The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challange V - January

Well, the end of January already. A fairly good month for me in the AHPc, definitely an improvement on December. Its also been a month when side duels have started being finished. I had wagers with both Challenge-master Curt to paint 100 points worth of Civil War infantry ,and a general duel with Juan to hit 250 points. Alas, I was outmatched on both counts, still not having recovered from my sluggish start. But they were a lot of fun and served to get me at the desk in recent weeks to give both a run for their money.

December was a month of finishing off Sudan painting, but January started a new project, the mush-discussed Spanish Civil War using Chain of Command. Its nice to be doing something a bit different and an opportunity to try some new methods.

First up, a test paint for a section of carabineros, or frontier guards.

A poor choice of miniature for a test paint: I wanted to try a suitable green of their uniforms, but after some blank staring at the mini i realised he was wearing a 'mono', or workers overalls. Drat. I'm led to believe that the 'mono' would traditionally be blue or grey, particularly if he had republican leanings. Well, I baulked at painting those colours again, as I seem to have majored on blue and grey for most of my projects in recent memory. So brown my chaps' monos shall be, in my little corner of Spain.

Next up, a swing back to a previous project, 15mm WWII US, to bulk out my support choices. 15mm isn't my scale of choice, I try to paint them too much like 28mm miniatures, and found differences in scale between and within manufacturers a little frustrating. But, this project was a labour of pragmatism, rather than love, allowing me to play some games with lkocal opponents with relatively small cost. I'm pleased with how the basing came out, i was going for 'autumnal'.

We've a 57mm anti-tank gun and .50 cal, for some firepower

A handful more infantry bases, so I can field a full infantry platoon

Two more engineer teams: minesweeper and flamethrower and a medical orderly. 

Next up, was the SCW proper. The carabineros, or more accurately, Real Cuerpo de Carabineros de Costas y Fronteras were the Spanish frontier guards and customs police and fought on both side of the Civil War, though siding perhaps slightly more often with the Republicans. Though largely deployed at ports and frontier crossings, they were responsible for patrolling their area of responsibility. They were lightly equipped, with just one Hotchkiss machine gun in the armoury of a command of multiple companies. During the Civil War, support weapons would have been drawn from army or other units, which is what the Chain of Command list allows.

I used the painting guide at Balagan, and some other googling about. While I wasn't able to find many useful images of Carabineros uniforms, this was the best:

 I'm loosely basing my forces around the northern front with Basque forces. so my Carabineros will be headquartered in the region around San Sebastian. I went for a ragtag look compared to the above, to reflect supply difficulties.

The bases have a different highlight tone to my usual - Vallejo Iraqi Sand rather than Buff. I prefer it. They're similar in shade to my Sudan desert bases, but I'm adding a lot more tufts, including a white and yellow flower tufts and red flowers. The latter seemed fitting, not only as they add welcome colour, but because the red carnation is the national flower of Spain, apparently! These are all from Silfor Mininatur. I am irked that some recently bought 'late autumn' tufts seem to be different to my usual ones - they're my favourites and get used a lot.

The price of Curt's victory in our duel? These are to be dubbed the 'Campbelleros' evermore. Perhaps I need a Campbell to lead them, a brave Canadian ex-Mountie that emigrated to Spain and took up a role with the carabineros...?

More brown overalls!

I've the rest of the 20-man section on the painting desk and well on the way to completion. After that, a move to the Nationalist side and some Requetes. Or more Sudan units - who knows?!

Now for Something a Little Different: 15mm WWII

Are you sick of deserts yet? Yes, a brief interlude to normal service here as I've spent the last couple of weeks ploughing through a WWII platoon for Chain of Command.

I settled on US paras, finding a Flames of War box of Greatcoated paras at a ridiculous price on eBay - something like £8 with postage.

They were prepped months ago in time for the challenge last winter but the sat, undercoated and based on my painting table for months.  I undercoated them Army Painter Leather brown, serving as the colour of the greatcoats, intending to pick out details in the appropriate colour then given them a good wash of strong tone ink and a few highlights. Every so often I'd pick them up and start to pick out the details, but with 15mm being an unfamiliar scale I too often found that I'd just shove them away with barely any progress and return to the mound of  28mm minis. But I've had so much fun playing Chain of Command up at Wyvern Wargamers that i was gripped by the enthusiasm of pushing through and getting them finished.

This is the core US Parachute infantry platoon, assembled according to the CoC list:



Two infantry squads of junior leader, an M191A4 MG with three crew and a rifle squad of eight riflemen. While I've multi-based on FoW medium bases, junior leaders are mounted on UK pennies. They are well-led with two senior leaders, mounted on UK 2ps.

The platoon comes well supported with a 60mm mortar squad and a bazooka team. 

They are Elite, with 6 Command dice and are Aggressive troops - both very handy. They lack numbers though with just two squads (albeit of a fair size at 12 men), so will need to be carefully used. For elite troops, their platoon rating (which will help determine what support elements are available to an opponent) is surprisingly low at +1.

As I'm using multi-basing, I've made up some combined shock and casualty markers using Minibits dice holders.

Naturally, having a selection of support elements will come in handy. With a few small add-on purchases I've added two sniper teams, a Forward Observer and a third squad, this time of regular infantry with a BAR. This gives me a fair choice from lists three and four.

I think the third squad may be the basic 'go to' option as bulking out the platoon will come in very handy to have enough troops to seize and hold objectives.

And finally, armoured support. I settled on an M8 Greyhound armoured car. I had a lot of fun painting it, inspired by a recent trip to Bovington Tank Museum (where I took a few too many photos of tanks). I'm unfamiliar with painting vehicles, but enjoyed trying some weathering with sponge, powders and a gooey mud-paste, though that doesn't come out so well in these photos.

The markings are water slide transfers, I've not used these for years but found some appropriately sized ones that I think were meant for a 1:72 scale half track.

This is perhaps a first for me - an entire project done in one fell swoop! Here's hoping I can get them on to the table soon. With one project finished, might this open up enough space in the painting queue for another...?

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge: March 2014

Its all over for another year - Curt's extravaganza of painting closed in the small hours of Thursday morning. Cue bloggers furiously painting to finish projects off and try to hit their targets. All in all, a bumper challenge in so many ways - output, quality, controversy and banter. With the tallies in, I came a very respectable 28th out of 60 challengers with 755 points, smashing past my 700 target with a micro-'points bomb' on the last day. I'm quite astounded I managed a top half finish given how slowly I paint.

March saw 'the grind' really telling on my output, alongside weekend plans and being busy at work, which sapped my will to apply paint. For some weeks, I could only bring myself to work on the theme round entries. First up was my 'Favourite Character'. 

One of my favourite series of books when growing up was Steven Erikson's 'Malazan Book of the Fallen', an epic fantasy series of increasingly weighty tomes. The first books in the series are quite excellent and I really liked that Erikson ditches many of the fantasy cliches and throws you into a world that feels like it could exist. He skimps on the explanation, so the first book passes in a haze of not quite understanding what is going on. I found that they were best on second reading. Erikson doesn't just write good characters, but cultures and histories. The books span thousands of years, though the 'present' is the age of the Malazan Empire, well packed with heroes and villains.

The books have scores of dramatis personae and I'd have struggled to pick a favourite, let alone one I could have found a suitable mini for. I settled on one of the 'Bridgeburners', a hard-bitten infantry regiment of the Empire, favourites of the old emperor. Members regularly feature in the series and the regiment itself is one of the few 'characters' that features in all of the books. The Bridgeburners are cast aside early in the series and purposefully decimated by a new Empress that is suspicious of their loyalty to the old emperor.

The Bridgeburners are packed with interesting characters: noble and heroic leader Whiskeyjack, brooding assassin Kalam, enigmatic mage Quick Ben or raucous sappers Fiddler and Hedge among others. But the ordinary footslogger is also appealing, so I just painted a nameless, ordinary member of the Bridgeburners, one of hundreds that was buried at the Siege of Pale.

The uniform is conjecture: they are barely described in the books. But I think the mini captures the look of them I have in my head. He correctly carries a stabbing sword, shield and heavy crossbow and wears the sigil of the Bridgeburners on his sleeve: unsurprisingly, a burning bridge.

It is a 'heroic scale' mini from Rackham's Cadwollan range, around 35mm tall. I did some conversion work to make him more like I imagine a Bridgeburner: a new, plain round shield to replace the ornate kite shield, trimming off some detailing on the scabbard and helm and sculpting the sigil on his sleeve. The shield transfer came out quite strangely, so I've since painted over it. I actually had a plain transfer with a very battered design, but messed it up and had to re-do it.

My second entry in March was also a theme round offering, but this time didn't go to plan: I failed to finish my entry. I intended to submit a vignette of chose General Gordon last stand in Khartoum in Jaunary 1885, which felt appropriate to wrap up my challenge. Only Gordon himself was finished.

I tried a new method on the skin, trying the same flesh recipe but highlighting in MartinN's excellent style - it seemed fitting for Gordon's face to be drawn with worry as the siege concludes.

I noticed after submitting that I hadn't painted the button on his jacket which has since been rectified.

The photos were hurriedly done late at night, hence the poor lighting. This is as far as I got on the rest. It is a Perry a miniatures set based on George William Joy's painting. I was adding a walkway and backdrop and wanted to add a casualty on the walkway. One day, I hope I'll get around to finishing it off.

I closed my challenge with a few bits that rolled off my painting table in the last few days. First, a captured Mahdist gun with Egyptian gunners. I actually painted them minis in early January, but hadn't got around to basing them. I based the Beja overseer separately as I though he'd come in useful as a slaver in Pulpy games. Also, at a push I may end up using  this for somewhat bedraggled Egyptian artillery, ignoring the shackles on the gunners and leaving the overseer off. It will suffice, until I inevitably get around to adding the Krupp from the Perry Egyptian range. I am trying to get hold of some perspex basing 'holes' to make my own sabot trays for the Mahdists and also mount the overseer snugly on this base. I'fe left space on the base so when they arrive I'll sort this one out and do a huge batch of sabot trays for the Mahdist hordes.

I dug an extra lamp out for these photos, hence the orange glow on the gun.

The British in the Sudan finally get some cavalry support, the rather dashing 10th Hussars. Not a fancy pelisse in sight by this era, but I still think they look fine in their navy striped trousers and spiked helmets. Deployed from India, they were in khaki. After whistling through the horses for these one Sunday afternoon, they were an absolute slog. This is my first stab at getting the right khaki for the Sudan, based on Vallejo khaki grey, I think it came out well, if slightly too green.

Finally, I had two test 15mm minis to play Chain of Command with. A fairly new scale for me, but they colour scheme is quite basic. I successfully minimised the painting time by spraying them Army Painter leather brown, picking out details and giving them a good wash with strong tone. Leather Brown perhaps isn't quite the right shade for the overcoats, but it made the painting a doddle.




Not the most inspiring paint jobs, but I'm not sure how I might jazz them up more, so am tempted to just knock the rest of the platoon out so I can get some games in at Wyern Wargamers.

In review, I'd say my third Challenge wasn't a classic in terms of my output - lots of what I painted had been seen before over the past year or so. But that aside, I'm pleased that I was much, much more focused, saving my more esoteric offerings for the theme rounds while steadily crunching through the Sudan lead pile. I had hoped to finish off more anbd be ready to game by the end of the challange: two more command stands and a unit of Bengal infantry in particular. But I just couldn't face them.

While I'm delighted with a top half finish and my highest tally, I actually painted less miniatures because half of my points came from the seven bonus rounds. While they were fun, creative and well received by the Challengers, timing the bonus round entries interrupted my flow and probably reduced my output overall. In hindsight, I'd probably have better served focusing on one or two and doing a diorama, rather than small entries to all seven. Still, the whole challenge was a blast and I offer my thanks to the ever-steadfast Curt for organising and running the whole event.

I've taken a few days off painting, giving the much-neglected PS3 some attention and finally applying paint to the kitchen walls to placate my beloved wife. But I'll be back at it soon enough.