From JP - ACW Naval 1/1200 ships (55 Points)

I'm delighted to be back for my second competition. Thank you Curt for organising this. I am also delighted to learn that Martijn is only 30-45 minutes drive from me here in soggy Belgium! My painting continues to outstrip my actual gaming, though that was not the intent when I set out in the hobby over 50 years ago... on the other hand, I prefer my current paint jobs to what I produced back then...

Apologies for the haste of the entry - the photography is not great. I wanted something in for Christmas and time was running out. 

I call this my Limbo post, if Curt allows it. I have some 120+ ACW naval vessels and some 60 to paint still. Most models occupy a base of 50-75mm in length but the small vessels, which were numerous in the conflict, keep getting pushed to the back of the to do list in favour of the better known beasts. These vessels were often converted tugs or similar with a smoothbore plonked at each end.

And so I present the North Carolina Mosquito fleet of the Confederate States Navy - lovely models producedby Pithead Miniatures. Three of the vessels are 'normal' in size, while eight are on 35mm long bases. Assembly is fiddly at this scale and the bases need work, not to mention the name tags. The main challenge remains, as I posted last year, I think, in bringing them to life with enough detail and weathering to please the eye.

So, there are eleven Pithead 1/600 scale vessels:

3 x normal size      15 points

8 x small size         20 points

Limbo entry           20 points

Sub Total               55 points

Curt - please adjust as you see fit!

A closer up shot.

Thanks for taking a peek and now back to Christmas preparations!

Cheers,

JP

_______________________________________________

First welcome back to the Challenge JP!

These are some great looking river craft. I especially like how you've done up the bases and provided the neat labeling - very trim and clean. I can't imagine how terrifying it would have been to be in these relatively light craft and having rifled artillery shooting at me. Yikes! 

55 points for your climb up the points ladder JP. Well done!

- Curt

From PeterA - 28mm Star Wars Shoretroopers, Limbo (55 points)

Hello to all Challenge Participants from a wet and (very) windy UK! I haven't taken part in the Challenge for a few years, so I am looking forward to seeing what everyone produces and what I can complete over the coming months. 

For my first AHPC XV entry I have a small squad of Shoretroopers for the Star Wars Legion game. I got these figures a couple of years ago when FFG did a bundle deal for their Star Wars Legion game, but I didn't really enjoy the rules, so the figures languished at the bottom of the lead pile, primed but nothing more. Then, about a month ago I came across 5 Parsecs from Home by Ivan Sorenson, a solo sci-fi skirmish game with some RPG-lite elements, and this inspired me to dig out the Star Wars figures to build some small forces for games set in a galaxy far, far away. Having not done anything with these figures for two years, this also seems like a good way to start the Divine Comedy, and so this is also an entry for The First Circle: Limbo!

I loved the look of the Shoretroopers in Rogue One, and so have adopted a broadly similar colour scheme, mostly using various Contrast paints over an Army Painter Skeleton Bone basecoat. The benefit of this is that they were quite quick to paint to a 'table ready' standard. They all have a squad marking in red on their right arm and the squad leader has light blue markings on his chest and left arm. 

So 7x28mm figures plus the Limbo bonus should net me 55 points (I know SWL figures are bigger than 28mm, but this seems the best fit in terms of scoring). The backdrop in the photos is by John Hodgson from his Sci-Fi backdrops book - thoroughly recommended.

____________________________________________________

Welcome back to the Challenge Peter - it's great to have you in the scrum again! 

These Shoretroopers look terrific in all their Light Armour Club Med glory. Great brushwork and wonderful terrain too! I remember first seeing the Shoretroopers in 'Rogue One' and thinking that they guys must come from influential Imperial families. Who else would get posted to a tropical paradise guarding an archive. Tough gig! They must have been sooo p*ssed when the Rebels dropped in with the Deathstar in tow. 'The scheduled beachside evening Mai Tais have been cancelled due to orbital turbolaser bombardment...'

Great idea to repurpose these minis for 'Five Parsecs From Home' (great rules) and as an added bonus it allows you to snag another 20 theme points. Great stuff!

Also, thanks for the tip on the John Hodgson backdrops. I'm now just plotting which ones I want to get for myself. Cheers!

- Curt

From GregB - Sons of Horus Breacher Marines (70 points)

A squad of Breacher Marines from the XVI Legion Astartes. 28mm multi-part resin figures from GW. 

Greetings once more to all Challengers! It is a delight to be spending winter with all of you once more, tackling projects old and new while making a dent in the piles of unpainted plastic and resin that haunt all of us. I'm glad to open the 15th Edition of the Challenge with a familiar theme, and veteran Challenge participants will hardly be surprised to see that I have returned once again to GW's "Age of Darkness" setting, the great, galaxy-spanning civil war of the Horus Heresy, known colloquially as "Warhammer 30k". This is a squad of 10 Breacher Marines, resplendent in the colours of the Warmaster's own XVI Legion, the Sons of Horus. They are multi-part resin models from GW. 

Three of the breacher Marines...you can see the fellow in the middle suffers from dimpled surfaces and frosting caused by a defective matte varnish spray from back in 2016. The repainting helps a bit...but still...f*ck spray paints.

Breaching Marines are great fun. We can sense just how dire things must be in the Horus Heresy setting when it becomes necessary to take a super-human soldier clad in super-amazing power armour and say, "you know, we should give those chaps a giant pavisse-style shield, you know, because safety". I love the proto-medieval look of this variant of the Mark III power armour, and how the shields have the little "hooks" that allow the Space Marines to brace and fire their weapons while on the move. Brilliant sculpts.

Fans of the Horus Heresy are enjoying a veritable golden age in terms of new figures and models...but these are not new. They are rather old, and have been re-painted as part of an ongoing effort to bring my large collection of 30k Sons of Horus models, painted over a now 10-year timeframe, into some manner of consistent appearance. You see, my hobby mind has a peculiar affliction - that of the screaming-inside-OCD monkey. Certain things - like an inconsistency in the green armour of a Sons of Horus collection, for example - cause this monkey to scream and throw things in my mind. 

Love the shields! These are some of GW's finest 30k sculpts...and there are a lot of great 30k sculpts!

These particular figures were first painted back in 2016, right as I switched over to my current approach toward painting the vaguely-blue-but-mostly-still-green armour of the Sons of Horus. This squad was painted mid-change...with about three models painted using my current approach, and the other seven painted using a previous approach (which involved many pointless glazing layers). Mixed greens within the collection were bad enough...but within one squad? The OCD monkey does NOT APPROVE! I found I could NOT deploy these in good faith knowing - and seeing! - the different greens. What would the Warmaster think??

Sergeant on the left, and a special-weapon trooper wielding a lascutter (great for opening the hulls of ships, or the armour of enemies...whatever). 

Thus I soothe - ever so slightly - the screaming inner monkey by re-painting the lost squads and vehicles a few at a time...and this is how I am kicking off Challenge XV! These Breachers are now properly ready to "stand in the line." I will shamelessly exploit the "Limbo" theme for this purpose - after all, these WERE a stalled project of a sort, from back in 2016 :) That's ten 28mm infantry figures, and 20 points for a theme, which should count for 70 points - a fair start toward my target, and a nice little start for our 30k duel. Even better, two of these guys are wearing skullz - so that is TWO skulls :)

___________________________________

Greg, it's great to see you launch your opening gambit with this set of venerable-but-wonderful models. Like you, I've always been taken by the whole ridiculous idea of Breacher Marines and as you say these models are marvellously baroque with their bronze chased slab armour and spooky grilled helmets. Terrific stuff. And then there is the added bonus of the 'new' legion livery which placates your OCD monkey while making the force more cohesive. The Warmaster will be pleased. All is good in the world... Until of course you cast your eye upon the next unit of heretical off-colour models and the process deliciously repeats itself. I look forward to it!

70 points is is my friend. Well done and welcome back to the Challenge. 

- Curt

From GavinB- A Turnip28 unit of Chaff for the Parsnip Pustules 91st (25 points)

Day two! With version 18 of Turnip28 and the new Kickstarter coming out I figured I should make a new Regiment of squelchy fellows to be castle defenders for siege games, and after much consideration I decided to call them the Parsnip Pustules 91st! So I wrote some lore for the regiment and printed out the heraldry creation sheet from the Swollen Magglette, and drew up some livery designs. 

When I was happy with product I chose which Toady to do first, which happened to be Gogas Von Fredic'Fowf, a want-to-be-Toff. He leads a group of Chaff with melee weapons (Spears). Usually I give Toadies 30-40mm bases but since I made this regiment to defend a keep, they all need to be able to fit on the ramparts of a wall so I gave him a 25mm base. 

The unit of Chaff and their Toff are made up of Perry Miniatures Agincourt foot knights, extra bits from the WotR infantry and some green stuff sculpting on the visors. Five 28mm models for 25 points! These guys came out okay, which is a surprise because painting T28 models is always hard for me, sometimes they end up looking too sloppy and then other times they look too clean I can never find the sweet spot, ugggh!! well I'll stop wasting your time and let you see what you actually care about, the pictures...

Gogas's Coat has seen better days

This soldiers helmet was fun to sculpt

 

He also carries a pack of parsnips on his back. the coat of arms of his regiment can be seen as well

Well, thanks for reading about how I smash blobs of colour on little plastic men. Happy holidays!

_______________________________________

Great work on this unit of Chaff, Gavin! I really like your modified helmets and the guy with the parsnip backpack (or perhaps that's just a 'new' part of him). I notice that some of your figures are a bit underexposed and would suggest shooting them against a darker background so that the contrast works to your favour in making them 'pop' - again, just a suggestion. 

25 points to you sir - well done!

- Curt

From PeteB - Christmas figure with Shovel (10 Points)

My first figure for my first participation is a fact. In this period of the year I always paint some figures from those well known Christmas villages with all those lights for my daughter in law. When I see those figures I always get the feeling to repaint them. So that is what I do now and then. And so I picked this figure to start with because of the shovel and because he’s cleaning the figures from my paintdesk!

The figure is from an for me unknown company called AM/63 and the figure is 54 mm high. Painted with some colourful acrylic paints he looks much better now.

Putting those other figures aside!

I show you also the unpainted figure.

And now on to the rest of the stash with lots of 20, 28 and 54 mm figures. Thank you for letting me try this challenge after all those years of lurking to all the beautiful entries.

Points: 1 x 54 mm foot figure = 10 points.

__________________________________

First off Pete, welcome to the Painting Challenge! 

I really love this figure and the sentiment behind it (not the shovelling but the gifting). :) Lovely brushwork. I especially like his yellow scarf and red-and-white toque. 

And 10 points to start your ascent up the points roster Pete. I very much look forward to seeing what you have in store for us this Challenge. Bring it on!

- Curt

In theme to the post: Huckleberry and I out for a stroll in the white stuff this afternoon (camerawork by the lovely Lady Sarah).

From GeoffT - Limbo, WW2 US Paratroopers (55 points)

Hello Challengers,

This year I did a lot of sculpting, but that stuff is already painted.  So instead I will be working through the remains of a bunch of old school models I picked up from a shop moving sale.

The first submission was a project that I started a few months ago, but ended up in limbo.  I acquired a platoon worth of very nice Black Tree Design US Paratroopers. Quite timely considering Chain of Command 2 is due out in April 2025.

After painting the platoon and checking the army list I realised I was short a few pieces; browning 30 cal machine gunners and the mortar crew, so I mail ordered some from Northstar.  At the same time I preordered the new Silver Bayonet supplement, and therefore my order including the Paras went into limbo awaiting the supplement release date.  The limbo ended, they arrived and have been painted.

The colours came up odd in photos, have tried to correct back to true colour as best I could.

Eight x 28mm miniatures = 40 points 

Limbo bonus = 20 points

Total = 60 55 points.

This is also the first squirrel, for WW2 US Paras.

Kind Regards

Geoff.

__________________________________________

First, welcome back to the Challenge Geoffrey! A great set of American paratroopers, and with them languishing on your desk these past few months are a perfect Limbo entry. It's great to have the option of both moving or deployed support weapon teams, especially for CoC in which displaying these details are important. Well done!

Prone troops are scored as half points so I'd adjusted your total accordingly.

- Curt

PS: Also, as a reminder, please remember to place in your metadata labels as it assists for searching.

From Kent Galpin - 28mm Bloody Miniatures English Civil War Cavalry (40pts)

Afternoon from a very warm summers day in Christchurch New Zealand

I think this is my 5th crack at the challenge, had a ball last year but

I thought need to dial it back a little this year and really enjoy the Challenge 

I hope everyone has a great time and that we all get a good bunch of minis painted in the process, the funny thing is I thought after painting so many cavalry last challenge I might do something different but I did count over 50 cav that I started work on so maybe not.

Well first up I have a wee set of 4 English civil war minis from Bloody Miniatures

They really are a pleasure to paint and hopefully if I get back to them I’ll have a few more that cross my table.

We there we have the first entry 

4 x 28mm Cavalry @10pts if I’m correct 40pts

 __________________________________________

First, welcome back to the Challenge Kent!

Beautiful brushwork for your opening gambit, wow! I've always liked your clear, clean style and these harseboys don't disappoint. They're all great minis, but I especially like that officer with the broad blue waist sash - really lovely stuff.

These lads will give you 40 points to start your climb up the points ladder. Well done Kent!

- Curt

From GavinB- Test figures for Henry Stafford's Retinue [25 Points]

Its my first time participating in the AHPC so I figured I'd start things off by painting some miniatures from the very period that got me into wargaming, The Wars of The Roses. After making a large Yorkist army of communally based WoTR figures for Hail Caesar, I kind of wanted to make a small retinue of singularly based models for Lion Rampant 2nd Ed. So I made a few test figures from extra sprues I had lying around from previous WoTR projects. I painted up 4 Perry Miniature foot knights and a Perry archer model that I found In my lead mountain, totalling five 28mm figures which equals 25 points.

Looking through The Wars of the Roses: The Medieval Art of Graham Turner I saw this painting, and It made my want to make my Retinue in the livery of Henry Stafford.

Any way, I'll stop blabbering on and let you see the pictures...

My (Failed) attempt at the livery badge... looks like a depressed pretzel 

To make these guys feel more unique I made a livery sash from green stuff for the fellow on the left 

  

Planning on doing some Turnip28 Models next!

Happy Holidays all!

___________________________________________

First, welcome to the Challenge Gavin! It's great to have new folks join us in this bit of winter madness. 

Also, great opening volley! Aren't those Perry plastic sets just brilliant? You've done great work on these five here and I think your interpretation of the Stafford livery looks terrific (but I like pretzels so take that with a salted one...). I'm also very jealous of your copy of Turner's work - it's been sitting in my Amazon cart for months, waiting for me to take the plunge and click 'Checkout'. Your work may be just what I need to push me over the edge. Thank you! :)

5 Wars of the Roses warriors for 25 points. Well done!

- Curt

From DaveD - The Flying Squad , Necromunda (40 points)

 Here is my start to Challenge 15 , my 14th participation , as usual I like to get something done before Christmas . Well as we are playing in the environs of Hell I thought I would get my Games Workshop stuff out of the way early this year. Over the last  few years I have added stuff to my Necromunda Van Saar gang the Derr-Flinggers .  They have done pretty well in the fights we have done this year as part of our group campaign. 

The bit of kit I really like is the Grav-cutter hover board I decided to add some more to the existing 4 I have. Mind each time I use them they crash and burn and then actually die … but what the hell - see what I did there .

I followed the same colour scheme using  a Tamiya green rattle can base with a heavy yellow dry bush then Vallejo Xpress Lizard Green with a highlight to finish - it’s pretty quick and easy recipe . The Cutters followed the same basalt grey and highlights scheme . The bases have a simple rust colour dry brush . They were all magnetised as part of the build process. 

So here they are :-

 

And with last years :-

I will be doing some of my usual projects this year so hopefully you will see some of the followings :-

10mm Napoleonic commission work, yet more French Guard 

15mm Ardennes “44 , though it will be terrain stuff first - and we ain’t counting it - but I want them done as winterising it is messy! 

28mm North West Frontier which made its debut last year 

MartinC and I have 10mm Zulu stuff in the wings. Yes thousands of em …They may or may not make a proper appearance .

Well that the score board moving pre Xmas , 4 mounted 28mm = 2.8 cm = 40 points. 

_____________________________________________________

Very cool grav-cutters Dave. I like the cohesive look of their armour and equipment. They have a great old school Green Goblin look about them - a nasty bunch.

You have a lot of projects on your docket! I especially look forward to seeing the Napoleonics and North West Frontier (though that means different things in different parts of the world as we've called ourselves the same here in the Canadian prairies). 

A nice 40 points on the board to put you in the lead! Well done Mr. D!

- Curt