From MattW: Rockin the 80s … Sort of (77 points)

 Rockin the 80s 

This week in between painting airborne and Greeks I painted some pieces for 1980s Cold War gaming. The vehicles are a mix of Hot Wheels and matchbox repaints. Striped then, matt undercoated, then brush painted. Hand painted sign writing. 

First up a copy of my wife’s first car a VW, that met a nasty end in a accident with a taxi and a power pole 

A Bundesgrenzschutz VW car (west German  border Police)

A Bundesgrenzschutz T1 VW van

Bundesgrenzschutz  VW work truck. 

A Bundeszollverwaltung VW truck (West German customs)

Prepare the KY

20mm vehicle @ 15 points x 5 = 75 points 

Cheers

Matt

TeemuL: That's a lot Volkswagens, Matt! But of course very common in both Germanies during the Cold War and around the rest of the Europe, too. Backdrops are excellent, too, it looks very much like an old (Bond) movie or something similar. Gotta love the details on tyres on the Zoll van - and lights, register plates etc! Yeah, take some bonus points for "hand painted shields."

I first read your first phrase as "...for 1980s Car Wars gaming." and I was WOW! But Cold War suits, too. Have you ever thought about 1980s Gaslands project? ;)

From RayR: Retreat from Moscow - Duchy of Warsaw 2nd regt Voltigeurs (35 points)

Yes more Retreat from Moscow figures and my 3rd post of the day!!!

This time around its more from the 2nd Duchy of Warsaw regt, but this time its their Voltigeurs.

All but one figure, the chap with the blue hat on the right, are from Murawski Miniatures again. I needed another figures in a Czapka, but didn't have one, so I raided the Perry minis box and pulled out this chap, wearing a civvie hat. Their commander is also a Murawski mini, although in my opinion he's not the best looking figure, compared to the other figures in their range, he looks like he's been sculpted by errrr me!

Its mainly his face to be honest, I should have chopped his head off and replaced it, poor chap.

Rear shot!

Only 35 points for these 7 figures, unless Teemu wants to give me any extra for the warm looking blue blanket, the chap in the front is cuddling?? 

TeemuL: Not very French to procrastinate on chopping heads off, isn't it? The chap in front, cuddling his blue blanket doesn't look that chilly, there should be more snow and frost on him to get any bonus points! :) Other than that, the usual quality from you for this project, another 35 points are yours.

From JamesM: 15mm De-frocked Priests, passengers and RE trucks [Limbo] (250 points)

Hi folks,

This entry represents the culmination of years of planning, collecting, and stalled effort - and several months' worth of distracted painting.

The original focus of my 15mm WW2 collection was the 1st Canadian Army's Operation Totalize in August 1944, so these early 'Kangaroos' or 'De-frocked Priests' have been on my to-do list for a long time. Unfortunately, I painted my first few when I started my collection, and they took ages - a feature of my inexperience at that time. The vehicles were fine; the issue was the passengers. 

This then tainted my thoughts about painting more of the bloody things. To make matters worse, my collection grew from a mere infantry company to an entire battalion. Which meant I needed to collect and paint more of the buggers. 

Earlier last year, before being distracted by 40k models, I dug out my selection of FoW blister packs and started on this clergy, hoping to have them done by summer. The plans of mice and men, eh? 

Thankfully, the challenge gave me the impetus to push on and get these all done. 

In total, I've painted 14 of these early tracked APCs. These are Battlefront resin and metal 15mm kits. 

And two passenger stands per vehicle. 

For those not in the know, these vehicles were American M7 Priests, operated by the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division as part of its D-Day assault division organisation. Instead of towed 25-pdr guns, the division was equipped with self-propelled M7s, which fired American 105mm rounds. 

Eventually, in July 1944, the Canadian and British units equipped with the M7s were requested to stop using them and return to British equipment due to ammunition supply issues. 

At the same time, the various allied armies in Normandy were struggling to find a way to advance infantry under armour in a battle dominated by machine guns and mortar fire. A Canadian engineering officer proposed stripping the gun from the M7, welding some steel over the gap, removing the ammo storage and other irrelevant internal fixtures, and using these hulls as armoured personnel carriers. They were used with some success, and later - when the M7s were returned to the Americans, Canadian surplus Ram tanks, with turrets removed, were used in the same role - going on to equip one Canadian and one British regiment. 

As such, my vehicles have been split into groups bearing the markings of 3CID artillery units. 

Alongside these, as a belated part of my preparation for the D-Day games played last year, I painted a pair of cut-down Morris gun tractors. These were primarily used by British airborne forces as tractors for their 17-pdr anti-tank guns, but my research showed they were also used by Royal Engineer units on D-Day as transport off the beaches. 

I've more passengers to paint for these, but they count as painted now!

And because I forget that not everyone is familiar with the scale (and the effects of mobile phone macro photography)... here's a reference for how small those decals are. 

18 x 15mm vehicles = 144 points

2 x drivers = 2 points

28 x passengers = 84 points (counting each strip of three men as 3 points)

'Limbo' = 20 points

Total = 250 points

TeemuL: Just counting my fingers, but your logic on the passengers seems valid and the spreadsheet approves, so I'm quite sure it is okay. That is quite a lot of vehicles, quite a lot passengers and quite a lot of green! Some history lessons, too. I understand that they might have felt overwhelming, especially when more and more is added to the initial project, but these are all done now and lots of points are coming your way!

From JezT: Arthurian Mixed Bag - 28mm (53 points)

Dear All 

Happy Thursday all and late post this morning UK time so hope came be posted today. 

Last Challenge painted some Arthurian infantry on round sabot bases and the idea was to mix these with my Saxon Levy spearmen and make a new Arthurian Post Romano-British option. For the cavalry my idea was always to use my existing Goth cavalry bases. However when I set up the army the two parts did not gel and lacked impact. Basically I was missing the signature "White Chi-Rho" shields carried through on the cavalry. 

My solution has been to touch up the Goth cavalry shields with a more general white and red design and select some for sabot basing, to this I would add in some purely Arthurian characters. 

The one newly painted figure being presented is this Arthurian standard bearer painted using some unused Foundry left-overs I had. 

I am adding a few pictures just to show how he fits on the sabot base as part of the unit. I had to have an Arthur so just painted up the shield on an existing Goth captain, 

Also I realised if I followed the same idea I could "convert" my Welsh Dark Ages army into a Pict army as opponents for the Arthurian army - my brother will eventually finish off his Early Saxon army for the classic battle match up. 

So these are the new Pict character figures painted up - again these will fit on sabot bases for the Basic Impetus units. 

These are new Figures from Footsore the light cavalry part of the Welsh range:

Finally a couple of odd foot that painted up and gave square shields to give some Pict character.

Altogether is 3 x cavalry and 4 x foot 28mm so should be a simple 50 points for me and looking forward to trying these out in a game shortly. 

All the best Jez

TeemuL: Fine additions to your projects, Jez! And don't worry, as you can see, your post is in good hands. There were 2 entries ready yesterday, couple of more came during the night, so this is a quiet day (for a Thursday). I'll give you couple of bonus points for the handpainted shields and banners.

From MattW: This is the way (10 points)

 This Is The Way

Of the recent pieces of the Star Wars Universe the Mandolorian saying “This is the Way” has entered my vocabulary, in much annoyance to Vanessa my wife, and my children. 

This is a great little 1/144 kit by Bandai, a easy wet afternoon build, a gunmetal undercoat, ink wash, then dry brush, painted the windows and paint on the markings which I copied as best I could. (The kit supplied ones were stickers !)  really happy with my result. 

1/114 model  @ 6 Points 

Total 6 points 

Cheers

Matt

TeemuL: That looks excellent! The backdrop creates awesome athmosphere here! Your method might be simple, but is effective. This is the way, indeed. This one is tricky to score, since even you give the scale, this looks much bigger vehicle than a tank for example. I'll throw in additional 4 points to give you a nice 10 points for this.

From RayR: Retreat from Moscow - 2nd Duchy of Warsaw Infantry (45 points)

As you may have guessed by the title, for today's second post I have more Retreat from Moscow figures. These 9 figures represent a detachment from the 2nd Duchy of Warsaw infantry regt, who were part of the V Corps, 18th Division under Brigadier Grabowski, but they could easily be any of the Polish troops that fought as part of the Grand Armee.

This time round they're mainly Murawski Miniatures, now sold by Skytrex, with a few Perry's thorwn in for good measure.

Six of the figures are in greatcoats, while the remaining two were in plain uniform, so out came the greenstuff and now they're both toasty and warm, one figure more than the other!!

The Command figure is also form Murawski and he's sitting on some new sabot bases that me and Lee had made especially by Martin and the team at Warbases. the 25mm hole is offset so it allows a bit more decoration on the base. 

Contractual bum end photo.

The points should be pretty easy for this post, 9 figures x 5pts = 45pts

With maybe a little bonus for the added blankets??? You never know your luck?

TeemuL: Nice (and living) addition to your project, Ray. Good looking reinforcements, I guess I have nothing new to say, I have used all my praise words already. And Ray, don't push your luck too much. ;)

From PeteB: Gluttony, Greed, Wrath and some other figures (143 points)

I couldn't post last week, so now I have a bit more things to show. I managed to finish three circles of "The Abyss", a Dulcop Robin Hood figure and some 20 mm figures. Let's start with the circles.

Gluttony - Paul Hicks - Lamme Goedzak and friends - 28 mm - 35 Points

These figures are the CRISIS 2017 Antwerp figures. For those who has been there they know there was always an entry figure in the goodie bag. That year it was Tijl Uilenspiegel and you could buy two extra figures and a base. And one of the extra figures was Lamme Goedzak, a man that like food and wine very much. Two things on the figure point in that direction, a spoon and a rabbit. the third figure is Nele, girlfriend of Tijl. For this circle I couldn't seperate them. 

Unpainted figures

Points:
- Gluttony                        = 20 Points
- 3 x 28 mm foot figures = 15 Points

- Total                              = 35 Points

Greed - Crescent - Sheriff of Nothingham - 54 mm - 30 Points

This figure made by Crescent joined the gang of Prince John for more power and fill his pockets. That's why I choose him for thsi circle. You can find him as an original Crescent figure but also from Kellogg's. Only the markings under the base can make that clear. This one I'm showing is original. I only have the Kellogg's figures complete and unpainted. This one had some paint on him so now he looks better. The color pallet I took was random. 

My collection.
Top = Crescent, 3 figures missing.

Points:

- Greed                   = 20 Points

- 1 x 54 mm figure = 10 Points

- Total                     = 30 Points

Wrath - 3D - Plague Doctor - 54 mm - 30 Points

The plague was also known as "The Wrath of God" and therefor this doctor is the ideal figure for this circle. The figure is a 3D print (no brand) made by a German friend of me. I paint these figures for my wife because she reads everything that has the plague as subject. The first one was from Speira Miniatures (= link to my blog) and since then I collect and paint them for her. Second one can be found here. I have some more to paint but not now.

Points:

- Wrath                   = 20 Points

- 1 x 54 mm figure = 10 Points

- Total                     = 30 Points

Dulcop - Robin Hood Merry Man - 54 mm - 10 Points

I couldn't paint that villian of Nothingham without one of the heroes to give some resistance. An old Italian figure, hard to get like the Napoleonic figures. Lovely figure to paint and I'm happy with the result.

Points:

- 1 x 54 mm figure = 10 Points

Waterloo1815 - Roger's Rangers - 20 mm - 38 Points

These figures were lying way to long in a box unpainted. I've got one sprue of these from a swap with a friend. When I started on them I saw two figures with snow shoes and the other eight without. So I based two groups on gras and the others in the snow. I base these figure only for storage as I'm not a wargamer. A review of these figures can be found on Plastic Soldier Review.

Snow is from Games Workshop.

Boxart

I've painted the edges of the bases red to mark them as British troops. I know that the rules say that a lying figure is only half of the points, and I counted him that way, but I'm not sure that the figure is really lying. I've painted the whole figure before it was put on the base because most of the equipment he's wearing is visible. I let it to Teemu to make a decission.

Points:

- 9,5 x 20 mm figure = 38 Points

The whole bunch of this post! 😊

Final total:

- Gluttony                       = 35 Points

- Greed                            = 30 Points

- Wrath                            = 30 Points

- Dulcop figure                = 10 Points

- Waterloo1815 figures    = 38 Points

- Total points of this post = 143 Points

Thanks for watching and have fun!

TeemuL: Wonderful and varied entry, I especially like your Sheriff of Nottingham and the Plague Doctor. Great colours on them! No issues with the others, either, I find your brushwork pleasing my eyes. Quite a grab of bonus points, too. I'll give you full points for the half lying mini, because 1) you say you fully painted him and 2) I'm the bestest of minions.