My entry to the 'Mount(s) & Rider(s)' themed bonus round

The end of the year is almost upon us so it's time for my last blog post of the year. Below you can find my submission to the 'Mount(s) & Rider(s)' themed bonus round over on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge Blog. The poll is still open so make sure you head over there to cast your vote for your favourite entries. There's some great stuff on display even dinosaurs with license plates so what you're waiting for?

At the moment I'm listening to Ulf Schiewes excellent Montalban Trilogy (unfortunately there seems to be no English edition) while painting. The novels are set in 12th century southern France and Outremer (modern day Israel and Palestine) with a definite focal point on the Crusades and tell the story of a fictitious Montalban family vassals to the masters of Tolosa. Thus inspired it should be little surprise I wanted to pick up the cross and fight the infidels for this submission.

3rd entry to the Challenge: 28mm M3 Halftrack & US Crew (14 Points)

Here's my latest entry to the Challenge for all of you not following the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge frenzy:

I really didn't expect to get something presentable done before the holidays but these four chaps were not overly difficult to get ready. So this entry is far from being a points bomb others seem capable of but one more tiny step towards the goal.

My entry for the 'Cold' themed bonus round

An integral part of this years Painting Challeng are the (at least to me) highly entertaining Bonus Themed Rounds again. The poll is still running so make sure you head over to vote for your favourite(s)!

Here's what I submitted for the first round themed 'Cold':

When looking out for a suitable figure to represent the first themed bonus round I found it in the excellent Lead-Adventure line of miniatures. Their Post-Apoc range has some rather nice miniatures which should fit the bill. I was a torn between "Igor and the Red Gang" and "Santa Contaminated". Having already seen some of their figures in the flesh but not having painted some yet I decided to first try my luck with Santa instead of doing a whole group.

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge: Not "Dorian Gray" Entry Fee Figure (20 points)

I'm a bit behind in my blogging at the moment but as Curt's infamous Painting Challenge has begun last week most of my hobby time is concentrated on painting like a maniac... not that it would make any difference in output anyway.

So here's my first entry to the Challenge:

To bring myself and my brushes up to operating temperature for this years challenge I wanted to stay within the theme of the challenge with my first submission.

Ever since Curt has announced this years topic I knew what I wanted to do for the Entry Fee figure. Back then when West Wind did their "Empire of the Dead" Kickstarter I almost joined in because of the dark and menacing look of the Steampunk world they created which I liked a lot. But as I had (and still have) much too many distractions on my table I passed on the chance and said to myself that one day I could still paint the one or other figure.

So when looking for suitable figures I knew it had to be something from that range and indeed I found a figure which to my mind perfectly matches Curt's description of the to be Entry Fee figure.

So I present to you Mr. Dorian aka as (Not) Dorian Gray.

Second German rifle squad

Hobby wise I've been really busy this week in order to get the next German rifle squad done before the 5th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge starts.

First German rifle squad

Having been in some kind of an "Early War" painting francy lately I managed to painted my first squad in about six days. If I could only always get my stuff done that fast :-)

Early War German Specialists

Some might remember the Panzer II I painted a few weeks back. Over the past few days I finally came round to start painting some accompanying Infantry.

 

First Indochina in Greyscale and the 5th Analogue Hobbies Annual Painting Challenge

Recently I mentioned a secret project I'm working on and now is time to show it off. Inspired by Curts amazing "Great War in Greyscale" project as well as his take on the "First Indochina War" I decided to combine both projects into one. But what was still missing was the impetus to get going.

A new Dux Brittaniarum Campaign...

On sunday Chris and I had another go at the TFL's Dux Britaniarum. As the last campaign was almost done (with the british beeing almost constantly beaten) and me having lost the character sheets of my Nobles during the summers renovation we decided to start a new one. To prevent me from loosing my stuff again I decided to keep track of my characters' developement and the general events of the campaign on a dedicated site on this blog.

The first game was to be a raid on a small british farmstead. We set up the table and I thought I was lucky when rolling for my entry point and coming out next to the farm. But as Chris rolled for how much head start he would have before my forces would arrive my luck ran out. He had three full movements with his Saxons before I was able to deploy my British.

The battlefield

The Saxon force

Fall of the western Empire 19: More Comitatenses

Well, it's been a while since I did some figures for my late Romans. But as Chris lately finished a base of lovely cataphracts I remembered I also had some half finished Foundry Late Romans in my painting queue. Then our arrangement for a game yesterday (more on that in a later post) gave me the final impulse to finally finish up those poor buggers.

Step by step: Cheap & easy sabot bases #2

Following on an earlier tutorial on how to make cheap sabot bases here's how I do round ones for my WW2 gaming.

I just recently started to use this kind of bases for fire teams. I find them to be visually more appealing than the usual single based models. Especially with firing machine gun teams it looks more convincing to me and allows you to put the figures in scene. Another plus in my eyes is it's easier to handle while still allowing for easy casualty removal.

To make your own sabot bases you'll need:

• Footfall sound insulation (In German it's called polystyrol)
• Round lasercut or plastic bases the size you want the final sabot base to be
• Hobbyknife
• Marker
• Proxxon (or similar) Hot Wire Cutter
• 21mm Hollow punch
• 20mm Washers
• self adhering magnetic bases
• Fast curing PVA
• Old brush

First of all the shape of the bases is marked on the polystyrol. I usually use 2mm thick MDF bases from the different lasercut companies out there as bottom layers. Of course you can go funky and cut out your own irregular shaped bases from Plasticcard and still use the steps provided below.

 

US Army Medium Machine Gun Team

Today a rather productive week came to a sudden halt as I'm suffering from a mighty hangover. Sometimes you really can feel one ain't a young grasshopper anymore. Maybe I simply should stop all this drinking nonsense and better do some proper "Gentleman" stuff like maybe refurbish old cars or the like.

But on to the real reasons for this post. Next to some other as yet strictly confidential other stuff I painted a .30 cal Browning M1919 medium machine gun team.

US Army Rifle Squad

Again it has been a while but I haven't been totally lazy as I managed to paint another rifle squad for my US force. Again I used the great Artizan range by Mike Owen.

M1 57mm Anti-Tank Gun, Medic and Sniper

Some more reinforcements for my newly acquired WW2 US Army.
Figures are a mix of Artizan Designs and Warlord Games.

M8 Greyhound and Deuce '2 and a half trucks'

Normally today I wanted to presented a squad of early war Germans here to accompany my recently finished Panzer II. Or some more 15mm U.S. Paratroopers to reinforce my troops for Battlegroup. But as Wayland don't get my Paratroopers on their way and me having a sudden attack of wargamers ADHD I changed plans so today here's something I haven't even had on my screen till last week.

On to Moscow! - Panzerkampfwagen II

As I pretty much like anything WW2 (and especially German) related I decided to start a little early war side project. I was pondering about doing the desert war with the nice Artizan range of figures but as my local dealer had some of the rather nice 'Blitzkrieg Germans' from Warlord Games I went for those. On the plus side I can use my Soviets as opponents and only need to do some early war reinforcements like maybe a BA-6 and/ or BT-10...

Battle of the Hürtgen Forest - 82nd Airborne Division #1

Today for something different. At least scale wise... some of you may have already seen I had done a hand full 15mm U.S. Paratroopers quite some time ago. Now while I had my recent clean out I stumbled over them again and as nobody seemed willing to buy them I gave the rest of them a go.

Rush for Berlin 18: Further Russian Reinforcements

After obviously having rediscovered my painting Mojo and especially my love for Russian soldiers in WW2 I had a crack on some more of these buggers. All of the figures are from Warlord Games again and definitely are some of their better newish sculpts. For the most part I dislike the comic style some or better most of their newer figures, for example the Waffen-SS or German Heer, have to them. Especially most of their "Separate Head System" often look more like some ugly grimaces than real faces. Same with the heads for their "Siberian Veterans" plastics box. Somehow they seem to imagine all Siberians beeing slant eyed maniacs.... *rant off*

The Great War Project No.6: The Great War Painting Club figure

As some of you will probably know there's a "Great War Painting Club" thing going on at the Lead Adventure Forum right at the moment. So in order to take part I grabbed me one of those Russian Stormtroopers from Brigade Games sitting on my shelf and waiting patiently to see some paint.

Rush for Berlin 17: New Soviet reinforcements

Well, it's been a while since my last blog post. And here's why:

Fall of the western Empire 18: 2nd unit of Palatinae ready for battle

With the football fever still raging over here at Moiti towers I have a convenient excuse not to do much painting lately.
Despite beeing still tired to the bones from a weekend in Austria celebrating the stag party of a close friend of mine, followed by two long football nights, I finally managed to make some shots of my newest additions to my Late Romans.

Fall of the western Empire 17: New frankish warriors

Well, it's been a while since I wrote my last post and frankly I really didn't paint that much during the last few weeks.
On the one hand this had something to do with the blistering heat we were to 'enjoy' for a couple of weeks...

The Great War Project #5: Russian Shocktroopers

I'm back from my holidays in sunny Italy. After a week of sun and absolutely fantastic food this means back to business. I didn't even try to catch up with all the blog posts I missed so my sincere apologies to all of you.

Yesterday, after a hand full of sleep after all night driving, I finished the bases on my first full squad of tsarist Russian Shocktroops.

Fall of the western Empire 16: 2nd base of Roman archers

This week I painted up the figures for my 2nd base of late Roman archers for Dux Bellorum. This brings me to a total of 31 of 32 recommended points for DB.
The missing point I think I'll fill up with some frankish mercenary skirmishers for now.

A small village in Germania

Despite not beeing overly productive over the last month I managed to finish a few items for my Dark Age gaming.
At Tactica I bought the superb Viking Civilians by Wargames Foundry.
I think they're not only usable for Vikings but also will do just fine for any civilians throughout the Dark Ages.

Trouble in the village

DUST Tactics in Greyscale

Well, since I stumbled over Curt's WW1 in Greyscale project over on his blog I knew I had to try this out one day. As I recently started a spring clean out I found these two figures from the game DUST Tactics and suddenly inspiration struck.

Thought of the day: Burn the Heretic!

Well...  there wasn't or better still isn't much going on at Moiti towers painting wise since Curts painting challenge. To some point this has something to do with some kind of painting burn out which grabbed me after submitting the last figures. Well, to be honest my output already slowed down significantly during the last few weeks of the challenge but over the last weeks afterwards it virtually ground to a stand still.
On the other hand an unusual warm and sunny spring (Up to 27°C at some days) in this part of the world ment a sudden increase of time spent at work.

To get back on track I decided it was time to paint something I wouldn't normally do. With this in mind I went for my local dealer and after some time I came up with a pack of those new snap fit stuff GW started to produce since one of the latest editions of their 40k ruleset. So these Cultists were the first miniatures I bought from the evil empire in years. Except for some of their Black Library publications, which are great stuff for a Dark-SciFi addict like me, I don't normally bother about anything they produce because of their pricing and attitude towards their customers... but I disgress.

Despite painting this little guy took me some days due to work and other commitments I'm really pleased with the outcome.

A mixed bag of AWI, WW2 & Late Romans - 12th and last Painting Challenge Entry

So now as this years painting challenge came to a close it's back to normal business. But first here's my last entry to the challenge for you:

Death of King Arthur - 11th Painting Challenge Entry

As the "4th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge" is coming to a close it's the last time for me to urge you to pop over on Curt's blog to vote for your favourite entry in the last "Fortnight Bonus Themed Round". This round is called "Last Stand" and you'll see there are some pretty stunning interpretations of of the topic.

 

 This was maybe the only themed bonus round I knew what to submit for from the beginning. Originally I had intended this set for use on a scenic base for Impetus but as I had it lying untouched on my desk for what felt like ages the "Last stand" themed round gave me the excuse I needed to finally paint it. The set is called "Death of Arthur" and is from Westwind Miniatures nice 28mm Arthurian range.

As Comitatus didn't show up with their Gripping Beast and Musketeer stuff at Tactica (Yes, I'm still a little pissed off) I had to cancel my plan for doing an Impetus sized (and styled) base for lack of miniatures. Instead I decided to go for a larger round base and maybe use it later as some kind of rally point or opportunity marker. For the standard I originally planed to use a more stylish one. It was attached to the pole already, weathered and battle worn but due to some nasty incident including glue and me being all fingers and thumbs I had to switch to this one.

Thanks for viewing and I hope you enjoyed!

Last orders from High Command - 10th Painting Challenge Entry

The latest Fortnight Theme Bonus Round of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge was entitled "Favourite Characters" Many participants not only submitted stunningly awesome painted figures but also told interesting stories about why it's their favourite character. The poll is still open so feel free to pop over and nominate your most favourites of all these fabulous entries.

Finding a suitable set of figures for this themed bonus round proofed to be quite a challenge for me. I simply had no idea what figures to use as 'character' is quite open to interpretation.

Step by step: Splinter pattern camouflage

A few people have asked me to do a quick tutorial about my approach to WWII splinter pattern or officially "Buntfarbenmuster 31".

Late Roman Cavalry & Archers - 9th Painting Challenge Entry

One of my goals for the challenge was to paint up the Late Roman figures I have in my lead pile. As the end of the challenge grows closer I'm slowly running out of time for this. So here are two heavy cavalry and two archers from Musketeer Miniatures.

Frankish Casualties - 8th Painting Challenge Entry

Due to lack of enthusiasm I didn't paint as much as I should for the challenge. I hope this gets better now as I attended to TACTICA in Hamburg this weekend and came home with literally thousands of new ideas.
Meanwhile I can show you my newest submission to Curt's "Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge". This time the fortnight thematic bonus round was all about casualties.The poll is still open so make sure you pop over and nominate your most favourite amongst some really stunning entries. Meanwhile here's my entry for you to enjoy:

TACTICA Hamburg 2014

After a weekend full of hobby goodness at TACTICA in Hamburg I'm back at home. For all of you not beeing familiar with TACTICA it's the biggest wargames convention here in Germany. With its 1602 visitors it's maybe not as big as SALUTE in London or CRISIS in Antwerp but the atmosphere is fantastic.
Plenty of fantastic gaming tables and figures as well as lots of dealers. Unfortunately this year Comitatus didn't show up so I couldn't buy all the Gripping Beast and Musketeer stuff I had in my mind for expanding my Frankish and Late Roman armies. I of course found some other ways to spend my hard earned cash and bought loads of goodness from Wargames Foundry and quite some terrain pieces from Stronghold Terrain and a great Roman Temple in 28mm from Lasermodellbau.

This year also saw me on the gaming tables having lots of fun. Both games were based on the very enjoyable Triumph & Tragedy rules. The first game was hosted by Jan (aka Lt. Hazel) of "At the Mountains of Lead" fame and his friends. Me and my dear friend Chris (aka Axebreaker) pitted Jans masterfully painted Romans and Goths against each other. As always I fielded the might of Rome. My mission was to bring a cart full of riches into safety while Chris had to stop me. As always I lost the game in the end but it was big fun and we both had a great time. Therefore many thanks to Jan and friends.

The other game took place on sunday morning and I had the pleasure to play with Björn the author of T&T. In remembrance of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the great war he hosted virtually two games. The one was a game set in the very first days when the Germans attacked France.  Beautifully painted Germans were crossing the borders and were greeted by colorful French using their Hotchkiss LMG's to maximum advantage. The table in my opinion was great and really captured the feel of the early war of movement.
For his other game (the one I played) he turned on the wheels of time to a point when trench warfare had all the western front in his grip. Again the figures were painted absolutely to my liking and the trench tiles really made me think to start working on my own again. I played the Germans while Björn took command of the not so contemptible little (british) army. My objective was to break into his trenches and search for goods of value in two hidden dugouts. Exceptionally I won the game when my troops almost wiped out all his troops and by sheer look found the barrels full of valuable oil in the very first dugout they entered.

I took quite some pics and wasn't able to decide which ones to show here so I hope you don't mind to click through them all.

The WW1 trench warfare game I played

Dark Age Franks - 7th Painting Challenge Entry

At the moment there's not much going on here painting wise due to some busy days at work. So I was happy to get these four minis for the "Hero or Heroic Group" fortnight thematic bonus round of Curt's Painting Challenge done. The poll is still open so make sure you pop over and nominate your most favourite amongst some really stunning entries. Meanwhile here's my entry for you to enjoy:

 

Continuing my journey into the Dark Ages I painted the leaders for my Franks. I intended them to represent Childeric and his entourage. Note: What follows is only my interpretation of some rather inaccurate bits and pieces of history and myth.

Again a mixed bag of WW1 & WW2 - 6th Painting Challenge Entry & Vehicle Bonus Round

The third fortnight theme bonus round  of Curt's Painting Challenge is all about Vehicles. The poll is open since sunday so make sure to head over and vote for your favourite entries among a whole bunch of outstanding interpretations of the 'Vehicle' theme.

For my submission I went for a Daimler Mk1 armoured car for my Red Devils paratrooper force in beeing. Originally I intended to do a Churchill AVRE tank but decided it wouldn't fit my plans for the force.

A mixed bag of WW1 & WW2 - 5th Painting Challenge Entry

This time I'm back to historicals again:

As I finally decided to let my Great War games take place on the eastern front I ordered a pack of White Russian Officers from the Copplestone Russian Civil War range.These were intended as a test what colours to use and if they fit the bill. After all I'm rather pleased with the outcome and probably will stick to the range for further reinforcements.

Freebooters Fate Goblin Pirates - 4th Painting Challeneg Entry

I hope you'll forgive me but this time no historical stuff. Instead some quite fanciful Goblin Pirates from my 2nd Bonus Round Challenge Entry:

Dark Age Franks - 3rd Painting Challenge Entry

As enough time elapsed here's my 3rd entry to Curt's Painting Challenge:

Being a rather slow painter I finally managed to get the figures for my next entry done. These Saxon Gedrith will feature in future games of Dux Britanniarum and Dux Bellorum. I intend to use them as Franks as I want leave the British Isles story wise.