From MartijnN: QCWk2 - More small matters

For my second weekly hobby task I give you two tiny brigades of 6mm Prussian infantry.

As I said, I have been experimenting with the Citadel Contrast paints. I used Talassar Blue for the coats, and they definitely turned out lighter than my other units. I don't think that really is a problem, it is usually said that it is better to user lighter shader for 6mm figures anyway. I find the contrast paints a bit of a mixed blessing; the effects are nice and the paint flows very smoothly, but you have to undercoat in white. That means that you have to be very careful in your painting because you don't have a dark undercoat to hide your little mistakes, while on the other hand it is very difficult to paint very carefully with them as you cannot allow the colours to overlap. Still, a wash with Agrax Earthshade works wonders and I am pretty pleased how they turned out. Figures are once again from the Baccus range, as are the flags.

They are for my 1866 project, but that should roll over smoothly (ahem) into an 1870 project, and therefore I also did some French 6mm houses. These are resin TimeCast models. The models are nice enough (although the details are not very crisp, which in hindsight makes them perhaps less suitable for the contrast paints). I still gave them a wash with Agrax Earthshade and a light drybrush.They are very large models, unfortunately (this little row is six inches wide and two deep), so a small village quickly becomes a town on the table, but they definitely represent the houses in Lorraine very well.

I'm perhaps not entirely happy with these, as the contrast has left some staining, but from a distance of two feet they are decent enough.

Thanks for looking and stay safe!

Iain W first Quarantine post Irish/ Highlanders (105 points)

So continuing on from the Analogue challenge I have 21 Irish or Highlanders for Flodden.  They are a mix of Perry ,Old Glory and some old re purposed Ral Partha Vikings. They seemed nearly done on the last day of the challenge but clearly I was well off!
To be fair even though I'm no longer working I've had less painting time than when I do work as I'm seemingly repainting lots of the house before digging for victory in the garden!

There will be some more for this project to add to the ones done in the challenge. 

So not Romans but maybe soon after various other bits and bobs.
21 x 5 is 105 points for my own total

All the best
Iain

JTinQT - Week One - Swiss Project

Hi All,

In this Quarantine Challenge I am aiming for a single post per week and just put up whatever I have done. Just two figures painted this week but the start of a project to paint up a third Swiss pike block for Basic Impetus. I need two bases with about 12 figures per base. 

I am using Marignano 1515 as my battle theme and here the Swiss were typically organised into the classic three pike blocks. These figures will be for the third block, the troops from the Lucerne, Basle and Schaffhausen cantons. These first two figures are representing Schaffhausen - so have painted in the canton flag colours of black and yellow. I'll finish the basing when I put on the final game stand base and hopefully will get that finished this challenge.

The figures are Foundry flag bearer and an old Irregular Miniatures - I was quite pleased with this figure. Its an old style casting but painted up well.The standard is from Pete's Flag. The final picture is an older photo from this years challenge which gives the style of the finished block I will be looking for.   

Hope everyone is keeping well. 

Cheers Jez

From NoelW: Post 1: Zulus, crusaders, civvies and Frank

So here we go again!

As the idea for this Challenge is to finish hobby projects, Curt’s ruling that we can submit figures that have already been started is great for me, as much of my lead pile is half-finished. I’ve this horrible habit of priming new figures, painting their flesh and a colour or two, then putting them in a drawer and moving on to another shiny prospect. As a result, I’ve probably hundreds of figures begun but sadly languishing, which couldn’t be used in the Painting Challenge. So I’m going to use this opportunity to complete some of these guilty secrets.

However, that also feels a bit like cheating. Some of the languishing figures only need shields, so they'll only take a couple of hours. In fact, I could probably spend the whole Quarantine Challenge just doing such things. But that feels like setting the bar too low. Curt, in his (what-might-perhaps-be-called-by-some,-especially-Curt), "infinite wisdom" suggested that I should set myself a personal challenge to make Quarantine more interesting for me and my posts potentially more interesting for you. What a sensible guy!

So I thought again about returning to Challenge Island, and travelling it for a third time, but there are four or five locations that I’d find very difficult to complete a third time, and several of them would shift me a long way from my work in progress, so that feels overall too much like hard work. So I thought again about returning to Challenge Island.

Instead I’ve decided on my own “Challenge Island”: a series of tasks that have to be executed by June 20th. My plan is not as interesting as Curt’s, but, as Curt’s did, it will both challenge and motivate me. It consists of one “location” for each of the projects I’d like to see progress. And, as with that fabulous Island now of legendary status alongside Ultima Thule and Atlantis, I aim to visit each location twice. 

When I listed them, I found I'd quite a lot of projects. What a surprise! 23, in fact. So my personal Quarantine Challenge is now to complete (at least) one “new” and one “old” task for one or more of these projects each week. And, as the Challenge lasts 12 weeks, and I'm challenging myself to complete 46 tasks altogether, that means ideally 4 tasks a week, leaving a couple to spare. An "old" task is one that I’ve already started, but never completed. A "new" task is one that has gone no further than the preparation stage, i.e. it follows the same rules as for the Painting Challenge.  I’ll aim to have both a new and an old task completed each week of the Challenge, at the very least, though not necessarily both from the same project. Ideally there'll be two of each, each week. Exceptionally, perhaps, more.

In this way, I hope that the variety will, like the Squirrel side challenge in Challenge IX, and Challenge Island in Challenge X, keep me on my toes and lead to at least some of the posts that will interest you. Most of the tasks have to be small, of course, just a few figures here and there, but in some cases I've quite a few figures just waiting for relatively simple work.

Some of the new tasks will also fit a couple of the side challenges: Benito’s “Infamy! Infamy!” ancients challenge and StuartL’s “Bolt Action Brush Battle” (is that happening, Stuart?). For these, of course, I’ll only be submitting new tasks, I’ve minis currently unbegun.

So here are my two old tasks for this week. Firstly, Frankie goes to Frostgrave:

He's a Wargames Foundry figure, whom I began for Challenge IX, but didn't quite finish. Now he's done:

He's intended for general fantasy use, though he's most likely to appear first in Frostgrave.

And here are three civilians for him to irritate, though I intend them for my Walmington-on-Sea/Sealion project.

These are Footsore Miniatures, from their inter-war VBCW range. I'd progressed these quite far during Challenge X, but failed to highlight, base, varnish etc  And the little girl doing her "we're off to see the wizard" act, I found particularly hard to get right, as her expression is quite peculiar. I repainted aspects of her three times before deciding enough was enough. I think she's probably simply possessed.

For my "new" work, here's six Natal Native Infantry for the Zulu Wars. Perry Figures, relatively simple painting, apart from shields with a life of their own. 

My main projects here are, of course, Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift. One of the things that interests me is the "what if"s of these battles. What if Chelmsford hadn't split his force, for example, or had returned to Isandlwana before the zulus had overrun the field?

And finally a command base for the Crusades. I'm sticking with my desire to create as many vignettes/command bases as I can, to enhance my battlefields because I love to see them, even if they have no game function, and they potentially make more interesting viewing for you, too.

They are manufactured by Crusader Miniatures but, perversely, are not intended for the Crusades but the Reconquista, being Pedro Bermudez and King Alfonso from their El Cid range. I'm using them as "generic" Frankish/Crusader leaders, so have not painted any particular livery and the flag, which is currently a Templar one (hand painted) is detachable, so I can have a range of different commanders. (I've documented the detachable flag mechanism in a previous challenge.)

I'm rather pleased with these figures, but I have to acknowledge the influence of DarellH's Reconquista project in Challenge X. Whilst I'm not able to replicate the stunning quality of his figures, I was definitely painting with them in mind, and consequently very happy with the results. Thanks, Darell.

So what are my 23 projects, I don’t hear you cry? Here you go, you not very curious people, you:

Project	New Task	‘Points’	Old Task	‘Points’
Agincourt
AWI
Black Seas (1/700th)
British in Egypt: 1801
Cape Wars
Carthaginians
Crusades	Command group	20
ECW
French in Egypt: 1801
Frostgrave/fantasy			Frankie	5
Italian Wars
Lord of the Rings
Minden (15mm)
Ottoman
Peninsular War
Republican Romans
Sikh/Afghan Wars
1860s British IF
1880s, the Sudan
Walmington/Sealion			Civvies	15
Waterloo
WW2 Desert
Zulu War	NNI	30

I'll update that table each week, as I'm going to keep a note of the notional points for my own gratification. I'm going to guess that most tasks will probably be under 50 points, so my target would be 2400 for the 12 weeks, 1200 each for "old" and "new" tasks. As always, I'd hope to exceed this, but we'll see. Only 70 pts this week, so already I'm slipping!

BTW: if anyone wants to adopt a similar approach so we can compare notes, it might be an interesting exercise. On the other hand, most people have more worthwhile things to do with their time!

From SimonG: The Merry Men - Some HYW Ribauds

A pretty pair of skirmisher stands -- the Wargames Foundry ribands. Again an older set of Perry sculpts. These are very variable in quality -- some things good, for example 6 of 8 faces are really characterful and crisp. And some things are terrible -- hands and feet for example are all over the place and the two bare footed characters look more like frogs than humans!

They came without spears for the two running figures which needed to be drilled and added plus the bow strings of course. The shields also seem rather too clean and precise for these peasant soldiers so I did my best to muss them up.

Overall however they painted up nicely even though I tried to tone down my palette somewhat to suit less expensive and rougher clothing. I'm really pleased with how the horns turned out.

Next up are some Front Rank mounted knights. These are rather freaky sculpts with extra long right arms and a restricted (single!) range of poses. I did my best to convert one to hold a standard albeit via severe surgery as the very stiff metal is not at all open to bending. I'm not looking forward to all the heraldry on the caparisons but no matter! (and for those who care about these things I think the horse look and at least one of the helms are early HYW and more C14 than my target late 1420s period but again we work with what we have! Lets just say that this particular knight inherited that helm from his granddad!

From GregB: Acastus Knights for "Adeptus Titanicus"

"Acastus" class knight banner for GW's re-booted Adeptus Titanicus. Plastic models from GW.

More scary machines from the grim darkness of the far future.  These are "Acastus" class Knights for GW's rebooted "Adeptus Titanicus" game. In that game, the knights are relatively small fry, needing to operate nimbly, and in groups, in order to be successful - after all, the battlefield features massive battle titans armed with batteries of weapons which can level entire city blocks with one shot. But the "Acastus" knights are a sort-of-hybrid machine - still knights, but armed with titan-level weapons. 

Crew hatch, and view of the retractable rocket launcher system.

The "Acastus" knights are the largest knights available, quite large compared to the "Cerastus" and "Questoris" machines, and, as you can see in the pictures, nearly as big as a Warhound-class battle titan, and their weapons can not only cook enemy knights but are also capable of dealing out long-range harm to enemy battle titans. The look of these models certainly reflects that role well - not only are they bigger, but their limbs are encased in more armour plating, and the plating is found on the sides and back, not just the front.

Various sizes of knight and, in the background, some titans.

Almost as big as a Warhound...

While these knights do hit harder, they will still need to be used carefully on an "Adpetus Titanicus" battlefield - one blast from a "volcanon cannon" will still render them to slag.  But working in conjunction with other war machines, the "Acastus" knights can be a real threat to enemy Princeps. They can also serve as a stout flank guard for allied titans, easily capably of blasting enemy knights and leaving the bigger titans free to concentrate on bigger game, as it were.

More armour...even the back has plate covering for extra protection.

Scary guns, of course...

Lots of cables and other details...these are truly fantastic models.

These models are painted in the blue/teal and white colours I use for the Knight House in my collection that fights alongside Legio Mortis, and as such these machines will do battle in the name of Horus Lupercal, the glorious Warmaster! Horus for hope!

Lots of decals come with the kits...just fantastic.

And you need to have a banner, right? Obviously.

"Horus for hope!"

While these models were of course fantastic, GW f**ked up the assembly instruction booklet - the part numbers vs. actual parts for key components of the legs are reversed in the booklet vs. how they actually appear on the sprue...so you will need to proceed with caution. If you look at these models, you will see one of them has very small leg greaves on the exterior side vs. interior side...not the end of the world, but it is what will happen if you are not careful and miss the mistake in the instructions.

Updated "family photo" for Legio Mortis & friends.

As always, thanks for visiting the Quarantine Challenge, and thanks for reading. Stay safe.

From MartinC 15mm Thracians

Working from home is still hectic but I now have the next 4 Friday's off. Today I have been constructive. Finshed off some figures and fought a sol 15mm Kings of War Historcal battle with randomised deployment (which worked very well), which I was going to post but the lighting in my spare bedroom is shocking and the photos were terrible, even by my standards. Being KoW it was incredibly brutal and the Indians ran over Pontus. Will play a less randomised battle tomorrow and tweak some of the stats.
During the evenings I've working through my 15mm ancient purchases and have completed 5 more units light units

2 regiments of light cavalry

The figures are Forged in Battle and are lovely to paint, although I'm having paint brush issues. Ihave loads and they are mainly rubbish

2 regiments of archers, 1 of slingers and a general. 

I have 2 units of heavy cavalry to do and the Thracians I have are finished the ones I have. But I need 2 or 3 units of spearmen / Falxmen to complete the force. No plans for a massive Thracian army but they will act as an allied force for someone.

From StuartL - Normans and Japanese

Hi all,

When Challenge X finished and Curt suggested the Quarantine Challenge, I thought it was a great idea. If folks are going to be kept indoors all day, they can at least have fun painting. Here in Japan we don't have a quarantine yet. We probably should, but the government is really dragging it's heels. So far they have done nothing and it seems like they have already run out of ideas. Despite the virus arriving in Japan fairly early on, the rate of infection was really slow and people didn't seem to care that much about it. Even now, when the number of sick people seems to be going up every day, the trains are still packed and everyone dutifully goes off to work. At my place of work a guy showed up to work running a high fever, spent all day at the office and only went to see a doctor after he finished. Luckily he just had a bad cold, but everyone was very angry with him. When confronted about it by HR, he told them that he had a lot of work to do so couldn't take a day off, (Actually he could have, the company is pretty good about sick days), so he had decided to come to work and risk spreading a potentially deadly virus around the busiest department in the company. Great.

So, while I live in constant fear that I'm going to be infected by some workaholic with a report to finish, I am spending my free time getting some paint on some minis and trying to take my mind off the impending doom that awaits me when I go to work.

This group of 14 Normans for Saga comes from one of Wargames Foundry's sub-websites (Casting Room Miniatures I believe) and Conquest Games. Size wise, they go together fairly well. The plastic Conquest figures have longer spears cast in their hands while the Foundry minis have smaller, razor sharp, brass spears glued into their giant mitten-like paws. I undercoated these just before the QC was announced, but most of the work was done on them since last weekend.

My lead and plastic mountain is pretty large, and a fair part of it is minis for Bolt Action. With the QC I decided that I would try and reduce the pile a little, and even offered up a side duel for people to paint any minis from the era of the Bolt Action Rifle (roughly 1825-1955-ish). The duel is still open if anyone fancies joining in. Any scale, any minis, any nation, just so long as the period fits, you can score points (using the standard AHPC system). These 12 Japanese infantrymen are my first attempt to lower the unpainted count and score some points.

To accompany the rifle squad above, I have a light mortar team, an officer, a standard bearer and a flame thrower as well. All of the minis are from Warlord Games.

For my own records, that's 14 Norman and 17 Japanese 28mm figures at 5 points each for a total of 155 points. This represents about 1/4 of the minis I painted in Challenge X and I did all these within just one week.

For the Bolt-Action side duel, 17 Japanese figures gives me 85 points on the score board.