From RaulM: Black Seas 1st Rate, Xebec, and Cutter (60 points)

My second post for the challenge is even more Black Seas, covering a spread of vessels that all could have been found in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars. A Spanish 1st rate, a Barbary Pirate xebec, and a French cutter. 

The Spanish 1st rate is one of the generic resin Spanish 1st rates that Warlord offers. I didn't like the white metal masts provided, so I took the yards and the fighting tops and attached them to masts I made with brass tubing. The paint scheme is based on the Santa Ana, who fought in several fleet actions, notably surviving the Battle of Trafalgar. 

The Xebec is another Warlord resin model, the large xebec. I kept the metal masts for this as they are chunkier and therefore not as prone to bending. The paint scheme is nothing special, very similar to the official box art that Warlord uses. 

Finally, the cutter. This is a metal model from Hagen Miniatures, with quite a bit of conversion work done to it to add the 12 guns on the deck and the square topsail. I used the Renard for reference, as it was the first thing that came up on google search when I was looking at French cutters.

For points I based it on the small brig being 10 points and the medium frigate as 15 points, so a 5 point up or down based on the size the vessel is given in game. 

1st Rate (XL): 25 points

Xebec (S): 10 points

Cutter (T): 5 points

For a total of 40 points. 

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Stunning work Raul - anyone who has dabbled in the majestic art of naval warship modelling (the creme of the hobby obviously, apart from Miles that is) knows what fine work this is. Wonderful lines, dynamic flags and billowing sails. Stirring stuff!

I'm awarding 20 bonus points for the conversion work, scratch building new masts, the lovely ratlines and taut rigging work - beautifully done!

Fair winds and following seas to you Raul!

-Paul

ByronM - Burrows & Badgers [60 points]

Today's second entry is one that I have been looking forward to for a while.  I happened across this game last year and picked up a bunch of the figures as the game looked like fun and the miniatures even more so!  I mean, which of us didn't grow up reading Wind in the Willows, watching Disney's Robin Hood, or watching way too many Saturday morning cartoons with anthropomorphic animals in them?  Seeing these bits of memory from childhood turned into a wargame fills me with memories and was way too much fun to pass up.

I wanted to paint them up as soon as I got them, but set them aside for the challenge and for new glasses so that I could attempt to do justice to them.  Having got my new glasses mid-December, and having booked holidays from late December through mid January, the time was right to spend way too much time painting these lovely little miniatures, so without further ado here is the first batch of my Burrows & Badgers collection.

This is the first of the base warband sets, which includes Shrew-zerker, a mouse nun, a squirrel archer, a rabbit archer, a barn swallow scout, and an otter pirate as the leader.  Quite an interesting mix of characters which will form the core of my rogue force.

I painted all of these miniatures as one offs, meaning by them selves and not in bulk with others.  This allowed me to focus on each one and give it its own character and look.  As an added bonus because I had such an interest in these figures I spend a bunch of time on each one (thanks to having the last few weeks off since the challenge started) and as a result I am actually really happy with them all, which for me is not very common as I am often my harshest critic.  I am super thrilled with the look of all of these figures and am only disappointed that I can not get around to the terrain that I printed up to go with them while the challenge is on, due to Curt dropping terrain from the challenge this year :-(  Oh well, I will get it done once the challenge is over.

This is the second of the base warband sets which includes 2 mouse (mice?) knights, a squirrel caster, a serpent caster, a weasel archer, and a rabbit knight.  These will form the core of my Royalist faction.

To not bore anyone with pictures of each figure separately, here are just a few of the ones that I really like how they came out.  First is the squirrel witch, and I think her red brown colouration really looks good against her green forest cloak.

Next up is the ferret crossbowman, which reminds me of the archers in the Disney Robin Hood cartoon. I know they were not ferrets in there, I think they were wolves or something, but it still makes me think of the show and I think he would fit right in there.

Technically, this one is supposed to be a sparrow, but while looking up picture of birds to go from for colours I saw a picture of a barn swallow and liked the blue and tan colouration so decided to go with that instead.  In person the blue really pops and makes the model stand out.

I still have about a dozen more models to paint up for this game, but will probably do them piece meal over the challenge, but I promise to put them all together for one big group shot at the end.  At some point I will need to go back and add some more basing elements to the rouge faction models as I 3d printed the ferns and plants for the loyalist models a while back and have since misplaced the files for them, so could not print up more.  That will be rectified shortly.

Overall there are 12 models here, but the shrew-zerker was submitted earlier in another post so only 11 count towards my points here, so 55 points (unless some of the bigger ones class as a different scale as they are quite big on 40mm bases).

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WoW! Those are wonderful sculpts and you've done them beautifully Byron! 

Looking forward to more submissions like this and the big group shot in the end

Take a few bonus points for the bigger models, and because I love Wind in the Willows too :-)

- Paul

From MikeF - Corporate Security - 50 points

I always struggle to get anything done before January. Between work, Christmas and holiday travel to desolate locations in western Manitoba, I usually have little time for painting. Now that things have settled down, I’ve been able to complete my first entry. For this challenge I’m working on a new project I’m hoping to have completed for Prairie Con in May. The game is Exploit Zero by Patrick Todoroff. It’s in the cyberpunk genre - a future world where powerful corporations have supplanted elected governments, the remnants of which have become increasingly authoritarian and rely on increasingly militarized police to manage a civilian population ensnared by consumerism and technology- technology which has broken the bonds of civil society and raises the question of what it means to be “human.” The future indeed!

These models are from Copplestone Castings Future Wars. Exploit Zero pits a team of agents against security forces trying to prevent them from completing their objectives. The security response consists of three different waves. Wave 1 are your basic corporate security guys. That’s what these models represent. Corporate thugs  who act tough, but don’t put up much of a fight. I painted them using Vallejo German Uniform to make them a bit more sinister and to avoid making them look like police. The police are wave 2 and they are not here to help!

Shotguns, pistols and batons are no match for machine pistols and samurai swords.

10 28mm models for 50 points.

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Nice work Mike!  I do love the older Copplestone SF sculpts. They always remind me of the 2000AD comic strips, and these ones the Neo-Sov Judges that invade Megacity 1. Either that or the old School GW Cadet Commissars that you could field in Training Squads. That was back in the day...

Good luck with the rest of the Project Mike - we look forward to more cyber-themed submissions!

- Paul

ByronM - Germans & Jellyfish?? [125 points]

For my 1st post of the day I submit for your amazement and wonder Germans & Jellyfish.  I know, they make a very strange combination post, but that is part of the fun with the challenge coming up with some strange bedfellows.

The Jellyfish warriors are part of a project that has sat in limbo for years, a Wrath of Kings force or sea warriors.  These Jellyfish come from an undersea kingdom that has all sorts of sea creatures anthropomorphized into humanoid type warriors.  If I get around to them later in the challenge you may see shark, fish, whale, and crab people from this faction, but no promises as they are pretty far down the queue.  I had to get these warriors done though as I did the unit leader a few years ago for a theme entry and he has sat without his squad in my case since then.

These were a lot of fun to paint, as they are a very different colour and shape than most models.  However it showed me very quickly how my painting has dropped off after 2 years of not painting much, as try as I might I could not get them to the same painting quality of the captain that I painted a few years ago.  They are still ok, but not the same.

Next up are 20 more germans from my old second edition Bolt Action set, which I must have bought an extra box of since looking at the core box set it said it only came with 10 and a half-track, but I still have 10 more after this to paint up, so not sure how or why I ended up with 40, but it's all good.

These were done quick and fast to just get them on the table after all these years hiding in a box, so nothing fancy.  10 more to go and then I will need to find some civilian models to make up the Van Trapp family so they can hunt them down across the fields :-)

This post has 26 models but 1 was painted previously in another challenge so that leaves 25 models and 5 points each for a 125 points in this entry.  See you later today with another post.

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I am indeed amazed and wonderous at your German-Jelly hybrids, from Das Innzmouth perhaps Bryon?

The colourful jellies are a lot of fun and look like they have come right off a coral reef!

- Paul

From SteveA: KoW 10mm Heavy Calvary, Wizard's Tower on a Hill, Old Ral Partha & GW Minis, FrostGrave (150 points)

Hello again Analog Painters!  I have been painting since first day of challenge, but this here is my first post.  I am keen to visit upon many of this year's Themes as I endeavor to paint up forces of  playable armies/gangs/regiments or whatever name may be applied to a group of miniatures depending on the table top rule uses,  cults/troops/pods/flocks/herds/gaggles etc...

LIMBO:  This year's first theme is cause for some joy as I have many partly painted minis for which in years past I have had inspiration only to start and now for small few some of those neglected mini-souls, this challenge has given me an inspiration to complete! 

These models for my 10mm Kings Of War table have ignominiously drifted in partly painted Limbo since last year's AHPC.  When playing Kings of War with ByronM we used 10mm models on the same regiment base sizes as for the 28mm KOW game, with the intent of having more minis displayed on each base to make the battle field appear more well attended with larger forces.  By using 10mm in place of 28mm we forward the rule of cool without negatively impacting the rules of the game.

The Heavy Cavalry are 3d prints available from Forest Dragon (https://forestdragon.gumroad.com/)

The Wizards Tower atop the outcropping is 3d resin print, not sure from where the print file was from.  To the recollection of my Limbo fogged mind, a couple years back I saw ByronM had printed one of these Towers for himself, I thought it was cool and he was good enough to print another for me for a modest reallocation of coins from my pockets to his. 

The hill beneath the tower I built from 2 layers of 3' foam scrap I found in the back of my Dad's garage, which I sculpted (hacked up?) with a foam cutter, and thereupon glued a variety of small stones and sand acquired from my backyard in preparation for painting.  

Also emerging from the misty haze of Limbo is another hangover from my last year AHPC  incompletes,  a couple of Games Workshop Ghouls hailing from the 1990s.  These 2 minis are among a couple dozen or so old GW minis that I have stripped and repainted, only to re-strip and re-paint again so often, that now I had to either paint them with their final layer of paint or stuff a dollar bill in their waist band if I wanted to have them stripped again. 

So I decided they could now best find a path to a final lasting paint job by joining my growing menagerie of  baddies that could potentially wander upon a FrostGrave game table. 

Since I have yet to build up a sufficient mass of wintery ruins and environs to host a properly appointed FrostGrave game, I also painted up a couple of my first proof of concept winter scatter terrain pieces that had also suffered some incomplete experimental pigmentation last year.

 

Departing Limbo.... and hailing to Sarah The Succubus  to bus me past the Theme for NSFW minis and deliver me unto the Theme of Gluttony, with a 'bus ticket I purchased by this Cultist Executioner Lady.

Both she and her fellow cultist executioner recently escaped Limbo via the winding paths around the Wizard's Tower, to return to their service under their Gluttonous and Demonic master.

GLUTTONY: The chubby (and toothy) Daemon, Cultists and scatter terrain have languished in my pile of shame for about 30 years, used in many a Role Playing game with but a base coat of black but never until now painted to proxy and participate in a miniature table top battle. Thusly assembled for this challenge, I think these minis and terrain bits represent barrels of food being cracked open by cultists hoping to gain favor from a Gluttonous Deamon to whom they seek to provide a feast.

  

The barrels are wood cut items I unexpectedly found in a hardware store back in the 90s. While poking around the store isle for replacement door hinges and drawer handles, I unexpectedly stumbled upon an assortment of plain wooden Christmas village craft bits, the barrels seemed RPG mini compatible so I bought 10,  never found them again, wish I had picked up more.   The tables minis are from some interior RPG mini terrain blister pack I also picked-up in the 90s as an impulse buy from a local hobby shop that ceased to exist many years back.  

Daemon Ral Partha 1983,  Executioners Ral Partha 1994. 

The Dwarf is a GW  mini from the 90's that was part of an WFB cannon crew, which recall was given to me in the late 90s as within a box of mixed of unwanted miscellaneous minis from a friend who was moving in with a lady and had need to downsize his pile of shame. 

Total 142 pts

   Theme: Limbo  =  20 Pts

        10mm Mounted Calvary  (24x3pts) = 72pts

        28mm Ghouls (2x5pts) = 10pts

        10mm Terrain Wizard Tower (0 pts),  Winter Scatter Terrain x2 (0 pts)

  Theme Gluttony = 20 pts

     28mm Chubby Daemon  x1 = 5pts

     28mm Cultist Executioners  x2 = 10 pts

     28mm Dwarf x1 = 5pts

     28mm Scatter Terrain Barrels x10 and Tables x2   (0 pts)

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What a submission of old school goodness! Oldhammer gouls and dwarfs! Wizards Towers! Iconoic Ral Partha figs! Awesome!

I love a good bit of terrain too, and that Wizard Tower is fabulous! Take some bonus points for it and Happy New Year :-)

- Paul

Tuesday TomL, Limbo and more Union ACW troops - 190 points

This weeks entry starts me off in Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ with the first circle of the Abyss - Limbo.  Introducing these lost figures is our guide from the Gangland Gals set from Pulp Figures. Painted using the reaper brown triad & black glaze, Foundry skin tones, contrast paint base colours with some Foundry highlights.

 These figures (ARC Astronauts & Armed ARC Astronauts) from Crooked dice were from picked up in 2020 and cleaned and prepped for painting for a pulp project I started in late 2023.  That project was totally derailed by my enthusiastic wandering through the AHPC-IV library in 2024.  Only fitting we pull these back from the shelves and put some paint on them for the Limbo entry. Painted using contrast paints for the uniform with TTC and Vallejo paints for other areas. You might have a feeling of Deja vu as you look at the last picture as I bought two of the same set of astronauts in the same purchase. Ah well...

 

Continuing on with my ACW project, here is another ACW Union infantry regiment - The 115 Indiana Regiment.  

 

 

Originally I was planning on painting 6 Union Regiments of infantry then start in on the CSA.  I’m rethinking that and will begin preparing the next two regiments as CSA regiments.  Here are the three Union regiments I have completed so far (the 20th Maine was painted before the AHPC). 

Limbo entry - 20
10 28mm figures @ 5 pts each  - 50
60 epic figures @ 2 points each - 120

Points for this week:    190

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Quite the menagerie Tom - I love the diversity on your painting table! 

Looking forward to seeing what next week throws up from you :-)

- Paul

From DallasE: More Winter Soviets and Cyberskulls! (Heresy) (75 points)

Continuing on with the Winter Soviets theme I'll start the post with one from Warlord Games and two from Bad Squiddo.

This is the "company commander" from Warlord's Winter Soviet support pack. It's an OK model but pretty lightly armed with only a pistol, seems to run counter to the current Bolt Action meta where command squads are used like fighting units and are pretty heavily armed. But I'm not one for "metas" in historical games (or any games really) so it's OK by me. 

(Paul - as a Soviet Officer, he only needs a pistol anyway, a key part of his mandated 'reinforcement by example' leadership style...)

The sculpt is nice but scales somewhat larger than the Warlord plastic infantry. It's no problem if your command squad is all metal, but once you add in the plastics it can get a little weird.

 

Bad Squiddo is of course well-known for their ranges of female figures and they have some cracking Soviets on offer. The last time I was in Fargo I picked up a pack of their excellent Traffic Controllers from FLGS Little Big Wars. LBW carries lots of Annie's stuff but unfortunately they didn't have the winter snipers or Lyudmila Pavlichenko packs in stock. But these are very nice models too.

 

This traffic controller carries a Mosin-Nagant.

Her companion is flagging traffic. These are very well-sculpted models, just full of character. They're somewhat larger than the Warlord plastic infantry too, though.

Anyway she's flagging us on to the Sixth Circle: Heresy.

For that Circle I've painted a group of eight 28mm "not-Cyberskulls" from a 3D printshop. I wanted some more floaty skulls to go into my 40K Sisters of Battle army, and to use in an Inquisitorial gang. And these are pretty nice.

 

I like how the one is sporting a Bishop's mitre, for Pete's sake. That must be heretical on some level...

The others are carrying weapons of various kinds.

The skull on the right is carrying a book. There's purity seals on it so it must be OK.

A couple skully dudes floating along trailing rolls of toilet paper they stepped on in the space-restroom.

The Bishop again. Love this guy.

Anyway, here's the points breakdown:

3x 28mm Winter Soviets: 15 points

8x 28mm floaty cyberskulls: 40 points

Sarah bonus: 20 points (I've clarified this with the Snowlord himself and unfortunately this Bonus is claimed exclusively through the Sarah Serephon/Succubus mechanic transferring you between themes. It can still count toward the Sarah's Challenge though - Paul)

Sixth Circle bonus: 20 points

Total: 95 75 points

Skulls: 8

Cheers!

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Nice Soviets to add to your force Dallas, and I LOVE the Cyberskulls - I'm sure Barks the Skull Lord will be impressed also! 

As you say the one with the mitre is just fab. Clearly he was an Ecclesiarch of some note, though unable to be cannonised because of those incriminating social media posts from the Dark Eldar pleasure palace on Eroticon VI - pity! Perhaps the other skulls are the remnants of his Ministorum crew back in the day too? :-)

- Paul