From RobH (HerrRobert/RobertH): Señor Oliverios' Retainers (50 points)

Señor Oliveros crouched down in the scrub, waiting. El Borracho sat nearby, drinking straight from a green bottle with one hand, checking the cylinder of his revolver with the other. In all the years he'd known El Borracho, Oliverios had never seen the man without either whiskey or weapons to hand. His pet iguana, El Guapo, crouched on his shoulder. Men from his hacienda dotted the rough ground nearby, ready for the signal.

Señor Oliverios' Retainers

So begins my second entry into the 15th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Señor Teodoro Oliveros leads the men from around his hacienda to confront someone, be they the French, the Yankees, banditos, Villistas, Federales or perhaps even Spaniards or Cuban revolutionaries:

• Teodoro Guerra, Raúl Luna, Luis Aguirre and Loco Sanchez (remember him?) have armed themselves with machetes
• Martin Reyes carries a large scattergun or blunderbuss
• Octavio Montoya and Luciano Peña have muskets
• Javier Solis carries a repeating rifle, perhaps a Winchester
• El Borracho and El Guapo have a six gun

Señor Oliverios leads from the front

Eight of the ten figures (all but Solis and El Borracho) are Wargames Foundry figures from the Old West pack OW161 - Mexican Peons. I'd bought them years ago off ebay, and they'd been sitting cleaned, washed and ready to paint for at least two years now. After our last Legends of the Old West game of the exchange, they called out to paint.

El Borracho is a Reaper Chronoscape figure marketed as Lobo Sanchez, Bandito. My figure's package came with a smudged label which read more "Loco Sanchez." Since I already had Loco Sanchez, I needed a new name. Given that the figure is carrying a hefty bottle of something alcoholic, El Borracho, The Drunkard, seemed appropriate.

The figures weren't too bad to paint up, although the sandals and El Borracho's serape and inner thigh had some trouble spots, as did his hair and Señor Oliverios' cummerbund - the red kept bleeing onto his white shirt.

Three of the figures were painted to test a khaki color combination for the Spanish-American War: Delta Ceramcoat Terretorial Beige for shadow, Khaki for main, and then a wash down with Army Painter Soft Tone. It works for rough cloth, but is too dark for a khaki. I will probably try using a pale gray wash next time, and see if that is lighter.

Rear view of the party

The rest of the figures had the same white I did for Loco Sanchez as a prisoner in my previous entry. Señor Oliverios' pants and hat, along with El Borracho's hat and serape, were both done with Territorial Beige as main and Vallejo Cork Brown as a highlight, then washed down with Strong Tone. It makes for a good medium brown. I switched up my straw hat mixture, highlighting with Reaper Buckskin Pale after the Soft Tone wash, instead of before. It worked much better than doing the Soft Tone wash last, so I went back and touched up the prisoner's straw hat from my last entry.

Before and after capture, showing the touchup on the hat

I label all of my 19th Century colonial figures on the bases, with the yellow, green, blue, red or black of the label indicating skill. It's something I picked up playing a homebrew set of rules for gaming the Indian Wars in my teens/early twenties, and since I started basing my figures for that rule set, it has persisted. Figure names are written in with either white gel pen (0.3mm tip, brand new for the challenge) or 0.005mm artist marker.

The band from overhead, showing the labels

I'm a little more satisfied with the photos this go around. I got a slightly better camera app for my phone, which allows me to control the focus point, exposure and light balance better than the usual point and click of an iPhone. I also bought an attachment for my tripod, so I can use it with the phone. They're not as crisp as the black background photos Curt shoots, but they look better. I may switch to a white background though.

Springing the ambush on some French invaders (the French I bought at a con and need to rebase)

Scoring this entry is:

• 10 28mm foot figures @ 5 points per figure = 50 points.

That's also my first Squirrel Point, and 50 more points in the Colonials duel.

 

 

Sylvain: Not only are your miniatures very colorful, the characters you depict are also very colorful. I like how you add stories to your post,as it makes looking at your figurines a lot more interesting. I also find inspiring the way you coded your bases. All in all a great entry. Excellent work!

 

 

From Rob H (HerrRobert): The Border Exchange (5 points)

April 1898: The Trans-Pecos of Texas is a land of extremes, hot days, cold nights, desolate terrain, sparse population and barely suppressed lawlessness far from everywhere. American and Mexican garrisons soak in the beaching sun, attempting to maintain order as bandidos and Comanches cross the border as suits their own nefarious purposes. Those caught on the wrong, side of the border may yet still face what passed for justice in these parts - or be used as coin to trade for those caught on the other side. 

The prisoner waiting to be exchanged

So begins the setting for today's game of (heavily) modified Legends of the Old West. When I first began wargaming, about thirty years ago in the late 1990s, blogging was the province of self-created websites. Ian Croxhall's The Amazing Adventures of the Red Shadow was one of the sites I had bookmarked and routinely read through for new games featuring the Algerian Goumiere scout and the various misadventures of the French, Germans and Italians across the North African littoral. One of my favorite scenarios was The Red Shadow and the Salami Exchange, which featured the French and Italians attempting to exchange prisoners and the Mujahidine crash the party. Hilarity ensues, naturally.

Side profile, perhaps as a mug shot?

I've always wanted to adapt that to a setting that suits my collections, and the US/Mexico border was the best fit. However, the setting required an unarmed figure to serve as one of the prisoners being exchanged. Fortunately, I had just the figure, already mounted on the base and just needing primed, flocked and painted.

He's a 28mm Wargames Foundry figure from the Old West pack OW166 - Mexican Villagers (2nd from the right above), painted in about 2 hours Friday night after work. I went a bit lighter for his clothes, using Delta Ceramcoat Antique White and then Reaper Linen White, washed with grey and then rehighlighted. His straw hat was a Reaper triad (Chestnut Gold, Palomino Gold and Buckskin Pale), which I washed with Army Painter Soft Tone to bring out the details. He was the first figure I had painted since the last Challenge, and having caught Bargain Bob's Basement Bunker version of the various diseases circulating around California for Christmas and New Years, getting started painting anything was a real effort. It's not efficient by any means, but it was fun just working on a single figure.

I love how sullen his expression came out

Despite lint-rolling my photobooth to remove all stray flock and static grass and making sure my miniatures were well lit, the photos turned out rather disappointing, especially compared to shots from today's game. They have a yellow tone and colors are washed out, which does not usually happen when taking gaming photos using the exact same iPhone. The edge of the base in the photo above should be jet black, and so should his hair. Upon reflection, I suspect the problem may be that the black background and high lighting overwhelm the iPhone camera at standard settings and wash things out. 

F Troop, 7th Cavalry escorting the prisoner to the exchange on the bridge over the Rio Grande

For those interested in his fate, Loco Sanchez was duly handed over to the Mexicans, put in the prisoner wagon, and taken to the jail in El Paso del Norte. However, when negotiating the narrow streets, the wagon bucked dodging a small child. Gunfire from the Mexican garrison killed the wagon driver guarding the prisoner, probably by mistake. Sanchez jumped down from the wagon, made a run for it, and was then shot while attempting escape, bleeding out in a dark alley. 

He's making a run for it!

Life is cheap in the Trans-Pecos.

Scoring:

• 1 28mm foot figure @ 5 points per figure = 5 points

And 5 points on my side for the Colonials duel with DaveD! Yes, Mexico and the Old West counts as colonial, especially Mexico because of the Maximillian Adventure.

On the plus side, this is probably the earliest I've posted anything for the Challenge, so every modest bit helps. And we had a wild, freewheeling 6-player, 5-sided game, which is always good!

Sylvain: Great figurine! White clothes are always tricky to paint and you nailed it. The background story adds a lot of character to a humble model, he's not just a villager, he's "Loco Sanchez who was shot during a prisoner exchange". Thanks for the pictures of your game, it looks great with the scenery and people typical of the old Far West.

From HerrRobert - The ballistae cull a fearful toll [History] - 50 points

The library book sale is an annual event, held the first month after the annual opening of the Analogueville Public Library. Librarians silently and swiftly identify august tomes collecting dust and authors no longer in demand by Analogueville patrons and move them to the consignment sale. Warned of the impending fate of From Dura to Ctesiphon, stories of the Roman-Persian wars, a retelling for modern audiences was in order.

Although famous for the quality of their cavalry and (due to scurrilous and vile reputation smirching by the scholars of their enemies) infamy of their infantry, the Sassanid Empire also operated an artillery arm for siege and pitched battle work. Jauntily attired in brightly colored tunics, pants and especially fashionable domed hats, we see examples of three Sassanid ballistae, ready for action at Dura, or attacking any of the numerous fortified Roman cities in the Levant.

My first submission for Challenge XIV is three 15mm Sassanid ballistae and crews. All are from the Sassanid Bolt Shooters And Crew pack in Old Glory's Ancients Sassanid line, now sold by 19th Century Miniatures. 

These are the first 15mm miniatures I have painted in a very long time (almost a decade now), and are mounted on the standard WRG/DBA basing of 40mmx40mm for artillery. 

I tried something new, going for a zenithal prime (Krylon black, followed by Games Workshop Corax White). I'm pleased with the results, the zenithal giving a nice shade to some of the craft paints used for pants and hats. I also was able to get a nice mix of unbleached linen and wool, using either Reaper 09063 Ghost White for the grayish tones, and 09061 Linen White for the cream tones. I'd not been a fan of cream tones for white in the past, but it works well here, I think.

As you can see, my basing style for 15mm troops is much simpler and faster than 25mm, with just painting the base in Americana Mississippi Mud, and then dipping it in a flock mix. It works much better than thinned down white glue, as figures flocked two decades ago will attest. I also put triangular labels on the corners of 15mm bases, which really helps with telling what a given stand is. While artillery is pretty obvious, a lot of other DBA troop types can be very confusing. 

For those who wish to copy them, the labels are really easy to make. I just use a triangle shape in Powerpoint, and 6pt Calibri font. For my SYW troops, I'll use a fancier font. I used to make them in Illustrator, but honestly Powerpoint is a lot simpler now.

Sadly, neither DBA nor the standard Might of Arms list (my favorite Ancients to Medievals wargame rules) for Sassanids allow ballistae, so they may be destined to sit on the shelf and look pretty for a long while. 

Entering the library, I snuck past the collections desk and their pesky fines (what's this wanting their books back, on time, stuff!?) and made a beeline for History. Obviously, the Sassanid Persians are a sadly neglected (and colorful) period of history, but also a major piece of my personal wargaming history. My first forays into DBA twenty years ago (or more) with 2.0/2.2 were with a Sassanid Persian Army, and I've always been a fan of the Sassanids - especially those awesome hats. Sadly, the army has sat half-finished and neglected for a while now, but I am hoping to revive it as part of a general bringing my DBA armies up to 3.0 composition.

So why a full month for nine 15mm figures? Several reasons. COVID hit me hard for Christmas, and then I got seriously stuck on some 25mm Old West figures. They looked an easy paint job, but for some reason they sucked away all my painting mojo. I'd also noticed a hard time seeing the details, both on the ancients and the Old West figures. Missing and then seeing things was a real demoralizer. I'm scheduled for a cataract replacement in February, and hopefully that will make it a lot easier to see. Meanwhile, I'm going to switch gears to something more fun and hopefully that will get the mojo back. 

Add in the obligatory photo complaint, but I think I have figured out why they're so washed out. I also don't have near that many pieces of static grass and flock on my photo background, but the iPhone sees everything (especially mold lines I didn't see and thus didn't file off before priming).

Scoring:

• 9 15mm infantry figures @ 2 points per = 18 points
• 3 15mm artillery pieces @ 4 points per =  12 points
• History section of the Analogueville Public Library = 20 points
  

For a total of 50 points! 25% of my quota!

_______________________________________

First, welcome back to the Challenge, Robert! Sorry to hear about your peepers. I hope the coming month sets you up well. Still, there is nothing to apologize for with these figures as they look terrific. I especially like the arid basework. Well done!

- Curt

From HerrRobert - Cutting the Camel Budget [Under Construction] - 95 points

 

Warned yet again that the studio executives were meeting to discuss budgets, and rumors that cuts, redundancies and the like were all possible, I rushed to finish yet another under construction project.

With the prospect of a camel corps in the offing, headquarters desperately needed an expert in the ways, care and feeding of camels, and Major Docherty was their man! Along with his trusty batman, Corporal Millsy, the good major booked passage on a fast steamer for Cairo in Egypt. There, he could use his knowledge to ensure the forces of the Queen only received the finest, most biddable, highest quality camelflesh. He found himself dining alongside a passenger returning from Afghanistan, the good Doctor John Watson, late from the battlefields of Maiwand and Kandahar.

Drawing a hard bargain in the streets and souks of the Old Quarter of Cairo, our hero manages to acquire another five camels for the baggage train. Loaded with supplies, goods, chests, and old terracotta amphorae, only the final arrangements with the camel herders must be made, to ensure they make their way to the Nile. 

Escorting the beasts is a detachment of the 2nd Essex Regiment, commanded by the redoubtable Captain Henry Percy, Baronet. Having packed away his purple facings and donned a tunic of less fashionable but more practicable gray serge, the 2nd Essex is mustering to travel to lands south.

It has been a very busy and hectic December/January, what with work, California trying to drown us all, power outages and both plumbing and roof leaks, so I have not had the energy to paint much. Not getting in under the wire was a serious possibility. 

My first entry for Challenge XIII is my own take on the long-running Major Docherty and Corporal Millsy vignettes. I'd planned for this to be my capstone for Challenge XII, but circumstances intervened, and they sat the entire year on the painting bench. Major Docherty is The Professor from North Star's Steampunk line, with a natty dressing gown and fez. Dr. Watson is also from that line, the Medical Officer. Corporal Millsy is a Foundry figure from the Zulu Line that has been sitting in the lead pile for a good twenty years. The camel herders/merchants are MENA Civilians - Foxtrot from Spectre Miniatures. These five figures were complete except for grassing the bases, so I am not claiming any points for these.

The camels are Camel w/ Pack from Reaper Miniatures. While I do like Reaper miniatures and have painted several for the challenge, I'm not terribly thrilled with the material they use for their Bones line. The camels suffer from the usual problems many Bones miniatures do; the legs are thin, and so they bend. The camel miniatures thus sway, as you can see in the photos above. I painted them in Army Painter Skeleton Bone, then washed with Citadel Contrast Aggaros Dunes. To get a lot of variety from the same sculpt, I painted the baggage in different colors.  The camels and the cargo frame was prepped for Challenge XII, and I finished up all of the baggage since.

Captain H. Percy and his detachment are Perry Miniatures. Captain Percy, Sergeant Hoge and Drummer Fred Lamb are from SB4 British Infantry command advancing, while Privates Clovis Goslan and Chris Gibb are from SB7 Infantry advancing. They were originally a much darker gray, but that didn't really fit the descriptions of gray (or is it grey?) serge. So I repainted them using Reaper Miniatures stone triad over Delta Ceramicoat Charcoal and Hippo Gray. Unfortunately, they're washed out in the photos, but it's a nice gray otherwise.

Starting our tour at Under Construction

 

I'm not very happy with the photos, despite a new photo booth, but I was a bit rushed on the photographs, so just used my phone. They don't do the figures justice, the photos are too washed out, but it gets the point across. Photography of my miniatures has always left something to be desired, but hopefully they will improve.

Here's the score:

• 5 x 25mm mounted @ 5 points per (I don't think the baggage counts as a full rider, but won't argue if others do) = 25 points
• 5 x 25mm infantry @ 5 points per = 25 points
• Under Construction (Green Pass) studio bonus = 20 points
• Total = 70 points.

I'm also claiming two squirrel points, one for the camels (since they can be used for almost any period), and one for the infantry. 

Obligatory group overhead shot

 

On to High Adventure!

Great post, and just in time. Generally we give full points for pack animals, so that is 95 in total, and you made the final directors cut

From HerrRobert: The Cull knives are for our friends [Babylon V] (28 points)

 

“ . . . well, let me put it another way,” replied Malant. “Your lasers, missiles, torpedoes and warships... all of them you will learn to use in combat against the enemies of House Colos — enemies who will eventually be destroyed.

“But the knife is different. Your knife is not intended for the enemies of Colos. It is special. We Colosians kill our enemies with technically advanced distance weapons and political cunning. We kill our friends with knives.

“The knife is for your friends.” 

 

Warned that my approaching exploration of the mythical Challenge Quadrant might soon be terminated due to a strange and dire event known to locals as The Cull, I strapped myself into my newly purchased and upgraded creative cockpit, hurriedly stocked with cheap claret, cheaper craft paints, and a brace of brushes. Clock ticking down, I plotted a course.

The creative cockpit, complete with audio-visual interface

I emerged from the wilds of hyperspace to the sounds of The Silence, approaching Babylon V, home of operatic, low budget fun.  Word of my arrival preceded me, for four Dart fighters rose from the station to greet me. Originally a product of House Red Star, the speedy Dart was now the interceptor of choice throughout known space, and apparently the Challenge Quadrant too. These four gleamed a dark and bloody red, the blazon of House Colos . . . 

 

My fingers flew over the keyboard, the computer querying the databanks and filling in the tactical display. Four ships, fast as thieves and armed with twin pulse lasers and a depleted uranium firing minigun. At least there weren't any missiles this time. After that scrap with the pirates and ninjas of the Ebola Sector . . .

 

The Dart's system display

Resigned to my course, I watched the four form up below me, a dubious escort to my first stationfall in the Challenge Quadrant. . .

For my first entry to Challenge XII, I present four Iron Crown Enterprise Dart fighters for Silent Death. Silent Death is a small space fighter game, originally set at the height of a space-faring Terran empire, and then New Millennium moved into a post-apocalyptic world after a devastating alien invasion tore the heart out of the Imperium of Man and scattered humans across the galaxy. It's operatic in scope, with a dozen different expansions and many, many factions. 

It was also astoundingly low budget to get into. All you needed to get started was the box set, complete with rules, dice, spaceship miniatures, missile and torpedo tokens, and even paper gaming mat. A good felt space hex mat is a small expense, debris, plasma defense systems and the like are easily made from felt or cloth, and you're ready for hours of space gaming. All the expansion books are available as PDFs.

Box set contents

The ships in the box set were plastic, but mental miniatures about, first from Iron Crown Enterprises, then ebay after ICE's bankruptcy in 2000, and now from https://silent-death.mx/.

To aid identification, every ship is labeled with type name and a number

I'd honestly not been too happy with these as I painted them up. The red over black primer didn't really work, even with a Strong Tone wash. It wasn't until I painted the cockpits that they came alive.

So, here they are.

I'm honestly not sure on the points value. I have a vague memory of some of the Kashmiri ships I submitted in the mists of time being 2 points per, so that's how I've done my calculations:

• 4 x space fighters @ 2 points = 8 points
• Babylon V (Outer Ring) bonus = 20 points
• Total = 28 points
  

Onward and upward! Or is that ringward?

___________________________________

Welcome back to the Challenge Robert!

Wow, Silent Death. Now, that takes me back a bit (I remember the metal minis being very cool). I really like how vibrant you've done-up quintet of fighters. Will you be doing more from the original boxed set?  I hope that we'll see more of these over the next two months!

- Curt 

For Dr.Q: The Altar of the SnowLord

Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South)

 

Congratulations Dr.Q, for battling your way to the SnowLord's Altar. Okay, for your task, I challenge you to come up with... a Blood Bowl team! I know, that sounds a bit random, but I know you've been wanting to finish your Human team so let's get those guys done and on the gridiron before Sunday. 

Dr.Q's Prize: Herr Robert's D'Kuhl Mindflayer (now, how Kuhl is that?!)

From HerrRobert (Robert H): Skeletons Skewer Earth Elementals in the Golum's Haunt (55 points)

Pomponia Valeria Exuperantia sighed again; sighs were becoming her most frequent expression as her reduced company shepherded Brother Lazarus and Siszter Hazel into a clearing in the Chambers of Challenge. Tall, snow-covered pine trees rose from what she had thought was a cavern, or some kind of chamber with cobbles and pavers to floor it. 

A loud crash rose ahead; shards of rock and earth bounced off the trees, walls and through various skellies. A giant earth elemental burst through the chamber's floor and emerged from a pile of rubble as if solid rock had not been there before.

The company responded with well-oiled precision, reanimation magics of a necromancer long gone giving magical sinew to bone picked clean by misadventure in the Frozen City. Archer skellies fanned to the flank, plucking arrows from quivers and drawing longbows to pulls far greater than mortal muscle permitted. Khopesh and dagger whirling, Kreirdgeinek Tundreirtmum, once a barbarian come to Felsted for adventure and profitable rage, surged forward to render earth, fossil and rock asunder once again.

 

For my next entry, I present more undead adventurers for Pomponia's company, and an earth elemental summoned by the dastardly yet sartorially eloquent mind flayer, Bathalian D'Kuhl. As it says on the tin for the Golum's Haunt:

“..IT WALKS…!!”  Paint something re-animated, stitched-together, bolted-together, re-created from steel, clay, earth, etc.

Well, skeletons are by definition reanimated by magic, and this earth elemental is certainly assembled from earth, clay and even a skeleton. 

First up is the earth elemental. It's a Reaper Bones product, available here. Mine wasn't the white plastic, but the grey. It's a lot less fiddly, detail is clearer, though ti does have problems with rubber-like mold lines.

 

I put it on my usual Renedra paver base, and built up the rubble with railroad ballast and river rock shards from Michaels. I think it worked rather effectively to create rubble. Painting was relatively easy, with German Camouflage Black Brown, Charred Brown, Heavy Siena and Flat Earth from Vallejo, washed with the extremely useful Army Builder Strong tone. The skeleton on his shoulder was picked out in Army Builder Skeleton Bone.

 

Inspired by some of Sidney's work in "A Demonstration of Armes" in Laarden, I decided to go a bit bolder on the cobbles and pavers. I've always liked the look of green slate, and so I tried it here. It was really simple, just Dark Angels Green contrast paint from Games Workshop on top of the now usual Charcoal Gray and Hippo Gray from Delta Ceramcoat. It all got a black wash to fill it out. It's not perfect, but getting there.

 

The skellies are all kitbashed. I started with bodies from Games Workshop, the same box of five I used for other members of Pomponia's company. Instead of the spear and shield that came in the box, I picked up some later Tomb King archer bits off Ebay. That gave me four archers. The barbarian skelly I took two khopeshes from the bits, one of which had the blade snapped halfway. That became a dagger.

 

I'm rather pleased with the conversions. Painting was very simple. I primed them with Army Painter's Skeleton Bone. The bows and armbands are a dull red triad of Vallejo Burnt Cadmium Red, Craftsmart Burgundy, and Delta Ceramcoat Barn Red. All the leather is Vallejo Red Leather with Army Painter Strong Tone to wash. Finally, I used Games Workshop's Skeleton Bone contrast to ink the bones themselves. The photos give a yellow tinge to the GW contrasts, especially Skeleton Bone and Aggaros Dunes, but I like how they look in the flesh, so to speak.  

 

 The best part is the cobbles. Again inspired by Sidney, I decided to be a bit bolder. I picked out a few in Delta Ceramcoat Stonewedge Green and Barn Red, Apple Barrel Sky Blue, and GW Dark Angels Green Contrast. Then I washed it heavily with black to ink in the recesses, and blend it together. I really like it, and will use it both on further expansions of my Undead, but may even go back and update some of the earlier ones.

 

My favorite of the bunch has to be Kreirdgeinek Tundreirtmum. He's not technically a barbarian per the Frostgrave rules, since they use a single two-handed weapon; he'd more accurately be classed a tunnel fighter, since they do use two handed weapons, but he's reasonably put out with anger management issues and dispatching foes with quick brutality is probably workable. If pressed, bad pun there, he could be a "barbarian tunnel fighter" per the Forgotten Pacts supplement. It's the GW sculpt I used for the body, especially that very expressive skull.

 

So, points. One Squirrel point, for having 5 models. I'm also claiming eleven skull points, one for the skeleton on the earth elemental, five for the skellies faces, one for the skull on the quiver sling, and four more for the Janus skulls on Kreirdgeinek Tundreirtmum's khopesh and dagger.

 

 

Finally, five 28mm foot figures are 25 points, the earth elemental is easily 54mm high for 10 points there, plus twenty for the Golem's Haunt, for a total of 55 points. Not a points bomb by anybody's standards but mine as a ridiculously slow painter, but I hope to have a few more entries in before the lid closes Saturday morning.