The Last Post of Challenge VII: A Few Landsknechts for the Final Push to the Finish

Brushes down folks! It's over.

Whew! Another Challenge under the belt. I'm completely exhausted, but it feels absolutely awesome. I have to give a big thanks to Tamsin, Dave and Miles for stopping in to help me post some of the entries over the weekend - you guys were real troopers. By my tabulation we did around 8000 points over the last 48 hours alone! 

I always find the last day of the Challenge a little surreal as I slowly get back into the groove of doing the Challenge alone, which is how it was for the first five editions (it's absolutely crazy how I managed to do that). Saying farewells, giving thank yous, and hoping we can all get together to do it again next year. It makes me a little verklempt actually.

For the last post I return to add to my last entry of Challenge VI, my infuriating but beloved Landsknechts. 

Originally, I had two central bases to complete and was hoping to get enough Landsknechts done over the Challenge to fill them all in, but time caught up with me and so I can only present one base to you.

 These are a mix of Foundry and Pro Gloria (now Warlord) figures. Beautiful models to work with and an absolute joy to paint. I've placed them on the irregular bases I had the good folks at Warbases knock out for me. With it being the central base I wanted to add a bit of drama with the Hauptmann and his standard bearer breaking forward from the line to encourage the men to close with the enemy.

A work-in-progress shot of the Hauptmann

C'mon lads, let's get this sorted...

 The standard bearer is carrying the colours of the Fugger family. 

The Fuggers were a very interesting family as they arguably exercised the greatest amount of power during the Renaissance. We often hear of the Medicis, the Sforzas and and the Borgias, but they were small potatoes when compared to the Fugger family of Augsburg.

Jakob Fugger

Jakob Fugger essentially purchased the votes to ensure Maximilian I and Charles V's elevation as Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. These 'purchases' thereby secured the dominance of the Hapsburg for almost a century (and you can just imagine the favours that old Jakob could call in). In personal wealth the Fuggers have not yet been eclipsed. Converted to today's currencies the Fuggers were worth over 400 billion dollars - more than either the Rockefellers or the Carnagies. At the height of their power during the Renaissance, the Fugger family in of itself accounted for 2% of the GDP of all of Europe. 

So purchasing a unit of Landsknecht would be but a rounding error in the Fugger account books. ;) 

Finally, here are a couple shots incorporating the newly finished base in with the rest of the unit.  Just one base left to go! (sigh)

 These 8 lads will give me 40 points to add to my final tally.

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Okay on to the administrative stuff.

The announcement on the various prizes will be in two weeks (Sunday, April 2nd).  These will be:

- The six Threshold prizes for 500, 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 points.

- Judges Choice (chosen by me)

- Sarah's Choice (chosen by Lady Sarah)

- Challenger's Choice (chosen by you lot!)

- Awards for the top finishers in the points standings

For Challenger's choice we're going to do it similar to last year. I want all of the participants to send me their top three choices of the Challenge. The deadline is next Sunday (the 26th). It doesn't have to be in any order as I will then make a big gallery and we can all vote from the entire group of nominations. That way we'll all get reminded of all the excellent work that was produced during the Challenge. I'll give out prizes for the top three on April 2nd.

There it is. The Seventh Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has concluded. 

Thank you for indulging me in my madness. And a HUGE thanks to this year's Minions (Miles, Alan, Paul, Byron, David, Sylvain, Phil and Millsy) - we could not have done this without you. 

You and all of the participants were terrific and I hope you had as good a time as I did.

Thanks again.

Curt