From RobertT: 6mm Swedish Cavalry (45 points)

This post is the reason why I joined this challenge.  My mate Steve and I started playing the Great Northern War using Beneath the Lily Banners supplement "Talon and Claw" with big battalions (72 figures) and big squadrons (12-14 figures).  Which is fine except that Steve says he "can't paint".  So I stepped in and painted both armies in exchange for a hardback copy of the rules.  We were having a grand old time with victories going back and forth, then Baccus released "new improved" Swedes with more dynamic poses and, without any notice, about 200 Swedish cavalry landed on my doormat.

 

Hopefully it is possible to see the size difference between the old sculpts at the front and the new ones at the back.

 

 

To give an idea of how long the new arrivals have been sitting staring at me, I had to brush the cobwebs off the undercoat before I could begin.  And then I decided to paint anything BUT these, adopting the same mindset of someone who leaves all their homework to the last possible minute before going back to school.  I even tidied my room before finally biting the bullet.  Here they are having almost completed the horses.  Once these are done I can get on with my own Saxons, Poles and Cossacks.

 

 

I have completed three squadrons of Swedish cavalry of 14 figures each.  They are based but not textured.  Steve has found some Vallejo texture gloop which he wants to try out, so I have painted the horse bases "generic wargame brown" and left them at that.  Hopefully 42 points is accurate for this state.

 

 

They are in a "typical" Swedish wedge shaped charge which looks right.  

I have a palsy in my right hand which can be quite vexing so I tend to use inks at this scale.  Various browns (Burnt Umber, Sepia and Antelope Brown) with different amount of thinners for the horses and thinned Prussian Blue for the uniforms.  Hence the white undercoat instead of the more traditional black.  To get the yellow facings to stand out, I had to do a quick dab of tan first.  At this scale I am not interested in painting every little detail and the uniform shade might not be 100% accurate.  But they look like Swedes on horses and I can tell which direction they are facing.

When I was painting my Ancient Spanish for Hannibal's army, I used contrast paints instead of ink to get a lot more variety and they came out really well.

To do the hat lace and the gold trim round the flags, I deployed my secret weapon.  Gel pens.  I cannot recommend them enough for this scale and 15mm too.  Store them on their side, not tip down or up as gravity does bad things to them.  I thought they deserved their own photo.

Final shots of today's unit charging one of my Russian battalions.  In this scale the massed ranks really look like a battalion, even though the footprint is the same as 12 15mm figures.

 

 

 

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Sylvain: 6mm is my favorite scale and your nicely done Swedish cavalry reinforces my addition to it. They are so tiny yet so easy to visually "read" as cavalry on the board, even at arms length. Your colors are vibrant and they really look in motion. I will add 3 points for the flags. It has been an honor to be your minion; "à la prochaine".

 

 

From RobertT: 28mm Wars of the Roses 20 figures (104 points)

Perry plastics have a lot to answer for!  I think I had my first bash at making and painting their Wars of the Roses figures when they first came out.  Inspiration and dread combined in equal measure.  I have been gradually reducing my pile of plastic with various degrees of success.  AndrewG's Northampton Project provided the inspiration for another attempt.  I am having a go at painting the livery for the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Oxford.  The attempts are not shown here!  One day I will get to Andrew's level.

In the mean time here are some of their well willers / henchmen.  I live a couple of miles away from the village of Paston in Norfolk and have some individually based figures for the various fights Sir John Paston and his wife got themselves into.  His retinue of 10 figures shown with the yellow / white banner is probably the maximum he could afford.  His livery of Yellow and White is interesting as it breaks the most basic rule of heraldry that there should only be one "metal", gold / yellow or silver / white but not both.

The Duke of Norfolk wanted some of the properties that Sir John had "inherited" from Sir John Falstaff so he sent his knights to get them.  In this case I have chosen Sir Thomas Waldegrave with his red / white livery.  I have tried to give the knights brighter steel armour than the rank and file but I am not sure that my photography will pick this out.

The flags are from Freezywater 25mm scale but perfect for 28mm.

They are based on 3mm MDF from Warbases as I find that easier to pick up with 60mm frontage and 50mm deep.  The basing material is a huge bag of crushed coral I got when I was 16 (over 40 years ago now) to do some Wake Island games with my Airfix Marines vs Japanese.  This coral is stuck down with a mixture of brown paint, matt medium and water.  Matt medium works as well as PVA but doesn't shrink or warp. Then grass is stuck on.

The standard bearers are using pike arms from the Perry mercenary set and I had to trim down the pole.  I have just spotted that the spear point on Sir John Paston's flag is not straight.  I am not going to re-do it though.

I am still working on my photography and there is still too much shadow.  Hopefully next year it will be better. 

The grand idea is to be able to play with Never Mind the Billhooks or something like that.  The number of figures on a base doesn't actually matter in my mind as casualties can be counted next to the unit.

By my reckoning that is 20 blokes at 5 points each = 100 points. 

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Sylvain: You beautifully combine history and painting in your post. Your recipe for making bases will also come handy to many challengers, I'm sure. I'm going to add an extra 4 points for the flags. Génial!

ROBERTT - 12 Lengths of Hedges or Vineyard (12 points)

 

This is my first proper terrain entry.  In between watching pain dry, I thought I would try my hand at some hedges to line or be fixed to fields.  Materials used - Pan scrub? Check; Lots of PVA? Check; Various types of flock? Check; Isopropyl alcolhol? Check; Lollipop sticks? Check.

These are designed for use with my 15mm chaps in France, for my poor BEF chaps to lurk behind.  but then my regular gaming chum got his hands on the latest Battlegroup book for Italy and suddenly I could also use these as a Vineyard.  They are based so that they can be used as both, with a light earth AK terrain paste on 6" lollipop sticks instead of being fixed to fields.  This means that when I am defending in Italy I can have serried ranks of vines to impede any advance.  But when attacking I can place the edges facing me, thus opening up avenues of fire.  I am sure no one will notice.

This is my first attempt at terrain, so please be gentle with me.  i have spotted bare patches where the flock didn't stick to the pan scrub, so I will have to fix that.  (I only spotted this when looking at the photos, it is not as noticable from six feet away).

I have included a 15mm Peter Pig chappie for scale.  He is pointing so must be important. Also in one of the shots there is a ruler to show length.

Without further ado, let's get on with the show.

There are 12 lengths of hedge / vineyard.  I have not put any points for these as I understand that there is a mysterious prognosticating device that will determine the outcome.

I am also trying to improve my photography, there are some incedibly talented photographers in this challenge and I am looking at things like lighting and background and trying to copy with what I have to hand.

Thank you for looking. 

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Hello Robert, these are lovely looking terrain bits and very similar to how I made my bocage years ago.  The idea of using them as vineyard rows is a great one as well that I had not thought of.  It would have been nice to have a few work in progress pictures as a mini guide for others on how they were built so that they could follow along.  I am sure they will get a ton of use in various games.  Great work.

Now however, the bad news.  I am going to award a few points for the painting of the bases (1 point per strip), BUT other than that there is no real painting here.  This being a painting challenge there are no points awarded for building things (hence the reason we are allowed to build and prime figures before the challenge) and almost everything there is simply built, not painted.  I say this, not because your work is not lovely, but because I have to remain consistent and there is not much actual painting here.  That said, I have no issue with people posting these types of terrain posts, especially if you include steps on how to make them to help other people out, but I just can not award points for painting if no painting was done. I am sorry if you didn't understand about the painting part from the rules before hand, and you did create some nice terrain here, so I hope having the terrain for your games is reward in itself.  

- Byron

 

From ROBERTT 15mm TANKS [40 POINTS]

Here are some tanks.  I am working on catchy or humous titles, maybe next year.  Ever since reading of the use of a Valentine Bridge Layer at Imphal in Burma I have wanted one.  Bunker Miniatures have a 3D printed version which I snapped up.  It arrived with hardly any supports or flash and was a thing of beauty, and then I froze.  It has been on my painting table for nearly half a year, looming at me and filling me with dread.  What if I got it wrong and messed up?  I don't think I have but it took this challenge to get me to lick my paint brush and get on with it.

The other 4 tanks are 1 A9 Cruiser and 3 A10s for the BEF.  I have recently started collecting a British force for 1940 in France but lacked any tanks.  I swapped these ready made but not painted from my regular gaming pal Andy.  I gave him some beautifully painted desert A10s that I had picked up with the intention of painting over them with bronze green.  He called me a heretic among other things and so we swapped.  I think they are from Plastic Soldier Company.  I know that Andy complained bitterly about the thirteen parts that required assembly for the turret alone. (I think it was thirteen, my memory is failing.  I know it was too many).  I have not painted any unit markings on these as my hand is too shaky and I wouldn't be able to see them on the table anyway.

Without further ado, lets get on with the show.

I have always based my vehicles ever since my previous tanks' barrels broke when travelling and I find them easier to pick up.  Also it means that I cannot place my armour "wheel to wheel" which is a pet peeve of mine.

I realise now that I should have given the bridgelayer its own centrefold spread, but hopefully you can spot it. 

If my maths is any good, I count 5 x 15mm tanks = 40 points.

From DaveD  . 15mm tanks right up my street indeed . Always nice to see engineering vehicles always a good scenario plot point. Or share the PSC over engineering issue - less is more - 40 it is !. 
 

From RobertT: 15mm Vehicles for Burma (30 points)

 Gosh there was a longer hiatus between posting than I thought.  Carrying on with the odds and ends in Burma 1944.  Again Peter Pig 15mm, but this time the carriers and jeep to transport the Sikh MG team that I finished last time.  Peter Pig produced these vehicles with headless drivers and a selecion of heads depending on what one wants.  This is quite a neat idea until one comes to glue them in place.  My poor Sikh passengers look like they have had a very rough night, thanks to my seven thumbs.  Why is it that I can glue things to my fingers far easier than I can glue them where I want them to go?

Without further ado here are two carriers with crew and their trusty Vickers MG, plus a jeep for the important people, the ones who point and have binoculars.

Three vehicles in 15mm 8 points each = 24 points.

 

I placed them on a bridge and put some log bridges in shot as well purely because I told Tamsin I would, I am not including them for points.  I say "in shot", I am still getting the hang of photographing things.  This competition is actually making me think about things like lighting and stuff.

I also painted some objective markers which i am going to count as figures rather than terrain.  They are Peter Pig 15mm parachute cannisters and were easy to paint and are quite small (I have included a figure for scale) but can still be fought over.  the background is a Cry Havoc map from the olden times.  I thought it looked better than a paint splattered turntable, but I am not 100% convinced.

3 pieces x 2 points each = 6 points for a grand total of 30.

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Sylvain: Fabulous work on these British vehicles! The paint job and the basing are top notch. Now, about those terrain pieces... I guess it would be unfair to have you create a new post for the Terrain Czar, Lord Byron. I will grant you 30 points total. Bravo!