From LeeH: Russian Line Grenadiers 1812 [40 Points]

My first EVER unit of 28mm Napoleonics is completed. Let's be more specific.. my first Napoleonics in any scale! It’s all Ray’s fault. He rang me a few months ago and suggested a collaboration and about five seconds after suggesting The Retreat from Moscow in 1812 I was online and making my first order! My first impression…28mm is waaaay more expensive than my usual 6mm projects! I often paint single 28mm figures for the challenge, but it has probably been three decades since I last painted units of 28’s so I had no idea how long these would take to complete to a standard I was happy with. Fortunately, I had quite a bit of time during the opening weekend of the Challenge and I rocketed through this first unit. 

These are 1812 Russian Grenadiers, but they are wearing slightly out-of-date equipment. They still wear the 1808 pattern ‘stovepipe’ Shako with its enormous plume. From February 1811 regiments started being equipped with the new ‘Kiwer’ style shako with a much thinner Plume. Still, many had not received these before the French invasion in 1812 and some regiments didn’t fully change to the new regulation uniform until 1814. Fortunately for me most of the models I have chosen for my Russian army are wearing Greatcoats making painting them a lot easier. (Ray keeps mentioning this but I don’t feel guilty at all. First, he should have started the conversion by bagsying the Russians first and second he’d just cost me £200 I wasn’t planning on spending!)

One of the reasons I so quickly agreed to this project was that I felt the hand of fate on my shoulder. I have most of the Blandford Colour Series books and just a few weeks earlier I filled a gap in my collection when I found a copy of Uniforms of the Retreat from Moscow in a charity shop for the ridiculous price of one pound. So when Ray suggested the period for our collaboration project I knew I couldn’t ignore the obvious hint from the gods of wargaming. Serendipity had spoken and I had to go with the flow. Besides, being a bit of a butterfly my will was too weak to resist. 

(Scoring: 8x28mm Foot = 40 points)

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First, welcome to 'The Beautiful Game' Lee. Your first unit of Napoleonics... Wow. To me it's like some one announcing the arrival of their first child. Fabulous work my friend. I love that you've done them in the earlier stovepipe brush shako - literally over the top stuff. Good call on the greatcoats and I also like your snowy bases which really highlights the intended setting. Lovely stuff. I look forward to the next installment in this project.

Speaking of which, where is Ray's contribution? You're barely of the gate and he's already shirking his responsibilities.. :)

40 Points to you Lee, well done.

From KentG: 18mm Napoleonic Wars Saxe-Gotha unbased (pts 69)

 First up this week is the completion of the Westphalian army

with this time, the addition of troops from the Federation of the Rhine 

There aren't a lot of pics this time as I packed up the figures for 

shipping as soon as they were completed. 

I even missed a couple of figures from the photos so of course 

didn't count them in, really happy with the figures but also happy

 to now get back to my 28mm French army again

46 figures in the photo, below are just a few pics with a few variations

of the figures

the three officers are my favorite out of these figures and was 

really happy with how they came out. 

Grenadiers with the red epaulettes and then two of the line infantry 

a few of the voltigeurs these are probably my next favorite,

I was silly enough to not check on the uniform before painting them the first

 time then realizing I had painted them completely wrong and did them again.

these last two pics are of Voltigeurs in great coats

As mentioned a fun paint but I'm glad to get back to 28mm,

that is until the next batch arrives.

                    Points

                    46 x 18mm unbased foot @ 2pts each 92pts - 25% = 69pts

From Millsy: I know you hate painting these mate but you do such a good job with them. You even take the time to highlight the greatcoats and shako covers which is nuts and I love it. Minor German states are a favourite of mine in the period so I particularly enjoyed these. Cracking work!

From PaulO'G: Vive La Garde! (200 points)

G'day all, its great to be back for my 10th Challenge! This year my target is a curiously specific 603 points, which is what I need to get me to 8,000 lifetime points.

"Mon dieu! Tre magnifique!" say the swooning Mesdemoiselles!

My Season 14 opening salvo is the start of my new Crimean War project. I'm starting with a French Brigade, and the Grenadier Garde is up first! As a larger, well equipped battalion it musters 36 Guardsmen and Officers. 

Allons enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !

Why the red bases you might ask? Because they will serve on Mars for our Space 1889 VSF campaign first - obvious really! Once thats done I'll redo the bases for a more routine deployment to the Crimea.

Their features are wonderfully sculpted - doing them some measure of justice was a challenge!

Models are by Great War Miniatures, distributed via Northstar. Painted in classic triad style - no speed/contrast paints were harmed in the making of this unit. I also discovered a new technique for painting small buttons - a toothpick! (Thanks for the tip John, and for the emergency flag resupply!)

A Brigade Commander's view of their march to Victory!

So off the mark with a 36 figure mini-bomb @ 5 points each, plus 20 points for shelving in the History section. While these are the first Guard figs I've painted for any era, I understand they are not be the only French Grenadiers likely to be posted today - hopefully they pass muster! :-)

From Millsy: A French guardsman is impressive in any setting Paul, be it terrestrial or otherwise! I'm sure these fine fellows will do sterling service wherever they may fight, even lightyears from home.

The greatcoats are presumably for night operations as they'd be a serious hazard in the heat of Martian day! Lovely work on the red/blue combo which works really well with the bases. It is almost a shame to think they'll be repainted eventually as they really do look great.

200 points to kick start your challenge!

From GeorgeS - 1:32 British Redcoats - (80 points)

    Been busy with those guys the last week so there's no Chamber's Challenge for today. Just some points.

    These are 8 plastic 54mm "A Call To Arms" figures. British Grenadiers (Redcoats) painted in 4th Regiment (King's Own) colours. I enjoyed much these "forest themed" bases. Hope you like them.

 

      So , 80 points for me from these figures. Next will be a "Priest" for the "Shrine" Room.

'Till next time..

Keep Up The Brushes!!

 

Thursday BenitoM: Austrian Airborne Grenadiers... (42 points)

... wait a minute!!... I have a problem mixing periods… Austrian Grenadiers and British Airborne!!! This is the right one.

Now on a more serious tone, my painting speed stalled the past two weeks in direct relation to the rapid increase of my workload at the office. I have managed to finish some remnants of the British Airborne projects and have made the opening moves of the Napoleonic project, initially focused on the Austrian Army. This is the follow up of the core project undertaken in the 8^th edition of the Challenge last year.

The British Airborne entry are just 4 final models, comprising a second flamethrower team, a junior leader and a private.

For the Austrians, I’m now painting my first Grenadier unit. This unit will have a total of 12 models (small company in term of General d’Armee) belonging to the  3^rd (German) Infantry Regiment of which I painted two fusilier battalions last year.

The distinctive colour of the regiment is the light sky blue shown in the cuffs, collar and the back of the grenadier shako. The models presented today are the command company of the battalion comprising the officer, drummer, standard bearer and sapper.

The British Airborne are a mix of Wargames Foundry and Warlord plastic. The Grenadiers are from the Perry and Victrix line infantry ranges with Perry grenadier metal heads.

These 8 models will credit an additional 40 points to my Challenge scoring.

Finally, in a previous post I presented some support weapons for the British Airborne and asked whether the 2-inch mortar team models should be individually based or set in a single base. The overwhelming majority of commets were in favour of a single base. This is the final work and hope you like it

 

Hurrah! More splendid British paratroopers!
Lovely clean painting as always,your delightful take on their camo is always a pleasure!
On to the Austrians, they were a highlight for me in last year's challenge and these grenadiers do not disappoint! Perfectly modulated whites and a lovely choice of blue in the facing colour.
42 well earned points and the mortar basing is excellent,1 for a flag and 1 for the additional basing!

All the best Iain

    

From PaulS: Beware the dark (155 Points)

It has now been a few weeks since the last update and my work air miles have gone up a fair chunk, so it is nice to finally be able to put a few more bits and pieces up on the blog towards the weirdest of weird war.

On the sane end of the spectrum we have a few more german infantry. Most of these are plastics from Warlord's fallschirmjager and Grenadier kits mixed up for a late war/reduced resources look. There is one metal minelayer in there too. I can't remember if he is in this group or in the Fallschirmjagers.

And a nice selection of Fallshirmjager specialists and officers to drop behind enemy lines. These are a combination of the Bolt Action plastics and metals. Much as I like the options available in the plastics, the metal figures have a lot more personality to the sculpts, even if some of the faces are wonky at times.

In the first step towards weirdness is a full squad of Black Sun infantry from Modiphius' Achtung! Cthulhu range. These lot are multipart metals with some very delicate parts. Scale wise they are mych finer than  Black coats, black helmets and black uniforms... dear god. The photo really isn't doing them justice as it is bringing some of the highlights to the surface... but I swear... never again. These may well be going on the repaint pile later and getting a different colour or another three layers of black wash :/

In addition to the Black Sun troops, we've got three Nightgaunts for Black Sun to summon and use to terrorise the poor allies. Again, these are form the Modiphius range and... once again. NEVER AGAIN! Each of these is about 7 parts. Yep, 7 parts for each of those 28mm figures. Each horn and wing is separate as well as some arms and legs... all of which are far too fragile to pin, so it is a frustrating exercise of losing bits to the floor-god, gluing bits to fingers and fingers to each other. After all that frustration, now it turns out that the paint job looks awful on camera too. What is going on this week?

The final addition to the crowd is yet another Modiphius model. This time it is one of their newer one piece resin characters, which is a much nicer sculpt. I can't for the life of me remember who it is supposed to be, or even if it is Axis or Allied. It isn't even up for sale yet, so I can't go and check :/

The last picture for this week doesn't count towards the score as it is a clearer picture of the zombies from last time around. Bits and pieces from the various Warlord plastics combined with some of Mantic's zombie parts.

This week totals to 31 28mm figures to add to the score. Lets hope that the next batch of figures is a little less frustrating and a little quicker in coming.

ByronM: Great collection of models here Paul!  I really enjoy how you mix and match parts from different kits to make some of your figures work for what you want.  All of these are great paint jobs, and I feel your pain about doing black figs, they never turn out as we would like them do they?  They look good from here though, they just lack contrast, but that is part of the point of them, right?  

Keep up the good work and I hope you get some more time around the house to paint rather than gallivanting about for work, I know how that gets old fast.  Anyway, 155 points are added to your total.

From PhilipK: The Dirty Half Dozen... and a Tank. (45 Points)

This is a weird submission, I admit.

I joined this Challenge to find the motivation to paint my Late War German Bolt Action army. And, thus far, I have followed that goal; six of what will be my Veteran Grenadier squad are painted. And then, with a month abroad looming, I thought I'd try and jump in early on the Armour challenge week with one of my Panzer IVs.

Hopefully these pictures don't highlight (too much) my departure from historical colour palettes. I apologize to any and all military or historical purists viewing these pictures. Please, forgive me.

Mr Tank by himself for the Armour Challenge.

Here, then, is my first entry for this competition and my last for at least the next 4 to 5 weeks. I know I will have some catching up to do, and a not a lot of time to do so, but I am very excited to continue participating in this event.

Until next time,

Phill.

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First off, welcome to the Challenge, Phill! It's great to have you along with us this year out.

These figures look very fine with lots of character and a punchy colour palette - they definitely look like a bunch of devil-may-care veterans. I also really like how you did their basework for them, with their shattered brickwork and scattered debris. 

It's great to see a early model Panzer IV. We often see the later 'H' version with the armoured skirting, so this fellow is a refreshing change of pace. I like the weathering on the tracks, exhaust and ventilation grills. (PS: I slipped seeing your note on this being for the Armour theme round so I'll pop this in there as well when the time comes.)

Well, this is a nice start to a beautiful relationship. Now, just remember to come back in 5 weeks! ;)