From MartijnN: Württembergers, Saracens and Lannisters (140 points)

I have been far less productive than I would have liked this Challenge. However, I have not been completely idle. I finally had the opportunity to finish some models and, equally importantly, take some photographs.

First up are some Saracen infantry. These are from a Saga Warband set from Gripping Beast. They are metal, and the only infantry unit in the warband. I have had these for ages, and finally prepped them for this Challenge.

They came out okay, although they will not win any prizes. I used Quickshade Darktone on them, and as a result they are a bit... well, dark. But they will do. I will probably give them another coat of varnish when the weather improves, because the matt varnish I used (AK ultra matt) is very matt indeed (duh), and for these troops I am not too fond of that. Most of the shields are LBM transfers, but I didn't have enough of those so I painted some by hand. I am sure you won't be able to tell the difference. The rest of the warband are all cavalry, I will try to finish some of those before the end of the Challenge.

Next, the final company of my Württemberg infantry regiment for Sharp Practice. I have put off painting these for a long time, and I am glad they are done. Actually, they are rather a joy to paint. I mostly used contrast paints, like on their comrades done earlier. They are Piano Wargames miniatures that I 3d printed myself, and they are lovely sculpts. I think I have overcured them though, for they are rather brittle. And of course, when I took one of the NCOs off off the painting handle when it was completely finished, I broke off the bayonet...  It went flying through the room and for the life of me I could not find it. By now, it will have vanished into the vacuum cleaner I presume. I may try to replace it with another bayonet, but that is a very fiddly process. At least it broke off rather cleanly, so with a little imagination he is now simply carrying his musket without the bayonet. But a frustrating experience it was!

Finally, I have a regiment of Lannister Guardsmen from the A Song of Ice and Fire starter set. These are rather nice figures. I kept the uniforms "traditional", with lots of red and gold. I spent a little more time on these, using coloured washes and some drybrushing and minor highlighting over mostly contrast paints again, and I am fairly happy with these. 

I have prepared more ASOIAF figures, most of the remainder of the starter set, so I hope to get some of those done as well. We'll see how it goes.

So there we are. Scoring is simple:

28x 28mm foot @5 = 140 points

And 3 squirrels, if I remember to fill out the form!

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Martijn you may have been taking your time but you've done a fabulous job on all three of these sets. Your Saracens look the business (and who doesn't love good old metal minis) - I especially appreciate your freehand work on the shields. I'm often lazy and resort to decals so I applaud your great job! The Wurttembergers are very fine as well and I'm sure a welcome addition to your Sharpe Practice force. The fellow who is sans bayonette is simply a little slow in getting his extracted from his rusted scabbard, nothing to note here, carry on! :) Finally, those nasty Lannisters look wonderfully ostentatious in their red and gold livery. The extra time you put into them really has paid off I think. Very well done my friend!

- Curt & Huck

From MartijnN: Away at last! 28mm Württemberg Napoleonics (Under Construction) (95 points)

Yes, I really wanted to get a post up early this year. But of course I didn't. As I have said before, I'm a very slow painter and even then the results are hardly stunning; but then again, I am a functional painter too, painting to get some colour on my toys.

Anyway, here's my first contribution for Challenge XIII: some Napoleonic Württembergers. I painted 12 of these in Challenge XII, with an idea of taking up Sharp practice. After the Challenge, I painted up six grenadiers as well. Then I finally took the step of actually looking at Sharp Practice, and I discovered that units are mostly made up of eight figures... which meant that I had to paint up four more fusiliers and two extra grenadiers. 

The fusiliers, and officer (a Kickstarter exclusive figure) that I had sneakily thrown in to get to 25 points and thus a squirrel, were more or less finished early last week. And then I snapped a bayonet, which proved to be irreparable. Since that meant that I had to start a new fusilier from scratch, I decided to broaden the scope a bit and include an artillery unit, the two missing grenadiers, and an officer on horseback in the package. So here we are:

6pdr Horse Artillery

The fusiliers

The grenadiers with their distinctive helmets

The full force thus far...

They were done mostly using contrast over a black undercoat and a heavy drybrush/ zenithal. On the mounted officer, however, I found that Iyanden Yellow didn't give enough coverage over my apparently too dark undercoat, so I re-did the yellow with Yriel Yellow. To keep them in style with my earlier bunch I also gave them all a coat of Agrax  Earthshade. These are Piano Wargames miniatures; they are available in metal, but mine are 3D printed. They really are great characterful figures, and they paint up rather nicely. The bases were done with Geek Gaming's Base Ready.

As for scores:

11 28mm foot @ 5 = 55 points

1 28mm mounted @ 10 = 10 points

1 crew served weapon @ 10 points = 10 points

Bonus points for the Under Construction Studio: 20

Grand total 95

1 squirrel point too!

Those look fantastic, Martijn. I've always thought of Napoleonics as being tough to paint, I'd never have thought to use Contrast on them. They have come out very nicely, though it is a shame that you broke one of your figures. The caption on the picture says 'thus far...', so hopefully we see more of these in the future.

IanS: 15mm Ancients and Napoleonics (412 Points)

 Dear All

Due to a family illness I have not posted for a couple of weeks and although I have painted a few figures I had not based any.  So this week I have been frantically basing figures.

First up Ancients, this post is just Ancient British.  The wonders of this challenge is that every time I go to my spares/eBay box I find more figures to paint.  So last weeks dip into the box for a spare wheel for a chariot uncovered two bags of Celts I had won on eBay.  This means that I have enough for another clan, 5 warbands, 2 light infantry and a light cavalry unit.

So first Up are 4 warbands, I recognise some of the figures as being Donnington have no idea on the rest.

Here we have 2 light infantry units again a mixture of manufacturers mostly unknown.

The mounted arm for this army, a unit of light cavalry and a chariot unit.  

So only have 4 warband, a slinger, Light Cavalry and General and then the army will be finished, may be for this Friday as there is an ancient game at the club.

Total Army will be 30 warband, 12 Light infantry, 6 Light Cavalry, 3 Chariot units and 3 generals.  The last unit to be done for this army is a suggestion of a band, the singing slingers which are being converted as we speak.

So points 

Warband 48 x 15mm figures = 96pts

Light Infantry 16 x 15mm figures = 32pts

Light Cavalry  8 x 15mm figures = 32pts

Chariots 8 x 15mm figures plus 4 chariots (4pts each) = 32pts

Total I would like to claim - 192pts

In addition I would like to claim a Squirrel pt for the warband. 

Napoleonic

In the continuation of finding units that are not French to use the Epic Waterloo figures acquired through Wargames Illustrated we have a Westphalian Cuirassier Brigade consisting of two Cuirassier regiments, and two gun horse artillery battery.  One of my many pet hates is white uniforms i just cannot get it right, so when the option of what uniform to use for the 1st regiment, my son said white, oh happy days.

Now i did say on my last post that i would put some comparison shots of these figures against other makes.  I only have two makes of Napoleonic cavalry, Lancashire Games and Minifigs.  Left is Minifigs centre Epic and right Lancashire games .

As you can see there is not a lot of difference between them.  The big difference is cost with metal figures ranging from 80 -100p these come in circa 22p.  

Next up more Wurttembergers, two line battalions and a brigadier figures are from Warrior Miniatures

 

Points

Westphalian Cu - 24 x 15mm Figures = 96pts

Westphalian Art - 8 x 15mm figures and two guns = 24pts

Wurttemberg Inf - 48 x 15mm figures = 96pts

Wurttemberg Brigadier - 1 x 15mm figure = 4pts

Total to be claimed - 220pts

Plus Two Squirrel points 1 for Westphalian and the other for the Wurttembergers

So for this post

Ancients  - 192 

Napoleonic - 220

Total - 412pts

Squirrel - 3

A couple of questions curt 

1. For squirrel pts can I get one for 24 Wurttemberg line infantry and another for 24 Wurttemberg light infantry?

2. Do all figures have to be based to collect pts?

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Very fine work Ian and quite the points bomb as well. Well done!

As to your questions: 

Squirrel Points. Stuart is the SquirrelFinder General so I defer to his ruling, BUT as I understand it, you would get one point for your Wurttembergers entire, not for each troop type within the nationality. The Squirrel Points are 'awarded' for each entirely unique theme/period/force. I think that if you did French Napoleonics you could claim a Squirrel for that as they themeatically different from the Wurttembergers. Again, I defer to Stuart to adjudicate.

Unbased Figures. Figures can still be scored if they are unbased, but should have 20% deducted from their total. So a 28mm figure will be scored as 4 points instead of 5.

- Curt