We are now 9 weeks and 5 days into the challenge! That is more than a third already. Month 2 was pretty rough, and we lost a few people along it, but we are still plenty left. This post serves to bring you some stats from Month 2 and the fettered reveal of who got the ‘Terminator Honours’!

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 those who entered the challenge 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.

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. In the immortal words of Roxette: Listen to your heart!

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

Painter’s Honours

This Month there were two contenders for the Painter’s who ran with the majority of the votes. This was Tom Reynolds again and Wargamer Eric. Some of the comments were:

‘For the painter’s challenge I would like to nominate Tom Reynolds. The paint scheme is beautifully executed with razor-sharp, multi-tonal highlights, i.e. even the highlights have highlights. Exceptional work.‘

‘Tom Reynolds, Chaos Marines. Gorgeous paint job! There’s no doubt that a great deal of love and effort when into this squad. Vivid colors, masterfully applied. There’s no question that this entry has set a high bar for the painter’s challenge!‘

‘Those Fire Dragons are my favourite Aspect Warrior models, and the flame motif on the helmets suit them perfectly!‘

‘Wargamer Eric, Eldar. Lovely blending on the armor, and careful freehand detail on the helmet flames really stand out. And those goblin green bases really set of the vibrancy of the paint job. It’d be a job to play against this army on the table.‘

In the end Wargamer Eric got the edge (and Tom might be suffering the ‘won last round’ curse): Well deserved Wargamer Eric!

Gamer’s Honours

The Gamer’s Honours were also tied, but here it was more a forest of small trees (Slice of Dice, Martin Taylor, and Dr. The Viking) and an enourmous Redwood (PygmyHippo).

Some of the comments were:

‘Hippo. He was robbed last time! ‘

‘PygmyHippo just goes above and beyond. If I were an Ork, I’d be proud to join his army!‘

For the gamer’s challenge I would nominate Pygmyhippo for honours. The painting is masterful; wonderful bright colours and skillful free-hand. The entire entry is very characterful, with its additional details and theme. 

‘Ork ork ork. So cool. Another one that make me check twice if it is actually a gamer pledge.‘

A massive congrats to both on their achievements! And now enough of this Oscar show.

Month 1 stats

Again this month, we combined for an impressive total. 278 models (vehicles = 4, larger than 25 mm base = 2) totaling least 8494 points in 40k 2^nd edition terms were entered. That is quite a bit! Imagine if we did this for 6 months straight!

In February we lost a whooping 5 (19%) people, which is actually a record! We all know that this challenge requires dedication, and it has a tendency to sneak up on you… suddenly it is the end of the month and you’re screwed!

This is the fourth army challenge here on the page, but it is the first time we are doing it without the option of doing a ‘mulligan’ where you skip a month. This ‘hardcore version’ means that attrition will be higher this time around.

PygmyHippo became the first to complete all three subgoals! Congrats on that. A lot of us are still only just realising what we’ve signed up for on that account…

One interesting thing that can be lifted from Fig. 2 is that we are losing painters to a higher degree than gamers! We have so far lost 40% of the painters, while only 13% of the gamers. That was not what I expected!

So what might be the reason for this? My personal theory is that a lot of the gamers have such a mammoth task in front of them that they simply have to have some kind of plan or overview. While the painters on the other hand, might feel that “only painting a few figures” can be done in a jiffy.

It will be interesting to follow, whether this is a trend or just a random fluke.

M4cr0dutch has been overtaken by a few this month in getting underpaid per model. Unsurprisingly both Alex Dingle and Michael Mork are putting in the work here. Perhaps more interesint, a painter – Jon McMaster – is also in the top three with just a little over 13 points per figure. At the other end of the spectrum Tom Reynolds and Wachtmeister still reign supreme, with their expensive Space Wolves and Thousand Sons.

The

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