From Curt - 28mm Retiarii (Retiarius) - Gladiators Armed with Net and Trident (10 Points)

My second entry this week (woo!) is a couple more gladiators to add to my existing Ludus.  This time it is two Retiarii ('net-men') which were gladiators whose fighting style focused on the use of the trident and throwing net.  From historical evidence it seems these fellows were often set against two Secutors ('chasers'), with the Retiarius placed on an elevated platform, sometimes over water, and the Secutorii set to assault him.  Sounds like pretty harrowing stuff - it would seem that gladiators didn't have a very good Workplace Health & Safety policy...

These two 28mm figures are from Brigade Games (It would seem that I'm on a bit of a tear with Brigade's stuff lately). Great sculpts and very easy to work with. Similar to my previous gladiators, I’ve done the groundwork with a gratuitous amount of gore so it better blends with the ‘Spartacus’ game-board.

The last shot is of the Ludus as it stands now, with all seven gladiators arrayed for combat.

‘Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant.’

From Curt - 28mm Napoleonic Spanish Guerrillas (75 Points)

Cripes, I started these figures in December at the start of the Challenge and have been slowly nudging them along in fits and starts. It’s funny; I find that when I’m not following a common uniform ‘template’ it can take me forever to come up with the goods. I’ll hum and haw over how to paint every item of clothing, every strap, every hat, almost paralyzing myself with indecision. It’s really quite silly. I know I could have probably done-up the majority of these figures in simple browns, greens and blacks, but that seemed pretty uninteresting and a bit of a cop out for such fine figures. So I painfully plodded through them, model-by-model, and I’m happy to see them completed and off my desk. 

These fifteen 28mm castings are from Brigade Games. Most are listed as ‘Napoleonic Guerrilla’ figures, but a few are actually Napoleonic naval crew, nonetheless, I found they blended together quite nicely. By the looks of them I would say that Paul Hicks was the sculptor, but I’m not sure on this. No matter, they are excellent models – they required little in the way of preparation and were a real joy to paint. 

From my understanding many of these guerrilla units were composed of Spaniards from all walks of life so I decided to paint them in a motley assortment of civilian garb and re-purposed bits of uniform, both Spanish and French. (And, yes, you have to have a fierce priest and armed monk with any Spanish guerrilla unit.)

I stuck to my standard method of basing for these. For ease of identification the force commander is based on a hex base, while the lower level leaders are on squares and the troops are on rounds. 

The roadside shrine below is from Grand Manner. It’s quite a nice hunk of resin I think. I often find a small characterful piece of terrain can speak volumes to a setting than a bunch of nondescript models. When I put this on the tabletop it immediately says to me, ‘We’re in the Iberian Peninsula. Genuflect, put on your wide-brimmed hat and enjoy some hot chocolate and churros.'

I picked up this shrine along with a few other pieces from Grand Manner this past Christmas during a promotion. It was the only way I could rationalize getting them, as with shipping they’re quite expensive. Nonetheless, while some of their range has been around for quite awhile, I still find Grand Manner offers some of the best terrain available, so it's nice to be able to treat oneself from time to time. 

Next up for this little project will be some dismounted French dragoons for these Guerrillas to tangle with…

From TamsinP - 6mm ACW Union Cavalry (83 Points)

It's just as well my race with the Dux is over - I've been sick the past few days which has made painting a touch difficult.

After the past 2 weeks of excessiveness, I was taking things a little easier this week. And so, I present my 15th entry of this Challenge - some more little blue blobs; this time with little brown blobs *lol*

I am still somewhat puzzled by the composition of the Baccus cavalry packs. The mounted are supplied as 3 strips of 3 to do a regiment; the dismounted are supplied at a ratio of two horse-holder strips (1 man, 3 horses) to 3 strips of 4 dismounted cavalry. The numbers don't add up. As I am basing my cavalry and infantry on 60x60 mm bases they would have looked rather sparse with 9 mounted cavalry or 7 dismounted cavalry, so I decided to go with 14 on each base. That left me with 7 figures over - I chose to remove the excess as officers, guidons and one bugler. These I have mounted singly for use as markers for command points or some-such.

The dismounted cavalry:

You see what happens when you switch to 6mm scale? Both regiments have lost over half their horses!

And their not-yet-dismounted comrades (with some close-ups! - the horror!):

As a detailed inspection will reveal, some of the figures managed to jump in the way of the dry-brush so will need attention later on.

Let's tot up the points:
63 mounted = 63 points
28 foot and 12 horses = 20 points
Total = 83 points

Like I said earlier, just as well the race with Dux is over!


Before I leave you, I have previously posted pics of my paintbench. However, here's another showing it as it is right now:

New toys! Well, the airbrush and compressor were bought around June last year, but haven't been used yet. The portable spray booth is new though. It does come with a flexible extract hose, but as I'm not using anything solvent-based, I should be OK to use it without.

I'll be having a play with these tonight to get used to the brush and try out some camo schemes. It's a cheapo single-action and 3-speed compressor, so probably only good for priming, base coats and rough details.

The small Really Useful Box to the left of the booth has my collection of Model Air paints and various bottles of Vallejo surface primer.


From Curt:

Wonderful work Tamsin. Again, your paintwork is distinct and clean, and so not making these nondescript blobs at all. My favourites are the dismounted cavalry vignettes with the horseholders at the rear of the base. I'm sure you've mentioned it before, but what rules  system are you using with these?

I hope you start feeling better soon!

From TeemuL - Old Orcs (20 Points)

Back to the Oldhammer and Orcs after a quick visit to LotR and High Elfs. I have a quite nice collection of painted arrers so it's time to get some close combat power as well. Here are four classic Orc Warriors with swords and shields.

I really liked to paint those arrers, but these were not fun for some reason. I don't know if the reason is the increased amount of metal studs, more colors or the fact that my Goblin Green paint is both running and drying out. It seemed to take ages to finish these, there well always something I missed or messed up.

It's 5pm here in Finland and the sun has set, so the light is not very good this time. Where I was able to explain the "angled ranking" of the arrers with the wind, I have no excuse for these warriors. As you can see (and some of you remember), they won't rank up nicely. Not even when running away.

These should give me 20 points and with the points from the Hot bonus round I should be very close to my initial target. One more reason (the first one is that I'm running out of green paint;)) to paint the Curtgeld next.

Update, two pictures taken in the midday sunshine:

From Curt:

Ahh, more OldHammer goodness, excellent.  It's great seeing these venerable models getting the love again. I especially like the various shield-boss designs.  If you can Teemu, please take a couple more shots when the light is better and update this post so we can get a better look at them.

From SanderS - The 10th Mordaunt's Dragoons (81 Points)

Dear Ladies and Gents,

Today I'd thought I'd bring you another 20mm unit, this is my rendition of the British 10th Regiment of Horse or Mordaunts Dragoons.

This regiment was part of the cavalry of the second line of the Allied army at the battle of Minden in 1759. The uniform detail as well as the background was obtained from the excellent Kronoskav site I've mentioned before.

Ever since deciding to dive into the 7YW, I  wanted to paint units with a distinctive background and within coherent larger entities like brigades or divisions. 

I have already painted the 3rd Dragoon Guards and still have the Greys to do. I am still in doubt whether to paint the Hanoverians for the "line" as well since this was not originally part of my plan. 

This is a unit of 10 mounted men and if I am not mistaken should amount to 80 points in total.

As so many have done already, I also include a picture of my study/ man cave ;-)

Cheers Sander

From Curt:

Wonderful work on this unit Sander. The paintwork is clean and vibrant with the uniforms but I find the horses look especially fine.  Lovely work.  

And speaking of lovely, I really like the layout of your study - it's very bright and well organized (and a veritable advertisement for IKEA!). Looking at your room makes me think of our recent trip to Holland (good memories)!

From RoyW - 10mm (very fashionable) Zombies, Part Two (14 Points)

Hello everyone,

To follow on from last week, here I'll present seven more bases of the 10mm Pendraken Miniatures Sci-Fi zombies (not to be confused with their Fantasy zombies, you see).

As last time they're based two to a base and on 20mm octagonals, to help differentiate them from the singular, round based survivors (when I get around to painting them).

I've been more adventurous this week, in painting more complex fashionable designs on some of the clothing, as well as attempting some 'fashion' camouflaged material. 

Also, the bases have seen more grass / flower tufts in comparison to last weeks models.

Here's two shots of the Horde, so far

Five more bases to go of 'human' zombies and then six bases of undead canines. Work has begun on the lucky / unlucky survivors - six of which I've been converting using modelling putty and florist's wire - and there's a mail order near-ready to be made for more miniatures to expand the project ... And I foolishly said that it would be a one-purchase and then finished project :)

Points: Fourteen 10mm figures are worth 14 points

ps. If I say it here then it might just motivate me to finish the Curtgeld figure that's sitting on my paint desk.


From Curt:

I'm really enjoying seeing this project develop. The group basing looks excellent and I love the vibrant colours. Very, very cool. 
 

From PeterD - 28mm Andalusian Archers (60 points)

So in between singing sea shanties and rinsing the salt from my shorts (see the comments on Miles’ earlier post), I have completed a unit of 12 Andalusian archers for my El Cid era armies.  These are Gripping Beast figures and are old friends.  Others seem to have issues with some Beastie Boys figs, but I like theses ones.  The one slight quibble is the bows are trick to attach to some figures.  However, good poses and clothing and they paint up nicely IMHO.

Over time I have waffled between giving my Ancient/Medieval units “uniforms”, sometimes opting for a Heinz 57 variety and others going for common clothes.  For recent units I am tending to unit “theme” colours, such as the red theme for these archers.  I’ve used three different shades for the tunics, or neutrals with red turbans.  On the theme I can vary to trims, sashes and turbans and accessories.   It may not be historical, but it makes the units far easier to group together during set up and take down.

From Curt:

Great work Peter! I really like the vibrant red 'theme' to these archers (especially with the light green turbans) and you're right they will be much easier to identify as a unit on the tabletop.

From SamuliS - 15mm Barbarossa Era German Guns (94 Points)

I'm getting ahead albeit rather slowly. After placing third (and only a point away from being tied for first!!) in the largest winter time Flames of War tournament  here and being picked into the preliminary roster of the Finnish team for European Team Championships I had a sudden burst of inspiration to paint up some more tiny Germans.  Unfortunately the rush of inspiration has been hindered a bit by the better half being away on business for some weeks and I've had to stay home alone with our little beast which has caused painting time to be at the premium.

Still I've been managing to get some painting done during the little boys naptimes and can now boast 3 more finished Flames of War platoons. One light infantry gun platoon of 2 le.IG18 guns and 2 platoons of 2 PaK38's. These will provide fire support when on the defense and help with some much needed anti-tank power.

I added some chipping and mud on the guns to make them look like they've seen some action as befits the Veteran rating of Germans in Barbarossa. Simple basing with static grass and also some bushes. My local shop finally had a resupply of scenery materials and I picked up some clump foliage that I'd run out off. I added some to these guys and also went back to the previous German entries and added more undergrowth to the bases of the Panzerschützen as well.

With these done there are only 3 platoons left in my Early War German project. Two of them are fairly small with only a few stands, but I've still got one very large Pioneer platoon with all their vehicles left. There's also a Bolt Action theme day coming up at my club and I've promised to hold a Commando inspired scenario which needs some hapless Jerries standing guard and evil Nazi scientists so I think there next entries will be various shades of Grey as well. Scale is still open to bursts of inspiration though as there is both 15mm and 28mm prepped on the desk at the moment :)


From Curt:

First, congratulations on your top tier placing in the FoW tournament and your selection to the national team. That is very exciting! Where are the European Team Championships being held?

These look great Samuli - I've always liked the look of that snub-nosed infantry gun and, as you say, the PaK38s will give you some good anti-tank capability, especially in the early war. The clump foliage adds a nice bit of texture to the bases. Well done.

Remember to Vote for your Favourite 'Hot' Theme Entries

Just a quick reminder that if you haven't done so already, please drop over to the Hot Theme submissions and cast your votes for your favourite entries. As you can see by the chart below it's developing into another excellent race to the Sunday deadline!