AHPC Submission #10 - Dogs of War Characters

Marco Colombo directs a fellow mercenary commander. 28mm figures from GW's "Dogs of War" range.

For my 10th submission to AHPC XV I was back with the Dogs of War again! No new units, but a couple of characters. Here we have the "Mercenary General" and the special character "Marco Colombo". These are old 28mm GW metal figures (although the general's horse is a mix of plastic and metal). 

Mercenary General

Ready to work! Just need to complete a contract...down payments in cash only...

Tilean mercenary armies need a Tilean mercenary general, and that is what we have here! This figure was part of the initial wave of sculpts that accompanied the release of the "Dogs of War" army book back in the day. 

You can see the insignia on the horse's barding, and just peeking out from the left breast of his overcoat.

I imagined this fellow as a tough, no-nonsense warrior, a hardened veteran. He has material success, and so shows some "bling" in the form of nice plumes and combs for his horse and helmet, and beautiful gold armour, along with a purple overcoat. He dares you to comment!

Nice purple overcoat...go ahead and ask him how he has the money for that!

At the same time, he has no specific regional or royal insignia. He has his own symbol on the barding of his mount, and on the breast of his overcoat, but nothing beyond that...after all, he is ready to be hired by anyone! No need to have a specific regional crest limiting him from business development opportunities in the Old World...

Marco Colombo

Bold Tilean explorer, Marco Colombo.

Marco Colombo is a merchant prince and notable explorer from Tilea, and he can join your mercenary army as an independent character. 

"This way to Lustria!"

This is a beautiful figure, but I found it a bit odd that the figure is an instance where the sculpt did not match up with the original rules from the army book - in the rules he is supposed to come with a warhorse, but as far as I know, GW never did sculpt a mounted version, and this fellow is the only "Marco Colombo" that I know of. 

Maps, compass and telescope in hand...a beautiful sculpt.

Even without a horse, he totally looks the part! He has a telescope, some maps and other goodies to lead/incite a Tilean mercenary army to great exploits. Chances are the mercenaries will be more keen on treasure and less worried about exploration and discovery, but Marco doesn't care - his Tilean pikemen will provide protection and help secure his trade missions, discoveries and reputations. 

That's it for today, but still a fair bit more AHPC stuff to go! Thanks for reading. 

AHPC Submission #9 - Hospitaller Banner Bearers

Some 28mm Hospitaller knights - figures from Footsore, sculpted by Paul Hicks.

It can be so easy to stop doing something and...then not get back to it! At least with posting on the blog! The 15th edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has wrapped up, but I am well behind on my posts, so I hope to rip through several of them and get caught up in short order. Up first is my ninth submission, some members of the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem - the Hospitaller Knights. These are 28mm metal castings from Footsore Miniatures, received from a Kickstarter I backed a few years ago. The figures were sculpted by the amazing Paul Hicks, and the flags are from Little Big Man Studios (now available through Victrix). 

Banner man and fellow warrior - I particularly enjoy the Knights who have some mix of cloth in their headgear...really sets the "period" for me. 

The Crusades are a period that has fascinated me for years. I love reading about this era of history, and as you might expect this interest has naturally merged with my hobby mania such that I am keen to run games set during the period. So you would think I probably have a well-organized collection for the setting, right? LOL. 

"Prepare to believe!"

Translation of my intense interest in the Crusades into hobby output has often floundered on the kinds of mental rocks that I feel would be familiar to many wargamers. Mostly I have waffled between hoping to play skirmish games like "Saga" and then suddenly wanting to do larger games like "Hail Caesar", and then struggling with how to base the figures...inducing paralysis via analysis and causing me to go paint some more 30k stuff instead :) Over the years I have managed to paint what amounts to a pair of large war bands that would work for "Saga" - not nothing, but hardly great progress.

More awesome poses from Paul Hicks...man I love his stuff...

These Footsore figures were meant to jolt me out of this stasis, but instead have been a prime example of this unfortunate tendency to revert to stasis...at first I was using the round bases to paint them - you can see some of the initial figures back in Challenge XIII. Since that time, I have come to my senses and re-based those original figures on more traditional square bases to allow for their deployment in a game like "Warhammer Ancient Battles" or "Hail Caesar". Moving houses last year didn't help with progress on this effort, but in the summer I did get a second bunch of Hospitallers based up and primed and...well, you know how the rest goes...

Love how his hood hangs over his brow...adds to a menacing air...

Another view of the mounted banner man.

But here we with AHPC XV, and I managed to make a bit more progress again! These sculpts are just amazing to paint - beautiful, proper metal sculpts created by the talented hand of Paul Hicks...what else could a hobby squirrel want?? The colour palette for these warriors is fairly basic and muted, but still fun to work with. The shields are hand-painted, not my preference, but it didn't turn out too badly. 

Stay tuned for a flurry of further Painting Challenge submissions as we head into the spring - thanks for reading!

New Year's Day Game - Chemical Commies vs. Bundeswehr!

On New Year's Day, in accordance with ancient tradition, a few of the boys came over for a game and some pizza. This year I teed up a Cold War Hot game with the infamous Chemical Commies facing the Bundeswehr. It was the first chance for me to get Greg's superb Soviets on the table, as well as my newly painted Bundeswehr Marder AFVs. 

I imagined the scenario as follows: D+5 and the Soviets have made significant inroads against NATO in Germany. Elements of a Bundeswehr panzergrenadier company are holed up in the middle of a city and while the Soviet spearhead has passed them by, the follow-up Soviet forces (i.e. the second-tier dudes) are tasked with mopping up.

A couple squads of BW troops are in the middle of the board awaiting reinforcement from the rest of the company, but the Soviet goal is to crush them quickly before help can arrive.

Here's the Bundeswehr...

... and here are the Soviets.

The Bundeswehr were pretty tough - too tough as it turned out. I'd made them "veterans" and that was an error, veterans on defence in the new Bolt Action are WAAAY too tough to beat. The dudes in the photo above finally got pinned out of the game after like 5 turns of Soviet fire. The combination of 5+ needed to hit them and a 4+ save from cover was just too much. They shoulda been regulars.

Soviet BMP brews up.

Soviets move in on the valiant defenders of the Reich West Germany.

The game looked great and it was really fun to get the Cold Warriors out on the table once more. But as noted, next time it'll be Regulars vs Regulars. Or maybe Soviets in Afghanistan fighting the mujahedin? We could do that too. But it was great to have the guys over and have a game, and continue the New Year's tradition.

Till next time!

Painting Challenge Submission #8 - The Dogs of War at last!

The Alcatani Fellowship march forth, accompanied by the beautiful and dangerous Lucrezzia Belladonna. These are all old metal figures from GW's "Dogs of War" range. 

My eighth submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge was an exciting one (well, for me, at any rate), as it kicked off painting for project which has been "in the works" for quite a while! Here we have the mercenary pikemen of The Alcatani Fellowship accompanied by notorious hireling sorceress Lucrezzia Belladonna. These are all old metal figures from GW's "Dogs of War" figure range for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. These are very, very old figures, more than 20 years old. 

The "Dogs of War" were a faction GW released for their Warhammer Fantasy Battle game, comprised of mercenary units and characters from the region of Tilea in GW's Old World fantasy setting. Sculpted by the amazingly talented Perry twins, the "Dogs of War" were one, in my opinion, of the most creative and most fun factions that GW ever released. GW came out with a wide assortment of Mercenary regiments and characters which could be added on to offer a creative twist to your existing army or could come together on the table as an all-mercenary force. The Dogs of War were the first Warhammer Fantasy army that I ever collected and painted. In fact, I was playing that army at a tournament in Winnipeg when I first met Curt back in 1998/1999.

The classic army book!

Later, I sold that old army and moved on to other things. How foolish of me! But the fond feelings for this old collection never left me, and with the help of, and inspiration from, Dallas, I started to hunt down these old figures on eBay. Not the easiest or most economical endeavor...but by late 2023, I was ready to go! In fact, I thought it would be a primary project for AHPC XIV. But there was just one problem...I moved house mid-Challenge...and so the project was postponed...

But the AHPC is back, and I was careful to put all of my carefully assembled Dogs of War bits aside, ready for this edition of the Painting Challenge...and here we go!

The Alcatani Fellowship

A 24-figure pike block ready for action! Many thanks to Byron for the awesome tray...

A group of farmers who lost their crops and livelihoods (presumably with no Tilean equivalent of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy to help them) and were forced to turn to the mercenary life to earn a living, the Alcatani Fellowship represent the more communal, lower-cost end of Tilea's mercenary service offerings. They are lightly armoured, of middling fighting capabilities and the character leading the unit, Rodrigo Delmonte, is a fairly average fighter. For all that, they have one attribute that sets them apart on the Warhammer Fantasy Battle tabletop...they have pikes!

A view of the ranks...nice variety of poses, but it makes assembling a larger unit a bit tricky as you need to find some specific poses...that was easy in the late 90s, but is trickier on eBay today.

The world of Warhammer Fantasy takes so much inspiration from late Renaissance-era Europe, but the pikes were oddly missing from the figure range. They had been in the rules, but you did not see them on the tabletop. The Empire had halberdiers, swordsmen, spearmen...but no pikes. The Dogs of War changed all that. Many of the initial wave of the "Regiments of Renown" were pikemen, and any Dogs of War army would be built around two or three of these pike-armed regiments. 

This one figure holding his helmet came among the blister packs...I thought it was nice to have one non-conformist in the ranks...they are mercenaries after all...

This was so fun because even very established players had seldom encountered pikes on the table. The rules reflect the effects of the weapon very well, but this would take even established Fantasy players by surprise. The pikes are particularly murderous against cavalry (as you would expect), and so it was always great fun to encounter Brettonian players, with their insufferable and unstoppable knights (which often have special rules compelling them to charge any target they can reach), have their faces fall off as their stupid noblemen charge right at the pike blocks and directly into oblivion. 

A solid core unit for a "Dogs of War" army. 

This solid 24-figure block of Alcatani pikemen is a great basic building block for a mercenary force - modest in their fighting ability, but murder with their pikes. You can try and wear them down with missile fire - and thus sparing other, more dangerous fighting units from that effect - or you can charge right at them...and see how you like eating 24 pikes before you ever get to strike a blow...these fellows will serve as an excellent foundation for my renewed Dogs of War collection. 

Lucrezzia Belladonna

"What a lovely day for a ride..."

All Warhammer Fantasy armies must wield magic in some way in order to be successful, and the mercenary armies of Tilea are no exception. While the rules allowed for you to simply designate any of the (at the time) widely available different human spell-casting figures as a hireling wizard for your mercenary force, the Perrys did sculpt one Tilean-specific figure - the alluring and dangerous Lucrezzia Belladonna. 

Lucrezzian rides at ease...but her magic skills are not to be trifled with. And say, does this drink taste a little funny....?

"The most beautiful woman in all Tilea, and some say even the Old World, is Lucrezzia Belladonna. She is also the most dangerous to know! Lucrezzia is a renowned sorceress and rumored to be an arch-poisoner and mistress of many assassins!" Lucrezzia has been married seven times, as suitors from across Tilea, and even the Old World, are drawn to her, um, significant assets. I think she should do the trick for the "Lust" bonus category - a means whereby AHPC participants can score extra points. 

A super-fun sculpt to paint up!

Lucrezzia is a powerful wizard and fun special character to use as part of a "Dogs of War" army, and I thought it would be great to have her as part of this nostalgia project. This is a tremendous sculpt, with all sorts of great details. I took a fair bit of extra time with this figure in an effort to capture these details...I got some of them, maybe not so much others, but this is a fun, unique miniatures and I'm glad to have Lucrezzia Belladonna in this collection.

That's all for submission number eight! Thanks very much for reading, and please continue to check out the AHPC XV main pages for more submissions! 

Painting Challenge Submission #7 - "Epic" Imperialist 30 YW Cavalry

Imperialist cavalry from Warlord Games' "Epic" Pike & Shotte range.

My second submission for this week returns to my nascent 30 Years War project. This is a regiment of Imperialist Cavalry. The figures are all from Warlord Games "Epic" Pike & Shotte figure range.

Caracole, anyone? Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon!

Warlord Games has a way of taking a great idea, and only executing on 3/4 of it - but even when they stumble, they often keep pushing through and improving. And I see the Pike & Shotte "Epic" range very much through this lens - of all their various "Epic" efforts, the Pike & Shotte stuff is, IMO, far and away the very best, and the cavalry frames really deliver.

Close up of the command base...

When you get a calvary box, you get three frames that contain multitudes, everything from the "horse" to dragoons (mounted and dismounted), to a few cuirassiers, as well as some commanded shot, an officer/ensign and two different types of artillery! Three frames of that is pretty great, as far as I'm concerned...

Another close up showing various bits of armour, swords, and a couple of awesome pistols!

Cavalry for the 30 Years War period is fascinating. I love the huge honkin' cavalry "pistols" these guys carried, and am intrigued by the idea of these units who ride up, and try to shoot the pike blocks enough to rattle them before charging in. I love the mix of armoured bits, swords, sashes and - of course - pistols galore!

Some jaunty feathers on some of the caps! Although the other chaps have helmets...

The banner is from the handy sheet that comes with the box...it is, supposedly, an Imperialist banner, but...well, I'm just going to go with that, as I still don't know a lot about the flags from this era. 

You can see a few "fusils"/muskets in addition to the pistols - so much shooting!

These guys were a lot of fun to paint, and I hope to add another couple of cavalry units to my budding Imperialist forces before this edition of the AHPC concludes!

Deployed in line, ready to advance!

That's all for submission #7 - stay tuned for more, and please continue to visit the AHPC XV main page to see tremendous work from hobbyists around the world - including many fellow Conscripts!

Warning Flags and Vending Machines!

Taking a short break from the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge to post a couple small terrain projects - terrain doesn't count in the Challenge anyway. First up are some warning flags for the Chemical Commies.

I designed these on the computer (finding a suitable Cyrillic font was the biggest challenge), printed them, and based thm on washers. The basic design was cribbed from a Ron Volstad illustration in Osprey's "Elite" volume #12 - "Inside the Soviet Army Today."  

Of course, "today" does a lot of work in that title - the book was published in 1987, but is perfect for what I need it for, since our 28mm Cold War projects are set in the mid-'80s to mid-'90s.

The other quick project was a couple vending machines. These I got from Meeplemart last year,  I gave these quick paintjobs and they'll be great as scatter terrain in our modern and sci-fi gaming. Above you can see a Jokaero using his digital digit to select a soft drink.

"Electrolytes - they're what plants crave!" Of course you gotta have a Brawndo machine. I printed off the graphics and glued them to the machine, turned out all right I think.

"The Thirst Mutilator!"

The last machine didn't have a ton of surface area for clever graphics...

...so I stuck some on the side. I'm not that familiar with the Fallout franchise but the graphics are great.

Lastly we've got a cigarette machine. I choose "Kool" branding for the unit. You used to see these in bars and pubs all the time of course but no longer. Fortunately in our past- and future-gaming worlds nobody suffers any ill effects.