From MartinC Challenge XI Wrap up

 This is what I painted this winter in my mad dash to come equal 1st. They had better reinforce the podium

3 projects, WW1, Vietnam and Italian Wars

I've finished my map. It sits in an old picture frame with 135 tiles

Couldn't fit me in the pictures so this is me in a pub

Thank you all for a great winter, don't forget Hammerhead

Martin

from RayR - Challenge XI Wrap up

 Sadly the 11th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has come to an end for another year. It was another titanic tussle for all involved, but what a grand motivational experience it was!!!

I gave myself a fairly easy (for me) 1000 point target and hoped for a top 20 placing, but I surpassed both of my targets, mainly due to Covid to be honest. I was put on a staggered part time furlough just before Christmas, so I had to stay at home. Now my wife Emma works from home in our front room, where the TV is. So every morning I sadly had to go up my shed, to get out of her way??? Shame I hear you all cry!!

So I had to sit and paint my figures all day, gutted eh?

The Ottomans

The Haitian Revolution

Graveyard and Donnybrook troops

Ruined Church, rocky terrain and various 25mm and 15mm figures

C£PO and an Alien can be seen lurking at the back!

I painted up

231 x 25mm figures

Various terrain pieces and buildings

44 x 15mm figures

1 x 54mm figure

Here's my performance so far in all the Challenges

Challenge II        4940 points 1st

Challenge III       2586 points 4th

Challenge IV       1227 points 17th

Challenge V          691 points 37th

Challenge VI        681 points 36th

Challenge VII      1093 points 24th

Challenge VIII      662 points 40th

Challenge IX       2274 points 8th

Challenge X        1687 points 11th

Challenge XI       2260 points 8th

So finally a massive Thank You, has to go to Curt, Sarah and all the Minions (even Tamsin!) for all their hard work and also thanks to all the other Challengers who helped push me forward with their great posts and all the great comments!

Cheers! 

AdamC: AHPC XI Wrap up and Navel Arms Race results.

Its been a great challenge the most challenging one so far I just managed to pass my target of 1000 points.  My fleets have grown significantly as can be seen here: State if the Fleets post Challenge

Here you can see me painting with my ladies, Ariana watching some TV while Evelyn has fallen asleep from a hard day of being a 3 year old. 

Here is the "final" numbers for our Naval side duel.  Milles painted the most hulls while I managed the most points.  I'll be sending all participants an invite to a remote naval game in a few weeks, and hope they will reciprocate if possible.  

Until Challenge XII! 

From NoelW: It all began with a Yorkshire Rap

 And now it's a wrap from a Yorkshireman.

Nice to come full circle. Here's me with the accomplishment of the last three months: 

You can see that one thing that hasn't improved since this time last year is my photographic skills. I must get round to reading the manual. And that smirk suggests that the subject has never seen a camera before.

On the table is everything I've painted during the Challenge, apart from two items: one ship was, rather like its owner, too highly strung, so when it received a little knock, mast and bowsprit sprang asunder - the perils of using fragile 3D print tech, I guess. So it's sitting in dry dock at present. And my favourite piece of the entire Challenge is not here either: I scratch-built a Poe-esque pendulum early in the Challenge, and was so pleased with it I carefully stored it away in this secure cupboard - I mean, that deep drawer - my mistake - probably in the Really Useful Box with all the Frostgrave - no? - er...did I even build the thing? Well, it must be here somewhere. Maybe I'll rediscover it before December.

I was very pleased with this year's painting and modelling, even though the points total fell way short of the last two years. I'd planned to advance 12 projects, and am happy to find that 10 of them are better off now than they were when we began. 

Here's a couple more shots of the figures. 

Pretty impossible to make out individual pieces, but I've managed to work on terrain, ships, 10mm, 28mm, historical in 10 theatres/periods, sci fi and fantasy. No 15mm, though, nothing later than Napoleonic, and no vehicles, so those are things to start planning for when we rebegin in December. Knowing me, I'll have that planning well under way by midday tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone again for brilliant posts, excellent painting, imaginative gaming and some inspirational work. I think this Challenge is a model for how people can, and should, get on with each other online, so I'm hoping Curt will be rolling out the paradigm to the UN real soon now. Meanwhile, failing that, I'll see you all again in December. 

LeeH - Wrapping up... see you all in December!

My personal points target for the whole Challenge was smashed with a few weeks to spare and in the end, I finished with over 300 points clear. Much of that total was gathered through the Chambers of Challenge (572 points in fact!). More importantly, I came out of the whole Challenge with a lot of newly painted figures to play with, focusing on painting practical miniatures rather than display pieces.

Now that I have uploaded this picture (and more importantly, put everything away!) I realise I have missed some items in my display. I painted three 15mm Jeeps for my British Airborne troops that aren't featured here, and several feet of 15mm Trenches also missed the wrap-up photo. It just goes to show that I painted so much even I have forgotten what I got done! 

Its been a great event once again and the camaraderie and friendly competition has been a much welcome salve during a very difficult winter. Congratulations must of course go to Curt for once again running such an amazing event. And of course, we shouldn't forget Lady Sarah for supporting Curt in this huge endeavour. Her contribution should never be underestimated! And while I'm in full 'Hollywood Speach Mode' I should also thank all the Minions for their help keeping this ship afloat. As someone who was a minion several Challenges ago, I can fully appreciate just how much effort all of them will have put into this event. Well done to you all. Lastly, I'd like to thank all the other Challengers for taking part and being such great sports. We have seen some truly amazing displays of painting talent and productivity over the last 13 weeks and it has been an honour and a privilege to count myself amongst such hallowed company.

Now that the Challenge is over the big tidy up commences. My room looks like a gang of ill-tempered goblins has rampaged through it and there's probably a year's worth of static grass embedded in the carpet. Call me crazy (many have) I always look on the post Challenge clean up as the first step towards the next Challenge in a mere 9 months. Let the planning commence!! 

From SimonG: AHPC XI Wrap Up - Until Next Time!

When you get it all out at once it does seem like I;ve been able to accomplish a decent amount in the last three months (at least my wife was impressed!)

I've been working on three projects for the duration. My 28mm HYW is (almost) finished -- just three more stands of English Men At Arms, two leader bases and then some casualty and disorder markers and I'm at last ready for my first battle!

The Black Rose Wars game pieces have been a nice diversion and I've got about 75 more of these still to paint so no doubt I'll be dipping into them on and off over the next several years 🤪

My favourite however has been the 10mm Cold War project -- it was great to be able to start and finish an army and to be able to pack it all in one KR Case at the end and the small but characterful sculpts kept me engaged -- I'm looking forward to getting the British done over the next couple of months and then add some West Germans just as soon as Timecast and Red3 get their Leopards done!

Anyway thanks again to everyone who has been involved in and participated in this year's challenge -- I'm looking forward to next year and if anyone finds themselves in East Kent once lockdown has eased give me a ping and we can meet up for a beer and a game!

Curt's AHPC XI WrapUp & The Vaccination Challenge

It never ceases to amaze me. 

I'm not an especially prolific painter by any measure, but I'm always struck by the amount of stuff that I still manage to get done during the three months of the Challenge.  Sure, the figures are amazingly disjointed, as if they were painted by some crazy person, but I do love to get things off the desk and into the cabinets. 

This shot will be laughable seen next to the titans of the Challenge roster (I'm looking at you Miles, Martin and Noel), but it's mine, so I'm pleased enough. :)

As to the figures I particularly enjoyed working on:

Arkham Coppers and 'Ginger' Brede

Dark Denizens of Breugel-Bosch

Renaissance Knights

I apologize if I was somewhat detached this year, it was a very busy winter for me as my work was in the middle of a consolidation to a new location, onboarding new staff and learning a new software environment. It's all 'new' y'know. Anyway, all this silly work stuff impinged on the very important world of hobbying, and staying on top of the Challenge. Thankfully I had an ace crew to make sure everything stayed on the rails. Thanks again gang!

Thank you for dropping in to see what I did this winter! I had a wonderful time, got to 'meet' new people and managed to get some stuff done. A big WIN on all accounts!

_____________________

As a final note, I'm playing with the idea of running a stripped-down 'Vaccination Challenge'. Basically it would be a new Challenge built within the Quarantine Challenge blog. The rules will be that you can post until you get vaccinated, then you get one last post as your farewell. I'm hoping, crossed fingers, that by late summer there will be no one left on the roster to post. :) 

Let me know if you're interested and I'll put you on the roster. 

Let's have some fun while we see Covid off.

So say we all.

- Curt Actual, Out.

From Curt: The Final Post of AHPC XI - 'A Sword Day, A Red Day!' (168 Points)

My last entry starts yet another project for me. Really, can we ever have too many hobby projects? Heavens, I hope not.

Ever since I first read 'Lord of the Rings', I have been enthralled by Tolkien's description of the Battle of Pelennor Fields, always wanting to see it arrayed on the games table in miniature. So after spending this past year reading Tolkien's work, I've decided to start the journey to see if I could achieve this.

For me, one of the highlights of the battle was when Theoden looked upon the mighty enemy host in front of Minas Tirith, turns to his Rohirrim, and calls out:

Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!

Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!

Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,

a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

With this in mind I thought I'd start this project with Theoden and some of his riders of Rohan.

Okay, with a subject and some figures in mind, what rules would I use? Well, thankfully GW has their excellent 'War of the Ring', which has a small, but dedicated fan base still supporting it.

While 'War of the Ring' is a great set of rules, I have a couple criticisms. First is with GW's  extortionate pricing, as the cost in figures for two good-sized forces is prohibitive for most hobbyists, except perhaps if done as a club project. 

The second is that I just don't like how cavalry formations look in the game. Sure, it allows people to fit their existing LotR cavalry into sabots, but due to the large circular bases, they only can fit two models per sabot base. While I quite like the large basing for LotR skirmish, it really doesn't translate well for massed ranks of cavalry. 

So after giving it a bit of thought, I decided I'd use the same base dimensions provided in the game, but I'd use 10mm figures in order to give a greater sense of mass.

These models are from the excellent Copplestone Castings range. I absolutely love them as they capture all the Tolkienesque spirit, while also being rather minimal in their design, and so quite easy to paint. I've put them on large acrylic bases as an experiment to see how it works with massed ranks - I think I like it.

I know these are not that much of a 'battle host', as trio of bases represents just one formation, and I want six for the entire Rohirrim contingent. I have a suspicion I will be serving this out to commission painters to finish up for me...

I've decided to put the various heroes on separate bases, so here is Theoden on his mount, Snowmane, riding with his household banner bearers. 

The Mumakil were a bit of a problem to source at first. A have a few different variants as test models. One you see here is a mastodon from Eureka miniatures, another (not shown as I didn't get him done) is a 3D print of a Chaos mastodon, which has a good look as well. I'll have to post him up later. 

Finally, the pick of the litter is this Mumakil from Eaglemoss magazine. This was part of their long out of print LotR chess set series. He's quite hefty, being in white metal, and is an almost perfect fit for 10mm. His stock paintjob wasn't bad, but I wanted him to blend in with my other figures, so I primed him up and gave him a fresh lick of paint.

These Eaglemoss Mumakil are rare as hen's teeth, so if you ever come across one for sale, please let me know as I'd like a few more. Sorry, I have no crew for the howdas as they are still coming in from Pendraken (Persian archers). Sigh, another task for another day.

As to points, each base of cavalry has 24 models and Theoden's base has 4, so there's 76 figures in total. The Mumakil are about the size of a 15mm vehicle so I'll claim 8 each for them. That will give me a grand total of 168 points, just getting me over 1K for this year's outing. 

_______________________

So, here we are at last, with the close of the eleventh edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. For my part, it was a wonderful way to spend the winter, providing me a much needed distraction from the troubles and drama of the outside world. 

I wish to thank our minions, Greg, Tamsin, Paul, Miles, Nick, Phil and Byron for helping me keep the Challenge clipping along. I simply couldn't have done it without the you folks. Again, *doffs cap* thank you so much!  

Last but not least, I wish to thank all of our participants who laboured at their hobby desks, made submissions and left encouraging comments for their fellow Challengers. It is our friendly, open-hearted community which keeps me coming back to do this each year.

As per tradition, I ask all participants and followers to email me their top 3 picks for Challengers' Choice. From that list I will put up a poll in a weeks time so we can vote for our favourites. On April 18th I will post up the top three selections for Challengers' Choice, along with my Judge's Choice and Sarah's Choice.

Finally, I invite all the participants to submit picture of themselves along with the work they managed to get done over the three months of the Challenge. I think it's always nice to show off what we've managed to accomplish and to be able to put faces to names.

Thanks again everyone for making this another excellent Challenge!

- Curt

From JonathanO: The SAGAS of Noggin the Nog - At various locations of the Chambers of Challenge XI (150 points)

 I did not intend to do a really late post, but I realised that I still had time to make my points target.  I finished off a few figures that were in progress and completed a few more.  This is a bit of fun to finish off with and I hope you won't mind if I visit 5 additional locations in the one post.

I present some miniatures from the Little Soldier Company that were based on the characters from the children's books and TV series "The SAGAS of Noggin the Nog".

At the Hall of Heroes we have Noggin and queen Nooka:

Retracing my steps through rooms already visited, I get to the Hatchery.  Here we find Nogbad the Bad and his crows hatching a plan:

At the Armoury there are two Nog soldiers:

The Gallery of Ancestors features Noggin's parents King Knut and Queen Grunhilda:

Finally in the Guardroom, NOT keeping a close eye on the treasures of the Nogs are these two sleeping Nog sentries:

The whole group:

I had planned to complete all the figures during the challenge, but plans change!  At least I got most done for this final entry.

So 10 x 28mm figures = 50 points , plus 5 x 20 for new locations visited = 100 bonus points.  For a grand total of 150 points to take me comfortably over my target.  Hurrah!

Thanks to Curt for allowing me to participate in another enjoyable Painting Challenge.  Thanks to Sarah for continuing to support this madness!  This could not be so awesome and big without the wonderful Minions - thanks to you all.  Finally well done all participants and thanks for sharing your superb painting, interesting and amusing stories as well as for supporting each other on this journey through the Chambers of Challenge XI.  

Cheers,

Jonathan

From JohnS - Another Squirrel, Gobbos to Stumble Over the Finish Line - 45 points

 Early this morning I was catching up on reading the AHPC postings and realised that I had missed the post about the day's extension! To the brushes!

I have had these Gobbos on the backburner of the painting table for the last two months, putting a bit of paint on while waiting on Spaniards to dry. Part of my ENORMOUS GobMob, these teenaged hoody wearing green ne'er-do-wells like lurking around in the bushes doing Gawd knows what and shooting passersby with arrows.

Now that I mention it, I think some of them live down the road from me. Now, this really is my last entry for the Challenge. Thanks again Curt, Minions and Painters.