From MartinN: A hump for DaveD (12 Points)

At Crisis in November I had the chance to not only meet our honourable host Curt, but also had the pleasure to make the acquaintance of co-challenger, fine fellow and all-round gentleman Dave D. The state of the hobby was discussed, a few beers were had and all in all it was a wonderful time out.

From left to right: DaveD, RobP (behind), ChristopherS, JakeK, Jerry Miller and his wife Christine, myself , Curt and MikeF

Soon after Crisis I received a surprise parcel from Britain, sent by Dave, containing a few treasures from his collection (he himself referring to a ominous mountain of lead), of which I'm hoping to get at least a few done during the challenge.

Of course I had to come up with something to say thank you for such a generous deed. Remembering his soft spot for anything 'camel' I had a rummage through my treasure box and came up with something I thought appropriate.

So, here's my "thank you" to you Dave, a Centurion of the dromedarii:

The dromedarii or "camel riders" were auxiliary troops, reportedly first raised by emperor Trajan to help protect the eastern borders, especially against the Parthians and later Sassanids. We have to assume they were lightly armoured cavalry, probably mostly used for patrolling the dessert.

According to our sources the Parthians made use of cataphract camels, there's no evidence for their use by the Romans though. But as the Romans were never shy to at least try a new way of waging war before dismissing it, I thought it plausible that there could have been a unit at some point.

Evidence or not, It definitely makes for an interesting conversion.

The camel (or to be precise dromedary) was provided by A&A Miniatures and the shield decal is from LBM Studios, whilethe cataphract rider is from Aventine Miniatures. All three are companies I can't recommend highly enough.

It took me some work to make the rider fit properly, but nothing that couldn't be adressed with a sharp knife and some green stuff.

When it came to painting I was aiming for a eastern influenced, thus rather colourful look. In the end I think he might turned out a little too colourful maybe.

Still I hope Dave has some use for the figure. He'll wing his way to the island as soon as the holidays here in Germany are over.

Points wise I think this first entry is worth 10 points.

And now to our new "thing" the Challenge Tunes. A word of caution is necessary though. My taste (my wife denies it could actually be described as such) is rather rough, mostly German Punk and Hardcore as well as some of the harder Punk and Oi! stuff from the states and the island. So probably nothing for the faint hearted ;-)

Artist: Krawallbrüder
Song: Gott mit uns

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The first entry of the season from one of our most gifted brush-jockeys, Nick.

That is a beautiful piece Mr. N. and I know Dave will be delighted to add it to his growing collection of cam, er, dromedaries - lucky man. I really like the white and blue armour along with the matching barber pole lance. The polka-dot saddlecloth is an excellent touch as well. Stunning stuff. I think a few extra points are warranted for this 'hump conversion'. :)

I'm not even going to try to find that tune to listen to - it would only sully my high opinion of you, Nick. ;P

Again, lovely work.

From TomM: 10mm New Model Army Dragoons

On this most jolly of days, I had the benefit of being able to paint the whole afternoon and get a third entry done for the Challenge.

Not that I`m a painting maniac, those small scales tend to paint quicker then large models, but the GF is knocked out from last nights foodfest, and the fact she is a night shift nurse... so I`ll have the coming night all by myself as well with Gettysburg and the Dr Who special on the tele, and my brushes to keep me company.

But I get lost in chitchat... this entry is upping the scale a bit, as I went from 6mm of my previous entries to 10mm this time.  Around July I supported a Kickstarter from Lancer Miniatures, for a force of 10mm English Civil War models.  It got funded with a nice margin, and when it arrived I decided to put it to the side (like, about all my Kickstarters actually) just for this challenge.

You know, in case I would ran out of miniatures... *cough*

The first unit I painted as such for the army are these Dragoons, 4 to a base and 16 in total.  I am going to make the whole force for the New Model Army, yet decided on a fairly generic Parliament flag in order to not restrict the Dragoons to a specific battle or scenario.

It are rather lovely little sculpts in my opinion, and they are a great joy to paint.  I`m taking the Challenge as a way to get some forces either rounded out (my epic for example), or to start and perhaps even finish other project, like these little guys.

On to the next batch of models... before the time draught hits and my turn-out will invariably suffer from it ;-)

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Yes, I tell Lady Sarah that the bursting 'Lead Shed' in the yard is a contingency if I ever run out of miniatures in the house... The 'arched eyebrow held in frank disbelief' is a frequent feminine facial expression in our household...

Great work, Tom! I saw this Kickstarter when it came out and was sorely tempted. Your brushwork has kept them in good stead. I especially like their buff coats and the steel of their lobster helms. Do the upcoming pikemen have empty hands for brass/steel rod, or do they have cast-on pikes? I ask as I have a hangup about 'bendy' pikes. The old 12mm stuff from Musketeer Miniatures that I inherited have cast-on pikes which makes me crazy, having to clip them out, drill out the hands and then replace with brass. Anyway, first world problems, eh.

32 points to add to your total, Tom. Well done!

From PeteF: Ghar Battle Suit - Result of Butt Purchase (10 Points)

Earlier this year I was tracking 28mm starter armies on EBay and one morning woke up to an e-mail saying that my Ghar Starter army was on its way from Noble Knight Games. I had somehow butt purchased this rather than one of the Black Powder armies that I'd been tracking. What with shipping and everything I decided to keep the Ghar, thinking they'd be fun to paint. This is my first attempt - I decided to give it to my boy for Christmas and used his soccer shirt for inspiration.

The Ghar in Battle suits look angry - as do the ones out of battle suits (might get some of these done later in the Challenge). They remind me of a cross between the unstoppable robot in Hardware and the bad guys in Terminator. 

I ended up adding to my Beyond The Gates of Antares  Ghar and getting the rules thanks to being unable to resist some bargains on E-Bay. In the Antares rules these guys are a lot easier to kill than Terminators (or the aforementioned unrelenting killer droid). This is the view of the rear and side. There are these energy dot areas that I've tried to make look shiny. 

I might be asking for an airbrush for my birthday as I think that might help give future Ghar a smoother parade ground appearance. This one ended up more in campaign dress. I think my next Ghar are going to be either metallic (a bit rusty?) or Star Wars Imperial.

For the base I used some moss harvested from my yard - painted blue for whatever planet the Ghar are conquering and stuck with tiny sponge flowers.

Antares figures are 28mm but a Ghar battle suit stands 40mm high - so 7pts?

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Cool looking mini Pete! I have no idea of the term 'butt purchase' and am afraid of Googling it with company around - something for later. :0)

Your lifting of the colour scheme from your soccer jersey was inspired - it looks great in a sci-fi setting. I also like your alien groundwork, with its blue foliage. Obviously the Ghar are bringing the Smurf home planet into Imperial Compliance. Little, uppity blue gits, serves them right. ;) 

Let's call him the equivalent of a 28mm cavalry figure, so 10 points for you. Nice one, Pete!

From AlexS: "Animal planet" and some ghouls (245 Points)

Hello everybody! My name is Alex and I'm an paint-holic. Before beginning to paint 100500 zuluses soldiers of the Napoleonic era, I decided to finish the project, which was prepared for a year. For a whole year I carefully steal took away animal figurines from my children. So I painted them.

In my opinion, these figures will decorate the table during the games. They can stand among the trees in the forest or stand in the river or other kinds of terrain. It seems to me that this will make the gaming table more interesting. But they can be full participants in the battles. Someone wants to fight the crocodiles?

The following my figures are ghouls for the clan of "bronze fangs". I experimented with the airbrush and tried to make them both different and simultaneously in the same color scheme. It seems to me, at me it turned out.

In addition, I decided to do for this clan "big brother" - a bronze golem. I think it will be interesting for the game and for the general appearance of the clan.

Well, the general view of my work:

I think that now I can take a break in the experiments and start painting as usual - quickly and a lot.

15 animal  - 75 pts
33 ghouls - 165 pts
1 golem - 5 pts
total 245 pts

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Great work Alex! Your 'Bronze Fang' clan grows by leaps and bounds. It's very good of your children to volunteer their toys to you to 'improve' (I quite like the hippo) - at least they get to play with them after your finished your experiments! 

245 points for you, well done!

From KenR: 28mm WWI Indian Mountain Gun (30 Points)

A short first entry to begin my second attempt at the AHPC, I thought getting a few points on the board "early doors" would get the painting mojo in top gear.

So I present for your delight and delectation a WWI Mountain Gun with four Indian Crew. These are made by Empress Miniatures in 28mm as part of their Jazz Age Imperialism range. There are some excellent figures in the range (including some gorgeous Highlanders coming soon) that help fill out a WWI range nicely.

I have gone for a basic basing style with no grass tufts as they are to fit into a larger pre existing collection which pre dates those lovely pre glued accessories.

The gun was specifically designed for use in mountainous terrain and broke down into lots of smaller individual pieces so they could be carried by mule. The Indian units brought them with them from the sub continent to Mesopotamia and I have pictures of them being used in Palestine in 1917.

The Empress model breaks down into a similar number of pieces which is wonderfully realistic but a right royal pain in the ........ sorry, challenge to put together.

One of my two main themes this year is my Mesopotamia collection and this is a nice little start to that. I am off to work tonight (Xmas Eve) so I will wish you all a Merry Xmas and I hope Santa brings that Lanchester Armoured Car you always wanted.

I make it 5 points each for the crew and 10 for the Art Piece, a nice little 30 points to get me up and running.

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Ken!

I love seeing figures for these 'along-the-margins-of-history' being done. I've covetously perused the Jazz Age of Imperialism range and completely whiffed on connecting them with WWI Mesopotamia - duh. Now the wheels are turning! The gun is excellent and I really like their regimental turbans and the blue-grey of their service shirts. 

Excellent work Ken!

From ValeryN: 15mm Vehicles for my Soviet Army (24 Points)

Greetings to all!

It's time for me to get involved in the event and start showing what I'm painting.

The first part of the miniatures presented today are two self-propelled guns - ZIS-30. They were produced at the artillery plant No. 92 in the second half of 1941 by the open installation of the ZiS-2 anti-tank gun on the T-20 Komsomolets artillery tractor. This was a very rare vehicle for the Soviet Army. They were made only 100 (compared with 35,000 T-34s!). 

Also, I painted two sapper trucks. This addition to my roster of the engineer-sapper battalion, which I painted during the last year's challenge

A few more photos of painted models:

This is a total of 24 points.

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First, welcome back to the Challenge, Valery!

The trucks are very good, and always useful on the tabletop, but that ZIS-30 is quite an interesting (if ungainly) looking vehicle.  As you point out, it was astonishingly rare in light of the typical Soviet production methods of this period. Something you don't normally see on a player's roster.

I like the weathered green that you've used for these models, it seems a little lighter than what you normally come across, I like how they 'pop' to the eye. Great work!

From NickJ: Skaven Warlord Checking In (7 Points)

Once Upon a Second Challenge...

Well here we are then at the beginning of my second Challenge and this time I've decided to paint a single figure to get me started and to remove that 0 points tally!

This year I shall mostly be painting GW Age of Sigmar which is different to last year in absolutely no way whatsoever. I like AoS :-)

Here then is my new Skaven Warlord with the first picture showing the complete figure and the others a little more close up!

"See that my little Rat? That's our target"

So that should be a nice 5 points for my first 28mm figure of this Challenge.

For those interested below are the units that I added to the army after the First Challenge completed:

Gore-Beast Chariot

Ghorgon

Beastlord

Bullgors

Warp-Lightning Cannon

Everyone have yourselves a very Merry Christmas and a Paint-Tastic New Year!

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Nick! Your Skaven warlord is brilliant. I really like what you've done with his banner and plague blade - great use of colour. I also like seeing the retrospective of what you've been up to since we last crossed paths. Again, very impressive work (that Warp-Lighting Cannon looks like it would wreck someone's day). 

He looks a bit bigger than an average 28mm figure, so I'm going to nudge it up a couple of points.

I look forward to seeing more Age of Sigmar goodness rolling off your paintdesk over the coming months!

From BenitoM: First Volley - British Line Napoleonics (104 Points)

I started my Christmas break on Friday afternoon and displayed my painting table immediately after arriving home. My project for this Challenge runs around  Napoleonics both in 20 and 28mm.

I started with the 20mms and after a couple of intensive days I managed to paint a couple of British battalions for General d’Armee. We have agreed to use 4 bases per “standard” battalion at the club to play this rules.

The Old Gronards in the hobby will realize that these minis are old veteran Airfix. And indeed old they are: they belong to my collection built during the 70s and many have seen bloody battles in the main hall of my parents house, where my younger brother and I used to deploy our French and British armies and used marbles (or a 54mm plastic cowboy figure) as weapons to decide the battle.

Great memories that compensate the lack of detail they suffer, specially compared to other more modern plastic ranges by HaT, Revell or Italeri.

By the way the Rifles in the skirmish base are from Italeri and were acquired much later (actually in this century)

With this entry I score my first points: 26 minis x 4 = 104 points. This is also my opening move for the Black Powder Challenge (I’ll be contacting Millsy).

As today is 24th December, I also take advantage of the post to wish you a very Merry Christmas in the company of your family, relatives and loved ones

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Great work, Benito! I really like seeing these old school plastics getting some love and attention. Even though they are a little long in the tooth, some of the figures still possess a wonderful sense of animation (that loading figure is particularly excellent). I like the vibrant colours you've used for these chaps, especially the red. 

104 points to mark your debut on the roster - a superb opening gambit, Benito. Now, let's see some reinforcements to back up this lot. :)

From DaveD - The Sons of the Desert (10 Points)

Legionnaire Millsy turned to Legionnaire Docherty and said - "you know I really don't like these funny blue uniforms, I much prefer the red we used to wear - even if you were in charge... and what are we doing guarding this old ruin for?"

""Don' t start that again ....you know we got cashiered because of that incident at Gimp... you should have been more careful where you dug the latrines - and when Colonel Campbell and his wife fell  in them there was a real stink! . so that is why we ended up joining the French Foreign Legion   "

"These ruins are as old as the hills Millsy, there will be buried treasure. - but I don't expect them to  survive long with you and your shovel...- its another fine mess you got us into.. "

The figures are 28mm by Unfeasably Miniatures 

They are of course "Stan and Oli"

these guys will go toward a Death in the Dark Continent force.

Hi All , with Xmas fast approaching I though I best get a first entry on the roster. This years challenge will see a fair bit of variety along with more stuff for the Sudan, Brits, Egyptian and Sudaness - there will be camels aplenty as Sander and I have a little camel related "challenge!"

I have some 1980s 6mm to continue with as i have game coming up with fellow challengers Martin C and James M  Also last year Martin and I picked up Death in the Dark Continent and Congo , so there will a foray or two into that. I have some VBCW troops to do following a game with Martin and friends earlier in the year.

Artist: Various

Playlist: Spotify - Whiskey Time 

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Ahh, it's great to see our intrepid duo back again for another Challenge season. I was wondering why Docherty and Millsy were in Legion gettup, but I now understand in light of the smelly 'incident at Gimp'...

Lovely work, Dave - I really like the white kepis and the fully rigged pack on the one figure. And I must say that piece of terrain is cracking as well. Is that one of the pieces you picked up at CRISIS this year? All together, an excellent vignette and a terrific opening chapter for the continuing adventures of Docherty and Millsy. :)

10 point to you, Mr. D!

From Sander: First blood, some monsters to start with. (75 Points)

Hoi Everyone!

My Christmas vacation has started and now I finally have time to join the Challenge in  earnest. While the main focus of this year's Challenge will be my big 1:72 Salamanca Diorama, I have given myself time up to Old Year's Eve to do some 28mm figures I have lying around the workbench. I will try to do some of those in between the Salamanca figures as well just to keep from getting painter's block but I really hope to get into the Salamanca pile in a big way this Challenge.

Anyway for my first entry I have painted up some figures I am using in my Heroquest games at home and at the school HQ club. Last Friday I organised a big Christmas Quest using these for the guys and gals at school and it was a blast.

Let's see what I cooked up shall we?

First up are some plastic Gnolls from North Star miniatures. While I like North Star mini's a lot, these were a bit of let down since I think they suffer from a lack of detail. They did account of themselves really well in battle with 3 attack and 3 defence dice each.

More North Star plastics next in the form of some cultists. Now I really do not like Chaos, but these were a blast to paint and I like the evil looking dark scheme I managed to come up with.

 

Moving on to metals and a different producer: Otherworld Miniatures. They make some really good Fantasy Dungeon figures. All the kids at the HQ club chose one out of their range and I bought some baddies for specific scenario's like the one played Friday. Here are a couple of Wraiths:

This Otherworld skeleton lord could be the Witchking from HQ lore or a generic Liche lord or even just a Wight.

Next up an Oldhammer Chaos Mage. I got this one off of Ebay and since you need a Chaos Sorcerer just about any other Quest, one can never have enough.

Finally we have come to the only human in the lot, the rest could all fall under the label of "monster" so appropriate for this Challenge. A plastic North Star Barbarian called Munzuk. A soloquest for the wizard played at the club resulted in one of the kids liberating Munzuk from some Ork stronghold. He is now the wizard's henchman. Therefore we needed a dedicated figure.

 

This leaves me with 15 figures of 28mm scale, resulting in 75 points if I am not mistaken.

 Artist: The Longest Johns

Album: Christmas at Sea

They're just downright awesome!

Cheers Sander

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Sander!

These monsters (and minion) are excellent and I think it's just terrific that you've organized a group of students from your school to play Heroquest with them. 

Though the gnolls, cultists and Oldenhammer chaos mage are very cool, I have to say that I my favorites are the Otherworld wraiths and the skeleton lord. Lovely work.

I'll keep your Tuesday Minion spot warm for you until you can take up the reigns on the 2nd (waves chair, cracks whip). :)