AHPC XIII - 13th & 14th Submissions

With painting of the Type S finished (barring application of decals and some weathering of the exterior), I spent a bit of time painting a few figures for the last two studios.

Entry #13 - Japanese Casualties

Full post here

Entry #14 - WW2 German Propaganda Team

Full post here

As you can see from the map below, I have submitted something for every studio in the Green and Blue zones.

The only to bits of the map that I won't have visited are the Gift Shop and the Yellow Brick Road.

AHPC XIII - First 3 Submissions

 First of all, apologies for the lack of posts recently. I was ill over Christmas up until New Year and it had left me wiped out. For about a week afterwards I was recuperating and catching up on all the stuff I hadn't been able to do while ill.

I managed to get back to painting just over a week ago, but not in time to get a submission in last Friday.

The start of my illness wasn't too bad. Bad enough to stop me travelling to Sussex for Christmas, but not bad enough to prevent me from finishing my first entry.

Entry #1 - Klegg Hai!

I had fun painting this trio of alien mercenaries for Judge Dredd games. You can find the full post here. Having decided to participate in this year's Challenge Map frolics, these were my submission for the SciFi studio.

Entry #2 Judge Dredd Bust

For the next studio on the map, Black & White, I decided to paint up this bust of Old Stony Face. The full post is here.

This was the 50% scale bust - I still have the 75% and 25% ones which have been primed.

Entry #3 German AFVs

The next studio to hit was "Under Construction". Normally for the Challenge you can't submit any figures or models that have been started (ie more than just priming) before it begins. This studio does allow you to submit work which had been started beforehand but you don't get points for those models/figures, just the studio bonus points. You might remember that I hit a bit of a block with these three vehicles back in August - this studio was the perfect excuse to break through that block. I did get a few extra points though as I also painted the commander for the StuG and the loader for the 37mm in the 251/10. I submitted this entry in the same post as the Dredd bust.

I've started work on figures for my next two studio visits - High Adventure and Westerns. If all goes well, I should have a bigger entry for the "Swords & Sandals" studio as well next Friday.

Finished: 28mm Leather Coated Waffen SS Officers

 

And they're done. That's the last of the Waffen SS figures for now. I suppose at some point I will get around to finishing off the bases (and those of the British Airborne at the same time).

Senior Leader

I needed a second senior leader and this figure from The Assault Group screamed out to be used.

The original highlights on the leather coat looked a bit too stark, so I toned them down with a black glaze.

Jump Off Point

This figure was part of my original purchases from Artizan. It didn't really fit for an "active" figure, but it works well for a Jump Off Point.

Wednesday Workbench 12 October 2022

 

I've started work on the last two (for now) Waffen SS figures. They should be quite quick to paint as they don't have any of the fussy details that the grunts did. 

Should be - but not having to paint all the camo and all of the different bits of equipment has allowed me to focus some extra attention on the leather coats.

3D Printing

Drinks machines, Portaloos (2 scales), restaurant booths, vehicle chargers

Hover car, jet bikes and a very small ship

As you can see, I've been quite busy with the 3D printer. With the portaloos the initial set I printed seemed too small, so I resized them to 130%. At least I thought I had - it turned out that I'd only resized the closed ones. I then did another run with them all resized.

I also finally managed to print the three jet bikes at 150% size to fit in better with Judge Dredd minis.

Finished: 28mm Waffen SS Support Squad

 

These ended up taking me a few days longer to finish than planned. For a start, I've had a really bad cold which made me not want to paint for a couple of days. I've also been having an issue with my 3D printing - my current roll of filament seems to have been very badly spooled and keeps tangling, which means I have to keep checking on it to clear any tangles before they cause a failed print.

But done they are, so here are the pics:

MG42 Teams

Riflemen

The figures with camo are from Artizan, the ones without are from The Assault Group.

And a final photo of the squad with their NCO (painted a while ago):

This leaves me with just two officer figures to paint (for now) plus the AFVs to finish off.

Wednesday Workbench 05 October 2022

 

I've been making slow but steady progress on the next batch of Waffen SS. There are two reasons for that. I've been running test prints of some 15mm and 28mm figures to try out a miniatures profile I found on the web; I've had to adjust some of the settings as it didn't quite work on my printer. I've also had to keep an eye on my printer while it's running as the current spool seems to have been badly wound which is causing some tangles that need to be cleared by hand before they cause a failure.

I think I'm on track to finish painting them tomorrow, but the varnishing steps will probably be done on Friday.

Finished: 28mm Waffen SS Medics and Extra MG Crew

 I did say that these would be posted yesterday when they were finished, but decided to post them today instead to help space my posts out a little.

Jump Off Point

I decide that this pair of figures would make a good Jump Off Point for Chain of Command. alternatively it would make a nice vignette to place on the table.

Medics

O could have based these two figures individually, but as I'll only ever need one medic I thought they'd go together nicely as a single base.

Extra Crew for Tripod MG42

Those of you with long memories may recall that when I posted the tripod MG42 teams that I didn't have enough figures for both crews. Well, these three figures bring them up to full strength.

All the figures in this batch are from The Assault Group.

Next up will be the support option squad. I suspect that they'll be ready to post on Thursday. After that I'll just have two more figures to paint (for now) - two officers in long leather coats.

Paint Table Saturday

 

I got distracted again and didn't do any painting yesterday. I have made up for it today as this batch is all but finished - I just need to drybrush the bases and paint the metal details. They'll be finished tomorrow.

For some reason, despite the range being "Late War", the medics and casualty seem to be in early war uniform. Ho, hum!

I've been 3D printing more "bitz" but I'd packed them away earlier on so didn't get to take any photos of them.

Finished: 28mm Waffen SS Panzerknacker Teams

 

As promised yesterday, here are the photos of the latest batch of Waffen SS - two Panzerknacker teams. In Chain of command each team is made up of four men with three charges, three smoke grenades and a MG42 with two crew (there's no note about what weapons the other two men have - I've done a rifle and SMG for them). 

The chaps with MG42s, grenade bundles and mines are from The Assault Group, the other two are from Artizan.

At 2 support points, each team is worth considering taking as supports, even if the opposition doesn't have any armour. With my weapon allocation, two teams (=4 support points) will put out 18 shooting dice at over 12", 22 at 6-12" and 26 at 0-6". A regular infantry squad (=4 support points) would have 15, 17 and 19 dice; a regular panzergrenadier squad (=5 support points) would have 21, 23 and 25 dice. The downside is that each team would need a 1 on the command dice to activate or an order from a senior leader, whereas the squads can be activated on a 2 or 3.

Wednesday Workbench 28 September 2022

 

In case you're wondering about the lack of a "finished" post, have no fear - the panzerknacker teams are done and I will be posting photos of them tomorrow.

So, what's next in the painting queue?

Medics (as a Jump Off Point and as a support option)

Three extra figures to complete the tripod MG crews

I'll be starting work on them tomorrow.

3D Printing

"Bitz" printing continues:

I've printed some more arcade game machines plus a bunch of SciFi doors and windows. I also found some mutant heads and printed them at 100%, 110% and 120% to see how they look.

I also printed some jet bikes this morning. I've had to scrap these as they took too much damage from removing the supports. They were also a bit undersized - I'll be reprinting them at 150% which should be about right for 28mm.:

I've got a couple more days of bitz printing before I start printing other stuff.