From SanderS - The 10th Mordaunt's Dragoons (81 Points)

Dear Ladies and Gents,

Today I'd thought I'd bring you another 20mm unit, this is my rendition of the British 10th Regiment of Horse or Mordaunts Dragoons.

This regiment was part of the cavalry of the second line of the Allied army at the battle of Minden in 1759. The uniform detail as well as the background was obtained from the excellent Kronoskav site I've mentioned before.

Ever since deciding to dive into the 7YW, I  wanted to paint units with a distinctive background and within coherent larger entities like brigades or divisions. 

I have already painted the 3rd Dragoon Guards and still have the Greys to do. I am still in doubt whether to paint the Hanoverians for the "line" as well since this was not originally part of my plan. 

This is a unit of 10 mounted men and if I am not mistaken should amount to 80 points in total.

As so many have done already, I also include a picture of my study/ man cave ;-)

Cheers Sander

From Curt:

Wonderful work on this unit Sander. The paintwork is clean and vibrant with the uniforms but I find the horses look especially fine.  Lovely work.  

And speaking of lovely, I really like the layout of your study - it's very bright and well organized (and a veritable advertisement for IKEA!). Looking at your room makes me think of our recent trip to Holland (good memories)!

From RoyW - 10mm (very fashionable) Zombies, Part Two (14 Points)

Hello everyone,

To follow on from last week, here I'll present seven more bases of the 10mm Pendraken Miniatures Sci-Fi zombies (not to be confused with their Fantasy zombies, you see).

As last time they're based two to a base and on 20mm octagonals, to help differentiate them from the singular, round based survivors (when I get around to painting them).

I've been more adventurous this week, in painting more complex fashionable designs on some of the clothing, as well as attempting some 'fashion' camouflaged material. 

Also, the bases have seen more grass / flower tufts in comparison to last weeks models.

Here's two shots of the Horde, so far

Five more bases to go of 'human' zombies and then six bases of undead canines. Work has begun on the lucky / unlucky survivors - six of which I've been converting using modelling putty and florist's wire - and there's a mail order near-ready to be made for more miniatures to expand the project ... And I foolishly said that it would be a one-purchase and then finished project :)

Points: Fourteen 10mm figures are worth 14 points

ps. If I say it here then it might just motivate me to finish the Curtgeld figure that's sitting on my paint desk.


From Curt:

I'm really enjoying seeing this project develop. The group basing looks excellent and I love the vibrant colours. Very, very cool. 
 

From PeterD - 28mm Andalusian Archers (60 points)

So in between singing sea shanties and rinsing the salt from my shorts (see the comments on Miles’ earlier post), I have completed a unit of 12 Andalusian archers for my El Cid era armies.  These are Gripping Beast figures and are old friends.  Others seem to have issues with some Beastie Boys figs, but I like theses ones.  The one slight quibble is the bows are trick to attach to some figures.  However, good poses and clothing and they paint up nicely IMHO.

Over time I have waffled between giving my Ancient/Medieval units “uniforms”, sometimes opting for a Heinz 57 variety and others going for common clothes.  For recent units I am tending to unit “theme” colours, such as the red theme for these archers.  I’ve used three different shades for the tunics, or neutrals with red turbans.  On the theme I can vary to trims, sashes and turbans and accessories.   It may not be historical, but it makes the units far easier to group together during set up and take down.

From Curt:

Great work Peter! I really like the vibrant red 'theme' to these archers (especially with the light green turbans) and you're right they will be much easier to identify as a unit on the tabletop.

From SamuliS - 15mm Barbarossa Era German Guns (94 Points)

I'm getting ahead albeit rather slowly. After placing third (and only a point away from being tied for first!!) in the largest winter time Flames of War tournament  here and being picked into the preliminary roster of the Finnish team for European Team Championships I had a sudden burst of inspiration to paint up some more tiny Germans.  Unfortunately the rush of inspiration has been hindered a bit by the better half being away on business for some weeks and I've had to stay home alone with our little beast which has caused painting time to be at the premium.

Still I've been managing to get some painting done during the little boys naptimes and can now boast 3 more finished Flames of War platoons. One light infantry gun platoon of 2 le.IG18 guns and 2 platoons of 2 PaK38's. These will provide fire support when on the defense and help with some much needed anti-tank power.

I added some chipping and mud on the guns to make them look like they've seen some action as befits the Veteran rating of Germans in Barbarossa. Simple basing with static grass and also some bushes. My local shop finally had a resupply of scenery materials and I picked up some clump foliage that I'd run out off. I added some to these guys and also went back to the previous German entries and added more undergrowth to the bases of the Panzerschützen as well.

With these done there are only 3 platoons left in my Early War German project. Two of them are fairly small with only a few stands, but I've still got one very large Pioneer platoon with all their vehicles left. There's also a Bolt Action theme day coming up at my club and I've promised to hold a Commando inspired scenario which needs some hapless Jerries standing guard and evil Nazi scientists so I think there next entries will be various shades of Grey as well. Scale is still open to bursts of inspiration though as there is both 15mm and 28mm prepped on the desk at the moment :)


From Curt:

First, congratulations on your top tier placing in the FoW tournament and your selection to the national team. That is very exciting! Where are the European Team Championships being held?

These look great Samuli - I've always liked the look of that snub-nosed infantry gun and, as you say, the PaK38s will give you some good anti-tank capability, especially in the early war. The clump foliage adds a nice bit of texture to the bases. Well done.

Remember to Vote for your Favourite 'Hot' Theme Entries

Just a quick reminder that if you haven't done so already, please drop over to the Hot Theme submissions and cast your votes for your favourite entries. As you can see by the chart below it's developing into another excellent race to the Sunday deadline!

From MarkO - Last of the Perry Plastic Austrians (130 points)

I've finally finished all my Perry plastic Austrian Infantry! These were the last figures I had remaining. I decided to go with helmets again, making some extra bases so my helmeted Austrian regiments could be fielded as 48's or two 24's. I also made two single based Sappers, adding Victrix Plastic Grenadier heads to the Perry Sapper bodies. These Sappers have a role in the Lasalle rules.

Three and a half months ago my Austrians looked like the picture below - now they are all painted (except six metal casualty figures)! Some sort of personal record for me. Thanks to the painting Challenge for the extra spur to motivation! Looking at my own blog, I see my my first grumbling post on assembling these was on October 29th 2014. :)

Of course this is not nearly enough, and more Austrians I purchased after this lot are already in production  - they can be seen lurking in the background of the first pics in this post! Paint paint paint...


From Curt:

Awesome work Mark! These 'last' two battalions are brilliant (as always, love the helmets) and will be great additions to your fine collection. (I like that Lasalle has rules for Sappers so you can make use of the figures.) 

That last pic you provided is off the hook.  I'm always delighted when I see the Challenge coming through as it was designed - a blast furnace of industry!   

From MilesR: Arab / Israeli Wars in 6mm Part 2 (155 points)

Submitted for your approval is the second half of my 6mm Arab / Israeli Wars project - the Israelis.  I've modeled a armored battalion with some support units which is a very powerful unit.  I'm planning to use these mini's with the new Flames of War Rules supplement "Fate of a Nation".  I think FOW actually looks better in 6mm scale and its A LOT less expensive to try out an army in 6mm than 15mm

 First up are 10 M-48 Patton tanks up-gunned with a 105mm gun.  The Israeli's renamed the 105mm armed Patton's as the Magach 3 (or Ram) and these were some of the most effective tanks in the Israeli's arsenal.

 Next up is one of my favorite tanks of all time the M-51 Isherman - it's a venerable Sherman tank from WW2 with a new suspension system and up gunned to a 105mm canon - think a Firefly on Steroids.  Most of these tanks were issued to reservist units in the '67 war and were instrumental in demolishing the Jordanian forces.

Behind the Shermans is some artillery support from some M-109's

 Ben Gurion Centurions - the Centurion is another one of those tanks that makes it to my favorites list.

 Some highly mobile Anti-tank assets in the form of an AMX-13 light tank and some jeeps armed with 106mm recoilless rifles.  Trying to paint 6mm scaled Jeeps is a rather difficult proposition.

 An Israeli infantry platoon - very powerful and highly motivated troops.  I'll add some paratroopers to the force at some point.

 I also added some reinforcements to my United Arab Republic army....

 5 more T-55's and 5 more T-62's

Some anti-air in the form of 57mm ZSU's and some "old school" anti-tank from SU-100's

That's it for this project at total of 65 armored Vehicles, 7 jeeps and 36 infantry figures for a total point tally of 155.

This submission pushes me over my 2,000 point goal so I guess I should follow the recent trend and update my goal - lets raise the bar to 2,500 and see how that works out.



From Curt:

Nice work Miles! The French AMX-13 was such a wonderfully wacky looking tank - it's great to see it here in microscale. I also like the infantry bases you've made - the desert groundwork really makes them stand out. If you want to try another ruleset, aimed at a higher level of command, I can heartily recommend 'Modern Spearhead'. It gives a great game and has some very clever rules for fog of war and targets of priority.

Also, congratulations on hitting your points target - Bravo!! I'll mark you down for 2500 points for the run-in. Best of luck!

From Millsy - 40K Catachan HQ & Veterans (80 points)

After a week "off" working on Issue Three of Wargame Bloggers Quarterly whilst quietly coughing up a lung or two I'm back with some additions to my Warhammer 40K Imperial Guard Catachans.

This submission consists of a 10 man Veteran Squad lead by a chap who is clearly compensating for something with his "power fist". He's backed up by specialists armed with a plasma gun and demolition charge. The squad is rounded out by a further 7 squaddies armed with the ubiquitous lasgun.

As they are veteran troops I've spent more time on them and given them camo fatigues of varying colours (chestnut, mid-brown or black). They also sport white "veteran" headbands which kind of makes the idea of camo redundant. However, it's de rigueur for a Catachan to wear brightly coloured headgear and who am I to argue?

The second half of the submission is my HQ, comprising Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken and four bodyguards plus a one-man army in the form of Sly Marbo. Again we have camo fatigues and a selection of equipment befitting a HQ squad.

I've painted Straken's armour plating in a flat green as it seems more appropriate somehow than to have it a fresh-from-the-workshop shiny metallic finish. Sly Marbo is rocking a black Guns N' Roses t-shirt (see what I did there?) with the sleeves cut off so he can better swing his carving blade.

All up that puts me about 40% of the way through the infantry component of the army as it stands. In Challenge terms its 16 miniatures at 5 points a pop or a glorious 80 points total. Not exactly up to my previous volumes but that's the way of things now with real life well and truly back in the mix.

Next up? Probably more sweaty over-developed half-naked men. At least Anne and Tamsin won't be bored any time soon :-)


From Curt:

An excellent set of minis Millsy! Great work on the flesh tones on these guys. Sly's GnR shirt is ace and I really like what you did with Straken's bionic arm. All of the white headbands give these fellas an odd 80s feel about them, which falls in line with their vintage. Well done!

From PeterB - 6mm Russian Dragoons (40 points)

I missed my posting deadlines over the last two weeks so I've really pushed to get a number of figures finished and photographed this week. 

For my second entry this week here are 40 Napoleonic Russian Dragoons, these are all 6mm Baccus figures and represent the four Dragoon regiments that made up the 3rd Dragoon Division at Montmirail

The four Regiments are Smolensk (Yellow facings), Kurland (Turquoise), Tver (Ultramarine) and Kinburn (Yellow).  I was really nervous about painting these as I've never painted horses in this scale.  In the end I used the same paints I use for 28mm but went slightly lighter, I think they turned out alright.

The biggest pain was painting the standards as they're all cast on.  I tried lots of different designs and in the end the one that worked the best consisted of 4 carefully placed green spots in each corner followed by random splots of light gold paint.

Next up for the Ruskies is 90 Cossacks.

From MichaelF - 20mm Shermans, trucks, jeeps and an M10 (120 points)

Well, I might be the most boring contender this year as I stick to the olive drab theme and there is no sign the OD miniature pile is reducing. In fact, it grows bigger each week as I discover more and more cool OD stuff available in 20mm.

After I painted the previous three 75mm Shermans this entry includes two 76mm Shermans (PSC) and an M10 (MMS) so I at least have a chance to actually damage the insane German armour I'm facing.

Also two more jeeps (SHQ with AB crew), 2 trucks (SHQ) and a 'Ben Hur' 1 ton trailer.

I thought this entry would provide me the necessary points to make target next month. But I noticed Rob claimed victory in 'The Dutch Contigent' side challenge and raised the bar with 200 points to 700.

Congratulations Rob! I'll eat those Italians next week.
And I'll take the 700...but no more cheating with the bonus rounds guys. I demand painted points, (and tufts:) so no freebies from Curt!

And don't get me wrong here, I love the bonus rounds. Just not for me this year. Too many, too much distraction from my goal to get this army painted. Maybe next year I will do 'Bonus Rounds' only, should be fun..