The much anticipated (!?!) second post...only 19(?) months in the making. With the 15th iteration of the annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (AHPC) in full swing, time to dust off this blog with a bit of 'proof of life'. Synopsis follows...
AHPC 14
After a very productive AHPC 13 over 2022-23 I went into #14 aiming high...and ended up missing big. I'd changed jobs in 2023, and hobby time was diminished, which was evident in my Challenge output: I managed to barely scrape in before the disqualification deadline, and finished up with three figures (the boyz in green below were the entire output). You can read about it here, and my end-of-challenge lamentations here. Needless to say, the brushes remained dormant through the rest of 2024 - the painting mojo had gone, although I'd kept up with my brother's boardgame group (mostly Smallworld and the Dune boardgame in '24) and some RPGing (managed one Call of Cthulhu multi-session adventure, which was fun...better still that my character survived!)
AHPC 15
Getting back on the horse, I've lowered my points target this year, and have felt the painting mojo return. I haven't had any hard aims for my own projects this year, and have begun continuing to paint through my brother's Conquest: the Last Argument of Kings figures (which he will be looking to sell - apparently having kids leave you time poor!).
More broadly though, and with a massive pile of shame/opportunity, the start of 2025 has seen me work to downsize both my combined miniatures, models and RPG stash, from obscene to only merely excessive!
Text of the first AHPC 15 post is below, with link. I do recommend checking out the challenge - some cracking stuff being posted up.
https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/2025/01/from-bartekr-charging-conquest-knights.html
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Greetings all, and glad you can join me for my first post of this, AHPC XV, which is my third attempt at the Snowlord’s dance-through-hell-and-heaven obstacle course of paint and banter.
If this was a sports documentary, there would be some line in this about how I have something to prove. After a decent first outing (AHPC XIII), I aimed high and dropped low and hard in AHPC XIV. So, this year, I’m aiming for a relatively modest 750 points.
With a busy work year, I haven’t much time preparing and indeed planning miniatures. Frankly, with a pile of plastic sitting dormant since last Challenge (and some from the one before), I expect I will be spending a *lot* of time in limbo. That said, I’m hoping to get a few new things out there – maybe have a swing at some of Dante’s circles, and get out at least one bespoke piece before we wrap up.
So, first up, to get me out of the doghouse of the 21 Jan cut off: Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings Hundred Kingdoms Household Knights.
In AHPC XIII, I started painting my brother’s Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings Hundred Kingdoms army. Two years on, I’m still going (well, to be fair, my brother has to downsize his armies – so this is an older sibling helping out with pre-sale prep!).
What to say about these? 38mm knights on horses. The figures are large (see comparison with a GW chaos warrior). Since my brother bought his Conquest army secondhand, a number of them were already block painted using Citadel contrast or similar. While this, I believe, qualifies as putting me in Limbo, these were a focus of a lot of touching up.
The process
The 'touching up' mostly involved bringing minis
into the red/turquoise
theme of the army, with a fair bit of work on the red on the cloaks and
caparison to gain more depth, and shining up the armour. As it was, the
paint work was a dull
metallic (heavily washed, probably Nuln Oil). Overall, very dull. Not a
bad look but
not what I imagined for a resplendent household knight cavalry on the
charge. This was fixed by hitting them with metallics again, and then a
brushed-on gloss varnish.
 |
| Admittedly harder to see in photo, but the difference between dull and touched-up and glossed metal |
The new build figures - including the standard bearer - followed the same process. Without the original recipe for the paint work, here the the challenge with was getting a good colour match. Needless to say, Citadel Carroburg Crimson wash was relied on to get the red of the cloaks approximate.
 |
| And more horse butts |
A last note on the rider with the pennant. The command element for this called for a musician, but there wasn't any option for one on the sprues I had. So, to distinguish the figure, I used an open helmet from an infantry set and added the pennant – metal foil from a wine bottle top!
Process wise the I rediscovered (yet again) that despite having a generous work space, after a few days of working on the bench the inevitable spread of paint droppers/pots effectively corners me on a hand's width rump of desk space to work on, before I'm pushed off the table completely. Trying to be better about keeping this aspect of the painting process under control!
The result
Standard question when I finish painting: am happy
with
them? Given the Challenge and these prompted me to pick up a brush for
the
first time in a year, yes. Sure, given their generous scale I would love
to be
more precise and bring out more of the detail, but happy enough. They
were an opportunity to use up more of my legacy Citadel paints
(particularly washes), having bought a set of the Army Painter Fanatic
range - which i'm quite happy with. One aspect I am keen to try out is a
new matt varnish - the brushed-on Vallejo matt (on the cloaks etc) was
far too satin for my liking (despite vigorous mixing/shaking) so I will
be keen to try out some AK Interactive Ultra Matt when it arrives.
The points
With Monday Minion Millsy's agreement, I have scored these as for 40mm:
9 x 40mm cavalry @15 pts each: 135 pts
Limbo bonus: 20 pts
Total: 155 pts
...in the background
Probably like most, music or audiobooks accompany my painting. Through he painting of these I was listening to the Joe Abercrombie First Law trilogy audiobooks, which I highly recommend - English actor Steven Pacey's narration is top notch.