Friday, 21 March 2025

From Mike W - Another Deadline missed but another Challenge completed....

In the scramble to get some final figures completed by the looming deadline, which I missed, I have finished my current  backlog of Greenskin odds & ends. Unfortunately on the evening of the 19th March after an evening of painting, I thought I'd let the figures dry overnight and photograph and submit in the morning. Little did my befuddled brain recall at the time that the challenge closed at 1 miniute past midnight on the 20th....

So rather sheepishly, I present a late unit of 16 x Night Goblins which includes a boss, musician and a netter with acompanying clubba! Maybe this tale ofd mis-timing can be viewed as some kind of consolation and warning to others to watch the calendar! 😅

The completed unit of 16 x Night Goblins


Close-up of the left side of the unit - you can see the blue highlights I have put into some of their robes quite well here.

These guys have been kicking around my workdesk for a few months and came as parts of various batches of other Orc & Goblin figures that I had completed earlier in the year. The figures are the 1990's multipart versions of the Night Goblin, bigger than the later monocast bretheren and to my mind much more characterful.

The right side of the unit, lots of figures have tiny skull ear-rings and/or skulls on their waist belts but I'm not claiming for these!


Another view of the full unit

I undercoated these in dark grey before doing their robes in watered down black, many were then washed and highlighted with Prussian Blue to give them a stand-out appearance from other units. As much as I like black Night Goblins, row upon row of purely black figures does get dull.

Rear rank to the front, you can see the Netta here.
Net has 5 skulls attached, which I am claiming for!

Their green skins were added, appropriately enough, with GW Goblin Green and then washed with AP Green ink and highlighted again with Goblin Green. Mouths, teeth and other details were then addd. I have a vision of Goblins thieving shiney gold items and weearing them and so I give all my Goblins and Orks with gold ear-rings, bracelets etc - just to add more bling!

Figures were based in my usual manner with fine sand and electostatic grass.

Completed Doom Diver model

From a slightly different angle

And from the other side!

Next is a venerable item - A Goblin Doom Diver, something that I had been  looking for, for some time. I painted this up with a mix of regular and speed / contrast paints and think it has come out pretty well. I do not have the complete set of the original crew, but do have three Doom Divers (I think two of these may be original versions) whilst the device is a 2nd version released by GW and a more 'realistic' model.

I think these two Doom Diver figures are GW original release versions.

This guy is made for the 2nd version of the model.

I've added a few Snotlings - left over from last week's post, to the base to suppliment the crew. The original figures of two snotlings pulling a hook & rope being unavailable to me! 

Newly completed Orc Boar Rider

Finally I have an Orc Boar Rider, again left overs from other batches of Orcs that I have had over the last year or so, painted and now pressed into service.

I know that ther are newer Boar models for the Orc Riders
but the rest of my collection uses thes old style ones so I'm hapy!

If I were to start using the newer (and beter) boar models
I'd feel compelled to replace all the old ones as well...

With that done it is on to my Challenge Wrap-up, thanks again to the whole Challenge crew for making this event happen, I call out Martijn (my long suffereing Minion) and thank him for correcting my bad maths and also to Curt for his continued drive to keep this annual event running. 

It's pleasing to see that I managed to meet my self-set points target, position at a respectable 8th place in the points chart and to get two new armies on the self and ready to go - namely 28mm Arthurians and 15mm Epic Carthaginians. Of which photos below....

28mm Arthurian Army, still work in progress

Video of the Arthurian Army!

15mm Epic Carthaginian Army

Two bases of Archers, again two bases each of five figures.
Warlord Games, 15mm Epic,  Allied Italian Infantry

Warlord Games, 15mm Epic,  Celtiberian Infantry

I continue to needlessly add to my Tomb King & Greenskin Warhammer Fantasy armies, they are so much fun to paint and I have made a spluttering start to a Warhammer Elven army as well, although I have gone back to the drawing board on these as I need to plan out when I want to do, rather than just buy units on a whim.

21 x Tomb King Guardsmen
21 x Highland Miniatures, Aegean (High) Elves
Prehaps my favourite figure of the challenge, a venerable Elven Mage

Another new area for me was the raising of a Warhammer 40k Necron unit, I really liked these and will likely also plan out some thing for the next few months in this area as well.

3d Printed Necron Unit

Added to the mix this year were some more Landsnechts, some British Colonial Infantry, AWI Americans, Epic Romans, plus other odds and ends!

6 x 28mmLandsknecht Pikemen, based and ready to go!
Five Riflemen in Sudan
Five AWI American militiamen
Three stands of '30' 15mm Roman Soldiers, as supplied by Warlord Games

As a final wrap-up congratulations to fellow SAS Wargames Club member Grahame H. who absolutely smashed it this year with 4871 Points and several new armies.


GavinB: Wrapping Up the AHPC 15

And with that, the challenge is over... its been really fun to post my work up here for others to see, and to view the wonderful paintings of the other wonderful participants! I want to again thank Greg, the minion for Wednesday, and, Greg, if someone like myself can paint Wars of the Roses liveries onto some infantry figures, so can you! So don't be afraid, buy yourself some of those wonderful perry sculpts and get painting!! Also thanks to Curt and Sarah for letting me into this supportive community you've built! I really grew as a wargamer during this challenge, before I had only been working on wars of the roses. But now, at the end of the challenge I have three different projects that I'm working on simultaneously, Turnip28, WoTR, and The Walking Dead All Out War.




My top two favorite miniatures I painted this year

This has been a really great first challenge and I cant wait to come back next year and see all of your wonderful paint jobs!! 
Happy Painting, and have a splendid summer!
GavinB