From MartijnN: Some heavy hitters (28mm Roman cataphracts)(120 points)

 I have slowly been getting my painting mojo back. Boy, has this Challenge been a slow starter! I started working on these 28mm Gripping Beasts before the new year began, but I have just been finishing them recently. I thought I'd experiment a bit, so I gave them a back undercoat and a white zenithal, and then had the luminous idea to airbrush them in silver, trying not to hit the areas that would not be metal (which, on these figures, frankly isn't a lot). However, I forgot that I would be using speedpaints again. And as you know, these are fairly translucent, which is the whole point of them. This, of course, meant that all colours  applied over them ended up as metallics. Which again meant that I had to do them again, either by applying a new white undercoat or by layering them up with acrylics. I'm pleased enough with the end result, but my shortcut sure took me the long way around!

Anyway, here they are. Their name is Greek in origin, being derived from kata and fraktos, meaning "completely covered". Sometimes, we find the term clibanarii also (probably from a pun, meaning something like "oven-men"), and historians are still divided on the question whether these were different types of cavalry or simply two synonymous terms for the same type of horsemen. There were numerous units of these super heavy cavalrymen in the late Roman army, although not much of their is history is very certain. They probably first appeared in the East, and at first the Romans used cataphracts levied from allied or subject peoples. They were regularly employed by the Sassanid Persians; there is a famous description in Ammianus Marcellinus' book XXV. They were probably armed with the long lance, the kontos, although they have also been described as using mattiobarbuli, heavy darts. In the Roman army, they increased in numbers as time progressed, but there were not very many of them at any given time it seems. However, just like the Grenadiers of the Old Guard, any wargamer should have at least one unit of them!

These Gripping Beast plastics look the part. I think they are accurate enough; I have my doubts about the saddles, for since the Romans probably did not yet use stirrups at this time, I feel the famous horned saddle would have been a better choice. Using a standard saddle without stirrups while wearing 40 kilograms of armour und being just a little top heavy might result in some highly undignified and unsoldierly experiences with the forces of gravity... Still, the figures were relatively easy to build, even for a clumsy oaf like me, and the result is pleasing enough I think. (Yes, I noted I had forgotten to paint the front of one of the bases, this has been corrected 😉). They go together well with the Victrix late Roman infantry I painted last week. As they are part of the same army, again no squirrels...

So, there we have it. Twelve 28mm cavalrymen should net me another 120 points and bring me to about a third of my target. Onwards and upwards!

12x 28mm horse @ 10 points = 120 points

Martijn

Wow Martijn those are some very well painted cataphracts! But more importantly: I am glad to hear your mojo is slowly returning, thank your time!

Cheers Sander 

From Martijn: More Late Romans (120 pts)

I think this is my sixth Challenge, but this is the first time I have been really struggling to get started. Up to now, I have painted all of eight miniatures.... For my next contribution,  I decided to take some rather simple figures to start with, but even so they took me an age to finish. However, they are sort of done at last, so here is the Late Roman Legio Quinta Macedonica. I have used the Victrix  Late Roman Unarmoured Infantry miniatures for them. I'm not much of a model builder, but they seemed to go together fairly easily.In all probability, these troops would have worn armour in most cases (although they leather armour on the officers is suspect anyway), but as with almost everything about the late Roman army we cannot really sure, so I am fine with them. They are based for Hail Caesar (which I have not played yet), but they can of course be used for any game, even Saga at a pinch. I think they could also fit into any post-Roman or Arthurian setting. I struggled a bit getting four figures on a base, but the end effect is nice enough.

I used mostly Contrast and Speedpaints again. I like the effect of them, but especially the way they flow from the brush. Somehow, I always struggle with acrylics,  as I either leave them too thick or make them too thin. I mean, the advice is to get them to the consistency of milk, but what is that? And should that be skimmed or half-skimmed or not skimmed at all? I find contrast paints, sometimes in combination with acrylics, a very convenient solution, often in combination with a wash. Here I used "marine juice", a combination between Reikland fleshshade, Softtone and medium. I gave the figures all the same tunics, but varied a bit with the trousers, to achieve something of a balanced between uniformity and interest. The Victrix set has a lot of options, so all figures are slightly different. I like that look; although a regular army like the Romans would also look very good with more mono-pose figures, I think the slightly irregular impression this units gives is fitting for those 5th or 6th century situations. Now all that remains is to give them a coat of  varnish once the weather clears a bit. The shield designs are the excellent transfers from Little Big Men Studios, sold by Victrix. Take note, however: the designs are symmetrical, but the transfers actually have an upper and lower side. So be careful when applying them. I wasn't, please ignore.

This is the very first time I painted a "largish" 28mm unit in one go (Yes, I can hear Yarkshire Ken's Homeric laughter in the background). So that's 24 28mm foot @ 5 points for a total of 120. Not a squirrel in sight though.

24x 28mm foot @5 = 120

Martijn, I feel your pain mate, sometimes getting the painting mojo back is a real poser indeed, but today's entry is awesome all the same! I really like your classic choice of colours and the shield designs are really striking, maybe entering this splendid unit gets your juices flowing again!

Cheers Sander 

From Andrew G: Wars of the Roses Bill & Bow with Men-at-Arms (110pts)

One of my ongoing big army projects is to build a Yorkist and Lancastrian force to fight the various battles that occurred during the Wars of the Roses. Specifically, I’ve chosen the Battle of Northampton (10 July 1460) as my focal point around which to build my first units.

Why this particular battle? A few reasons. First, I didn’t want to snow base my figures for this project and Northampton was one of the few major engagements of the period to have occurred during the summer months. Second, the battle is notable for being the first in which artillery was used in England – though typical British wet weather that day rendered much of it useless during the fighting. Third, the battle had all the good stuff representative of the period – lopsided forces and formations, bad weather, arrow storms, treachery, etc. – making it a great project for wargaming ‘what ifs?’.

I’m currently leaning towards using the Hail Caesar Wars of the Roses ruleset, so I’ve opted to multi-figure base my troops accordingly. This group represents a unit of (William Neville) Baron Fauconberg’s household with the men-at-arms upgrade. The unit includes both bill and bow, with men-at-arms occupying the billmen’s front rank. The miniatures in this unit are all Perry plastic Wars of the Roses Infantry and Men-at-Arms with a few alterations here and there just to create some variety within the ranks.

Once assembled the figures were primed black and then batch painted with various Vallejo and Army Painter colours and washes. I purposely did not paint Fauconberg’s hook symbol on these figures yet as until I have enough troops painted, I may use them to represent generic forces in other battles.

After letting them dry for a few days, I gave them two coats of matt varnish and then positioned them on their bases. I find that typically I can get six billmen comfortably on a base but only five archers, thus my 4-base units tend to consist of 22 figures vice 24. However, since what matters in Hail Caesar is frontage and not figure count, it doesn’t really matter how many figures occupy the unit’s space. Last, I keep the troop types separate for flexibility as some army lists includes units made up of just one type or the other.

I make my own bases on my FDM 3D printer – these ones are printed in olive drab PLA and measure 40x60x2mm. I find anything thicker tends to make the figures look like they’re standing on a platform and takes away from the terrain aesthetic. The base is then covered using Vallejo European Mud (26.807), a mix of Tajima tufts, and some Noch static grass. Done and ready for the table!

Claiming 22x 28mm figures = 110 points

A fine collection of WoR infantry from those excellent Perry box sets.  Love the clean liveries and your basing really works.  I might suggest To The Strongest as an alternative to HC, we've found that it gives a fun and fast game with reasonably plausible results.  I like your choice of Northampton as you battle, my dad was born in Northamptonshire.  Peter

From StuartL - Poles with Poles - 80 Points

Hi all,

    This week I have been painting up a few things, and the first minis to come off my painting desk are some medieval Polish foot serjeants with polearms.

    These figures are 3D prints from a company called Black Knight Miniatures on MyMiniFactory. I have no idea how historically accurate they are, but I think they look fine. These figures are going to be used for the Northern Crusades through the Baltic countries. 

    I got the colour scheme from an Osprey book on Medieval Polish Armies, and it showed a diamond pattern being used, so I tried to replicate it on some of the models. It came out okay-ish, but was a pain to do, so I only did a couple of minis. When painting the yellow, I covered the area with a bright neon pink first, and then painted the yellow over that, and it really pops. If you dread painting yellow, I really recommend a pink undercoat first. For these figures, I had a black undercoat, Vallejo Squid Pink, Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown and then a 50:50 highlight of Heavy Goldbrown and Vallejo Golden Yellow. The banner, shield and surcoat emblems are a part of the figures and are just painted in black, no fancy free-handing for those.

    The unit will see play using the Hail Caesar rules. For HC, the units are usually based on identical sized bases, so for a 16 man unit, you'd expect 4 bases of 4 figures. But here I went with slightly narrower bases on the flanks, and made all of the bases a bit deeper, getting a 5-6-5 pattern. This is primarily to narrow the frontage, so units have more room to move around. Too often, when I have played Warlord's historical games, both armies just line up and have no room to maneuver. I can also make a smaller unit by removing the middle command base. 

    Unfortunately, the STL files for these models were set at a slightly larger scale, so these chaps tower over the Fireforge minis I plan on using for other parts of the project. Still, they are all based together, so the difference in height shouldn't be too obvious.

So, 16x 28mm models should net me a nice 80 points for my tally, and another squirrel.

My ongoing duels information:
Skulls - 141 (+0)
BSRoD - 5 (+0)
Squirrels - 7 (+1) - D&D Animals, 30K Militia, Plague Clowns, Afghans, Robots, Anglo-Saxons, Medieval Polish

From Millsy:

Yikes! These guys really look like they mean business. That's some serious hardware they are rocking and combined with the yellow and black theme these look absolutely fearsome.

I've had similar scale issues with various units but I can usually ignore it when not mixing minis in units. They must be pretty chunky though as Fireforge are no minnows either.

80 amazing points it is for you tally mate.

Cheers,
Millsy

From ScottR: Final paint compilation - 28mm Pyrric Army figures for Hail Caesar (630 points)

 Hi all,

Pyrric Hail Caesar Army - Greek Component

Well I mentioned back in January that I would be out for a month as I travel the world for work.  I got back to Canada on the 18 of Feb with a month to go before end date.  I set my goal at 700 points and I had reached that before leaving.  My objective was to get my Celt Hail Caesar Army painted as part of the challenge and a couple of odd projects, Command stands, objectives and terrain.

So my Hail Caesar Celt Army deviated slightly and by adding Greek forces I could run a Pyrric Army which gave me the best of both looks.

So after returning on 18 Feb and taking a couple of days to work out my requirement.  I end up building several sets of Victrix packs.  This included two units of Pike Phalanx, including a unit of Agaraspids or Royal Pike, in this case I chose my version of the silver shields (Yes I know they were not Pyrric).

Silver Shield Phalanx

The next unit which I painted at the same time was another unit of Pike Phalanx.  Just standard 24 man unit this time.  My original Army for the Greek/Macedonians was going to be a Successor Army so I had a couple of sets of Selucid shield designs.  

I then had to make up some numbers of Greek Hoplites.  I already had a unit of 6 figures done before the competition started.  But these were done without any real plan.  So with Hail Caesar and Art de La Guere planned for gaming the old figures were set in movement trays and the new figures done on the standard 60 x 40mm bases we were planning to play with.  I finished another 18 in the same style as the first style to make a unit of 24.  These could also be used to add to my Clash of Spears Carthage Army.

So some random Greek mercenary bases were added.

New bases of 6 figures on a 60 x 40 .

The two right hand bases including the casualty taking a spear were the original sets done.  So from this unit of 24 only 12 (left) are during the competition.  Figures are on individual 20x20mm square.  These have been set inside a movement tray from Warbases in the UK.

The last infantry unit would be of course a Hoplite Spartan Unit.  They dont have any special values, but you cant run Greek hoplites without at least one unit of Spartans right????

I must admit the Little Big Man Studio Decals certainly make the figures stand out.  The base uniform is white Linothorac or Brass body Armour with red embelishments.

Spartan Command Stand.  

The  main infantry units were now done.  So next up are the light infantry which make up the smallest of the units for the rule sets with 2 figures per base.  I have some slinger and javelin light infantry units already painted.  I did base them for this rule set and didn't include them in the points claim as I was basing other stuff and well, the figures were already painted.

These are Cretan Light archers. I strung the bows using the stretch EZ Line used for aircraft and model ship rigging.  It is easy to do and is flex that if pulled it wont come away or break.  Adds a little bit of character I think.

The last part of the Army was to make up some command bases.  I will eventually make larger more elaborate bases for these but i needed some quick down and dirty bases as I have managed to get a couple of games in with Warlord Games new Hail Caesar II rules with my good friend Dennis Campbell (AKA in the painting Comp as DennsC).

My Command stands are a mix of warlord Games and Colonel Bills figures.  The two sub units are Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great.  The main Commander is the Goddess Athena which I will claim for the Lady Sarah's Limousine', I dont think I have claimed so far although I have posted  a wealth of figures with female characters mixed in.  This is the first as a stand alone.

Philip I of Macedon

Alexander the Grteat

The Goddess Athena

While this figure is painted and it suits the need for the command piece in the games.  I did paint it using contrast.  Its ok, but I will repaint this using normal paints I think.  

The last unit done was the second elephant.  I was lucky I picked up two elephnats while I was still in the UK.  The second elephant had some extra red trim added so they could be told apart.

Ok so there we have the last months painting complete.  Here is a Picture of what was done less two stands of six hoplites.

The last piece of work was a terrain piece.  I dont usually bother with terrain too much.  But I have had this MDF Barn for some time and too be honest its one of my favourite pieces.  So it was about time I painted and etailed it.  It was pretty quick using and airbrush to do a base dark brown foloowed by several layers of highlight.  The roof was done using a WW2 German aircraft blue underwing colour pallette.  I then AK interactives wet earth paste for the ground and stables area.  This was drybrushed with Camo Choc Brown and dark sand from Vallejo.  lat was a flock mix and some shrubs.  I used some dark yellow/ochre 6mm grass for hay and some yellow foliage for colour.

The Barn

The End!

So for this last months work I was lucky in I had a couple of weeks leave to catch up on the last of it.  So i managed to do a fair bit for my Greek, later now to become my Pyrric Army for Hail caesar.  To be honest 90% was done using citadel Contrasts, which work well for this period of figures.  I was confident the look would be good based on some Hoplites I hads done in the past.

So Here we go:

Pyrric Infantry

28mm figures - 109 x 5 = 540 points

28mm mounted figures 1 x 8 = 8 points

28mm vehicle - 1 elephant 1 x 20 points

28mm crew  3 x 5 points = 15 points

For a total of 583 630 points

Athena - Lady Sarah Chariot....  Although not sure there is any benefit as I dint follow the map anyways.... :)

So the total I think is 583 590 points.  I set my original goal as 700 points so at the end I think I have done ok.  Thanks to team who ran this.  It has been a fun challenge and forced me to get alot of my 'pile' of shame painted.  So my thanks to Curtis and all those invlolved.

My congratulations to all the painters out there as well that have done some amazing work.  Until next time!

_____________________________________

You had a terrific early Challenge, Scott, and you came back with a great flourish! I love seeing all these ancients, especially the Spartans (I'm re-reading Pressfield's 'Gates of Fire'). I've added points for your terrain and a few from your math. A great points bomb to end things!

- Curt