Thursday, February 6, 2014

From AlanD: 28mm Dark Age Arthur & Hun Date Night (120 points)



From Alan:
I am very fond of the Westwind Arthurian range, and finally got around to painting up their Arthur figure, but found a rearing horse from Black Tree Design to mount him on for extra heroic impact. The bloke with the horn is also from Westwind. As always the shields are hand painted. I can't bring myself to use decals.

Here also is my latest batch of ten 28mm Huns, mainly consisting of a group of noble cavalry. I gave a couple of them Roman tunics, which may have been looted from somewhere, or possibly suggest that the wearers once served as mercenaries for Rome. 



We also have a figure that I find very poignant of a Hun with a clearly terrified captive woman. This figure narrowly missed out on being sent in for the casualty bonus round.
Nearly all figures are from Foundry, with one from Gripping Beast. He's the one riding the creature that has some resemblance to a horse.

Very nice work Alan. Those hand-painted shields for the Arthurian figures are superb (though I will never begrudge anyone their decals, least of all me). The Huns are suitably ferocious though I must agree with you that some look like their riding large dogs. 

These lads, both chivalrous and not, will give Alan 120 points, placing him nicely amongst the top 10. Lovely stuff Mr. D!

From ClintB: 10mm Mahdist Tribesmen (64 points)


From Clint:
Yet More Pendraken figures 3 figures to a 20m by 20mm base and 21 bases in all. I have kept the patch colours on the Jibbehs muted so no need to wear sunglasses while playing in England. (Chance would be a fine thing at the moment!) Overall I am not displeased with how they have all come out. There is one dodgy stand of three figures which is the result of dropping 10mm figures while painting which have now deserted and fled under a wardrobe. So the Dodgy stand has three figures that don't quite conform, one is an Ansar, one a fuzzie wuzzie and the last carries a Rifle. But overall that will not be noticed. Although I now suspect some eagle eyed person will try to spot it.
This Lot sees me finish the 10mm Ansar for the foreseeable future. I recognise the difference between sufficient to play a game and a desirable amount. So further purchases of 10mm Colonial figures are planned, with maybe a few extra camels.

Camels in 10mm? Booyah! Bring em' on!

Great work here Clint. I like the muted patchwork on the tribesmen and the arid basing looks very convincing. Well done.

These ferocious lads will give Clint 64 points. Again, nice work!



From JohnM: 20mm Winter War Fins ( 88 points)


From John:
It is with a bit of reluctance that I offer these figures up, Samuli and MichaelF have already submitted some beautifully done 28mm Winter War figures. I am not as good a painter as these two guys and the Winter figures in 20 mm are a bit limited; in fact limited to Fantassin/Warmodelling as far as I could sort out. I had already heard that these figures were a bit smaller then the PSC, AB and TQD Castings that I already have in my WWII armies. The figures though once obtained were about the same height as what I have and really they have quite a complete range. Like Samuli and Michael, I am building a force for Chain of Command and really the Warmodelling range had pretty well everything I needed to build a force with a good range of supports. 
So on to the figures, well they are pretty good sculpts but horrible casts. I really like all the poses and the bodies are well proportioned. The rifles may be a little big but are well detailed and fun to paint. The face are a little rough, do Finns really have very sharp noses! The boot were a little understated as well, but otherwise they were fine. The casting though is awfully especially with bits on the faces which is almost impossible to remove, I find it always difficult in the first run through with new figures to remove flash, as I am never sure where it is until I start to paint details. I have a second shipment coming to complete the force so I think it will go a little better the second time.
I enjoyed painting them, I found an excellent you tube video from BF which was quite helpful. Essentially two grays and a highlight of white. Webbing and straps were Vallejo Violet Green, I like the variety of hats, maybe I should of done the fir hats with a black wash rather then a brown, but I did want some variance from the gray spectrum of colour. Blue cap badges for the troops and red for the leaders.  In the first photo after the group shot we see a 3 man LMG team as well as the two senior leaders. In CoC the Finns have two different types of rifle section, with two of each to make up a platoon. The LMG section has 10 men and the SMG section has 6 men. You can substitute in a soldier with a Molotov as a level 1 support. We also have some figures throwing grenades. I did enjoy doing the bases and am looking forward to doing up some terrain.
I have purposely avoided close ups, these figures are just a little too roughly cast for this. After my last submission (paratroops), I get a sense at 20 mm it makes the figures look much worse then they actually do on the table and just distracts from the submission. I hope I am forgiven for making this point. Overall I am really pleased how these figures look on the table, I just now have to decide what figures I will use for the Russians and eventually some Germans. I have wanted to do winter in wargaming for a long time.

I'm struck by the amount of winter-themed entries we're having this year. Excuse the pun but I think it's pretty darned cool. Mwa, mwa, mwaaa... Hmm, I wonder what else I could get done that has  snow in it...

Great work John! 20mm is such a great scale (especially for vehicles) but it can be a bit tricky for both sculptors and painters. I find I either spend too much time on them (treating them like 28mm) or too little (streamlining them as if they were 15mm). Nonetheless, I really like the cool grey tones you've used for these fellows and the snow basing in nice and minimalist.

These Finns will give John 88 points.

From TimB: 28mm Feudal Japanese Samurai and Ashigaru (80 points)


From Tim:
Dragon Clan Bushi Buntai
Here are 16 figures I've finished up for my Dragon Clan Bushi Buntai. This is the seventh buntai I've now completed and have to or three more that I hope to finish up in the next week or so... along with a bunch of terrain... battle boards... what was I thinking!? Oh I also have a bunch of Samurai and Ashigaru casualties that have no use in the game, really, but I'll be finishing them up as well (for the next Fortnightly Theme Bonus Round!) 
The Bushou and Hatamoto - both figures are from the old Alderac Entertainment Group Legends of the Five Rings: Clan War game.
Three Samurai - Also from AEG's L5R Clan War range
Ashigaru Spearmen from Old Glory

Ashigaru Archers - the one on the left is from Perry Miniatures, the rest are from Old Glory.

Ashigaru Gashira Bannerman - like the previous bannerman is an Ashigaru Spearman from Perry Miniatures that I made my own banner and pole for. 
Backside of the Bannerman. 

Wow, you've done seven of these groups during the Challenge? Excellent work Tim! I know you're now down to the crunch but I've seen you work under pressure so I'm sure you can pull it off. In regards to this group I quite like the green and yellow theme and your custom banner-bearer turned out wonderfully.

This Dragon Clan buntai will give Tim 82 points. Great job!