From MikeW: More, more more! Dark Ages, Landscknects and 40k Orks (397 Points)

More,  More, More (How do you like it?) sang Andrea True Connection back in 1976, well I'm afrid this week's hurried posting is a repeat of many of my previous weeks with More, more more! Dark Ages, Landsknechts and 40k Orks!

Carrying the big axe

But first off we take another trip on Lady Sarah's Limo to travel from the Fantasy Studios to the Superheroes Studio, this week's fare is another Warlord Games 28mm Female Survivor, this time a motherly figure wielding a rather effective looking axe.

And from another perspective...

The visit to the Superhero Studio now makes it 5 Green and three Blue studios, need to check what I need to visit 'The Director Chair'!

The Superhero figure that I present is that of Captain Scarlett, maybe not so well known in America and the New World but certainly a mainstay of British and many Commonwealth countries in the 60s, 70s & 80s.

Captain Scarlett of to battle the Mysterons

What's his superpower? Well he's indestructible for a start and all the TV episodes were filmed in SuperMarionation, which has to sound pretty cool, find out more <here>. This is a 20mm figure, with Scarlett in his classic Spectre Uniform, I have other figures that I may well look to dig out and paint up as his comrades in arms - Captain Blue, Lieutenant. Green etc.

Series Publicity Poster

They had some pretty cool vehicles as well and I have a couple, somewhere, in Warhammer Epic Scale that I need to dig out and paint!

Back view

So now on to the main subjects of this post. You'll likely be pleased to know that this is the last of my multi figure 40k Ork batches, I certainly am! It gets quite guelling painting so much green & red. Pretty much all of the figures are now done - just a couple of vehicles and a couple of special one-off figures that I hope to get around to in the next few weeks.

This week's 'final' Ork batch

This week there are just 9 x 40k Orks & Grechin, all produced in the same style as I have done since the beginning of this year's challenge. The first two are a couple of additional Grechin Herders, though anyone who has been following the development of this army will be aware that in this army it is the Grechin who are the brains and the Orks the muscle - in this case the Grechin Herders should be thought of as Grechin Minders or Bodyguards

Two Grechin Minders, guy on the right has the
Hyperaemic gun taken from the Pain Boy below.

Next up are two Bosses, one with a pet Squig on his backpole, the other with a Rising Sunz motif

Left A Boss with a pet Squiq, note skull on left shoulder.
To the right is anther Boss with a huge Blasta / Burna Combi Weapon

Another two Bosses, with assorted weaponry

I did a coupe of conversions in this batch, I really didn't want duplicate Grechin Herders - so converted his fella into a Boss with a diabolical prosthetic hand (taken form the Pain Boy model). I added a large Fantasy Goblin head to this figure - to make him appear to be a 'young' Ork that has just stepped up to the Boss role.

The second conversation is that of the Pain Boy, again I wanted to have a different looking second Pain Boy in the Army. Obviously his hand has already been cut off to do the first conversion, so I scoured the bits box and found some ancient 1980s parts for an old Rogue Trader Robots and found a pincer arm from an Ork Killa Can plus a power fist and an other limb.

A converted Grechin Herder, now given a new left arm and a Hand Blaster,
whilst his other hand has been replaced by 'Orky Scissor Hands'!!

Last Grechin in the box plus the new Pain Boy,
 complete with power fist, claw arm and a hydraulic crane.

The power fist nicely replaced the donated arm, I cut off the figure's left arm (a Hyperaemic Gun, which was donated to a Minder seen above)  and replaced this with the claw arm and then fitted the other limb to the Ork's back, so it can be used as a Hydraulic crane or similar - in doing this the Grechin on the Orks back, now uses a hand pump to activate the Hydraulic arm.

Next up we have a mix of Landsknecht foot, 23 in all with 6 x Pikemen, 6 x Crossbow and 11 x Handgunners. All have been painted in the same way as I have described in earlier posts and so I will not repeat again here. I have, however, been experimenting more with Army Paints' Speed Paint and I have used this on a number of figures in this group.

Latest batch of Landscknects, Pikemen, Crossbow men and Handgunners

Focus on the 11 x Handgunners 

And with the rear ran moved forwards for a better view

I have had mixed results with these - some are good, really good, but others have left me cold and so I will not use much more. I see a lot of value in the browns and greens that are available - it would be great to find a speed paint that can be used to paint musket woodwork !

Six Pikemen, the start of a second Landsknecht Pike Block for my collection.

And a front on view.

The Pikemen and Handgunners were pretty much straight out of the Box. To make up a group of six crossbow men, I have had to do a few conversions, taking parts fror the Wargames Atlantic Conquistador set to mash-up with Warlord Games parts to get the figures I wanted.

Focus on Crossbow men, center is a Captain, armed with sword in his right hand and crossbow in his left hand. Right is a musician, blowing trumpet and again crossbow slung on his back. Trumpet arm is from Perry Miniatures War of The Roses Infantry set.

Another view of the crossbowmen

Last but not least are this week's Dark Ages figures, a mix of Normans, Vikings and Anglo-Danes / Saxons. These are almost entirely metal figures and of these I think the majority are Gripping Beast.

This week's group of mostly metal Gripping Beast Dark Ages types

Again these figures will be pressed into the shield walls of my forthcoming 1066 mini campaign.

At time of the photo being taken,
I thought that this was all the Norman types ... 

I opted to paint most of the shields on this group as I struggled to get any transfers to fit the slightly odd shaped shields properly. As these completed figures will be distributed between the existing armies they'll fit in fine.

Rear Rank has moved forwards to get a view of them

Mostly Vikings & Anglo Danes / Saxons.
But as can be seen here, there were a couple of Norman types
that didn't make the original photo shoot. 

Rear ranks move through again, note the casualty marker in the front

Another view, pretty sure all above figures are Gripping Beast

Just behind the casualty marker can be seen
a single plastic Victrix Anglo Dane Huscarl

Three mounted metal Norman figures, left a knight, centre I have made -up to be a Standard Bearer - carrying William's Personal Banner and right is what I seem to remember as being an old Citadel figure, that I have painted up to be Bishop Odo - William's Brother

View from the other side

Finally sorry about the quality of some of the photos, I ran out of time this week and was snapping many of these after dark with eth flash on, always makes the colours much brighter and the photo starker in my opinion, will try and do better next week.

POINTS

1 x 28mm Female Survivor @ 5pts                                    5 Points

1 x 20 mm Captain Scarlett @4Pts                                     4 Points

Lady Sarah Bonus                                                              20 points

Superheroes Bonus                                                             20 points

9 x 40k Orks  @5 Pts                                                        45 Points

23 x 28mm Landsknechts @ 5Pts                                    115 Points

31 x 28mm Dark Age Infantry @ 5Pts                            155 Points

1 x 28mm Prone Dark Age Infantry @ 2 Pts                      2 Points

3 x 28mm Dark Age Mounted Troops  @ 10 Pts              30 Points

TOTAL                                                                               397 Points

SIDE DUELS

Skulls                                 +1 Point

Codpiece & Feathers        +115 Points

From TeemuL: Lots of usual quantity and quality from Mike! The axewoman looks awesome, wouldn't want to meet her. I haven't tried the Speed Paints, but my experience from GW Contrasts is that there some good stuff and some not so good. And of course some are more useful than others, depending on the project of course.