From Curt - Jan Zizka as a young mercenary (History) - (32 Points)

For my entry to the Historical theme I have Jan Zizka, who was the military leader of the Hussites during their struggles against, well, everyone in Europe it seems. 

As a short backgrounder, the Hussites were a 15th century proto Protestant sect that adhered to the theological arguments of Jan Hus who preached that fundamental reforms were needed within the Catholic Church to bring it in line with the religion's preachings of humility and simplicity. As one can imagine, Rome had a very dim view on this kind of thing and after promising Hus safe passage to explain himself, took the opportunity to summarily burn him at the stake (as the Inquisition was often wont to do). Not surprisingly, Hus' followers in Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) took a rather dim view of this and so an armed revolt soon broke out.

Jan Zizka, previously outlaw and mercenary, was an ardent supporter of Hus and became the military leader of the Hussites. Zizka is considered by many military historians as one of the most gifted commanders of the late medieval period. He trained and galvanized Hus' peasant followers, utilized heavily armed wagon lagers as strongpoints, and defeated not one, but three holy crusades sent to eradicate them. He also quelled civil war within Bohemia and prosecuted a war against Hungary. He never lost a battle, even when he was made completely blind by mid life. It is recorded that on his deathbed he desired his body to be flayed and his skin used to furnish drums so he could continue to lead his people into battle. So. Damn. Hardcore. My grandpa was Czech and enjoyed telling me about Zizka's exploits, so I've done this entry in fond memory of him.

I found a great figure of Zizka by Northern Crusades Miniatures. He's depicted here as a young man, still with one eye in the game, being all medieval and badass. 

I imagine him at the titanic battle of Grunnewald in 1410 (which saw the collapse of the Teutonic Order), so I've set him against a knight who is rising from his downed mount, ready to carry the fight on foot. Great minis and real joy to paint. Gosh, who knows, maybe there will be more Hussites down the road. Wagons Ho!!

For points, I'll ask for 10 for Zizka and the knight, 2 for the downed mount and 20 for the History bonus. So, 32 in total.

Thanks for dropping in for a look. I hope you have a great day!

- Curt

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Dude, some brilliant painting here, and some brilliant history too! I was so pumped when I saw the title of this post. Not only was the painting and story excellent, as expected, but my immediate thought was "oh F*CK YEAH, CURT'S GONNA HAVE TO DO WAR WAGONS NOW!" You will now have this figure of Zizka on your shelf, telling you to paint some up...having the Hussite leader with no war wagons would just be an un-earned victory for the empty Catholics in Rome, right?

Maybe you could start in 10mm? Just saying...

Asking to have your skin flayed to make drums...sounds like something out of a Siege of Terra novel!  

Wonderful submission as ever dude, thanks so much. 

GregB

From MattW: medieval bits! (49 points)

 Medieval bits 

First up a few buildings from Tabletop World plastic 28mm range to add to my medieval building collection. 

I spackle finish (pre mixed plaster) the gaps between the collombage. I mask the collombage (paint on mask all) then add the plaster, let set a little, go back and then dapple with a tooth brush to give it texture and to hide the tabs that they come with. I then undercoat and paint with artist acrylics , then add washes etc. I have also done some interior work as I can then use them for skirmish gaming. When I complete my castle build later this year they will be put on village bases that slot onto the castle board for instant city scape. 

Farm manor and outbuildings 

Terrain x 3 pieces  14 points 

Main building 4 inches x 4 x 5.5 inches

Stable 3 x 4 x 4 

Outbuilding 3 x 4 x 4 

Then a siege engine, a mix of foundry and mirliton miniatures (foundry crew). This has been sitting around since my last medieval entry as I wanted to add a counterweight for the stone and have my crew reloading it or pulling it as the lever is not really correct to my engineering mind, I eventually just gave up and made the counterweight and added cordage. 

28mm Siege artillery and and two crew 20 points

Finally a mounted and dismounted personality, closer to renaissance than medieval really from the Perry WOTR range.

28mm mounted and dismounted miniatures 15 points

Cheers

Matt

Nice work for your second post of the day, Matt.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but your points claims are off somewhat. The buildings come out as 150 cubic inches, which is 0.7 terrain cubes, so 14 points. And the siege engine is a crew served weapon, so that's 10 points rather than 15.

Tamsin

From MattW: Lady Sarah Limousine, ART House studio (55 points)

 Lady Sarah Limousine, Medieval, Book studio

First up is a ride from Casting Couch to the Art House studio  in Lady Sarahs Limousine as my offering I offer a late medieval milking maid. 

28mm miniature @ 5 points = 5 points

Lady Sarah Limousine 20 points

Art House Studio

The short film “The Merchant of Maine”, like all arthouse written for the stage, a play then a movie, retold many times the merchant comes from rags to riches, despised by the rich he tries to win over a noble widow, but one day glances the milkmaid and a love trist is born. 

Whoa Milk maid 

28mm miniatures x 2 @ 5 points = 10 points 

Art House Studio = 20 points

Total 55 points 

cheers

Matt

Nice set of figures, Matt! 

Tamsin

LeeH - Medieval Town & Church (30 Points)

I had intended to get the last units of my Tudor army finished this week but time got away with me and so I decided to do something ‘easier’ this week by skipping ahead to some medieval buildings. As it was, they were decidedly more tricky and intricate than anticipated…painting medieval wood frame buildings in 2mm is very fiddly! All the buildings are from Brigade Models and are wonderfully detailed for 2mm buildings. The surfaces also have a bit of texture to them which makes painting flat surfaces like plain walls or roofs easier. 

Confident I knew what I was doing I then decided to have a go at a small town with a much larger church, which may be associated with a monastic order or a saint. There are more streets, and larger buildings all tightly clustered around muddy roads. As would be typical for a market town I made the main street a little wider than the side roads. For the groundwork, I used my usual mix of turf with some lighter-colored grass patched for contrast. The penultimate stage was to soak a few small clumps in PVA and glued them into place to represent trees. The last step was a dabble of textured paint (European Mud, by Vallejo) to blend the roads and bare patches in a bit better. Overall I’m pretty happy with my first foray into 2mm town planning!

I also did this small country church. There’s not much to say about this other than the detail is very fine for such a small model and there was little to zero cleaning required prior to undercoating. 

Points Estimate:

I honestly haven't got a clue. Using the 6x6x6 cube method, this lot is worth about 1 point! So clearly, that doesn’t work for smaller scales. I reckon each building is like painting a 15mm figure in terms of detail painting, but I’ll leave that tricky judgment to poor Teemu. You may have to ask the Snow Lord for a ruling on this as I couldn’t find a precedent from previous entries?? 

Best of luck mate, and I’ll have my fingers crossed for a high number 😉

From TeemuL: This is a tricky judgement, indeed. Based on the very strict cube counting by yesterday's minion I have my hands tied to the sections, subsections and paragraphs, but may be my inability to understand them results in variations. 6x6x6 (the devilish code) means one, so I'll give you one. One cube, that is, meaning 20 points. And 10 more from the bonus category. If someone feels the scoring is way off in any direction, just let me know, and I'll do my best to correct my errors. :)

These building are so nicely painted, that it is difficult to see their real size, which might have affected my minioning. There are no measurements to take guidance from, I could easily accept them being 15mm buildings and worth bucketload of points, but I'll take your word for them being 2mm. They look very nice, Lee!

From SimonG: Vlogsphere ... Medieval Bureaucracy or the True Story of the Peasant's Revolt (45 points)

The scene – East Kent, the road to Maidstone 4pm Thursday 24th May 1381. 

Walter Tayler and his young French wife Genevieve are returning home after a busy day trading at the market in Canterbury when they are stopped by the Dominican Friar and parish tax collector, Father Cummins, with his bailiff Sir Boris Johnstone ...

Two weeks later first fatality in Kent of the Peasants revolt occurred as the people of Kent “made their chief one Watt Teghler of Maidstone” and instigated the Great Revolt of 1381!

* * * * * * * * 

Although the dates and events are historically correct we cannot be sure that Walt (about whom there is precious little known) was actually stopped by a tax man ... and as to what Boris had in mind, hmm parallels with recent events?

Anyway this little vignette demonstrates that taxation and bureaucracy have always been with us. It uses Wargames Foundry figures and I hope you enjoyed it

Five 28mm figures (four people plus the ass) should be good for 25 points plus the 20 point bonus for a stop off on Vlogsphere makes 45. Next stop Coruscant and some Imperial Romans!

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Haha! Well done Simon. A little bit of social/political commentary is good for the soul (and I find it interesting that it is the ass that suggests the 'exit'. :))

A wonderful vignette, finely painted and artfully based.  Question: What did you use for putting together the comic book panels?

- Curt

From SimonG: A One Eyed Giant plus my first trip on Sarah's Star Yacht (60 points)

A little bit of a mixed bag this week with two very different sets of figures. Firstly landing adjacent to Caprica we arrive at Arda and deliver something fantastic and Tolkeinish -- Bronte the Cycolopean Norse giant!

Bronwen is a Black Rose Wars figure from the Stator expansion set (I've used a lot of these figures last year) and is a 50mm or so plastic sculpt. Quality is pretty good with plenty of interesting detail to work with.

I especially liked how the flames and glowing effects came out this time, I'm continuing to work on this sort of thing. Plus eyes which really pull a figure together.

Leaving Arda we hitch our first trip on Lady Sarah's Star Yacht courtesy of these two medieval sisters -- you can almost hear the conversation with the younger "lady in red" insisting that yes she is going to go off on Lady Sarah's caravan to the stars despite her elder sister wanting to stay and help look after her cousin!

These are Wargames Foundry figures -- a smallish 28mm but work well as table decoration for my Hundred Year War project. Nice work on the hair this time, plus my first time painting on nostrils (somehow they seemed necessary although not sure how many will be inspecting the figures from below)

Anyway I hope this carries me on to my next stop Glorantha where we should find some of Muninn's brothers and sisters!

Points wise I make this 10 points for Bronwen (54mm size figure) plus 20 points for the stop on Arda, then two 28mm figures makes another 10 points and 20 for Sarah's Star Yacht for a total of 60.

[For those that take an interest in these things many of these photos are focus stacked macro shots, I use Focus Stacker on a Mac plus a Nikkor AFS 105 1:28G mounted on a D750]

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Lovely work Simon. The Cyclops/One-Eyed Giant looks very imposing with his single gazing eye (and two scary hammers!), but I have to say that the two sisters are my favourite of this submission. The grouping is spot on for their sibling conversation and I really like the groundwork as well. As hobbyists, we spend countless hours trying to perfect camouflage, heraldry and uniforms, but we rarely consider the importance of nostrils. I think you're onto something here, Simon. :)

Great work!

- Curt