Painting Challenge entry: Roman Hopolomachius

 

I have been wanting to set up another Zoom game for the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts. I dug out Timothy Peterson’s Roman ‘Arena Combat’ rules, which were themselves a variant of Steve Jackson’s ‘Melee’. Being hex based, it is fairly easy to see how to move around the arena, and how to attack and defend the front, sides, and rear of each other’s models. The models I have available are mostly pre-painted gladiators from em4 Miniatures. This past weekend I also assembled and painted up a Hopolomachius, a heavily armoured swordsman kitted out like a Greek hoplite, with helmet, breastplate, greaves. aspis (large round shield with bronze facing over a wooden core), and gladius.

The figure was assembled from parts from both the Greek Hoplite Infantry and Command sprues, both available from Warlord (ex Immortal Miniatures). For a multi-part figure, there's some nice anatomy in the pose and some good detailing like the suspension rig of the aspis.

I was working fast, so I primed it with Chaos Black, and did a rough spray bomb zenithal highlight with Corax White. I laid the base colours in with various acrylics, using Vallejo's Non Metallic Metal set for the browns, yellows, and white. Finished off with some oils for quick blending and highlighting. The amphora is a decal, applied with decal solvent and setting solutions, and suitably distressed. The front three hex sides of the base are painted dark grey, since facing is a very important feature of the Melee rules.

Below, some other em4 Miniatures gladiators on a Melee mousepad style game mat. We had 3 one-on-one fights. No one's gladiator dies, and after a suitable recovery period we had a small battle of the three victors vs. the three losers. 

Below, the Hopolomachius seen facing off against a common pairing, a Myrmillus.

Gothmog and the Warg Riders

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge ends tomorrow at midnight, and while I am not an official participant, I have been acting as a 'running partner' for my fellow Conscripts who are in the challenge. Congratulations to all who were able to meet their personal goals. Over the winter, I was able to complete over 196 foot, 14 mounted, and 3 large 28mm scale Lord of the Rings miniatures. This cleared a backlog going back nearly a decade. I had started prepping a group of 34 Games Workshop Rangers of Middle Earth as my next project, but I didn't think I could get them finished in time. I decided to switch to the old metal version of Gothmog, both on foot and mounted, and a box of plastic Warg Riders.

 

Although there were only six mounted orcs, I always find doing random colours on a group of miniatures challenging. I much prefer soldiers or warriors in some kind of uniform. The wargs were the easiest part of the project since I painted them all the same, followed by the two Gothmog figures. At least they were alike in their paint scheme, but the hodgepodge of orc riders was giving me a headache trying not to paint them in a uniform pattern. 

The wargs come with a fur ridge that can be placed on their backs to fill in the gap where the rider would sit, so they can also be used as wild wargs without a rider depending on the scenario. All the miniatures were primed matt black using a rattle can and then painted with a variety of water-based acrylics with lots of drybrushing of highlights. Once painting was completed, they were all given a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade, followed by a light coat of Rust-oleum Matt Clear spray. Here is the final result.

Gothmog, Lieutenant of Minas Morgul, featured in the movie 'Return of the King', commanding the Mordor forces at the taking of Osgiliath, and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields

Warg Riders with Bow, Sword, and Spear. The Orcs of the Misty Mountains have some control over the wargs living there

'Wild' Wargs with the rider replaced with a fur ridge. In the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, attacks can hit either the rider or the mount. If a warg rider is killed, the warg has an attack ability that is independent of the rider.

Thanks for reading. Once again, congratulations to my fellow Conscripts participating in the Painting Challenge. The return of nice weather will probably draw me away from my painting desk, but I hope to keep whittling away at my collection of unpainted minis. Cheers.

Painting Challenge Submission 17 - 28mm Bavarians for FPW

Watch out! Here come the Bavarians! 28mm figures from "Eagles of Empire".

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 is one of my favourite settings for gaming, and when I enjoy a project in this hobby, I tend to paint figures for it in multiple scales. So while I have been cranking out a fair of amount of 10mm Franco Prussian War work during this edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I also have some 28mm figures to add. 

One of the Challenge participants, MartinN (a world-class painter and super-nice guy) is a big fan of Bavarians - which makes sense, given that he is a Bavarian himself. In one of my recent 10mm FPW submissions, he lamented the "obvious lack of Bavarians" in my recent FPW painting output. I duly promised I would redress that oversight before this edition of the AHPC was finished - and thus we have this group of figures and flag - are all from the excellent "Eagles of Empire" figure range.

"Eagles of Empire" have some beautiful sculpts, just lovely.

Nice mix of poses.

A look at some of the kit the soldiers carried.

There are so many cool uniforms in the Franco-Prussian War. While those of the French often steal the show, the uniforms of the Bavarian army from the period are very cool, with their unique "cornflower blue" and Napoleonic-throwback helmets. Trying to get this share of blue done properly - or, I should say, in a shade that I subjectively believe to be done "properly" - was a struggle, and you don't need to look too closely to see there is variation here and there as I experimented. Some were too bright, and some were too dark. Fiddling around is not ideal, but I am still really pleased with them, and even with the variations, in a group, I think they look pretty good overall, ready to take on the French!

I must also credit "Eagles of Empire" for beautiful sculpts. They are taller and thinner, but oh man, are they nice! So much animation and character, with nice proportions. I just love painting their stuff.

NCO encouraging the lads!

The Bavarian army made a major contribution to the fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, both in the early battles in and around Alsace, and in the later fighting against the dogged resistance of the French Republican regime. 

Another view of the base with the NCO. These three-figure bases are 40mm rounds.

These figures are based for skirmish gaming with the "Eagles of Empire" rules. I am generally wary of group basing in 28mm when crewed weapons are not involved (one of many odd hobby hangups which afflict my brain), but I thought I would finally try the specific basing suggested in EoE rules. That is what you see here - a command base (with the officer, flag and musician) and two "squads", each of seven models. Each "squad" contains one base with three figures, and two bases with two figures each.  

These guys are on 30mm bases.

I just love these sculpts - who wouldn't follow that standard bearer forward???

The drummer looks a little blurry (sorry), but again, great character in the sculpt - he looks like he is playing the hell out of that drum! Charge!!

I should note the EoE rules are agnostic when it comes to basing - this approach is recommended, but hardly mandatory, and the rules themselves are fairly light and fun, so just about any basing approach will legitimately work. That said, now that I have tried it, I really like the look, and will probably be doing several more units in this way.

My kitchen is stormed by Bavarian infantry - I had better secure the beer!

Of course, one can never have just ONE unit of infantry like this, so don't be surprised if more appear at some point in the future. Thanks for reading everyone, and be sure to enjoy all of the "beat-the-deadline" submissions this week from the various Conscripts participating in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge! Stay safe and stay sane folks!

Painting Challenge Submission 16 - More 10mm FPW Infantry

More 10mm troops for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Figures from Pendraken.

Hi everyone. The final stages of the 11th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge are here, and I have a few more submissions to share before that wraps up. To the surprise of nobody, I had another submission with even more 10mm subjects for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. These are all metal castings from Pendraken. There are three bases of French line infantry, one base of Prussian line infantry and another command base for the French.

Deadly Chassepot rifles at the ready.

Firing lines will be the friend of any French player in the FPW period.

I've raved previously about how cool the French line infantry uniforms are from this period (and they are SO cool) so that makes painting these little regiments a lot of fun. The three bases together will represent an infantry unit. My planning is such that each base would generally represent a battalion, and thus the three bases together would represent a regiment, but there are a lot of different rules that give you different options on perspective - this could just as easily represent a brigade, or each base could represent a company etc. whatever. I really like rules that are agnostic about that kind of thing.

Senior command base for the French.

Actual senior commanders would have had smaller flags...but screw it.

He's thinking "how can I snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?"

The command base is meant to represent a more senior level of officer group - like many of you, the more figures on the base, the more senior the command. Here we have a mounted senior officer, with some flunkies, and a flag, so this would be something like a corps commander.

Prussian line infantry, ready to advance!

The Pendraken sculpts are just fantastic.

So far, so French. In AHPC XI my 10mm work has been on French troops - so why only this one single base of Prussians in this submission? Well, I had finished a bunch of Prussians and Bavarians already over the past couple years, and it made sense to focus on building up the French in this edition of the Challenge. With that said, I was doing a review of the little soldiers on my shelf (as one does), and I noticed that, for whatever reason, my Prussians were still a single base short of having an entire Corps' worth of Prussian line infantry (on the basis that one base = one battalion). This irked me (as these sorts of things do), and so painted these guys up to round things out.

One more look at the French lingards...

Of course, no project is ever actually "finished", these figures do represent something of a waypoint for my 10mm FPW efforts - I have enough stuff painted to stage the Battle of Wissembourg as described in Bruce Weigle's awesome "1870" rule set - I even have enough French finished to play the alternative versions of the scenario he offers! That works out to 65 bases of infantry, 20 bases of cavalry, 28 bases of artillery, and 18 different command bases. I'm not about to stop at this project - after all, more and bigger battles await! But this a nice point to pause and smile a little. Now I just need to get them on to the table...

Hope all is well out there with everyone! Stay safe and stay sane.

Nazgûl! - Ringwraith on a Fel Beast

After the massive Uruk-hai project I needed a change of pace to something a bit quicker. Almost a decade ago I bought a used Games Workshop 'Ringwraith on a Fel Beast' off of eBay. It was very cheap as it had experienced some battle damage, and it needed some repair to get it 'shipshape and Bristol fashion' once again.

 

The first problem was the wonky base. It had a crack in the rim, and it wobbled a bit. I took some 3mm polystyrene card, cut a circle of the correct size, and glued the base to it. This made it sturdier, and solved the problem of the wobble.

 

The second problem was all the broken bits. The plastic wings no longer had the posts attached that originally fit into sockets in the metal torso. One was missing completely, while the other was stuck in the socket. Also the right wing had three of its 'spiky bits' broken off as well. The seller had sent all the broken pieces, but I didn't think glue would give a strong enough bond to hold them securely. And lastly, the ringwraith's sword was broken off. It was time to use my combination of floral wire and epoxy putty to replace the broken off pieces, including the posts that were on the wings. 

 

The final problem was the buildup of layers of glue where the wings fit on the torso. The previous owner had glued the wings in place multiple times, so it was no longer possible to produce a good bond. I scraped most of the old adhesives off with an X-Acto knife, then used a wire bristle brush to clean the metal torso further. Finally all the surfaces were cleaned with some isopropyl alcohol to dissolve away any remaining residue.

 

I used super glue to affix the neck to torso, and to attach the tip to the end of the tail. 5-minute epoxy was used to attach the wings to the torso to make sure there were no gaps as the surfaces were rather uneven. Once the epoxy had set, I used some more epoxy putty to smooth out the area around the joints. The final building phase was to do the ground work on the base. The figure is cast with a section of damaged wall that has a discarded Gondorian helmet beside it, so I went with that theme and did the base in same style as my Minas Tirith miniatures - paving cut from plastic card, bricks cut from sprue, and coarse sand for rubble. Everything was allowed to cure overnight.

 

The model was primed black using a rattle can, and then painted with Vallejo acrylic paints using a lot of drybrushing, especially on the wings of the fel beast. Here is the final result.

Thanks for reading. Stay safe and healthy. Hopefully we will be able to gather around the gaming table soon.

"Build Me An Army Worthy Of Mordor." - Fighting Uruk-hai

"Build me an army worthy of Mordor"

My last blog post has been almost three weeks ago. Since then I have been working on a Lord of the Rings mega-project consisting of over 100 Isengard Uruk-hai. Some of the figures I purchased new. Half of these I had already based and primed years ago, while the other half were still in their blister packs. The majority were used figures I bought off of eBay from multiple sellers. A few of these were individual figures such as an Uruk-hai Captain, but a lot were a mixed bag of the Games Workshop boxes of plastic Uruk-hai Warriors and Siege Troops with many missing figures. I like to think of them as the survivors of some hard campaigning. All of these required some cleaning up of mold lines, while a lot needed the removal of some of the ground work where it partially covered the feet of the miniatures. A smaller number were going to require some repair to replace missing pikes, swords or shields. Here was my starting point.

In total I had 3 Captains, 1 Standard Bearer, 11 Berserkers, 18 Siege Troops, 40 Warriors with Sword and Shield, 30 Warriors with Pike, 7 Ladders, and 2 Demolition Charges. I originally had 2 Lurtz figures on the workbench, but put them aside until I start working on my box of plastic Uruk-hai Scouts.

Twelve of the swords had cracks near the hilt where they had been bent but not broken off. These were repaired by the application of some super glue into the crack which made it as strong as new. Three of the sword were missing completely. I replaced these with some hammered floral wire. I also used floral wire to replace the missing part of three pikes that had broken off near the warrior's hand. One warrior was not only missing his pike, but also his right hand and left forearm. These are cast as a single piece and designed to be glued in place. I made a 'right hand' and 'left forearm' from fine wire wrapped around the heavier floral wire of the pike. I drilled out holes in the miniature, glued the fine wires into place, and covered them with epoxy putty. The last repair involved fabricated two missing shields from an old plastic gift card, bending them to shape, and gluing them on. 

 

Once everything was cleaned up, and all the repairs were done, all the figures that were not already primed were sprayed matt black using a rattle can. I originally thought I would then paint them all the way through with each colour, but after doing all the skin areas (Vallejo Cavalry Brown) and all the loincloths (Vallejo Leather Brown), I found while doing the gunmetal on the armour that it was getting to be a bit mind numbing. From that point on, I worked on them by subunit, such as a company of 10 pike, 10 sword and shield, and 1 captain. I also arranged the miniatures within each subunit by pose, so that I would not miss painting a strap, or a piece of armour. 

When all the painting was complete, all the miniatures were given a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade. This darkened all the colours, and gave some definition to the muscles on all the arms, legs, and torsos. It also gave the armour a bit of a grotty look. While I like what it did in these areas, I didn't like the shiny finish that it left on the figures. After doing all the ground work, all the figures were sprayed with a light coat of Rust-Oleum Clear Matt. This took off the worst of the shine, and it also helped to seal the ground work. Here is the final product outside the walls of Helm's Deep.

 

 

Here are close-ups of the individual sub units starting with Uruk-hai Siege Troops with Ladders.

Uruk-hai Siege Troops with Demolition Charges and Berserkers with Torches.

Uruk-hai Berserkers. Five of these are metal miniatures, while the four running berserkers with the two-handed sword resting on their shoulder were converted from the plastic figure running with a torch that comes with the Uruk-hai Siege Troops box. Just to mix things up a bit, I gave the one in the center a severed head to hold. This was done by converting a head taken from a Bandai 1/48 scale tank crewman.

A group of ten Uruk-hai with sword and shield. Some of these had already undergone some repair before I bought them where their sword arm had been replace by one taken from an unidentified metal figure. These got a little treatment from the metal file to take off any detail on the vambrace so that it would look closer to the armour worn by the rest of the Uruk-hai.

 A group of six Uruk-hai armed with crossbows.

And finally three units of 10 pike, 10 sword and shield, 1 captain, and for one of the companies, a standard. All of these were marked with the 'White Hand of Saruman', some on their shield, some on their helmets or armour.

I am really happy with the final results. The first five days were spent sorting, cleaning, repairing, assembling, and priming. Then 10 days of painting, followed by a day each for the Quickshade, the ground work, and the matt coat. The total came to 109 figures, plus the ladders and demolition charges. Now to march to Helm's Deep.

Thanks for reading. Stay safe and healthy until we can meet again across the workgames table.

The gate and walls in the background is a three-piece resin set of Helm's Deep Fortress from Games Workshop. Its footprint measures approximately 60cm x 23 cm. Alas, it is now OOP, but occasionally available in the aftermarket. I have no idea what the current asking price is, but I would be curious to know if anyone has that information.