'Flight' from PeteF: Ghar Flitters - Purchased in my Pocket

The Ghar are one of the factions in Beyond The Gates of Antares. I mainly collect AWI, Napoleonic, Dark Ages and ECW. Somehow my phone, while in my pocket, purchased a Ghar starter army from E-Bay and these little fellas are part of that group.

They are battlefield drones which help the main Ghar squads better see their enemies - they are angry sorts and consider pretty much anyone who isn't them in that category. 

With no Ospreys to help out, I went for a metallic look for these insectoid drones - and beady red eyes. I had fun with the sci-fi basing - moss from my yard painted blue and given sponge flowers from an autumn mix. 

From behind - the flitters are in flight:

I haven't yet played Antares - a Warlord skirmish ruleset with similar mechanics to Bolt Action. It looks like it could be fun and in another 3 or 4 challenges I might even have a 1,000 point army completed.

4x 28mm flying robots (est 20 points) all Warlord metal.

'Flight' from PeterD: Fliegerkorps X

A flight of BF110s shepherds two flights of Stukas over the Mediterranean

What do you know I actually got a bonus round in this challenge.  I was not expecting as this as I have a very busy work schedule this coming Winter.  My service role is doubling from 1/3 to 2/3 of my time and while my teaching role stays constant at 2/3 of my time (and yes I teach in a math department).  Also we are hiring to replace a retiring faculty colleague and I am chair of the Search Committee.  But I found these in the lead pile and what do you, presto change we have a flight entry.

These are elements of Luftwaffe Fliegerkorps X, an anti shipping unit transferred from Norway to Sicily in early 1941 to help the Axis war effort against the Royal Navy.  We have two Me 110Cs and four JU 87R1s (Stukas).  The models are 1:1200 scale produced by CAP Aero and available from Last Square or Magister Millitum depending on which side of the pond you're sitting on.  They made an immediate impact in Operation Excess most notably crippling HMS Illustrious while proving the toughness of RN carriers with armoured fight decks.  The models are small (about the size of small micro armour vehicles) but convey the essence of the aircraft quite nicely.  They were primed years ago to go with my 1:2400 WW2 Naval project before that got mothballed.

I've painted these in a very simple desert sand upper sides with pale blue-grey under sides and silver canopies.  Brief research showed either this pattern or desert camps and I don't have the head space for camo in 1:1200 right now.  There is a band of white around the rear fuselage which I've included, but I excluded the teeny tiny Black Crosses.

Basing in my normal cheap ass, impatient but works style.  Florist wire was bent into stands and glued to small roughly circular card bases.  By painting the wires black they tend to disappear at any distance (old magicians trick there) and the end end result looks better than it has any right to.

So that's six 1:1200 aircraft, I'll leave that Curt to work out the points value but I'd guess it would be similar to a small scale land vehicle.

'Flight' from PhilH: The Rebels Muster

Star Wars Fever is gripping the four corners of the land, with the latest blockbuster Episode VIII: The Last Jedi recently released, smashing box office records (surprise, huh?) and  being better than Episode VII: The Force Awakens. 

With the theme "Flight" to interpret, I thought I'd surrender to Star Wars fever for this theme round and take my Flight to space. The dogfighting and starship design in the Star Wars franchise is iconic, and I endlessly watched the original trilogy in my childhood, mostly for the bits with pew pew lasers.

So, for this theme round here is a motley bunch of Rebel squadrons for Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars: Armada fleet battles game.

I've actually been painting these fiddly little guys for some time, so this post is actually me "pulling a Greg" and posting Challenge and pre-Challenge output together to pad out the numbers. So, while there are 18 X-Wings, 6 Y-Wings, 6 A-Wings and two YT-2400 Light Freighters, only the latter two groups were painted entirely during the challenge.

X-Wing fighter-bombers, painted pre-challenge, marked up as three different squadrons, each squadron getting on base with an alternate colour, that denotes them as an ace, that I can use to represent the many named characters  (Luke, Wedge etc) that also feature in the game.

Y-Wings in their classic yellow (well, gold). Funnily enough these are my favourite classic Star Wars fighter: big lumbering brutes with their massive engines and stubby guns in the nose

Painting the engines on these took me a stupid long time, so you get a picture form the back too.

A-Wing interceptors: fast, green and get blown up a lot

YT-2400 Light Freighters: think of them like the baby brothers of the Millenium Falcon. These aren't from the films and I'm not immersed in lore enough to too you much about them. Though the SW: Armada personality for these is a chap called Dash Rendar, the protagonist of the old LucasArts Dark Forces first person shooter. Oh, I loved that game in my youth (along with the X-Wing/TIE Fighter dogfighting games) but I sure don't remember his ship from it. 

And finally group shot, of the whole lot of them running away from Imperial firepower, which the Rebels tend to do rather a lot. 

Points for these? Well, firstly I've only painted eight of them during the challenge, and I've no idea what scale they're supposed to be: the scale in SW:Armada is all over the place, to accommodate little fighters on the same tabletop as vast Imperial-class Star Destroyers. I'd put them roughly the size of a 6mm vehicle.

Now, where are their Imperial foes...?

Neeeeeeeeeaw

'Flight' from RayR: Roman Guard Dogs

Blimey Curt, I think these are the hardest set of bonus rounds yet!

I had to dig deep for my "Flight" bonus round entry. Dig deep into boxes and boxes of long forgotten and unloved figures.

In one of those boxes were some 28mm Gripping Beast civilians, which I must have bought 20 odd years ago, along with these Geese. 

Now I'm sure they too are Gripping Beast figures, but I could be wrong??

So here we are 12 Geese!!!

'Flight' from RobH: 28mm Fight or Flight

I've had the following figure sitting on or near my work space for almost four years, when first I applied a blue wash to it. There it sat. I was not inspired to do anything with it. Like all fantasy figures in my collection I hoped someday to use in a HOTT Army. When I read this year's challenge and I saw the Flight Theme a kernel of an idea took root. "Fight or Flight"

The Dragon model itself is a 7 year old sculpt by Reaper Miniatures. The original model was a metal miniature standing approximately 6" tall and with a 10" wingspan, but is now available as a soft resin figure.  I prefer the original.

Next was how to present Fight or Flight. I remembered that somewhere buried in my mountain of lead was the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Isildur figure. Instead of shattering Narsil upon the Dark Lord, the sword breaks during an  attempt to burgle the hoard of the frost dragon menace of northern Adon. In the tableau presented a thief lies sprawled before Deathsheet. Should the burglar have taken flight, instead of staying to fight?

In comparison to the dragon, the 28mm human figure is insignificant, lost upon of the dragon's hoard. The photos I took this morning do not do justice to the scene.

  

'Flight' for RoyW: Albatros D.Va for Wings of Glory

For the Bonus Theme 'Flight', I've repainted a Wings of Glory WW1 1/144th scale Albatros D.Va of the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte.

The colour scheme is based on an actual WW1 German pattern, but since my aeroplanes are to belong to a fictitious unit I've altered the colours slightly - mainly by painting the full length of the underside of the fuselage a yellow.

The plan was originally to build a three plane flight, and supplement them with two two-seater planes (one from Armeekorps and the other a ground attack aircraft from an unnamed Schlasta). But, as is the norm in these situations, such plans don't last long when they meet the wargame group, so I'm coming back to this project after a 12 months hiatus.

Anyway, I enjoy painting aircraft (and sea vessels) so it was no real difficulty to repaint this Ares Games prepainted miniature. No decals were used. Just careful repainting of the original national markings.

Below can be seen the extent of Jasta 89, my fictitious unit for mid-1917. It comprises one Albatros D.II and one Albatross D.Va (if we're talking points cost for Wings of Glory, those will get you a basic 160 points before upgrades or disadvantages).

[the D.II was painted prior to the Painting Challenge, and is included only for show]

Cheers for looking.
Roy

'Flight' from RussG: Doom Diver

Hello fellow challengers.

This is my second year of the AHPC and i hope to achieve my target of 400 points this year.

So to start i have this simple offering for the Flight bonus round.

This year i have opted to dig through the lead mountain and paint the forgotten miniatures who are languishing in boxes and bags.

This entry is the citadel miniatures goblin doom diver.

It had actually been taken to a bring and buy last year and no one wanted to re-home it.

It is my first attempt at painting greenskin, it has turned out ok, but i think i need more practice.

It may end up being used as an objective for Dragon Rampant, or simply sold on ebay.

I am not sure what its worth points wise, although it is technically a crew served weapon so 10 points maybe?

Thank you for looking and good luck to all of you with your personal targets.

'Flight' from SanderS: Dragonfly

Hoi,

The themerounds are always great fun for me since they make you wrack your brain of what to enter. Now the "Flight" round is not one of them, I have had ample choice: I initially wanted to finish all my 1:72 WW1 fighter kits, I seriously lack the time for that unfortunately. So I was left with plan B: my 28mm GIJoe aircraft. Still in the unpainted stash are my Dragonfly and Skystriker. Painting both was again beyond my time-limit but I did manage to finish the Dragonfly and here it is.

This is basically a Bell Cobra of course, but they couldn't well call it that could they? Anyway I overdid it on the metal chipping and I would like some more warning signs as decals. Other than that I am happy with it. It can be mounted on a flight stand (I put a magnet underneath) but it does not lent itself well to photographing while upon it.

Oh and before you ask: this is not a commercially available model, no it's free! Well more or less, you can get the file to print it on a 3D printer on Thingiverse looking for designs by the incredibly gifted "Jabberwock".

So that's my entry sorted!

Cheers Sander