The 14th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

We're nearing a month away from the first day of Winter, and with the season comes that feverish hobby event: The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!   

This will be our 14th season of the Challenge and this year participants will be making their way through the aisles and bookstacks of the AHPC Library. More on this below. 

The Basics

The Painting Challenge will extend from the first day of Winter, 12:01 am December 21st, through to the first day of Spring, 12:01am March 19th, Central Standard Time (CST). (Yes, it's a leap year!)

Miniatures (i.e. figures, vehicles, artillery, terrain, etc.) can be prepared, assembled and primed prior to the start date, but you cannot start painting until December 21st. In order to gain full points. (Though there is a theme location which allows partial points for the completion of already started projects - see the AHPC Library below.) The figures should be based (if appropriate) and any planned groundwork completed. The figures have to be painted by you. 

The Challenge follows the honour system in the completion and entry of figures. 

Miniatures can be in any scale and in any genre (pulp-adventure, science-fiction, fantasy, etc.).

For purposes of scoring, participants will create draft blog posts of their wok on the  Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog. Up-to-date scoring (or as up-to-date as we can manage) will be managed by our intrepid team of Minions and displayed the blog's main page. 

I will send out an email to all participants a week or so prior to the event to provide additional details on submitting your entries to the Challenge blog.

An Important Note: All participants must have at least one entry submitted within the first four weeks of the event (i.e. January 21st). Failure to do so will result in being dropped from the Challenge roster. Yep, remember, this is not called a Challenge for nothing. :)

The Scoring

Below is an outline of the scoring that will be used for the Challenge.  

6mm foot figure = 0.5 point
6mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 1 point
6mm vehicle = 2 points

10mm foot figure = 1 point
10mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 3 points
10mm vehicle = 6 points 

15mm foot figure = 2 points
15mm mounted figure, artillery piece or large crew served weapon = 4 points15mm vehicle = 8 points

20mm foot figure = 4 points
20mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 8 points20mm vehicle = 15 points

28mm foot figure = 5 points
28mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 10 points
28mm vehicle = 20 points

40mm foot figure = 7 points
40mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 15 points
40mm vehicle = 25 points

54mm foot figure = 10 points
54mm mounted figures, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 20 points
54mm vehicle, limber, etc. = 30 points 

Other scales, miscellaneous models/figures will be scored on a submission-by-submission basis. 


Terrain Submissions

We'll retain our 'imperfect-but-it-works'  6" cube format. In short, if your terrain piece (or collected terrain pieces) fills a 6" cube, you get 20 points. If your terrain submission would 'fill' multiple 6" cubes, then multiply 20 points for each cube of volume. 

Terrain filling the 6" cube on the left would be worth 20 points. The composite group on the right, made up of eight cubes, would be worth 160 points.

Example 1: I've painted three 28mm barrels and six trees. They would roughly fill a single 6" square cube. I would get 20 points for this. 

Example 2: I've constructed and painted a large 28mm manor that is approximately 12" wide, 14" long and 10" high. All in all, this would roughly take up 8 cubes worth of volume. This would give me 160 points.

Example 3: I've painted a few bits of scatter terrain. I estimate they only 'fill' around a 1/4 of a 6" square cube. This would get me 5 points.

Submissions of terrain should be sent in with a picture illustrating the scale of their work (a ruler laid alongside should do the trick). This will give your hard-working Minion a basis for scoring. Extra points for extra detail, scratch-built insanity, etc. will be left to the Minions to adjudicate as they see fit.  


Welcome to the 'AHPC Library'!

Those doughty Challengers who wish to to gain bonus points can enter the AHPC Library, browse the stacks, and engage with the various themed challenges found within. Here is a early draft of the Library map.

The Library will feature various locations which participants can explore by completing a themed hobby task. Once you've complete the task at a location you will get bonus points and will be clear to travel on to the next location on the map. 

Remember, participants do not need to engage with the Library to enjoy the Challenge, it is a voluntary diversion for those wishing to try some theme-based challenges.

In the next few days I'll follow up with another post laying out the specifics of the 'AHPC Library', its final layout, and its bonus themes.

Our Marvelous Minions

Keeping to form, I will serve as the Head Librarian / Tormentor-in-Chief / Dork-Lord, etc. etc., BUT I also have a happy group of 'Minions' to help me keep this all chugging along. Here are the wonderful people (and their assigned days) who have taken the Snowlord's Shilling to assist me in this year's Challenge:

• Monday: SylvainR (Canada)

• Tuesday: MartijnN (Belgium)

• Wednesday: GregB (Canada)

• Thursday: TeemuL (Finland)

• Friday: Millsy (Australia)

• Saturday: DallasE (Canada)

• Sunday: KyleC (UK)

We also see the return of MilesR who will be our stats guru and PaulOG who will keep on top of the Duels (see below). Thank you guys for stepping up to help for this year's edition!

Signup, Personal Targets and Duels

For those wishing to participate please send me an email, providing the following information: 

1) your full name,
2) your country of residence, and 
3) your points target for the three months of the event (see below).

My email address is:
curtcampbell at mac dot com 

I will post a comment below when the roster has been filled and will follow-up with an email in a couple weeks detailing the specifics of the event.

Many participants have found the personal points targets to be a great incentive to maintain their pace over the three months of the Challenge. I encourage participants to pick a target that is just beyond your comfort zone, but still achievable. As a rough benchmark, 300 points is considered a manageable amount for someone who is new to the the event and/or has a busy work/life schedule. Also remember that a significant amount of points can be secured by adventuring in the 'AHPC Library' (more on this later).

Also, related to the points targets, many people have a lot of fun issuing 'paint duels' to other participants. This could be racing to meet a declared target, painting the most figures for a specific period, etc. We have our indomitable Minion, PaulOG, to keep track of the duels, but more on that in a later post.

The Cost of Entry

Last year we had great success with our donations to the Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation. Thank you again to all those supported this worthwhile cause.

As we have a library theme this year, I'm going to ask participants to donate to their local library. As we all know, these institutions are incredibly valuable to the social wellbeing of our societies, and often operate on a shoestring, so let's give them a little lift if we can. I leave it to participants to manage their own donation. Perhaps we can feature each of our local libraries in our future posts during the event. I think that would be quite interesting!

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Challenge XIV begins at 12:01am December 21st!

Now, sign up for the Challenge and get you minis assembled and primed!!  We'll see you on the start line in a few weeks!