From Paul O'G: Black Templars (42 points)

Last year Reilly and I continued our Kill Team projects and even played in the GW store games night for awhile. As part of that I started a Black Templars force but didn't finish it before I went back to sea.  In typically terrible AHPC fashion I have now finished the army, but only a few of the figs will count as they had been partially painted before the Challenge started - but every finished project is a good one!

No Pity! No Remorse! No Fear!

All these figs have a range of customisation; the bitz box was raided hard and I 3d printed some extras as well. The are broadly painted in what is known as the 'Zorn palette' which keep colours to red, ocre yellow and creams, and white 

The two Sergeants of this force- both 'pack a punch'

Despite only 4 of these figures counting for the challenge, I was inspired by the progress and continued with these 3 Bladeguard intercessors who had been sitting forlornly in undercoat. Another overly detailed project but its great to have them completed.  Note that the Blue colour on the power swords is not per the Zorn Palette, but I like the way as a spot colour it isnt too harsh a contrast

Just don't call them the 3 stooges

Now I'm daydreaming of a new Custom Space Marine Chapter: The Black Turnips! or perhaps the Turnip Templars? The Templars Turnipcus? Hmmm....

These models are larger (32mm to eye) and historically score 7 points apiece.  So for 6 of them, thats a total of...

....which still leaves me 3 points shy of my challenge target!

And thus 42 was not, in fact, the answer to life, the universe and my AHPC 13 campaign :-)

Wow, these are brilliant. I'll give you the 7pts each, although 7pts is 40mm. Otherwise it's wrecks the joke.

From DallasE: Norman Infantry and Squats (!) (75 points)

Getting back here to a period I haven't visited in a long time indeed... Dark Age (can we call it that?) Early Feudal Normans. I have a pretty sizeable army (mostly early Gripping Beast, as seen here, but a few Crusader models sprinkled through) that I painted probably 12 years ago or more. In fact, their first appearance on our Fawcett blog was back in 2012, in a battle report from a game where we used the Lord of the Rings rules! (of course)

So why revisit this army now, more than 10 years after I painted its last model? Well, GregB of Challenge fame is coming to visit in a couple weeks and wanted to have a game at my place. "Sounds great," I said, "what do you want to play?" He replied that he wanted to bring his (gorgeous) Byzantine army for a battle against my Normans. I thought this was a superb idea and asked if he had any more figures to paint - he said he had some Varangians. I looked in a Plano case here and found a dozen more Normans, so we challenged each other to paint 'em for the upcoming game. So here are my Normans!

 

Again, models are from Gripping Beast's ancient metal stock. Nice enough models but I really dislike the separate weapons, as I can never seem to get them to look like the models are holding them naturally. About half of these 12 needed greenstuff work on the hands to "wrap" the fingers around the grips.

All Hand-Painted Shields (tm) of course...

These lads will do nicely as a unit of 12 foot knights in our game. We'll be using Warhammer Ancient Battles, which we also haven't rolled out in 10 years or more. It's gonna be a blast from the past all around!

The other few models I painted this week are some more plastic Squats. I'd initially done the army with three squads of 9 infantry but thought I would use the couple of parts left in the box to round the squads out to 10 Squats each. There was just enough parts left to do that.

 

Of course I've complained before that the "Space Dwarfs" box only came with three head variants, and all that were left in my box were bald heads. So as I'd done before, I got out the greenstuff and went to town. I particularly like the blond mullet in the middle of the pic above, it's a "look".

And here are the three (now 10-Squat) squads.

As for points:

    12 x 28mm Norman infantry              60 points

    3 x 28mm Squat infantry                    15 points

    TOTAL:                                              75 points

Thanks for looking, see you next time and have a great week!

Love the shield work, bonus points accrued. How cool are squats - very.

From StuartL - An Eastern Fantasy - Fantasy & Limo - 196 Points

Hello all,

As of this week, I am visiting the last studio before I go for the Director's Chair Challenge. I already paid for my limousine ride last week, so I'm ready to jump straight into the action. 

While I do have more than a few fantasy models kicking around in my hobby room, I decided to go for something a little more exotic than Orcs or Dragons for the Fantasy Studio, and instead looked a little bit closer to my (adopted) home. 

Here we have an Oni and a rather large looking Kappa. The Oni is from Reaper's Bones range and the Kappa is from the game Kensei by Zenit Miniatures. Both of these figures are in the 40mm range.

The Oni is also toting around 4 skulls, perfect for adding a little extra to my side duel. 

Here we have a Komainu and three Tanuki, also from Zenit. The dog is fairly large, about the same size as a 28mm mini, but the Tanuki are a bit smaller, maybe 20mm? Overall, they should all be worth 1 Squirrel point.

And here we have a shot of all of the minis together. I already have a few Oni which I painted in one of the Quarantine Challenges, so this lot will be joining the previous minis in my Sengoku Fantasy collection.

Now, a post from me wouldn't be complete without a bunch of Squirrels, so buckle up for a quick batch of tree hugging rodents. 

First up, some old zombies from Games Workshop for Warhammer Fantasy Battles/Age of Sigmar. At the time they were released, they were probably pretty cool, but the figures do look dated now.

And some Skeletal Pirates from Reaper Bones. Death shouldn't let you get in the way of searching for treasure and sailing the high seas. Plus each is providing a skull for my side duel.

And some classic Blood Bowl orcs from the first edition of the game. They are mono-pose figures with very little real detail, but they still look the part.

I have an ongoing/stalled American War of Independence project stashed away at the back of my room somewhere, so in the interest of hunting down every last squirrel, I painted up these 5 British soldiers from the Perry Bros.

And finally, I need to pay my way to the Director's Chair, so here is a female model to pay for the ride in Lady Sarah's Limousine. I may need to get the seats cleaned afterwards though, she appears to be leaking.

And to round that mini up to a full Squirrel, here we have another 4 zombies to accompany her. These modern zombie figures are all from Reaper Bones.

And that is the last of the studio lots. Time to get cracking on my final challenge.

For the points:

26x 28mm minis @5 points = 130 Points

3x 20mm minis @4 points = 12 Points

2x 40mm minis @7 points = 14 Points

Fantasy Studio & Limo @20 points = 40 Points

Total = 196 Points

That should put me a hair's breadth away from my target.

My side duels.

Squirrels + 6 = 40

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, WW2 Japanese, Teutonics, Lizardmen, Gnolls, Arabs, Space Marines, Kung Fu Chinese, Wolf's Dragoons, Merfolk, Fishmen, Fish, Mummies, Greek Myth, Peasants, Desert Terrain, Guild, WW2 Africans, WW2 French, WW2 Germans, WW2 Russians, DKoK, Sengoku Fantasy, Fantasy Zombies, Undead Pirates, Blood Bowl Orcs, AWI British, Modern Zombies

Skullz +9 = 233

Turnips - 115 Points

Another great, eclectic, post (combining tham makes them more fun). Love the pirates and the fact you have hit 40 squirrels (enough for a casserole).

Sunday Minion Checking In

 Morning all

I've spent a couple of great days at the Hammerhead Show with James and Dave. James bought a ridiculous amount of GW 40K painted figures for almost no money at the bring and buy- bargain of the century (over £500 off).

I managed to complete the casting for my Directors chair epic. Although after a significant row with the script writed I have had to increase the size of the cast by more than 100%. This is going to make completion on the deadline very tight, and we are currently 70% over budget. I'm so getting sacked and will end up as the Snowlord's cabana boy.

We have 5 Sunday posts in draft form but only 2 have photos so could could be a quiet day, which will be a relief as I have a lot of cast who need to learn their lines and go for costume fitting.

Martin