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..

From PhilH: 28mm SCW Carabineros Officers (15 Points)

Blimey is it two weeks since I posted? I'd better post up the mountains of lead that I've finished, hadn't I?!

First up, three officers for my Spanish a Civil War Carabineros. They are well scrubbed in their 'pea green' tunics.

Those of you concerned about my 'eight highlight' sanity, rest assured I've made efficiency savings on the green: I think these had six. I often find that I take the first attempt at a colour slowly, big once I'm happy with the look, I can usually take bigger jumps. Still, the green is quite... laborious, hence why I've only got these three of seven finished.

Taking inspiration from Curt's idea of different base shapes for different roles/weapons, you may notice that I've based these three on 30mm rather than 25mm round bases. This should help identify the leaders, oh so important for Chain of Command, on the tabletop. Many weapon teams will be on 40mm-50mm bases I think.

The platoon is led by the Teniente (pimped with extra gold on his lapel and markings on his cuffs)

His second, Sargento Primero

And the Section leader, a Sargento, with SMG

All three from Empress a Miniatures.

Next up....no, wait, that's it. Sorry!

I have, however spent quite a lot of time prepping a mountain of miniatures: another SCW section plus supports and more lead for the Sudan project, inspired by others' Sudan projects.

It has been great seeing everyone's painting areas, so here are the places where I do most of my work. First up, the 'painting hole' in the guest room. The corner desk was bought for this rather odd cubby hole under the stairs to the loft, and serves as a dedicated painting desk and storage area. It does mean that when guests are staying everything needs tidying away, but other than that it serves my purposes well. there isn't much natural light as its a fair way from the window, but I've a lamp with a decent daylight bulb to compensate.

I do most of my prepping in the living room, so I can spend the evening with the missus, watching sport, TV or films (the rather unexciting Hull vs Newcastle on in this shot). She got me a rather snazzy mdf paint station from Poland-based 'Hobby Zone' at Christmas, which is great as I can leave half-prepped minis out on it and just shove the whole station on top of a sideboard at the end of an evening. It is designed to hold paint pots and I imagine that I could do basecoating downstairs, but more precise work I'd save for the hole.

Next time, the last four of the damn carabineros (they're nearly done), then either Requetes or new Sudan units.

From Curt:

Beautiful work on these officers Phil. You can definitely tell the care you've taken into achieving the smooth blending. Wonderful to see. I look forward the the last of the Cambelleros and the upcoming Requetes.

From PeterB - Oldhammer Undead (150 Points)

I always planned to paint a number of 28mm figures as part of the competition, I've brought forward the start of these as I'm spending so much time away from home during the week and need something light to transport and relatively simple to paint.

I have a load of old Citadel figures and paints from the 1980's that I'd like to get painted over the next few years.  This started during the revival of Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition or 'Oldhammer' as it's now been called.  I have hundreds of the plastic skeletons and had always wanted to paint up an undead army. I planned to start this a couple of years ago but never git much beyond designing an army and undercoating a few skeleton cavalry figures.

Given that the undead are light and do not need too many paints, I've decided to try and paint as many rank and file skeletons as I can before the competition ends.  I'm restricting myself to the original citadel paints for the figures as I still have all of these and they are still useable after nearly thirty years.  I will be using modern day tufts for the bases though as these are so nice compared to old static grass.

I started painting the skeletons a couple of weeks and after a marathon basing effort this evening I now have thirty figures completed.

I painted up 10 archers initially as I wanted a small number of figures to practice painting bone.  I like how these turned out.

Next up was 20 Grim Reapers, skeletons armed with two handed scythes.  I'm really pleased with the way the wooden handles turned out.

The bases consist of three different colored tufts highlighted with Miniature Paints Cream.  I chose these colours as I want the vegetation to look like it has had the life sucked out of it by the Undead forces as they advance.  I think this has worked out quite nicely.

I've really enjoyed painting these figures, it took me back to when I first started painting and had to experiment with paint mixes to get the colours I wanted as there weren't too many shades around initially and paints were expensive.

Next up is a unit of 26 warriors.

From Curt:

I love these old school skellies - especially the boney fellas with the scythes. The dried grass tufts also provide an effective dessicated effect for the bases. Great stuff!