AHPC 15 - Retreat From Moscow - Marshal Ney and chums. 25mm 23pts

Well hello once again fellow Challengers and thanks for taking a peek at my first entry into this years Challenge.

As you may be aware, fellow Posties Reject LeeH and myself are heading on a Retreat From Moscow adventure. Lee is painting up the Russians and already has a unit painted and posted. I'm doing the French!

And for my first figure I wanted to paint up Marshal Ney, who is synonymous as being the leader of the rearguard, during the retreat.

I was aware of a few other manufacturers, who make a Ney figures all dressed up and posed as in the famous painting by Adolphe Yvon. I chose the figure from the collection of Wargames Illustrated magazine as I think it just looks pretty darn cool.

So for the rest of my Sharpe Practice army I shall be filling out the ranks of Ney's Third Army. Which has a lot of non French units!! My plan is to have some units as actual units and some with the mixed rag tag look

Third Army Corps Marshal Ney

10th Div (Ledru)

Brig Gengoult: 24th Light Inf 4 batts, 1st Portuguese regt 2 batts
Brig Marion: 46th Line 4 batts
Brig Bruny: 72nd Line 4 Batts, 129th Line 2 Batts

11th Div (Razout)

Brig Joubert: 4th and 18th Line 4 Batts each
Brig: Compere: 2nd Portuguese regt 2 batts, Illyrian regt 4 Batts
Brig d’Henin: 93rd Line 4 Batts

25th Div (Marchand)

Brig v. Hugel: 1st and 4th Wurttemburg regts 2 Batts each
Brig v. Koch: 2nd and 6th Wurttemburg regts 2 Batts each
Brig v. Brusselle: 1st and 2nd Wurttemburg Jagers, 1st and 2nd Wurttemburg Light Inf, 2 Batts each, 7th Wurttemburg regt 2 Batts (joined in November)

Corps Cavalry (Wollwarth)

Brig Mouriez: 11th Hussars 4 Sqdns, 6th Chevau-Legers Lanciers 3 Sqdns
Brig v. Walseben: Wurttemburg Mouted Jagers 4 Sqdns, Leib-Chevaulegers (Wurttemburg) 4 Sqdns
Brig Beurmann: 4th and 28th Chasseurs a Cheval 4 Sqdns each
Brig v. Breuning: 1st Wurtemburg Chevaulegers 4 Sqdns, 3rd Wurttemburg Mouted Jagers 4 Sqdns

I did a bit of experimenting with some figures I had left over from my Haitian Revolution. To see how I could make up some Officers look a tad more chilly

I'm quite pleased with my efforts, if I say so myself. I do have loads of Officer figures to paint up, so this my go in the rank and file pile??

All three figures are from Essex Miniatures

And so to the points

4 x 25mm figures @ 5pts each

Gives me a total of 20 pts

Curt very kindly gave me an extra 3 points for the conversion work, giving me a total of 23 points. This put me in 30th place.

AHPC Bonus Round Film Characters - Inglorious Rejects

Curt bamboozeled all entrants of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge this

year with his last bonus round. "A Character(s) and/or Scene from a Movie,

TV Program, Book or Piece of Music", but the little twist was you have to

 partner up and both or all have involvement in the piece.

Well BigLee was an easy choice to partner up with as we are both members

 of Posties Rejects, I'm sure if Fran was in the Challenge this year

 he would have joined us too.

I'd seen these figures in Wargames Illustrated the month before and knew

 they fit perfectly. They are based on two characters from Inglorious Basterds,

 the 2009 war film by Quentin Tarantino. Lee agreed to the choice as

 long as he could paint up the baseball bat wielding Staff Sergeant

 Donny Donowitz. Although in his version of events, I wanted to paint up

the Brad Pitt figure, when in truth, it was him who was blabbing 

 " I wanna paint the figure with the bat!!"  

We both decided to use our figures as our Curtgeld entry too, which for those

not in the know, is the price we have to pay for entering the Challenge.

We were both unsure of how to base the figures up, in the end we decided on a

scenic base, with detachable figures. So at Cavalier a few Sundays

 ago we made a few small purchases, Lee took the figures and basing materials

 away and finished off the base.

I've gotta admit, I think we both made a great job on the figures, Lee commented on

 Lt Aldo Raine's leather coat, on how it looked.....leather! To give it an extra

 sheen, I mixed a small quantity of both Matt and Gloss varnish to make the

coat stand out from the rest of the figure. I'm very pleased with the result.

There are once again some really excellent entries into the bonus round, if you feel the

 need pop over and cast your vote, here!

BigLee's version of events can also be found here as well!

Flodden flags in action

I had an email the other day from wargamer Eric Elder, he sent me a photo of two command stands from his new project of The Battle of Flodden. Eric has used the flags that I made for both sides of the battle, that I've posted previously on this blog. I'm sure you'll agree they look great!! and I can't wait to see some more of Eric's work.
I must admit it's nice to finally see the flying high, as I've not had the time to put them on my own figures yet!!! I get a lot of ribbing from the other Rejects about this and why I've not finished the FIW rules I'm trying to write and why I've not started Fran's 20mm WWII figures and why I've not put a Viking game on for ages come to think of it, a game at all for ages...............moan, moan, moan!!!!

Also in other wargaming news, I made it into this months issue of Wargames Illustrated Woo Hooo!!. Page 90 top right picture, red stripy T-shirt, big belly poking out, (gotta do something about that). Yep that's me, I'm in deep conversation with Alex (I believe???), one of the authors of the new Saga Viking rules. Which will defiantly be making a dent in my wallet, when its released.
So if any of you feel the need, just send me your copy of your mag with a stamped addressed envelope and I'll sign it for you, he he he!!


Ray