Celebrating Challenge XV

Welcome to our wrap-up of the 15th edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!

We've tabulated all the votes for Challengers' Choice, Sarah has made her selection for Sarah's Choice as I have done the same for Snowlord's Choice. Whew!

We had an excellent turnout for the Challengers' Choice poll with 56 people casting their votes. As this is Challenge XV I thought I would list the top fifteen entries chosen by our participants. (FYI, points reflect a weighted scoring system where 3 points are given for 1st pick, 2 points for 2nd, and 1 point for 3rd).

1. MarinN ‘Burgundians’ = 38 points
2. Curt ‘Ned & Norri’ = 32 points
3. KerryT ‘Barron’s War’ = 28 points
4. DavidD ‘WWII Winter’ = 27 points
5. RayR ‘1812 Retreat’ = 25 points
6. KenR ‘Ships’ = 18 points
7. GregB ‘Dogs of War’ = 17 points
8. BruceR ‘Paratrooper’ = 15 points
9. Millsy ‘Sloggoth’ = 13 points
10. Curt ‘10mm Dogs of War’ = 11 points
11. Richard ‘10mm Sudan’ = 10 points
12. LeeH ‘1812 Retreat’ = 10 points
13. GregB ‘Hospitaller Banner’ = 9 points
14. MartinN ‘Romans’ = 9 points
15. JP ‘Dean Man’s Chest’ = 8 points

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AHPC XV Challengers's Choice

Third Place

KerryT with his wonderful collection of Baron's War figures.

Kerry, for your talented efforts I'm sure you will enjoy a gift certificate from your fellow Challenger JohnS at 'The War Room'!

Second Place

Curt's Ned & Norri. 

Thank you for the honour! For those who voted for me, your cheques are in the mail. ;P

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The Challengers' Choice for AHPC XV

MartinN (Nick) for his fantastic 'Burgundians'

Congratulations for your well-deserved win, Nick! Your prize is a gift certificate from our good friend Byron over at 'Northern Lights Terrain'! 

Sarah’s Choice

Hi Everybody

Congratulations to everyone on their Challenge!

As always, I’m honoured that my request to see more female minis represented in this hobby has become more than a novelty.

Choosing amongst all the entries is becoming increasingly difficult because you’re all just so darn good!

That being said, I do have a few highlights:

Teemu’s ‘ Sarah the Shootist’

Haha, if I were a Wild West Woman, this gal would be my role model - stylish, practical and deadly! For this Colt-armed femme fatale I award you a gift certificate from the good folk over at Warbases (I know you love getting some of your hobby supplies from them). :)

Another favourite of mine is from PeteB - Mexican Fury

What a terrifically characterful figure and I can imagine her furious and colourful language! I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that tirade😳  For this terrific submission I award you a gift certificate from BigRedBat. Enjoy!!

The absolute stand out for me were the totally awesome Witch of Westmorland vignettes from SimonG.

I really have no words except to echo minion Teemu, ‘this entry is staggering’.

Bravo Simon! For your fine efforts I award you a gift certificate from 'French Wargame Holidays' (thank you Matt!). Enjoy (Curt and I are jealous)!

Thank you to ALL the Challengers for the visual feast of this year’s entries... it's always a pleasure to see the creativity from such a wonderful crew of ‘mad painters’.

Be Kind, Be Safe

Sarah

PS: Our neighbourhood patrol of Canada Geese… enjoying a little R&R in the park across the street.

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Snowlord's Choice

For Snowlord's Choice I often like to acknowledge the new people coming into the Challenge as these folks will become the torchbearers for our hobby in the years to come. So in this vein this year the Snowlord's Choice goes to GavinB.

I very much enjoyed all your entries Gavin. From the Wars of the Roses to Turnip28, and then on to The Walking Dead, your work exhibited an infectious enthusiasm that was a joy to follow. 

I was particularly impressed with your large scale knight. Such lovely work. Transitioning between scales as diverse as 1/50 to 1/16 can be a real challenge, but you managed it quite deftly with excellent results.

Again, wonderful work Gavin! For your efforts I'm happy to award you with a gift certificate from Goblin King Games (makers of 'Moonstone'). I hope you join us next winter to enjoy this funny little hobby of ours.

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My thanks to all the nominees for sharing your wonderful work with us. For those lucky prize winners, please email me to work out the details for getting your loot. 

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As Challenge XV formally concludes, I’d like to thank again our brilliant Minions for all their hard work in herding entries, wrangling with the Spreadsheet of Doom and generally keeping everything rattling along. Hats off to Peter and Barks for respectively managing all the Duels and keeping track of our skull-count. I also wish to thank our Challenge Sponsors for their generous support of the event.  If you have a free moment please visit their sites via the banners on the left sidebar and see if something strikes your fancy.  As I often say, the Challenge doesn’t need prizes to be a success, but it adds a nice bit of sparkle to the festivities.  Thanks again to all our wonderful sponsors! 

Finally, and I really can't emphasize this enough, I want to thank all of our Challenge participants. This event would be nothing without you. Your industry, your good humour and most of all, your open-hearted support for one another makes the Painting Challenge what it is. You folks are terrific, thank you.

In closing, I bid you all a very fond farewell. Enjoy the next few months until we get together again in December.

- Curt

From SanderS: The Challenge is Dead, Long Live The Challenge! (Many points!)

 Hoi there,

Sorry guys for being so late with this post but things happened after the Challenge ended. To me this was a very pleasant Challenge that I enjoyed more than the last two. The passing of my dad two years ago and all the work issues last year made me miss my target, not fully participate in the side duels or bonus rounds and all this I was able to enjoy this year in the full.  It was so energising to see all the stuff you people made and the feedback always is very encouraging and keeps me painting. 

As to what I finished this Challenge, that was way more than I anticipated at the beginning. And of course I forgot to include a lot of it in the picture above: the 1:72 Napoleonic Saxons and Titus and the Nids were sadly left out of the picture, so I include them below

 

A HUGE thank you is of course due to the Snowlord and -Lady! They have done it yet again and I for one am gratefull to have been part of this kick-ass community! The minions deserve bucketloads of praise as well, as I know from experience it's a dastardly task indeed.

Personally I would like to specifically thank Gregarius for keeping me on my toes and inspiring me to get some more Dogs of War painted in the end.

So there you have it, another Challenge finished see you guys next year! 

From JohnS: Target Eliminated!

 Thanks to Curt (and Sarah) for organising another fantastic Challenge. I always enjoy the Challenge but this one was really great and one worth toasting.

To our Canadian Companion, cheers!

 I decided to try and achieve my target of 500 points with a single theme, purely through painting quantity and without claiming any Bonus points. My Slaughterloo army is now larger (but so much more to paint) and I am so happy.

After passing 500 I decided to add some Stretch Goals and allowed myself to stray from the Slaughterloo madness. I finished off a couple of 28mm Napoleonic units, and started my Normans for To The Strongest.

The best part of the Challenge for me was not achieving my goal, not even beating AlanD (although I did get some joy from that) but chatting on a weekly basis with other Aussie and Kiwi Challengers.

Minion Millsie organised the Paint and Chat sessions and I must say that they were instrumental in getting me to paint. And a heck of a lot of fun. Such a great bunch of painters and gamers.

When it was time to take my Finish Line photo I had an auditing visit from the Roving Minion, Our Man From The Tropics, the Pineapple Prince, PaulOG himself. Man, some people take this minioning gig very seriously.

Output Audited, time for a beverage!

 

 Thanks again to Curt and Sarah, Super Minion Millsie and all Challengers. 684 points, a Personal Best and something to chase next time. Cheers!

Vote for Challengers' Choice!

Hello Challengers!

The voting poll is now open. For those who may not have seen my email, please follow this link to take in the gallery and vote for your top three Challenge entries.

Enjoy!

Curt

Curt & Sarah's Challenge XV Wrap-Up

Hey All!

Sarah and I finally managed to get ourselves organized enough to arrange the stuff we had completed during the Challenge. First up is a few words from Lady Sarah...

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Hello Everybody!

What a terrific group of folks to have spent the past three months painting toys!

I’m only sorry that I wasn’t able to paint more... my work schedule changed to mostly weekends/evenings and well, world events have been exhaustingly chaotic of late. 🤷‍♀️

My modest output included a couple of buildings (no points for this year), 6 character figures and a swan.

My favourites are the fancy Venetian Couple - elegantly mysterious in their dark clothing, and the mesmerizingly lovely Green Dancer.

Thank you for the Challenge everyone!

Be Safe, Be Kind

Sarah 😊

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As to myself, I found that my Challenge was a little hit an miss. After a reasonably credible start I ran afoul of a nasty flu, and that along with a much-needed trip away kept me from from the brushes for almost a month. Nonetheless, all winging aside, I'm very happy with what I managed to get done over the three months. Here are a few of my favourites.

Hapless Mooks

The Emperor and his Thunder Warriors

Ned & Norri

Wretched Royalty for Mork Borg

Greek Ships for Thalassa

10mm Dogs of War

Shikigami Boss for 'Hametsu'

If I'm not mistaken I think each of my 15 entries covered a unique genre, with no repeats, which very much pleases the squirrel in me. But really the best of all was the wonderful camaraderie and the simple joy of seeing the work of my fellow hobbyists. Mark up another great Challenge!

Tomorrow (Sunday) I will publish the voting poll for Challengers' Choice, so keep an eye open for that, and on April 20th I'll make the announcements for it along with Sarah's Choice and Snowlord's Choice.

Have a good one!

Curt

Side Duels Final Results

 I have recalculated the duels standings following a flurry of late entries.  As suspected the Sandbaggers have upended the apple carts on a number of duels.  

First up an updated pie chart of activity.

SD1 (Moose and ) Squirrel Duel

 

No change at all in these standings!  GeoffT held the lead all challenge, despite an early run by Curt and a late charge by Martijn.  All Hail Squirrel-Whisperer Geoff.  

SD1 (Moose and ) Squirrel
GeoffT	15
Curt	10
MartijnN	10
MikeW	8
KerryT	8
Barks	5
RobH	1
PeteF	0

SD2 30K Heresies

Once again these results stand.  Congrats to Greg, who outscored all other challengers combined.  In these crazy and chaotic times it is comforting to know that the right lunatic won tis challenge.  

SD2 30K Heresies
GregB	362
Curt	130
PeterA	84
SanderS	20
DavidB	10

SD3 Skulls


Scoring is pure head count (pun intended). This one will be adjudicated by Barks.

I will leave skull tallies to our resident Post-Mortem Phrenologist.

SD4 Mech Madness

Three for three on results standing up to an audit.  This duel tightened up but Sander prevailed.  Congrats to the MechMaster.

SD4 Mech Madness
SanderS	120
TomL	104
Curt	15
DavidB	8
DaniHG	2

SD5 WW2 Duel

Well I am, umm, going let the results speak for themselves here!   The total points scores increased by 92% after the preliminary results were posted and we have a new champ in MattW.  If I were Matt, I'd be using his sandbags to build himself a dugout for protection!

SD5 WW2 Duel
After		Before
MattW	855	DaveD	438
DaveD	438	DavidB	360
DavidB	360	GeoffT	180
GeoffT	180	MattW	30
Millsy	100	Millsy	0

SD6 Napoleonics

Never let it be said that RayR is unpredictable!  He did exactly what we all knew he was going to do and edged Lee out after the finish.  I'll let Lee reward the winner in an appropriate manner.

SD6 Napoleonics
After		Before
RayR	1312	LeeH	1045
LeeH	1075	RayR	1043
DaveD	412	DaveD	412
MattW	200	MattW	200
EdwardG	0	EdwardG	0
KerryT	0	KerryT	0
PeteF	0	PeteF	0

SD7 Can Opener


I have only one change to report here.  MattW went from 0-647 after time was called to steal another victory in injury time. Kerry had looked a clear winner all challenge long, but it was not to be....Kerry and DaveD could likely form a "Done in at the last minute by MattW" support group.

SD7 Can Opener
After		Before
MattW	647	KerryT	450
KerryT	450	Barks	153
Barks	173	Curt	145
Curt	145	MattW	0
NickY	0	NickY	0
RobH	0	RobH	0

SD8 Retreat from Moscow

Both Lee and Ray increased their totals, but not enough to affect the final result.  Congrats to Ray on a more honest win here!

SD8 Retreat from Moscow
RayR	1272	RayR	1003
LeeH	1075	LeeH	950

SD9 Colonial Wars

Once again, we have a result that stood after recounts.  Zulus, a thousand of 'em!   Congrats to DaveD on this one.

SD9 Colonial Wars
DaveD	1006
RobH	55

Well done to all of the duellists.