Heroes of the Riddermark

 It took a while, but I finally finished my dismounted Heroes of the Riddermark. I still have five mounted heroes which are already in progress, but they will have to wait for another post. With the exception of the Éowyn figures, all the rest had a ton of fine detail on their vambraces and greaves that took much longer to paint than I had originally anticipated, hence the two week gap since my last post. I was also unhappy with the flesh tone I had initially selected for Éowyn (Vallejo Light Flesh) which came out looking too pale and pink. After a few attempts to fix it with some washes, I decided it wasn't going to work and scrubbed all three figures back down to the black primer using Simple Green cleaner and a toothbrush. I guess that is one of the advantages of doing the faces first.

My nine heroes were photographed in front of a 3D puzzle of Meduseld, the great Golden Hall at Edoras, the capital of Rohan. To my knowledge, with the exception of the Rohan Royal Guard, all of these figures are out of production or have replaced by new sculpts.

 

 

Below are Hama, Captain of Rohan and Doorward of Edoras, Éomer, Marschal of the Riddermark, and Gamling, Captain of Rohan and Royal Standard Bearer. (The mounted figure carries the Royal Standard, and a newer sculpt released by GW has the dismounted figure also holding the Standard. I have a second Gamling figure that came with a bulk eBay purchase that I may convert by putting a standard in his hand.) Éomer had the most raised detail that needed to be picked out with a fine brush, but was the easiest of the three to paint due to not having a lot of deep recesses where it was difficult to get a brush.

 

Next are three different sculpts of Éowyn as a woman of Rohan, or in armour from the Battle of  the Pelennor Fields. They came from different GW boxed sets of heroes from their Middle-earth range. (Heroes of Helm's Deep, The Fall of the Witch King, and Heroes of the West) Other than having to start over on the faces, these three were the easiest to paint as the armour consists of plain leather vambraces and riding boots. I am happy with the final result.

 

Lastly, three men of the Rohan Royal Guard. A lot of fine detail on vambraces, greaves, and shields bogged down the rate of progress on these, but I like the rich green on their cloaks and shields. They are now ready to do their duty as the King's bodyguard.

Next up will be the five mounted Heroes of the Riddermark. After that, I think I will need to take a break from all the fancy detailed armour  and work on some grot Mordor orcs or Fighting Uruk-hai.

Until the next post, stay safe and healthy. Hopefully we will be able to meet around the gaming table soon.

From the Challenge: Great Unclean One, Greater Daemon of Nurgle

I painted this model for the "Lair of the Great Beast" room in the Chamber of Challenges... and if this doesn't qualify as a "great beast" I'm not sure what would... it's Forge World's absolutely magnificent Great Unclean One, Greater Daemon of Nurgle. It's a massive resin casting that I picked up at a swap meet/bring and buy thing locally, likely about five years ago.

The detail on the model is great, and by great I mean disgusting...

Unfortunately someone's gotten to the GUO's backbone, or maybe he's just cracked apart back there...

So many open sores... no way this dude is getting in a hotel swimming pool.

The right hand and sword with tongue wrap were a separate resin casting. It assembled very slickly.

Had to apply some gloss varnish to his guts.

It's a pretty large model, sure to be the centrepiece of my Nurgle Chaos Space Marines force, if we ever get to have a game again...!

He was remarkably straightforward to paint, the base colour is my special "Nurgle mix" of Castellan Green overbrushed with Death World Forest and a skosh of Steel Legion Drab for that sickly brownish cast. Horns are Rakarth Flesh highlighted up to Pallid Wych Flesh, and the stringy bits are similarly done with PWF.

Stay safe everyone!

Painting Challenge Submission 10 - French Turcos and Command for 10mm FPW

More 10mm troops for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870!

Some more work completed for my 10mm Franco-Prussian War of 1870 project. This submission includes a unit of French Tirailleurs Algeriens - the feared "Turcos - and also a command base for the French, all in 10mm. The Turcos are castings from Pendraken, and the command figures are from Magister Millitum.

The Turcos are Pendraken sculpts, and they are amazing quality to work with, I love them.

The Imperial French Army had a poor showing overall in the Franco-Prussian War, but it was not for lack of bravery or determination on the part of the front-line troops, and the Turcos in particular gave a good account of themselves. They were fierce and disciplined in battle against the Prussians and their allies - and from a gaming perspective, they also had cool uniforms, which is great fun to paint!

The problem is much more likely to be found on that command base...some spare figures left over from my Magister Millitum packs. Again, these command bases can be generic but in the "1871" rules, two figures on the base generally represents a division commander. His uniform is nice, but I expect his command modifiers will not be...

A close-up showing the Turco officers...the flag is cast-on, so painted in free-hand.

These figures are based with the rules "1871" in mind, but of course can work for a number of other rule sets.  Even the "1871" rules themselves can scale up and down, but the default starting position is that each base of infantry would represent a battalion, and the three bases together comprise the regiment. But rules like "1871" and "Black Powder" are very flexible, so in the the future there are many potential uses for them.

Ready for action! Vive L'Empereur!

The Pendraken castings are really, really fun to paint. Yes, they are small, but the sculpting and casting are brilliant, with all sorts of little details that will reward your time if you try to bring them out. Painting the flag freehand was a bit of a challenge, but in this scale it is manageable. I'm not sure my brush was up to all of it, but I sure enjoyed these fellows, and they will add to the colourful variety of uniforms to be seen on the Franco-Prussian War gaming table...whenever that can be...sigh. 

Great details on these Pendraken figures!

One thing about the Challenge is your points target. Everyone gets to set their own target, so it's a competition against yourself. I set a target of 1,500 points of painting...that might have been an overreach. To give you an idea of how much to paint, this was worth 33 points...so I had better get cracking if I expect to get to my ambitious target. Watch for more!

Thanks for reading, and try to stay sane!

Painting Challenge Submission 9 - French Artillery fro 10mm FPW

Some 10mm French artillery and crew for the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge continues, and since I have my 10mm figures out, 10mm painting is on my mind and I'm kind of in a 10mm painting "streak", I thought I would bring my brushes along to an ongoing project - the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 in 10mm. I had last added to this collection back in the fall of 2020, and with the Challenge under way, it was a good chance to keep moving forward with the project.

This posting includes various artillery units to bulk up the French side of my FPW collection. There are two 12-pounders, three 4-pounders and one Mitrailleuse, plus crews. All of these castings are from Pendraken, with one  exception: of one of the 4-pound guns and crew, which came from Magister Millitum.

A couple of 4-pounders in the front.

I love this period, but I generally have a lot of trouble finding to motivation to paint artillery from any "Black Powder" setting...it's the f***ing spoked wheels, a pain in the @ss to paint in any scale. A lot of my projects slow to a crawl when it comes to artillery. So as I contemplated moving along on my 10mm FPW, I figured the best thing to do would be to get another batch of guns and crews out of the way first, so everything else can be more fun.

Mitrailleuse in the foreground...at this scale, it looks almost identical to a 4-pounder, so the gun shield helps it stand out a bit.

These guns were rifled muzzle loading artillery pieces, and their poor performance overall contributed to the very poor showing of the French during the war in 1870. It wasn't just the guns themselves, but the doctrine and training around them - and dud fuses didn't help either! Where the Prussian artillery (with their breech-loading guns) was often decisive, the French guns generally underperformed, contributing (together with many, many other factors) to the rapid defeat of the Imperial Army in the summer of 1870.

The 12-pounders...big guns from the Corps-level artillery reserve, meant to provide support on the battlefield where the action is hottest/most critical.

These miniatures can be used for different rules, but generally each gun and crew will represent one battery on the table. The 12-pounders and two of the 4-pounders will be from the Corps-level artillery reserve, while one 4-pounder and the Mitrailleuse will be attached to a specific division. Two of the 4-pounders are actually horse artillery, but by this period the distinction between the horse crews and general artillery crews is fading, and the differences in the uniforms of the gunners do not stand out in 10mm - I just used three crew instead of four crew for the horse batteries. At some point when I paint limbers for the guns the distinction will be clearer...but I admit my enthusiasm to paint limbers is even less than that for artillery...if you ever see me painting limbers, you know I have completed painting on entire armies at that point :)

Thanks for reading - stay safe, stay sane, and be sure to check out the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, where Byron, Mike F and Dallas are continuing to paint up a storm!

Painting Challenge Submission 7 - 10mm Sassanid Persian Levy Infantry

Levy spearmen ready to fight against Rome!

So I got mixed up on my order of submissions to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge...I put submission number eight on the blog on already, and realized I had forgotten to share the seventh one. Whoops! Sorry about that. 

Anyway, here is that seventh submission, and it continued my divergence into 10mm figures. Here we have some Enemies Of Rome. These figures are Sassanid Persian Levy Infantry from the great folks at Magister Millitum. As with the Romans, these figures are based for the Warmaster Ancients rules, and the three bases together comprise a unit for the game. 

10mm figures from Magister Millitum.

These are basically test figures to see if I would like the Magister Millitum Sassanid miniatures...and I do! They are great to work with, lots of character and fun to paint, even though they are very small. 

Just one unit...but have to start somewhere, right?

The pattern on the shields was totally made up - and I don't even know if the Sassanids would have used such a pattern with their infantry, but at the end of the day their Empire was pretty large, and levy infantry could have come from any number of cities and cultures they ruled over. And there is a sort of nice generic aspect to spearmen in this scale...these could serve with Parthians (who ruled prior to the Sassanids) and even into the era of the Crusades...I mean levy spearmen are levy spearmen, and this was a type of troop that served throughout a tremendous number of years. 

Thanks for reading everyone - stay safe, and stay sane if you can. 

Painting Challenge Submission 8 - "Tolerance", Inquisition Public Affairs Specialist

Meet "Tolerance", Inquisition Team Member.

We are well underway with this edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, and I am late with my "entry figure", the so-called "Curtgeld". The "fee" of a single figure to participate in the Challenge is a well-established tradition, but lately Curt has taken to encouraging the participants to paint these up as rewards to others who complete the map-related tasks in the Challenge. It is a fun way to encourage each other along as we proceed in the Challenge.

Anyway, I was late getting this figure painted, as it really should be done within the first month of the Challenge (which was a couple weeks ago). This is pretty shameful on my part, but lucky for me, I had already set aside the figure in question well in advance of this edition of the AHPC, and the theme lined up well. MikeF has been painting up a fantastic Inquisitorial band for his 40k collection - so to hopefully inspire him further, I thought I would paint this figure for him, to join the retinue of his terrifying 40k Inquisitor Grayfax.  Thus I present "Tolerance", Inquisitorial Assassin Public Affairs Specialist.

Plastic figure from GW's "Elucidian Starstriders" set.

This is a 28mm plastic figure from GW. I believe it was part of some kind of Kill Team set...the Elucidian Starstriders. I was never into the background of any "Kill Teams", but I thought these figures were so cool so I picked some up, as there are many neat character-types that will be fun for 30k and 40k gaming. This specific figure is a member of a Death Cult Local Climate Justice Awareness Council. Given the spirit of our times, and hers, I am ditching the GW name and designating her as "Tolerance" instead, as she would appear to capture the spirit of this sentiment in her times...and increasingly ours. 

Not sure what is up with that body suit, but I assume that provides...lumbar support?

When painting a one-off figure like this, it is fun to experiment. So for this figure, I thought I would give GW's new "Contrast" paints a try. Oh, I've used them here and there on small, specific spots (like coloured hoses for Titans etc.), but this is the first figure I have painted where nearly all of it was done with Contrast Paints. Or, I should say, it was supposed to be...I find the effect of the Contrast Paints can be interesting, but also terrifically underwhelming in some ways, so there are a few spots where my more standard painting techniques were used. Still, it was fun to try something new - it is a painting "Challenge" after all. Many folks are coming up with some pretty neat results using these new paints...I just need to practice more!

Good luck with the Snow Lord's Challenge!

So Mike, I hope "Tolerance" here can inspire you to complete the Snow Lord's Challenge, and then help Inquisitor Grayfax impose the Emperor's Social Justice on wargaming tables set in the grim darkness of the far future. 

Cheers everyone - thanks for reading! Stay sane!

Painting Challenge Submission 6 - 10mm Imperial Roman Infantry

10mm Roman troops from Pendraken - ready to move out and defend the Empire!

 

Some more painting for Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  Efforts on my 28mm Byzantine painting efforts have halted for now as I managed to run out of some key supplies...but like many folks out there, I'm hardly ever short of lead to paint, even after all of the hobby disruption in my house-move last summer. So here is a new project - some Imperial Roman Legionnaires in 10mm. These castings are all from the excellent Pendraken, and they are based for "Warmaster Ancients" - there are three units of infantry and one command stand.

Close-up of the first unit.

Painting Romans is a new thing for me, but I have always been interested in the setting. The Painting Challenge has always been a particular spur, as so many of its participants have done (and are doing) very cool projects set in the time of the ancient Roman Republic and Empire. AHPC's 11th edition is no exception - Matt has been trying to inspire folks with a "Rome and It's Enemies" side duel, and there has been some fun submissions there. I promised Matt in a couple of comments that I would do SOMETHING to pitch in on that, so I thought now would be a good time to test the waters and paint some of the 10mm Pendraken Romans I ordered on a whim as part of a carefully considered and well-thought-out plan last summer. 

Close-up of the second unit.

There are many sub-settings within the ancient Roman world. I know many players enjoy the earlier era, and the wars with Carthage and others. But for me, "Rome" is the legion at the height of its power, the soldiers in their segmented armour, carrying square shields and pila, facing down the Germans, the Dacians, the Parthians and the Sassanids (and many, many others). The later Roman era is very appealing too...but I started with troops from the time of the Empire at its height.

Close-up of the third unit.

A little closer...sorry it is blurry but there has been no light in Northern Ontario for three months...

I really like the "Warmaster" rules, and so the "Warmaster Ancients" was an easy choice - the units look lovely without having to be too large, and I have had fun with the rules over the years playing the original version of the game set in GW's now-vanished "Old World". I thought it would be great to use for ancient gaming as well.

A Roman command base.

There are three "units" here - could be cohorts, could be whatever, depending on your imagination and scaling of the game. I know the colour red is cliche with Romans, but I wanted these first units to "pop" on the table, even from a couple feet away, and nothing says "Roman Legion" like red. As I add other units I will start to vary the colours. The shields have just enough of a freehand squiggle on them to imply a deeper/more ornate pattern without one actually being there. I will vary the colour of these on other units in the future too.

Time to march!

I can't say enough good stuff about the quality of these Pendraken sculpts. Sure, they are small, but damn, I enjoy painting them - they are brilliantly sculpted and well cast...little details still present and you are able to take some time with each one if you wish. Maybe not the most efficient approach, but I enjoy it. 

So that's one more project to wander along...thanks for reading! Stay sane everyone.