From StuartL - Last minis of 2025 - 100 Points

Hi again,

    My second post for today, and hopefully a lot more positive than my previous one. 

    I'm lucky to have a long break over the winter period, and I have wasted very little time in getting pigment onto plastic. I have way too many projects on the go at any given time, so there is always something around for me to be working on. So, this post has a few small batches of minis that I had sitting in the (far too large) to-do pile. 

    First off, some Afghan tribesmen. Ages ago, I got a selection of Afghans and British troops for the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War from Artizan Designs. I've managed to get most of my forces done, but I still have a handful of Afghans to do. My plan is to play The Men Who Would Be Kings with them. These minis are all metal, and were really fun to paint. I went for simple colours for the clothes, but with some splashes of brighter colours for the turbans and sashes. Having done this batch, I kind of want to order more of them, Artizan do some amazing figures.

    The next set of figures from my work bench are some robots. I painted up a bunch of robot minis for This Is Not A Test for the challenge back in 2021. I have to admit that I haven't actually used them yet. But, that isn't a reason not to paint up more of them, right? These minis are all from Reaper Bones. The quality of them varies quite a bit. The big green one was super clean and crisp, whereas the robot at the back right is permanently leaning forwards, despite my best efforts to get it to straighten up.

    Being robots, painting was largely a case of base coating them in metallic colours, giving them a dark wash and then adding some highlights and spot colours for interest.

I'm going to be cheeky and claim these two robots' noggins look like skulls...

    My final entry for the year is a group of ten Anglo-Saxons. These figures are for Gripping Beast and will be joining my massive Saxon army (around 200 minis so far), for use in Saga, the new Pillage game from Victrix and possibly Hail Caesar once I get my Normans done. Having already done a lot of these figures, I can practically paint them in my sleep, so I blasted through these chaps in no time. While the sculpts aren't as pretty as the newer Victrix options, I find these very serviceable and they look good enough for gaming with.

      And that should see me done for 2025. I still have a lot more to do in 2026, so I will see you all then!

    Points wise, there are 20x 28mm minis, which should set me up for a nice, round 100 points. There are also entries for all 3 of my side duels.

My ongoing duels information:

Skulls - 141 (+2, assuming the robo-skulls count)

BSRoD - 5 (+5 for the robots above)

Squirrels - 6 (+3) - D&D Animals, 30K Militia, Plague Clowns, Afghans, Robots, Anglo-Saxons

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A great way to close out 2025, Stuart. I really like the Afghan fellas with their coloured turbans and the not-Terminators with their creepy glowing red eyes.  A very tidy 100 points for New Year's Eve, well done!

- Curt 

From StuartL - Continuing round the ring - Cybertron, Arrakis and LV426 - 85 Points

This is my final entry for today and is just a quick blitz of several planets. Having finished up the outer orbit, I am now heading inwards, down through the Great Abyssal. This brings me out at Cybertron in the middle ring, the theme for which is robots. Having already painted up a load of robots earlier in the challenge, I decided to do paint some models that are technically not true robots but that hopefully still count, two mechs from Battletech. These figures are from the Battletech beginner box and are cast as one piece plastic figures. 

These models are a Griffin and a Wolverine mech and are painted in the colours of the 10th Lyran Guards. I did a few models in the same colour scheme in last year's challenge, so these will be added to that force. The models are roughly the same height as a GW space marine. I think Battletech mechs are usually scored as a 28mm infantry figure rather than an 8mm scale vehicle. I'll let the minions adjust the points if need be.

Continuing in my clockwise orbit I head over the Arrakis where one of the themes is Worms. In my big pile of Reaper Bones minis, I found two suitable minis quite easily. They are very well textured, so I was able to do them in a simple base, wash, drybrush style and get the bulk of them done quickly.

Each model is roughly 28mm in scale and I will probably use them as wasteland critters in This Is Not A Test. One of them is sporting a skull on its base, so that is one more for my tally.

And finally, we head over the LV426, where the theme is Aliens. Personally, I find H R Gigers' Xenomorph creations truly horrifying, so I'll have to settle for the next best thing, a Genestealer from Games Workshop. An alien lifeform that exists in the void of space, lays it's eggs in unwilling hosts and acts as a living weapon that can destroy civilizations, I don't think GW were particularly subtle about their inspiration for this monster.

The figure is one of the original plastic models from the Space Hulk board game released decades ago. The model was painted up with several washes and a bit of contrast paint. There aren't two rows of eyes on it's head, the upper one is actually a spot of sepia wash that I was using to break up the overall pale look of the mini.

By my count, there are 5x 28mm models for a total of 25 points, plus 3 locations for an extra 60, giving me an extra 85 points for my score and bringing my challenge entries today to a close.

Skullz Total: 57

Final post and you've hit three planets, you have been busy.  I like the two tone mechs in the first photo.  I'll be sending one of those worms round to Barks to make sure that he's got the Skullometer working properly, it should fit in with the rest of the fauna in Oz.

From StuartL - Planet Hopping - Vulcan and Babylon 5 - 60 points

Hello everyone.

Just a short post from me this week. I have a bunch more stuff on my painting desk, but sadly work has started up again and I haven't been able to get as much done as I would have liked. 

To continue my trip around the outer ring of the Challenge XII Quadrant, I have two single model entries for Vulcan and Babylon 5.

For Vulcan, one of the themes on offer was Logical, and since I have been painting up a slew of robots and androids recently, I made sure to put one aside for this planet. 

Once again, this is a Reaper Bones mini and will be a part of my This Is Not A Test warband. While robots themselves are (I assume) genderless, this one has been designed to mimic the female anatomy. Whereas the rest of my warband are in silver colours, I intend to use this model as my leader and so painted it in a nice warm golden colour so that it stands out.

The model was painted in a brass colour first, given a sepia wash and then had gold highlights added along with some black and dark grey areas to add some visual interest.

Next up on my clockwise cruise is Babylon 5 and here we are looking for some low budget fun.

One game that I have enjoyed a lot is Gaslands. It's published by Osprey as part of their cheap 'blue books' gaming rules, and is playable with die cast toy cars. 

The car comes from Toys'R'Us's own brand of toy cars and I think it cost me just over $1. The guns come from a free sprue of Warlord Games Cruel Seas, I think they are meant to be torpedo tubes? The engine block is a spare power pack from a Games Workshop Sentinel kit.

Oops! Looks like I made a small mistake just above the rear lights, I'll have to clean that up...

Rather than my usual base colour, wash and highlight, I approach my Gaslands models a little differently. The game is supposed to be set in a Dark Future (pun intended) where drivers race cars seeking to earn money and a ticket off planet, so I figured that vehicle wouldn't be nice and shiny. For this model, I started with a layer of dark red, added another thin layer of a brighter red and finally a thin top layer of even brighter red. Some of the original colours show through each layer which makes the paint look more worn and adds depth to the rather flat and boring panels on the vehicle.

I believe that Gaslands vehicles are usually scored as 20mm vehicles, so the car nets me 15 points and the 28mm robot is worth 5, plus two planet locations at 20 each gives me a grand total of 60 points.

Hopefully I'll be back next week with a bit more to offer.

That's a lovely looking female robot Stuart, great work on her brasswork.  I haven't got into Gaslands myself but I enjoy seeing the work other do kitbashing various vehicles for their projects.

From StuartL - Airborne Assault - Caprica - 125 Points

Hello again.

During the 2020 Quarantine Challenge, I painted up some US Airborne for the Normandy campaign. As I have had half an army sitting unpainted since then I decided that I was going to get the rest of them completed during this challenge. 

The models are all from Warlord Games' Bolt Action range and are the older, metal minis rather than then newer plastic models. They are lovely figures, though they are kind of busy due to all of the details packed into them. Airborne troops took everything with them that they might need and it really shows on these figures with ammo pouches, first aid kits and holstered pistols. There are 21 models in total but two are prone. (The mortar team).

After finishing off this lot, I had intended to take a picture of the finished army, but as I started laying out the models I thought, "Hang on, I have a light mortar team for these guys don't I?" A quick check of the box later and I found that when I was pulling minis to prepare for the challenge, I missed the bottom tray of the carrying case. I have another ten minis to do before the army is done. D'oh! Anyway, I'll try and get them primed and ready before the end of the challenge.

As for the Challenge Sector, today's target is Caprica, which has the theme of Doomed, and once again I have painted up a mini for This Is Not A Test (TNT). My regular warband for TNT is a group of Peacekeepers, essentially a para-military force that is trying to bring peace and tranquillity to the post-apocalyptic wasteland by shooting anyone that gets in their way. As the judge, jury and executioners, the peacekeepers have a couple of unique units, one of which is the Sacrificial Lamb. The Lamb is a settler or trader who committed some minor crime and was 'arrested' by the Peacekeepers. Rather than just execute them directly, the convict was given the chance to commute their sentence. Equipped with a melee weapon, they accompany the Peacekeepers into the wasteland as extra muscle. 

Out in that vast wilderness it is tempting for the convict to try to make a break for it, or to duck out of combat rather than go toe-to-claw with some mutated beastie. To ensure that the convict does what they are told, a large explosive device is strapped to their backs and wired to a radio detonator. After a game, if the Sacrificial Lamb was detonated, a Peacekeeper warband gets another one for free. I have yet to end a game with my Lamb still on the table. 💥

The model is from Warlord Games' Project Z (perhaps ironically) Male Survivors boxed set. I added some plasticard straps for the harness and a radio antenna from a GW sprue and gave him a quick and dirty paint job. This model will barely be on the table long enough to be seen anyway. 

Given the rather short term job prospects of being a Sacrificial Lamb, I think this chap counts as being quite Doomed and therefore should score me some bonus points.

So, for my tally:

20x 28mm models = 100 Points.

2x prone 28mm models = 5 Points.

Caprica Bonus = 20 Points.

It's great to have you back this year Stuart.  Nice work on the paratroopers, I don't have the patience for a lot of the late WW2 figures with all their gear and subtle shading.  I also like the sacrificial offering, a worthy submissions  for Caprica.  Next time round, can I suggest that you post your "regular" stuff in a separate post from any challenge locations so that the specials stand out a bit?

From StuartL - Random Robots - Death Star - 70 Points

Hello again,

My painting recently has been slowed down a little due to that most precious and special of events... no, not Christmas, Gaming! I have managed to get three full days of rolling dice in over the past week, which has been awesome after roughly 18 months of avoiding most social contact. It has certainly been a nice way to finish off the year. 

I have been painting though and I finished these robots up the other day. 

(Sorry the picture isn't so good, we used the camera over Christmas and the settings got all messed up.)

These 9 robots and androids will be forming the core of a new warband for This Is Not A Test (TNT), a post-apocalyptic skirmish game. All of the minis are from Reaper's Bones range and come from various kickstarters. All of them were painted in a similar fashion, metallic silver followed by a black wash and then some spot colours and highlights. Only the two androids in the middle got any other colours applied.

For my Challenge Sector entry, I looked at the Death Star's requirements of "Of Questionable Design" and found a suitable mini, also for TNT, and a kit-bash just like my entry for Skaro. Introducing the Party Bot.

As the entry in the TNT supplement states: "Party Bot is here to party. Amaze your friends, annoy your neighbours, have the best time everrr!" The Party Bot is not a normal part of a warband and is a hired freelancer for any faction. It doesn't have any guns or physical weapons, but comes equipped with 'Raucous Noise' and 'Blinding Disco-Tech' forcing all models nearby to pass skill checks or suffer some large penalties to their skills.

The Party Bot is a kit-bash from some 40K Imperial Guard (nope, still not using their daft new name), kits; a wheel from a tank, some binoculars, speakers from vox casters and heavy flamer nozzles. The top half of the robot is a repurposed cheap Christmas bauble, carefully cut and glued on top. I'm not sure how effective it will be in game, but I intend to download some disco songs and play them at full volume whenever it attacks. 

So, that's a total of 10x 28mm minis for 50 points, plus an additional 20 points for the Death Disco Star. See you all next time.

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Now, if the Imperials had only sent the Party Bot to Hoth instead of the boring Probe Droid. Really, it would have been so much more fun, yet terrifying. I now have burned into my psyche visions of tauntauns moonwalking and wampas Doin' the Locomotion... 

Wonderful (and fun) work Stuart!

From StuartL - A Mammoth 1st Post - Skaro - 117 points

Hello everyone.

As this is my first post for this challenge, a quick introduction (for the newcomers to the AHPC) and a quick recap (for people who have been around for the last couple of challenges), seem in order.

My name is Stuart, I was born and grew up in the UK, but I emigrated to Japan about 17 years ago. I have been working over here as an English language trainer for various corporations and businesses for most of that time. After Covid came along, a lot of businesses started to work from home and stopped providing training to their staff, so this time last year I found myself with a lot of free time. I was able to get some more work this spring and I am now teaching part time at a Junior High School. It's not what I want to be doing, but it pays the bills. Japan was a little slow with the vaccines, I got both of my shots in October. No plans for a third jab yet, but that might happen next year as Omicron has been found in a couple of places over here. 

And now, on to the painting. 

As I have the opportunity for gaming again (at least until Omicron spreads and shuts everything down again), I plan on trying to get armies/warbands/crews etc. done so that I can A) play the games I want to play, and B) put on demo games to get my local group to try them. I also have a mountain of Reaper Bones minis from their various kickstarters that I need to make a dent in. So for the most part I will be focusing on these two goals. Plus the Challenge XII sector of course. I've also been asked to take on the role of Squirrelfinder General after having decided that I didn't need the distraction of chasing squirrels myself. And to round things off, I'm participating in the Skullz Duel this year. I'm hoping to function as a 'pace car' and not get too carried away.

To start off my Challenge XII, I have painted up this set of demons/devils from Reaper. They were all simple enough to paint and I made use of GW's contrast paints to do their skin. Some of them are in strange poses, (check out the guys flexing their muscles in the back row), but overall they'll do for D&D or similar games. All of the models have a skull icon on their belts for those of us who care about such things.

More Reaper minis here, a set of gorillas including one wearing armour. No contrast here, these were all done in a mix of standard Citadel colours and Vallejo. One of the many things I'm working on is a couple of armies for Saga: Age of Magic. Unlike the more historical versions of Saga, Age of Magic allows you to take pretty much any minis you want and fit them to one of six themes. These gorillas will be Biped Creatures for the Lords of the Wild theme. Saga: AoM is definitely worth checking out if you like mini-agnostic skirmish games.

And here we have the mammoth from the post title. This was part of the most recent Reaper kickstarter and it is absolutely massive. It stands about 13cm tall and is 20cm from tusk to tail. Its base is an old CD. One of the best parts of the Reaper KS's is the price. This gigantic chunk of plastic only cost $14. While some of the smaller minis are a bit bendy (see the gorilla's sword in the picture above), their big models are amazing, and very sturdy.

For the fur, bones, tusks and the armour, I used GW Contrast paint, followed by a metallic drybrush on the metal plates. The skin, chains and harness were all done in regular paints. For things with a lot of texture Contrast works well, but sadly Bones minis tend to be a bit hydrophobic and need a couple of attempts to get the paint to sit correctly. The model is still a bit glossy, so I might have to hit it with another coat of varnish before putting it away.

To help give you a sense of scale, I have enlisted the help of Jarl Hvat-Skael to show the sheer size of this beasty. The Jarl was painted years ago, so isn't part of this entry. There are two skulls hanging on chains on the side of this monster and its leg armour also has large skulls on it.

And finally, on to the Challenge Sector. My destination? Skaro.

Now, I grew up watching/being terrified by Doctor Who on a weekly basis. (Mainly Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy), but I don't really have any Doctor Who themed minis. Luckily our most generous Snow Lord left a little room for manoeuvre with the theme of weird robots and I do have a few of those.

This model is a kit bash for a game called This is Not a Test, or TNT for short. TNT is a post apocalyptic skirmish game which has a bit of a Fallout feel to it if you are familiar with that series of PC games. The model consists of a vending machine scenery piece from Reaper, with added legs and cannons built from spare GW Necron parts.

Sadly, just as I finished painting this, I dropped it and managed to sheer off three of the four legs. Originally, the legs all had plastic pins on them that allowed me to assemble the robot in an upright pose. After the break, I had to drill out all the holes again and insert metal pins. Getting the correct angles was nearly impossible, so the repaired model is slightly more wonky. 

TNT is another model-agnostic system and consists of a base rule book and half a dozen pdf expansions, one of which includes robots. In said pdf, there is a scenario where both players are fighting to control a Quantum Cola Vendo - An advanced robotic vending machine. Rather than paint the mini in the colours shown in the PDF, I decided to model it after my favourite imaginary beverage Brawndo! What is Brawndo? It's from the movie Idiocracy and plays a central role in that film. You can see a commercial for Brawndo here: Youtube.

And for a final TL;DR recap.

All of the models were at least 40mm tall (50 in the case of the gorillas), so that should be:

11x 40mm minis = 77 points.

1x mammoth = 20 points?? I have no idea how to score it, it dwarfs most tanks I have.

1x Sector Planet = 20 points.

Grand total = 117 points.

Skullz Tally - 13

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Wow, great first post! That mammoth is an absolute beast - what an impressive tusked lump! I think my favourites are the ferocious apes, though I also really like the whacky vending machine/robot. Sorry to hear of your mishap with its legs. Reading it made me cringe. I've been there too many times, pinning shorn limbs, muttering unmentionable things under my breath - I feel your pain.

Finally, good opening volley on the Skull count. I need to get a wiggle on with my figures to try to catch up.

Welcome back to the Challenge, Stuart!

- Curt