AHPC6 Entries - Mexicagrave!

A return to 28mm for this summary post and the first handful (or so) of figures for my Mexicagrave project.

I entered the ball court with these eight low-level warriors or priest-warriors:

Aztec warriors and priest-warriors gained recognition and rose through the ranks by capturing enemy soldiers for sacrifice at the temples. Those who captured an enemy were given a shirt of padded or quilted armour and gained certain other rights.

The next batch were some two-captive warriors in the Huaxtec suits:

I got all catty for my third Mexicagrave entry - some Jaguar Knights and a pair of cougars/pumas:

To become a Jaguar Knight you had to have captured four enemies in battle. This was one way for a commoner to raise his family to the junior ranks of the nobility. The Jaguar Knights became full time warriors, acting as police in the cities and providing escorts for merchants, the tribute trains and for diplomatic missions.

The cougars are there to hunt virile, muscular young men...


The fourth entry was some more wildlife to prowl the lost city - a pack of wolves:

My fifth batch of figures was four priest-warriors:

I'm not sure about the back-banners - they are a bit weak and could end up breaking during games. I might go back and reinforce them with a short piece of wire.


The sixth and final Mexicagrave submission was some more wandering monsters - a horde of ghouls!

"Why twenty of them? You don't need that many for Frostgrave" you might well ask. You see, I'm thinking of replacing skeletons and zombies with them for my setting. Mind you, I do have some plastic and metal skeletons on the shelf, so the ghouls might just replace the zombies.


I have bought some reinforcements which I'll paint up at some point in the next couple of months.Not to mention some more wildlife - bears, crocs, vultures, coyotes, some more felines and a few other things.

The Stuff What I Did

Before I get onto the main bit of the post, the order I placed with GZG a few weeks ago arrived today:

There are two large mecha and two "crab" tanks for my Crusties, along with two packs of reinforcements for the infantry (one of the regular infantry squad support weapons and one of the armoured infantry). The remaining figure is a 25mm prisoner of war that I was planning to use as part of my risk takers entry, which was also to be Part 2 of "Revenge on Ray" - when I knew it wasn't going to arrive in time, I had to change tack. Now that the Challenge is over, I might still produce Part 2,,,possibly in time for people to have seen it before Salute!

OK, so onto the real business of this post - "The Stuff What I Did".

I got everything I'd painted for the Challenge out on my desk last night and took some pics. And here they are:

Everything

Half of my 6mm Rebs

The other half

15mm Choson Korean Righteous Army

15mm Crusties

Bonus round entries

Character figures

Salutesville civvies and prison officers

28mm cougars for Mexicagrave

Aztecs, ghouls and wolves for Mexicagrave

Pretty impressive I'd say!

My plan is to do individual posts for each group of submissions over the next couple of weeks.

Challenge Day 78 - Crusties Test Paints

Before getting onto the meat of this post, there's some gravy for you.

My submission in the Nautical bonus theme round came out in joint 3rd place, which was rather pleasing and unexpected. To see the results announcement, click this link.

I did manage to finish painting and submit the four Aztec priests yesterday. You can see the post here.


But now for the meat of the post. I've spent a few hours today doing test paints for my Crusties. Let me know what you think of them.

Crusty light walker (and test of basing scheme):

Colours used:
Walker - Basalt Grey, German Grey, Sky Grey, Black, Dark Vermillion, Orange Red
Ground colour - Saddle Brown, black wash, damp-brush of Saddle Brown, dry-brush of Saddle Brown/Light Grey, wash of selective areas with 2:1 red/black mix.

Crusty armoured infantry:

I haven't done the bases on this or the rest of them yet.

Crusty scout on large scutterbug (test of the bug scheme):

I'm now wishing that I hadn't glued the riders on - painting the saddles would be much easier!

The base-coats were Khaki for the fleshy bits; saddle brown spotted with hull red for the carapace parts of the legs and the lower shell plates; hull red dotted with saddle brown for the main carapace plates. The whole bug was given a sepia wash.

Crusty Infantry:

I did two tests here, just for the base colours - I'll leave the weapons and bandoliers for when I paint the rest of them.. One was comparing sepia and umber washes over a tan earth base. The other was comparing four different base colours (Medium Grey, Iraqi Sand, Tan Earth and Middlestone; all with sepia wash).

Sepia wash on left, umber wash on right

L to R: Middlestone, Iraqi Sand, Medium Grey, Tan Earth

My conclusions:

The four base colours I've used for the infantry all work well and look good with sepia wash. The umber wash doesn't look as good, so I won't be using that. I might try a couple of other base colours to add some variety.

The colour scheme for the scutterbug looks good. the one thing I might go back and do is to add a different colour to the end of the "eye" stalks. I could also try varying the spot colour on the carapace plates.

I'm happy with the colour scheme for the walkers and the armoured infantry. The one question remaining is the ground colour on the bases. I'm happy with the colour of the earth, but I'm not sure about the colour of the stones. I could just leave them the same as the earth colour but the bases would then look rather plain. Maybe a grey-green tinted with the red/black wash I used in my last step?

Challenge Day 75 - Aztec Reinforcements

I was a bit shocked when I got home this evening. There was a small parcel waiting for me from The Assault Group. I'm now wondering what the "red card of frustration" I received yesterday is for.

Anyway, time to show the contents:

The box

The shinies

The freebies - an Eagle knight and a captive

I've now opened all the packets, and sorted the figures into baggies ready for prepping. Oh, you want to know what all the packets contained? Okay

Top row (L to R):

• assorted weapons, shields, back banners and the two freebie figures
• Tequihuaqueh (0 and 1 captive warriors)
• Warrior priests
• 3-captive warriors

Bottom row (L to R):

• Tlaxcalan command group
• Itzimitl (demon suit) warriors
• Jaguar warriors
• Quachicqueh (shorn ones)

As for painting, I haven't done any this evening as I was feeling a bit zombified. I hope I'm not going down with something. Of course, that means it is unlikely that I'll be able to get them all finished in time to submit before the Saturday deadline. If I just focus on a few of them, that might be possible.

Challenge Day 74 - Aztec Priests and Demons Day 1

So, what's been going on since my last post?

On Monday evening I spent a couple of hours spraying the Crusties with black primer:

I also spent a bit of time working out paint schemes for armour, weapons and equipment. I still need to decide how I want the bases to look - I'm considering a "scorched earth" look.

Yesterday I wasn't in the mood for painting, so took the evening off.

This evening I've made a start on the last seven Aztecs from my original batch (reinforcements are almost here - I got the "little red card of frustration" from Royal Mail today. These seven consist of four priest warriors and a "demon warrior" (Itzimitli) command group. Having learned my lesson from painting the jaguar warriors, I chose to start by painting the feathered suits.This was done in three steps - basecoat in a dark shade; heavy damp-brush in a mid shade; fairly selective light damp-brush in a bright shade. Two of the priests and two of the Itzimitli are in white suits, highlighted up from light grey, another priest is in green, the last in red and the Itzimitli commander in blue.

Basecoat

First highlight. Errr, yes, that is a different figure in blue...

Second highlight

I'll be basecoating the bases later on tonight. Tomorrow I'll be working on the flesh, hair, wood bits, loincloths and sandals. On Friday I'll be doing the shields, back-banners and the Itizimitl helmets. With luck, I'll be able to finish them in time for submission on Saturday in time to submit this week.