AHPC XIV: From Mike W - 28mm Dark Ages, 15mm WW2 and other items!

 I was scratching my head about what to paint this week until a friend of mine, Dave from the Wargames Club, said that he had some old 28mm Gripping Beast Dark Ages (Vikings & Saxons) figures that he no longer wanted! Great I thought and I have now completed 32 of these guys!

The completed Dark Ages figures

Dave gave me the figures on Friday evening, so I spent the weekend putting these together and then undercoating them. About 20 of these guys were still on the frame, whilst the others were partially assembled requiring finishing off. With the plastics were a few metal figures, some of which I will present in this group, the others will likely follow-up in next week's post.

The two metal figures that were part of this group

Close-up of five of the figures, all with kite shields and all with Victrix Norman Heads

I wanted to assemble some of these guys as Bretons, so I used some spare Norman Hreads (Victrix & Conquest Games) and shields to give the figures this flavour, and used Breton artwork on the shields. In my mind these Bretons would be heavily influenced by the Normans but might retain some more generic features found in many Dark Age armies of the time. 

Four more of the guys, again with kite shields

Another five, all with round shields with Breton artwork.

These figures will be added to the 'Norman' pool for an upcoming game that I'll be staging recreating The Battle of Hastings,  at the club in coming months.

Next five figures, again wit Breton shields but the guy in the middle definitely has a Viking look! To his left there is a guy with a Oathmark human head with a hood and a cloak from the bits box

Painting was pretty straight forward, undercoated in grey with a white dry-brushing over the top of this. I used GW DarkOath Flesh for skin tomes and then highlighted this with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh. A point to note here is that the Dark Oath Fresh needs to be applied over a solid white undercoat, else it can look very dark, something for me to remember next time!

Six more figures

Chainmail and steel was done in GW Leadbelcher and various colours were used to 'dress' the figures, before applying a watered down dark wash to add shading. Wood was painted in Light Yellow, washed with watered down Soft Tone ink to give shading.

Last five figures, the standard is from the spares box, not Breton but looked cool

All were finished with a matt varnish and shield artwork was applied before baseing.

Next off the production line are 40 x 15mm Afrika Korps figures, I'm not sure of the manufacturer of these but suspect that they are old Command Decision figures - they're metal and have square cut bases - unlike the older Flames of War metal figures.

I use Flames of War basing sizes so here we have 8 bases each with 5 figures

Another view of the finished figures

These were all undercoated in grey then dry-brushed white, flesh was added using Army Painter Barbarian Flesh, uniforms were a mix of greens trying to replicate the German WW2 Tropical Green colour. Riles and machine guns were done in natural colours and belts etc done with brown leather. 

On random helmets, gas mask containers & water bottles I used a sand coloured paint to help give the figures a more desert feel. All was washed with a dark tone and varnished.

Close-up of some of  the figures, all rifle or MP40 Sub-machine Guns

Another close-up of the figures

Bases were finished off with fine sand and dried grass tufts.

And a very close view

Finally this week I have some 10mm English Billmen for my Flodden Project, these have been painted up as Lord Surrey's retinue, with red hose and green and white halved jackets. I have given each of these figures a leather / quilted jack and they sport either steel helmets or caps of various colours.

Six bases of ten figures in line of march, flags sourced from the internet

In a 3 base wide, 2 bases deep formation with standards to the front.

Again I have made this billman unit double sized with six bases instead of 3, as per WarMaster standards, each base with 10 figures. These tiny guys only get three flags in the unit as there are no suitable figures to convert to standard bearers! I had to press gang some spares into service here, something I'll need to sort out as I expend these armies, as I like a lot of flags in these type of units!

Unit in formation, with standards to the rear - as I prefer them to be on tabletop

And a view looking down on the unit.

Again time was a bit of an issue this week, so I didn't get everything finished that I'd hoped. There are some 10mm Flodden Horse nearing completion for next week, along with more Warlord Epic units, maybe even some more naval stuff if I have time to do the rigging!

AHPC IX - From MikeW: 28mm Bretons and 17th Century Spanish 20mm VBCW (181 Points)

Plastic frames awaiting assembly

I'm trying to concentrate on a couple of projects this week, however, somehow I doubt I'll be able to keep focused! First I have a pile of Gripping Beast plastic Dark Age figures - which I have had kicking around for some time. My aim is to build these as Bretons to fight alongside their Norman allies at the Battle of Hastings.


There are six frames of five figures on each and I was able to rummage through my spares box to find enough spare 'Norman heads', heads with helmets and kite shields to make 21 Bretons.

A number of the spare heads were from the Saxon Warrior box, sounds fiddly (and t was) but using a sharp modelling knife  - I cut off any mustaches from the Saxon heads as the Normans at the time were clean shaven...

Battle Fag Transfers

In my mind,the Bretons are the poorer cousins of the Normans, keen to follow Norman fashion but not quite at their level, not  sure about the historical accuracy of this assumption but I will have their men not quite so well equipped and so these generic Dark Age warrior types can make up their back ranks, giving the units a distinctive look and feel.

The figures are based on 2 pence pieces and so once glued on, I undercoated in white before painting the little guys in largely muted colours - although I have done one in red, a couple in maroon and a few in light or dark blue.

I used shield transfers on these figures and then painted over with matte varnish. Figures were based in my normal manner.

First Line of 7 Bretons

Second Line of Bretons

Third Line of Bretons

These photos taken just before I sprayed the figures with matt varnish, to remove the shine

Calculations: 21 x 28mm Foot figures @ 5 Points ea = 105 Points

Next item are 4 x 28mm 17th Century Spanish Musicians from The Morados Viejos, or "Old Purples", this unit originated in 1632 as the Tercio de Sevilla, or Regiment of Seville, and was the oldest "standing" Tercio in service through to the early 1700s.

The figures are from Phoenix Miniatures, previously available from North Star but sadly these seem to have disappeared from sight about 18 months ago. I have a regiment of the 'Old Purples' already painted-up, I thought I'd add a small vignette of some musicians playing to add colour to the table top, not that colour was in short supply for Spanish armies of the period - each Tercio being uniformed in separate distinctive colours!

Spanish Musicians from the 'Old Purples' Tercio

So in the group is a drummer, 2 fifers and a piper - yes the Bagpipes were a reasonably common musical installment of the period and not limited to the Scottish Highlands!

Figures were undercoated in white and painted in my normal way, then based on an 80 x 40mm base. Job Done!

Calculations: 4 x 28mm Foot figures @ 5 Points ea = 20 Points

Raw plastic figures

Next item are a group of WW1 British Infantry, heavy Weapons Squad, painted up for my VBCW project. Alsofound were a group of  4mounted figures, believe these were with the Artillery set and these are going to be pressed into service as VNCW Cavalrymen.
Again they represent the Liverpool Workers Council and again they are from a plastic HaT set.

Liverpool Workers Council Heavy Weapons Team

There is a two man mortar team, a two man HMG team, a prone two mane Lewis Gun team and an officer, all painted in same manner as I did the Field Gun in a previous post.

BTW, I found another Field Gun team, which I will tackle in a future week...

Mounted Figures

Calculations: 5 x 20mm Foot figures @ 4 Points ea = 20 Points
                        2 x 20mm Prone Figures @ 2 Points ea =  4 Points
                        4 x 20mm Mounted Figures @ 8 Points ea = 32 Points
                        Total 56 Points

Next Batch of 17th Century Figures, 

incl Spanish Musicians

Final item I have started is another 28 man 17th century Saxon Infantry Unit, this time it will be representing Röbel's Regiment, and is basically a repeat of the previous regiment I painted up but this time with Green facings to the coat.

I mention it here to 'force' myself to do the painting! Even if it's in between other items I may decide to paint up, who knows if I'll get them finished this week!





Calculations: 21 x 28mm Foot figures @ 5 Points ea = 105 Points
                          4 x 28mm Foot figures @ 5 Points ea = 20 Points
                          5 x 20mm Foot figures @ 4 Points ea = 20 Points
                          4 x 20mm Mounted Figures @ 8 Points ea = 32 Points
                          2 x 20mm Prone Figures @ 2 Points ea =  4 Points
                          TOTAL = 105 + 20 +20 +32 +4 = 181 Points