From SebG: 15mm Thirty Years War Artillery (40 points)

From Seb:

As promised, here come the heavy support: a battery of 2 heavy guns, and three regimental guns: 5 guns and 10 crewmen. The French army list proposes to buy some regimental guns to support the units, and I jumped at the occasion. Extra dice for firepower is a must-have for the French ;)

What you have here is a complete mix and Old Glory, Museum miniatures and Donnington. As you can see, they're all pretty much compatible, which is good news.

Now, onto my last unit, some generals and bits for the camp.

Very cool! I particularly like the small regimental guns on their wee man-portable carriages.

These 5 guns and their crews will give Seb 40 points. Now we get to look forward to the fellows in lace and their assorted flunkies.

From DaveD: WWII Soviet Sturmoviks, Chuckwagons & Ronin #8 (68 points)

From DaveD:

This lad has finally completed his tour of the postal system of Europe.. so here he is. hope you like him - I do!

Once more its another Zenit Miniatures - beautiful sculpt to work with - I needed the strong reading glasses for this lad.

Of course once you do some things , other people want some - a friend saw the planes I did recently and "begged" me to completed his 15mm Sturmoviks by Flames of War...  the payback will be in the pub on Friday...

Then the other couple of waggons by 4Ground  for my Old West - I decided to leave this waggon uncovered to save Mrs D's handkerchief collection!

Awesome work Dave. I hope you're going to get more than a few pints in on Friday for those Sturmies. Nonetheless, Ronin #8 is my favourite here. He's brilliant! I love the flash of red and white with his otherwise muted armour. Thanks so much!

This selection of models will give Dave 68 points.

From SidneyR: 28mm Great War French & Germans (125 points)

Here is Sidney's next entry, building on his new project focusing on the titanic battles for the Verdun fortresses.

From Sidney:

Well, here's my next instalment.  Les Poilus sont arrivés!!  Enfin!!

There's 10 gas masked late war French infantry and 8 casualty figures.  All of them are Old Glory 25/28mm figures which I painted up really to test a few things.  As you can see, I got rather carried away with the bases! 

I wanted to work on Horizon Bleu as a colour and see how it would blend with a number of shade tones.  I found that the following painting formula looks reasonable – (i) a base of 50% Vallejo Neutral Grey and 50% Vallejo French Mirage Blue; (ii) a shade tone applied on the base of Vallejo German Grey mixed with a little (say a large dab but no more) of Vallejo Neutral Grey; a highlight of Vallejo White mixed with the base tone of  50% Vallejo Neutral Grey and 50% Vallejo French Mirage Blue (adding more white to suit the top highlights).  Life-long Francophiles (including myself) may be horrified about using Vallejo German Grey on Great War French figures -  I confess it troubled me as well, hence the dab of Vallejo Neutral Grey to the shade colour!  Let me know what you think of the Horizon Bleu colour.  Fingers crossed I’m getting there with the colour and tone … 

The attacking figures are depicted wearing the late war M2 French gas mask.  Sadly, no one else but Old Glory produces late War French in gas masks, which is odd considering the amount of gaz floating around the battlefields of Verdun and the Chemin des Dames. 

The Old Glory figures were a bit of a revelation when I painted them.  I’ve had them for a while and really didn’t like them when they first arrived.  The attacking figures arrived looking very shiny (difficult to make out the detail) and with the bayonets bent in weird surrealist angles.  But they are a very good match size-wise and bulk-wise for Great War Miniatures.  They really came to life once the rifles and bayonets were straightened and they were undercoated.  I like the dynamic pose of the attacking troops – they’ll be perfect for trench cleaners, “les nettoyeurs de tranchees”.

The French casualties were just great figures to work with.  They reminded me a lot of old-style Perry figures.  I added a few bedding rolls, mess tins, pinard bottles and water bottles.  I also made a sack of hand grenades and mini-grenades from greystuff.  No, he’s not collapsed after an energetic game of boules (as suggested by my wife!).

I also wanted a different ground effect on the bases than I’ve gone for on my German and British troops.  Although I’ve done some brickwork and rubble, I’ve also experimented with some fallen leaves.  These seemed to suit the atmosphere of the late winter woods around Verdun – definitely not “home before the leaves have fallen”.

Also, I painted up a German Stosstruppen company command group.  I’ve done a couple of German command groups before, but I wanted something more “front-line” and action-focused.  The Great War Miniatures German troops armed with MP18 Bergmann sub-machine guns gave me the chance.   The command group will be placed on the German baseline in an up-coming game, so they gave me the chance to play around with a diorama as well.

Next up are two Crapouillots.  And no, I’m not being rude!

What a stonkingly gorgeous entry! These are just top-shelf stuff. As I mentioned to Sidney offline I think he's really nailed down that tricky French 'Horizon Bleu' colour. The diorama is superb and the rubble mixed with leaves creates a great juxtaposition. 

This group gives Sidney a base of 95 points, but I'm adding on another 30 for the diorama and various additions/conversions to the bases.  A horrifyingly beautiful feast for the eyes!

From FranL: 28mm ACW Union Ambulance, Casualties, Horse Holders & Citizens (265 points)

A few hours ago we had Tweedle Dee, now we have Tweedle Dum...

From Fran:

Some more painting shenanigans. The pictures were a mixed bag (Ray took them!).

Perry Miniatures Field Ambulance.

Perry Miniatures ACW Union Cavalry Horse Holders (8 horses/2 riders)

Dixon Miniatures Dead, Dying and Wounded plus journalist/ early paparazzi! 

Foundry Miniatures Townsfolk.

Perry Miniatures ACW Union Field Forge (Should have placed the leaning figure as part of the base!!!).

Black Flag Miniatures Townsfolk.

Continuing with my Old West but adding citizenry for the town of 'Angry' plus more Union forces especially scenery related little dioramas (eye candy for the games), still have more citizens and Union to do and then on to the Confederate forces.

These look brilliant Fran! I particularly like that ambulance and the horse-holders.

This group of Yanks and civilians will give Fran a very impressive 265 points (with a bit extra added for the camera, coffin, etc.). Well done!

Hmm, now that I think of it, I now know the perfect set of shirts (and suspenders) I need to get for Fran and Ray:

From RayR: 15mm Scots Artillery, Archers and Highlanders (88 points)

From Ray:

Entry No 6 is a few more figures for my Scots army for Flodden, firstly we have 3 artillery pieces and their 7 crewmen, I bought these from Ebay a few years ago and have no idea what make they are, maybe Minifigs? Next are 24 Sottish archers, all the figures bar two are made by MY Miniatures, the others are from the old Falcon range, I think?

Lastly I've added a pic of 6 Highlanders that I forgot I painted,(yeh I know??)  they'll be added to my Killiecrankie Highland units that were short of figures, so I may have to do a little rebasing and I'm not a happy bunny!!!! 

Those massed archers look very good and the wee cannon are brilliant. Too bad you forgot about those Highlanders (btw there are 7, not 6), they must have been out on the town chasing skirts (!) when you were basing the others.

This group will give Ray 88 points bringing him back into the top 10 (sorry Greg!). 

Ray's now at 666 points, just confirming what we knew it all along. You're such a Devil, Mr. Rousell.