From SanderS: Rousell's Sandhill: 80 YW! (85 Points)

Hoi there,

In order to complete my trail towards Snowlord's Peak and the Path of the New and Shiny, I now present you my entry for the Sandhill. Sadly no badgers, sandbags or taking a leak is involved...

Choosing from the long list of conflicts Ray provided in his description, I picked the 80 Years War (or Dutch Revolt or Long War) since I still have quite some figures for that to paint on my pile.

Last Challenge I entered some of the Dutch forces made by the Assault Group, now I add some characters from Wargames Foundry (from their Swashbucklers range) to them. To me these protestant Dutch rebels are a group of personages around the very real figure of "Kenau" a woman who played a major role in defending the rebellious city of Haarlem against the Spanish. I have tried to name them all and will give a rationale behind some of these figures below.

"Rooie Jan"

Or Red Jan, he's the brawn of the pack.

"Gekke Gerrit"

 Mad Gerrit, he's a strangely flamboyant type who I figure to be a psychotic killer.

"Lange Pieter"

Or Tal Peter, he's one of the more serious and intellectual types in the band. His orange stockings denote his allegiance to the rebel cause.

"Harige Hendrik"

Hairy Henry is an old veteran and acts as bodyguard and man-servant to Governor Ripperda 

"Edele Onno" 

Noble Onno is a younger son of impoverished nobility who has joined Ripperda in his cause. He still wears his armour and riding boots.

"Matige Mats"

Average Mats, this really was my least favourite figure out of the bunch. I really had no inspiration for this one so hence the "average" nickname. 

"Oude Willem"

Old Willem is a servant of Ripperda as well, I could state he's carrying around a chest full of sand and try to claim some sandbag bonus points but that'd be cheating. It's the governor's papers.

The figures below are all Historic Figures.

 "Kenau, Simonsdochter Hasselaer"

Leader of a group of women who played a large part in keeping the Spanish out of Haarlem for quite some time. I used a Dutch movie about her as inspiration for her clothing. I do believe it's on Netflix. For more info see this LINK

"Governor Wigbolt Ripperda" 

He's the boss defending Haarlem in the name of Prince William of Orange. For info on him see this LINK

I made the picture above because the figure was hunched over in his pose. He looked to be of fancy dress but the Dutch Calvinists were notoriously sober in dress. I really like how the blue pops from the brown of the rest of the suit.

"Prince William of Orange-Nassau" 

Of course I had to have a figure of the leader of the Dutch Revolt in order to set an assasination squad on him one day. I have portrayed him here as he could have appeared in his early years and just prior the Revolt. He was a catholic nobleman living at the court of the King of Spain and the Netherlands Charles V, before converting to Calvinism in order to marry into money
. LINK

So there we have it dear Ray, I do hope you are pleased?! There's quite a lot of floppy hats here (although not of the wide brimmed variant) and I do hope they are worth their points. 10 x 5 = 50 together with the 30 points bonus is 80 points for the tally.

So now...with much trepidation and growing fear I put my foot on the slope towards faraway Snowlords Peak...

Cheers

***
Truly, the combination of Ray and the AHPC is the gift that keeps on giving.  How else could we have ever enjoyed is the phrase "sadly, no taking a leak is involved"?  My goodness this is fun. 

Well done here Sander. There is so much cool history here - and something I can check out on Netflix? Five bonus points, just for that! Floppy hats galore, and a whole new set of history I can check out! Thanks very much, great stuff. 

That will be 85 points for you!

GregB

From SanderS - Against the Ogre Hordes (92 points)

Hoi There,

It is about time for me to get cracking and get some points registered on the board. So today I would like to ask Lee to post my Heroquest additions for the Evil Player better know as Zargon or Morcar depending on what side of the Pond you live.

The first of Morcar's Minions to be featured are the Ogres from the expansion supplement to the original boxed game of Against the Ogre Hordes. There are 7 of them in the set and they all have separate heads and arms although there are, regrettably some doubles in the mix.

I do admit that I was a bit lost for a decent colour scheme for them and in the end went with a rather old-skool splashy and un-realistic one. That said I do like how they turned out.

The next entry are some of the smaller Dungeon denizens: the ever humorous Night Goblins. At the school club I usually play the Dungeon or Games Master, that is all great fun but kids these days are digitally very apt and the club regulars all sought out OP characters, from Ye Olde Inn, and when working together, they cleaned out every dungeon in record time. The only thing keeping the games from being 30 minute affairs was their unrelenting internal scheming which led to a Good and a Chaos faction to arise amongst their ranks.

So I went online and got myself 3 special card decks: I replaced the regular "treasure deck" with a "Magical treasures deck" which has very unusual and interesting events included like lightning traps and the like. I also got a Games Master deck which allows the GM to pick one card at the start of his turn to spice things up. The last deck is an "Fate Card deck" which is horrendous fun for the GM less so for the players. It has events like Sprite-attacks, Giant Spiders, Bats etc, Troll Poo and the ever funny and deadly Goblin Fanatic amongst others to liven things up. But for a lot of those I needed figures so I got myself the Shadespire Goblin set and painted most of them up as you can see here.

Last is the start of a little side project I have started last Crisis in Antwerp by buying some of the TAG Dutch Long War (80 Years War or Dutch Revolt) Dutch Militia (or Geuzen = Beggars). As a teacher I have to teach about this conflict, but as a Southerner I have some resentments about the way I have to do this. The Dutch Revolt is pretty much like any other revolt like this: misrepresented and it's most often portrayed as a Religious Conflict. While Religion (the conflict between Catholics and Calvinists) was at it's centre, the most important focal point actually was the fact that Philips II of Spain wanted to increase his power over the Netherlands at the cost of that of the Dutch Estates, Provinces and the Elite. Anyway it is also mostly portrayed as a conflict between the Dutch and the Spanish while it was mostly fought between Southern and Northern Dutch.

Mostly I do not care to have politics murking up my gaming. I have decided to throw my dice in with the Southern States who sided with the Spanish. That said I needed adversaries and these are the start of those.

The banner is made of foil with a design taken from the internet which was great fun to paint. There are more of these chaps coming soonish.

On the personal front a spell of the (man-)flu and my Birthday, which was yesterday, have prevented me from commenting on all those marvellous entries you all have put up, I will try to remedy this asap. The loot my Birthday yielded was the stuff shown in the picture below as well as Feldherr Foam trays for both Necromunda and Blackstone Fortress.

So that's it for me for today, 18 miniatures in 28mm scale should earn me 90 points. On to some Necromunda figures for next week.

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Great entry Sander. I like the colour of the Ogres, and the stripped and chequered clothing gives them a distinctive 'style'. Its great that sets like this allow you to swap heads around but I have found some sets just give the illusion of choice because there isn't enough variation. That is usually the point when I remember the old mantra, "Greenstuff is my friend". I love the Goblins as well, particularly the one at the back with the ball and chain. 

The Dutch Revolt looks like an interesting conflict to get into. I'll be honest its not a period I know anything about so your little potted history is quite interesting (I'll be thumbing through the internet later for more information!). The four guys you have painted look excellent but its the flag I love. I've never successfully mastered painting flags and I'm always in awe of anyone that can, so you get a couple of extra points for that bringing your total up to 92 points.