From Mark B: At Mudry’s Mesa with 6mm Napoleonics (178 Points)

Arriving in Mudry’s Mesa by balloon has given me a taste for air travel but I think I have thrown my pursuers for a little while! Now to get ahead of the game for a decent sized posting for once!

The pillaging if the island continues. For this challenge I’m providing something new and shiny. Indeed these arrived in the post the day after the challenge started. I’m running a Lard day in Southampton in March and am running a Napoleonic kriegspiel. Instead of boring counters each side will have 6mm figures representing the troops in their command. I’m deliberately posting up only some if what I’ve painted just to give you a taste of it and disguise the actual historic scenario that we are running. Suffice to say that I think it will provide challenges for both the French and their opponents.

The figures are based on 15mm squares with their respective national flags on them for ease of identification. Each base has a name label printed in font 6! The figures are the very nice MDF figures by Commission Miniatures. They are obviously slightly 2D but are very cheap, easy to identify and paint and captured the toy soldier feel I wanted these to have rather than a more realistic unit marker as they will be placed on one of 6 maps in various different rooms. Shown here are French, Austrians and the start of a Russian force... like I say... there are others but you won’t get the grand reveal of the scenario and the full forces until later!

Up first is part of the French army. An infantry battalion, a few dragoons and hussars along with some guns.

These are some of the infantry. I like the way you can distinguish between the elite companies and the ligne. 

Next are the Austrians! Plenty of them! Including a few Hungarians and grenzers  along with a horde of dragoons and Cuirassiers.

The top down picture was more to show how the flags for the bases works and to give you an idea of how they look on a practice kriegspiel map we made. 

The final picture is of Kutusov’s finest Russian musketeers. There’s quite a few more of these still to go along with a few other notable surprises I’m going to keep hidden until after the game is played out. The Russians are my current favourites and I’m looking forward to finishing a few other foreign allies for the French too. 

That’s all I’m prepared to reveal for now. Boney has his spies everywhere! I’ve got plans for British, Spanish and Portuguese too. Maybe you will see these before the challenge is over?

So that’s a total of:

8 guns and 16 crew : 16 points

62 cavalry : 62 points

140 infantry : 70 points

Mesa challenge complete : 30 points

Grand total : 178 points

***

Well Mark, you continue your very own "march to the sea" across Challenge Island! These figures are interesting and unique, another example of the cool and different things we get to enjoy as we move through the Painting Challenge. Your event looks to be an interesting one, and I'm already trying to puzzle out which campaign you are looking to run for the players.

Thanks for sharing these cool figures with us. 178 points for you!

GregB

 

From JohnM: Train Tracks (30 Points)

This is a quick submission that I have been working on for 2-3 weeks, I just finished it yesterday. I have a fairly major figure submission almost ready but it will be delayed for 1 week as I am going away. The hardest part for me in the challenge is getting the photos done so best to not waste time.

This is a bit of an unusual submission even for terrain, I do not remember anyone else submitting something similar. I need some train tracks for several Chain of Command games that are coming up and it has been something missing from my collection for awhile. I could have gone with 3D prints, as I have several STL files which look quite nice but it does take a lot of time to print something like this.

I was going to buy some real HO track but found some very cheap plastic tracks on Amazon and I got some rail bed from a Train Terrain company. The whole thing was less then $30 and I probably have another 8-12' of track materials still left but what I needed was a something to cross a 6' terrain table.

 

 

 

It was a bit more work than I thought it might be. The track was a little too wide for the bed but I plan to improve that when it is set up with clumping foliage. I used PVA to glue the track to the bed which is some sort of foam and then sprinkled the ballast on the wet bed, it was not really the best method but with some repairs I moved on. Once dry, I airbrushed the whole thing with black, followed by a green brown followed by a light brown. I then drybrushed the whole thing with a light sand colour. I then washed the rails with black followed by a drybrush of a dark metal. I then used a brown ink from Scale Colour to paint the wood, which really worked quite well. I finished off the tracks with a rust wash.

Now on to the calculations, I think it is 20 points for a 6" cube, which is I believe 216 cubic inches. so what do I have; well the track is 2" wide, 80" long and about 0.5" high. So using this nifty calculator, I found that I had 240 cubic inches. So maybe 30 points is reasonable. Oh, and I almost forgot it is modular.

 

***

Some fine terrain work here John. As you base, the base looks a touch skinny here and there, but I'm certain clump foliage will tune all of that up, and the overall impression is excellent.  Railway tracks are excellent additions to a gaming table, and I've no doubt your approaching "Chain of Command" participants will benefit tremendously from your efforts.  Will you include some rolling stock as well? That can make for eve more fun...

30 points for you, sir! And we are all intrigued with the pending "faily major" submission....

Greg B

From Barks: Taste the Rainbow of 20mm Samurai Cavalry (260 Points)

"Snowlord!" I croak. "Snowlord!"

"Barks? You're still here? I thought you were dead."

"I've done as you wished, at the cost of my sanity."

"Only a small sacrifice then. Show me."

The Snowlord doxxed me and found I was in Japan last year. I went to Nikko, which is a few hours north of Tokyo and famed for its World Heritage shrines and temples.

Off the tourist trail under the Untameshi-no-torii

One of the most famous is that of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who outmanoeuvred other daimyos to become Shogun of all Japan and ending the Sengoku period. One of his rivals was the Takeda clan, known for its strong cavalry and their four-diamond mon. Tokugawa Ieyasu suffered a defeat at the hands of Takeda Shingen at Mikata ga Hara (1573), and Takeda Shingen in turn was defeated at Nagashino in 1575- by Oda Nobunaga, who has already been on Snowlord's Peak.

Tokugawa Ieyasu's physical form was interred here in 1617.

I needed a bit of a kick-along for my years-long samurai project*, and I rashly decided to go large. Why paint a unit of four cavalry, when I could paint twenty-four? I might as well add a mounted commander. If I'm painting a commander, why not throw in a few more for economy of scale?

So, three and a half weeks later, I'm calling these guys done. They could be Takeda cavalry, but I make no claims to historical accuracy and they will be my Red force for Commands and Colors: Samurai Battles. The big flat flags with purple stripes are markers for that game.

I spent more time on my commanders

Daimyo

Messenger with horo

Taiko drummer

They're hard plastic multipiece 20mm kits from Zvezda and are a bit of a fiddle** to put together. They are nicely cast but there aren't a lot of variety in the poses. The decals come with the kits. I don't do horses often, and these are just basecoat/ wash/ mane and tail. No blazes or socks etc., and not all the hooves!

Yabusame is the art of mounted archery...

... which was superseded by the yari.

I was inspired by shots from from Heaven and Earth (1990 dir. Haruki), which show vibrant bold colours and bright red yari.

Heaven and Earth (1990)

The red is VMC 70.909 Vermillion and Army Painter Mid Brown wash. I have tried to hide it in my photos, but I've had frosting issues with some decals with Testors Spray Dullcote over VJ 73.212 Decal Medium. How can I salvage this?

15mm jinmaku curtains from Eureka.

So, this is:

25x Mounted 20mm = 200 points

4x Foot 20mm = 16 points

Scenic command base?

* Here's a link to my Yellow command stand from AHPC VII.

** Understatement. Each 20mm horse archer is seven pieces...

"I have decided, Snowlord, to continue my trip around this island and aim to tick off all the sights. If you don't mind, I'm just going to grab this frozen corpse and sled down to my next spot. Wheee!"

________________________________

Wow! These are just fantastic Barks. I have the original 'Command and Colors: Ancients', but didn't know about this game. Cooool. The Zvezda models are very nice, but 7-piece 20mm horse archers?! That's just cruel.

While you kept your cavalry simple, they still look the business, and the extra time you spent on the command vignette really paid off. It looks fantastic in that punchy red and black livery.

I'm a big fan of 'Heaven and Earth' as well. Much of it was filmed next door in Alberta as the rolling landscape fit the original terrain (which I understand has been encroached by urban development). I knew a few guys that served as extras in the big battle scenes. They ended up buying their kit afterwards at a big auction (full armour for $130, swords for $10...). Lucky sods.

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-alberta-shot-samurai-epic-and-the-epic-costume-sale-that-followed-1.4856933


Your math is good, except you forgot the location bonus, plus I'm going to give you another 14 for the flags to make it a nice even 260 points. Well done Barks!

And finally, last but not least, your Snow Lord Peak prize is... John's 'Pete the Pensive Viking'!!

Again, terrific work Barks and thanks for showing us your shiny new Samurai additions.

-Curt

From PaulSS: Confederate 12lbr Howitzer (30 points)

Following on from the 10lbr Rifle that I finished earlier this week is another Confederate artillery piece, this time a 12lbr Howitzer also from the  Perry Miniatures American Civil War Artillery set.

We are playing a Longstreet campaign and one of my batteries has just acquired an howitzer, so it was a good excuse to get one painted.

On this model #2 is just about to put the shell in the barrel while #1 stands ready with the rammer to send it home. #3 is blocking the vent while #4 stands ready to attach the lanyard. You can do some quite dynamic poses with these Perry plastics.

Looking at the pictures though I did note that some dust had stuck to the rammers hat and made an unsightly string when the dull-cote was applied, fortunately I was able to pick this off so no damage done.

Four 28mm foot and a gun should add me 30pts to my total.

Lovely work Paul, I like the differences between the regulation and campaign dresses in your gun crews.  I also really like the Perry poses on their gun teams.  Be they metal or plastic, they sets allow you to put together a team that's actually working as a team.  Very nice basing and I like the gleam on the brass barrel.

JamesM: 15mm Sci Fi Western Ships Crew (Lady Sarah's Balloon) -33 points

Hi folks,

Despite being distracted of late by real life (curse it's sudden and inevitible betrayal), I finally managed to get something finished! And having rummaged around Cookes Crevase for far too long, it's time to follow the flight of the glowing bugs and return to the black. Because you can't take the sky from me.

This weeks offering to the great balloon in the sky is a selection of 15mm scale models, who might bear some small resemblance to certain characters from a sci fi western ships crew. This is probably a tranquil co-incidence.

These figures are from GZG and were picked up at a bring and buy sale many moons ago. Possibly in Edinburgh. They have sat in my lead mountain for far too gorram long, and lept into the painting queue along with some other 15mm sci fi bits.

Of course, I couldn't just paint the ladies of the crew. I even attempted a Hawaiian shirt:

And the obligatory picture with 'something' fizzy.

9 x 15mm figures: 18 points
Glass of fizz: 5 points
Being free of the gorram alliance: Priceless.

Edit: I forgot to mention - destination is Frans Fjord!

Well done on getting clear of real life issues long enough to get these figures done James.  A fine set of crewmen and women for the sci-fi ship which shall remain nameless.  A glass of bubbly and gorram free makes it all even better.  By my count this is your third trip by Balloon which grants you a 10 point frequent floater bonus, if I'm reading the fine print correctly.  I've adjusted your point score accordingly.

From JohnS - T is for Trained Guerrillas, Spanish Guerrillas that is (45 pts)

Continuing on with my Napoleonic British Allies in the Peninsular War I present this unit of Spanish Trained Guerrillas.

In Sharpe Practice II terms, at a massive 4 points for this unit (plus 3 for the Junior Leader) they can easily be added to my force without breaking the bank and give me a little more flexibility.
I wanted to give the idea of troops that had "volunteered" (whether they intended to or not!) and had been given a musket and the bare minimum of a uniform - in this case some very nice red stocking caps. (No Alan and Paul, they are not Santa hats!)

Given some rudimentary training, they at least know how to stand and fire although rank discipline is still a work in progress.
The figures are once again from Brigade Miniatures (their Napoleonic range is really nice and characterful) and I had a lot of fun painting them. I do find non-uniformed troops a bit of a challenge as I get a bogged down in choices. I spent a lot of time searching for close to contemporary images and found a couple to guide me. The rich red I used for the hats was present in many illustrations as an accent colour; a hat, scarf or sash.

I am currently in the planning stages (OK, I have flights and nothing else booked) of a trip to Spain to do a battlefield tour with a friend and fellow wargamer so Peninsular War units and battles are at the front of my mind. 

These fine fellows are also part of AlexK's side challenge to build a Sharp Practice force, this brings me to a total of 26 points of SPII army. More disciplined troops to follow! Plus another letter off my personal Alphabet Challenge.

In AHPC points these Trained Guerrillas are 9 x 28mm - 45 points. Unfortunately I can't remember if I achieved 325 or 375 points in AHPC IX. If the former, I have a new PB. Otherwise, I am soooo close.

John's Sesame Street tour adds another letter.  I think the trick is going to be not doing Zulus for Z.

That's a nice group of ragged guerilla's that can have a lot of uses in your SPII games.  Good luck on your planning for the trip to Spain, I'm jealous.

From AlexS: Colonial British (185 points)

 Hello everybody! My name is Alex and I lived in the USSR for some time. Then I read in a history textbook that British colonial policy is evil, because enslavement of entire nations and the dissolution of entire countries took place. Now I’ve grown up, time has changed and I understand that it’s not so simple.And when I started my new project, "Pirates," of course I decided to assemble several British regular infantry units for the period beginning of the 18th century. They are perfect as one of the factions for games.

In addition, I will need porters for story games - they will carry supplies and wealth. Well, as always, I painted the dogs. I always paint dogs. This is a good recipe - when you know what to do, paint the dogs!

Well, as always, I decided to make terrane myself. Firstly, I decided to make a jungle. I have never been in the jungle, so I decided that the jungle could look like a bright diverse vegetation. Artificial flowers and a glue gun helped me cope with this task.

Then I decided to make the huts of the natives. For them, I used seedling sticks that I had stolen from my wife, a glue gun and artificial fur. It turned out perfectly - it was in this hut that the natives oppressed by the British colonialists should live. :)

Well, the general photo. The plans are to make British artillery, a standard bearer with the flag of the East Indus company, natives and pirates in addition to those that I already made during this event. And then find interesting rules and opponents. And I can start playing!

32 inf 28mm - 160 pts
2 dogs 28mm - 5 pts
terrain - сube with approximately 6 inch sides - 20 pts
total - 185 pts

Another post, another project from the uber productive AlexS.    No British Colonial history is never simple, much like Russian history I bet.  This does make an interesting counter post to Benito's post from earlier in the day when Britain was somebody else's colony.

Great work all around on this project, lots to love here.  I wish you had a close up of the infantry because from what I can see they look very nice.  What make of figures are they?  Are the WSS era?  Inquiring minds want to know.  They are certainly overdressed for their new environs, but the Brits are always over or under dressed (you should see what they wear in Canadian winters).  I also really like you terrain, especially those huts.  And yes, stealing crafting stuff from your wife is a time honoured tradition...just don't tell my wife that I said that.

I can't fault your tally, so 185 points it is.