James P - Hohensknechtes and Bergjaeger (251 Points)

Rank & File #3

April…Where the hell did March go!?

For your viewing pleasure we have:

3 Hohensknechtes – 111pts (To be added to existing Hohensknechtes unit)

·        Lance, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Barding

10 Bergjaeger – (With champion) – 140pts

·        Longbow, Shield (modelled as light armour)

And now a bit of fluff…

 

The Bergjaegers are a unit of scouts and hunters lead by either Black Cap or the Wood Elf, Nihm…no one’s quite sure which. What everyone who knows them is sure of is they are of one mind and have been companions for quite a while.

As it goes they met while Black Cap was hunting in The Ghostwood north of Kreutzhofen. Nihm had been tracking a band of goblins for days and was laying in ambush when, much to his surprise Black Cap discovered his hiding place. Black Cap offered to assist Nihm in the ambush. The elf gave it a moment’s thought and decided; if this human can sneak up on me he can sneak up on a goblin and agreed to the offer. The ambush was a nasty affair with each saving the other on multiple occasions. After the battle they returned to Kreutzhofen with the heads of the goblins to collect the bounty. The lord of Kreutzhofen has a perminate bounty on orcs and goblins. Nihm then returned to his home shortly after.

A few weeks later Nihm’s wife came to him shocked that he had a visitor at the base of the Home Tree. To Nihm’s surprise there stood Black Cap waiting quietly. How did this human find him? He was always careful to hide his tracks when returning home. When questioned Black Cap replied “Sorry…didn’t know you didn’t want to be found”.  Black Cap told Nihm he discovered another group of goblins and figured they were a good team, so he decided to call on him for help. The rest, as they say is history.

The Bergjaegers, who Nihm refers to as the Wood Spirits are very good at their job. Under the leadership of Nihm and Black Cap they have the reputation of the scout’s scout. It is said the Wood Spirits can tell you what the enemy had for dinner…Nihm can tell you how it tasted.

 

The Wood Spirits (Bergjaegers)

Nihm (Actually Legolas from the old GW Lord of The Rings line) 

Black Cap (Gotta hide that fiery red hair)

 

Hohensknechtes (Ready to join their brothers in arms)

I enjoyed painting this scout unit. It was a nice break from the yellow and white.

Jaeckel and the Lost Crusade - Month IV (201 points)

Even if doomed and meant to be lost in the sands of Araby, my pilgrim army needed some shooters: April will be the black powder's month! 

First, my favorite unit: 5 Marauder Miniatures MM65 flagellants and one Citadel fanatic converted into Sandsjaeger (the equivalent of bergsjaegers, with handguns instead of long bows). The original idea comes from this illustration, showing Gerontius, the Blind Priest, armed with a gigantic black powder weapon:

Gerontius, by John Blanche (Blood on the Reik)

For those who know the original miniatures, I've simply replaced the flails and clubs by bits from various boxes (flagellants, free company and handgunners).

And the wild bunch of crazy hermits:

For the second regiment, I should have stuck to the original plan, and paint the beggars following Pieter the Pious. Instead, I've bought a nice (but unfortunately oversized) cannon produced by Lead Adventures miniatures for the Bruegelburg range, and re-used some medieval oldies for the crew (you can still find them on Wargames Foundry website).

Hugh, Godfrey and Wart are respectively the loader, gunner and crewman of the Citadel C22 imperial cannon. They look really small compared to the bell converted into a mortar, thanks to the ingenuity of the bombardier-monk (the Philosopher designed by Aly Morrison for Talisman).

C22 - Godfrey

C22 - Hugh

C22 - Wart

TL9 - Philosopher

The whole team around the warmachine:

To conclude this fourth month, we have:
- 6 Sandsjaeger (count as Bergjaeger) with standard bearer: 7 x 13 = 91 points
- 1 cannon and the 3-man crew: 60 points
- 1 Level 5 bombardier: 50 points
- TOTAL: 201 points

See you in May!

Qrab's Empire: Irregulars (175 points)

Hot on the heels of last month's elite unit of Reiksgard, for February I went to the opposite end of the social spectrum and painted a unit of Fleglers and a unit of Bergjaeger. Combined, the two units total 175 points. (Yes, this is 25 points fewer than the target, but my contribution for last month was 28 points over, so hopefully the Challenge Overlord will let it fly).  Note from the Overlord : We are magnanimous so we will do just that.

In a short month and with multiple weeks of work travel, there were times when I wasn't sure I'd get everything finished. Next month isn't looking much better, so I expect I'll have to use my mulligan. I've got some models set aside to work on, but I can't shake the feeling I won't get close to the monthly points target.

First up for February is a unit of 8 Fleglers with a standard & musician (110 points). While I have a bunch of the Marauder Flagellants, I find them just a little too big, so I've got other plans for them. Instead, Perry sculpts from 6th edition comprise the bulk of the unit, which is rounded out by one model from the F2 Fighters range and one that I'm pretty sure is from the Cleric range (couldn't find it on Stuff of Legends).

Here's a photo of the entire unit, followed by separate photos of the first & second rank.

Religious fanatics common in the Empire.

The front rank. 

The rear rank.

As much as I like the look of the Perry's Flagellants, they were somewhat difficult to paint. This is due to the lower legs/feet and hands being fairly crudely sculpted, which made it challenging to work around.

The other unit I painted this month consists of 5 Bergjaeger (75 points), who serve as Scouts in the Imperial army.

The Bergjaeger of Nuln.

With the exception of the dude in the middle, the models comprising this unit are from the C07 Rangers line. From left to right they are Poacher, Scout, Trapper, and Gamekeeper. So far, I haven't been able to identify the range to which the middle model belongs. The models in the Rangers line are all very characterful, and I was really looking forward to painting them. However, once I got working on them, it was impossible to not to notice how rough some of the details are. If it weren't for the Challenge, I probably would have stopped painting them in order to do some reconstruction of the dodgy spots.

On a side note, I had painted three of the five models back in the late 80s (Scout, Trapper, and Gamekeeper), and stripped them so I could give them updated paint jobs for the challenge. Before sending them to the chemical bath, I remembered to take a photo of the Scout and Trapper:

c.1988 paint job with gloss varnish.

Modern paint job, unvarnished.

And with that, February is finished. It was a rough month, and I salute all of my fellow challengers that were able to make it through without falling to the field of bones.