From JonathanO: Scary Scarecrows (Golem's Haunt) 40 points

 Here are 4 scarecrows that have come to life and left the farmer's field.  They are striding through a meadow, not caring which rare wild flowers they tramp on.  No doubt they are going to cause quite a stir when they reach the nearby village.

These scary scarecrows are from Gripping Beast's Woodbine Design Company range.  They should be useful for a number of games.

Points:  4 x 28mm figures = 20.  Plus the Golem's Haunt bonus of 20 = 40 points in total.

Now on to the even more scary Chamber of Darkness.

From EdwardG: First Post! - Medieval Russians and Hall of Traps Entry (118 points)

 Hi All, 

Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year!

This is my first challenge! And first post! I have been following the Challenge for a long time and it is great to finally be able to join. :D I am located in Hamburg, Germany. We have a small but dedicated group of historical wargamers up here. Hope to possibly meet some of you in person one day if you visit the Tactica Wargames Show that is 'normally' held around February time. 

For my first entry I have pulled out some old 15mm figures that have sat around undercoated for at least the past fifteen years (minimum). These are the majority of the elements I need to complete my DBA (v3) Early Russian Army. I can no longer remember where I got the figures from, but I painted up the General's element at the time and the others have sat on the lead pile waiting for their turn. I had made a small self goal back at the start of 2020, to get them painted before the end of the year. And true to form, I have managed to put it off until nearly the deadline! I still have three elements of spear, and a German mercenary Knight element to complete, but I thought to put up what I have so far.

I paint with a mix of Vallejo and Citadel paints. Often I make liberal use of washes and inks for shading. 

I have to apologise. I am trialling my photography set up, so the pictures are not great and I cannot get many elements in the frame as I would wish. I hope to improve over the course of the challenge.  

First up is the upper class nobles, as mounted Knights. Four elements, are in the army, making it a third of the 12 element total strength. With them are the two elements of Tartar light horse. These elements plus the generals element are the total mounted for the army.   

Then there is the PBI. the foot sloggers who make up the other half of the army. There are a number of options in the army list. Therefore I have painted elements to cover all. It comes to 1 x 3Bw, 1 x 3Ax, 2 x 2Ps.

 Finally, I have my first entry for the Chambers of Challenge (and I hope it will be accepted!). My entry for the Hall of Traps is the Horde element for the Early Russian Army. This is an element representing the serfs of the nobles who have also been called out for the campaign. DBAv3 classes these peasants as Hordes (which is a nice term for filler that should really stay at the back and out of trouble.) I argue that as these peasants are trapped in the bonds of serfdom for their entire lives', along with their families and decedents, they qualify as an entry for the Hall of Traps (please). 

    

I make my tally for this post to be:

16 x 15mm Mounted = 64 points

17 x 15mm Foot = 34 points

+ 20 points for the Hall of Traps entry

Total = 118 points

I hope you all have a relaxing remainder of the holidays! I need to get more figures prepared for possible dry priming weather tomorrow! 

Tschüss!! 

Ed :) 

From TeemuL: Erkenbrand to the Helm's Deep (75 points)

I guess I have been around since Challenge V, so that is quite a lot. I'm from Finland and you can follow my mostly-hobby-related Instagram account @vainvader78, if you like.

I have usually tried to post once a week, but I already missed the first one. Things happen, when you are on holiday, not enough time for everything. Buying an old house will keep my rather busy for next couple months, or years. Challenge Chamber hopefully will give me a reason to post small entries regularly.

But first post is not about the Chamber, it is about my hobby resolution: paint all remaining Rohan miniatures. With Erkenbrand riding to Helm's Deep with his companions, I can start my journey to somewhere deeper...

These are painted mostly with Contrast paints, which work like magic on Lotr miniatures. They are not as tidy as the miniatures I painted some years ago, I have slightly changed my goal from quality to quantity (neither of them is very high, though).

Anyway, when focusing on playing with your miniatures, it is better to have an average level painted army than having a skirmish group and unassembled sprues, if you want to actually play. :)

Here they are in all their glory, Erkenbrand on foot and mounted and 6 riders of Rohan.

75 points, that will keep me in the top half for now.

Minion Teemu: These posts look a bit wrong without the minion comment, so I add them by myself and it makes me feel like a minion, too!

From TomG - Going Quackers Entering the Chambers & "Not" Curtgeld Ahoy - 50 points

Hello again, today I bring you my first entry in to the Chambers of Challenge via the Hall of Traps, and my entry cost mini, although this is a long post I hope you enjoy it. 

To start with is this Trapper, laying in wait for a dastardly, yet daffy, prey. The vignette is made up of a French Indian Wars plastic Warlord Games mini, from yet another freebie sprue, a tree stump and a duck from the recent Mantic Terrain Crate 2 Kickstarter.

I had great fun creating this, my first ever completed vignette, all for the sole purpose of exploring the ideas of laying in wait, trapping and being trapped. I wasn't sure what colours to use as it is a period of history I've never read in to, but the frame where the trapper came from was chock filled with interesting details. My thoughts went to the fur traders and the Jason Mamoa tv series, where all manner of visceral violence is laid out for our entertainment. Somewhere in there I'm sure I saw buff coloured clothing, so here we are.

From the top down you can just about see our dear friends aim is slightly off, but I'm sure any duck hunt players had a glitchy game once in a while. The added hatchet was initially going to have the musket rested on it, but the effect seemed daft, so it just became a visual interest point.

Painting the duck offered a surprisingly high level of calming and cathartic relaxation, simply letting go of what uniform and texture to work with, and instead just working from memory of all the ducks my kids and I have fed over the years. And of course we have our trapper who I named Trigger, for no better reason than I was watching the classic English sitcom "Only Fools and Horses" at the time of painting. 

Next we have the infamous Curtgeld mini for this year's entry fee. This chap has been sat in a collection of special edition minis i wanted to paint but had no reason to, and so what better reason to get at him than as a potential prize to one of you. I hope you like him as I loved painting him up. 

All in all I have very little idea how to score the vignette,  so I'll stick to the points I know I've earned:

Trapper Vignette (28mm mini plus bonus challenge points) - 25 points

Curtgeld (28mm mini plus bonus challenge points) - 25 points

Total - 50 points

That's all folks, I hope you like what you see and I'll catch you next time.

TomG

From KyleC - level 2 teleport 45 pts

Having navigated level 1 of the Dungeon, and surviving the underwater landing, they begin to make their way through Level 2!

Pre the big C this year, we had begun to play a bit of DnD within the family, but also with another family and their boys. So I figured with the downtime now and a printer at my disposal, it would be a good time to get some models sorted for future sessions. 

Now these were just test figures to see how printing actual 28mm scaled models would go. Had to adjust timings for future bits but it worked well enough here. Aside from a few printing fails.

Great Van Fleet, the parties Bard. Of Gnomish decent but plays her lute like a mad woman on stage with Foo Fighters...

Tina the Tiefling Warrior. Knwon for her rage and ability to get her point across. 

Ock'tAra the Half Orc Monk. Coloring reminds me of Picolo from Dragonball Z but still and overall nice paint job.

Shakira the Sorceress. Hailing from distant lands, she carries the light of her people with her. 

And finally Diane the Dwarf Cleric. Once she had a Mace, however she dropped it to lay hands on some undead and send them back to the underworld.

5 28mm scaled models.. Some bigger some small but altogether they work. 25 pts for the models, 20 for the challenge. 45 pts overall. 

From JonathanO: This will hurt you more than it hurts me (The Pit of the Pendulum) (28 points)

 "Paint something torturous, terrifying...".  My entry for the Pit of the Pendulum is similar to a few others already posted.  I have a few items from the Mantic Terrain Crate Kickstarter that I thought I would never use, but they are handy devices after all.

This torture chamber looks a bit too tidy.  Maybe the owner is a neat freak, or perhaps the new equipment has just been delivered.  Maybe I should paint some blood stains and add some sand to the floor. 

For points estimate for these 4 items I would say maximum 8 points in total.  Plus the location bonus of 20 for a total of 28.

From PeterD Paynes Greyscale Ships for the Chamber of Darkness

Ships ahead - are they Ours or Theirs?

Sailing on from the aquifer, we sense shadowy shapes in the Chamber of Darkness but it's difficult to tell if they are friend or foe.

After a 6 year hiatus I have set getting my WW2 Naval project back in business as a goal for 2021.  I do my games in the Med theatre and have narrowed my focus to late 1941- early 1942 looking at historical squadrons and the actions that they fought.  Many of these actions were fought at night with identification (or lack of) playing a key role.

These four tokens were painted to represent potential sightings which have not been firmly identified.  My own experiences (Warning - Old Fart Moment Ahead) of night time Channel crossings with my dad showed me that recognizing shapes, sizes, directions and speed is very difficult.   I figured this would be a good opportunity to meet the greyscale challenge.  

The ships are 4 CinC 1:2400 scale destroyers which were deemed surplus to my needs.  There are 3 supposed British "L" class destroyers which turned out not to have the right feature plus a Spica class TB.  I will relay the full L class saga another times, but for now will note that I am odd and get persnickety abut fielding the correct destroyers.

These were quick to paint up but I am pretty pleased with the end result.

These were painted using mostly Paynes' Grey with Carbon Black shading and Titanium White mixed in to get lighter shades.   Paynes' Grey is actually a very dark blue, but I'm hoping the name will let me slide it through.  Tables include a radar blip image and Capital Greek letters for identification.  I spelled out the letter names for benefit of gamers who speak neither Greek nor Mathematics.

Points wise that 4 1/2400 ships @ 2 points plus 20 for the chamber = 28 points.  A whopping 8 of these go towards my death by a thousand paper cuts total in the Naval Side Duel.

From MartinC Dunsterforce and Curtgeld (195pts)

 Hope you all had a good, if slightly weird, Christmas. I've been cracking on with the Dunsterforce and have now finished all the infantry, for now.

Infantry section of 9 (see previous for the 10th). Mix of Copplestone and converted Warlord plastic 8th Army figs (freebies in Wargames Illustrated)

And another one

And this gives me 5 sections

2 Vickers machine guns - Copplestone only come with 5 figs and I converted one into a Lewis gunner so the 2 additional figs are plastic 8th army and a Partizan freebie (previously painted)

Curtgeld is always tricky, a delve into the lead pile and I found this guy

Private Dumas is a 1930s French Foreign Legionaire from Artizan Thrilling Tales 

Tried to give him an Arab scarf but he looks a bit like Rupert the Bear.

Scores on the Doors

25 infantry = 125

2 prone figs = 5 pts

2 machine guns = 20

2 gun crews = 20 (3 + 2 prone)

1 Curtgeld = 25

=195pts

From LeeH - The Golems Haunt - Tomb Wraith

My fourth entry this year is another fantasy figure for the Chambers of Challenge. Rest assured I do have some historicals on the paint table and I'll get started on them soon. In the meantime, I'm quite enjoying working through my fantasy lead mountain finding figures I had forgotten I even bought! So, having materialised in the Golems Haunt after transport by the Sorceress, I find myself face to face with the ghostly apparition of a Tomb Wraith. 

I'm stretching the definitions for this category just a little, but I decided that a Wraith could be considered to be 'reanimated' or re-created and it justified painting this wonderful 2003 Reaper Miniatures figure. Solid metal, it has got quite a heft to it and the flowing billowing cloak is just wonderful. I've painted Wraiths before (in classic LOTR movie-style black and white) but this time I wanted a bit of colour so went for muted greens instead. Multiple dry brushes were required and it took longer than I thought it would, but I'm really happy with the finished model. Once again I have based it for use in my Frostgrave games. In the past, many of my bonus round figures have been 'display figures' only, but this year I'm trying hard to make sure as many as possible are usable on the games table.

Having completed one monochromatic figure I am now moving on to a much more challenging task, greyscale! In over 30 years painting miniatures I've never attempted that before, so the Chamber of Darkness will be a real test of my meagre skills. 

(Scoring: 1x28mm Foot + CoC Bonus = 25 points)

Suffer the Lash - Challenge Administrative Memo

 

Hello Challengers!

We're now a week into the AHPC and we have over 100 submissions, with almost half of us having submitted an entry. I think that may be a new record. Bravo!! 

Another one for the books is the amount of new folks we have with us this year. Almost as third of the Challengers are new people which is wonderful to see. Again, welcome to the Challenge!

_______________________

A few administrative notes to touch upon.

1) What we need participants to provide in their posts:

• provide your name and the subject of your submission in the title;
• give us a good description of what you're showing us;
• pictures should be approximately 1000 pixels across the top;
• state clearly the number and scale of the figures you are submitting along with your points estimate;
• put your name, scale, manufacturer, etc. in the 'Label' field in the right sidebar (this aids in future searches).

2) Paint Duels

I suggest that those administrating the various paint duels submit their own updates regarding their contests. I first thought I'd handle it, but I think it best done by the participants. This gives it a personal touch, and in turn allows me to dodge the responsibility. ;)

3) Challenge Cut Off

Again, I want to remind all participants that January 21st is the deadline to have your first entry in. If you've not made a submission by then you'll be cut from the roster. Yep, it's not called a 'challenge' for nothing. :)

4) Prize Figure

I remind everyone to get their prize figure done as soon as you can so I can award them to those who complete the final test in the Chambers of Challenge.

5) Wargames Illustrated Article

Our very own NoelW will be writing an article on the AHPC to be published in Wargames Illustrated later next year! He and I are currently working on the outline for the piece and hope to involve some participants in our caper. Noel will respect participants' privacy and will be happy to take in any questions/suggestions regarding the article. Feel free to contact me to get his contact information, otherwise I believe he will describe what he has in mind in one of his future posts.

6) Sarah the Sorceress

Later today Lady Sarah will be posting a message regarding the Sorceress submissions.

Okay, that's it! Let's get back to our brushes and see if we can get to 7000 points by New Year's Day.

- Curt