'Resistance' from GregB: The Maid of Orleans

 

The Maid of Orleans sets forth, ready to rid France of English invaders! 28mm metal figure from Perry Miniatures.

For my "Resistance" theme I thought I would return to my halting 28mm Hundred Years' War project, for that setting holds one of Christendom's most enduring symbols of "Resistance". Here was have Jean la Pucelle, a.k.a The Maid of Orleans, known most widely in our modern era as Joan of Arc. This is a 28mm figure from Perry Miniatures' "Agincourt to Orleans" range. 

Reverse view of the sculpt.

When considering wargaming projects, the Hundred Years War offers so many awesome factors. Castles? Check. Kings? Check. Knights? Check. France? Check. Lots of opportunities for skirmish-type games? Check. There is so much to delve into. But this sort of historical subject is also quite intimidating, in that I really don't understand much about medieval heraldry, and the more I try to research it, the more confused I get. It's one thing to paint fantasy stuff, where you can just make stuff up, but in the historical setting I at least want to sort of TRY to get things right...

So my progress on this project has been really, really slow. On the plus side, you don't need hundreds of figures for a skirmish game. I'm about half-way toward a decent French force for "Never Mind The Billhooks".

Great sculpt by the Perrys (of course). 

I mentioned that the Hundred Years War has just so much to take in, and the story of Joan of Arc is a big part of that. I'm sure it is well known to Challengers, but this young maid, born in or about 1412 in north-eastern France, felt called by God to seek out the Dauphin, to promise to lift the seige of Orleans and then see him crowned in Rheims...it all seems and sounds delusional. And yet...it all came true! Subsequently captured by the Burgundians, handed over to the British, put on trial and burned at the stake in 1431, "rehabilitated" in 1455 her incredible story has resonated through the ages. Even today she remains a potent political and cultural symbol and competing political movements still seek to claim this aura for themselves.

Answering the call of God...

This Perry Miniatures sculpt is lovely, and since there seemed to be so many conflicting accounts of what she actually looked like, I just sort of improvised. The white horse seemed to be the best for a figure such as her, and I imagined the Dauphin and his Armangac supporters kitting her out with pretty nice "white" armour and horse furniture which variants of the blue colour in the arms of the House of Valois.  This might be...totally wrong? Who knows? 

Points-wise, this is a single 28mm mounted figure, good for 10 points. The "theme" bonus tops things up nicely to 60 points, I think. 

Anyway, great to be back painting in the Hundred Years War. I hope you enjoy the figure! 

'Empire' From GregB - Imperial Pike and Shotte for 30YW (170 points)

Pike and shotte infantry unit from Warlord Games' "Epic" 30YW range.

The "theme rounds" return, and this first theme round is one that worked well with my hobby interests. Too well, in fact, as I suddenly found myself starting a bunch of projects "because they would work great with the Empire theme round" and then, by diffusing my efforts, ensured I would hardly make any progress...sigh...anyway, I did get something done, albeit with a crutch that a number of the figures had been painted prior to the Challenge. Nonetheless, for the "Empire" theme I present a block of Imperial pike and shotte for the Thirty Years War - these are plastic figures from Warlord Games' "Epic" range. Hard to get more "Empire" than Hapsburg troops, ready to crush those absurd pre-Marxist protestants. 

One of the musket "sleeves". 

This period a "slow burn" project for me - sort of the hobby equivalent of a slow burning match cord, appropriate for the setting! I started in late 2023, experimenting with the "Epic" figures, and through the last edition of the Challenge I added another couple units and some artillery. 

View of the pike block. 

Pikes at the ready!

Some rear detail on the command group. Man...the flags are still a pain.

The "Epic" range from Warlord is a mixed bag overall - I find the ACW stuff to be pretty awful, while the Napoleonic stuff is interesting, but also frustrating because of where they opted to locate the command elements. But these 30 Years War guys...I think they pretty much nailed it! They have a nice mix of detail on the sculpts, and I really like how it looks - the pike units look really cool in particular. 

The other "sleeve".

Many people painting these models are able to make huge progress with speed paints etc. I am not one of them...I get hung up on the details. I want to make sure there are a few "exceptions" in every rank, that not every single hat or pair of gloves matches tc...it slows me down, but I like how it looks in the end. Oh well. 

"White Mountain, here we come!"

For scoring, there are 80 figures here. But as I noted at the outset, a number were painted prior to the Challenge getting under way, so only 60 of them will count for points. Add in the "theme round" bonus and this should work out to 170 points - a nice kick in the pants!

Now, what are the odds that a permanent 12-year-old like me would have anything for the "Toy Story" theme? Surely this would not cause further delay...

'Mercenary' from GregB: Renaissance Mercenary Commander

28mm Renaissance Mercenary Commander from Wargames Foundry. He looks a bit confused. Probably because he is all by himself in my kitchen, and not surrounded by his troops.

For some time now I have been captivated by the efforts of Curt, PeterD, KenR and others (apologies to those who I missed) in the "Italian Wars" setting.  Every so often, I get all charged up and think "hey, I'm going to try that period too!" until I read a bit about it and get confused in, like, five minutes.  I don't think I could come up with something that will make sense, and the uniforms of the era easily intimidate my brush, and so I wander off to find something else to paint from my current 10+ "ongoing projects". 

We should all get to wear pants this yellow! And with some armour. Why not?

Still, these bonus themes offer the chance to try and stretch your range a bit, right? Curt said to me once "It is a painting challenge, after all" and that always rings in my head. I believe the Italian Wars were replete with mercenaries, so I thought I would paint a mounted mercenary officer, and this theme round seemed like the ideal moment to dip my toe into the war.  This is a 28mm figure from Wargames Foundry's Pike & Shotte range.

I believe a more proper setting for this fellow would be to surround him with 50 pike-bearing figures...but for now, he'll do.

The figure is supposed to be carrying a spear...but that never arrived from Foundry (sigh).  All the same, he looks like he might be gesturing casually toward something, so I think it still works overall.

"Where are my troops?"

For colours...well...the mercenaries of that era seemed to dress flamboyantly, if nothing else. I just made sh*t up for some colours - yellow pants, red hat, light green-blue...is that a coat? Cape? I'm pretty sure it's a cape. Whatever.   But I love the overall outfit.  There is some nice armour under there too - you can just see it on the riders' thighs.

So, just one figure.  Won't count for much, but will look nice on the shelf. And besides, it is fun to experiment! Maybe someday I'll try painting a Landsknecht or two...I mean, anything is possible, right?  Those pike blocks sure look astounding once they are painted up...

Thanks for looking!

'Sport' from GregB: Sport in Middle Earth: Orcs

Here come the bad guys...

 For this theme round, I thought I would stretch the definition a touch and use it as an excuse to paint some more of the goodies I found in my "Lord of The Rings" pile.  After all, what do heroes in Middle Earth do for sport? Why, hunt orcs, of course.  Erkenbrand and the rest of the gang do need some sport to stay in shape, do they not? So here is the "Sport" in Middle Earth - Orcs.

Two archers, and two orcs sporting double-handed weapons.

In any game of GW's "Lord of The Rings" tabletop rules, you will likely need orcs.  The number varies, but it is generally somewhere between "quite a few" to "as many as you can possibly manage".  While there were some excellent metal castings "back in the day", the bulk of these figures came as plastics.

Another view of the archers...

Orc "spearmen" - I particularly like the sculpt with the goofy plague-ish helmet...

Sculpted by the Perry brothers, these LOTR orcs are quite nice, and paint up reasonably fast.  While you do lose some detail on account of the plastic, overall they are strong sculpts - matching not only the look of the orcs in the Peter Jackson films, but in general a "look" to orcs that I quite prefer (i.e. not traditional goofy GW). 

Orcs with hand weapons, shields and grotty clothing...

Pretty basic paint jobs, but they'll do fine!

Each sprue offered a mix of weapons - a few with swords, a few with spears, a pair with two-handed weapons, and a pair with bows.  There are a total of 12 28mm plastic models here - the output of a single plastic sprue of bad guys from GW's "Return of The King" box game. Just need to do two more of these sprues, and there should be enough orcs for a decent LOTR game...

'Reconnaissance' from GregB: Rohan Outriders

"Outriders" of Rohan - 28mm figures from GW. 

I love "The Lord of the Rings" (as, I suspect, do most, if not all, of my fellow Challengers) and the GW miniature game released around the times of the Peter Jackson films (back in 2001!) was both a superb accompaniment to the films and an excellent table top game on its own.  The line of figures, sculpted by the Perrys, was beautifully done, sweeping in scope and astonishingly comprehensive.  Many of my fellow gamers were avid collectors of the figures and we enjoyed many an LOTR game at the Fawcett Avenue gaming tables. 

Mounted Outrider, face buried beneath the cheek and nose guards of his helmet. 

The other fellows in the group had the whole thing covered well, so my collecting/painting of those figures was limited. I love the Kingdom of Rohan, and so I painted up a small force of riders and a few characters - probably circa 2002-03...well, fast-forward, like, 16 years, and while I was rummaging around my hobby treasure hoard last month, I came across two old GW blister packs of these figures - "Rohan Outriders".  I thought they would make fine entries for the "Reconnaissance" theme round. Here they are! 

That one plastic horse leg at the bottom of the photo is holding the whole thing together...yikes...

The "Outriders" seem to be intended as sort of scouts for the forces of the Kingdom of Rohan.  I couldn't tell you what the rules for them are, as I cannot find them, but in appearance they seem a little more rugged than the average warrior of Rohan, if not a as heavily equipped as the King's Royal Guardsmen.  They strike me as Rohan's answer to the "ranger" class seen in the other Kingdoms. 

I like the fellow with the bow, great animation in the pose. 

Drawing a bead on an Orc no doubt...

While I wanted the green cloak to stand out, otherwise they are painted in mostly muted browns and greens.  The armour was very tricky, as the Rohan armour seems to feature metal plates at base, with leather and other weaving somehow mounted/attached on top - it looks lovely, but having the bright metal at the base, rather than the highlight point, of the armour is a touch irritating and tough to pull of well (at least for me). 

Dismounted "Outriders" - again mostly focused on their bows, excellent sculpts. 

For whatever reason, I like my Warriors of Rohan to have a brighter green cloak...

Each blister pack contained one mounted and one dismounted figure. The sculpting is incredible, as always - and a bonus treat is that these figures are proper metal castings.  The proportions are so much more slim than the usual GW fare too...I had forgotten this about the LOTR miniature range.  The only downside is that the horses are plastic - and in each case, attached to the base by a single hoof.  These will be fine on the shelf, but equation of "plastic horse + single attachment point + metal rider" is ripe for problems on the gaming table, I fear...

Finding and painting old treasures in the hobby pile is always one of my favourite aspects of the Painting Challenge.  These are the first "Lord of The Rings" figures I have painted in more than 15 years!  It was a lot of fun to discover these - and I turned up some other hoarded bits as well (some old plastics Byron sold me, a few other goodies).  Hopefully they will find some time under my brushes this year as well. 

'Music/Musician' from GregB: Sound The Charge For God

28mm Crusading Knight from Perry Miniatures' First Crusade range - part of a command pack

In the last edition of the AHPC I tackled a project in a gaming era for which I had long held an interest but never quite had the courage to finally paint any figures for - the First Crusade. It was a modest start, but I finished a four-point warband for the game SAGA.  Another great example of the sort of jolt one can get from participating in the Painting Challenge!

The animation of the horse is great, and really adds to the sense that he is giving everything he has into sounding the "charge!"

Anyway, while accumulating all of those Knights, I of course picked up a command set, and the set had a musician.  When I saw this theme topic was part of the AHPC this year, I figure he would do just fine, and would be a nice addition to the other Crusaders I had already painted. So here is a Knight, sounding the "Charge!" in the Holy Land, for the Glory of God!

This is a 28mm sculpt from the Perry Twins' incredible First Crusade range. As is so often the case, the miniature was a beautiful casting and total fun to paint.  The shield markings are courtesy of the LBMS shield transfer range.  Although you can clearly see I had a bit of an issue fitting the decal properly, overall it's not too bad and he'll do fine.

Not a perfect execution on the shield decal, but it will do...

So, a break from all of that Cold War-era armour! I managed to sneak in the painting amid many rounds of olive green on all those Canadian tanks last week, so he could be ready to post while I was on the road. Always good to give the horse-painting side of my hobby brain a bit of a workout. Let's see where it leads next in what comes for the painting table...

I'm sure he will feel better once he has some Knights around him to follow his "charge!"

Thanks for looking!

'BFG' from GregB: Big F***ing Cat Killer

SU-100 tank destroyer in 1/100 scale - from Peter Pig

I had nothing really top of mind for this theme round, even with such a cool subject.  I was disappointed, and thinking of passing on it, but I constantly recall Curt saying to me "Greg, it is a painting challenge, after all," so while watching the Winnipeg Jets somehow eke a shoot-out win out of the Calgary Flames this afternoon, I found this in the big pile-of-stuff in my basement and painted it up - an SU-100 tank destroyer.  The model is 1/100 scale, from Peter Pig.  I felt a 100mm AT gun in 1945 counts as a "big f***ing gun".

The scourge of the German heavy tanks which often pop up on late-war-setting wargame tabletops, this SU-100 will put a sizeable hole (or three) into the scary fascist Panthers, Tigers and other armoured issues which might pop up. That makes it a "big f***ing cat killer".   My large collection of 15mm WW2 Soviets has many T-34 tanks (of course) but very few heavy tank destroyers, so this model will give German players something to think carefully about!

Still needs a tank commander...

This model is from Peter Pig, which means it is cast in metal. I LOVE models cast in metal - this is how proper wargames figures SHOULD be done.  The detail is excellent, the casting is flawless and it was a treat to assemble and paint.

Tried to rust the exhaust just a touch...

Touch of fall foliage...perfect for stomping German forces in a drive through Poland...

Not much to say about the paint job, other than it covered the basics, and it is nice to finish a model that has been hanging around the pile for almost three years! It does still need a tank commander figure - note the empty cupola - but that is something to worry about another time...

'Flight' from GregB: Preventing Flight

This group is more anti-flight...quad 20mm AA gun in 15mm from Battlefront

The contemplation of these bonus rounds often leads my mind toward unproductive flights of fancy - I think of figures or models I could order to really try and "hit one out of the park".  But the reality of shipping times is such that such delusions seldom work out - and in fact, the point of the Challenge is to tackle your existing lead pile.  And so that is what I did for this bonus round - for "Flight", I thought to focus on, you know, the prevention of "flight".

Useful against air AND ground troops...big factor in 1944/45...

Of course flying is wondrous and marvelous.  But on our gaming tables, flying stuff is generally a pain in the @ss that is probably coming to wreck your sh!t.  That is annoying. Hence, the fun in deploying anti-aircraft guns like this one, a German quad-20mm rig from World War 2.  This in 15mm and the castings are from Battlefront.

Multi-part model made of metal...just like wargames figures SHOULD be...

I don't mind "Flames of War", but I also tend to play games like "Battlegroup" and "Chain of Command" in 15mm as well. An my preferred period within WW2 is later Eastern Front.  In this time, the Germans cannot count on the Luftwaffe, and hard-pressed AA units found themselves not only trying to keep the Red Air Force at bay, but were also pressed into duty as frontline combat units.

I may try and finish the other two guns from the battery during the Challenge...we;ll see...

For dual-role purposes, this quad-20mm will come in handy, punching out Sturmoviks while mowing down motor rifle troops in the doomed defence of various pockets and positions. It has been sitting in the "pending" pile/hoard for painting purposes for over a year, so nice to get it finished, and contribute the spirit of the Challenge - a small dent in my lead pile. 

'Characters/Scene from' GregB: Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!

Horse soldier! Horse soldier!

For this last theme submission I encountered that rare-but-great Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge feeling - the connection of a theme with an ongoing project! This final theme round offered the chance to paint characters from a song, and one song popped into my head right away. After a quick search to make sure the lyrics checked out, I present two characters from the song "Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!" by Corb Lund.  Go listen to it right now, enjoy the wonderful, inspiring ode to cavalry through history, then come back and finishing reading this post!

Curt introduced me to this song some years back, and I find it inspiring for my painting efforts.  Like many Challengers, I find painting horses can be a bit daunting. But listening to this marvelous song I feel like I could knock off a 28mm cavalry regiment in no time!  And because Curt was the one who introduced me to it, it always makes me think of visiting him and Sarah in Regina, which is always a good time! So I thought it was doubly appropriate inspiration for this Challenge.

So, to each character, and the relevant lyrics from the song as captions:

And I knew Saladin...

...and rode his swift Arabians...

...harassing doomed Crusaders on their heavy draughts...

...and yet I rode the percheron...

...against the circling Saracen...

...and once again against myself was cast...

So as you can see this theme lined up very nicely for my SAGA project, as these are both warlords to lead warbands in the game.  The figures are 28mm metals from the Perry twins' incredible First Crusade range. The Crusader figure will complete my first SAGA warband (a small, four-point Crusader band). The Saracen commander is the first figure to be painted for the Saracen faction.

And since the Warband for the Crusaders is now complete, I thought a team photo would be nice:

My 4-point SAGA Crusader warband, finished during this Challenge! Yay!

Horse soldiers - timeless through and through! Seriously, go listen to that song, then paint some cavalry!