From Mike W - 40k Orks, 28mm Renaissance Scots, Modern Infantry plus Cossacks & More (370 Points)

Let me take you on a journey...

Studios visited previously, plus this week's drop-ins

... a journey around part of the Studio Lot!

At the start of this challenge, I visited the Sci-Fi Lot and grabbed a quick bonus for my first pair of 40k Orks, today I'm moving on from there by using Lady Sarah's Limo service and as such I am submitting the figure below as the fare. This is a 28mm, Warlord Games, Female survivor, clearly a young girl sporting some kind of laser sight enhanced revolver!

This sweet little girl packs quite a punch

I dressed this figure in a cute, pink party dress with red shoes and hair ribbon, white socks and gave her blond, almost yellow hair, to emphasise her youth, the pink dress was given more depth by applying a red ink wash over the base pink, this helped pick out the details as well. The base has been made to represent concrete paving with debris across the surface.

A laser sighted handgun

This young girl will take me to the Historical Drama lot, where I present a number of Scots Renaissance figures for my Marian Wars project. AKA as the 'Marian Civil War', running form 1568 - 1573, this is the struggle lead by Mary Queen of Scots to impose her authority on her rebellious Presbyterian Nobles and to assert her independence from Elizabeth I's England to the south. (See details of the film - Mary Queen of Scots <here>).

The finished lot of Scots 

What we have here is a group of sixteen 'test' figures that I have created based upon the Wargames Atlantic Conquistador figure set, with some Warlord Games ECW body parts thrown in. There are 5 x swordsmen, 1 x Two Handed swordsmen, 4 x Handgunners, 1 x Crossbowmen, 3 x Pike men, 1 x Standard Bearer and 1 x Halberdiers.

One of the two, Two-handed swordsmen,
I'm really pleased how these turned out

The figures have all be undercoated in white and then dressed loosely basis illustrations in the Osprey Men-at-Arms book covering Scots Renaissances Armies (See <here>). Much of the protective clothing was quilted wool jackets, often with sewn in metal plates of chains to parry sword or pike blows. This I have represented with a light cream colour.

Crossbowman and a Standard Bearer.
The Standard is speculative, based upon Mary's status as a former French
Queen and her Scottish royal claim

Five Swordsmen, each with different levels of protection,
from wool jacks to plate armour, according to wealth and rank.
Extreme left is a guy sporting the Lennox family crest on his shield.

Other muted colours have generally been used with splash of brighter colours for those figures that seem to display men that were either wealthier or have more extravagant personalities. Armour was Oily Steel with a dark tone wash.

Four Handgunners,
second left is a guy whose torso is from a Warlord Games ECW figure,
with Wargames Atlantic handgunner arms added

Another view of the Handgunners

My plans are to build up a couple of pike blocks for this army, The Wargames Atlantic sets come with a multitude of spare parts and I'm thinking I can quickly build more figures by mashing these up with spare Warlord Games ECW figures to give a representation of the poorer, Scots 'Humbly' troops in the pike schiltrons, maybe some of these next week.

Three Pikemen plus one Halberdiers,
guy on the right has Warlord Games Pike and arms to give a figure with levelled pike.

Moving on from Historical Drama, we utilise a second trip on Lady Sarah's Limo to travel to the world Cinema lot. This time the fare is a rather fierce lady who is again form the Warlord Survivors set, this time the figure is running forwards in a frenzy, carrying a pair of Uzis. Effective no doubt but in the Zombicide world they are bound to make such a noise that every zombie within two miles will be attracted towards the source of such a racket.

This woman is in a red vest with jeans and sturdy knee length boots, she carries a water bottle and a belt pouch and in the best movie fashion no clear means to reload her weapons that will continue to fire until her scene is completed.

I'm pleased with the appearance of this figure's jeans,
a watered down ultramarine blue, over a white undercoat.

Boots are Shakebite Leather contrast colour.
Uzis have a watered down black coat with a gunmetal drybrush finish

These Cossack figures are 28mm 3D prints, sourced from eBAY. heir poses grabbed my attention and I though that they would make an interesting unit in a number of scenarios. As a film reference I used the 1960s (hardly a classic) Taras Bulba (See <here>), starring Tony Curtis ad Yul Brinner - for some reason it sticks in my mind despite being a truly woeful film!

These figures were supplied in clear resin and like other sets I have received through the post, they suffered some damage in transit. A spot of superglue here an there fixed most issues, I then undercoated white and dressed the figures accordingly.

Next I have a set of 8 Modern Eastern European soldiers, maybe Polish or Estonians - who knows. They have a mix of classic Soviet weapons (RPG7s) plus a smattering of modern western weapons as well. The aim is that these will be a 'no specific' intervention force or use in Apocalypse / Zombie survivor scenarios. 

The figures are again form Warlord Games and they go together pretty well, with these I experimented with some Contrast Colour paints from Citadel. After building the figures, I undercoated them white before using 'Military Green' to paint their overalls. I used Snakebite Leather to do their boots and the Officer's pistol holster and then painted in their flesh and webbing / knee pads using regular paints.

I then shaded the flesh with - not surprisingly - Flesh Wash, before using 'Skeleton Horde' to wash the webbing. Weapons were all painted with a watered down black before dry brushing with Gun metal. THe RPG7 and portable missile tube had additional detail added and all figures were given red sunglasses.

Overall the effect is quite reasonable.

The whole squad, in an urban terrain setting

Another view

I'm no expert on modern military weapons but they have a mix of firepower options!

More weapon options and my favourite - RP7 - on the left, officer is second from right.

Next this week we have a set of 10 Medieval Archers. When I bought these from eBAY, they were advertised as Dark Ages Archers, it was not until I started painting them that my suspicions were aroused and to me it was clear that their dress was maybe more akin to the Medieval Period. Never mind!

Ten Archers

I'll determine how best to use them later on!

Another view, with figures mixed up

Again these figures were undercoated in white and then dressed with appropriate colours, flesh was washed with Sepia Ink and the rest was washed in a watered down dark tone ink. Basing was my usual method.

Rear rank from first photo, moved forwards for a better view
hat on figure second from right a bit odd to my eyes.

Finally no post would be complete without a batch of 40K Orks & Grechin, today is no exception! Here we have 16 figures and an experiment for folks to comment on!

This week's 40k Ork Batch

Only two Grechin this week but I have a huge batch of these little guys on the go for next week - if timings work out! One figure is a former Fantasy Goblin but converted to 40k world by adding some grenades ad replacing his wooden club with a looted Imperia Guard Chainsaw.

The two Grechin, on the right the figure came with a severed Ork hand grasping a Choppa,
to the right this little guy carried a looted Imperial Guard Chainsword

Old and New, left a current Ork StormBoy and right an older version
of the same - shows the GW scale creep quite clearly.
The newer guy will be the unit's Boss figure!

Figures were all painted as previously described in an ongoing batch process, I took a little extra time on the Painboy model as this was fun to do. Hopefully I managed to do all the syringes justice, each with a different chemical content. I painted these white and then washed with blue ink to give a glass effect then added coloured band to represent the various contents

Ork Painboy, this was a fun figure to paint with so much detail.

An Ork Boss figure with this week's skull attached to his helmet

So my 'big' experiment was to add exhaust / smoke coming form the engines on chainswords and from Rocket packs on the Stormboyz. I think its quite effective but wondering what others think? If I go down this route then I'll have to go back and retro fit the same to figures that I have already completed!

Three more Boy, left with heavy weapon, centre with 3rd party head
and right with smoke added to the exhaust of the power sword

Another Stormboy, with exhaust / smoke coming from his jetpack.
Just noticed I forgot to do this guy's eyes!

Another view of the same

Last two! Left a Burna and the guy is in his 'Red Star' hat and right a Boy with a Blasta

After what I called a points bomb last week, I seem to have racked up more points this week!

POINTS

2 x Lady Sarah Bonuses @ 20 Pts ea                      40 Points

16 x 28mm Scots Renaissance Foot @ 5 Pts ea      80 Points

Historical Film Bonus                                               20 Points

10 x 28 Cossack Foot @ 5 Pts ea                              50 Points

Foreign Film Bonus                                                   20 Points

8 x 28mm Modern Soldiers @ 5 Pts ea                    40 Points

10 x 28mm Medieval Archers @ 5 Pts ea                50 Points

12 x 40k Orks & Grechin @5 Pts ea                        60 Points

TOTAL                                                                      360 Points

SIDE DUELS

Codpiece & Feathers                                                  80 Points  (Scots)

Squirrel Points                                                            +3  (Scots, Cossacks & Modern)

Skull Points                                                                 +1

From TeemuL: There's a lot again, and I'm getting speechless. But I did notice, that you have not counted those 2 ladies in your calculations! You did claim the bonuses, but not the actual minis, so I'll give you 10 more points. The smoke from jetback is a great addition!