Join Anne’s 2026 Miniature Assembly Challenge

So now that I’m back in the miniature universe, after taking a very long break, I thought it might be good to kick things off with an assembly challenge to start off the New Year.

If you’d like to join me, the rules are pretty simple. Leave a comment detailing what you want to assemble or just that you’d like to participate before the challenge ends on January 31st. Then send one or two pictures to annesimmaterium@gmail.com when you are done, by February 6, 2026, or you can comment on this post and send me a URL I can pull them from myself.

Any model counts. It doesn’t have to be for a specific game or for a game at all.

If you declare what you want to build and change your mind and decide to build something else, that is fine too. I know I might.

The challenge begins as soon as you read this. 🙂

Note that models you need to leave in sections to be painted and primed are acceptable and count as ‘assembled.’ I might be doing this with my Lord of Poxes.

You can join the challenge at any time before January 31st and assemble one model or as many as you wish.

My grognards, who survived the Great Purge of 2020, highly approve.

Metal models that only require minimum assembly are fine. Just make sure they are full prepped for priming by removing the flash, etc. That counts too.

This is what I’m going to commit to assembling for the challenge, and yes I changed my mind!

  • One Death Guard Lord of Something
  • One box of Plague Marines
  • One Chaos Rhino
  • Rotigus
  • Two Beasts of Nurgle

I hope everyone reading this has a good holiday season and is able to get in some fun hobby time.

Edit: Dave Stone is doing his Paint What You Got challenge, which runs from Dec 26th through Feb 28th. My plan is to assemble a bunch of stuff for my challenge and then paint it for his challenge!

— Anne

p.s. I was going to call it “Anne’s Assembly Appeal” because I like alliteration, but I thought that if I didn’t call it a “Challenge” people might not know what the heck I’m talking about and think that I’m trying to get someone to put my figures together for me!

45 comments

  1. I’ve also assembled and prepared quite a number of models that haven’t made it to photography.

    Since I prefer to show models once they’re done, I’ll keep the list a little vague, but I’ve also cleaned & prepped and/or assembled 6 speeders, 38 tiny teddies, 14 troopers, 5 officers, 18 colonials, 10 robots & 1 man in a suit.

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  12. Hi Anne , I did try and comment before but it doesn’t seem to have stuck. Anyway can I join in with your challenge. I hope to put a few more mantic forge fathers together (and painted) before the end of February.

    cheers Roger.

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    1. Hi, Roger, I’m sorry to hear that your first try at commenting didn’t work. Yes, welcome, please do join in; glad you want to. 🙂

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  15. What a cool idea for a challenge, I would also like to participate. I’m planning to build a Gnoblar Scraplauncher using some leftover bits and other stuff I find, so it’ll be a bit of a kitbash.

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  16. I followed the link on Dave Stone’s blog and I’d love to join in, if you’ll have me.

    I’m currently assembling gnolls for a Rangers of Shadow Deep mission.

    (Mister C from the Periodic Painting Table).

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  18. Welcome Back, Anne! – and Merry Christmas to you as well!

    I’ll start with 4 squads of ..erm, “troopers” and two commanders. We’ll see how I go after that but I’m sure I’ll have a bunch more stuff to assemble.

    I’ve also got a ton more single-piece cast PVC zombies that need serious mould-line cleanup that I need to do and have absolutely no motivation to work on. So if they count, I’ll add those in as well. 😉

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    1. Thank you, Azazel, it is good to be back. People like you have helped coax me back into the hobby because over the years I kept seeing your posts in my Inbox and would check in and see what you were up to, so miniatures were never completely out of my mind. I missed having an artistic outlet.

      For the challenge every model counts. If it is a miniature that requires assembly and/or prep work then it is fair game.

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      1. It’s good to have you back. In whatever small way it counts for, your presense in our little circle was missed.

        In that case, I’ve got 2 squads & one hero already in progress as well as one wrecked vehicle terrain piece.

        I originally typed “Anne” then changed it to “Ann” when I saw the comment profile pic had “Ann” next to it (and had a moment of “am I becoming senile? I always thought it was Anne” so I changed it – then after posting, I scrolled up to check the blog title and then my head exploded!

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        1. Thank you, that is very nice to hear. 🙂

          Great! I’ll look forward to seeing what you come up with. As I remember, you are very prolific in your modelling and from what I see on your blog that hasn’t changed since i’ve been gone!

          Yeah, originally when I bought my domain I typed Ann instead of Anne in and didn’t realize it until I paid for the thing so I just went with it. So this time around I was more careful but some of the stuff in my new site still apparently uses some of the old content, hence the different names. Sorry about the exploding head!

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  20. Now if I was really planning properly I could assemble stuff for your challenge in January and then paint it for Dave Stone’s Paint What You Got challenge in February!

    Unfortunately I’m not planning properly! At the moment, somewhat surprisingly, I don’t think I’ve got stuff to assemble but if that changes I’ll let you know! Good luck with the challenge for your own stuff!

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    1. Well, John, you could always scratch built something or root around in someone’s bits box and find an old flying ship, French artillery piece or something? 🙂 🙂

      That would be keen, wouldn’t it? I definitely think I’m going to hop onto Dave’s February challenge with some of the stuff I’m assembling.

      Thank you. I have high hopes that I’ll be able to get some stuff onto the paint table soon.

      Hope you are having a good holiday season so far.

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    2. Thank you, John, for reminding me about Dave’s painting challenge. I put a link to it in my post and plan on painting some stuff for it that I put together in January.

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  21. Hmmm…. I miss these little “Challenges”, welcome back. Seems as I’ve not played a game in months and having just finished assembling both the Bretonnians and Tome Kings from the new Blood Bowl box set, I would love to say a third or fourth team, but I don’t know if I’ll go much further with the game in the first quarter of 2026.
    Let’s see what January brings in terms of miniatures. Maybe a box of scale figures to flesh out a military diorama. Time will tell.

    Again, welcome back Anne!

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      1. So my plan is to build Star Wars Legion, Rebel starter set, and Imperial starter set, and get a Space Marine Mk IV tech marine, Librarian, and Saurus Astrolith Bearer put together.

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  24. Sign me up for this Anne! As it happens having cleared out my backlog of unassembled miniatures last year I retrieved a load of stuff from storage and discovered (you guessed it!) even more unassembled miniatures. I’ve set myself the goal of building six kits in January to help shift the backlog – haven’t quite decided which ones they’re going to be yet but once I do I’ll update you and you can keep me honest. Of course I also need to put the pedal to the metal on my Imperial Guard army painting challenge but sleep is for wimps and all that!

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    1. Awesome! I’m looking forward to seeing what you put together. Six kits sounds pretty ambitious. Good luck with adding to your IG forces. I’m sure they would approve of your dedication to the Cause.

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      1. OK, sign me up for:

        Palanite Justicars (my Christmas present to myself)
        Palanite Enforcer Captains & Sergeants
        Orcs riding Gore-gruntas (big pigs)
        Rockgut Trolls
        Nurgle blood bowl team
        Marauder bombers (Aeronautica Imperialis)

        I built (and painted) one of the trolls years ago so there’s only two of those left to do. The rest (I think) need to be done from scratch. Like you say it’s ambitious but I need to be at the moment and I’ve always subscribed to the notion that it’s better to aim high and fall a little bit short than aim low and succeed with ease. Right now I need to clear space ASAP so hopefully this will give me the push required!

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