Challenge Catch-Up

I'm so bad at cross-posting my uploads to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge to my own blog, so here's a photo dump version.

First up, a unit of Bidowers/Scouts for Lion/Dragon Rampant.  Figures by Crusader Miniatures, I'm not in love with the autumn flock as is.  I should have put down a layer of my usual basing grit and then layered the autumn flock over it. 

Next, a set of undead hounds, painted for the "Reconnaissance" bonus round, with the idea that these would be a unit of Lesser Warbeasts in my undead Dragon Rampant army, sniffing out the living wherever they might try to hide.  Figures by Reaper Miniatures. 

And finally, Reaper's "Abraxus the Dire-Dead," who when I saw him I just had to paint up as Skeletor from "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe."

Speed Painted Gladiator

Today, my friendly local game store held a speed-painting miniatures event, encouraging participants to bring some paint and a primed miniature and see what they could accomplish in 45 minutes.  Unfortunately they didn't get quite the turnout they were hoping for (I always assume, whenever someone marks themselves "Interested" in a Facebook event, they are actually politely saying "no.") but the event went on as planned regardless.  Here was what I accomplished:

I think this is one of the last of the Secutores I had in my Sons of Mars project pile, and after him I only have sixteen more gladiators left to go before I put this project to bed. 

I placed first in the speed painting competition, and my prize was $10 worth of paint; I picked up "Scorched Metal," "Gunmetal Blue" and "Coppery Orange" from the Reaper rack.  Granted, I don't know how great an accomplishment placing first was; I was one of only two participants, and the other guy had come into painting miniatures from traditional painting, and was using high-end artists' acrylics and mixing each shade he used by hand.  By his own admission he was not a "speed painter" of any sort.  I feel a little bad that I didn't pick a more intricate figure (I almost selected a Reaper samurai that's been on my primed pile of shame for a couple years now) to challenge myself with, though both my fellow competitor and the judge have made it clear I should not feel that way. 

I'll tackle his shield tonight and work on getting his base coated with Vallejo Sandy Paste tonight and then I think that's it for me as far as painting goes until the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge begins on the 20th. 

Challenge Accepted

The Ninth Annual Analogue Hobbies Winter Painting Challenge has been announced, with a theme of "Fellowship." This will be my third year participating (would be fourth, but a loss of mojo took me out just before the Challenge began last year), and I'm eager to take part again.  I've got a loose bit of a plan:

• Finish off my current collection of based and primed gladiators from Wargames Foundry and Crusader Miniatures.  I think there's between 12 and 18 of those to go.  
• Paint a retinue for Lion Rampant.  I have some "Later Crusaders" figures on order from Crusader Miniatures (and hopefully more will be appearing under the tree come Christmas morning) that I'm planning to paint up as Simon de Montfort and his supporters in the 2nd Baron's War.  Some nice bright heraldry (that isn't stupidly complicated) to paint after all the bronze and bare skin of these gladiators.  
• A few odds and ends, especially for the bonus rounds.

4 More Gladiators

With these four complete (other than touching up the bases), I now have 20 painted gladiators.  I also finally got an arena mat to play on, and I've done a couple solo games of Sons of Mars to try it out.  Long story short, I like it a lot; it's a fast-playing beer and pretzels kind of game (with the option for more technical complexity), especially in the absence of terrain or obstacles; I might need to pick up some of those wedding cake columns at the craft store and break up the open field some. 

I'm at least halfway through my collection of gladiator miniatures now, and maybe have less than 20 to go; there's also been some talk of a Lion Rampant group getting together in my area, so putting together a retinue for that is on my horizon. 

More Gladiators

My FLGS has begun hosting a biweekly "Open Painting" event for people to bring whatever miniatures they're working on and sit, paint and chat with each other.  I brought a handful of Foundry and Crusader gladiators to work on, and had a great time - met a couple other guys who are interested in historical games, and I spun my tale of how I invested heavily in Sons of Mars, planning to demo it at the store, a week before everyone bought into Arena Rex instead.  I'll bring the rulebook next time and see if I can't drum up some interest. 

Here's what I accomplished:

Back to the Ludus

Tonight I got out the remaining gladiators I'd bought for Sons of Mars, a mixture of figures from Crusader Miniatures and Wargames Foundry, and got the figures cleaned up, trimmed any remaining flash off of them, and glued them down to bases.

All told, it's 30 gladiators of varying types, including a number of convicts still in their shackles, a lion, and the Emperor Nero himself - who has been glued to a 50mm round base, and set back towards one edge because I'm going to make him part of a turn-counter. 

considering the state he's in, maybe it's only 29 1/2 gladiators...

I need to figure out how I'm going to prime them, given that it's reached the point in the year where it's going to be too cold and damp to use the rattle can outdoors and I don't have an airbrush.  But getting these done is my number one priority on the miniatures and wargaming front. 

I had ordered an "Arena" battle mat almost two months ago, which has not arrived yet, and the company has not responded to now two emails I've sent asking if it's been shipped (and to supply me with a tracking number if it has) or if there have been delays in production.  I'm going to give it a couple more days and then, if I don't hear from them, put in a Paypal dispute and request a refund.  I'm not happy about it coming to that, but so it goes. 

5 More Gladiators

One of my fellow wargamers organized a small painting get-together at our FLGS yesterday, and by small, I mean it was he, myself, and his girlfriend sitting around talking and painting - they were each working on their respective Age of Sigmar armies, while I had five gladiators primed and ready for painting. Neither one of them was aware that there were games out there that didn't have associated miniatures lines; I think I might have sold them on giving Frostgrave a try, but I'm not sure they were as keen on Sons of Mars. Historical games (that aren't WWII) seem to be a harder sell around here.  C'est la vie.

Over the course of four hours, I managed to finish off all five figures I'd brought with me, minus bases (I'm getting some Vallejo basing gel "sand paste" to finish off those) and two shields for the new Murmillones.

Retiarius

Laquerius

Murmillo

Retiarius

Murmillo

"We Who Are About To Die..."

After moving to a new apartment, unpacking, and almost immediately losing my painting mojo, this past weekend I finally managed to put paint to figures, painting up my first three gladiators for Sons of Mars: A Murmillo, a Retiarius, and a very special Thracian:

Murmillo

Retiarius

"I'm Spartacus!"

I have no idea what I'm going to do with the bases. I have two more Murmillones and Retiarii, and one each of a Lacquerius and a Crupellarius from Crusader Miniatures left on my workbench; then another 21 gladiators, a lion and the Emperor Nero are coming from Wargames Foundry in the near future. Next step, learn the game!

"Ave, Imperator, Morituri te Salutant!"

North Star announced sales of a new gladiatorial combat game, "Sons of Mars," the other day, offering a free pack of gladiators with purchases of the rulebook until August 1st.  After some deliberation, given that I'm supposed to be packing up to move to a new apartment, I pulled the trigger and placed an order for the rulebook and a pack of Murmillones - and selecting a pack of Retiarii for my free bonus pack.  I know North Star ships promptly and I'm not worried about it not arriving before we move. 

Author Joe Veltre has posted a couple videos on Youtube discussing the rules and gameplay, and it's hard to argue with a skirmish game where you might be in command of as few as a single figure.  I figure it's worth a try and I could use a little retail therapy lately. 

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.