Owing to various work-and-life-related 'bumps in the road', this sadly is only my second post of the Challenge. But I've tried to assemble a fairly disparate collection of figures as some form of ambushing party, all of which are inspired by the ambush-y treachery of the planet of Caprica.
First of all, though, I need to get there. Enter (stage left) a swashbuckling lady with a fancy sword, accompanying (or being pestered by) a dubious night-stalker of the Paris alleyways.
She's a really nice and versatile swashbuckling female figure from Brigade Games, in 28mm. The male figure is from Midlam Miniatures in the UK, also in 28mm. I had fun painting his skin in a unhealthy pallor, based on a purple base coat. Plenty of opportunities arise with a figure like this in a game - Has he been over-doing the mercury powder? Or is there a hint of plague about Monsieur Descartes? Or... maybe he's just a cultist of Slaanesh...
Next, there are some more 28mm figures from my forces for “...with Flashing Blades”, a set of rules set in the historical Paris of 1622, which is very much inspired by Dumas’ novels of “The Three Musketeers”. During the course of last summer and autumn I painted forces for the Musketeers themselves and the Cardinal’s Guards.
So what was left for the ‘Paris Collection’ (... see what I did there!...) was this group of figures which I have painted for use as the Paris Nightwatch.
There are ten figures for the Nightwatch in various stages of patrolling, guarding, commanding, directing and promenading - all with a suitably martial air (regardless of their actual ability). I tried to collect the figures as a group which would fit together well and could form a small detachment to prevent law-breaking, fisticuffs and general mayhem breaking out in the fair city of Paris.
The figures are collected from various ranges, mainly from Wargames Foundry’s ECW range which fit together perfectly, size-wise, with the Brigade Games musketeers and Cardinal's Guard. I converted some of the figures, adding green-stuff feather, and lace - but nothing too dramatic. The fashionable Dalmatian is a hound produced by Simon Chick, which he kindly sent to me after the Salute show in 2018. Of course, this shamelessly plays to our dear Snow-Lord’s love of dogs, but also reflects the seventeenth century fashion for Dalmatians in 1622 Paris (true...fact-checked!!...).
As for painting, I have again left the bases as plain as possible to allow the figures to be used in any environment, urban or rural. I painted the colours of the figures in muted tones - trying to distinguish the Nightwatch from the red of the Cardinal’s Guard and the blue of the Musketeers. I thought browns and greys would make good Nightwatch colours, and also added some green which might look suitably faded and worn on the table.
I also painted up a collection of ECW 'doctors' which can serve as medical practitioners in our games. I have no idea if these chaps have any medical training, but that musket ball is in the patient's leg....somewhere. Maybe one more poke around with the chirurgeon's knife will find it!
I added a head-swap for the 'helping' figure, and added some Green-Stuff feathers to his hat (the head being from Bicorne Miniatures).
I added a few small "terrain" bases as well. I needed some for a game, but I wonder if they really qualify as Challenge XII-worthy "terrain" according to our scoring system? There's a Hovels barrel with a cockerel (Parisian, of course), some hens and some bottles of Medoc in various stages of consumption. And there's some scratch-built hay-piles and/or dung-heaps for Characters and citizens to jump, fall and slip into.
And, because I'm British, and our culture celebrates the hilarity of people treading in horse poo, I made up some small piles of horse manure to add to the table as a "random event". No sniggering at the back, please, ladies and gentlemen.
So, with the points:
20 for Caprica, and 20 for the female swashbuckler to get me there = 40 points
15 x 28mm figures = 75 points
One Dalmatian = 2 points (not 101 points, obviously)
Bits of scratch-built terrain, including fluffy chickens, noisy cockerel, bottles and a barrel = 20 points all-in?
Which, with a slight squint at the terrain point-age, would give the entry a total = 137 points
Great to have the opportunity to enjoy more of your outstanding brushwork Sidney! All of this is amazingly well done, as we have come to expect from you, and the lovely figures are accompanied by entertaining text and explanations.
There are a lot great figures here, but my favourite has to be the purple-tinged fellow, with unhealthy intentions to likely match an unhealthy internal condition...much as I can see him causing problems in Paris, your mention of Slaanesh makes me nostalgic for the lost "Old World" of Warhammer Fantasy Battle (even though I know that is not the intent of this lot overall)...and he looks like he would fit right in that setting too. Great work.
It is irritating when one-to-one scale gets in the way of the work we wish to do on the more important scales. My dogs always help me keep things in perspective, and so even though you were pandering to the Snow Lord (wisely), the effect of including the dog (fact-checked!) on me is inspiring such as to force me to include a few extra bonus points, and round things up to 140 points. Cheers.
GregB
