From Kerry T: A visit from the wargames weights & measures bogeyman- Landsknecht (120 points)

 Morning, afternoon and evening all

It happened last weekend, I don't mind telling you, it was terrifying - he came at the crack of dawn, there was a hammering on the front door and the sound of a yappy bark...

He said his name was Narvik Mentana and looking me in the eye said that it was grim and serious. He said it was official and that he'd been sent by the Department of Wargames Weights and Measures. He had come to confiscate my figures and that he had a warrant. 

He looked a bit odd in his uniform, the flat cap didn't quite fit and with the whippet that was with him barking all the time it was hard to hear what he had to say. 

The whippet was the better looking of the two

Overcoming my initial fear and trepidation I realised that somehow, somewhere I'd heard that voice somewhere before though.....

"Hey mate, you're a bit short"

Startled, I said "yes I know - but at least I'm perfectly formed. Its not my fault, you know,I can't help it if my mum was only four foot eight and generations of males in my family spent their years working down the mines and never saw any sunlight. That's probably why I'm so short and stunted"

"Not you"he said, "the block"

"The block? what block?"

"The Pike block, yes your pike block- this one, the one you posted on Farcebook a few weeks back -this one - look, its short, its probably only about 72 figures, that's well short of the requisite 96 for god's sake....

The middle block,there

"I'm afraid you're going to have to hand them over, we can't  have you doing that, is sets a bad example, if we allow that - before you know it some cheap sod or every man and his whippet will be showing off his 4 man pike block. Give them here, C'mon. Hand them over now and I'll go easy on you lad"

"Wait" I said, "give me a little time, just a chance, err I'll paint a few more and make it up to 96 in a week or two"

"You've got till Monday and then I'll be back..... that's of course if you make it worth my while, nudge nudge, wink, wink, say no more....

It was then that I finally realised what he craved for and wanted. That folks is how I manged to get rid of him. He'd obviously heard about my mushy pea tree....

Psst don't let on its an Avocado tree

"Look at the size of those peas" he exclaimed...and promptly farted.... sorry I mean fainted 

Now I know it looks like I've lost but focus again, but that folks honestly (without the word of a lie ) is why I needed to radically change my painting plans for this week. There I was, on track painting my Jocks and they're straps, only now to find myself suddenly and hurriedly painting codpieces and scrambling to put together the stragglers to make up a 96 man pikeblock. All to make sure that the "Wargames Weights and Measures bogeyman " wouldn't take them away.

24 Artizan Designs Landsknecht Pikemen

I needed more with levelled pike in any case

Vicious wire spears from Northstar

Extended bases are definitely needed

I decided to add a bit of water to the bases

Bit of a close up

Running away

Phew, saved in the nick of time,the unit is now complete

The original figures were painted more than 10 years ago hence the base depth discrepancy 

I think its more than 96 strong now

I forgot to count and I'm away on holiday writing this

Can you spot Wally?

Well that's it for this week

So the moral of the story is... don't live dangerously and paint undermanned pike blocks.....

But if you do make sure you have the odd mushy pea available to ward off the bogeyman

In summary and with apologies to Ken, whose projects are always inspirational

24 x 28mm Foot figures @ 5 points = 120 points

1 Squirrel

Many thanks, no post from me next week as I'm now away on holiday

Valleyboy

From Millsy:

My Word! That was a lot to process in one go and totally worth the effort! I never considered the idea of an actual mushy pea tree and now I will spend the rest of my life lamenting the lack of them in real life. Avocados? Bah! Mushy peas every day in preference.

Culinary deliberations aside this is another splendid post mate. More gorgeous pikes painted in more gorgeous colours. Those final shots of all of them arrayed together are truly something special. Congrats on what will never fail to impress on the table!

120 more points it is!

Cheers,
Millsy

From RichardM: Sudan, more Nile Navy, baggage trains, artillery and Mahdist cavalry (291 points)

Quite a mixture of units for the Sudan game this week:

• more for the Nile Navy
• baggage train 
• British mule trains for the guns and maxims
• British artillery battery
• Mahdist artillery battery
• Mahdist light and heavy cavalry

After the papyrus rafts of last week, I now done the remaining two types of vessels that I have for locals on the Nile. I have a few more of each of these - but wanted to paint some as a proof of concept and to get the colours right. So we have a ‘dhow’ and two rafts. Like the papyrus boats, these are actually 15mm and are from Museum Miniatures.

The baggage train is made up of native porters and baggage camels - like all the other 10mm stuff they are from Pendraken.

Then I’ve got two different mule trains for guns from the Pendraken North-West frontier range. Three bases are Maxim Gun teams (standing in for Gatling Guns) and the others are a Mountain Gun teams with an extra base as they included three extra barrel mules. These will stand in for any British Artillery battery - even though I have limbers to do.

A few shots of the baggage all together.

The British artillery is a 9lb RML battery from the Pendraken Zulu Wars range.

While the Mahdist artillery battery is using captured Krupp guns.

Finally there are two types of Mahdist cavalry - armoured and light cavalry. From reading I understand there is no evidence that they wore their armour into battle - but Pendraken make them, they are different and I hadn’t read anything about them when I made the purchase a few years ago. 

The points come out as follow I think:

Nile Navy

- dhow (6 points for the boat and 3 for the crew) = 9
- rafts (2 boats each 6 points for boat and 4 for the crew) = 20

Baggage train

- Camels (10 camels * 3) = 30
- Porters (16 foot) = 16
- Maxim mule teams (3 teams with 2 mounted and 1 foot) = 21
- Gun mule teams (3 teams with 3 mounted and 1 foot plus 1 team with 3 mounted) = 39

British artillery battery (three guns and nine crewmen) = 18

Mahdist artillery battery (three guns and nine crewmen) = 18

Mahdist cavalry (40 mounted) = 120

Total for the week = 291

From Millsy:

This project is the gift that keeps on giving! More boats! More camels! Plus loads more cool stuff to boot.

The Mahdists cavalry are the pick of the bunch for me this time. You don't often see much of these in larger scales and they were a constant and numerous threat in reality so this is a great way to represent things more realistically on the table.

I would love to see some staged shots at the end of the Challenge if you can be convinced to put in the effort? The sight of a British column with baggage in the centre surrounded by masses of native troops would be something special!

291 more amazing points mate!

Cheers,
Millsy

From JohnS: The Poet, The Pavlovas and the KGB (49 points + 15 skullz)

The World of Valon is really an interesting place. "May you live in interesting times" kind of interesting. It's easy to get killed but you needn't worry, there are plenty of necromancers and liches to bring you back. At best, you'll be mostly dead.

Lord Byrorc and Frank, his home-made standard bearer

Frank is cheap to run as long as you have some electrickery at hand

Lord Byrorc WAS Albion's greatest living poet. He is now the Witchlands greatest unliving poet.

 

First up today we have Lord Byrorc, a gad about town in old Londinium, whose poetry had all the ladies swooning until he made the poor choice of joining the Albion Expeditionary Force to the Witchlands. Sent to aid the Dark Czar against the Ferarch invasion, all they really succeeded in doing was provide more material for the re-animators.

Now animated by spite and doggerel, Byrorc is little more than a skeleton in a powdered wig but he still maintains a private passion for the works of young Mury Shrilley. So much so that he built his own standard bearer following the instructions in Shrilley's novel. Young Frank runs on "electrickery" fed to him via the large bolts in his neck.

Pavlova Grenadiers

I must admit, they normally have more strawberries

Or passionfruit

I bet when they left the green shores of Guinalea they didn't expect this

 

Speaking of the Albion Expeditionary Force, part of that was made up of the hulking Bog Orcs of Guinalea, that green and pleasant part of Albion. Unfortunately the AEF was fed into the meat grinder of battles against the Ferach Emperor Mordred. The Dark Czar didn't care, as their corpses provided fresh building blocks for his liche necromancers to raise.

The  Dark Czar was so impressed by the size of the re-animated Bog Orcs that he immediately summoned them to serve as his Star Wraith Imperial Guard as they stood a head taller than their enemies.

The first KGB brute was a werewolf but he's alright noooooooow!

Order must be maintained!

Enemies and spies are everywhere!

 

The Star Wraith Aleksander, also known as the Dark Czar, uses a vast network of liches and savant undead (such as werewolves) to keep control of the seething masses of undead at his command. Known as Kommisariat Graviski Bureov, or KGB, they are everywhere in The Witchlands rooting out traitors and commanding troops through their psychic link to the Star Wraith. They are often seen on the battlefield "encouraging" the performance of the Undead Army.

Points:

5 x 25mm figures @ 5 = 25 points

1 x Mounted 28mm figure @ 10 = 10 points

2 x 40mm Infantry @ 7 points = 14

Total Points Claimed  = 49 points

Skullz for the Skull Duel = 15

Skull total so far is 78

From Millsy:

I never imagined there was anything cooler and a Pavlov's grenadier mitre cap. I stand corrected. Had I been thinking clearly I would have realised almost everything can be improved by the addition of moar skullz.

Cracking stuff all around John, especially the guards and Lord Byrorc who made me properly laugh out loud. Does his poetry stink as bad as his rotting corpse? Let's hope so.

49 pointaroos for you!

Cheers,
Millsy