From MattW: Sarah Limousine, unfinished business Roman Aux Cavalry, Roman Aux Infantry (215 points)

Unfinished Business 

First off this week a little ride in Sarah’s limousine, from too

As payment for the luxury,  a female miniature from the Warlord Dr Who Range, “ River Song, The impossible Astronaut”. I am quite happy with my denim result, the figure sort of looks like the character but is a little flat in the resin casting. 

River Song, the Impossible Astronaut

I arrive by luxury  limousine to offer my “Under Construction” SHQ Dutch 20mm Marines, these chaps were commenced before I went on holidays in November/December  have been awaiting highlighting and basing ever since. I did not finish the support company off as planned, so it will miss the cut off for today, so more under construction to do before they can be based….! 

Dutch Marines 20mm SHQ

WIP heavy weapons for my Dutch marines

Next up a Ala of Roman cavalry from the Foundry Range, I really love these miniatures and I think they are still the best imperial Roman’s available. 

Finally a unit of Auxiliary infantry, again Foundry Miniatures with Warlord Command, and First Corps miniatures.  

Roman Auxiliary III Augusta Thracium

Final points tally 

Lady Sarah limousine  ride                                     20 points 

28mm Dr Who miniature                                          5 points

Under Construction                                                 20 points

Roman Auxiliary Cavalry                                        80 points

Roman Auxiliary infantry                                        90 points

Total                                                                       215 points

(Side duel Roman 170 points)

Cheers

Matt

Wow! What an entry - Dr Who, Dutch marines (hmmm - given that almost all of the Netherlands is below sea level, doesn't that imply that all Dutch soldiers are marines?) and Romans. What's not to love about this post?

Tamsin

From Richard P - WSS Bavarian Boismorel Grenadiers (90 Points)

Ok i'm finally off and running! After a recent family illness and subsequent bereavement which has seen me travelling backwards and forwards to the Isle of Wight I managed to finish off my first submission to this years event. I had planned to get a lot more done by the end of the first month of the project but alas real life decided that was not to be. Hopefully now things are beginning to settle down I will be able to get back on track.

So first up is a unit of 18 Front Rank miniatures painted up to represent the Boismorel Grenadiers at the Schellenberg. The plan with this project is to create units that can represent Battalions for big battles using Beneath the Lily Banners rules but at the same time allow the figures to be used for a Sharp Practice campaign so I decided that I would have units of 18 figures each consisting of 16 foot (2 x 8 figure units for SP2) plus 2 figures that can be used as leaders for Sharp Practice. The only thing I have yet to sort out are the Standard Bearers as in SP2 they don't really feature but it would be nice to add a flag or two to each Battalion when they are being used for Beneath the Lily Banners. 

After a bit of experimentation to try and replicate the coat colour in the image below I eventually settled on a Black Red (VMC) base highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Black Red and Gory Red (GC) and finishing with a final highlight of Gory Red. I am quite pleased with the finished result. 

18 x 28mm Figures = 90 Points 

In before the cut! And with such glorious grenadiers - I'd say that you've managed a very close match to that red. 90 points sees you comfortably onto the leaderboard!

Tamsin

From Curt: Kushite Warriors (and 'pets') for World Cinema (60 Points)

Our 'World Cinema' location asks for something that is 'elsewhere from where you live'. Well, as I look at our snow covered environs I can think of nothing more 'elsewhere' than a bunch of half-naked desert dwellers, a lion, and a passel of African baboons capering around Egypt.

Lady Sarah on the pier overlooking Regina's (frozen) Wascana Lake.

Yep, here we have a group of fierce Kushite warriors, along with their even fiercer house pets. I saw these on the Footsore Miniature website and had to get a set. 

I understand that the warriors of Kush would wear animal hides and paint their bodies with vermillion and white ash - now, really, how much more fashion-forward can you get? Seriously though, I quite like the high-contrast effect of the white alongside the red. I think I may need more of these...

I don't know how the whole half-starved-lion-on-a-leash-thing worked, but I have a hunch that it probably resulted in a lot of OH&S paperwork from partially eaten handlers. 

Apparently the Kushites used baboons like guard dogs. Recalling my recent viewing of 'Planet of the Apes', I'm thinking, 'What could possibly go wrong?'  For a bit more colour, I decided to do these three up as Mandrills with their distinctive red and blue faces (though they are on the wrong side of Africa to be entirely correct, but let's not get hung up on specifics). 

These four Kushite warriors, three baboons and a lion should give me a base of 40 points, plus another 20 for the 'World Cinema' studio. That gives me my four Green locations, allowing me to enter the Blue Security Zone. Hmm, lots of choices ahead!

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks again to Tamsin for letting me sneak in with her Tuesday Terrors. 

Have a great rest of the week!

- Curt

Hurrah! I get to minion my first Showlord post today! I must confess that from my first glance at the first photo I thought he might have sneaked in a fantasy were-lion figure, but quickly realised that it was a chap wearing a lion skin (and head) outfit. Gorgeous work as always, boss! As for the mandrills on the wrong side of the continent, perhaps the Kushites had just painted the baboons' face red and blue?

Tamsin

ps you forgot to add the "world cinema" label, so I did that for you.

From IanS: 6mm Napoleonic Russians (288pts)

 

So this week the emphasis has been on the Napoleonic Russian 6mm army.

All these figures go towards the 10th Infantry Division of Sackens Corps at the battle of Leipzig.  this Division consisted to three Brigades,  two of Line Infantry and one of Jager, totalling 8 Battalions.

I have struggled with these figures for a number of reasons:

I did not like how I painted the Jager's and had to redo them.  The other main reason is that the flags are not coming out how I would like then, so I an toying with the idea of printing out flags and finding a way to secure them to the figures.

 

But here goes:

Belozersk Infantry Regiment of 2 Battalion, this with the previously posted Crimea Regiment gives a 3 battalion Brigade.

 

 

 

 

Next up is the Jager Brigade of this division of three Battalions made up of the 8^th and 39^th Jager regiments.

 

 

 

Finally its one of the two battalions of the Yaroslav regiment, form the last brigade.

Hopefully next post will have the final battalion for this division, plus its Commanders, Skirmish formations and attached Artillery Battery.

 

 

So the points I would like to submit are as follows:

 

3 Infantry Battalions – 288 6mm figures at 0.5pts per figure = 144pts

3 Jager Battalions - 288 6mm figures at 0.5pts per figure = 144pts

 

Total 288pts

 

Does any of this get me a squirrel?

That's certainly a good show of the massed ranks effect that 6mm allows. It's just a shame that the lighting in the photos means that we can't see them in all their painted glory.

As far as squirrels go, if you haven't already submitted 6mm Russian Naps then this lot will count for one.

Tamsin

From BenitoV: Late Roman Levy Unit (60 points)

In the nick of time, I could finish on Monday evening my next unit for Saga: a bunch of conscripted levies for a Late Roman Warband (in progress).

 

I wanted to paint a unit  dressed with some uniformity but not too much. Facing different options, I finally discarded  the Gripping Beast's "official" Late Roman Infantry box and instead I used bodies and javelin arms from the Dark Age Warriors box, and spare heads with helmets from other boxes (Goth Cavalry, Saxon Thengs, etc)

 

Some of the unit members wear a the Late Roman army tunic (greyish white with red ornaments) but others had to use their own clothes (either because of running out of Roman tunic stocks or being only lately "recruited").

 

The shields are Little Big Men transfers. I opted to give the unit a common theme as a way to increase the appearance of semi-regular troops.        

This unit is another example of the flexibility and optionality offered by the Gripping Beast Dark Age plastic boxes.

This unit has 12 minis in 28mm, representing 60 points to be added to my Challenge score.  

I also score 1 point for the Squirrel Duel

Excellent work as always, Benito! Good idea to mix and match bits from different box sets to get a non-uniform look.

Tamsin

From SanderS: Vorwärts Ostländer! (30 points)

 Hoi,

When planning this year's Challenge I decided to paint two kinds of figures: figures I am painting for others (as part of a commission) and stuff I really liked doing or felt like painting. So no complete armies or projects or the like. A true free for all in as much as takes my fashion. Arthur and myself have been playing a lot of Mordheim lately as it's really quick, has a brilliant atmosphere and a very good campaign system. So I dug up some of my old unpainted Mordheim figures, to whit a 6 man Ostlander warband. Now I obtained these as part of a larger lot for a very reasonable price and I remember thinking how lucky I was to get these figures for such a bargain back then. Upon prepping them for painting, I had a better look at them and got the distinct idea these are actually recasts. They are pretty 2 dimensional and look as if the mould halfs weren't aligned properly. 

The bases are done with a Greenstuff world roller to get the stone look done with some grey stuff modelling putty.

 

The green I used was a present from Arthur and is Son's of Horus green (or whatever GW has decided to call it. 

At the moment I am playing a Dwarf Treasure Hunter Warband and am making several other ones so am not altogether sure whether I will be using this Ostlander band myself, but I do like to have options.

Mordheim has a special place in my heart as a gamer as I played many a game way back in the day it was just released and am now mightily enjoying it with the Lad. I would love to have a Sisters of Sigmar warband, but they sell for insane prices at the moment and so I will be content with the others I still have lying around in various stages of completness. More Mordheim is therefore sure to follow here.

These 6 miniatures will gain me another 30 points.

Cheers Sander

Nice looking bunch of Mordheim figures, Sander!

Tamsin

From SimonG: Imperial Might - 20 28mm Roman Legionaries (100 points)

Phew, now I know why I don't do Napoleonics! Batch painting large numbers of uniform soldiers is quite a chore. However for my Jewish Wars project I do have to field some Roman Legionaries so my first off studio submission is a batch of 20 Victrix early Imperial legionaries -- from the Legionaries Attacking set.

These are very fine sculpts -- easy to put together and with clean detail to paint. Almost too much detail (all of those buckles and ties!) but I think they were ultimately worth the effort.  Those deep set eyes within the Galea had me digging out my rarely used ten zero brush!  Suffice it to say I've only given close ups on the best results, for mass troops I'm not going back over and correcting stuff that only shows on close up 🤪 !  I also enjoyed adding a modicum of dust to suit fighting in the middle east.

The shields are LBMS -- actually I've only attached shields to 10 of the 20 as I've got some 1st Corps Cornered Scutum on order as I'm not sure that the classic curved profile rectangular shaped shield was actually used in the Jewish wars.  I'll have to hand paint these shields and I'll repost as soon as I have this done.  Still without shields you can see some more of the detail on the figures.

Finally I do hate having to do sandals, quite time consuming but at least you get the chance to add toe nails!  Just don't count how many there are on every foot 😏

This focus stacked shot is actually quite amusing as it creates the impression of motion among the group!

And here is a shot of the lots together so you can see some more details on the basing (another PITA when you are doing large numbers of single figures) -- it's a Geek gaming mix with added tufts and rocks.

Points wise this is a simple 20 28mm figures for 100 and continues my total marching along.  Next week it's back on the Studio lot with a sample of global ghoulies for World Cinema!

Those Roman legionaries look fab, Simon! 100 points whizzing your way!

Tamsin