AHPC XII 5th & 6th Entries - Mongols & Georgians; Crashed Starship

 Both of my entries got posted yesterday.

15mm Mongol and Georgian Cavalry:

The post can be found here: linky-link

28mm Crashed Starship:

The post can be found here: linky-link

Both posts include continuations of "The Adventures of Oscar" and "Extract from the journal of TamsinP" for your entertainment.

I've started work on the next batch of figures. I'm alternating weeks - one week will be a chunk of WW2 Japanese; the next week will be something else.

I'm currently well ahead of schedule for achieving my 1300 points target, so if I finish a batch early, I can use the "spare" days to work on things for my final few entries.

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 86 - Saturday Workbench 16 March

As the late, great Sid James might have said "Blimus!". We're only a few days away from the end of the Challenge. So few that I can count them on the fingers of one hand.

I thought I'd do a quick post this morning before I start painting so that you can see what is currently sitting on my paint table. No, it's not the Kra'Vak - they are finsihed and the post was submitted yeasterday (it should appear on the Challenge blog tomorrow as we are in the "free fire" period now). Yes, it's the Mongols. But on foot, all 42 of them. Why on foot? Well, against some troop types such as elephants, Mongol cavalry do have an option to dismount in most rules.

I should be able to get them finished by end of play on Monday, which will leave me two days to get some other figures painted. Probably more pulp. Not that I'll really need to as the Mongols will put me past my increased target.

AHPC9 Day 34 - Wednesday Update

Just an update today and no workbench post as I'm still suffering from the effects of the flu and don't feel up to painting.

The "Sport" bonus theme round entries were posted on Sunday. There were, predictably, lots of Guildball entries and quite a few gladiator ones, including mine:

Link to *my entry*


I did manage to struggle through the 'flu to finish the basing on the Mongols in time for submission yesterday:

Here's *the link*

I'm currently in 4th place on the table, but expect to be dropped back down to 5th place in the next day or so by Noel.

AHPC9 Day 27 - Wednesday Workbench 16 January

I've decided to continue with 15mm for the next few entries. As you can see, rather a lot of Mongol cavalry is on the workbench at the moment.

I finished painting this lot yesterday evening and airbrushed them with matte varnish this morning, before making a start on these:

I should finish the horses tomorrow morning. I'll then split them into two batches for painting the riders. If all goes well, they'll all be finished (including matte varnish) sometime on Friday. Which just leaves the basing to do at the weekend. I'll then have plenty of time to get something else painted for submission on Tuesday, maybe some Ming Chinese rocket troops.

Sunday Workbench 01 April

Despite taking things easy today, I got quite a bit done, as you can see.

First up, the Mongols. I finished prepping them all and got them stuck onto painting sticks. But then I had to remove a few and restick them on different sticks. I also had to remove two riders from their horses and swap them over.

You will have spotted a few figures in there which have already been primed. That was part of my rearranging.

I'll probably get them all primed on Wednesday.

And then there are the "retinue warriors" for my Sea Peoples. Well, the first batch anyway. I started on these yesterday and got a good way through; today I have got them almost finished. Just the flesh highlights and touch-ups to do.

Mind you, I might go back and redo the contrast panels on the tunic kilts as I made a bit of a boo-boo.That shouldn't be too bad as I'll be able to combine it with the touching up

I should get the painting finished tomorrow before I head out for a big King of the battlefield game at the club. I'll be able to do the Klear/ink step when I get home in the evening, and then can do the varnishing on Tuesday evening. at which point it will be time to start on the second batch.

At some point I'll be ordering a few more packs of figures (more chariots, some archers, some slingers) to allow me to morph the army to Philistines.

.

The Figures What I Prepped

Well, 'tis the season (for repeats of family favourite TV shows) and most of my UK readers should recognise my homage to the late Ernie Wise in this post's title. But enough blather, this post is to show off everything that has been prepped and primed so far in readiness for the Challenge.

Everything:

6mm ACW:

Mostly cavalry, some artillery and generals, plus casualties and gabions.

28mm stuff (and some 15mm):

Some WW2 Soviet women, some sheep, a whole bunch of gangs and civvies for Salutesville and some of the Raging Heroes "Jailbirds". Not to forget a trio of 15mm grav tanks and a trio of grav APCs.

15mm SYW Russian cavalry, generals and wagons:

15mm SYW Russian infantry and artillery, plus Three Musketeers, friends, enemies and collateral damage civvies:

Sorry for the blurry pic - red are Russians, black are Three Musketeers

15mm Nubians:

I'ms till waiting for another 48 bowmen to arrive.

15mm Choson Korean regular and irregular troops:

15mm Mongols:

This last pics is of a box containing the first of my 15mm sea Peoples to arrive (all prepped) and some figures received today from DaveD for our Curtgeld submission - I'll prep those tonight.

Phew! What a lot of stuff to paint! And what a variety! I haven't done a points count of them, but it should be over 3000 points worth with the Sea Peoples when they arrive, more if any get entered for bonus rounds. I don't expect to paint them all and at the end I will take pics to show what has been painted and what remains.

In terms of my personal priorities (but not necessarily painting order - the Bonus Theme rounds could mean stuff gets painted earlier):

1. Nubians or Sea Peoples
2. Sea Peoples or Nubians
3. 15mm SYW Russians
4. Mongols
5. Raging Heroes
6. Soviet women
7. 6mm ACW
8. 15mm SF armour
9. 28mm pulp
10. The Curtgeld group

If I excel my expectations by a huge margin and all this gets painted, I do have lots of other lead, plastic and resin in the pile that can be prepped, primed & painted.

Wish me luck!

Saturday Workbench

I had a fairly busy afternoon today. As I'd managed to finish prepping all the Nubians (apart from the two packs of archers I'm still waiting for) I decided to glue them onto painting sticks. As my plan is to prime them with two different browns as a base, I divided all the figure poses into two lots before gluing onto sticks. I also managed to get them primed - half with German Red Brown, half with Leather Brown. When I go to paint them, I'll probably pre-highlight from a high angle using a pale brown before airbrushing on a thin coat of camo black brown.

Anyway, here are some pics:

German Dark Red primer

Leather Brown primer

I also primed the Mongol reinforcements:

Medium cavalry and baggage camp bits

Heavy impact cavalry and foot

I just need to give the metal areas a black basecoat, then they can be put away until the Challenge.


I also basecoated the bases for the Nubians, just to fill in time between bouts of priming.


Tomorrow, once my chores and a bit of shopping are done, I'll make a start on the Korean crossbowmen.

Mongols Ready For Priming

Yup, that's right - all the reinforcements for my Mongols have been prepped and stuck onto sticks ready for priming. I'll do that tomorrow night.

This evening I've prepped the four packs of Sea Peoples that I've received so far; they're in a tub of soapy water right now. I won't be putting them onto painting sticks until the rest of the packs have arrived and been prepped.

I'm also working on prepping the Nubians during my lunch breaks. Once they've been prepped and washed, I'll stick all but the bowmen onto sticks for painting; the bowmen will get done when the other two packs arrive and have been prepped.


Looking ahead a short way into the future, it seems that my blog will be hitting three milestones around the New Year - 1000 posts, 750k page views and it's 5th Blogiversary. I guess I'd better come up with something to celebrate all three together.

Hey, Hey, We're The Mongols!

And they're done! Even if I did have to open the window in my painting room to hit them with matt varnish spray (it has been piddling down all day here). So, time for the pics:

The whole batch:

The heavy cavalry:

The generals:

One of the command bases is 40x40, the other two are 40x30 to represent generals included in fighting units (an option available in ADLG).

When I got back from my dad's 80th (a quiet affair - me, him, my sister and her hubby; fish & chips and wine) there was a package waiting for me - the extra Mongols I'd ordered from Donnington. So, pics of shinies:

Heavy cavalry

Medium cavalry and command

Camels and some wire spears/lances/pikes

Mongols on foot

The heavy cavalry are different to the ones I've got already - they have lances. In ALDG you have an option to upgrade the heavy cavalry to have Impact. The medium cavalry are to provide me with the extra five bases I need and the command figures so that I can do a third "proper" command base and another "included-general" base. The foot troops are to give me some flexibility; there are also some non-fighting figures to go with the camels (Clint will be happy to see those!) on the baggage camp.

One of the bonuses of expanding my Mongol force to this size is that I can also use them with my Koreans for FoG/FoGR either as nomad mercenaries in the main list or as an allied contingent. Or even as a small army in their own right (500-600 points if I take them all as superior/elite). Hmmm, it looks as though I'd only need a few more to get them up to a decent sized army...


After finishing off the Mongols this morning, I broke out the new airbrush to do some priming. I actually got quite a bit done, as these pics show:

Everything I primed

Reb cavalry, generals and artillery

Union cavalry, command and artillery

Horses, horseholders, limbers, casualties, gabions and piles of cannon shot

Korean crossbowmen

So, that's all of my 6mm ACW primed and ready for the Challenge, as well as the Korean crossbowmen which I plan to paint up this week. Looking at the pumice gel on the Koreans bases, I don't like the look compared to how I normally do them (medium grey ballast superglued on) so I won't be using it for the rest of the Koreans I've got to paint up. Still, it was worth trying as an experiment. I'm not going to try removing it - those bases will just have to look a little different.

Oh, and my new airbrush (actually the same model as the one I knackered a few weeks back) works like a treat, so I'm pleased.