From Curt: A Tribekka for 'Maximillian 1934' (43 points)

Vrooom! Vroom! Dakka... Dakka... Dakka.... 

Happy Holidays everyone! 

It's another Challenge, so in Curt's world that means that another new project (or two) has to be undertaken. Really, it's a disease and I need help.

This time, it's 'Maximillian 1934', a car racing game set in a post apocalyptic 1930s, and I thought a perfect candidate for the 'High Adventure Studio' location. 

I have to admit that 'Car Wars' and 'Gaslands' have not always scratched that itch, but I do love the vehicle designs of 1930s period, with their swooping, long-nosed cowlings, narrow spoked wheels and the whacky bauhaus aesthetic, so Maximillian 1934 really appealed to my lizard brain.

I have four cars and a few motorcycles from the range that I'm wanting to get done the Challenge. I figure they should be enough for a spirited race, with several varied vehicle designs for players to choose from. 

So, for my first effort, I present to you this sporty three-wheeled Tribekka. 

I gave it a forward facing water-cooled machine gun and a brace of linked Lewis guns on a rear-facing pintle mount. You know, 'cause these are obviously things you need on a vehicle. 

I built out a mahoosive engine for it and gave it big single, side-mounted exhaust pipe. As the game uses a template to move, and is a bit fiddly with arcs, I decided to base-up this guy and the others that will follow.

As I want the cars to be quite visible on the track, I sprayed it a bright yellow, reminding me of the 'Fun in the Sun' yellow we had on our sporty Ford Focus in our salad years.  

The Tribekka and the half figure driver should give me 23 points as a base, with another 20 for the 'High Adventure' studio location.

I hope to have a roadster up in a week or two. Wish me luck and thanks for dropping in for a look!

- Curt

From DennisC: Vietnamese People's Army 15mm (200pts)

Merry Christmas everybody, hope you guys are doing well with painting, I've taken advantage of the Painting Challenge to get an older section of the pile painted: my North Vietnamese Army in 15mm.   I have two full NVA infantry companies and 2 medium Viet Cong infantry companies with all the fixings, plus some PT-76s and some T-54s (Chinese Type-59)

The army built, ready to rock, Dec 20th

NVA Divisional Support, primed black, drybrushed zenithal light grey

NVA BN HQ, 6x 82mm RCL guns, 3x 75mm RCL guns, 3x 82mm Mortars painted with mainly GW contrast paints in the 'slapchop' method

                                                           6x ZPU-1 AA guns and crew

By my reckoning, thats 18 crew served weapons (4pts each)  and 64 infantry and crew (2pts each) for a grand total of ~200pts.  Thats more than my output in Challenge XI !

I have 12x PT-76s on the workbench for next post.      Cheers! 

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Excellent work Dennis! These support units look terrific and I especially like the red hued groundwork, which seems very apropos to the region. With these done, you'll have the proper forces at your disposal to push the Imperialists from Southeast Asia. On to the Delta! 

Well done and keep up the steam!

- Curt

Spreadsheet Repairs!

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just a short notice that the spreadsheet is down for repairs. It seems that one of Santa's elves got caught up in the mechanicals and we have to field strip the reactor to get him free. Poor little blighter.

I'll continue to post your entires, but the scoresheet won't be up and running until later.

Thanks!

- Administration

From DallasE: Frohe Weihnachten! (Under Construction - 80 points)

Merry Christmas from snowy Winnipeg, Canada! I've titled this opening Challenge post "Frohe Weihnachten" as the subjects are all German... and with the above terrain piece I've located the set in the "Under Construction" studio. Not only do we have a "constructed" bunker, there are also some models for continuing projects - WW2 in the Western Desert and NW Europe/Russia.

First up is the bunker. This is the Coastal Defence Bunker from Warlord Games' Bolt Action range. The model is from Italeri and while it's nominally 1/56 scale, I think it's more like 1/72, which would fit with Italeri's other production. Anyway, it's a pretty nice model - let's take a closer look...

Well, maybe don't look too closely... I found the model somewhat difficult to assemble squarely as there are few locating tabs on the parts, and there's no floor included to secure everything to. So you have to assemble the thing as best you can, trying to keep all the walls square. I mostly succeeded in doing this.

Of course the roof of the bunker is removable and that's where you can have some fun in detailing the interior. Here's the Hauptmann studying a map, overseen by the ubiquitous image of the Fuhrer. The carpet brings a homey touch though eh?

The posters are images sourced from the Internet and printed out, cut to size and glued on the walls with white glue. I did the same with the Persian rug.

Had some old furniture laying around that fits well in the bunker.

The doors open and close but you get a sense here that they are somewhat underscale, right? Anyway, that's the bunker done, for which I will suggest a total of 25 points.

Next up are some more WW2 Germans - no, not the Marder III, but just the crewmen! They are 3D-printed models from Trenchworx and fit well in the armoured vehicle, a 1:48 prepainted diecast model from New Millennium. 

I needed to do a bit of fiddling with the bases to make the crew fit the vehicle - the vehicle floor is somewhat sloped but no problem. These two models retail for about $5USD and they really bring these vehicles to life. Two 28mm crew = 10 points.

Lastly, here's an addition to my Western Desert project - a German 50mm PaK38 antitank gun. This one is from Bolt Action/Warlord as well.

Quite a nice little model but you're on your own to figure out how to put it together, no assembly instructions in the package or on the website. Fortunately the Internet has lots of pictures.

I added a few spent shell casings just to show that the gun is "im einsatz".

Three crew and the gun I reckon are worth 25 points.

That's 60 for the models and 20 for the bonus location = 80 points total. Consider my account opened!

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Fabulous work Dallas and welcome back to the Challenge! I love the interior details of that wee bunker, especially furniture and the rug. As the Dude would say, '...that rug tied the whole room together'. The  Marder III and Pak 38 are awesome as well. For both of these, it's the crew and smaller details that really make them sing (the spent shells are a particularly nice touch on the Pak base). A great opening entry for your Challenge campaign. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you have for us this winter.

- Curt

From ReillyOG - The Emperah's Sewer Saints (45 points)

and here starts yet another House O'Grady distraction...

The Emprah's devout cult followers set out to carve a sector of the hive for their own

 

After a long time coming, and a long time collecting, curiosity got the better of us O'Grady gamers and we finally took the delve to start playing some Necromunda after being prompted by the release of the Ash Wastes Expansion. This was a project I have always been somewhat dreading to start because I was afraid of having to learn the intricacies of oils in order to make these bottom feeders truly filthy, but they seemed like a nice break to start off the challenge from my Horus Heresy force of Emperor's Children which tends to become an stressful and fruitless exercise in chasing the precious perfection... 

The Gang's founding leader, Kayn the Klenser accompanied by his left and right hands, Ezekiel the Devoted and Shambles respectively

Thus the sewer saints after being "shelved" in the pile of potential for a good 5 years, finally received the emperor-sent blessing that is pigment. When brainstorming the colour scheme, I've always like the look of gangs that look the part of men-at-arms with proper medieval heraldry that has just been bastardised for the use of scum at the bottom of the hive. I settled on filthy rags nicely offset with Bone and Purple patterning all over the uniformed high collars and tabards while the rest was just filthy rags, bloody bandages, and rusty scrap armour.

The three Blunderbuss-toting 'Blunderboys', Squats, Squelch, Squints
 

This being my first adventure with oil paints rather than the traditional 'Eavy Metal approach to painting with gazillions of highlights, the base coating process left me quite horrified and hesitant to continue, but I adopted the gang's mantra and let my faith in the god-emprah carry me onwards. The very second the oil hit the test model I knew it had not all been for naught as I absolutely loved the result and riding that high, finished the entire starting gang roster in the next two days. 

The three slum-crusaders(Juves) the gang is starting with,
Slicey, Scramble, and Sizzle

I'm absolutely in love the end results and I look forward to continuing the gang in the new year with more redemptionists with their trademark flaming heads, rats with a remarkable amount of grenades strapped to them, wayyyy too many juves, and the eventual Klovis the Redeemer (and his once rival, now lectern servitor companion, Deacon Malakev)

Thats 9 x 28mm figs for 45 points please. Entry submitted this Yule feast day, M2.022

Patrolman Andre about to learn why
they call him "the Klenser"...

Happy Holidays and Happy painting all,
Right Stuff

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Terrific work Reilly. I really like the fuchsia and tan colour palette you've used for these chaps - they all look rather debauched and mad, which I suppose is the whole point! The Blunderbuss fellas look particularly daunting (love the mechanicals they're toting), though the entire mob seems particularly nasty. A great addition to the Underhive. Well done!

- Curt

From BenitoV: Under Construction - The Moor Warband Completed (55 points)

My initial post was a group of 5 moor archers and today I finish this levy unit with additional 7 models, to complete the 12 required to score 1 point in a Saga warband. 

But more important, I just realized that after painting the unit I'm also completing a Moor Warband which started ... more than a decade ago (!) when I was immersed in playing El Cid supplement of the Warhammer Ancient Battles system.  

 

For different reasons, I abandoned both WAB and this army project, turning my attention chiefly into the WW1 and WW2 periods, hand in hand with some Too Fat Lardies sets discovered in those years.

The project has resurfaced with Saga. I clean the dust from my Gripping Beast moor models (all metal) from the late 80s, and have also recovered from the unpainted pile of lead, close to 100 Christian/Norman models that I bought to build an El Cid army. Not sure if I'll be able to paint some for the Challenge but I'll try.

In any case, I think this last archer contingent can score for the "Under Construction" set in the Challenge studios (... unless the Snow Lord objects, of course).

Going back to the models, as in the previous post these are a mix of two Gripping Beast plastic boxes Dark Age Archers and Arab Spearmen and Archers to get more variety of models and poses. 

Scoring:

• 7 x 28mm models @5 points each = 35 points
• Bonus "Under Construction" stucio = 20 points
• Total = 55 points

As today is Decemeber 25th, I wish all Challengers a very festive day in the company of your beloved ones. And if you live in North America, I saw in the news there's a very nasty snowstorm sweeping Canada and the US, stay safe!

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More lovely Moorish archers, Benito!

I have fond memories of all of those Warhammer Historical expansion books, even though I never played the game - they were such quality products. I really like that you're resurrecting your El Cid army project for a run during the Challenge. I very much look forward to seeing more units come out from under your talented brush.

- Curt

From JonathanO: Back & White - Weeping Angels (40 points)

Blink!  

Actually, don't blink! 

These are no Christmas Angels.

Followers of Doctor Who will know that they are Weeping Angels. These appeared in the TV episode named "Blink",  as well as some later episodes.

They look like stone statues, but move rapidly when not being watched.  One touch from a Weeping Angel and you will be transported back in time to live out your life from then on. So don't blink! 

I suppose if you were only transported back a few years you may still be able to participate in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, but more likely you would find yourself in a dark time before the Snow Lord created the Challenge.

The figures are from packs that were originally given away with the Doctor Who Adventures magazines.  I managed to buy some on eBay a few years ago.

These models are made of soft plastic so do not take paint very well. After a good wash with dish soap and water, they were given a couple of brushed-on coats of matt white paint.

I used two applications of Citadel contrast paint Apothecary White (actually grey) to get the effect I wanted - Grey, but with quite a lot of white showing.  I think they will be fine to add to my collection of Doctor Who figures.

At least these four figures and the Black and White location bonus get me some easy early points.

Points estimate:

4 x 28mm figures @ 5 points each  = 20

Black & White studio location bonus = 20

Total = 40 points

I am not sure which studio location to visit next, maybe a ride in Lady Sarah's Limousine will give me time to decide.

This is my 8th time in the Analogue Painting Challenge.  Maybe I will hit my more modest target of 400 points this time!  

I enjoyed seeing the posts of the painting tables / hobby spaces that several challengers shared.  Here is my table after it was tidied up, ready to start this year's challenge. It is in my hobby / store room in the basement.  I have a daylight lamp that works well, as well as a magnifier lamp for occasional use.

How long will it stay this tidy?

Season's Greetings to all my fellow challengers, Thanks to Curt, Sarah and all the Minions for running this great annual painting marathon as well to Sidney for the work on the AHPCXIII Studio theme/map.

Here is my wife's gingerbread creation for this year - a Victorian House.  Perhaps I could use it later as game scenery for a Doctor Who scenario based on the old house in the "Blink" TV episode!  

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Wow, great looking gingerbread house (acreage?). It looks both cozy and architecturally delicious.

Good one with using the 'Weeping Angels' for the Black & White theme. They look very creepy and their 'superpower' is more than a bit unsettling. I love that you got them from one of those magazines promoting Dr. Who. (I have a bunch of LotR figures from those Eaglemoss magazines and they're actually quite characterful and well done.) I'm looking forward to your figure for Lady Sarah's Limousine

Merry Christmas, Jonathan!

- Curt