MattW it’s a wrap 2024

 This year a more modest goal of 750 points which I manage to miss by two points…. I was on vacation for almost three months, just about all of the challenge visiting family and friends in Australia, plus a visit to Cancon Australias largest wargames convention, where I caught up with some fellow challengers and picked up 2kg of lead….. then returned to France for 6 days before going to Paris for a week, then up to the Champagne district on our yearly champagne purchasing trip (plus visiting the Napoleonic and ww1 battlefields nearby)

As per normal I had a wide mix of bits prepared but only managed to complete some due to Piss poor planning …. I prepared quite a lot before the challenge and departed with a carry bag of 100 odd hairy Germans, and a few smaller pieces. What I failed to do though was pack the correct bag of decals for my Germans….. so I based and completed what I could and entered them. Then when I returned I thought I would enter the figures I had painted by finding the transfers ….. which I failed to do because I got sidetracked, however I did get some 28mm fallschirmjager completed which was a good thing! 

No real favourites this year, but the long holiday has boosted my completion rate since the challenge with all of the Germanics completed in the last 10 days adding another 60 odd to the collection, more Fallschirmjager and completed some other bits that was prepped for the APC. 

See you all next year

Cheers

Matt

From SanderS: It aint over till the Fat Sander sang...

 Hoi there,

Another Challenge has gone by and I am rather happy with my results even though I failed to reach my set target. This was the first year in which I only painted stuff I actually felt like painting rather than miniatures I needed done or off my table. This was absolutely more pleasing and I will keep that as my motivation for following Challenges. 

It was an absolute blast participating alongside such esteemed Challengers as you all are and as such I am keenly aware I have not replied to your posts as much as you all deserve, I hope to rectify that in the future. As for what I finished together with the obligatory mug-shot:

My favourite figures this Challenge were of course the Bretonnians and while I have but scratched the top of the pile I need to do to get the force table-ready I am pleased with them all the same. 

The Library Theme was great fun and books very prominent in my Challenge experiences this year. I did buy the Legend of the Green Knight (translated by J.R.R. Tolkien) in the end and it's now on my to read pile. As a teacher I have the privilege to go on field trips and help organise them. Last year we first went to Waterloo and we got to go there just a few weeks ago again. 

This is me at the Waterloo Panorama, an oldie but a treasure all the same. I brought along my copy of Mercer's Journal and took a picture at the last known site where his battery was located on the field of battle before pursuit of the French army started. 

As for my Challenge contribution: as Martijn has already stated Dutch (and Belgian Libraries) are state funded and do not accept donations but I have tried to alleviate my contribution in two different ways: first up our school has plans to renovate and build a new building soon. Our history department will be getting lots of bookshelves and I will donate part of my historical fiction library to it in order to have the pupils be able to read about history in a more fun way as opposed to from the regular text books.

Next my wife and I (be honest mostly my wife) arranged for the 4 of us to have an animal sponsored through myfahlo.com. It's a format that lets you donate money to a cause that helps safeguard endangered animals around the world and you get to track "your"animal by way of it's GPS transponder. Both our lads are heavily into conserving the planet and saving animals so I got an elephant and Arthur a Sea Turtle. I hope you find this okay Curt! 

Talking about the great Snowlord; no Challenge would be possible without the endless energy and ministrations of Curt, the Lady Sarah and the long suffering minions: thank you all heaps from both Arthur and myself. Specially Teemu and Sylvain of course who were tasked with herding the van Straeten boys this Challenge. Oh and Sylvain you are still going to tell us how we can obtain those excellent  Musée des Fossiles mugs!

So thank you all and see you next year,

Cheers Sander

Sarah & Curt's Challenge Wrap-Up

Hi All!

Sarah and I had a great time with the Challenge this year with the Library setting providing lots of fun for themed entries. I'll hand over to Lady Sarah before chatting about the awards for this year.

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Hello! Sarah here,

This was my third challenge as an active participant and I’m super pleased that I surpassed my goal, but I also think this was my most enjoyable challenge yet!

The Library Theme was quite inspiring since I don’t paint armies (haha... Curt probably wishes I would) but instead figures that appeal to my sense of whimsy.

The book stacks will see good use in Curt’s Moonstone Games, the Baker Oostwaert will soon be shipped off to my minion Martijn, the Wuthering Heights trio will live in our library alongside with the Brontë book, while Elfio and the rest of the library denizens will reside in my own little display case in Curt’s Gaming Studio.

The Regina Public Library accepts donations of all kinds and also receives funding based on circulations, so that's how I chose to offer my support.

During the Challenge, I checked out 8 books, two of which may be of interest to this group:

'The Librarian of Burned Books' by Brianna Labuska

Set in 1933 Berlin and 1944 New York, a story of the rise of fascism, complicity, banned books and of course difficult romantic relations set against the chaotic times of war.

'The Blue' by Nancy Bilyeau

Huguenot refugees in England, political intrigue and espionage and a quest to discover a new shade of blue in the high stakes world of the European porcelain industries.

Thanks for the terrific Challenge, now back to Curt!

-Sarah

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Hi There,

As to myself, I'm happy with what I got done, though as usual, I found myself constantly distracted along the way, especially with all the excellent work being displayed by others during the Challenge.  

I did manage to keep my eye on the ball to get the majority of my figures done for 'Hametsu'. This has been great as I've managed to host a few games with them over the winter and its nice to see them all properly done up in colour.

I also managed to complete a load of 10mm Warhammer Fantasy stuff. I now have a good start on a Beastman herd, added a sizeable reinforcement to my Night Goblin mob, and made inroads on a few detachments of Undead and Daemons. Fun!

Probably my favourite project of the Challenge was working on the Trojan Horse and Odysseus' raiding Greeks. I really enjoyed doing the research, scoping the scenario and collecting the miniatures for this little diversion.  I hope I can keep-up the steam and get enough done to have a skirmish game sometime in the near future.

The rest of my efforts ran the gambit from Moonstone, to Metis with many stops in between. All of which I really enjoyed as well. A terrific Challenge to be sure! 

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I want to remind those who haven't yet, to please send in your nominations for Challengers' Choice. I'm hoping to get a voting poll up next week and a post up announcing the awards for April 21st.

Have a great weekend everyone!

- Curt

From Mike W - Final Wrap up

Well this was my 7th Challenge and as ever it was really enjoyable, if somewhat mentaly and physically draining. As ever, trying to get the volume of figures painted that I had wished / thought that could as opposed to what is actually physically possible was the hardest bit.

With the challenge running over so many weeks I often find it hard to do a wrap-up, often times the figures are used in games and then get stored away with their little friends - making it hard to identify what is new and what is old.

This same thing has happened again this year with my Orcs and to a lesser extent my Lizardmen. The Orcs have been distributed amongst several regiments and thus I resally can't accurately tell which ones are those I completed this year! The Lizardmen Cavalry have been stored away in the loft and I really don't have the time or energy to fetch them down again for a photoshoot.

Thus I have gone with what is at hand - pimarily my new Tau Army! Still short on vehicles but I'm really pleasd how they have tuned out with 70+ figures completed during the challenge.

My new orange & White Tau Army

Other figures included here are some fun sized projects that I still have at hand - 28mm Alamo figures are some of my favourites as are the Warlord Games Epic Garibadi and Fenian Infantry units - I'll likely be doing more of these soon. 

A group of Alamo related figures, with General Santa Anna at the front

Front in green are the Fenians, in red the Garibali Infantry and a lone stand of Confederate inantry to the rear

Not forgetting the Warlord Epic Scots Covenanters.

Two Warlord Games Epic Scots Covenantor Regiments of Foot

Also we have some WW2 figures - Americans in 28mm and British in 20mm, I haven't photograthed the 15mm Germans again as they are tucked away in their boxes...

28mm Americans

20mm British in Italy

28mm Medjai

Finally we have the old Bretonian Infantry set that was rescued from oblivion by the re-release of Warhammer Fantasy / Old World.

A few Bretonians

I didn't think I was going to be able to make a particularly high score this year, hence the target of 2,000 points, I surprised myself by coming 4th with over 3,000. Only to be beaten yet again by Grahame H, on the last leg of the challenge. All I can say is well done Grahame and just to let everyone know - as good as his painting seems in photos, when you see the real things they are magnificent. Its cool that we are both occasional members of the same Wargames club.

Seems that I'm now in striking distance of the 20K club, as are a number of other participants but a clear target for next year.

On the Duels front, I failed miserably with my Skulls count - who knew that my Orcs would have so few skulls between them. However it was pleasing to come out top on the Squirrel side duel - although this is more a reflection of my inability to concentrate on one thing for extended periods of time, than any special skill!.

All that is left is to say thanks to my Minon Sylvain, as well as to Curt for running this event once again. Roll on next year!

Didn't this just start a bit ago!?-DavidB

 

This has possibly been the most stressful challenge year of all I have participated in. I knew my military retirement was coming due, but I was not ready to receive my letter over Christmas. The Sgt Maj of Michigan is someone who I have deployed with many times, the first time I met him he was my company's 1st Sgt. In the twilight of my career, I have discovered that the anyominity I worked hard to keep has been disrupted by many officers and sgt majors who know more about me than I am comfortable with. National Guard is divided with a small full time staff that does a lot to keep the weekend component trained and functioning with long workdays. I have been placed in a priority status which is very uncomfortable especially as I know that much of the meetings and appointments have occured during holidays and often at the whims of multiple schedule conflicts. The soldiers processing my retirement have had their lives disrupted as much as my time reserved for painting miniatures. I am thankful for the retirement processing and as much as it has been disrupting for me, I know of a few soldiers who had long driving times and hours from family just to push my packet along. 

I did have a plan before the challenge which consisted of multiple totes filled with prepped miniatures. When I cleaned the man cave after Adepticon, a lot of those totes had to be placed back into the mountain of neglect. If I had the time available, I would have gotten more of the Horus Heresy White Scars painted, but as no game with them is looming the 5th can wait till next winter. I did get to play many games of WarCry with the stormcast eternals. The games were fast and there is a lot of depth to the game. The Stormcasts are tanks and deal devastating damage even with poor dice. I only lost two warriors to terrain effects like lava pits and none to enemy attacks. the only game lost was due to not achieving objectives. I would like to get a chaos band and perhaps not have to march across a table to fight!

40k and 30k White Scars will be back as I purchased more of each at adepticon.

Although I fell short of my goal, I did get a lot of miniatures painted and have a splendid board for playing Carnevale on...so far only Warcry was played as my friends did not complete their Venice gangs. the blue canal water was considered to be lava in our WarCry games....perhaps I should do another board of lava pools and ruins.... I wasn't able to view the posts and comment much due to retirement, family, and work. I barely found the time to paint what I did and was left with no time to comment on the posts as I would have wished. The cheering from participants and the comradery as well as the parade of miniature eye candy are my favorite part of the challenge and I wasn't able to participate there at all. a big Cheer to Sander for having the most Big Stompiest Robots of Death ever...I have some more stompy robots for next year if you want another go, Sander!

At least Military adventures will cease soon as well as being in places where cyber security shuts down all unapproved websites.  I am sure Stuart maintained his lead, but there are many skulls lurking in my Mountain of Neglect...keep your noggin polished Stuart!

I have some more meetings and classes for retirement even today! I seem to remember it being easier to enlist and there was more typewriters and note pads. Also the mustache is definitely out of regs, however, I am older than most Sgt Majors. My mustache still has a few strands of original hair color and has served longer and seen more combat than most current soldiers too ;)

I hope to see you all when the snows come again and It seems I will have some free time shortly.

A big Thank You to Curt for dreaming up this fun Challenge and for Lady Sarah supporting and now painting! Also a shout of Thanks for Dallas for fixing my posts even as I was more wicked than a cat with a half full glass of water on a table edge! 

Until winter comes again, OldMan actual out. 

Adieu Season 14 from the OG Boys!

Another year and another great Dad & Lad hobby event! Naturally, we lost some productivity by playing games against one another, but its a great problem to have and we both met our challenge targets which was great! 

From Paul: 

With my work schedule having me away for more than a third of the Challenge, I set a modest target to achieve 8,000 lifetime challenge points (over 10 Challenges) but ended up cracking a thousand points for only the fourth time, which was nice!

More lead models than plastic this year, so it felt like a thousand points worth carrying it!

I had a couple of different projects prepped but in November & December we enjoyed a few games of To The Strongest, which reinvigorated our stalled Roman Civil Wars project from AHPC IX. That became a throughly wonderful focus and I've now got the army ready for the tabletop to face Alan, which is exciting! Naturally, there was space for some Beastmen to celebrate the release of The Old World too :-)

And I was pleased to be able to help in my own small way, as the Duels Wallah and Guest Minion when required. I look forward to returning the support crew again in the future.

From Reilly: 

While thoroughly distracted with preparing to move house, I set a low bar to get the last few units done in order to finish my 3000+ point Warhammer Fantasy Battles Spider Goblin army. Whilst happy that I managed to get the few units done, inevitably with the release of The Old World more units to paint came flooding in and the project continues to grow. 

These massive spiders never cease to impress me
with their presence on the table... before they die.

From us both: Many thanks indeed to our Minion Millsy (the Antopodean 'paint and sip' sessions were excellent!) the broader minion crew that made Season XIV happen, and the wonderful AHPC community for their encouragement, banter and kind comments.

As ever the lion's share of gratitude goes to Curt and Lady Sarah - another wonderful hobby event, and thankyou for your tireless enthusiasm and passion for this project!!!

See you next year!

Duels & Challenges: The Victors and the Butcher's Bill!

I'm finally home again after a month of travel - so its time for the big reveal for Duels and Sidechallenges. Any disputes must be written in triplicate, sent in, send back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for 3 months and recycled as firelighters. Thankyou.

And for added interest- the pics are the first thing that came up when I searched each Duel title in Google

Legions and their Auxilia

• AlanD 845 - WINNER!
• StuartL 720
• PaulOG 616
• Dallas 226
• GregB 210
• SimonB 180
• PeterD 70
• SebastianR 26

Modern Things

• DaveD 155 - WINNER! Its lonely at the top mate :-)

The Old World

• Curt 1088 WINNER!
• SanderS 295
• Tom 125
• Reilly 130
• PaulOG 75

Really Little Guys

• Curt 1088 WINNER!
• Sylvain 893.5
• DaveD 625
• MartijnN 228
• EdwardG 130
• SebastianR 60.5
• Greg 18

Big Stompy Robots of Death!

• SanderS 80 WINNER!
• ChrisW 70
• TomL 25

Ray's Homage to the really awesome Napoleon movie

• Kent 1669 WINNER!
• IanW 1175
• Ray 480
• DaveD 305
• Millsy 255
• EdwardG 165

Squirrels!

• ChrisW 4
• MikeW 14
• Kerry 8

Honour is Satisfied for another year and the Season IX duels spreadsheet has been retired! Thanks for the fun everyone :-)

Duels Wallah signing off

So, Farewell Then Challenge XIV - From PeteF

 

It's hard to believe that this is it for Challenge XIV.  The time flew by once again.  Thank you Curt.  Thank you Kyle The Sunday Minion.  Thank you Other Minions and organizers.  Thank you Fellow Challengers.

It was not my highest output - but now I work full time I'm happy I got this lot painted after a very slow start in December.  I had some Minifigs Napoleonics in the queue but didn't get them painted in the allotted time.  I did have a large cavalry unit planned for the Antique/Rare books section which I started during the challenge and finished yesterday - not worth any points but here they are! 

6th Chasseurs a Cheval

Although I have a family tradition of Napoleonics, Kings of War - a fantasy rank and flank game from Mantic - is the the game I spend most time playing.  This Challenge I added to my Nightstalkers army with the completion of the gribbly Bloodworms Legions, my Forces of Nature with a Greater Air Elemental and started a new army with the Phoenix.

I'd have procrastinated most of this without the motivation of The Challenge and hope to be back next year to continue to chip away at the Pile of Potential.