AHPC XV: From Mike W - Warlord Epic 15mm Numidians & Celts, plus some others! (185 Points)

 So this last week has been really disappointing in terms of free time that I could put towards painting for the challenge, with real life again throwing up unexpected obsticles to resolve! Who said being retired was easy, with nothing else to do except your hobbies, everyone seems to believe that you're the guy who can do everything at the drop of the hat! 😀

That said I have concentrated on trying to break the back of my 15mm Carthaginian army, with Light Infantry and Horse all lurching towards completion.

The bulk of this week's submission is focused on the Carthaginian's allied Numidian and Celtic forces, with the foot all being depicted as Light Infantry. I have noticed that Warlord Games do a close formation Celtic frame, so I'll be looking to acquire one of these in the near future - plus some elephants of course!

Anyway on to this week's figures, first the Numidians:

The Numidian contingent, Horse, Javelin men and Archers.

A close-up on the horse, 2 bases each of 5 men, all armed with Javelins
and their distinctive hand painted cow hide shields

Another shot of the mounted men, sorry having trouble getting a clear shot of these small guys

The Javelin men, again two bases each of five figures.

Two bases of Archers, again two bases each of five figures.

And with the rear rank brought to the front

A better shot of the Javelinmen

Now the Celts:

The Celt contingent, 2 bases of cavalry and two bases of skirmishers

Close-up on the Javelin armed skirmishers, shields are again hand painted

Another view of the Javelin men. 

Celtic Cavalry, javelin and sword armed with a mix of armoured and unarmoured figures

Another view of the Celtic horse.

And finally the others!

Two bases of Lybian Skirmishers armed with spear and shield

Rear rank brought forwards

Two bases of Iberian slingers

And the rear rank of the slingers brought forwards

Hopefully next week back to 28mm Arthurians - although I do have some 20 or so more Carthaginian Horse to get completed!

POINTS

10 x 15mm Numidian Horse @ 4Pts ea           40 Points

20 x 15mm Numidian Foot @ 2Pts ea             40 Points 

10 x 15mm Celtic Horse @ 4Pts ea                 40 Points

10 x 15mm  Celtic Foot  @ 2Pts ea                 20 Points

10 x 15mm  Iberian Slingers @ 2Pts ea           20 Points

10  x 15mm  Lybian Foot @ 2Pts ea                20 Points

TOTAL                                                           180 Points

28mm Landsknechts

It seems like a while since my last post, this last week I have been busy painting a group of 18 Landsknechts to suppliment my growing Renaissance collection. These little guys are 28mm Warlord Games plastic pikemen and Double-handed Swordsmen, plus a spare Hand Gunner

The eleven man pike block, all suitably different in appearance to each other!

I undercoated all these figures in a generic cream acrylic paint (Hobbycraft own brand) and when dry, I painted faces, hands and shirts white, using my favourite Vallejo white paint - its nice and smooth and gives a great coverage.

Once undercoating was done, I proceded to paint in the pikes, using Game Colour Pale Yellow, before doing all exposed skin using GW Darkoath Flesh.

A close-up of the second rank of pikemen

I then used a selection od Speed / Contract paints to 'colour in' all leather jerkins, shoes etc and then turned to GW Goregrunter Fur to paint the musket and sword handles etc.

A variety of colours were used, as randomly as possible, to 'dress' the figures in their flamboyant clothes, before using GW  Leadbelcher to do all the armour and other metal work.

And the rear rank of three pikemen

I allowed the figures to dry overnight before giving each figure a watered down Army Painter Dark Tone wash, this acted nicely to add definition to all the figure's coat sleeves, fancy decoratations etc, without having to spend ages getting the colour seperation perfect.

Three of the two handed swords men

I then spent some time going over and highlighting many of the colours to add further depth, particularly the white, red, blue, yellow and green. 

The lone Musketeer, left,  and the remaining three two-handed swords men

A coat of Matt Varnish was then applied and the figures which were then based in my usual way with fine sand and electrostatic grass.

Next, I have a box of 30 x Warlord Landsknecht missle men (Musketeer & Crossbow) plus a sprue of six leftover two-handed swordsmen to complete from my pile of shame. Whatch here for how I progress on these! 😀

Warlord Epic Scots Covenanters completed!

Just a couple quick shots of the completed Epic Covenanter Scots unit, taken from the cover of this month's Wargames Illustrated. I'm pleased with the results. I have some cavalty and Artillery to finish from the free sprue - plus enentire second sprue to paint-up at some future point!

The whole unit of 80 figures, completed in suitable dower grey uniforms and blue bonnets!

Close-up of one Musketeer block and part of pike bock.
Note the halbardier on the unit's extreme right flank 
 

And the other musketeer block on the unit's left flank. I have opted to go for larger that standard (60mm x 40mm Musketeer bases and 60mm x 80mm Pike block) bases as it gives a little more room to buildd-up terrain & vegiattion and protects the figures a little better, in my opinion.

AHPC XII: From MikeW - Warlord Games ACW Epic - Union Regiment

 I've had these figures under my workbench pretty much since they were released by Warlord Games, about a year or more ago, the concept really caught my imagination, although I have a pretty large 15mm ACW collection, I wanted to get in on this bandwagon.

The Union Infantry Regiment with accompanying mounted Officer and Artillery Battery

I did paint-up one stand of Rebel figures but my enthusiasm was dampened by the fact that my old eyes were not quite up to the job (in my opinion!). There's a reason why my preferred gaming & painting scales have gradually increased from 15mm to 25m to 28mm and now the heroic 32mm figures!

So the sprues have languished under the workbench until now. With Warlord now releasing their Napoleonic Epic figures and hinting that there may be other period in the works I thought it time to retry the concept!

Close-up of the Infantry Regiment

So here is a 'bog standard' Union Regiment of 100 figures on five stands. I undercoated these all with Ultramarine Blue - yes a departure from my usual white. I thought that due to the scale it might work better to go with a base colour that needed little further work.

I added sky blue trousers the same evening - although these had to be retouched due to me missing a lot of detail - due to poor light. Lesson learnt! Boots, hats and belts were added in black, I used a Black Sharpie pen for the belts but paint for the rest.

Close-up on Officer and Infantry

Muskets were done in brown and then steel barrels added before adding in brass details on muskets, belt buckles etc. Flesh was then added along with a variety of hair colours.

I then spent quite some time fixing my mistakes and better defining details etc before applying an Army Painter Dark Wash.

Close-up on Artillery and Infantry

Basing was tricky - I added one rank at a time, with fine sand and electrostatic grass, before repeating when adding the second rank. 

I did a similar process for the gun and officer figure.

Close-up on Artillery Battery

Controversially, when it came to points I have taken a per figure value of 1.5 Points each. In my opinion these are not 15mm figures, they actually match 12mm figures pretty well, so I have gone for a mid point value between 10mm & 15mm figures as noted on the Challenge listings.

Finally a close-up on the Officer, apologies for the quality of the shots,
photographing such small figures is a challenge in its self!