From Kerry T - P is for Pike & Shotte. (194 points & Squirrel)

 Morning, afternoon and evening all

I assume that introduction or greeting covers all of you worldwide!

P is for Pike and Shotte

Its another lovely Sunday afternoon here in NZ and I'm pleased to say that I've managed to finish another unit this week though it was a bit of a mission having had to paint late into Friday and Saturday evenings to complete things. I wouldn't normally paint on these evenings, though I paint most other evenings and as a consequence rarely watch TV.

Its been really nice to have one of my sons come home to stay for a few days, with the added bonus that he'd agreed to jump on the ride-on today and cut the grass - so this meant that I could get out my pretend grass and so base and finish the Kings Regiment of Foote this morning. So I've finished a unit that I hadn't expected to this week. That's handy because mid week I'm away on a golf trip for a few days and have little hope of painting much in the next few days. To be honest, the break is quite welcome

I think this is the last of my Royalist infantry regiments bringing my total to 10 infantry regiments to date. I say I think its the last - I'll have to take a look at how many of the Royalist standards I bought from Flags or War!

I started collecting ECW figures almost 3 years ago when I knew I just had to have some of those exquisite Empress Miniatures ECW  figures  https://valleyboyinnz.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/oh-look-shiny-yet-another-new-project-and-other-bits/ 

As one might expect, I then discovered other equally nice figures out there and have since added figures from the First Corps, Bicorne Miniatures & Warlord Games. I've generally painted a unit here and there bumping them up or down the painting queue as the mood takes me.

These are Bicorne Miniatures Figures, I generally don't mix figure manufacturers in a unit

As one might expect from a newly painted unit - it will inevitably run away in its first game so here we go...

Flee for your lives

Not exactly a Pike block but at 12 figures I think these look respectable enough  and so have chosen to field all my units with 12 pike. I think this is the minimum I can get away with but on reflection I wonder if 16 would have been better 

Psst Don't tell Ken Reilly there's only 12 of us, so keep shuffling around lads and hopefully the bugger won't notice😄

I like Bicorne's "Musketeer at order" pose and almost wish I'd bought more (but then I suppose I would never have finished the unit in time for today!)

Finally there's the command group with their Flags of War standards https://www.flagsofwar.com/collections/ecw-royalist

I didn't know Marty Feldman fought in the ECW (guy on the right front rank - I never paint eyes but I've only just spotted that and will need to sort it)

In painting these I've tried to go for a bit of a faded red, VJ Cavalry brown, washed with Army Painter Dark Tone, then highlight with a mix of VJ Flat red and Cavalry Brown before the final highlight with added VJ Cork Brown

My plan is to use for King and Parliament Rules by Big Red Bat, with the inspiration from his work here https://forkingandparliament.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately as a solo gamer I need to collect and paint both sides

I'm definitely a fan of lots of big flags 

I like the mixture of headgear in these figures

 Oh what the hell..

Here we go here's what I have to date

So that's 38 figures I think at 5 points for a total of 190 and another Squirrel (err ahem, that's why I'm still at the bar in Sarah's Yacht pretending to eat your share of the nuts but in reality slipping them into my pocket because I should have 4 squirrels to feed by now!) 

Excuse me but would you mind passing the nuts?

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Fabulous looking regiment of pike & shotte, Kerry. Love those final shots of all your collection arrayed for battle. I'm popping in a few extra points for the brave banners. Beautiful.

Enjoy your golf getaway!

- Curt

From AlexS: Drones and Gun (71 points)

 Hello to all! My name is Alex and I from Russia. When I learned about this event five years ago, I was happy. I could paint at the same time with many wonderful people whose blogs I admired. All participants of the event always cause me respect and joy in their work.

But there are four people who make me feel special. These are Curt, Greg, Tamsin and Michael Awdry. It is the last I would like to dedicate this post. Rather, it's first part. I always look with interest for interesting and sometimes insane ideas of Michael, and I think these drones are just in his style. Like him, I tried to use unexpected materials and miniatures. Of course, I could not make the painting as good as Michael, but I tried.

These drones should be, as I thought, the results of the work of Robur Industries and should be a serious challenge to the sheriff of the city of Prague. Playing with them will be only in two weeks, but I hope that the hero will be difficult to defeat them. This is quite unexpected and interesting, as the work of Michael, I think so.

And the second part is a gun for the rules For the king and the parliament. The army of the Moscow Tsar for the period of the middle of the 17th century had its large and good artillery, but still invited foreign experts, so this gun would not be something unexpected.

Points:

28mm 7 Drons x 5 = 35
28mm 1 gun x 10 = 10
28mm 5 crew x 5 = 25

total 70 points

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Lovely work on these and an interestingly eclectic mix as well. The drones are an interesting selection and will go well in your Weird Wild West setting. I'd be interested to know who makes them as I've not seen their like before. 

On to the Gun and crew, I really like this model and it would make for a really interesting display piece let alone featuring in an army. I've seen plenty of these type of gun teams at reenactment fairs and I have to say it must take a degree of courage to stand next to an exploding metal tube... even if it isn't loaded with shot! I'm throwing in an extra point for this model because I like it so much so this lot will give you 71 points. 

Its been a pleasure being your minion for AHPC IX and I hope we'll see more from you before the competition ends in a little over a week. Best of luck! 

Lee

From AlexS - "Call me Snake" and For King and Parliament (376 Points)

Hello to all! My name is Alex and I from Russia. Today some more miniatures. First, a very important miniature for my world of the Wild West. In the story, one of the characters turns out to be the incarnation of Yig, the ancient of Lovecraft's universe. And I found and painted a miniature for him. It turned out to be alive and my wife was frightened at first, thinking that I had brought a live snake home.

Secondly, I love this event, because it is very motivating to work. In the fall I tried to paint the mercenaries for the army of the Moscow Tsar for the 17th century. But I did not succeed, and these miniatures could stand long on the shelf. But thanks to the event, depending on how other people work, I was inspired and began to repaint them. And this is the result of the work - two battles and a squadron of cavalry, and generals.

I have three more battles and a gun on the shelf. I hope there is enough inspiration to paint them. Help me with your work!

points:

28mm 1 monster = 10 points
28mm 15 cav x 10 = 150 points
28mm 42 inf x 5 = 210 points
28mm 1wounded x 2,5 = 2,5 points

total 372,5

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Fantastic entry mate, I really love that snake and the story about your wife thinking it was real. I had a similar experience back before I got married, probably 30 years ago. I painted a 'Giant Spider' for an Undead Army and left it on my desk while I worked on its rider. It was pretty much life size for a Tarantula and my poor mother nearly had a heart attack when she discovered it while cleaning my room! 

I'm scoring the wounded casualty as a full figure (I've done that for other peoples entries and want to be consistent). I'm also adding a point for the snake cos it looks so good, so your total for this lot is 376 points.

Lee

From AlexS - Tatar cavalry (240 points)

Hello to all! My name is Alex, I'm from Russia and I started a new project. After all, I finished two old projects thanks to this event. My new project is the army of the Moscow kingdom in the first half of the 17th century. My friend and I, who are gathering the army of Sweden for this period, are going to play "For the King and Parliament" by the wonderful rules of Simon Miller.

I have already made a few European mercenaries for this period, but the cavalry was an important component of the Russian army at that moment. Among them is the Tatar cavalry. And I made it from the sets from the Gripping Beast and the FireFoge Games. Simon has not yet released an addendum to the rules that allow the Thirty Years War to be played, but we decided that the Tatar cavalry would have some of the characteristics of the Scottish cavalry. Only they will have bows ...

As primary colors, I used early shades of green and brown. It gave a very interesting overall look.

I used the base size of 180x80 millimeters. I usually located on a 24+ foot base model or a 12 horse, but I decided to use the 8 models. It seemed to me that such an amount would add drama to the detachment and show that this is not regular cavalry.

I also used different weapons to make the squad look even more interesting.

General view: horse "lava" attacks. Maybe I will paint more troops for this game during the event. Or close another big project. I can not say for sure.

Points:
28 mm 24 cav - 24x10=240 points

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Great looking cavalry unit Alex. They certainly look like a wild bunch and I like the fact that you have been able to add some variety by swapping weapons. The colours also look spot on making this a very nice looking unit. That's another 240 points to add to your total. 
Lee

From Millsy: 10mm Scots Royalist Horse (54 points)

Two posts in one week! It's almost like I've got some time to myself. In fact that's the truth with Simon Miller's cracking new For King and Parliament variant of his To the Strongest! rules all finished design-wise and ready for print. Given I've spent a fair bit of time with FKaP recently you can probably imagine where in the inspiration for this submission comes from. :-)

I've long been a fan of the Project Auldearn website and wanted to replicate Montrose's greatest victory for myself. Given that large project costs and associated storage are all considerations for me these days I decided to have a stab at the project in 10mm scale.

This week I've made a start on the Royalists forces under Montrose and finished all three cavalry units. All the miniatures are from Pendraken and very fine indeed they are too. Painted over a black undercoat they reward a high-contrast style and really pop when viewed from a couple of feet away, perfect for table-top viewing.

First up is Lord Gordon's Horse, a single base of 9 miniatures, mixing regular "English" horse with Scots to give the impression of a better equipped unit which would fight in the "Swedish" style, charging into the enemy before discharging their pistols in the melee.

You can see at the rear of the base room left for the unit name and dice holders for indicating hits, ammo and dash values under the FKaP rules. I'm going to have to do my own flags so I've left those for now to do in a batch once a few more units are complete.

Next up is Aboyne's Horse, a more typical Scots horse unit. There was roughly twice the number of these as Gordon Horse at Auldearn so I've chosen to do two bases, effectively two units in FKaP.

As you can see with the basing I've attempted to replicate the highlands in thick heather, gorse and grasses. Martin from Tajima1 very kindly knocked out a custom order of heather tufts in short order. They really look the business and I'm thrilled with the effect.

All up that's 27 wee horsemen for a total of 54 points.

Cheers,

Millsy

From Minion Tamsin:
A short and sweet submission of short and sweet Scots. Great painting on the wee chaps and the basing looks sweet. That's another 54 points for you Mr Mills.