Medieval Archers

This post originally appeared on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I've had some plastic 5th edition Brettonian archers knocking around my lead pile for 20 years, but didn't have a reason to get them onto the table until I started playing Lion Rampant. I've been working on English army circa 1250-1315 and they desperately needed a missile contingent, but the monopose Brettonians didn't quite match the more dynamic modern Firefroge figures that made up my the bulk of my army.

Doing some research over the Summer I found that Front Rank's figures seemed to be the best match to Games Workshops old sculpting style, and had a variety of poses and equipment that would help break up the ranks of identical plastic Brettonians.

My English army uses a variety of red and yellow liveries for the knights and all of the troops they would have mustered. I don't believe soldiers would be fielding identical uniforms, as each was responsible for providing their own gear, so I'm depicting a rag tag look to these units, with some figures sporting more formal livery, while others making do with something vaguely red or yellow colored from their own meager clothing collection.

To help identify the units on the table I've grouped together figures into a red unit, a yellow unit and a neutral unit. Some of these figures are individually based so I can always mix the colors up if necessary, but in the end these are game pieces we need to keep track of on the table.

Red Unit

Yellow Unit

Neutral Earth Tones Unit

Three 16 man units give me 48 figures, which should give me a total of 240 points for the Painting Challenge!

Homer Jungle Statue

This post originally appeared on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

With all of the responsibilities that come with being an adult, I haven't had a ton of time to paint over the last few weeks, but I did manage to steal a glance at this weeks theme challenge. I was pretty surprised to see it had something to do with "Homer Terrain". That was sure to be a unique set of entries, and I wracked my brain trying to figure out something that would stand out from the crowd.

Naturally, most entries will likely depict a terrain feature from one of Homer's epic poems. There were sure to be plenty of Trojan Horses, Gates of Troy, and Greek Beach Camps. I thought we might even see something pulled from the Odyssey (maybe a Cyclops cave or two?), but I decided to go a bit farther afield. I thought I could get a more liberal interpretation of the "Homer" theme for my terrain piece, and I considered doing Fenway Park, with a 28mm outfielder unable to snatch a "homer" as it sailed the Green Monster. That seemed beyond my skills though (and wouldn't really lend itself to a wargame), but I spotted a cheap plastic knick knack depicting Homer Simpson as a snack food Buddha. Inspired by his zen-like countenance, I decided to base my terrain on the toy. A perfect start for a conversion into a mysterious jungle idol, carved by some long dead civilization of peculiar lemon colored tribesmen!

I built a small dais from wood and foamcore, and gave the whole thing a stippled coat of spackle/dry wall compound to mimic the weathered stone of the idol.

A dark gray primer gave the whole piece a uniform, stone-like base to begin painting.

I used a variety of grays and browns, with the faintest hints of yellow, green and pink (no doubt remnants of the festive paintjob the idol once must have sported).

"Mmmmmm.... soft pretzel......"

I used numerous brown and gray washes to weather it, and added quite a bit of flock and tufts to represent the encroaching jungle foliage that will one day engulf the statue.

I don't like to take all of my wargaming so seriously, and plan on using this idol for some tongue-in-cheek Rogue Trader or Fantasy gaming. A unique subject for a unique category! Altogether, I was pretty pleased at how it turned out.

"None shall defile the Golden Emperor!"

Wait....

"Home" Terrain????

Doh!

Painting Challenge: Star Wars Amada Z-95s and Havoc

This post originally appeared on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

Despite painting furiously over the last week, I still have lots of figures that aren't quite ready to be posted. I did manage to finish off some more itty bitty spaceships for Star Wars Armada. While meager in points, I'm excited to get these finished ships onto the table.

The Z-95 Headhunter was created for the Star Wars RPG back in the 80's. I believe it incorporates rejected design elements for the film's X-Wings, and while it's undeniably an X-Wing knock off, I've always liked the design. The Z-95 has shown up in a number of games (tabletop, RPG and video) as either a second line Rebel ship or in the service of various planetary defense forces, pirates or other malcontents. With a wide variety of organizations flying them each sporting their own custom paint jobs, there's a wide variety of color schemes to choose from or plenty of room to make up your own. After a cursory search I picked a style that would help distinguish these Z-95s from my Red Squadron X-wings, but wouldn't look too out of place in service to the Rebel Alliance.

The Havoc, a heavier fighter bomber available to the Rebels in Armada belongs to Nym, some sort of tentacle headed alien I'd never heard of. Nym appears in some old Clone Wars era comics and video games, and in the extended Star Wars fiction has apparently stuck around until the Rebellion era.

Being unfamiliar with the ship, and unwilling to do TOO much research, I picked a bright orange and white color scheme that showed up in Nym's Wookipedia entry. It's a tasty little ship on the table, and I'm pretty happy that I can field it in a flashy paint job.

All told, it's a tiny entry of 7 ships but every bit counts towards that point goal, right?