Painting Challenge Submission 10 - Mme. Clergue, Franc Tireur Commander

Mme. Clergue and her first recruit prepare to resist the Prussian invaders...

Regular visitors to this space will have noticed reference to "Challenge Island", a feature of the 10th edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  One can "travel" on the island following a particular path, making the themed submissions in turn, or one can take a short cut to any particular spot on Lady Sarah's Balloon.  The fee for the journey is simple - you need to paint a female figure. And you get bonus points if you show that you are enjoying some bubbly drinks as part of the painting. For more info and background on the Island and Sarah's Balloon, see info here.

I needed to make some more progress on my Challenge Island journey, but the options for my next stop were not great - either "Rousell's Sandhill" or "Douglas' Shallows".  Neither theme location worked for me or my figure collection. So, I summoned the Balloon of Lady Sarah.  As a figure, I submitted Mme. Clergue - budding commander of a Franc-Tireur formation for my Franco-Prussian War project. These are 28mm figures from the Wargames Foundry 28mm FPW collection.

Things go pear-shaped for the French in 1870...

The Franco-Prussian war went very badly, very quickly for the Imperial Government of Napoleon III.  Moltke and the gang had them in the bag at Sedan, and surely assumed some smooth negotiating and tough concessions would make for a lovely fall.  But that was not to be...the French Republic rose from the ashes of Napoleon III's abdication.  It had almost no army to speak of, but the French spirit was not to be easily quenched, and the Republican forces fought on.

Some sort of volley-gun-style pistol...should be epic.

The Prussians found themselves needing to occupy and secure considerable chunks of French territory as they pursued a siege of Paris and fought to crush the Republican French armies.  This task was made harder by the Franc-Tireurs, guerilla fighters who harassed Prussian troops along their lines of supply and joined in at the margins in some of the engagements in the later phases of the war. Foreshadowing the time of the Maquis, the Franc-Tireurs battled to make sure the Prussians paid as high a price as possible, and made the final defeat of France in 1871 a lot tougher.

As is so often the case in these situations, many a Franc-Tireur met a grim and summary fate, either in action, or caught in security sweeps. The reprisals visited on these resistance fighters were at times expanded to local communities by weary, angry and scared occupying troops.

My Franco-Prussian War collection is, for now, very focused on the initial "Imperial Phase" of the war, but for skirmishing purposes I want to get from Franc-Tireurs organized.  Many of these bands were led by men, but the women of France played a critical role in these efforts too, and I wanted my band to be led by one.  Thus we have Mme Clergue...she is on a hex-shaped base used in our skirmish games to denote senior officers. Standing with an innocent basket (loaded with baguettes and spare ammunition), she will be coordinating the efforts of the resistance in her local district, ready to show the Prussians that France is not vanquished yet...

We also have one early recruit, who looks to be sporting some kind of volley pistol(?) - should be entertaining. Watch for this band to grow as this edition of the Challenge goes forward.

Sparkling wine is a favourite! This is Paul Mas Cremant de Limoux, from St. Hilaire. So, so, so good...

For refreshments on the balloon trip I thought French wine would be appropriate (actually, French wine is always appropriate, but I digress).  With these figures I enjoyed a bottle of blanquette, a sparkling wine from Limoux. 

Updated map showing travel to "Piper's Peak" and the "Path of Imagination".

Sarah's Balloon transported me to a location called "Piper's Peak". Stay tuned for more on my submission for that location!

Bolt Action Tank War Battle Report - Hungary 1945

Last Thursday the group gathered at Conscript Towers for a game put on by Conscript Greg:

"We'll play 'Bolt Action' - using the 'Tank War' supplement and 15mm models.  The game is set in Hungary, January of 1945, and 50,000 German and Hungarian troops are trapped in Budapest, surrounded by Russian forces. The Panzers of IV SS Panzer Corps have launched a relief attempt, hoping to reach the Danube and the trapped defenders in the city, and also buy some more time for Germany to fight on.  The Panzers have caught the Russian forces by surprise, but Soviet Guards Armoured Regiments are now rushing to block them. Germans will confront the Red Army and the winter as they fight to break through Soviet defences."

Here's the table: German short table edge at top, Soviet at bottom. Germans need to destroy Soviet units, but get more VPs for exiting their own units off the Soviet table edge. The rules used were "Bolt Action" of course, but unlike most of our BA games we played this one with 15mm models, most of which were tanks!

Conscript Mike F and I played the Germans and we had a straightforward plan: foot to the floor and devil take the hindmost! Our first activations were "Run" orders and we used the armoured troop leader's activations to order the other two Panthers with him. That worked well.

Of course the Soviets had to appear and mess up our plans... they had two IS-2s and three T-34/85s with two infantry sections against our four Panthers and two Pionere Hanomags.

Peter Pig tank riders get into action...

We started to run into problems about halfway across the table. The lead Hanomag was picked on by the Soviet tankers and despite surviving being set on fire, it was destroyed in the next turn.

Here the second engineer track veers away from enemy fire in the direction of the Panthers, while one of the big cats burns in the field. Just past the trees another knocked-out Panther is visible - it was supposed to anchor our flank after daringly driving onto a frozen pond. While the ice held, the incoming 85mm round finished it off...

More bad news on the German left as the remaining Panthers are knocked out. We did manage to mislead the Soviets somewhat as to which vehicle was the troop commander's, because we'd lost track of that ourselves and were therefore quite believable... "Oh no, there goes the commander!" "Oh no, that's not him!" etc.

The surviving Pionier zug beside its crippled vehicle...

The game itself was super-fun but Mike and I underestimated the hitting power of the T-34/85s for sure. Those suckers lit us up comprehensively and no mistake. I'm not sure if deploying differently would've helped as the Soviets had several turns to get into firing position while we steamed across the table. This made it difficult for us to maneuver to minimize their firing solutions. The big cats sure looked awesome though.

Thanks Greg for bringing out the amazing looking game and to the boys for playing!

MDF Power Stations from Sarissa and Wargame-Model-Mods

You know how it's so easy to let hobby projects languish when something new and shiny comes along? Well, I'm here to tell you that sometimes it comes back around... when it turns out that new and shiny thing is actually related to an old hobby project, and this creates some incentive to drag out the old project and finish it off!

In this case, Conscript Mike had given me an MDF building he'd acquired that was surplus to his requirements. This is the "Blasted Power Station" from Wargame-Model-Mods (sic). It was a pretty straightforward model to assemble and covers a reasonably large area of table. Unfortunately, though, the roof is not removable so that limits playability in a wargame.

As the "new shiny" I referred to earlier was my current obsession with Judge Dredd and Warlord's eponymous wargame, I'll be putting on a Dredd game this week, and wanted to get this model cranked out, so I put the world's fastest paintjob on this one over the weekend.

After assembly, I sprayed the model with flat black primer, then followed this with a mist of grey primer. Normally my next step would be to Nuln Oil the sh!t out of it, but unfortunately the magic Oil just beaded up and rolled off the primer like water off a duck's back! So I had to do the weathering old-school with drybrushed craft black and sponge chipping.

It turned out "OK" but not amazing, and I might do some further work in putting some graffitti on the walss - that might look cool, and the Dredd game came with a sheet of decals for that purpose. One thing I really liked, though, was that the roof vents and radiator stack are separate, so they can be positioned in different spots on the roof, or left off altogether.

The Blasted Power Station retails for 14.99GBP.

OVERALL RATING: 7.5/10

Along with the Dredd order, I picked up the "Factory Power Room" from Sarissa Precision. I also put it together last weekend and slapped on a pretty basic paintjob, ready for this week's game.

The latticed windows and detailed door are "greyboard" attached to the back of the wall. The models I've used for scale are from Wargames Foundry's "Street Violence" range - SVO14 Mercenary Fire Team. The roof is removable, giving some playability to the interior of the building, which I like. However the tolerances are so fine with the way the roof goes on, the MDF is easily broken... which I did.

The model went up very easily and in only a few pieces, which is great. Again I did a pretty basic paintjob which I'll likely revisit... that ladder is looking particularly clean and that should be addressed.

The model will pretty much work in any setting from WW1 to sci-fi - I just love the flexibility. As noted, the roof attachment is a bit fragile and might have been designed a bit better. It was super-easy to assemble, although a narrow file is a useful tool to have on hand. I reckon I'll go over the railings in dark grey and weather up the ladder a bit as well, and that should do it.

The Factory Power Room retails for 12.50GBP.

OVERALL RATING: 8.5/10

Painting Challenge Submission 9 - WW2 German MMG Team in Winter Kit

28mm German WW2 MMG team - figures from Warlord Games.

I am continuing to work through my Winter WW2 project during Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  Having enjoyed a visit to Burch's Bluffs, I wanted to move to another stop on lovely Challenge Island (see here for more information on the Island and how it works with the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge). The Path Of The New Shiny brings me next to Mudry's Mesa. Named in honour of our very own ByronM, to safely traverse the Mesa one can paint a figure purchased after the Challenge was announced.  This was great news - my 28mm Winter WW2 project fit the bill. I could get back to my project and clear another vista on Challenge Island all at once.

My next destination...

Since there are all sorts of shifty characters traversing the Island, I thought the Mesa could use something helpful for defensive purposes. This is a 28mm German tripod-mounted MG-42 team in winter gear.  They will make great use of the nice, clear, fields of fire scenic views from Mudry's Mesa. These are metal 28mm castings from Warlord Games' "Bolt Action" range.

The deadly MG-42, ready to tear out a stream of deadly fire on its opponents...

I believe the three figures on this weapon crew were meant to be crowded together on to one larger base, and I was planning to do that at the outset...but the only way to do that, it turned out, was to have the officer right in the path of what I would assume to be a stream of empty casings flying from the MG-42. That seemed wrong to me.  I also remembered that games like "Chain of Command" will, at times, have a weapon team like this under the direction of a junior leader.  So I popped the gun commander onto a separate square base I use to mark NCOs/Junior Leaders, and left the two-man team directly with the gun on the larger round base.

Lots of great detail on these castings.

Ready for action...

As with all of the other WW2 Germans I have been painting so far from Warlord's range, these are excellent figures and were lots of fun to paint. And it was great that these figures could net me another stop on Challenge Island.  As for my next destination...well, it has to do with subjects that my painting/figure collection simply does not support right so. So I might need to summon a Balloon ride...more on that later.

Updated Challenge progress...three spots down, but I need to plot my next destination carefully...

For scoring, this crew was good for 55 points toward my goal of 1,000 points worth of painting.  And my small winter WW2 German platoon now has some scary fire support! Thanks for looking, and have a great day.

Painting Challenge Submission 8 - XVI Legion Apothecary

Are you feeling the hope? No? I can help with that...

Curt always looks for new ways to make his Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge a little different. For this 10th edition of the painting event, he has developed, with the assistance of some creative Challengers, the idea of "Challenge Island".  The idea is to encourage participants to "travel around" the Island, and accomplish different themes or tasks associated with the different locations. Curt was kind enough to name one of the spots after me, and invited me to develop the theme for the location, which he called "Burch's Bluffs".  I had no hesitation - I asked that a participant paint up a 30k-themed figure or model for that scenic locale.

Burch's Bluffs...I mean, wherever I managed to travel on Challenge Island, there was just one spot we all knew I had to visit, right?  I've been on a real WW2 trend in the past couple of months (and WW2 subjects have comprised the overwhelming majority of my Challenge X submissions to date), but it was time to get a 30k figure set for painting and visit this location on the Challenge Island map.

Ah, what a lovely spot on an at-times dodgy Island destination...

My 30k collection is fairly large - in multiple scales. Lining up a figure to paint for this spot of Challenge Island did not take long...

Such a fine-looking legion symbol, embossed on his shoulder plate.

Here is an Apothecary from the 16th Space Marine Legion - the Sons of Horus, the Warmaster's very own Legion - wearing Mark II legion powered armour. He's carrying a bolt pistol on the off chance that he needs to shoot anyone, and the obligatory chain sword (he is a Space Marine, after all) but the spooky optics, drill/saw blade "glove" and assorted fluid containers all speak to his specialist function. He will accompany his fellow Sons of Horus on the various battlefields of the galaxy, and in those rare instances where the feeble efforts of those still loyal to the so-called "Emperor" might cause losses or injury in battle, will do his bit to make sure his fellow legionnaires keep on fighting with a minimal loss of time.

Right shoulder pauldron sporting the, er, "symbol of the medical profession"...

This is a resin model from Forge World. Some years ago they released a pack of two Legion apothecaries. I picked up a set second-hand from a local hobbyist who was moving on from 30k. I painted one for the Sons of Horus last summer. At one point I thought this second one should go to a different Legion, but then, come on...naturally the Warmaster's personal forces would need at least TWO apothecaries...it only makes sense.

No dirt on this apron. He has standards to maintain!

Because of course the Warmaster is also very busy with charity work, and this chap will also contribute to these worthy not-for-profit efforts, helping to provide vaccines and basic medical care to the survivors of planetary communities which took too long to see that things are changing and got in the way fell victim to pro-"Emperor" terrorism.

Very cool figure - lots of detail.

Supported by the Dark Mechanicum, he will also support valuable medical research - for
example, how long could an average human lung system survive on a planet that was, oh, I don't know, hit with a virus bombardment followed by a pan-continental firestorm? Does being run over by a Land Raider alter this? The medic will help Science answer these sorts of important questions. It's all part of the Warmaster's bold commitment to...knowledge. Yes, that's right. Knowledge.

The new apothecary takes his place with his Warmaster and XVI Legion bretheren.

Here is the obligatory "Challenge Island" progress shot (many other participants do much cooler versions of these, with better graphics - me, not so much). My next "Challenge Island" will be "Mudry's Mesa".

Progress so far...up next, Mudry's Mesa...

This single figure was only worth 5 "points" of painting toward my goal of 1000 points, but you get a bonus of 30 points for visiting a "Challenge Island" location, so it all helps. Thanks for looking - and when you are finished visiting with us, be sure to check out the 10th Edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge for all sorts of wonderful and creative figure painting from hobbyists around the world...

Painting Challenge Submission 7 - The Winter WW2 Germans Keep Coming

28mm German late-war infantry from Warlord Games.

More winter WW2 Germans? Yes - sorry everyone, but I'm trying to focus a bit to take a big bite out of this project.  So yes - even more 28mm WW2 Germans in Winter kit.  As with my other entries from this project to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, these are metal castings from Warlord Games' "Bolt Action" range. I'm in a "winter" state of mind, and the recent local conditions in Winnipeg are helping keep things that way.  This was from the past weekend...

It's January in Winnipeg, after all...

Certainly the winter weather helps inspire to paint these winter-themed figures. This is one of those "something I've always wanted to do projects" so I'm keen to rip through it and get a force big enough for a game sometime soon - certainly before the snow melts.

The Red River, frozen solid behind my house...

The back yard, buried in snow :)

These specific figures are slightly different from the others - these are meant to represent SS troops, hence the adjustment in the winter look.  While there are some white pants and helmets, there are a different assortment of coats and anoraks.  There are also some attempts at German camouflage peeking out from under the winter gear.

The odd cammo pattern peaking out here and there.

View from behind showing assorted kit.

LMG crew trying to get the MG-42 ready for action.

German WW2 cammo is a very intimidating subject, particularly in the context of the Challenge where so many of the participants can paint camouflage so well. Not only was it complex, but German camouflage is the sort of topic that you understand less the more you try to study it. There were so many different types of patterns, spread across so many different types of kit.  Different coats, different cuts, M41 this, M43 that...it makes me nuts.  The Germans apparently had reversible camouflage garbage mittens! This group of figures is like a Mountain Equipment Co-Op with guns - studying up about it makes me a bit mental, and I'm never sure I like the results...but there is only one way to improve, that is to practice, so here we are!

They look glossy in spite of the use of a matte varnish.  Is there any matte varnish out that actually dries matte?

Another view of the riflemen.

For the most part I left the camouflage mostly underneath - on the odd pant leg or helmet cover. The jackets (M41 or M43 or whatever) were issued in grey and tan (but...not white?) so I used a mix of both on the coats. But I did attempt to copy the so-called "Italian" camouflage for the NCO's coat. This is a pattern referenced in the box - I tried to research it but gave up after web searches surfaced a number of contradictory references.

NCO in the middle - square base - sporting "Italian" camouflage (at least, according to the Warlord box...)

I'm perplexed by how often I see photos/miniatures/colour drawings of German troops mixing white-washed helmets and white coats with some of their fancy camouflage.  Would you still wear the "autumn leaf" pattern (or whatever) with snow on the ground? Maybe...woods and forested areas still have lots of brown, even once the snow starts falling? Whatever, this NCO is wearing the camo-edition of his coat, snow-be-dammed.

The pose for the LMG team is a bit disappointing. What is it with sculptors and their determination to sculpt LMG teams in odd poses? At least this group sort-of-looks-like they are trying to get the weapon into action.

LMG crew.

One of their comrades seems to be saying - "hey, maybe use that ***ing MG42?"

Quite a few in this bunch are sporting the later-war STG44 assault rifles, and between these and the panzerfaust launchers overall the weapon loads exude a distinctly late-war vibe to them.  That's OK with me - I like to game the late-war very much, but I'm going to get some more rifle armed figures just to dampen out the number of assault rifles.

Is that guy on the right struggling with the panzerfaust?

The guy on the left looks a little extra-hard-core with the bandaged eye.

One casting is kind of odd - he looks like he is holding the panzerfaust like maybe he is getting ready to use it? The pose is strange...it looks less like he is going to fire it at a tank or hardpoint, and more like he is getting ready to sneak up on one of his buddies and prank him with it...given the power of that warhead, I can see the prank going wrong...

"Group photo" of the 28mm Winter WW2 project to date...

Here is a "group photo" of progress on this project so far - about 37 castings, not bad, but they need to be rounded out with some other bits.  Hopefully that will follow soon. Thanks for visiting and for looking!