From BartekR: Charging Conquest knights beating the cut in Limbo (155 points)

Greetings all, and glad you can join me for my first post of this, AHPC XV, which is my third attempt at the Snowlord’s dance-through-hell-and-heaven obstacle course of paint and banter.

If this was a sports documentary, there would be some line in this about how I have something to prove. After a decent first outing (AHPC XIII), I aimed high and dropped low and hard in AHPC XIV. So, this year, I’m aiming for a relatively modest 750 points.

With a busy work year, I haven’t much time preparing and indeed planning miniatures. Frankly, with a pile of plastic sitting dormant since last Challenge (and some from the one before), I expect I will be  spending a *lot* of time in limbo. That said, I’m hoping to get a few new things out there – maybe have a swing at some of Dante’s circles, and get out at least one bespoke piece before we wrap up.

So, first up, to get me out of the doghouse of the 21 Jan cut off: Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings Hundred Kingdoms Household Knights. 

In AHPC XIII, I started painting my brother’s Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings Hundred Kingdoms army. Two years on, I’m still going (well, to be fair, my brother has to downsize his armies – so this is an older sibling helping out with pre-sale prep!).

What to say about these? 38mm knights on horses. The figures are large (see comparison with a GW chaos warrior). Since my brother bought his Conquest army secondhand, a number of them were already  block painted using Citadel contrast or similar. While this, I believe, qualifies as putting me in Limbo, these were a focus of a lot of touching up. 

The process

The 'touching up' mostly involved bringing minis into the red/turquoise theme of the army, with a fair bit of work on the red on the cloaks and caparison to gain more depth, and shining up the armour. As it was, the paint work was a dull metallic (heavily washed, probably Nuln Oil). Overall, very dull. Not a bad look but not what I imagined for a resplendent household knight cavalry on the charge. This was fixed by hitting them with metallics again, and then a brushed-on gloss varnish.

Admittedly harder to see in photo, but the difference between dull and touched-up and glossed metal

The new build figures - including the standard bearer - followed the same process. Without the original recipe for the paint work, here the the challenge with was getting a good colour match. Needless to say, Citadel Carroburg Crimson wash was relied on to get the red of the cloaks approximate.

And more horse butts

A last note on the rider with the pennant. The command element for this called for a musician, but there wasn't any option for one on the sprues I had. So, to distinguish the figure, I used an open helmet from an infantry set and added the pennant – metal foil from a wine bottle top!

Process wise the I rediscovered (yet again) that despite having a  generous work space, after a few days of working on the bench the inevitable spread of paint droppers/pots effectively corners me on a hand's width rump of desk space to work on, before I'm pushed off the table completely. Trying to be better about keeping this aspect of the painting process under control! 

The result 

Standard question when I finish painting: am happy with them? Given the Challenge and these prompted me to pick up a brush for the first time in a year, yes. Sure, given their generous scale I would love to be more precise and bring out more of the detail, but happy enough. They were an opportunity to use up more of my legacy Citadel paints (particularly washes), having bought a set of the Army Painter Fanatic range - which i'm quite happy with. One aspect I am keen to try out is a new matt varnish - the brushed-on Vallejo matt (on the cloaks etc) was far too satin for my liking (despite vigorous mixing/shaking) so I will be keen to try out some AK Interactive Ultra Matt when it arrives.

The points

With Monday Minion Millsy's agreement, I have scored these as for 40mm:

9 x 40mm cavalry @15 pts each: 135 pts

Limbo bonus: 20 pts

Total: 155 pts

  ...in the background

Probably like most, music or audiobooks accompany my painting. Through he painting of these I was listening to the Joe Abercrombie First Law trilogy audiobooks, which I highly recommend - English actor Steven Pacey's narration is top notch.

From Millsy:

Lovely brushwork on the knights Bartek! I really like your colour choices and the basing sets them off very nicely indeed.

Great to hear that the Challenge motivated you to pick the brush up again, it's a wonderful motivator and hopefully the enthusiasm will persist beyond the end of March.

155 points to kick start your Challenge!

Cheers,

Millsy