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!

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge V: March

First up for February was my entry fee or 'Curtgeld'. I pondered awhile potential antiheroes to send Curt for this year's challenge. I was initially tempted by Dirty Harry and few others from Kev White's excellent Hasslefree range, but nothing quite appealed. Those of you who followed last year's challenge will know that Curt and I share a love of Steven Erikson and Ian Esslemont's Malazan Books of the Fallen (MBotF), and epic series of fantasy books. Might these offer inspiration for suitable Curtgeld?

The MBoTF have an extensive list of Dramatis Personae, with many more antiheroes than true heroes. After lengthy consideration and searching for suitable models, I settled just a couple of weeks ago on Ben Adaephon Delat, better known as 'Quick Ben'.

When we first encounter him, Quick is a Squad Mage in the 9th squad of the infamous Bridgeburners, the grognards of Empress Laseen's Malazan Empire. Squad mages are petty magic users rather than the powerful members of the High Mage cadre, being capable of mere illusions and deceptions to aid their squad mates. Hailing from the Seven Cities continent, he is described as dark skinned, tall and lean. Erikson doesn't go in for much more description of characters than that, so I had some flexibility in choosing a suitable miniature!

Except Quick Ben isn't all that he seems, which becomes clear as the series progresses. He seems to know the most about what's going on, vanishes off on unspecified errands, turning up again at all critical junctures, usually with a solution to some problem or other and vague hints of what the heck is going on. It transpires that he was previously a High Priest of Rashan, or Darkness, before burning his vestments and adopting the warren of Meneas or Shadow as the source of his power. But that's just the start of it - there are plenty more reveals as the story progresses when Quick is concerned.

So why an Antihero? Well, the Bridgeburners are pretty heroic, particularly the noble but naive Ganoes Paran and the roundly respected Whiskeyjack. But there's a darker side to both Adaephon Ben Delat and Kalam Mekhar, the bearlike ex-Claw assassin and Quick's closest partner. To avoid spoilers I'll just reference the events of the pursuit across Raraku, the Holy Desert, and Quick's support for Kalam's mission regarding the Empress in Deadhouse Gates (my favourite of the series, by quite some way).

The cover art for Deadhouse Gates

This miniature, 'Karick-Dar, Apprentice' is from Australia-based Guild of Harmony miniatures. I'm not stoked by how he came out, it just didn't quite come together how I imagined. No fault of the mini, I just didn't quite nail the colour scheme and can't quite decide how I went wrong. I wanted to use a lot of grey, but in hindsight perhaps i should have bitten the bullet and done him in full greyscale in Curt's style. I also failed to find a suitable mini for Kalam Mekhar to pair him up with. Still, I hope Curt likes him 

Continuing the theme of single minis, next up was one where it did just 'fall together'. Tradition dictates that each Challenge, I make an offering at the Altar of Sarah, by finding a suitable female miniature to compete for the 'Sarah's Choice' award. Happily, Pulp adventuring has provided a rich seam to mine and I've done quite well in this little niche. This year I had this quite exquisite miniature from Hasslefree, "Madge".

With the months of the challenge nearly gone, the time came to promote her to the top of the painting queue. I was actually away in Wales at the time, but took a little hobby box along. The weather was pretty wet, which meant plenty of painting time, though the table I set up at was a little dingy in the evenings. She came together just how I'd imagined, you'll note I even brought out the tartan and flowery-headscarf-effect paints. Phew!

This Kev White sculpt is just so excellent. The tartan worked nicely (more tartan coming in my next post too - I'm on a roll!) and flowery headscarf pretty well too, though a bit more 'cheery tulips' than 'Cath Kidston'. I gave her a moorland base using some lavender flowers, which I really like but hadn't found a project to use on. She'll join the tack of misc Pulpy miniatures. 

Oh dear, two miniatures in a month's worth of challenge? Not great. For the final straight, I was working on what came to be a real bugbear - highlanders for the Sudan. I bought them ages ago and have had the prepped for a year, so the challenge offered an opportunity to have a crack at them. Unfortunately, it was a little too much to ask in the time I had. Still - they were nearly done - just three colours to go as of submission and coming together nicely. 

A fortnight later and they're finished up and will be posted up in all their angry-charging-Scots-in-tartan glory in the next few days. Oh, then I'll get on with the second half of the unit!

Recent AARs: Chain of Command and Pulp Alley

Happily, I  can report that regular gaming continues. At the last Wyvern Wargamers club night a fortnight ago, Ade put on another well-researched game of Big Chain of Command using his extensive collection, this time representing the second British assault at Rauray in June 1944. I took on a British infantry platoon supported by Bob's Shermans on a worryingly open board. We were tasked with seizing the crossroads, opposed by Ian and Matt with two reduced Germans panzergrenadier platoons and a Big Cat: Ade assured us this was evenly matched!

The ever-fun patrol phase left it something like this:



A last minute shuffle of a marker to the right came up trumps: giving the Geramns no options for a Jump Off Point on our right and forcing them back to the village crossroads. I opted to move in force against the  the right flank where they'd be covered by the roods ahead, using a JOP on the right board edge.

Turn one and the first double-6: half the platoon emerged from the field and started the advance.

The Germans brought out their Panther early to seize the crossroads while a section took up residence in the town.

Bob's armour moves up, the outgunned and out-armoured Shermans looking to avoid the sights of the Panther

My two infantry sections make their move: trading fire with a panzergrenadier section across a road.

In the nick of time, the British mortars opened up, bang on target over the crossroads. Through some terrible luck on the German side and a series of double-6's by Bob and I, the mortar barrage fell again and again, pinning the majority of the Germans defenders and all but one of their Jump-Off Points. This game Bob and I free reign to maneuver and brig firepower to bear where needed.

This was a fine example of a well-orchestrated assault by infantry and armour with mortar support. But unfortunately, it didn't give a good game for either side: the German inability to lift the barrage meant I could rout the Germans outside of the barrage through weight of numbers, while Bob maneuvered his Sherman Fireflies to get both in sight of the Panther for when the barrage lifted. Once it did, the Germans were in no state to repel the assault and their dangerous Panther quickly took a battering (more double-6's and double-phases by Bob) and bailed out.

What should have been a great game ended up being too one-sided from a well-timed barrage and devilish luck from then on. So apologies to Matt and Ian. While I enjoy Chain of Command for the friction that it offers, but unfortunately, if a system builds in friction, sometimes the dice lead to unfortunate, overly one-sided situations. Which is why I think playing it a linked campaign works really well - the dice even out over the course of the campaign  Sorry Ade - but thanks for hosting and umpiring!

Also at the Club, Carl put on a Black Powder American War of Independence game with an impressive collection on the table. The British battalions looked very fine indeed marching through the verdant terrain.

Last weekend brought an impromptu game of Pulp Alley with my brother Gharak. We've not gamed anything beyond miniature board games for a while, but the beauty of Pulp Alley is the speed and ease of getting minis onto the table.

We threw together a fairly simple 'search for the temple' scenario, with two competing leagues of heroes looking to open up its mysteries and explore the interior in a second game. All of the minis and terrain are from Gharak's fine Pulp collection. 

My dastardly League of Nasty People, led by man of mystery 'The Suit'

The heroic Butch O'Sullivan's with today's companions

The two leagues face off in the foreground, with the temple entrance to the North. The kapok represents mist rolling up and down the river, which blocked line-of sight.

Butch O'Sullivan's men, made the Temple outskirts first, taking up good positions to fell the my League of Nasty People as they approached.



With his mercenary allies out of the fight, a dash by 'The Suit' ends in a scrap by the last plot point', equipment left by the last expedition. O'Sullivan takes the prize and enters the temple

Cue eerie music

In true Pulpy fashion, there are traps and puzzles, as well a temple guardians. I used the 'weird' Pulp Alley supplement to make up some rather hard to kill mummies,

The Mexican extuinguishes the first brazier of Flames That Need to be Extinguished Before our Heroes can Advance Further.



O'Sullivan's street kid charges up to face the mummies on their platform, but is quickly felled.

Around this point, we realised that I'd made the mummies rather too tough - they could essentially shrug off most hits and each had as many hit points as a hero. And as they were graded 'sidekicks', they hit pretty hard too (not helped that I couldn't see an obvious way of removing their ranged attack without using more skills slots, so for the sake of argument they 'had magic' and could fire back against the heroes' guns!).

The temple guardians chewed through the heroes, until they cornered Butch O'Sullivan himself. H did manage to take one out, but the other two wore him down - this temple remains un-looted for now!

Phew! Sunday brings the next game in Bob and I's '29 Lets Go!' CoC campaign - here's hoping my American can keep their push up!

Baa-rely making progress

With half an eye on winter and the likelihood of a certain annual painting challenge, the last few weeks have been characterised by clearing the painting table and starting to prepare miniatures. And happily Curt is up to it once again and the Fifth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has been announced. I look forward to my fourth opportunity to contribute my winter output to the community.

It has been by no means productive few weeks though, hence why I've been a bit quiet. Not helped by a week without internet access, meaning I'm very behind on the blogs and haven't commented on many. But I have managed an uptick on the gaming front - three games of Chain of Command in as many weeks. Definitely my rules of choice - plenty of opponents available including Bob locally and always give a great game in a reasonable timeframe. Bob and I just started playing through the first TFL campaign supplement '29, let's go!'. I can really recommend this pick up and play campaign for the 'price of a pint'. 

Anyway, onto the lead output. Prepare yourself to be amazed. First to be dusted down has been a herd of sheep. Yup, two packs of Soay sheep from Warbases. Now Soay sheep are a bit niche, if I'm honest. A bit more Dark Ages, not an era I'm playing much. So the search was on to find a horned sheep of more Mediterranean/African origin. 

Et voila:

Image credit Wikipedia

A Barbary (or should that be Baa-bary?!) sheep, native to North Africa, but also native to the Sudan and introduced elsewhere. A sandy-brown colour, darkening with age, with a slightly lighter underbelly and a darker line along the back. 

And here are my versions:

Bit of an unusual method on these: I'd sprayed them white, which is unusual for me, so layered up washes from off-white through to mid and dark browns to make use of the sculpted texture. I like the effect. 

A few other odds and sods also finished, including some scatter terrain of furniture and trade goods as well as this chap, from an Artizan Designs grab bag and vaguely intended for a nee'r do'well for a Pulp Alley Cthulu mythos game that never really got off the ground.

As for the prep work, I've now a German infantry platoon and support options to face off against the US that have recently hit the table. Now, to start painting them now or save them a month? I'm undecided. Of course now the US been blooded in their first games, they will naturally need a little bolstering...