From AdamW: If it ain't nailed down. Greed (44pts)

For the hat-trick my next Divine Comedy entry for this week is for the Greed circle.

Those pesky Vikings are at it again. After having their way with the local females in the Lust circle, they have decided to plunder anything they can. A clear case of greed if ever I saw one.

These full of character 15mm figures are from the Peter Pig Dark Ages range.

I'm not entirely sure why they are stealing a couple of crates of skulls. Maybe they are religious relics, or maybe they are going to convert them into knife holders and sell them on Etsy. Clearly they are just greedy and will take anything if it isn't nailed down.

(Maybe I should have entered the skull side challenge after all)

Points

12 x 15mm figures @2pts = 24 pts

Greed bonus =20 pts

Total 44pts

Another nice take on a Challenge theme, Adam! I am not sure I like where these are going, but they seem sufficiently greedy to me. Peter Pig seem to have some very colourful figures in their ranges! Your third submission today (!) thus gains you another 44 points.

Martijn

(Oh. Please don't forget to add your tags! We want to be able to find you...)

From Mike W: 28mm Dark Ages, 15mm WW2 and other items! Squirrel [300 Points]

I was scratching my head about what to paint this week until a friend of mine, Dave from the Wargames Club, said that he had some old 28mm Gripping Beast Dark Ages (Vikings & Saxons) figures that he no longer wanted! Great I thought and I have now completed 32 of these guys!

The completed Dark Ages figures

Dave gave me the figures on Friday evening, so I spent the weekend putting these together and then undercoating them. About 20 of these guys were still on the frame, whilst the others were partially assembled requiring finishing off. With the plastics were a few metal figures, some of which I will present in this group, the others will likely follow-up in next week's post.

The two metal figures that were part of this group

Close-up of five of the figures, all with kite shields and all with Victrix Norman Heads

I wanted to assemble some of these guys as Bretons, so I used some spare Norman Hreads (Victrix & Conquest Games) and shields to give the figures this flavour, and used Breton artwork on the shields. In my mind these Bretons would be heavily influenced by the Normans but might retain some more generic features found in many Dark Age armies of the time. 

Four more of the guys, again with kite shields

Another five, all with round shields with Breton artwork.

These figures will be added to the 'Norman' pool for an upcoming game that I'll be staging recreating The Battle of Hastings,  at the club in coming months.

Next five figures, again wit Breton shields but the guy in the middle definitely has a Viking look! To his left there is a guy with a Oathmark human head with a hood and a cloak from the bits box

Painting was pretty straight forward, undercoated in grey with a white dry-brushing over the top of this. I used GW DarkOath Flesh for skin tomes and then highlighted this with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh. A point to note here is that the Dark Oath Fresh needs to be applied over a solid white undercoat, else it can look very dark, something for me to remember next time!

Six more figures

Chainmail and steel was done in GW Leadbelcher and various colours were used to 'dress' the figures, before applying a watered down dark wash to add shading. Wood was painted in Light Yellow, washed with watered down Soft Tone ink to give shading.

Last five figures, the standard is from the spares box, not Breton but looked cool

All were finished with a matt varnish and shield artwork was applied before baseing.

Next off the production line are 40 x 15mm Afrika Korps figures, I'm not sure of the manufacturer of these but suspect that they are old Command Decision figures - they're metal and have square cut bases - unlike the older Flames of War metal figures.

I use Flames of War basing sizes so here we have 8 bases each with 5 figures

Another view of the finished figures

These were all undercoated in grey then dry-brushed white, flesh was added using Army Painter Barbarian Flesh, uniforms were a mix of greens trying to replicate the German WW2 Tropical Green colour. Riles and machine guns were done in natural colours and belts etc done with brown leather. 

On random helmets, gas mask containers & water bottles I used a sand coloured paint to help give the figures a more desert feel. All was washed with a dark tone and varnished.

Close-up of some of  the figures, all rifle or MP40 Sub-machine Guns

Another close-up of the figures

Bases were finished off with fine sand and dried grass tufts.

And a very close view

Finally this week I have some 10mm English Billmen for my Flodden Project, these have been painted up as Lord Surrey's retinue, with red hose and green and white halved jackets. I have given each of these figures a leather / quilted jack and they sport either steel helmets or caps of various colours.

Six bases of ten figures in line of march, flags sourced from the internet

In a 3 base wide, 2 bases deep formation with standards to the front.

Again I have made this billman unit double sized with six bases instead of 3, as per WarMaster standards, each base with 10 figures. These tiny guys only get three flags in the unit as there are no suitable figures to convert to standard bearers! I had to press gang some spares into service here, something I'll need to sort out as I expend these armies, as I like a lot of flags in these type of units!

Unit in formation, with standards to the rear - as I prefer them to be on tabletop

And a view looking down on the unit.

Again time was a bit of an issue this week, so I didn't get everything finished that I'd hoped. There are some 10mm Flodden Horse nearing completion for next week, along with more Warlord Epic units, maybe even some more naval stuff if I have time to do the rigging!

POINTS

32 x 28mm Dark Age Bretons Figures @5 Points ea        160 Points

40 x 15mm Afrika Korps @ 2 Points ea                    80 Points

60 10mm Flodden English Billmen @ 1 Points ea           60 Points

TOTAL                                                  300 Points

+3 Squirrel (28mm Afrika Korps, 28mm Dark Age Bretons, 10mm Flodden English)

SylvainR: Another generous submission this week with a variety of scales, periods and color palettes. You continue to impress me with your diverse interests. Great work!

From MartijnN: 32mm Viking Shield-maidens (30 points)

Just a quick post from me today, no library location. I have painted up some darn daunting damsels, who will likely cause a lot more distress than experiencing it. Here are six Viking shield-maidens:

They are 32mm “Heroic”  3D printed figures designed by Iain Lovecraft. He is definitely one of my favourite designers, and I think I have STL files for almost all the figures he has made. Although some of his ranges are now also produced in metal by Sally 4th, all mine are 3D printed. On the one hand 3D sculpting is a blessing, the figures produced today are absolutely fabulous, but on the other hand the painting becomes not really any easier. These Viking ladies, from the Lovecraft Viking Saga series, are fantastic, but there is always one more belt, buckle, strap or bag to paint!

The photos leave something to be desired, I really should try to get a better technique or get more out of my Iphone, but there are only so many hobbies one can get into. Anyway, I again used mostly contrast paints on these and I am happy how they turned out. They will go together nicely with the Vikings I painted during the last Challenge.

No location, so no map, but I do have a book recommendation. The actual historical evidence for the existence of Viking woman warriors seems to be shaky to say the least, but the Vikings are fascinating anyway. You could do worse than reading John Haywood’s Northmen : The Viking Saga, AD 793-1241.

I have read this in the Dutch translation, (which I do not usually do when I can read the original language, but it was a present), so it is harder to comment on the style, but I found it an enjoyable read. Haywood takes us on a journey through time essentially by region, so there are chapters on the viking presence in England, France, the Mediterranean, Russia etc., but in broad chronological order. It focuses on "traditional" history, so no art, customs and the like (although there is a useful introduction on the Viking world view). The book is very much aimed at the general public (surely the popular TV-series had nothing to do with it?), so no footnotes, but there are some useful appendices like a timeline, lists of Kings and of translations of source material. A good read all in all.

Scoring is easy:

6x 28/32mm foot @ 5 = 30 points

Next week we will continue our trek through the Library!

TeemuL: Lovely maidens, Martijn! I was supposed to paint some Vikings during this Challenge, too, but it seems that I have sidetracked... I guess you are true with your 3d printing wisdom, the amount of details could be quite high, but it seems you have picked up at least most of them. Lovely minis and your math is correct, too. See you next week in the Library!

From RossM - The Last Post (Mixed scales 110 Points)

Challenge end always comes around too quick and I am never ready enough for it.

Firstly, a few thank yous

• To the Monday crew, awesome body of hobby painting and glad to have been a part of it
• Pete, thanks for organising the above crew and keeping us in line for posting. Superb job all round
• To everyone, thank you all. Its always a pleasuring sharing the darkest months of the year with so many fellow hobbyists. 
• Lastly, and by no means least, Curt, the Snow Lord. Thanks for creating the AHPC thirteen years ago. I've been involved over the last twelve of those thirteen. Looking forward to sharing in future events too. 

So, now to the posts for my last entry this year. 

Perry Wars of the Roses Man at Arms - 1 x 28mm infantry at 5 points

Northstar Miniatures - Cultist Guards - 2 x 28mm infantry at 10 points

Vikings - Foundry and Gripping Beast - 3 x 28mm infantry at 15 points

The figures painted for this entry are the two bare chested berserker and the rear most swordsman on the left stand.

Plastic Soldier Company Early Imperial Roman Cavalry - 3 x 15mm cavalry at 12 points

Forged in Battle Early Imperial Romans Cataphracts - 4 x 15mm cavalry and 3 x 15mm riders at 22 points 

Four horses and riders were painted from scratch and another three riders also made the pass. The problem is I don't know which are which other than all of the command stand was started prior to the start date of the AHPC XIII

Gladiator Miniatures Numidians light cavalry - 16 points

Opps! Where did the horses nose go?

Xyston Miniatures Thracians archers - 8 x 15mm infantry at 16 points

Rapier Miniatures Macedonian Phalanx - 28 x 6mm infantry at 14 points

Fiddly getting the single 6mm figures on the base in lines but worth it in the end. The ragged pikes work to my eye; perfection is too much at times and who really knows what massed sarrissa looked like. 

This completes my efforts for this year's Challenge leaving a few also rans in the sidelines that didn't make the finish line. 

The total for the above comes to 110 points with a running total for the challenge at 221 (44.2% of the challenge total). Fell short of the total  however, it always the taking part that counts for me!

As always, it's been a blast and looking forward to the lift off later this year!

Cheers for now, 

RossM

____________________________

What a wonderful assortment of figures to end your Challenge, Ross! So much to admire here. I always have a soft spot for WotR, so that single man at arms is a winner for me. But all of the rest is excellent as well. I especially like the Cultists and the 6mm pikemen. Excellent work.

Until next year, Ross.  :)

- Curt