From RayR - 2mm Almansa 1707 - French Sillery's Brigade 26pts

I didn't get to post anything last week, as I just didn't find the time to take any photos, so there'll be a few posts from me today.

First off is my first French brigade for my Almansa project.

Sillery's brigade fought in the front ranks of the centre left under Major General Vicentelo.

Only one close up, don't look to hard, they're tiny!

I do like the flag on regt Bigorre, once again all the flags are from my NYW collection, some made by me, others from online sites.

Regiments in this brigade were, Bigorre, Isle de France, La Sarre and 2 Battalions of Sillery.

Nice and easy with the points.

5 bases @5pts each = 25pts

1 Brigadeir base = 1/2 point

So a total of 25.5 points

'There will be a few posts from me today.' he says. That's a bit of an understatement. Great work on these tiny little figures Ray. Sadly I still can't figure out how to add decimal places to the Spreadsheet of Doom, so you can have half a point for the flags.

The Saturday Science Centre

Hello all and welcome to the Saturday Science Centre.

Saturday's crew of paint researchers, brush specialists and miniature intelligentsia have used all their know-how and fancy-pants book learning to bring you a number of treatises on a broad range of subjects. Their goal is to educate, enlighten and perhaps even entertain the bright inquisitive minds of their fellow challengers. So slip on your reading glasses, grab your notebooks and prepare to open your minds.

On the curriculum for today:

Professor Millsy will be giving a lecture on biodiversity and how best to consume all that juicy biomass.

Doctor MartijnN has a research paper on the fauna of Arabia and the Himalayas

Our resident mad scientist RayR will be demonstrating the beauty of miniaturising everything in sight in his display titled 'Honey, I Shrunk the War'.

That renowned egghead GregB is going to give you a break down of all the latest advances in weapons technology.

Top boffin ChrisW will show you the benefits and drawbacks of crossbreeding your own strains of mutant horrors.

And there are sure to be several other theses awaiting peer review that may yet find time to join this high-level forum.

From TomC: Phil's Phriday Phletcher Phleet [Historical Drama] (40 points)

 The Minion Expeditionary Force sent up a flare and so I have done my best to send ships to get in the way help...

 Hi again everyone, only took a desperate plea from our beloved Minion for me to try and get another post in, some quick disclaimers about the title, only two Fletchers, but also one Portland class cruiser, which is what I'm using for the historical drama studio. This is the USS Indianapolis, which, to loosely summarise, was torpedoed whilst in transit, sinking in twelve minutes. The distress calls were ignored, the ship's failure to arrive neglected and forgotten about. Those of the crew who survived were left to the mercy of nature until a flying boat spotted them four days later. Once rescued, the Navy then tried to throw the captain under the bus, making him the only US ship commander to be prosecuted for losing their ship in action during the war in an attempt to cover the Navy's own mistakes. Nimitz reversed the sentence, but it took until 2001, well after his death (in 1968), to exonerate him.

 The miniatures themselves are from Warlord Games's Battle for the Pacific starter set, cast in their resin, and went together very quickly and could have been painted up very quickly if I hadn't thought that the Rule of Cool should prevail and that jazzy camouflage was in order. I must confess that I threw research to the winds and simply squinted at the studio paint scheme, which has had mixed results in the past (I am colourblind and my US Marines therefore have brown uniforms). I did have fun though! 

 I was inspired by some lovely NVA armour I saw recently here with yellow stars and so did use yellow for the ship information as I thought it would aid recognition for when I eventually get around to the Japanese half of the set, I can then do their script in red.

There are six Fletchers in the main set so I thought it'd be worth getting a couple in alongside Indy. There seem to be quite a few schemes available so I'm hoping I can outfit each with something slightly different as they're not named. The above Fletcher was in a simpler scheme to make the home run feel downhill when painting!

This was used as a test platform for Indy, the different greys are mostly Citadel: Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue, Administratum Grey mixed with Fenrisian Grey, and Ulthuan Grey for highlighting. The water was Vallejo Prussian Blue, with Blue Green to highlight, up to white for the various waves.

 In terms of points, I am afraid that there's no precedent for the Victory at Sea 1/1800 scale* ships. I have put forward 6 per destroyer (x2) and 8 per heavy cruiser (x1), as they're roughly a 15mm vehicle or so, subject to Minion's discretion. 

 The location is Historical Drama, Indy is mentioned in Jaws! So, in total, 20 for the ships, 20 for the location, 40 all in.

*I originally gave the scale as 1/1700 - apologies!

Phriday Minion: Tom, glad you popped up to keep me on my toes this Friday. I rank naval gaming well at the bottom of my wargaming interests (though I'll stretch to NebulonB frigates and Star Destroyers if that counts), but you've done a mighty fine job with the dazzle camouflage on these beauties. I think the bright blue sea and picknig out the wakes helps them pop, and the yellow lettering is a great idea. 

20 points seems very reasonable to me, so I have wrangled those numbers into the Spreadsheet of Doom and onto your tally. Thanks for dropping by!

From TamsinP: 15mm Roman & Numidian Cavalry [Swords & Sandals] (104 points)

 

Moving on from the Westerns studio, I find myself in the Swords & Sandals studio. Luckily, in the drawer of minis I failed to paint in AHPC XII there were some 15mm cavalry figures that worked for this and which will help to round out my Early Imperial Roman army for Art de la Guerre.

Numidian Light Cavalry

I only need two bases for a "standard" 200 point army; the third base (which has the two figures with damaged javelins) will allow me to run a 300 point army if I ever fancy a larger (and longer) game.

Roman Auxiliary Cavalry

On checking my (painted) Roman army box, I found that I already have more cavalry than I actually need, so these will just be for if I want to run auxiliary cavalry with different shields.

I did have some Gallic cavalry to paint as well, but I realised that I wouldn't get them finished and be able to base everything in time to get them submitted this week, so the Gauls will make a separate appearance.

The figures are all 15mm from Lancashire Games.

For Scoring

21 x 15mm cavalry @ 4 = 84 points

1 x studio @ 20 = 20 points

Total = 104 points

Next stop - the Fantasy studio

Friday Minion: Morning Tamsin, great to have you with us on a chilly Friday. I imagine it's satisfying finishing a project like this (or better, painting things because they're there, even if you don't need them) - alas the butterfly in me means I seldom have the pleasure. 

Nice job, both of these cavalry units look great. I find Numidians look good in any scale with the extra visual interest of their hide shields, and the accurate horse markings really lift these minis. 

Friday Minion, On a Roll

We're five weeks into the Challenge and I finally feel like I'm on a roll like a clearly fake boulder in pursuit of a cheeky archaeologist thieving git. Hopefully I'll have an entry in this week, then two more to follow after that. 

And what about the Friday crew? So far, it's looking a bit thin, but we have:

• The infamous, industrious, indefatigable TamsinP going back to her roots with 15mm Roman auxiliaries for Art de la Guerre.

Looks like that's it so far, until more of the Friday turn up with some treasure for us.

From AndrewB: A couple interesting characters! (Swords and Sandals)(32pts)

 A couple extra figures this week that I got fussy and got a little extra on, but that’s alright! First, we have another off-brand Jedi, who we’ll know by his call-sign, Red-Green Leader, from Battle Valor Miniatures! Secondly, we have Hercules, another addition to the cast of characters for my Jason and the Argonauts games, from Footsore. We’ve both got swords, and Hercules is another in a long list of sandal-wearing miniatures for me so far!  Sword and Sandals!

My attempts at a plaid flannel shirt is less than my favorite, but between a Labatt Blue lightsaber, his old-school duck hunter camouflage, and empty beer cans on his base, there’s enough character there for a fun game or ten!  Red Green leader had to take his vehicle down from where he resides, in colder climes approximately 69 beer stores north of Darth Brooks’ place.   

Second comes the truly large Hercules from Footsore!  This guy was a delight to pain, and gets me one step closer to my goal of having Jason and his buddies fighting Aeetes and his skeletons, among others. There’s two swords on his back, but the club is so much cooler!  Bigger than reality for sure, I really enjoyed painting this mythic hero.  

These are both metal figures, which I have really missed painting since I’ve been hammering through so many 3D printed ones   The deep, more pronounced detail is refreshing and easy to paint.  

These fellas should get me to 10 points for the figures and 20 for the studio!  Just wait, more are coming from both of these projects!  With that, my updated map!  

From TeemuL: And a hat-trick by Andrew, last week it was Geoffrey, who will it be next week? As a keen hobbyist I'm interested in the (empty) beer cans at the base of Red-Green Leader. Are they scratch built or something easier and fancier?

Swords, sandals and sand, perfect fit for this location, not too many left. I like the swords, sandals and sand of course, and beer cans, too. The club and the lion-helm. In fact, the lion-helm Hercules looks so big, I'll score him as a 40mm infantry and 7 points.

From AndrewB: More corny Star Wars! (Western)(70pts)

More of the goofy Star Wars this week!   In the same vein as my previously semi-absurd Star Wars posts, with Darth Brooks and his pair of speeders, I have more reasons why the story is set in a galaxy ‘far, far away’.  These guys are in a sort of ‘Space Western’ setting, but instead of an Ennio Morricone 1870s western feel, it’s a George Straight 1990s feel.  

First, we have a pair of delightful named characters!  On the left, we have Darth Brooks’ ace speeder pilot buddy Day’el ‘The Intimidator’ whose black number 3 speeder is routinely seen zipping around the surface.  On the right, we have Keni Rojas(weird pronunciation), Brooks’ perpetual Gambler friend. His wisdom and decision making prowess is legendary, he always knows when to walk away!

Next up, a rival speeder pilot, yet unnamed(pun block, I suppose), who represents a huge chemical conglomerate, and his lackies.  He’s constantly proving a rival and damn heroes competitor to Day’el, and his garish choice in costuming and speeder color leads the common folk to either love or despise him. 

I’m not sure what sort of species his lackies are designed to be, but I painted their odd facial structure like fu Manchus, so they fit the theme pretty well.  I’m not sure if I’m entirely happy with the colors, but they’ll hopefully grow on me once I have a speeder painted for them.  

Next up, a fireteam of ‘shore troopers’ on their well-earned leisure time!  These guys are just goofy and fun to paint, so enjoy!  

I have no recollection of where I found these .STLs, but would be tickled pink if there were more floating around somewhere.  Their APC will be coming soon, in a truly Western US fashion, so stay tuned! 

These fellows should get 50pts for 10 28mm miniatures, as well as 20pts for the challenge room.  A total of 70!

Lastly, a group photo! And my challenge progress!  

From TeemuL: Ah, the shore troopers, the latest fan favourites, I guess. Who needs any vegetable warriors from Turnips, when there are some serious wargaming minis available? The lackies sure are colourful, which might make them hard to enjoy at the beginning, but I'm sure you get used to them. The two named characters are great, is the background somehow official or have just generated it by yourself?

From PeterD Late Roman Limitanei (60 points)

 

I've got 12 Late Roman infantry from a Limitanei cohort of Tungri. Figures are Victrix plastics, which went together well and painted up nicely. The units designated Limitanei were essentially garrison troops and typically not as well equipped, trained or led as the Comitatenses in the field army. However, quality likely carried considerably between units from part-time militias of farmers who showed up to drill on occasion, to full time regular troops. Some of the later got drafted in the Field Armies as pseudocomitatenses.  Benito recently posted a very fine looking unit of the part timers, while I am envisioning my Tungri as more regular.  

There were two similar named units in Britain in the late 4th Century. The Cohors I Tungrorum was based at Borcovicio (the Housesteads fort in Northumberland). A second unit under the officer Praepositus militum Tungrecanorum were at Dubris (Dover).   That means that  can comfortably field my Tungri against Scots-Irish, Pict and Saxon raider alike. The cohort names indicate that the units were likely originally recruited from Tungri tribesmen in Northern Gaul.  However over time they morphed into locally recruited units of Romano-Britons.

While I did want this unit to be reasonably well equipped, I didn't want them to look as turned out as my veterans from the Field Army of the Comes Britanniae.  Only one officer has metal armour with a couple of sets of leather army and I tried to make them look less look as tightly drilled. I modelled severall figures with outstretched left hands and this gave me troubles keeping some of their shields glued on. Based on an illustration from Simon MacDowell's book on late Roman Infantry I went for blue tunic decorations instead of my usual red one. It took several tubes of blue before I found a colour that I liked and I think that I'll be going back to red in the future.

According to some source the static Limitanei troops typically had more uniform equipment as they drew on local suppliers and arsenals where the Field Armies ranged over large territories and therefore picked stuff up as needed from where ever was local at the time. That might have been true for the units Juilan took from Germany for his disastrous Persian campaign, but my I figure that the Comes Britanniae had a much more limited range and therefore drew from the same armouries.

Reformatting the photos, I noticed that there is stray hair that needs to trimmed from one figure.

I again free hand painted the shields. They look like the work of a 5 year with lacking any artistic talent up close, but ok from a distance. The Notitia Dignitatum doesn't show shield patterns for Limitanei troops so I opted for a variation on the "Head on a Stick" design shown for several Auxiliary Palatina infantry units. I used a crimson vexillum with an impression of a winged victory (or angel) design held by the rather stout and self important fellow in the leather armour.

Twelve 28mm foot figures should be another 60 points, which will also count against the Carausius Emperor of Britain and SPQR side duels.

From TeemuL: Good looking infantry, I like the cloak and everything. The bases are great, too. I'll use my minion superpowers to grant you 10 bonus points for the shields and the banner.

From AndrewB: More 1/600 Pre-Dreadnaughts! (30pts)

More pre-dreadnaughts for the big game I’m putting on in March! This pair of ships were 3D printed, and came out pretty passably.  I’ve been having some slight troubles with a couple of my printers recently, but I’m hoping that’s mainly due to the cold we’re experiencing here in the American Midwest. Without further ado, the pair! 

First up is the American Monitor USS Arkansas, BM-7, which mounts a powerful pair of 12” guns. Not particularly well armored or fast, but those guns are serious business! I’ve painted my American ships in a scheme reminiscent of the Great White Fleet, as they just look really distinct.  

The second ship is a Chinese protected cruiser I found on thingiverse. Being a Chinese ship, it was naturally built in a British yard. Given the British tendency to assume command of any ships in British yards in time of conflict, I’ve painted her in a RN scheme of the era, and decided to name her the HMS Goodenough. She mounts three 8” guns and a variety of smaller armaments, and will operate with another sister vessel(yet to be painted).  

I believe we scored the last 1/600 ship I painted along the lines of Black Seas ships at 15pts apiece, which should net me a lean 30pts for these! More coming soon! Reminder to anyone in the Midwest at the end of March- March to Victory will be in Kansas City, come on out and get a play in with these beauties!  

Also, I’ve remembered my map this time for the challenge!

From TeemuL: Thanks for the weekly ships, Andrew! They look goodenough... :) The Chinese ship is more to my liking, all the colours etc, but I guess if a warship is eye catching, then there is something wrong. They kinda need to look boring and uninterested, right? Nevertheless, good job paiting these ships, Andrew!