From RayR: Retreat from Moscow -2 x French 6pdrs (72 points)

And yet again, its more from my Retreat from Moscow project.

But this time its a little different. Here we have 2 6pdr French artillery pieces, with 5 crew each.

Which is a bit of a bugger coz, Perry's sell them as 1 gun plus 4 infantry, but in Sharpe Practice there should be 5 artillery men.....sigh, more expense.

So I bought a pack of  Hired Help from Perry's to add the extra 2 figures I needed. 

I was going to paint both crew in blue, but thought some nice brown coats would look cool, also just looking at the figures I forgot to paint the red trim around the chaps cap on the left.....damn it!!!

French artillerymen in greatcoats, a very rare figure, I couldn't find many companies that sell a range like Perry's ones.

Myself and Lee, thought these bases would look nice for the artillery, we've 2 bases of each size, and the good thing is I've already got a stack of French Napoleonic artillery in various sizes, so can swap these over whenever, also I might buy some other nationality artillerymen as well, perhaps some Pole, it depends on who sell them in great coats, but I could always get the guillotine out again??

Next up.....more of the same, but this time in blue and a bigger base. I suppose these could be used for the larger guns?

Not sure about standing in front of the gun though???

Looks a little dangerous to me?

I think the bases really make the pieces look great, I will probably add a few barrels and stuff to them at a later date. The smaller base can be bought here. for £1.75 and the larger one, here for £2

What a bargain!

Points are pretty easy

10 x 25mm figures 50pts

2 x 6pder artillery 20pts

Making a total of 70 pts!

TeemuL: Let's continue on the well trodden paths of Thursday and some excellent minis from Ray. Yes, it seems to be a dangerous position, standing in the front of the gun, but of course someone needs to load those things... Even though you didn't ask, I'll give you couple of bonus points for the well thought basing solution for these (and other) guns and crews! Keep them coming, Lee is surely waiting more targets. :)

From KenR: 1/700 HMS Forester & Foxhound (80 points)

 

Ship of the week has become ships of the week ! In what may be a vain attempt to finish off the military ships of Narvik I managed to get two Destroyers finished off this week, leaving me 1 Battleship and 3 Destroyers to do before close if Challenge in just 15 days.

HMS Forester is one of 9 F Class Destroyers a repeat of the E Class, she served throughout the War being involved at Narvik, where she escorted the Warspite. Forester went on to be part of Force H participating against the French at Mers el Kebir, escorting in the Med, Atlantic and the Russian convoys, chase the Bismarck and DDay, her crew would certainly have some tales to tell.

HMS Foxhound was also an F Class Destroyer, she had a similar career to Forester but was converted to an escort Destroyer and transfered to the Canadian Navy in 1944 and renamed HMCS Qu'Appelle, she also ended the war in one piece and her last duties were bringing Canadian soldiers back home after they served in Europe.

Both ships are 1/700 E Class Destroyer kits from Tamiya, the tooling for these is really old and they are the most basic of the kits I've done. The ridges along the Hull are a massive pain in the backside both for the decals and the weathering but they have turned out nice enough.

Foxhound is in a particularly interesting colour scheme, one I haven't seen on other ships and comes from wartime photos of the ship. It uses the high contrast of other schemes but the lower hull is split into two colours rather than having a single colour hull and a single colour upper. 

So that's two Destroyers at 40 points each for a total of 80. I have 2 Destroyers half built and Warspite on the go, but the easy wins have all gone. The remaining Destroyers are more advanced kits and Warspite is, well huge, my work pattern means I've only got 4 days left in the Challenge to get stuff done, so let's see.

TeemuL: As promised last week, there are two ships this week, well done, Ken! Older and simpler kits are not necessarily easier and funnier to work with, something you seem to have experienced first hand this week. Once again, you have managed to make the ships individual even though they are the same kit. Let's see if you can make a ship in four days for the rest of the Challenge, I'm sure there are several thumbs up.

From DaveD: “inGobamakhosi - “The Benders of Kings” (225 points)

The first post for the current projects this week. First  up this week is the 2nd Zulu Regiment for the left horn of the Zulu army . This is a large regiment with around 4000 men - the name “Benders of Kings” , I think gives a good guide on their intent . There are 212 figures in this one. It had a mix of shield patterns , with  4 different basic pattern designs .   This gives me 30% of the army . I should get over half of the total done by challenge end . Enough for a test game to wash their spears .

The frontage is 360mm 

That’s two of the 3 units from the left horn - 6000 men equivalent 

First two regiments completed , next up “Fly Catchers”

I have also completed the prep work on the next 300 figures , which will cover 3 smaller units , basecoat on ready to go so things are moving along nicely . 

Pretty sure there is a smell of Ox crap in the air as the British columns gather .. there may be trouble ahead . 

Points - 212 x 10mm figures with lots of complicated shield designs.

TeemuL: I trust your count, it sure looks that there are 212 figures with pretty shields. I can see the reasons for bonus points for shields, but it would be really hard to make mathematical calculations for a "fair" amount of points. It would be easier to not give, don't you agree?

Your army is starting to look great and it would look magnificent when "ready" or "completed." Let's see more of these next week, ok? And take 13 bonus points. ;)

Thursday Things of Interest VIII

Larry A. Thorne, born Lauri A. Törni was a soldier and captain of three armies. He volunteered in army and got his initial training as veterinarian. His training ended shortly before Winter War started and after the training he was called in service. During the war he was keen to volunteer in missions and for example once his group went through the enemy lines and contacted another Finnish unit behind enemy lines. The commander was surprised that Törni and his men appeared inside the command tent passing even the Finnish guardsmen. Quite sneaky.

During the Continuation War on a patrol mission he was wounded, sent to hospital and from there to home for a recovery leave. He didn't return to hospital and his unit was informed, that Törni was a deserter. The HQ of Törni's unit responded laughing, that Törni has been in the front line for some time. So he "escaped" from holiday to the front line. He later lead several "sissi" or guerrilla operations and got several promotions.

At one point he was training in Germany and because of this connection he was not allowed to fight in the Lapland War, because he couldn't be trusted - at least formally. In the end he got involved with the Germans and got a special training, preparing him to work in case Russia invaded Finland and he could work as a resistant for Finland (and Germany). When this was found out he was found quilty of treason, because during that time Finland was officially in war with Germany.

After the wars he went to Sweden, South America and finally United States where he drafted to US Army and got several special trainings but starting from the bottom (rankwise). He got US citizenship and saw lots of action and got promotions for example in Iran and Vietnam. 1964 he was in a helicopter which crashed and Törni and his men were not found and were listed as MIA. 1966 he was declared dead. 1999 there was another search and remains of the helicopter and bodies were found. 2003 one of the deceased was identified as Törni based on his teeth.

Robin Moore wrote a book called "Green Beret" and the main character was based on Törni. The book was later filmed with John Wayne as a star. I think the movie was "inspired" by Törni's character, but it is not a documentary or a real story. Unsurprisingly Swedish Sabaton has created a song based on Törni, too, but it is not that good. Anyway, it is called "Soldier of 3 Armies". I don't know how long wikipedia page Törni has in English, but the Finnish was is quite long. Use online translator if you want. :)

Törni was captain in Finnish army, in Waffen SS and in US Army (promoted to Major after his dead).

Lauri Törni in the middle

--- In other news ---

No snow, almost 10 degrees and sun shines every now and then. Thursday crew rarely has less than 10 posts a day, let's see how this day turns out.

Wednesday From JamieM - The Horus Heresy’s Greatest Traitor and Mythos (62 points)

Something of a small and yet mixed bag today. First up are the Priory faction for "Mythos" by warcradle. One of my friends and I are like moths to a flame when obscure and virtually dead games with pretty miniatures are concerned and "Mythos" is that. Don’t think it was ever big, but it limps along and can be had very cheaply on eBay at times. I have the Priory faction who are nominally the good guys standing against the evil Cthulhu-type entities

These appear to be led by a wise fellow who has dragged along a chap with a flamethrower, an archaeologist lady, a mechanic, a cat and he’s summoned a massive golem! Feels like he’s ticked all of the boxes for fighting evil…..

Fairly simple paint jobs and it remains to be seen whether the game will see table time with so many other games fighting for it. Heck, they’re nice miniatures either way and were fun to paint. Oh, and one of the ladies will be my fee to move to the “Traitor” area of hell……

……Because I’ve also painted this fella, Lorgar Aurelian...

He’s from GW’s Horus Heresy setting and is one of the primarchs, who are super human beings who lead the legions. Lorgar leads the Wordbearers, religious nut jobs who built massive cathedrals to the Emperor (back when he claimed he wasn’t a god) when they took worlds over instead of moving on to pacify the next world. The Emperor slapped them down for this very publicly and used the Ultramarines to do it, which mortified the entire legion (The Ultramrines? Ugh. I would be embarrassed too - GB).

Lorgar responded to this like any teenager would and sought out the chaos gods to worship instead. He then introduced them to Horus and some of his other primarch friends and the Horus heresy began!

Lorgar is therefore a huge traitor (even though the Emperor was also a bit of a git) as he set in motion a war that killed billions and set humanity back and got what would become the 40K universe going. Ironically, it set up a universe where the Emperor really is now seen as a god. So perhaps he’d feel it was all worth it?

Anyway, 5 x 28mm figure, one 54mm figure, one 40mm figure and a Traitor bonus for 62 points by my maths.

***

This is lovely Jamie! And with all due respect to "Mythos" - and your commitment to obscure-adjacent games (which I share and respect), I can say "thank god" for some 30k at last! And that is a sentiment I think Lorgar would appreciate!

The Primarch models are a real hoot, and it is so nice to see the arch-criminal of the Horus Heresy rendered here and ready to lead his legion into some manner of "faithful endeavor". Progress demands sacrifice, after all, and Lorgar his chaps can help out with both! While Erebus is still the biggest @sshole in the story, at the end of the day, Lorgar is THE bad guy. You've done fine work here - the cape, the mace, and even the "such-a-shame-that-billions-must-die-in-order-to-show-the-obvious-truth" expression on his face.

And full marks to the "Mythos" team. But why assume the "Cthulhu types" are evil? Why, Lorgar could help you understand that inter-dimensional diversity can be your organization's new "greatest strength"...

62 points it is! We can all celebrate in our next visit to Monarchia. Right....?

GregB 

From GavinB: Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone of 28mm and Into 1/16th Scale (30 points)

Last week I was lucky enough to find a fair listing on eBay for one of the discontinued models from Miniart, the French Knight. Once I received the model I made a few edits to sallet with green stuff, as it was not in the style that was most common in the wars of the roses, and I was planning on painting this fellow as a retainer of Edward IV. I had never painted a model larger than 30mm so It was a real joy, I had a lot of fun focusing on all the little details and trying some new techniques. In the end I was pretty happy with how he turned out... so lets have a look!

It was a LOT easier to paint the Sun in Splendor on a 1/16th guy rather than a 28mm guy

  
Now, I do not know how many millimeters are in a 1/16th scale figure, I tried searching it up but to no avail, so to help you out in scoring this guy Greg, I have placed a 28mm Perry miniature next to our soldiers legs that way you can get an idea of how many points to award. (really sorry to add another thing to you busy list of to-do's...)

        And that wraps it up for this week, thank you so much for reading!

POINT TOTAL:

1 1/16th scale foot figure for ? points!

Happy Painting!

***

Hi Gavin - thanks for sharing this unusual project with us. I maintain that heraldry is hopelessly confusing  no matter what the size of the model is, and I have a lot of respect for those who attempt it (and understand what they are doing). I have a Hundred Years War project that is utterly frozen as I have zero idea how to approach the heraldry...

But enough about me! You clearly know what's up - right down to messing around with "green stuff" to get the right helmet. Good show!

In terms of scoring, we thankfully have some precedent here. There have been a couple of instances of 1/16 scale figures in Challenges past - they were scored at 30 points, so that's what we'll go with here!

Thanks Gavin, we look forward to what comes next! 1/6 scale perhaps? :) 

GregB

From SylvainR: 28mm Yellow Monsters for D&D (30 points)

 

This week, our fearless cleric encounters a family of yellow monsters: Mama Drider with two babies and their pet Hydra. All models are from Reaper and made of vinyl. I never used yellow on such large surfaces before, so I took this opportunity to paint a batch of big monsters in this "difficult" color.

Although small in height, the little "driders" or "arachnid centaurs", needed a wide base for their size, the same I used for my giants. I painted their eyes big and black in order to give them an "arachnoid" attitude. In the second picture, below, you can read "2013" on their rear end. I did not think that part would be visible when I was prepping the models and I should have scraped the writings off. Oh well...

When I assembled Mama Drider, I carefully filled the seam line in her abdomen with putty, but the filling material did not stick well when I used sand paper to soften the gap. Hopefully, players will pay more attention to her front end than to her rear end. Because of her size, I had to make a custom base for her out of mdf.

The thing with vinyl miniatures is that fitting is optional. After gluing the heads and filling the gaps with putty, I endeavored to "re-sculpt" the scales. Here she is in her bright yellow coat, ready to take five bites out of helpless adventurers. I custom made an mdf base for her as well.

 Points claimed:

2 x 28mm foot figurines at 5 points each = 10 points

2 x 28mm "mounted" figurines at 10 points each = 20 points

Total = 30 points

Thanks for reading!

***

Great work on your expanding monster menagerie here Sylvain. As you say, yellow is one of the more frustrating colours to work with. But it all looks go great in the end! This is how I ended up doing Imperial Fists for 30k even though painting yellow is so awful..

For all the trouble that yellow might cause painting-wise, however, it always seems like the vinyl material is always a bit of a bigger pain in the rear...well done handling all of the association modeling challenges that come with the vinyl material. 

30 points well-earned!

GregB

AndrewB- Ancients! Project hoppery for sanity! Wrath, Heresy, Violence! -507pts

My apologies for the delay in posting!  Real life 1:1 scale terrain projects (hooray old house!) have gotten in the way, but I’ve managed to sneak in some additional minis, and possibly completed one of my larger projects builds for a challenge yet!  A whole mess of ancients!  Not a huge amount of time for pictures and posting, as my scant hobby time has been pushed into as much painting for sanity as possible, but here we are!  A top view of a load of ancient figures just itching for the tabletop!  

89 of them, to be precise!

First up, some Egyptians!  These I planned as the Wrath! Entry, as they were built and painted to fight a bunch of Sea People figs a buddy was supposed to be painting(Historically, the Egyptians were the only survivors of the possibly Sea Peoples-induced Bronze Age Collapse, with Ramses II stopping them in the Nile Delta, avenging the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean), but his figures didn’t get done!  That’s alright, especially with the angry bald dude in the front, wrath still sits well.  The Wrath of the Pharaoh, perhaps!

These guys are slightly more interesting, they’re a mix of various peoples of the area of Israel and Judea in the early biblical period, along with a group of six Philistine figures, who can be opponents, or mercenary allies.  Lots of basic spearmen, some slingers, and some really fun command figures!  With no chariots, this should likely be a force from the time of Saul/David, but can also represent the smaller rural forces of the Hebrews all the way through to the Jewish Revolt in the 60s-70s AD, giving an impressive ~1300years of possible play.  In that time, the peoples of this region fought hundreds of opponents, from the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Babylonians, to the Romans, with a huge amount of fighting taking place with one another!  They’re the perfect candidate for the ‘Violence’ category!  

Last but not least( I know it’s out of order, but it’s all the same post), my submission for Heresy!  This giant dude is my representation for Goliath, should I ever find a set of rules to game his fight with the ‘A’ portion of Force=Mass X Acceleration. Fighting and even unsuccessfully trying to kill future King David is probably enough to count as Heresy for a lot of folks.  

That’s 88 28mm figures and a 40mm, and three categories!  My math isn’t always the best, but I think it’s 507pts.  My apologies for the poor backdrop and lack of pictures, but I needed to make sure folks knew I hadn’t dropped out, and have been putting in work in my now short amounts of time. I’ll be sure to get more detailed and quality pictures for my wrap-up post.  Not sure the unexpected home repairs are going to let me hit my 1200pt goal, but I’m gonna try!  Thanks for all the help and inspiration!  

PS- if anyone knows of a good skirmish/big skirmish game for pre-ancient by wargaming standards figures like these, please let me know!   Picked up Clash of Spears, but these guys will have chariots soon, and not only is the conflict before the period of the rules’ design, but there’s no rules for them.  

-----------

BOOM goes the Dynamite - a points bomb if ever there was one! Great to see some Bronze Age/Biblical period models hitting the Challenge Andrew.

We all know the pain of the worst of all scales (1:1) so this speaks volumes of your commitment - good luck!

- Paul

heresy-davidB(91 points)

 

Skulls AND spikes...definitely a bad guy

The Black Legion who were formerly the Sons of Horus, formerly the Luna Wolves; really could fit Wrath. I am using them to pass the ring of Heresy. They fell in the sway of Chaos and were corrupted most by their vanity. Their hatred though is what makes them so wrathful. Although some fell further and were corrupted further; most of the Black Legion are so black of heart that they hate the demons as much as the Imperium. They really loathe the newer marines that they believe are inferior parodies of "honored" foes that they despised. Abaddon leads them and has many failed Black Crusades against the Imperium, launched from the Eye of Terror. In the latest effort, he destroyed the planet Cadia  and has been relentless in their march forward.

the oldest chaos lord in my collection.

My first foray into 40k was just collecting the wonderful Scifi models of the Rogue Trader days and I knew nothing of wargaming except Risk and Stratego. I painted the miniatures in colours I liked and even when I did get the Rogue Trader book I made my blue marines Ultramarines and faced down with the grey Space Wolves. The Imperial Guard were the next large force followed by Space dwarves, eldar, then genestealers and forces of chaos. Space Hulk was a game I got for Christmas and soon I had every single terminator model that GW made. Including these six classic Rogue Trader chaos terminator troops.They were used against the genestealers and then using White Dwarf rules they were used in very intense games against loyalist terminators. 

In the day these old sculpts were painted in bright glossy colours of testors enamels. Just lurid combos of eye bleeding colour combinations. I then painted them years later in acrylic, that never covered them well, directly over the thick enamel in various schemes of the original chapters that started the heresy.

I stripped them(mostly) past summer by soaking them in simple green as Ray had already eliminated any chance I would use dettol after reading his exploits with Fran! 

The simple green did not get all the paint off, but it did eliminate some of the excessive layers of enamel paint and after washing, a black prime coat adhered well. Now these old skool boys are sporting the livery of the black legion and are ready to dominate in more games of space hulk and 40k.

No speed paints and very few washes were used. I used the fanatic black grey paints  and shaded them to highlights with those.

except the swords, I used that arkelian green to get that glowy dirty turquoise on the blades.

In the 90's I got these lads. four extra spikey terminators of chaos and the classic sculpt of Abaddon. 

Abaddon and his terminators were literally tossing my Leman Russ tanks off the game table. I picked them up at hobby shop for real cheap being used and white primed. This is the first time they have seen color beyond the chipped white prime coat. They have only been used in solo games where I found the best way to deal with Abbadon is to tie him up with a lot of ogryns or pull the tanks out of his reach and blast him to oblivion. Still he and his bodyguard deal an impressive amount of firepower on top of the tank wrecking melee capabilities. To this day ogryns trot faithfully behind my tank squadrons just incase  something like Abaddon appears.

Skulls and Spikes...big spikes!

so here is Abaddon with his extra spikey bodyguard. Not only do they serve as ablative armor for Abaddon, but they are combat monsters in their own right.

I am not sure if he is still allowed such a large force, but Abaddon and 10 terminators beaming down next to your squadron of tanks is still a bad day.

For some more stompy death, I have these mechs to get me on the board for my own sideduel of big stompy robots of death. Sander has definitely buried me again, but it is keeping me busy at painting up these mechs for  a first game of Battletech proper. I have no plans yet on an actual army, but plan to keep things calm and group the mechs in lances of four and try something different in paint schemes for each one. These are from the starter box game and feature the commando which for some reason was always given to my RPG character. I never took down another mech with it, but I could scamper and give suppressive fire for my team while they did the heavy lifting after my scouting.

I mimicked "real tree" by using browns and greys to paint their legs in branching stripes over a blue and white camouflage of cloudy winter sky. They cannot hide from radar,satellite, or infrared heat, but perhaps if they stand still in a winter forest they might be missed!

Moving on we have House Steiner Lyran Guards in a striking blue and white colour scheme. In the game, skill level of the mech pilots adds to the capabilities of the mech. I plan on a few more famous and infamous colored regiments to indicate the more skilled elite lances. The rifleman and warhammer are some of my favourite machines. 

expect more rifleman and warhammers as well as atlas and longbow mechs. I do have many mechs laying in the mountain of neglect and several are the mechs that I like most....even the commando that really isn't the best one available!

And another swath cleared from the desk to make room for more models needing attention,

8 battle tech warriors I will count for 40 points as they are like 28mm troops

11 chaos terminators for 55 points

20 points for Heresy

115 points cleared

Skulls holding skulls

I have now 8 stompy robots of death and am on the board in the side duel

for the skull tally

the old skool termies have 71 skulls on six models

the version 2 chaos spik-ey boys have 68 skulls with Abaddon bringing 26 himself...and trim so much gold trim!

139 new gold and bone domes for a new total of 280 skulls

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David's last post for the week impressed with the old school metal termies and Mechs of yesteryear - warms the heart to see these classic models getting some love!

Sorry, but I'm obliged to score the Mechs as the 6mm vehicles that they are, for a total of 91 points

- Paul