Confederate Brigade (And some other things)

It’s been a bit quiet on the hobby desk of late in Chateaux Dai. Moments to pick up a paint brush have been a bit few and far between in the past… 2 weeks or so since my last post. Until that is, this weekend….

Exciting, eh?

Not much done mind, but enough for a wee post I think. First off, the flags I ordered from Stone Mountain Miniatures arrived for my Confederates. Of course, silly ol’ me neglected to order some classic Army of North Virginia “Diagonal Blue stripes over Orange background” Stainless Banners (Not that every Southern army born them in any case, but they are certainly instantly recognisable)… But they do have some earlier “Stars’n’Bars” efforts for the now (And a Florida State flag.) which will serve for our earlier games in mine and Stewarts’ (Who’s playing the Union boys) campaign next month.

Pedisclaux's Brigade

Better pics of the starting Brigade were promised and here they are – the campaign will follow a fictional duel between two brigades over the years of the war in 9 meetings (Per the Longstreet “Grand Campaign” rules.). The Campaign encourages that we both name our Brigade commanding General and it’s component regiments, which I’ve done below. Each side begins the campaign with 3 infantry regiments of 10 bases, 1 cavalry regiment of 8 bases and a 3-gun battery of artillery. 

Everyone's eager and ready to kick in Northerner face. 

Artillery on the left. LA 3rd and 4th infantry top and bottom at center, with the 12th FL in between. On the right are the 26th Florida Horse with their "Dismounted" version at the rear. 

My splendid boys marching on.

Guns ready to deal out death to the Northern invader!

The dashing and debonair  General Jean-Claude Pedisclaux moving his boys onward from horseback. Although generals play no part in the Longstreet rules, it's fun to at least have a fig on the table to represent them.

Stewart and I will get the first games of our campaign started on June 18th in a day long (thedaybefore)Fathers Day gaming extravaganza! AAR to be posted thereafter. 

I also finished up a couple of Dark ages figs - a Saxon Thegn and a Jomsviking Warrior.

Saxon Bondi to bring my Saxon Thegns up to 3 units of 4 for Saga. Shield's a bit pants, but I just wanted him off my desk.

Jomsviking warrior with a large red shield. His face was a crappy sculpt with almost no nose whatsoever, so I left the red wash on heavy so it looked (At least to me) like his nose was all scar tissue after a nasty wound or something.

Some work got done on my commission too. A 40K metal Ogryn and a sculpt that's pretty fun to paint. I liked this version of the Ogryns as they were less cartoony than their previous releases. Still to do armour/metal plates and ammo-belts. No idea what colour to paint the plates though...?

Lighting makes his skin look well messy, but it's not in real life - promise.

And last, but certainly not least - I finally (After a year of sitting on my shelf) fixed my mate Dave's Heroclix Great Cthulhu mini/statue. This thing's huge! It was handed to me after his son and my own were sneaking into Dave's hobby room (Whilst we played Kingdom Death) and one of the little sods knocked it off it's shelf, breaking off the wing... Dave tried to fix it with some pinning and wire, but the wing was far too heavy and it bent right off in no time. So I offered to sort it out and with a wood screw and some grey stuff (dries harder than Greenstuff) along with a little paint on the putty it looks pretty good and as long as it's not dropped again, should stay on there for years to come!

The Great Cthulhu's very presence will drive a man mad. And take up far too much space on his hobby desk.

And that's it for now. The Ogryn commission is my priority right now, then back to some more Confederates in case my brigade is lucky enough to receive reinforcements between games in the upcoming campaign. But otherwise, my focus will be 28mm Soviets for Bolt Action. 

Ciao.

End of the Challenge

On June 1st the 2nd 6 Month Mountain Reduction Painting Challenge commenced with all sorts of rules and so forth in an effort for blogging hobbyists to try to get rid of their unpainted piles of metal and plastic miniatures and pledge to try not to make purchases during the duration and make their backlogs bigger.

The 1st Challenge (Last year) saw me largely painting my 15mm Flames of War Canadian platoons and I feel I did pretty well as far as limiting purchases made. This year... was different - I had different projects to get done and most in 28mm. In the end I think I painted up around 90x 28mm figs and around 30x 15mm. Not great considering I've had 6 whole months to get stuff done, but it could be far far worse. I think also I ended up about even with projects completed and new purchases made. Maybe a little off even, with more purchases made - but certainly not horrendous.

It's been a fun 6 months and a busy one and I'm happy with the work I've turned out and look forward to the next Challenge.

During the last week of this Challenge I did get work done! An archer that can be used for both my Frostgrave warbands and future fantasy rpg gaming.

I think she's a late 90's early 00's Reaper mini. 

One day I'll come back to this one and add a little freehand to her cloak as that is one large boring space.

I also painted up a couple of skeleton archers for my upcoming rpg campaign. To account for extra majicks required to get a skeleton to shoot a bow, I felt the bows themselves would need a splash of sacrificial blood too. No idea how those quivers are sticking to their hips though - maybe more of the same majicks?

These are the old late 80's GW sculpts saved from my bits box. I had glued them decades ago, so  hence who the one on the left has crap looking shoulder joints.

No pic makes a blog more interesting, than that of skeleton bootie.

 Lastly, got these Saxon Slingers done. They are initially to be used for my Dark Ages (Lion Rampant) project, but I'll also be utilising them for Frostgrave as Archers or Javelineers. Simple sculpts, simple paint jobs.

And that's that. So much crap going on in my work life with Union nonsense, it's hard to feel up to painting right now. Hoping that it all sorts itself out and that the membership vote goes smoothly on Friday - wish us luck!

The Last Hirdman (And Group shots)

Here he is, the last of my Viking Hirdmen. Another well armoured fellow with a smashing moustache, so large it droops over his chainmail gorget-hood thingie.

Pretty cool sculpt, though I'm not a fan at all of the nipple tip to his helmet and feel I should have just filed it away to give him a regular conical helmet instead. O well, too late now.

Really like the banded armour pieces on him.

Another yellow-black traditional shield design. Keeping them simple.

And now, the requested group shots! I'll be playing these Hirdmen elite warriors as 6-man Men-at-Arms units in Lion Rampant (My Saxon Thengs will be used likewise.). They hit like a truck and can soak up damage really well in the rules, rather fitting I think looking at them all. (Completing these 12 and the 12 Thegns beforehand definitely earns me a Joker for the 6MMRPC. Not that I'll be buying anything new anytime soon, but it'll cancel out the guilt of one of the Bolt Action WW2 purchases I recently made!)

Fresh off the boat and ready to get raping and pillaging. Vikings are a nasty bunch for sure.

Close-up of the left. 

Close-up of the right.

Another quick group pic of the Saxon Thegns (Previewed previously) who'll be defending their homes against this Viking incursion. 

Battle is about to commence! I really need to invest in some sort of calendar with landscapes or something to use as backdrops for my photos of finished minis.

Next up on the paint table will be the remainder of my much maligned 15mm ACW Confederate Cavalry. There are only 2 bases worth left to get done and then basing for the entire unit (A very simple job) and they'll be done.

Saxon Thegns

These eight were completed over the weekend. They join the already done Saxon Lord, his two sons and son in law and will make up the two 6-man Thegn units for my Anglo-Saxons.

Elite warriors ready to tackle the Northmen menace!

Kind of happy to see this type forward progress on my Dark Ages project and (including the 3 vikings I'd also done earlier this month) 15x 28mm figs painted in 30 days isn't bad at all for this slow hobbyist.

These three are members of the Lord's personal guard.

Decided to give them Burgundy & White shields to better differentiate the two Thegn units on the tabletop.

1st Unit including the Lord's sons.

The other 5 were painted up to match the Son-in-Law's shield colour and make up the 2nd unit.

Shield colours to match the Son-in-Law. The simple freehand designs were variations I came up with from actual designs featured in internet searches.

I've also been working on some of my Confederate Cavalry and managed to get four stands painted, just need to be based - which I'll get done when all eight stands are complete.

Fiddly as hell to paint and fething terrible sculpts. No wonder they were so cheap. Still, don't look so bad with a lick of paint on them.

As the first month of the 6MMRPC comes to a close, I realised it would be an extra motivator to keep better track every month of my painting progress. So unlike last year, this time around I've decided to post up my Draxian (TM) progress charts in my end of month posts. Hopefully seeing all those boxes change to GREEN will keep me spurned on to victory!

The Thegns featured above! 1/4 of the way done on this project!

Shite-load of stuff yet to be done on this project. Good thing there's no rush to see it completed.

Only 3 minis finished on this one, but I started a further two last night and might well get another done by the end of this 4th July weekend. 

So in the 1st month of the Challenge, that's 16x 28mm (Including my fantasy Zulu warrior) figures painted, my 15mm Confederate Cavalry 3/4 done and some exhaust glows added to my Armada Star Destroyers. Not bad methinks.

A swift (Belated) Week 3 Report

Week 3 came and went and with my Mother's visit from the UK (And the preparation made prior to) I didn't have much time at all for hobby work.

My remaining Saxon Thegns got their basecoats done along with basic washes though and now there's only a bit to do on each, plus shields and basing left until they're complete.

When these eight are done, I'll have my first two units completed for my Saxons. 

Once again, the models are by Blacktreedesign though are not as well made as their previous sculpts that I've recently previewed. There are some annoying and seriously difficult to remove lumps in places on these sculpts and some of the spears were rather flimsy and snapped off repeatedly. Saying that, for the price, these metal minis have some fun detail and very nice faces (One though was missing the right side of his mustache, so I tried to sculpt one with greenstuff.) and some of their helmets are especially nicely sculpted.

Hopefully get some more done before this weekend's 4th week report!

Keeping it in the Family (Part - 2 Done and Done and an Armada AAR!

The second week of the 6MMRPC has had me working on the Saxon brothers (And brother-in-law) and also a pair of Viking Hirdmen that will be raiding the Saxon’s lands.

Still not decided what I'll do for a banner, but I'll worry about it another time.

Kept the shield design simple quartered effort. I think the green works well with the yellows on the model.

These are from the Jomsvikings/Rus ranges. I felt that elite warriors deserved some flashy togs and so the beardy fellow got some striped trews and  chainmail-face a classy red dress/tunic. 

Only complaint on these are the beardy sculpt's axe was far too fat and the armoured chap has a nice belt pouch, but no belt?

As far as hobby for the 3^rd week of the challenge, things will be rather minimal as my mother is coming to visit from England for a bit and then on to my sister’s in Texas. But I have another 8 Saxon Thegns that I reckon I can kick out before she arrives!

Was lucky enough to get in a game of Star Wars: Armada with my good friend Gregg as well. This was only our second game of Armada and so we were still a little rusty on rules, but the game went along nicely regardless with an emphatic Imperial victory (Huzzah!) and the Rebel scum slinking back to the wretched holes they typically skulk within. (A Death Star Laser blast should take care of that vermin problem at a later date no doubt.)

Two Victory Star Destroyers with some upgrades for me along with 6 squadrons of  TIE's, one of which was Howlrunner, a special character

Grand Moff Tarkin was my force commander. He costs a lot of points to include, but damn his abilities make for some fun times.

Gregg's Rebel fleet consisted of the new Assault Frigate and two Correlian Corvettes stacked full of upgrades and some mixed squadrons of X-wings, A-wings and Y-wings. We both forgot many special rules that our add-ons offered up every turn. Yes, we are very new to this game.

Flying through the Cheerywood Nebula, these Rebel ships had no idea the Empire was lying in wait.

Both fleets move to engage. The Rebel fighter squadrons leading the way, A-wings engaging TIE's.

A squadron of X-wings, two of Y-wings and the pair of Correlian Corvettes move in to support.

Tarkin's ship unleashes a broadside into the closest Corvette, punishing the smaller Rebel ship for venturing too close. The Critical Hit taken would later prove to be it's doom.

The Assault Frigate likewise unloads against Tarkin's ship in revenge and wipes out shields on the Starboard side.

Meanwhile the fighter melee hots up and everyone starts to take hits.

Tarkin's vessel finishes off the limping Corvette. 

The Frigate's captain miscalculates his move, not speeding far enough away to get out of the 2nd Victory's front arc....

.... leading to next turn where the 2nd Victory showed it who's boss.

The remaning Corvette and rebel fighter squadrons exited Stage right soon after. Things to take from this game:

1. Rebels NEED to outnumber Imperials if they want any sort of chance at winning. Even the Assault Frigate is too weak to stand up to a Victory Star Destroyer by itself. (Two Frigates though would be nasty)

2. Upgrades are fun, but missing out on extra ships (See #1) means you're not rolling many dice each activation which in turn means you're not hurting the enemy nearly bad enough

3. New fighters (Rebel) looked nice, but I didn't feel they added much more to the Rebel fleet. X-wings are still the best fighter in our games.

4. I really need more than just Victory Star Destroyers to play with.... They're cool and all, but variety is really the spice of life. 

Speaking of "variety" - any day soon my Gladiator capital ship (Smaller and faster than a Victory.) and Imperial Fighter Squadrons packs should arrive. So next AAR should feature some new toys.