Side Duels are DONE!

G'day All,

I think it's been long enough for any laggards to submit their outstanding Side Duels so I am calling time. Here's the final standings, and congrats to the winners in each Side Duel....

A Squirrel a Day

ChrisW maintained his lead and crossed the finish line with a health 10 squirrel gap to second place. StuartL made a valiant effort to finish second in good form and we have a tie for third. Well done gents!

ChrisW - 57

StuartL - 47

KyleC - 21

KerryT - 21

MartijnN - 13

AdamC - 10

MikeW - 9

PhilH - 7

BenitoV - 4

JezT - 4

RobertH - 0

PaulS - 0

BenF - 0

Total - 193 squirrels!

Codpieces & Ostrich Feathers

KerryT carried all before him, more than doubling the score of the second place finisher in MikeW, who in turn doubled the score of Curt in third.

KerryT- 1,115

MikeW- 461

CurtC - 216

ChrisW - 200

IainW - 0

PeterD - 0

Total - 1,992

Carausius Emperor of Britain

Only PeterD scored which means he's an emphatic winner, and weirdly we have a three way draw or sorts for second. Or is that last?

PeterD - 343

CurtC - 0

KyleC - 0

IainW - 0

Total - 343 (obviously!)

Turnip28

Curt's sudden fixation with turnips saw him sweep the field (see what I did there?). Kudos to PaulOG for a creditable second and AlanD for his podium third place.

CurtC - 387

PaulOG - 195

AlanD - 169

StuartL - 115

Barks - 10

Total - 876 turnips!

Neverending Cold War

Ice ice DaveD

Ice ice DaveD

All right stop

Collaborate and listen

etc...

DaveD - 1,382

MattW - 104

SimonG - 94

DavidB - 0

Total - 1,580 vanilla icebergs

SPQR

MattW crowns himself Emperor with a comfortable win, PeterD sits second and SimonG finishes in third.

MattW - 755

PeterD - 176

SimonG - 100

Total - 1,032

TFL America 500

PhilH is the winner per my last update, with JohnE and CalebG making up the numbers. Nobody actually logged a score so I can't say who finished second or third.

Airbrushes at Dawn

KyleC takes the crown with the smell of airbrush cleaner wafting about the podium. DaveD put in a creditable push at final hurdle to nick second from Curt who finishes third.

KyleC - 8

DaveD - 5

CurtC - 4

DavidB - 1

MattW - 0

BenF - 0

Total - 18

Terrain du jour

My own meagre efforts to build Mos Millsy paled beside the crazy island building madness of MilesR. Sorry SimonG, you never registered for this duel so despite your amazing Temple Mount the crown goes to Miles.

And that's it! Thanks everyone for helping out by using the form thingy which has made keeping score a much simpler process than trawling emails and blog posts. Well done everyone!

Cheers,

Millsy the Duels Wallah

From KerryT: Final post - Challenge Round-Up

Morning, afternoon & evening all

That 3 months has just whizzed by hasn't it, I can't believe we're at the end already which is just as well I suppose because taking part in this, only my second challenge occupied so much of my spare time. I suspect the discipline of trying to paint and prepare entries each week probably led to some obsessional thinking and a temporary unhealthy preoccupation  with things metal and plastic. I had a great time though!

I'd like to extend my thanks to Curt in particular, not only for allowing me to take part, but for his persistent commitment to the Challenge over so many years, and though I've only recently become involved I feel part of something unique and wonderful.

We all know it wouldn't be possible without the help of the Minions who must it seems sacrifice so much of their own hobby time to facilitate our own posting, I wonder where they find the time. Special thanks to Tamsin who is a standout for those of us in the Tuesday Terrors and though I've never met her is obviously an all round good egg. Thanks Tamsin. I'd also like to say a big thank you to Millsy the masterful accountant who I suspect did an huge amount of work behind the scenes

To the rest of you many thanks for your praise and encouragement, you've produced some superb entries and further inspiration. Its a shame time is so tight as its been hard, particularly in the past 2 weeks to keep up and comment on all the brilliant stuff on show. Like many others I tried my best to comment on most things

Not only did I have a great fun time, I was also very productive

256 28mm Foot figures, 62 mounted & 3 carts,41 15mm figures & 3 elephants

My main aim this year was to take big bite into my slow burn Italian Wars project. At the outset my secondary aim was to try and produce more squirrels than last year and I thought I might produce 40 at most. I soon abandoned the idea though as I soon realised there was no way I could keep up with Chris, Stuart & Kyle without losing sleep and sanity. Well done guys

My Fantasy submissions, though more were planned

The Italian Wars bite

Lest call them miscellaneous

Did I learn anything? 

I learned that I'm a slow learner and always had an unrealistic expectation of what I might complete in a week. My golf and garden suffered but I think I only stayed up really late on 1 occasion to complete an entry.

I thought I was organised this year, but I learned otherwise. The postal strike in the UK threw in a  few spanners, in the picture above there is a Norman fort. I put this on the table at the start of the challenge intending it as a centrepiece for the Norman Foot I was going to paint. They never got done as the bases and shield transfers only arrived in mid March despite being ordered in early December. The Footsore Welsh & Victrix Danes never got painted either - never mind there's always next year!

I also learned that I still hate basing and the thing I found the hardest each week was basing and posting. 

Now that time is moving more slowly, I'm looking forward to updating my neglected blog, catching up with others blogs that I've not had time to follow, planning my purchases at Partizan, making a decision what rules to use and eventually getting these out and putting them alongside the rest of my now growing Italian wars collection and finally playing a game.

From ScottR Last Post - Wrap up.

Hi all,

Well, as requested here is a final post with everything taht I did over the painting Comp.

So kicking off on Dec 21 and finishing Mar 21.  Although I was away for the middle for about a month.  So two months worth and happily double my intended 700 points.

It was a good incentive to get some projects finished and some other moving along a bit.

My Celts and Greeks for Hail Caesar.  The Command stands for my Pike and Shot Scots Royalists under the Earl of Montrose, My 15mm Australians for NAM and lastly....  Hmmm no thats it.

Lots of figures for sure.  My thanks to Curt and his awesome support team who made this program run so smoothly and for putting it together of course.  Now to plan out whats for next years.

So here you are in my basement of Doom with my work laid out.

Figures and terrain from Warlord, Colonel Bills, Battlefront, Foundry, Victrix, Perry and Warbases

My heart felt congratulations to all those that submitted work.  It was an absolute pleasure to troll through the weekly submissions to see the great work that was done.  Until next time.  Cheers.  Scott R.

From BenitoV: The Challenge Wrap up

My warmest thanks to everybody making the Challenge such a fun competition: Curt and Sarah for organizing year after year; Sidney for putting out the idea of the Studio, the minions, and specially Tamsin, for taking care of the posts; the rest of the Challengers for sharing your master pieces and leaving comments.

This edition is the first in years where I reached my target score. And probably I should thank Tamsin for it: being part of the Tuesday Terrors is a major responsibility, as you don't want to fail your team mates ... or get Tamsin disappointed... as the say in Spain goes, Tamsin wears s a silk glove hiding an iron fist... she knows how to be persuasive enough.

As for my output, quite happy with the results. I wasn't planning for any specific project but at the end of the day I focused in a narrow number of projects, making significant progress with my Saga warbands...

... completing (yes, finalised!) an early war Fallschirmajager unit...

...starting a motorized German early war unit...

and breaking the monotony of painting field grey with some LoTR very old ane venerable models  plus some bits and bobs to mainly earn some bonus points.

The other relevant item this year was the opportunity to meet Alan and his partner in my home town, Madrid. As I said in the post  related to the visit, I love this hobby for the ability to bring people together from very different parts of the world, no matter the language or the cultural barriers.

 

Time now to take a break from the brushes and the paints. I will invest my hobby time mainly in playing. And no better selfie to say farewell (or "hasta pronto") to all, that me at Club Dragon in Madrid this same morning, where I was playing a game of Romans vs Seluecids with my new favourite board wargame SPQR. 

Have a wonderful rest of the year and hope to see around next December!

 

DarrellH, Wrap up of Thematic Byzantine Project.

First off I want to thank everyone who contributed to The Challenge this year and also make a bit of an apology. I didn't manage to make half as many comments this year (still in therapy and that's taking up a lot of time- without denting my pain ting time though!). For that I'm sorry as there was a fine array of beautifully painted miniatures etc on display every day when I took a quick peek. 

I've decided to leave out the incidental items painted to change things up a little as I view my main project as, well erm..... my main project!

The Thematic Byzantines were a lot of fun to paint up- like I have alluded to earlier, they are one of my dream armies that I just never got around to when I was a few years younger.

All the images are "clickable" so will showe up in the Light Box on this blog- if however you want to see the images at full size then just right click and click on "Open Image in New Tab".

Army Arrayed Outside an Outpost in the Balkans- Somewhere Near the Danube:

I will be continuing painting up the army, though I'm about to jump into a Daphne Parade era Seleucid army for a nostalgic trip and a friendly Warhammer Ancient Battles "Classical" tournament run by a mate. A mere 5000 points so I'm going to have to get stuck in!

I have another unit of Tagmatic Kavalarioi half finished (it was a very close thing with that unit, nearly making the cut for AHPC, but in the end real life got in the way!) and a unit of 28 Skutatoi and Toxatoi (spearmen and with aback row of archers) who are glued to corks and have had their armour painted so those little fellows will have to be completed before moving onto the Seleucid project.

Tagmatic Kavalarioi:

Thematic Light Kavalarioi:

Tagmatic Kataphractoi:

Tagmatic Varangoi:

I suppose all that remains now is to thank everyone who took part. There were so many excellent posts- I just wish I had the time to keep up with them all and to leave a reply.

'Til next year then!

KenR : Challenge Wrap - some you lose, some appear out of nowhere !

 

Well that wasn't what I was expecting as an end result to say the least, to say I was distracted is a real understatement. It was all supposed to be about the 28mm Italian Wars but as anyone who had a look through my posts would know it went a bit sideways, or seaways to be more precise.

Not too much of a distraction were these 10mm Pendraken Malburian figures for my Savoyard and French Armies, I've been using these for quite a while now as a Palette Cleanser so these were everyday fare.

Another planned distraction were these 28mm Franco Prussian French Chasseur a Pied, these were a bookend on last years Garibaldi Project and got me started back in December.

I did eventually get some Italian Wars stuff done, a unit of 16 Swiss Shot which I needed for an existing Pike Unit and 12 Borgia Light Cavalry and finally just under the deadline was a 60 figure Spanish Colunela, which should have been the first of a number in the Challenge.

The Colunela is a fine looking unit and I did some photos with a white background which I really like.

But of course the main distraction were these 1/700 WW2 Naval Ships, 3 large vessels, Bismarck, Prince of Wales and Ark Royal along with 2 Merchant Vessels, 7 Destroyers and a Submarine.

The Ark Royal is particularly impressive, the base is 42cms x 10 and its definitely imposing, I'm not a fan of the aircraft supplied with the kit and will be replacing them with upgraded versions in due course.

My favourite from my Challenge was the Bismark Build, the detail on the Revell kit is superb and it really added to the model. One of the best things I've ever done. I will sort out my charity donation in a few minutes and that's me done for another year.

Thanks again to Curt for heading up this wonderful Challenge, Peter for being my Monday Minion and waiting for so long for some Spanish Wars Italians and finally to all the people who visited and commented on my posts.

Until next time, Sithee 

From PaulO'G & ReillyOG - AHPC XIII Wrap Up

As ever, it feels like more when you're painting it!

Reilly and I set modest set of goals to yield appropriately modest yet immensely satisfying outcomes amongst a range of other real life pressures and travels. We both had a lot of fun and pulsed hobby focus

We covered an eclectic mix of Genres: War of the Roses, Necromunda, WW2, 40k, Last War and this little game themed on turnips that you may have come across...

The least Turnipy Bits - Necromunda, Last War and War of the Roses Pikemen

War of the Roses Pikemen and the Turnip Rocket Battery

Along the way I discovered new methods of inefficiency mid-challenge; printing, scultping and scratch building. I'm keeping CAD design in reserve for AHPC XIV

Giant Crabs and Space Crusaders - the Black Templars

I was really happy to get some of those 40k guys done - I'm on a mission to get my 9th boxed set minis (from whence these came) finished before the newly announced 10th edition is released!

We eagerly await news of the turnip side-challenge: Have I grasped the coveted Silver Turnip?

So from us both, a hearty thanks to the AHPC Community, our Sunday Minion Martin, the Snowlord's Crew who helped make the Season a reality, and of course Empress Sarah and her live-in Minion Curt: Long may they Reign!

Raise horns of Ale! Skal and Farewell to AHPC XIII

See you all next Season, where I hope to break 8,000 lifetime points!

From DaveD - Challenge XIII - aka The Green Machine .

 It’s been a productive challenge . I managed to complete stuff in the start and end free fire phases and post something every Tuesday . That kept the score boarding ticking nicely , and I ended up doing almost a 1000 points more than anticipated- even with starting an unexpected new job for a few months  - which will let me travel to the US to Historicon and then visit ACW battlefields and USMC museum. 

You may have noticed a bit of “green” theme this year - pretty much everything bar buildings has green on most of it. 

The Nam collection has had its back broken with lots of vehicles added and the ARVN infantry . MartinC and I have the BIG game booked in for August where every bit of kit will be on two massive tables - each 24x6 . I really enjoyed the model making in the larger scale with the PBR being a particular favourite along with the B52. I have about 100 figures (under way now)  , 4 vehicles and a few planes to do and it will be finished if not completed .  I have the Anzac contingent and the 3rd NVA platoon under way at the moment.

The 7 Days to Rhine project has its starter forces added - with a first game completed . 

Someone said there would be “never ending Cold War challenge” - oops most of my production fit right into that ! .

My Necromunda Van Saar gang has been completed - even won its first game . See a diversion into fantasy space pixie land was had - it won’t be a long term habit - there are still historical projects in the wings . I have next years theme already building in the stash.

A new barn was added to old west/bootleggers terrain collection . 

 

My favourite creation 

I also completed the outstanding 15mm  WW2 terrain bits 

 

I ventured into Turnip 300  with Rhett in that famous film “Gone with the wind” . We managed to keep Tuesday mostly Turnip free.

 

Thanks to the director of this organisation Curt - and the person in charge Sarah. The minions as ever kept the show on the road cheers all . We had some good on line paint and chat session (we have a dedicated Discord server for challenge participants to avoid FB) especially in the doldrums periods it kept us going . Thanks for all the inspirational creations to gaze at and comment support . 

Until next year ! May your stash be suitably topped up ! My green paint certainly has been ,  after about 1500 points of creativity it needed it.

Huzzah!

From GeoffreyT: Challenge Wrap Up

Hello Challengers,

What a lot of fun this has been.   AND I painted a grand pile of miniatures, many more than I expected to.  Such is the excellence of this event that it drags the inner hobbyist out to play.

The biggest surprise for me was how many miniatures I made myself, and how much I enjoyed sculpting.  This is most of them (minus one gift troll).

There was so many I could not fit myself in the same image, so here I am.

Thanks to Curt and Sarah for organising, for Sidney for making the excellent studio theme, for Teemu and the other minions for maintaining the enthusiasm and to all the participants and commenters for the encouragement.

Did I achieve the goal of empty the cupboard of unpainted miniatures?  No, but I got pretty close; indeed close enough that I'll need to collect some up for next years challenge as there is not much left.  

See you all next year.

Kind Regards

Geoff.