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

____________________

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 AdamW: Carry on up the Khyber (Heresy) - (40pts)

 

I'm not sure if anyone apart from the Brits will recognise this one.

This entry in 15mm, is for the Heresy circle.

Curt's notes say 'Something that breaks with the accepted code'.

The classic comedy film 'Carry on up the Khyber' bases a lot of the plot on the tradition of the highland infantry, and Scots in general,  to wear nothing under their kilts.  In the film Private Widdle was caught wearing some underpants. This resulted in an inspection parade where it was found all the soldiers were wearing them.  The wife of the governor Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond was standing by with a camera to take a photo.

My take on the heresy theme is that the wearing of underpants broke with the code.

Extract from film

This is my homage in miniature to this famous scene. Various 15mm figures from the spare box inlcudes some Essex or Irregular officers.

The privates on parade are 15mm Peter Pig figures. They are flashing highlanders with head swaps, and also removal of some.....umm..extraneous parts to enable the pants to be painted on!

Lady Ruff-Diamond hides behind the hedge with a roughly constructed camera.

10 x 15mm figures @ 2pts = 20pts

Heresy bonus = 20 pts

Total 40pts.

That's hilarious, really! Oh yes, even this non-Brit gets this. The Carry On series epitomises the best and worst of British humor, I'd say. The whole idea is brilliant, and the execution rather flawless, including the fabulous scene setting and photography. I don't know how you keep coming up with these things, but please... carry on!

I'm topping up to 45 points as soon as I stop laughing.

Martijn

From GregB - More Afghan Regulars (60 points)

Another unit of 28mm Afghan regulars for the late 19th century - metal castings from Perry Miniatures.

As we get down to the short strokes on the clock, I have one more unit of 28mm Afghan Regulars for my Second Anglo-Afghan War project. These are metal castings from Perry Miniatures, sporting different head coverings from the last group. As with the previous such entry, this group is meant to represent a unit of infantry in the Osprey game "The Men Who Would Be Kings".

Opted for Khaki colours on these lads...

Some different head wear to capture the variety to be found among the Afghan forces of the period.

I opted for more of khaki look for this unit - still a bit of colour on the red facings and straps, but on balance not as bright as the previous unit of regulars. This choice was made in part to create some variety, but I also wanted to practice painting khaki tones so I could come up with a paint "recipe" that I like when the time comes to paint some of the British units.

Officer and musician to rally the troops!

So that makes four units for the Afghan side of this project - still not a complete force, but getting close. Not bad for a new project started from scratch!

A couple of the riflemen.

Afghan regulars ready to resist the British!

So, for points, we have another 12 different 28mm figures, which should be good for 60 points. Thanks for reading, and good luck to everyone in these last few hours of AHPC XIV. Thanks!

____________________________________

Terrific work on these reinforcements to your Afghan Regulars, Greg! Your khaki recipe for these fellas looks pretty darn solid to me, especially with that vibrant red accent with the cuffs, sash and shoulder boards. Very sharp. I look forward to hearing what you think of the rules once you have enough of these lads (and the Brits) ready for a game. Lovely stuff my friend!

- Curt

From JP - More 28mm Pathans (50 Points)

As I slowly chew through my collection, I now have 100+ foot Pathans painted and maybe 80 to go...

These are Foundry again, I just can't get enough of these.

And the next 5:

And I'll try for a close up:

I go for a very campaign look. All colours are a bit washed out and dirty, I use a lot of greys, browns, faded blues with a few exceptions and some highlights on turbans and sashes. 

Points:

10 x 28mm        = 50 points

Maybe a break into fantasy or my Early Germanics next... who knows?

***

UPDATE - Apologies JP - I forgot to add my comments - not that they are all that valuable, or valuable at all, but still - bad form on my part!

Great work on these warriors - your "campaign look" is spot on, and know that I will be trying to copy some of this look when it comes time to paint the next batch of tribal warriors in my own project for this setting. In particular, I would love to hear more about how you approach painting the skin tones for the Pathans - maybe you can share next time?

And as my friend Dallas has some "Early Germanics" under way himself, if you would be great to see more of those too! 

50 points, well done!

GregB

From GregB: 28mm Afghan Tribal Warriors (155 points)

28mm Afghan tribal warriors from Perry Miniatures, ready to close in on the British columns...

For my second submission today, I'll be switching gears to a completely different setting and a new project for me - the Second Anglo-Afghan War. These are 28mm Afghan tribal warriors, multi-part plastic figures from Perry Miniatures. There are 32 figures, enough for two units/groups of tribal warriors for the Osprey skirmish game "The Men Who Would Be Kings". 

An assortment of rifle-armed tribal warriors.

This setting seems to be popular among colonial wargamers, including several fellow Painting Challenge participants. Their various efforts through the years have intrigued me, and between looking at those, and a couple of "just browsing" sort of visits to the Perry Miniatures web site, I was intrigues enough to take the plunge myself. Reading through the "The Men Who Would Be Kings" rules sealed the deal for me...

Very basic hand-painted flag.

This project has been under way for quite some time. I had started the majority of these figures right around Christmas last year. But owing to the disruption caused by moving to a new house, I was not able to complete the basing and the (very basic) hand-painted flags until last week. So here they are today!

I love the guy loading the jezzail!

These multi-part plastic from Perry Miniatures are fantastic. The metal castings are still better (because obviously) but the plastic boxes are very well done and have been an excellent way to accumulate a relatively large number of tribal warriors. I plan to add units of cavalry and regular infantry from the Afghan army, but the tribal elements would be core to any Afghan force and I wanted to start with them. 

There are lots of swords and shields in the mix too!

I tried to mix up the colours a bit, and sought out different bits of inspiration in the hopes of not completely f*cking everything up, which is always a risk when one comes to a new period/setting. The warriors are equipped with a broad mix of muskets, rifles, jezzails, swords and knives of various sizes, and even shields! It all gets abstracted in the rules, allowing for a nice and motley appearance for the tribal warriors.

This lot is ready for battle!

One area that still needs a ton of practice is the skin tones. I wanted to get some different skin tones, and it was quite hit-and-miss, owning in large part to the fact that GW paints I use have tended to be out of stock, leading to improvisation, and combined also with the fact that, in the chaos of moving, I haven't really kept careful track of what worked and what didn't...maybe this will improve when I get to the next round of Afghan units for this project...

A 16-figure unit of Tribal infantry for "The Men Who Would Be Kings", ready for action on the table

Anyway, for scoring purposes, we have 32 figures in the photos, but there are a couple of pre-Challenge test paint jobs in there, so this will only count as 30 figures in 28mm scale - should still be good for 150 points, and by my recent standards it feels like a "points bomb" for me (even if, by current Challenge standards, 150 points does not even count as a "points candle" but who cares). Thanks for reading!

In my this book this is a points bomb, Greg, and what a great one! I really like how you achieved some uniformity while still keeping it so diverse and interesting. Great figures and a great paint job! An excellent start to a promising new project, and I am already looking forward to the next installment. The swordsmen are especially fine, I love the striped turban! And you may call them basic, but I think your hand-painted flags still warrant some bonus points. As I like round numbers, that's another 155 points in the bag. 

Martijn

From TobiasK: 28mm Afghan insurgents with heavy weapons (40 points)

Hello fellow painters,

I painted two heavy weapon teams for Afghanistan this week. The miniatures are from Eureka Miniatures. Their range of modern wargaming stuff is top-notch. But without further ado, here are the pictures.

1. SPG-9 73mm Recoilless Rifle with Afghan Guerrilla crew

2. 12.7mm Dshk MG on AA mount with two Afghan crew

Group shot:

Bookkeeping:

2 x crew served weapons (28mm) = 2 x 10 = 20 points
4 x crew (28mm) = 4 x 5 = 20 points

From Millsy

Smashing work on these guys Tobias! Your colour choices are wonderful, set off by some really natural looking basing. I especially like the way you've spread the groundcover out in clumps which is very convincing indeed. You sold yourself short of the points mate neglecting the crew, so I have doubled your score to 40 points. Enjoy!

From StuartL - For the Duels!!! A Final Post - 550 Points

Hello again.

I know that there are still a few hours left to go before the final whistle, but I'm going to say that I'm done. I have nothing that I can get finished between now and the deadline, so this lot will have to be it.

By the kick off for the challenge, I had signed myself up for no less than 3 different side-duels, (though luckily two of them pretty much went hand in hand). To round things off for the challenge, I have been beavering away at entries for all three duels to end on a hat-trick.

First of all, the Squirrel side duel. The aim was to paint up at least 25 points of any given theme to get 1 Squirrel point. However, each theme had to be unique to score the points. For those gamers with a very narrow focus (how do you do it), this might be a difficult duel to enter, but I have dozens of different projects all stashed away awaiting paint.

For the North West Frontier and the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War, some Afghans. I painted up some Afghan Regulars and British troops in previous challenges, but I have loads of these tribesmen and warriors still to do. The figures are all from Artizan Designs. 

This group of Arabians will be joining a small group of their fellows for games of Saga, Age of Crusades. I usually like to paint these models in different colours, but was pressed for time. The next batch (post challenge) will have different coloured robes. The minis are from Gripping Beast.

The second duel I entered was the Skullz Duel. As the name implies, you get points from painting Skulls. Some minis may have a skull on the base, or on their uniform, but the majority of historical miniatures don't really go in for the bare cranium look very much. Luckily one particular range of minis has a massive skull fixation and they are also the focus of my third duel, the Games Workshop Minis duel. From the get go, my aim in this challenge was going to be to focus squarely on painting up some GW figures. When Curt announced the Squirrel Duel, it kind of distracted me, but I've still managed to get some paint onto some GW minis along the way.

Here we have 90 Catachan Jungle Fighters of the Imperial Guard. I have been painting them in batches for some time now. I am soooo tired of painting green uniforms. I have had the bulk of these minis for going on 20 years now and I am glad that they are finally done.

I do have some heavy weapons teams, but even with the extension of the deadline, they just aren't going to get done in time. The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed the chap with the spot-light in the bottom corner of the picture. Back in 4th edition 40K, there was an option to pit small kill-teams against each other. One player would be the attacker and one the defender and both sides would get some extra options like trip-wires or search lights, so I decided to model one up.

I think it was Barks, the originator of the Skullz duel who said that it is scenery that pulls out the big numbers, and that got me thinking. I must have some terrain with skulls on it somewhere....

This is one of the old kits from GW's Cities of Death range. There are skulls all over it. There are skulls on the floors, there are skulls on the interior walls, on the doors and oh boy are there skulls on the exterior.

It would seem that one of the ways 40K architects deal with alien/mutant/daemonic hordes swooping in and murdering everyone on a planet, is to scoop up the remains of the murdered populace and use them as building materials for the next set of cities/targets.

As you can see, they didn't skimp on the skulls here. I think the designer of this kit may have had some issues to resolve.

So points wise we have:

5 Afghans at 5 points each gives me 25 points to my total and 1 Squirrel.

5 Arabs at 5 points each gives me 25 points to my total and 1 Squirrel.

90 Imperial Guard at 5 points a model comes to 450 points for both the GW duel and the total. Most of them have skulls on the sides of their rifles and other accessories, for a total of 99 Skullz.

1 Building which is roughly 8" by 10" by 7", or 560 cubic inches. That is roughly 2.5 terrain cubes rounded down, or 50 Points for both the GW duel and the total. The building contains a mind-boggling 772 Skullz. The two panels in close up above have about 65 each on the side that you can see. 

For a grand total of 550 Points, 2 Squirrels, 871 Skullz and 500 GW points. A hat trick and a points bomb to boot. 

My FINAL duels totals.

GW Points - 1766

Skullz - 1363

Squirrels - 20

I'm going for a long lie down.

From NoelW: The Last Post: 321 points

And so we face the final curtain. I’ve been tidying up the painting desk. Look how clean and pristine it is, with no more than 2 or 300 half painted figures scattered around. So much better than 3 months ago.

So I’ve four final offerings.

Firstly, 15 Byzantine infantry by Fireforge. I bought these on a whim, thinking they’d give me another infantry unit for Oathmark. But, not knowing anything about Byzantine warfare, I’m now thinking abut building a Byzantine army starting here – so, any tips would be more than welcome.

I've painted the shields white because I don't know any better, and I'm hoping to be able to source decals which will fit these shields, but so far no luck.

Next, 12 Late Roman cavalry by Gripping Beast. I’m not clear if “Late Roman” and Byzantine are in any sense connected – does Late Roman immediately precede “Byzantine”, for example? Or could both units be used in the same army?

My aim with these figs was to add a cavalry contingent to a handful of Wargames Foundry Arthurian foot which I bought second hand and am slowly repainting. Again, these figures will firstly be used within Oathmark, but gradually built up into a (small) army of the period. I like the idea of being able to fight hordes of huns, though my collection currently contains only 3 (unpainted) huns. I’ll probably end up squinting at a Mongol horde and calling it “hunnic”.

Shields and standard (which I fear is almost invisible) are by Little Big Man.

Third up: 6 more cavalry. These are all Perry plastics, consisting of one more Agincourt French knight (Jean, Baron of Ligne – I quite like the fact that his escutcheon consists of a “line”, but I guess French nobility maybe did not think of it like that) and 5 mounted archers. The archers are, of course, later in period than Agincourt, suitable for the Italian wars, which is where they’ll end up but they may also occupy a place in an Oathmark force for a while.

And finally Esther (reference only to be understood by UK citizens of a certain age): 13 Perry Afghans, a mix of metal and plastic. As usual with Perry figures, it’s quite difficult to tell plastic from metal, which is always a sign of decent castings. One or two of the poses I’ve created are a little melodramatic, because I intend some of these figures at least to serve in fantasy pirate games as well as the NW Frontier. I’ve tried to paint them in relatively subdued colours, as seems to be most accurate, but my brush continually strays towards the vivid and bright, so it’s been difficult to make them both interesting and reasonably realistic.

And that's my lot for Challenge XI. I wonder where we'll find ourselves in Challenge XII. Wandering a Victorian mansion where weird Chthuluesque creatures award bonus points in the basement? Trapped in a mad time machine that demands we interdimensional palettes? My bet is we'll be heading out among the stars to visit unexpected planets where paintbrushes grow on trees, volcanoes spew out Contrast colours and the only communication is through puns.

I can't wait.

Scoring: that’s 18 x 28mm cavalry: 180 points

28 x 28mm infantry: 140 points

1 flag: 1 point

TOTAL: 321 points

I’d like to thank Curt for keeping this crazy challenge going despite the obvious impact on his sanity; Lady Sarah, of course, for keeping the crazy Snowlord going despite the almost inevitable impact on her sanity; the many manic minions for their administrative brilliance (cough), irrespective of their sanity; everyone who has taken a couple of minutes to wade through my verbiage or to comment on my posts; my wife for not complaining about the paint that somehow found its way onto the living room curtains; my son for barely mentioning the bristling fragment of sprue embedded in his cushion when he sat down to watch evening TV; our cat for recovering from what seemed to me a terminal illness halfway through the Challenge; my agent; all of the production crew; JRR Tolkien; my friend Napoleon; Mr Harrap, my history teacher, for illustrating how badly a man could shave when he should have been telling us about Saratoga; all of history for just being there when it was needed….a white van has just drawn up….there are men in white coats getting out….one of them appears to have a taser….interesting…