Its all Quiet for Friday Minion

Friday Minion, reporting for duty!

Friday Crew are either waiting for the big push, or went over the top last week, they've nothing for us yet in this week's queued up posts.

Hopefully we'll be able to send out a small trench raid overnight to find some Blog fodder for you all. I'll be here taking my Minion watch, and a little extra time to work on my own entries. 

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.

From AndrewB: Wars of Religion and Superhero!(Superhero)(65pts)

Two posts this week!  I’ve been struggling to find a super hero model to paint up, as I’m not the biggest super hero fan, be it in comics, movies, or TV.  Knowing Superhero movies come out pretty frequently, I figured I would check what movies are coming out soon, assuming I could at least find a super heros alter ego to put on the table.  Let me tell you, I was happy with what I found!  Ordinarily, super heros  seem to be pretty normal if not above average folks who find themselves exposed to something, bitten by a special animal, or able to take some sort of medicine that makes them positively extraordinary!  Lo and behold, I discovered the harrowing tale of a wonderful being thrust into extraordinary circumstances with the discovery of a magical serum!

COCAINE BEAR! 

I know most bears have black noses, but his has really put in some mileage recently!  This is a fun reaper fig, which is positively large and a delight to paint!  

Additionally, I completed some fun Figures from Battle Valor, for an unknown ‘Wars of Religion’ game.  Bless anyone who expected this to be some sort of serious game regarding history, we’re going with religious figures packing heat!

I really enjoy the guys I’ve painted up like Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition, and probably need to find some sort of plane for the one gentleman to pilot, although an armored car of some sort may fit as well.  As for the other five- I’m not sure if the Dominican orders have an annual conference, but if they do, this is certainly the American delegation, with Tommy guns at the ready!   

One last photo for a group picture, showing how big our forest-dwelling Scarface is!

As for points, I’ve counted nine 28mm figures, and the ‘Superhero’ room to 65 total, which also leaves me ready to take on the director’s chair, with every other studio completed!   I’m excited to see what’s coming my way!

From TeemuL: Well, Andrew... I think I know what you are trying here. The regular bear gets something and transforms into super-bear. I believe this rampaging bear is more like a super-anti-hero or suoer-arch-enemy (I'm sure there will be sequels), at least from human point of view. If Hulk counts as a superhero, then I'll count Cocaine Bear as one, too. No matter what pretty Spanish Inquisition says! Btw, all these might be useful in Silver Bayonette?

From PeterD 28mm Picts (70 points)

 

Aberlemno Stones

I have a unit of 12 Pictish spearmen this week.  Most of the figures are from the Gripping Beast plastics Pict box set.  There are two metal GB command figures and some a bits from the Victrix Late Roman Infantry kit.  The GBP picts use the same torsos was the GBP Irish (and the Welsh although I've not seen these in the flesh) with appropriately Pictish heads and odd shaped shields.

The metal horn blower is a bit of an awkward pose.  I added a shield slung on his back but I am happy that he's a back ranker.

As I've talked about before, the Picts are a rather shadowy people from beyond the outer fringes of civilization. They've left no written record, we don't know what language they spoke or if they ever had a  written language.  Most of what they left us is enigmatic rock carvings.  But these carving give us a decent idea of what their warriors looked like, as shown above.  I love these carved images, there is some meat to go on but also a lot of mystery.  they are look very Tolkienesque.

The wargaming convention tends to give the Picts spearmen, reasonable light cavalry and archers (some with crossbows).  This gives an army with a different flavour than their contemporary Scots-Irish and Saxon allies and/or foes.

Unlike Ray, I like my unit labels to stand out from my bases.  The Blue background will differentiate Picts from Green Scots/Irish and White Romans.

I've kept up with giving my units a unified shield base colour, red oxide in this case with white Pictish or Celtic squiggles.  I've decided to name my Picts units with tribal labels based on animals, in the case the Deer people.  This follows on the tribal names used by the Epidii in Rosemary Sutcliffe's Eagle of the Ninth.

The flag and shields are hand painted. the flag is not my best one, but I am out of practice and it looks good enough for the table top.  I'm not all that happy with the plaids but they look ok when squinted at from a distance.

From TeemuL: The miniatures are not exact copies from the carvings, but close enough. They do look much better in colour, lots of colours, in fact. Labeling the bases in highly visible has advantages regarding gameplay, but might break the immersion. One of the balances we all seek and find in different places.

Edit: I'll give you 10 points for the shields and banners.

From LeeH: The Duke of Norfolks Battle at Bosworth (119 points)

The first half of this week's entry missed the posting deadline last week by just a few hours. I hadn’t quite sorted the flags out and didn’t want to rush the job, so I reluctantly decided to delay posting by a week. On the plus side, it means you get a double helping of 6mm War of the Roses this week!

With Richard II’s independent command of mounted knights completed it's now time to move on to the main fighting contingent of his army. Sir John Howard, the Duke of Norfolk commanded the Vanguard and was in the thick of the fighting right up until he was killed. The loss of the commander would probably have been fatal in armies with better command and control, but in the press of men, how many would realise their leader had fallen? As with other commanders I have based the Duke of Norfolk on his own base with a Standard Bearer. He also brings some foot knights/Men at Arms and Archers to the fight clad in his livery.

Accompanying the Duke in this week's submission is his son, Sir Thomas Howard, the Earl of Surrey. He commands a company of Retinue/Billmen and a company of Archers. Thomas was wounded at Bosworth and imprisoned in the Tower of London for three years. However, he was released in 1489, and his title of Earl of Surrey was restored. He appears to have been loyal to Henry VII and in 1487 was sent north to put down a rebellion in Yorkshire. He remained Henry's lieutenant until 1489 when he accompanied the king to France. In 1501 he was made Lord High Treasurer, effectively entering Henry’s inner circle. He remained loyal to Henry’s son, Henry VIII, and enjoyed significant military success in the king's service in Scotland well into what would be considered extreme old age by the standards of the day.

After falling a little behind last week, this week I have caught up and got quite a bit done. So today I have the infantry of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Zouch, plus three artillery bases and two hand gunner companies. So the next set of troops belongs to Sir George Talbot, the Eldest son of John Talbot, 3rd of Shrewsbury. He was Knight of the Bath to Richard III and fight with him at Bosworth, where he was captured. However, he must have been able to retain favor and switched sides as he fought with Henry VII at the Battle of Stoke Field two years later.

Sir John de la Zouch, Lord Zouch was a Yorkist nobleman and politician loyal to Richard III, under whose command he fought at the Battle of Bosworth. He had grown in political power under Richard, mainly because his family's influence in Northamptonshire was of value to the King. Defeat at Bosworth resulted in him suffering attainder and forfeiture of his property, but he was eventually restored to royal favor in the Tudor court, due partly to a marriage connection to the new King's mother.

There are three Artillery pieces. These were typically companies - mercenaries in effect - who were paid to ply their expertise for one side or another. 

Lastly, I have two small skirmish companies of Handgunners. Again these are dangerous weapons, relatively new to the battlefield and, at close range, quite deadly. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice there are fewer figures on these bases than the hand gunners I did for the Lancastrians. There’s no cunning research behind this, I just didn’t have enough figures to put 8 on a base as before! That being said, the Test of Resolve rules are figure agnostic, so a bit of variation is fine so long as the bases remain the same size.

That's a big chunk of the Yorkist army completed and next week I will start on the troops commanded by Sir Robert Brackenbury. 

Points Estimate

Norfolk Command Stand - 2x6mm Mounted = 2 points

Norfolks Men-at-arms & Archers - 48x6mm Infantry = 24 points

Howards Retinue/Billmen & Archers - 48x6mm Infantry = 24 Points

Earl of Shrewsbury’s Retinue/Billmen & Archers - 48x6mm Infantry = 24 points

Lord Zouch’s Retinue/Billmen & Archers - 48x6mm Infantry = 24 Points

3 Artillery Pieces and 12 crew = 9 Points

Two Small companies of Handgunners - 24 Infantry = 12 Points

Total = 119 Points

From TeemuL: Lots of stuff this week, Lee, although from two weeks. This army is getting into shape, looking good!