The 6 Month Mountain Reduction & Painting Challenge - Introduction & Rules

So, Chris over at Chris' Miniature Woes and Dave over at The Spider Web of History have thrown down a metaphorical gauntlet here in the blogosphere and over on Instagram, with the instigation of 'The 6 Month Mountain Reduction & Painting Challenge', and I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring and take part.

Essentially, they're aiming to combat 'The Gamer's Curse', AKA shinynewthingitis, and break the cycle of 'start a new project, buy some miniatures for said project, repeat' by hopefully actually getting some of those already purchased miniatures painted! I still reserve the right to hop from project to project with little rhyme nor reason as the fancy takes me though...

The rules (lifted wholesale from this post), 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. [Shouldn't be too much of a problem, as with Miniature Mojo closed, I can't buy any infected miniatures for TLOU, and there's still no release of soapy's broom-riding wizards, so there's nothing I was planning on buying anyway... Except for some old Space Marines, but as i still haven't finished painting my new Space Marines, I'm sure they can wait!]

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. [My birthday is in 3 days, and then Christmas - I tend not to get miniatures though...]

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

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
[I'll endeavour - I'm myincubliss over on Instagram, but be prepared for pictures of cats, food, and all the other oddness you'd expect on a personal Instagram account]

5.  Zombtober will be part of the 6 month challenge so, Zombie related stuff during October is ENCOURAGED!
[So many zombie miniatures waiting to get painted, so this should be a good incentive!]

So essentially, it's in keeping with the intentions of the Tally (to paint more than you buy, and thus start to thin out the lead mountain and actually get some stuff finished) but dialled up to 11. Future projects wise, I keep saying that I'm not going to start any more, and this will hopefully help me stick to it! Truth be told, I think I should have it pretty easy with this challenge, as with a baby on the way I'm probably not going to be buying (m)any miniatures in the next six months anyway! I've got enough miniatures already to be getting on with, although sods law is that as soon as this post goes up Soapy will release those wizards I've been after for the last three years...

Right, so, cracking on with old projects - I've had a dig through my boxes of Star Wars miniatures and started pulling out various bits and bobs that I might fancy painting - my only worry now is that I might have pulled out too much, that I'll end up half-painting half of before getting distracted and moving on to something else!