Last 28mm Landschneckts for now...

So I finished up my last batch of Landschneckts as advertised in my last posting - only difference being teh ,ake-up of the group was limited by the available arms and weapons left on the sprues. In this batch I had to go with 1 x Pikeman, 2 x Double handed swordsmen and 9 x handgunners.

The completed batch of 12 x Landschneckts

THe figures were again painted as previously described, the aim being to merge in to teh rest of my collectionand to build out a pike formation with supporting handgnners, crossbowmen and Double-handed swordsmen.

Close-up on four of the handgunners

In total there are 12 x pikemen, 11 x Double-handed swordsmen, 6 x Crossbowmen and 25 x handgunners.

The rear rank of handgunners brought to the front rank

This unit will be used in a number of battles tha I'm planning.

Another view of the Handgunners

Large view of the single Landschneckt Pikeman

The two Landschneckt Double-handed swordsmen

On a Landschneckt Roll! - Twelve more 28mm figures completed

Imagine my surprise! First I stayed focused enough to do more Landschneckts and second I found a 'missing' sprue of Doublehanded Swordsmen! Thus I am able to present twelve newly fnished German mercenaries - 6 x Crossbow, 3 x Doublehanded Swordsmen and 3 x Handgunners.

The new group of 12 completed Landschneckts

That leaves me with just twelve more of these Warlod Games guys to get done and these will likely be 9 x Handgunners plus 3 x Doublehanded swordsmen, if i can stay focused....

Close-up on three of the Crossbowmen, firing their weapons

And the other three Crossbowmen, all loading theor weapons

The painting techniques used for these guys was exaactly the same as previously described, so I will not repeat again here.

Close-up on three of the Doublehanded swordsmen

I'm just pleased to have got them finished...

And finally a close-up on the three handgunners in this batch

Huzzah! More 28mm Landschneckts - Finally!

After being distracted by hordes of Savage Orcs for the last few weeks I decided I needed to concentrate and continue getting through my backlog of Warlord Games Landschneckt Misslemen! To which end, I am pleased to present another twelve completed Handgunners

Completed batch of Handgunners

Remaining are 18 more figures, I plan to build six of these as Crossbow men with the other twelve to bolster the Handgunners. This gives me the ability to field a small crossbow unit but keep focus on the gunpower side of things - modern is best!

Once done I can then switch attention to the Wargames Atlantic Conquisterdors and build those figures ready to paint!

Close-up of three handgunners in a firing stance

Figures were undercoated in cream acrylic paint and then flesh, shirts and feathers painted white, before using GW Darkoath Flesh to - well colour in the flesh areas. Next, I used a range of GW contrast paints to paint in all the leatherwork, my image of these tough mercenary soldiers is that they'd likely use a lot of practical leather jerkins in the field to give durability but highlight these with their flamboyant cloth apparel in the form of hose, sleeves and hats etc.

The other three firing figures, the guy in the middle is one of my favourites in the batch

Once the leatherwork was done it wasa a case of going through these little guys one by one adding random colours in the form of stripes, quarters of halved sleeves and hose. 

With the rear rank brought forwards

Once the base coats where completed I used a watered down Army Painter Dark Wash to add shade and definition to each figure - it also coveres a myriad of painting mistakes and helps tie all the figuires together!

And a close-up of four of the rear rank

Next step was to add highlights, to cloth and flesh, reapplying base colours in strategic places to make the colours pop! Also tidying up any omited areas etc before a good matt varnish.

THe last few Handgunners, supe rpleased with the two left hand figures

Figures are based in my usual manner with fine sand, electrostaic grass and brown household emulsion / PVA glue gloop.

Now to be clear I still have a whole bunch of Orcs on the go, question now is where will my focus go!

28mm Landsknechts

It seems like a while since my last post, this last week I have been busy painting a group of 18 Landsknechts to suppliment my growing Renaissance collection. These little guys are 28mm Warlord Games plastic pikemen and Double-handed Swordsmen, plus a spare Hand Gunner

The eleven man pike block, all suitably different in appearance to each other!

I undercoated all these figures in a generic cream acrylic paint (Hobbycraft own brand) and when dry, I painted faces, hands and shirts white, using my favourite Vallejo white paint - its nice and smooth and gives a great coverage.

Once undercoating was done, I proceded to paint in the pikes, using Game Colour Pale Yellow, before doing all exposed skin using GW Darkoath Flesh.

A close-up of the second rank of pikemen

I then used a selection od Speed / Contract paints to 'colour in' all leather jerkins, shoes etc and then turned to GW Goregrunter Fur to paint the musket and sword handles etc.

A variety of colours were used, as randomly as possible, to 'dress' the figures in their flamboyant clothes, before using GW  Leadbelcher to do all the armour and other metal work.

And the rear rank of three pikemen

I allowed the figures to dry overnight before giving each figure a watered down Army Painter Dark Tone wash, this acted nicely to add definition to all the figure's coat sleeves, fancy decoratations etc, without having to spend ages getting the colour seperation perfect.

Three of the two handed swords men

I then spent some time going over and highlighting many of the colours to add further depth, particularly the white, red, blue, yellow and green. 

The lone Musketeer, left,  and the remaining three two-handed swords men

A coat of Matt Varnish was then applied and the figures which were then based in my usual way with fine sand and electrostatic grass.

Next, I have a box of 30 x Warlord Landsknecht missle men (Musketeer & Crossbow) plus a sprue of six leftover two-handed swordsmen to complete from my pile of shame. Whatch here for how I progress on these! 😀

28mm Renaissance Foot

These guys ahve been lanquishing on my workbench for some time now, they got 50% painted before I was oh so easily distracted into doing other things....

Pleaseingly, with the grondwork already completed I was left wit the fun part of finishing off the figures to a tabletop standard. In the group of nine figures are 6 x Warlord Games Landschneckts plus 3 x Warlord Games ECW figures converted to be suitable for my Marian Wars project.

The Landschneckts are five musketeers plus a crossbow man. These were all undercoated white and then painted using a range of paint types and colours, suitably garish in nature and with a good helping of leather jackets etc. The skin was shaded using Army APinter Flesh Tine and the rest of the figures with watered down Dark Tone.

The remaining three figures were two musketers and a pike man, these where  made-up pretty much strainght out of the box. Only real changes being on the pike man who had weapons hands swapped with Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors figures and a hat from the same grafted un the oringal figure's head.

Again these were undercoted white and then finished off in the same manner as the figures above.

All varnished and based as usual.

AHPC XIII: From Mike W - More, more more! Dark Ages, Landsckneckts and 40k Orks (397 Points)

 More,  More, More (How do you like it?) sang Andrea True Connection back in 1976, well I'm afrid this week's hurried posting is a repeat of many of my previous weeks with More, more more! Dark Ages, Landsknechts and 40k Orks!

Carrying the big axe

But first off we take another trip on Lady Sarah's Limo to travel from the Fantasy Studios to the Superheroes Studio, this week's fare is another Warlord Games 28mm Female Survivor, this time a motherly figure wielding a rather effective looking axe.

And from another perspective...

The visit to the Superhero Studio now makes it 5 Green and three Blue studios, need to check what I need to visit 'The Director Chair'!

The Superhero figure that I present is that of Captain Scarlett, maybe not so well known in America and the New World but certainly a mainstay of British and many Commonwealth countries in the 60s, 70s & 80s.

Captain Scarlett of to battle the Mysterons

What's his superpower? Well he's indestructible for a start and all the TV episodes were filmed in SuperMarionation, which has to sound pretty cool, find out more <here>. This is a 20mm figure, with Scarlett in his classic Spectre Uniform, I have other figures that I may well look to dig out and paint up as his comrades in arms - Captain Blue, Lieutenant. Green etc.

Series Publicity Poster

They had some pretty cool vehicles as well and I have a couple, somewhere, in Warhammer Epic Scale that I need to dig out and paint!

Back view

So now on to the main subjects of this post. You'll likely be pleased to know that this is the last of my multi figure 40k Ork batches, I certainly am! It gets quite guelling painting so much green & red. Pretty much all of the figures are now done - just a couple of vehicles and a couple of special one-off figures that I hope to get around to in the next few weeks.

This week's 'final' Ork batch

This week there are just 9 x 40k Orks & Grechin, all produced in the same style as I have done since the beginning of this year's challenge. The first two are a couple of additional Grechin Herders, though anyone who has been following the development of this army will be aware that in this army it is the Grechin who are the brains and the Orks the muscle - in this case the Grechin Herders should be thought of as Grechin Minders or Bodyguards

Two Grechin Minders, guy on the right has the
Hyperaemic gun taken from the Pain Boy below.

Next up are two Bosses, one with a pet Squig on his backpole, the other with a Rising Sunz motif

Left A Boss with a pet Squiq, note skull on left shoulder.
To the right is anther Boss with a huge Blasta / Burna Combi Weapon

Another two Bosses, with assorted weaponry

I did a coupe of conversions in this batch, I really didn't want duplicate Grechin Herders - so converted his fella into a Boss with a diabolical prosthetic hand (taken form the Pain Boy model). I added a large Fantasy Goblin head to this figure - to make him appear to be a 'young' Ork that has just stepped up to the Boss role.

The second conversation is that of the Pain Boy, again I wanted to have a different looking second Pain Boy in the Army. Obviously his hand has already been cut off to do the first conversion, so I scoured the bits box and found some ancient 1980s parts for an old Rogue Trader Robots and found a pincer arm from an Ork Killa Can plus a power fist and an other limb.

A converted Grechin Herder, now given a new left arm and a Hand Blaster,
whilst his other hand has been replaced by 'Orky Scissor Hands'!!

Last Grechin in the box plus the new Pain Boy,
 complete with power fist, claw arm and a hydraulic crane.

The power fist nicely replaced the donated arm, I cut off the figure's left arm (a Hyperaemic Gun, which was donated to a Minder seen above)  and replaced this with the claw arm and then fitted the other limb to the Ork's back, so it can be used as a Hydraulic crane or similar - in doing this the Grechin on the Orks back, now uses a hand pump to activate the Hydraulic arm.

Next up we have a mix of Landsknecht foot, 23 in all with 6 x Pikemen, 6 x Crossbow and 11 x Handgunners. All have been painted in the same way as I have described in earlier posts and so I will not repeat again here. I have, however, been experimenting more with Army Paints' Speed Paint and I have used this on a number of figures in this group.

Latest batch of Landscknects, Pikemen, Crossbow men and Handgunners

Focus on the 11 x Handgunners 

And with the rear ran moved forwards for a better view

I have had mixed results with these - some are good, really good, but others have left me cold and so I will not use much more. I see a lot of value in the browns and greens that are available - it would be great to find a speed paint that can be used to paint musket woodwork !

Six Pikemen, the start of a second Landsknecht Pike Block for my collection.

And a front on view.

The Pikemen and Handgunners were pretty much straight out of the Box. To make up a group of six crossbow men, I have had to do a few conversions, taking parts fror the Wargames Atlantic Conquistador set to mash-up with Warlord Games parts to get the figures I wanted.

Focus on Crossbow men, center is a Captain, armed with sword in his right hand and crossbow in his left hand. Right is a musician, blowing trumpet and again crossbow slung on his back. Trumpet arm is from Perry Miniatures War of The Roses Infantry set.

Another view of the crossbowmen

Last but not least are this week's Dark Ages figures, a mix of Normans, Vikings and Anglo-Danes / Saxons. These are almost entirely metal figures and of these I think the majority are Gripping Beast.

This week's group of mostly metal Gripping Beast Dark Ages types

Again these figures will be pressed into the shield walls of my forthcoming 1066 mini campaign.

At time of the photo being taken,
I thought that this was all the Norman types ... 

I opted to paint most of the shields on this group as I struggled to get any transfers to fit the slightly odd shaped shields properly. As these completed figures will be distributed between the existing armies they'll fit in fine.

Rear Rank has moved forwards to get a view of them

Mostly Vikings & Anglo Danes / Saxons.
But as can be seen here, there were a couple of Norman types
that didn't make the original photo shoot. 

Rear ranks move through again, note the casualty marker in the front

Another view, pretty sure all above figures are Gripping Beast

Just behind the casualty marker can be seen
a single plastic Victrix Anglo Dane Huscarl

Three mounted metal Norman figures, left a knight, centre I have made -up to be a Standard Bearer - carrying William's Personal Banner and right is what I seem to remember as being an old Citadel figure, that I have painted up to be Bishop Odo - William's Brother

View from the other side

Finally sorry about the quality of some of the photos, I ran out of time this week and was snapping many of these after dark with eth flash on, always makes the colours much brighter and the photo starker in my opinion, will try and do better next week.