Welcome to Mark’s Conquistador Contest – a FREE chance for you to join me on my next part of my journey to field troops for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest game supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – AND to have a chance to win – yes WIN – some free miniatures! Read on!
I have participated in a few painting challenges from others over the years – and those are great fun. But I am currently so desirous of seeing my Conquistadores painted up and ready for gaming that I will not stop until they are done and game-ready to my standards (such as those are). So I won’t be joining any challenges (unless they dovetail with me finishing my Conquistadores). However, I thought of another way to get you involved on this project other than just reading this blog. What about having my readers compete and guess the date that I’ll actually finish the Conquistadores? And what about offering actual prizes just to make it interesting? That’s exactly the genesis of Mark’s Conquistador Contest.
I have filed, washed, and partially based the force. I have not yet primed anything, and expect to start that on December 15th. I decided that I wanted to get all my filing of mold lines and washing (yes I wash all my figures before painting no matter what they are made of) done, do a massive priming session, and paint away. How long will this take – YOU get to guess.
My goal is to have some fun, and reward my followers and share some stuff that I enjoy. Secondly, it’s to get more followers and to grow the community. Thirdly, it’s to have fun (yes that’s fun twice). I do not currently monetize my blog, and I’m not looking to anytime soon by the way. Here are the rules:
Rules of Mark’s Conquistador Contest:
To enter and to win:
- You must be an email or WordPress follower of my blog.
- You must pick a date (day, month, and year) that I will finish the Conquistador miniatures shown here in this post. Finishing means, to me, that I am ready for the figures to be shown on my blog and used in a game. That is my call!
- You must let me know that you want in on the contest by midnight EST (US East Coast time) on January 2nd, 2021. You do this by posting a comment that “you are in” here on this blog post in the comments section with the date information requested above in (2).
- Only one entry allowed per follower except as described in (5) below.
- If you get another person to follow my blog, you can earn another entry! For each new follower that credits you as a referrer, you can get another entry. All that person needs to do is comment on this post as in (3) above stating that he or she is “in” and who the referrer is. The referrer can then reply to that comment with an additional entry date.
- Winners will be whoever is closest to the date I announce as the “completion date”. That can be earlier or later – for example picking a date that is one day before is as good as if it’s one day after. As there are multiple prizes, 1st place gets first choice, then 2nd, then third. If two people pick the same date, ties will be broken by who submitted the date first. I reserve the right to add more prizes!
- I also reserve the right to be the final judge on the contest – somebody’s gotta do that. When I finish, I will announce the winners.
So as for prizes, they will be metal miniatures – mostly old and vintage lead – and in original packaging. Great stuff I love but may not be able to paint soon – and which deserve a home. And I will pay to ship them to the winners (including the US, UK, Australia – as long as I don’t need to hit the lottery for shipping)! So here are the current three prizes (and I may add more):
Again, depending on participation and interest – I may add more. Hell, even if you win and don’t have a plan for them, these could be used as trade, or you could just tell me to reward the next player as victory is enough for you?
Your next questions should be – “what exactly is Mark trying to paint?” and “how fast is he?”. For the second question, just check out my pages that show my previous projects. For example, 2020 is here, and 2019 is here, but I list all my projects from 2016 onward under the “Miniatures and Projects” dropdown. This menu lets me track all I have done – and how, and can give you an idea. There is a bit more I have to do here than just painting – there is some assembly too. Here are the Conquistador subjects of my quest and this contest below:
If you’re counting (and that helps) that’s 89 figures – if you count each cavalry as two figures (horse and rider). I used a lot of poster tack and bottles as you see all of them collected here with some of my painting guide resources.
I hope that you enter and wish you the best of luck! Referrers always welcome – just need to follow the rules and importantly be one of my blog followers. Hell, I need the luck too – this is a lot of lead!
Stay tuned for updates as I finish pieces of this project – and I really hope that you find this fun. I’ll leave a synopsis as usual like below. Stay safe!
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
Posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide”
- Mark’s Conquistador Contest – for my loyal blog followers! (this post)
- Montezuma and Chieftains – Wargames Foundry #AZ011 for Feudal Patrol – 6 Aztec figures (Montezuma, 4 Chieftains, 1 Warrior Priest)
- Aztec Shock Troops – Cuachic Warriors aka The Shorn Ones – 8 Aztec cuachicqueh warriors
- Tloxtoxl and the Priests of the Great Temple, Wargames Foundry AZ021 – 2 warrior priests, 1 priestess, 1 priest, 1 leader, and 1 signaler
- Civilizations Collide – The Wars of the Aztecs, the Inca, the Maya, and the Conquistadores is now available as a FREE Download for Feudal Patrol™ – plus a Feudal Patrol™ review!
- 18 Aztec Novice Warriors for Feudal Patrol Walk into a Bar – 18 Novice Warriors
- Aztec Warrior Priests (painted as Tlaxcalans), Ral Partha 42-302, circa 1988 (this post) – 6 figures – 6 Tlaxcalan Warrior Priests
- Tlaxcalan Novices, Elite Warriors, and Command Group – 18 figures – 8 Novice Tlaxcalan Warriors, 8 Elite Tlaxcalan Warriors, 1 Tlaxcalan Captain, 1 Tlaxcalan Conch Blower
- Tlaxcalan Archers – 8 Veteran Tlaxcalan Archers
- Aztec Game for Feudal Patrol across thousands of miles – via Zoom!
- Aztec Snake Woman and Drummer – 1 Aztec General, 1 Aztec Drummer
- A June and July Jaguar Warrior Frenzy (plus some Aztec Veterans and a Warrior Priest to Boot) – 3 Aztec Veteran Warriors, 17 Jaguar Warriors, 1 Aztec Warrior Priest
- Doubling Down – Aztec Veteran Warriors – 24 Aztec Veteran Warriors
- Aztec Arrow Knights, Ral Partha circa 1988 – 6 Aztec Arrow Knights
- Aztec Eagle Warriors from Tin Soldier UK – 6 Aztec Eagle Knights
- Aztec Novice Warriors and a few Frinx – 12 Novice Warriors
Total figures completed to date for this project: 141 figures: 109 Aztecs, 32 Tlaxcalans, 0 Spanish Conquistadores
Mark A. Morin 
Great idea Mark, hope it all goes well. Running a painting challenge through January and February that will suit this project perfectly if your interested , will be posting up details after Christmas and before the start of the New Year
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Thanks Dave and I hope that you can participate with an entry! I have looked at your blog but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to follow it over on Blogger (only been on WordPress myself). I would be happy to participate though, just not sure how to?
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My guess would be March 15 th, but if I win I’d like the prize to go to someone else.
When I post up the challenge just leave a comment, and you will be added to the challenge, Roger should be able to tell you how to follow and comment as he uses wordpress also, when following I believe there is multiple different accounts you can log in through, hopefully there is one that you use
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Ok Dave you’ve got the Ides of March. If you win, you can give me guidance on the prize disposition! I’ll look to Roger for guidance. His wisdom will help!
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Hi Mark, I’ll try and help (not really my area of expertise but here we go), If you scroll to the right on Dave’s blog I get a list of followers (small icon pictures), at the bottom of this list is the follow button. Now for some reason my PC doesn’t really like Dave’s site, so it doesn’t “sit” well on my monitor, so some of the screen is off screen to the right, but if I change the resolution it doesn’t like that either, really don’t know why, don’t have this issue with any blog.
Also I can’t make comments on it unless I am in “Internet Explorer”, I can’t comment through “Chrome”, strangely there is another blog ( PM Painting) that does this too. So you might have to click the follow button in “Internet Explorer”, for it to work, can’t say that it won’t through chrome as I followed before I had “Chrome”.
Sorry I can’t be of more help. I don’t think any of these issues are down to wordpress, but I might be completely wrong about that so don’t take that as gospel.
Cheer Roger.
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Thanks Roger – it looks like I managed to follow as I needed to sign in with my Google account (which I hardly ever use). Cheers, Mark
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Mark, I was going to vote for the Ides of March, but I guess that is taken. Let’s go with 31 March.
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You’ve got 3/31/2021 Buck! Of course if it was you you’d paint these in a week! Good luck!
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Merry Christmas old boy!
Knowing your prolific rate, my guess would be February 8th!
Those Foundry Conquistadores should paint up a treat!
Loving the idea- I’ll keep a close eye!
Best
Mike
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A very Merry Christmas back at ya Mike! Thanks for the entry and the vote of confidence. You have 2/8/2021! Good luck!
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I’m in – May the Fourth (be with you)
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Thanks Alex – you’ve got 5/4/2021! Good luck!
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Holy cow, that is indeed a lot of lead! I don’t think I would get through that in a year, but judging by your past I would say you can definitely do it in less time.
I’m in and I am going to place my bet on March 1st.
Good luck and have fun!
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Thanks Luke – you have 3/1/2021! We’ll see and good luck!
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Nice idea Mark and as the date hasn’t been taken I will go for the 1st April 2021!
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And TIM is in! Cool! You’re the first to pick April Fool’s Day! Thanks for the entry and good luck!
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Lot of models there but given your organised approach I’m going to go for 14 Feb.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Hopefully I am – and we’ll see! You’ve got Valentine’s Day 2021! Thanks Pete for the entry!
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I’m in! 🙂 30th April for me – that’s a lot of painting and you need to get in some golf and have some chill time in there as well! If I won (and I won’t) I’d like to donate my prize to whoever is furthest away from the finish date (as you know, 20mm figures are my favoured scale)! Good luck with getting them all finished!
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Thanks John and JNV is the first to get 4/30/2021! It is a lot to paint but I did get them all primed yesterday (with my Iwata airbrush) and that should be cured just now. Golf sounds fun but we are getting 2 feet of snow in the next 48 hours so that’s a dream right now. I will denote your wish and appreciate your joining in!
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Nice idea Mark, and the very best of luck with these, if I was painting them and trying to reach your standard it would take me forever! (and I wouldn’t reach your standard either!
But I’m going to chuck my hat into the ring and say May 20th 2021.
(I could hedge my bets, taking what John said above and go for 19th December 2096. Just kidding 😉)
Cheers Roger.
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Glad to have ya Roger you are in for 5/20/2021! You honor me but your work is among my favorites btw. We’ll see how it goes, but really glad to have you along for the journey! Merry Christmas!
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Im in! April 25, 2021. Let’s be honest Mark, you are a painting machine. And, once these stalwart Conquistadores are done, you can game!!! So i see a single-minded devotion to this project. Get crackin’!
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Cool! Borderguy190 is in with 4/25/2021! Yes, I can game if I’m successful (of course I’ll need some more terrain and some specific game accessories (that I’ll make) but that comes after the contest. Yes indeed, I am focused here (luckily I have no hobby butterflies as IRO calls them!) Thanks for joining!
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Hey Mark i am guessing april 1st 2021
Seems like a reasonable amount of time especially if you paint at the same speed as i do!! Cheers Will
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Oh april 1 is taken! Ok so April 15th for me please!
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Ok Will, you’ve got April 15th, 2021 – tax day! I am allowing folks to double up on a day, just the first person would get first choice and the second person second in case of a win. Thanks for joining in!
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Mark I am in for February 20 2021.
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Thanks Leif, you’re in for 2/20/21! Good luck!
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Looking into my crystal ball and after sacrificing the odd heather then I think April 17th
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The only heather I know is my cousin! But you’ve got 4/17/2021!
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I’m in… It’s just taken me a while to think and come back to actually post. I predict a finish date of the 6th March 2021. Best wishes with the project and it’s looking good so far.
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Thanks Tarmor and you’ve got 3/6/2021! Good luck!
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OK, I’m in. My dates in March were taken, so I’ll give you some extra time to finish and go with the 10th of April!
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Thanks and glad you are in for 4/10/2021 – good luck!
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Mark, I’m going with 28 Feb.
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Great Dave, you’ve got 2/28/2021!
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Hi Mark, I choose Feb 26.
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Hey Greg – great you’ve got 2/26/2021!
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Mark, put me in for February 14th! 🙂
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Hi Chris! You are in as the 2nd for 2/14 with Pete which just means Pete would get 1st choice if that date wins
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No worries, Mark. Switch me to March 7th instead!
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Done! 3/7 for you!
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I appreciate that I’m very late to the party (catching up on a month of blog posts!). I’m just going to give a date for fun (even if I was on time I would have done it for fun so the prize would go to someone else). 1 May for me please.
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I get that – I always seem to get backlogged but I do catch up too. I have given you the honorary pick of 5/1/2021 as the date has closed, but you’re eligible for bragging rights anyways if you are correct!
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Perfect. Bragging rights are the best rights!
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