AndrewB- Ancients! Project hoppery for sanity! Wrath, Heresy, Violence! -507pts

My apologies for the delay in posting!  Real life 1:1 scale terrain projects (hooray old house!) have gotten in the way, but I’ve managed to sneak in some additional minis, and possibly completed one of my larger projects builds for a challenge yet!  A whole mess of ancients!  Not a huge amount of time for pictures and posting, as my scant hobby time has been pushed into as much painting for sanity as possible, but here we are!  A top view of a load of ancient figures just itching for the tabletop!  

89 of them, to be precise!

First up, some Egyptians!  These I planned as the Wrath! Entry, as they were built and painted to fight a bunch of Sea People figs a buddy was supposed to be painting(Historically, the Egyptians were the only survivors of the possibly Sea Peoples-induced Bronze Age Collapse, with Ramses II stopping them in the Nile Delta, avenging the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean), but his figures didn’t get done!  That’s alright, especially with the angry bald dude in the front, wrath still sits well.  The Wrath of the Pharaoh, perhaps!

These guys are slightly more interesting, they’re a mix of various peoples of the area of Israel and Judea in the early biblical period, along with a group of six Philistine figures, who can be opponents, or mercenary allies.  Lots of basic spearmen, some slingers, and some really fun command figures!  With no chariots, this should likely be a force from the time of Saul/David, but can also represent the smaller rural forces of the Hebrews all the way through to the Jewish Revolt in the 60s-70s AD, giving an impressive ~1300years of possible play.  In that time, the peoples of this region fought hundreds of opponents, from the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Babylonians, to the Romans, with a huge amount of fighting taking place with one another!  They’re the perfect candidate for the ‘Violence’ category!  

Last but not least( I know it’s out of order, but it’s all the same post), my submission for Heresy!  This giant dude is my representation for Goliath, should I ever find a set of rules to game his fight with the ‘A’ portion of Force=Mass X Acceleration. Fighting and even unsuccessfully trying to kill future King David is probably enough to count as Heresy for a lot of folks.  

That’s 88 28mm figures and a 40mm, and three categories!  My math isn’t always the best, but I think it’s 507pts.  My apologies for the poor backdrop and lack of pictures, but I needed to make sure folks knew I hadn’t dropped out, and have been putting in work in my now short amounts of time. I’ll be sure to get more detailed and quality pictures for my wrap-up post.  Not sure the unexpected home repairs are going to let me hit my 1200pt goal, but I’m gonna try!  Thanks for all the help and inspiration!  

PS- if anyone knows of a good skirmish/big skirmish game for pre-ancient by wargaming standards figures like these, please let me know!   Picked up Clash of Spears, but these guys will have chariots soon, and not only is the conflict before the period of the rules’ design, but there’s no rules for them.  

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BOOM goes the Dynamite - a points bomb if ever there was one! Great to see some Bronze Age/Biblical period models hitting the Challenge Andrew.

We all know the pain of the worst of all scales (1:1) so this speaks volumes of your commitment - good luck!

- Paul

From Matt W - Egyptian APC & Trucks (75 points)

This week the weathered improved and reached a high of 18 here in the Upper Loire France, so I cracked out the airbrush and got some paint on some Arab Israeli war kit. I then panel lined then weathered with pigments. A simple job on these, a bit frustrated as I cannot find vehicle tactical markings or sense to Egyptian Registration plates for 1973 war. 

When my SHQ order arrives I will stick in some crew 

Three transport trucks

BTR 152

Rocket battery 

20mm vehicle @ 15 points 

5 x vehicles 75 points. 

Cheers

Matt

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Great looking Egyptian vehicles, Matt. It's interesting to see the unique silhouette of the BTR and the Russian designed rocket launcher - definitely vehicles of their time. While the trucks are less-than-exciting, they will provide important logistical support to your on-table troops (and tempting targets for the Israelis). Well done! (...and Sarah and I wish we were enjoying the upper Loire right now...)

- Curt

From AdamC: Egyptian Spearmen and Beornings Fantasy (170 points)

 

I neglected to include the map last time. Here shows my visit to the nature stacks and now I am backtracking to Fantasy.  First up some additional Egyptians.

We have a few additional archers who where hiding on desk.

They have one leader with a bronze sword. For the period we are doing it should probably be iron or steal but I want to have them able to portray earlier Egyptians.

Here we have the backbone of any ancient army soldiers armed with shields and spears. The shields seems to have been oxide which makes sense as wood is a fairly limited resource in Egypt.

The shields had me puzzled as they did seem to make sense until I saw a historic example

As you can see in this example (ancient toy soldiers) the grip is at the narrow point.  I'm assuming position these men are holding these shields in something like "present arms" not a marching position.

There are 18 Egyptians of all types.

Next we have a little fun project a few years ago I got War Games Atlantic's Plastic Irish for slingers... I didn't get as many as I wanted and need to come up with a project. So I present the Beornings.

The Beornings are blink and you miss them culture from the Lord of the Rings. Beorn has a big roll to play in the Hobbit and after the battle of the Five Armies he organized a group of people called the woodmen into a nation that took his name.

Who these people were is an open question but I imagine they are something of a conglomeration of peoples. Refugees from Dale, the ancient people's of the period Dunlendings who left home maybe even cousins of the people of Rohan. So I mixed and matched gear from my bits box and let my imagination run a little wild (Tolkien if this isn't what you had in mind I can only say I did this with love in my heart) here are some close ups.

Some javelin armed lads 

Spearmen 

Aggressive swordman.

I'd say this fellow is rallying his allies or taunting his enemies 

I decided to do some tree themed shields because it seemed appropriate.

A Roman style shield 

A cloaked hero these cloaks are a great feature of this set.

Another leader with a horn to call men to his aide.

Another leader with a prestige tunic of blue.  I'll probably play these guys as lords of the wild in Saga I need some bowmen to support them and some bears or werebears. 

Points all figures are 25/28 mm 

18 Egyptians for 90 points

16 Beornings for 80 points

Possibly 20 points for fantasy (I think I can double back but I could be wrong)

For a total of 170 or 190 points 

Sylvain: Your Egyptians are great, as usual, and your "Beornings" show lots of creativity on your part. I'm sure Tolkien would have approved :-). As for claiming points, I'm afraid you would have to change location by using Sarah's cart (simply done by painting a female figure, a modest price to pay). A very decent points harvest!

AdamC - Ancient Egyptian Archers (50 points)

These New Kingdom Egyptians from Old Glory are for a project my friend Arofan is working on to do some Biblical era War gaming. By this I mean the kingdom of Israel period.

That technically makes these fellows late period Egyptians the last gasp of native rule before domination by foreign powers (Persians, Greeks Romans and so on until after World War II) Fortunately with Ancient Egyptians what's is new is what is old so reto garb was the way.

They were simple linen kilts and head dresses armed with bows arrows and maybe a knife. The leader has a stone headed mace. There are 10 figures here for 50 points. The base is a temporary one so Arofan can permanently base them as he wishes. This may require a reduction in points.

Sylvain: Very nice Egyptians. I'm enticed to walk like them (cf. Bangles). Their head dress immediately suggest where they are from. I'm not going to reduce the points because I'm sure these miniatures will soon end up on a nice base. Can't wait to see the next submission of this project of biblical proportions.

 

 

From Curt: The First Post of Challenge XIV - The Rosetta Stone (21 Points)

Welcome to fourteenth edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!

This year's theme focuses on libraries, and so I wanted to make sure I made my first entry about reading, specifically the words and symbols that we use to communicate out thoughts and ideas. 

Here is a small vignette depicting a group of Napoleonic soldiers and French academic savants examining the Rosetta Stone (perhaps only a few hours before it became a  British trophy). 

The Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French in 1799 during their ill-fated Egyptian campaign near the town of Rashid ('Rosetta') in the Nile Delta. 

As many know, the Rosetta Stone's importance stems from it providing the linguistic links between Egyptian and Greek, and three writing systems, hieroglyphics, demotic script (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics), and the Greek alphabet. The Stone provided a definitive key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.

The Rosetta Stone was later taken by the British as a war trophy, part of the Capitulation of Alexandria in 1801, resulting from their victory over the French in 1800. The Stone has been part of the British Museum's collection ever since, and is in fact their most viewed object. The Egyptian government has made requests for the Stone to be repatriated, but there has been little movement on this matter. With an increasing number of cultural objects being returned to their traditional owners, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and other priceless objects held in foreign repositories. 

I got the Rosetta Stone as a STL file from MyminiFactory. It's very cool in the sense that the file is from a scan of the original artefact. I simply reduced it down to scale to fit with 28mm figures. The assorted minis shown here are a conceit, coming from a previous Challenge years ago (and so will not be scored), but I thought it might be a bit of fun to have a scene depicting French scholars madly taking some sketches before the heathen British arrive to despoil their discovery.

As to points, the stone itself is hardly worth scoring, say 1 point. BUT I will be cheeky and claim the New Acquisition Topic on the map as the Rosetta stone was a new acquisition to both the French (briefly), and the British.

So, 21 points for me!

Just so everybody knows, I'll be handling the posting and scoring until January 1st where I will then pass on this weighty responsibility to our wonderful, merry band of Minions. As it's just me in the cockpit for these next few days, please be patient with me as I, like many of you, are contending with work, family and festive responsibilities (and, yes, mad hobbying). 

Again, welcome to the Challenge! Now, let the fun begin!

- Curt

From RobH -15mm Egyptian Infantry - 84 Points

Not much to write about. A total of 42 x 15mm Old Glory figures. Six mounted as Light troops and nine 4 man stands of Infantry.

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Nice one, Rob (or should I say, Robesses the Great?)! A bit of Bronze Age action at last! Egyptians at the ready, eager to crush the enemies of the Pharaoh!

For this tribute to the might of the Kingdom of the Nile, you are granted 84 points! So Let It Be Written! So Let It be Done!

Evhotep

From NoelW: Running late as always... (76 points)

My first post for Challenge IX is five days later than I'd planned, but at least it's a start. These are 15 Sudanese from the Mahdist wars in the late C19th. Figures by the Perrys, of course.

This regiment is my second Sudanese regiment, and completes the Egyptian army for the Sudan that I've been working on for about five years! Both this unit and the previous Sudanese unit have been given the dark blue winter jackets, whereas my Egyptian units in the same army have the white summer uniform. I took this decision partly because I like to have variety of uniforms wherever plausible, and partly to distinguish between Sudanese and Egyptian forces in that army, as the former are supposedly of slightly better fighting quality.

My painting style for these is relatively simple - the idea was always to get the army onto the table as quickly as I could, whilst presenting a reasonable appearance. I managed to get three quarters of the figures painted before being lured by some other seductive project, and now I simply want to get the remnants onto the field. Er - desert. So I've painted them to match the earlier force. I think if I was starting this project again, I might have done things a little differently.

In Challenge VIII I had quite a struggle getting reasonable photos. I'm not much of a photographer, but I also don't have much of a camera, and no lighting set-up. So, for my birthday, just before Christmas, my wife kindly agreed to buy a decent digital camera. (Nothing to do with her desire to record every Burne Jones stained glass window in the UK). And our first "proper" lens, a macro lens to allow close up work. So these three photos are my first attempt to use this new equipment. Clearly, I need some more experiments. Lighting remains a concern (there are too many shadows here) and depth of field will be an issue, clearly, in getting good closeup shots. Hopefully I'll be learning and improving as the challenge progresses.

Still, I clamber onto the table with fifteen 28mm infantry = 75 points.

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It's great to have you back to the Challenge, Noel. 

These Egyptians are wonderful. The dark navy blue jacket, with brass buttons and glorious fez really is a sharp uniform (Actually, anything with a fez get's my vote - I really wish they would come back into fashion...). :) 

Have fun with your new camera, Noel. Macro lens? Sounds like a beauty. As a suggestion for your lighting setup, place a diffused light source straight above the subject and perhaps one slightly oblique from your shooting angle - that should help to reduce shadows. Diffused light is the key as I find it helps tone down any harsh bright spots on the figures caused by direct lighting.

76 points (including one for their banner) to break your duck - Great work Noel!