Airborne April

With the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge done I need to figure out I thought I need to line up some suitable target for my painting to get projects done.

Therefore I'm declaring next month to be Airborne April! Two scales, two nations, one war. Let's see if I'm able to focus on just these for one month as I usually have issues with focusing on one project for even a week :) But at least I have two scales and two different armies to variate between when I get bored with something.

Red Devils in 28mm for Bolt Action
I bought the Red Devils box originally when Bolt Action came out as a way to get into the game, but it never really got further than a few test minis as nobody played Bolt Action at the club. Now the Winter War kickstarter has changed that so it seemed like the perfect chance to get this project going forward again. I have roughly 1000pts of minis lined up for this project from Warlord and Artizan designs.

• HQ team
• Medic team
• Forward observers
• 2 Airborne squads
• 6pdr anti-tank gun
• 2-inch mortar team
• 3-inch mortar team
• Flamethrower team
• PIAT team
• Sniper team
• 2 Recon jeeps

I'm going for a city ruins basing style with these to have some change from the normal bases that I do. Mostly based and ready for paint. The weapon teams still need some work, but most of the infantry is pretty much ready to go. The pic is missing a few minis that need to have paint stripped and one rifle squad that has been trying to find its way in the mail for over a month now.

101st Airborne in 15mm for Flames of War
The other airborne project are the support sections for my 101st Airborne to finally finish them and allow me to stop playing with just undercoated minis :) If I have time I'm probably going to try to paint a few extra rifle platoons too to allow me to field the force as a full infantry company without the armor attachments that I'm now using.

• Mortar platoon
• 57mm Antitank platoon
• Jeep recon platoon
• Glider Field Artillery battery
• AOP post
• Company HQ
• Rifle platoon 

Painting Challenge recap

It was surely an interesting three months once again! Loads of great entries by everyone supplying plenty of sparring to get my own brushes swinging. In the end I managed to reach my target and actually even surpass it slightly by ending at in 15th place with 1307 points with my original target being 1200. I must admit the fortnight challenges helped quite a bit with the additional 400 points for participating in every single one of them.

Thanks to Curt for hosting the challenge once again. A tremendous amount of work that must go in to edit and post the entries of 60 participants and actually still manage to paint quite an impressive amount of minis. You are truly a crazy man! But crazy is good when it comes to the world of tiny lead men.

I didn't paint many of the things I originally planned to do, but then again I got some projects done that I didn't even plan on painting during the challenge at all. Shows my great lack for commitment in gaming :)

The painted totals were:
28mm: 156 foot and one large dinosaur
15mm: 44 infantry, 8 tanks
6mm: 264 all together

And finally a compilation of everything that I painted up during the challenge.

 Fortnight challenge "non-combatants". Flames of War objective marker

Dane Axe weilding Norse Gaels

15mm US Airborne

 Fornight challenge "Villain"

 6mm ACW Union infantry

 Baker Company Winter War Finns

Fortnight challenge "vehicles". Guards Armored Platoons

 Javelin and spear armed Norse Gaels

More Baker Co Finns

Fornight challenge "hero". French Poilu

 VSF Ottomans

 Fornight challenge "casualty". Ensign Kennedy of the 1st Royal Scots

 6mm ACW Union artillery and cavalry

 Warlord Games Finns

 Fortnight challenge "Favorite Character". Flying Nurgle Daemon Prince

 Fornight Challenge "Last Stand". Charge of the 46th Line

 Last of the Winter War Finns from Baker Company

Final entry with Danny, Desperado and the charming bard

Painting Challenge entry 18: Mop-up

Time for my last entry for the challenge. This was more of a mop-up of the last minis on the painting desk. The challenge desperado and dino were in a half finished state for over half the challenge and I only got them done last weekend.

First up is the entry fee. It's a Foundry Lawman that I got off a clubmate. Turned out quite nicely in the end and I think the blue pants really give some nice contrast without being too far away from the earthy colors on the rest of his clothing.

 The next fella is a Gripping Beast Bard for Saga. Not sure if he's going to get any use in games as his rules can make your Warlord a brutal killing machine or a total time bomb waiting to ruin your game. Still it's a cool mini and adds some nice narrative into the games.

Finally Danny the Dino! 2 euros from some local store. I filled his huge mould lines and mismatches with greenstuff and repainted with my airbrush. He was sort of a therapy project that I did on and off when I was bored with everything else and had the airbrush out. Everything except for the eyes, teeth  and nails are done with an airbrush. Turned out rather nicely even if I say so myself. Good practice for some Warhammer Chimeras that I have lined up. Now I just need to figure out some scenario for In Her Majestys Name that I can use him in :)

And for those of you who don't read the amazing Analogue Hobbies blog here is the artist and video behind Danny's name. Watch at your own risk as it's just horribly bad.

Painting Challenge entry 17: Winter War Finns

I just realized I had forgotten to post the final Winter War Finns that I finished from the initial Baker Company set. Here we have 18 men forming a rifle and a LMG squad. Some good sculpts there mixed with some more horrible ones.

My previous bases had somehow gotten "flat" after drying for a few weeks ending up with them looking quite weird. I decided to try using PVA glue as the base for the snow flock instead of Noch's snow paste. Didn't work out that well either. In the photos it looks good as I took them nearly immediately after finishing the minis. However now that they've dried the bases have turned light grey for some weird reason. I don't know if it's because of the PVA glue affecting the flock or if something else is causing it. Anyways now I still have to find a way to do snow that works well and rebase most of the 43 Finns I've painted up until now. Not something I'm really looking forward to doing...

The NCO mini with the scarf was a new pose and actually a pretty nice one. The one on the right was new too, but needed quite a lot of green stuff to fix his arm as it comes separate. In addition to that I had two of these and the other one was missing quite a bit of material from his leg and the rifle due to some casting mishap.

The LMG sculpt was another new one too. To be honest his face looks like it's carved up with a damn blunt axe and doesn't resemble anything human. Won't matter on the gaming table, but still knowing that he has no eyes there isn't any hope for his shots hitting something :)

Painting Challenge entry 16: 46th Line Infantry at Waterloo

The final fortnight challenge is now done and the rest of the entries and voting can be found on Curt's blog as usual so go a head and check what everyone has achieved!

With the Last Stand theme a few famous examples, like Little Bighorn and General Gordon's death in Sudan, immediately came to mind. However I decided to stretch the definition a little bit and paint up a French column taking casualties while charging the British. Waterloo in a way was the last stand for Napoleon and his Empire. Had he won there he would have had a chance to rebuild his empire, but as history shows us bad weather and the timely arrival of Prussians managed to turn the tide against Napoleon.

The minis are mostly Perry metals with a few of their plastics thrown in. The colonel encouraging his soldiers forward is from Warlord as is the eagle for the flag. Excellent flag is once again from GMB designs as usual with my Napoleonic stuff. I used quite a bit more washes with these again like with most of the other mass armies. Works quite nicely and certainly cuts the painting time down. I managed to do these in roughly a week of working a bit every evening. And adding mud helps take the eye away from the lack of highlights :)

After this one final entry left for the challenge. Nearly finished with them as both minis are only missing basing. After that a quick painting break and preparing for some new projects.

Final Challenge entries coming up

The last week of Curt's Painting Challenge is coming up and so is the final fortnight challenge. I've been busy with my painting trying to get everything finished in time as I'm away for the weekend and nothing will really be happening during that time. With the Last Stand theme I'm going to have a largish bunch of Napoleonic French. All the greatcoat wearing ones are finished and suitable muddied while the rest are waiting for a final wash and some varnish.

I also realized that I still need to finish my entry fee model that has been waiting with his skin painted for nearly two months now. Danny the Dino is also still waiting for his eyes so he can better see his prey. And finally I have a Bard being painted for Saga that I'm probably going to throw into my last entry too.

Points wise it looks like I'm going to break the 1200pt barrier this time! I should be coming at exactly 1300 points if I've calculated correctly. Though figuring out the points for Danny is a bit difficult as he isn't exactly 28mm tall :) Going back to my original plans for the challenge I think I haven't even gotten started on half of them and I also managed to change many of the fortnight challenge entries that I had lined up. But I guess that's life when you have the attention span of a goldfish. At least there are now a few more projects that are more or less finished even if they aren't the ones I originally planned!

Saga AAR: Sacred Ground

Played a quick game of Saga at the club yesterday to refresh my memory of the rules and also to try the Norse Gaels out for the first time. We have a Saga tournament/game day coming up on Sunday, and as I don't have a beard I need to try find some other edge in the game.

My forces were:
Warlord - Dane Axe
8 Hearthguard - Dane Axes
2x6 Warriors - Dane Axes
4 Warriors - Dane Axes
8 Gall Gaedhill.

My opponent played Vikings with roughly the following composition
Warlord
4 Berserkers
12 Hearthguard
4x4 Warriors.

We decided to play Sacred Ground as it's one of the scenarios in use on Sunday and it's nice and simple. As I had fever units I was finished with deployment first and got to start the game.

The situation after deployment. Vikings deployed in a line while the Norse Gaels are more spread out to grab the objectives (hill, rocks and large forest). Gall Gaedhill are taking advantage of their free move after deployment.

 The smallest group of Warriors seize the forest for Norse Gaels while Gall Gaedhill take the hill. Vikings counter-attack with the 12 man hearthguard unit, which loses 6 men against the Gall Gaedhill, while they lose 5 winning the clash.

Norse Gael Hearthguard move in to finish the warriors finishing them off. In turn they are counter-attacked by Viking Berserkers with both groups perishing in the ensuing melee.

The small group of warriors still bravely hanging back in the forest.

 Viking Warriors kill the last of Gall Gaedhill and things start to look a bit sketchy for the Norse-Gaels

The two 6-man Warrior groups move in to help their Warlord with the closest one attacking two of the 4-man Viking groups, wiping one out and killing 3 out of 4 of the other. In turn they lose 4 men and are left in a difficult position.

 With their Warlord left alone the Warrior group rushes in, but they are too late as the Warlord succumbs to attacks. He does manage to take out all the remaining Viking Warriors in one final attempt at glory.

The Warriors arrive just in time to see their Warlord fall and quickly avenge him by killing the lone Viking Warlord.

Meanwhile the brave warriors in the woods have moved up to the edge to cheer at their comrades.

The game ended quite fast with all the Vikings and all but 8 Norse Gael Warriors wiped out at the beginning of turn 5. Points wise the game ended 35 - 14 for the Norse Gaels so a clear win. Wielding the hearthguard in a unit of 8 did give me an extremely strong unit, but did leave me sorely needing more Saga dice immediately when they went down. Might give them a try as two 4 man units or then ditch the Gall Gaedhill and get more warriors or hearthguard instead. That way I would have a bit more of a buffer of units before losing them starts to hurt.