Even More Sertorian Romans - Ethan M(175 points)

Hello all. This week's offering includes two additional cohorts of Sertorian Romans, leaving just one more to finish before Legio IX shall be fully assembled and prepared to challenge Rome. In regards to questions from the previous post, the First Cohort and its wingman were comprised of figures from Old Glory's Caesarian Gallic Campaign. Today's figures are actually plastic, and from Wargames Factory.

A shot of the first cohort completed this week. (3/5)

While I do appreciate the ability to customize the Wargames Factory figures and their poses, as well as a conglomeration of gladii and pila, the details on the plastics can be very shallow. I ended up following the recommendation that I go four to a base, which will somewhat restrict their usefulness in smaller skirmish games. Overall, though, I'm content with the result. The deserter Romans fighting for the rebels rarely defected en masse, and so often were in either poor supply or organized together in rather hodge-podge units of irregular armament. To this end, the blend of Old Glory and Wargames Factory figures works for me.

A shot of the second cohort. (4/5)

And here is a shot of the two of them together.

And that's all for this week. A total of 32 figures, 16 Romans per cohort. With any luck, next week will see the last of the Romans finished, and a good start made into some of the native Lusitanian and Spanish troops.

Until next time!

Very fine work, Ethan! Doubly so for the wargames factory kit, I've the zombies and Colonial British and can attest that the detail is very soft on the earlier plastic sets. The zombies are okay, but the other earlier kits are best used as filler. Still these look magnificent ranked up in blocks and you did a fine job of making them look brilliant. I really like the extra litle details like the script on the shields, very fine stuff!

From Michael P - Barbarian Prince and Champion (10 points)

A small entry for me this week, but one that I am quite happy with.

These two figures complete one of my LOTR projects, namely building a force of Wild Men of Dunland to augment the hosts of Isengard.  These 28mm figures are both by UK based Heresy Miniatures, and they were terrific fun to paint.

I've started thinking of the one on the right as "Kevin the Barbarian", since he looks like a Kevin, although he also reminds me of a young Engineer major I once served with who spent most of his time in the gym and had fabulous hair that defied all regulations.

The principal colour used here is Citadel's Bestigor Flesh, treated with Army Painter Light Tone and then worked up again with more Bestigor Flesh gradually mixed with a craft store warm white.  The basing is the usual austere type I favour for my LOTR baddies.  The wood elves get all the nice flocking and foliage.

My only complaint with the big guy on the right is that while he ships with several options for weapons, I found it absolutely impossible to glue the arm segments in place so that it they fit together with the hands sculpted onto the axe and hammer that come with the figure.  It was easier at the end just to glue the fist on one arm and the sword on the other.   Great options, but too fiddly for me.

The completed Dunland project.  Saruman poses with the graduating class of Isengard Infantry School 17-01.  To waaaaarrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

These two figures give me ten points, I think, and I will be happy for them.

Blessings to your brushes!

Michael (the Mad Padre)

 

It appears it is a good thing that I was still up and attempting to update the spreadsheet on the challenge page. I got to see this entry, but the rest would've had to wait till next week! ;)

Very fine brushwork on these barbarians, Padre! They are very fine heroes to lead your Dunlendings to glory for Isengard and the Whitehand. For a moment I thought the massive fellow was Thrudd the Barbarian, but his head is a little too big. I think we can be sure that brawn got him the chieftan spot!

very fine brushwork on the pair and the class of 17-01 is an impressive lot to be proud of too!

 

From Peter D 28mm SYW Highlanders (45 points)

A second post for today, but no points bomb.    I have finished another 8 men for my 28mm SYW Highlanders.   Once again these are from from Perry, taken from the AWI  line.

It was a bit of a fight getting these to the finish line.  I had them based and terrain last night, when I realized that I had painted the lapels green instead of leaving them scarlet!  So hasty repaint while getting base paint all over my left hand.  Then the extreme cold, a flood in my university office and an emergency deep freezer defrost.  But here they are.  Phew!

I have to say that I have really been enjoying working on these figures, which is a good thing as I have a total of 30 to finish and I'm less than half way there.  The poses are wonderful and the details crisp which really helps pick out lapels and lace work.  Unlike some I have never had much problem with flash on Perry figures and these were no exception.  I could be that I don't notice, that I pick less popular molds or just that I am use to flash clean up having grown up painting Airfix soft plastics and early 1980s era  historicals.

Uniform wise of course the big item is the kilt, in this case the full meal deal belted plaid.  The tartan for the 87th (Keith's) Highlanders was "Government or Black Watch), which is one of the easier ones to paint.  At the time this was likely not strictly regimented (that's a Victorian intervention) and my guess is that various woollen mills were give an order based on an approximate description.

I used a dark blue base coat (mix of 50:50 Paynes Grey and Ultramarine Blue) with a cross hatched green pattern on top.  With the pleats and fold in the back, the green pattern become more "impression of cross hatching".  Over all the aim is to get a pattern that is a combination of dark blue and green in approximately the right tartan.  Pictures of reenactors (have I mentioned dhow much I love Pinterest) show that from any distance, the colours bleed into each other and the actual tartan becomes indistinct.  Add movement to the mix and you want a blue/green blur.

To provide some justification, I present as Exhibit A my go to source picture on Kilts.

Moi circa 1975 aged +/-13

By my count that is 8 figures @ 5 points each =40 points.  Woohoo, yeah me!

Quite the workload today, Peter! Frozen outside and broken freezer inside too, kinda ironic that! ;) I do like your idea of tartan painting and that rather helps build up the coourage to give it a shot myself. I'm pretty impressed with these bonny lads as you've even gotten the impression of their niffty socks down as well. I'm going to pip you another 5 points for the blackwatch, but that is also in part for the aged photo of yourself .

From SamuliS: Da Jestaz (60 points)

Time for another entry. Blood Bowl Orcs from the new plastic box set from GW. I had originally planned to get these done before New Years, but as it would turn out these were deceptively simple looking and took way more time than expected. I almost got them ready for last week, but couldn't get the decals and basing done in time. Well at least they are ready now!

Thinking about colour schemes I decided to go with my local hockey team, Jokerit (Jesters), which is currently playing in the KHL as the only Finnish team. They used to be one of the top teams from the Finnish league, but a couple of years ago they signed up for the Russian equivalent of NHL. First two seasons went pretty well with them being one of the top teams from the league, but honestly this season has been pretty embarrassing. I was thinking between this and the team I played most my years in junior hockey, but in the end decided to leave that scheme for the human team. As Jokerit was the local rival back then for us it felt better to picture them as the brutes.

For Greg Jokerit is the team which brought you Teemu Selänne ;)

As I said they ended up much harder to paint than expected. As they are push fit models with connecting points in visible areas they really had to be put completely together before painting, which made reaching some of the detail extremely difficult. My method of painting them was also pretty suboptimal. I normally paint all the areas with a base shade before washing and then doing the highlight layers, but I guess on these picking a proper order and doing an area from the start to finish starting from the recesses and working up would have been far better. There were countless times when I messed up some area I had already gone over when I tried to do something in a small crevice and had to go back and touch it up again. Also the combination of red and yellow was far from ideal. It's pretty unbelievable how you can get a shade that doesn't cover a lightly washed version of itself  in under 4 coats of paint. Needless to say they were a pain at times to paint.

I was thinking quite a while about adding weathering on them, but in the end I ended up with leaving them cleaner and with a more cartoony look. Just seems to suit Blood Bowl minis better. Plus if I get fed up with it it's always easy to go back and add scratches etc. on them. However to break the monotony of the armour I decided to paint the checkerboard pattern that somehow is so iconically orky. Another thing that got left out was the team logo. I tried to freehand a suitably Orkyfied version of the Jokerit logo on them, but my brush skills just weren't up to it. Luckily it was easy to remove the shabby tries from a varnished surface.The logo will be added at a later time when I've gotten around to ordering suitable custom decals for them. It's just so much easier to design it on the computer and get it printed out. I'd do it myself, but I want it to be white and haven't  found any place where I can use a printer that is capable of printing white. Luckily Fallout Hobbies does custom decals for a reasonable price and I've used them in the past and liked the quality, so I'm gonna get a sheet from them when I've figured out the logo for the human team as well. Player positions and numbers are from the normal GW sheet that comes with the box. As a more ideal team composition would have 4 Black Orcs and 4 Blitzers I left my player numbering empty for them in preparation for the future whenever I end up buying reinforcements.

With these done it's back to Flames of War for the last couple of vehicles I need for the end of the month. I've also got the two Blood Bowl referees about half way through, but probably won't be getting them done in time for today as it's already late in the evening here in Finland. Hopefully next week I'll have more than one entry ready then.


Inspite of the difficulties you had, These orcs turned out great, Samuli!
The colors suit them very well "wif all dat letha an boot letha!" I think my favorites are the blitzers, I really like those masks they sport. Games Workshop Orcs are 28mm heroic, but honestly they are so massive anymore that they do make spacemarines seem like small children. I'm fairly certain that the snow lord will let me pip you up smidge for these green bruisers so we will call it 72 points

From JonathanO: Giant Worm and Stone Golem(14points)

This is not a monster paint bomb, just a post with a couple of monsters.  These are Reaper Bones plastic miniatures - a Giant Worm and a Stone Golem.  They painted up fairly easily and I am happy with how they turned out.  I decided not to base them with snow just for Frostgrave, as I expect they will see use in other fantasy games.

I have included some photos with the twins from my armour theme round entry to show the size of these miniatures. 

I am making progress on other figures, so hopefully I will have more to offer next Thursday.

 Cheers,

Jonathan


Now those are some monsters, Jonathan! I have some bone models, but my results are rather different so far from yours. I washed mine which may be the problem, but I noticed today that they don't like watered down paint too much. Maybe that is the issue. Your effort has turned out really well with the golem looking nice and granite and that worm really looks slimey and quite icky. Of the two I'm really impressed with the worm. That is a nice oozy purple red for it, besides mean he does look pretty squishy! Im going to figure these as 40mm, so 14 for the pair!

From SimonM: "Copplestone Castings" Grey Aliens (25 Points)

"Not every discovery has been announced."

These five 28mm metal models of Grey Aliens are produced by “Copplestone Castings” and can be bought as code FW36 from their Future Wars range. Supposedly the extraterrestrial beings responsible for "forty-three percent of all reported alien encounters in the United States", these aliens are named for their unique skin color and were made famous "from earlier depictions of the Roswell UFO incident from 1947."

"I have no idea what it could be. It was greyish in colour..."

Smoothly sculpted and somewhat diminutive models, the figures were initially undercoated with two coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Bluegrey and washed with "Citadel" Nuln Oil. The aliens were then dry-brushed with more "Vallejo" Heavy Bluegrey, before receiving a second heavily watered-down wash of "Citadel" Nuln Oil.  Finally the gun-toting 'leader' had his space weapon painted using a combination of "Vallejo" Brass and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade.

Non-Human Rooftop Encounter - Grey Aliens verses Terminator Robots
Nice work on the greys, Simon! You've had a very productive time with the Galactic Citizenry for this week! Which one insulted Arthur Dent though. You know the fellow who became immortal by the freak accident involving an irrational particle accelerator, a rubberband and a half eaten sack lunch?
These are quite the fellows and very useful too,I like the one practicing American sign language best. He seems to have grasped it quite well! ;)

From BenitoM- More Portuguese Infantry(95 points) (side duel)

This week I have finished the last batch of Portuguese Line Infantry or the Napoleonic Period, two new units including some command stands and Grenadiers.

This are based in groups of 8 suitable to play Sharp Practice, although more likely will se action under the incoming set to be released by Reissweitz Press (the sister company to TooFatLardies) based on the ACW rules "Pickett's Charge"

The models are Warlord Games. The command group (officer, drummer and two colour bearers) are metal while the rest plastics. As commented in my previous post the sculpting is good but not achieving the Perry's standard (for me the best in the market as of now); personally I found the the plastics to be better models than the metals in this case.

The Portuguese ha the same flags system of the British and deployed the King's and Regiment colours. The flags are included in the box and correspond to the 21st Line Infantry Regiment.

With this entry I add 80 points to both my total score in the Challenge and to my account in the Sharp Practice duel.

Benito, These are a glorious blue! I really like the detail on these fellows that you achieved. from the mix in headgear and trousers, even the basing. They really look grimly determined marching across the baked Spanish ground. You said 80pts, but you must've forgotten we really like the pagentry ad anyone carrying colors gets a few extra pips. So I'll add another 15 just because (soto voice of "The Dude" Big Lebowski) "It ties the whole regiment together, man!"   

 

From James M - Limbered 17 Pdrs(16 points)

Hi Folks,

My first entry proper following the Armour round. These are models I've had laying around for a while and that fit in with my 'Gunuary' theme for this month.

It also has the bonus of having no gun crew to paint!

Being the... odd... person that I am, I have a thing for seeing limbered guns on the table top. I already have a unit of 4 deployed 17 Pdrs, as well as the halftracks used to tow them. But it always looked a bit odd having the deployed guns sitting behind the vehicles when they are moving around the table. So following a chance find on Ebay (and some help from Skytrex) I ended up with 4 limbered guns.

The actual entry for this week!

As mentioned, these are Skytrex models - and Skytrex allow you to order specifically Limbered or Unlimbered guns. I'm severely tempted to do the same for my 6 Pdrs...! Like I don't have enough actual battlefield units to assemble and paint!

These guns were carefully superglued to the base at an angle.

The angle allows me to do this:

The half tracks were painted some time ago, so the basing colour has either faded over time, or was a slighlty different blend. However, I'm quite pleased with the result.

Thanks!
A very tidy entry, James!
I rather like the limbered guns. It does help to immerse in the game a bit better if the gun crew isn't running behind the truck with a deployed gun. It makes it seem like they are screaming at the driver to "Wait up you, !@!#!&@$!$"
There is a shift in turf hue, but isn't the grass always greener.... ;)

From SimonM: "Warlord Games" The Silence (15 Points)

"This world is ours. We have ruled it since the wheel and the fire. We have no need of weapons."

These "finely-sculpted" and 40mm tall "pewter" models of three Silents are produced by “Warlord Games” and are designed for use with the company's Doctor Who Miniatures Game "Into The time Vortex." Genetically engineered to be the confessional priests of the Church of the Silence, these mouthless creatures first appeared in the 2011 BBC television story “The Impossible Astronaut”, and were "capable of obliterating enemies by absorbing electrical energy from the air and discharging it from their hands at a vastly more potent level."

The Silence WIPS - "Citadel" Chaos Black undercoat with a dry-brush of "Vallejo" Heavy Charcoal

Initially primed with two layers of "Citadel" Chaos Black, these miniatures were all heavily dry-brushed with "Vallejo" Heavy Charcoal and then washed with "Citadel" Nuln Oil. Their discoloured shirts were subsequently 'picked out' with a combination of "Vallejo" Iraqi Sand and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade. Whilst their ties were simply re-painted with more "Citadel" Chaos Black. Finally these members of the "religious order created by Tasha Lem" had their skin painted with "Vallejo" Heavy Warmgrey and washed with "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade. These areas were then highlighted with some additional "Vallejo" Heavy Warmgrey, before receiving a final wash of "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade in order to 'blend' the pigments together and create some shadowing.

The Silence WIPs - "Vallejo" Iraqi Sand with Strong Tone Quickshade shirts, and Heavy Warmgrey flesh


Simon, these fellows are delightfully creepy and even more so with your pallet choice. I have not seen that episode, but they reminded me of the fellows immediately from the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Silence episode. I like these fellows just as much as your WIP shots which is one of my favorite things about your posts.
Very well done!

From AaronH - 32 28mm Celts (175 points)

This entry was two weeks in the making. I started off strong but then had to go back to work and hobby time slowed to a crawl. These lads are another unit for my Celt army for Hail Caesar. As an aside, after the debacle of my last post I bought a tripod and a trigger for my camera. I can now take close in shots that are in focus. I still need to work on the lighting however.

First up is another warband for my army. This makes the third, so only another ten or twenty to go.

These lads have the blue shields of the Brigantes, as anyone who has read a certain book about a Roman in Britain will recognize.

The majority of these are Warlord Games plastic Celts. There are two outliers in the bunch. The Chieftain is from Black Tree Designs. I have many of these Celts as they are great sculpts and they have great sales.

There is also one Wargames Factory dude in the back rank. He's hideous. I bought them not knowing what I would be getting and they were promptly relegated to the back rank of these formations.

These shots are a bit yellow. The shields are hand painted, obviously. I left most of them blue, to really make it stand out that this unit is about the blue shields, because they're blue and stuff.  Having said that, I did want the leaders to stand out a bit more. Also notice the chap on the left in the captures Roman helmet.

Too many green pants.

This unit also has a very high percentage of bare chested blokes. I guess they are showing off for the lasses.

The next stand, also led by a man in armor. Obviously he is quite consequential.

And here is the Wargames Factory dude. I have no idea what is supposed to be going on with his back. It's really quite bad.

Another unit, led by a half naked nutter. I reminds me of my platoon in Iraq...  I stick to four basic colors for the clothes and mix them on the models. I would normally do the shields in a bunch of different colors and halve/quarter them with all sorts of poorly drawn geometric designs. I wanted these guys to stand out for their shields.

The Warlord plastics have some odd poses. I'm looking forward to Victrix's looming release to flesh out the rest of my army.

The final stand shows one of those odd stances. I don't know why this guy is bent over double. I should probably have modeled a pila sticking out of his gut.

A bit more blue than normal, but it's a theme. I also realized, looking at these pictures, that I didn't paint the backs of the shields.

The next unit is eight javelin armed skirmishers. These are also Warlord but are metal and come in four poses with wire javelins. These are single based as I have a fair bit of both armies done that way so I can play them in skirmish games.

For the most part these are nice, simple models. There is one whose face is quite squished.

Squishy McSquish Face.

These are easy to paint, other than the fact that I insist on doing them 30 at a time. Warlord does some nice models and they are more than good enough to stand in a mass unit. I normally do the front rank with BTD metals and the back with the plastics. This unit just came out of the pile mostly plastic by chance.

This is a handsome bunch of Celts, Aaron!
They remind me of the days I'd send my masses of Airfix and Esci Celts to storm the same mixture of  Romans behind the walls of their domino forts(surely I wasn't the only one!)
160 points for these fellows, but I'll spot you an additional 15 points for an even 175 as I appreciate handpainted shields. Although I am a Sith Lord, I will allow you to keep the 15 extra points if you get the shield backs painted. Don't disappoint me. ;)
They have a nice animation to them and i lik how you kept the colors similar which adds to the unit feel and keeps them rabble enough for flavor. Blue is such a magical color, what Celt could resist a skyclad shield!?

That's 24 Celts in the ranked unit and eight in the skirmish screen. At this rate I'll have a playable army in four or five more years.