From Mike W - My last post of the Challenge or Odds & ends on my Workbench (45 Points)

Well this is my last post for this challenge, as ever it had been fun and as the name implies - challenging!

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in running the challenge, great work! And let's all join the two wee guys below and raise a glass to all our beloved minions...

As the title of this post suggests  I have literally looked to clear all those stray items on my workbench that have stalled and hit a backwater in the last few months.

First off are two Warlord Games ECW Highlanders who along with their compatriots are being readied for a potential future game. These two seemed to have been waylaid at the pub and were missed when I completed their friends last summer.

Two Highlanders celebrating the end of this year's challenge!

Although the figures give a sense of wearing tartan, actually bottled out trying to pait full tartan on these guys. instaed after doing a base colour of green or blue, I used marker pens to draw lines in a chequered pattern over the base colour. I tried to make the lines follow the flow of eth cloth but didn't worry too much about making them too acurate.

A couple of spots in contrasting colors before applying a varnish - the imporatnat thing here being it was an oil based varnish as the markers were water soluable and using water based varnish literally wipes teh lines out! Once the varnish was dry (overnight) I was then able to apply Army Painter washes & Inks to add shading to the cloth and it turned a dodgey child like tartan into something that is in my opinion tabletop passable!

The reverse view

Below is a test figure I did based upon a sprue of figures on the front of a magazine some time ago, I forget now if it was a Perrys or a Wargames Atlantic product....

Later War MP34 infantryman

Finally painted and based!

Another view

At my Wargames Club we are gearing up for a campaign set in the Marion Wars (Mary Queen of Scots) period of Scottish history. The crossbowman below us another figure that got separated and lost from his parent unit on my workbench...

.... yes, my workbench can get quite chaoticat times and usually only gets sorted and cleaned when my wife puts her foot down!

Completed Crossboman

He could be on either side of teh conflict

These Zombicide Invader Survivors have finally been completed, I started these when I was doing my Xenos earlier in the challenge.

Five more Zombicide Survivors

For some reason, I always struggle with doing the survivor figures in these post Apocalyptic games - the monsters always seem more fun to paint. That said I'm almost decided to use North Star figures to provide the Survivors for scenarios I put on as I will develop stats cards for them to be Mining Corporation Marines, providing security for the Corporations mining sites - I like the figures better and I find them more fun to paint!

In case you wondered, Commander Amadi in the Yellow Power Suit
and Madame Singleton to his right

Left to Right: Cloud, Emma & Val

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So there it is  another year and another challenge. Until next year  happy painting everyone!

POINTS

5 x 28mm Zombicide Invader Survivors @ 5Pts ea                25 Points

2 x 28mm Highland DRinkers @ 5Pts ea                                10 Points

1 x 28mm German WW2 Infantryman                                      5 Points

1 x 28mm Border Riever Crossbowman                                   5 Points

TOTAL                                                                                       45 Points

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Great work for your final volley, Mike! Though I like all of these minis, I must say the two Jocks with their ale are my favourites (but being a Campbell, I'm a bit biased). 

Thanks for joining us this year, Mike, and I look forward to having you with us for the next Challenge!

- Curt

From MattW - last Post WW1, WW2, modern (45 points)

 Ww1, ww2 and modern 

Last post for the challenge, I have quite a few bits that did not make the last charge as I run out of enthusiasm after my airbrush decided to have a hissy fit so I had the afternoon off …. A big thanks to Curt, Sarah (for putting up with this craziness), all of the minions, and fellow challengers. 

So I finish with some 20th century wars armour. 

First up the venerable Ww1 1/76 male MkV from Airfix plastic, weathered and splattered with mud. This kit is a gift to a mate in Australia for his birthday later this year. 

Next up a 1/72 sdkfz 251/1 from plastic soldier company for my ww2 collection maker up for my 9th SS project. 

Finally a Swedish 1/72 resin kit armoured car from Gecko for my Cold War Swedes.

3 x 20mm vehicles @15 points 

 Total 45 points 

Squirrel 
Ww1
Ww2
Cold War 
Total 3 squirrel points 

Cheers
MattW  

From Millsy:

Cracking brushwork Matt. I particularly like the the camo on the 251/1 which has a really convincing depth to it. Even so my favourite would have to be the Gecko with is just wonderfully weird. It looks like someone liked the look of a T-34 and thought "I can do better. A LOT better".

45 more points closes out your Challenge nicely. Thanks for sharing your work with us this year.

Cheers,
Millsy

From RossM:10 & 15mm AFV Vehicles (86 Points)

Another AHPC draws to a close; a small dent in the piles of shame made and a final post for this year. 

First up are a small selection of armour cars for the D.A.K in World War 2. These are from Pendraken Miniatures and are 10mm in scale. 

The front row shows two Sd.Kfz. 221 (MG) armoured cars with the rear row showing three Sd.KFz. 222 armoured cars. When painting these models the undercoat has been Panzer grey to darken down the final colour and also to reflect the process of how the vehicles were originally over painted in desert colours. 

Washes and subtle dry brushing have been used to bring the overpainted colours together. 

Next up are two set of vehicles from the ongoing Bundeswehr project for Team Yankee. The first set of pics shows a zug of M109 Self propelled artillery pieces with a M113 OP in tow.  These have been painted using the same process as previous 

Next up is a zug of Marder I, sadly without their supporting Panzer Grenadiers who are currently sitting in the butterfly offerings of started but not finished models for this year's Challenge.  

The NATO Camo Vehicle wash from AK has been a great find and has really set the tone for this project.

Apologies on the lighting for the Bundeswehr vehicles, struggled to get a decent set up this evening for this.  

So, another challenge finishes and the action of painting across the darker months of the year has given motivation to continue with several projects as well as some bits just for the fun of it. It is a hobby after all. 

In terms of points, the following can be added to the tally

10mm vehicles x 5 equaling 30 points

15mm vehicles x 7 equalling 56 points

I have made donations to Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK Charities as my contribution for taking part. 

 

Thanks for looking and a huge thank you to you all for AHPC XVI

Cheers for now

___________________________

Great looking vehicles, Ross. The WWII German recce are excellent but I especially like the NATO camo. Well done! 

I look forward to seeing you with us next year!

- Curt 

From MartinN: Fallschirmjäger and Firefly (65 pts.)

Another challenge is drawing to an untimely close and once again I come up short a few points. While I had a good start I rapidly lost steam and only were able to pick up speed again those last few days. I'm pretty certain that a lot of you know the feeling only too well. But the ride was a lot of fun and once again I enjoyed myself immensely. I wasn't as active on here as I'd have liked, but I enjoyed watching the daily stream of gorgeously painted miniatures.

First off for my last entry this year is a 20mm 3D printed Sherman Firefly by Arvernes Miniatures. Having painted two regular 75mm Shermans for my Canadians previously I felt the urgent need to add a Firefly for that little bit of extra punch. The stowage is mostly from AB Figures as is the tank commander.

This is then followed by a Squad of 20mm Fallschirmjäger, also from AB Figures. They're a mix of regular Heer figures, mainly with Zeltbahn, and Fallschirmjäger with head swaps as I was aiming for a very late war feel. So these should be more suitable for those battles following the German defeat in Normandy. A time when the Fallschirmjäger were a mere shadow of their former strength. I don't like the hype that surrounds some of the supposedly 'elite' German units and having this hodge podge of grizzled veterans and raw recruits is just my thing.

For points we have one 20mm tank clocking in at 15 points, a half figure tank commander for 2 points and 12 Fallschirmjäger of which two are prone figures for another 44 points. All this should give me 71 65 points.

A huge thank you for goes out to my good friends Sarah, Curt and Greg as well as all the other minions. 

***

Nick I am confident I speak for all Challenge participants when I tell you it has been an absolute treat to have you along for the ride once again. Your brushwork sets the bar, as ever, and combined with top-shelf photography, your entries are a real treat for all of us. I think many Challengers will relates to the ebbs and flows of interest and momentum when it comes to painting all of these miniatures - and many of us will come up short in the face of our targets (certainly I will!). 

But what a treat is has been! And you close out with some absolutely stunning brushwork. Nothing makes me bonkers like camouflage patterns of late WW2 German units, and you have made it look stupendous here, and the blend of the zeltbahns and sky-blue uniforms, of the veterans the rookies, it is all just spot-on and makes we want to get back to painting some WW2 myself!

But my favourite here is the Firefly! When it comes to WW2 tanks, I'm always struck by how dreary so many of the western allied designs were. Even the ones with cool names were disappointing to see. But NOT the Firefly! One of the best silhouettes of the war (and only improved once the IDF started cracking out I-Shermans later on) and you've done it absolute justice here. Even the weird colour pattern at the bottom of the barrel - excellent!

As for your points, the magical spreadsheet tells me this is all worth 65 points - so I'm going to listen to the spreadsheet. Great Challenge Nick, it has been a treat to "minion" your work!

GregB

From JohnB: 20mm MarDav WW2 Italian Weapons Support Group (40 points)

Well I think this is the last posting from me - thanks to everyone involved and hopefully I will return with AHPC17. First up "the one that got away" 1/72 French Dragoons for the Wars of Louis XIVth around 1700 they are made by STRELETS a Ukrainian company still operating despite the Russian Invasion. The figures are produced using plastic injection moulding - a process popularised by Airfix back in the late 1950's. Ironically they compliment my earlier forces made up with Zvezda Russian Great Northern War figures which started my interest in this period back in 2010 when plastics were a cheap entry point to test a wargaming period out. Plastics in 1/72 are still a good deal £8 in the UK gets you about 40 infantry and 12 cavalry. or thats 20p infantry and cavalry 70p.

They come in boxes with nice artwork

only a small logo suggests the country of origin.

The sculpting is great for me and these recent products are now a match for a lot of metallics - AND THEY BOUNCE! Hopefully I will complete this unit soon and then post my AHPC stories on my wordpress blog site "the wargaming erratic". My last offering is a departure from my usual plastic injection mouldings and occasional metallics. This time its a resin product from MarDav of the UK.

The figures have fine layering so the material looks like its deposited. However they look fine painted up and at wargaming distance.

They are actually GOMBARDIANS for my FAUXTERRE wars - 1930 era in this case. I painted them in my chosen style for Italian green uniforms reference being the Osprey Greek Italian War of 1940 - they appear kind of blue green in the artwork. So I went with that. I have an anti tank gun, machine gun and light mortar all of which I inspected at UK Battleground Wargames show at Stockton, Teeside, last Autumn and bought them there and then. Pendraken run the show and this year went stateside for the first time - great products. And they get interesting traders to their free entry show. I think MarDav are mainly an online business so it was nice to see them in the flesh so to speak esepcially in terms of scale.

Basically they get a craft paint mid green base then Citadel CC warp lighting and militarum green(I did 50% of them without Militarum as an experiment) then dry brush Vallejo Air light green for aeroplanes! which actually comes out a bit blueish. The helmets just got militarum over warp lighting to provide contrast. Why? well for Italians it is the case that their helmets are different from the Russian and US "bowls". And I wanted to highlight that.

Points wise its 1 x 8 points for the anti tank gun and 8 x 4 points for the crews. TOTAL points = 40 points and one squirrel I believe. And that wraps up my highest AHPC score to date which simply shows I have been very productive this winter.

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Sylvain: Shotgun posts! Some infantry to add to your cavalry (that I can see lying around in the background). You invest a lot of love in this Fauxterre projectand it's makes your post very interesting to read. Great paint job on these miniatures! Bravissimo!

 

 

 

JohnB: Tuesday Terrors: "sinews of war" the final cut - 3No. - 1/72 Opel Blitzs (45points)

This is my last post concerning the WW2 era forces that populate my Fauxterre fantasy games.

This time straight from the production line are some real world Opel Blitzs by Plastic Soldier Company. A post by another challenger last week, shows the same vehicles after a bit of campaigning.....

I had some fun fitting the windscreens which fouled the really exact fit of the models - something thats impressive until you mess it up with a mod. Anyway its fine in the end. I might even skip some shading although windscreens wipers might be added later.

I did paint the driver and assistant because they are so visible.

This time round I chose anew paint for me vallejo "Olive Brown" I gave it two coats over black undercoat/prime. I used contrast colour browns on the wood truck bodies and over yellow ochre for the canvas hoods. I might need to dry brush the hoods to reduce the shade a bit.

so its 3 vehicles at 15 points each for 20mm (1/72) or 45 points. not sure that different forces (german) vehicles gets me a squirrel?

Another trio of fine looking vehicles John.  Trucks don't last long on table, but they serve a vital role and I love to see them included.  And yes, I've counted opposing sides as two squirrels.  Hope that we see more before the end of days.  

 

PeterD