From EdwardG - A mix of 15mm, and a trip to Arda (67 points)

Hello all, 

I hope everyone is remaining well. Sadly in the past month I have not had the time I had hoped to paint and to be commenting! Fingers crossed that improves in February...but I am not hopeful. 

Due to my ad-hoc painting time, I have only been able to output an ad-hoc group of painted miniatures. The first group I concentrated on were some additional elements for my Arab army. It is not many figures, but they were required to make up the numbers to allow me to field my old DBM army as a FOG-AG force. 

The first element is a Generals base. It is made up using left over figures I had in the lead pile. I believe the figures were originally from Essex, but I am exactly sure. I have had them for a very long time! I like to think that I will use this General in the centre of the FOG-AG army, he is happily ignoring a messenger from the left wing who is in need of something...perhaps two and four pence...

 

In addition to the General, I added a base of spears and a baggage element. The spearmen are the remainder of a long ago Legio Heroica order. In DBM I had only ever needed 7 bases of these chaps but FOG-AG has round numbers of most things, so the 8th base is now painted! In addition while scouring out the lead pile for these figures, I came across the last odds and ends of the unpainted Arabs. These were two camels and a lonely spearman. Tbh, I was not sure what to do with them, I normally dislike painting camels as I know I cannot get the colouring right. But, I thought what the heck, I can always use an additional baggage element. Perhaps these are the drummers directing the army, or acting as a relay station for orders from one end to the other. Along with their close protection to give them time to get away should an enemy light horse appear flying in from a flank. And the final photo shows all of the baggage together. I grabbed the excuse of the new element to re-base the my previous baggage elements onto a matching bases.

For a change, as I was going a little sand blind, I decided to paint up a couple more elements for my Serbian army. These are to reinforce the Bosnian Hillmen who act as Rough/Bad Going clearance troops. They are very useful, reasonably cheap, and can be taken in enough numbers to make them a threat the opponent should take note of. Having two more elements is always helpful! The figures are Essex again, and are another set of lead pile lurkers who have been shirking their battlefield responsibilities for far too long! I began thinking I would paint them with contrast paints, the first chap in blue was the test piece. But I was not very happy with the outcome. I think these figures are not not detailed enough to get the best out of the contrast paint style. I switched to my 'normal' style using acrylics and doing two layers. I find three layers is just overkill at this scale.

As a final mini for this rambling, meandering post, is my offering for the planet Arda. Having seen the minis painted by Curt the Great, over the summer. The wife and I decided to give moonstone a try. We managed to persuade a couple of friends to join us on the trip, and we ordered some minis. Now sadly our order, but funnily not our friends, managed to be caught in the Brexit Britain-Europe Postage Bermuda Triangle. For some reason the package never arrived. I hope those minis have managed to find a happy home. In the end we did manage to get some minis on the second attempt, but the whole project was very delayed. Since then, we have managed to build the minis, and even get some base coat colours on some. But I have finally managed to paint the first one to completion! I present Boris, The Bunny Summoner (minus bunnies so far)! He is certainly very fantastic, and possibly even a little Tolkeinesque (although more towards CS Lewis).

Finally on to scoring. This is certainly a random bunch and I have calculated the following. Dear Minion, I hope I have done my mathematics correctly!

• Arab Generals - 15mm Mounted x 3 = 12pts
• Arab Spearmen - 15mm Foot x (4+1) = 10pts
• Arab Camels - 15mm Mounted x 2 = 8pts
• Bosnian Hillmen - 15mm Foot x 6 = 12pts
• Boris! - 28mm Foot x 1 = 5pts
• Visit to Arda = 20pts

Total =  67pts

All the best and hope to see you all sooner next time around!

Best,
Ed

***

Hello Ed, thanks for this varied and wandering submission. I know many Challengers will relate to your situation in terms of finding time for hobbies - it is an issue where we all wish we had more time. I certainly do. If only my clients would pay me to paint figures! Anyway, credit to you for getting some brush momentum going, and putting a dent into your lead pile and some points on the board!

Miles' spreadsheet tells me your scoring adds up, so 67 points for you! Unfortunately, Miles' spreadsheet cannot help me with all of the acronyms involved with DBA/DBM/FOG etc...but I'll need to have SOMETHING to search online, right?

GregB