From Mike W - More Medjai Warriors

Following on from the recent test batch of Medjai Warriors i have now completed an additional 9 figures plus a Command figure for the opposition 'Arab Cultists'.

The Painting process was exactly the same as previously described in previous posts.

The finished group of figures

One of the little guys has been painted as a leader for eth Arab Cultists who will be working with the evil forces of the undead to raise the former high priest Imhotep. These guys are working in alliance with German Archaeologists who are looking for ancient artefacts that would imbue power to the fledgling Third Reich.

A leader of the Arab Cultists

Arrayed against them are the Medjai, traditionally known as the Pharaoh's Bodyguard, who have sworn to guard the Pharaoh's interests over the centuries. Imhotep's raising from the dead would inevitably result in the raising of the Pharaoh's Armies to be used for evil purposes.

Medjai Heavy Weapon's Team

What next for this project - well definitely some Archaeologists (German, British & American), some more Afrika Korps plus transport for the same. Thinking a Kubelwagen, a truck and a multi-turreted tank of some sort!

Three Medjai with assorted weapons

Arab Cultists & Medjai will need mounted versions, on horses and/or camels and then probably I'll need a number of regular Arab figures as will - not all Arabs are Cultists or Medjai!

Another three guys, the one in the middle with a German Stick Grenade

The one thing I have plenty of is Egyptian Undead, just waiting to be raised! But there is a couple of chariot models that I need to complete sometime.,,

A Medjai Elder, contemplating their plan of action

AHPC XII: All over bar the Shouting!

Well as of midnight 20th March (in the most westerly time zone in the world) the 12th Analogue Hobbies Painting Completion closed its doors.

Club members Mike W & Grahame H, represented the club in this global competition as we have done on and off over the last 5-6 years. Together the duo were able to contribute just under 5,500 points to the overall 86,646 points racked-up by all contributors this year, just over 6% of the total!

Mike W's Zombie Horde

Now it has to be said that Grahame's output was curtailed by work and other commitments but Mike was able to power his way into 2nd place overall, scoring 4,601 points - smashing his personal target of 3,000 points.

Grahame's Vietnam Tanks

Interviewed after the competition Mike said "Its all about the pre-competition preparation, that and determination to get the job done each day of the competition and having multiple projects on the go at the same time!"

The Final Points Standings of Challenge XII

Rank	Name	Total	Target
1	ChrisW	6071.5	1000
2	MikeW	4601	3000
3	MartinC	3813	2000
4	FrederickC	3356	3000
5	StuartL	2281	3000
38	GrahameH	850	3000

A full analysis of the Competition stats can be found <here>

There were also a couple of side competitions - The Squirrel Duel - to see who could paint the most diverse range of wargaming topics. Mike W came 3rd in this side duel, see more <here>

Mike W's Black Orc banner

The other one was -The Skullz Duel - where Mike got an honourable mention, see more <here>

Battle of Kliszow, 1702

By Dave V

Mat T. put on the Battle of Kliszow, fought in July 1702, which of course you all knew already. Mat drove the combined Polish-Lithuanian and Saxon troops, whilst I had the Swedes

Mat's team were led by Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Elector of Saxony, and I was Charles XII, the young King of Sweden

Glorious 28mm Saxon Infantry

Mat's force had the Saxon infantry, in their red coats, parked behind chevaux de frises, A second line was made up of scruffy Poles. On his left flank was a cavalry team made up of Saxon line cavalry and horse grenadiers. Behind the guns were one battery of heavy guns, and two of field (yes overhead fire is allowed).

One thing to note was that the Saxons did not have pikes, but the Swedes still had them (as did the Russians)

Finished 'Banner' of Pancerni, believe figures may be Wargames Foundry

On his right was a force of Polish winged hussars, and Pancerni cavalry, with some Lithuanian Cossacks in support, all led by a Polish hetman.

Plastic Cossacks

My Swedish infantry were in two lines, one battery in front, and one behind (this was to try out the different firing ranges and brackets etc)

On each flank were 3 or 4 veteran regular Swedish cavalry

In between the two forces was a large area of rough ground, which the Swedes had to cross to get to grips with the enemy.

To start, each commander has a rating, in this case, Charles was 8, and Augustus was 2. You roll D6, add the score, which shows how many units you can move. It is a bit like Rupert's rules, where you move two, he moves two, you move one, etc etc.. depending on the score. So Charles could move 14 units if he scored 6 and there is no pip to move a whole line, it's for each unit.

Pancerni Commander

Mat's right wing cavalry came whooshing down to take on my cavalry, which I counter charged with. My infantry front line then moved forward an max speed, until they hit the rough ground. Artillery exchanged shots, causing casualties. My right wing and Mat left wing cavalry then spent some time just looking at one another.

The cavalry fight carried on, with both side reinforcing with a 2nd ranks, and it was back and forth, until surprisingly the winged hussars failed morale and legged it. But one team managed rout one of my cavalry units, which caused its supporting infantry to flee as well. 

By now, my front line of infantry were through the rough  ground and were approaching the defences. One of my units got into a melee with a Saxon battalion, who had been receiving punishment from my artillery, and through more by luck, pushed that unit back into the 2nd line line of Polish infantry. 

By now, with pips to spare, I was able to get my right flank cavalry into action, and crash into the Saxon line cavalry, which was supported by the Horse Grenadiers (who could have had a shot from the saddle if they had been in front as the Swedes came in).

By now, time was getting on, Mat had fallen asleep into his dice box, and I had started to hear voices in my head...Mat conceded defeat as his entire right flank had gone, and the Swedes had now started to push into the centre.

Two Hussars, one with two wings, the other with just one.
Single winged Hussar carries a national flag.

Some interesting rules, which I found very easy to get to grips with after a short time, so they must be good then! I did enjoy them. Nice one, Mat ! We also tried to foresee any issues that might cause uproar by players, and come up with a solution.

By the way Mat, are the ranges for musket a bit extreme for 6mm? 25cm long range? and 100cm long range heavy guns?

How about reducing them a bit as muskets were max at about 200 yds... and the Swedes used to fire when they were virtually on top of the enemy. How about 10cm close, 15cm long for musket, or even 5cm and 10cm, and halve the artillery ranges? So field guns at long range now 50cm?

So, we have at the moment, got a game lined up on 1st April, which will include my Russian troops as well...

AHPC XII: From Mike W - 32mm Zombies

 I said never again...

Then a guy on eBay made me an offer I couldn't refuse, 20 figures for less than £1 each, a 3D printing company had seen me looking at figures online and although my bid did not succeed they came back to me with the offer!

The undercoated figures, they came without bases and had to be superglued to MDF disks

So I thought it'd be rude not to use this as my last post for this challenge. Remember the dead never sleep!

A whole new addition to the Herd

I'm relatively new to 3D printed figures, they looked nice online but I was even more pleased once I'd seen them after the landed on my doorstep - about three weeks ago. If I have one criticism, it would be that the resin used in this case seems a little brittle, almost immediately my clumsy fingers broke off an arm from one of the figures. No worries though a drop of superglue and I transplanted one loose limb to an appropriate stump on another figure and I'd created two new distinct figures.

Close-up of four figures, the one on the left has a distinct Medieval feel to it,
the rest are very contemporary

Another nice feature of this batch was that they were picked at random from a selection of 10 poses. These poses were produced in two versions - that is mirror images of each other - so in fact there are 20 different figures in the random pool that he group was selected from!

Left is a Blacksmith, in this group of four more Zombies,
second right had the 'broken' left arm added to her stump to give her two functioning arms! 

The figures were undercoated in white and then a variety of skin tones applied as discussed in previous posts, I use appropriate colours to 'dress' the figures before using different coloured washes to shade the skin and clothes. Blood was applied as I saw fit, Less is more in my opinion.

Another four completed figures in close-up

If anyone looks closely at the bases they will see I have continued with my concrete pavement theme but added some debris to the bases, again using the less is more maxim. I've now created a new job for myself to retro-fit this debris effect to my other figures in the collection!

Figure second right carries a pointy stick,
left hand figure is the one I snapped the arm off when opening the packaging...

As does the left hand figure here is the mirror images of the guy with the stick above

So this is my last post of this year's challenge and what a blast it has been - I didn't imagine that I'd be able to get so much stuff painted in the time period! This year I had prepared early and built figures and undercoated many - but even so I found myself running out of things to paint! My best tip - is to have multiple projects on the go at the same time!

Many thanks to Curt for again masterminding the event, thanks too goes to Peter D as my long suffering Monday Minion who had to endure my churn of posts and thanks to all the other participants and those who left encouraging comments on the posts! Roll on AHPC XII 😀

AHPC XII: From Mike W - 28mm Test batch of Medjai Warriors for Egyptian Undead Adventures

 This is a test group of figures that will be expanded over time to represent the Medjai - also known as the Pharaoh's Guard - in my planned for Egyptian Undead Adventures series of games! Again these are 'Hollywood' style interpretations of the Medjai tribesmen, used by the Pharaohs as their personal bodyguards. I again apologise for the terrible liberties taken in transposing dress styles from south east Asia to Africa.

Completed test batch of six Medjai Warriors

It seems historically the Medjai were an elusive people whom Ancient Egyptian texts seem to refer to as either an ethnic or an occupational group. In the early part of their history, they appear to have been a subgroup of Nubians associated with a land called Medja in the Upper Nile regions.

According to Hollywood (and specifically the film 'The Mummy'), the Medjai are the Pharaoh's sacred bodyguards, a group who have watched over and guarded Hamunaptra (the Ancient Egyptian City of the Dead) for centuries. They are sworn to do all in their power to prevent the resurrection of the crazy High Priest Imhotep, who wants to use the bodies of the dead as an army to do his evil bidding .

A possible command group, showing black robes and dark blue turbans and sashes quite well

Anyway enough of the history (real and dodgy), these figures are very similar in construction to the Arab Cultists you may have seen on some of my previous posts (here). The difference is the colour scheme that I used to completed the figures.

After a white undercoat, I painted the flesh and gave this a sepia wash when dry, then the robes of these guys were painted dark grey. Turbans and Sashes were painted a bright blue. The robes were then given a couple of Dark Tone washes to give a shaded black look and the blue areas were also given a black wash to add shading  and mute the blue colour a little.

Close-up of the firepower - Left to right, a  Jezails, a musket and a Bowman.

The flag was painted sky blue and then washed blue, before highlighting again in sky blue - this ties in to the sky blue colour scheme I used in previous Egyptian Undead Postings from last year's challenge (here).

Basing was fine sand and dried rocky tufts of dried grass to fit in with the general scheme for this project. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome and will build up this force and start looking for Adventurers to add to the mix, if you want to keep up with the project watch out for more here.

AHPC XII: From Mike W - WW1 Early War (1914/5) German Cavalry

 Following on from my first post today I have completed a batch of 18 x 15mm WW German Cavalry, the figures are Peter Pig, with 12 representing two Squadrons of Ulhans and the other 6 representing a squadron of Hussars.

The completed Uhlans & Hussars

Confusingly at this time all German Cavalry seemed to carry lances and in the field Hussar units wore a standard set of fatigues - so no domains and busbies.

Close-up on the Hussars

The figures here were all given a a white undercoat and horses painted in various shades of brown, using watered down acrylics so that they acted like a 'speed paint', uniforms were base painted Field Grey and then helmet covers were done in a lightish green, before dry brushing all with an 'Ivory' colour to highlight.

Another view of the Hussars

Piping was added in red (very fiddly) as it was at hand and stood out nicely, additionally I gave the horses a brown ink wash go give additional shading effects before picking out the pennants in red & yellow.

And the Uhlans, I used Yellow & Red for the pennants just as it was a slash of colour
- no idea what they were historically!

As this was early war period, I opted for my usual fine sand and static grass basing to complete the figures after about 8 years sitting in a dark box!

And the other view of the Uhlans

AHPC XII: From Mike W - 15mm WW1 Late War (1917/8) British Infantry

 Continuing to hunt high and low for more figures to paint - I came across a couple of WW1 projects that I'd never properly completed. I had concentrated on Early War (1914-5) engagements and we'd had a series of games at the club which were pretty enjoyable. As ever I had jumped in with both feet and had good sized armies for British, German and Belgian forces with an over concentration on Infantry and Cavalry - others at the club provided the artillery!

Completed lot of Late WW1 Infantry

Undercoated figures on the sprue, I used Khaki paint.

This batch of figures were from a second British force that I started to raise - but for the Late War period (1917-18)!

Partially painted figures on the sprue

These figures are from the Plastic Soldier Company, I acquired them a number of years ago and they have been kicking around my cupboards for a number of years. Moulded in dark brown plastic, the set is designed to give a wide range of base figures for a British Infantry unit to participate in one of the company's games.

Mortar Company

The figures represent 4 Companies of Infantry, a Supporting Mortar Company and a Machine Gun Company, there is also one individually based figure to act as a runner. The kit did not supply any command figures.

Machine Gun Company

I painted up a number of these some years ago and was pleased with the results but was frustrated by the ease at which the bayonets & rifles on the figures would snap off.

Close-up of a Machine Gun Platoon

I decided to paint these figures on the sprue, to reduce the likelihood of damage when handling them during the painting process. However, I'd forgotten, the main pain with these figures is actually getting them off the sprue without damaging them.

And a close-up of a Mortar Platoon

I'm pleased with the ease of painting them on the sprue but I broke the bayonets or guns off at least 6 of the figures when separating them out for basing. Most of these were reasonably easy to fix with a cut of liquid glue, but one figure was unusable after the rifle flew across the room into oblivion when cut from the frame!

Two Companies of Infantry

I painted the figures with a base coat of khaki, then added a lightish green for puttees and helmet before adding an ochre colour for the webbing. I washed all with a Soft Tone ink from Army Painter, once dry I then painted in rifles in brown, boots and bayonet handles in black before putting a darker Green down for any equipment. All of these items were then washed in Army Painter Dark Tone to give a colder feel.

And the other two.

Figures were then glued to bases and given a matt varnish, after painting the bayonets silver. Once the figures fixed in place on the base, I applied my PVA Glue / Emulsion Paint gloop to the bases and allowed to dry.

Individual figures - left a Battalion Runner and right a casualty of the removal from the sprue process.

I struggled a little with the bases, I knew my usual approach would not work, so I have left a lot of the gloop on show, with a light sprinkling of fine sand and patches of grass to break up the ground. (I know that this is likely unrealistic but its the best I could think of)

AHPC XII: From Mike W - 10 x Black Orcs

 In this post (the last of this year's Warhammer figures) - I have been working on this unit on and off for the last 6 weeks, with a view to be enable me to go out with a bang as this year's challenge draws to a close!

These figures were purchased direct form my local Games Workshop store some time ago -  can't remember when - and were built to fill a gap in my somewhat extensive Greenskin Army. So far so good. Unfortunately I had a bright idea!

The completed group of 10 (Red) Black Orcs

I was in two minds about the colour to do the armour, options being black (as per Black Orcs) or Red, as I've always liked the Evil Suns, I opted for red as I had a can of red spray paint in the garage. So the idea was good 'un but the execution was bad - the spray paint was a can of Car Repair spray from an old red car of mine, the car was long gone but the spray was still there.

In those days I still undercoated black, which I did and then almost immediately sprayed the models with the Car Spray. Imagine my surprise when the paint did not dry as expected - in fact I think it took several days to fully cure and dry and when done it was not a bright red colour as I'd remembered my car to be - but a browny mauve sort of colour. To top it all, the paint was ultra glossy and almost impossible to get other paints to adhere to.

Close-up of some of the guys, including Musician with drum in centre

Thus it was the figures were consigned to the garage for years without a further look. 

However with this year's challenge and the need for even more figures to paint I decided to try and resurrect these guys. I painted on a white undercoat on the skin areas  of these figures and then started by painting in the Green skin, then a green wash. As these figures are heavily armoured, it made sense to get the skin done before concentrating on the armour. After all these years, the new paint seems to have adhered OK to eth figures.

More of the Orcs, Unit Leader to the right 

I then used neat Vallejo 'Flat Red' to paint the armour, as I did for the recent Squigs post,  washed it with Dark Tone, then added a second coat of Flat Red to make finish consistent, after a dry brushed with a brighter red, I then washed the amour with Sepia Ink to make it 'pop'.

There was a lot of bones, teeth, skulls, tusks and the like to complete and I did these as per previously described, fur that can be found under some armour panels was done in 'Fur Brown' (naturally) and highlighted.

A better view of the Leader and Standard Bearer

All Steel was given a Dark tone was after a Silver paint job, glyphs were picked out in brass or silver and all wood was washed with Strong tone ink to give depth.  I gave the armour a light dry brush of silver to suggest wear and tear on the kit and when dry all were given a matt varnish finish.

I spent some extra time on the standard and the musician's drum to add detail but these followed the same principles noted above. Overall these Black Orcs are VERY RED!

Basing was done in my usual manner with Electrostatic grass and fine sand.

AHPC XII: From Mike W - 28mm Viking Berserkers

 This post utilises a number of figures from the Warlord Games Ancient British plastic set, I originally got these figures as I thought I could convert several of these into Viking Berserkers. This I successfully did a number of years ago - but never got around to finishing the job, which I have now....

The completed group of Viking Berserkers

I have taken the view that the Viking Berserkers would be a group of guys who could not stomach the discipline needed to stand in a shield wall, thus the dynamic poses offered by this set are a good starting point to represent a group of warriors who would charge dead long into the enemy.

A close view of some of them

There are tales of Berserkers going into battle naked with just their weapons in their hands (Ooh Err!) However I have opted for them being largely bare chested & bare headed, with or without a shield or two weapons. No one really wants to see a a lot of meat and two veg on display! 😀

And another angle

As with most of these dark ages figures - I gave them a sprayed on white undercoat which dried quickly with a good finish and my first stop was to paint in all the flesh on show.

All five of the guys with two weapons and no shield

Next up was a variety of muted blues, greens & brown colours for their clothes before adding in appropriate wood, leather & metalwork. Once dry I used a variety of suitable coloured inks to add shading, I then highlighted with base colours again.

The three guys with a spear and a shield

Each figure was then coated with Matt varnish before being based in my usual manner.

Six of eth guys with bare chests!

The final four guys, one with a cloak

AHPC XII: From Mike W - 28mm Ancient Britons

 This post is a journey back in time to AD 43 / AD 56 and all that ancient malarkey! The figures are Warlord Games Ancient British, which have been kicking around my loft for a good few years now.

Completed Ancient Briton Warband

You will see in another post what my plans were for some of these figures but many of these remaining figures could only really be used as Ancient Britons, due to their distinctive armour. I added in some additional figures to make up their numbers to a viable warband.

The guys in armour

My aim was to put together a small warband that could be used in an SPQR game to oppose a Roman force that I previous painted a couple of years ago (I believe!).

These little guys are very dynamically posed, with a 'ball & socket' joint at the waist to allow for a multitude of different positions. I took the opportunity to take advantage of that and produced quite a lively warband.

And the unarmoured guys

As with most figures - I gave them a white undercoat (using Halfords Acrylic Paint Spray) this dried quickly and my first stop was to paint in the flesh.

Next up was a variety of muted greens & brown colours for their clothes before adding in appropriate wood, leather & metalwork. To give them a British feel, I then added chequered and stripe effects to the clothes and blue 'woad' paint to some of the exposed flesh.

My attempt at adding 'woad' tattoos / war paint to the guys with a lot of exposed flesh

Once dry I used a variety of suitable coloured inks to add shading, I then highlighted with base colours again - where appropriate.

Shields were completed with the pre-printed sticky back sheets supplied with the kit, this was the fiddliest part of the project as each shield pattern has to be cut out using scissors. That said they do look pretty effective.

An old and tattered sheet of Warlord Games Shield designs - on sticky backed paper.

Each figure was then coated with Matt varnish, with an extra coat applied over the shield designs to help them stay in place before being based in my usual manner.