The Scots

 Part of these were a unit in my Scottish Highlanders force for The Pikeman's Lament... I guess they still could be... but they're based a bit different now, so... Probably not... 

When I finally got going again on all the other Swashbucklers I'd originally picked up for playing En Garde, I wondered if I had any other "spare" figures that could be cobbled together into a gang... and I didn't really, but I got it in my head that I needed a scottish gang, so... these got rebased like the rest of them, and I painted up a few more to go with them! 

These are the two newly painted ones... 

The whole gang

The Laird Fionnlagh

Elder Niall from the local presbytery

Diarmad, Fionnlagh's chief lieutenant

Leodhas, Fionnlagh's other trusted  lieutenant

Gillbeart the Piper

Tamhas

Peahair

Sandaidh

Aonghas

Coraidh

Will this be a Scottish gang for En Garde...? Or Flashing Steel? 

Or will a few of them become a Scottish Hunting Party in Devilry Afoot!? 

Given my current interests, probably the latter!!

En Garde! - The Blue Crew

 Back to rhyming and not alliterating.. I couldn't call them the Blue Bunch, as I already called another group the Brown Bunch...

This is the last of the miniatures I'd bought to use with En Garde! The Swashbuckling Skirmish Wargames Rules from Osprey Games which I bought EIGHT YEARS AGO when it first came out (both the game and these miniatures...) 

I did not design the gangs based on points or anything... just put them into groups that I thought looked good and went with that!? 

This last bunch, I'd only ever finished two of them, and these other six were just finished up last night! 

The Whole Blue Crew. 

(I really need better names for the gangs...)

Unlike the last few, I didn't bother to try and cost them out with point values and try to cram them all into 100 points for a basic starting warband... Honestly, as I've been finishing them up, I've been thinking of using them with OTHER rules!? Mostly Flashing Steel... but also maybe Devilry Afoot...? 

I did name them all, though... 

François Boullogne - the leader of this band 

Claude Blanche

Marc Rigaud

Jean Lorrain

Pierre Boucher

Edgar Mignard

Henri Le Brun

Édourad Grandon

And... that's all of them... 

Will I get to PLAYING En Garde!? I have no idea. I do have some other games I do want to try out that may or may not involve some of these swashbucklers... 

Work-In-Progress Wednesday - 11 September 2024

Not a lot of newly painted stuff going on... I've kind of taken an extended break to go on a little sidequest to rebase a BUNCH of figures... It started with the Swashbucklers I bought for a game called En Garde from Osprey Publishing... I can't even remember what prompted me to start with THOSE?! It's a relatively small collection of figures, I guess... 

But then decided to rebase ALL THE ANCIENT GREEKS!? Well... all the ones that were painted.. there are still LOADS  that were slated to end up on multi-figure bases for De Bellis Antiquitatis that are still on their little square MDF temporary painting bases... 

Once the painted ones are all rebased, I'll do some reorganizing and decide which I'm going to keep for sure to paint up to make a few armies that would work for a few different games I like... and then maybe look at disposing of the surplus figures...? 

ALL THE GREEKS (well... most of them... SOME of them... there are actually a lot more, but you get the idea!)

Also, the Blue Brigade - unlike the others, this was largely unfinished, so, I've had a bit or work to finish them off! 

Everything else on the workbench is, more or less, in the same state it was LAST WEEK.

Maybe I've done a BIT of work on these Stormcast... 

Hopefully this rebasing project will run it's course and I'll be back to painting Age of Sigmar models... The priority, currently, is to finish the Stormcast Eternals Spearhead army... after that...? One of the other Spearhead armies...? Or maybe switch gears and get some stuff done for Warhammer Quest..? Or Warhammer Underworlds...? 

OR... maybe I'll take a break from the break and put the re-basing project on hold for a few days to see if I can finish off the Stormcast to take to the Spearhead League Day on Sunday...? We shall see...

WHAT IS EVERYONE ELSE WORKING ON THIS WEEK!?

En Garde - The Brown Bunch Redux

 This one was easier and quicker to do as they were ALL painted and only needed rebasing... which does require some repainting, but generally just the shoes!

The Brown Bunch

Again, I decided to figure out how they could all be shoved into a 100 point warband... 

Hieronymous Vermeer - Rank 4 - Sword, Dagger - 22 points

Maarten Cock - Rank 3 - Sword, Light Armour - 17 points

Frans Vellecoop - Rank 3 - Sword, Dagger - 15 

Willem Bloot - Rank 2 - Sword, Dagger, Pistol - 14 points

Joachim Schooten - Rank 2 - Matchlock, Dagger - 12 points

Pieter Kunst - Rank 1 - Halberd, Dagger - 7 points

Jan van Florin - Rank 1 - Blunderbus - 6 points

Dirck Dijck - Rank 1 - Blunderbus - 6 points

Total: 99 points! 

I just realized, as i was finishing this up, there are a BUNCH of attributes that can be given to models at 3 points each... Ugggghhhh... I'm going to have to redo all of these.. Maybe I'll have to up the points limit to each warband... ah well... I have a starting point. 

Also... Should probably just do these for Flashing Steel/Song of Blades and Heroes... 

Just the Blue Brigade to finish up. Only two of them were ever completed, so I have a few to finish up - like, beyond just the shoes! 

Of course... It's occurred to me that I don't really have a SETTING for these... Because I ALWAYS think in terms of campaigns and settings (well... ALMOST always)... But for this I just got really excited about the game when it was announced and bought myself a bunch of miniatures from Wargames Foundry, without much thought about WHERE these gangs would be fighting - just imagined a nebulous, generic European city... or maybe a very europeanized colonial city...? Lately my mind has been drifting to the idea of a fictional city... and then I thought - What about the Princess Bride!? 

I remember the countries were Florin and Guilder, were the names of cities ever mentioned...? Was the capitol of Florin just Florin City...? (This idea initially popped into my head when I was writing the previous post about the Red Warband and got thinking one of the miniatures looked a little like Count Rugen (from the film version) - if he'd been dressed in green or yellow, instead of red... and I briefly thought about modelling an extra finger onto him! 

I will have to  give this more thought... Gangs of Florin City...? 

En Garde! - The Red Warband Re-Based!

I looked it up, groups in teh game are called "Warbands" and I do like using the proper terminology used in games... 

As with the GREEN TEAM posted a few days ago, the Red Warband had ONE minature that was not, for some reason painted... (Why just ONE in both warbands!?) The Brown Warband, on the other hand is completely finished, and the Blue Warband is a little over half done...? 

Some of these aren't really all that RED... they're more of the "Warm Hues" Warband... 

So I finished up this one guy with a pike... Maybe that was supposed to be a standard bearer. 

And here is the rest of the Warband freshly rebased! 

I started flipping through the rules and realized/remembered that I bought these without any knowledge of the rules and just split up all the miniatures, more or less, at random (or... just what looked to me like a good - or interesting? - warband) without ever actually figuring out - points-wise - if ANY of these actually worked... 

So I started looking some more and had the hardest time trying to find how many you actually NEED for a game. I had a brief panic when I cam across the WHAT YOU NEED FOR A GAME section and it listed about 20 miniatures!! Then I realized they probably meant for the complete game - like, the total miniatures required for both sides!). Eventually I found there ISN'T any hard and fast rule about how many to use. 

I found a section that reference the suggested size of battlefield for a 100 point game and discussion of sizes to use for larger games... So I guessed the expected starting place was 100 points... but then had another panic when I saw that a Rank 5 Leader (the very best of the best) was 26 points, but the Rank 1 and Rank 2 fighters - which the majority of the warband is meant to be comprised of are only 4 and 9 points, respectively... but to this are added more points for weapons (basic ones - dagger, sword, etc - are free though)

So I thought I might cost out this warband to see if I have enough!

Leonardo di Lodovico - Rank 4, Medium Armour, Sword - 26 points

Raphaello di Lodovico (the rakish younger brother of Leonardo) - Rank 3, Sword, dagger - 15 points

Andrea da Vinci (Leonardo's trusted lieutenant) - Rank 3, Sword - 15 points

Tommasso da Caravaggio - Rank 2, Sword - 9 points

Piero Bellini - Rank 2, Blunderbuss, Dagger - 11 points

Giorgio Botticelli - Rank 2, Pike, Sword - 11 points

Giovanni Alberti - Rank 1, Matchlock Musket, Dagger - 7 points

Fillipo Gentileschi - Rank 1, Halberd - 7 points

Dammit... that comes to 101 points. I guess I could make someone's initiative less great for -1 point...? 

Initially I'd made Leonardo Rank 5, and Andrea Rank 4 and Giovanni Rank 3 or 4...? And gave anyone with a helmet "Light Armour" (there is no clear definition, that I could find, that differentiates what exactly is "Light", "Medium" and "Heavy" armour!?) and all that very quickly added up to more than 100 before I even added in the weapons! 

Yeah, I gave them all names... 

afterwards I realized I should have saved Leonardo and Raphaello for the Green Gang... 

Oooh... maybe I need alliterative names... the Green Gang... the Red Retinue... the... uh... Blue... Band..? The Brown Brigade...? 

I also got it in my head that I could cost out the warband for Flashing Steel - the swashbuckling game based on Song of Blades and Heroes. 

Unfortunately, unlike EVERY OTHER GAME based on Song of Blades and Heroes... there aren't really "army lists". All the other games will have a list of pre-made characters or fighters with their Quality, Combat, and any Special Rules, and a point value, that you can quickly use to come up with a warband - or, at least, gives you a place to start and then adjust as necessary... 

But there is NOTHING like that in Flashing Steel - just a list of famous pirates through the ages and what their stats point costs would be (ranging from about 70 points to 120)!? 

So I'd have to make every fighter from the ground up and that just seemed like too much work for today... (but possibly a fun exercise for a future day - because I DO LOVE the Song of Blades and Heroes system - though it has been YEARS since I've actually PLAYED it!?) 

So I have two complete warbands... Maybe I do need to figure out the En Garde rules and play a game... (or spend some time to work out the costs of a handful of Swashbucklers in Flashing Steel!) 

Work-In-Progress Wednesday - 4 September 2024

I've spent a lot of time thinking about things this last week, and not so much time getting things DONE... 

I did finish up the Bladegheist Revenants and painted a swashbuckler while doing some rebasing...

There are still a few Nighthaunt miniatures haunting the workbench... this is ALL the stuff I have remaining... I'd like to just finish them up... 

But... I also realized there are only TEN MODELS in the Stormcast Eternals Spearhead Army... so I assembled the rest of the Stormcast Eternals from Skaventide - including the Reclusians and Memorians - which aren't needed for the Spearhead Army... but I figured while I was at it, might as well finish them ALL off... So now ALL of the Stormcast models I own are assembled and primed. 

Newly assembled Liberators, Reclusians, and Memorians. (only need five of the Liberators to finish the Spearhead Army!) 

(Technically one of the Reclusians I just assembled belongs to the Lord-Terminos...?) 

All the other Stormcast that was already on the workbench:

The Lord-Vigilant on Gryph-stalker, the Lord-Veritant and her Gryph-crow, and the three Prosecutors are the other miniatures needed for the Spearhead Army... and the Lord Terminos, which is NOT needed for the Spearhead army... 

Bonus Castigators and Liberators (and Steelheart... which I will call another Knight-Questor!) are not needed... but I'm going to finish them up because... well... I started them and they're so close. 

This is the Spearhead army for the Stormcast Eternals... ten models... mind you three are those large winged Prosecutors, and one is the Lord on the GIGANTIC Gryph-Stalker!? Not going to be SUPER fast to knock out... but not going to take TOO long either!? 

I have removed a bunch of other Stormcast from the workbench - all the ones from the Age of Sigmar (3rd Edition) Extremis Starter Set - which I just don't need right now... 

The Darkoath Army Set arrived last week, but all I've assembled from that was the  Darkoath Chieftain on Warsteed... well... and I assembled the BASE for the Wilderfiend... but didn't get to assembling the Wilderfiend

I have a few of the older Chaos Marauder Horse on the Workbench.. thinking I'd do up a unit to test-paint them... 

I grabbed a SECOND warband for En Garde to rebase (and finish painting) 

There is a BUNCH of other stuff on the workbench... mostly stuff I haven't worked on in a week or two - so I can't be bothered to take MORE pictures of them -  that should really be shifted off... but it's hard to do when they're SO CLOSE to being finished!?