From MikeW: 28mm Polish Dragoons & WoR, Emperor's Guard Space Marines plus other bits and pieces (206 Points)

Hopeflly I will not overload or wonderful minions but as we enter the last weekend of painting, I'll be putting posts into a 'Ready' status as and when I get a good batch of figures completed! Thank You Minions! 😀

Polish figures for my Siege of Vienna project

So today  have a group of Polish soldiers who would have been at the relief of the Siege of Vienna in 1683. There are two mounted figures, an light cavaltyman with a hand axe plus a drummer, who can be added into any suitable dragoon regiment as I but this together. Additionally we have a command base - again likely to be used as dismounted dragoons.

Dragoon Drummer

Dragoon Officer, armed with an axe!

 

These guys have the distinctive dragoon and infantry uniforms of some of my existing collection - red trousers with blue knee length jackets, often with red braiding on the chest. Figures were all undercoated in white and then painted in much the same way as most of the others I have described this challenge.

Dragoon command on foot, Officer, Standard and Musketeer

The flag is a generic Polish banner, of the period, taken from the internet.

Another view

Next up, I have a lonely Mexican Grenadier, waiting to join his comrades in my Alamo collection. I found this lonely soul, in my drawer the other day so decided to paint him up. 

A lonely Mexican Grenadier figure found at the bottom of my drawers,
now ready to join his comrades at the Alamo!

Front view!

Next a couple of 40K Space Marines, these are for my new Emperor's Guard Chapter that I have been toying with building an army for. A few months back, as an experiment, I asked the Chat GPT AI site to generate a Space Marines Chapter for me. This is what they came up with  (see here for more details).

I'm putting this down as a test figure,
not overly happy with the way the paint has finished on this guy

Saw earlier today that a recommended undercoat for purple is green!
Will need to give that a try!

So I have done a standard Marine plus his Terminator 'Big Brother' to accompany him

Happier with this big boy, note skull on base
but may come back to this to do some more detail and weathering

Also maybe need to do something with the power fist!

Now a cheeky one pointer for a piece of terrain, a Bretonnian brazier!

Smoking brazier...

My final work for this year's challenge is a group of 31 x Perry plastic War of the Roses 28mm figures, painted to represent part if the retinue of Sir Robert Whittington, in their distinctive green and white livery.

All 31 figures as they enter the battlefield

The group includes 9 x Archers, 5 x Crossbowmen, 8 x Handgunners and 9 x Men-at-Arms, Standard Bearer & Musician etc.

The 9 x Archers, most in livery jackets

Close-up of right of line

And close-up of the left of line

All were undercoated in an 'oatmeal' colour - exact colour is hard to determine as I used hobby paints for this job! I then drybrushed the figures white and concentrated on faces and hands to get a smooth white finish. Skin had GW Darkoath Flesh applied before being highlighted with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh. All metalwork was painted with GW Leadbelcher and then the livery jackets were painted in with white and green halves.

8 x Musketeers

Another close-up

And again

I added various colours to block in leggings, sleeves etc before using a cream colour to paint in padded jackets etc, these were washed with GW Agrax Earthshade for depth and shading.

5 x Crossbowmen

The crossbow arms on these guys came from an Oathmark figure pack, I think!

Armour was washed with Nuln Oil and all other materials were give an Agrax Earthshade wash before varnishing.

Command and Men-at-Arms

Musician and a couple of extra guys

Figures were all based in my usual manner  on old US 1 cent or European 2c coins which are the same size!

Three armoured Men-at-Arms

Sir Robert Whittington with his standard and another family member

So there it is hopefully enough work to get me over the 3,000 point level - something I didn't think I'd have time for this year. Thanks to all the minions and other participants for making this another great challenge and yet again Grahame H. outscores me, the man is a painting machine!

POINTS

2 x 28mm Polish Mounted @ 10 Points ea            20 Points

3 x 28mm Polish Command @ 5 Points ea             15 Points

1 x 28mm Mexican Grenadier                         5 Points

1 x Bretonnian Brazier                             1 Point

2 x Warhammer 40k Space Marines @ 5 Points ea     10 Points

31 x 28mm WoR Retinue Men @ 5 Points ea          155 Points

TOTAL                                            206 Points

+2 Squirrel (War of the Roses & Polish Dragoons)

+1 Skull

A great varied post from you, Mike, and also an impressive final (?) dash!. They are all great, the Polish cavalry, the Mexican, and the purple space marines (love how you used AI to get your backstory for those) but my favourites are the WotR figures. A nice collection, I love the livery and together they look very good. Your total output during the Challenge is frightening, you are quite the painitng machine yourself! It has been great to see your projects rolling along, and I am sure we will meet you again in Challenge XV!

Martijn