From EricM: Slinging More Bull (260 points)

Hi All.   This week I spent more time on the bullheaded Romans.  I was able to knock out three 16 man cohorts.   The shields are pretty easy to paint its just a matter of getting the symmetry right.

Some of the cows have longer horns than others but I figure that's nature right?

I completed one cohorts of the bullheads last week with the 3 this week I only have one more cohort to go for the half legion.

My big crisis came this week when I considered what they would look like on the table.   Four ranks and 4 files just doesn't look right for Romans.   I will be adding 2 more figures to each unit and go six files and three ranks.

My second big change of the week is the lighting used to take the photos.  I went with 2 compact florescent natural lights.   I liked the compact florescent bulbs so much I switched over in my painting lamp.  For those of you who are as impatient as I am, the light looks terrible until they "warm" up.   I tried them a year or so ago and gave up right away because I didn't wait for them to come to full brightness. Once warm they give great light!

All the bullheaded Romans are from Wargames Foundry's caesarean range.  I am a big fan of the range but at today's prices it would be an investment to build an army of them.

Here is the first cohort of the week.   (I think officer int he red cloak is 1st corp and not Foundry)

 Here's the second cohort of the week.   These are all Foundry.

 And the third cohort.

My final figure for he week is Warlord Games Marcus Crassus.    I love how dynamic the pose is.  I am not sure if he would be my vision of Marcus Crassus but I think he will make a great looking legate.

Here is a group photo.

I was able to complete 49 28mm figures this week.

Whoa, these are the bull's bollocks en mass for sure. Three cohorts in a week is a good pace to set, and you're back with more from my new favourite yellow bovine legion The paintwork is really neat once again, the yellow excellent and the shield designs well captured. Nice work on the photos too, I find daylight lamp really helps, as does multiple light sources. Depending on your camera and confidence using it, you can also try to get a greater depth of field by setting the f.stop manually, to get every rank in focus.  Forty nine 28mm miniatures is 245 points, but I'm still hugely impressed with your work on the shields, so I'll round that to 260 points. Great stuff! 

Phil

From JamesonP: Live from the Battlefield (25 Points)

As we get into the year, work has picked up considerably for me. That said, I've been more or less sticking to my painting schedule.

Given the recent demands on my time, the five figures below didn't get to make a stop in my tabletop light box before ending up on the tabletop battlefield at the club.

Here we have more figures from the Conquest Miniatures French and Indian War line. There's an officer to the left. three marching soldiers in the center and an ensign on the right who, without a flag, makes a good unit commander.

The expeditious deployment to the field saw these figures routing some British regulars and colonial provincials in a Friday night game of Muskets & Tomahawks. It made for a rousing end to a long week of work.

I have six or seven more of these left to paint along with some Woodland Indians and Canadian Militia from Wargames Factory before I move on to another genre.

Until next time...

Hello there Jameson. Really liking what you're doing with these Conquest Games minis with just the one shot of them in action, I can't see the details, but they seem to have come out really nicely. It sounds liek they avoided the curse of newly painted miniatures, too. Five 28mm miniatures for a neat 25 points, and I'll look forward to the next installment of this project!  

Phil

From KeithS: Monsters...and A Call for Help (69 Points)

First up this week are a small selection of larger monsters.  I'm shifting over to providing some foes to my many adventurers!


The group shot:

The main ones I wanted to do were these two Minotaurs by Grenadier.  Both are around 40mm and well sculpted - lots of personality!  They're fancy chaps, too, with nice armor and weapons.  One might get used for D&D this weekend.

The shield on the right is really nice - a bull that looks like its breathing fire (a D&D Gorgon?).  For the left, I was out of ideas and simply made a spiral to represent a maze.  Meh, but I guess it'll do.

 Another angle.

Also up were this pair of Ogres.  Both are about 35mm high.  Neither are super special, but they fill a need nicely for gaming purposes.

From the back.  I did the right guy with red hair for no special reason, except that I felt like a little variety and all browns was making Keith a dull boy.

The last of my half-dozen was this Ettin (41mm) and...I have no idea what!  The Ettin is straightforward for a guy with two heads.  The right guy though is totally unknown to me.  He looks like a giant Orc (about 34mm tall) but with a Mongol-style moustache.

His shield was interesting and reminded me of something from Minas Morgul, as it was a leering moon face.  So, I did a sickly green color to weird it up a bit.  If anyone knows who made it, or what it is, let me know (I covered up the base markings of course - dummy that I am).

Last and late, I knocked off these two spiders from Ral Partha.  One was mine from their last Kickstarter, the other was my dad's set from the same Kickstarter.  I didn't really need more spiders at the moment, but they were quick and easy.  I have a pile of similar ones that serve as goblin cavalry, which I will be painting at some point (those should be fun).

Last weekend, I got an emergency broadcast from a friend looking for a 28mm scale wagon for a game of Harn (yes, people actually play Harn and don't just write endless essays on the fascinating crop rotation system of Dumdurdum Manor, or the family tree of Clan Umptifratz and its 37 cousins).  Good news, I had a wagon in that scale from Perry, though I'd not got around to finishing it.

Bad news, it needed some work (and there were no instructions on finishing it):





Yeah, it was a real pain, worse than I think it should've been.  However, the end result was most acceptable.

The worst part, by far, was the four oxen.  I glued on their heads, then realized that the yokes did not fit over their heads, so I had to yank the heads off.  Then, I had to paint the heads and bodies separately, paint the yokes, put the yokes in place, then glue the heads on.  Once that was done, I had to fill in the gaps between head an body and do touch up painting -- with the bloody yokes constantly in the way, and the dumb oxen right next to each other.  A serious, serious pain!  It was all I could do to not throw the stupid things across the room!

You'll note there are no bases on the oxen, either.  After doing all this work, I realized my little basing plan did not work with bases on the oxen, so I had to cut the bases off, then repaint and touch them up before gluing to the base I'd made.  Not much fun.  Meanwhile, the drover and family proved to be less troublesome, though with no bases it was annoying to paint them, too.

The wagon is designed to be laden or empty, as desired.

Before finishing the base, I managed to get it far along enough for the game.  Here it is, being escorted by the party and a knight across a desolate forest area.  A stranger knight is approaching.

But, bandits attacked at a ford, leading to an ugly little skirmish for the party (there were a lot more bandits shortly after this pic was taken, though my gal taking up the rear of the convoy took the one bugger visible to the right out after a short scrap).

I defer to the authorities to score this mess, as it is all sorts of stuff I'm not used to!  Overall it fit a bunch of very practical needs for gaming and I am quite pleased with the outcome.  I suspect I will be following up with yet more monsters in the near future...

Hi again Keith! Another motley collection, good to keep up the Friday tradition. That pair of minotaurs are great sculpts and came out great. And that wagon, well it might have been a pain to build, but it looks the business all painted and based up, the perfect objective for your bandits to rob, or to be guarded by your City Watch from a few weeks ago. 

Really nice gaming setup too, great to see that. Are those the BattleFront rivers?  

Scoring-wise: 40mm infantry for the minotaurs, 28mm for the rest, with the spiders scored half points because they're a). simple b). diddy anbd c). lkook like the quivalent of a prone mini. The wagon, I'll score as a 28mm vehicle, plus the three 'crew'. 

*Makes sacrifice to the Deities of Arithmetic* I make that 69 points! 

Phil 

 



From SanderS: Landrover! (15 Points)

Hoi,

Just a short and low points post today, can't let the Friday Minions down eh? I have been busy painting the Theme Round entry lately so only managed to paint up Crooked Dice's very nice little Landrover Defender model. At first I was actually considering to paint it in the more traditional racing green with white roof but in the end went with this more sandy colour.

While I am not entirely happy with the windows, I do like the little car and it should net me a further 15 points. If ever I manage to get round and getting my driver's license I would like to drive one of these.

Cheers Sander 

A small entry but a great little offering, the sandy colour gives the look of an ex-military vehicle. The weathering is excellent and I like the depth you've achieved on the windows. 

I gather these are quite brutish to drive, and come with absolutely no mod cons! A colleague of mine drives one and can seat 10. 

Phil

From VictorK: 28mm Sci-Fi and WWII Germans (100 Points)

Okay, there would be no shields this time (wait for them next week, some Iberian cavalry incoming).

First are some Germans for WWII, nothing really special about them. Warlord minis (really nice, if you ask me), vallejo paints. This isn't an organized group like squad or a team, just a base for a future squad, an officer and a flamethrower carrier.

There is a proverb in our local community: "If you don't know, which colour to use for a miniature, paint it with fieldgray." Tons of sci-fi, fantasy and modern-like infantry were painted with fieldgray in our club - this colour is easy to use and nice-looking on the tabletop.



And the creams (for me) of this post are these guys - more different sci-fi minis from Corvus Belli, Inifinity, to use in our RPG.

And now on the groups. Those in red would be used as space pirates, PMC contractors and well-organized criminals. One of the main sources of military equipment on the Frontier is the "Atlas" corporation, and it uses red and white colours. Lots of  "bad guys" use their armour and guns as they are pretty easy to obtain and very reliable. In rare cases you can even obtain (buy, steal, get by other means) a power armor! And one of this guys managed to do it.

Next are two new operatives for 'Serenity' corporation. One is a common 'security specialist', but the lady is a more sophisticated person - covert operator and assassin (of course she is, everybody knows, that wearing a cloak makes you a steals-master!)

Two guys, which are nothing really specific - criminals, militia, adventurers, PMC-contractors, "hired guns".

And one more "gun specialist", accompanied by a member of "U Zang Wong" corporation.

So there are 20 28-mm minis, which sum up to a total of 100 points exactly.

Great entry again, Victor. Everyone appreciates a bit of Feldgrau in the morning, but those SciFi minis are most excellent. Interesting you're using them for your RPG, but thanks for sharing the background. Are you mixing manufacturers or just choosing from the Infinity range (which must be pretty huge by now)?  

I really like the Sci-fi styled clear bases on your Infinity minis. Partial as I am to the hulking power armour, I think my favourite of the bunch is that gun specialist at the bottom. I was fond of the Infinity system a few years ago, and have rather a lot still in my lead pile, but found the release schedule and power creep of later factions a bit much to keep up with. Still, the core rules are really dynamic and fun. 

100 points for your good self. Looking forward to those Iberian cavalry next week.  

Phil

From KenR: 28mm SCW Moroccan Regulares (141 Points)

This weeks entry was not even on the "might do" schedule at the start of the challenge, as with much of my painting I set about organising a game and then realising that I don't have enough painted figures of one type or another I get some more. The computer gets switched on and ten minutes later the required figures are ordered. These are for an upcoming refight of Jarama in March.

The figures themselves are a mix of Force of Arms and North Star. I generally use Empress Miniatures for SCW but they are not cheap and can be very expensive P and P wise so I opted for these. North Star are generally know as a figure retailer but they have a small range of 28mm SCW figures you can get platoon packs that further reduce the cost (down to £1.25 each, Empress are 1.75)

The command figures are from the old Force of Arms range which I think became Burns Miniatures and are now available from Templar Wargames and Scenery. The flag is hand painted.

This collection represents a company in our home brew rules, a command of 4 Figs with a flag and 3 platoons of 8 figs (including a LMG and Sgt) for a total of 28 Figs or 140 points plus the flag.

I have another unit of these ready to go but will probably leave them for a week or two. I have a test platoon of WW1 Highlanders for Mesopotamia on the table now along with my "signature dish" of some 1/2400 Naval. See you all soon.

Ah fantastic, glad you found the impetus to get these on order and painted Ken. The Snowlord is a SCW nut, with a gorgeous collection, I'm partial to the funky uniforms (and flags!) of the period, and I know theres a good handful of other Challenges with collections. I know what you mean about Empress vs the competition, those Empress sculpts are lovely, but on the 'less budget' end of the spectrum. But these FoA / North Star minis certainly look tidy and unmistakable enough for the job. And very finely painted, particularly the excellent flag. I really like the flag-bearing officer sculpt too, waving his pistol around uselessly. 

Hope you enjoy the Jarama scenario in a few weeks time, but I'd be rooting for the steadfast Internationales myself. 140 points plus a Flaggy Bonus. 

Phil