From ScottM: Early War French & Gnolls (105 points)

For this weeks submission I went with two sets of 28mm figures. First up is a group of early World War II French infantry. Figures are metal and from Black Tree Design.

Not sure what it is but I just enjoy painting French infantry. And on a related note, I recently finished the audiobook of Robert Forczyk's Case Red, the Collapse of France.

I recommend it if this period and theatre is of interest to you.

The next set of figures are from North Star's Frostgrave range. These figures are all metal except for the two figures in the back row with shields, they're from the plastic Gnolls set.

That should be 21 infantry x 5 points a piece for 105 points.

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Very nice! The WWII French are quite reminiscent of their WWI forebears. Frostgrave is really cementing itself as a serious fantasy contender.

Bonne chance!

Barks

From Ben F: Вставай, страна огромная! 6mm Soviet Tank Regiment, 1984 (71 Points)

Happy New Year everyone, and I hope 2019 is a good one. For me, the 14th of January is D-Day, when my first baby will be born, so we're very much of the countdown now.

The title for this entry means 'Arise vast country,' and is the opening lines of The Sacred War, a staple of the Soviet wartime repertoire by the same composer as the Soviet national anthem. For my 6mm 1984 'Cold War Gone Hot' campaign, I needed Soviet armour and lots of it.

First off in this entry is a Soviet horde of T-64s and BMPs. The T-64s were the best-of-the-best when they were released, but tended to be plagued by technical problems due to their overly complex suspension. In 1984, the T-64A was being superseded by the T-64B (with better quality armour) and the first of the T-80s were beginning to filter down to frontline units.
As the campaign will be based around an attack by 3rd Shock Army across the North German plain, opposed by the BAOR, Belgians, Dutch, and West Germans. In 1984, all four Tank Divisions of the 3rd Shock Army appear to have fielded T-64As, with a handful of battalions beginning to field the T-64Bs - thats the way the campaign will run them anyway.

These are T-64As from CinC. They are great little models, even if the 'true-to-scale' gun barrels are very difficult to keep from bending. The UAZ-469 staff car is Heroics and Ros.
This is enough to field two tank battalions (plus a few extras) at the 1 base = 1 platoon level we play at the club. I find it challenging to make soviet armour interesting, and so for these I painted an approximation of the guards bade on their spotlight covers, as well as painting numbers on the turret side.

Next up is a Motor Rifle Battalion's BMP transport. While I have a few battalion's worth of BMP-2s painted up, the 1984 setting primarily needs BMP-1s. These are from GHQ, and are excellent little sculpts. The BMP KSh command vehicle is from Heroics and Ros. As with the T-64s, it's tricky to make these guys look interesting, so I added vehicle numbers to the turret side and the coloured markings to the 9M14 Malyutka (AT-3 Sagger) anti-tank missiles. I do need to paint up another 9 of these, so that I can field two Motor rifle battalions at once.

Next, some odds and sods. Here are two 9K31 Strela-1 self-propelled SAM vehicles, perhaps better known by their NATO designation SA-9 Gaskins. These are from Heroics and Ros.

Finally, something which is completely useless for normal tabletop battles, a 9K72 Elbrus tactical ballistic missile launcher, better known as a SS-1C SCUD. The Scud Launcher and the chemical troops are from Heroics and Ros. While it's not going to be used in most games, but might be fun for a small scale game with NATO special forces attempting to avoid security troops and destroy it.

The T-64s and BMPs have already seen action against my mate Steve's BAOR in a trial game between Christmas and New Years. As with all freshly painted troops, they took a lickin', but not before they destroyed the better part of a territorial battalion and knocked out a Chieftain platoon. Here are some pics from happier times early in the game, before a USAF airstrike arrived to ruin their lovely drive through the German countryside.

So by my accounts for this entry it should be 71 points.
70 points - 35 x 6mm Vehicle
1 point - 2 x 6mm figures
Total = 71 points

Here's a picture of the entry, though please ignore the BRDM recce vehicle, that's going to be going into my recce bonus round entry.

That's it for this entry. The next entry will be a bunch more Soviets, this time for a Naval Infantry Brigade. I'm also working on a 6mm scale autobahn and an airfield. I've been having fun trying to paint an approximation of the Soviet Naval Flag on the side of a variety of soviet vehicles. How we suffer for our hobby.

Ben, you certainly are cranking out some great microarmour before your baby arrives! I really like 1:300 as it looks 'right' on the tabletop, particularly with this amount of materiel. Although it can get hard to distinguish between tank subtypes...

The Scud is great tabledressing and I want one.

Best wishes for next week, and I shall appeal to the Snowlord for clemency if your posts are less frequent...

Barks

From MikeW - 28mm 17th Century Ottoman Horsemen - 90 Points

This week I have bee able to complete the batch of Ottoman Light cavalry and commanders that I obtained in an eBay lot in December. I have also been able to make some good progress on a second eBay lot of 15 Mountain Men on foot plus 2 on horseback - however - they will not be ready for this week's deadline 😒

So here's the lot as it arrived, pre-primed in a mixture of black and white,with many of the figures separated form the horses, I took time to file off any flash and re-seat the figures on their horses and to re-apply an undercoat where needed.

Raw Ottoman Figures

I decided to go with the black undercoat on the horses where this was good, others I applied my normal white undercoat. Undercoat colour definitely impacts the final colours you get - as you'd expect black undercoat mutes most colours applied to it....

The batch represented 3 Ottoman Commanders plus a unit of 6 Mameluke Light Cavalry, on closer inspection the Mamelukes were mostly Riever Castings figures (with one exception, that I can't place) and the Ottoman Commanders were likely from another unknown company - simply due to the different casting qualities.

The painting techniques were very similar to those I discussed on my first post, building up from a white undercoat with layers of colour, adding detail and metalics at the end before fixing all the errors and mistakes I made!

Completed Mameluke Light Cavalry

These light cavalry were a riot of colour, so I have deliberately mixed many colours into the unit to give it that irregular look, I have also mixed the colour of the horse furniture to add to the irregular look.

The 'Red' Mameluke

I tried to get some idea of rich silk clothing by adding some patterns to a couple of the figures, I kept it simple using 'triangles' of dots in contrasting colour - a tip I read many years ago, the effect can be best seen on the 'Red' Mameluke. Unfortunately my photography skills are lacking, not sure how well these show up and the photo makes it appear that the figure is gloss varnished when in fact it has had several layers of Matt spray varnish this morning! Tips on camera settings welcome!

The horses were a variety of colours, I have a chart of all the common horse colourings and so use this as a basis for all horseflesh I paint. I apply the base colour and then usually paint the mane, tail ad lower legs black, If the mane or tail is a lighter colour  - I the add that colour before adding white blazes to the horse's head and a variety of socks to their feet.

Hooves are painted a dark tan colour before adding the reins and other saddle / tackle to the figure. Inevitably I have to fix a lot of the base colour after that process and then I add in metalics at the end as usual.

Using the Army Painter Dark Tone dip for figures gives a great shading effect for the horses and blends in all the colours to one unified result.

'Odd one Out' Mameluke

Ottoman Commander No1

You'll notice a couple of greys in the mix for the officers and the 'Odd one Out' Mameluke and a couple of the ottoman commanders. I got this effect by using a light grey base coat and then dry brushing with white - the more dry brushing you do the lighter the horse will get!

White socks and blaze are then added and on all greys I dry brush their snouts (don't know the technical term for a horse's mouth area!) flesh coloured. In fact I do this for any horse that has a white blaze that reached their mouth area - seems that's what happens for real horses as well! Again the dip adds shading as required...

Ottoman Commander No2

Ottoman Commander No3

Points Calculation: 9 x 28mm Mounted figures @10 points each = 90 points

You've certainly succeeded in achieving a unit that is a "riot of colour"! Who is the manufacturer? Your tips on painting expensive silks are handy. I know a lot of people baulk at painting horses, but you've given some encouraging advice that it can be simply done. Good photography starts with good lighting, and I'm sure fellow Challengers will have plenty to say.

Barks

Monday again!

It's the first Monday of 2019, and we have a few treats for you today. There's some colourful cav, fantasy Frostgrave, WW2 Frenchmen, Cruel Seas, Star Wars, and a tide of Soviet microarmour.

This time last week I went to New Years' Eve in Sydney, and had a spectacular view of a spectacular harbour. Rain threatened, but at the required time the fireworks did their thing.

The finest harbour in the world

I've been playing a few boardgames when my brushes were down over the last week, including Caverna, Pandemic, Flamme Rouge, Formula D,  Exit: The Mysterious Museum, and Sushi Go Party. Good times!

Barks

PS: I have word from the Snowlord- the Recon Theme scores have been added to your totals.

The 'Reconnaissance' Theme Round is Now Up ... and Curt's Napoleonic British Exploring Officer, Iberian Peninsula, 1810

I apologize for the delay in getting our first theme round up on the blog. I was preparing to get things wrapped up and then our neighbourhood had a power outage (snow load on power lines probably). So here I am, laptop in lap, at a nearby coffee house that has power (and more importantly wi-fi and heat).

Anyway, our first theme round is now up for viewing! This time it's 'Reconnaissance' and we have a record number of submissions (I think 53) for your viewing pleasure. So get your favourite beverage and settle in for a wonderful tour of all things sneaky, wily and observant.

One thing to note when viewing the gallery is that Blogger has a glitch dealing with large uploads, where when you advance to view the next submission it may skip one or two ahead. Yes, very aggravating and it's been an issue for years. Anyway, the way to get around it is to use the master submission list on the right sidebar to advance through the entries. 

After you've enjoyed the gallery please take some time to consider all the entrants and vote for our favourites. There is no limit to the number you can vote for, so don't feel constrained.  Next Sunday I'll announce the results of the voting and give out bonus points to the top three contenders. 

Have fun!

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Last week I picked up David Brown's 'General d' Armee' rules and realized that I haven't painted a Napoleonic figure (much less a unit) in an age. This is amazing as when I started my personal blog years ago that's ALL I painted. It's funny how things go in cycles.

So today's update is a British Exploring Officer serving in the Peninsula, circa 1810. 

These chaps composed a group of intelligence officers that served Wellington during the Peninsular Wars as his 'Peninsula Corps of Guides'. Their primary function was to survey the countryside and make modern maps for strategic planning, but increasingly they were used to gather intelligence on French plans and movements.

The Exploring Officers refused to be considered as spies and so conducted their missions behind enemy lines wearing their full uniforms. They relied heavily on local partisans for local knowledge, guides and support. Since they were usually excellent horsemen, mounted on fast thoroughbreds, they had a good chance of evading French patrols using speed and evasion.

Colquhoun Grant (great name btw) was perhaps the most famous of Wellington's Exploring Officers. He provided sterling service throughout the wars and had many harrowing adventures in French territory (even posing as an American officer in Paris!). Wellington held him in trust so much that during the Waterloo campaign he essentially relied on Grant's reports on French movements to the exclusion of all other intelligence (which, as we know, almost led to disaster).

This figure is from Brigade Games, sculpted by Paul Hicks. I quite like the rider, with his wide brimmed sun hat and jaunty pose, but the mount provided was a little stiff and uninspiring. So I used a damaged horse I had from a spare Riders of Rohan boxed set (Thanks Byron!), feeling that it had a more animated pose. I had to shave off a few bits of offending tack and horse armour and then 'greenstuffed' a more period-specific saddle blanket, blanket roll and a sporty forelock to his noble head. The other issue with the poor brute was that it had one hoof missing - so I sunk the 'abbreviated' leg into a base of greenstuff, affixed both to the base and then masked the mess with some strategically placed groundwork. 

Done!

Enjoy the Bonus Round everyone!

From MilesR: M4 76mm Sherman "What-a-Tanker" (20 Points)

My "What-a-Tanker" inspired submission is a 76mm M4 Sherman tank in 28mm scale - it's a simple model but I think looks very good.

 The model is produced by Rubicon who have become my number 1 choice for 28mm scale vehicles.  I enjoy both putting the kits together and painting them up.  For some reason, I always prefer plastic over metal or resin.  Perhaps it's my misspent youth as a 1/35th scale model builder.

 One of the great things about a Rubicon kit is they usually come with a lot of options - this kit came with two different turrets and 3 gun options.

Basic olive drab coloring and my secrete "mud" mixture.  This one should net me 20 points.

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A lovely Sherman workhorse, Miles.  I quite like the look of these Rubicon kits that you've submitted over the past few years. Though I'm quite partial to 1/48 scale for 28mm, I think I might give one of these a whirl. 

20 points for you, Miles and another submission to the 'What a Tanker!' contest. Well done!

- Curt

From ByronM - Yet again, more Greeks (120 points)

My second post for the day, and my second Greek post of the challenge.  I am likely only doing one more Greek unit this challenge so don't worry you won't have to suffer through as many as last year!

This unit was added to give some extra flavour and units to the force.  Initially I wanted to add some archers to either force (Allied Greeks and Spartans) however the Spartans tended to look down on archery, in fact they called it womanly fighting and view it as cowardly to not face you opponent while killing them.  They did however use slings, so they were not great with logic.

Anyway, since they would not even hire mercenary archers, but had to face them often, they had to find other ways to deal with ancient archery.  No idea if this following part is fact or not, but in my mind, knowing they did use cavalry, I would imagine that one of the ways to cancel the enemy archers out would be by flanking them with cavalry and killing them directly.  So, I added Spartan Cavalry to my force as a counter to the allied Greek archers.  We will have to see how that works in game.

Besides being a balancing point, it gave me the chance to work on some more of Steve Saleh's great sculpts.  While I wish there were more bodies available (there are only 3 poses) I love Steve's work as it has a ton of character to it.  These were from his line done for Foundry.

I decided to do all of the horses in one colour, since I HATE (and suck at) painting horses in an effort to keep it easier, and because I thought all black stallions under crimson red Spartans would have a good visual effect.

After everything was all painted up, I based them on 50x50mm bases to be used with Hail Caesar or various other game systems.

Overall I am pretty happy with how they turned out, and can not wait to get them on the field with Curt and his crew later this month.  I would say take them out to be blooded, however those damn metal spears have already drawn blood in the painting process!

I believe the points are 12 x 10 = 120 points, but man does painting horses not feel worth it....

What I just don't get is that somehow you have gotten it in your head that we are tired of your Greeks by now. Personally speaking: don't worry I love them! These great riders are no exception on the high quality Ancients you have treated us with and they are a truly good choice for your second post today. 

Oh boy, yes painting horses can be a drag but you seem to have managed quite well and they do bring you another 120 points. I am really curious how your last unit of Greeks will turn out so get to those brushes and paint like Archimedes. (bath towel reccommended).

Cheers from your Stand-up-filosopher Sander  

From JamieM - More Blackstone Fortress Adversaries (115 points)

In a fit of good sense and concentration rarely witnessed anywhere near my painting table, I managed to keep on going with the Blackstone Fortress figures and have now completed all of the adversaries.  I figured I'd get these done first and then treat myself to the Adventurers.

They're all converted/re-purposed and the first lot are the Traitor Guardsmen.  These are converted from the plastic chaos cultists set of figures.  A fair few head swaps and arm/weapon swaps with plastic Cadian guardsmen to make them more traitor guardsmen than generic cultists and lots of Imperial guard kit (radio pack, canteens, etc) help them along, as does the standard "army" green and brown paint scheme.

I've always rather liked beastmen, so I was pleased when I saw GW were including them in the Black Fortress game.  When I started 40k, back in the "Rogue Trader" first edition days, the Beastmen were part of the Imperial Guard.  They operated in abhuman packs and served in order to pay penance to the Emperor for having been born mutants!  I decided to bring this idea back and so my beastmen conversions are built using plenty of Imperial Guard kit, including a couple of breastplates.

The awesome flagellants kit helped too, with  bell, weapons and arms

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Next up are the big baddies - Chaos Space Marines!  These are smashed together from all sorts of chaos space marine and space marine kits and leftovers from other conversions.  I've always found the Black Legion a little boring (as well as not really wanting to paint black armour.....) so I went for my favourite traitor marine chapter instead - Word Bearers.

The Wordbearers are the real baddies of the 40k world, having been the ones who started the Horus Heresy in the 30k setting by making pacts with daemons and dragging other discontented legions in with them.  I'm particularly pleased with the Chaos Lord as he uses a cloak I really like.  For his helm I found the largest and most OTT helmet I could (not too hard in GW kits!) to help him stand out and hopefully catch his horns on the ceiling of the fortress, allowiing us adventureres time to escape.....  The other two are deliberately kept quite standard to help the lord stand out even more.

One of the fun things about converting is how ideas come to you whilst converting, like the idea of making my beastmen part of abhuman imperial guard squad.  The idea for the Rogue Psykers came when I decided to do Wordbearers as my chaos space marines.  It occurred to me that instead of doing psykers like the ones in the box, I'd instead make them the leaders of the Guardsmen, who have been given to the Wordbearers to make into daemonhosts.  Its this that gives them their horrifying psychic powers......

Some masked heads, a bell and an unholy tome with stocks completed the look and the gold breastplate marks one out as the captain.

All rather good fun to make and 23 28mm figures in all which comes to 115 points I believe.  Next stop - the valiant adventurers!  Assuming I don't get distracted first of course......

Oh wow Jamie these are truly wonderful and atmospheric at that! I love that you converted your own figures for use with the game (the Beastmen being my favourites) and that you managed to stick really close to the archetypes from the game yet still have pretty recognisable pieces so other players get what figures they are supposed to represent.

I myself am aiming at painting some of the Blackstone Fortress figures for the Challenge and have come up with background for them all too (my traitor guardsmen will be Blood Pact for instance) but your stories are really cool. Having a well thought out background like this also helps with keeping the motivation going. 

Please do tell us how you think the rules work if you get a chance to play it oh and keep the pictures coming!

 Another 115 points for your total it is!

Cheers Stand-in-Minion Sander