From Mike D. Heavy Normans and Light Romans (365 pts)

I got off to great start this year. I was well ahead of my intended pace entering into February and was hoping I could make my secret dream stretch goal of a thousand points. Then this past month I kind of hit a wall. I don't know if I burnt out early, or the winter sads just got to me, but I had a hard time painting at my usual past these past few weeks. In addition, I had intended to parcel my output into more frequent posts this year, but here I am with my yearly final points-bomb. I've even got a few 15mm elephants I've painted that I'm still hoping to photograph and post tomorrow. 

But here I've got two chunks for the historical army projects that were my primary goal this year. First Republican Roman Velites.

Then I've painted up a few more Perry Crusaders for my Norman army:

So that's

61 x 28mm foot @ 5pts  = 305

6 x 28mm mounted @ 10pts = 60

Total = 365

That should put me just past my goal of 700 pts and a personal best. Thanks again to everybody.

From Millsy:

You're by no means alone in feeling the burn this late in the Challenge Mike. Even so you are still producing quality and quantity so congrats to you mate. It's always satisfying to make inroads into a large project and you've done that here in spades.

Congrats on reaching your points target too!

From MikeD: Planet Vulcan - Point Ears. Long, Pointy Ears (76 pts)

 A couple of months in and I'm finally boarding the rocketship to embark on my voyage to where just about everyone has been before. These are some wonderful Skull and Crown minis I picked up on a Kickstarter a couple of years back. I'm a sucker for these sort of arty, literary minis for which I can find no gaming use whatsoever. They wind up being perfect for the Challenge themes though. Like Skull and Crown's Triumph of Death line or Eureka Miniatures Chaos line.

These figures were designed to represent what are know as 'Drolleries', that is the grotesque and comical drawings one finds in the margins of illuminated Medieval manuscripts. Unpacking a joke too completely just destroys it, but the juxtaposition of the timid little animals with the worst violence of human nature is still funny all these years later. 

Hysterical

Hmmm... could use more rabbits...

For scoring, I figured counting them as 20mm figures would be fairest, although of course I defer to whatever Minion Millsy thinks. 

So that's     8 foot @ 4pts = 32

                   3 mounted @ 8pts = 24

                    Planet Vulcan = 20 

for a total of 76 points I think.

From DaveD - AKA Millsy North.

OK - This hobby continues to amaze - who knew about this little rabbit hole to go down. well i am amazed alright - so that 76 points of long earedness for you

From MikeD - Romans of the Republican Variety (160 pts)

The good news is I've gotten a lot painting done this challenge. The difficulty I'm having is that things sit in the 'To Be Photographed' lane for quite some time. I envy those with enough space to set up a dedicated photo area. I still haven't gotten a system or easy setup to get these together. Also, I recently noticed a correlation between how I feel about pictures of myself and pictures of my painted figures. All I can see is that stray cat hair or part of the face with the big green streak across it. (Not to mention what I see when I look at my minis!) Anyhow...

In all these years as a wargamer, I've never had a Roman army. But as part of my 2022 project to get back into rank-and-file mass battle games (e.g. ADLG), a got a couple of boxes of Victrix Republican Romans and have been working on them for the Challenge. I have to say, these are the first Victrix's I've done and I love them. Great size and variety. I originally bought my first box of these a few years ago, when they had a special offer to include a limited edition (at the time) obscene graffiti shield decal set. I later learned that these are a totally 'speculative' take on legionary living, but I gotta admit they were too fun/cool to pass up.

The scoring on these is:

32 x 28mm foot @ 5pts = 160 pts

From Millsy:

Good to see someone else jumping aboard the Republican Roman wagon Mike! I really like how you have gone about painting yours and the slightly irregular basing and mix of gladii and pila adds an extra bit of dynamism. I've just had another big batch arrive in the post so I will be revisiting mine at some point soon, partly spurred on by yours.

PS. You're a braver man than I am tackling those split shield decals mate, I avoided them like the plague!

Cheers,
Millsy

From MikeD. 10mm ACW Terrain and Commands (36 pts)

In last year's Challenge I painted some 10mm ACW figures, my first foray into tiny scales. I think I got about 60 foot done. Since then I've gotten up to about 600, which adds up to about 100 bases of each side (I'm intending to use Regimental Fire and Fury). So by the time this years edition kicked off I was focused on trying to get them on the table. I found some scenarios I could actually do with such a paltry few figures and I'm still in the process of getting terrain together. Also going to need some command stands and markers, etc. I've gone with Brigade command with one mounted figure and Division command with two each. This entry is pretty much what I was working on when the Challenge began and were completed during that first week. 

I've just ordered a ludicrously expensive set of Gettysburg buildings in this scale including the Lutheran Seminary so perhaps you'll see those by the end of the Challenge, and I've figured out just the perfect toothpicks to use to make snake rail fencing, so we'll see how that goes too.

For scoring purposes, it's:

• 8 x 10mm Mounted @ 2pts = 16 pts
• 1 x  6'' x 6'' box of terrain = 20 pts

Total = 36 pts

From Millsy:

At first glance I these look like 15mm scale stuff Mike they are painted so well. The farm buildings are particularly impressive, weathered to perfection and painted in just the right mix of earthy tones. It would be great to see some pics of what sounds like quite an impressive collection mate, so if you do any more of these this Challenge can we see some of the rest please?

From MikeD - Breaking the ice with some Norman knights (120 pts)

The goal for my Challenge this year is to make some headway into building up my historical wargaming armies. During the past couple of years I think most of what I've painted have been skirmish and board game figures. A lot of GW and painting-for-its-own-sake projects. Probably because the possibilities for putting big armies on the table has been so limited. Anyhow, this past November I went to my first Historicon since the pandemic started, and it lit my fire for getting back to my hobby roots. It's been a minute that I took on a big army project. 

Over last summer I read a couple of books about the Normans in Italy that really got my imagination working on getting an army together I could use for Italo-Norman and Kingdom of Sicily. ('Normans in the South and Kingdom in the Sun, both by John Julius Norwich). After shopping through all the figures on sale at the show (Conquest, Vitrix, Gripping Beast) I decided I didn't love any of them and I wound up ordering Perry Crusaders by overseas mail, because you know, wargamer.

So here is the first batch of what should be several entries of Normans over the next couple of months. (By this point I feel that there are certain ranges that have appeared in the Challenge over the years that they 'Need No Introduction') And that's just from me; I've seen at least one set of Norman knights already in this years edition.

Also, let me say how happy I am to back in the Challenge. I believe this is my sixth year. This past year the profile of the Challenge seems to have increased, and I've heard a lot of my favorite podcasters and bloggers talking about their participation. It's just increased the connection  I feel with so many talented people who share love for their hobby.

So the math should be pretty straightforward here:

12 28mm mounted @10 pts each = 120 pts.

From Millsy:

Lovely brushwork Mike. There's something properly menacing about ranks of Norman cavalry. I should know, I have some too and coincidentally used Perry Crusaders as well. Yours really look the part. That diamond blue and white shield is a corker and really makes your commander pop. The basing is spot on too.

It's great to hear you getting the same sort of buzz from participating mate. That's just what the Challenge is all about. Keep it coming!

From MikeD: Blackstone Fortress Bad Guys (115 Points)

I've been able to pick up my pace a bit in the past couple of weeks, but it looks like I'm gonna come up a bit short of my goal. I was finally able to get started on the figures in the Blackstone Fortress box set, which I'm showing here. First up are the Renegade Guard.

I love these figures as they look great mixed in with Chaos Cultists or the Necromunda Gangers I've been working on for my Mutant Cult Milita project.

The Ur-ghuls and Drones where a slow painters dream, especially getting towards the end of the challenge.

Finally, I've got the Rogue Psykers. Again, like a lot of these one-off semi-character models GW has been putting out in the box sets, they have a ton of character and I can imagine using them in all sorts of contexts.

 All told, that's 23 figures at 5 points each for a total of 115.

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Lovely brushwork Mike! So much to admire in this post. I really like your use of colour and shading with these miscreants, especially the Renegade Guard and the Rogue Psykers. Very nice. 

These rather sketchy chaps will give you a nice 115 points for your efforts. Well done!

- Curt

From Mike D - House Cawdor Gangers (50 points)

Well, this hasn't been my most productive challenge so far. My non-miniature life (true-scale self?), has been a bit hectic for most of the winter. I had kind of anticipated it and set my sights low, but still it's a been a bit disappointing. For the most part the impediment has been my job. But things seem to be calming down and I'm hoping I can finish strong.

On a positive note, I have been able to stick to my goal of finishing off all the Necromunda minis I bough in 2018. The Cawdor figures represent the next-to-last box I have sitting on my shelf. Not counting the Forgeworld characters. Oh dear.

I can rarely bring myself to paint the colors on the box, and in the case the Red and White turned out ok, I think. Also, I find that the things that I think are oh-so-cool when I see them originally are the things that I'm cursing by the time I'm half way painting the figures. I love all the little totems and spikes and nooses etc but they really slow you down. All told, it's 10 gangers at 5 points each for 50 points.
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It's been a long time since I played Necromunda, and it's good to see it back in production with some really nice figures.

These gangers certainly repaid the effort; all that detail! A headache to finish, but you really did an excellent job.

50 points, well-earned!

Ev

From MikeD - Chaos Cultists (115 points)

I've been continuing with my project for this challenge of painting up all the ganger/cultist/militia 40k figures I've accumulated for use in Necromunda and my own homebrew game. The more GW has moved towards big centerpiece CAD-aided models like Demon Primarchs and such, the more I've come to love the ragged improvised hive dwellers. These Chaos Cultists have been sitting on my unpainted pile for some time. They're a bit limited in terms of poses and options, but I still really like them. The Renegade Ogryn I got on EBay a while back and I think he fits in well.

All told that's 20 devotees of the Primordial Annihilator @ 5 pts each, along with the big fella who I'm guess is 10-15 pts (?) for a total of 115 pts toward my goal and the GW challenge.
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"Primordial Annihilator"? I think I had a pint of that in Tassie...
; )

Amazing work on this horde of cultists, Mike, nicely done! 5 points each for the human-sized heretics and 15 for the Ogryn since he's such an absolute unit. 

Ev