Showing posts with label AHPC XIV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AHPC XIV. Show all posts

Monday, 25 March 2024

AHPC XIV: From GrahameH - Italian and Swiss Wars

 Well this will be my last post for this year. I would like to thank all those that have organised and run the challenge again this year. 

So my last post consists of some more Italian Wars (15mm Essex Figures) and a Swiss Pike block for the Burgundian Wars.


Papal Pike Block (48 Essex 15mm figures)


Papal Crossbow Unit (16 Figures)

Papal Arquebus Skirmish Line (9 Figures)


Papal Foot Unit (24 Figures). Probably a bit too red and uniformed


Finally, another Swiss Pike Block from the Schwyz Canton (48 Figures)

So, that's it until next year. Thanks again to everyone for making it an enjoyable challenge. 

AHPC XIV: From MikeW: 28mm Polish Dragoons & WoR, Emperor's Guard Space Marines plus other bits and pieces

 Hopeflly I will not overload or wonderful minions but as we enter the last weekend of painting, I'll be putting posts into a 'Ready' status as and when I get a good batch of figures completed! Thank You Minions! 😀

Polish figures for my Siege of Vienna project

So today  have a group of Polish soldiers who would have been at the relief of the Siege of Vienna in 1683. There are two mounted figures, an light cavaltyman with a hand axe plus a drummer, who can be added into any suitable dragoon regiment as I but this together. Additionally we have a command base - again likely to be used as dismounted dragoons.

Dragoon Drummer

Dragoon Officer, armed with an axe!
 These guys have the distinctive dragoon and infantry uniforms of some of my existing collection - red trousers with blue knee length jackets, often with red braiding on the chest. Figures were all undercoated in white and then painted in much the same way as most of the others I have described this challenge.

Dragoon command on foot, Officer, Standard and Musketeer

The flag is a generic Polish banner, of the period, taken from the internet.

Another view

Next up, I have a lonely Mexican Grenadier, waiting to join his comrades in my Alamo collection. I found this lonely soul, in my drawer the other day so decided to paint him up. 

A lonely Mexican Grenadier figure found at the bottom of my drawers,
now ready to join his comrades at the Alamo!

Front view!

Next a couple of 40K Space Marines, these are for my new Emperor's Guard Chapter that I have been toying with building an army for. A few months back, as an experiment, I asked the Chat GPT AI site to generate a Space Marines Chapter for me. This is what they came up with  (see here for more details).

I'm putting this down as a test figure,
not overly happy with the way the paint has finished on this guy

Saw earlier today that a recommended undercoat for purple is green!
Will need to give that a try!

So I have done a standard Marine plus his Terminator 'Big Brother' to accompany him

Happier with this big boy, note skull on base
but may come back to this to do some more detail and weathering

Also maybe need to do something with the power fist!

Now a cheeky one pointer for a piece of terrain, a Bretonnian brazier!

Smoking brazier...

My final work for this year's challenge is a group of 31 x Perry plastic War of the Roses 28mm figures, painted to represent part if the retinue of Sir Robert Whittington, in their distinctive green and white livery.

All 31 figures as they enter the battlefield

The group includes 9 x Archers, 5 x Crossbowmen, 8 x Handgunners and 9 x Men-at-Arms, Standard Bearer & Musician etc.

The 9 x Archers, most in livery jackets

Close-up of right of line

And close-up of the left of line

All were undercoated in an 'oatmeal' colour - exact colour is hard to determine as I used hobby paints for this job! I then drybrushed the figures white and concentrated on faces and hands to get a smooth white finish. Skin had GW Darkoath Flesh applied before being highlighted with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh. All metalwork was painted with GW Leadbelcher and then the livery jackets were painted in with white and green halves.

8 x Musketeers

Another close-up

And again

I added various colours to block in leggings, sleeves etc before using a cream colour to paint in padded jackets etc, these were washed with GW Agrax Earthshade for depth and shading.

5 x Crossbowmen

The crossbow arms on these guys came from an Oathmark figure pack, I think!

Armour was washed with Nuln Oil and all other materials were give an Agrax Earthshade wash before varnishing.

Command and Men-at-Arms

Musician and a couple of extra guys

Figures were all based in my usual manner  on old US 1 cent or European 2c coins which are the same size!

Three armoured Men-at-Arms

Sir Robert Whittington with his standard and another family member

So there it is hopefully enough work to get me over the 3,000 point level - something I didn't think I'd have time for this year. Thanks to all the minions and other participants for making this another great challenge and yet again Grahame H. outscores me, the man is a painting machine!


Saturday, 23 March 2024

AHPC XIV: From Mike W - 10mm Flodden English, 28mm Odds & Ends, Betonnians and more....

 Well I can't believe that we are drawing into the last full week of this year's Challenge, there is so much stuff on my worbench that I won't get done in time, so as a result, I'll press on with some of my favourite projects and try and finish off those that I have the best chance of getting completed in time! As such I guess we now go into Free Fire mode with posts so hopefully I'll get 1 or 2 more posts done by the cut-off date/time.

English Horse in line of column

First off we have a small batch of 14 x 10mm English Cavalry for my Flodden project. These figures appear to be 'Border Lancers', common on both sides of the English / Scots conflicts for many centuries. As these came with my Pendraken English Army starter pack, I have painted these up as an English unit. However, I intend to get some more of these tiny guys and create a few additional command bases so that these can be deployed similar units on both sides in the future campign / game.

I opted to place four figures to a base, these were light cavalry, reserving five figures to a base for any heavy cavalry I might get in the future. You will notice that I found only 14 figures in the starter pack (one seems to be missing) I have a partially completed base to go with the three bases for the unit pictured.

And in line of battle!

I have also broken with Warmaster tradition and mounted my horse figures in line, rather than column on these bases - my thinking being this is a little more historically accurate.

Two additional figures, awaiting some re-enforcements to join them as described above


Anyway the painting techniques were as previously described, I used various GW Contract paint for the horse flesh and Army Painter Holy White to do the two grey horses. Basing with fine sand and various tufts and electrostaic grass to complete.

Next up is a vignette depicting St. George slaying the Dragon, these are a 28mm figure pack presented free to attendees of a past Salute Wargames Show in  London, these figures were kindly given to me by my friend Dave, as part of the bundle that inclded last week's Dark Ages figures.

St. George fights the Dragon


View of the stricken horse being wrapped-up by the dragon

Another view

The figures were undercoated in grey an then dry-brushed white and then tackled one at a time. First off, I did the stricken horse, most of the imagary that I could find of St. George has him riding a white horse, so I opted for this classic depiction, I built up the whiteness of the horse with washes of thinned down white paint.

I chose to have the saddle blanket in blue as a contrast to the horse flesh and St. George himself, the horse's leather work was done, not unnaturally with Army Painter Hardened Leather, .

Better view of the shield carrying his distinctive red cross

Next the dragon, a classic green colour for it's top half, using GW Algae Green, I then dry brushed this with white before using AP Orc Skin to give a bright green colour to it's spinal scales and the larger scales on it's side and feet / claws. I used a watered down creamier colored green on the dragon's wings before washing with AP Green ink - this representing the msotly skin type flesh on these wings.

I painted the underbelly of the dragon yellow and washed this with GW Skeleton Horde to tone it down a little.

Final shot from above

St.George was again done in classic garb, I wanted his clothing to be predominantly white, so it is! But the figure is mostly chainmail clad, so I used GW Leadbeltcher on this and then AP Hoplite Gold on the armour scales to give St. George a noble feel. His cloak had to be red!

He carries a kite shield with a classic red, cross of St.George on it. Chainmail was washed in dark tone ink and the plate armour was washed in AP Flesh Tone, to give depth and shading.

I attached the figures to an MDF base and added some slate chips from the garden to give additional texture to the base. Then my usual fine sand, tufts and electrostaic grass mix to finished it off. I'm pleased with the result, it was a fn mini project to do.

In terms of points its not a high scorer, I'm placiming 10 points if everyone agrees - 1 x 28mm figure plus 2 x prone animals at 2.5 Points each! I'll let my minion adjudicate if this is fair!

Next we have 8 x Bretonnian figures for Warhammer Fantasy, these were found alongside the Bretonnian Archers I painted earlier this challenge. These guys are depicted as a militia unit - maybe a city guard - armed with various pole arms. There is a Corporal with the group armed with an axe plus a drummer and an officer, with an outragious moustache! Lastly I have pained up one of the figures as a Bretonnian priest, carrying a holy banner.

The completed Bretonnian group

The flag is actually based upon an image of a christmas card that I found online, suitably adapted it takes on th eguise of a holy banner pretty well.

The City Guard group, four spearmen and a corporal with a axe

I painted these using the same apprach as described for my oringinal batch of archers, I decided that the warror priest should have blue robes with white under-robes, maybe to signify his purity!? All figres painted and based in my usual manner.

Close-up of the City Gard Officer
and his outragious moustache

One point of note on these Bretonnians is that I long ago lost their shield arms - ths I have pressed alternatives in frm eth bits box, these are Dark Ages shield armss, I'm not sure who manufactured these but t wold be Gripping Beast, Vitrix or Conquest Games...

Drummer, with inscription on the gold shield on the drum

Warrior Monk, with Holy Banner

Another break here and I present my last Female Gue'Vesa Tau warrior, I was holding her back for one last Lady Sarah's Trolley dash, but I can't really figure out how to use it in this last week so here goes!

Female Tau Gue'Vesa

This figure is again based upon a Wargames Atlantic Eisenkern Stormtrooper figure, with GW Tau weapon and Arm Pad added to gve it th eright look and feel. This person also has a Eisenkern female head, which sports a natty cap.

Another view

The figure is painted and based in the way that I have previously described for my Tau Army.

Next I have six 28mm Norman Crossbowmen from Victrix, these guys are lovely little sculpts and were a joy to paint. Again these will be fielded at my forthcoming Hastings game,, where they will help bolster my Norman Misslemen!

Completed group of NormanCrossbowmen

Figures were undecoated grey then drybrushed white, hands and faces getting extra attention wit heth white paint. GW Darkoath Flesh was used on hands and faces, then highlighted with AP Barbarian Flesh. All Chainmail and metal was done in GW Leadbeltcher and then various clours used to finish 'dressing' these guys. Leatherwork was completed with AP Hardened Leather before highlights were added.

Head on close-up of three guys

and their side view

The remaining three figres in close-up

With side view, the guy pulling his crossbow on the left would in my opinion get a little repetitive if I'd purchased a whole pack of these guys.

Next pair of fgures is another Salute figure give away (again thanks to Dave) depicting Arthur fighting Mordred, these guys are both on foot and are depicted in Anglo-Roman grab. Good old King Arthur (the once and future King of England!) has been depicted much like I did St. George, Mordred was done in complimentary / contrasting colours.

Mordred & Arthur going at it!

I'm assuming this is Mordred, 
he's wearing a full face mask that is part of his helmet

And good King Arthur


Anoher figure that I have just been able to complete is a 28mm War of teh Roses Man-at-Arms, this is an old Front Rank figure that I've had for absolutely ages. I gave him a simple Green and White quartered livery. His legs are protected by plate armour and I would guess that he has a plate breastplate under his livery shirt as well.

WoR Man-at-Arms

with a rear view