PaulSS arrives at Snowlord's Peak (57 Points)

As Lady Sarah's balloon touches down on the Snow Lord's Peak the rebels disembark and start to form a defensive perimeter.

The barricades are erected, fire lanes are cleared and then the cases of supplies start to be unloaded.

Trooper Dok-Antora picks up an heavy crate and unwisely tries to move it himself, the trooper stumbles and drops the crate, it splits and with a sound of trumpets and a thunder of tiny hooves out pour a load of teeny weenie cavalrymen dressed in grey coats speaking some gibberish in their squeaky little voices.

"Get over here Sergeant, and bring the Electrobinoculars"

As the tiny horsemen spilling from the crate form up in their squadrons, Sergeant Navarando scans them with the Electrobinoculars, monitoring the stream of Aurebesh that flows across the screen.

"Well, for a start, that's not gibberish, it's Danish" the Sergeant announces to his troops, "These fellows appear to be from the Danish 5 Jydske Regiment, but I'm really not sure how they got in this here case."

The squadrons of tiny horsemen form up and head off down the mountain slope, slowly as Denmark knows not such steep and vertiginous landscapes. After all the activity Trooper Dok-Antora is ready for lunch and looking forwards to his Ronto Rations.

He cracks open the case marked supplies and there is a acrid smell that immediately put him off his food.

"Oh bullocks!" says Sergeant Navarando, "No, that's bull-shit!" says Trooper Dok-Antora.

After all the recent painting of the 40mm Star Wars: Legion stuff these tiny fellows were a big change in scale, they hardly come up to the ankles of the FFG stuff on their huge thick bases.

Eighteen 6mm cavalry and eighteen 6mm cattle with the location bonus should be 57 points towards my total.

Now back to painting the big chaps!

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Haha! Very good Paul. Your Danish cavalry and herd of bullocks look absolutely terrific. The cavalry are especially smashing with the detail of their white-piped tricorns and buff-edged saddle blankets painstakingly picked out. Very impressive brushwork that.

Speaking of tricorns, for your prize I'm happy to award you Peter's lovely 18th century courting couple - an appropriate vignette for the onset of spring.

Thank you for taking up the Peak Challenge, Paul!

-Curt

From EricM: Off to a Slow Start - French Navarre Regiment ()

Happy New Year!   I'm really excited to be back as a part of the painting challenge.  Like usual I have bitten off way more than I can chew, but what gamer hasn't.  In past years I have tried to focus on a specific period and army this year is more of a potpourri.   I am going to try to keep the majority of may painting to a War of Spanish Succession project but I can already feel the pull from other projects.

So far I have completed one 24 figure unit of French Infantry (the Narvrre Regiment).  In total I will have 3 battalions of the Navarre

The figures are all Front Rank.  Lovely figures but so much detail it slows the process down.  I really struggled trying to come up with a uniform look I liked.  I was aiming for a grayish white but after highlighting they are a little closer to white than I would like.

Here is a close up of the command stand.  I am not a big fan of the all white Colonels color the french used. 

Sorry for the work table photography but the holidays have been crazy as usual.  I will do better next go around!

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Eric! 

Beautiful work on these French. You did a brilliant job on the white uniforms and the flags are ace. I know how hard it is keeping on task with these large-battalion armies, but remember: it's a hobby, do what makes you happy. If we see more of these then that's great, but if it's something else, I know we'll be just as keen to oggle them as well. 

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with over the next few months!

From:VictorC: Two more WSS French Battalions make roll call (120 points)

Having this Christmas week off has provided me with ample time to paint.  I have completed another 2 French units for my WSS project.  The nice thing about these 2 units are they are the last French infantry units I need for the Battle of Almanza.  Now I'll start working on the Spanish.

Here are the photos:

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Nice work, Tom! More WSS goodness for us to enjoy. 

It's great that the Challenge sees you finish these last two French units for your planned battle. Nothing says fresh units like seeing white glue still setting on the bases. ;) The hand painted flags are great and I like your wee unit labels at the rear of the command base. It's all about good organization!

A very tidy 120 points for your efforts. Well done!

From VictorC: 10mm Old Glory War of the Spanish Succession Infantry (120 points)

Well this is my first time participating in the challenge and very first submission. I was able to complete two battalions of French figures. Each 4 stand unit has 60 figures in it.  The figures are painted with acrylics and the flags are hand painted as well.  The two units below are the Maulrevier and Schomberg.  I was rather happy with myself as I painted these in two days. Usually it takes about 2 weeks.

Enjoy the photos:

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Welcome to the Challenge, Victor!

It's been a few years since we've had any War of the Spanish Succession figures grace the blog, so this is a bit of a treat. 

Great work and kudos to you on the hand-painted flags (though it looks like you may have been forced down that path with them being cast-on). One thing I like about Old Glory is that their infantry are usually mounted on strips, thereby reducing the fiddliness of painting and basing them. How many units do you have targeted for the Challenge, Victor? If you keep cracking on like this you'll be set up quite nicely. 

120 points is a tidy first volley for your Challenge debut - well done and, again, welcome aboard!

ClintB: 15mm War of Spanish Succession (116 Points)

Well having tried the "Songs of Drums and Shakos" I personally did not feel they fitted with the ACW so having had a rummage through the lead pile and raked out my figures from my stalled "Donnybrook" project as I can see the War of Spanish Succession working so much better than American Civil War for the "Songs of..." rules.

The rummage turned up mostly cavalry. From which I have made 2 units. 1 French and this one English. 9 figures in each unit including a gentleman type leader a trumpet and a standard. I already had some British flags of the period so one standard was a gift with no mucking about. 

For the French standard I went for a fairly generic design from the period rather than try to copy an existing and well known historical regiment. After all if you copy a regiment it means you can only use them in the battles that they fought in or accept that you have left historical accuracy and started on the path of pure fantasy (that should raise some eyebrows and bring much jeering from certain purists).

The figures are "Black Hat" bought some 2 years ago so they jumped the painting queue considerably. They were all part of a British army box set but painting the uniforms Grey with red trim has allowed me to do 1/2 as French as the uniforms were VERY similar in design if not colour!

There were only 4 foot troops left to paint the rest being finished last year. So I thought to finish them off. Again a French and British standard bearer., a British Drummer and a French Sargent. The standards were not present but a pin mage a good substitute at this scale with a flag of the period popped on top.

A total of 18 Cavalry and 4 on foot. And 4 simple flags if you want to push the boat out.

As I have no more painting for other people this week I will either start some 20mm Arab/Israeli stuff or some US FOW desined for eBay. Cheers Guys


From Curt:

Beautiful work Clint (and a very nice points bomb I must add)! I really like the bright green facings against the red uniforms on the cavalry - very smart. I also like the look of round bases for the cavalry. I think I first saw this with LotR stuff and really liked the aesthetic. It think it works especially well with skirmish figures as they don't need to have that boot-to-boot look of formed units.

Question: What is it about 'Songs of Drums and Shakos' that doesn't fit the American Civil War with you? 

Again, a very enjoyable diversion. Thanks!