The Sixth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge begins!

It's that time of year again folks for what's become a tradition in the wargaming bloging world that being Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge here. I've been involved since season 2 which is when Curt officially opened it up for everyone to join in, because the first one was pretty much between him and some friends. I've consistently under performed in terms of points on all the other challenges as I paint slow and often get distracted with last year being the worst ever as I was unfortunately hit with a serious loss of mojo. This time I'm determined to reach my point goals and exceed them.....  actually my mojo is running particularly high so I hope to achieve the opposite of last year and put in a showing that I can hold my head up with. 

I've taken up two side duals which are little personal challenges to other participants in the challenge. The first one is with my friend Nick from Moiterei's bunte Welt here (lovely painting) to see who can acquire the most straight points(bonus round points don't count) at the end of the challenge. The second challenge is "The Bronze to Steel Challenge" with IanW here, JonathanO ?, MarkH here, MartinC here, SebG here to see who can get the most points painting Ancients/Medieval. I figure I have a fighting chance against Nick and best of all the winner of that has to paint a figure of the winners choosing(me):-). However in the ancients/medieval challenge I suspect I probably bit off more then I can chew, but I'm determined to put in a good performance and take a few down with me!>:-)


So what are my plans you may ask? Well of course some ancients and medieval will probably feature large on my painting table likely my Almoravids and maybe some Sassanids as well. I could even add some Late Romans/Germanics and Pyrric to the pile as well. I also suspect some black powder era things may creep their way in like ACW/SYW/AWI. You see I quit long ago trying to list exactly what I will do as I quite simply put the "B" in butterfly habits! This means I paint by mood and not by schedule so I never know exactly what I will do next as my mood changes faster then the weather in April! In my defence I rarely wholly quit projects and eventually get back to them even if it takes a few years until I do.

I don't have any plans to enter in the bonus rounds as I like to focus on army building rather then diorama's, but if a few of the rounds works with one of the projects I'm doing I may join in, but like I said army building is priority no. 1 with me. That said, I'll enjoy watching what everyone enters in the bonus rounds even if I'm not in.

It's going to be a tough climb, but I'm looking forward to the summit.:-)

So I'm off to my painting table!  Good luck to everyone who entered the challenge and Merry Christmas everyone!:-)

Almoravid Berbers

I've finally got around to starting my Impetus Almoravid army to of course provide opposition for my  El Cid army.  My Caballeros were tired of sitting around a table throwing dice waiting for somebody to fight.

This was my test regiment consisting of Berber spear supported by archers. The figures are a mix of Gripping Beast, Artizan and Musketeer(Footsore) miniatures. I wanted my Almoravids to have a fairly strong contrast to my slightly colourful Spanish so I went for a very sombre low key look to reflect the dour and strict mindset of the Almoravids. I did this by choosing very earthy natural colours of  creams with shades of brown and then adding some black and white in the mix. Lastly I choose a dark green as a both an army unifier and a contrasting colour that wasn't too strong. The shields I also kept very minimalistic in keeping with my theme. Like my El Cid army I used ap with highlights added. All shields and the banner were painted by myself.

So far things are going to plan which has motivated me to moving more units on to the painting table and getting prepared for painting later this month. I'm happy I finally started the project as it's been too long!

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Gripping Beast, Artizan, Musketeer(Footsore)

  

Ashigaru w/ Nagae-yari

Doing this unit reminded me why I took such a long break from adding more units to my Shimazu clan project.......because they are extremely hard to paint!! Granted the finished effect is very satisfying because of the pay off which is if you put the effort in Samurai armies will rewarded you with spiffy looking units because of the detail they have. I suppose I look at it as the wargamers version of running a marathon.

I've made some changes to the Ashigaru in that I lightened up the armour a shade as I felt my previous ones were a little too dark. I'm very happy with the change and I'll need to go back over the other Ashigaru and update them to look the same as these ones. I also decided to go for a slight bamboo effect on the Nagae-yari which I rather like. I mean if ones already going to paint all the darn lace then why not go the extra mile on the yari....right?

Impetus bases (my favourite btw) are great fun so I took the opportunity to pose this unit as if preparing to receive or hoping to receive a cavalry charge. Not sure how many units I'll do like this as it's not very practical on the tabletop with the extended yari, but hey I like the effect and I'll either add a spare base in front when units meet or turn them around briefly in the melee.  

Not sure when I'll do my next unit as like I said it's a marathon, but I will for sure do some more.:-)

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Perry Miniatures

Late Romans(West) vs Early Anglo Saxon

The battle in full swing!

Nick and I had a very nice fun little Basic Impetus bash last Saturday featuring Nick as the Late Romans (west) vs myself running the Early Anglo Saxons. Nick has played little to none in regards to Impetus so I thought playing a game of Basic Impetus was a great way to ease him into the rules instead of going straight into full Impetus. In some ways Basic Impetus is as good as full Impetus when taking in certain factors. For example it's far easier to collect Basic Impetus armies especially in 28mm and the rules are simplified allowing an easier learning curve both at an introductory level and if you play infrequently to remember the rules. You also need less space to play. However regular full Impetus does allow more tactical options and gives a fuller experience, but that comes with cost in both time to play, space needed and bigger collections. At the moment I like the idea of Basic Impetus at 28mm and full Impetus at 15mm, but that's not set in stone as I'll play full Impetus at 28mm as well. I would say it's more of a guide for now and see how things develop.

The game itself was great fun and Nick who is normally a skirmish type gamer really enjoyed the game as well. A real nice feature of Basic Impetus is that you don't have a lot of units so each unit becomes important so you really need to think about what you want to do. I suppose what I like most about Impetus is the big bases, because of the visual aspect and the ease of movement. The game itself was a tight one, but in the end the Roman's prevailed in large part to the excellent performance of their cavalry. Nick who normally has difficulties in getting something in the win column largely due to his poor dice rolling this time was able to come out the winner and throw back the uncivilized barbarians. Of course this is only temporary as the Saxons will have their revenge!:-)

Still need to work on the photography, but hopefully you'll enjoy the pics I was able to half decently take. Nick has decided to leave his lovely Late Romans at my house so he doesn't need to drag them out of the attic any more which is a boon for me! Thanks Nick! Since he kindly has allowed me to use them in his absence it will give me something for my Saxons to fight as I'm still developing my own Late Roman army although my cataphracts did manage to get on the table for their first game albeit not controlled by myself.

Well I must say I'm pretty pumped to get painting some more Impetus armies so stay tuned for more of that soon!

Thanks for viewing!

The Late Romans line up for battle.

Screaming insults the Saxons form up.

Late Roman cavalry hoping to outflank the Saxon battle line.

Late Roman infantry lock shields and advance.

A massive melee erupts across the battlefield.

Cataphracts hoping to punch a hole through the Saxons instead become boged down in close fighting.

Saxons push the center, but struggle on the flanks.

Cataphracts grind down one unit, but find the Saxon Generals unit a much tougher challenge.

End game with Late Roman heavy cavalry catching a large unit in the flank collapsing both the unit and the Saxon army with it.

Germanics/Early Saxons

Still adding more Early Saxons/Germanics to my collections. These gents have all been mounted on sabot Impetus style bases to be used for To the Strongest, Dux Bellorum, Sword and Spear and of course Impetus. Since they are all on round bases I can still put them on my Dux Britanniarum trays for that game when needed. I've also built Impetus sabot bases for my other Saxons/Germanics that I'll show later in a group army shot at some point. With some DIY tips from my friend Nick(thanks Nick!) I made the Impetus bases myself as I wanted a bit more irregularity so they wouldn't be to perfectly lined up like soldiers and more like warriors.It's difficult as the figure bases are large at 25mm so I didn't have a lot of room to work with, but I think I did manage to shift them enough to get what I wanted. I also painted up a extra Saxon Leader as well.

The figures are all Gripping Beast and are from their 4th and 5th century Early Saxons and are quality sculpts and casting with plenty of dynamics giving the impression of movement and fierceness that is quite appealing. They have separate weapons which is nice for variety, but a pain to glue on. The lovely flag and shield transfers are from LBM with some Mig pigments added by myself to the shields to give a good dust down.

I have plans to do more, but my back is giving me problems reducing my painting plus their are other period distractions as always.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Gripping Beast

Group 1

 

Group 2

Saxon Leader

Iron Brigade(15mm)

I finished this unit a couple months ago and now have finally got around to posting them. They are part of the famous Iron Brigade easily identifiable by their frock coats and tall Hardee hats. They were arguably the best brigade in the union army in the east and maybe even the west until Gettysburg were they suffered catastrophic losses in this battle losing most of their mid western veterans that were later replaced by able, but not quite as good replacements. By proportion the Iron Brigade suffered the most losses of any brigade in the war. The brigade was so tough rebels were recorded as saying something to the effect of "Here comes those damn black hats again!" as they new they were in for a brawl. I like the brigade so much the 28mm version I painted awhile back is my blog header.:-)

I still have a backlog of ACW to go through so more on the way eventually.

Thanks for viewing.:-)
Miniature Company-Old Glory 15's