Challenge Prep - Clearing Out the Project Box

In preparation for this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, first things first I needed to work on clear partially-finished figures out of my work-queue.  Which meant, tonight, finishing off three units for Dragon Rampant. 

First up, a Reduced Model Unit of Heavy Foot with an accompanying Wizardling for my "Men of the West" retinue for Dragon Rampant.  Spearmen are Conquest Games' plastic Norman infantry, while the Wizardling is the cleric "Diva, the Blessed," a special edition figure released by Reaper Miniatures for their 25th anniversary this year.

Second, a unit of Lesser Warbeasts (hounds, in this case) accompanied by a handler, again for the "Men of the West." Dogs are Reaper Bones (and far from my best work) while the handler is a Crusader Warlord that I received as a free bonus figure in my most recent order from Gripping Beast - who, I just realized, I managed to miss painting the strap holding his shield in place.  I'll fix that tomorrow.

Finally, Reaper Miniatures #03109 "Kouraneth, Evil Knight," who will be serving as the general of my "Coalition of Evil" retinue for Dragon Rampant.  Accompanying him is his beloved pet, "Lil' Pinchums," a metal scorpion, also by Reaper, that I dug out of my bits box to fill some empty space on Kouraneth's base. 

The Painting Bench, an Update

Well, with the announcement having been made for the 8th annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (in which I will be participating), I thought I should show off some of what's been coming off my project list lately:

First up, "Edgwick and his Hounds," a unit of Lesser Warbeasts for my "Men of the West" army for Dragon Rampant.  These guys still need a dusting of meadow flock added to their bases, and I'm not super in love with how the dogs themselves came out, but they'll do for now.  Edgwick himself is a Crusader Warlord from Gripping Beast, which they threw in as a bonus figure with my last order, while the dogs are Reaper Bones.

Next, "The Howling Hordes of Bakarath," A Reduced Model Unit of Bellicose Foot which may or may not end up with the "Cause Fear" rule applied to them, for a "Dark Lord's Evil Coalition" army for Dragon Rampant.  The idea for this army being it's humans, goblinoids and demons, held together by the power and charisma of a villainous warlord; these Reaper "Bakarathi" demons certainly look Bellicose! These are older metal figures from Reaper, from the 02100s and 02200s line, and now I think they're in the 03600s.  A "98" was scratched onto the bottom of a couple of them, telling me they were sculpted 19 years ago.  I've glued a few Wargames Foundry shields and a cut-down Reaper Bones skeleton warrior to a couple of the bases. 

Next, another unit for my "Men of the West" army, a Reduced Model Unit of Heavy Foot with an attached Wizardling.  The spearmen are Conquest Games' plastic Norman warriors, of which I'd ordered a couple sprues.  These went together nicely enough, though I had some problems with their two-handed axes, as you'll see in a minute.  These are still a work in progress; the red needs some touching up on their tunics and shields, and of course the bases remain to be finished.  Accompanying them is "Diva, the Blessed," one of the limited-edition figures Reaper has put out this year to commemorate their 25th year in business.  Like Edgwick and his Hounds, her base just needs a dusting of meadow flock to complete it. 

Following them we have the Black Prince himself, leader of the Evil Coalition army, accompanied by his beloved pet scorpion.  For Dragon Rampant purposes, he is a Single Model Unit of Elite Foot.  I think he's pretty much done except for his base and the leather bits on his armor.  I like how his cloak came out.  Both figures are Reaper metals. 

Finally, we've got the King's Guard, a Reduced Model Unit of Offensive Heavy Foot who will be replacing a set of Bones figures that I was never super happy with.  These will be paired with King Denethall, leader of my "Men of the West" army, and are again Conquest Games' Normans - made using the more heavily armored bodies on the warriors sprue, as well as the two bodies on the command sprue to create a sergeant and standard bearer.  I ended up with some significant gaps where the right arm meets the torso on two of the axe-men (I suspect that some weapons fit some torsos better than others) that I'm going to need to putty up before I can get painting. 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with everything, caveats as noted above.  I'm liking the Conquest figures enough that I'm considering getting a couple archer sprues to replace my Reaper Bones bowmen in this army, and adding another box of Normans when I get around to building a second 24 points of "reinforcements" for this army. 

Next up, however, is going to be the first 24 points of the Black Prince's army; I've pre-ordered a box of "Oathmark" Goblins from North Star, which will produce two units of Light Foot and a unit of Scouts, as well as a box of Fireforge Games' Medieval Russian Infantry, which will serve as humans marching beneath the Black Prince's banner a la Tolkien's Easterlings serving in the armies of Mordor.  Fireforge provides enough spear-arms for the box to produce two units of spearmen, but not enough swords, axes, maces or bows to produce any units with them.  I've got a ton of Fireforge crossbow arms in my bits box from last year's Ordenstaadt project, I may convert a dozen of these soldiers into crossbowmen.  I am going to have to find some replacement shields for the ones I do arm with spears though...

For those interested, the Black Prince's list as I'm currently building it:

• The Black Prince (Elite Foot, Single Model Unit) - 6 pts.
• Sorceress and Spearmen (Heavy Foot, Reduced Model Unit, Wizardling) - 6 pts
• Crossbowmen (Heavy Missiles) - 4 pts
• The Howling Horde of Bakarath (Bellicose Foot) - 4 pts
• Goblins (Light Foot, Cowardly) - 2 pts
• Goblins (Light Foot, Cowardly) - 2 pts

The Goblin Scouts are being saved for inclusion in the second 24 points "reinforcements" list for bigger games.  Overall, however, I think the contents of those two boxes - a total of 55 figures - will form the core of my Painting Challenge entry this year. 

Dragon Rampant Work in Progress

Slowly but surely, the painting continues, and can hopefully continue at a better clip.  The new apartment lacks a lot of the built-in lighting that our old apartment had, and with the shrinking hours of daylight associated with the winter months, I've been limited to only being able to paint when the sun is out.  Tonight I finally bought a desk lamp for the dining room table (aka my painting station) so I can paint even when the sun's down. 

So tonight I got a little work done; a team of five Reaper Bones wardogs (Lesser Warbeasts for my Men of the West Dragon Rampant army) were basically completed, save for flocking their bases.  I also put a coat of brush-on primer on a one-eyed Crusader Warlord from Gripping Beast (a free figure sent to me with an order of Teutonic Knights last year) to use as the wardogs' handler, and took care of his armor (basecoated black, followed by Reaper Tarnished Steel) and put a basecoat of Deep Red on his tunic, axe-grip, shield and cap. 

Likewise, I primed "Diva, the Blessed," a recent Reaper figure released to celebrate 25 years in business, and did her armor (Pure Black undercoat, then True Silver) and robes (Deep Red again). 

Hopefully tomorrow night I'll finish off the red on both of them (coat of Blood Red, highlight Phoenix Red, glaze Blood Red).

I've been really frustrated with the Reaper Bones figures lately; I've had a number recently where no matter how many times I boil and repose them, they revert to bent states, and where paint simply won't stick to the material, beading off.  Given my issues in the past, I won't be priming them, despite what (conflicting) advice may get handed out.  So the last unit of this army, a band of spearmen who will be accompanying Diva, won't be Reaper "Anhurians," but instead hard plastic Norman warriors from Conquest Games; I ordered a few sprues and if I like how they go together and look, I may ultimately end up replacing all my official Anhurian figures with Conquest Normans. 

Teutonic Foot Knights

These handsome fellows have been on the AHCP blog for a couple days now, so I can post them up here.  This is the second unit I've completed for my Warhammer Ancient Battles Ordenstaat army, a unit of knights on foot in the colors of the Teutonic Order, marking them as Brother Knights.  Front rank is by Gripping Beast, rear rank are Crusader miniatures, and the middle rank is a mix of the two.  The figures are quite a bit different in size and proportion, but I think on the table they'll all look fine together.

One thing I overlooked while reading the army list in the "Armies of Antiquity" book is that I'm actually limited to two units of Brother Knights in the army, which in my case will be my two units of (unfinished) cavalry.  So on the table these will actually be fielded in WAB as Allied Crusaders.

This army will be pulling double-duty this week as I give Kings of War a try with Tom.  In which case these fellows (and the Livonian Knights I posted previously) will be a regiment of "Order of the Brotherhood on Foot."

Progress on my WAB Teutons

I've been puttering away at my army for Warhammer Ancient Battles; I'm going very cavalry-heavy at first, which will put me at a disadvantage against anyone fielding a Phalanx-y army, but it's a good starting place.  I've got everything I need for my first 2800 points, I just need to assemble the last regiment of mounted Brother Knights and then get everything painted.

Yesterday was a real good mail day today, and I was able to finish assembling my last unit of infantry - a regiment of Brother Knights on foot with hand weapons and shields.  In a 2800 point game it will be a 13-man unit, in a 3000 point game it'll be 15.

The regiment is a mixture of Gripping Beast metal figures and Crusader miniatures - it would have been all Crusader figures, but they didn't offer a foot command blister, hence the mix, which resulted in two visibly different groups of knights in regards height and bulk.  The Gripping Beast figures are much bigger, closer to 32mm I suspect; I packed the front rank with them to disguise the disparity on the table. The standard held up by the standard bearer is a 6cm lance from Fireforge and a banner off the Fireforge Teutonic Knights sprue.

I've also gotten some good progress done on a regiment of allied Livonian Swordbrothers; historically, the Livonian Order was subsumed into and became an independent order within the Teutonic Order.  Since I can't have more than half my list as Brother Knights, I had to fill out the list with Allied Crusaders, and I've opted to paint my Allied Crusaders as Livonians.  These were assembled from the Fireforge Teutonic Infantry box, with a few weapons taken from the Teutonic Knights sprues.

All that's left are the bases, belts, and hafts of various axes and maces; the shields have all been painted and are just waiting to be glued into place.

While these are being painted with Warhammer Ancient Battles in mind, I'm expected them to also see use in Lion and Dragon Rampant at some point.