Week 4 of the challenge has passed and we are back on track. Week four didn’t get a bulletin as all January’s entries were posted during that week, and that seemed to be enough raving for one week. This post will sort of make up for that by announcing Terminator Honours and showing a bit of stats from Month 1.

Terminator honours

During this challenge, I have decided to each month crown the most impressive Gamer or Painter entry. Now, this is not meant to be anything other than a “fun little extra” to celebrate the challenge.

Only the participants were allowed to vote. All participants in fact. Whether in or out of the challenge. I fully realize that once people bottle out, they might lose interest and not respond, but there probably not much I can do about that. What matters to me is that we all have fun and I hope this will bring you all a bit extra… or to express myself using the immortal words of Bryan Adams: Everything I do, I do it for you!

The voting can be done on many grounds… the most technically impressive, the one that gave you the warmest retro feeling, the one that blew you away, the one that was the hardest labour… the list goes on. It is clear that people took that to heart, and voted in all kinds of way. Great!

The prize: For each time you win a Terminator Honours, you will get the above logo appended to your Challenge logo.

Painter’s Honours

There was no real challenge here. The vote was all but unanimous. Tom’s great big chicken of mischief was the one that made a proverbial bowling turkey.

“For painters it’s hard to go past Tom Reynolds as well – what a beast!”

“For painter…. Tom Reynolds. Love the colours and it’s been fun seeing the progress pics he’s posted od the L.O.C. on the Discord.“

“Tom Reynolds demon. Big metal models are a real pain in the ass with all the clean-up and pinning, so I can really appreciate all the work that went into getting it done. And the paint job did not disappoint. The staff in particular came out great. And it’s worth mentioning that his clear photography really afforded me the chance to appreciate the details. Kudos to him for that.”

I find it impossible to disagree with and can only say: Well deserved Tom!

Gamer’s Honours

The gamer honours were much more distributed. Three entries more or less got all the attention and were all excellent: M4cr0dutch’s Tyranids, Pygmy’s Orks, and Tain’s Chaos.

Some of the comments were:

“Love the Thousand Sons conversions, especially the bin chicken. The Juggernaut and Plague Marine banner look great too.” (on Martin Tain Taylor’s Chaos)

“M4cr0dutch’s termagants: I love the colour combo. Very simple, but visually striking. It just jumped out at me immediately as the gamer submission I liked the best. I admire the consistency while painting a large block of basic troops. And I have a soft spot in my heart for Tyranids.”

“This felt like a painters challenge quality with a gamers challenge speed.  Great job.”(on M4cr0dutch’s termagants)

“Finding a Gamer to vote for was not an easy task, there really was so many excellent entries to choose from. In the end I went with M4crodutch because those Termagants just scream 2nd edition to me, the vivid colours and a horde of ugly mutha f*ck*rs laughing at you as they get blasted to bits.”

“I have to vote for Pygmy Hippo for the gamer award – and painter award too, if I could. His entry was jaw-dropping!”

However, in the end M4cr0dutch was got a few more votes and therefore he is awarded the Gamer’s Honours for January. It is no little feat painting 30 termagants to a level like that. The stamina it takes to paint the same model again and again… ludicrous!

PygmyHippo deserves a special mention for breaking my system too: Many folks wanted to vote for his entry as the best painter… but he is a gamer!!! Arrrgh! I will have to mull that one over… Totally never saw it coming. Kudos to Pygmy too for an amazing entry!

Congrats to both on their achievements! And now enough of this Oscar show.

Month 1 stats

We combined for a total of 289 models (vehicles = 4, larger than 25 mm base = 2) totalling at least 8286 points in 40k 2^nd edition terms. That is quite a bit! Imagine if we did this for 6 months straight!

Unfortunately we also lost a three (10%) people, but that is expected. Life happens. Also, if life doesn’t happen and you still go out month 1, that is probably an OK thing!

There was not a lot of action on the sub goals yet (let me know if I missed yours – not everyone was that clear about them). A few guys made TWO subgoals during one month. PygmyHippo’s entry was just breath taking and both the sub goals he completed are incredible!

M4cr0dutch lead the way… he was almost only getting half as many points as the next guy on the list for each figure he painted this month. That is a lot of work and little reward. Tom Reynolds on the other hand was the one who got the most points out of his entry by far!

As mentioned we completed 289 models combined. The split is more or less what you would expect. Overal the Veteran’s completed slightly more models per participant, but it is probably random.

I think it was a great first month and am personally looking really forward to the progression of the challenge!!!