Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge VII (belatedly)

Oh crikey, is it June already? I started drafting this post weeks ago, and just never got around to finishing it...

Here's my belated wrap-up on what I managed to get painted during the Seventh Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, running December 2016 through to March 2017. A staple of my hobby calendar, there was no way I'd miss it despite knowing early 2017 was going to become quite different in my household, with a baby due to arrive! As expected, it was a fairly subdued showing for me, largely because of the little one, but also with a good share of my time for hobbies being taken up with a couple of regular board games nights. Still, the Challenge remained a highlight of my miniature gaming year, and it was awesome to balance out my own lack of output by getting involved with minion duties - shout out to the Friday crew fort all their awesome work.

I started out with some SCW, a project I've been plugging away at for some time. I seem to still have a sizeable lead pile for it, but pretty soon after the challenge opened I got cracking on my last few Carlist Requetes, though they were only entered just in time for the Challenge Cut. 

Painted to match my other Requetes, the rather colourful and impressive flag is from Flags of War.

For the 'Terrain: Home' Theme Round,  I represented the senseless destruction of life and property that has been a part of conflict throughout the ages, with a Mediterranean farmhouse destroyed in the the fighting. Once someone's home, reduced to a burned-out shell. Intended for the SCW, a reflection of the a violent repression unleashed against civilians in both the Nationalists and Republican zones, as the antagonists sought to root out suspected enemy sympathisers or "Fifth Columnists" or take revenge for perceived injustices.

It is a Timeline Miniatures ruined farmhouse kit, to which I added rubble, texture and detailing.

"Squeak"

My third entry was for a Theme round again: this time 'West'. I stretched the theme round definition and submitted two wonderfully characterful sculpts are from Statuesque Miniatures' Pulp Alley range. The gentleman, I named Commander Hector West, US Naval Officer (retired), decorated veteran of the Great War and joined by an associate, Camila Valentina Lopez, a beautiful but deadly bounty hunter.

Then, oh gosh, another theme round: 'Characters or scene from...' For this, I was working on a few miniatures from the 'Marvel Universe Miniatures Game' by Knight Models. The Marvel characters nail almost every category in this Theme Round: they feature in a gamut of Movies, Comic Books and TV Shows, a bastion of Western popular culture for decades (perhaps not 'piece of music', though). Perfect for me too: few miniatures to paint, and lots of variety to keep me interested. And for (the now-discontinued *grumble*) MUMG, I'd chosen the X-Men Faction, a major reason being the 90's animated TV series that I grew up with, and loved. I really should watch it again, to see how it's aged.

So I did want paint a whole team of X-Men for this Theme Round, hoping even for all seven that I'd picked up from Knight: Wolverine, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Gambit, Colossus, Jean Grey and Cyclops.

But disaster: I hit my whole set of these Knight Models with an can of old spray primer, which 'gritted' really badly. This really set me back, and led to some weeks in February was spent stripping them back, then re-prepping and basing them. But I got them sprayed back up and Scott Summers, aka Cyclops painted: their leader and Professor Xavier's right-hand man.

And finally, just towards the end of the Challenge I contributed my Curtgeld. For this, I had a huge amount of help from IainW, who put a shout-out for someone to collaborate on a diorama with. Iain had both the miniatures and a cunning plan.

The Battle of Marignano pitted the young King Francis I of France against the Swiss Confederacy during the Italian Wars, and resulted in a decisive French victory, establishing the dominance of French Gendarmes and artillery over the Swiss phalanx tactics. In celebration, Francis requested he be knighted on the battlefield, by the Chevalier Bayard. Iain had suitable miniatures for both the King and Chevalier. 

Chevalier Bayard, real name Pierre Terrail (1473 - 1524) seems like one of those larger than life figures of history, known as the "knight beyond fear and reproach", though he apparently preferred just "the good knight". He was considered the epitome of chivalry and most skillful commanders of the age. He boasts some rather excessive headwear and fashionable mustard leggings.

IainW painted King Francis himself. Here they are based together, having been dispatched over the pond to join Curt's Italian Wars collection. 

So by a long way my lowest challenge output yet, just a handful of miniatures. But, I had anticipated a small tally and set a low target, and judicious use of the theme rounds meant that I managed to hit my 200 points in the closing week.

If anything, I've fallen deeper into a miniatures hobby lull in the months since, barely picking up a brush and seemingly little able to motivate me. That doesn't feel like a problem to me at the moment. Instead, I've been leaning pretty heavily into a multitude of board games and card games, more social than just sitting upstairs painting and very much more accessible both in terms of access to people to game with, and requiring less time and focus away from the table.

But, I've been a miniature gamer for so many years, I've no doubt that I'll just take this little hiatus, but be back at it when I find something to inspire me. I do have the rather excellent Operation Market Larden event coming up this weekend, where I get to enjoy some frankly stunning looking games using my favourite rulesets, which might get the creative juices flowing!

I Aten't Ded

Well, it's been a while. More than five months since my last post. But no need to worry - I've not fallen off the ends of the earth or been taken by dimensional horrors (yet). No, it's just been a deeper summer lull than usual for me, with little miniature hobby enthusiasm to post about. Due in parts to other hobbies, distractions and general life stuff. Including quite a few games of Netrunner, both in my local 'meta' and travelling to a couple of organised play events.

But I've been languidly back at the brushes in recent weeks, to the the point where I've actually finished something - huzzah! Yes, another two Requetes for the SCW, started months ago, sat idle for the summer and finished off over the past fortnight.

But beyond these, I've not been totally idle. After the last AHPC, I dug out all of my terrain for a good sort out, into worthy completed pieces, bits that needed some repairs or a refresh to meet current standards, and stocktake the many bits and pieces that I've picked up over the years. One of the new pieces that I built was this walled apple orchard:

This was my first dabble in using the crazy-cheap trees that can be sourced from China on eBay. While a bit uniform and of dubious colour, I tarted mine up with some paint and reckon they came out ok. As good as model railway trees on the cheaper end, anyway.

While I could have squeezed a couple more trees onto the base, I left it a bit roomy to easily fit miniatures on, giving the effect of an orchard while hopeful the trees would get less mauled with usage. I did briefly consider doing the trees separate to the main base, too, but felt it unnecessary..

I also knocked up another 'coir mat' field as more area terrain always comes in useful, and reworked a kitchen garden/veg patch that I made years ago.

And a whole host of other repairs, including re-basing and re-foliaging my hedgerow set:

In a nutshell, what I've been up to miniatures-wise. But, as they say, 'winter is coming' which means we're heading full tilt for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. For that, I've got miniatures to prep, including a new project with that brother of mine Gharak. You should definitely see more of me over the winter months!

Sixth AHPC - January 2016

Ah wow it's a whole month since my last post. While its halfway through the AHPC (aka Winter Festival of Paint), hobby time took a battering from a load of home improvement works from mid-January, which are still ongoing. I did manage to get a few games in, including one of Chain of Command Espana with Ian at the club way back in January, and some decent board gaming sessions.

But coming to write this post summarising my AHPC January painting, it doesn't seem as dreadful as I expected. I suppose February was when it all started to bite. Showing atypical focus for me, it was a Spanish Civil War month, mostly plodding through some less snazzy Spanish Army troops. Less colour on them, but they're quick to work through. 

This mounted Carabinero conversion came out pretty well, might have to make myself some more of them. I had envisaged just using him as a marker for a supports choice of a mounted section, but maybe a whole team of them would look great on the tabletop. Or some mounted Requetes...

I steadily turned out enough of these to narrowly win my side challenge with JuanM, restoring honour from last year's defeat. I'm hopeful I've still got enough time to hit my 300 points target and clear some more off the painting queue. 

For the Defensive Terrain bonus round I made up some 28mm scale entrenchments and barbed wire obstacles, sized of course for CoC. Fairly simple scratch builds. 

Little painting done during February so far, though I have been back at the brushes this week. I've also got a week off next week, giving me some chance to make up for lost time. 

Terrain-athon

It's been a pleasant summer over the past few weeks, and I've realised I haven't put brush to miniature for over a month. While my painting hole is a cooler room in the house, the paint still dries too quickly to suit me. 

Instead, I've hit the terrain. I had a therapeutic week building up 15mm 4Ground WWII buildings. They are really fine pieces, and ready for the tabletop, but still need the edges touching up and some details adding. 

I've also churned out a bunch of small pieces that I've picked up over the months, ready for a game of 15mm CoC at Wyvern last weekend. First up 12 entrenchments for small and medium FoW bases. Well priced and I appreciated that they are all different sculpts. Thanks to Mike Whitaker of troubleatthemill for the tip on these, sourced from Daemonscape on eBay for the princely sum of £4.99.

For scale, with apologies for the lighting

More defensive works - barbed wire at 2"x6" for Flames of War. Mdf bases from Warbases, toothpicks and some hobby barbed wire. 

Next up a small copse of trees. These were from a bag of cheap Noch railway modelling trees, which means they aren't that durable and the flock is starting to bald already. Don't think they'll last that long, but I've loads of better woodland scenics armatures to build up at some point.

Last up for the 15s, some Landmark high walls that were on discount at Timecast, giving me 6' of walls. 

A nifty sidestep to 28mms, I saw these nice cypress trees in the local (usually pretty mediocre) model railway shop. They were only £1.50 each too. Based for my 28mm terrain, they'll go nicely in Spain.  

Last up, harking back to some of the first terrain I ever bought, I finally, finally painted the rest of my 28mm roads and junctions. I never loved these: while keenly priced and well detailed, they are a bit too chunky for what I was after and needed a lot of work to tidy them up. The originals feature in one of my first ever blog posts - so these have been sat awaiting the brush for at least 4 years! Once painted, they  make a decent large rural roadway though. I took an opportunity to refresh the original ones, re-touching the rocks and flock to match my terrain from the last few years. 

Last Sunday I got in a good game of Chain of Command with Ian up at the club. I took a small but powerful US Para platoon while Ian defended a farmhouse with Panzergrenadiers.

With precious few support points, I settled for a .50 cal.

And immediately emplaced it on a dominating hilltop overlooking Alan's jump-off points. 

I'd be outnumbers and outgunned, so wanted to hit the PG's hard at the outset, but my first section was stalled facing two. We mad an error here and interpreted the walling as hard cover - soft would have made a more sensible game. The .50Cal was valued support, but didn't do the damage that I'd been hoping and a static grinding firefight ensued. 

My second section moved to encircle the farmhouse, but Ian dropped his third into the farm itself, where it would be difficult to shift. This section took a battering as they tried to work their way out of the line of fire. 

Eventually, the Para's brutal firepower and more consistent activations meant they could grind the Germans' morale down. A well timed assault by one of my sections, followed by a sub-optimally timed one by Ian (assaulting a section that just unpinned on the turn end...) closed the game with a narrow US victory. 

I really should play more Chain of Command - it's been a few months! 

SCW Terrain - Vineyards Finished

Evening all,

It's been quiet around here, but I've been beavering away on various bits and pieces. First to completion has been these vineyards, built in anticipation of some 28mm Chain if Command Espana games this year. I made eight strips to give me a decent field of blocking terrain.

They were fairly simple if a little time-consuming to make - I used an up scaled and tweaked method that I found on someone's blog: http://empireofghosts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/tutorial-vineyards.html

For the build I used:

• Bases: fat lolly sticks from Hobbycraft.  The same that I used for my recent 15mm hedgerows
• Trees: Woodland Scenice tree armatures - from a bag of 114 deciduous  sized between 3/4" and 2" that I bought as 15mm scale trees. I used less than 20 of them because I cut a few larger armatures into two or individual stems.
• End posts: a bag of cocktail sticks from Lakeland, chopped to length with a support piece cut to 45 degrees. I got some with a few grooves cut in them which helled when adding the twine. 
• Twine:  black cotton thread liberated from the wife's sewing up box. 
• Foliage: Woodland Scenics 'Olive green' bushes and 'Light green' clump foliage
• Groundwork: Wilko cheap wood filler, sand and flock using my usual method. 

The step-by-step process, in brief as I didn't take any photos during the process (you may wish to consult my basing tutorial too).

• Take lolly sticks, discarding any warped ones
• Tidy up a selection of tree armatures - I trim the mold lines off (force of habit and pickiness for me  -  you many consider this optional)
• Superglue four armatures fairly evenly along the length, keeping them fairly parallel with the base.  Cut larger armatures to desired size.These didn't have a base, so I drilled a hole carefully in the lolly stick and glued the stem into the hole for extra support. 
• Carefully drill holes for the end posts using a suitable bit - some of mine split as I was doing it but I thought it worth pinning them in rather than just gluing on top. 
• Cut cocktail sticks to desired length. Stick into the drilled holes with pva. Cut short supports to length, trim to 45 degrees (approximate). Glue supports on. Leave to dry. 
• Bend armatures into suitable shapes. 
• Slap on wood filler to disguise the bases for the armatures 
• Wrap cotton thread around the groove of the cocktail stick, add a blob of superglue to hold. Bring along the length to the other end post, wrap and glue. Repeat so you have two runs of twine along each base. 
• At this point I put a quick burst of black spray onto each side of the end posts so I wouldn't have to worry about coverage when painting. 
• Add the ground texture - I apply pva then talus, sand and rocks to suit - I keep varying grades in separate tupperwares. I the. Used bulldog clips to pin each strip onto a baking tray - this (may?) minimise warping of the lolly stick base as the pva dries. 
• I usually add a second layer of texture to cover anything I've missed (optional)
• Leave to dry well, knock off any excess. 
• Dropper on Woodland Scenics scenic cement to bind and seal the sand (optional)
• Paint the groundwork, then the end posts and armatures to suit. 
• Hot glue gun on the foliage. I started with an Olive green central clump then added Light green to the higher branches. Try to keep each bush fairly slim with definition between them. I think the smaller bushes look better than larger but ended up with a variety sizes. 
• Pick off any excess foliage, tweaking the shape of the each row to suit
• Trim off any dried glue on show or hide with more foliage
• Dropper or spray on scenic cement to bind the foliage (optional)
• Add flock and tufts to taste
• Done!

I'm quite pleased with them - they fill a hole in the Spanish terrain collection and rather nicely evoke the region - much more so than wheat fields or ordinary woods.

Challenge Distractions: Terraining

Keen-eyed followers of the AHPC may have noticed a drop-off in my productivity. As in 'dropped off a cliff'. After finishing the Carabineros I fancied a change, so hit the terrain as a 'brief' diversion. Too many days later, I've finished off these Jump-off Points for 15mm Chain of Command, era-appropriate supplied mounted on 40mm round mdf bases. 

These are really nice pieces, a set called 'stacked supplies' from Baueda, though I got mine from Magister Militum, who charged rather less postage. 

I have submitted them to Mr Campbell, as much to mark my lack of productivity, but he will no doubt 'zero' them as terrain pieces. Still, glad to get these off the table as CoC gets played regularly so I should really get fully equipped for it. 

I've also been building some new terrain fitting for the Spanish peninsula: some rows of vines to make a vineyard. While I have quite a bit of suitable terrain, it's due a refresh, I figure these will help evoke the region and nicely break up line of sight. 

They've progressed slightly more and are now ready for painting. Should be a quick job. With a 28mm Empress sculpt for scale. 

That's it for this week, but rest assured I've been trying to paint miniatures since - ready for the final challenge frenzy.