Ninth Painting Challenge Submission - More Warmaster Stuff

More troops for the Empire in GW's "Warmaster"

Since reconnecting with my old Warmaster stuff I wanted to make more progress on them in the Painting Challenge before moving back to other things.  The Empire forces in the Warmaster game are built around crossbowman and halberdiers, so I added some more of these basic units. This submission includes two more units of crossbowmen and another unit of halberdiers.

The provinces of the Empire have different colours to set them apart, but as I started to work once again on these figures two weeks ago, I noticed I had selected a palette of blue and green which seemed to match...no particular province.  Maybe I had something in mind when I first started painting these like 12 years ago? Who knows?

No matter! It's a fantasy game after all.  So for the crossbowmen I just used variants of blue and green uniforms with a dab of red here and there, and popped some bright colours on the feathers to help tell them apart on the battlefield.

Empire crossbows - blue clothing, red feathers...

Perhaps the elector count fielding these troops has access to animals with a lot of different-coloured feathers...or maybe there is just a lot of coloured dye in his province...

More crossbows...green and blue this time, with yellow feathers

For the Halberdiers, I wanted to change the colours a bit.  There is one particular province in the fictional Empire - Hochland - which interests me (connected to another hobby project, blah, blah, not interesting at this point).  Their colours are red and green, which make me think of Christmas, so that's nice! It would also look suitably different from the blue and green.  A large Empire force in Warmaster would have troops raised from several provinces anyways, I expect, so good to have some different colours into the mix. I tried them out on this unit.

Halberdiers of Hochland

The red and green are a fun colour mix, one I hope to repeat on a couple more of the units as I continue to expand the overall force.

 I love these little sculpts - total home run by GW...

These castings are some of the best work GW ever did.  Painting the Halberdiers in particular is just a great treat, with all sorts of character and small details.  They are a total joy to paint. Getting back to these figures has been like reconnecting with an old friend. It has been so much fun!

Ready to defend the Empire! One poor chap in the rear rank had his halberd break off..hopefully doesn't stand out in the unit

The overall Empire force is a good basic size now - four regiments of halberdiers, four units of crossbows, two regiments of Knights and some artillery.  On reflection, I think I need some more Knights...there is always more, and no project is ever truly "finished" :)

A good basic force of Halberdiers for the Empire

My Empire army continues to grow...those Knights are kind of lonely now...and you can see there is still room for more...

These figures netted me enough points to get me half-way toward my goal of 1000 points of painting in the Challenge. I hope to have some more Warmaster stuff ready next week.

Painting Challenge Theme Entry - "East"

Mounted Samurai warrior, 28mm size, from Perry Miniatures

Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has bonus theme rounds every two weeks.  The first was "Armour", and the second one this past weekend was "East".  For this theme I rummaged through my "pile of shame".  This pile is comprised mostly of figures and models I purchased thinking they would be so awesome, and then balked at painting, for whatever reason, once I received them.  It follows me around when I move, mocking me when nobody else is around...

In the case of this figure - a 28mm Samurai from Perry Miniatures - the issue was the subject matter itself. Samurai wear very ornate, complicated armour, and the era of their conflicts is one I am utterly unfamiliar with.  Research can address these challenges, but I find in the case of the Samurai it was all too much.  I painted exactly one Samurai for Curt in a previous painting challenge years ago, and put the rest of these figures away, not wanting to paint them but unwilling to simply get rid of them...no wonder my basement is such a mess.

Anyway, this theme round offered an opportunity to try another Samurai.  It was as frustrating to paint as before, mostly as I had no idea what I was doing and I tried to simply imitate some images of painted figures I saw on the Perrys' web site (I assume those painters would know their sh*t, after all). 

In the end, I'm glad I stuck with it, as he looks OK, ready to cut someone down to size. Damn, I wish I could figure this period out...it would sure be fun.

Apparently there are some skirmish rule out there for Samurai, so who knows, maybe I can finish a few more of these figures and actually use them in a game? For now, he'll sit on my shelf as a stern reminder to at least occasionally try and think sh*t through before I make an order...

There are some really great entries in the "East" theme round, including some pretty amazing stuff from Byron.  Be sure to visit the page, and vote for your favourites (might I suggest this one? I like prizes!).

Eighth Challenge Submission - Warmaster Stuff

Empire troops from GW's Warmaster game

My eighth submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge was connected in a way to the fantasy engineers in my last submission. I was rooting around my hobby pile to find them, and came across as exciting discovery of a long-lost "I'll get to this next week project" which has stretched into years and years - Warmaster!

Remember these fantastic rules?

Crossbow regiment in front, Halberdiers in the middle, and the Knights at the back (will counter-charge when these lads are run over...)

Yes, Warmaster, GW's ridiculously fantastic set of macro-level fantasy combat rules.  Remember Warmaster? The rules alone were fantastic, serving as the inspiration/basis for many subsequent sets of rules to follow.  But it was more than great rules. I also recall the figures - 10 to 12mm collections - that GW released to support these rules were also just tremendous. They had lots of character and variety. Warmaster was a lot of fun and there were many games played among our group back in its time.

I just loved the sculpts GW released to support this game...they captured the setting perfectly, with tons of variety and character - a (rare) example of GW getting something right

Great rules, and great figures...sounds like a recipe for success, right? Enter #lolGW. Warmaster was around for several years, but ultimately succumbed to GW's gold-into-coal black touch along with the rest of what were then called "specialist" games.  The prices for the models entered the stratosphere, so they didn't sell, so GW cancelled the game, because it wouldn't sell...

Really basic paint job on these Knights - hope to get more colourful and less grim with the subsequent units

When Warmaster first came out, I collected and painted a small Empire force. In 2010, I resolved to re-paint it up to a higher standard, and re-base some of the models. This effort lasted through some Knights and some characters and artillery pieces, but not much more - you can find the last blip in this effort in the dusty archives of this blog, back in February of 2010 - seven years ago!  Needless to say, other things distracted me, and the Warmaster efforts faded to the background, and these figures when back into storage.

Meanwhile, GW killed off the Specialist games.  So many Warmaster units I had hoped to collect - Kislev, or the super neat figures representing Araby! I settled for grabbing a few more units from Ebay, and have purchased a few more here and there since then, but in classic wargamer fashion, I have hardly touched the models. In the intervening years we moved to a new house, but these figures stayed in the box, gathering dust, or still in their blister packs, with the plastic turning yellow :)

My updated Empire forces, with these new units added...

Having encountered this little stash of models once again two weeks ago, I figured the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge would be a fine time to take another crack at this.  So I dove in, and have been sawing away with the brushes on figures that haven't seen sunlight, much less paint, since 2010. I painted a unit of halberdiers and a unit crossbowmen, a did a touch up on an old unit of Knights. I have also spent some time re-basing models I had already touched up, so I can have a sense of coherency among figures which have a seven-to-ten-year interval between painting!

The Knights take their place...and a wizard is on hand

That Crossbow regiment is a little lonely - will need at least one more for the basic Empire force requirements

Empire hero on a griffon - he'll finally have a force to command after almost 10 years!

Various heroes and officers, ready to lead the Empire army to battle!

This submission included 60 foot models and 12 mounted models in 10mm.  However, the Knights were a touch-up job, not a real paint job and didn't count. This submission counted for 60 points in the end.


Another five or six regiments and this will be a fine 2,000 point Empire force, fit for a good-sized game of Warmaster with the group at some point.  I think Dallas has Dwarves, and I have unpainted Orcs and Chaos figures...hopefully we can get a game in this year.

Byron's 5th, 6th, and 7th Painting Challenge Submissions

Another week has past, and with it some additional submissions to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  After a super slow week last week due to being sick, I had a whole pile of things ready to go live, so even though it was one week, I had 3 submissions.

Entry #5 - Small Scale Items

This entry was a whole bunch of random small scale items.

Great War Naval Forces - 1/3000 scale Dreadnoughts

Having done WW1 in 28mm over the last few years, I started reading more and more of the history around the whole war.  The naval aspect of the war caught my fancy and I thought, why not do some ships to have some small games at some point.  After all, you don't need that many ships, and how hard could they be to paint?

Well, the answer to that last part is, very hard if the sculpts are not great.  I got my ships from Mick Yarrow Miniatures after searching around for a while, they had decent reviews online and they were cheap so I figured why not.  Well, they are cheap, but the quality is pretty horrible.  They must be using molds made around the same time these ships were really sailing!  Some were concave, some had bubbles, some were missing guns, some were 2-3mm thick and others were 7-10mm thick, making them all very inconsistent.  They were CHEAP though, so I guess I should have known.

 
Epic 30k - Death Guard (Part 2)
 
Thanks to Greg, I got corrupted and dragged along with the Epic 30k madness that he has descended into.  Luckily, I have only gone partially insane as I am sticking to one single faction and a small force of them at that.  

 
Team Yankee 6mm - American Reinforcements

 
I have been working on both Russian and American forces to do Team Yankee in 6mm, but basing them on a desert conflict so that I can use them for a cold war gone hot like Team Yankee or for theoretical or real gulf war games.  Anyway, I have most of the forces done already, but needed some additional infantry, so banged off another unit of American infantry and their transports, which have to be one of the ugliest transports ever invented.

Entry #6 - Arena Rex 35mm Beasts

My friend Steve picked up a new game a little while back, and after seeing the quality of the figs I just had to get some to paint up.  That game is Arena Rex, a 35mm skirmish Fantasy Gladiator game. The figures are just stunning up close, the detail is amazing.  The only down side, the price is stunning as well!

The rules are available for free though, and I tried a game with some proxy figured with Steve before I ordered my own.  It is one of those rare games that looks super simplistic at first glance, but has an amazing amount of depth hidden in it.  It has strategy, tactics, resource management, and more all rolled up in to what seems at first glance a simplistic smash-up gladiator game.

 I wanted to really sell the Arena setting of the figures, but also make them usable for other things, so... I picture that arena with a sand based floor I wanted to do something sand based.  However, not wanting something as mundane as simple flat sand, I decided to try some cracked earth effects in parts of the base.  I picture this as areas where the arena got wet from blood, thrown beverages from hecklers, or hell where a horse or bull took a leak, and now the sand and mud has dried and cracked.  I also added just a few tufts of dead grass to the base to add a bit more interest.  Again, probably not seen in a lot of arenas, but if you picture a weekend circus and then time passing before the next big event it is possible that some small tufts find a way to grow. especially around the dried cracked mud that has extra nutrients added.  That's my story anyway, I don't care if you buy it, I can live with it.

Onto the beasts themselves, I did almost everything with my new toy (a Harder & Steenback Infinity CRplus 0.15mm airbrush, which is AMAZING to work with!).  The beasts were done with black primer, then white or grey zenithal highlights and then many thin layers of glazes for colours.  I know Greg's eye is twitching over all that, but it really was simple and fast.  WAY faster than trying to get the same results with a brush.  I honestly believe that the Scorpion was done (primer - clear coat) in less than an hour of work time, and by brush I know I would have spent 4-6 hours to get the same effect.

These guys are HUGE, they are 35mm scale, the WW1 infantry
model is a 28mm scale fig to show just how big these are.

Entry #7 - 28mm Napoleonic Artillery Teams

Last up for the week was three teams of French Napoleonic Artillery all done on some huge diorama-like stands (60mm wide x 120mm deep).

Four years ago now, I started doing some French Napoleonic figures as a promise to Curt that I would at least try doing something historical for my first painting challenge.  It was a unit of Perry line infantry, and my first exposure to painting the madness that is Napoleonic uniforms! UGGG!

Four years later I finally have enough done to think about some small games!  Something Greg and I will have to arrange sometime soon for the group.

Having completed some pretty big projects in the challenge lately, I am pretty tapped out, and will not have much ready to go live this coming week, so I may not have another update here for a few weeks (other than the theme week entry).

Seventh Challenge Entry - Warhammer Fantasy Empire Engineers

Two Engineers of the Empire from GW's now-defunct Warhammer Fantasy Battle

My submissions to this edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge have been rather focused in their theme - ll 30k, all the time. The means I have been able to get a fair bit of 30k stuff completed.  This level of focus is rare for me, bordering on unhealthy, but I do genuinely love that setting and the Challenge is always a great spur to get models finished.  The side duel helps as well! Two of my fellow side-duellists in the 30k race, however, have taken a more varied approach to the Challenge, submitting some fantasy models as well - Iannick with some neat halflings, and Jamie with some menacing dark elves as a couple of examples. 

Trying to set up that perfect shot...

This figure was a ton of fun to paint...

One great aspect of the Challenge is the opportunity to connect with fellow painters and hobby folk elsewhere, and to be inspired by their work.  The fantasy submissions from Iannick and Jamie got me to thinking back to when we used to play Warhammer Fantasy ourselves around here - quite a bit in fact - but not so much recently.  I have an Empire army stored away somewhere in my place (not even out on display, for shame!), and the last record I could find of it seeing any action is the summer of 2014...which is just like...almost four years ago? Wow.

Handy instruction book on hand - engineers are always prepared...

I'm not sure exactly what happened to the interest in Warhammer Fantasy in our group. The rules got more difficult (or seemed to be so), the sculpts were getting goofier, and then "Age of Sigmar" happened...we haven't tried it yet.  Some folks seem to really enjoy it, so maybe we will give it a go at some point.

Also, Dallas manages to fill our Fantasy interest with very cool dungeon crawls and his excellent Otherworld Miniatures. 

Love this poor little guy "assisting" with the firing process - what a fun sculpt!

Bottom line, though, is that Fantasy was a lot of fun, and no reason it still can't be!  The fantasy stuff from Iannick and Jamie inspired me to turn my brushes to some GW fantasy figures and take a bit of a respite from my mad 30k painting tear.  I went rooting through my hobby horde and found these two figures - Empire Engineers, the subject of this submission.

Loved this model - has a bit of an "explorer" look to him!

These figures don't seem quite so old to me, but they are proper metal figures, so are probably older than I want to admit!  The Engineers are fun figures to have in an Empire army, injecting some unique character to the force, helping with artillery, and using some funky-looking firearms.  The long rifle, with the hapless little assistant "helping" to support the gun looks particularly fun.  I hope to use the model one day to pick off some obnoxious elf wizard or evil skaven...I always had a particular, immature joy in seeing powerful magic users and game-owning monsters crushed by Empire artillery or shot apart by Empire firearms...and then crushed under the hooves of Reiksgaurd Knights!

Nice multi-barrel firearm on the back - love some of the goofy firearms circulating in the Empire...

A fine-looking mustache to bring it all together!

These two 28mm figures netted me ten more points towards my goal of 1000 points in the Challenge. A special thanks to Iannick and Jamie for inspiring a fun diversion - because these two figures were not the only GW fantasy bits I found in the horde...stay tuned for more fantasy fun!

Byron's first few Painting Challenge Entries

Unlike Greg, I have not been very good about cross posting entries from the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, but have been participating in it as well.  So, rather than cross post 4 different entries each separately now, I am just going to post some highlights from each and a link to the original if anyone wants to see some more detail. I will try to remember to cross post more regularly as we move forward.

On the plus side, I have painted over 400 points in the first month of the challenge, so have already hit 40% of my goal this year!  Not that I am staying on my planned items at all, but that's a whole different story.

First Entry - Kingdom Death Survivors

Day 1 and I started out with five 35mm scale Kingdom Death survivors.  These are bare bones starting survivors so all they have are lanterns and founding stones (sharpened stones as makeshift knives).

The survivors all have a very basic attempt at OSL (Object Source Lighting) for the lanterns on them, but only very basic.  They are after all basic survivors and game pieces, which both of my sons (and all their friends) will handle while playing Kingdom Death as they just can't get enough of the game.

Second Entry -  Kingdom Death Monsters

Ok, another day another entry!  Sticking with the Kingdom Death theme I worked on the first and second monster that most players with fight, the White Lion and the Screaming Antelope.  However, in typical KD style there is nothing normal about these seemingly normally named creatures.  The Lion has strangely human hands and the Antelope has a mouth where its gut should be.

The 28mm WW1 figure is just included to show the scale of these figures,
there is nothing small about Kingdom Death!
(including the game itself which weighs in at 17lbs for the core set alone!)

All of my Kingdom Death figures are going to be played with and I want them to be very visual, so a lot of the highlights and shadows are a lot more pronounced than most of my painting.  This is being done on purpose to show up and emphasis the details from tabletop.  While not as clean looking in these close up pictures as some of my figures, they do really pop at tabletop distance better than a lot of things that I shade in using more subtle colour variations. 

 Third Entry - Epic 30k Death Guard Army (Part 1)
 
tried doing everything to match my current 28mm Death Guard 30k army.  I figured out early on though that I can not do the same weathering as on my 28mm models as in 6mm the models just become sepia / rust coloured blobs. So I went with a much harder light / dark look.

The infantry and rhinos are the old school original plastics, but I think they still hold up just fine (and I have a ton of them still on sprue) so I am just using them for most infantry, instead of the real 30k metal ones.

Now onto some of the figures that I have really wanted to paint for a long while!  A squad of three Sicarans and Sicaran Venators!  These are amazing models in 28mm and the 6mm versions are just as clean, every single panel line and cable from the full size version is there on the 6mm version. 

These two versions of the Sicaran are my favourite tanks in 30k as I feel they are one of the best looking sci-fi tank hulls out there in any game or fiction.  They have huge guns, an aggressive sloped stance that just scream speed and aggression, what more could you want.

Lastly, 3 super heavy tanks, because why just kill something when you can kill it, then vaporize it, then annihilate any dust left from it.  When you want something dead, overkill is the only way to go.  Besides, all 3 of these vehicles are just stunning.

The whole force was painted very quickly (as you can tell from the images) but I think came out very well for anything 6mm and have a suitable dirty used look for me, but not too dirty that you can't tell what they are. 

Fourth Entry - I HATE Horses! 28mm French Napoleonic Dragoons

This entry has been 2+ years is the making as I keep trying to get to them and keep leaving them, because I hate painting horses.  In miniature, painting horses intimidates me as they are much like painting human flesh, just a lot more of it.  It is really hard to get right, insanely easy to screw up, and everyone will notice and point out when it isn't right.  Therefore I really try to avoid painting horses if at all possible.

I have however needed to get a unit of cavalry done for my (very slowly) growing 28mm French Napoleonic force for a while now, and this unit got primed for last years challenge and then set aside as I just didn't want to deal with them.  This year I decided I better get to them sooner rather than later or they would once again roll over to the next years challenge.

Minor issues aside, while I disliked painting the project, I am actually OK with the results close up, and I am very happy with how they look on the tabletop.  Which is what Napoleonics are all about, tabletop effect, and that they have. 



Theses are all the plastic 28mm Perry Miniatures Dragoons with a Flag Dude banner.  Knowing that I disliked the horses, I started with them.  Having read that the Dragoons were the bottom of the Cavalry types (having started as infantry being trained as cavalry) and therefore very often had to deal with any mounts they obtain rather than being able to count on standard or uniform mounts for a regiment, I decided to make the unit up of as many different types of horses as I could.  Not knowing anything about horses though I had to go looking to find out what kinds and colours they did have.

 After finding out about Bays, Palominos, Chestnuts, Greys, and more, I got to work.  Then I found out about facial markings and socks.  Did I mention, I hate horses?  Anyway, after far too long on the painting table, I came out with the following which I am actually OK with.  Which is fairly uncommon for me, as I tend to think of 80% of the stuff I paint as crap, but despite my dislike for the animals and painting them, I am actually OK with how these look.

Minor issues aside, while I disliked painting the project, I am actually OK with the results close up, and I am very happy with how they look on the tabletop.  Which is what Napoleonics are all about, tabletop effect, and that they have. 

Fifth Entry - 28mm Modern Militia and Terrorists

A small submission to keep my progress going this week. The entry is an amalgamation of some left over African Militia from Spectre miniatures and some Islamic Terrorists from Spectre as well (Sorry Curt, those words probably just got this blog flagged by the CIA, FBI, and more).  The figures themselves are awesome as usual from Spectre, lots of detail on them and accurate (if thin) weapons.

Total there are 18 figures here, all done to a very basic table top level.  Essentially a base colour, wash, highlight, some very small details.  Since all of these miniatures will be on, and then off the table so quickly, I just couldn't justify a whole lot of time on them (as is evident in the pictures).

To play the games I want with them, I need about 40-50 Terrorists or Militia facing 4-8 special forces troopers, so I tend to spend time on the spec ops guys as they will be the focus of any game as they stick around for the whole time (normally). 


Up to date 

So, there we are, my five regular entries so far in the challenge. I will try to keep up better cross posting so that the posts don't get so long in the future.