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Well, well, well, look what Blockade finally finished.

One full units of Knights of the Realm. I even had time to paint up their movement tray and base it as well.

Introducing Ser Alejan's Lances

Ser Alejan's Lances are some of Lord Leinad's most loyal followers, having traced their roots to the core group of men who followed him to the Border Princes. Surprisingly, Ser Alejan's men are all actually knights, having been knighted by the Baron or another local lord. Ser Alejan wears more purple than his men to indicate his high standing with the lord. Know for his rash charges in his youth, Ser Alejan has listened to the baron of late and been careful to shepherd the men under his command, saving their blood curdling charge for the most worthy of opponents.







The rest are spoilered for your benefit.



So for those of you keeping track, here's the unit count so far.

Finished
Ser Alejan's Knights of the Realm
Captain Clipen's Bombard
Scioparto's Longfeather Bowmen


In Progress
Braganzino's Ballistas - Status - roughly 40% done (still on base layers, but must be done by end of March)

Not Started
The Duke/Baron on Royal Pegasus
3 Pegasus Knights
Knights of the Realm Unit #2
Foot Knights
Men at Arms Unit #1
Men at Arms #2 / Yeomen Guard
Two Prophetesses
Trebuchet
10 Mounted Squires


Keep on building! I'll get a new family shot once I finish the crossbowmen/ballistas.

April's goal: Castle Walls, Yeomen and a Prophetess

Beautiful! Nothing better looking than bretonian cavalry riding in full heraldy!

Stunning.

Great job on the knights, the added purple looks really good on then

Made my March goal thanks to a teacher work day!

Ser Alejan's Knights of the Realm
Captain Clipen's Bombard
Scioparto's Longfeather Bowmen
Borganzino's Ballistas

All done! - 56 models (including the cannon itself)

Still a lot to go
The Duke/Baron on Royal Pegasus
3 Pegasus Knights
Knights of the Realm Unit #2
Foot Knights
Men at Arms Unit #1
Men at Arms #2 / Yeomen Guard
Two Prophetesses
Trebuchet
10 Mounted Squires

But anyways, photos!


A mixture of the old Dogs of War Braganza's Besiegers combined with some 3D printed Bretonnian Crossbowmen from Highland Minis. Love the combination, definitely looks like they put their more heavily armored boys in the front row and their reloaders/weaker reserves in the back.

But wait, a story!

Borganzino's Ballistas - founded and led by the enigmatic Bartholomew Borganzino, the Ballistas are a rarity in the border princes - heavily armored crossbow infantry. Specializing in siege warfare, his men are not just crossbowmen, but siege engineers. Equally adept at digging trenches as they are at assembling mantlets, Borganzino invests in his men and their equipment. Dead men pull no paychecks, and he charges a premium for his mens' unique skillset.

Rest of the Mercenary photos spoilered for your benefit.


More Knight photos since that's the second unit completed this month.


Some more army shots so far. Slightly different but spoilered since they all look similar.


Next up is probably something to cleanse the palette a bit. Honestly might jump to a Black Templar vehicle or something else. Still need to work on the Brets and finish them up! Can't do another giant block of infantry for a bit, and I've got two blocks of Bret Men At arms staring at me from the shelf.

Great work and a terrific army shot! The mantlets with the sigil striping on them was a great unifying touch. The color scheme rocks, individually (you've painted them up well) and especially en masse. Rock on!

@meercat - thanks! The stripes were all freehand, and it's about the most freehand I do. but after a few practice ones, I definitely think it went better. The way I'm using paint colors is that the more purple a unit has, it's either more mercenary or the person is more powerful. So the units like the bowmen that are blue and cream are, well, poor and definitely NOT powerful. But there's tiny amounts of purple in accent colors everywhere.

On to today's question - What do Black Templars and Bretonnians have in common?
Well.. in this case... they're my monthly goals!

Character Goals (I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere)


Goal Keeping (with the Dakka Painter League abandoned project of the month + large project IC's Podcast goal)



This repulsor & dred have been sitting in the Black Templar project box for at least six months, likely longer, and it would be nice to clear them out. I've found that the basecoat does a lot of heavy lifting with my style of painting BTs. The tedious part is the highlighting. Tons and tons of edge highlight. With the dred I really want to do a bit more weathering using powders and some silver painting for scratches.

Here's the progress so far! Black all has a highlight layer, I'll mix some more of the incubi darkness with some brighter blue and do tighter highlighting on the extreme raised surfaces.


April is my absolutely busy month, so if I can get to the bretonnian characters, cool. If not I won't sweat it. Between school, work, graduate program things plus family obligations and I've got a perfect storm for something not getting done. if it's not perfect I won't be sweating it. Anything to clear the mountain of plastic waiting on the shelves of potential.

Your Bret army pictures are coming along so nicely. They look amazing on the table.

I really enjoyed the little bit of backstory for the Borganzino's Ballistas.

 Zambro wrote:
Your Bret army pictures are coming along so nicely. They look amazing on the table.

I really enjoyed the little bit of backstory for the Borganzino's Ballistas.

Thanks! I'm really enjoying coming up with a backstory for each unit. I think when I finish the army I'll print up a little army roster w/ backstory for each one and make a tiny book.

Making good progress so far on the April goal. Should be able to finish the Dred by the end of the weekend.

Man, it really is nice to paint NOT a ton of infantry.





Redemptor dred finished. Or at least tabletop ready. I'll want to weather him up a bit after this but I'm happy so far. He meshes well with the rest of the army. But that was not the fully April goal. I wanted to clear out the Gladiator Valiant too.

Started with the black turret as I already had the colors out. Made some good progress on it and I'm calling it acceptably done. Will probably add a decal or two.




Turret on the hull. I REALLY don't want to highlight everything white, so I'm debating how much 'red' to make it. Should it be white primary, then red secondary, or the other way around?

Hopefully the tank will go fast (Way more metallic painted pieces than the dred, I started that but it's a lot of finicky work around the levitation pieces).

Task complete for the April Dakka Painting Challenge (and ICs challenge, for that matter, I'm double dipping). Lots of photos today, so prepare to SCROLL.

First up, the Redemptor Dreadnaught. Now with Decals and Tufts!





Second, the as yet not seen in progress Gladiator Valiant. I really like this vehicle. After painting this and a Repulsor, I much prefer this kit. I also think (maybe?) the developers/mini designers learned their lesson. Less weapons is more. This vehicle has just 4 weapons including a turret multimelta. I do not need a whole data sheet for weapons, just TWO different profiles to memorize. Much more reasonable.




Okay, now there are some cute little partner shots here that I will spoiler.


But wait, there's more! I ALSO painted up this little Hasslefree female warrior. Why? I had her out, wanted to not paint just black, red, and white for a while and painted her up. A free extra painted mini for the year!





So, since I count tanks as 'ten minis' and dreds as '5 minis' that's 16 more minis in the completed pile for the year.

So here's the scorecard for ALL minis.

Painted this year: 72 mini 'points' (1 tank, 1 dred, 57 infantry/artillery)
Purchased: 19 minis so far (mostly IG sized)

Keep on painting! For the remainder of the month I'll be picking away at some Bretonnian characters who aren't officially part of a challenge but would also just CLEAR things out. I've got a lot of schoolwork and the like building up so that will likely impact me finishing anything else major.

Loving the colours on that dred, the red and black combo really works the way you have arranged on the panels,

Good work blockade23.

Cheers,

CB

I really like your use and implementation of the Black Templars colour scheme. It can be quite easy to get sucked into making everything black. You've done a good job of making both minis look interesting but still clearly what they are supposed to be.

Amazing progress on the Bretonians, I love a good army photo and those were superb! Looking forward to seeing more.

Love the white and red Valiant, gives a great balance to all the black in the army. What’s your white recipe btw?

Nice work on the female warrior palette cleanser. It’s good to mix things up

Love the white and red Valiant, gives a great balance to all the black in the army. What’s your white recipe btw?

Thanks Gobert! It's actually a color scheme I've wanted to do for a while. I went lazy on this.

Wraithbone primer from the rattlecan, seraphin sepia in the recesses and on the bolts. Then edge highlight everything with corax white then white scar. I tried to keep the white scar on the more upraised surfaces.

Hilarious, this is not what I do on my regular BTs, as I cannot get wraithbone spray on them because I'm not really a sub assemblies painter. So I start with black, then I use Coat De Arms old school paint to work from black to dark grey, lighter grey, then sepia in the recesses, then about two more layers of grey to white. I actually need to finish my last group of Primaris crusaders so I'll show how they look next time I have something else to post. Been an insane week to get any other painting done.

Thanks, it’s a cool scheme, I’ll file that way for future use! Have you tried masking the rest of the mini off to let you spray wraithbone on the shoulder pads? I’ve had good success with my Void Panthers doing that. I’ve even used it to spray their bolters.

 gobert wrote:
Thanks, it’s a cool scheme, I’ll file that way for future use! Have you tried masking the rest of the mini off to let you spray wraithbone on the shoulder pads? I’ve had good success with my Void Panthers doing that. I’ve even used it to spray their bolters.

Honestly I need to try. A bigger chunk of problem for the crusaders isn't the shoulder pads, but the tabards and the like. I guess putty would work, but I don't know how to use my airbrush (It's a nice one, just never had a place to vent it.) so another thing I should work on. I'll have to try it with one of the handful of infantry models I have left.

I prefer masking tape as it’s hard to get the putty (I use blue tac) thin enough to get to things like the backs of tabards. When I first got an airbrush I used it outside to good effect.

Painted up this Damsel for my Bretonnians. I sort of used her as a test case for the damsel on horseback.







Debating if I should add a line of blue or something along the hem of her coat. But otherwise I'm pretty happy with her! (I've since added flock and gave her some glowy eyes.

Lovely work on the damsel, that pastel purple and off white should work nicely with your units.

So its been a SLOG of a month here and only just managed to clear some painting. Between school and work and family responsibilities.... there's never enough time.

But here are the pair of damsels.







I did not go glowy eyes for the Damsel on horseback as I figure she's more focused on riding, not casting, at this second. Whites of her eyes are the best I can do.

Spoilered Montage / Close Ups


With this done, I've also finished up the little Bretonnian Lord on foot's helper (thats a mouthful) and I will be finishing up the Lord as well in the next few days. Then its onto either some Imperial Guard for a break or a BIG chunk of the men on foot to clear out a full unit. Trying to finish this whole army this year, but with summer coming up I should have much more time to paint (very excited for this).

Keep on building.

Really nice work on the ladies, they look great on the shelf with the rest of the Brets

Nice work blockade23.

Cheers,

CB

More Progress, although not the amount I hoped for, but progress is progress!

First up, the little Lordly Helper for my Bretonnian Lord on Foot.





Face detail is iffy, which is about the best I could do. Not the best on skin tones at this smaller level (or any level, for that matter!)

But also, because I needed a 'Hobby Progress Challenge' Mini and didn't have anything just primed I could drop for the Independent Characters, I cracked into the Age of Sigmar Cities of Sigmar box and finished up this Alchemist dude.





I hope the sigils come across as 'glowing' There's also a hair / wisp of something in the pot that has now been removed. Mostly contrast paints, but I finished this guy up in about two hours. Pretty happy with him.

Now I've been building my Krieg Siege Engineers and TEmpestus Aquilons. Not because I want to paint them but because it's a nice break between painting loads of bretonnians. However, my goal this month is to clear one of the large groups of men-at-arms. Yippie.

That helper is a really cool mini. You don’t see many children in Warhammer! Good job on the cities of Sigmar chap, good effort for 2hrs work

@Gobert - Thanks! Yea, you don't see many at all, so I figured I'd paint him up. The lord is still a WIP.

This month's painting challenge and hobby goal is to finish these boys.



Annoyingly, my only photo is evidently the one without the guy with the tritarch, but whatever, it's fine. It's been a long month with limited time to paint, so I picked a bigger unit since my next week is free! Also picked up some new paints and 3 more pegasus knights this week because evidently that's the meta but also now I can do some conversion

Lord Leinad's Exile Army

Ser Alejan's Knights of the Realm
Captain Clipen's Bombard
Scioparto's Longfeather Bowmen
Borganzino's Ballistas
2 Prophetesses
Lord's Helper

All done! - 59 models (including the cannon itself)

In Progress
Lord on Foot
Men at Arms Unit #1

Still a lot to go
The Duke/Baron on Royal Pegasus
3 Pegasus Knights (Unit 1)
3 Pegasus Knights (Unit 2) - A NEW PURCHASE
Knights of the Realm Unit #2
Foot Knights
Men at Arms #2 / Yeomen Guard
Trebuchet
10 Mounted Squires

Planned Purchase
Cathay Cannon (For Bombard #2)

Progress! I've only got 6 days left, and it's strangely super busy in the summer months here (OMG heat wave, but doing more things than I would expect outside).

Also, this is NOT men at arms #1 - I realized that on my Kanban Board - this is my Yeomen unit (hence why they all look more uniform & will have more purple than the other unit. So I'll have to switch around the units on the to do slash in progress list.

Anyways, got every base layer on but skin tones.



Close up on the unit filler.


Now more action shots of all the units from all the sides. Spoilered for those that care.


Anywho, finishing this unit will push me over the halfway miniature goalpost, (not unit, but still!). Then I'll likely work on the Battle Standard Bearer and the Pegasus Knights / Regular Knights.

Keep Painting! (and stay cool!)

Sweet looking unit, and great unit filler idea! I've always enjoyed seeing the creativity of some people in putting together unit fillers.

Are you up to date on TOW's new FAQ/Errata? I've seen some discussion around it - what are your thoughts? I don't know the game, but I get the feeling there are some big (divisive) changes.

It's a meaty post today, so I hope you brought your BBQ dipping sauce.

 Zambro wrote:
Sweet looking unit, and great unit filler idea! I've always enjoyed seeing the creativity of some people in putting together unit fillers.

Are you up to date on TOW's new FAQ/Errata? I've seen some discussion around it - what are your thoughts? I don't know the game, but I get the feeling there are some big (divisive) changes.

I wish I was - Honestly I'm building this army for me, then I'll figure out what's going on rule wise as soon as I finish. By my count, I have roughly 1000 points painted up and ready to go. First up, enjoy some 'not best effort photographs taken by a very tired Blockade last night' from Lord Leinad's latest unit.

Russellito's Half-Halberds are some of Lord Leinad's oldest retainers and followers. Man of common ancestry who have fought by his side for years. They have earned the right to paint their shields in the full blue of his coat of arms, and those who have demonstrated exceptional bravery have been well-rewarded with armor and paint of the rarest pigment. Along with some cold silver torn from the pockets of their enemies. The Half-Halberds form the core of Lord Leinad's battleline and often form the rearguard, protecting the bombards and Scioparto's Longfeathers alike.



Spoilered cause they're very similar.


The Command Group was my Dakka Painting Challenge focus, and I'm pretty pleased with them and the conversion work.


Spoilered alternate angles


Now some left and right flank lookie-loos. Some brief background. Everyone in the first two rows has either a more action pose set up or has purple on them to signify a bit more wealth among the yeomen. It also helps me figure out where models go. The two men with flag hats are the rear flank corners, also helping keep track of who goes where.



Unit Filler & Back Row gets a bit of love too.



Now the current army group shot!


Lord Leinad's Exile Army

Ser Alejan's Knights of the Realm
Captain Clipen's Bombard
Scioparto's Longfeather Bowmen
Borganzino's Ballistas
2 Prophetesses
Lord's Helper
Yeoman Unit - Russelliti's Half-Halberds

All done! - 78 models (including the cannon itself)

In Progress
Lord on Foot <---- THIS GUY NEEDS TO BE DONE URGH

Still a lot to go
The Duke/Baron on Royal Pegasus
3 Pegasus Knights (Unit 1)
3 Pegasus Knights (Unit 2) - A NEW PURCHASE
Knights of the Realm Unit #2
Foot Knights
Men at Arms #2 / Yeomen Guard
Trebuchet
10 Mounted Squires

Planned Purchase
Cathay Cannon (For Bombard #2)

Keep Painting!