From BillaA - NEEEERRRRDDDDSSSSS (15 pts)

It's been really great to return to the AHPC, and my productivity has exceeded anything I anticipated accomplishing. Did I necessarily finish everything I'd set out to? Nnnnnno. I have, I guess, 14 more Mayans to paint (four of whom are very ornately dressed), plus quite a bit of terrain for them that hasn't even been started. But, more importantly, I painted a lot of figures and made a big dent in my leadpile, which is what really matters. So to conclude this year's AHPC, I have one last post. And it's a bunch of nerds.

Or rather, a bunch of geeks. This is Reaper Miniatures' "Townsfolk: Geeks" from their Chronoscope line of pulp, scifi, modern and miscellaneous non-fantasy miniatures, sculpted by Gene Van Horne. They're pretty simple and straight-forward sculpts in non-dramatic poses but they've got a lot of personality to them and were entertaining to paint.

My favorite is the big guy in the middle of the group photo. I think the sculpt was probably influenced by the Simpsons' "Comic Book Guy," with his bulk, shorts and ponytail. I opted for some different color choices, with khaki cargo shorts and a white T-shirt inspired by one the president of my college's anime club wore when I was a student. I've also painted the bottle in his hand as Mountain Dew. The figure's face was large and open enough for me to paint his eyes. 

It's like looking in a mirror.

Up next is a small man in glasses and a short-sleeved button down shirt; I'm realizing now he's supposed to have a beard to go with that mustache and I just didn't paint it. I'll fix that. He's got a pouch in his left hand that I've interpreted as a classic Crown Royal bag full of dice.

Finally, the female member of the trio; she was the hardest for me, actually. I'd painted her face first and then started filling in the hair around it, only for the base turquoise shade to go on really thin and flow, wash-like, on to her face. I had a few choice words for that bottle of paint! Once the hair was finished I went in and redid her face, but it resulted in some of the definition of the sculpt being lost. 

Three more 28mm figures on foot yields another 15 points. Thank you to the Snowlord for welcoming me back after too many years absent, and thank you everyone for the kind words and encouragement on every post! 

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Fabulous final post Bill! I love the little details that you put in, like the Mountain Dew bottle, Crown Royal dice bag and the fandom blue hair. A wonderfully geeky trio that we can all identify with. It was great to have you back this year and I hope we see you out for Challenge XVII!

- Curt

From BillA: A Face Only A Mother Could Love (10 pts)

 I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to get another post in this week. I wasn't expecting to finish another figure in time! So rather than delay it a week, I figured I better get it in. 

This is the "Babyface Abomination" from the board game "Zombicide: Invader." I don't know a whole lot about it - I know Zombicide is a cooperative game with players taking the role of zombie apocalypse survivors fending off endless hordes of zombies, and Invader replaces the zombies with aliens of varying types and abilities. There's a variety of these Abominations, and I guess some of them were exclusives you could only get through backing the Kickstarter for the game. I bought five different Abominations secondhand from a guy on social media that had spares for use with the game Majestic 13 (see my previous post for more on the game). I'm trying to get in a minimum of two games a month, solo or otherwise, and in determining what my next game of Majestic 13 will be, I realized I needed to paint an appropriate monster for it! 

I kept things pretty simple with this one; I primed white, and did some pre-shading around the larger folds of flesh with GW Druchii Violet. Once that was dry, I went over everything with "Guilliman Flesh" contrast paint. Once that was dry, I started drybrushing with Reaper "Tanned Skin" to smooth out any blotchiness. The guts, mouth and tendrils emerging from the hands were cleaned up with white, then washed with Druchii Violet and gone over with GW Baal Red contrast. 

Spiky bits and the armored shell on the head got two coats of Reaper "Midnight Blue" before drybrushing with "Twilight Blue." A little more Druchii Violet around the mouths and in the deepest folds of fat, and all that was left was picking out the teeth and nails. I think it turned out pretty good and gnarly.

And here's a shot of him with the 3-Card Monte Guy for scale; I'd say he qualifies as a 54mm figure.

"Sorry pal, them's the breaks. Play again?"

So that'll be another 10 points, and no new Squirrels.

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Sylvain: You monster is disgusting, but in a well painted way. I could almost hear and smell any gaseous emanations coming from the multiple orifices of this... thing. It has been an honor to be your minion; "à la prochaine".

From BillA: Wanna Bet? (25 pts)

 I admit I'm starting to slow down a little in my painting; more due to needing to expand my storage options for painted miniatures than anything else! As such I'm likely nearing the end of my submissions for this year's AHPC, but I'm not counting myself out just yet. I do have a small submission this week. 

A lot of my home gaming involves modern, urban skirmishes; gang fights, escaping from zombies, big alien monsters trashing downtown. I've got a nice collection of buildings going, but I could stand to expand my urban scatter, especially cars and civilians to incorporate into scenarios. As such, I've got one of each today:

We've got "3 Card Monte Guy" and a 1980 Volkswagen Vanagon, both 3D prints. Our hustler is from Miniature Building Authority, and arrived in four pieces - the guy, his arms (gluing on at the sleeves) and the stack of boxes in front of him.

My urban tables tend towards seedy and rundown; inspired by the Rust Belt environs I've spent my entire life in, they're battlefields made of liquor stores, pawn shops, and off-track betting parlors, and as such the sort of place this con man fits right in. The details of the face took a wash and highlight beautifully, and I'm pretty proud of myself for doing the ace of spades on the card he's showing us using a brush instead of a pen. I did use a pen for the lettering on his boxes.

The Vanagon is from Miniature Tanks Company, who offer an incredibly wide variety of vehicles for 20th century conflicts in a number of scales. I included a couple options from them on a wishlist for a hobby Secret Santa I took part in last December, and I'm happy enough with the quality that I'll probably order more sooner or later; they're FDM prints rather than resin, and the print lines are visible, but for my purposes they're just fine and at $3-$6 per car in 28mm, the price is right. 

Looking at photos of various Vanagons for color ideas, I found a burnt orange one with a white roof that I really liked the look of; I added white trim around the windows for a little extra visual interest. Of course, now I'm tempted to get another and add an avocado green version to my collection as well! I've got a sports car and a pair of police Crown Victorias awaiting their turn; we'll see if I get those in before the end of the Challenge. 

One 28mm figure and one 28mm vehicle should net me 25 points.

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Sylvain: Just looking at his face, I wouldn't trust your hustler to bring me a glass of water. Great job on this shady character. And the Vanagon looks both cool and definitely from another decade. It has been an honor to be your minion; "à la prochaine". 

 

From BillA: 3D Printed Alien Monsters (20 points)

Mixing things up once again! 

With my wife being immunocompromised and the hygiene standards (or lack thereof) I've seen at some of the local game stores, a lot of my wargaming has shifted to solo play since 2020, and one of the games most often seen on my table is "Majestic 13," from Snarling Badger Studios. While it hasn't gotten the same level of attention that their offerings "Deth Wizards" and "Space Station Zero" have, it's been a very enjoyable game for me.

You play as a team of five "Agents" in a covert war against alien invaders, represented in most games by one big gribbly monster that can absorb and deal out a lot of damage. Each game is capped at five turns and you'll usually have a secondary mission attached alongside the primary mission of "kill the monster." It's built for campaign play, with agents improving skills, requisitioning improved gear, as well as developing PTSD and dying and being returned to the battlefield as clones of varying quality. 

I'm currently (as of this blogpost going live) four games into my current campaign, and have a small collection of painted monsters to use; the game offers stats for 26 monsters, each of which are described in the vaguest possible terms to allow you to use whatever figures feel most appropriate to the you. Most of mine are 3D prints from various designers, and here are two more newly painted for my collection. Both of these were purchased from TableTopTradesman on Etsy, who has been one of my go-to sources for these.

The first of these is a sort of generic "Cthulhu"-y humanoid figure with long arms ending in tentacled "hands" and a octopus-like head. I tend to keep my paint jobs on these monsters relatively simple, often with a main color and pops of contrast; they've also been good for me as practice for glazing and similar techniques. Here, I used a medium cool gray for a base-coat, washed it with some thinned down GW "Nighthaunt Gloom" contrast paint, and then drybrushed with a very pale blue-tinged gray, and a second drybrush using a 70/30 mix of white and that same pale blue-gray. 

I then went over the "hands" with "Baal Red" contrast paint up to the wrists; once dried, I gave them a light drybrush of a red-orange color, and then used a lighter red to glaze over the orange and carried the glaze all the way up to the...second wrist? There's a lot of extra joints in its arms. Hopefully that reads as a shift in the creature's pigment, rather than it being wrist-deep in gore. 

The second critter is marketed as a "Dire Bat," but those sure as heck ain't wings! The frills on the arms look more like fish fins to me, personally, but it was such an odd design choice that it drew me to this figure whereas I probably would have skipped over a more traditional "bat" design. 

I kept the colors fairly simple, an all-over basecoat of a dark red-brown, drybrushed with a brighter version of the same, and a final drybrushing of a rusty red-brown along the edges of the fins and the mane down its neck. In hindsight, I probably should have painted him *before* gluing him to the base! He's on a 60mm round from Renedra, by the way, while his paler companion is on a 40mm base. 

Since many of the monsters in Majestic 13 have energy-based ranged attacks, I painted the inside of the figure's gaping maw a strong golden yellow (3 coats), and then washed it with orange before going back over the middle with more yellow. Hopefully that sells the idea of it having a Godzilla-style breath weapon! 

ZZZZAPPP!!!

They're fairly large figures, but the paint jobs are not terribly complex, so I've been chewing over how best to score these. The gray monster is pretty close to 54mm in height, while the bat is probably not far off that in length. Here's a picture of them next to one of my Majestic 13 Agents for sale:

I'll leave it to Sylvain to make the final determination, but maybe treat them as 40mm figures to account for the simpler paint jobs, and call it 14 points for the two of them? I'm counting these as Modern Horror, so no new squirrel points for me.

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Sylvain: Those are some wicked monsters! Simple but effective game tools. Figurines are based on size, so you just completed two 54mm models. Extraordinaire!

 

 

 

From BillA: The Ever-Glorious Workers' and Peasants' Red Army! (70 points)

Inspired by MarkG and DaveD's exemplary efforts this Challenge, I've begun work on my own set of Copplestone figures for the Back of Beyond. I've admired these figures for a long time, and in 2024 I started buying quite a number of them with an eye towards...something, gamewise, with the Back of Beyond? I've quite enjoyed reading histories about the region and its conflicts in the Interwar years, but whether or not I can translate that into something on the table (the various local wargamers who'll touch historicals at all, unfortunately, believe historical wargaming begins and ends with WWII). I did two packs of White infantry and an artillery piece over the course of 2025, and primed a couple packs' worth of Bolsheviks, Chinese and some Cossack cavalry ahead of the AHPC this year. So to start off, here's a dozen Bolsheviks:

This is one pack of Bolshevik infantry, and I decided to try some different things paint-wise with these, since I'd treated myself to Mark Hargreaves' painting guide last year, and used more washes than I usually do - predominantly Army Painter Soft Tone. Tunics I did all the same, but there's a total of four different colors used for trousers (two browns, two greens), and the rolled greatcoats are done in two different shades of dark gray, one warmer and one cooler. 

Accompanying them are a Commissar and one of Mark Copplestone's wonderfully characterful Bolshevik Heroines, sporting a Mauser C96 broomhandle. The Commissar was given a black leather jacket in my usual way - Reaper's "Coal Black" highlighted with "Midnight Blue," which was also used on all the boots. He's also got a heck of a lot of character to him, with that exaggerated yell he's got going on. I might have gone a little bright on his teeth! 

Finally, I've got a set of objective tokens to go with my Maya, and they're a grisly set indeed - three piles of severed heads, produced by Acheson Creations as single-piece resin castings. These were painted pretty quickly and intended to look like putrefaction had set in - a base coat of Reaper's "Ghoul Skin," washed with GW Druchii Violet, and then drybrushed heavily with another layer of "Ghoul Skin" followed by "Moldy Skin." They're on a raised integral base that's been glued to a 40mm Renedra round base, and are probably pretty close to 28mm tall overall. 

That's 12 28mm figures, for 60 points, plus whatever my illustrious minion considers the head-piles to be worth. And I'll claim a Squirrel point for "Back of Beyond," bringing me up to 5 (Maya, Modern Horror, Modern Africa, Dinosaurs, and now BoB).

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Sylvain: Very colorful figurines indeed, both in palette and in character. I find your collecting choices very interesting because I'm a big fan of Corto Maltese, a graphic novel character created by Hugo Pratt, who had adventures in the back of beyond, among other places. As for your heaps of heads, how about 10 points for the three of them for a total of 70 points? Fabuleux!

 

 

From BillA: 20th Century African Militia and Mercenaries (65 points)

 This is a project I kind of stumbled into accidentally. A couple years back, I started painting and wargaming the 1980s GI Joe comic book and animated series in 28mm, and decided to add some local insurgent types - the idea being the terrorist organization Cobra funds and arms localized groups in Central America, the Middle East, etc. in addition to their own, more sci-fi oriented, operations. One of my favorite stories from the GI Joe Special Missions comic (which tended towards more realistic stories), appearing in issue#10, involved the Joes escorting the prince of Kalingaland, an equatorial African nation, home to assume rulership despite Soviet-backed efforts to install a Communist puppet government. I decided I wanted to include Kalingaland in my games, and that meant Cobra-backed rebels, leading me to pick up a couple packs of 20th century African militia from The Assault Group.

And then I got a few more. And then I bought a copy of "Wars of Insurgency," my friend Mike's rules for wargaming the various bush wars and small conflicts around the world from 1945-2000. And then I bought a few more African militia to round out a complete force for "Wars of Insurgency." I have no idea if I'm ever going to play Wars of Insurgency. I have more African rebel militia than I'll probably ever field in a GI Joe game, which I usually play solo. Anyways, here are the last of them, painted up.

There's a lot going on here, so let's break that up.

I did one pack each of Militia with Handguns and with SMGs:

These two packs were combined, with a guy holding a RPG, to form a single militia unit for Wars of Insurgency:

I also painted a pack of "Wild Geese" style mercenaries with AK-47s; these are intended as bodyguards for the force's commander, who has previously been painted.

These figures complete this force, and I have a partially painted UN Peacekeepers force to oppose them; whether I'll complete the second half of the Peacekeepers before the end of the Challenge or not remains to be seen.

That's another 13 figures for 65 points, and another Squirrel point, bringing me up to 4 (Modern Horror, Maya, Dinosaurs, and 20th Century Africa.

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Sylvain: You bring to the Challenge a type of skirmish figures that I've never played with and never seen at conventions. Your brushwork brings out the ruggedness of the militiamen. I will watch closely what you will bring next week! Génial! 

 

From BillA: Maya Warriors, Characters and Peasants (85 pts)

 After a week where it was too cold to sit at my basement workbench and paint, I'm back with more finished figures for my ongoing Mayan project. Following up on my last batch with spears, this week I've got their companions with clubs and flint-bladed "swords," as well as a few more character figures and some peasants

Group shot - everyone smile!

First up, the warriors. In "Tribal" terms, these are armed with Short Weapons. Short Weapons (one-handed clubs, swords, axes, etc.) favor straightforward tactics of running up and bashing the other guy, versus the feints that spears give a bonus to in game. These are once again divided into two formations of five, and color-coded with red and blue being the dominant accent color (or just flat out dominant color, in the jumpsuited figures' case!) to signify which formation is which. These are, once again, Jaguar Tribes figures from Lucid Eye.

Next up, a pair of character figures - a "Mayan General" from Paymaster Games, here in the USA, who do a lot of indigenous American figures, both historic and mythological, as well as a second shaman from Gringo40s. I'd previously painted another copy of this shaman in different colors as part of the Challenge. The General is holding a two-handed weapon set with a pair of flint axe heads - I'm not sure how historical this weapon is, but it looks like it'll ruin someone's day! 

Finally, four more Gringo40s figures - these are Maya peasants carrying bundles of cotton cloth, based two to a base on 40mm rounds from Renedra to serve as objective tokens in Tribal. 

All together, that's 16 28mm figures, for 85 points. No new squirrel points. And that's 34 Maya painted as part of the Challenge total, with four more primed and awaiting paint as well as another six objective tokens. After that I've got another 10 figures to assemble, prime and paint, but it remains to be seen if I'll get those done during the Challenge or not. 

From DaveD l now they are a colourful,bunch alright . I do like the Gringos Shaman , Ged does some lovely pieces . I make 16nx 5 as 80 points , but I’m rounding you to 85 for that wonderful group shot and overall brightness of scheme . 

From BillA - Warriors with Spears (60 pts)

 I'm hitting the "boring" troop stage of my Mayan project - the ordinary warriors there to fill the ranks, mostly without fun accoutrements like feathers and jewelry. The nice thing is that units in Tribal are five figures, so I can batch paint a couple at a time without hitting the burnout sensation that trying to work through 20-30-figure regiments can trigger. 

This week, I've done two units of Warriors with Long Weapons - Tribal splits Warriors (melee combat units) into "Long" and "Short" weapons, with long weapons being spears and polearms, while short weapons are swords, clubs, axes, etc. The different weapon types gain bonuses when used with different tactics during play - long weapons being better at hindering your opponent and making it harder for them to win a round of combat, while short weapons favor straight forward bashing. 

These figures are once again from Lucid Eye, and are listed as "Jaguar Tribes" on their website. I've differentiated the units with red and green detailing, because otherwise they're almost the same sculpts across both units.

I like the variety, from nearly nude to quilted shirts and the brightly colored "long johns" style outfits, which are laced up the back. They do have shields, but those are going to wait for warmer weather to prime and paint. 

And a group shot of both units together, in case I'm ever using these for a game with ten-figure units:

 Yes, the guys wearing the quilted shirts are bare-assed. I guess they're too brave to worry about turning around and getting shot in the butt! 

And finally, I've finished a pair of Gringo 40s Maya casualty figures, painted to use as Panicked markers in Tribal. As you can see, trying to flock under and between their legs was a bit of a fool's errand; next time I'll flock the bases first and then glue the figure down on top of it. 

So that's 10 28mm figures at 5 points apiece, plus two prone casualty figures... call that 55 points all together? And no new squirrel points. 

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Sylvain: What a great project. I was always fascinated by precolonial warfare in central and south America because it seems so "exotic". And you bring it all up on the table top with very well painted and based miniatures. Excellent travail!

From BillA: Heroes of Horror & RATS! (38 points)

 This week, I've completed a few more horror-themed goodies; in a few weeks' time I'm going to be running a demo table of Planetsmasher Games' solo/co-op game "Perilous Tales" at my alma mater's annual gaming convention; 2026 marks 20 years since my first year attending, and while it's mostly a roleplaying and board game kind of convention, there's always a couple tables of miniatures demonstrations and last year they brought back Warhammer 40K tournaments for the first time in over a decade. This is my first year since 2006 for me to be trying to demo a wargame, so fingers crossed.

Perilous Tales produces games that feel like a good B-horror movie; a small group of heroes attempt to fulfill a set of randomly-determined objectives as a timer counts down and threats - including monstrous villains, sinister minions and environmental hazards - close in. Objectives can range from "defeat the master villain" to "get three figures to safety off the opposite edge of the table." 

I'd previously run a demo table at a one-day wargaming show back in September and it went well enough, but I decided I'd paint a few new heroes and villains for the upcoming convention. My first entry in this year's painting challenge were the master villain and henchmen I'm bringing; here, now, are the rest of my heroes and the last villainous minions I'd need.

As soon as I saw these "FBI Agents" from Crooked Dice, I knew I had to have them; X-Files scared the tar out of me as a sensitive kid in the 90s, but I've since become a fan of the "Monster of the Week" episodes (the overarching mythology episodes, not so much). Having Mulder and Scully on the table as heroes players could use was a must.

These are another two from Crooked Dice, though maybe less familiar; the armed cheerleader is a dead ringer for Kelli Maroney's character in the 1984 cult classic NIGHT OF THE COMET, while the teenage metalhead is just as clearly intended to be the character Eddie Munson from Netflix's "Stranger Things" series. I even freehanded the partial skull and crossbones on the bandanna he's wearing around his head. 

Finally, I needed multiple rat swarms to represent the lowest grade of minion serving the master demon; these are 3D resin prints from GreenStuffWorld that I found on a spinner rack in one of my local game stores. I like the little extras on these; the king rat directing his fellows, the wedge of cheese, the stack of newspapers. It gives each base personality. Each one is glued to a 25mm Renedra round base. 

So that's four 28mm humans at 5 pts apiece for 20... I'm not sure if the rat swarms should be scored as 28mm miniatures? Maybe count each one as half, as seems to be the case for prone figures? I leave it in my minion's capable hands whether this post as a whole qualifies for 50 points, 35 points, or some other total.

No new squirrel points, but two badass monster-killing women means I'm tagging Sarah's Choice.

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Sylvain: I love it when I can recognize a miniature based on a real-life character, and with your brush you did an excellent job at helping the viewer "read" the references in those figurines. I really like your skulking Scully. Now about this points business... I will count them for 3 points each, because of the cheese and stuff. Bravo!

From BillA: Maya Ajaw and Ah'kin (30 points)

 This was a project I didn't really plan on starting, until my buddy Chris gifted me a pair of figures he'd commissioned and had cast up - a Maya king and queen (whom you'll see in my Empire theme round entry). Well, now I needed to do something with them! Looking at my options for Maya miniatures, the options out there aren't as varied as there are for Aztecs. At Chris' suggestion, I ordered about a dozen packs of "Jaguar Tribes" and "Maxzans" figures from Lucid Eye Publications. Sculpted by Steve Saleh, formerly of Wargames Foundry, these figures are a little bit generic "Mesoamerican Fantasy" but work well as representatives of the Maya people, pre-European contact. 

Current plan is to paint up enough figures and terrain to put on a game at a local one-day show, six months from now; I'm mostly thinking Mana Press' "Tribal" ruleset for these, which uses units of five figures and a unique playing card-based mechanic, but I'm going to workshop this with Chris. 

I started with some of the more richly dressed and ornamented figures; these five I'm treating as ajaw, members of the noble class in a Mayan city-state, fighting for personal glory and social status.

I misplaced the shields for this group; if I find them or buy more (or more likely, buy more and then find them), I'll get them painted and glued on. 

I also picked up some 28mm Maya figures from Gringo 40s to accompany my Lucid Eye figures and fill in some gaps. One such is this priest, or ah'kin; He wears a Chaac mask, putting on the persona of the god of rain, agriculture and (sometimes) warfare, with a plume of quetzal feathers. 

This is one of two copies of Gringo 40s' priest figure I bought, so you'll see another one in different colors later on in the challenge. 

Six 28mm figures on foot gives me another 30 points, and I claim a second Squirrel Point for Maya.

Total Squirrel Points: 2 (Modern Horror, Maya)

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Sylvain: "Colorful" is the first quality I can say about your paint job. You are regaling us with a subject not seen much during past Challenges and I hope you will keep showing us more of this stuff. Joli travail!