From PeterA: 20mm Cold War Brits (47 Points)

This is my first time in the Challenge and so I had obviously planned out carefully the figures I was going to paint. But then I saw a squirrel, or to be more precise, the Norwegian drama series Occupied on Sky TV - about the Russian occupation of Norway in a bid to control the latter's oil and gas reserves. So that got me thinking about a what-if campaign set in Norway, with the Russian hordes out to grab fossil fuels (hopefully) being seen off by an assortment of Norwegian and NATO forces. So, the plan went out the window and my first submission is the start of the British sent to support the Norwegians.

First up is a winterised Challenger I - which to the best of my knowledge would never have been found in Norway. My justification is that lots of NATO equipment was stockpiled in Norway during the real Cold War so this represents the Brits mothballing some Challenger Is in Norway after they introduced the Challenger II, 'just in case' the Reds come calling.

This is also the first time that I have used weathering pigments (Dark Earth by AK) and I clearly have a lot to learn! The tank is a Revell 1/72 plastic kit and the commander is from Liberation Miniatures.

Alongside the Challenger is an 8-man infantry squad, again by Liberation Miniatures. They are in a mixture of DPM and winter gear, with Body Armour Chest Rigs.

Sorry about the rather pony photos - still trying to work out how to best use the camera! Anyway this should get me off the board and net me 47 points, and also gets me going in the Squirrel side-challenge. 

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Welcome to the Challenge, Peter!

Very cool entry, literally. I have a soft spot for 20mm/1:72 as a gaming scale as it seems the perfect compromise between the often table-absorbing 28mm and the sometimes too small 15mm scales. 

I've always liked the design of the Challenger and I think your's looks great. Weathering pigments take a bit of getting used to, but I think you application really conveys the heavy winter mud that these beasts would grind up. The Liberation minis look quite nice and I like your snow effects on the bases - very effective. 

I've not heard of the 'Occupied' series, but it sounds very interesting and I will be actively trying to source it 'off the coast of Tortuga' (as we can't easily get SKY here in the Colonies). 

47 well-earned points for your Challenge debut. Again, welcome aboard, Peter!

From KyleC - Christmas Crying Octopus (30)

Hey folks.. another year another marathon of painting...

Can't say that I will be as prolific as I was in the past due to life, but I will hopefully have a few pieces to share with you all throughout this time period.

First up is a piece from our own range, that a friend from the club wanted me to paint up for his boy for Christmas. So with short time and order I got it done and dusted in time for him to collect the Sunday before!

He wanted it as a present for his eldest who is obsessed with Octopuses so when he say the model on our webstore, he asked if I would paint it up. And I did as a present for himself as well (he just paid for the model and the plinth it sits on ).

Luckily I have a few spare plinths kicking around that could do the job, and this one has a slight lip on it to hold in things like water effects! Very important feature unless you like having sticky, glossy water effects all over your desk for 24+ hrs!

For painting, he wanted it to match his son's tattoo of an octopus which was done in a Japanese styled format. So bright orange with blue underneath. Though cause it was a gift I also wanted to give water effects a try. So I pulled out an old box of Pebeo water effect to make it look like he is crying upon a set of rocks in the water.

Sadly I don't have more photos of him aside from this last one as it was quite the rush to get him finished in time and handed over before the rush of festivities over here!

But I am really happy in how the water came out with just a single drop of blue ink placed inside it, and how the Woodland Scenics Realistic water layered on the Octopus a few times helped to give him a nice gloss finish as well.

Quite chuffed on how it came out as this is the second one for me to have painted. With the first one coming out more blue due to my mood while painting it! So was nice to have a bright 'cheery' one in contrast!

No idea on points, but this wasn't done for points it was done as a present. And I hope that if I can get a few things squared away this week, I can get into painting something else by this weekend!

Thanks Curt for the invite again, and for taking so much time to run this great event once more!

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Aww, this is a great gift, Lee, well done mate. I love the idea of a young boy being so into octopuses - that's a very cool kid. As you say, I really like the cheery colours of this chap and the water effect turned out fantastic (I'm going to have to give that a whirl sometime). 

I really like the whole concept of giving figures as gifts (obviously :)), so from now on I'm going to use the same point structure as the Curtgeld with 20 bonus points being awarded on top of the figure's base points. So with this being the case let's put this fellow at 30 points. Lovely work Kyle - I'm sure he's very much appreciated in his new home.

From BenitoM: British Airborne Support Teams (20 points)

My entry today is some more support weapons for my British Airborne unit. In this case a second PIAT and the ubiquitous 2-inch portable mortar… I wonder if besides the umbrella what is more British than a 2-inch mortar (used even today).

The PIAT team is not advancing like the one posted yesterday but in prone position and ready to engage an incoming enemy vehicle.

The 2-inch mortar team is also showed in action, the models in dynamic poses and with a good level of detail. I decided to paint and based them individually (easier to store and carry to the club), but after finishing the team I began to ask myself if I should make a small vignette out of the mortar. Still undecided, any comment from other participants are welcome.

Both teams are Warlord metal models in 28mm.

With this entry I credit and additional 20 points to my Challenge score. I’m almost finished with the support weapons (a Vickers HMG is in the pipeline) so I’ll turn now to the rank and file Bren and rifles sections. Also the Scout Theme Round is approaching fast and should start working in my entry before January 5^th.

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More plucky paras for us to admire - wonderful work, Benito.

Warlord has done a very nice job on this range and your brushwork is showing them to their best advantage. 

Personally, I'd bring the teams together into small vignettes as I just like making vignettes, but also because I think that the loose figures will be more prone to damage or getting misplaced just when you need them. Just my two clips of ammo. :)

20 more points to add your your growing total. Well done B!

From Alan D: 15mm Urban Ruins (40 points)

 

Building terrain is not something that thrills me that much. However, I'm very keen to play some games of Battlegroup - Fall of the Reich, so some Berlin-esque urban ruins are mandatory. I bought a bunch of mdf buildings a while back from the Polish company 'Terrains4games', which were great value and really quite nice, and thanks to the Challenge I have an incentive to get them rubbled-up and painted.

 

This is the first of about 8 boards, and it meant for gaming, so lots of compromises have been made by not finishing the building properly and so on, but I like the result. The Hetzer and the figures are from a previous Challenge.

Not sure how many points this should be worth. The footprint of the base is about 11 x 8 inches - I will leave it up to the wisdom of the Minions!

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I have to agree with you Dux, I find terrain building a bit of a chore as well. Though I must say that it has an odd parabola effect where once you get over the apex it can be quite fun in the last stages where things just seem to fall into place. These two wrecked complexes look great and I especially like your heaped rubble amongst the ruins, something that is usually missing from many of our wargaming tables. 

The size of these sounds like two scoring 'units' of terrain, so let's put them at 40 points total.

From NickJ - Darkoath Warqueen (5 points)

Once upon a Third Time.

They say that the third time is a charm. I have no clue what that means so instead I'll just say I can't believe this is my third time in the Challenge already!

In Year 1 I mainly painted Chaos Age of Sigmar figures...
In Year 2 I mainly painted Chaos Age of Sigmar figures...
...
You'll never guess what Year 3 will be bringing...?
...
Yeah. Chaos. Age of Sigmar. Again. It seems no matter how much I clear off the shelves more fills the gaps - pretty much instantly. The slog continues :-)

To get me off the mark I've opted to start with a single Leader figure just like last year.

Say hello to the new Darkoath Warqueen

She leads the Slaves to Darkness faction which was not on the cards for me until GW released the Warqueen... yes I do have a habit of starting armies based on 1 figure I like...

 

Love how dynamic GW made her as she climbs the small rock to lay down some axe therapy

I've decided to align this faction with the Chaos God of Tzeentch, hence the blues and purples. They can then ally with my Disciples of Tzeentch army that you may remember from last year. Acolytes and birds anyone?

I do like the detail that GW has added with scars as well. She's been doing this for a while I think.

She's a standard GW 28mm figure so I'm thinking 5 points to get me kick-started :-)

More to come if all goes vaguely towards a plan...

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Well, I applaud you for sticking to a theme, Nick. She's a great looking figure and I especially like the themed, non-metalic metal approach you took towards her shield, cuirass and axehead. Well done that. Will there be more of her minions to follow? Looking forward to finding out.

5 points to mark you on the roster and will start your gambit in the Evil Empire Challenge. Great job!

From VictorC - 1/16 scale Miniart Athenian Hoplite (30 Points)

I've just completed Miniart's 1/16 scale Athenian Hoplite. This is a fully plastic kit with all of the parts on one sprue. Assembly was pretty easy but like most of their figurine kits it took a lot of plastic filler to cover holes, misshaped limbs and general seam lines. On top of that there was a lot of flash.  The figure was painted using acrylics, which is not normal for me. I usually use oil paints on a larger scale figure like this.  I think the figure came out pretty well.

I went with a darker skin tone because I believe the people back then spent more time in the sun and considering the geographical area it made sense.

I was rather disappointed with the decal as it took a lot of work and Microsol to get it to conform to the shield.

You'll notice the scabbard is held on with a piece of string. The kit didn't provide anything to attach the scabbard. I was lucky to find some string in my wife's sewing kit that seemed usable. 

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Wow, what a lovely big figure, Victor. I always have found these as rather daunting as while there is a lot of surface to work with there is also very little margin for error as the detail is so much more visible than smaller scale figures. The build for this sounds like it was a bit of bear, but you can't tell in the finished product - your labours have paid its dividend. The bronze looks excellent and the string for the scabbard was an inspired bit of modeling on your part (sewing kit for the save!). 

Lets see, 1/16 works out to be approximately 120mm in figure scale, so we'll go with 30 points for this big Greek chap. Great work Victor.

From JohnSh - More of them Gobbo fellas (30 Points)

I have been painting up a storm (relatively speaking!) over the last couple of days and have a couple of things on the go. These six Gobbo fellas join my first six in the Dragon Rampant Goblin Horde army.

These can be used as another Scout unit or combined with my first six to make a Light Missile unit. I guess it depends on what else I get done during the challenge!

Anyway, here's another 30 points which will be the highest point tally I have ever achieved in the first week of a challenge. Slowpainter's the name, glacial painting speed's the game.

Cheers, I hope you're all having as much fun as I am.

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John, you're on fire buddy. If you keep up this pace you're going to have to change your handle. :)

What a characterful unit of archers - I'm loving these models. I like their plumb coloured jerkins and that banner bearer just cracks me up. By his expression I think he's telling you that he needs at least something to put on that crosspole - a banner, a ragged flag, a couple of pair of dirty underwear, something dammit. ;P 

30 points for you! Now, take a bit of a break before you completely demolish your rep. :)

From MilesR: French Marines & British Limbers in 15mm (232 points)

 Yet more 15mm Napoleonics in the form of 2 units of French Marines and 6 British artillery limbers with 6 pounder guns in 15mm scale.  All of the figures are from Old Glory's Blue Moon line.

As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, The actual marine figures are US War of 1812 Marines but they have been pressed into service as Franchise.  They look close enough.

The planned Historicon game will have a large naval battle and both sides will have the option of either keeping their Marines on board their ships for boarding actions Or landing them as formed units along the coast to flank their opponents.  I always like giving players a few key choices at the start of a game and I never fail to be surprised by some players creativity.

 I also painted up some Limbers, as any respectful army should have Limbers.  There are a lot of aspects I really enjoy about this hobby but painting up limbers isn't one of them.  The mini's were fine and I like doing cavalry but I just have this mental block about Limbers (in any scale).   There will be some French and Spanish ones over the course of this Challenge.

Technically each limber should have 6 horses rather than 4, but I went with a more cost effective path plus I didn't have bases long enough for 6 horse teams.  I do hope all of you forgive my parsimony on the topic.

Lastly, to go along with the limbers are six, 6 pounder field guns for my British forces.  They'll likely find their way into a fortification that is currently under construction.  Make sure I don't try to double count them for points.

The Tally appears to be:

56 Infantry Figures @ 2 points each = 112
6 guns at @ points each = 24
6 limbers @ 16 points each = 96
(the limbers have 4 horses and 2 riders for 12 points and the caisson for 4, which gets us 16 points per

Total = 232 points

Perhaps some terrain next?

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Wow, amazing work Miles, I'm very impressed. Your marines look the business and I totally agree with you regarding limbers/support wagons: they look absolutely terrific on the tabletop, but are as dull as dirt to assemble and paint. So I applaud you on getting so many done in such a short period of time. 

Unrelated to your painted force, I have to say that your terrain looks fabulous. Is this one of your recent creations? It really is superb. 

232 points. Wowza. Another bomb crater for Challenge IX. Hats off to you, Miles!

From ByronM - Return of the Greeks (80 points)

Last year I started a new project, Ancient Greeks, and while the forces turned out big enough to play a game or two they did lack a little diversity.  So this year I am adding a three more units to the armies to add a bit more choice to them.

Since I am visiting the Snow Lord in January I figured it would be a good idea to get the extra units done up and ready to take with me for a game with Curt and his crew.  Hence, the first real units I am painting this year are for the Greeks (well some of the first units, I do suffer from Gamer ADHD so I am sure I will still pull a squirrel or two out of my hat before they are done).

Regardless, first up for the Greeks are some very simple archer units.  These two units lack any real distinguishing colour features so that they can be teamed up onto whichever side needs them (or pays them) to fight for them.

The sculpts are from Foundry and while very basic do have a lot of character.  They are based on 40x40 bases in loose formation to work with my Hail Caesar basing.

I hope to get at least one more large unit of Greeks done before mid-January and then it will be onto other projects.

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Nice work Byron (I love the big sun hats)! As you say these will come in very handy in fleshing-out your existing collection of Hoplites. I very much look forward to seeing them first hand on the tabletop in a few short weeks!

From SimonM: "Lucid Eye Publications" Grove's Shrubs (20 Points)

These four "cartoon scale white metal figures" are produced by “Lucid Eye Publications” and are available from the company's "Toon Realms" range. Sculpted by Trish Carden and led by Yewan Grove The Treeman, I thought these miniatures would make excellent Ents for a 'Lord Of The Toons' project I currently have in mind for my tabletop.

Originally primed with two coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, the quartet were generously drenched in "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade and later dry-brushed using (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, as well as (the somewhat lighter) "Vallejo" Heavy Brown. I then 'picked out' their straggly beards with a combination of "Vallejo" Heavy Green and "Citadel" Biel-Tan Green.

All of the  humanoid-shaped shrubs' eyes were 'dotted' using a tiny dollop of "Vallejo" Heavy Ochre". Whilst the creatures' backs, which are riddled with tiny toadstools, had all this emerging fungi pigmented in "Vallejo" Heavy Red and later shaded in "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson.

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Those are some great looking entlings, Simon. Their pose makes me thing, 'Get off my lawn!' which kinda works in this setting. The bark effect is great and I like what you did with both their toadstools and their beards - groovy minis and thanks for sharing!

From TeemuL - Army of the Dead (100 points)

Something spectacular from me this time, 20 miniatures painted in 24 hours (they were assembled and primed white before the Challenge started). Christmas Day provided a lot of small moments, when it was possible to for example wash all the models and then let them dry. Combined with a longer sessions on Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day, I finished them. I agree, they look like grey plastic on bases, but they are painted. They are the men of Dunharrow, the Oathbreakers, from Lord of the Rings, from the latest Battle of Pelennor Fields starter set to be precise (they are old designs, so they have been released earlier, but mine are from that box).

 Army of the Dead

 Some close-ups, trying to prove they are painted...

If you are interested (and why wouldn´t you?), after giving them the white primer, I painted them with Coat d´Arms Light Grey, then covered them in old Miniature Paints Dark Blue Ink (should have used more of that on these to get more contrast) and finally drybrushing with Citadel Ushbati Bone. Very simple and doesn´t look that good even live, but doable. I wanted to do something else than the greenish ghosts, which was in the movies and GW studio paints.

I really like some of the sculpts, this helmetless is one of my favourites, also the sword and shield guys with open pose are something, which I´d like to paint in colors at some time. And I really need to get myself a king to rule them - the dead one, or the living one...

20 of ghosts is 100 points. It also starts my squirreling, now I just need to check the rules, how to inform the Higher Powers properly...

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Teemu, that's a heap of pallid-grey dead guys. If they had rucksacks instead of armour and plastic grab-bags in place of swords and shields it would be a spitting image of the head of the queue at Salute... ;)

I'm totally sympathetic with you avoiding the now oh-so-common luminescent grey-green that we always seem to see these being trotted out with. I have this same batch waiting to be done and I may take a page from your playbook with a few variations.

100 points for 24 hours is a very tidy turnover. Well done Teemu!

From BrettM: Move over for Guinea Pigs! (30 Points)

First entry this year was actually a Christmas present for the wife. I had bought her these Guinea pig miniatures a while back as she stated she wanted to "paint with me" 

While I jumped at the chance to share my hobby with my wife. I had doubts of anything actually happening. So while they sat for so long I finally grabbed them and painted them myself.

When she opened this up. She didn't even mention how she was to paint these herself. Just that she loves Guinea pigs and she loves it. Guess maybe I will try some Orcs next time to get her to paint.

As for point cost on this. I am really not sure what scale they are to be. It shows 28mm on the site I got them from. However being not very big I didn't know how that actually worked on the scale. There is 8 Guinea pigs in total the pumpkins and vines found at hobby lobby. Just repainted the pumpkins for more of a realistic look. 

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Welcome back Brett! 

Over the nine years of the Challenge I'm not sure if we've had guinea Pigs submitted, so that box is now duly checked.  These chaps look very cute and I particularly like the scenic base with the pumpkin and greens buffet. 

I can't tell you how many friends of mine have figures from/for their partners acquired with the best intention that they'll somehow 'paint together'. Personally, I loath the idea. I firmly believe in the separation of Church and State, meaning that my hobby is just that, 'mine'. Mine for me to enjoy in glorious, silent, misanthropic isolation. But, then again, I'm also known as a bit of a grump, so take this with a cow lick of salt. :)

Well, eight 28mm guinea pigs, with lovely base and greenery... Let's put that at 30 points for the lot. Well done Brett! 

From KenR: 28mm Italian Wars Papal Shot (80 Points)

Hello everyone, Merry Xmas, here we are again, back in the madness of the #AHPC. In the last couple of years I have tried to get an entry in before Xmas Day, but working on the first two days of the challenge cut that off at the pass.

So here are my first group of figures for this year, 16 x 28mm Perrys Miniatures which make up a unit of shot for my Papal Italian Wars Army, which will be the focus of this year's challenge for me.

They are based in skirmish order and will be the support for my upcoming Papal Pike Block, I am still not sure on which rule set I will be using but as usual I have based things to what I think looks right and I'll modify the rules set (If I don't write me own) later.

I have gone for a red and white theme with the uniform which will be reflected in the pike block and added in the odd cross keys on the clothing to distinguish the Papal Army they will belong to.

At 5 pts a piece I make that a reasonable first entry of 80 pts, which will start off both my main total and my Renaissance Side Duel pot. Two birds and all that.

Next up will be some Muslim Cavalry for the other half of this year's theme, my Crusades Project, but I also have the first 8 figures of the Pike Block nearly done and this afternoon I will be slapping and wiping the oil on the neck end of 100 28mm Horse for both periods.

It's good to be back.

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Ahh, the Italian Wars - a salve to my soul. These are excellent, Ken. I really like your clean lines on these guys and the addition of the heraldic Papal keys are a wonderful touch. I also quite like how you've arrayed the formation on your big bases - it somehow makes the unit look more convincing on the tabletop. I need to make up a few of these myself as my pike blocks always seem to get ventilated by Peter's shotte when we have our games (or perhaps that may have something more to do with his scenario design. I eagerly await his response... ;) ) .

As to rules, we use 'Pike & Shotte' with a few additional rules added for flavour, with many of these coming from James Roach's excellent and well-considered modifications which you can find here:

http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/2017/07/italian-wars-unit-characterisation-for.html

A tidy 80 points for you - Well done, sir!