From RossM: 28mm Spartan Musician (2 points)

Last summer the Spartan army for Impetus was repurposed on to 60mm front bases to allow more use with a variety of systems including ADLG and Hail Caesar. The paint work on this figure was slightly damaged during this process. Now touched up and rebased for use in Mortal Gods. 

As there has been very little painting involved in this figure the points awarded for this will be two. 

This takes the running total to 108 out of 500 or 21.6% 

Hope this has been of interest to you 

Stay safe and cheers for now.

From PeterD English Ships from 1666 (1/2400)

To provide opposition to my recent Dutch ships I offer up four english ships of the same period.

The Royal Charles is a first rate of 86 guns and she has quite the history.  She was built under the Commonwealth as the Naseby with a figurehead of Cromwell striding over 6 nations.  She was renamed and sent to carry Charles II from the Netherlands back to reclaim his throne in 1660, Oliver being ceremonially burned along the way.  

She was fleet flagship through the Second Dutch War and served in all of the big actions.  At Lowestoft she bore the Royal Standard with the Lord High Admiral and Duke of York (the future James II) in command.  Charles benched James after he survived a near miss at Lowestoft that took out several of his entourage and left his clothes spattered with toady blood and brains.   In 1666 she mostly served with a tag team of the Duke of Albemarle and Prince Rupert as co-Generals at Sea.  The duo worked quite well together despite strong personalities and serving on different sides during the Civil Wars, possibly because they both were political survivors and knew how their bread was buttered and possibly cease the two old warhorses actually liked and respected each other.  Albemarle was in sole command at the Four Days Battle when Rupert was despatched to watch the French, but it was back to a pairs event at the St James Day battle.  

When the Dutch sailed up the Medway they burnt several major ships but were able to tow the Royal Charles back to the Netherlands as a prize.  They found that she drew too much water to get into any Dutch harbour so used her as an offshore tourist attraction for several years before having her broken up.  However the carvings from her stern galleries can be found on display in the Rijksmuseum.

Stern shot to show the galleries.  I need to redo Martin's as the yellow and blue bled together.  

Martin was a sixth rate and is based on a galley-frigate model with both oars and sails that came in the squadron pack from Tumbling Dice.  I carved the oar banks off of the model as the actual galley frigates were built after the Second Dutch War and were stationed in Tangiers not the North Sea.  Martin carried 14 guns and was initially described as a galley when but in 1652 but pictures show her under sail.

I also have finished off another two smaller craft.  Fanfan was prince Rupert's yacht and named for a mistress.  Roebuck carried 14 guns and served in the Navy in 1666-83.  The name is a nod to my father who served on the frigate HMS Roebuck (an WW2 destroyer conversion) in the 1950s.

From RossM: 2 x 28mm Greek Slingers (10 points)

Recently completed and based these Greek slingers are from Foundry's original range of Ancient Greeks. 

As a result they are slightly shorter and thinner build than the World of the Greeks range however, this does not stop them being used in the same armies. 

As these were the last two left to paint there was no option to vary the poses on this stand; it was advancing with sling as shown or nothing.  

As they are broadly generic figures they can be used for most armies in this period so will likely be a part of the Spartans and future Caesarian and Carthaginian armies for DBA and ADLG.

In points terms for the AHQC these are worth:

2 x 28mm infantry at 10 points

This takes the running total to 106 points out of 500 or 21.2% completed

Hope that you found this interesting. 

Stay safe and cheers for now.

From PeterD Dutch Ships from 1666 (1/2400)

I've been working away on these ships for a few weeks and finally got them finished last night.  I have 8 ships from the Dutch Admiralties from the Second Anglo-Dutch Wars.  These are 1/2400 castings from Tumbling Dice.  They are nice models, but pushed my limited assembly and painting skills considerably.

First up is the 80 gun of 1665 Zeven Provincien, which served as DeRuyter's flagship during the 2nd and 3rd Anglo-Dutch Wars, and the Franco-Dutch War.  DeRuyer was killed on her quarterdeck at Syracuse in 1676, but the shipped served until 1694 until she was so badly damaged at Barfleur that she was broken up.  She was operated by the Admiralty of the Maas (Rotterdam) although DeRuyter was a Zealander who served with the Admiralty of Amsterdam (confused yet?).  I've given her a probably anachronistic green and white Rotterdam flag.  

Next in line is the 60 gun Geloof from the Admiralty of Amsterdam with the triple X flag, which seems appropriate after watching Baptiste on Monsterpeice Mystery!  At the Four Days Battle in 1666 her gunfire sank the British ship Black Spread Eagle formerly the Friesland Admiralty ship Groningen captured at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665).

A couple of smaller ships, both would be 5th rates in the English Navy but no rating system existed in the Netherlands at the time.  The Middelburg was an Amsterdam ship of 38 guns and was considered a fast ship.  The Harderwijk was from the Maas and carried 36 guns.  The Amsterdam Admiralty also had a similar sized ship named Harderwijk at the same time.  Got forbid they could make this easy!

Finally we have four smaller ships, three small ketches or cromsters plus a single masted yacht.  I've given them generic Dutch names so the they can serve as fireships, advice vessels or small merchants as required.  I tried rigging flags on one of them but gave up in the end!

Ships of tis age had elaborate decorations at the stern, those from the Dutch Admiralties normally included paintings of biblical scenes, or coats of arms related to the regional names they carried.  Luckily in 1/2400 one doesn't need to replicate these.  I went for the tried and true method of small multicoloured blobs that might represent these!

I've had a lot of fun researching this period and working on the ships. Assembling rigging is beyond my little sausage fingers and paint work is messy in places, but overall I'm good with he results and at 1/2400 the details all blur anyway.  I've got some English ships to post in the next day or so, and then hopefully a solo game will be underway.

From TeemuL: Stay Safe (42 points)

It has been a while since my last post, probably two weeks or so, but worry not, I'm safe and healthy. It's just that I have had four largish hobby projects on my desk recently, and it is difficult to finish anything... I was also busy with other non-hobby tasks, painting fences and stuff.

But here are three brand new Speed Freeks from the game Speed Freeks by Games Workshop, you can buy these individually as well (from WH40K range), but if you want to buy the cars and other stuff, it would be just crazy to skip the starter box.

I selected rather general coloring for these ork, lots of red and yellow with some metal and black. Orks themselves are naturally green. Pretty much everything painted on Contrasts except the metals and skulls and horns and that kinf of things.

I stupidly glued them all together before starting to paint, which made it rather difficult to paint the face, chest and some other areas. They came up ok and being orks, I forgave a bit of messyness.

I considered some weathering and dirt, but on the other hand I like bright and clear models on the tabletop, dioramas are a different thing of course.

My main aim on the painting was not to get too much yellow or red next to each other, which was rather easy, since orks don't care that much of uniforms and they can paint some piece of metal red and some yellow and do it opposite way on the next bike. They are built from scrap anyway.

I was trying to be rather neat, but not too neat. Contrast paints helped quite a lot on that. I kept the bases quite basic, just some cracking texture paint from GW and sand colored trims. They should be home at the most of the dust tracks they go.

There is a plan that I will be using these during the summer, when we start a Speed Freeks campaign, but we need to finish the Kill Team campaign first. Hopefully I have enough time to build and paint one of the cars as well.

U: 0 (total 10)
N: 3 (total 7)
W: 0 (total 1)
F: 3 (total 15)
R: 0 (total 14)

S: 0 (total 2)

Points:

14 points per one "bigger than 28mm cavalry model" for total of 42 points

 42 total (total 250)

From Minion TeemuL:

I do like these and I do look forward to see the cars!

From Barks: More Blood Bowl Orcs

I am slogging my way through this project. All the white needs a black undercoat, all the yellow needs a brown undercoat, all the metal gets a black undercoat... it is slow going. But I made progress with these Blitzers who are some of the best players in the game.

I rewarded myself with these squigs, which have been on my to-do list for years. They'll be turn markers or reroll counters or something. Three are GW, and the helmeted one is from Goblin Guild.

I think squigs are one of GW's best inventions.

By ClarenceH: Mahdists

Wow! It literally only took three hours to paint twenty-two models. I honestly think it took longer to build these (plastic Perry Miniatures) than it did to paint them!

Now, these guys could have more detail, such as decorative trim on the robes and I'll get around to adding the colored patches to some of the jibba, but I'm happy with how these look for now. I may add shields to some of the models later, but I've read that they didn't often carry them into battle and it was less thing to paint.

All of the paints are Games Workshop. Steps listed below as 'Contrast' are a single coat of GW Contrast paint. If you've not tried it, the paint is like a base coat and shade in one step. It takes a little experimentation to get the technique down to apply as you can end up with 'patchy' results if you're not careful. The important bit is the order you do these in. Robes, then skin (Rhinox Hide), then hair. Each layer covers the last so you can quickly burn through these.

Primer
Wraithbone

Robes
Contrast: Skeleton Horde* OR Apothecary White*

Skin
Base Coat: Rhinox Hide
Highlight: Doombull Brown

Hair
Contrast: Black Templar*

Turban, Scabbards, and Arm Bands
Base Coat: Khorne Red
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Layer: Wazdakka Red
Highlight: Wild Rider Red (Turban only)

Spearshafts and Rifle Stocks
Base Coat: Gorthor Brown
Shade: Agrax Earthshade
Highlight: Baneblade Brown

Steel
Base Coat: Iron Warriors
Shade: Agrax Earthshade

Gold
Base Coat: Liberator Gold
Shade: Reikland Fleshade

*GW Contrast paint

If you follow this method, here are a couple of things to note:

1. The robes will seem way too dark when you start out, but after applying the paint to the skin and hair, will brighten right up. I may add a few edge highlights in the future, but I did on my test model and the results weren't really worth the effort.

2. Doombull Brown looks very red when you first apply it, but darkens as it dries and makes a nice highlight.

3. The Baneblade Brown highlight on the spear shaft is a simple stripe down the upper edge. Don't faff about trying to paint the wood grain.

4. The necklaces, arm bands, and other equipment were given a coat of Black Templar when I painted the hair. When these were later picked in out in other colors, they give the 'black lining' effect I use on many of my models.

Whew!

For me 20+ models at a time is too many. Going forward, I'll work in batches of twelve. I'm using the 1, 2, 3 basing method I stole from Dalauppror to give myself the flexibility to remove single casualties, but cut down on having to move hordes of models individually. These look fantastic in the 'Mass Formation' from TSATF. I actually based them on their multiple stands before painting and it was easier to reach everything than I thought it might be. All of my Mahdists with rifles will end up on single bases so I can deploy them in 'Open Order Formation'.

It will take me a few days to put some more models together, but hopefully I can double the number of models above (and finish the bases) by the weekend!

More soon...