Gaming tables

         This post is going to look a lot like a couple of badly put together game reports, but that really isn't my aim. I've been getting into the habit, recently, of getting my camera out every game night at club. when there is a good looking game going on, to get a couple of photos either for the club blog, or for the club emails, just so anyone who wasn't there has a fair idea what was going on and what to expect for next time that game comes out. This got me thinking though, about just how many good looking tables I have been playing on recently and I thought I would write about them. I always enjoy looking at pictures of other people's tables so I thought overs might like to see the ones I have been playing on recently.

        First up was a western table from a couple of weeks ago. It was set up to play a multi player game of cowboy wars (which turned out to be a truly dire set of rules, although a fun game to play). The buildings are nearly all mdf structures from the 4ground range, but there are a few older resin ones mixed in. The buildings were bought by a club member who wanted to try out Dead Man's Hand set of rules, but as it is a card based game, and he doesn't like card based games, they are trying to find a new use for them.

     The next game is set in the early stages of the German advances through Belgium in WW2, using the bolt action set of rules. The buildings are a mix of resin, foam board and cardboard, along with pound shop dark grey foam as roads, but the over all effect of sitting at one end of the table trying to work out how best to take over Europe was really good fun. Yes I know my vbcw methodist church is sitting in both shots trying to pretend its not what it looks like, but it didn't matter to the overall effect.

Thanks for reading.

The sisters march

                                  

     A long bank holiday weekend means a lot of spare painting time, and this one has been no exception. My desk is covered in multiple, exciting new projects and the pictures below show the start of one of these.

     After a long period of completely ignoring 40k and everything to do with it I am now back in the mood and really excited about it, and this is the outcome of that excitement. A whole new army. These are the start of my Order of the Martyr's Blood, a faction in the imperial sisters of battle, the military arm of the church in humanity's future.

      My club already has a sisters player, who is my normal ally when we actually get around to playing, so I thought I would take influence from his colour scheme. I toyed with a direct copy, but decided a much better idea would be a colour reversal. So his red armour and white robes, became my white armour and red robes, which I have to say is really quite pleasing to look at. I like the idea that the sisters are supposed to be this weird mix of purity, faith and military vengeance. So the white armour becomes their idealist purity and faith, but the red under tones shows they aren't afraid to bring fire down on the enemies of their faith.

    So far I have painted up my first sisters troop squad and a couple of heavy support exorcist tank. This army is going to be much more about mid to long range attack, and will be woeful in close combat, although it will have a slight combat part build in just in case. The finished army will there-fore comprise of a couple of long range missile tanks, a couple of mid range shooting squads, and a more mobile shooting squad that has some ability in combat, although it won't be choosing to do that if it can be avoided.

     The exorcists are the forge-world kit rather than the games workshop one, for the simple fact that I prefer the basic military look of the forge-world version. I know 40k is all about the high gothic, over the top architecture, but I'm just not as big a fan of it as I could be, I like the slightly understated look of this one. The fact the other sisters player uses the games-workshop version should look really good on the battlefield, when balanced off against my pair of this version.

Don't worry if your not into 40k, this is just one of a few projects I have on the go. . .

Little pests

       I still haven't achieved any proper painting but with a spare few minutes snatched between jobs at home last night I did manage to get another few bits done. I'm sure this won't come as a surprise when I say it. but, these have been on my desk for a while. I had originally intended to mount each on a single base and end up with a massive swarm of really tiny dinosaurs but the base ended up being so much bigger than the actual models it just looked daft. Then they almost became basing detail on the big girl, and some might in the future, but I still liked the idea of them being really weak and basically ignore-able in game, unless you let them mob up, see Jurassic Park; the Lost World for details. 

      The figures themselves, are Compsognathus from the hlbs companies dinosaur range, like the velociraptors last month and another couple of dinosaurs still waiting to be painted. I like the fact this range focuses on the smaller dinosaurs, which then balances nicely with the easily bought bigger dinosaurs you can get everywhere else.

     I do love the size comparison between these little guys and the big girl, really proves my point about them being ignore-able. In the future I will probably order another pack of 10 at some point, use half to really bulk these guys up and use the rest for base details on a couple of bigger dinosaurs, but my desk is covered with new projects at the moment and I haven't had any proper painting time for a couple of weeks now so we will have to see what happens.

Return of the monsters!

    So I was minding my own business and getting on with my work when, Bam!, a tweet by Andy from Heresy Miniatures came up on my phone and it was about his new kickstarter. What's this, I thought. A kickstarter designed to bring back all his old monsters, oh and a couple of his big old winged demons? Hmmm.
     At least it's easy to resist something like th . . . Damn, that didn't work. I'm now pledged for the Azaroth figure in lovely resin, so hopefully by February I will be showing off my new monster. I have a rough plan to drill his clenched hand, put a length of doubled up chain in it and use it as a generic big demon or as a bloodthirster greater demon for Warhammer 40k.



    Here is the link for the kickstarter in case any of this interests you;
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heresyminiatures/return-of-the-monsters

Normal service will resume once I actually manage to paint something . . .

The doctor's calling

      With the new series of Doctor Who starting next weekend I thought it was high time I did a post on my Dr Who figures. This post is a mix of models that I painted earlier this year and the past weekend with my new found free time. The figures are a from two different figure ranges, Crooked Dice and Heresy, although I can't really remember which is which, although the Tardis is from Fenris.
      From left to right they are; The War Doctor, 9th Doctor, 10th Doctor and finally the 11th Doctor.

War Doctor

9th Doctor

10th Doctor

11th Doctor

    I'm a little disappointed with the pictures, the flash on my camera really emphasises the worst of my painting, but they are figures I am generally quite pleased with. I have a few assistants waiting for their turn under the paint brush and I have noticed that Crooked Dice now sell the 8th Doctor and the new 12th. . .

Lord of the Rings

     When the opportunity comes up to play an old regular opponent (Matt) again, it seems daft to turn it down. If I had started this blog a couple of years ago, every post would have been either 40k or Lord of the Rings. I think my Uruk Hai war-band has probably had more outings than any other set of models I own bar maybe my old Necromunda gang.

       So, here is the battle report of the first of the two games;

      I was using my Uruk Hai force, while he used his free people's force, a mix of Rohan, Minas Tirith and an ent.

      The scenario was 'Hold Ground', where we had to capture the statue in the middle. Rolling for each of our war-bands we ended up in the weird situation where he picked where his units started, and then picked where my units start as well. From our past games he knew the strength of my Uruks a solid shield wall supported by pikes coupled with a fast moving flanking force of scouts, so he tried to spread my Uruks out as much as he could and maroon my scouts somewhere he could pick them off before moving onto my main force. My Uruk scouts are in the top of the picture, the bulk of my Uruks in the right side, while he had put his hard Minas Tirith foot troops in the bottom to hold the objective and his fast moving Rohan cavalry on the left to pick off my scouts.

      The characters to watch out for in this game are the brother and sister duo of Eomer and Eowyn, both mounted an in the Rohan cavalry unit and my trusty named Uruk Hai captain Mauhur, a scout leader who increased the movement rate of scouts in his war-band and uses two swords like a blender.

      While the ent could quite happily kill 2 or 3 Uruks every turn it won combat, it just wasn't getting those chances due to the sheer amount of orcs I kept throwing at it. When the combat is 11 or 12 dice verses 3, the chances of the ent winning become really small, although a roll of a 6, on any dice, for the ent was an automatic win.

    While I just couldn't do anything about the ent, no matter what I threw at it, my scouts had managed to take out all of his cavalry, mostly due to so seriously good dice rolls and my only decent character, Mauhur, being buried in the unit. Matt broke the Rohan siblings off from the slaughter that was going on in the top left of the field and tried to use them to free up the ent to make some decisive charges.

        It was at this point in the game that Matt realised throwing everything at my formation in the middle really wasn't working, especially after my scouts had finished off the cavalry and had charged his force from behind. So he tried to pull out, regroup and get ready to try again.

      With the death of Eowyn in one turn and then Eomer following the turn after, it was left to the ent to properly break my forces. Both sides were actually broken by this point, but passing insane amounts of courage tests to stay in the field.

        When his ent died it became obvious that if it wasn't all over before, it definitely was now and the tidying up began. It was also at about this point when we both realised we had forgotten about the game objectives entirely. . . .

     I didn't take any photos of the second game, which is slightly annoying as it was a much closer and more interesting game, but a weird mid-start of the week gaming session is a refreshing break from all the work pressure. It's a really good feeling to get an old army out and play a game of something that I had almost forgotten I used to like, although with a rule set that we had played so many games of in the past, it was an odd feeling having the rule book open the whole time constantly checking ourselves. It has to be worth going through the cupboards and dusting off old armies again, they deserve a look in.
      And never leave home without Mauhur in your Uurk army . . .

Thanks for reading

Imperial Guard tank company, so far...

     While, for various reasons the tournament was a write off, my planned week of 40k wasn't. Even though my week of gaming didn't happen quite the way I thought it would I did get some stuff done because of it, for example, my tank company now has two extra tanks and, because I am a bit more inspired about 40k again, I do have some new toys coming. Also, even with no tournament, I still got a game of X-wing in down at the tournament venue, which I neglected to take any photos of, and I got a bit of painting done this afternoon that will form a blog later in the week. I, also, have some Lord of the Rings games planned for Tuesday, as my regular opponent has moved back from a couple of years living elsewhere.
      Anyway, but on with the blog, the tanks I was going to use in the tournament;

     This is the level my Imperial Guard or Astra Militarum, as they are called now, tank company is currently at. The eventual aim is to get to three squadrons of three tanks, plus a command tank, but I have already made that job a little bit harder by adding a support company tank instead of going straight for the full company.
      The tanks form the first company of the Hervictus 17th tank regiment, a home brew regiment and they work in close support of the Hervictus 14th mounted infantry.

      The fist on the sides of the turrets is the regimental badge, the coloured bars on the sides are their company colours, while the coloured square on the back shows the squadron and the number, their position in the squadron. So, in the picture below, I have elements of first company command, first squadron, third squadron and second squadron in the support company.

      The next 'tank' is my newest addition and yet another one of my impulse buys. It is from my infantry regiment rather than my tank one as it is a self detonating remote control vehicle. Its just one of those really charming little models. The guy next to it is for pure scale purposes, although this tank will need a controller at some point.

      Also, carrying on the 40k theme of this blog, my club blog has few photos of the two games that were played last Wednesday including my 2v2 game of 40k. You can just make out my black Ravenguard space marines in the back of one of the last photos; SEEMS
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The big girl

       Yet another toy that has been sitting on the side waiting for me to work out what I was going to do with. She is an Apatosaurus made by Schleich and is the first big dinosaur to go into my collection. The plan for the dinosaur game is to have a couple of big carnivores and a couple of packs of smaller ones that will be the real dinosaur threat, but the herbivores will still be a threat, although a less obvious one, they won't purposely attack you but a scared animal the size of one of these is going to do a lot of damage if it either flees through your men or decides to stand its ground.

       I did plan to repaint her (based on no real evidence I am assigning the gender to this dinosaur) but after procrastinating about how I was going to go about it, I came to the decision that I actually really like the effect the painters have already done on her. Future ones will be probably be repainted, but I do like the effect this one already has. All I have done is glue her to a base (a GW flier base) and then given the base the same treatment that all the rest will have. I always work on the idea if a model has a base their can be no arguments (although there always is) on measurements and movement.
      I think it may have to be a big carnivore next, although a small herd of either triceratops or stegosaurus wouldn't go a miss.

      Also, I am aware I have been doing lots of small, one pictures posts over the last few weeks, this is mostly because I have been doing ridiculous amounts of overtime, so my painting time has been destroyed, but I have a few really big projects on the go at the moment and, I have to run to my 40K tournament,  so hopefully I will have at least one big post this week and then a few more starting later in August.

Thanks for reading

This can only end well?

      This little project has been in the pipeline for quite some time. After reading the unit entry of museum piece, I knew I had to include one somehow.

       The cannon itself was bought at Broadside in June, I spent a chunk of the morning asking stall holders if they could sell me any British cannon that could have ended up as a museum exhibit by the mid-1930's. The crew are all Musketeer Miniatures but are from a couple of different sets, two of them are from the Royal Mail rocket team and the other is a standard bearer. 

    The guy kneeling down worried me a whole lot. In the rules, a museum piece is counted as a dangerous weapon and has a 50% chance of blowing up and killing it's crew the first time it is fired. In this cannon's case I think I might have found out why that is, the guy kneeling is using a more modern switch to set the gun off, so what explosives they have filled the barrel with, goodness knows.

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40K, where did that come from?

     I have spent the last seven months focusing on all sorts of games and periods and basically ignoring 40k, at least in terms of painting and gaming. I haven't been getting anywhere near as excited about the new releases and new toys as I normally would have, all because two or three other games have almost complete control over my interest (as much as it is possible with my attention span of a mayfly), but out of the blue I have four games of 40k this week. We have a small points limit game down the club on Wednesday using 5th edition (for some reason this is my clubs rule set of choice) and then I signed up to a tournament at Tabletop Nation on Sunday, 'Smack-down on Cancer', which will be my first ever try of 7th edition. One game in seven months and then four come along in one week.
      As, yet again, this weekend was a busy one, I haven't achieved much in terms of painting but I did get one project started and finished ready for Sunday.

      The tournament on Sunday is a 600 point, no force organisation chart, no restrictions, set of games, so I am expecting some really dirty lists. I'm thinking there will be a lot of Imperial Knights for example. So my plan is to try something out I will never try again, and most importantly, enjoy myself. My list will comprise of four Leman Russ tanks; an all rounder in the form of a basic battle tank, a couple of tank/knight killers in the form of two Vanquishers and lastly, the newest addition to my ever growing tank company, my new Leman Russ Punisher, who will be in the list just in case I play an infantry heavy army. All four tanks have hull mounted lascannons so they can all deal with armour, but I think I have a decent spread of main guns to deal with most armies.

    I will do a proper blog post on my four tanks and the tournament, either late Sunday or maybe Monday, but as I haven't been able to do much in the way of painting for a couple of weeks now, I thought I had better post up my one achievement. Although, with the stuff building up on my painting desk I have a few projects I am really excited about showing off as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading.