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

Battle of Antietam

By Paul B.

Over the last couple of months we’ve been trying out the Longstreet ACW rules.  A free copy of the basic-game including cards are free to down load at Longstreet — Sam A. Mustafa

The rules are relatively simple and easy to pick up & learn. The card system and what each card does adds the period flavour.  For example, "rebel yell".  Various cards can also be played during your opponents turn, to influence things in your favour. For example, the union player playing bad fuses against confederate artillery.  

Turning to the battle, we decide to play the northern section of Antietam and the initial encounter (see attached map).

Like history, the Union attack went nowhere fast.  Massed guns in the centre had limited success in pushing the confederates back to the tree line thus making the sunken road a more exposed position.  After two assaults, the second being inconclusive combat along the length of the sunken road (as you know renamed bloody lane after the battle), we decided to call it a day. 

With the confederates holding the position with newly arrived fresh veterans, the Union player would have to wait for reinforcements and rely on weight in numbers for taking the position.

AHPC XIII: Mike W - 28mm Dutch 17th Century Cavalry and whatever I can get done in the next three days!

How time flies, the end of the challenge looms and I have so much to do that I did not get around to even starting! So this is likely the last post that I can make this challenge and this is really a series of items that I have been scrambling to complete over the next few days as the deadline looms.

This weekend I am on Grand parent duty and this unlikely to get time to do anything else. I'd like to take this chance to thank Teemu for his tireless efforts dealing with my posts and also to Curt & all the minions for again making this an enjoyable experience.

So here are my odds and ends and I bid all farewell until next year's challenge?

First of a group of 5 x 28mm Late 17th Century Dutch Cavalry representing Filips Emminghuysen van Eppe's Regiment of Horse, first raised in 1672 and served at the Battle of Seneffe in 1674. Apart from having an extraordinarily long name, they worn grey jackets and trousers, sky Blue cuffs and Horse furniture. I have still to get the officer completed but this is unlikely to be done by the end of the challenge!

Front on view of five troopers,
officer is still being painted at the time the challenge comes to an end!

Side view, I don't usually do casualty figures but the occasional one adds flavour to a unit

And the other side

Next I have managed to complete one of the two remaining 40K Ork Kill Koptas, again it has a scratch built rota blade set but the build and construct are much the same as last week's submission.

Second Kill Kopta completed, with one more to go...

The other side! Extra guns added on the Kopta's front bonnet.

Another view again!

Here are a couple of 15mm project that have been floundering over the last few months, first up is some long overdue American Civil War Coastal Batteries and secondly we have some Russian supplied equipment for the Spanish Civil War Republicans, in the form of tanks and artillery.

On the ACW front we have 7 x Coastal / Siege Batteries, these are in the traditional grey finish with blackened barrels (to protect them form the sea salt). Each is on a fairly elaborate chassis and typically these would be found in long term forts / emplacements. I'm also throwing in 4 x Smoothbore Field guns that I have just completed.

The completed 15mm ACW Coastal Guns

I've had these models for ages, stored in the garage waiting for me to get around to painting and basing them. A potential future game set in the Petersburg Siege lines has prompted me to actually dig them out and get them ready for use.

And four completed ACW Field Guns

These little Field Guns were found along wit the big guns above, so I decided to get them completed at the same time as well. I gave these plain wooden frames, assuming that they would be used as Confederate batteries, I believe these are 6lb Smoothbores. I now need to source crews for each gun.

Close-up on a 8" Columbiad Gun. I have tried to weather the carriage to
represent harsh sea salt air in coastal areas

Another view

This is a close-up of the 10" Columbiad Gun

Again another view

A comparison shot showing just how big these Coastal / Siege
guns were compared to regular Field Artillery

Next we have 3 x T26 tanks and 4 x Artillery pieces all supplied during the Spanish conflict to the Republican army. The equipment is all in traditional Russian Green drab but on the tanks I have added the Republican Tricolour of Nationalist Spanish Flag as these vehicles were prized by both sides.

Three completed T26 tanks, centre & left are Republican vehicles,
right is a captured tank pressed into Nationalist service

I have quite a large SCW Republican Army and a smattering of Nationalists to oppose them, as a club we were heavily into the SCW some time ago and these models were sourced then to 'beef-up' my mostly infantry based forces, they are metal models and I'm afraid I don't remember which company made them.

Another angle on the tanks

I decided to paint one in Nationalist colours, as I saw a nice picture of a Nationalist T26 online recently, I have a fourth T26 model that I'll add to the Republican ranks in due course but at present the model has a missing gun barrel and I have to source one from somewhere.

Four completed Artillery pieces all of Russian origin

Along with the 'lost' tanks, was found some generic Republican Artillery pieces, I believe these are all Russian supplied guns. again I can't remember the manufacturer's name.

Again another view

Following on from the SCW I now switch (almost seamlessly) back to Warhammer 40K and a test Space Marine figure. Last post Iain picked up on a throw away remark that I made about wanting to raise a new 'blue' Space Marine Force but that I was reluctant to commit to Ultra Marines. I just happened to have a marine figure ready build, so I undercoated it in white and decided to use Speed paints to see what type of quick paint job I could do!

So here it is, a Crimson Fist Space Marine with a Heavy Plasma gun, I used Army Painter 'Magic Blue' for the armour with 'Slaughter Red' for the fists. I painted the gun and it's umbilical cord silver and then used 'Graveyard Grey' over the silver to give a rich metallic shading.

The chest eagle was painted with 'Sand Golem' and the various cables were painted in black, or red as I felt appropriate.

The plasma rings on the gun were painted by covering with white paint then putting down a yellow coat alont the spine of the rings before applying a watered down coat of light green paint.

Now 40K purists will note that the figure does not have the correct iconography for a Crimson Fist, but as this is a test figure, I'm not too bothered. That said I'll no doubt be damned as a heretic and sent to some Penal Colony for the rest of my years,...

Next, I managed to finish the Commanding Officer that I had partially painted (and then got distracted from) for the Dutch Regiment Slangenburg - that I posted for this challenge back on the 9th Feb. Fredrik Johan van Baer, Heer van Slangenburg wears a heavily decorated scarlet coat, a cuirass and is mounted upon a sturdy brown horse as he waves his feathered hat!

Fredrik Johan van Baer, Heer van Slangenburg

Another view

The figure is a Front Rank one from their Late 17th Century range and it paints-up really very nicely, in my opinion.

My only regret is not having time to complete a 40k Ork Gargantuan! Well, a McFarlane model substitute for a Gargantuan!

Imagine the size of the finished Ork given the epic scale of his gun next to a regular Ork!