from Paul O'G: Roman Auxiliary Archers (40 points)

Been a bit of a slower hobby week in the Man Cave this week so it's good to post up something after a bit of a drier spell.

To add some ranged firepower to my Legionaries, I've added some Auxiliary Archers to my Caesarian Cohorts with these metal Warlord figures. With their tribal style leggings and long drooping moustaches, I see them as last month's conquered Gauls, now sworn into service and fighting next to their new Masters to beat up on their old tribal enemies!

As missile troops cant form close order (in Infamy Infamy!), I've gone for more widely spaced circle basing rather than the closer packed squares that the Legionaries close up in. I think it adds to their personality.  I really like that they come in both standing and kneeling firing positions too.

8 x 28mm figs = 40 points

From SidneyR: “A Demonstration of Armes!”, Laarden 1688 (‘Armory’ - 50 points’)

 

“Mijnheer Glouw? My good Sir, you are most welcome. I am delighted that one of the Laarden Field Deputies has decided to grace us with their presence at this Demonstration of Armes. The Council of Laarden received my letter sent to the Hall of Deputies? Excellent, excellent. What can I show you first, Mijnheer? The English dog-locks? German long-pistols? Or maybe our finest Swedish flintlocks, just arrived from our contacts in the Baltic?

“Maybe I can offer you something more martial - perhaps a Nuremberg cavalier’s rapier? I am at your convenience, my Lord. And you’ll see we have contracts available for signature now, prepared in duplicate - yes, over by the crates of musquettes, just by the side of that rather exceptional Hungarian Szekszárd. I can also supply a crate of those bottles to your herenhuis, Sir, if you like a full bodied red..."

“Ah... my associates, you ask? They’ve served in my Company from the mountains of Serbia, through the black forests of Wallachia and into the frozen marshes of Courland. My associates are both experts in the art and manufacture of weapons, and are veterans of many engagements. I can see you’re interested in the English dog-lock pistol being wielded by Hans? A wise choice, Mijnheer Glouw, a wise choice - as I would expect from a gentleman of your discerning tastes, and - dare I say - your growing reputation. Allow us to effect a demonstration...”

*******

For my “Armory” submission, I’ve staged a demonstration of arms by the famed (and fictional) Imperial military enterpriser, Count Konrad von Hexendorf. A glittering array of arms, “musquettes”, pistols and halberds. Who could fail to be impressed?  Count von Hexendorfcertainly seems to have charmed the representative of the Laarden Council of Deputies, one of the senior members of the noble Flemish family of Glouw.

Unfortunately, it is possible that the bona fides of ‘Count Konrad von Hexendorf” are less than impeccable. The impressive weapons are genuine enough, but many of the crates which could be supplied may be looted from various sub-standard citadels throughout the German lands. It’s always suspicious for the contract terms to be drawn up, ready for signature, before the negotiation begins. 

And those bottles of Hungarian wine from Szekszárd are perhaps a little too prominently displayed. Perhaps Count von Hexendorf has been forewarned concerning the florid features of Lord de Glouw?

And those uniforms of Hans and Pavel - they are perhaps just a little too theatrical, exotic and - Lord forbid - just too martial to be practical?

I’m just suggesting the possibility, fellow Challengers… but, do you think ... a charlatan might be at work?

*******

I needed a fair sized base for the submission, and I had a few items of 3mm hardboard lying around. I cut one to shape and rolled out a base of milliput, which I then covered with the GreenStuff World pavement roller I used for the Greyscale Chamber, and my ‘Nightwatch’ submission. I found the milliput a total pain to use - adding water makes it workable, but it’s a horribly slimy substance to work with. I was cursing the Hobby Gods while I rolled it out, I confess, dear Challengers. On the plus side, the milliput dries rock hard - just remember to do all the trimming and sculpting while it’s damp and/or soft.

One advantage of the milliput is that you can press the figures into the putty before it’s dry to create locating ‘plugs’ for the figures to stand in. I added the crates and barrels that way, along with the weapons. The figures are a jumble of conversions and spares box oddments, but are from Wargames Foundry. Lord de Glouw is an ECW nobleman, and his factotum is from the Wargames Foundry Marburian range with a swapped Redoubt ECW head. “Count von Hexendorf” is from an ECW command set, and Hans and Pavel are from the ECW and Renaissance Polish range, respectively. I added extra green-stuff feathers, lace and longer hair to the various models to make them look a little more baroque.

Lord de Glouw’s florid features come from a glaze with Vallejo Model Wash ‘flesh tone’, but I used Army Painter washes on the other figures (a Christmas present from my long suffering wife, Nicola).

I designed von Hexendorf’s printed marketing pamphlet in PowerPoint, and reduced it size for printing in 28mm scale. A few miniature copies of the pamphlet are littered across the scene, by the wine, and dropped on the cobbles. 

The improvised target is a scratch built easel made from plasti-card, with a reduced scale print of Louis XIV as the target. (I am sure that Count von Hexendorf probably used a print of the Emperor or King of Spain when selling weapons to the French). There are spare prints, rolled up, around the back of the crates, in case the shooting demonstration decimates the print being used. 

However, at least one of the “musquette” balls seems to have missed. What kind of “veterans” are Pavel and Hans, one might wonder...

The letters of recommendation (perhaps forged) and the contracts by the bottles of Hungarian wine are simply written on tea-stained paper and glued down with PVA onto the base.

The ‘straw’ is cuttings from a floor mat and the autumn turning leaves came from ‘Antenociti’s Workshop’.

And because this is all part of my ludicrously indulgent Laarden 1688 project, here’s the accompanying Collectible Character Card for “Count von Hexendorf”, together with the other Collectible Character Cards in this Challenge XI so far.

All that’s now left is to see is whether Count von Henendorf is all that he seems. Feel free to join me in the dice roll, dear Challengers:

Dice roll (D6)	The “Financier or Fraud” Table
1, 2	“A most impressive demonstration of Armes” : You’re impressed, the wine is excellent and you sign the contracts. The only unnerving thing is the breadth of Count von Hexendorf’s smile, barely impaired by his tobacco stained teeth.
3, 4	“We need guns... lots of guns”: You don’t need new fancy English pistols but you need an awful lot of muskets. And none of those fancy French “musquettes” the Count keeps talking about. You take the crates of weapons that the Count has brought and ask to triple his standard order. You optimistically wonder if he can supply horses as well? The Count, Hans and Pavel all smile broadly in unison and open another bottle of the very good Hungarian wine.
5, 6	“Who is this peacock?” Your grandmother knows more about French dragoons than the “Count” does. You rumble von Hexendorf, who shuffles around suspiciously and makes various excuses, most of which involve blaming ‘market conditions’ for a dodgy mis-firing “musquette”. Later that night, your factotum spies “Count” von Hexendorf, Hans and Pavel loading crates of damaged and mis-firing weapons onto an old wagon in Guldensporenstraat.

For the points, there’s five 25mm figures at 5 points each (25 points), plus 20 for the Armoury theme, totalling 45 points. I thought that the rest of the base might be worth a couple of points - say 2 for the base and maybe 3 for the weapons - well, they are the latest technology, after all. That would total up to... 50 points.

*******

From GeorgeS - The Orc's Pit - Warhammer 40K Ork - (25 points)

      I could paint some of my many LOTR Orks for this challenge but I tested my self painting something new... I had these figures for quite a long time but never find the time to put them on my desk..

    So, here it is my First ever 28mm Warhammer 40K " Ork Gretchin" from Old Classic issues.

 

 

As this was my first in this theme , I said why not , I 've painted in my High Standard as a display piece. I used mostly the classic painting scheme and True Metallic for gun and helmet, heavily rusted though..

    So , 20 points for the room and 5 points for the figure = 25 points for me.

   Hope you like this first attempt, though it finally comes out a bit fancy and bright in skin tones. But this was the old school of Warhammer 40K right?  ( I'm not an expert..hahaha)
  

'Till next time..

Keep Up The Brushes!!

 

 

For MikeF: The Altar of the Snowlord

Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South)

 

______________________________________________________

Congratulations Mike on making your way to the altar! 

I understand you are sitting on a few 30K Alpha Legion vehicles that you've been avoiding for a while. Okay, let's see at least one of those done, perhaps the biggest of the lot? A super-heavy perhaps? Once done, you will have met the challenge and will receive your prize.

Mike'sPrize: Inquisitorial Agent from GregB!

PaulS: Lair of the spider (30 points)

That Domerunner seemed like a nice fella, slightly distracted all the time... but who wouldn't be in a place like that. He'd muttered something about beware the amble. I'm not sure what he meant by that... maybe he means just don't loiter in this part of the tunnels and be quick about going through, maybe? The map said this was the spider lair so maybe it is just to avoid those...

The Domerunner appeares and yells "I said beware the AMBUL! Run!"

The Ambul is from Warhammer Quest: Black Fortress, but had rules in White Dwarf for use in Necromunda as a wandering monster. It's a fantastic reinterpretation of a really old figure that I recall really wanting at the time.

This is 7 points, with 20 for the bonus round... and that marks the end of the dungeon, with only the Snowlord's Altar in front of us. The end is near!

Last entry there were some queries about the walls and how I'd painted them, so here is a step by step using the Ambul's base as an example

Step 1: Undercoat black, then drybrush with Sons of Horus green

Step 2 and 3: Add a little bit of white to the green and drybrush again for each step.

Step 4: I made a useful weathering liquid by putting some VMC Chocolate brown into a full pot of GW lahmian  medium. This gives quite a nice brown wash that still has enough pigment to go over black to do mud, but when run over the green and wiped off with a fingertip, gives a nice dirty look

Step 5: After that, sponge on some very dark brown for chipping

Step 6: finally some rust weathering liquid is dabbed into cracks and joints to dirty it all up a bit more

From TomM: The Orc Pit: Mordor Orcs (125 pts)

A project originally planned for the past Orktober, time restrictions made it so that it didn`t materialise so I moved it to the AHPC instead.

From the Lord of the Rings range, I own a LOT of models and ever since returning to the hobby a few years ago, I have been steadily painting up the collection.

For this entry, it is the venerable plastic orc that takes the spotlight, as I painted up another 18 of them to the already decent sized bunch I have.  Not only, as a rabble force, do you need a fair share, there are also a lot of other game systems where the orc is your line antagonist.  In this batch as such, I had 2 armed with double handed weapons, 7 spearmen and 9 with hand weapons and shields.

But those aren`t the only ones painted up, as I also finished two Mordor Trackers to stalk on the edges of the force.

And in a game of heroes, I of course needed a "Hero" to lead all these monsters, and my eye fell on Gorbag.  Not the greatest hero or so in the game, mid tier at best, but what can one expect for an army of expendables.

So that makes a lovely 21 infantry models to add to the tally and the collection of painted forces, good for 105 points, and 20 points bonus for the location, tallying up to 125 points.

From GregB - Small Enemies Of Rome To Fight Small Romans (30 points)

Levy spearmen ready to fight against Rome!

Continuing my divergence into 10mm figures, here we have some Enemies Of Rome. These figures are Sassanid Persian Levy Infantry from the great folks at Magister Millitum. As with the Romans, these figures are based for the Warmaster Ancients rules, and the three bases together comprise a unit for the game. 

10mm figures from Magister Millitum.

These are basically test figures to see if I would like the Magister Millitum Sassanid miniatures...and I do! They are great to work with, lots of character and fun to paint, even though they are very small. 

Just one unit...but have to start somewhere, right?

The pattern on the shields was totally made up - and I don't even know if the Sassanids would have used such a pattern with their infantry, but at the end of the day their Empire was pretty large, and levy infantry could have come from any number of cities and cultures they ruled over. And there is a sort of nice generic aspect to spearmen in this scale...these could serve with Parthians (who ruled prior to the Sassanids) and even into the era of the Crusades...I mean levy spearmen are levy spearmen, and this was a type of troop that served throughout a tremendous number of years. 

There are 30 castings in this submission here - at 10mm size, that works out to 30 points for the total. Thanks for reading! 

It's Friday folks

 

A belated Happy Friday to you fine folks out there! Let's rock the boat (but not overly so please, I'm prone to sea sickness) and get some miniatures painted.

From SimonG: Soviet Steel for The Armoury (55 points)

Rather than paint another fantasy figure, or a plated knight for the Armoury I here offer up the pointy end of my Cold War gone hot Soviet GSFG force -- a Guards T64B tank company.

Once again these are Timecast 10mm pieces from their Cold War '84 range. Nice resin bodies with metal details and some very nice touches such as the indent for the gun barrel opening, making drilling the barrel out a cinch. Other things are more bothersome, in particular the top mounted machine gun that needs clipping at the back to sit comfortably. Overall though very nice pieces and they look the part.

Soviet armour is rather boring colour scheme wise so I elected to include the Guards Insignia on the IR projector. Initially I made up some tiny (1.5mm diameter) transfers but these simply fell apart when I tried to apply them. So I instead hand painted the designs, Im pretty pleased with how they came out -- interesting how you can abstract a design down to a couple of splotches and still have a good sense of what it should be. The numbers are also hand painted. Once again I'm using my numbering scheme for three troops of three tanks plus the command vehicle. The lettering is sequential with my BMP company and with other support vehicles I'll get too later.

So another 50 points for my total -- ten 10mm tanks at 3 points each plus 20 for the chamber.