AHPC XIV: From Mike W - More Tau and Orcs plus lots of Odds and Ends. Squirrell, Skulls

 This week has been one focused on building and preparing more figures for the painting production line, as such I have a handful of Tau, a group of Savage Orcs and a smattering of other periods and scales to keep the paint flowing whilst the glues, undercoating and basing materials dry!

I have concentrated on getting my Tau Commander completed this week, accompanied by a few Tau Troopers. I'm also being cheeky and painting up a few female Tau Ge'Vesa to enable me to flit from my current Library location (Maritime) to go straight to the SciFi selves and claim the Sci-Fi Bonus, then on wards to other shelves!

I guess I should therefore start with a Tau Gue'Vesa for Lady Sarah's Trolly. This female human fighter is with the Tau as a Ge'Vesa helper. She is depicted as unarmored, carrying a rather large Combi-Weapon and dressed in her underarmour trousers and vest.

Female Gue'Vesa in  underarmour carrying a Tau Combi Weapon

Rear view, showing ceremonial sword and Tau inspired hair braids

From her waist hangs a ceremonial Tau Sword and you may note that her hair is styled with a typical Tau 'pig tail' or braid at the back.

The figure is based upon a Warlord Games Zombie Gang Biker model with Tau accoutrements from GW.

Now on to the main course - for which I will claim the Sci-Fi bonus, the Tau Army Commander. This is a again a large power suit and painted in my army's colours of white and orange with black lowlights and sky blue lenses and digital displays etc.

Front view, with three weapons systems and a force shield deployed on the suit's hard points.

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The figure was again from eBay and so painted as built, the base incldes a skull for my Skulls tally and some basic battlefield scatter that came with the model when purchased.

Side view, showing shoulder monted combi-weapon and a plasma gun 

The other side, showing sholder mounted shield and a Fusion Blaster weapon.

And the rear view, the 'figure is flying using the suit's onboard propulsion units,
a clear view of the base finish can be seen in this shot. 

 To accompany the commander I have completed a couple of Tau Troopers.

Two Tau troopers with hand grenades.

Another view...

More Tau under construction!

This batch of Warhammer Fantasy / Old World Savage Orcs fortuatously landed on my doormat last week, saving me the problem of trying to source and build additional Ocs for my ongoing Orc Army project. The batch cosists of 10 x Savage Orc plus a War Boss, between them a measley +2 skullls when oainted.

The whole gang, painted and based!

These guys arrived partially undercoated and requiring some basic first aide to fix figures to bases, limbs to bodies and hands & weapons to arms. This was achieved pretty quickly and then the batch was undercoated in black before getting a heavy dry-brushing of grey then white to highlight.

Close-up of theree Orc warriors, notice the focus on mouths, bone items and bright lizardskin clothing

I used GW 'Goregrunta Fur' to paint all the wooden items (spears, shields & handles) followed by GW Leadbelcher to do all the metal work. Not surprisingly I used GW 'Snakebite Leather' to do all leather work and GW 'Skeleton Horde' to all the bone items, before then applying Army Painter 'Orc Flesh' - logically enough - to the flesh areas!

Another three guys, again a lot of bones and teeth!

I generally try to work from light to dark when painting these guys but it doesn't always work out that way - I often miss items and have to go back out of sequence, or I make errors and have to fix painting messes after the event! Anyway after all the base colours are in place I then set about highlighting all the figures with lighter versions of the base colours as well as adding in the all important details to catch everyone's eyes and save them looking at the rest of the model to closely!

These two Orcs, had whip hands added and will be treated as Discipline Masters to keep the unit in line during battle.

As ever with Orcs the eye catching detail is usually their mouths and impressive teeth plus any gold bling. As these are savage Orcs, they don't appear to have much in the way of gold bling, so instead I have concentrated on their bone items, treating these items as if they were skeletons and trying to do a good job on these!

Two more Orcs, with Lizardman loincloths

As noted some of the figures had no weapon hands, I managed to replace all but two of these from the spares box, with Savage Ork items. However, two of the figures had to have other replacement hands - I landed on a pair of hands holding whips (from the Grot Herder kits), my rational being these guys would be Discipline Masters within these Savage Orc units.

The War Boss, on a tiles base, just to help him
look bigger and stand out on the tabletop

The War Boss has a huge Axe and a lot of teeth! He is on a slightly different base, that give him some extra height. I did think of replacing this but n the end decided that the flagstone base helps to single him out as a leader, so the base it came on stayed in place....

Next on my list of completed models are some10mm Scots, from the  Pendraken Flodden Range. I'm not convinced that the Scots had many hand gunners at Flodden but these models were included in an army pack I purchased from a Games Show many years ago and its high time I started painting them,especially as I'm scrambling to ready other figures.

The completed unit of Hand Gunners, based to use Warmaster rules

I undercoated these guys in white then applied GW Snakebite Leather all over, before again picking out faces and hands in white. Skin was painted using GW Darkoath Flesh,which in turn had a highlight of Army Painter Barbarian Flesh.

The unit in column of march,                                  I've long fancied doing a Flodden game, now might be the time!

Trousers were picked out in blue, brown or grey at random, with most in blue. Jackets were left as brown leather but sleeves were mostly painted with GW Slaughter Red, with some left as grey. Muskets were painted using GW Goregrunter Fur, metallics were added with GX Air Leadbelcher and socks were painted grey, before a watered down wash of brown ink to tie everything together.

Another view!

Based using my patent brown gloop and fine sand before adding a mix of self adhesive tufts to finish them off. 

And next for Flodden?! Trying to prompt myself to do a unit of Scots Archers next!
If I show the picture I feel more inclined to get the job done... maybe.

                                         

Next we have a base of Warlord Games 15mm Epic ECW Scots Covenanter dismounted dragoons. Just five of these guys to the base, all in Hodden Grey with blue bonnets!

5 x Scots Dragoons in Epic 15mm scale

Another view, the don't look that great close-up but do the job en-masse!

Another quickie, with a base of  20 x Warlord Epic ACW Rebel 15mm figures, these are late war troops and painted up as an Alabama regiment, likely operating in the western theatre of the war. 

Head on, view of the figures.

Side view, with the Alabama (nofficial) state flag and regimental banner.

The other side view - unfortunately one rifle snapped off on the
back rank and has dissapeard into the carpet!

A quick return to an unfinished batch fom last week - namely three more 20mm British WW2 infantry, these guys got seperated from their comrades on the painting prodction line and ths I didn't have time to finish them off ready for last week's post.

Left to right - Bren Gunner, Greade Thrower and Rifleman

These guys were painted in exactly the same manner as last week's batch - just a week behind ther comrades.

These guys were dressed in a variety of kit - battledress, shirt & sleeves etc, to reflect the theatre of operations

Again all the figures were based for the Italy / Greece theatre of war.

Next on the Historical side are some Warlord Games (I'm pretty sure) 28mm US Infantry, they were painted using the Warlord Games painting guide found here.

The completed US Infantry men, Normandy '44

So undercoated in white before Khaki jackets and gaiters, US Green for trousers and Dark Gree (actually Russian Green) for helmets - all Valijho paints. Guns were GW Goregrunta Fur and Leadbealcher and the skin was done in the same manner as noted for other figures here - GW Darkoath Flesh followed by highlights in Army Painter Barbarian Flesh.

Close-up on a Captain, Lieutenannt, riflemen and a BAR gunner.

I used a watered down GW Agrax Earthshade to blend all the colours together before highlighting the khaki items with the base colour agiain.

and an NCO and three more riflemen

Bases were the usual fine sand and electrostatic grass combination on MDF discs.

Probably more familiar to the British and Astralian/Kiwi readers I have just completed two characters from the 1960s TV show Captain Scarlett. Namely these guys are Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet, from the TV series Catptain Scarlett.

Captain Blue, aka Adam Svenson a former astonaught
and Captain Scarlett's right hand man

Captain Ochre, aka Richard Fraser
a British former policeman

These Captains were special operatives of an organisation known as Spectrum who were engaged in a deadly conflict with an alien race called the Mysterons.

The two painted models

Captain Blue

Captain Ochre

I believe that these are old board game pieces that fit really well into 28mm scale, although both basically the same figure they have been painted in different colours to accompany a Captain Scarlett figure I did back in AHPC XIII.

Finally a quickie - a Classic Empire Archer, undercoated in white, I decided on a blue and yellow livery.

The classic Empire Archer

And the rear view

AHPC XIII: From Mike W - More, more more! Dark Ages, Landsckneckts and 40k Orks (397 Points)

 More,  More, More (How do you like it?) sang Andrea True Connection back in 1976, well I'm afrid this week's hurried posting is a repeat of many of my previous weeks with More, more more! Dark Ages, Landsknechts and 40k Orks!

Carrying the big axe

But first off we take another trip on Lady Sarah's Limo to travel from the Fantasy Studios to the Superheroes Studio, this week's fare is another Warlord Games 28mm Female Survivor, this time a motherly figure wielding a rather effective looking axe.

And from another perspective...

The visit to the Superhero Studio now makes it 5 Green and three Blue studios, need to check what I need to visit 'The Director Chair'!

The Superhero figure that I present is that of Captain Scarlett, maybe not so well known in America and the New World but certainly a mainstay of British and many Commonwealth countries in the 60s, 70s & 80s.

Captain Scarlett of to battle the Mysterons

What's his superpower? Well he's indestructible for a start and all the TV episodes were filmed in SuperMarionation, which has to sound pretty cool, find out more <here>. This is a 20mm figure, with Scarlett in his classic Spectre Uniform, I have other figures that I may well look to dig out and paint up as his comrades in arms - Captain Blue, Lieutenant. Green etc.

Series Publicity Poster

They had some pretty cool vehicles as well and I have a couple, somewhere, in Warhammer Epic Scale that I need to dig out and paint!

Back view

So now on to the main subjects of this post. You'll likely be pleased to know that this is the last of my multi figure 40k Ork batches, I certainly am! It gets quite guelling painting so much green & red. Pretty much all of the figures are now done - just a couple of vehicles and a couple of special one-off figures that I hope to get around to in the next few weeks.

This week's 'final' Ork batch

This week there are just 9 x 40k Orks & Grechin, all produced in the same style as I have done since the beginning of this year's challenge. The first two are a couple of additional Grechin Herders, though anyone who has been following the development of this army will be aware that in this army it is the Grechin who are the brains and the Orks the muscle - in this case the Grechin Herders should be thought of as Grechin Minders or Bodyguards

Two Grechin Minders, guy on the right has the
Hyperaemic gun taken from the Pain Boy below.

Next up are two Bosses, one with a pet Squig on his backpole, the other with a Rising Sunz motif

Left A Boss with a pet Squiq, note skull on left shoulder.
To the right is anther Boss with a huge Blasta / Burna Combi Weapon

Another two Bosses, with assorted weaponry

I did a coupe of conversions in this batch, I really didn't want duplicate Grechin Herders - so converted his fella into a Boss with a diabolical prosthetic hand (taken form the Pain Boy model). I added a large Fantasy Goblin head to this figure - to make him appear to be a 'young' Ork that has just stepped up to the Boss role.

The second conversation is that of the Pain Boy, again I wanted to have a different looking second Pain Boy in the Army. Obviously his hand has already been cut off to do the first conversion, so I scoured the bits box and found some ancient 1980s parts for an old Rogue Trader Robots and found a pincer arm from an Ork Killa Can plus a power fist and an other limb.

A converted Grechin Herder, now given a new left arm and a Hand Blaster,
whilst his other hand has been replaced by 'Orky Scissor Hands'!!

Last Grechin in the box plus the new Pain Boy,
 complete with power fist, claw arm and a hydraulic crane.

The power fist nicely replaced the donated arm, I cut off the figure's left arm (a Hyperaemic Gun, which was donated to a Minder seen above)  and replaced this with the claw arm and then fitted the other limb to the Ork's back, so it can be used as a Hydraulic crane or similar - in doing this the Grechin on the Orks back, now uses a hand pump to activate the Hydraulic arm.

Next up we have a mix of Landsknecht foot, 23 in all with 6 x Pikemen, 6 x Crossbow and 11 x Handgunners. All have been painted in the same way as I have described in earlier posts and so I will not repeat again here. I have, however, been experimenting more with Army Paints' Speed Paint and I have used this on a number of figures in this group.

Latest batch of Landscknects, Pikemen, Crossbow men and Handgunners

Focus on the 11 x Handgunners 

And with the rear ran moved forwards for a better view

I have had mixed results with these - some are good, really good, but others have left me cold and so I will not use much more. I see a lot of value in the browns and greens that are available - it would be great to find a speed paint that can be used to paint musket woodwork !

Six Pikemen, the start of a second Landsknecht Pike Block for my collection.

And a front on view.

The Pikemen and Handgunners were pretty much straight out of the Box. To make up a group of six crossbow men, I have had to do a few conversions, taking parts fror the Wargames Atlantic Conquistador set to mash-up with Warlord Games parts to get the figures I wanted.

Focus on Crossbow men, center is a Captain, armed with sword in his right hand and crossbow in his left hand. Right is a musician, blowing trumpet and again crossbow slung on his back. Trumpet arm is from Perry Miniatures War of The Roses Infantry set.

Another view of the crossbowmen

Last but not least are this week's Dark Ages figures, a mix of Normans, Vikings and Anglo-Danes / Saxons. These are almost entirely metal figures and of these I think the majority are Gripping Beast.

This week's group of mostly metal Gripping Beast Dark Ages types

Again these figures will be pressed into the shield walls of my forthcoming 1066 mini campaign.

At time of the photo being taken,
I thought that this was all the Norman types ... 

I opted to paint most of the shields on this group as I struggled to get any transfers to fit the slightly odd shaped shields properly. As these completed figures will be distributed between the existing armies they'll fit in fine.

Rear Rank has moved forwards to get a view of them

Mostly Vikings & Anglo Danes / Saxons.
But as can be seen here, there were a couple of Norman types
that didn't make the original photo shoot. 

Rear ranks move through again, note the casualty marker in the front

Another view, pretty sure all above figures are Gripping Beast

Just behind the casualty marker can be seen
a single plastic Victrix Anglo Dane Huscarl

Three mounted metal Norman figures, left a knight, centre I have made -up to be a Standard Bearer - carrying William's Personal Banner and right is what I seem to remember as being an old Citadel figure, that I have painted up to be Bishop Odo - William's Brother

View from the other side

Finally sorry about the quality of some of the photos, I ran out of time this week and was snapping many of these after dark with eth flash on, always makes the colours much brighter and the photo starker in my opinion, will try and do better next week.