From TomG - Invoking the Sorceress' Ride to The Tomb... Please - Points 25

Hey all, a special entry for today as it is my 34th birthday, and I have finally finished repainting this mini for the 4th time this month! I present to you "The Summer Jade Sorceress". 

Over and over again I wasn't happy with how she was turning out, first there were mistakes, then dust in the paint, then a catastrophe when painting the face; each stage creeping closer to model being dumped, but perseverance prevailed. 

I wanted her to have a regal, but still fantasy, feel to her as she is supposed to be a bad guy character in the theme of an evil sorceress. Which is why she got a gold crest to get headgear, something for a hero to take back and store in a museum. 

I can't tell you how I painted this as I stripped it back to bare metal so many times, I gave up recording the process. But she has finally turned out, pretty much, as I wanted her to. 

I hope you enjoy this entry and it can get me on the bullet train to Tomb-Town. 

Points - 

28mm infantry = 5pts

Challenge entry = 20pts

Total = 25pts

From KyleC - Orcs Pit - Goblin Force - 125 pts

 

Chugging along the Dungeon here, the mighty adventurers come across a mighty warband of Goblins blocking their way! Oh Noes! 

The Orcs Pit seems to have run out of Orcs, however the Gobbos were more than happy to fill in while they were away!

First up being the scouting party of 4 wolf riders... now these are equal opportunity wolf riders as these Goblins believe in equality. See 2 of the wolves had mishaps on the printers, but instead of tossing them aside like last nights stew.. they kept them for the forces and they became stronger for it!

One having a cleft lip as part of his mouth didn't print out, and another with part of his fur being cut making it flap in the wind while they ride. So they painted the flap yellow.. painted his face orange a bit.. and call him Don.. and ride that special little wolf right into battle even if he probably also suffers from bone spurs or something.. 

If the adventurers can get past the scouts, then they have to deal with the happy, gleeful archers! Well 2 out of 3 are gleeful, the third is just trying to do his job.. 

Beyond the archers are the front line warriors.. with their spears at the ready and each pointing to where they think the Adventurers are coming from... obviously someone didn't go to Durham castle for new specs else they would all be pointing in the same direction.. But the champion with his sword and shield is sure ready!

But if the adventures can get past all of those magnificant Goblin troops... then they have to contend with the commands! Both the captains here ready to take the adventuerers on.. with the banner waver showing support.. and the Shaman be very giddy to see if his magics work properly this time!

All in we have 13 on foot for 65 pts, 4 mounted for 40 pts, and 20 for the Chamber giving 125 pts here! And more squirrels! This is what... 9 now??? I should really begin to focus or something eh? All models were printed using the Warploque Digital files. 

Next up is a teleport to the tomb.. so a suitable tribute to Sarah must be found.. 

AHPC XI: Month 1 Stats Update

 

Bang the drums, ring the bells and kick the cats, it's stats time BABY!!!!!!

We all know the real reason we participate in this 3 months of madness, called the painting challenge.  

Is to celebrate our hobby? - NO WAY!  

Is it to enjoy the camaraderie of people with similar interests from around the world?  AS IF!

Is it to grovel at the feet of our self appointed Lord and Master, Snow Lord Curt?  Well maybe....

But the REAL REASON is to bask in the glory of math-a-magical statistics.  As Pooh states in the erudite meme, the best stats are homeroll rolled stats and I've got kilo's of them for you.

Gather round and be edumacated on some numbers-stuff.  Presented below is a summary table comparing the first month of XI vs the first month of X

AHPC XI Stats Summary:
	Through 4 weeks
	XI	X
Total Points	26,386	20,155
% of Target	39.15%	31.34%
Participants	84	67
# of Submissions	476	295
# of Chamber / Island Submissions	279	150
Participation Rate	94%	92%
AVg Submissions per Participant	6	4
Avg Pts per Submitter	314	301
Avg Pts per Submission	55	68
Figures Painted
28MM
Inf	2,172	1,324
Cav / Art	268	135
Vehicles	27	42
15MM
Inf	762	391
Cav / Art	97	134
Vehicles	21	24
6MM
Inf	1,476	786
Cav / Art	373	108
Vehicles	1	88
Terrain "Cubes"	29	28.25
Points Distriution
28mm	53%	44%
15mm	8%	7%
6mm	4%	3%
Terrain	2%	3%
Chamber / Island Bonus Pts	22%	23%
Other	11%	20%
Total	100%	100%
Projected Points	91,031	79,428

Through the first month of Challenge XI, we've wracked up 26, 386 points from 84 participants.  That's very impressive and compares most favorably to the 20,155 points form 67 participants.

Maybe the most impressive story of this years challenge is the frenzied pace of submissions as we all sent in a total of 476 unique submissions vs 295 from last year.  Now I hear some of you whinging right now there are more participants this so that why.  Let's look at some unit level stats to prove how misguided you are in the belief.

Points per participant is pretty constant at 314 vs 301 but the number of average submissions is 50% higher at 6 in XI vs 4 in X.  I suspect the key driver is a combination of the Chambers of Challenge  and the decision to unshackle all of you and let you post freely.  I, for one, was against the unshackling as I think you all should be in chains but that's probably not a topic to discuss here.

I think it's safe to say the Chambers of Challenge is a smashing success as there have been 279 chambers related submissions vs 150 foc the Island theme event last year.

So what are we painting?  A lot of 28mm figures.  In fact 28mm, as a scale, has increased its share of points rather dramatically fro 44% in Challenge X to a whopping 53% for XI

Point-O-Projector

So now its time in the update to wheel out our trusty Point-O-Projector and feed in all sorts of information and a few kittens and puppies.  After a few turns of the crack out pops the projection of 91,031 points for Challenge XI.  That's a suspiciously precise number so it must be correct.  Remember you can trust everything I say here because I'm a financial services professional.

Our blistering points pace continues since the close of Jan 20th - we've already added another 5,374 points over 5 days and stand at 31,760 as I write up this post.

So that concludes this months statistical update.  I realize that I've dropped a lot of information on you and most of you are a bit dazed and confused.  Please don't operate any heavy machinery in this math-a-magically induce euphoria.  Most medical professionals recommend you just sit back, eat some cheetos and let the beauty of statistical analysis wash over you.

Final Note:

Those of you with keen eyes and matching intelects may be wondering why the number of Challenge XI participants stands at 84.  You are likely asking "didn't we start this thing out with 89?

We did, indeed, have 89 but the unfortunate fact is that the culling has occurred and our ranks have dwindled down to 84 stout and hale pigment warriors.  Usually I make fun of those culled (in a light hearted way) but not this year.   These are difficult times for all of us and I'll end this missive with a fare-the-well for the 5 individuals who couldn't participate this year and a sincere hope they can re-join us for Challenge XII when we all can speak of the Pandemic in the past tense.

JamieM - post apocalyptic survivors (35 points)

In a feat of dedication, concentration and willpower rarely seen at my painting desk, I’ve actually stuck to the plan and have completed a fourth warband for my post apocalyptic plans......

Once again, Eden figures from Taban miniatures. Five generic survivors, just trying to make their way in a changed world......

Some differences in size between these, but I guess if I lined up with my mates (in a socially distanced fashion) we’re all quite different sizes and shapes, so not too bad.

First up is Tracy. She seems obsessed with wearing “fashionable” clothes. I guess we all need to hang onto something in these weird times. Her handiness with that hand crossbow is more impressive.

Tony used to work in an animal sanctuary apparently. He managed to save one of the birds and it’s been so helpful in hunting, getting us food. It’s catching increasingly weird stuff though, perhaps it’s the radiation impacting the animals?

Clyde was part of a motorcycle gang in the old times. Worked on cars in the scrapyard and that rivet gun and chainsaw have saved our bacon more than once...

Gavin is an odd one. Won’t take off his hockey mask, just tells us “this is the way”, whatever that means. Carries those skulls around everywhere. I don’t have the stomach to ask him why or whose they were.

Billy is an odd one. Obsessed with that boomerang of his. In his defence, it even hits what he throws it at sometimes and he doesn’t have to worry about ammo like the rest of us.

Five 40mm figures for 35 points. Now, will my willpower hold long enough to finish my final warband next or will I butterfly onto something else, leaving the project part finished like I normally do?!?!?

AndrewB- the Hatchery

 Try as I might, I was unable to find a single miniature with any sort of feathered feature to fill my spot in the Hatchery, so I had to get a little creative here.   Along with a couple other Royal Navy vessels, and an armed brig not sporting Nelsonic colors, I present to you HMS Sparrow!  

Sparrow is pictured second from right.  I wasn’t exactly sure how to get perfect sea bases out of these stellar steel bases from Wargames Accessories, but I hope those will suffice in the meantime.  I haven’t named, or researched proper history to name the others as of yet, but I prefer painting in small batches to singles with naval vessels, so you’ll hopefully pardon me on that as well.  

I was unable to find any 1/1200 ships scrolling through some pages of the ‘naval’ tag, so it’s up to the fantastic minions to discern the score on top of the 20 from the challenge!  My next chamber(Armory) is in the basing process, look for it in the next few days!

AlanD - Into the Hall of Traps (40 points)

 

All these Romans I've been painting need some field fortifications! And what better way to ruin the impetus of a barbarian charge with a field of lilia. As described by Caesar in his Gallic Wars, these 'lilies' were conical pits with a stake in the bottom of each, laid out in a checkerboard pattern. 

As the pits were carefully camouflaged, modelling the traps is a compromise If the legionaries knew their trade, the base should just look like an empty patch of ground. That would, however, be boring on the tabletop, so I've made them more obvious than they would be to a Gallic warband.

The base is 12 inches long, so with the bonus for the Hall of Traps, I think this little entry earns me 40 points?

Oh, and my friend Mac asked if I bought the lilia from Footsore Miniatures........

From MikeF - Lair of the Great Beast - Warhound Titan - 32 points

 The final chamber of the Chambers of Challenge is the Lair of the Great Beast. For this a model needs to be painted that represents something humongous and monstrous. I think a Titan of the Imperium fits the description perfectly. These "monstrous" machines possess fantastically powerful weaponry capable of obliterating virtually everything painted for the challenge up to this point! Although Curt's Fembots may be just the thing to bring it down.

This is the second of two Lucius Pattern Warhound Titans ByronM 3d printed for me for use in GW's Adeptus Titanicus game. GW doesn't make the lucius pattern model in this scale, but I always liked the look of the Forgeworld model (though not its price). The previous model was painted for the Legio Gryphonicus. This one was painted as Legio Ignatum to match my own titan maniple. 

With the completion of this chamber I descend to the Snow Lord's Altar. I wonder what diabolical ritual he has in store?

Thanks for visiting

AdamC: Black Seas Terrain (13 Points)

 Some Black Seas Terrain from Warlord

Last year I made a Martello Tower this one much nicer. As you can see it's similar in size to a 25mm figure. 

There are also three batteries two of guns and one with mortars. 

These rocks are from the same set area is about 3x3x1 inches that comes out to less than a point. I'm going to suggest a point per rock (so 5 points). I'll further suggest the Martello Tower count as a 25mm figure for and maybe a point each for the batteries. 

So Rocks 5 points; Martello Tower 5 points; batteries 3 points for a total of 13? Minions let me know if this seems reasonable.

From: Jez Todd - Week Five Russian Napoleonic Command (30 points)

 Dear All 

Time for my weekly post and just a useful 30 points to keep me ticking along. Enjoyed painting these few figures for my Blucher 28mm forces. Just 2 cavalry and 2 foot for 30 points.

The Russians have an option to play General Kutzov as a "Character" figure and remembered I had a model but no idea on the manufacturer - I must have picked up from a show sometime in the midst of time - any ideas anyone? The others are Wargames Foundry. 

  I think the aide was a Foundry Austrian General but added the epaulettes to fit. For the other foot officer I decided to use him as a replacement on an infantry base to add a bit more variety into the stand. 

That nicely finishes my Russian rebasing for Blucher - back into the box until can play a game!

All the best Jez

From JamesM: 15mm Canadian Ram OP tank (8 points)

Hi folks,

Slow progress from me this month, due to the birth of my son Alexander at the start of January. Mother and baby doing well but sleep patterns have not survived first contact. 

As part of my current painting plan I aimed to complete another long term painting pile oddity. This takes the form of a 4th Canadian Armoured Division Ram OP tank, as seen in this picture outside Caen during Operation Totalize. 

The concept for this model came from this period photo:

This uncommon vehicle (and uncommonly photographed in NWE) was likely an Observation Post tank with the 23rd Field Regiment (Self Propelled), Royal Canadian Artillery. As such I've marked mine as being from this unit. I've a battery of Canadian Sextons to do at some point to represent this unit more fully on the table - for when I get round to painting Canadian Shermans. 

The hull of the models is a resin Battlefront Ram Kangeroo, with some greenstuff conversion work to turn the hull front into the Ram mk.II version as opposed to the Battlefront mk.1 hull. 

The turret was commissioned by me from Butlers Printed Models several years ago. I understand this company now sells a hull to go along with the turret. The print quality on the turret is not great, so the camo netting is useful to his the worst of the print lines. Compared to some of the resin printing options out there now, this is decidedly crude. 

Camo netting is 1/72 scale, which I think is close enough scale wise to use on 15mm models. Aerials added as usual using fishing line, with two in the turret and one in the hull based on the plans for this type of tank. I added some additional stowage to the turret (again, to help hide print lines), and some bits of plastic to the rear deck to add some shape under the netting. As an OP tank I would have liked a observer in the turret, but with a 3d printed turret, the wasn't an easy option. 

I'm fairly happy with the finished model, and an interesting 'one off' piece for my collection. One 15mm vehicle should come in at 8 points. 

From MilesR: Stalingrad Terrain - The "Central" part of Central Stalingrad (650 Points)

The central section of the Stalingrad table is now complete - well pretty much complete.  The Northern section was completed before the Challenge started and work on the smaller, southern section will commence in a few days.  This central section is 4 x 6 feet and consists of a mixture of scratch built buildings and some MDF kits from Terrains4Games and Gamecraft Miniatures.

This table is being built for a large participation game at Historicon (or whenever the next HMGS convention is actually held) and there's a chance you might see it on a Little Wars TV episode.  Game scale is 15mm.

The second picture features the Soviet State Bank building in the lower right corner.  The road network is a pretty accurate depiction of the battlefield but most of the buildings are more approximate models rather than historically accurate

Looking from the Western (German) edge of the map

And from the other side.  The train station is featured in the lower right corner and I thought it came out very nicely.

When planning a big project like this, it really helps to make a mock up in an electronic format to play around with.  The image shows the entire planned table for the game, and today's submission is located within the black box.  The Volga river is along the bottom of the image.

Buildings in green are iconic historical locations which I'm trying to model as accurately as possible.  The grey ones are more generic and their final locations on the table will vary once I have a better understanding of game flow from some play testing.  The one building in Red still has to be scratch built.  It's the "House of Specialists", by the way.

The buildings are a little stark and need the application of some weathering powders but I'm all out.  Those have been ordered and I'll repost some touched up images later on during the challenge.

There are a total of 21 buildings for this section of the table.

We'll be doing some playtesting of the rules up at the club in the next few weeks and it will be really interesting to see how people react to the table and how it plays.  I am sure there will be a lot of changes required but that's one of the benefits of hex terrain - it's really easy to reconfigure.

So how de we score this monstrosity of a submission?  I was planning on just guesstimating but decided to get out the old tape measure and compute the volume of each building.

So here goes

Hex base 48 inches x 72 inches by 3/4 inch high = 2,592 cubic inches

Total Volume of the 21 buildings  = 4,387 cubic inches

Total submission =  6,970 cubic inches

By dividing the total submission volume of 6,574 cubic inches by 216 (the volume of our holy scoring cube - 6 x 6 x 6), one gets a net of 32.5 scoring cubes - which yields a total points level of 650 points.

I'm glad I took the time to measure out the buildings as my rough estimate of 48 inches by 72 by 3 inches high would have been way bit too high.

I need to go make some more hexes (about 100 more) for the final push to finish out the terrain for this game.

From PeteF: Real Men Wear Pink - The 11th Cuirassiers for the Armoury (140 points)

This is the second regiment out of two needed for the French Quatres Bras army. The 11th Cuirassiers had the fine distinction of pink collars, cuffs and turnbacks, making them a delight to paint. At the beginning of the 19th century pink had not yet become a girly colour and was considered quite masculine.

Cuirassiers were big men on big horses - black horses being preferred when they were available. It is said that one of the tests for new officers was, in three hours, to navigate a 20 mile course (with three available horses), drink three bottles of champagne and bed three willing women, these activities to be completed in any order.

Most of these were part of an EBay batch I got a couple of years ago. The original paint was stripped using simple green before I primed them for the Challenge. One of the primers I used was less then stellar and left some of the surfaces a little gritty - but it's fine if you don't look too closely.

These were my only choice for The Armoury. Minifigs are always fun to paint and it's nice to have another regiment of heavies for the French army.

12 mounted 25mm figures plus a room bonus for 140 points.

Challenge XI shelf is filling up