Death Korps Death Riders, Second Squad.

 

The rolling thunder of an ongoing artillery barrage echoed in the distance as the squad of Deathriders picked their way through the craters and detritus of the previous assaults over this part of the wastelands.

The call for all squads to regroup had come in twenty minutes ago and the riders were urging their bio-modified cybernetic steeds forward as fast as the conditions would allow.

They were being pulled from recon duties to a fast moving counter attack force, but it would take time to gather all their strength.

If only upper command had authorised extra reinforcements for their sector.

The enemy assault had been ongoing for nearly thirty minutes now, judging by the dark ugly smudges of smoke rising in the distance. 

The riders would make the best time they could, the faith and duty of the Kriegsman was without question.

But would the line still be holding when they got there?

The ridemaster upped the pace and his mount looked into a gallop.

Hold the line, he willed, hold the line...

*****

The second squad of Deathriders are complete for my Squadron, which are part of the 261st Siege Regiment.

This is another five man squad with a Flamer included, just to add some spice.

Note Second Squad have yellow stripes, whereas the previously finished First Squad use White as their colour stripes.

Again happy with these, especially now that I've got the trench battleground basing look down. 

True my bases do look very dry and dusty compared to the common tropes of WW1 Trench Warfare, but I like them and they match the terrain I've been working on.

Above is the full squadron so far with both First and Second Squads shown.

Below also accompanying the squads is the mounted Commissar I painted to start this project.

Up next for the squadron is Third Squad, who will use Blue as their marking colour.

Lastly, as a reward I will finish off the Mounted Command Squad who will use a combination of Red and White as their colours.

I have all the miniatures I need printed out for this project, so fingers crossed I can find the much needed time soon.

Until next time, have nice day...

The Ammobunker Character Comparison Challenge.

 

The Ammobunker?

What's that then?

Well, back, maybe ten/fifteen years ago I was a member of the online forum called The Ammobunker (hereby shortened to AB).

It was a great online community with everyone's project logs rattling along (this was way before I started this blog), encouragement galore as we all commented on each other threads and asked/gave advice etc.

There were several events (Ammobunker Bash) organised and a few tables even taken to Games Day (what Warhammer fest used to be called).

I met a fair few friends on the forum and have stayed in touch with them, even through the majority death of forums as things like Facebook and Instagram became popular as Social Media took over.

We made an AB Facebook group and it slowly seemed to die off as well over time with less and less people posting, but still carrying on in the hobby.

Fast forward to March/April this year and on one of our infrequent visits to Element Games, myself and Cardboard Fortress got talking and thinking about reinvigorating the old AB community, seeing if we could get some interest back in the group.

Cardboard took on Admin duties for the page and I busied myself looking for an idea to spark interaction, eventually settling on something like the last one from December 2023!

Cue, The Ammobunker Character Comparison Challenge.

Having access to a 3D printer made this a lot easier, and so I gathered four STLs to let folks vote on which model they wanted to use for the challenge. 

My own vote was null and void because I'd picked the entries, but I definitely had my favourite which sadly didn't get picked.

The three entries which were not picked are pictured here:

And the winning entry with more votes was this Barbarian Warlord:

Printed and based:

Originally we had a surge of interest and excitement with eight people signing up, however with several illnesses, a bereavement and some "just not actually inspired" messages, the field was cut down to half more or less.

The people who took part are listed here below:

My own efforts:

So I had a major problem to begin with in that the primer I used dried glossy instead of matte, you can see the drying lines and marks on the horses neck and saddle as the contrast paints I was using wouldn't adhere properly to the miniature.

This coupled with a span on hospital visits and doctors appointments for the Mrs, and overtime shifts at work severely cut down my hobby time and I couldn't claw back enough free time to get it sorted.

This is disappointing as the challenge was originally my idea and I haven't finished, but real life gets in the way sometimes. I wanted to include this photo of my not finished project to prove that things just don't work out sometimes.

Onto the people who finished!!!

Gavin Turner:

Gavin messaged me when he'd finished and his model looks great. The chestnut horse is very smooth and I appreciate the muzzle flesh rather then the horses dun going all the way to the nose like a lot of people paint.

The metals and skin on the barbarian are again very smooth, I just wonder if the gingerness of the beard was a conscious choice, or a nod at his Scottish lineage?

Mark Peyton:

Mark, I was very pleased actually got the model finished as he had a severely rough couple of months, and I told him originally to just paint it up and not worry about the deadline or such.

But finish he did and I like the contrasting highlights on the horse.

Mark has gone for a bit of a cross between a Chestnut and a Palomino or Dun judging by the lighter colour.

I like how the highlights have been worked up on the horses skin and are very striking and bold compared to the smoothness of Gavin's horse above. Again Mark has taken a different approach with the Barbarian and has an almost silvered finish to the metalwork, interestingly both Gavin and Mark chose to add gold as the accent colour for the engraved runes on the axehead and the metal wings on the helmet.

Cardboard Fortress/Marovian:

Now Cardboard Fortress, longtime friend as regular readers will know, has taken his own approach and it's one of the things I love about looking at stuff like this.

In contrast to both the above efforts, this one is very blocky with the musculature of the horse shown clearly with shading and layering, quite an "old school" painting technique if you look at any older wargames publications.

Again a third horse* as this one is a Black Dun, the purple is an unusual choice of colour, and personally I think too close to the dark horse, but it's not my model. The Wolf fur cloak is especially well done with highlighting picked out.

A mixed result this time, but the miniatures which were finished are fantastic and showcase three different painting styles, which is what I wanted from this challenge.

Hopefully the Ammobunker community will come together and we can organise another challenge for everyone in the future.

Until next time, have nice day...

*Having started the Samurai project with the cavalry and researched Japanese horses, I now know quite a bit about the different colours, marking and breeds of the horse world.

You often find yourself researching the strangest things through this hobby I find.