From Barks: My last skullz (8 points)

I was under the misapprehension that I had several more days to go, but realised a few hours ago that I had overestimated by 48h! So, this is my final Skull Duel entry- a suitably skull-dense figure, but not enough to catch StuartL.

First, another 3D printed Servo Skull:

Then, chosen for his skulliciousness:

Five on the base, three on the helmet,
three on the gun, one on the kneepad...

Three on the backpack, and
twenty-two on the shoulderpad!

This lad has a hefty 37 Skullz! Plus the Servo Skull for 38, gives me a total of 466- more than double my total for AHPC X.

I'm claiming six points for this chap, seeing as he's a big lad and has two Nurglings; and two for the Servo Skull.

+6 to the GW side Challenge

+38 to the Skull Duel

From JohnS - At last, a Squirrel! And a green one at that! - 25 points

 We 'enjoying' a 'rain bomb' here in Sydney today so no renovation work, no requirement for range supervision, a free day! So I thought I would take the chance to throw in my only Squirrel of the Challenge.  And it is a green squirrel.

 

No, not that one, this one.

Due to photo vagaries, this is the most accurate in colour

Five Savage Orcs to join my Green Horde. I prepped these fellas a Challenge or two ago, painted part of a unit and the rest went back into the pile. I tend to paint in batches of five so most models get prepped, bagged in fives and placed in the queue. The never ending, constantly shifting queue.

I really enjoyed throwing some paint on these boys today and glad I could get a little closer to my goal. 

I guess that's the end of Challenge XI for me. It's been fun. 

A word of advice, when the builder says to you in April "It will all be done in two months", don't believe him. We're fast approaching a year now and so much more 1:1 scale modelling to be done....

Cheerio!

From PeteF: Napoleon's Chasseurs a Cheval de la Garde for the Guard Room (140 points)

What better way to finish Challenge XI than with more Minifigs*? My dad started this unit in the mid 80s with 6 assorted Chasseurs a Cheval de la Garde Imperiale including a Marmeluke. I intended to bring the unit up to a full strength of 30 figures (including 3 additional Marmelukes) by the end of the Challenge but unfortunately ran out of time - should have them all done by the end of this month.

These fine fellows have one of the most colourful uniforms of the Napoleonic wars - with the pizzazz of the scarlet pelisse, a furry hat and a lot of yellow/gold lace they must have been an impressive sight. They were also Napoleon's personal guard.

The Marmelukes rode with them - there were something between 26 and 135 (depending on which source you believe) of these Egyptian cavalry in the Waterloo campaign. The regiment was big with around 1,200 men in the Quatres Bras Order of Battle - although my understanding is that they didn't really see any action that day.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing pictures of the Minifigs as much as I have painting them. The Bloody Little Soldiers as my mum christened them are a family tradition and I finally have a nice big French army to face off against Old Nosey. I added 3 infantry battalions and 4 cavalry regiments so I don't have much more to paint for Quatres Bras - all I'll need then is a bit more terrain and some takers for a days long game in our barn.

The original plan was to visit every room in the dungeon and I did line up something for all of them - but the clock will run out* leaving five chambers unexplored - maybe next time.

12x25mm cavalry and a room bonus for 140 points.

*probably

From Jeff B: Level-2, Chamber-2, "Shrine"

 

The Atlas mountains are the shrine in this challenge chamber. A Tuareg Mullah and faithful followers make up this chamber's entry. 

Though they aren't really Tuareg castings I have painted them up as such for my French Colonial games.

 I experimented with colors using washes and highlighting as I just wasn't quite happy and satisfied with the colors out of the pots. That being said, I am quite pleased at how they came out and am really looking forward to painting the stock piles of 28mm lead Tuareg figures I have from Castway Arts and Askari Minis.

Chamber 20 Pts + (4) 28mm figs x 5 Pts = 40 Pts

Curt, another beautifully painted unit! Your skill, speed, and talent is inspiring.

Thank you Curt for allowing me the honor to be a part of this awesome exercise and rub virtual elbows with some very talented and imaginative painters. I'm truly humbled. This being my first AHPC I see the key is to build and prime all manner of figs and kits months in advance. I shall start preparing for next year NOW!

Thank you Minions for all your hard work and for making this so much fun. Thank you challengers for your input, critiques, and acceptance!

For Jonathan: The Altar of the SnowLord

Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South)

 

Sorry folks (and Jonathan), this was supposed to go up yesterday, but life conspired against me. Suffice it to say that Jonathan is busily working on his entry as I publish this.

Jonathan, I understand that you need some old school cavalry for your Ancients collection. Well, let's see if you can show us a few Assyrians before the bell tolls.

Jonathan's Prize: ECW Gun and Crew by ScottM

From MilesR: My Last Submission - More Hex Terrain (139 Points)

 

My last submission for Challenge XI is yet more Hex terrain - not Stalingrad themed but useful for all types of wargaming.

On the left side are some forested hexes and a test for a field.  The trees are removable - there's a plastic sabot inserted to hold the trunk and protect the foam from wear and tear.  I want to use these hexes with 6 to 15mm scale miniatures and you can see they look pretty good with some of the 6mm ACW stuff form my Snow Lord Altar submission.

I like how the field came out - its a little bright so needs to be toned down but size wise it works well (I think).

The right side has pine forested hexes and some streams.  The gloss gel is still drying so you can see some of its original white color.

There are some 15mm Soviet tanks to show how the terrain also looks works with that scale of miniature.  Having terrain that can serve multiple scales is a must if you are a gaming gadfly such as myself.

I'm really happy with the streams and made a little over 5 feet of them.

The road sections are all standardized and are really fun to make.

Here are some additional hexes that just didn't fit on the table.

I did sneak 1 Stalingrad related hex into the mix - the final building from the Russian Village set made by "Things-from-the-Basement". They make really well designed kits and I recommend them for 15mm scale WW2 scenery.

One of the reasons this post is a little rushed is I have a 1:1 scale project that I promised my wife I would finish soon.  As you may recall, we had a bit of a flood in the basement and had to remove all the carpet.  My wife really wanted to put in some "wood vinyl" flooring and I have started the project but have a ways to go.  The past 12 months have been difficult for her being a Dr and treating covid patients, especially this past winter.  She told me she's lost more patients during the 3 months of Nov-Jan than she has in 30 years of being a medical professional.  If she wants a new floor, she gets a new floor.  

As for points, this will require a little math and I share your collective excitement at that prospect!  Each hex is 4 inches across flat side to flat side.  The formula to calculate the area of a hex is:

Area = 1/2P(a) where

P is the Perimeter and a is the apothem

I'll spare you the gory details and just say the area of each hex is 13.856 inches and there are 80 of these hexes in this submission.  We now need to measure the average height of the hexes.  These range from 3/4 of an inch for flats and up to 3 inches for the trees.  The weighted average height of all 80 hexes is 1.354 inches (and yes, I did measure it out).  

So the total cubic inches of hex terrain is 80 hexes x 13.856 x 1.354, which equals 1,501 cubic inches.  We now divide that volume by the 216 inches which comprise the "holy terrain cube of quantification" and that yields 6.950 terrain cubes.  Multiple 6.950 times 20 points per cube and one gets 139 points for this final submission.  See, isn't math FUN!!!!!!  No need to thank me for my magical mathematical ministrations - that's just the kind of guy I am.

As always, the Challenge is an event I truly cherish, especially in these difficult days and I want to thank all of you, the participants, who make the Challenge such a wonderful event through your  grace, camaraderie and astonishing painting skills.  I am deeply grateful to all of you and appreciate the privilege of being a fellow participant.

I also want to thank my fellow minions and, of course, Curt - it was a blast to be part of the team and I want to thank you for not blowing up the spreadsheet.

Now to begin work on the incantations for the final statistical summary in a few days.  I'll need to order extra kittens to sacrifice this year

from RayR - Donnybrook Scottish Jacobites 25pts

My third post of the day!

and I think I have a problem?

Yes, I do own a secret Scottish Jacobite army for Donnybrook!!!

But I had no standard bearers, so.........

Cameron of Lochiel's a Redoubt figure

Another Cameron flag, this time a Reiver Casting figure.

Another Reiver Casting carrying the McDonald of Clanranald flag

Finally a Reiver figure carrying the St Andrews Cross

All the brilliant flags come from the fab Flags of War, cheers Iain!

This chap was going to be a post on his own, but as you know we're all running out of time. Here we have a Warlord figure representing Alisdair 'The Devastator' Mac Colla

From Warlord

"This is Warlord's take on perhaps the most dangerous man in the British Isles at the time...Alasdair MacColla "The Devastator", a man who went by many names, some rarely used out loud! This legendary Highland warrior came from the Isles and grew famous for his startling strength, size and ferocity..."

Most of my Scottish force are Redoubt figures, which a on the larger side of large, so this Warlord figure fits is really well, he'll be used as a character or commander.

So 4 x 25mm figures will add a further 25 points to my total. 

From Christopher Sliter: Fallschirmjäger Officer (5pts.)

This is my last entry into the challenge and it's the Curtgeld entry figure in the form of a Fallschirmjäger officer issuing commands to the troops which gives a fitting conclusion of him yelling at me to get in my last submissions. I seemed to have missed the part about it having to be turned in and completed by the first month! Well that's what you get for not paying attention and making old assumptions about things being the same as always!(facepalm)

The officer is depicted wearing his Luftwaffe coat and cap and Sumpmuster 44 (Swamp pattern) trousers, boots, belt, canteen and side arm. I wasn't exactly sure what he was carrying so I decided to make it into map booklet. He is yelling so I would imagine him speaking to large group troops giving a mission briefing with perhaps munitions going off in the background. 

The figure is from Artizan which I really enjoy painting and I painted him all with Vallejo colors which I personally think are very good for WWII and such.

Unless Curt want's a very late submission for other purposes I'll award this model to my friend Nick who is a WWII  nutter perhaps only equaled by all things Roman (well we both are, but he far exceeds me!)and I don't think he has this figure for his Fallschirmjäger collection as his is entirely composed of Mr. Hick's sculpts I believe. He can use it as a morale tracker for his FJ CoC force and yes I'm talking about our very own brush wizard MartinN and a minion this year. Check his stuff out you won't be disappointed!!

That's one 28mm figure for 5pts. and concludes my challenge. Thank you Curt for hosting yet another fantastic challenge and to the hard working minions as well! Looking forward to the next one!

Thanks for viewing!

Miniature Company- Artizan Miniatures