From MikeW: Tales from the Construction Site plus other stuff [Under construction][Limo](365 Points)

As with the last submission, I will start with a ride in Lady Sarah's Limo, this time taking me to the Under Construction Site. For my Limo fare I present a 28mm Female Apocalypse Survivor figure, this woman being painted to represent a member of the Highway Patrol or maybe a State Trooper.

This Female State Trooper or Highway Patrol
will escort Lady Sarah's Limo!

I've gone for a Blue uniform, with dark blue trousers with a light blue shirt, timings on both shirt and trousers being reversed. She has a light blue helmet and black boots and night stick, whilst she also carries a M16 rifle and nightstick. Her dress is somewhat relaxed, likely the stress of here survivor status meaning that usual uniform care is no longer possible!

I made an attempt at Police Badges on each shoulder

Again the base is make to look like an urban wasteland...

Final shot

The figures I have worked on this week for the Under Construction are a batch of forty, 28mm Vikings. These figures were acquired some time ago from eBAY and are a mixture of Gripping Beast and Victrix plastics, now the reason that these are an 'Under Construction Lot' is because the original owner had partially painted them and affixed them to square Games Workshop bases for use in a Lord of the Rings setting, the standard bearer even came with an 'evil' icon and three skulls hanging form it.

A 'large' project lot arrived from eBAY,
I put it off as there was a lot of re-construction work to do...

(I did momentarily consider leaving this in place to increase my Side Duel Skullz score - but no, historical accuracy won out! )

First job was to rebase the figures,
removing the old square bases and affixing to nice round bases

Second Left was the Standard Bearer as delivered,
I removed the skull laden icon and will replace with a nice flag

I have put off doing anything with these figures as there seemed to be quite some work to be done to get the ready for a reasonable paint job.

As expected there was quite some construction work just to get these figures ready to paint! - A number of the figures (5) has broken spears and or arms that needed replacing. Two heads needed to be refitted and several arms needed to be reset to make them serviceable to my eyes. Finally all the square bases needed to be removed and then replaced with round MDF bases to fit in with my basing standards for the period. Not a quick job, especially as I ran out of bases and had to resort to the good old 2p piece standby for a handful of these figures!

Typical figure and painting standard as supplied,
they need quite a lot of work!

Test figures, with base colours blocked in,
note - I ran out of MDF bases so had to finish batch with 2p pieces!

Final state of the 'test' figures, I was pleased with the transformation

The figures had been sprayed with a rattle can to give them a silver finish and then many had had a gloss brown paint applied to cloth and leather areas. In general I thought that I could salvage the silver figures and apply inks to make the chainmail work whilst I'd need to redo the leather, clothing, skin and shields on all the figures.

A group view of the final figures, all forty of them.

And possibly a better view of the finished figures in video format

So not all my own work but I think that I have stamped my vision of the Dark Ages on these little guys. By way of showing the process I have a snap of a figure prior to my first painting steps, using him as a test for the rest of the batch.

The command group, Leader, Standard Bearer and Musician

I added belts, repainted wooden spear shafts and shields, dressed them in browns and greys before redoing their skin and hair. I liked how it was going so two more test figures joined the original to have Dark Tone ink applied to the chainmail and then Agrax Earthshade added to the clothing. Skin, unsurprisingly had Flesh Tone applied and the spear shafts and shields had Light Tone applied to give a shaded appearance.

First of a series of close-ups of the figures, most figures came with Gripping Beast shields, smallish with leather bindings. Some came with larger shields with steel rims. Again, rather embarrassingly I did not have transfers the right size for these shields - so they have been painted plain colours.

Once dry I put on the shield transfers before applying matt varnish and allowing to dry overnight before completing the bases in my usual manner. Overall a pleasing result in these three little guys. I just had to repeat the process 36 more time!

Five more Vikings, I'll let you determine which are Victrix and which are Gripping Beast

When people ask me how I can paint so many figures my usual answer is determination and a steady hand, what I should also add is a high pain threshold and shear 'bloody mindedness'! Anyway I got all 36 figures done, eventually!

Almost all figures originally came with Spears, any non command figures with a sword or axe have been subject to repairs in their 'Under Construction' Film Set.

Another five guys, most came wearing chainmail,
some wore leather and a few were unarmoured.

The Victrix and Gripping Beast figures go pretty well together,
although the differences in the sculpts are clear, height is about the same.

And still they come, I made extensive use of ink washes over simple base colours on these figures

And the final four, with pesky large shields!

Before I stop move on - just a comment about Dark Age shield types and the debate as to if they were steel rimmed or bound in leather - both are depicted here. I always assumed that they would all be the former but a few years back I was talking to a Viking Re-enactor in Largs, Scotland who made the comment that steel rimmed shields would be stronger but much harder to repair when on campaign.

After a battle the shields would not surprisingly be in bad shape, if it has a steel rim the warrior would need a blacksmith with a forge to repair it, taking time and money as dozens or even hundreds of warriors would all want their shield fixed at the same time.

Binding shields with stretched, wet leather would likely be quicker and easier in the field to get a warrior's kit repaired. Each warrior would soak leather strips and stretch around the edge of their shields and then these would be dried by a fire. As the wet leather dries it shrinks and hardens, creating a tough binding.

It should also be noted that shield designs form damaged shields would often be cut off and then attached to new or captured shields, reusing existing artwork where possible and again held in place by leather bindings.

I assume the re-enactor knew what he was talking about - it seemed logical to me

Thank goodness I also had a fun batch of Grechin to get completed this week!

So I've been banging on about the Great Gobbo Rebellion under the leadership of the much forgotten 'Red Gobbo', to date, however, I have not really done many Grechin to populate the ranks of the GLA (Grechin Liberation Army) or is it the UGF (United Grechin Front), who knows - and it'll likely change every time the force is fielded. Anyway here are a group of 28 Rebellious Grechin.

The Grechin Mega Mob, 28 little guys

They have been painted in the same manner as earlier posts, with the skin highlighted in a lighter colour than their bigger, uglier cousins - the Orks. These figures are all plastics, collected form a number of eBAY lots that I have obtained in the last few months. Many have had the 'Red Star' on their arm bands or elsewhere about their persons.

In groups of four...

Most of these guys have 'Red Star' armbands

A couple have looted imperial Guard equipment, namely a Laser Pistol and a Grenade Gun, the res have the usual miscellany of pistols and out of date 'Sluggas'.

Another four

A fun group with Grechin Boss left, middle
two ammo carriers and right a guy with a looted grenade launcher.

So what else am I working on? Well there are more Marian Scots Pikemen edging towards the workbench, along with some Late 17th Century French Militia (which have been on the workbench for almost a year now, in a plastic bag) and even more Ork happiness...

There's more...

... and more...

... and finally the last four!

.. Until next time! Oh and here's my map from the film sets

POINTS
Lady Sarah Figure 5 Points
Lady Sarah Bonus 20 Points
40 x 28mm Viking Foot @ 5Pts ea 200 Points
28 x 40K Grechin @ 5 Pts ea 140 Points
TOTAL 365 Points

SIDE DUAL POINTS
Squirrel Points +1 (Vikings)

From TeemuL: You forgot to include the 20 points for Under Constructions, but I kindly added them to you and added the labels etc, you know all the manual work, which Minions are not supposed to do, but which they nevertheless do. :) I like the state trooper and gretchin are always nice. There is nothing wrong with the vikings, either. Good and varied entry again!

We will have a small break now, waiting for the New World to wake up and be ready for the last posts of the day.

LeeH - Medieval Town & Church (30 Points)

I had intended to get the last units of my Tudor army finished this week but time got away with me and so I decided to do something ‘easier’ this week by skipping ahead to some medieval buildings. As it was, they were decidedly more tricky and intricate than anticipated…painting medieval wood frame buildings in 2mm is very fiddly! All the buildings are from Brigade Models and are wonderfully detailed for 2mm buildings. The surfaces also have a bit of texture to them which makes painting flat surfaces like plain walls or roofs easier. 

Confident I knew what I was doing I then decided to have a go at a small town with a much larger church, which may be associated with a monastic order or a saint. There are more streets, and larger buildings all tightly clustered around muddy roads. As would be typical for a market town I made the main street a little wider than the side roads. For the groundwork, I used my usual mix of turf with some lighter-colored grass patched for contrast. The penultimate stage was to soak a few small clumps in PVA and glued them into place to represent trees. The last step was a dabble of textured paint (European Mud, by Vallejo) to blend the roads and bare patches in a bit better. Overall I’m pretty happy with my first foray into 2mm town planning!

I also did this small country church. There’s not much to say about this other than the detail is very fine for such a small model and there was little to zero cleaning required prior to undercoating. 

Points Estimate:

I honestly haven't got a clue. Using the 6x6x6 cube method, this lot is worth about 1 point! So clearly, that doesn’t work for smaller scales. I reckon each building is like painting a 15mm figure in terms of detail painting, but I’ll leave that tricky judgment to poor Teemu. You may have to ask the Snow Lord for a ruling on this as I couldn’t find a precedent from previous entries?? 

Best of luck mate, and I’ll have my fingers crossed for a high number 😉

From TeemuL: This is a tricky judgement, indeed. Based on the very strict cube counting by yesterday's minion I have my hands tied to the sections, subsections and paragraphs, but may be my inability to understand them results in variations. 6x6x6 (the devilish code) means one, so I'll give you one. One cube, that is, meaning 20 points. And 10 more from the bonus category. If someone feels the scoring is way off in any direction, just let me know, and I'll do my best to correct my errors. :)

These building are so nicely painted, that it is difficult to see their real size, which might have affected my minioning. There are no measurements to take guidance from, I could easily accept them being 15mm buildings and worth bucketload of points, but I'll take your word for them being 2mm. They look very nice, Lee!

From JezT Post 3 - Ancient Successor Reinforcements - 28mm (70 points)

Dear All 

Switch for me this week and pleased to get another squirrel again by expanding on my bases for Basic Impetus rules armies. I already have an Alexandrian Macedonian v Persian classic combination and from this it makes sense to expand into the Successor range of armies by painting up some new options. If you are not aware Basic Impetus have set armies using around 8-12 "bases". From the Successor list I was especially interested to play the "Lysimachos" army list using Thracian options. 

My original figures are all Wargames Foundry but the reinforcements come from Gripping Beast and Aventine Miniatures - here was new to Aventine miniatures but very impressed. 

Anyway first up are just 7 new painted 28mm infantry figures:

2 slinger, 4 falx and 1 javelin new figures 

Next up my first ever Elephant painted - from Gripping Beast. 

In total think it is 70 points - 7 x 5 - 35 for the infantry and then 20 for the Elephant with extra 15 for the 3 crew. Should be some more reinforcements next week, sadly no more elephants planned though.  

Cheers Jez

From TeemuL: I have always liked elephants and here is a nice example, sorry to hear that there no more of them planned. :( But, one is better than none and the browns and yellows work very nicely on this grey behemoth. I'll give you a few extra points, there seems to be hand painted shield and two more on the howdah.

From GeoffreyT: The Third Servile War (Swords and Sandals)(85 points)

Hello Challengers,

After some fantasy and sci-fi posts, it is now time for a serious historical gaming post now.   The greatest of the swords and sandals movies was undoubtedly Kirk Douglas in Spartacus'.  Who doesn't know the 'I'm Spartacus' scene?

Now to the history.  In 71 BC the Romans were busy wondering why they were counting down the years, instead of counting up.  Debated raged as to whether 1BC will be followed by year zero or year 1.

Mean whilst the slaves were restless, and revolted under former gladiator Spartacus who escaped and built a formidable army.

This miniature is another home sculpt, representing an escaped slave running down a cobbled roman street.  The slaves soon discarded the gladiator school weapons for captured roman military equipment.  Here he still has a battered training shield and Gladius.

Oops, there is nudity there, so I quickly adjust the angle of the shot so that his equipment is tastefully placed in front of his manly bits, just like in a fireman calendar shoot.  From this angle, it is apparent that I had a lot of trouble with the face and could not get the putty to stay in place.  Perhaps his face took a beating in the arena.

He is nude because I could not decide to attire him in either a tunic, a kilt or trousers and instead I settled for none of those.

So clearly the romans were not going to ignore this blatant nudity.  A war ensued, the slave army roamed undefeated.  After their initial successes they split in half, with Crixus taking his half north towards Gaul in an attempt to join up with Asterix and Obelix.  Spartacus went south in a vain attempt to join up with Elrond at Rivendell in New Zealand.

Crassus roman army cornered Spartacus' force at Rhegium, and did what Romans do best, besieging Spartacus' army.   Here we have the romans building a fort.

Crassus' men were busy, once they defeated the slaves, over 6000 were crucified on the Appian way for all to see.  This ended the third servile war.

Roman tunics is always a quandary.  From what I have read, it seems romans did not have uniform clothes.  A red tunic was common, as was cheap available at the quartermaster, but was not actually a uniform.  I have ignored everything I read and done them all in a uniform of dirty brown shades of white in classic make it up yourself wargamer uniform

To the scoring;

13 x 28mm miniatures = 65 points

1 x Swords and Sandals Bonus = 20 points.

Net = 85 points.

the map so far ...

Signing off,

Geoff.

From TeemuL: Let's say I like what I see, but I like the shield, too. :D The uniformed tunics look nice, may be not historically accurate, but they do look good. Nice set of varied weapons. Special mention to the bases, I like the street base of escaped slave, but I like the others, too.

For a Few Thor's Days More

I guess the Ice Hockey World Championships in 2019 and 2022 doesn't really count, since Finland beat Canada in the final, not Sweden...* But yes, a piece of information of Finland and then a preview of new movies.

:happiness:

HAPPINESS

The feeling of beating our lovely neighbour Sweden – in anything.

Finland and Sweden are like a brother and sister. Someone you compare yourself with and compete against. Someone you love telling jokes about but also admire. A win isn’t really a win unless it’s against Sweden.

*Yes, Canada, we still do count them as wins!

--- End of Finn writing about Finland ---

• Geoffrey delivers again, some Romans in tunics and some Romans not in tunics
• Lee gives something to think about, what's the point in two churches?
• Jez is on a roll, a lone elephant
• Mike is usual Mike, little bit of everything
• Andrew ships ships
• Peter continues to explore the Rome, nothing to eat this time
• May be more?

PS. There seems to be one ready post from Wednesday, which was not published, but I won't meddle with other minions' posts, I'm sure there are good reasons for ignoring that...

From Curt: 'Chaff' Light Infantry for Turnip28 (40 Points)

Hellooo,

I have to say, I'm having a bit of fun reading the bewildered responses from some participants to all this Turnip silliness. Remember, be inclusive people, root vegetable-based wargames need love too.  :) 

So, another small post from me for my T28 project. Moving on from the rank-and-file of the 'Fodder', we now consider the much-abused 'Chaff'.

As you can imagine from their name, Chaff are the light infantry of Turnip28. They're typically tasked to screen other units, nip around the battlefield to seize objectives, and generally be an annoyance. Similar to skirmishers from other systems, Chaff benefit from being able to deploy in a loose formation, making them harder to hit, and, as they sometimes clean their begrimed, rusted muskets, they are marginally less horrible shots than their comrades.

Here are two units of Chaff for my forces. One for the 'Rutabaga Brigade' 

...and the other serving 'The Fighting Fennel Fusiliers'. 

I wanted them to have a slightly different look than the Fodder, so, pulling from the artwork in the rules, I gave them each a pavise to lug around the battlefied (makes perfect sense, right?).  I had a bit of fun freehanding some unit heraldry on the shields. Granted, its pretty rustic, but I figure it fits with the overall setting of weirdness, decay and dissolution of Turnip28.

These eight Chaff will give me 40 points on the long path towards my 1300 point goal.

Next up for T28 will be the 'Brutes', or maybe the cavalry... or perhaps the artillery. No clue really. It'll sort itself out. 

Thanks for popping in for a look! 

- Curt

From FrederickC - The War Lord and HIs Tower [Historical Drama] (58 points)

  Moving Southeast from the High Adventure studio, we arrive at Historical Drama. Years ago, I had picked up 28mm figures of William the Conqueror and his brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeaux, which then languished in a drawer for several decades until now. If I recall correctly, these are some early sculpts from Gripping Beast, but if anyone recognizes them, let me know. I am not planning on painting up a Norman army in 28mm as I already have one in 15mm, but plans can change. They seemed appropriate for the movie, 'The War Lord'.

 I mounted them on fender washers which are the same diameter as the Games Workshop cavalry bases, and then used some spackle to get a smooth transition between the figure's base and the washer. As with all my other figures, I glued some fine sand to the base with PVA, and then primed the figures black with an airbrush. I used Vallejo acrylics to paint them, along with some Citadel washes, primarily on the horses.

 

The War Lord from 1965

 

Bishop Odo of Bayeaux and Duke William of Normandy

Closeup (front view)

Closeup (back view)

 

   Unlike the 2D rocketship I used on the Sci Fi set, the tower in the photos for this set is 3D and was inspired by the tower that features in the movie. I had a thick cardboard cylinder in my terrain building hoard for years. It measured 5.5" high with a diameter of 5". I didn't think that was tall enough to be Chrysagon's tower, so it was augmented by three layers of 1.5" thick blue styrofoam, plus a layer of thick cardboard to form the floor at the top to give a total height of 10". I originally thought I would clad the entire structure with stones cut from more blue styrofoam, but it was taking too much time, and I only did as far as the top of the foundation, as well as the stones around the windows and the door. The rest of the 'stones' were made using self-adhesive address labels that I cut into smaller lengths and stuck on the cylinder with slight gaps in between. It's a technique I used when I refurbished a Vauban style star fort a few years ago. The floor and the door are coffee stir sticks, and the iron banding on the door is made from strips of thin card. Once everything was glued and pasted, the whole thing got painted with black latex house paint, followed by a dry brush with medium grey paint and a final dusting of light grey. I used acrylic craft paints for the brown on the floor and the door, and a green wash on the stones of the foundation. All in all, it was approximately eight hours of work to get it to this stage. At some point I need to build a dedicated ramp and/or bridge to get up to the height of the door, but that is a future project. If I build one of these again, I am going to get a Proxxon hot wire cutter first.

 

Towery McTowerface

An elevated view showing the platform at the top

 The points being claimed are as follows:

2 x 28mm mounted figures @ 10 points each = 20 points 

0.90 x Terrain cube @ 20 points per cube = 18 points

1 x Studio lot @ 20 points = 20 points

 

My progress so far

 

Minion MilesR: and here is Frederick's second post - he has been a busy beaver this week.  love the tower.  I highly recommend the proxxon wire cutter - it's worth the investment