From Curt: Female French Partisans: Simone Segouin and Nancy Wake (10 Points)

A few years ago I painted up some female partisans and thought these two figures from Stoessis Heroes would be good additions to the collection.

Simone Segouin, aka Nicole Minet, was just 14 when Germany invaded France. Nonetheless, young as she was, she joined a local partisan unit in 1944, the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, a communist-led force which became the largest and most effective French partisan organization during the war. 

Simone participated in the liberation of Chartres and then joined the resistance fighters traveling to free Paris. There are several pictures of her participating in the street fighting in Paris, to which she became a bit of a cause celebre.  Simone was awarded the Croix de Guerre and was commissioned a second lieutenant. In 2016, at age 91, Simone was presented the 'Soldiering On Award', which recognizes outstanding achievements, acts of personal sacrifice or comradeship demonstrated internationally, by individuals, groups or associations, which have supported the British Armed Forces Community.

Simone Segouin, at age 91, receiving the Soldiering On Award

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Nancy Wake is perhaps one of the most famous partisans who served in occupied France during the Second World War. Not French herself, Wake was in fact a New Zealander, raised in Australia, who became an agent of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) after running her own operations in Marseilles earlier in the war. 

Nancy Wake - 'The White Mouse' of Auvergne

By 1943 the Gestapo considered Wake (whom they called 'The White Mouse') to be their most wanted person and had a 5-million franc bounty on her head. She ran a Maquis unit in the Auvergne, which she helped raise to an amazing 7,500 persons under arms. 

One of the many fake identity papers used by Nancy Wake, aka 'The White Mouse' while she operated as a resistance leader.

From April 1944 to the final liberation of France her force tied down approximately 22,000 SS personnel, inflicting over 1,400 casualties while only taking around 100 themselves. For her service Wake was awarded: the Croix de Guerre, Officer de la Legion d'Honneur, the Medal of Freedom (USA), the George Medal (UK), the RSA Badge in Gold (NZ) and the Companion of the Order of Australia. She died in the UK in 2011, aged 98. At her request, her ashes were spread in the same area of France where she had fought with the resistance. Another very grand lady.

Ms. Wake later in life.

Such amazing women. 

In honour of both of these brave women, Stoessi's Heroes has produced 28mm models of Segouin and Wake. These are lovely castings, very finely featured and full of character. 

I found a colour picture of Simone taken when she was fighting during the liberation of Paris and I've made my best efforts reflect what she wore at that time. 

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Thanks for visiting folks - see you tomorrow for the Theme Round!

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What a truly inspirational post Curt and a fabulous tribute to two incredibly brave people.  Cracking sculpts and you have done such a marvellous job on them both, I had not heard of Stoessis Heroes before, but rest assured I shall be paying them a visit after this.  Another 10 points to you tally Sir.

From ByronM: 30k Mechanicum Thallax (65 Points)

When I started my 30k Mechanicum army / project it was just to get a few cool looking robots on the battlefield.  I made sure Greg was OK with me adding them into our local 30k games as just an add on force since I had no real plans to do enough of them for a full army.  He said sure go ahead, since the games are anything but serious, hell they don't even follow half the rules, so what would a made up force matter.

Well, I wanted to do some because they looked cool, but once I started working on them, I fell even more in love with their cool / bonkers aesthetic and have been sucked down another hobby ADHD related rabbit hole and am doing a full force of them.

Here is the first of several unplanned units that I have got since the challenge started....

This unit is made up of 9 Thallax jump troopers.  While these may look like more normal infantry sized units, they are not!  They are Ogryn sized troops on 40mm bases that while they don't necessarily tower over normal infantry, they are taller and much wider and bulkier.  Here is a comparison shot of one with a normal 32mm Infinity figure next to it for scale.

I was initially sort of so-so on these models, sure they looked cool-ish, but why on earth would you want little robots when you could have big robots?  Then I found out they were jump troops!  Yeah, towering 10' tall 700lb robots flying through the sky towards the enemy carrying lightning guns and phased plasma-fusils?  On top of that they have something called djinn-sight, that essentially removes all cover from enemies as they can see through anything and pick the best target locations and allows them to hit on 2+ almost all the time. Sign me up!

 

Technically, I can field these 9 as 3 units of 3, but I like the idea of setting them up as one massive unit that will actually live to get to the other side of the table and pump out enough shots to matter.  Oh and those shots are nasty.  Lightning Guns are short range high strength shots and the phased plasma-fusils are multi-shot long range plasma guns.  Lots of nastiness to go around.  You are only allowed one special weapon replacement per 3 models though, so they are mainly lightning guns.

The models themselves have several jets and boosters on them as you can see above.  Each has 6 different nozzles to help them wing their way to their enemies on clouds of black smokey death (I am pretty sure the Mechanicum has not bought into green energy and still uses either coal or human corpses for fuel).

While I followed my normal method for painting these guys, and you will recognize them as being done the same simple utilitarian way as all the rest, I did have to do the red differently.  I started with the same airbrush method and they looked the same as the rest, but just lacked something.  Many people talk about colour and scale, and how when you get smaller you need more contrast to look the same, well, that's exactly what happened here.  On the bigger canvas area of the larger robots, the reds and layers looked fine and still looked red and had depth.  On these smaller ones, the reds lost something and still looked muted and brownish.  So, I have to come back in after and add more highlight using a brush to key areas to help make the reds really pop at this smaller scale.

Additionally, I kept the masks bronze/brass despite the fluff saying that the djinn-sight masks are all jet black.  I tried that to start, but just didn't like it next to the rest of the force.  Fluff be damned, they have bronze masks like everyone else.

The rest of the models were the same as always though, right down to some high contrast blue/white energy blooms to set off the model and give some additional colour.  I know they are not to everyone's liking as it shows the weapon as always being hot (and I normally don't use them for that reason as well) but the models just lack something without more than just reds and metals. 

Watch out as the forces of Mars continue to expand in the coming weeks...

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Now before this challenge I knew nothing about a 30k Mechanicum army, to be fair I still don't know very much, but what I do know is that they look so very cool!  The more I see of this project Byron, the more I want to hear of how they perform on the table.  Amazing work again and given their scale I am going to count them as 40mm Infantry and add a couple of extra points to round the submission up to 65 points. 

From KeithS: A Mishmash Medley (262 points)

Well, unfortunately I got distracted by real life and failed to post last weekend.  Good news, though, is that means more stuff this weekend!  I'm not kidding when I say mishmash - I got all kinds of stuff this time around as I work through the old lead I have, and the continual stream I keep buying on eBay and at cons.  My wife thinks I have a problem and she is probably right, as usual.

First up, though is the completion of my 28mm Irish warband for Saga.  There are 13 of these chaps, 12 warriors and their boss.  As with previous figures, these are all from Gripping Beast.

One of the four-man groups has great axes.  It's nice to have a few guys with unusual weapons.

 Some of the chaps from behind.  The boss has the red cloak and seems to be pointing with his sword (always easy to find a boss figure - they're usually pointers!).  I gave them a bit fancier attire than the rank and file but, being Dark Age Irish, nothing too fancy.  I also used more greens than usual because, you know, Irish.

And the lads form another angle.  That's it for the Irish and my Saga painting this year!

My next batch was a group of 24 Viking types, mainly from Grenadier (I think?).  Anyway, I based this lot for use with D&D, so they get dungeon bases.  You never know when a player will sound a Horn of Valhalla and get a horde of Vikings to appear!

I liked the horn figure.  But I really liked the guy to the right. He appeared to be in the process of dying, holding his chest.  There was nothing there, though, so I drilled out his hand and glued a very small (1/72 scale) mace and painted it to look like a crossbow bolt.  Poor guy, he also appears to have dropped his axe.

A few more typical of this lot, one with a battleaxe and the standard-bearer.  Not sure what use a standard bearer would be in a dungeon, but what are ya gonna do?

Two more.  Most were in mail but a few were not.  Also, almost all of them had shields, but the majority of them were slung over their backs.  These are exceptions.

Some of the shields.  Most were plain wood and turned out nicely.  The rest got hand painting, though of those only a few were not already sculpted to have quartered colors.  And, as always, I went with squiggly dragons because that's about all I am good at free hand!

Next up this week is a mixed collection of undead.  They are 25mm from Ral Partha, relatively recent acquisitions form their last Kickstarter.  I didn't buy them -- my dad went huge into that Kickstarter and then immediately dumped a huge load of undead on me!  Alas for my woes.  The first group are three riders, two Wraiths atop Nightmares and one riding a Hell Hound.  I based these all for outdoor use, hopefully for some games of Chainmail later this year.

The Nightmares and riders from the side.  I was trying for a flame effect on the manes...turned out OK, if not terribly flamey.

These are followed by five Wraiths on foot.  Nothing too unusual here, just your average collection of undead folks hanging out.

I also did a trio of ghosts (or something).  They're pleasant folks, always reaching out for a hug.

From the back.  I tried some color variations for fun, but nothing too weird.

This last guy?  I dunno...he didn't fit in with any of my other batches I have in queue so I just threw him in with this one.  I suppose he could be an anti-paladin or evil hero.  He looks sinister enough.

That's all for this time.  Next up in queue are a bunch of wizards and witches for use with Chainmail and other non-dungeon games.  I'm tracking 37 28mm and 15 25mm figures (counting mounts) for a cool 260 points.  Hopefully I will get back to regular weekly posts.  This one is a little ridiculously long!

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Wow Keith!  What a great post, so much to like here.  That's a great horde of Vikings and lovely work on the flaming Nightmares too.  Great to have you back posting and a wonderful 262 points to the tally. (A couple of extra for conversion and shield painting.)

From BrendonW: Goblin Legion (180 points)

32 x Goblin Infantry and 2 x Goblin Cavalry, 28mm, Plastic, Games Workshop.

The addition of the Spider riding goblins gives no game bonus. It's just my way of adding to the look of the unit and help fill up the huge base. I had no intention of adding them when I started this unit but the idea popped into my head when I thought the base was looking a little sparse.  Game wise perhaps this can help with identifying a unit with a magic item perhaps. This is a Legion size unit for Kings of War. A Legion in Kings of War rules represents 60 infantry on 20mm square bases. I would rather not paint 60 Goblins for only one unit.

The two Spider dudes are actually the first of more to come as the Army will get it's own Cavalry unit or two. Actually that will be my goal for the next submission.

Originally in the incomplete Night Goblins on Spiders project way, way back when I was making them for Warhammer I painted them black with Red stripes. For this project they are Brown with almost White stripes. Here in Australia we have many poisonous spiders and I am more fearful of a bite from a White Tail than a Red Back. Go Google what happens....I dare you.  These evil Goblin spiders look nothing like real White Tails.....but they have a White stripe or two :). 

Some of you may have noticed that these formerly hard shell spiders now have hairy bodies. I achieved this by gluing the same green flock as the base on them then spray with primer to help seal it on. Some of the spider sculpts have a skull pattern and that just did not appeal to me so flocking them takes care of that.

There is enough gaps on this base that I hope to fill with more Goblins but I want to keep the unit construction going so I will see how far I can stretch my collection.

Cheers from Brendon

Minion bit here... :)

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You've really hit your stride with these Goblins Brendon, another awesome stand Sir!  I love the colour palette that you are using and the introduction of the spider cavalry is just inspired.  Ingenious idea to give them that hairy body look too, although I have to confess that I have not been brave enough to go and Google spider bites yet - far too early in the morning for all that.  Absolutely splendid work and a smashing 180 points to the tally.

From PeteF: We Stand Together - or "Oh Yes, I said some words" (6 points)

Project 4 is Game of Thrones conversions. This week I finished a treacherous Frey bannerman.

Frey soldier - usually late for battle

His head is from the Frostgrave soldiers sprue - where one of the heads has the Frey signature rubbish looking cap thingy - and his body is from Gripping Beast's Dark Ages Warriors. The shield also came from Frostgrave Soldiers. Since he is a Frey he has no neck, and possibly no spine. If you are not familiar with the show - the Freys are lilly-livered bad guys who get the upper hand through deceit. Their castle is The Twins with a keep each side of a big river, joined by a bridge.

The shield was handpainted - I'm wondering if these would look better if I printed them onto transfer paper (something I'm thinking of using for Project 8 - Samurai).

For guidance I got hold of Painting War: Dark Ages - I love the Painting War magazines/books for their ideas on colours (you can never have too many pots of paint, although now it's so difficult to find the right one I've accidentally bought some duplicates) and techniques. I tried layering/glazing for the tunic using the monk's habit recipe from the book. I have a way to go before getting Alberto Mateos level results!

Opponents say this is the most common view of a Frey - although not this close 

Only one figure this week - partly due to the musician project and partly due to burnout from last week's highlanders.

1 x 28mm foot. 5 points. Gripping Beast and North Star.

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Well done Pete, at least you managed to get something painted and posted, I failed again this week.  Lovely conversion and just look at that freehand painting on the shield.  5 points for the miniature and another 1 point for the skill! 

From ByronM - Surprise Surprise.... more greeks (95 points)

Sorry if the weekly repetition is getting a bit boring by this point everyone but look at it this way, at least we are roughly half way through, so you only have 6 more weeks of weekly Greek units to survive through. 

First up this week is a command stand made up of a couple of awesome figures from Gorgon Studios sculpted by Steve Saleh.  I love these figures, they just ooze character.  I had never heard of Steve before I accidentally found these figures and the snow lord then mentioned that Steve was one of his favourite sculptors and that I could find more of his work over at Foundries site.  I have to admit that I rarely follow sculptors (other than really liking Mike McVeys work), but that is more to do with being a computer geek and having issues with names more than anything.  Tell me your IP address or MAC address in hex and I can remember it forever, tell me your name and it's wiped from memory 20 seconds later. ANYWAY..... back to the point....

These figures are roughly the same size as the crappy Warlord Spartans, but are much beefier, partly due to being clad in their traditional cloaks but more than that they are just bulkier in general.  They look bigger next to the other figures but not enough that I don't feel ok using them. 

The character that they give is amazing, they have so much facial detail, hair detail and just look the part.  I have already ordered a bunch more of his work from Foundry so watch for it later this challenge.  Also, due to these being better looking figures and holding my interest more, I spent a lot more time working on them.  I believe the flesh and the reds are much cleaner and have more depth on these due to that time spent.

After working on such great sculpts, it was back to the mediocrity that is the Warlord (Immortal) Greeks.  I painted up another unit as Spartans to match the command stand, but spent less time on them than the characters, again just basic "get'er done" level painting.  Once again though, despite shortcuts, I think they look OK ranked up on the table, so all is good.

 I did screw up on this unit though, I had meant this to be a third unit with a distinctly different colour on the shield.  So I grabbed my decal sheet, saw that white and black was missing so red must be the next colour to put on, right?  I put all the red ones on, then went to take pictures and noticed the other unit sitting on the shelf in the other room with red already.  Damn it!  Worse, no black unit done.  So, can you guess whats coming next week?

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I don't know about everyone else Byron, but I am really enjoying the Greeks!  I love that Command Stand, fabulous work with such a great depth of colour on the cloaks.  Can't wait to see this lot altogether at the end of the challenge, it promises to be quite a spectacle.  95 more points to that tally Sir.

From TeemuL: Nurgle Chaos Warriors (25 points)

It was supposed to be more this week, some Khorne and etc, but since this week was cut short due to an annual "Weekend in the middle of the nowhere with friends and beer" boardgame event, I only managed to have these 5 jolly fellows done and something for the bonus round.

These 5 are classic plastic Chaos Warriors from early 90s I think. They are supposed to have shields as well, but since I didn't have enough of them, I'm waiting for a friend of mine to copy more of them to me (using some molding and casting magic).

They are very simple paint jobs, I wanted to make them look clean compared to the modern casts. They are green though, so you know they are Nurgle even without extra tentacles, wounds, guts, flies etc. The one with the yellow helmet is the unit champion. I plan to convert a musician and standard bearer later along with the reinforcements.

5 times 5 is 25 points.

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What a classic Old School start to the Saturday Showcase Teemu, great job Sir.  Sounds like you have had a great week too, beer and boardgames - what's not to like?  Another 25 points to your tally Sir.