From GregB - "Epic" Imperialist 30 YW Cavalry (60 points)

Imperialist cavalry from Warlord Games' "Epic" Pike & Shotte range.

My second submission for this week returns to my nascent 30 Years War project. This is a regiment of Imperialist Cavalry. The figures are all from Warlord Games "Epic" Pike & Shotte figure range.

Caracole, anyone? Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon!

Warlord Games has a way of taking a great idea, and only executing on 3/4 of it - but even when they stumble, they often keep pushing through and improving. And I see the Pike & Shotte "Epic" range very much through this lens - of all their various "Epic" efforts, the Pike & Shotte stuff is, IMO, far and away the very best, and the cavalry frames really deliver.

Close up of the command base...

When you get a calvary box, you get three frames that contain multitudes, everything from the "horse" to dragoons (mounted and dismounted), to a few cuirassiers, as well as some commanded shot, an officer/ensign and two different types of artillery! Three frames of that is pretty great, as far as I'm concerned...

Another close up showing various bits of armour, swords, and a couple of awesome pistols!

Cavalry for the 30 Years War period is fascinating. I love the huge honkin' cavalry "pistols" these guys carried, and am intrigued by the idea of these units who ride up, and try to shoot the pike blocks enough to rattle them before charging in. I love the mix of armoured bits, swords, sashes and - of course - pistols galore!

Some jaunty feathers on some of the caps! Although the other chaps have helmets...

The banner is from the handy sheet that comes with the box...it is, supposedly, an Imperialist banner, but...well, I'm just going to go with that, as I still don't know a lot about the flags from this era. 

You can see a few "fusils"/muskets in addition to the pistols - so much shooting!

These guys were a lot of fun to paint, and I hope to add another couple of cavalry units to my budding Imperialist forces before this edition of the AHPC concludes!

Deployed in line, ready to advance!

For scoring purposes we have 15 x 15mm (well, 12.5mm, but whatever) cavalry figures, which should count for 60 points! Another relatively slow week, but more progress is progress! Thanks for reading, and I hope to have some more to share next week! 

------------

You've done another lovely job with these tiny Trotters Greg!

Hoping to see more of this project as the Challenge progresses :-)

-Paul

David B- Eldar in Limbo (105points)

When I looked for something for Limbo, I had many choices. I am sure all of us have many projects good for this one. I have the above ranger from a past challenge and a Swooping Hawk Exarch, to clue you in on which project I revisited. The Exarch is still in the original colours from the original paint I placed on him and the others from the early 90's. I purchased all my exarchs and a variety of aspect warriors from a sale advert included with white dwarf when they first hit, so these are all first run prints of classic Goodwin molds that elevated the Eldar from being spicy pirates.The turquoise is the same GW Hawk turquoise from that time although that pot has long since dried out...some of those paints are still good though and still in use.

Over the summer, I dunked all of the eldar models in simple green to get them prepped for repaint. Except for the Exarch and a small squad of harlequins as I decided to keep the memories of how far I have advanced in painting.

The swooping hawks took full advantage of the new Army Painter paint line. even the yellow accents are six layers of yellow. It is a very smooth turquoise on them now. 

I used contrast paint purple and a couple army painter purple paints(older line) to tie them in to the colours of my craftworld.

The rangers got some black cloaks to conceal their purple armour. they did have a poorly done woodland camouflage over yellow and purple armour. This time around I have decided to use red gemstones and purple armour with yellow accents. The luxon purple is a nice paint by itself with only some deeper purples and lavender needed to make it pop more. it is almost incandescent in hue so very suitable for the ald Eldar sculpts. The ranger model from Blackstone has joined them now too.

the scouts cloaks got the darker grey hues to highlight.

So I finally got these finished after overtime( I had to work Christmas and New Years)

It took a little longer than I wanted to finish them and did not help that i found more troops to share that turquoise with...note to self: stop adding more to the table before finishing units!

6 rangers at 5 points each for 30 points

11 swooping hawks for 55 points

limbo for 20

for a grand total of 105 points!

 ------

Great to see old models get revitalised and back onto the table David - the colours are lovely too, very apt for this caste of Aspect Warriors! 105 points its is

- Paul

From TomL, Battletech tanks & Fraud (94 points)

My second post will continuing on in the abyss as another Pulp Figures Gangland Gal guides us to the Eighth Circle: Fraud 

There we meet Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE, the hero of Piper’s Fort, Balaclava, and Cawnpore, who by his own admission is “a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and, oh yes, a toady”.  Who better to represent Fraud?

 

I picked this up at an Adepticon a few years back but not sure who made it at this point. These were painted using Foundry, Reaper and Two Thin Coats acrylics.  Taking a break from the Abyss we have a Battletech vehicle support lance. 

 

These solid tanks have sturdy ball and socket turrets that rotate easily. These were painted using Vallejo Model Air paints, Vallejo deck tan drybrush and a light game color wash. I need more practice with my airbrush but it was fun to use it for something other than priming.  

These Catalyst Battletech vehicles are as oversized as the mech and fill their hex stands. These are 25 to 40 mm long and are 20-25mm wide.  I went with a 15mm vehicle for size. 
8 x 8 15mm vehicles  = 64
Fraud = 20 pts
2 x 5 28 mm figures = 10 points

Total:: 94 points.
---------

Ahhh Harry, a fabulous connection to Fraud indeed Tom. Well played!!!!

- Paul

ByronM - Warhammer 40k Armigers and Trench Crusade [110 points]

Today I have a fully 3d printed submission for your enjoyment, all happening in Grim Dark Universes.  

First up we have my first group of Warhammer 40k Armigers, in for form of a cadre of 3 Armiger Helverins. I have wanted to do a new Warhammer army for a long time, specifically an Imperial Knight army as they have such a low model count, however the models are all the typical insane GW pricing.  However, I recently found some great 3d files for Armigers, so I could print my own rather than dealing the GW.  So, Away we go!!!  Expect more to follow.

I could not decide on a colour scheme for these, but found some colours a while ago from Scale75 that I fell in love with the shades and bought them with no real idea what I would ever use them for.  I randomly saw them when trying to figure out colours for these and decided now is the time, so from darkest to lightest I used Scale75 Anthracite Gray, Abyssal Blue, Caspian Blue (the main colour showing) and Bearing Blue.  All were airbrushed on after painting the chassis and seran(cling) wrapping the chassis to protect the paint job while allowing me to airbrush the carapace.

Once painted, I really wasn't sure what to do to base them, and then again stumbled across a set of wrecked concrete foundation pillars from Epic Basing and thought they would look good on the bases so printed up a bunch of them and away I went.  I think they add a bunch to the base and are something different.

Next up is the first part of a new project from a new game, Trench Crusade.  The art and lore of the game is brilliant and very Grim Dark (go figure since a lot of the crew is made up of ex-GW employees), but I am not really sure about the rules, seems a bit too simplistic.  However, a bunch of friends want to play, and since I subject them to random weirdness that may not be their cup-o-tea but they humour me, I figured I should humour them as well.  If anyone wants to checkout the rules, they are available here for free: Trench Crusade.

This post has the first 2 models that I 3D printed and started painting, only to find out that I am not likely to actually use them in my list, but oh well, they look cool!  I selected the Iron Sultanate as I felt like doing some Persian models and these are all based on Persian lore with the Jannisaries coming in a later entry.  These two though are the Assassin and the Bronze Bull.

The Bronze Bull is absolutely massive being based on a 50mm round and standing over 100mm tall and 150mm wide.  Being such a big chunky boy I am counting the Bronze Bull as my Gluttony model because at this size I am sure he eats a literal ton!

Since the world of Trench Crusade is an extremely grim dark war torn setting, I wanted to keep with a very dark look as well.  So the whole force is going to be painted in mainly bronzes and reds that are muted / muddied down for lower contrasts.

Here is an image to show just how big all of these models are, as the marine is a standard 40k marine on a 25mm base, the bull on a 50mm and the Armiger on a 100mm base.

Points for this post should be something like the following, but am unsure as most of these are much bigger than normal entries of the classification:
- 3x Armigers @ 28mm scale vehicle @ 20 points each = 60 points
- Bronze Bull @ 32mm scale vehicle (?) @ 20 points each
- Gluttony bonus @ 20 points
- Assassin @ 5 points
Total: 105 

---------

Your Armiger trio look great in those pastel blues Byron - very neat indeed, and crisply printed too.

But the Brass Bull is my favourite here! Wonderful to see a mythological favourite steampunked up and unleashed on the minions of Hell! I'll score his as a 40mm vehicle given his tanky look

I'm sure we will be seeing more of Trench Crusade as the Challenge continues - at last count with late pledges, I understand that KS netted over $4million!!!

- Paul

From GregB - 10mm High Elf Heroes for Warmaster (11 points)

High Elf heroes for "Warmaster" - 3D prints, mostly designed by Forest Dragon.

We kick things off this week with...eleven points! Not exactly a "points bomb" - not even close - but I'll take what I can get! Here we have a small collection of High Elf heroes in 10mm size, mounted on round bases to serve as characters/heroes for the game "Warmaster". These are 3d prints, most of them (although not all) designed by the amazing "Forest Dragon".  There is a mix of warrior-type heroes and mages, a cadre ready to lead a High Elf army into battle on the table. 

Valiant mounted High Elf warrior, leading the cavalry to battle!

"Warmaster" is one of the very best "specialist" games GW ever released - the bones of those rules went on to serve as a foundation for a number of very, very popular rules. Plus, they are just great to play on their own. Those rules are so awesome in terms of how to mix the actions of the different troop types, of heroes and of magic. Heroes and magic have an impact, but cannot carry things on their own - but for all that, you can have a lot of fun with the hero figures!

When you have the right sceptre, one can read AND ride into battle!

GW's original line of metal 10mm figures for Warmaster were incredible, and for the most part are now very hard to come by. But holy smokes, have the 3d printer ever filled the void! Not only can you find equivalents...the current 3d prints are functionally even better IMO. These character figures are all 10mm, but they are just...they are amazing! All sorts of wonderful little details one can take a stab at with their brushes!

A mounted "not-Tyrion" - another fine 3d print!

Does 3d printing have ANY weaknesses? Well...these resin figures do kinda maybe break if you drop them on the floor...one can say that about ANY figures, I suppose, but there have been, let's call it, "V2 requirements" after encounters with the hardwood floor in my house. No matter how much I swear, it seems you can't always fix broken figures...but here we have, at last, a group of non-damaged 3d prints!! Re-painting broken 3d prints is massively f*cking frustrating super-rewarding but it all works out in the end.

Floating on a cloud, but carrying a flaming sword...ready for whatever comes up!

I have strips and strips of 3d-printed High Elf infantry and cavalry waiting for their turn under my brushes...one of the 10 "top priorities" I had lined up for this edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Will they get any paint this year? We'll see...but I'm glad to get these heroes finished off at last. 

This fellow could be a mage, or some kind of sword-master type hero as well. 

Scoring is obviously super-modest for this post, but hey, points are points! We have three mounted 10mm figures, and two 10mm foot figures, for a grand total of, er, 11 points! Hey, progress, is progress. Hopefully the next post I have for today will increase the score counter a bit more...

-----------

Very nice indeed Greg! Some lovely detailing and highlighting on these tiny fellows. 11 points well earned indeed.

I was, however, shocked. SHOCKED I tell you with this bold statement of yours:

"Warmaster" is one of the very best "specialist" games GW ever released 

Clearly you have not played....

AndrewB Season Opener Inferno Blitz! Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, and Greed! 260pts

Hello folks!   Sorry for the delay, but let’s get to posting!  I decided this year aside from a couple projects I’m working on, I’d blitz through the Inferno Challenge as best I could. Now that I’ve gotten some basing glue, here we go!  

First is Limbo!   These are some Old Glory ‘voodoo’ warriors I acquired many years ago to attempt to play some good James Bond style Baron Zavoodie henchmen.  Alas, they’ve sat unpainted on washers for the better part of a decade, and I ran across them while digging for other projects, so here we go!  They’re quite characterful, despite lacking many different sculpts   

The second circle provided me some trouble as I don’t have many figures which are particularly ‘Lusty’.  That said, I ran across this bundle of cave folk while shuffling through shelves, and here I am.  Not outright lusty, but she’s got her chest out, and the boys seem to be enjoying it, so here we are!  I’ll try and find some relevant 3D prints to come back here maybe.  In the meantime, it makes good sense in that monosyllabic, unshaven way.  

Next, we have gluttony!  While trying to find a suitably rotund model, a four-legged friend knocked me on the knee with a stainless steel bowl, and then proceeded to eat the dog food I put inside with a vigor that would put the Cookie Monster to shame.  Bam! Gluttony!  Not sure where all these doggos are from, but they’re certainly hungry, and will certainly serve my games of 02 hundred well until I get the plastics in the box built and painted.  

Moving right along to Greed, this group of unsavory bootleggers, loan sharks, and bookies along with some of their other flunky buddies   I like to think of these folks as side characters like Forrest Gump at some of history’s most notorious gangster moments, all with the dreams of bags of stolen cash. I even managed to sneak in a dashed my lady gangster for Lady Sarah, so that was fun to find.  We’ll see if crime really pays!  

That’s about all I can get into this post, so look for more next week!  As for my points, I think we’ve got 13 Voodoo warriors for 65pts, four cave people for 20pts, seven puppies for 35pts, and 12 gangsters for 60pts.  There are four circles in the challenge for 80pts, and two women for Lady Sarah at 40pts.  This rounds me to an even 400, which I’ll need to be picking up the pace on!  

See you all next week, and happy painting!

------

A fine opening Salvo there Andrew! I like the variety of figures you've been able to get done

I'm sure it was satisfying to finally get those Voodoo warriors completed too!

Unfortunately, there are no bonus points for female figures in this year's challenge.

65+20+35+60=180 + 80 bonus points = a total of 260

- Paul