From IanW - 6mm Naps and Nude Vikings (155 Points)

No ancients in 6mm this week but a return to Waterloo, Steve wants the reserve corp of infantry painting for his Waterloo game so this is the first installment, he will still need I think another twelve Battalions but this includes figures I do not have in hand so these will be coming later.

Here we have ten Baccus battalions, each of twenty four figures, eight British and two Hanoverian. These will supply most of the British battalions for the reserve, still need three Highland and one Rifleman Battalions ordering which will allow me to do all the troops. 

1st Battalion 27th Regiment, Enniskillen(old spelling) 2nd Battalion 81st Regiment, 1st Battalion 40th Regiment. I had a flag failure on one of these three and had to replace it. Still out of 18 flags I can't grumble.

My son bought a set of flags at random at York, my fault as I told him to just pick one of the British flag sets, ended up being a sheet I thought I would not need but last night I got to use one for the 3rd Battalion 1st Regiment Royal Scots (the guys at the back) the 1st Battalion 4th Regiment Kings Own has a normal blue Colour.

These bright fellows from the front are 1st Battalion 28th Regiment and 2nd Battalion 44th Regiment. Painting the edges on the Union flag remains a bit of a pain but pays you back many times over for the finished look.

I had one battalion last submission unflagged due to having no Georges, happily I now have the sheet, good job as I needed another 4 flags from that sheet including 1st Battalion 32nd Regiment, the only other Battalion that has the George I required.

The first two of ten Battalions of Hanoverian Landwehr that I need to get flags for. Lee has some spare he is letting me have so these will have to wait on a visit and will appear on my blog with the other Battalions. I intend to do some conversion work on the next lot so they can have the distinctive caps on some of them. I have cut one standard pole down to a Half Pike. That and the stripped drum rims is all the difference in the figures. I have painted a orange/yellow sash on the officers as well though.

Here is the 2nd Battalion 33rd Regiment from the last lot finally flagged, This battalion as the other three were not part of the Reserve and as such won't be needed in the game my mate is involved in as he is not supplying any of the main troops though they are sure to be used in other battles.

As a break between stages of doing the Brit's I did these seven Vikings, six are Griping Beast whilst I don't know about the youth.

This charming lad was in the massive pile that Gary Amos gave me and my son at York. I was lying in bed when I suddenly had the idea of adding a shield to the base in homage to those Football (Soccer) car stickers showing a fan urinating on a rivals shirt (cartoon). Seemed to good an opportunity to pass up.

Took a few attempts to get the soft plastic cement to behave how I wanted it. Forgot to paint it so it's not so clear but I am sure you get the idea. Just a pity I did not think of it in time for the comic round.

I recently painted up a couple of units for Saga but was not happy with a couple of them. So I have taken the opportunity to replace them from the Gary mountain. My son is happy as he has the two figures I did not like.

I was originally adding a banner to the spear but it was a disaster and the whole sheet just will not work so gave up and added the spear without the  flag.

Finally a bunch of naked berserker's, Shame the poses are so similar but the heads are different enough to make them work as a unit. Another point for my Viking Saga army. I think I may now have more units than my son, that should drive him back to his brushes.

It was the first time I have had to deal with so much flesh and it suitably embarrassed my daughter. Again quite happy with results and I have at least one more unit of these whilst my son also has two. Should be fun when I can drag him away from Command and Colours for a game of Saga.

Point wise, that's 120 for the Napoleonic's and 35 for the Vikings, should make my new target next week.

From GregB - 6mm Austrian Grenadiers (40 Points)

Challenge participants and observers will surely have noticed that Curt took a little break this past weekend (the nerve of the man!).  Well he made a quick visit out to Winnipeg, which of course is always awesome because we get a chance to catch up, drink tons of booze sip a few civil drinks, and play some games.

It is always great to see Curt, but our get-togethers take on an added level of excitement whenever they coincide with the release of a new set of rules for Napoleonics.  As Sam Mustafa has just released a new set of rules - "Blucher" - we of course were very keen to try them out.  This prompted a discussion along the lines of what figures might be available, "do you have Austrians?", "6mm etc. etc.", "I have some, what would work?" "I could really use some Grenadiers..."

I mentioned at the tail end of my last Challenge submission that I had to switch gears to a completely different scale and period.  Well, this is it.  Some back story - many years ago Curt sold me a pile of 15mm French, and I agreed to paint up some stuff as part of the compensation for the acquisition.  Well my progress on that has been desultory at best, but every so often I still crank out a unit here and there. With his impending visit, and all of the discussion around "Blucher", I thought it would be fun. 

The sum of all this blather is this submission - a base of 6mm sized Austrian Grenadiers.  They are based on a 3" square, suitable for Sam Mustafa's Grande Armee rules (for which Curt has a sizeable collection of 6mm figures), but would also work perfect well for "Blucher".  I managed to get this done in a week, from digging them out of my unpainted lead horde, to priming them, to getting them painted and based, just in time for transfer-of-command to Curt this past Sunday.

The figures are from Adler, easily the finest 6mm sculpts out there.  They are piled into two units of roughly thirty figures each, with some mounted officers spread around, to give the overall impression of an Austrian reserve brigade.  They are wearing blue pants, signifying they are Hungarian converged grenadier units.

While the Adler figures are truly amazing sculpts, fixing them to the base is a mind-bending chore.  I much prefer the strips of infantry from Baccus, although in the time it takes to receive the order from Baccus, I could probably finish and base four more of these units...but I digress. 

As for "Blucher", I won't get into that here other than to say "shut up, go buy the rules and play them because they are a lot of fun".  We tried out the game a couple of times, and once again Sam Mustafa has developed a fun and innovative set of rules for a wonderful period.  You will see more about "Blucher" on this blog and over at the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts as things progress there...

Unfortunately I did not leave a clear area on the back of the base for Curt to affix a unit tag, but the Liquitex should scrape off easily enough for that to be done later.  In the interim I hope these fine, garlic sausage warriors take their proud place in the 6mm ranks of the loyal armies of Curt's Hapsburgs, the "real" Emperors, ready to stand firm in the face of Bonaparte's lackeys :)  There are about 65 individual infantry 6mm castings and 3 mounted 6mm castings, giving a total of...I'm not sure, let's say 1000 points (Millsy would have painted the same amount, but in 28mm, so that's my way of trying to keep up). 


From Curt:

Thanks so much Greg, these guys are brilliant (I particularly like the eggplant purple bearskin tops on the rear unit). They will provide some nice shock ability to my Austrian force.  Now, if they could only march as well as they look!

From JamieM - Horus Heresy Salamander Space Marines (150 Points)

Well, here they are...... Finally. These chaps turned into my own version of the Forth bridge, I just couldn't seem to finish the painting. I even turned to the Royal Marines in my last post in desperation, only to find they took a while too!

Taking a cue from Greg B, a little background on them in the 30k universe for those of you more interested in proper history who may not be aware of the 30k lore..... The Emperor created 20 legions to enforce his will across the universe and each one had its own peculiarities and idiosyncrasies.  The legion represented here is the Salamanders, who hailed from a volcanic world where only the hardiest survive and so they venerate heat, the application of said heat to ones enemies and blacksmithing, probably because that also uses heat.

They take the head of the salamander as their legion's emblem and also like painted flames (see above re: heat). In order to appease both sides of the decal/free hand schism within our community I have used decals for the salamander emblem on one shoulder and painted the flames freehand on the other.

The salamanders are famous for being sent to win the difficult, drawn out and glory-less conflicts without complaint, so I went for a muddy base, with plenty splashed on their legs as that description put me in mind of the trenches of WWI. I added Tajima tufts after seeing them recommended on a couple of posts and I couldn't be happier - I'll never go back to using anything else!

I seem to have accidentally picked virtually the same colour scheme as Greg B, but with a different shade of green, more suited to salamanders.  My thinking was leaving the faceplate bare metal added visual interest and also showed their veneration of the art of blacksmithing by highlighting the beauty of the wrought metal. Brass and black are more favourite colours of the salamanders, so that was sprinkled around liberally. I went with orange eyes to try to imitate the glow of a furnace, admittedly somewhat amateurishly on some.

The armour marks are mark 3 (the knightly looking one) and mark 4 and the more observant of you will have noted that there are also two versions of bolt gun. I just had to get a few of the type that mimics the ones that were in the original space marine plastic box from the 80's which I owned, RTB01, so I did. Forge world sure do know their customers at times.....

The salamanders remained loyal to the Emperor and were rewarded by being decimated at the Istvaan V drop site massacre by the newly turned traitor legions, with only pockets of them surviving to aid in the resistance to Horus for the rest of the Horus Heresy.

Thirty of the little blighters with bolters gives me the bulk of my infantry, although I did forget to do any sergeants, so they will come later with support weapons hopefully.

From DaveD - Sudan - The drums are beating (730 Points) (!)

Oh yes they are a beating.. so here we have a further top up of 145 Beja tribesman. These are all Perry metals as I was kindly contacted through my blog by a fellow gamer who had a pile he would never use - and would i take them of his hands for small consideration.. you bet I did - thanks Kevin.

I added lots more flags this time for aesthetic effect.

Having done a recount of forces after the last lot - I now have 880 as I was a bit short on estimate (rather i forget i sold a 100 about 4 years ago , grrr - hey hum)

The final 120 are on order.. in the meantime I have a few other items to keep me busy until the end of next week. And i will then do a full table shot of the whole collection.

Cheers and happy painting people!

From DavidL - Epic Orks: Complete! (Mostly...) (70 Points)

And with this entry, my Epic40K Orks (and, by extension, by Epic40K project) is more or less finished. I say "more or less" because I've still got a unit of Freebooterz and a squadron of Fighta-Bommas to do, but the order for those figures is taking forever to arrive, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get them done in time for the conclusion of the Challenge. So we'll call this good enough for rock 'n' roll!

The final clan in my army is a Wildboyz Horde. This is a clan similar to the Snakebites, but even more primitive - no guns whatsoever in the basic clan army! Purely melee, which suits my preferences just fine. At the very least, they'll prove an effective meat shield for the other two clans...

Figures are from MicroWorld's 6mm Fantasy range. A set of their "Orc Command" worked perfectly for the Wildboyz Nobs.

And here's the horde itself:

All set to hack, slash, and get gunned down...

Supplementing the horde are a trio of Squiggoths, massive hairy behemoths outfitted with armored howdahs bristling with smoothbore cannons and...mechanized extendo-grabby claws? Because those giant horns aren't scary enough, I guess...

And, of course, it couldn't be a "primitive" Ork horde without some Boarboyz. Obviously, these fellows have been outfitted with their own assault rifles courtesy of Da Blue Baron and are ready to cause some trouble.

My original Epic40K Ork army had some of these Boarboyz and they almost always proved surprisingly effective. Can't wait to see what sort of trouble they get up to in forthcoming games.

Little piggy snouts!

All together, that's 95 infantry, 10 cavalry, and 6 "vehicles" in the form of the Squiggoths, so that should come out to 70 points.

For the remainder of the Challenge, I'm planning on hitting a few odds and ends sufficient to get me up over my points goal. Getting my Epic forces complete was my primary goal for this Challenge, and it's still sinking in that I got there!

And because I've gotten a few requests, I'll leave off with some shots of the Ork Waagh! as it currently stands - an almost 6,000-point NetEpic army!

That's a Zuzzy "Wounded City" mat, which is scaled for 28mm but does the job well enough for now for Epic scale.

I threw in a classic Space Marine-era cardstock building to provide a sense of scale.

The whole lot (sans the two missing units...).

From DaveB - A modest coup strike for the ship side challenge (115 Points)

Thanks to Tamsin's really nice fleet, I was reminded about a little side challenge I opted in on. Fortunately, I did have a few ships lurking about. These are a very modest Chaos fleet that my wife got me...more on that later

I'd name the classes, but The rule books are packed up while remodeling the upstairs for my kids.

I lost my mancave, and my daughters will soon be up there with daddy between them and potential suitors! :) My son gets the old mancave which is only proper.

But, back to the ships!

These are a squadron of escorts painted in blue to show they are followers of the Lord of Change.

This cruiser is their primary charge the yellow launch bays should help the fleet weather Imperial torpedo strikes.

This cruiser is devoted to Slaanesh. It is loaded with gun turrets

Khorne leads this small flotilla. This Cruiser also is loaded with turrets.

The addition of the dorsal lance turrets indicate it is a heavy cruiser.

My first fleet was an icky green denoting they were devoted to Papa Nurgle. I went with green and brown sections over the grey hull for these.

A heavy cruiser with lance turrets and lotsa launch bays leads the followers of rot.

A cruiser also loaded with turrets for fire power.

The Nurgle arm also has a trio of escort ships for screening them.

They are completed with a diseased ship packing a lot of lance turrets.

A modest fleet and a far cry from 250 points! I imagine they are a small raiding fleet. My budding chaos guard army of traitors is colored grey with accents of their chosen path coloring their uniforms.

The Chaos marines that are allied to them are the Death Guard.

They are not going to be stored in the game box! My wife picked up a modest glass case that holds the rest of my fleets. The first Chaos and all my elder ships are long gone, hence this modest beginning of a new chaos fleet. Task force Black are the unpainted ships above. Gold and Red have been restored, but I used metallic paints on them, I'm unsure of metallic paint or NMM for these.

My original fleets were destroyed in a modular shelf collapse last century, and I stopped playing battle fleet gothic. My wife had bought me a game, several additional ships and kept them stored and hidden through several moves. It was only after I got back from deployment that she seen me finally get out the broken Imperial ships and begin repairs. That was when she surprised me with the gift! I already painted the ork ships and now I have some freshly painted traitor ships to challenge my Imperial fleet!

Am I spoiled rotten or what!? ;)

6 escorts and 6 cruisers

From AdamC - 97th New York Volunteers (122 points)

Its been a long road but I think I have the infantry for my Union force for Longstreet complete.   The 97th New York was chosen because of a remarkable coincidence.  The man who got me into war gaming was Robert Burr my college roommate.  It turns out one of his ancestors was surgeon  for this regiment (and he might have some other more distant relatives in the ranks as well) the coincidence is this regiment served next to the 12th Massachusetts Volunteers a regiment commanded by Fletcher Webster  the favored son of Marshfield MA were I grew up(he died at 2nd Manassas and is buried about half a mile from my parents home).  So I had to paint both regiments.

I am really happy with how the officer cam out with his gold buckle and rank flashes on this shoulders.

The flag is not the 97th's but one that looks very close the 5th New York if I can find an authentic 97th flag I will use it.

The men really look like they are hurrying to battle.  I did four men to a stand to give this unit a lot of weight.

There are 40 18mm Blue Moon figures here which should come out to 120 points (Curt you seem to have been giving 3 points per infantry figure at this scale, correct if necessary). So two piles have now been eliminated or greatly reduced the Napoleonic pile (is gone) and the ACW infantry is much reduced and might be completed in the time that remains.