From SeanM: Some Celts and Armour (

First, I'd like to thank Curt for accepting me into the challenge this year, I've been too late in the past to join up. Second, I'll apologize up front for my photography, I hope over the next three months that will improve.

My first offering to the challenge are a warband of Celts, 36 all told. This a project that has sat on the sidelines for around six or seven years. My first similarly sized unit worked out fairly well, and it was my first experiment with a "magic dip". However, I found the result to be a little on the light side, so I punched it up for this unit, with mixed results.

As you can see, the darks are a little too dark. Or maybe you can't, due to my IT Ludditism coming to the fore.

Here is a selection of the manufacturers I had on hand. The first and last I believe are Old Glory, second and third are Warlord Games, while Four and five are Wargames Factory. The Old Glory figs have wonderful features like cloaks, deep detail (metal figs) and don't overlap the bases much. The Warlord Games figs have good detail, but damned if you can find one that stays within the standard 20mm base, like fig 2. The Wargames Factory minis are very rigidly posed, but have some very striking heads and nice details, like linked belts and intricate shields and scabbards. They mold the hilts of the swords away from the body, making them very easy to remove if the model is holding a sword.

The last item to comment on are the shield decals. Neither Wargames Factory or Warlord Games used standard water transfers. WG used actual peel away stickers, which fit on the shields about 50% of the time. WF used pressure rub on decals, which you have to cut down the centre to fit flush on the boss. Both company's offerings requires some trial and error.

Next is some Armour, courtesy of Corgi. This is a repaint of a Churchill MK VI, which was done in an awful tan and green pin stripe desert cam. I didn't want to repaint the tracks, or fiddle around with the bogies, so I disassembled the hull, removed the tracks and primed the tank in Krylon's Olive spray paint. I highlighted and lined the prominent features, reassembled the tank, mudded it up a bit and added the markings of the North Irish Horse, a unit that gained the use of a Maple Leaf as part of their insignia for support to 1 Cdn Corps in Italy.

Well, I hope you aren't too turned off by my crappy photos, I'll try to do better as we progress.

SM

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First, welcome aboard Sean! It's great to have you with us. 

Your Celts look great. I like your brief rundown of the three different manufacturers. I particularly like the poses that have the shield arms with grouped javelins in their fists -  very dynamic. I have a love/hate relationship with shield decals (see my rant here), but will gladly take them over hand-painting the freakin' things any day. To those that do, I salute you, but you have to have a steady hand to pull it off.

The Corgi repaint turned out really well, Sean. I've used the same Kylon Olive on some of my armour and it works very nicely. Nice work on the decals again - just one of those things that nicely finishes off a vehicle. This reminds me that I need to get a few of these in their early variant for Dieppe... 

 195 points for you, Sean. A very respectable opening volley!