John R's Final Post End of Challenge Report: 1857pts. C- Could do Better.

John is a hard worker but can have difficulty staying on task. John can apply paint with a reasonable degree of competence and seems to enjoy the design aspects of producing an army. He can reflect on his work and identify ways to improve. John needs to remember that while his school work is vital he must also make time for more important tasks, like painting toy soldiers. John has told me that he has really enjoyed this years Old World Army Challenge and is looking forward to starting new projects though his enthusiasm will serve him better once he has learned to manage his distractions.

Overall: C- could do better.

I know those years as a teacher weren't a total waste of time ;)

Really enjoyed this years army challenge. Already started planning and collecting for next year!

John also needs to work on his photography skills :D

JamesP Estalian Mercenaries (264 Points)

Rank & File #4

This month was a hard month for me due to family issues. I didn’t finish everything I wanted, but I did finish everything I need. Here we have some more Estalian mercenaries consisting of 10 Bandolleros Gringos and 7 Caballeros. The Caballeros are led by last month’s entry: Gregorio de la Cruz and his command section.

Gregorio de la Cruz and his Caballeros.

 

The Bandolleros Gringos.

Battle Formation!!

7 Estalian Caballeros – 154pts

·        Lance, Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Shield

10 Estalian Bandolleros Gringos – 110pts

·        Arquebus, Hand Weapon, Light Armour

Next month will be the family portrait which was 2 years in the making.

JamesP Command Section (312 Points)

Leader month

This month we have the command section. The general and his staff was covered during the OWAC III. This year’s command consists of Gregorio de la Cruz who is the leader of the Estalian mercenary force and the wizard Olin. These are both additions to the original army which will allow me to field 3000 points.

The Estalians are taken from Warlord Games Wars of Religion Defenders of Malta. Olin is the old GW LOTR Saruman and one of my favourite wizards GW made.  

Estalian Mercenaries:

Gregorio de la Cruz: Level 20 Hero (Mercenary Leader)– 113pts

·        Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Shield, Lance Horse

With standard bearer and Musician.

Olin: Level 15 Wizard – 155pts

·     Hand Weapon

All that’s left is the rest of the Estalian Mercenaries which consists of 7 Cavalry, 10 Hand Gunners and 18 Pike Men.

July will be a busy month for me!!

JohnR's Estalians - Heroes of Might and Magic (632 pts)

 Leaders (and cannon) Month. 

Born the penniless son of Estalian fruit sellers, Diego Monte decided at an early age that peddling oranges in poverty wasn't for him and ran away to seek his fortune in the New World.

Decades later, Don Diego El Comte Del Monte (as he now calls himself) has returned. Commander of  the Galleon 'War Bastard' and captain of a powerful mercenary company.

Del Monte (pictured here with his army standard bearer Matias) is everything a mercenary captain should be: ruthless and brave but with a strong streak of pragmatism and a keen sense of self preservation.

This month I painted command groups for the crossbowmen and handgunners too:

Crossbowmen

Handgunners

The army has also acquired a cannon - probably from the deck of the War Bastard.

The cannon's name is Isabella. (She's named after the gun captain's eldest daughter). She's powerful and dangerous and the gun crew love her, though they admit she's pretty ugly. The cannon's not that good looking either.

Accompanying the army is the Magister Santiago Espinosa 'The Fray Bentos' and his assistant Pedro.

'Fray Bentos' is an honorary title from the Estalian College of Sorcery, of which Espinosa is a senior member. His years of study have given him great power but recently he has become obsessed with his own mortality and has begun to dabble in the dark arts in an attempt to delay the inevitable. So far Espinosa has managed to keep his new knowledge secret, though it has cost him an apprentice.

Pedro is Espinosa's new apprentice. He suspects that his predecessor might have learned an unpleasant secret about his master and that his death may not have been an accident. Pedro is clever and ambitious and determined not to suffer the same fate.

El Comte Del Monte: Level 20 Human Hero, light armour, shield, warhorse: 114 points
Matias: Level 5 Hero, light armour, shield, warhorse, army standard: 89 points

2x Tilean Crossbowmen (+2 Missile Elite) inc Standard : 36 points

2x Bandolleros Gringos (+1 Missile Elite) inc Standard: 33 points

'Isabella': 3 Man Cannon: 60 points

The Fray Bentos: Level 20 Human Wizard: 240 points
Espinosa knows the following spells: Battle Magic 1: Leg Breaking, Ignite Missiles, Enthuse, Cause Animosity. Battle Magic 2: Raze, Lightning Bolt. Battle Magic 3: Animate Sword, Cause Fear. Necromantic 1: Hand of Death, Zone of Life. Necromantic 2: Control Undead. Necromantic 3: Life in Death.

Pedro: Level 5 Human Wizard: 60 points

Pedro Knows the following spells: Battle Magic 1: Immunity from Poison, Cause Animosity, Fireball.

Here's how the army looks now:

I've almost run out of stuff to paint. I had planned to add a couple more regiments to the army but they're not Estalians and I'm worried that they won't really fit. Maybe I'll just mulligan June :-)

JohnR's Estalians - Count the Hooves and Divide by Four. (414 points.)

Rank and File Month 4 

My late uncle's go-to joke when we had to count sheep or cattle in a field.

Feel like I made good progress this month.

Estalian Caballeros led by Rocco 'The Tilean Stallion' Sindaco.

Among an army of swaggards and braggards Los Caballeros are the most boastful and rambunctious of the lot. Rumour has it that Rocco shares a certain characteristic in common with his horse. His comrades joke that he's a mutant; but the luckiest mutant alive!

Border Horse - 'Los Escorpiones' led by Estofado De Carne.

Invariably found in the vanguard of the army the life of a cavalry scout can be brutally short. On the upside, with a little luck, you can be the first amongst the enemy's baggage train and first in the queue at the whore house at the next town.

Rocco Sindaco: Level 10 Human Hero, light armour, shield, lance and warhorse: 66 points.

9 Estalian Caballeros (+1 Shock Elite): light armour, shields and lances, standard: 200 points.

Estofado De Carne: Level 5 Human Hero, light armour, shield, spear and warhorse: 40 points.

5 Border Horse: light armour, shields and spears, standard: 108 points.

It's starting to look like an army :)

The plan is to do characters next. Though I'll probably wind up painting more rank and file 😂

JohnR's Estalians - I need re-training (313 points)

 Rank and file month 3

A month is too long. After a couple of days I've forgotten my passwords, how to use blogger, the settings on my camera, what the OWAC rules are, the name of my missus and where I left the dog...

Anyhoo, here is this month's offering:

Estalian Hombres Villanos led by 'El Destello Corazón!'.

Mystery surrounds this infamous swordsman. Some say he's the illegitimate son of the Emperor Karl Franz and an Estalian serving wench. Others that he's seeking the six fingered orc who killed his father. Whatever the truth he's a dashing swords-master: irresistible to women, deadly to his enemies and adored by his men. 

'El Destello Corazón!' Level 15 hero, light armour and additional hand weapon: 83 points

21 Hombres Villanos +2 Shock Elite, hand weapons, light armour and shields, standard and musician: 230 points

The army so far:

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a group shot yet. If I'm not I'm sure The Overlord will delete it. Like I said: I can't remember the rules 😁

JohnR's 252 points, not bad for an evening's work.

Rank & File month #2

 I'm kidding of course.

Actually this month was a bit of a slog so I'm pretty happy to have added 22 mini's to the army:

It helped that the crossbowmen were started in January :)

These comprise the bulk of the army's missile troops and are used as skirmishers, or to support the infantry blocks in battle. As such they don't have their own command groups, though I might add these later.

10 Tilean Crossbowmen (+2 missile elite), light armour and crossbows: 120 points.

12 Estalian Bandolleros Gringos (+1 missile elite), light armour and handguns: 132 points.

Total: 252 points

Onward and upward, bring it on March !

JohnR's Made it into the pool ! (246 points)

Rank and file #1

Month 1 complete. I'd hoped to add a support unit of 10 crossbowmen too but the best laid plans of mice and all that... They'll follow in a later month.

This is Alfonso Pastéis de Nata and the sailors of the privateer 'Bastardo de Guerra'.

Alfonso resents the word pirate but he and his band are vile, scurrilous pirates; every man a bloodthirsty nautical brigand, devoid of honour or mercy.

The 'Bastardo de Guerra' is the Comte Del Monte's personal galleon and her sailors happily serve as infantry in his campaigns.

Alfonso Pastéis de Nata. Level 10 human hero, hand weapon and light armour: 57 points

19 human warriors. halberds and light armour, standard and musician:189 points

Total: 246 points

Props to anyone who recognises where the banner transfer came from btw :)

JohnR's Estalian Mercenaries

Hi all, long time watcher first time entrant. This is my first attempt at blogging too so stand by for some wonky images and illegible text...

My entry is the army of The Comte Del Monte. Estalian adventurer, braggart and soldier of fortune.

I don't have the time or money to trawl Evilbay for the handful of Estalian minis GeeDub produced so the mini's will be a mix of Eureka, TAG, Antediluvian and Foundry. Plus whatever else I find to throw in there :)

Hopefully it will top out at about 2,000 points, chosen from various entries in Warhammer Armies. (mostly Old World Allies, Old World Mercenaries and The Empire Army.)

To the Overlord I offer this:

Captain Marick of the Solar Templars Chapter of Space Marines.

Renown throughout the segmentum for leading the pacification of Tranquility III. Where pro-democracy activists found that their non violent protests were no match for Marick's power weapons.

Commended by The Inquisition for his handling of first contact with the highly advanced, pacifist, peace-loving aliens known as The Mook. The war of extermination lasted just 6 days.

Currently on liaison outside the chapter Marick's back banner shows the chapter symbol of the Solar Templars (repeated on his right pauldron). The circle represents the Emperor: Immortal and Eternal. The upward spear is His salvation - offered to all pure humans. The downward spear is His retribution - merciless and inevitable.

Yosef's Villagers and guns.(200 pts)

So getting ready for moving house, and with reducing the stash taking most of my hobby time, i had time to paint the models by the 11th but not to write the post.

So here is  the unit of villagers. (count as brigands in the army list) with their musician and champion( the noble woman in the front rank) for 16*7+7+33 for a total of 152 points.

The funny thing of this units is that there is so many different ranges on the unit. Extra points for those that recognize it without using sololegends or similar ...

Yosef's Borgio on a Bear and some gunners (208 points)

So this month was a bit hectic and most of the time i had to paint was on tree days, but i arrived to finish more than expected.

I did a nice 34 mans me-72 unit as shown here, it was quite easy, but even if it's not part of the army list i think it fits nicely as the nemesis of this mercenaries, as the border princes is full of necromancers fleeing prosecution that find refugee on the northern borrows.

Yosef's Estalians/Araby (286pts)

Ok so here is the beginning of the army, as I did not have so much time to paint this month, mostly due to reorganize all my hobby space...( and they were a lot of miniatures...) I went for the arabic/estalian part of the army.

So first we have 6 estalian caballeros with standard, musician and a hero lvl 5. They are all equipped with just shield. This comes to 110 for the 5 guys, an extra 44 for musicians and 39 for a  hero lvl 5    ( the sheik) so to a total of 193. For that unit i used the al muktar's riders. i enjoyed a lot painting the raiders with inks, but did not enjoyed or liked the final results on the horses, there are a bit of bland models...