The Challenge wind down.

The Analogue Hobbies Winter painting challenge has finally come to an end, so a little round up of how it went. But first off a big call all out to Captain Curt for keeping the ship on track (including coping with the fall out of Spidergate) and coping with running with it all. Second to the challengers for the fun and banter and votes of confidence and comments of encouragement as well as creating a huge library of eye-candy.

To Loki and Kev , who turned out a mountain of lead to a great standard to claim 1st and 2nd place - well done guys.

 My final entry was a present for Curt - "The Mountie" who will be making an appearance on the mean streets of "Serenity" along with Curt at our meet up in May at the Spring Blog Con. Will "Miss Lilly" turn him into "wet sauerkraut"? Will Stumpy be able to control himself with that shotgun?

I started the challenge with a fairly low target , going for 600 points , because I was in a bit of a painting funk, and not really sure that I would be able to deliver on. Over the last year I had moved away from painting large units to more single character figures. The lead pile was sitting taunting me.

The new man cave was set up and I started well as I knew I had until early January before work and other commitments really reduced painting time - I was able to complete some easy entries.

 The Mexican for the new town of  "Nueva Tranquilidad"- one of the upcoming summer terrain projects

A personal favourite of mine the "Wu" family - even more so as they appear to be out of production now

The U.S Cavalry

The Dalton gang

The bonus rounds were an interesting take on things for this year , I was able to get an entry into every one of them - although I felt some of my early entries were just to meet the criteria rather than any real extra effort.

Now I thought I was being cheeky submitting camels as "ships of the desert" in a "caravan" to the vehicle round - i got away with that nicely thanks to Spidergate!!

 

The arrival of Xmas brought some interesting 54mm cowboys which I really wanted to paint - I was enjoying painting again.

I really enjoyed doing these first 54mm - a step up in effort and skill required - a real challenge

 

Before I knew it my 600 point target was up - mind still beaten to it by Fran - I owe you a figure my friend!!

My mojo was well and truly back on track

Nearly two months to go and I had nothing else even remotely prepared. What to paint? well I thought what the hell lets go big! The best part of two years ago I had previously de-sprued 10 boxes of Perry Mahdists. There was a pile of Sudan lead to hand too. It was a mad week of assembly and glue fumes. Out with the airbrush, 236 figures to do.

I just stuck on some music and worked end to end - there were 7 colours used max.

 236 figures down in just over 3 weeks, now that propelled my towards to the top. Blimey i needed more figures! 

Ah hell lets do some more Mahdists 

 

 

 

A Mahdist army created in about 6 weeks! result.

 

I also continued with the 54mm goodness for bonus entries

 

I was particularly pleased to take top spot on the Favourite character round - trust "The Duke" to deliver the goods.

 

Butch and Sundance placed second in the " Last Stand" making Millsy sweat on his first place!

 

So overall I came in 3rd with just under 3000 points! almost 5 times my initial estimate.I have really enjoyed the winter painting season it has been really fruitful.

And it was great to end it with the first games of the year last weekend.

Time for some new projects!

A Call to Muster show

Yesterday saw the second outing of a local show "A Call to Muster" in Middlesbrough. I took the opportunity to take along the Old West collection and put on a participation game on the mean streets of Serenity - in fact my first games of the year. For simplicity I ran a few games of the 3.10 from Serenity scenario as I had not had a while load of time to work through some new ones so far this year. A couple of great games were had.

The lighting in the hall is very poor , giving a horrible yellow hue , which my limited photoshop skills can't fully correct. But here are some shots of the day

 Its all quiet in town

 The sheriff is looking our for trouble down at the miners camp

 The bounty hunter dodges the lawmen, the Pinkertons and Cowboys , and leads his prisoner down an alleyway heading for the train out of town

 But , no - It results in a 3 way ambush , the Bounty hunter , fells a Pinkerton behind him, then another wounded by him falls from the water tower - the Doctors attempt at aid only serving to send him on the way to St Peter. Another Pinkerton snuck up behind , and attempted to fill him full of lead, some shocking shooting , and out of ammo. It looked like the Bounty Hunter might get away. He heard a "click" and spun round to see the prisoners brothers hiding at the corner of a building - the gun pointed at him unleashed a hail of rounds - and down he went, A Fatal Gutshot - one of only 3 cards in the deck that the Bounty Hunters toughness could not reduce the effect of. The prisoner took the opportunity to pick up a gun and legged it away with his brother!

Interestingly there were a number of different re-enactment groups there. I took an opportunity to have a close look at the guys from the 7th Cavalry

Not much in the way of purchases tempted me. I have enough stuff to be getting on with in the lead pile. But i did pick up a new set of painted made by Scale75from Northumbrian Tin Soldier. So i will do a review when i have used them