And so we face the final curtain. I’ve been tidying up the
painting desk. Look how clean and pristine it is, with no more than 2 or 300
half painted figures scattered around. So much better than 3 months ago.
So I’ve
four final offerings.
Firstly, 15 Byzantine infantry by Fireforge. I bought these
on a whim, thinking they’d give me another infantry unit for Oathmark. But, not
knowing anything about Byzantine warfare, I’m now thinking abut building a
Byzantine army starting here – so, any tips would be more than welcome.
I've painted the shields white because I don't know any better, and I'm hoping to be able to source decals which will fit these shields, but so far no luck.
Next, 12 Late Roman cavalry by Gripping Beast. I’m not clear
if “Late Roman” and Byzantine are in any sense connected – does Late Roman
immediately precede “Byzantine”, for example? Or could both units be used in
the same army?
My aim with these figs was to add a cavalry contingent to a handful of Wargames
Foundry Arthurian foot which I bought second hand and am slowly repainting. Again,
these figures will firstly be used within Oathmark, but gradually built up into
a (small) army of the period. I like the idea of being able to fight hordes of
huns, though my collection currently contains only 3 (unpainted) huns. I’ll
probably end up squinting at a Mongol horde and calling it “hunnic”.
Shields and standard (which I fear is almost invisible) are
by Little Big Man.
Third up: 6 more cavalry. These are all Perry plastics, consisting
of one more Agincourt French knight (Jean, Baron of Ligne – I quite like the
fact that his escutcheon consists of a “line”, but I guess French nobility maybe did not
think of it like that) and 5 mounted archers. The archers are, of course, later
in period than Agincourt, suitable for the Italian wars, which is where they’ll
end up but they may also occupy a place in an Oathmark force for a while.
And finally Esther (reference only to be understood by UK
citizens of a certain age): 13 Perry Afghans, a mix of metal and plastic.
As usual with Perry figures, it’s quite difficult to tell plastic from metal,
which is always a sign of decent castings. One or two of the poses I’ve created
are a little melodramatic, because I intend some of these figures at least to
serve in fantasy pirate games as well as the NW Frontier. I’ve tried to paint
them in relatively subdued colours, as seems to be most accurate, but my brush
continually strays towards the vivid and bright, so it’s been difficult to make
them both interesting and reasonably realistic.
And that's my lot for Challenge XI. I wonder where we'll find ourselves in Challenge XII. Wandering a Victorian mansion where weird Chthuluesque creatures award bonus points in the basement? Trapped in a mad time machine that demands we interdimensional palettes? My bet is we'll be heading out among the stars to visit unexpected planets where paintbrushes grow on trees, volcanoes spew out Contrast colours and the only communication is through puns.
I can't wait.
Scoring: that’s 18 x 28mm cavalry: 180 points
28 x 28mm infantry: 140 points
1 flag: 1 point
TOTAL: 321 points
I’d like to thank Curt for keeping this crazy challenge
going despite the obvious impact on his sanity; Lady Sarah, of course, for keeping the crazy Snowlord going despite the almost inevitable impact on her sanity; the many manic minions for
their administrative brilliance (cough), irrespective of their sanity; everyone who
has taken a couple of minutes to wade through my verbiage or to comment on my
posts; my wife for not complaining about the paint that somehow found its way
onto the living room curtains; my son for barely mentioning the bristling fragment of sprue embedded in his cushion when he sat down to watch evening TV; our cat for recovering from what
seemed to me a terminal illness halfway through the Challenge; my agent; all of
the production crew; JRR Tolkien; my friend Napoleon; Mr Harrap, my history teacher, for illustrating
how badly a man could shave when he should have been telling us about Saratoga; all of history for just being there when it was needed….a white van has just
drawn up….there are men in white coats getting out….one of them appears to have
a taser….interesting…