From SteveA: 10mm Black Powder Epic, American Civil War Union Army (142 points)

 This here is my penultimate post for this year's AHPC!  ( I have ~28 pts left to squeeze into the remaining hours of "free fire" submissions to meet my target total)  I have painted here a Large  Regiment comprised  of 7 Stands of Musket Rifle Infantry, and a mounted commander, flagged as "5th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry Regiment".

This submission combined with my other submission for 10mm minis Black Powder Epic Battles - the American Civil War for this year's challenge, I think furnishes me with a playable force more quickly (at an Army level) than many of my past transitions from "Hey that's cool, I'm buying it!" to " Slay The Grey, I've painted it!"

I think I improved upon my previous effort in terms of less time for same result, using a more effective colour application order and some thought towards what important bits to actually paint vs what nonsense bits to avoid, but I feel I'm likely still puttering about with some less than essential steps than needed at a 10mm scale.  I may be too fixated with doing all painting steps with all my zoom-in eye goggling lenses holding the minis about 4 inches from my nose, and in future will aim to rely more on a look at it at arms length while standing over mini on a table top to determine when good enough to be done.

Overall, I am rather pleased with how this regiment looks as part of the total force I have prepared thus far, and I am looking forwards to painting up the remaining minis for this army that I have awaiting in my pile of back logged minis.

Good luck to everyone bringing in your target points for a landing to close out AHPC XVI!

142 Points

140 pts = 7 stands of 20  Rifle Infantry, 10mm Foot figure  1 pts each 

    2 pts  = 10mm Mounted commander figure

Great unit of Federals Steve, and a stonking big one too.  They look great.  Looking forward to seeing you squeeze out your target.  Peterd

From PaulSS: 22nd Alabama - 100pts

Following on from last weeks post where I finished off every Barons' War figure that I have in the pile of shame, this week I painted the last 20 American Civil War figures in that pile!

The figures are all from the Crusader Miniatures range while the standards are all Flags of War.

The Crusader Miniatures range are some great sculpts that are often overlooked, but I really like them.

That's twenty more 28mm figures done and another 100 points to the collection and another drawer in the pile of shame closed out!

From DaveD . Another project closes out for Paul. That’s excellent. A nice touch of greys as well. 100 it is then .

From SteveA - 10mm Black Powder Epic, American Civil War Union Army (180 Points)

Hello again!    This here is my first submission for AHPC XVI, and the first miniatures I have ever painted for Black Powder Epic Battles and/or the American Civil War.     Last year I tried my first game of Warlords Black Powder at at local Wargaming Event (Friendly Fire) whereupon I was hooked on the game,  and thereafter quickly purchased and split a starter box with ByronM, with myself pledging to paint up a fighting force for the Union.

I started these minis  during the first week of this year's challenge, finding time to dip my brushes in paint between the various family and seasonal events I was mired in enjoying this past few weeks.  

This effort was also a learning experience for me to sort out some efficiencies for how to better batch paint 10mm Union forces as I of course have many more units to address with the olde brush'n paint pot. Also, I'm trying to be mindful of newbie historical gamer  blunders for painting uniform colors in the wrong places or missing significant unit colors. So hopefully I brushed up some respectful pigments to field these here:  3 stands for 115th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 5 stands of 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 3 stands of Union artillery.

Hopefully my future painting efforts for the Union can be accomplished a bit more swiftly with a smarter order for color application with fewer follow-up fixes, so I can complete the force this year as well as mix in the painting of the many many other mini diversions that have bewitched my attentions.  Nonetheless, I am pleased with this here first effort and happy that I now have some American Civil War Historical minis included in my cabinets of done and game ready minis.

175 Points (actuall you have 180 points here)

103 points =  5 stands of 10  Rifle Infantry x 10mm Foot figure 1pts each  + Mounted Commander 3pts

  63 points =  3 stands of 10 Rifle Infantry x 10 mm Foot Figure  1pts each   + Mounted Commander 3 pts

    9 points = 3 stands Artillery with crew  x 3 pts each

***

Hi Steve - GregB here filling for Dallas today while he is away. These guys look great! ACW is a period I have always been keen to try and game, and this scale is ideal for the spectacle on the table. I have tried myself to make something of the Warlord "Epic" ACW figures, and just can't get it to work...but what do I know? You look have nailed it here - these look great. Nice mass to the packed formations. 

Your post makes reference to the possibilities of mistakes when attempting historical subjects. Well, I have a secret to share: we all make the mistakes, and just...who cares. While one should not be as glib toward these matters as current-period Ridley Scott, the effort is what matters, you've made more than a proper effort here. Plus it looks great. 

Just power through it, and respectful hobbyists will make suggestions where appropriate. For my part, I can see red stripes on the legs of the artillery crew, so I think you are already nailing it :) 

That's 180 points according to the magic of Miles' spreadsheet. Keep it going!

GregB

From FrederickC: American Civil War Cavalry (424 points)

 My seventh submission of this year's challenge is a collection of 15mm American Civil War Cavalry, both Union and Confederate. The figures are from a variety of manufacturers, although I have only been able to identify those by Old Glory and Essex.  I think the bulk of the Union cavalry are by Falcon, but I am not certain regarding that. Perhaps some of the grognards in the group can provide some insight as to their origin.

 With terrain being dropped from the point tally, I needed to do a last minute course change, and found all these figures in a box in one of my storage drawers, already primed and glued onto popsicle sticks for ease of handling. They had been prepped some thirty years ago when I was gaming with a group that did a lot of American Civil War using 'Johnnie Reb' rules, but for some reason (available time, family obligations, the new 'shiny', etc.) that was as far as they got. I had hoped to get this project finished for last Saturday, but other demands on my time resulted in them being only half done when the clock ran out. 

 As mentioned above they were already primed black with a rattle can. I then painted them with Vallejo acrylics. The Union cavalry was the easiest to paint, both in terms of the standard colour palette, and the poses. The Confederate cavalry was more challenging as I tried to put some variety into the uniform colours with different shades of brown and grey, plus some of the poses made it difficult to get the brush into some of the deeper recesses. Regarding the sculpts, I liked the Essex and Falcon(?) the best. The riders were separate from the horse and saddle, and the poses and detail were easy to paint. The Old Glory sculpts were much more animated, but the fit of the rider and saddle (which came as one piece) to the horse often had large gaps between the saddle cloth and the horse's body. I would also describe the sculpts as a bit more 'rough and ready'.

Here are the final results - four 15 figure Union cavalry regiments, one 15 figure dismounted Union cavalry regiment, one 15 figure Confederate cavalry regiment, two 11 figure Confederate cavalry regiments. 

Encounter in the East Cavalry Field

Confederate troopers of General Jeb Stuart

US troopers of General David Gregg

 

Union cavalry brigade deploying

Union cavalry regiment No. 1

Union cavalry regiment No. 2

Union cavalry regiment No. 3

Union cavalry regiment No. 4

Dismounted Union cavalry with horse holder in the background

Confederate cavalry brigade deploying

Confederate cavalry regiment No. 1

Confederate cavalry regiment No. 2

Confederate cavalry regiment No. 3

Anyone recognize the manufacturer?

Anyone recognize the manufacturer?

Wearing Abe Lincoln's blue suit circa 1990

The points being claimed are as follows:

 

18 x 15mm foot figures @ 2 points each = 36 points

 

97 x 15mm 'mounted' figures @ 4 points each = 388 points

Total = 424 points

Thanks for stopping by.

As Sylvain is unavailable today, it's your stand-in Minion here, Frederick. Yes, I was a little disappointed at the exclusion of terrain this year too, but I must say that you have found a wonderful alternative! These 15mm ACW units certainly look good. The extra effort you put into the Confederates definitely shows, but the more regular Union troopers look very fine as well. I really like Essex 15mm figures (of course, I have some lying around somewhere...), but the other makes are nice models too.  And that's a very smart Union soldier in that photograph! I can't help you with identifying the unknown ones, but I can help you with your points. A whopping 424 are added to your tally!

Martijn

From TomC: Back in Blue [Limbo] (220 points)

Hello everybody, belated Happy New Year, very glad to see a lot of great progress so far from fellow contestants, hopefully Santa has been good to you all over the year end! 

As always, thanks to Curt for organising the Challenge, to the Minion team for volunteering and to Tamsin for her helpful instructions (errors in following which being entirely my own fault!).

These will be a familiar sight by now for many challengers - Warlord Games’s Epic American Civil War infantry, certainly it seems I’m not the only one putting paint to these this year! These are from the free sprue attached to Wargames Illustrated a while ago, plenty enough to have kept me going!

I started these before AHPC XIII, for which my first entry was the commander and artillery piece, which also come on the frame. Seems fitting to open another Challenge with the rest! Having given these infantry a once-round of blue, I put them on hold for the duration of the challenge… and then the subsequent two years… still, not the worst offenders in my pile of potential!

I painted these the old-fashioned way and, for my sins, without any metallic paints, so I really didn’t do myself any favours in the planning phase! This was compounded by issues with the recommended paints, Night Blue (glossy, which I realise now I cannot bear!) and Andrea Blue (suspiciously thin), which led to me to redo the blues with various Citadel offerings.

Not content with the problems I’d caused for myself, I continued by being unable to find the paper banners which came with the magazine at the critical juncture. Doubtless, these will resurface at an inopportune moment, but for the meantime I did my best to freehand the stripes on Old Glory and cobble something together for the regimental banner. This was a combination of Games Workshop decals I took apart, reassembled and painted over. I appreciate that whilst this has some of the right elements (eagle, shield, NFL logo), it does perhaps look a little modern… at least there’s something on the flag!

I did some minor work on these before assembly, there are only a couple of variations of ‘strips’ provided by Warlord, so there is a risk of repeating stands quite quickly. I delayed this by cutting some of the strips in half to mix them up, if I recall correctly, there are a couple of points where this can be done with a minimum of grief, and I do think it helps break up the repeated sculpts. Probably not possible with the Epic Waterloo collection alas!

In terms of scoring, there are 100 wee lads in the unit, at 2 points a head being the going rate for Warlord’s ‘Epic scale’ infantry. The commander and gun above are just included for completeness, so 200 points for the submission, with an additional 20 for the ‘Limbo’ bonus category that these sadly neglected Federals hopefully merit! All in, should be 220 points?

As a final note, my laptop has failed and so I have resorted to the mobile for this post - apologies for any issues with it as a consequence!

TeemuL: Yes, Warlord's Epic scale indeed is 15mm or two points a head, so you got yourself a nice haul of points here. You have now accomplished your target of 250 points in just two entries and in less than a month. But don't worry, me, myself and the whole Tuesday crew encourages and expects you to continue painting until end of March.

The models themselves look nice, you have found a nice blue in the end. I hope you find your flags, too. Your cutting the strips and reorganising the troops a bit gives quite natural look on the force. I have to remember that when I make some experiments with that scale and the freebie sprues from WI magazine myself. :) Compiling a post using mobile phone is very painful, I feel you. I forgive you for not adding any labels and added couple of suitable by myself. Feel free to edit, if needed.

From KentG: Everything from Napoleonic to Custers last stand (92 pts)

This week has been a bit of a shish mash of figures

some I just really wanted to do other were either left overs from

groups of figures I'd already done for the challenge but miscalculated and

 done extra horse here and there

This first one is a wargames Illustrated 

moments in history set and was a hoot to 

paint, I had so much fun with this one

poor old Custer meets his end

This 40mm perry Miniatures, when I paint the other figures 

I had missed this one so thought I better get him done

This is another moments in history set 

by wargames illustrated, this one is another great wee set of 28mm figures

A few more pirates 28mm you can see the one with the sword

 above is on my new base that I got made, the other ones whoever glued those

 into the bases did a really good job and I can't get them apart

These figures are 28mm outlaws from the Barons wars range, 

I thought a quick easy paint but they have very fine detail and I ended up

 spending a good amount of time on them

When I did the Dragoons early on in the Challenge I mis calculated

here's the extra figures like the one below put on a base, I had to do a 

little painting on the ECW trumpeter but most had already been started before

 I realized I didn't need him to complete the unit

                Points

                2 bases of history in time 5 x 28mm = 25pts

                1 x 40mm Napoleonic foot = 7pts

                4 x pirates 28mm foot =20pts

                4 x outlaws 28mm foot = 20pts

                2 x cavalry 28mm = 20pts

                                                            Total 92 points
 

From Millsy: I was so tempted to leave the title as you typed it Kent... "Clusters last stand" is a pretty accurate description of how that played out I'd say. But if your attention to grammar is light on your skills with a brush are quite the opposite mate. The last stand is just wonderful and the lance dividing the base in two adds a nice element of theatre. 92 more well earned points for your total!

From PaulSS: Union skirmishers and artillery - 60pts

Todays entry is a milestone post, I have had a good search of the pile o'shame and this entry wraps up entirely the last of my unpainted American Civil War figures!

The crew for the gun are from Crusader Miniatures, while the gun itself is one off of the Perry Miniatures plastic frame. I'm pretty sure that there may be another pack of these gunners somewhere but I could not find them.

Rooting through the boxes I also found a couple of frames of Union Skirmishers so these were quickly assembled, primed and painted.

While editing the photos, I saw that there is a lot of static grass still clinging to the figures, I've since attacked them with a stiff brush and they look a bit better although some stubbornly remains.

I did say that these are the last of the unpainted ACW figures and I now have eight 4L Really Useful Boxes full of painted ACW stuff, but I'm now eyeing up an order of "just a few" Sash and Sabre, oh dear! 

Ten 28mm foot figures and a cannon should add 60pts to my total.

Project finished Paul? I think likely not given your post-script... but these artillerists will definitely bring the boom and the skirmishers will do good work in harrying Johnny Reb. Gotta say also that I love the backdrops you use for your photos, looks so good.

Happy to award 60 points for the submission!

Dallas