From SimonG: AHPC XII Wrap-Up aka Swords & Sandals

It hardly seems like yesterday that it was the end of November and I'd just realised that I'd missed the cut-off to sign up for this year's challenge 😫 . Very luckily for me Carl was kind enough to expand the roster of entrants and admit me along with a few other laggards!

Now why do I never smile? Mr Grumpy and his figures 😄 

Last time was my first entry into the full challenge (having participated in the Quarantine Challenge earlier in the year) and I had rather hoped that I'd be able to match my target of 1,000 achieved in Winter 2020/21.  Unfortunately painting at a somewhat larger scale (i.e. human room sized!) got in the way and I fell quite a long way short.  

A reasonable haul ...

Still I did manage to work on four separate projects including

1) Putting the finishing touches to my 28mm Hundred Years War Impetus project -- finally now ready to be hit the tabletop now that I have a room set aside for gaming and a suitable table -- seven KR boxes full of figures ready to go

Ravens and Maidens

2) Making a solid start on my next 28mm project -- the Jewish Revolt as a skirmish game using 'Clash of Spears'.  I still haven't got into the routine of assembling my figures before the challenge starts so one of my excuses for lower painting productivity this time around is all that head swapping and tzitzit adding! Still this looks like a good project and I'm looking forward to including some major construction of ancient fortifications in the next AHPC

Annoying shields and other fiddly bits!

3) Continuing to chip away at my 10mm Cold War Gone Hot project and making a start on my BAOR force. Vehicles make a nice change from 28mm figures and I also like painting camo at 10mm -- basing at this scale on the other hand less so

Pointy end of the British force

4) And finally a smattering of Black Rose Wars characters for variety and to meet various challenge goals.  I'm rather coming to the end of the Stator Box now but I think I've got another expansion due to arrive soon so should set me in good stead for next time.  I always enjoy the variety of designs, and scales among these figures -- and of course lots of opportunities to try out new designs and techniques.

All shapes and sizes!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Of course none of this would be possible without the sterling efforts of Curt and Lady Sarah plus the minions -- my apologies to Curt (my appointed minion) for errors in point scoring and other demands on his time.  Also my deepest thanks to all who have commented so kindly on my efforts.

Until next Winter here's wishing you all the best in your painting, and gaming -- and in the wider (and wilder) world outside this pastime.

Simon

ps anyone who finds themselves in East Kent (Sandwich) and fancies taking a side in an Impetus HYW battle please feel free to give me a shout 

From Skully McSkullface: The Skull Duel results

474 skullz here

Holding on to the bitter end, The Snowlord claims the Skull Throne. He is now entitled to use outgoing AHPC XI skull-champ Stuart L's cranium as a drinking vessel or dice cup. All hail the new Skull Champion!

1. Curt 475
2. DaveB 336
3. Millsy 230
4. TashaH 201
5. StuartL 136
6. GregB 134
7. TeemuL 111
8. Barks 106
9. Sander 25
10. PeteF 3

Notable Skullz

JamieM's Hunters of the Wild

Teemul's Skellies with freehand skullz

RayR can't deny the joy of skullz

Neither can TamsinP!

MikeW's Black Orc banner

StuartL's Khorne banner

Waaagh! Scrivs gets in on the skull action

More 10mm skullz from GregB

FrederickC found a few skullz

I have a few humble skullz myself

JohnE's Silver Bayonet skullz

Skull of the Week:

Printing her way into #4 on the ladder, rookie TashaH!

Until next time

Barks

From TeemuL: Challenge XII Wrap up - Squirrel Hunting across the Galaxy (1376 points)

Let's start with some unfinished projects. My son managed to paint and finish some models, but he got a severe painter's block at some point and couldn't just decide what colours to use - I guess we all suffer from that from time to time. That left him with a bunch of partly painted minis, but I didn't want to pressure him, just mentioned from time to time, that my working area is crowded with his unfinished minis. :) The painter's block is seen best on the German halftrack (Revell 1:72), which we assembled together during the Challenge and which he painted in subassemblies, but then the block struck: he didn't know what colours to use and he "didn't want it to be too colourful..." Yes, Tamsin, once this is ready, we'll book a flight and go to the Mega City One for a ride. :D

There is also a terrain piece with purple rock, some wooden houses (the red one might be finished, I'm not sure), two Pathfinder models, Stormcast Eternal and Space Marine (he wanted to paint a marine from Aurora chapter once he saw one in my many books, but once assembled and primed, he wasn't so sure anymore), the already mention German halftrack Sd. Kfz. 9 "FAMO" and Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-10.

He did finish the Pathfinder Orc and a genestealer amongst the others, but I don't have a group shot of them, unfortunately. Anyway, it was much fun to paint and assemble and in general have hobby time, father-and-son time, doing something together which we both were interested - in addition of playing lots of boardgames and being outside in nice Finnish winter.

Guilty as charged. Here they all are in a compact formation with me lurking in the background. Photo taken by my son. Below are some closeups from the stuff I painted, but they came a bit blurry because of the lightning and my eagerness.

I had lots of ideas and plans before the Challenge, but most of them were thrown away. I wanted to "finish" projects, painting those last minis for armies from the pile of shame, to complete things. I made some progress on that. I also got carried away hunting squirrels and going through the planets, which distracted me from my first target - the Runewars army still has some unpainted minis and 20mm Austrians are still in the Italeri box and so on...

I did manage to paint all the Sludge minis I had planned for and even managed to play a game, that was nice. Sludge raised some interest, so here is a link to the rules (not free): Blaster 3 from DriveThruRPG. The Blaster 4 has some additional rules, if you are interested in, but Blaster 3 has all the rules you need to play.

It was fun to paint all these "strange" minis, ducks from Glorantha and pulp minis from Crooked Dice, without the Challenge I would still be painting Oldhammer, Blood Bowl and LotR, I guess - not necessarily a bad thing, but there is much more competition on my working area now and those three saw very little paint. May be again in the next Challenge.

Here is something from the smaller scale. Start of an Undead army for Warmaster, some tactical squads for Epic and a modest display piece of Cruel Seas ships. Beginning of Flames of War armies can be seen in the backrow...

Here they all are again, rather many Tyranids got paint as well. I guess I need to see what I need to paint more in order to be able to play with them. From this photo you can also see that planetary expedition gave me lots of points (including the tour of Twilight Ring and several stops at Sarah's Star Yacht). There are not that many minis painted, at least when they are all very close to each other.

Thank you Curt and Sarah, all the minions and other participants! I make my best to not miss the next Challenge. In the meanwhile, if you are interested in, you can follow my minis, boardgames and life on my instragram account: https://www.instagram.com/vainvader78/