From JohnS - Late Romans and Late Halflings (140 points)

 Life continues throwing curveballs but I managed to get some Late Roman Cavalry finished.

 These are Gripping [Beast? Minion Dallas] Late Roman Cavalry. The sculpting is a little stiff but they do the job.  

I decided to give them a variety of shield designs, just for the cool factor.

They are based as 2 (of 3) elements of a To The Strongest unit, with the Hero on the oval base.

What you probably don't want to know is that I dropped the middle of these three elements just after this photo and snapped the lance and popped off the shield...

I have also been working my way through Mantic's Halfling Muster Battlegroup.

These are LARGE halflings, taller than GW dwarfs!

They have a cool "early 19th century English villagers" vibe to them.

They look like the local squire has called out the muster and they have answered.

Armed with their fowling pieces, they are ready to repel the louts disturbing their idyll.

The melee troops are armed with mallets, ready to tenderize.

As soon as I saw these figures I was reminded of a bronze faced maul my coachbuilder grandfather had, so bronze they are!

Once again I made the shield faces quite plain as these are not warlike people, they are armed with what is needed to do the job.

These smaller halflings (more GW/LOTR size) are a Paul Hicks sculpt.

Now available from Footsore, I purchased these in a Kickstarter many moons ago.

I have painted these as members of my ever increasing Halfling Empire Army for Old World or Warhammer Fantasy Battle. 

That's my lot for today. Apologies for the awful photos. One of this week's surprises was a need to temporarily move out of my office which means my photography set-up is adhoc.

5 x 28mm Cavalry @ 10 pts  = 50

16 x 28mm Infantry @ 5 pts = 80

2 x 20mm 28mm Infantry @ 4 5pts = 8 10 [these are 28mm halflings so I'm awarding 5 each]

Total 140 points.

Nice production this week John, and you're right - the halflings give a nice "green and pleasant land" kind of vibe, which I think was always Tolkien's idea. Their rural attire is also really good and you've done a nice job with them. The Late Romans are pretty cool too. 

Happy to confirm 140 points for this lot!

Dallas 

From PeteB: Gluttony, Greed, Wrath and some other figures (143 points)

I couldn't post last week, so now I have a bit more things to show. I managed to finish three circles of "The Abyss", a Dulcop Robin Hood figure and some 20 mm figures. Let's start with the circles.

Gluttony - Paul Hicks - Lamme Goedzak and friends - 28 mm - 35 Points

These figures are the CRISIS 2017 Antwerp figures. For those who has been there they know there was always an entry figure in the goodie bag. That year it was Tijl Uilenspiegel and you could buy two extra figures and a base. And one of the extra figures was Lamme Goedzak, a man that like food and wine very much. Two things on the figure point in that direction, a spoon and a rabbit. the third figure is Nele, girlfriend of Tijl. For this circle I couldn't seperate them. 

Unpainted figures

Points:
- Gluttony                        = 20 Points
- 3 x 28 mm foot figures = 15 Points

- Total                              = 35 Points

Greed - Crescent - Sheriff of Nothingham - 54 mm - 30 Points

This figure made by Crescent joined the gang of Prince John for more power and fill his pockets. That's why I choose him for thsi circle. You can find him as an original Crescent figure but also from Kellogg's. Only the markings under the base can make that clear. This one I'm showing is original. I only have the Kellogg's figures complete and unpainted. This one had some paint on him so now he looks better. The color pallet I took was random. 

My collection.
Top = Crescent, 3 figures missing.

Points:

- Greed                   = 20 Points

- 1 x 54 mm figure = 10 Points

- Total                     = 30 Points

Wrath - 3D - Plague Doctor - 54 mm - 30 Points

The plague was also known as "The Wrath of God" and therefor this doctor is the ideal figure for this circle. The figure is a 3D print (no brand) made by a German friend of me. I paint these figures for my wife because she reads everything that has the plague as subject. The first one was from Speira Miniatures (= link to my blog) and since then I collect and paint them for her. Second one can be found here. I have some more to paint but not now.

Points:

- Wrath                   = 20 Points

- 1 x 54 mm figure = 10 Points

- Total                     = 30 Points

Dulcop - Robin Hood Merry Man - 54 mm - 10 Points

I couldn't paint that villian of Nothingham without one of the heroes to give some resistance. An old Italian figure, hard to get like the Napoleonic figures. Lovely figure to paint and I'm happy with the result.

Points:

- 1 x 54 mm figure = 10 Points

Waterloo1815 - Roger's Rangers - 20 mm - 38 Points

These figures were lying way to long in a box unpainted. I've got one sprue of these from a swap with a friend. When I started on them I saw two figures with snow shoes and the other eight without. So I based two groups on gras and the others in the snow. I base these figure only for storage as I'm not a wargamer. A review of these figures can be found on Plastic Soldier Review.

Snow is from Games Workshop.

Boxart

I've painted the edges of the bases red to mark them as British troops. I know that the rules say that a lying figure is only half of the points, and I counted him that way, but I'm not sure that the figure is really lying. I've painted the whole figure before it was put on the base because most of the equipment he's wearing is visible. I let it to Teemu to make a decission.

Points:

- 9,5 x 20 mm figure = 38 Points

The whole bunch of this post! 😊

Final total:

- Gluttony                       = 35 Points

- Greed                            = 30 Points

- Wrath                            = 30 Points

- Dulcop figure                = 10 Points

- Waterloo1815 figures    = 38 Points

- Total points of this post = 143 Points

Thanks for watching and have fun!

TeemuL: Wonderful and varied entry, I especially like your Sheriff of Nottingham and the Plague Doctor. Great colours on them! No issues with the others, either, I find your brushwork pleasing my eyes. Quite a grab of bonus points, too. I'll give you full points for the half lying mini, because 1) you say you fully painted him and 2) I'm the bestest of minions.

From GregB - Hospitaller Banner Bearers & Infantry (44 points)

Some 28mm Hospitaller knights - figures from Footsore, sculpted by Paul Hicks.

For my first submission today I have some figures which have been sitting in the queue for over a year...here we have some members of the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem - the Hospitaller Knights. These are 28mm metal castings from Footsore Miniatures, received from a Kickstarter I backed a few years ago. The figures were sculpted by the amazing Paul Hicks, and the flags are from Little Big Man Studios (now available through Victrix). 

Banner man and fellow warrior - I particularly enjoy the Knights who have some mix of cloth in their headgear...really sets the "period" for me. 

The Crusades are a period of history that has fascinated me for years. I love reading about this era of history, and as you might expect this interest has naturally merged with my hobby mania such that I am keen to run games set during the period. So you would think I probably have a well-organized collection for the setting, right? LOL. 

"Prepare to believe!"

My intense interest in the Crusades has often floundered on the kinds of mental rocks that often wreak havoc and limit or stop any useful progress among wargamers. Mostly I have waffled between hoping to play skirmish games like "Saga" and then suddenly wanting to do larger games like "Hail Caesar", and then struggling with how to base the figures...inducing paralysis via analysis and causing me to go paint some more 30k stuff instead :) Over the years I have managed to paint what amounts to a pair of large war bands that would work for "Saga" - not nothing, but hardly great progress.

More awesome poses from Paul Hicks...man I love his stuff...

These Footsore figures were meant to jolt me out of this stasis, but instead have been a prime example of this unfortunate tendency...at first I was using the round bases to paint them - you can see some of the initial figures back in Challenge XIII. Since that time, I have come to my senses and re-based those original figures on more traditional square bases to allow for their deployment in a game like "Warhammer Ancient Battles" or "Hail Caesar". Moving houses last year didn't help with progress on this effort, but in the summer I did get a second bunch of Hospitallers based up and primed and...well, you know how the rest goes...

Love how his hood hangs over his brow...adds to a menacing air...

Another view of the mounted banner man.

But here we are in AHPC XV, and I can make a bit more progress again! These sculpts are just amazing to paint - beautiful, proper metal sculpts created by the talented hand of Paul Hicks...what else could a hobby squirrel want?? The colour palette for these warriors is fairly basic and muted, but still fun to work with. The shields are hand-painted, not my preference, but it didn't turn out too badly. 

For scoring purposes we have six 28mm foot figures and a single mounted 28mm figure, which should account for 40 points. Hopefully some more Crusades-era figures will join this lot on the painted shelves before this edition of the Challenge concludes. 

---------

One of my favourite periods also Greg, and lovely Hospitallers they are too! If you want to play some smaller scale games with them, check out the rules "Outremer" in the Osprey Blue Book series. Lots of fun, RPGlite skirmish level gaming fun to be had, and you've got all you need already painted in this submission. Take a few bonus points for the banners too :-)

- Paul

From Curt: The First Post of Challenge XIV - The Rosetta Stone (21 Points)

Welcome to fourteenth edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!

This year's theme focuses on libraries, and so I wanted to make sure I made my first entry about reading, specifically the words and symbols that we use to communicate out thoughts and ideas. 

Here is a small vignette depicting a group of Napoleonic soldiers and French academic savants examining the Rosetta Stone (perhaps only a few hours before it became a  British trophy). 

The Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French in 1799 during their ill-fated Egyptian campaign near the town of Rashid ('Rosetta') in the Nile Delta. 

As many know, the Rosetta Stone's importance stems from it providing the linguistic links between Egyptian and Greek, and three writing systems, hieroglyphics, demotic script (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics), and the Greek alphabet. The Stone provided a definitive key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.

The Rosetta Stone was later taken by the British as a war trophy, part of the Capitulation of Alexandria in 1801, resulting from their victory over the French in 1800. The Stone has been part of the British Museum's collection ever since, and is in fact their most viewed object. The Egyptian government has made requests for the Stone to be repatriated, but there has been little movement on this matter. With an increasing number of cultural objects being returned to their traditional owners, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and other priceless objects held in foreign repositories. 

I got the Rosetta Stone as a STL file from MyminiFactory. It's very cool in the sense that the file is from a scan of the original artefact. I simply reduced it down to scale to fit with 28mm figures. The assorted minis shown here are a conceit, coming from a previous Challenge years ago (and so will not be scored), but I thought it might be a bit of fun to have a scene depicting French scholars madly taking some sketches before the heathen British arrive to despoil their discovery.

As to points, the stone itself is hardly worth scoring, say 1 point. BUT I will be cheeky and claim the New Acquisition Topic on the map as the Rosetta stone was a new acquisition to both the French (briefly), and the British.

So, 21 points for me!

Just so everybody knows, I'll be handling the posting and scoring until January 1st where I will then pass on this weighty responsibility to our wonderful, merry band of Minions. As it's just me in the cockpit for these next few days, please be patient with me as I, like many of you, are contending with work, family and festive responsibilities (and, yes, mad hobbying). 

Again, welcome to the Challenge! Now, let the fun begin!

- Curt