Christmas armies of Good and Evil

 

Steven has been spending a few days with us and he brought a couple of 15mm Hordes of the Things Christmas armies he's just finished. This lot is the Good Christmas army (Khurasan Miniatures). - text by Steven.

And this is the Evil army (Alternative Armies). Both armies are just what the respective manufacturers provided in their ranges, and bear little resemblance to the Christmas armies in the HOTT list. I tried to theme the basing for each army so they were distinctive but still definitely snowy. So the good army got a blue undercoat underneath the snow flock, and a quite uniform covering, to give a crisp, clean look. The evil army got a darker, more muddy, patchy look.

Good Stronghold. I added a skirting board made from card, a wall socket, plug and wire for the Christmas tree (hidden from view in this photo) and sculpted a cat on a rug. The cat is painted to look like my own cat, Henry.

Evil Stronghold. Alternative Armies house covered in snow, with icicles made from bits of melted plastic sprue. The tree is scratch built from a wire frame covered in modelling putty. This was the last thing I painted, literally finished the day before I came to my parents. It was packed before the glue under the snow flock had fully dried!

Santa is the good (Hero) general. The holly bushes are clump foliage with tiny balls of green stuff painted red. They were rolled as tiny as I could manage, but technically are still way too large.

With faithful Rudolph as a Flyer. Unbelievably I never realised, until Dad pointed it out, that the antlers are bent down. Now it is all I can see on this model.

The snowman (Hero)... The little girl miniature, being a 15mm scale child, is tiny.

Buddy and Jovie (Paladin) from the movie Elf, because why not. Green stuff toy box and a piece of bent wire to make the candy cane.

Toy Soldiers (Shooters). The challenge here was to make each one as identical as the others.

Nutcrackers (Blades). It doesn't show in photos, but these, and the toy soldiers above, have a gloss varnish. It seemed appropriate.

Evil Magician General. Jack Frost, an interesting painting challenge to make him look icy. I painted the base to look like magical iciness is spreading around him and cracking the earth.

Snow trolls (Behemoth). Pretty distinctive with their Christmas hats

Winter wolves (Beasts) by Demonworld, added to give another option (and because I had spares from the prehistoric project).

Evil Snowmen (Hordes). It was interesting to paint such a variety of colours on them to give a chaotic, haphazard look.

Evil Gingerbread Men (Warband). The first group I painted in this project.

Psycho presents (Shooters). It was fun painting the variety of colours on these.

Evil Christmas Trees (Lurkers). These were actually very finicky to paint and difficult to make look good

Lombard cavalry

 

Goth cavalry conversion with a long spear - so best match amongst the Gothic armies would be Lombards. Another unit like this and I have a complete DBA  army with 12 elements of Kn...

Simple conversion of a Sarmatian cataphract - remove the bowcase, add a sword scabbard and shield. Being a Gothic army, standard bearer is the Sarmatian standard bearer with a shield - I didn't bother losing the bowcase. 

At some point I'll do a few more  Goth conversions - infantry, probably use the Sarmatian infantry, change the shield and a longer cloak. I might put a 'coffin' shield together - the 28mm one I already have is too big but would form a good template if photocopied then reduced in size. Initial cavalry figure probably the same as for the Rhoxolani - cut down the Kontos as a javelin and give them a Gothic shield. Not sure where I'll source the archer from yet. 

In terms of time, this unit took about 3 times as long as any of the Arab units - I was painting them in tandem...

Fatimid infantry

 

3 x 8bw, front rank tear drop shields borrowed from the 25mm Normans Range!

Again, more fantasy Fatimids I suppose, but they look OK and give a good basis for a DBA Fatimid army.

Cult of the All Seeing Hand

 

Producing rifle armed Arabic type figures in robes allows me to produce Cultists quickly, cheaply and in large numbers... and could mean the early appearance of figures with both black and brown robes.

Quality of the Rose rifles conversions aren't all that good - the head swap is pretty dire.

Looking around for a standard design I thought about all those horror movies where people have an eye in the palm of the hand. Rough picture of a clawed left hand with an eye in the centre and a cult is born! Have to admit, I like the symbology of this figure!

First of the Arab spears

 

Compared to the cavalry I've been painting recently this lot just whizzed past... started them and they were finished!

The Arab figures are a bit crude but look effective. Probably shouldn't have given everyone striped robes, just seemed right... Anyway, the next lot are being painted red as cultists with guns, so not every robed Arab type will have stripes.

I expect to be painting a lot of these figures on a wide range of bases.

Rhoxalani cavalry

 

First 6 base unit of Rhoxalani cavalry. 

There are four different figures in this unit - standard bearer, 'officer' is the horse archer figure on the fully armoured horse, horse archer figure on the unarmoured horse and standard cataphract conversion with the kontos cut down to javelin size and Sarmatian infantry shield added. 

My hope is to complete a further three of these units over the next few weeks/months/decades to give a good basis for an early Rhoxalani army. 

Moulds RY161 and RY162 Fantasy Medieval Arab infantry

Moulds now back from Pete. This one consists of robed Arab infantry, I have done a couple of test runs and they seem OK.

 

And this lot are the Turkish style tunic and trousers figures. Normally I wait a month or so for the mould to post cure a bit more but think I'll be churning out regiments a lot sooner than that!