From MikeW - 20mm WW2 Infantry, Orcs, Tau and 28mm Wild West. Squirrel, Skulls (217 Points)

 I open this weeks post with a tilt at the Local History Bonus in the Competition Library! I present a group of 16 x 20mm WW2 British Infantry, namely men of the Royal Sussex Regiment who fought in North Africa, Italy and Greece during the later stages of the war. I have spent most of my life living in Sussex, England and thus my claim to this being local history...

16 x 20mm WW2 British Infantry, North Africa / Southern Europe Theater

Close-up of these guys from the left, the bases were painted with Brown PVA gloop and fine sand added before a few strategic tufts.

The figures have been kicking around my loft, garage and workbench for a number for years. Believe they originally came from eBay but I can't actually remember, as such I can't identify the manufacturer either. So I undercoated these guys in white and then blocked in the main colours with a series of khakis (trousers, jackets and shirts), tans (webbing etc), greens (shirts, helmets and boxes) and the like. Guns were painted in with GW 'Leadbelcher' and wood was GW 'Gore Grunter Fur'.

And from the right. The officer on extreme right has a 'Tommy Gun', as do the NCOs. This reflects the close fighting in and around Monte Casino.

I've brought the rear rank forward here to give them a better view. Second left there is a guy carrying an Ammo case, fourth left is a Bren Gunner, carrying his weapon

Flesh was GW 'Darkoath Flesh' then highlighted with Army Painter Flesh colour. I applied a wash of GW 'Agrax Earthshade' to the whole figure and then gave the dried figures a light dry brushing of light Khaki before adding in red shoulder titles and chevrons in red and green respectively.

A view of the rear rank guys from the right

I based the figures to reflect arid conditions you might expect in North Africa, Italy or Greece, in my minds eye, I was focusing on the Monte Casino battle, where the Royal Sussex served, an action that has always caught my imagination. Maybe I'll now look to find some Germans to act as defenders....

And from the left, the figures are mounted on single 20mm MDF bases. Can yo spot the guy with a broken bayonet, darn thing snapped off as I was varnishing the figures!

Close up of a few of the little guys, daylight here in UK for such photos is terrible at present, we need some sunshine and I need a better camera and photography skills!

The next item is a bit of a filler, a 28mm Wild West figure that I found with the above WW2 infantry. So I painted him up at the same time! I'll pass him and a couple other figures I have to a club colleague - to join his huge Wild West collection.

I believe that this is an old Wargames Foundry figure,
a townsfolk character armed with a pistol 

A fairly straight forward paint job on this guy, white undercoat, black boots, jacket and bowler hat. Brown trousers and flesh & hair as appropriate. I dry brushed the figure with a light khaki to give some highlighting to the brown trousers and black jacket and hat. Then a flesh wash to hands and face to add details.

What can't quite be seen in the pictures is that he is holding a cigar in his left hand

On the Tau front, I have concentrated on a large Tau mech this week, plus a handful of Warriors, a Drone and what I think is a Communications Relay or Defensive Shield Device. Again apologies to my minion but I have classed this as a terrain piece and am just claiming 1 point for it - I'm not sure if there is any other example of this item in previous challenges!

This Tau tech is a big model,
a suitable commander for my growing Tau army.

This Coldstar Battlesuit was sourced from eBay and has
three major weapons systems plus a defensive shield

Another angle on the finished model

Not sure what happened to the colour on this photo!

And a final rear view of the Coldstar Battlesuit

The rest of this week's Tau batch.

On reflection I'm pretty sure the device on the right is a Defensive Force field generator - I am working on a second one for next week. 

The center piece this week is a Commander in a Coldstar Battlesuit, I have assigned this 10 Points but this guys is bigger than the Crisis Suit techs I did the other week at the same points. Again I'll leave this to my minion to adjudicate!

The range of model sizes in my growing Tau army!
From Left: The new Coldstar Battlesuit, next the Crisis Battlesuit,
second right the Stealth Suit and extreme left a regular Tau Warrior (28mm Model).

You will see on the Commander's base there are two terrain items that I painted up , I'm claiming 1 point each for these, hope this is OK.

Two GW alien plant forms,waiting to be
added on to the Commander base !

Now for more Orcs! This week I have completed a regiment of 18 x Orc Archers, including a musician and a standard bearer. I have shared the recipe for these guys in earlier posts in this year's challenge and these are no different.

A completed group of 18 x Arra Boyz!

From a Skulls Duel point of view these have 6 Skulls to add to the ongoing tally!

As usual I have split the batch into smaller 'bite' sizes!

Five more Orcs...

I set batch painting process of most of my models, leaving character or commander figures to be done separately, usually with a little more detail.

A case in point, I spent a little more time on the standard bearer,
with this hand painted Orc Rag....

Other than that these are all pretty standard fare.

Finally a cheeky Late 17th Century dismounted Dragoon. Truth be told  I started painting this guy for my Local History topic, the Royal Sussex being known as the "Old Oranges' due to their facing colours.

Close-up of the Dragoon figure

Trouble was, that I didn't realise that this was a Dragoon figure until I began getting painting process and was preparing to paint his trousers, socks and shoes. Imagine my surprise when I realised he was wearing riding boots! My eyes aren't what they used to be...

In my defence, I wasn't wearing my glasses when I digged out this figure to paint. In the past I have converted spare Dragoon figures into regular infantry men, however, this is not appropriate with half painted figures.... 

Anyway, a white undercoat, base colours applied and use of washes and highlights gave this somewhat pleasing result that will join some other Donnybrook compatible figures!

Next week I'm doing the last of my outstanding Orcs but after that there is only a few more Swamp Goblin Herders and more of their Frogs! Of course there are more Orcs on order from eBay! Also a small batch of Bretonnian Archers and some Lizardmen to come.

POINTS

16 x 20mm WW2 Infantry @ 4 Points ea                   76 Points 64 points

1 x Local History Bonus                                               20 Points

1 x 28mm Wild West Figure                                          5 Points

1 x 28mm Late 17th Century English Dragoon           5 Points

1 x Tau Tech Coldstar Comander @ 10 Points           10 Points

4 x Tau Warriors @ 5 Points ea                                    20 Points          

3 x Tau Terrain Pieces @ 1point                                      3 Points

18 x Orc Archers @ 5 Points ea                                    90 Points

TOTAL                                                                         217 points

+6 Skulls

+1 Squirrel (20mm WW2 British)

 

Sylvain: Very impressive submission this week, equally in terms of quantity, quality and "squirrelness". You WW2 soldiers really look disgruntled, ready to fight another day, and the bases give all the hints we need to figure out where they might be fighting. Your Taus, which you have been showing us in the last few weeks, this time  bring in the big units. Very well done. And your orcs are the classic fantasy units that everyone need in their army. A good week for you and the Monday Crew!

P.S. I made a small correction to your points tally. My calculator tells me that 16 x 4 = 64.