded up to 1807 and use them with a simple flag swap for the Revolutionary wars in Europe and even Egypt. 

So these battalions will give me a great base to expand on and paint up theatre specific units for the various armies in the future.

MilesR

Here’s my final bonus round submission. It’s another 36mm metal model from Oniria Miniatures (available via the Gringo’s 40 website). The mini is ca;;ed “Give ‘em Hell Pike” but I prefer to call it “Pikes Peak”. It’s a vintage of the last scene from the “Wild Bunch” where Pike and his crew go down fighting the Mexican army with the Maxim Gun and it’s “never ending” ammo box.

The tile floor, table and minor details all come with the kit. I had a tough time assembling the table but that may be more due to my constantly glueing my fingers together rather anything else. 

I went light on the blood as I just don’t carry that off well. The figure was a lot of fun to paint and, of course, I had the movie running on my IPad just to set the right theme! 

I’ve really enjoyed the bonus rounds and have been inspired by the superb entries from other challenge participants to try a scale outside my normal comfort zone of 28mm. Well done everyone!

Millsy

I *very* nearly submitted Ney for the previous round but I so wanted to make the attached I held off. I'm glad I did...

I've been fascinated by Napoleon's Russian endeavour ever since I was a kid. The epic nature of taking half a million men and attempting to conquer one of the largest nations of the time and in the worst of possible conditions just staggers the imagination.

The Retreat is a story that begs a modern blockbuster film but for some reason has never inspired one. It certainly inspired Adolphe Yvon's truly wonderful 1856 work Marshal Ney Supporting the Rear Guard During the Retreat from Moscow.

The painting depicts Ney and rag tag band of soldiers of all ranks and arms fighting a desperate rearguard action, one of literally dozens that occurred during the horror march homewards. Whilst for Ney it proved not to be a last stand, for many of the other it certainly did. Presumably Ney himself at times thought "This is truly it now!" only to be proven wrong over and over again.

Conveying the entire battle in the painting is near impossible so I chose to compress the action. I focused on Ney and the men surrounding him, plus picking individual scenes from the fore and back ground and merging them together to create a sense of the overall situation.

In total there are 11 foot and 2 mounted miniatures, plus a pile of other items like a converted dead horse (was once a Renegade ECW mount), broken artillery, doors, lanterns, etc. etc. etc. The miniatures are all Perry metals apart from Ney who is from Gorgon Studios. He's the only miniature I'm aware of the captures the scene from the painting even though he is not exactly the same.

All the colours, battlefield detritus, dirty snow encrusted clothing and men jammed together is as close as I could get them to the painting. I've never tried a snow base before so I'm absolutely chuffed with how my baking soda over tile grout groundwork came out.

I'm not sure I'd do another of these as it took inordinately long and proved somewhat stressful at times. Give me a week and I'll likely change my mind... :-)

PeterD

For the final themed round, we go with "Last Stand".  My entry is a 30s B-movie hero facing imminent doom at the end of the serial episode.   What is he facing, well that's up to the viewer's interpretation - but my wife has provided one version, to be revealed later .

The figure is (IIRC) another WI freebie in 28mm by Copplestone from his Back of Beyond range.  He's clearly an aviator (bi plane likely) with his sheepskin lined boots, jacket helmet and goggles.  To keep with the B-movie feel I painted him in neutrals and browns to get a sepia tone to the figure.  However, I used metallics for his revolver, belt buckle and google lenses.  The pure white scarf is likely a token from a lady.  Overall I am pretty pleased with the result.

So Lynne decided that my aviator's doom should not be left to the viewer's imagination and suggested that he face off with a giant rat, so I have which I've attempted to capture this on film.  Ardee the pack rat is a Folkmanis puppet.  

His very sociable, and regularly chats my ear off.

PhilH

This has not gone to plan: I have failed to finish my entry. I have an offering, but not the vignette the I intended. I chose General Gordon last stand in Khartoum in Jaunary 1885, which felt appropriate to wrap up my challenge. Only Gordon himself is finished. 

This is as far as I got on the rest. It is a Perry a miniatures set based on George William Joy's painting. I was adding a walkway and backdrop and wanted to add a casualty on the walkway. Alas, time was against me. Still, I hope you appreciate the General. 

Still, as I suspect Michael and others have the same vignette to enter, I guess we'll see some great versions anyway!

RayR

My entry for the last bonus round isn't the one I'd originally planned. I've just run out of time. So I rushed thorough this motley crew of Foundry, Old Glory and Gripping Beast casualty's. 

They, like a lot of my entries, have been sitting in the "To Do" pile for far too long. 

I never quite knew what Old Glory were thinking adding the last survivor figure to a pack of their figures, I mean what actual use is he in a game??? But he makes a nice Last Man Standing though. 

SamuliS

For my last stand entry I chose a slightly more unconventional subject. Waterloo and the whole 100 days campaign was sort of a Last Stand for Napoleon's Empire. His last dash for glory was ended by the combined strength of Anglo-Dutch and Prussian armies in a battle that hung very much on the edge for most of it's duration. Obviously doing the whole battle was a bit out of my reach so I decided to do something smaller :)

Presented here is the 46th Regiment of Line advancing against murderous British musketry. 

Mostly Perry metals with a couple of plastic minis thrown in and the Colonel of the Regiment from Warlord. The flag is one of GMB Designs excellent products. Great detail for a reasonable price.

To speed things up a bit I've used quite a bit of washes to bring out detail. I'm finally starting to get a hang of painting mud on the minis too. Too bad that it doesn't show too well on the brown overcoats : )To top of the entry  I managed to drop the colonel just after finishing his base. 

Luckily I only broke off the horses tail and his head so it wasn't too hard to fix.

StefanK

I wanted to enter some Napoleonic troops for this round. Either some more 1812 French or Old Guard for Plancenoit or some riflemen of the 2nd Light Battalion KGL definding La Haye Sainte. But during the last weeks the Vikings conquered my mind and I pored on Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories once again. In the first book The last Kingdom the author describes the Battle of Cynwit and has the main character, fictional Uthred of Bebbanburg, fight and kill Ubba Ragnarsson. So the idea of an epic fight between two Viking warlords caught me and I wasn't able to stand up to painting some SAGA figures to replay such epic quarrels.

Actually we have my new Viking warlord Gudmund the Dauntless accompanied by his last surviving followers, a group of eight Bondi warriors. They are surrounded by a huge force of Anlgo-Danish foes. These are lead by a gruesome warlord who raided Gudmund's settlement and slaughtered all other Vikings without mercy. At the height of the battle Gudmund and his last fellows drew back to a hill nearby and the two warlords meet in an epic fight.

They dance around each other exchanging blows while the warriors make way for their warlords. With the last of his strength Gudmund manages to overcome his enemy and turns the turns the tide of the battle. Discouraged by their warlord's death the Danish line crumble. Finally the Vikings win the day and banish the attackers...

I hope you like this little story for the last theme of this painting challenge. Actually I wanted to take some scenic pictures today but a heavy flu caught me and I wasn’t able to do anything but dangling around. I hope you accept the entry anyway.

The  figure are metal one from Gripping Beast's nice SAGA range. Some of them look slightly old fascioned and stiff but altogether they are really good. As all SAGA miniatures I know so far these Bondi have open hands to glue the weapons in. So most of them got spears. But I used steel wire spears rather then the leaden ones provided by Gripping Beast. Absolutely outstanding are their faces which make it easy to bring out some expression.

As usual I painted the figures with Vallejo Model Colours and shaded them with Armypainter Quickshade (Dark Tone). The fine artworks on the shield are decals from Stephen Hales' Little Big Men Studios. For the bases I used my habitual combination of sand, static grass and tufts.

TimB

Culloden Moor 1746 - The Last Stand of the Jacobites in Scotland

I think these are mostly Old Glory figures, though there may be a few from Dixon Miniatures and Front Rank Figures... and others I'm not so sure about...  

The final charge across the Moor - the skirl of the pipes barely heard over the din of the shouting highlanders! 

Kilts flapping in the wind... 

Leaving a trail of their own dead behind them... 

The fighting - Most of these are from Old Glory, though the chap in the middle with the great sword is from Dixon and I think the Piper may be from Wargames Foundry? Teh two with the Lochaber axes I'm not sure about, but I think might be Old Glory as well. 

The Falling - I'm pretty sure all but one of these is from Old Glory - the one on the right with the broadsword I think might be from Dixon. 

The fallen. Two of these are from Front Rank Figures, the other I think is from Dixon. 

…and Curt

For myself, I kept my final submission fairly simple, deciding to return to where I'd started: the 1812 French retreat from Russia.

In my reading about the Retreat I came across a few references to Napoleon's order to his Grande Armee to burn their Eagles so as to deny them to the enemy.  

The colonel of the 18th Line ignored the order to destroy or even hide his regiment's Eagle. He, like many of his fellow regimental commanders, probably felt that his unit's Eagle would either come out of Russia with his remaining men or it would fall with them. 

This Eagle bearer figure seen here is part of the wonderful Perry range of Retreat miniatures. I present him as a line grenadier who is readying himself for perhaps his last defence of the regiment's Eagle. By the look of his bloody sword and bearskin at his feet he has already fought off at lease one assault. He is cold and exhausted, but he calmly prepares to do what needs to be done.  

On the 18th of November, outside the town of Krasnoi, the Eagle of the 18th fell under the lances of the Russian Guard Uhlans.  Today the 18th's Eagle can be seen on display in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.