From PaulSS: Cold War BAOR supports [Limbo] (40 points)

 

Just like my last post this entry contains figures that were primed ready for painting in Challenge XIV but have remained in the box untouched, so I think are worthy of having been in Limbo.

Seven Days to the River Rhine has also had some of my gaming attention this past year so it was a chance to add these Pendraken Models to the BAOR forces.

A FV432M for indirect fire support and a trio of Milan teams.

Nine figures, three crew-served weapons and a vehicle in 10mm should score me 24 points, plus the 20 point bonus for the location.

TeemuL: Paul's second post today looks great, of course the infantry is very hard to see, when they are hugging the ground, as they should. And I'll count them as prone figures, too, so snipping couple of points away. But they are fitting for Limbo, of course, and I'm happy that after waiting for a year you have decided to paint them, since they look great, as I said. I think from 3 feet the excellent basing materials will make it realistically difficult for the opponent to see what they are actually facing at. :)

Let's see if we get any other entries today...

From PaulSS: Dirty Panzers and recon - 27pts

 

Just a small submission this week, I'm working towards a larger unit of 28mm figures that are due to be finished in time for next weeks post, but to maintain my cadence of at least one post a week I've added a few more vehicles to the 12mm-ish WWII collection for O Group.

A pair of Panzer IVH and a pair of SdKfz 222 join the German forces for my late WWII games. 

All the models are from Pendraken and are nominally10mm but size well with the Victrix 12mm figures in my collection.

I've painted them in a dirty three colour scheme, the decals are from I-94 Enterprises after these were dried I added more muck and grime with a Tamiya weathering master kit. 

Panzer IVH

Panzer IVH

Panzer IVH

Panzer IVH

SdKfz 222

SdKfz 222

SdKfz 222

SdKfz 222

Four 10mm-ish vehicles and three crew should add 27 points to my ongoing total.

Superb looking models here Paul and certainly reflect your considerable painting skills. The Sdkfz 222 was one of my favourite German recce vehicles of the war (surpassed perhaps only by the Puma?) and the Pzkpfw IV(H) is iconic, the schurzen look great. The weathering is really well done too and the grimy look certainly suits the "beginning of the end" in Normandy.

27 points seems paltry for these lovely models but we are slaves to the Magic Spreadsheet. Nice work!

Dallas

From PaulSS - WWII German limbers and AA guns - 54pts

 

I'd already hit my painting goals for the week, but decided to pull out the stops and add some more bits to the 12 WWII collection that I started in Challenge XIII and recently added more US supports to.

Even in the later stages of the war, much of the German army was relying on horse drawn transports, so I decided that my German units for O Group would be relying on horse-drawn limbers for their supports rather than motor vehicles. I added four to my most recent order from Pendraken.

The horses were painted with Citadel Contrast paints, I think they work well for horse flesh at this scale, while the limbers themselves and the crews were done in Vallejo Model Colour with an Army Painter wash.

I also painted a pair of 2cm FlaK38 for close air defence of the forces. I wish that Pendraken did some additional crew packs, all these guns look rather sparse with only two crewmen.

I really should have squirrelled this year, I've painted so many different things. 

So, for my total, it's four vehicles, two guns, 16 horses and 8 crew, which at 12mm is 54 points.

Great stuff here Paul, I agree that horse transport for the Germans is significantly under-represented on the wargames table. Not everybody was able to get a motorized tow from a truck or halftrack! The models look great as always and 2cm flak guns always come in handy. Looking forward to more and some reports on "O" Group!

Dallas

From PaulSS - New Acquisitions - M16 MGMC and M20 Scouts - 44pts

 

Last years challenge I painted up both US and German forces for O Group. I'm ashamed to say that since those forces were done, they have played exactly one game and I've not done anything else with them, so I'm I could claim the "Overdue and Returns" bonus here. However, I decided that Challenge XIV would see me revisiting this project so I placed an order on Pendraken last month, hence 'New Acquisitions', and you'll (hopefully) be seeing more troops added to the forces over the coming weeks.

First up is a pair of M16 MGMC to provide close air defence for the Americans. This is a lovely crisp model and a really easy paint job.

One of the stowage packs allowed for quite a bit of variety in the vehicles, I do think they would have been better with some crew sculpted in them.

The other pair of vehicles are M20 Scout/Utilities, these seem to be older castings and the detail a bit more "soft" on these, but they came out ok after a lick of paint.

Four12mm vehicles at 6pts each plus the location bonus should net me 44 more points towards my total and break me into double figures.

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Great work on these little Yanks, Paul! In looking at these vehicles, it illustrates the American tendency to just plop on a .50 cal on anything that rolled. Incredible.

- Curt

From PaulSS - Cold War T-62 company - 60pts

 

The will to paint has been weak these past few months so I was looking forwards to the challenge to get that mojo back on track.

I set the alarm for 0530 this morning and bleary eyed, with a cup of coffee in hand I slapped a coat of Russian Green on these chaps and base-coated the bases with some dull brown emulsion. Then, off to a couple of work meetings, boring! 

Fortunately, I had booked a half day off to kick off the challenge and just before lunch was able to pick up a brush again.

A bit of black on the machine guns and tracks followed by some mud splatters then a light dry brush before lunch - mushroom pate on toast with a side salad for those of an inquisitive nature!

Finally, a coat of Military Shade and then left to dry, while some base-coats were slapped on my upcoming entry, a Napoleonic Dutch artillery battery.

Once all was done I was able to get the bases finished with tufts, bushes and grass and then a coat of dull cote.

Victoria and I went out to the solstice celebrations at Paoli and on our return took a few snaps of the tanks for this post.

The tanks are 3D prints that chum Drew printed for me on his Elegoo Mars. These will add a whole new option of cheaper tanks to my Seven Days to the River Rhine Soviet force that currently fields the much more up to date and expensive T-64B.

Ten 12mm vehicles at 6pts each gets me off to a start on 60pts.

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Paul! 

These T-62s look excellent as was your culinary indulgences for the day. Well done!

- Curt

From TomC: Union Artillery [Under Construction] (20 points)

Hello everyone, happy holidays and I hope everyone is well. Quite a few firsts for me here, first challenge and off to an especially slow start following another first for me, COVID, so keen to add to my first and only completed figure of 2022 so far...

I've started at the Under Construction site to at least up that number a little! These characters will likely be a familiar sight, the officer and artillery from Warlord Games Epic Battles American Civil War sprue which they gave away with Wargames Illustrated. I'm a little behind the curve on these but it was nice to do something different: in over twenty years of hobby I've never either done anything below 28mm or attempted just a summer grass base! I shall remain quiet about the fifty infantry who also came on the sprue...

The Warlord plastics are quite 'flat-pack', so I carved one of the gunners out for a little dimension. I do think I'd struggle to keep up variety for a large battery though.

The cannon itself seemed quite chunky, so I went with a more traditional bronze-ish metal, which also seemed quite colourful. Thankfully the Union seemed to trend towards accessories being black which always gets a thumbs up from this slow painter.

Did anyone else play Ultimate General Civil War?

For the uniforms, I started with Vallejo Game Colour Night Blue, then quickly realised both that Night Blue is satin and secondly that I hate satin paints (apologies gloss fans...). 

In other news, I thought the officer looked a bit like Kiefer Sutherland, hence the blond hair.

Someone has to wave the sword...

Particular thanks to my lovely wife firstly for the light box and secondly for showing me how to edit the photos out of the stygian gloom I'd managed to achieve, despite the light box. Any lack of focus is entirely my fault. 

As the figures were all partially started earlier in the year, they are nil points, just the location bonus of 20 points for today.

Next up, High Adventure, in the meantime, good luck everyone!

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First, welcome to the Painting Challenge, Tom! I'm sorry to hear that you have a bout of the Salty Cough and I hope you're well on the mend now. These It's great that you've made good use of the 'Under Construction' theme to get yourself on the points roster. I quite like the soft bronze highlight of the gun, especially when set against the blue and black of the crew. 

I'm going to add a few more points for you finishing this set - well done! Looking forward to what you have in store for us for 'High Adventure'.

- Curt

MikeW Warlord Games ACW Epic - Union Regiment (216 Points]

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!

TOTAL POINTS

100 x 12 15mm Foot                 = 200 Points

4 x 12 15mm Artillery Crew       =  8 Points

1 x 12 15mm Gun                       = 4 Points

1 x 12 15mm Mounted Officer = 4 Points

TOTAL                                  = 216 Points

A 100 man unit isa bog-standard in 15mm?  You are out epic scaling Yorkshire Ken at that rate Mike!  My eyes have pushed me into scale creep too, I nearly got into 54mm gaming at a couple of points.  But no less of focus on these lads, they look great up close and even better  lined up en masse.  Conventional Minion wisdom (i.e Tamsin) tells me that the Warlord Epic figures have been scored at 15mms so I've adjusted your points accordingly.

From GregB: The Guns Of August (62 Points)

12mm early WW1 Germans - figures from Great Escape Games.

For my final post in this edition, I thought I would share a new project - after all, don't we all need a new wargraming project? Yes, of course we do! Thus I present my first brush-bending efforts toward gaming "The Guns Of August", the early days of WW1. All of these figures are 12mm castings from Great Escape Games, released as part of their "1914" rules. 

Example of some of the infantry castings.

This base includes a commander (pointing, you know, as all good miniature toy soldier officers do).

A view showing the kit being hauled by the infantry.

For many years I was indifferent to gaming WW1...the need for bespoke trench terrain was a particular deterrent, and even if that might be sourced, well, the lads go over the top, and get drilled by machineguns and artillery...not much of a "game". But the Fawcett Avenue group in Winnipeg are resourceful folks - Dallas obtained a set of fantastically amazing WW1 trench-board terrain, and hosted many excellent games playing the adapted Warhammer rules for the period available from Warhammer Historicals. And Byron dove in as well - you can find his painting efforts here in Challenge archives, and he hosted many excellent games of "Through The Mud And The Blood." And of course Curt has his very complex and unique WW1 greyscale project that I know is a point of great interest among so many Challengers.

Close up of some Uhlans. Very stately poses...

Another view of the Uhlans.

You can dismount the cavalry, of course! Here is a base of dismounted Uhlans. Was there ever a more awkward uniform for skirmishing on foot?

So in the end I got to play a fair number of WW1 games, and enjoyed them immensely, without ever stepping into the period myself. But, at Curt's suggestion, I did read Barbara Tuchman's remarkable book "The Guns Of August", about the opening weeks of WW1. What fantastic book, and a rip-roaring read!! While I had been dimly aware that between the declaration of war and the stalemate that developed in the Western Front trenches there had been...well...something...I was stunned to see just how much happened, and just how incredible it all was!! The Battle of the Frontiers, the hectic holding actions, the desperate race to save Paris, the absolutely f*cking bonkers Schlieffen Plan, the tragedy of "cran"...on and on. Wow! From the moment I tore into that book, about three years ago now, the idea of doing something myself set in WW1's early days started to bubble in my head...

An MG08 base. I wish they had included some crew for these weapons, but the "1914" rules call for a 25mm square base, and I suppose there would have been no room...

Fast forward, and the fine people at Great Escape Games released "1914". It is a rules system with many similarities to their excellent "Iron Cross" (WW2) and "Seven Days To The River Rhine" (Cold War goes Hot) systems.  I resisted for a while, but finally caved in an ordered some figures. They are 12mm castings...thus a slight departure from my recent 10mm mania...but I have enjoyed painting them very much so far, and the range is pretty complete for the purposes of their rules, if a bit short otherwise (for example, I wish there were more crew on the MGs and field guns, but anyway...)

The 77mm gun visible at the corner...

The figures in these photos represent about half of one of the "brigade" boxes for their "1914" range.  The level of abstraction in this game shares many similarities to "Great War Spearhead", in that each base represents a company or infantry, a squadron of cavalry or battery of guns. Thus an infantry battalion would be between three and four bases (or maybe just two, depending on where things are at!). The box comes with enough infantry for four different four-base "battalions" and a four-base "regiment" of cavalry - mounted AND dismounted - along with MGs to accompany each of those. There are also two 77mm guns (all together, one battery) and figures for a command base.  You get the figures and bases all together...it's a great way for a geek like me to dip my toe into the water!

77mm gun. Again, I wish they had included more crew...I've still a lot to learn about WW1 guns, but I'm pretty sure there were more than two chaps slinging shells to keep these things in action.

Another view of 77mm gun and team.

This is my first attempt at painting WW1 stuff, but I am really enjoying it so far. As with all Painting Challenge stuff, I was so sure I would get more of this done before the deadline for the end of AHPC XI, but as things worked out I only managed to get started on these last weekend.  At any rate, I'll still use these to claim a few more points.

Regiment of Uhlans - note the one fellow on the very right of the photo - his lance broke off in the bag, so I had to drill out the hand and replace it with a steel spear.

So, for scoring, we have 36 infantry, nine cavalry and four guns, all in 12mm scale. The Painting Challenge does not, strictly speaking, have a points set up for that (another gap Miles - sort that out, would you?), but lets score them as 10mm, which would bring 62 points (I think). If it is somehow more, great - although I will miss my target this year regardless. All the same, progress was made, so I'll take it :)

Good animation on the commander. "Get moving! Have you seen the stupid schedule we need to keep?"

The final submission for AHPC XI. Cheers everyone.

This is my last post for this edition of the Challenge - thanks very much everyone, congratulations on getting so much lead, resin and plastic painted and ready for battle. Stay safe and, most importantly of all, I hope you also stay sane. Thanks so much for your comments and encouragement. Cheers!