AHPC9 Day 89 - Tuesday Update 19 March

It's the penultimate day of the Challenge and we are in the "free fire" period when people can submit posts whenever they want. I've had two entries submitted and posted.

15mm Adolescent Kra'Vak Infantry and Cavalry:

*linky-link*


15mm Dismounted Mongol Archers:

*linky-link*


The Mongols saw me sail past my increased target. I am now in 4th place with 3376 points. I haven't stopped painting though - there are a few pulp figures on the paint table right now, which should tip me over 3400 points.

AHPC9 Day 83 - Wednesday Workbench 13 March

Just a quick post today to show what I'm working on right now. If you've been following my carious Challenge posts, you might have spotted that these are some more 15mm Kra'Vak.

At the back are some warbeast riders which I have finished painting (including washes and highlights). At the front are some infantry. These are the original sculpts, a bit smaller than the more recent releases, so I am painting them up as juveniles/adolescents.

I should have finished painting them by lunchtime tomorrow; I'll be sticking them on bases and adding gunk in the afternoon, to be followed by dry-brushing of the gunk on Friday. As I'll have some time waiting for gunk to dry I will be starting on the next project to not waste time, probably the Mongols.

AHPC9 Day 44 - Saturday Workbench 02 February

Well, I've had quite a busy day today. Curt asked me to be special guest minion, so that he can concentrate on dealing with all the entries for the third bonus theme round. Which means that Senior Flight Attendant Tamsin has taken to the skies again, spreading mayhem along with all those chemtrails.

In between performing all my minion duties, I've been working on some of my 28mm SciFi terrain for Strontium Dog:

I've got a bit of weathering still to do, plus painting the ground texture and some detail painting.

As for the Kra'Vak:

All the figures have been stuck on bases. I just need to add some basing gunk and then paint and dry-brush it. That will be a job for tomorrow.

AHPC9 Day 42 - Thursday Workbench 31 January

A day later than normal, because everything has been slightly pushed back.

As you can see, work has been continuing on the Kra'Vak. The ones you saw on Monday are finished - washes, highlights and varnishing all done - apart from basing.

In the pic above, the three sticks on the right still need to be highlighted; the rest need a black wash and highlighting/touch-ups.

I've decided to leave the Kra'Vak as just these for now, but might return to the rest later in the Challenge.

AHPC9 Day 39 - Monday Update 28 January

On Thursday morning, an engineer working in the local exchange managed to disconnect my phone then reconnect me - to a different number. I have been without 'phone or internet at home until this morning when an engineer got things sorted out. And that is why I didn't do a workbench post on Saturday.

Now that I'm back online, I suppose I ought to bring you up to date. I'm still suffering after effects of the 'flu, but I'm over the worst of it. Although the remaining muscle pain is making painting a bit tough.

I did get a couple of entries finished while I was disconnected. One of them will be posted tomorrow; the other is for the third bonus round (I submitted the draft post for that today).

I'm currently working on these:

These are Kra'Vak aliens from GZG.

When the "in progress" figures are finished (probably tomorrow morning) I'll be doing some highlighting on the "hair" and heads, the armour and weapons shouldn't need anything more doing to them. And then I can get to work on the rest of the figures, before basing them all in one go. I've also got a few vehicles to paint up for this force.

SELWG 2017 - The Loot

I was in two minds about making the trip Sarrff ov tha rivva to the SELWG show at Crystal Palace last night, but I was feeling OK this morning (and not too late waking up) so I headed down despite knowing there were no trains and I'd have to face a long-ish bus ride from Brixton.

The bus ride turned out not to be as long as I'd feared and I got there at 10.30 with no need to queue. I started off with a tour of all the games to take pics (I'll be doing a separate post for those, posting tomorrow) before cracking on with shopping. I went with a short list and got all but two of the items on it (two Vallejo paints). And I may have purchased some things which weren't on the list. Oh, you know me too well - I did buy some things which weren't on my list, but they were all things which should have been on it. I did, however, manage to resist some temptations though.

The show itself seemed less busy than last year (which was less busy than 2015). A few regular traders were missing, but there were a few new ones to take their place. It was also evident that some of the games hadn't turned up.

I bumped into a large proportion of the CLWC membership at various times (including one at the bus stop in Brixton on the way down). I also met up with Ray, Big Lee and Postie for a good chinwag. I also had chats with Martin Goddard (Mr Peter Pig), Geoff from "Ham and Jam" a new terrain company and the ubiquitous Colonel Bill.

That's enough of an introductory burble though, on with the loot pics!

Products For Wargamers:

Essex Miniatures:

Some Chinese bearers and wheelbarrows to make up the camp for my Ming Chinese army.

Ground Zero Games:

I hadn't planned to buy anything from GZG, but it had been a few shows since I last made obeisance to the Evil Mr Tuffley so...after making the ritual sacrifice of cash I was granted a boon of a bunch of metal.

A Kra'Vak force for Gruntz:

Civilian power-suits:

I had a chat with Jon after making my purchases about what shiny temptations he has in the works. There will be even more new stuff released for Warfare next month and probably some more by the end of the year.

From Warlord Games and Ainsty:


WW2 Australians (Pacific theatre):

I think I mentioned a while back that I'd developed an interest in the New Guinea campaign, so I thought I'd pick up some figures to paint up. Ainsty only had the Artizan pack 2; I'll have to pick up pack 1 at some other time. I just need to get some of the Eureka figures to see how they fit with the Artizan and Warlord ones. These will give me a reasonable starter force (a short platoon) to be going on with.

Pulp Figures:
Also picked up from Ainsty, some packs I keep meaning (but forgetting) to buy:

The top two packs should make an interesting "gang" for Mad Dogs With Guns - Agents of Justice and Mysterious Masked Avengers. Boss McCoy's Office will probably become the Mayor; the 13th Precinct will boost the boys in blue.

Size comparison of Artizan and Warlord Aussies:

Artizan on left, Warlord on right

Artizan on left, Warlord on right

The Artizan are slightly shorter than the Warlord, but not so much that they can't be mixed.

That's it for today folks!

Challenge Day 39 - Points, Progress and Shinies

Points, points, glorious points,
Nothing quite like them for soothing your joints.... 

(with apologies to Messrs Flanders and Swan)

Yes, somewhere beyond 48 hours after posting the vehicles bonus theme entries, Curt managed to calculate the points for all of them and update the league table. I suspect it would have been much sooner if not for my entry which must have had him scratching his head, tearing his hair out and hitting the bottle. So - apologies to my fellow Challengers for the delay.

Anyway, my NSL fleet scored 218 points for the ships themselves plus the 50 theme bonus points. This has taken my score to 960, a welcome boost. It also means that my next entry should see me safely past the 1000 point mark, thereby winning the side challenge. Unless of course Ian has been secretly working on a huge entry of 28mm figures and gets them in before me.


Progress

The PyRats are very nearly finished. I've just got to drybrush the bases, spray them with matt varnish and do the flocking.

My Hero figure - Egil Skalagrimsson - will be sprayed with matt varnish at the same time. Tufting and flocking will be done alongside the PyRats, so I should be able to get both entries submitted before I go to bed.

I've decided to abandon work on the berserkers for now, which means that I can focus on the rest of the pirates straight away.


Shinies

The correct bits from Warlord Games finally arrived yesterday. So now I can (and already have to an extent) set to work on my entry fee, which will also be my submission for the favourite character bonus theme round. This will involve a bit of hacking, drilling, filing, adding bits of Milliput (I don't have green stuff) and sculpting. I want to make the base special for this one and have a good idea of what to do, but I need to get a couple of bits and bobs. I've got almost 6 weeks left before the bonus round, so there's no great rush. I'll be able to do a lot of the work during my lunch breaks.


Along with the small package from Warlord Games was one of those little red cards from the Royal Mail which we all love so much. I knew what it had to be and wasn't disappointed when I picked it up this morning.

That's right - my rather large order of spaceships from GZG. So, what's in those bags?

Extra ships to upgrade my NAC and FSE into fleets to mega fleet size
An ESU mega fleet
Some more NSL ships for the 5th fleet (including Big Poppa - the super dreadnought)
A bunch of civilian ships
2 packs of 15mm Kra'Vak warbeast riders

The last bits are to try out a silly idea I had for a participation game. I won't have time to work on that until the Challenge is over though.

More progress, more pics

Progress on the 15mm Sarmatians:

• 48 "Other Cavalry" assembled and primed
• Black ink wash applied to the Armoured Lancers I primed yesterday. I think the wash may have been too dilute as it doesn't seem to have picked out the details very well. I'll take another look in the morning and then decide if I need to do make up a stronger wash.

And some more pics - 25mm GZG figures again, to show my complete collection of these. I'll try to take some pics of my 15mm Sci Fi tomorrow if I have time.

NSL Jaegers:

NSL Power Armour and regular troops:

ESU:

FSE Legionaires:

Kra'Vak:

NAC: