Painting Challenge Submission #4 - Imperialist Pike & Shotte Regiment for Thirty Years War

Imperialist foot regiment and officer base - figures from Warlord Games' "Epic" range.

My initial submission's to Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XV touched on a familiar theme - GW's "30k" setting. My fourth submission switched gears rather significantly, although the number "30" still makes an appearance...for this post we run the calendar back about thirty-thousand years (give or take) to the early 17th century in Central Europe an the conflagration which would come to be known as the Thirty Years War. This is an Imperialist/Catholic Infantry Regiment comprised of a solid pike block and a pair of supporting musketeer groups, along with a command base. The figures are resin sculpts from Warlord's "Epic" Pike & Shotte figure range.

Weapons leveled, ready to receive the charge!

The Thirty Years War has interested me for a long time, but I never quite titled into it - but I finally succumbed earlier this year. These figures provide, IMO, a satisfying "block" look for the pikemen while still offering many fun details to pick out. I tried to paint these in such a way that they look mostly uniform, but still have variance in different hats/caps/bags etc in order to provide a bit more of a varied look that seems more appropriate for the period.

Another view of the pike block.

A single frame provides the entire foot unit with 80 models all together. 70 of the figures are in strips of 10, and then 10 individual pikemen with their weapons forward to provide a bristly-looking front rank for the pike block. The strips are clever, providing a nice, compact look to the formation. The cavalry/artillery box is great too (stay tuned for more on that), and the collection has been augmented by a few specialist units in plastic-resin. Really the only thing I don't like is the "Epic" brand name...for grognards like me, "Epic" is the 6mm Horus Heresy game from GW, and nothing else :)

View showing some of the rear detail. 

When Warlord released these figures, they also did a re-issue of their "Pike & Shotte" rules which appears to be intended to be specific to this scale, but in fact provides some very useful updates to the rules - changes they just sort of skate across pretty quickly but are actually very important, particularly the idea of the mixed pike/shotte unit just like this one, making it much more clear how units like this would act/perform on the tabletop - an oversight, IMO, in Warlord's original "Pike & Shotte" rules. 

Musketeers ready to support the pike...I tried to mix up some of the hat colours. The fellow in the red hat is probably some kind of dangerous independent thinker...

This project is definitely a "slow burn" one for me - and with the advent of "Never Mind The Matchlocks", I might just try out 28mm for kicks - but I'm hoping to get a good start on a decent Imperialist/Catholic force during this edition of the Challenge, while saving the hopeless Protestants for Challenge XVI. My ambitions are modest here - looking more to run smaller games featuring rear-guard actions and other such encounters, as opposed to hoping to run White Mountain or anything like that. I figure a few blocks like these on each side, along with some cavalry and supporting guns will do the trick. 

Rear detail of the musketeer figures.

I also still have a lot to learn about this period - for all I know, I put the wrong flags on? These seemed like Bavarian Catholic League flags...I think...but whatever. We have chaps with pikes, and other chaps with muskets...let's go!

Mounted officer & Imperial ensign. 

Lovely little details on these figures.

That's all for the fourth submission! Thanks for reading, and as usual, be sure to check out everyone's excellent work over at the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge page!

Painting Challenge Submission #3 - Thousand Sons Librarian and Rhino APC

Thousand Sons Librarian Consul and Deimos-Pattern Rhino APC - models from GW.

For my third submission to AHPC XV I stuck to GW's "Horus Heresy" setting as I continue to try and clear off some projects which have been sitting in the "pending pile" for weeks - or even months - leading up to the start of the Painting Challenge. For this third submission we have a Rhino APC and a Librarian Consul, both painted in the colours of the XV Legion Astartes, the Thousand Sons. The vehicle is a multi-part plastic kit, and the foot figure is a multi-part resin kit - both are from GW.

It's not a fancy ride by the standards of the Space Marine Legions, but it is still the first vehicle for the Thousand Sons in my collection!

Some esoteric markings on the door...probably safety instructions, and nothing to do with using spooky powers or anything like that...

The Rhino is the classic APC of GW's Space Marine forces, and this plastic "Deimos pattern" of the vehicle is very much a loving homage to the original plastic Rhino model kits of GW's much earlier days. I had built this model back in the summer, determined to paint it promptly but...of course I did not, and it sat there on the shelf for months. 

View showing the iconography of the Thousand Sons on the vehicle. I was pretty sparing with the markings (I find the Thousand Sons tanks in the GW/Forge World books to be a touch too whacky/busy for my liking and prefer to keep it simple).

My collection of Horus-Heresy-era Thousand Sons has, up to this point, comprised solely of infantry models. This is mostly because it grew out of the infantry-focused box game "The Burning of Prospero" (which I highly recommend) so I would add infantry and characters, but never got around to painting any vehicles for them. No doubt my Sons of Prospero will be pleased to have the opportunity to at last catch a ride on the table!

Love the post of this sculpt...he is about to unleash some warp fun on you!

The character figure is a "Librarian Consul" from the updated "Age of Darkness" range. This figure was intended to be generic in that he has no specific markings for any of the particular factions in the setting so you could paint him up for any Legion. In the 30k setting, "Librarians" are not mere civil servants checking books in and out - they are powerful adepts skilled in manipulating the dangerous energies of the warp. This fellow has the trappings associated with Space Marine Librarians...fancy armour, fancy cloak, a helmet with some slight extra fluff, and esoteric bits like old keys, a spooky old hard-cover leather-bound book, and, naturally, a couple skulls...because they...help...or something.

Big, pimped-out cloak? Check! But I really love the spell book chained on to the power pack unit (which has some further embellishments of its own as well - like I said, awesome sculpt). 

I love the figure - he has a "beakie" helmet, awesome! - and had already painted one of these fellows for my Loyalist Imperial Fists. Given that the Thousand Sons are noted for their preponderance of psychic-power practitioners (what could go wrong with that?), I thought I would paint this second figure to join them (and take his place with the other, legion-specific psyker model for the XV Legion). 

"I foresee...getting a ride for once! About damn time!"

That's it for this submission - stay tuned for more, and be sure to check out the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog for all the latest, including the tremendous efforts of other Fawcett Avenue Conscripts!

Painting Challenge Submission #2 - Loyalist Armour for Legions Imperialis

A squadron of Imperial Fist Sicaran tanks for GW's "Legions Imperialis" game.

The 15th edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is well and truly underway! Several members of the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts have been painting up a storm. It's been over a month since the Challenge got under way, and I have (of course) been delinquent in cross-posting my efforts - so time to get a bit caught up on that. 

This second submission was a little "palette cleanser" of an entry - a unit of Sicaran Tanks for GW's rebooted Epic 30k game "Legions Imperialis". These are multi-part plastic kits from GW, and they are painted in the colours of the VII Legion Astartes, the tiresome (if stoic) Imperial Fists.

Heavy plasma-type cannons in the turret and lascannons on the sponsons - this configuration is ideal for engaging armoured targets, like other vehicles or some of the scary walkers.

GW botched the rollout of this new game quite comically in 2023. While some of the issues relating to supply of models have alleviated since the game launched, you can still sense the impact of the failed release for the game in a lack of enthusiasm among the local 30k community. It would not be accurate to say nobody is playing it, but interest is quite limited and I frequently encounter hobbyists who had been keen to try it, but gave up when they could not obtain it, or subsequently gave up on it due to lack of models. I still haven't found an opponent to give the game a try - even those who have small collections have them put away, or are more focused on the main 30k game etc. 

Yellow armour for hope! You can see some of the different decal options used on the vehicles.

I remain undeterred! As an old-time fan of the original "Epic" game from GW, I am still working on a collection myself - after all, I find the models remarkable in their quality, if somewhat tricky to assemble owing to their size. There is no game or event pressing me to get moving, so my pace of painting these figures has been very, shall we say, "stately" (i.e. laughably slow). A chance to play the game will come along whenever it comes along - until then, it is fun to slowly accumulate painted forces.

Autocannons in the turret, and heavy boaters on the sponson - this configuration is primed to take out light vehicles and flyers.

One advantage of this slow pace is how it allows for time to enjoy the models. And to swear constantly at the yellow paint! The Imperial Fist colours look striking when you are finished, but wow...what a pain! Even on little tanks like these!

There are scads of different tanks for GW's Horus Heresy setting. The Sicaran tanks fit somewhere in the middle in terms of size and impact. They are pretty fast, have slighter armour, and can pick different weapons load outs to emphasize anti-personnel, anti-tank or a mix of both. One model has a vehicle commander popped out of the hatch, so it can serve as a command tank should such a thing be needed in the game.

That's all for this submission - after all, it was just a "palette cleanser" - but I hope to get caught up here on the Fawcett Blog over the next little bit. Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out everyone's tremendous work over at the AHPC Painting Challenge page!

Winter Soviets in the Painting Challenge

 

I opened the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge with an entry just in under the free-fire wire. This is a bunch of models I started before the Challenge so they're suitable for the first Circle - Limbo. 

Earlier last year I spotted a smokin' deal on Warlord Winter Soviets from Meeplemart - it was like $100 less than the price on the Warlord Games website. So as with many hobby projects it started with a "great deal" :-)

Anyway the box came with a plastic KV-1/2 model tank, 80 infantry, and some HQ/mortar/Maxim HMG models. As the first tranche for the Challenge I've painted 40 infantry, a metal Maxim HMG, and one of the HQ models. Colour scheme mirrors the one on the Warlord site. GW Zandri Dust [or Vallejo Khaki) washed Agrax Earthshade for the uniforms, black with Vallejo Dark Rubber for the boots, Celestra Grey washed Nuln Oil for the scarves, Doombull Brown for the belts and leatherwork. Some of the webbing was highlighted with a lighter khaki tone. I'm painting on an assembly line here so not a ton of extra detail. 

This chap with the Molotov cocktail is definitely my favourite but one is probably enough for the platoon :-) 

Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of multipart plastic models but the Warlord ones are tolerable, if you can get them at a deep discount like I did. At regular price it's $68USD for 40 models and at those prices I would buy metal models from Crusader or someone like that. 

But if you get 'em cheap they're OK, even though they have separate arms and weapons. I really prefer the weapons molded onto the arms for ease of assembly and good looks. But these went together mostly OK and look good when painted. Next I'll do another MMG, the mortar, and some command I think.  

Look out for more frozen Russkies!

Painting Challenge Submission #1 - Breacher Marines

A squad of Breacher Marines from the XVI Legion Astartes. 28mm multi-part resin figures from GW. 

Happy new year everyone! It is "that time of year" once more - not only for celebrating (and hopefully relaxing and recovering from said celebrations) but for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. It is the 15th edition of the AHPC and several Conscripts will be taking part once again. I am pleased to share the first of my submissions to this event as I get started toward my goal of 1000 points worth of painting before the spring arrives. 

It will hardly be a surprise to see that I started off by returning once again to GW's "Age of Darkness" setting, the great, galaxy-spanning civil war of the Horus Heresy, known colloquially as "Warhammer 30k". This is a squad of 10 Breacher Marines, resplendent in the colours of the Warmaster's own XVI Legion, the Sons of Horus. They are multi-part resin models from GW. 

Three of the breacher Marines...you can see the fellow in the middle suffers from dimpled surfaces and frosting caused by a defective matte varnish spray from back in 2016. The repainting helps a bit...but still...f*ck spray paints.

Breaching Marines are great fun. We can sense just how dire things must be in the Horus Heresy setting when it becomes necessary to take a super-human soldier clad in super-amazing power armour and say, "you know, we should give those chaps a giant pavisse-style shield, you know, because safety". I love the proto-medieval look of this variant of the Mark III power armour, and how the shields have the little "hooks" that allow the Space Marines to brace and fire their weapons while on the move. Brilliant sculpts.

Fans of the Horus Heresy are enjoying a veritable golden age in terms of new figures and models...but these are not new. They are rather old, and have been re-painted as part of an ongoing effort to bring my large collection of 30k Sons of Horus models, painted over a now 10-year timeframe, into some manner of consistent appearance. You see, my hobby mind has a peculiar affliction - that of the screaming-inside-OCD monkey. Certain things - like an inconsistency in the green armour of a Sons of Horus collection, for example - cause this monkey to scream and throw things in my mind. 

Love the shields! These are some of GW's finest 30k sculpts...and there are a lot of great 30k sculpts!

These particular figures were first painted back in 2016, right as I switched over to my current approach toward painting the vaguely-blue-but-mostly-still-green armour of the Sons of Horus. This squad was painted mid-change...with about three models painted using my current approach, and the other seven painted using a previous approach (which involved many pointless glazing layers). Mixed greens within the collection were bad enough...but mixed approaches within one squad? The OCD monkey does NOT APPROVE! I found I could NOT deploy these in good faith knowing - and seeing! - the different greens. What would the Warmaster think??

Sergeant on the left, and a special-weapon trooper wielding a lascutter (great for opening the hulls of ships, or the armour of enemies...whatever). 

Thus I soothe - ever so slightly - the screaming inner monkey by re-painting the lost squads and vehicles a few at a time...and this is how I am kicking off Challenge XV! These Breachers are now properly ready to "stand in the line." 

I also shamelessly exploited the "Limbo" theme for this purpose - after all, these WERE a stalled project of a sort, from back in 2016 :) To learn more about the "themes", see here, but the relevant bit is that I this lot gets scored as 70 points toward my goal. Onwards!

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIV #9 - Special Themed Challenges

 In the three years in which I have participated in the painting challenge I have done quite a few of the themed challenges from the planets of the Challenge Quadrant in 2022, the movie lots of the Challenge Studio in 2023, or the book sections in the Challenge Library in 2024. They have been a good way to use up some of the oddball figures I have in my collection of unpainted minis, as well as giving me the impetus to complete projects that have long lingered in my storage boxes. During AHPC XIV I completed 19 special challenges, plus had two rides on 'Lady Sarah's book cart'.

I have already posted some of these in the earlier posts related to last year's challenge, so this post will be a summary, with pictures of those figures not already posted. 

Overdues & Returns - early WW2 German cavalry and wounded

History - early WW2 Polish 10th Motorized Brigade

New Acquisitions - early WW2 French Light Mechanized Division

Fantasy - Easterling Warriors and Command

Children's Books - Bunny Stormtrooper

Local History - Idols of Torment 

Romance - Han Solo and Leia Organa

Sci-Fi - Scotia Grendel Armoured Personnel Carriers and Tracked Vehicles 

Manga & Graphic Novels - Archive Star Wars miniatures

Lady Sarah's Book Cart - Ground Zero Games female militia troopers

Statue of a Famous Person - Free French commander General  Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque converted from a 54mm American tank crewman

 Maritime - a Royal Navy longboat converted from a plastic toy sailboat

Nature - some jungle terrain with Easter Island heads

Gift Shop - a Games Workshop Lord of the Rings figure of Gothmog that went to fellow Conscript, Dallas

DYI - some brick and wrought iron fencing for my Polish Post Office Danzig made from polystyrene, cardboard, and vintage toy parts

 

Literature - a figure of Viggo Mortensen as Captain Alatriste converted from a Games Workshop figure of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn

 Travel - a 54mm Seven Years War Prussian musketeer associated with a visit to Sanssouci in Potsdam in 2001

Oversized Books - an 80mm Stadden figure of a British Bren gunner of 14th Army in Burma during the Second World War

Biography - in this case it was Autobiographical with a 54mm figure of a British grenadier of the 40th (Hopson's) Regiment of Foot, circa 1760 depicting me in one of my re-enactment uniforms

Rare & Antique Books - a hard plastic flat from the 1930s that belonged to my father when he was a boy, depicting a German infantryman on parade 

That concludes my retrospective of AHPC XIV. Thanks for reading. If you have any questions, or would like more information on any of these figures or terrain projects, please leave a comment, and I will do my best to reply.

 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIV #8 - 8th Army in North Africa

My last big project for AHPC XIV consisted of elements of the British 8th Army in North Africa. Again, I was inspired to delve into that arena by fellow Conscript, Dallas, who had recently painted up some 8th Army and DAK troops. Like the Italians that I painted earlier in the challenge, I wanted to do something a little different, so I went with earlier models of tanks, and infantry units of the 4th Indian Division. The four tanks are by Blitzkrieg Miniatures, while all the figures on foot are from Warlord Games.

I have always been interested in the early years of the North African campaign so I acquired two Vickers Mk VI light tanks, one of which is the B version, mounting .303 and .50 Vickers machine guns, while the other is the C model with co-axial 15 mm (0.59 in) and 7.92 mm (0.312 in) Besa machine guns. Of course, you have to have an Infantry Tank Mark II, better known as the Matilda. Finally I painted up a Valentine tank that I got in a trade with Dave, another member of the Conscripts. The Matilda and Valentine tanks were resin castings, while the two Vickers light tanks were 3D prints. Both methods have their pros and cons. The details are much crisper on the 3D prints, but a lot of cleanup of supports was needed around the road wheels. Keeping with the early war theme, I painted all of them using the Caunter Camouflage pattern, although that introduced a slight historical anachronism. The Caunter scheme was phased out in October 1941, but the Valentines didn't become operational in North Africa until December of that year. The method and colours used closely followed those outlined in a video by Sonic Sledgehammer.

British armour in the desert

Valentine and Matilda (front)

Valentine and Matilda (back)

Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (front)

Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (back)

 Next up is the 8th Army Carrier Patrol from Warlord Games, to which I added a third Universal Carrier that I had in one of my storage boxes. The Carrier Patrol box comes with four metal figures wearing shorts to ride in the back, and some heads with helmets without the later war scrim, and two 8th Army infantry sprues to make 12 figures on foot. I decided to assemble them as members of the 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade, and swapped out a few heads for the carrier crew to give them Punjabi turbans. The carriers were painted in the same manner as the tanks, while I used another Sonic Sledgehammer video for the infantry, with a few minor modifications. All the figures were primed with Vallejo Desert Yellow, and I used the Cork Brown option suggested for the skin colour. I also used Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade instead of the special mixture shown in the video.

Carrier patrol of the 4th Bn 16th Punjab Regiment

3 Univeral carriers in Caunter scheme camo (front)

3 Univeral carriers in Caunter scheme camo (back)

In a similar fashion to my Italian force, I bought a Warlord Games 8th Army Support Group boxed set consisting a Headquarters, a Vickers medium machine gun team, and a 3" medium mortar team. The Headquarters group has some nice sculpts depicting a senior officer smoking his pipe and having a cuppa, a medic with a stretcher, a company havildar-major (sergeant-major) carrying a Thompson with a drum magazine, and a radioman feeding a monkey some bisquit. 

8th Army Support Group

Next is the mainstay of my infantry, a 36-man platoon of the 2nd (Royal) Battalion, 11th Sikh Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade. It consists of a headquarters with a British officer with Enfield revolver and whistle, a havildar (sergeant) with a Thompson, a Boyes anti-tank rifle team, and a 2" mortar team, and three 10-man sections each with a Thompson-armed naik (corporal), a Bren gun team, and seven sepoys armed with SMLE No. 1 Mk III* rifles. The miniatures are from the Warlords Brtish 8th Army infantry box, to which I added an additional sprue of 6 figures. I have a love-hate relationship with multi-part figures. I like the ability to customize the miniatures, but I find assembly is sometimes frustrating due to the fiddly small parts (not helped by have a finger in a splint), and not all arms fit well on all torsos. I also found that the arm options were a bit lacking, and a few figures were assembled after cutting off whatever the soldier was carrying in that hand to just leave a closed fist. I opted to make rectangular bases out of plastic card for all the prone weapons teams, rather than mount the figures individually. They were painted using the same method as the Punjabis.

Platoon of the 2nd Bn 11th Sikh Regiment

Boyes A/T rifle, officer, havildar, 2" mortar

No. 1 Section

No. 2 Section

No. 3 Section

I have a few more bits and bobs to add to my Indian troops that I hope to complete during the upcoming painting challenge. Stay tuned for further developments.