8th Army 6-Pounder Anti-Tank Gun Portee and the end of the 6MMRPC!

Over the weekend I finished painting up my North Africa 6-pounder Anti-Tank gun Portees Platoon. I will never paint another one of these again…. ~_~ Annoying as all hell – fiddly bloody monstrosities. This leaves only the two Motor infantry platoons to paint and then any trucks I might be able to fit in before the March 14^th tournament! Wish me luck…

The complete platoon. Now they're finished, I think they look rather badarse.

Platoon Commander and his jeep - had to free-hand the numbered marking and tried out a Battlefront Desert Rats decal. Those decals are too damned big. Again.

 

Like my Heavy Machine Gun Platoon, I stuck the unit's numbered badge on the rear of the base for easier recognition on the tabletop.

The trucks from the front. All unit markings were painted freehand. I didn't even want to deal with the stress of trying to paint accurate Desert Rats symbols and so they ended up being red square, white circle-ish and a red squiggle in the middle. It'll do from far away.

The trucks, guns and bases were all magnetised so I could switch out easily the guns for...

... both the mounted...

... and the dis-mounted versions.

The gunner's position on the base whilst not the best looking, makes for adding or taking off the 6-pdr guns a LOT easier and so I'll hopefully limit possible opportunities to damage or scrape of paint.

Haven't seen one of these in a while, eh? This is where my paint progress is on this project. Not bad at all I think! 

Also, the 6 Month Mountain Reduction Painting Challenge (6MMRPC) Is over as of…. Today? Yesterday? Below is a swift summary of the challenge rules and whether I did my usual on these type challenges and allowed all self discipline fall apart!

*The below was copied directly from Dave Brawley’s great blog “Towerof the Archmage” and my own answers thereafter.*

#6MMRPC: Round 1 complete!

This post marks the completion of the inaugural round of the 6 Month Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge. Let's see how I did...

The rules, beginning September 1st, are as follows:

1. No purchasing of new miniatures, EXCEPT if you use a joker card. Like in a deck of cards, you get two jokers to use on a figure purchase during the six months of the challenge. Could be a blister pack, an ebay bundle, or a single figure...you can't splurge.

SUCCESS! I used both Jokers on my two ACW Ebay lot purchases. I also received my Reaper Bones 2 Kickstarter stuff, but as I pledged for it prior to the commencement of the Challenge it doesn’t count.

2. Gifts do not count against you. Christmas and or birthdays etc. Also, if you're given gift cards by your hobby illiterate family or friends, you can without penalty use them on anything you want miniatures wise. 

SUCCESS! Don’t think I got any gifts. Maybe. Nope. Not minis in any case. I think.

3. Paints, terrain (or materials), and other hobby supplies do not apply to the no purchasing rule.

SUCCESS! Plenty of paints and so forth, some terrain and a couple books – all fall under this one.

4. At least one hobby related blog post and/or Instagram update a week. If you Instagram, be sure to hashtag your pic with #6MMRPC 

MINOR FAILURE! Now, if number of posts were to equal one a week, I believe I was good here. (Including this final post – I managed to get in 34 posts in 6 months) But there were a few weeks where I didn’t manage to get a post in within the 7 day limit, but did post up an update soon after. Maybe I get a ½ point for this one….?

5. Zombtober will be part of the 6 month challenge so, Zombie related stuff during October is ENCOURAGED!

SUCCESS! 8 Zombies were painted for Zomtober. 8 disgusting, rotten Zombies. My rpg sessions will be all the more colourful for them!

So what was my final mini count for the 6MMRPC? 16x 28mm, 68x 15mm Infantry and 29x 15mm vehicles. Not amazing, but certainly progress and that includes ¾ of my whole Flames of War 8^th Army North Africa company. I’m glad I went and signed up for this challenge. It helped me to keep a handle on my spending habits and I got to both paint stuff to remove it from my backlog and also spurred to stick up other long neglected projects on Ebay (There’ll be more of these set up in the very near future.) After I get these desert Brits off my paint queue, I’ll be moving away from 15mm for a bit to take a break from uniforms in general – most likely do my best to work on my rpg minis backlog. But…. That ACW project is staring me in the face, so who knows how long it’ll be until I get back to 15mm uniformed minis?

Will I sign on to a second challenge if it’s announced? Yes, I think I will (Though later in the year, if it’s held at that time.) – and my wife is happy for that too!