From Mike W: 28mm 17th Century Dutch, 15mm 8th Army, 40k Orks and more (320 Points)

This week's output has been hit by work and real life pressures eating away at my hobby time - so I can't present quite the same number of finished models, but I have tried to keep the variety going by doing another Studio visit and a test set of 15mm 8th Army Infantry.

Lady Sarah's Limo Fare - Female Survivor with a shotgun

First up again is a Female Survivor being used as a fare to use Lady Sarah's Limo to transport me to the Casting Coach. This figure carries a double barrelled shotgun and also sports a utility belt and wears a nice brown leather jacket and jeans.

Slightly different view

Sky Blue jeans with a blue ink wash applied for shading,
grey/white t-shirt and brown leather jacket and Stetson.

At the Casting Couch we stumble upon an errant dwarf who has been casting for '50 Shades of Grey' or some other film of a similar dubious nature. The producer has left him somewhat tied-up, awaiting his cinematic debut!

A very naughty Dwarf! Bubonic Brown ropes, barbarian flesh and
orange hair are the main colours used here!

I washed the rope with inks to give definition, then gave the hair a red ink
wash before dry-brushing yellow. Skin area got a Flesh wash.

Moving on to this week's main submission we have Regiment Slangenburg which was an Infantry Regiment of the Dutch line in 1675. The colonel we one Fredrik Johan van Baer, Heer van Slangenburg, the unit appears in a number of sources where it is variously described as having white or grey tunics, with crimson linings. One source describes them wearing red tunics, although this was a common practice or officers and NCOs at the time and another source describes the drummer in a crimson tunic with orange pants and socks.

A completed battalion of the Regiment Slangenburg, there are 28 figures, with Musketeers on 4 x 4 figure bases and the pike & command on 6 x  figure bases. The flags are temporary, sourced from Warflag.com

I have interpreted these sources as shown below - light grey tunics with red cuffs and linings, officers and drummer in crimson and all with orange trimmings. I have given the musketeers a few black hats to break-up the informality and they also have a variety of grey shades for socks.

The unit's right flank, most figures are North Star's 1672 range,
with a couple of others thrown in to make-up numbers and add variety.

I'm planning to use Flags of War's glorious 28mm flags on this unit but an admin 'cock-up' o my part means that the order has been delayed, so I am presenting them here now with temporary flags downloaded from the excellent WarFlag.com site.

The unit's left flank

It's been a while since I dis a unit of Late 17th Century figures for my collection and I'd forgotten how many buttons these little guys have on them, Musketeers averaged 20 buttons each and the Pike & command figures averaged 16 buttons each - in all, by my calculation, 536 buttons on this one unit!

A nice view of the command block and the 'make do' flags from Warflag.com

I have the pike and command figures based on 2 figure bases 20 x 40mm, so that I can create a ring of pikes around the command figures. The command figures are on 2 man bases so that I can swap out command figures and use the unit in a number of scenarios on different sides of the various conflicts of that time.

Another view of the pike block

These last two pictures are of the musketeers, what's nice about this period is that there are literally very few sources for uniform details, so you can quite rightly interpret what little info there is to fit your table-top version of reality!

Musketeer's business end! Note all the buttons....

Dutch troops tended to have larger, floppier hats than other nations, but this was not a hard and fast rule, they were also influenced by French military fashions. In the ranks of these musketeers you can see a mix of the hat and uniform types

The other Musketeer wing.

I have also been doing a mounted officer to go with this unit but time has beaten me this week, hopefully I'll stay focused and finish this guy next week.

Next up are this week's batch of 13 x Orks & 11 x Grechin, all painted in the same basic manner as all the others as I work towards completion of this army.

This week's batch

First up is a boss figure, armed with power Axe and a Hand Blasta, this is a plastic figure sourced as most of the others from eBay.

Warboss

This batch of figures contained some old metal figures, including repurposed Gorka Morka Ork figure armed with a Big Burna, I particularly liked the head with goggles on this figure. With him is a more modern Plastic Guy with a Big Burna and backpack full of tools.

Old metal figure on left, newer plastic figure to right

Quick view of their respective back packs!

As ever, there are a number of basic Boys with Choppas and Hand Blastas, I've added smoke to a few of the Boyz power weapons for extra effect.

Four Boyz

In this batch we have four Boyz with Heavy Blastas

And four more...

The last two Ork figures are both plastic and represent a guy with a Rocket launcher and another with a Heavy Blasta support weapon, for even more Dakka.

Final two Orks

Rear views showing their backpacks with additional Ammo supplies

Then we come on to the Grechin, who run the show in this army. There are three old metal figures plus eight plastic, more modern figures. I have done these without armbands, just to ring the changes, but the cool metal Boss figure has a Red Star back banner and some of the grenades have red stars painted on them.

Thirteen Grechin figures, including three old metal figures and three converted figures,
remainder are all standard plastics.

Three older metal figures. Central is the Grechin Boss withAK47 derivative and a pistol, as a leader the has the red hair of rank. Either site is a standard, metal Gretchin figure.

So I also did a bit of kit-bashing to make up three unique Gretchin figures. First I used an old Grot plastic figure and converted him to carry a looted Imperial Guard Burna. Next I took a plastic Snotling and removed his wooden club and replaced it with a looted Imperial Guard LasRifle, finally I took a classic GW fantasy goblin from the 1980s, replaced his head with a spare modern head, removed his spear and replaced it with a hand blaster, added a grenade and bullets to his belt.

Most of the looted equipment for this Ork army is sourced from my Imperial Guard spares box, giving a consistent look and feel - implying previous battles against the Imperial Guard.

These are all converted figures, looted Burna left,
looted LasRifle centre and a converted vintage goblin on right

Finally this week, we have a small test group of 15mm 8th Army figures, I obviously plan to do a few more of these in the coming weeks, as I eliminate a backlog of several (will maybe 4) Flames of War packs I found in the loft. 

5 test 8th Army infantrymen

Four Riflemen and a guy with an Anti-Tank Rifle. Basically I was experimenting with approaches on how to paint these and in hindsight I should have photographed each option. I undercoated the figures in White, Buff or light yellow before washing with either Agrax Earthshade or Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint.

And another view

Close-up of the guy with the Anti-Tank Rifle

Flesh was then added and details painted in for rifles and webbing etc before washing with a ligh tbrown shade to bring it all together.

Current Position, planning on heading to Fantasy Lot next week

POINTS

Lady Sarah Bonus                                     20 Points

Lady Sarah Fare                                          5 Points

Casting Couch Bonus                                20 Points

Casting Couch Figure                                  5 Points

28 x 28mm Dutch Foot @ 5 Pts ea          140 Points

24 x 40 Orks & Grechin @ 5 Pts ea        120 Points 

5 x 15mm 8th Army Infantry @2 Pts ea   10 Points

TOTAL                                                     320 Points

SIDE DUEL POINTS

+2 Squirrel Points (15mm 8th Army, 28mm 17th Century Dutch)

From TeemuL: Worry not, there is lot of finished miniatures and lots of variety, Mike! :) It seems that you are going strong towards your target, and beyond. Regiment Slangenburg looks great with all their buttons, the dwarf looks great with all his ropes, too. I hope he has a good career and doesn't run into that survivor with nice trousers. Well done again, more orks next week?