From MartijnN: Some fantasy figures and some really little guys [Fantasy Section] (90 points)

Today, I will you spare you most of my ramblings. If only because the paint on some of these figures is hardly dry yet. I always think that I have plenty of time, especially whenever I have been making reasonable progress earlier in the week, but somehow finishing even 6mm figures always seems to take much more time that I allow for.

Anyway, first up are some 28 mm "heroic scale" 3D printed fantasy figures. I think five of them are Iain Lovecraft figures, while the lady elf fighter is from Arbiter. Arbiter used to make only supportless figures, which I find much easier to print, and tend to be more durable because they usually have less protruding parts that can snap off. 

These are an old crone, a ruffian, a herald, a gypsy girl, an eerie bishop and the elf fighter. I should probably have saved one of the female figures for Sarah's Cart, but there you go.

They are all lovely figures that painted up nicely. I used mostly Citadel contrast paints or Army Painter speedpaints 1.0 on these. They are the old Speedpaint range, which tend to suffer from reactivation when painted over or washed, but in the end they worked fine.

These figures will do nicely for the Fantasy Section of the Library,  I think.

Up next are some 6mm Baccus figures for my slowly growing Prussian army for the Seven Weeks' War and the Franco-Prussian War. They are meant to represent the 1st and 2nd Light Cavalry Brigades of the Cavalry Corps of First Army at Königgrätz in 1866. 1st Guard dragoons and 1st Guard lancers, and 2nd Guard dragoons and 3rd hussars. They are accompanied by two artillery batteries. The guns were painted before the Challenge, so no score for those.

As they will likely figure in 1870 games too, for this week's book recommendation I have chosen a favourite book on the FPW: A Day of Battle. Mars-la-Tour 16 August 1870 by David Ascoli.

The book is about of the running battle between advance elements of the Prussian army and the French Army of the Rhine, as it slowly made its way West to fall back towards Verdun. It is classic example of  a smaller force using initiative, creativity and sheer determination to hold a much larger force that is fighting bravely, but operating hesitantly and indecisively. In the end, this may well have been the battle that ultimately decided the war and the fate of the Third Empire. It is a great tale, and Ascoli tells it brilliantly. The book is, unfortunately, let down somewhat by the rather crude and simple maps, but the narrative and the analysis are excellent. There is a lot of background too, and Ascoli also covers the battle of Gravelotte in some detail. If you are going to read one book on the war, make it this one.

Then, the map:

That's it for his week.

6x 28mm foot @ 5 = 30 points

36x 6mm horse @ 1 = 36

8x 6mm foot @ 0.5 = 4

Fantasy Section bonus = 20

Grand Total: 84 points

TeemuL: The fantasy miniatures are great, characterful and colourful! 6mm look very small, but I can still see some details on them, good work. People often think, that small minis are quick and fast to paint, and in a way they are, but in the other way they aren't. And as fellow minion you have added your map without extra notification, well done. But your maths is a bit off, I guess you missed your 6mm infantry. Grand total is 90 points, here you are.

From KyleC - Mega Squirrel! - [High Adventure/Sarah's Limit] - (637pts)

Time to go on a high adventure here... or at least a fantasy based one compared to the adventure in illness and medical shenanigans that have been all up in our house this past week. 

Lucky for me, this chest infection has left me winded, but also house bound. Meaning another week of no work, and mandatory rest.. though sitting was recommended as laying down brought on bouts of coughing fits like you wouldn't believe. Add in a foot flare and it was the start of a perfect storm! So sitting with the leg up was what the Emergency Doctor said I should do, so do that I did! 

So that said.. we got a 'few' things sorted this week here. 

So we did the High Adventure Studio this time around due to the large amount of heroes and villians that painted up this week for various games forthcoming. 

First up some Gnolls from Warp Miniatures. 3d Printed which came out great first time. Multi-part figures save for the Champion and puppies there. The Beastman Shaman there is from Beastarium as a herd shaman but I really liked the pose. 

I have to say that I really loved painting these up. Speed painted them with contrast paints over a black/white base. Tossed a Nuln Oil wash at the end for the Gnolls especially and called it a day. Only the Shaman got a bit more attention as he has a lot of details compared to the Warp sculpts. So needed a bit more time. All in though, these were done in an afternoon while resting. 

Here we also have a few Dwarven adventurers from Arbiters latest Kickstarter that was just completed. The Dwarven Lords (aptly named and all). What is cool about these are that they are 3d printed, but without supports. The bases are integrated to the model, and you print it straight to the base plate. So leaves no marks, and is just a complete pain to get off the plate afterwards. Thankfully I only print these on my smaller printers, and they all have steel mag plates. Making it so that I can just remove them from the magnetic base, flex and see them ping across the room.... 

I wanted to give them a go, and try painting something without contrast paints as much. I can only say I was not as happy with the results, but also means I really need to get back to 'real' painting at some point.. But I now have a small band of 4 adventurers of different types to play in various campaigns or D&D games as/when they occur. 

The Dark Dwarves here are from the same kickstarter. But heavily armored, and again I wanted to have a play here with some different colors and styles. Mainly the armor and skin (because what else is there here really).. For the skin, I tried something more pale, and sickly.. which just turned out to be a bit more pink in the end.. but worked in comparison to the blue armor. Which was my attempt at tinting the metallic paint before applying it. Which I have seen painters like Marco Frisoni ( YouTube painter ) do on a few of his projects. Was interesting to see and played nicely with contrasts and washes afterwards. 

Now I probably should have kept these for something like the Book Studio, but I have had these since May of last year when I picked up the license for print-on-demand selling of them (when I was doing 3d printing services). They have sat on my shelf for a while now, having traveled to a few shows for display, but never really got a lick of paint. 

I am really happy to see them painted up now however! Even if I have messed up the gang a bit.. Seems the merchant looking fellow there should be over in the Sheriff's camp, but I will just assume that Robin has sweet talked him into joining his band of merry fellows and thus is why he is here now. 

Again I tried to paint for real with regular paints on Robin Hood, however he came out very pale and dusty. Thankfully a few glazes of Contrast paint (yes I really am addicted to them) helped even him out some. The rest of his gang were given the basic contrast treatment, and came together very nicely. The lovely chap on the right sporting the 2 finger salute will be my character in an upcoming D&D game as I try out a Human Fighter for a change. Let's see how he does there!

Late night Tuesday photos in the office vs the new display table

The Sheriff's men were a quick last minute addition here (literally just finished them Tuesday evening) to go up against Robin Hood. I am sure I am going to find a scenario for them to be used.. Though it is a lot of crossbow action here on his side, so not fully sure how Robin will do up against it all!

And finally... the big piece for this week.. The Wall!

I started a mini-blog/photo gallery of it on the FB group to show my progress. Not sure on how far along I would get considering I started it on Saturday. Consisting of 14 different pieces, and spanning 190cm in length (why not 200cm? good question.. can't answer it) and being 25cm tall (35cm+ for the gatehouse).. its a big project to jump into! 

Yeah, I had to measure it.. a few times actually! 

Though thankfully I had a mate come round on Saturday for a paint jam where we pushed each other to finish off our projects. Me with this wall and him with some Ork Dakka Jet Pilots... yeah it was quite evenly matched between us on projects (and the wall got finished first...). But a good solid 7 hours on Saturday saw all the stones painted up. Sunday another 7 hours saw the wood and roofing get done. Plus the first layers of oil washes laid down.. which sadly did next to nothing as I made them too thin overall. So the end result was just smelly walls.. 

Monday was a few hours just detailing the roof tiles, and drybrushing the walls a bit more to no avail. But Tuesday morning, in between calls at work, was the airbrushing of inks. Brown and Black inks thinned down heavily and sprayed into the shadows, cracks, crevices, and the like to add some depth and character to the wall. It was finally looking well worn and aged at this point so all the above photos were then taken as I was a bit too giddy and sleep deprived with it all being finished now. 

A quick shot of my WotR army in front of the gatehouse.
This wall is going to feature A LOT as a backdrop going forward!

And a bit of a close up on the Dwarven Wizard here for Sarah's tribute to get me to the High Adventure location. 

So overall it has been one heck of a week of painting, especially with the wall. And I have to say that I enjoyed the wall painting much more than I did the 40k terrain. Though speaking with my mate while he was around on Saturday it was more due to how I approached them that I ended up not liking the end results we believe. 

As for points.. well.. it did take a bit of work to calculate here. Especially the wall. I tried to be fair in my thinking on it. So I first worked out what the volume of a 6in cube would be. Then I measured each wall section to get its volume. A 6in cube has 216in3 within it, whereas each wall section had 300in3 as they measure 6 wide, 5 deep, and 10 high. Making them 1.39 cubes each. Being 27.77 or 28 pts each. Being 11 of them, that would be 305 pts. The gatehouse itself is a solid 4 cubes seeing as it had easy measurements ( 6 deep, 12 wide, and 12 high ). So the wall comes out to 385 pts! Solid points for terrain at last! 

Now for the full breakdown...

Wall - 385 pts

8x28mm Dwarves - 40 pts

12x28mm Robin Hood - 60 pts

16x40mm Gnoll Pack - 112 pts

Sarah's Limo - 20 pts

High Adventure Studio - 20 pts

Total - 637 pts

And not to mention that there is at least 4 squirrels here, and 2 airbrush projects happening.. posting those up will be interesting... 

I literally have no idea what I will be painting next however. Aside from potentially some more characters for this weekend's D&D game so that everyone has a character for the table.. am not sure what to tackle next. Though I doubt it will be anything like this week's results that much is for sure! 

Miniom Miles: Wow that is quite the points hall - love the "Wall"