Pendraken 2021 Painting Competition Entries

This is a Pendraken Miniatures Samurai Apes 10mm army for use with the Pendraken fantasy wargames set of rules 'Warband'. I ultimately sold this army (on a Bring & Buy at a the Devizes show - Attack-2025) last year, so that I can focus on my 15mm and 28mm fantasy armies. But I really enjoyed painting and converting it.

The photos were taken as part of the annual Pendraken Painting Competition, hence the titles. 

Firstly the 2 photos I am allowed for the single Fantasy unit - a hard choice from the entire army, but in the end I chose the General (Daimyo) base - which I buy as 1d6+2 with Fierce (+5pts) and Powerful (+5pts):

Daimyo - 1 d6+2 + Fierce & Powerful

Rear view

Just the commander on his own without his body guards - and of course the guitarist is playing "I'm a believer* ..." what else would you expect !!! [* The Monkeys ... get it 😁]

Next on the photo list is the full Army

This is as follows: 

Diamyo (back centre), flanked by 2 units of Warriors (one on the left is upgraded to Powerful) and a converted Drummer add-on in front (this is just eye-candy)

2nd row from rear has Primordial Ones (left), Water Elementals (center) and Temple Guardians (right);

3rd row has Samurai Tiger Riders (left), Kraken - magic users (center) and Spirit Tigers (right);

the 4th (front) row are 3 units of Samurai Ape Archers - classified as Defensive, Formed and Shieldwall (because they are behind their rice-straw bale pavices)

Some additional images to add to the main army image:

Kraken (magic-user) in their protective enclosure

mounted Samurai Ape riders on Spirit Tigers

Temple Guardians - I used the Pendraken MDF dice squares on the bases to allow me to record casualties and special factors, they help reduce the 'clutter' on the tabletop considerably

Water Elementals

These were created using PolyFiller and some of the Pendraken Water elementals models. I was trying to get the effect of animated waves.

Next, some of the core army troops - Samurai Ape Archers behind their pavices - which are from the Pendraken Samurai 'Age of War' historical range. These work equally well for 15mm historical armies I have discovered

And finally some Primordial Ones ... which are living ooze or animated mud - again modelled from PollyFiller. I might have been tempted to model a few more of these, as I really enjoyed the result. Although I'd see if I could make them look a bit more ferocious next time! 

The eyes were created by using the ends that I cut off pins that I use as spears or lances for 15mm historical armies. I knew there would be a good reason why I had saved them all.

A base of Spirit Tigers and another with Samurai Ape mounted archers riding Spirit Tigers

Rear view

I contemplated the idea that for the next batch of Tigers and Tiger mounts that I'd vary the colours of the Tigers - blues, greens, reds, pinks, browns - but still with the tiger patterns - as these are, after all, mysterious, magical and mythical beasts.

It was a fun project, but ultimately having Fantasy armies in 28mm, 15mm and 10mm was just too much. So I will focus my efforts on finishing off my 28mm Warband Goblins/Orcs and Taurians, and basing up a mass of painted 15mm Copplestone Barbarian humans, High Elves and some Woses/Woosles/Forest Spirit types. I also have a hufe 15mm Tolkien Orc army to paint up.

I haven't played Warband in a long time, but it was very enjoyable and well worth revisiting.

Primordial Ones - for a 10mm Pendraken Samurai Apes Warband Army

 Primordial Ones - for my 10mm Warband Samurai Ape army

Whilst going through Covid-19 lock-down - I thought I'd have a go at a 10mm Warband fantasy army, and as I have a couple more conventional Warband armies on the go, in 28mm - an Orc and a Wood Elf  (& a Taurian in the metal pile)- I thought I'd go for something that only Pendraken produce - a Samurai Ape army in 10mm. I was also going to enter it in the Pendraken 2021 painting competition for fun, and to act as a focus for me to get it completed.

Whilst I ordered the rest of the army from Pendraken, I started immediately on the creation of my Primordial Ones base (more may be required later, but this was the starter) - and I had the idea of sculpting them out of filler - which is what I use for basing. 

The description of a Primordial One in the rules is as follows:

"Primordial Ones are barely formed elemental creatures, often little more than sentient oozes." 

So here are a few pictures of how I ended up with what I did in the end ... I had originally envisaged them as being slightly sinister - a mix sort of aggressive mud and the worm-like creatures from the Promethius Alien Covenant movie. 

However, it all turned out a bit Moomintroll and Disney (although as a kid I'd always found the Hattifatners in Moomin more than a little sinister): https://www.moomin.com/en/characters/hattifatteners/ 

So here (in photos) are the stages of construction:

1. the basic 100mm x 50mm base + the dice holder squares (NB: I have 3 as it give me the option to play different sets of rules other than Warband, including an experimental Fantasy rules set I am working on).

1)

2 & 3 the first stages of the sculpts - you get the idea - adding the eyes (pin-heads*) and gravel 

2)

3)

4 - 7 and starting the basic painting - using GW Steel Legion Drab - watered down quite thin to start with, and building up in layers. Then adding tufts and static grass to complete the effect I wanted of these creatures being summoned out of the ground.

4).

5)

6) Rear view

7)  the final finished unit: 

I might add some some gloss varnish in places to give it a more damp and slimy look (especially as slime trails behind some of the bigger ones), but the basic sculpts have been heavily matt varnished, to provide stability (after they have been painted) - but even so I'd not recommend you get them too damp or they might just melt back into ooze!

It was an interesting experiment - once I have the hang of the army I might well make a few more bases of Primordial Ones, as whilst they are not hugely effective as units, they are cheap and a lot of them might cause an enemy real issues. 

I will also use the base sculpting approach on my other Elemental units, as the Samurai Apes can use Earth, Air, Fire and Water elemental as choices.

Cheers

(* with the pin head - cut about double the amount you think you are going to need - they are really fiddly to get into the drilled holes - even with tweezers - I lost at least half of them as the 'pinged' off and disappeared into the carpet and holes in the floor boards!)

"Oh, The HORROR! The HORROR!!!!"

There was I at a loose-end - what with her ladyship out for the evening and me home early from work unexpectedly ... so I thought "Hmmm maybe just a little bit of figure painting to be done".

Now I have had it up to the back-teeth with painting Orcs & Goblins & Trolls & various assorted monsters for Warband ... so I though I'll just pop into the famous Wargames Cupboard and see if I can root out those Sarmatian 28mm Cavalry I 'know' that are in there somewhere - painted but not yet based. So I can augment my Early Imperial Romans for LaG.

So I switched on the light (which is outside the door) and opened the door ... when the smell hit me ... holy shit ... DAMP!!!

There I was facing a huge slowly collapsing heap of soldiers, terrain and soaking wet boxes. The bloody toilet in the bathroom above had sprung a leak. As Marlon Brando say in that well known film 'Plumbing Apocolypse Now!' ... "Oh the horror! The horror!!!

Looking back it can only have been leaking for a couple of day maximum as I went into the cupboard only on Monday night to put back my LaG Romans after crushing rebellious Roman Govner Steve Price in a LaG Competition practice game ... but the damage is catastrophic. 

Mostly it is the terrain that has taken the brunt of the damage ... boccage never does well in bad weather, let alone a flood. Most of my 28mm armies are ok but a couple of 15mm have suffered from heavier boxes on top crushing the damp boxes they were in at the bottom of the stack. I've lost a load of part painted plaster of paris rivers (another lesson learned there!) and also got a lot of very damp bases I am praying will not curl as they dry (fingers crossed)

The saddest loss will be my snowy forest terrain - the MDF is curling as I watch it ... with pine trees, melted snow and rocks pinging off and being shed in avalanches ... but it is a salutary warning and a lesson learned (the hard way) ... 

1). don't use cowboy plumbers - not matter that they did the work 10 years ago

2). don't stack soldier boxes too high 

3). buy those plastic 'snap' boxes from Staples - sod the cost - as those all survived unscathed and so did their contents

Ah well ... it could have been worse (or could it) ... 

I was planning another clear out over the Xmas hols anyway ...

I also found 2 whole armies I'd forgotten all about ... 

and as Cathy said upon her return "well all those cardboard boxes acted like a sponge and must have soaked all the water and stopped it from going through to the kitchen ... that was lucky" ... (:(

I'll get me coat! (that's be a rain-mac I assume sir? Suits you Sir, suits you!)

Note (Official Sensor): all photographs of this terrible catastrophe have been sensored to protect the sensativities of wargaming viewers ... but have been sent to Aviva in the vain hope that they might be covered under my home contents policy.

All I can say is ... AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Cold War Commander - Battle for Hannover (photo dump):

I am so busy @ work at present all I am doing is dumping my photos from the fantastic CWC Battle Hannover 6mm mega-game:

Day 1: Saturday

Day 2: Sunday

Captions to be added when I get some time

Thanks