A plan sort of coming together!!

Oooooh spacey!

 So it turns out stuff has been happening this week regarding the challenge i suggested last time out on this ere loose collection o' piffle in so far as i may have a (not even slightly) cunning plan. The idea of the £30 (or local equivalent) challenge is to show that this hobby of ours is not as expensive to get into as the major manufacturers would have you believe. To this end i have placed an order with the nice folks over at kallistra for some 100 years war goodness for the princely sum of less than £30!. The loose idea is to build a small force of mercs to work in many game systems. I want the force to be playable, balanced and fun and if i added nothing else to stand alone as 'finished' as is. I will not go into the ins and outs of the make up of the troops but rest assured it is a good mix of foot, Knights and bows so should not be unbalanced. 

 Now the minis have yet to reach chez Sprinks at the time of writing however i have been sent some samples from the good folks oop Kallistra way so having looked through them again thought i saw two minis that would work well as the forces commander and his herald. So i set to work on them as kind of test pieces to see how you actually go about painting 12mm figs. I understand that using your commanders as test pieces is not the most sensible move but its all i have at this point and i'm on a deadline (and about as patient as a 10 year old told to eat breakfast before opening presents on his birthday) so i got cracking and turned out these two:

Captain Charles Christophe Bathion, 'The Black rat of Blithersthorpe' with his trusted herald and 2nd favourite bastard son Quentin.

Despite the minis small size they were fun to paint, just a base coat and a wash for Quentins horse (and four attempts at the bloody banner!!) and jobs a good 'un. I was tempted to wash all of the minis but i thought their small size would leave them looking dirty and muted on the table so i relented. The horse got one as it was winding me up (1st horse in 25 years so cut me some slack!) and looked too flat due to my choice of colour.  To get an idea of their size they are based on a 2p coin, here's an action shot to further demonstrate:

 'Have at you!!'. 12mm knights vs 1/72 Skellies'.

  If you are tempted to have a go at the challenge yourself please feel free to jump aboard an have a go. I rather stupidly wrote Oldhammer in the initial post but that was silly as it can be for any system you like, its meant to just be a bit of fun to make people think about how you can approach collecting a force and have fun with the restrictions and mucking about with scratch builds, scales and even thrift shop toys and such. I am a firm believer that this hobby of ours can be affordable and attainable to even those with a small budget despite what certain companies may tell you!.

 'till next time......