From StuartL - Thieves Guild

Have you ever had miniatures that you started painting, but could never seem to get a good feel for? That is how all of the minis in this post started out. I had some colours on each of them, but none of them felt right and had been sat in various WIP piles for ages. Resolving to get them done, I sat down early on Tuesday morning and began by repainting all of them in a base coat of dark brown. (GW Rhinox Hide I think it's called). After that I began blocking in details with a limited palette of mainly greys and browns. A wash and some highlights followed, along with cleaning up a few errors. While none of the miniatures follow a particular uniform, the same colours are used on at least 2 models in the group, creating a somewhat coherent appearance. The only exception is the orange OSL I attempted on the halfling with the lantern. 

The figures are all from Reaper's Bones range and of varying quality. At least one mini is missing his nose and his face lacks any real details, whereas the halfling and the thug in the red hood have very clean, crisp details.

All of the minis were painted in several sittings across one day with the exception of the moss on their bases which took a while to dry and had to be finished yesterday morning. They are pretty rough around the edges, but they look like rough types anyway, so it's all good. Plus I got them all out of the WIP stage and into the 'done' category, so I'm pleased with that.

I'm not sure what I will be using these for, Dungeons and Dragons perhaps as most of my Reaper minis end up in my RPG box anyway. Recently I've been pondering about attempting some kind of dark fantasy game in the vein of Mordheim, Rangers of Shadow Deep or Dark Age of Sigmar*. For the time being, they'll be off my workbench and that's what is really important at this stage. It's not like you need a plan to use the minis you buy after all.

For the purposes of tracking my own progress, these 8 figures should be worth 40 points on the challenge scale, bringing my imaginary total up to 332.5.

*Also known as AoS28 for some reason. Dark Age of Sigmar is a fan based take on GW's Age of Sigmar setting, stripping out all of the bright, child-friendly, high fantasy and replacing it with chilling horror, gritty violence and quite a lot of artistic interpretation. From what I have seen, it is largely inspired by the likes of John Blanche's older artwork. If you're interested, you can find more at https://28-mag.com/

AdamC- Militant Peasants

These are some figures I picked up second hand from my gaming and bloging friend AJ.  The plan is to use them as characters and support troops in a game inspired by Seven Samurai but set in Western Europe. I’ll probably use some simplified version of Saga (no Battle board) or Dragon Rampant as I plan to run this game as kid friendly.  I have an acquaintance here in town who runs a mini gaming convention for the Cub Scouts, and I ran a game one time and really want to do it again

 There are some hero types including two fellows who clearly used to work Erol Flynn’s Robin Hood. The two crossbowmen are probably two old army buddies since they seem to be executing the same “drill.”

There are also some great characters including the watchman with his horn, the Friar who clearly has issues with the sin of gluttony, and the baker.  Now I just need Annie over at Bad Squiddo to do a less well-dressed version of her shield maidens to go with them. 

From Barks: Line orcs

This coming weekend would have been Eucalyptus Bowl in Sydney, but due to COVID it was called off. I feel a bit of a Cassandra as I predicted that in mid-March. Lucky for me as my team is far from painted! These resin figures are from RN Estudio. I have over a dozen to go, and they're a real slog- white, red, and yellow are labour-intensive colours.

The Skull-o-meter™ is surprisingly active here, reading 18 skullz.

From PeterD Anglo-Dutch Wars Dutch Ships

I had these painted up a week ago and planned to post this soon after my English squadron but you know how it goes....

With COVID19 my university lectures got moved to Zoom lectures which took a lot more time planning than my normal stand in front os white board blather on and do examples lectures.  Maybe it's not such a bad thing long term, but my oldometer may be limiting my ability to learn new tricks.  Lectures are now over but I've got two take home final exams to prep a bunch of term projects to mark.  

I've got the following ships ready for posting.  And we will sail on to the sea of Arcania and the Five (yes FIVE) Admiralties that co-existed in  the Dutch Republic until 1795 (when they lost their fleet to French Hussards).  I expect that our Dutch friends will be watching for my inevitable mistakes as I navigate these shoals.

Leading the squadron is the Speigel from the Admiralty of Amsterdam.  She was built in 1663 carried 70 guns and was DeRuyter's flagship for the squadron that DeRuyter took to West Africa and North America just before the start of the Second Dutch War.  She was in thick of the fighting on the first two days of he Four Days' Battle and got sent home in a badly damaged state after the second day. I've given her a (probably) anachronistic triple-X Amsterdam flag at her mainmast.

Next in line is the Noorderkwartier from the Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier (North Quarter) aka the Admiralty of West Friesland based in Hoorn.  She carried 60 guns and was brand new when she served as part of the squadron that DeRuyter took to West Africa and America.   She fought in the Second and Third Wars.  I've given her a West Friesland flag (blue with lions) at her mainmast.

Last we hav two ketches (I think these would be hoeckers in Dutch) Zwolle and Goede Hoop from the Admiralty of the Maas (Rotterdam).  The Goede Hoop was made into a fireship.

The ships are once again Tumbling Die 1/2400 and very nice when assembled.

There was a fair bit of rivalry between the various Admiralties and Dutch fleets tended to have scads of "flag offices" as each Admiralty wanted to make sure that their men got roles.  And of course, the actual squadrons were made up of ships from several Admiralties not serrated into regional fleets.  Quite apart from his tactical brilliance, DeRuyter's other major plus was that he was so well respected that all the factions shut up and listened to him. 

You can see the variety of flags used in the stern view.  I have to touch up some around the edges with finalize black marker.

I've played a little fast and loose on the flags.  The 5 admiralties typically used combinations of the Princes' flag (sideways tricolour) and Triple Princes flag (same thing only  3 times as many stripes) as ensign and jack.  I'm substituting regional flags for each of the five admiralties, some which probably weren't used in the seventeenth century.

From MikeV: Another week, another knight

I've taken a liking to these mounted Men at Arms. Admittedly, I'm not churning them out at anything more than a snail's pace but I guess the reason is there for all to see. As usual, the figure is from Front Rank's excellent Hundred Years War 28mm range.  The pictures have been taken with a low exposure setting on purpose as the caparison detailing seemed to come out better this way, so I apologise if certain other parts of the figure are a bit darker than would normally be expected.

I have to say I really enjoyed painting this figure but painting the rampant lions on the right (dexter) side of the figure was a pain in the beginning as they are essentially mirror images of the ones on the left which were the first ones to be painted.  Once I got the hang of it, it was fine though.

I am cross posting this one on the The Analogue Hobbies Quarantine Challenge.

Hope you like it and take care y'all.

From GregB: More 10mm Bavarians for FPW

More 10mm Bavarians, ready to invade France in some Franco-Prussian War action. Castings from Pendraken.

Yet more 10mm Franco-Prussian war figures coming off of the painting desk this past weekend.  Here are five bases of Bavarian infantry - the castings are all from Pendraken. Not much to say beyond repeating what I have said before - 10mm is great, and Pendraken provides the best 10mm stuff I have come across.

This basing can work for a number of rule systems, but I intend to use them for "1871".

In the basic "1871" rules, each base would be a battalion.  So this would represent a reinforced regiment.

I love the bright cornflower blue of the Bavarian uniforms from this period.

Happily Pendraken also sell flags...it's a one-stop shop!

There are four bases of regular infantry, and one base of Jagers.  The Pendraken castings are all outstanding, but I was particularly blown away from the Jagers, which somehow managed to have the marksmanship cords and plume on the helmets on 10mm castings. My brush skills were not the strongest in terms of picking out those details, but wow - just great stuff.

As with all of my recent 10mm FPW work, these figures are part of the build up to do the Battle of Wissembourg.  A division of Bavarians took part in that engagement, and with this lot completed I have now finished painting the initial Bavarian contingent in the OOB for that scenario.

Attempted close-up on the Jagers.

Tremendous sculpts from Pendraken.

The French are already completed, and now that the Bavarians are finished, it is time to focus on finishing the rest of the Prussian contingent for the game. That will involve another eight batteries of artillery, a few more command bases, and another 12 or so infantry bases.  This will take some time to finish, particularly as I still get distracted by other projects and scales, but the Quarantine Challenge is helping me to focus, that's for sure!

Bavarian division massed on my shelf, awaiting the order to move out!

Thanks for looking everyone - I hope you are safe and healthy, wherever you are.

GregB

From MattT: Slow trickle of volunteers, VBCW

Not much progress to report this week. I did manage to muster a few more recruits to bolster my workers militia. Usual mix of manufacturers.

The group shot is starting to look more like a mob you wouldnt want to mess with. Cant wait for their first outing on the table. Hopefully it will be soon enough and that they dont disintegrate at the first sound of gunfire.

Stay safe Matt