"Duck. Duck. Attack!" Byron's Landsknecht of Gusseldorf - Rank and File month (136 points)

This month we see another addition to the army of Gusseldorf. This time Landsknecht or greatswords. They continue with the livery of Gusseldorf (blue and yellow) and the signature goose feathers. 

This regiment's standard bears the Goose of Gusseldorf Rampant on a field of blue. On the reverse the banner has the regimental motto/battlecry "Ente. Ente. Angriefen!" Translated to English it means "Duck. Duck. Attack!" embodying the suddenness of attacking wilde geese and an allusion to the children's game, "Duck. Duck. Goose!"

Painting german type font is tricky.

The unit leader was sculpted to be an homage to the Nulner Landsknecht of 3rd ed. Also! Look at those pants!

 

Otherwise, the regiment is sculpted to have four rank and file poses. Like the other fairytale German models their aesthetic borrows (by which I mean it is an anachronistic mess) primarily from historical illustrations and 19th century children's books.

Finally, I also painted three halberdiers to expand my halberdier regiment: two rank and file, and a musician. the musician comes from the group of women I sculpted. I am going to use her until a sculpt a better halberdier musician model (the current one just isn't up to snuff.)

This month's painting surely exceeds the ten model minimum, but not the 200 point norm. I had painted a witch, but I wasn't happy with her so she didn't get based and completed. This means that my points for the month are a tad scant.

Greatswords with light armor x10 = 90 

Greatsword Standard and musician = 18

halberdiers x3 (inc musician) = 28

Total = 136

Paul's Border Princes Months Five and Six (798.5 pts)

Having taken the difficult decision to cash in my first ever mulligan in May (having been quite proud of not missing a month throughout the whole of  the last challenge) I'm happy to say the decision paid off and I've finished off two months worth of minis and completed my OWAC III challenge (bar the wrap up post and obligatory Bryan Ansell impersonation photo. Obvs.)

Even though I took my mulligan in May it still makes sense to me to treat these as two months worth as they were very much tackled in two distinct batches.

First to be finished (though not first to be started) were a mixed race unit of Greatswords made up of 4 x metal 4th Ed Empire Greatswords, 6 Plastic Warlord Games Landsknecht Zweihanders, and 4 x ex-Short Wars Conquistadwarfs (hopefully soon to be available again via Macrocosm Miniatures) and the Bob Olley sculpted Champion. These may become their own Dwarf infantry unit once I can up their numbers, but for now I thought including them in the Greatswords made the unit more viable and brought out the diversity of the Border Princes force that I had been seeking.

First to be started (though not first to be finished!) were the Shortwars Halfling Halberdiers. Their all metal components provide loads of detail and I'm not sure I got the posing quite right for the unit ranks. To be honest these ended up being quite intimidating as time seemed to drain away and looking back I probably should have split it up a few each month, but that hasn't been my approach this time round, going more for batch painting whole units. This posed a problem as the detail and size of the Halflings demanded some time and attention and I just didn't have the gumption for them throughout most of May. It was these little blighters that took the wind out my OWAC sails and led to me taking a mulligan. I'm glad I did though because once I got my mojo back the detail on the sculpts really repaid a little bit of TLC.

Here they are as a complete unit with the unit command and other Halfling characters I painted up in a previous month. Now they are done I feel like I can love them again. I'm done with puff and slash for a while though, that's for sure.

Month Five Total

26 Halfling Halberdiers (inc. Standard Bearer) - Light Armour, Halberds (6.5 pts each) = 175.5 pts
14 Mixed Race Greatswords - Light Armour, Two Handed Sword (9 pts each) = 126
Great Sword Champion (Light Armour, Two Handed Sword) =  34

Total for the month = 335.5 pts

On to month six then and it was finally time for the cavalry to arrive!

First up were 10 x Halfling Goat Riders from TT Combat's Warlords of Erewhon range. I'll be using them as equivalent to Kislev Horse Archers, so they'll be armed with shields, bows and hand weapons but no armour. Pretty much exactly what you see on the models except the spears will have to count as hand weapons as Horse Archers aren't allowed to take them. Booo!

I'd love to be able to recommend these minis to others but I just can't. They are made of a pretty poor quality resin (in my view) with so many casting faults and bubbles it really hampered my enjoyment of putting them together and painting them up. Plus the resin hates paint even after a good wash and a thorough undercoat. The only plus side in all this was that I ended up bashing them out pretty quickly as I knew they were never going to be great, so it let me move on to the more prestigious heavy cavalry and my army general...

The Knights' Panther have also been a real prestige unit in my mind. The rich blue and exotic animal skins on otherwise fairly standard Medieval style knights seemed the perfect marriage of historical and fantasy and the studio paint job jumped off the box art in a way that always made them catch my teen aged eye. They were not originally part of the plan for this army, although I had a couple knocking around and was thinking of adding some Battle Masters plastic knights to make up a slightly rag tag unit of heavy cavalry on the cheap. However after a trade for some BM knights feel through and some opportunities came up to get some actual KPs for a reasonable price... well my head was turned and I splashed the cash. I'm very glad I did as I feel lke this unit really gives the army some presence and some hitting power. The simple shield designs are in the colours for the whole army, and loosely echo some of the designs used on the unit banners.

Having the unit of Knights' Panther also made sense given my plan for the army general as I wanted my Border Prince to be a renegade Grand Master, returning from one of the southern crusades and deciding he would rather set up his own little kingdom and enjoy the spoils of war rather than cart it back to pay tithes to Sigmar and the Emperor. Obviously a few of his retinue decided to stay with him, and painted their armour red to emphasise their break with the order, which then becomes the army colour for his new forces.

To pay respect to the challenge and all my fellow challengers who helped me along the way with encouragement and motivation, I decided to make the moto on his shield read OWAC. I hasten to point out this is not proper freehand. It was done with a 0.5 Micron pen and still took two attempts not to look awful. the shield itself is embossed plastic, I think from a later Bretonian Knight(?) but it seemed to fit the general perfectly.

Month Six Total

10 x Halfling Goat Riders (proxy for Kislev Horse archers) - Shields, Bows, and Hand weapons (16 pts each) = 160 pts
5 x Knights Panther - Barded Steed, Heavy Armour,  Shield, Lance, Sword (39 pts each) = 195 pts
Army General - Barded Steed, Heavy Armour,  Shield, Sword = 108 pts

Total for the month = 463 pts

Combined total = 798.5 pts

So there we have it, my OWAC III Border Princes army is finished and I can finally look at some of the other models on my desk without feeling guilty. That said I'm probably going to paint up some Halfling Villagers and livestock, and possibly the start of a baggage train to flesh out the background scenery a bit.

Now, where did I put that mullet wig ready for the final army showcase picture?

Blue's OWAC 2019 Wrap up Post...Dwarf Reinforcements

Hi all,

After wrapping up the painting of the last few figures, the hand gunners and swivel gun, I was anxious to get some group shots of all the figures that I have managed to paint during the course of this contest.

So I quickly set up some terrain and started gathering my lights, tripod and other assorted Photog equipment.  

...then I spent way too much time arranging...and re-arranging my units until I was happy with how they were presented. 

But here are the results!  
 
A sizable reinforcement to the Grand Army of Strausburg...a thriving trade city on the outer fringes of the Empire. Strausburg is unique in that its rich mountain setting and acceptance of Dwarf refugees from abandoned strongholds in the Worlds Edge Mountains have given it a nearly equal population of Dwarfs and Humans.  In the City the Dwarfs have adopted much of the Imperial fashion (Puff and Slash)...and the Grand Army has adopted the dwarfs love of (and proficiency with gunpowder weapons) and large blocks of sturdy Infantry.

The OWAC 2019 has provided me the opportunity to further expand and refine my Puff and Slash Dwarf Army (which is a component of the mixed race Grand Army)...This is my largest army and the one that I have been working on the longest...literally since the late 1980s...it was the Marauder Dwarf Pike Block that started me down this path to insanity when I was 14yo!

Full Army Shot!

Click to see FULL size

And Some Close ups...

First some much needed reinforcement to my missile troops.  In the past I have always used my Unit of Bugman's Brewers to fill this role...but they are still in their 1988 paint jobs and really fit better, stylistically with my Imperial dwarf Army, so I'm glad to be able to replace them with some more appropriate shooters. And to fill this role there are no better figures than the Marauder Dwarf Xbows...these are all really great figures with a lot of variation to work with.  I decided to build two units of 12...though I fell short of that mark for one unit.  Additionally I added a small 3-man Cannon and a Swivel Gun to my force.

My original plan had been to do one large unit of Xbows...but as I started to cleanup and prime the figures it became apparently to me that there were actually two different "styles" contained within the range.  Half the figures are very much Puff and Slash...while the others have simpler "uniforms" with less puff and slash and feathers.  With this in mind I separated out the figures of each style into two units and added some more figures to bulk them to 12 dwarfs each.  The first unit of Xbows is from Strausburg proper and has fully embraced the Puff and Slash style of dress.  The second unit are recruited from outlying areas that are a little more rustic and not as concerned about being "flashy".  I have the figures ready to expand both of these units to 14 eventually.  (Also note that each unit has a "converted" standard bearer)

As to the Cannon...it is a very old style gun that will also see service with my Bret Army...this crew will transition to the Marauder Organ gun (from whence it came) when I get it painted.

The swivel gun is one of those fantastic White Knight sculpts (now sold by TAG) and is a nice addition to the Marauder swivel gun.

Next is the center piece unit....the PIKES!! (and all the rest...) When I started this challenge I opted to paint a full complete units (like the Xbows) as well as paint some reinforcements for already painted units.  For this reason I painted just two Zweihanders and nine handgunners.  Since these are not complete units and would look odd photographed as individual groups I decided to add them onto the Pike Unit for the photos...

So here we have a 21 Dwarf strong unit of Pikes with 9 handgunners arranged as "sleeves" on either side of the Pike block (they are the "shot" in "Pike and Shot") and they are further protected by a Zweihander on each flank.  This makes for an impressive looking centerpiece unit.

the Pikes are all White Knight sculpts, the handgunners are all Marauder sculpts....as is the Zweihander on the right.  The Zweihander on the left is from the short lived and tough to find Runecast dwarf range.

Points Break Down:
21 Dwarf Pike Block:      381pts
12 Dwarf Xbows:             224pts
11 Dwarf Xbows:             209pts
9 Dwarf Handgunners:  126pts
2 Dwarf Zweihanders:     30pts
Swivel Gun:                        50pts
3-Man Cannon:                 69pts
ARMY TOTAL:              1089pts

So...I guess this is the end! We have survived another OWAC and we have great stuff to show for it.  Congrats to all who stuck with it and finsihed strong (to those in the field of bones...I have only contempt...) :)

Hats off to Iannick for doing the grunt work of keeping this challenge moving forward and coming to a successful conclusion.

Cheers for now!!

Blue

Millsy's Carroburg Greatswords (234 points)

G'day Folks,

Having painted a couple of 12 figure units to test my Carroburg colour scheme I felt ready to tackle the real stars of my show... the Greatswords! Glorious blood red uniforms, massive swords and even bigger plumes on hats. Woohoo!

The unit is composed of a combination the three variants of the 1997 catalogue Imperial Great Sword miniatures, sculpted by Michael and Alan Perry when they were (IMHO) at the very peak of their GW sculpting powers. Each of the three poses is represented in roughly equal amounts and I have varied the colour scheme for each and every figure to add individuality.