From Curt - Thirty Years War Bohemian Pike & Shotte (168 Points)

During my last visit to Greg's he showed me his Thirty Years War efforts from Warlord Games' 'Epic' range. As typical, his painting was fabulous, and they really looked the business all ranked up with an impressive hedge of pikes. I was so impressed by them that I wanted to give them a go myself as I was looking for any excuse to collect pike & shotte for this period. As Greg had already started in with the Imperialists, I suggested I give the Protestants a go, starting with the ill-fated Bohemians from the beginnings of the conflict.

I managed to find one of the all-in starter box sets on deep-discount, and so here are my first efforts with an infantry pike & shotte 'frame' from the range.

I like how shoulder-to-shoulder the troops are designed for each strip. I find this makes the painting of them a little easier. That being said, I thought it odd that the front rank of the pike figures are designed with a 45 degree action pose, whereas the shotte has been designed in marching, or at-rest attitudes. 

Of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I started pillaging the commanded shotte portion of the frames (which are posed as loading and firing) in order to make the handgunners a little more dynamic, and thereby blending better with their active, pike-armed comrades. As this process was a little fiddly, I'll probably do this just for a few units, maybe to denote veteran status.  

I primed the strips dark brown and then drybrushed them light grey and finally white to help the Contrast paints to do their thing. I then went in with a small brush to pull-out some details and add further highlights. Similar to my other small-scale projects I only paint details on the front rank, keeping the following ranks fairly minimal from the shoulders down. I figure, there's no point painting stuff that nobody sees. I like the more desaturated look to the figures, but we'll see how the process holds up when I get more done down the road. I think I'll want around 10 of these units to make a creditable force.

As to basing, I wanted something a bit more flexible to work with different rulesets.  Warlord has their own 'Pike & Shotte' rules, which are a descendant of Rick Priestly's venerable but still excellent 'Warmaster' system. Those rules have each unit made up of four bases, allowing for various formations to be reflected depending on their arrangement. 

While this is great, our group also enjoys the 'Too the Strongest' rules (the 'For King and Parliament' variant for this period) where we've been having fun making-up single bases to depict units, allowing us to make mini-dioramas to add colour. We also have found that the single-base approach also makes gameplay a little faster, being as players only have to move one thing as opposed to several bits for a unit. Horses for Courses!

Anyhoo, as the bases that come with the box are plastic, I contacted Precision Wargame Supplies to have them cut me steel bases as replacements. I did this as I like the added weight that the steel bases provide, and they also allow me to use magnets (without messing up the polarity) for the large sabot basing I had in mind for the large single bases.

This led me to contact our friendly terrain Minion Byron (also of Northern Lights Terrain) to have him cut me a few bespoke sabot bases as a proof of concept. These sabot bases are 190 x 60, with cutouts for 3mm magnets to keep the steel-shod figures in place. I also put in a cutout for a unit label. I still have a few tweaks I want to do, but I think these will serve nicely.  

One thing about the scale of these figures. They call them 'Epic', intoning that they are around 10-12mm, like their earlier efforts, but these are actually true 15mm (foot to eye). So, with that being the case there are 80 foot figures in this formation, plus two mounted officers, which should put total points to 168. If our minion is good with this then we'll need to update Greg's previous work on these to bring his into alignment (I can do that). :) Also, this will allow me to hit my points target and also give me another Squirrel Point for the roster.

Thanks Dallas for letting me roll with the Thursday crew!

- Curt

This is indeed a Bohemian Rhapsody Curt! The Warlord Epic stuff is so great and your brushwork really makes it come alive. I like the conversions you've done to make the "shotte" a bit more dynamic too. I'm not surprised that Greg's been able to suck you into a new scale and period, he's very good at that isn't he... 

That's 168 for your tally!

Dallas

From ByronM - 15mm 30 years war Holy Roman Empire (136 points)

One of the goals I set for myself for this years challenge was to try and reduce the pile-o-shame (models that have not yet been painted) that has accumulated over the years at my place.  So I created a large list of projects that have started over the years, but never finished.  Once such project was last years foray into the 30 years war in 15mm.  While I finished quite a few bases of figures during last years challenge, I barely touched the stock pile of them that I bought, and have yet to play a game with them due to not having enough completed.  Therefore I thought it would be a good thing to get cracking on them over the Christmas holiday.

Here is the batch that I got done over the last week: 18 cavalry, 18 muskateers, and 14 pikemen.

All of these were painted using a very quick and messy method.  Essentially, all I did was apply base coats of the basic colours, then washed everything with the one GW paint I use (Agrax Earthshade), and then highlighted them with the base colours again, and in some cases 1 shade higher to get some highlights.

While this basic method produces tabletop ready miniatures quickly, they are nothing special.  Which means I get frustrated painting them quickly as well, as it feels like cheating to not put your best effort into something you are painting, BUT with something like 500+ more models to do to complete them all, I simply can not put much more effort into each model than this or I will never finish them!

Overall though, at tabletop level they look ok, and that's all that counts for these.  My plan is to use the "By Fire and Sword" rule set with them for small skirmish games (a great rule set that's super detailed and in depth) and then to use "By Pike & Shot" for bigger games (another great rule set, essentially GW's old Warmaster rules).  I look forward to getting them on Curt's table for a game with the Regina crew sometime this year.

As for points, this batch should net me 136 points as per:

- 18 Cav @ 4 pts each = 72
- 18 Muskateers @ 2 pts each = 36
-14 Pikemen @ 2 pts each = 28

From ByronM: Second last - bits, and a balloon ride ( 66 points )

With the challenge coming to an end soon, and with vacation for me starting this saturday I have madly been trying to finish up the last bits to post up.  As a result, this post will be my second last post of the challenge.  Also, as I am trying to pack up today and get ready, you are all going to be spared from my normal long write ups as I just don't have time to write up that much for these!  Hurray!

First up is an Ork jet car that I have been working on to go along side last years Ork Ferrari F1 car.  This will be used for a chariot racing game that Curt has shown me, that I think fits the Ork racing style quite well.

Next up is a command stand for my 30 years war Holy Roman Empire force.  It is a simple command stand with a few banners and only looks different than the rest of the stands in the army by nature of the rounded corners on the base.

Since I plan on using these figures for Pike & Shot and for By Fire and Sword, I wanted to keep the basing of command stands different than normal units for that they work with P&S, but similar enough so they still work in BF&S, I think this accomplishes that.

Lastly, is a female character figure from the Cthulhu game, Death my Die.  I had planned on using her at some point for a balloon ride when I needed to get out of a corner on the map, but that never happened, so I will just use her now to go on a jolly adventure in the sky with Lady Sarah to wherever her heart desires.

One more post coming in a little bit showing off a big project I have been working on, but not quite finished....

The points for this one should be 20 for the 28mm vehicle, 8 points for the 4 15mm figures, 5 points for the 28mm woman, and then 30 points for the balloon ride. That should make for a total of 63 points.



That's some very nice bits to (almost - I know there is a final post in the queue!) finish off your Challenge for this year. That blue dress is particularly nicely done.

As for points, you forgot about the Ork Ferrari's driver. I'll add 3 points for him.

TamsinP

From ByronM - Revisiting the Thirty Years War - Rousell's Sandhill - (240 Points)

I have been looking for my next spot on the map and trying to figure out what on earth I would do for Rousells Sandhill, and then realized "wait a minute, the figures I am using for the 30 years war are actually from the 'By Fire and Sword' game that is all about the Polish wars from 1640 through 1676"!  Even though I am using them for the 30yw that was preceding the period Rousell wants, the figures are exactly what he is looking for!

Therefore I present to you a pile of men in "floppy" hats....

This group of figures makes up the start of my force from the Holy Roman Empire, which actually doesn't mean that much given the period.  Pretty much EVERYONE involved in the conflict were morally corrupt back stabbers.  The armies were mainly mercenary forces that fought for whomever paid them the most, many forces switched sides multiple times over the course of the war.

Worse, as far as I can figure from all the reading I have done on the subject, the whole war and all the deaths involved in it was pretty much about if you believed the Pope was a representative of God on earth or not.  It was not even about which imaginary being you believed in!  Both sides believed in the exact SAME imaginary being, just differed in how they thought you should worship him.... WOW.  I could at least understand if they believe in different Gods, I couldn't agree with killing each other over it, but could at least understand it.

I mean there is a lot more to it than that, but that was the basic jist of it.  A lot also had to do with Royalty of the time being a bunch of inbred back stabbing power grubbing maniacs that cared little about the actual population that died fighting their wars.

Oh well, enough ranting on a subject I can't possibly truly understand since I am obviously an Aethist by the comments above!  Back to the reason we are all hear.... toy soldiers!

These figures are a mix of several manufacturers.  Most are from Wargamer Games Studio (makers of By Fire and Sword), but there is a mix from Blue Moon, Peter Pig, and at least one other that I am forgetting.

All of them are pretty nice with the WGS ones being the best sculpts to me.

Since the mercenaries changed sides so often they never really used uniforms, hence most of the units being in random coloured normal clothing.  I did however paint one unit in a uniform colour trying to replicate Greg's painting style that he showed me last year when I was struggling with this project.  I think I did a not bad job on them and they look better than the rest of the units.

The flags are just place holder, home printed ones as I have misplaced the much better quality ones I had printed last year, so until I find them these will have to do.

Overall I have 90 infantry figures and 6 guns, so by my math that should be 204 points, plus 30 points for the map space.  I don't know about you all, but 15mm seems like much harder work for the points than 28mm!  I guess I am still trying to paint them too much like 28mm figures.


I know this isn't one of your favourite scales to paint, but you do a fantastic job on them Byron. Whilst religion (or rather, which Christian doctrine) was certainly a major factor in the war, for the leaders at any rate, the big issue that began it was about who got to elect the Holy Roman Emperor and the rights of (the rulers of) the various states - in the early phase protestant Saxony was on the same side as catholic Bavaria and the catholic Hapsburg Emperor.

I'm going to add a point each for the flags, even though they are "placeholders", which takes your score to a round 240 points.

TamsinP

From ByronM: 15mm Thirty Years War Swedish force (288 Points)

I had plans for doing so much this year, yet due to struggles with getting my head around painting 15mm I just never got into it this year.  Now finally at the end, once I started basing them up and looking at them from tabletop distances, I am actually really happy with them, and realized that my issue was that I was looking at them individually and close up while painting them, expecting 28mm style looks, when really, its all about the bulked up / ranked up look....  I really should have based some up way earlier, and I could have gotten past the mind lock and painted more!!!

Anyway, on with the show....

These figures are a mix of Wargammer LLC (makes of By Fire and Sword), Khurasan, and Blue Moon.  I honestly do not know which are which anymore as they all just went into a pile to be painted.  All of them are very good though, with Blue Moon being the roughest, but at the price they offer for bags of 50 I really can not complain.  The Khurasan and Wargammer LLC figs are both super clean and easy to work with.

I made a choice while working on the Swedish force that a good section of them was going to be King Gustav II Adolf's personal force and therefore they would be in the regular uniforms of blue coats and yellow sashes.  While normally during the 30 year war, no one was in any sort of regular uniform, in theory Gustav's personal / elite guard was.  Probably not in any real numbers and even though they were uniforms they were probably not as regular looking as I have done them, so I expect some would be historians to have issue with the uniformity, but it's my force, so my choice!

I discussed my basing choices last time I posted some 30 years war figures, but I also made a choice to cut some bases with some rounded edges to use for my leaders bases since then.  This is so that I can tell them apart from the normal troops when I use these figures with Pike & Shot, but still use them attached to units in By Fire and Sword.  This can be seen on King Gustav II's base.

I painted a pile of Cavalry to go along with the King, after all, even though he was known to charge in recklessly, but never alone, so three units of cavalry should be enough to support him.

As most of you know by now, I am not a fan of painting horses, but I think these came out well with a few different shades mixed in.

I also needed Musketeers to help out with the force, so painted two units of them as a start.  Many more are to come in the near future but this gave me something more to post at least.

Again, probably way to uniform in colour, but I wanted the Swedish force to look like a force compared to the coming Holy Roman Empire army that I am working on where everyone is wearing something different.

Last up in this post is what started it all for me with the Thirty Years War, pikemen!  Here are 4 more units of pikemen to add to my Swedish force.  Most of them are without armour, but one is an armoured unit.

As you can see, I also took Curt's advice and got some standards to start adding into the units.

Now that I am in the right mind set for painting 15mm, it's almost too late for the challenge.  Sigh...

I will get at least a few more done before the end, but it looks like I will have a lot to carry over to next years challenge. Which unfortunately means that I am likely to miss my points goal for the year.  I ALWAYS go for 1500 to make sure I can meet it, this year I looked at everything I had to paint and decided I could go higher....  bad call.  I would have made 1500, but will miss my 2k target.  Oh well, live and learn, right?

******

For points:

Cav: 30 x 4 points = 120
Infantry: 84 x 2 points = 168
Total: 288

__________________________________________________________________

With the Snowlord calling sauve qui peut, what is a good minion to do but pitch in and stem the tide? And here we have the future foreign regiments (at least the German ones) of the King of France!

The Army of the King of Sweden has always been one that has fascinated me, ever since the heady days of my youth, finding Trevor Dupuy's The Military Life of Gustavus Adolphus: Father of Modern War in the kid's section of my local library. And who can forget the illustrated Great Commanders and their Battles?

I fully sympathize with the pain of switching to 15mm. I tried painting a DBA army pre-challenge for a tournament and was stopped dead in my tracks, for much the same reason. I also sympathize with the not meeting your target fears. I'd love to paint 1500 points in three months; I feel I did quite well passing my lowly 200 quota.

But these are beautiful, Byron. Keep up the good work!

288 points in the spreadsheet!

HerrRobert, Friday Follies Phantasmical, Over

From ByronM - 28mm WWII Canadians, 15mm Thirty Years War, and Epic 30k ( 133 Points)

A few things to post up this week, that are all over the map, I really wish I had seen and entered that "squirrel" challenge.

First up I have a squad of WWII Canadians from Warlord.  These are the metal figures and are great, with a ton of character in the faces.  In addition to the squad itself, I have included a command figure.

While the pink flowers may look a bit odd at first glance, they are there to be my unit designators.  This is a pink squad, later will be followed by purple, blue, red, etc.  That way as units get mixed up on the battle field it is always easy to see which one belongs to which squad.

The figures were done pretty quickly, but turned out pretty well.

Next up is my first submission of a new project, I plan on painting several armies for the Thirty Years War, and this is the first few bases for a Swedish cavalry skirmish group.  The figures are from Wargamer LLC who publishes the rules By Fire and Sword.  While not specifically targeting the 30YW period, they are aimed at the late 1600's just following the 30YW and not much tactically had changed during that time, so I plan on using their rules for the period.  If they don't work out I can always fall back to the tried and true Pike and Shotte rule set.  Regardless of the rule set I end up using, the figures are amazingly good and I strongly suggest them. 

I tried painting these figures initially, but was just not coming up with something that I liked.  I paint way more 28mm than anything else, and was using a 28mm paint method which was taking way to long and not showing well on the figures.  So, having Greg in the area, and knowing that he can bang off amazing looking 15mm figures with ease, I invited him over to give me a painting lesson!  Sure enough, he had a completely different way to paint 15mm figures than what I was doing.  It involved way more contrast than I was using, a different order of painting, and looked way better with way less effort.

While I still don't have it down solid, and my version of his painting does not look as good, I am getting there. So thanks to Greg again, but don't judge these figures and reflect badly on him, it's just my first attempts at his style. If you look closely, you can see 3 figures that look much better than the rest, those are the 3 he did that night to teach me how.  I am still not super happy with my results, but hopefully I get better as I paint more of them.

The bases for By Fire and Sword and Pike and Shotte for 15mm should be 40mm wide for 3 figures and either 20mm or 30mm deep depending on infantry or cavalry, however I found that a bit cramped and since the basing doesn't really matter (as long as both forces are done the same way, and I plan on doing both sides for games) I expanded the bases by 10mm in both directions.  This allows a bit more room for groundwork and to protect the models.  It also allows infantry a bit more room for Muskateers to spread out, or to add a few more pikemen onto a base to look more like a block of men.

Also shown here are 3 test figures for Musketeers of any nation.  These I believe are Bluemoon sculpts, but could be Khurasan as well.  I bought a pile from the three different suppliers and then cleaned and primed them all together, so no real idea which are which any more.  They all look good though, the only issue I have with the Bluemoon figures is that they come in bags of 50, but only have 3 different sculpts.  The price is right and they are the cheapest and look good alongside the other two companies, they just have very little variation, so can not really be used by themselves.

Lastly, I have a small squad of Epic 30k vehicles that I forgot to photograph last week.  The squad is made up of 5 scimitar jetbikes and a speeder.  They are great little sculpts and while they will provide almost no use on the battle field, being way to fragile, they look awesome and I could not resist.

That should give me a little bit of a points boost, but I have been struggling to paint this year, so I am not all that hopeful about meeting my goal, I really need to get working!  Oh, and 3 of the Cavalry should count to Greg's points as he painted 3 of them, so 12 points to GregB as well.


11x 28mm = 55 points
15x 15mm cav = 60
3x 15mm inf = 6
6x 6mm vehicles = 12
Byron's total = 133

3x 15mm cav = 12
Greg's total = 12
************


TamsinP:

Ah, yes, the switch from painting 28mm to 15mm can be quite difficult. The same applies the other way, as I can well attest.

Excellent work on all of these sets Byron. And Greg for his three 15mm cavalry.

From SidneyR: Flemish Horse from 1688 and Nordlingen beginnings (105 points)

Greetings fellow Challengers!!

With the Challenge now 9 days old, it's taken me a little time to post my first entry.  

Christmas very much 'got in the way' for me, but with the festivities now partly out of the way I've been able to spend a little more time with my paintbrush.

My first submission features the first half of a regiment of Flemish Horse, 6 cavalry figures, from the regiment of Pfilps de Vichet (and yes, I think that's the correct spelling - although any Flemish speakers can correct me).  The regiment was part of the forces raised by the Spanish Netherlands in the 1680s, which make them perfect for my 1688 project based around my fictional Flemish town of Laarden.  I chose to configure them as using pistols as their primary weapon of choice, and interesting contrast to the more impact-focused French Horse they faced in the field.

The figures are from the 25/28mm Wargames Foundry range, sculpted by the Perry Twins in the late 1980s.  I've added some greenstuff feathers to the hats, but otherwise these are pretty much the originals which have sat in my lead mountain for quite a few years.

I've also been continuing work on my 2mm Thirty Years War project.  After collecting armies for the battle of Lutzen in 1632, the next additions are based around the Spanish army of the Cardinal-Infante which made the long march through Italy and Germany to be present at the battle of Nordlingen in 1634.  Here I've painted some German horse, Spanish demi-lancers, a party of Croat scouts or vedettes, some Spanish commanded shot and (to balance things out) some Swedish and Finnish scouting horse.  The command bases are the Cardinal-Infante, and the Count of Fuensaldana, one of the Spanish-Imperial commanders of the later Thirty Years War.  

The bases are colour coded for ease of recognition on a snowy tabletop - blue for Swedes, Black for Germans and deep (Hapsburg) red for the Spanish.  I've experimented with some 1mm snow 'flock', which is quite fun.  It's really like a fine dusting of miniature cotton, but makes quite convincing show, which would be decent 'slush' in a larger scale. I added the labels for the commanders from a printed PowerPoint file, trimmed and glued on with PVA.

_____________________________

First, welcome back to the Challenge, Sidney!

Lovely work as always Mr. Roundwood. Those venerable Perry castings have come alive under your brush. I always enjoy seeing your use of colour and particularly like the warm tones you've used for these fellows.  I also like that the tan round hats, with their jaunty feathers, help tie the unit together. Well done, sir!

Your 2mm work continues to impress, Sid. I had the pleasure of playing a few games with Sidney when we where in the UK this past year and can attest to the craftsmanship behind this project - it's absolutely stunning to behold. The light dusting of snow really helps establish the setting for these figures. I look forward to seeing your Nordlingen chapter of the Thirty Years War come to fruition over the coming months. 

Now, more please. :)