From MilesR: A Rather Eclectic First Post (480 Points)

I am a little slow off the mark this year, and that's after a rather slim showing in last year's challenge.  I've had some issues with Rheumatoid Arthritis in my hands which has required me to learn a new way to paint.  Don't worry, I'm still a poor painter but just a bit slower.

My first submission is a rather mixed lot of 28mm and 10mm figures.

First up is the start of a Warband to use for games like Mordheim at the club.  These are all 3D printed figures which were mostly designed for 10mm but I "embigended" to 28mm and I think they came out fine

This is a motley warband of 6 Dwarves and 3 non-Dwarves.  I used army painter speed paints for these and I think they came out fine for club play>

A close up of the three "non-Dwarves" - a human pistoleer, a Orc bruiser and a goblin scout.

The Dwarves come out super stocky when enlarged to 28mm, but I really like the look.

Next up are 8 Varagian Guards.  A few challenges ago, I painted up a Byzantine skirmish forces to use with Barrons War.

These are 8 metal figures from a long forgotten manufacture that I found in a drawer as I was redoing the game storage closet.

These were also painted with Army Painter Speed paints, which I have grown fond of for fantasy-type paint schemes.

Lets shift scales and go full on "Lord of the Rings".  LWTV is embarking on a big 10mm scale LOTR the rings project and you'll be able to figure out what armies I've been assigned in this post.  First up is the start of a large Easterling Army.  These are all 10mm 3d prints from Wakes Emporium (the infantry and Trolls) and the cav are made by Greenskin Miniatures (their Araby line)

There are 20 lance armed heavy cav and...

Just 12 Horse archers - don't worry more are on the way.

10 Armored Trolls, these were really fun to paint up

there is also a 2 figure command stand.

The heart of any Easterling army is it's Infantry and I've complete 8, 18 figure bases.  These were painted up to look like the ones in Peter Jackson's movies

I'm maybe 1/4 through what I need to complete - it will be a big army

Opposing the Easterlings is my other assignment - Dwarves.  These are from the new Wargames Atlantic 10mm plastic Dwarven set and represent 1 full sprue.  I have 2 more to paint up

You can't beat the price (274 minis for under $30 bucks but some of the casting choices are odd - some shields are really think.  Its hard to see from three feet away but pretty glaring while painting.  I do like the Ram Cavalry.

OK so what the tally?  Well, Curt and my minion have one decision to make.  The 10mm trolls are much bigger than 10mm

In fact they are 25mm high so, I'm going to suggest that we score them as 20mm figures, which is 4 points per figure - I'll leave the final decision up to my betters

The total figure count is:

17x 28mm Inf @5pts = 85 points
10x 20mm Trolls @10pts = 40 points
38x 10mm Cav @3pts = 114 points
144x Easterling Inf @2pt= 144 points
93x Dwarven Infantry @1pt = 93 points

Total 476 Points

At the start of this post I mentioned learning a new way to paint. My RA results in my hand loosing its grip on a brush and it clattering down on the workbench maybe every 10 minutes or so, which can be frustrating.

The solution was as simple as it is effective and my brilliant wife came up with it.  I used an elastic wrap to essentially pin a brush to my hand and then hold and manipulate the brush like I'm using chopsticks.

It works surprisingly well and now I'm looking forward to painting again.  Of course my training required MANY trips to our local Chinese restaurants to practice with chop sticks, but that is just the kind of sacrifice I'm willing to make for this hobby.

Sorry for the long winded post.  Next up will be some 28mm North Vietnamese Regulars from Empress Miniatures - you can see them in progress in the last picture.

 

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Sylvain: Miles, I don't know which impress me most, your productivity or your resilience. It takes a dedicated hobbyist to train its art at the local noodle shop (Karate Kid style: "noodle up, noodle down"). And the results looks fabulous! The individual figurines ooze character while your rank and file units show conformity with their army. The floating banners are a nice touch and are worth an extra 4 points, for a total of 480. Joli travail!

 

From MilesR: A Whole Bunch O'Stuff (416 Points)

 This will be a rather random set of mini's for this week's submission - both in terms of scales as well as periods covered.  Let's Start with the big boys first:

12 28mm Byzantine Bucellarii or Armored Horse Archers.  These have always been my favorite troops from antiquity and I've always had fun with them on the table top.

These mini's are 28mm plastic models from Fireforge Miniatures and were a joy to both assemble and paint.  About 90% of the painting was done using the Army Painter speedpaints which I am growing very fond of.

This completes my Byzantine forces for Barrons War outside of a few leader figs I may throw in.

Next up are 48 10mm "Heavy" Orcs which I had 3D printed by a friend

They were fun to paint up and a nice break.  Technically these Orcs are big and top the scales in at 15mm but lets still score them as 10mm - why?

Because their opponents - Dwarves are labelled as 10mm figures but really tip in at 7mm - well they are Dwarves after all.

Same 3D printing source and a lot of fun to paint up.

Lastly - an initial down payment on my "Big Project" for the year - the Russo-Japanese War in 10mm.  These are the new 10mm RJW line from Pendraken and they are superb figures.  

There are 18 bases of Japanese Infantry, 10 cav and 4 machine gun bases - this is a little over a division and a half

Brace yourselves, your going to be subjected to a lot of 10mm RJW figures over the course of this challenge.

I've got close to 2,000 of the little buggers to paint up.  I'll be running this as a campaign at Historicon this year and they'll also likely find their way onto a Little Wars TV episode this summer.  

Well that's all for this submission, lets figure of the final tally:

12  28mm cavalry = 120 points

64 10+mm Orcs = 64 points

80 10-mm Dwarves = 80 points

72 10mm Japanese Infantry and 8MG crewman + machine guns  = 80 92 points

20 10mm Japanese Cavalry = 40 points 60 points

Grand Total: 384 Points

Ha, I was starting to wonder where you were, Miles. Almost 250 figures in one go, that's more like you!  And great figures they are too. All are quite great, from the Byzantines through the orks to the little dwarves with their distinctive shields, but I really like your RJW figures. Looking forward to seeing (much) more from them in the future! 

You have short-changed yourself a little as 10mm cavalry are 3 points, not 2, and then here are the 4 crew-served weapons at 3 points each for a total of  416 points!

Ah, one minor quibble: please remember to lay-out and resize your photos...

Martijn

From MilesR: 28mm Byzantines for Barrons War and a History Library Submission (510 Points)

 

Wow, I've painted more 28mm figures during the first week of this challenge than I've done in the past 2 years.  For your consideration is a small Byzantion force intended to be used with the Barron's War ruleset (which is the new "hotness" at my club).  I'll also be submitting these as my "historical" library challenge.

These are all 28mm plastic from Fireforge Miniatures and I highly recommend them.

To be honest, I am a little nervous submitting these giving the superb Byzantines presented by both GregB and DarrelH.  I can never approximate their skill level.

First up are 12 Koursores or thematic heavy cavalry, 6 with lances and 6 with swords

Maybe not quite the armored might of a cataphract but they can still hit hard and are a bit more manueverable.

I used Army painter speed paints 2.0 on all my Byzantine figures and have really liked them.

Speaking of Cataphracts, here are 12 of the armored monsters, 6 with lances and 6 with maces.

Not the most nimble of troops but wow do they pack a punch

Some skirmishers and light archers 

Lastly - some heavy infantry (25) and armored Archers (10)

WHile Cataphracts are the showboats, the heart of any Byzantine army is their heavy infantry and archers.

You will see a few more Byzantines added to the mix before this challenge is over.

As for points:

  50 Infantry = 250 points

  24 Cavalry = 240 points

  plus 20 for the Library Challenge

that totals 510 points, so not to bad a haul.

OK, I think that's all for today - it appears my painting partner Gus has some business to take care of outside so I've got to go.  Happy New Year Everyone!

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Thus it begins, right after the Paint Bomb (TM) of the ever-industrious Martin, we have Miles The Machine opening up the throttle on his Paint Engine!

Amazing work Mr. Miles. A full cross-section of Byzantine military power in all it's armoured glory. 510 points worth all at once. Bam! Wowzers that's very impressive. I look forward to seeing more of this project fly off your hobby desk, Mr. R.

Also, give Gus a good skritch for me - he's such a good boy.

- Curt

From GregB - Byzantine Varangian Guard - 62 Points

Varangian Guards prepare to take to the field in the name of the Emperor of Byzantium!

After a slew of Space Marines, we turn to a completely different ongoing project - my 28mm Byzantines. Here we have a unit of Varangian Guard, the elite mercenary guards of the Byzantine Emperors. These are 28mm metal figures from Gripping Beast, with flag and shield decals from LBMS.

Some fine swordsmen, present and correct!

Darrel H has already covered the Varangians earlier in the Challenge - and done a totally amazing, lights-out job on the paint work, holy cow - go check it out now if you missed it - but this particular unit is a fun one to have on hand in my collection, and I have been waiting for a couple years to paint some up, focused on other, more basic units to build and paint first.

I love the character of these sculpts. Don't the poses make you flinch, just a bit? Here comes a two-handed axe!!

And I did not even expect to be painting any Byzantines during this edition of the Challenge...but you know what they say about plans...anyway, I am planning a visit to Winnipeg in a couple of weeks, and as part of that, planning a game with the guys. Dallas and I were texting, mulling possible options for a game, and we settled on having my Byzantines finally take to the gaming table to battle his Normans. Great! And, he casually asked "if I had any Varangians painted"?

"Clear out for the wind up!"

So naturally I tore into my pile of shame, dug these figures out, and got cracking on them! In response, Dallas found some unpainted Normans in his pile, and before you know it, a mini-Challenge-within-a-Challenge was born...and here is my part of it! This unit is modest in size, but the Varangians hit hard, and this will do just fine for a game of Warhammer Ancient Battles. 

Banner bearer.

Tried to make the commander's outfit a touch fancier...

Gripping Beast metal figures are so strange...they look odd when they come out of the blister...strange proportions...but when you start painting them, I find they have so much character, and I just love them. While I could do without the separate weapons for the figures, I overall really, really loved painting these...except, of course, for the shields. 

Fighting now, drinking later!

The shields have LBMS transfers on them - no way I could hope to freehand designs like that - but wow, are they ever a massive, massive pain in the @ss to work with. I wish these were available as waterslide transfers...the peel-stick-water system these things use is fiddly as f*ck, and the results can be pretty uneven, and you will still need to paint the edges - and do so carefully. Even a liberal dose of Mircosol only does so much...anyway, I got there in the end, but I continue to wish for waterslide transfers for shields...

"Charge - and leave some room for the axes!"

Anyway, these 12 fellows in 28mm will be good for another 60 points. They are present and correct, and ready to swing swords and axes at some Normans! Can't wait to get these out on the table in a couple weeks time, while visiting my friends in Winnipeg!

Wait, those aren't Space Marines, what gives? Ah well, they look fantastic anyway, hopefully they will perform well against Dallas' Normans. I have thrown in a couple of bonus points for the effort you made with the shields, that sounds like a right pain in the posterior.

Darrell H Thematic Byzantines, Varangian Guard (130 points)

Many years ago, under the influence by two exceptional painters and modellers at the Edinburgh Club, South East Scotland Wargamer Club (SESWC), after much study of their work I came to realise that the secret to creating interesting dynamic looking units was to go for as much variation and dynamism as possible and to limit in as much is possible, the repetitiveness of the miniatures! I won't jump too deep into that concept except to throw in a few pictures below..... 

Anyway, with that in mind, as I started to clean up these Varangian Guards and ordered some extra sword and axe hands from Gripping Beast. With a quick-ish hand swap, I think these have reduced the level of homogeneity in the unit to make each miniature more interesting and the unit feel more "alive".

The Anglo Danish unit below is a nice example of how I strive for variation and to create as much dialogue between the miniatures as is possible with my toys. To have the miniatures "talk" to one another. There are many manufacturers in the unit which at first glance oat the list one might not think would necessarily fit together; Wargames Foundry, Footsore Miniatures (Matthew Bickley), Footsore Miniatures (Bill Thornhill), Gripping Beast, and Long OOP Gripping Beast so the variation was easy enough to create by using the various manufacturers. This was not the case with my Varangian Guard units where all the miniatures were from Gripping Beast's Thematic Byzantine range ergo the variation in weapons option.

                             

With this in mind here's what I managed with the simple hand swaps for the Varangians.....

(Yeah, I know, two of the same miniatures has the same sword but I was having an off day!)

All the miniatures in the Varangian Guard unit are from Gripping Beast except the standard bearer to the right which is from the new exciting "fantasy" venture from Colin Patten, Ragnarok miniatures. Well worth checking out if you are interested in wargaming with the Norse or indeed are interested in Tolkien!

Unit from a more or less level angle:

From a slightly higher angle:

I put quite a lot of work into the miniatures so wanted to show the bases off. They have been based for (ye olds) Warhammer Ancient Battles but could be arranged to fit quite a few different rules systems- even if that process might be a bit fiddly. 

It might not look it but the border on the captain's cloak was a lot of fun to paint up. 

I have made a point of going a little further than normal than I ordinarily might do when painting a whole unit by adding little details such as the borders and stripes on some of the trousers etc.

All the banners and shields are from Little Big Man Transfers. It would have been lovely to have had the time to paint the shields and the banners freehand but unfortunately this isn't possible in the time allotted for the AHPC and taking into account the speed I paint LOL.

So, at 5 points per 28mm miniature I have that at 120 points(?)

These Varangians are just wonderful Darrell.  Really appreciating the time to do the weapon hands switches to give more variety.  And the time invested on the pant stripes and tunic/cloak borders.  These figures really come to life under your brushwork and I'm bumping you up a few points to reflect the work involved.  Now I have to get lost over at Ragnarok's kickstarter.....