From MilesR: A Rather Eclectic First Post (480 Points)

I am a little slow off the mark this year, and that's after a rather slim showing in last year's challenge.  I've had some issues with Rheumatoid Arthritis in my hands which has required me to learn a new way to paint.  Don't worry, I'm still a poor painter but just a bit slower.

My first submission is a rather mixed lot of 28mm and 10mm figures.

First up is the start of a Warband to use for games like Mordheim at the club.  These are all 3D printed figures which were mostly designed for 10mm but I "embigended" to 28mm and I think they came out fine

This is a motley warband of 6 Dwarves and 3 non-Dwarves.  I used army painter speed paints for these and I think they came out fine for club play>

A close up of the three "non-Dwarves" - a human pistoleer, a Orc bruiser and a goblin scout.

The Dwarves come out super stocky when enlarged to 28mm, but I really like the look.

Next up are 8 Varagian Guards.  A few challenges ago, I painted up a Byzantine skirmish forces to use with Barrons War.

These are 8 metal figures from a long forgotten manufacture that I found in a drawer as I was redoing the game storage closet.

These were also painted with Army Painter Speed paints, which I have grown fond of for fantasy-type paint schemes.

Lets shift scales and go full on "Lord of the Rings".  LWTV is embarking on a big 10mm scale LOTR the rings project and you'll be able to figure out what armies I've been assigned in this post.  First up is the start of a large Easterling Army.  These are all 10mm 3d prints from Wakes Emporium (the infantry and Trolls) and the cav are made by Greenskin Miniatures (their Araby line)

There are 20 lance armed heavy cav and...

Just 12 Horse archers - don't worry more are on the way.

10 Armored Trolls, these were really fun to paint up

there is also a 2 figure command stand.

The heart of any Easterling army is it's Infantry and I've complete 8, 18 figure bases.  These were painted up to look like the ones in Peter Jackson's movies

I'm maybe 1/4 through what I need to complete - it will be a big army

Opposing the Easterlings is my other assignment - Dwarves.  These are from the new Wargames Atlantic 10mm plastic Dwarven set and represent 1 full sprue.  I have 2 more to paint up

You can't beat the price (274 minis for under $30 bucks but some of the casting choices are odd - some shields are really think.  Its hard to see from three feet away but pretty glaring while painting.  I do like the Ram Cavalry.

OK so what the tally?  Well, Curt and my minion have one decision to make.  The 10mm trolls are much bigger than 10mm

In fact they are 25mm high so, I'm going to suggest that we score them as 20mm figures, which is 4 points per figure - I'll leave the final decision up to my betters

The total figure count is:

17x 28mm Inf @5pts = 85 points
10x 20mm Trolls @10pts = 40 points
38x 10mm Cav @3pts = 114 points
144x Easterling Inf @2pt= 144 points
93x Dwarven Infantry @1pt = 93 points

Total 476 Points

At the start of this post I mentioned learning a new way to paint. My RA results in my hand loosing its grip on a brush and it clattering down on the workbench maybe every 10 minutes or so, which can be frustrating.

The solution was as simple as it is effective and my brilliant wife came up with it.  I used an elastic wrap to essentially pin a brush to my hand and then hold and manipulate the brush like I'm using chopsticks.

It works surprisingly well and now I'm looking forward to painting again.  Of course my training required MANY trips to our local Chinese restaurants to practice with chop sticks, but that is just the kind of sacrifice I'm willing to make for this hobby.

Sorry for the long winded post.  Next up will be some 28mm North Vietnamese Regulars from Empress Miniatures - you can see them in progress in the last picture.

 

========================================== 

Sylvain: Miles, I don't know which impress me most, your productivity or your resilience. It takes a dedicated hobbyist to train its art at the local noodle shop (Karate Kid style: "noodle up, noodle down"). And the results looks fabulous! The individual figurines ooze character while your rank and file units show conformity with their army. The floating banners are a nice touch and are worth an extra 4 points, for a total of 480. Joli travail!

 

From MilesR: Post #1 French Foreign Legion in 15mm (84 Points)

 

Its a bit of a slow start for me this challenge and it's one where I'm focused on clearing out stuff from the lead pile (which is rather large).  First up are 42 15mm French Foreign Legion troops fro the 1960's

I actually forgot who the manufacture is - they could be AB or Eureka and I bought them maybe 4-5 years ago.

One of my friends at the wargaming club is doing an "AK-47" Republic project and these lads will see table top service there in his make believe African Nation.

The group has some heavy weapons in the form of a machine Gun, Bazooka and mortar but since these are super simple no points for them.

I used army painter SpeedPaint 2.0 for thses and I'm still trying to figure out if I like it or not.

Anyway, I'm finally on the board with 84 points!

***

SPECIAL EDITION - Hello everyone - Wednesday Minion GregB here with a Thursday appearance! Thursday Minion Teemu has kindly allowed me to drop this in today, as it was intended to be Miles' opening post for his AHPC XV run, but ended up delayed due to a misunderstanding on my part. Thanks Teemu, and apologies to Miles!

Very nice Miles, and I have to admit I experience an extra layer of intrigue around "AK-47 Republic". These are the Peter Pig rules, correct? They seem so...well, kind of mysterious, kind of understated. I think this is a system that divides the table into squares/sections in some way? They seem to have a whole suite of rules for different eras, but I confess they are a mystery to me and have not tried them. 

So with all of that in mind, I will be keen to hear your thoughts on "AK-47 Republic". I'm sure the imaginary regime involved with these French Foreign Legion soldiers will be completely upstanding and face no complications at all...

84 points for you - and apologies for the delay!! Great opener Miles! We'll get you back to standard Wednesday timing next week!

GregB

From MilesR: 10mm Fantasy Dwarves and Orcs (220 Points)

OK, so I have a little more done than the Legionaires.  Here are some 10mm Dwarves, men and Orcs.  First up are some "City Bowmwn", which equates to armored bowmen and these lads can work in both fanatsy and non fantasy setting.  Behind them are 4, 24 figure units of Dwarven heavy Infatry (is there any other kind of Dwarven infanty?)

All of the figures are metals from Copplestone castings 

Next up are some 10mm Orcs and Trolls.  The pictures are awful and usuually my I=phone works better - I'll try to replace them with better ones in a few days

In the center rear are 2 units of Heavy Orc infnatry (3D resin prints mad be a friend) and in front of them are some Orc spearmen from Copplestone

 

On the right are 2 units of Trolls and a troll leader - 3d Resin prints

Lastly there is a mounted Orc leader on a "war-Boar"

This little haul comes in at:

Men    24 figures = 24 Points
Dwarven Infantry 96 figures = 96 points
Orc infantry 78 Figures = 78 Points
Mtd Ocd Leader = 3 points
19 Trolls = 19 points
Total = 182 Points (actually its 220 points)

Don't worry I'll be returning to Hisotricals as I have a fairly large WW1 project for a future LWTV video and a new 10mm army: Mongols, which I'm just getting started on!

***

Welcome to your regularly scheduled points bomb from Miles! I must confess it is a touch difficult to make things out in the photos, but we all know how tricky photography of miniatures can be, particularly the smaller-scale ones (and 10mm is a wonderful, wonderful size/scale to be involved with!). You have done a lot of great work here, and we look forward to more!

I had to correct your math slightly - the tally comes to 220 points, unless the spreadsheet is wrong, but we all know that would never happen...

A gentle reminder to please include tags/labels so the data on the Challenge Blog can be as complete(ish) as possible :)

GregB

AHPC XIV: The Statistical Round UP

Well it's finally time to do the statistical round up of Challenge XIV.  I know, I know we skipped last year but there is no reprieve for any of you THIS year.  Buckle up, there's a load stats coming down the information super highway towards you AND they aint got no brakes.....

dun, Dun, DAAAAHHHHH.......

Anyway lets first take a gander over our standard statistical table.  I warn you, this table is formatted seductively what with it's columns and decimal places and those "come hither" spelling and grammatical errors.  It really should come with a parental warning and would likely get banned from a Florida public library.

As you will see, good 'ole XIV was a steady performer - pretty much reight down the "average fairway".  If XIV was a person, you'd want them to be your neighbor - their yard would look fine so as not to detract from your property value but not so good as to make your neighbors think you are the one bringing the neighborhoods property values down.

Through 13 weeks of "pigment positioning frenzy" 83 participants made it to the end and put up 77,735 points.  Was that the best challenge in terms of collective productivity?, no - Was it a GREAT challenge in terms of artistic expression and Fun?  Hell Yeah.  Achievement UNLOCKED!

The island/room bonus concept continues to really shape how people approach the challenge with 573 of the 689 total submissions (83%) being associated with one room of the library or another.  Some of those assocaitions were a bit on the tenuous side but lets not quibble

AHPC XIV Stats Summary:
	XIV	XIII	XII	XI	X
Total Points	77,735	85,421	86,646	82,619	68,878
% of Target	112.00%	126.34%	101.35%	121.68%	109.00%
Participants	83	83	97	84	68
# of Submissions	689	785	885	1,261	956
#Planets/Chamber/Island Spots	573	551	626	518	437
Avg Subs per Participant	8	9	9	15	14
Avg Pts per Submitter	937	1,029	893	984	1,013
Avg Pts per Submission	113	97	98	66	72
Total Points per Week	5,980	6,571	6,665	6,355	5,298
Figures Painted
28MM
Inf	5,509	6,936	7,337	6,765	4,785
Cav / Art	831	683	609	798	454
Vehicles	108	157	215	97	122
15MM
Inf	3,689	2,473	2,835	2,519	2,083
Cav / Art	289	855	423	527	588
Vehicles	355	143	162	196	144
6MM
Inf	3,465	4,521	1,100	2,519	2,496
Cav / Art	751	342	192	695	471
Vehicles	508	164	248	30	235
Terrain "Cubes"	113	294	178	125	191
Points Distriution
28mm	48.90%	52.27%	54.33%	52.95%	44.85%
15mm	14.63%	11.13%	9.99%	10.55%	11.14%
6mm	4.50%	3.43%	1.43%	2.44%	3.18%
Terrain	2.90%	6.88%	4.11%	3.03%	5.54%
Chamber / Island Bonus Pts	14.75%	16.22%	15.72%	22.94%	25.12%
Other Scales	14.33%	10.07%	14.42%	8.10%	10.18%
Total	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%

We did see a continuation of the trend of fewer but larger submissions per participant and the average points per participant still hovering around the 1K level.

28mm is still the favorite scale but has finally slipped back under 50% of the points, with 15mm staging a very nice come back.  Terrain saw a significant decline but that was likely due to one particular participant not doing a lot of terrain - the less said abut that miscreant the better.

Now some of you prefer to look at data via both gaudy and vulgar charts vs the pristine look of a data table.  For the life of me I don't understand it but it seems to be what the masses want and who am O to say what's cool (data tables) and what's blinding obviously not cool (charts).  Look at me being all non-judgemental and such!

Another way to look at the progress of the past 14 challenges is to convert the total points into equivalent 28mm figures - when that minor bit a of is performed it seems we have collectively painted the equivalent of 181,720 28mm Infantry figures - that's a lot.

Just think of the storage space needed to 182K figures.   It's just under 1,300 square feet of shelf space.  I dont know about you but I dont have that much space in my house!

Economic Value Add

This section tends to be the most popular but does require a little explanation.  As an enterprise, the AHPC does represent a form of economic stimulus for the hobby as we purchase miniatures along with the supplies to paint and base them.  Moreover we will also likely replace those resources consumed in this enterprise with new ones.  Professionally, I live in a world of unit economic analysis and, as a financial services professional, you know you can trust me - when have we ever let you down?

The process used to calculate the Economic Value Add of the Challenge involves the determining the three pillars of miniature valuation:  

Pillar 1: 28mm Equivalent Figures

Convert the total points into equivalent 28mm infantry figures.  This one is pretty easy divide the total score by 5 points per figure: 77,735 divided by 5 equals 15,547 figure equivalents

Pillar 2: Cost per Figure 

Estimate the unit cost of painting a figure.  This step is a bit more complicated and breaks down the total cost of a figure into three components.  I did factor in a standard inflation rate of 10%, which is a real inflation rate (removing the cost of energy which have been impacted by that criminal activities of a certain Mr Putin)

Figure Cost: 

The cost the figure itself which includes postage, taxes and such.  The figure costs have have been increase this year from $3.30 to $3.63  

Consumables:

Paints, glues, basing materials, Xacto blades and other items that are consumed in making the figure.  Bear in mind its not just the cost of the paint on the figure - your paint wastage on your palette has been factored in.  Please note medical costs from xacto blade mishaps are factored into labor costs below.  Consumables are estimated at $3.30 a figure

Labor:

Painting a miniature takes time, your time in fact and time IS money so we need to factor in a Labor cost.  This has always been a hotly debated component as different people paint at different speeds and quality varies and some of you have rather high opinions of your own value - yeah, yeah, yeah - blah, blah, blah. By the way that hourly rate is $15.40 - congrats on almost earning as mush as a Star Bucks Barrista

Pillar 3: Economic Velocity

It just takes one glance at out respective lead mountains to realize we purchase more than we paint.  In fact theres an economic term for that called velocity - after many year of costly research and field experimentation, scientist have determined that for every figure painted, 5 are purchased, hence a base velocity of 5.  This value has been adjusted upward to 5.25x to reflect stress buying induced byd the current global instability.  When in doubt, buy lead - an addage that seems to fit a lot of different occasions.

The formula for total EVA is just to simply multiply the three pillars together - easy, peasy right?

Without further ado - I present to you the EVA calculation for Challenge XII - drum roll please.....

Ecomonic Value Add (EVA)		CHALLENGE XIV
Total Points		77,735
Equivalent 28mm Figures		15,547
			Previous
		Economic	Challenge
		Value Add	(AHPC XIII)
Cost per Mini	$3.63	$56,435	$3.30
Paints etc	$3.30	$51,305	$3.00
Painting TIme	$15.40	$239,423	$14.00
Sub Total	$22.33	$347,163	$20.30
Velocity	5.25	$1,822,604	5.25

Wow - we've created a rock solid 1.8MM boost to the world economy of miniature manufacturing.  You can take that number to the bank! (1)

(1) Terms and conditions apply, past performance may or may not be indicative of future performance and if you trust me, well you get what you deserve.....

In terms of total EVA created over the challenge - we've just crossed the $20mm threshold.  If only Curt had had the foresight to negotiate a flat rate commission to be paid by the lead moguls of Nottingham.....

Halls of Vallejohalla

Finally it's time to pay homage of our "Heroes of the Painting Wars" - the top performers from Challenges past who our enshrined in the hallowed halls of Vallejohalla, where ones paint pot never dries out and it's paint water magically turns to beer when you drink from the wrong cup.  The first stop in our tour is the hallowed list of the "Top 25 Individual Performances in a Challenge". These are the painting beserkers of our time

Rank	Challenge	Challenger	Points
1	9	NoelW	6,268
2	12	ChrisW	6,072
3	13	GrahameH	5,500
4	8	KentG	5,343
5	9	MilesR	5,051
6	10	NoelW	5,011
7	2	RayR	4,940
8	8	NoelW	4,880
9	13	ChrisW	4,778
10	2	KentG	4,724
11	13	MartinC	4,644
12	12	MikeW	4,601
13	8	MilesR	4,550
14	9	MartinC	4,470
15	4	AndrewS	4,180
16	5	DaveD	4,138
17	7	MilesR	4,125
18	3	ChrisP	4,076
10	7	MartinC	4,051
20	14	KentG	3,889
21	8	ByronM	3,881
22	5	MarkO	3,854
23	8	MartinC	3,844
24	12	MartinC	3,813
25	10	MartinC	3,789

Challenge XIV saw only one name added to the top 25 - KentG and his massive 3,889 Points - well done Kent, you are now OFFICIALLY famous.

Now lets us gaze upon the lifetime points summary for the top 50 of 970 total challenge participants over the past 12 years.  This is a "body-of-points" look at what people have achieved over the various challenges they have participated in.

Rank	Name	Lieftime Points	# of Challenges	Pts/Challenge
1	MilesR	39,361	13	3,028
2	MartinC	36,790	10	3,679
3	DaveD	25,265	13	1,943
4	RayR	20,292	12	1,691
5	NoelW	19,802	4	4,950
6	TamsinP	18,776	9	2,086
7	MikeW	17,422	7	2,489
8	Millsy	17,324	11	1,575
9	GrahameH	17,095	6	2,849
10	KentG	16,407	4	4,102
11	ByronM	15,069	10	1,507
12	DavidB	14,555	9	1,617
13	GregB	13,970	13	1,075
14	ChrisW	13,742	3	4,581
15	SanderS	13,543	10	1,354
16	AlexS	13,516	13	1,040
17	StuartL	12,608	6	2,101
18	AlanD	11,764	10	1,176
19	Curt C	11,311	12	943
20	FranL	11,294	6	1,882
21	KenR	10,918	11	993
22	Barks	10,731	9	1,192
23	AdamC	10,688	9	1,188
24	KyleC	9,341	7	1,334
25	EricM	8,860	4	2,215
26	IanW	8,769	7	1,253
27	JohnM	8,679	10	868
28	FrederickC	8,590	3	2,863
29	PaulOG	8,460	10	846
30	TeemuL	8,278	9	920
31	SamuliS	8,007	9	890
32	PeterD	7,864	11	715
33	LeeH	7,682	9	854
34	KerryT	7,616	3	2,539
35	JamieM	7,458	8	932
36	PeteF	7,363	6	1,227
37	PaulSS	7,097	5	1,419
38	BrendonW	6,859	7	980
39	IainW	6,480	7	926
40	SteveM	6,256	7	894
41	ScottM	6,189	6	1,032
42	AaronH	6,146	6	1,024
43	ChrisP	6,105	3	2,035
44	MichaelA	5,951	7	850
45	KevH	5,861	2	2,931
46	SylvainR	5,656	9	628
47	TimB	5,573	2	2,787
48	MarkO	5,507	2	2,754
49	AndrewS	5,454	2	2,727
50	ClintB	5,347	4	1,337

t really is a wonderful chart, save for the creepy guy at the top.  Please note that the tally is subjected to constant challenge and change as there is a certain person who runs this challenge and is a well known quantification anarchist.  he has been known to use different spellings of  peoples OFFICIAL challenge handles handles in a deliberate attempt to prevent accurate enumeration.  I'm not naming names but until recently there was both a CurtC and just a Curt  in the database.  That infamy has been corrected but other horrors yet may lurk within the inner warrens of the spreadsheet of Doom.  

We have several honorary levels based on total points.

First there is the 10,000 club, for those individuals who have scored at least 10,000 lifetime points.  This tier saw the membership of the 10k club swell to 19.  Congratulations, you will soon be contacted to get your measurements for your rose colored smoking jacket.  \

As we move up the ranks, there were no new entrants in the fabled 20,000 club, which has 2 members DaveD and RayR.  I know it can be VERY difficult to have the concepts of both exclusive / member only and RayR coexisting in the same logical entity but there you have it - the math just doesn't lie  Finally there is the LEGENDARY 30,000 club which also only has two members - the honorable and deserving MartinC who is a role model for us all and some other guy we don't really need (or want) to speak about.  Will next year's challenge see one or more entrants into the 40K club?????

Well there you have it, thats stats round up for Challenge XIV is done.  I shall now step back in bask in the warmth of your adoring admiration of my mathamagical incantations and remember kids - always carry the one!

I look forward to confusing you even more as I answer your questions.