Off and running in Painting Challenge VII

So with about a week of hols under my belt (to say nothing of my own body weight in Christmas munchies) I've made a modest start in this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

My first post was something of a pick-n-mix of stuff to round out various projects...

There's more pics and some background on the Challenge blog.

Cheers,
Millsy

Flames of War DAK Project finished!

Phew! This one has really taken some time to get over the line, a solid three weeks of effort in fact. When I think about it I've basically painted the entire infantry and support formations for a solid 2000 point Tunisian army so maybe not so bad after all. Excuse the photos, it's well past bedtime and I just wanted to get this posted.

First up, HQ and a 10.5cm battery...

Two full strength Panzergrenadier battalions (all the transport is already done)...

And finally a full heavy platoon as well...

I've still got to add a few bushes to the bases but otherwise this project is done and dusted. In total I've got something like 4,000 points of DAK so stay tuned for better photos in the shape of another army gallery page sooner rather than later.

What's next? A breather I think and then perhaps a boat load of Dystopiand Wars Kingdom of Britannia if I can muster the energy.

Cheers,
Millsy

Next Major Project Push... Flames of War DAK Panzergrenadiers

Having successfully pushed a couple of major projects through to completion recently I've moved onto the next one that has been sitting idle for goodness knows how long - Desert Afrika Korps Panzergrenadiers (Tunisia) for Flames of War.

I need to finish the following to put this one to bed:

1 x HQ
2 x Combat Platoons
1 x HW Platoon
1 x 10.5cm Artillery Battery

This weekend I've made a solid start, completing all the crew for the 10.5cm battery.

I've also cleaned up, primed and started blocking in the HQ and HW platoon.

This is likely to take me 2-3 weeks to complete if not longer. Despite the fact they look quite monotonal there are in fact something like 12 colours plus ink to apply. My basing scheme is also quite complex and adds something like 30% extra time to each unit too.

I'll be pleased to have these out of the way. It will leave me with next to nothing left for Flames of War, a situation I've never been in, not even once, since I picked the game up about 6 months after version one was released. I might have to pinch myself when this one gets over the line!

Cheers,
Millsy

Painting Challenge V Week One

Well, my first week chained to the challenge painting table is behind me and I'm pleased to report very solid progress indeed. In fact, I'm currently sitting top-o-the-heap with 430 points to my name and well on my way to reaching my 2,000 point target.

This past week I've completed a total of three entries as follows:

28mm English Civil War Dismounted Dragoons x 24

28mm Warhammer Fantasy Lizardmen Skinks x 20

15mm Flames of War Naval Infantry x 102

My first bonus round entry has been submitted and I've already got another entry 90% complete to be posted on my rostered day this Thursday coming. Stay tuned for more...

Cheers,
Millsy

German Ostfront Grenadiers Complete

This is officially the Year of Finishing Unfinished Projects here at Chez Millsy. Thus far things are well and truly on track and the following is proof - my completed Flames of War 2000pt Eastern Front German Grenadier army for Mid/Late War.

Over the last few weeks I've finished the following:

Full grenadier platoon one

Full grenadier platoon two

120mm heavy mortars

Machine guns

That gives me a really solid force when combined with all the completed support and weapons platoons. All up the force consists of the following:

• HQ plus attachments
• Full grenadiers
• Full grenadiers
• MGs
• 120mm heavy mortars
• Light infantry guns
• Heavy infantry guns
• PaK 36s (4)
• PaK 36(r)s (4)
• 1/2 battery of nebelwefers (3)
• Full black pioneers with goliath
• StuG Gs (3)
• Marder Is (2)

I've gone for a sort of Spring/Summer woodland theme on the bases with plenty of exposed earth and some weeds/flowers/grass tufts amongst all the rock and broken trees.

When laid out it takes up a fair bit of space as you can see from the following (which is sans armour and a few transports as well).

I'm well chuffed to have this finished. The grenadiers were horribly miscast to the tune of about one in five miniatures and required significant work to get them up to something like usable. They are the main reason it took so long to get this army complete. They're quite nice sculpts but the end product was of such inferior quality I won't be buying Forged in Battle miniatures again. A shame really as they are much better value than Battlefront.

Cheers,

Millsy

Paint Table Saturday

Time for another edition of Paint Table Saturday on the blog. First up a welcome to Byron who joins the crew since our last shout out. G'day mate and welcome aboard!

This week I've been working to finish off the remaining miniatures from my Necromunda Cawdor gang. That's all done bar varnishing and basing. Thankfully they'll lose the gloss finish imparted by the ink and such.

And now that they're done I've started work on some Flames of War MW German Grenadiers. To begin with I'm working my way through the 12cm mortar platoon...

These are actually Forged in Battle miniatures as opposed to the official Battlefront ones. They're substantially cheaper but at least with the FiB material I've bought to date it's a case getting what you pay for. There were a large number of poor castings and overall I'd have to rate them a 4/10 with a few maybe at 5 or 6. The worst part of these was the repairs and new parts needed to be made for the mortars themselves. Perhaps the molds are on the way out?

Don't get me wrong, Battlefront and not the duck's nuts either by any stretch of the imagination but at least their castings are invariably pretty clean. Fortunately I've got pretty much everything I need for the army so I don't have to go through this again.

Cheers,
Millsy

3rd Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge finale

The 3rd Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge over on Curt's wonderful blog has just finished up. Now that all my final entries have been published it means I can load them up here as well.

Overall I finished 13th on the points table out of 47. Not bad at all but that's not really what it was all about for me. I was just keen to be involved, share some great work and push myself to get some stuff completed. Here's the outstand miniatures that haven't appeared on the blog so far:

First up is 13 x Eureka Miniatures Prussians in 28mm from their Franco-Prussian War range. I’ve had these undercoated for so long I can’t put a date on when I bought them or why, which is both laughable and a sad indictment of the depths of my addiction.

Next up are three random 28mm miniatures from the lead pile which have been orphaned from their projects. I always seem to end up with a couple of these where painter’s block kicks in and they get put aside to await inspiration. The two clerics are Gripping Beast dark ages figs and the other chap is I think an Essex high medieval fig.

Following on we have some 10mm War of the Spanish Succession French cavalry. These are all Pendraken miniatures, painted up to represent the first and second cavalry lines of the Marquis du Bourg's Corps at Blenheim. All up there are 60 miniatures grouped into units of 12 and based in threes so they are riding nice and tight, boot to boot.

The first line consists of the regiments de Royal (4 squadrons), de La Ferronnaye (2 squadrons), de Levy (2 squadrons), de Prince Charles de Lorraine (2 squadrons) and de Choiseul (2 squadrons). The second line consists of the regiments d'Anlezy (2 squadrons), de Livry (2 squadrons), de Heudincourt (2 squadrons) and de Dauphin Etranger (2 squadrons). Every different unit has a flag even though most a just two squadrons. I figure they would all need rallying points and it looks great to what the hell.

Next there are a pile of 15mm Russian artillery from Flames of War - 79 crew and command plus 12 guns to be precise. These are all Battlefront miniatures. I was looking for something quick to bump me over the 1,000 point mark and I’ve managed to churn them out in roughly 12 hours for the lot. That works out to roughly one gun base plus one command base an hour. There is a bit of detail work to do like adding a map but that can wait til after the comp. I seem to have ended up with extra command but that’s fine – far better than being short which is what often happens with these guys.

 

And finally, this is my entry fee for the challenge, Ronin #7. I wanted to do some storytelling and also go a bit beyond my usual boundaries (it’s a challenge after all). I won't retype the whole longwinded enrty, just provde a link to the original blog post. There are plenty more pics over on Curt's blog along with the background, etc. I think it's some of the best work I've ever produced but you be the judge.

So that's it. I'm pretty burnt out but have had a total blast. Curt has worked his proverbials off posting close to 400 separate entries at 20 minutes each - do that math, that's an awesome committment by any standard and he deserves bucket loads of praise and thanks.

Cheers,
Millsy
 

Goodbye 2012, hello 2013...

So that's another year of gaming almost under the bridge. Another rather productive one to be precise, both in terms of painting output, games played and blogging activities.

On the blogging front the number of posts (57 for the year including this one) and the number of followers (now 60 and almost double last Christmas) have grown at a pleasing and steady rate. My good mate Evan and I also started up a new blog entitled Die Kriege des Zobelshuts to chart our progress on a new Age of Reason imagi-nations project. We also joined Emperor vs. Elector and had some terrific blogging fun over there too.

Painting has gone mostly to the plan I established last Christmas, although not without some quite significant diversions. I had four main projects for the year so how did I do in 2012?

Warhammer Dogs of War
Solid progress to say the least. A good number of units painted and a couple of games played to boot. See below for what got completed.

Gruntz 15mm
Whoops. Some progress made, mostly finishing up my New Israelis and the vehicles for my second force. On the plus side I made great strides in 15mm sci-fi terrain so not all bad.

Colonial Sudan
Really good progress here with plenty of Empire and Mahdist units painted plus a couple of cracking games played to boot. Cap it off with both a village and a fort in cork all complete and it was a great year for colonials.

1938 A Very British Civil War
A bit of a bust on the VBCW front. Next to nothing painted apart from a single unit of White Russians. A couple of games played here too but we're not 100% happy with the rules we're using so we're going to try again soon with Disposable Heroes.

All things aside though, I made massive strides elsewhere when there were previously no plans to do so (hapy days!). In addition to the above I managed to complete the following:

• The best part of 180 x 28mm English Civil War pike and shotte miniatures, plus rebasing all my cavalry
• A very large chunk of a 2,000 point Flames of War MW German Grenadier force for the Ostfront
• A monstrous amount of desert defences for Flames of War, used to great effect in our Alamein game
• Two regiments of 15mm French Napoleonic Chasseurs, plus a good few games with Nug
• Rebasing of approximately 80 x 28mm SYW figures, painting of another 20 and a bunch of other reorganisation

Phew! Quite a list if I say so myself... Not that I expect you to believe me without proof so here's some documentary evidence of the year gone. ;-)

 

So what's on the books for 2013? Plenty of games I hope, plus the following painting:

• Some more ECW, mostly command stands plus a unit of dragoons
• A division of Saxons in 15mm for my Napoleonic force
• The remaining grenadier platoons for my Flames of War MW German Grenadiers
• About 30 or so 28mm Napoleonics for Cory and I for skirmish games
  and finally...
• A very large number (200+) 28mm imagi-nation troops for both Evan and myself

Right, that's all that needs to be said to close off 2012. Thanks for popping by during the year and for all the positive comments and feedback. Thanks also to all the other bloggers who share their work and enthusiasm. It's a great motivator and a huge pick-me-up when tired or lacking drive.

Best wishes all and here's to a great 2013 for all of us!

Cheers,
Millsy