From SteveA: Grabbing 3 Challenge books and putting them on the book cart! (108 points)

Heya there,   for my post this week I want to take a bite out of my painting backlog shaped by the  very kinds of themed painting challenges that first drew my attention to the AHPC.  Also I want to over come some slack in my points progress as end of the this year's AHPC draws near.  Thus my model count here is few, but each parcel of panting  does ding its own challenge point check box..

I delved into my blues, greens and brown colors to paint up a Troll (akin to the Trolls of children's stories such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff ) to serve as wandering monster in future games of Frost Grave, and to enable me to  pull a  "Children's Book" for Library Challenge.

The female Wizards apprentice I painted up for my FrostGrave Warband - will spin the wheels  of Lady Sarah’s Library Cart  to carry me to a new section in the Library.

I jumped off  of Lady Sarah’s Library  Cart to meet the Maritime challenge with a Star-Spawn of Cthulhu mini that Wizkids Games put out for Pathfinder a few years back.  According to the pathfinderwiki.com, the smallest Star-Spawn stands nearly 30 feet in height, (cited from "Wake of the Watcher," a Pathfinder RPG adventure) Thus, I am assuming this elder thing bursting up from deep waters can be scored as a 54 mm mini and also ding me a check box for the Maritime Library challenge   ( or if not the Maritime Challenge, then I submit this old one mini for consideration under the Romance Novel challenge... after all who  among us does not  harbor a mad dark love within their spoiled hearts for the remorseless cosmic might of Cthulhu and his spawn)

The tank may at first seem a little out of place between an aegis of cosmic horror and a couple figures for frozen fantasy, but for me to meet the challenge for Local History, this Sherman Tank M4 model  (2002, ArmourFast, 1/72 plastic kit,  No 99001)  is very similar to the Sherman M4 Tank War Memorial  that still stands proudly in my old  childhood neighborhood.

I aim to be somewhat brief and concise with my posts, so rather than recount the Local Tank War Memorial's history, I will instead provide link to a site describing the real M4 Tank of my childhood memories.

The Sherman Tank Memorial: https://www.rclwinnipeg100.ca/2010/03/06/80/

Thus with a load of  3 Library Challenge books pulled from shelves and placed upon the Lady Sarah’s Library  Cart, I believe I have made some overdue progress to paint me up some challenge points.

 5 pts  x1 Troll Foot Figure 28mm

20 pts Challenge Library: Children's Books

 5 pts x1 Wizard Apprentice (Female) Foot Figure 28mm

20 pts Lady Sarah’s Book Cart

10 pts x1 Star Born Foot Figure 54mm

20 pts Challenge Library: Maritime

 8 pts x1 Sherman M4  Tank 1/72 Scale, (score as Vehicle 15mm) 

20 pts Challenge Library: Local History

Total = 108 points

TeemuL: No worries, Cthulhu is a well known maritime entity. In fact he could easily be pretty much anything he wants... Iä, Iä! (Yes, I have nice Finnish keyboard, where there actually is a key for "ä"). And like Cthulhu embraces everything in the end, you grab quite a lot of Library locations and thus points. I guess the troll is an old WHFB troll? And your local Sherman looks business, but in the end doesn't have a chance against Cthulhu. Or Wizard... May be a small change against a troll. :)

From Kerry T - Sheep, Welshmen with a proper Men of Harlech and a few others - 410 points

Morning afternoon and evening all

Apologies but I missed last week's Friday deadline and I suspect only just made this weeks by the skin of my teeth. Thank you Millsy for your forbearance

Maybe my opening picture leaves me open to some jibes - because its a picture of sheep -yes I know there's no way my Aussie mates are going to miss out on the opportunity to rib somebody living in NZ (and a Welshman at that) when he mentions sheep! But here we go.....

Baa Baa Black sheep have you any wool?

Flocking hell, that's a Baaaahhd joke.........

I'm going to claim this as my children's books entry - its a nursery rhyme after all and how many of us in our early years didn't have a book of nursery rhymes?

Hmm.... how many points do you reckon I can claim for this? If you do a quick Google you'll find that there are apparently 25.14 million sheep in NZ, I reckon at least half are in the picture above...

So who looks after these sheep? I hear you ask...

Well its obvious innnnnnnnit...

Little Bo Peep

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep so now she's gone on a bender...

No idea where this figure came from but if you closely at what you see pouring out from the jug then you wine aficionados will clearly see that is a perfect NZ Pinot Noir colour.. nectar of the gods...

Trust me, I know I've just had a few glasses...

Now talking of gods leads me on to the next subject - yes - gods - otherwise know as Welshmen...

Footsore Miniatures Late Medieval Welsh

Please note these are not running away, they are Welsh, we don't do that, they have just turned  face 

So what's the difference between Plaid and tartan?

Google says.... "

Both plaids and tartans are woven strips that meet at 90 degree angles. Tartans have an identical pattern if stripes rubbing vertically and horizontally. resulting in overlapping square grids. Regular plaids are not necessarily the same in both directions, with variation in colour, size, and /or pattern of stripes"

Don't ask me I just put paint on them

Welsh Knights pack from Footsore

2 packs of Welsh Hearthguard from Footsore

See the man 3rd from right, his bloody sword arm fell off just after I took this photo

Hopefully this lot of handsome valleyboys will count as my local history bonus

Now I'm sure you've all heard Stanley Baker and his mates sing "Men of Harlech"  in the film Zulu...

If you think that gives you goosebumps then the original Welsh version surpasses that by so much and will make your heart stop. I wish I could sing it for you and record it here

"Wele Goelcerth wen yn flamio a thafodau tan yn bloeddio, ar y'r ddewrion ddod i daro'n unwaith eto'n un"

(Behold a bright beacon flaming and tongues of fire shouting for the brave to come fight once again as one....)......

..."Wele faner Gwalia'i fyny....rhyddid aif a hi"

(See the flag of Gwalia on high....freedom she shall have")

Welsh commander, champion and standard bearer

Ye olde Tom Jones and the bishop

Now having posted the Welsh, we'll go down a notch and post some pictures of English 😁

Bloody Miniatures ECW cavalry

Bit of a rush job painted in 3 days

The Lobsters

The Flashing blades

The Moss Troopers

and finally the Troopers

These are such lovely figures and so well advertised by Captain Blood on the Bloody Miniatures site . Its really good to hear that he's expanding the range now to produce units rather than just figures for skirmish sized games, For the moment these cavalry have been based singly but in time I anticipate incorporating and probably re-basing them for cavalry regiments in close order.

Final offering, more Victrix Normans , this time painted up as  Andalusian/Moorish cavalry for the Reconquista. Shields by LBMS transfers - its extraordinary to think that this is the same pack of heavy cavalry painted up in an earlier post, well done Victrix

Thanks as always for your encouragement

In summary

1 Flock of a million NZ lamb shanks - say 15 points?

1 female figure for Lady Sarah's library cart bonus  = 20 points

Children's book bonus = 20 points

18 x 28mm Footsore Welsh Medieval figures @5 points = 90 points

Local history bonus @ 20 points

12 x 28mm Bloody Miniatures ECW cavalry @ 10 points = 120 points

12 x 28mm Victrix Andalusian Cavalry @ 10 points = 120 points

Total 405 points

Squirrel x3 

Many thanks

From Millsy: BOOM! That's quite the points bomb Kerry and contains a boat load of beautifully painted kit. I've been waiting almost a week to see these sheep after our chat for starters. Love the detail on the plaid and the shields especially, and I'm a little gobsmacked at the level of quality here given how fast you churned these out. You neglected the 5 points for Little Bo Peep herself so that lifts you total for the lot to a stonking 410 points! Cracking effort mate.