AHPC XIV: From Mike W - 10mm Flodden English, 28mm Odds & Ends, Betonnians and more....

 Well I can't believe that we are drawing into the last full week of this year's Challenge, there is so much stuff on my worbench that I won't get done in time, so as a result, I'll press on with some of my favourite projects and try and finish off those that I have the best chance of getting completed in time! As such I guess we now go into Free Fire mode with posts so hopefully I'll get 1 or 2 more posts done by the cut-off date/time.

English Horse in line of column

First off we have a small batch of 14 x 10mm English Cavalry for my Flodden project. These figures appear to be 'Border Lancers', common on both sides of the English / Scots conflicts for many centuries. As these came with my Pendraken English Army starter pack, I have painted these up as an English unit. However, I intend to get some more of these tiny guys and create a few additional command bases so that these can be deployed similar units on both sides in the future campign / game.

I opted to place four figures to a base, these were light cavalry, reserving five figures to a base for any heavy cavalry I might get in the future. You will notice that I found only 14 figures in the starter pack (one seems to be missing) I have a partially completed base to go with the three bases for the unit pictured.

And in line of battle!

I have also broken with Warmaster tradition and mounted my horse figures in line, rather than column on these bases - my thinking being this is a little more historically accurate.

Two additional figures, awaiting some re-enforcements to join them as described above

Anyway the painting techniques were as previously described, I used various GW Contract paint for the horse flesh and Army Painter Holy White to do the two grey horses. Basing with fine sand and various tufts and electrostaic grass to complete.

Next up is a vignette depicting St. George slaying the Dragon, these are a 28mm figure pack presented free to attendees of a past Salute Wargames Show in  London, these figures were kindly given to me by my friend Dave, as part of the bundle that inclded last week's Dark Ages figures.

St. George fights the Dragon

View of the stricken horse being wrapped-up by the dragon

Another view

The figures were undercoated in grey an then dry-brushed white and then tackled one at a time. First off, I did the stricken horse, most of the imagary that I could find of St. George has him riding a white horse, so I opted for this classic depiction, I built up the whiteness of the horse with washes of thinned down white paint.

I chose to have the saddle blanket in blue as a contrast to the horse flesh and St. George himself, the horse's leather work was done, not unnaturally with Army Painter Hardened Leather, .

Better view of the shield carrying his distinctive red cross

Next the dragon, a classic green colour for it's top half, using GW Algae Green, I then dry brushed this with white before using AP Orc Skin to give a bright green colour to it's spinal scales and the larger scales on it's side and feet / claws. I used a watered down creamier colored green on the dragon's wings before washing with AP Green ink - this representing the msotly skin type flesh on these wings.

I painted the underbelly of the dragon yellow and washed this with GW Skeleton Horde to tone it down a little.

Final shot from above

St.George was again done in classic garb, I wanted his clothing to be predominantly white, so it is! But the figure is mostly chainmail clad, so I used GW Leadbeltcher on this and then AP Hoplite Gold on the armour scales to give St. George a noble feel. His cloak had to be red!

He carries a kite shield with a classic red, cross of St.George on it. Chainmail was washed in dark tone ink and the plate armour was washed in AP Flesh Tone, to give depth and shading.

I attached the figures to an MDF base and added some slate chips from the garden to give additional texture to the base. Then my usual fine sand, tufts and electrostaic grass mix to finished it off. I'm pleased with the result, it was a fn mini project to do.

In terms of points its not a high scorer, I'm placiming 10 points if everyone agrees - 1 x 28mm figure plus 2 x prone animals at 2.5 Points each! I'll let my minion adjudicate if this is fair!

Next we have 8 x Bretonnian figures for Warhammer Fantasy, these were found alongside the Bretonnian Archers I painted earlier this challenge. These guys are depicted as a militia unit - maybe a city guard - armed with various pole arms. There is a Corporal with the group armed with an axe plus a drummer and an officer, with an outragious moustache! Lastly I have pained up one of the figures as a Bretonnian priest, carrying a holy banner.

The completed Bretonnian group

The flag is actually based upon an image of a christmas card that I found online, suitably adapted it takes on th eguise of a holy banner pretty well.

The City Guard group, four spearmen and a corporal with a axe

I painted these using the same apprach as described for my oringinal batch of archers, I decided that the warror priest should have blue robes with white under-robes, maybe to signify his purity!? All figres painted and based in my usual manner.

Close-up of the City Gard Officer and his outragious moustache

One point of note on these Bretonnians is that I long ago lost their shield arms - ths I have pressed alternatives in frm eth bits box, these are Dark Ages shield armss, I'm not sure who manufactured these but t wold be Gripping Beast, Vitrix or Conquest Games...

Drummer, with inscription on the gold shield on the drum

Warrior Monk, with Holy Banner

Another break here and I present my last Female Gue'Vesa Tau warrior, I was holding her back for one last Lady Sarah's Trolley dash, but I can't really figure out how to use it in this last week so here goes!

Female Tau Gue'Vesa

This figure is again based upon a Wargames Atlantic Eisenkern Stormtrooper figure, with GW Tau weapon and Arm Pad added to gve it th eright look and feel. This person also has a Eisenkern female head, which sports a natty cap.

Another view

The figure is painted and based in the way that I have previously described for my Tau Army.

Next I have six 28mm Norman Crossbowmen from Victrix, these guys are lovely little sculpts and were a joy to paint. Again these will be fielded at my forthcoming Hastings game,, where they will help bolster my Norman Misslemen!

Completed group of NormanCrossbowmen

Figures were undecoated grey then drybrushed white, hands and faces getting extra attention wit heth white paint. GW Darkoath Flesh was used on hands and faces, then highlighted with AP Barbarian Flesh. All Chainmail and metal was done in GW Leadbeltcher and then various clours used to finish 'dressing' these guys. Leatherwork was completed with AP Hardened Leather before highlights were added.

Head on close-up of three guys

and their side view

The remaining three figres in close-up

With side view, the guy pulling his crossbow on the left would in my opinion get a little repetitive if I'd purchased a whole pack of these guys.

Next pair of fgures is another Salute figure give away (again thanks to Dave) depicting Arthur fighting Mordred, these guys are both on foot and are depicted in Anglo-Roman grab. Good old King Arthur (the once and future King of England!) has been depicted much like I did St. George, Mordred was done in complimentary / contrasting colours.

Mordred & Arthur going at it!

I'm assuming this is Mordred,  he's wearing a full face mask that is part of his helmet

And good King Arthur

Anoher figure that I have just been able to complete is a 28mm War of teh Roses Man-at-Arms, this is an old Front Rank figure that I've had for absolutely ages. I gave him a simple Green and White quartered livery. His legs are protected by plate armour and I would guess that he has a plate breastplate under his livery shirt as well.

WoR Man-at-Arms

with a rear view

AHPC XIV: From Mike W - 28mm Marian Wars figure, Tau Gue'Vesa

 Real life has intervened this week, impacting my painting prodction line, resulting in me travelling for three days this week, leaving me with little time to paint and prepare this post.

Hopefully this means a bumper post next week as I get the backlog cleared but as a stop gap gere are a couple of figres that I have painted, photographed and written up for this post.

So first off this week, I submit a new female Tau, Ge'Vesa. She is a scout, armed with a Longshot Pulse Rifle and holding a device to enable her to control Drones on the battlefield. This figure is based upon a Wargames Atlantic 'Eisenkern Stormtroopers', with GW Tau weapons, comms device and arm pad added.

Female Tau Gue'Vesa with Longshot Pulse Rifle and hand held Drone Controller

Painted as per all the others in my rapidly expanding Tau Army.

Another view!

Lady Sarah's Trolley will transport me to the Biography section within the lilbrary and here we find a figure from the Elizabethan age - namely John de Quitfurd & Milntoun, a distant ancester of mine who participated in the Marrian Wars, siding against Mary Queen of Scots.

John de Quitfurd & Milntoun, he died in 1579

The figure shows John standing with his banner, waving his sword in the air to encourage his men! He is wearing plate armour, painted GW leadbelcher with an Army Painter watered down dark wash, the armour is highlighted with a bright silver.

The standard is based upon the Whitefoord coat of arms,
three diagonal black stripes with bushels of wheat on the wider, central stripe

Next week, not ready to be published this week is a return to some 28mm Medjai, last seen by myself in the AHPC XII Challenge - these will go in the DIY section of the library. Additionally there will be some more Tau, 10mm Scots at Flodden and maybe some Lizardmen....

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.

.

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