Pooch's March Update

Ok, how is it April already? Ah well, at least I painted something!

1. Paint a new 40k Army- Ongoing!

The mighty Krieg painting machine rumbles ever onwards! Continuing my theme of creating what is probably the worst possible Astra Militatium (it's Imperial Guard, who are you kidding) army, I have been painting elites choices. How many elites? well... I now have 8 different elites choices....

This Month's Krieg

Let's start with the big boy. Ambull, representing an Ogryn Bodyguard

Yep, that's right. I painted both sides.

Commissar Severina Raine, who will be a Lord Commissar. She should have a gas mask, but doesn't for two very good reasons. The first is that I didn't want to mess up the model. The second is that it is a really expensive model and I didn't want to mess it up.

First command Squad. Medic, Lascannon and Banner. The medic is from the Rogue Trader Kill Team, just with a headswap to make her look super, super creepy. Incidentally, that is SO my 40k RPG character.

Another Elites choice, this time it's a Priest! From the Blackstone Fortress box, this priest comes bearing a flaming chainsaw. Because heretics don't purge or dismember themselves you know. Well, sometimes they do, but that's usually to summon a daemon. So it doesn't count.

But wait, another command squad! This one has a Medic, Missile Launcher and a Banner! Medic is a conversion, as is the Missile Launcher.

Another view of the Missile Launcher. The weapon itself comes from a Sentinel, the mount is an MG42 mount from Rubicon models. Added together you get a spindly looking missile rack, which looks about as fragile as the toughness 3 guardsmen with it.

And lastly, a six man special weapon team. Two flamers, one demolition charge. We are trench fighters remember! Demo charge is the tube used to carry mortar bombs, coupled with an awesomely posed Guardsman.

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game- DONE!
Bit of a preview into one of the later ones too, but I managed to finish up a table of terrain for me to play games of Cruel Seas on! The islands are the vac-form ones from Amera, with some shoals made from laminate. I went with a pretty quick and easy paint scheme using spray cans, followed by Army Painter soft tone. Then a coat of dullcoat (although it looks like they need another coat too) and you have a winner!

The whole table

Bit of a closer up view

Corsairs swooping in low

3. Make a modular terrain piece- No progress. 
No plans, no hope. I'm sure inspiration will strike at some point....

4. Pain a naval fleet- DONE!
Hey hey! another one done. As you saw earlier, I have been painting things up for Cruel Seas, in this case a US fleet of PT boats, Sub Chasers and Corsairs. And of course a U-Boat for them to chase! They were suprisingly easy to paint, with the grey done entirely with spray cans (black, then soft coats of grey over the top to get the colour I wanted) with a bit of mixed success, but overall I am happy with them.

My US Fleet!

Technically I have completed two fleets, it's just that my German fleet is 2 U-Boats!

5. Finish something I haven't used in a year and take it to a tournament- No progress
But I have a plan. That's like progress right?

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it- Done
Did this in February

7. Paint every miniature for a game I own- Done
Did this one in February too

8. Paint a Space Marine each month- On track!
Another month, another Space Marine. Not quite as happy with this one as I am with the others, I think I will make a point of spending a bit more time on the next one.

All three Bolter Boys

I am quite happy with how my skills with the chapter icon are!

9. Paint a stand alone force for a game- DONE!
This was one of our more random ideas, but we all had leftover Epic, and then I realised I could buy the Adeptus Titanicus rules as a stand alone and so.... my titan warband was born! A Warlord, a Reaver, two Warhounds and four Knights in all of their old school glory. I did some weapon swaps on the Knights to bring them a little bit more in line with the modern knights (not too much mind). The Reaver was just a torso and guns, until I realised I had an entire spare set of legs spare from the Ambot. Thus, stumpy the reaver was born!

The whole family, with battlefield assets in front of them

I love Stumpy. Somehow, he just works.

Overhead shot showing stripes, flames and the general silly colours they are painted in

10. Update and improve a table of terrain- No progress
Err... I have a plan... sortof...

11. Paint something Napoleonic- No progress
I bought some things. Does that count?

12. Finish what I should have finished last year- Done
Did this one in January and February. I only have one more thing which will go into this box, which reminds me that I really should do it....

Next time? I've got a model for a painting competition, and hoping to get some more armour for my Krieg. And I should really start painting some Krieg infantry too....

Till next time,
Pooch

Leading the Guardsmen onward...

...or how I got some extra use out of the Scions command sprue

The Guard command squad box is cool. It's ageing somewhat ungracefully compared to some of GWs other kits but honestly, it's multipartness still gives builders so much value, this many years down the track! 

So here we go, with the four members of my Guard Platoon, and their fearless Lieutenant. 

First up we have the model I couldn't not build. I love the heavy flamer and it's so ridiculously oversized on a Guardsman. So he had to go in. 

Flameyo, hotman! 

Second up, I looked at the medic from the box and rated that a great big NOPE. Rolling out a bandage is just not that exciting. So I kitbashed together a medic using the cool accessories in the Scion command sprue. A missile launcher trigger arm, a sergeant's chainsword arm and the medical kit from the Scion sprue and the medic arriveth.

Because chainsaws are medical equipment in the grim dark future.

Every command squad needs an RT man and this squad is no exception. Officers have to give orders!

First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!

The Guardsman is in darkness (because bad photographer me is bad) but the key here is the flag. Painting it was an absolute pig and it does not withstand too close a look but I love this model. 40K is diminished from a lack of flags.

Wavey Wavey!

Finally, the Platoon Commander. When I decided to use the beret heads from the Scion command sprue for my squad sergeants, the one with the eyepatch was always going to be saved for the Lieutenant. He looks super cool with his swagger stick and eyepatch!

Under armed, as a Guard officer should be. 

Here's the whole crew together! 

They've fitted in nicely with my existing Guardsmen so I've managed to keep them looking consistent even with the gap in painting.

Finally, a WIP of their sweet sweet ride:

Picked up cheap at a Con last year, this Chimera has taken a lot of manual labour to basically take it apart and reassemble it with some nice new bits. You can see the start of the camo stripes and the necessary front of hull stripe markings. I could hardly not.

Next time! 
Well, I'll finish the Chimera, to start with, and work on some other Guardsmen that I've gotten assembled. I've got some more M60s to build for a comp in three weeks which I really need to do if I want to get them painted in time!

To Infinity, and beyond, to another 28mm sci-fi skirmish game!

The Nerds at the Regiment have all had a blat at Infinity over the years, and we played the RPG at the end of last year and loved it. Infinity is an awesome universe to play in and Corvus Belli have been making some of the best 28mm models on the market right now. But we've also hit the same problems as well - the Rambo characters in Infinity are a pain and the special rules bloat works fine in the RPG but is hard to manage on the tabletop without a lot of practice.

As a result, we've all mostly parked our Infinity collections. When fellow Nerd Pelarel discovered the Zone Raiders Kickstarter and, more to the point, the First Encounter demo rules, we decided to give it a go because a lighter version of Infinity is something we're keen on. The demo rules are 50 pages long with some fluff, some rules, 3 scenarios, a basic post-game and a QRS! Hell yeah! Props to Fractal Basilisk for a cool company name (!) and a great introduction to what they're working on.

What's a Zone Raiders? 

Set in the Matrioshka, a domain built on lost technology, Zone Raiders are teams who scavenge the layers of the Matrioshka, avoiding the perils of the zone as well as other crews to eke a living out of the actively hostile environment. It's miniature agnostic and is written to allow players a super-flexible way to play a character driven, sci-fi skirmish campaign focused game.  From what the website and Kickstarter suggests, the complete rules and extension funded will include more factions, rules for robots and hacking and giant armoured suits and stuff - all the cool stuff we want to use.

How did our game go? 
Quickly! It took maybe 90 minutes from set up, play through, end game and pack down.

Pel took the TechNomads and I took the NthGen Robots. Pel's crew (based on our game experience!) was heavily armed and armoured and highly mobile. Mine was equally heavily armed, less well armoured, but led by a very high quality leader. Pel's crew quality was even across the board, my best model was noticeably better and the quality declined quite quickly.

We played the first mission from the First Encounter - a scavenging run. There were 9 scrap tokens on the board worth 2VP each and an irradiated zone dominating the centre of the board. The idea was the first person to loot 5 counters and extract them wins.

We spent the first couple of turns running around grabbing the easy counters and extracting them. Suddenly, on turn 3, we discovered shooting each other and it all went downhill very quickly. Pel took out one of my robots and I dropped his leader in response. The shooting mechanic involves hitting, armour saving and then a damage roll. Pass and you take a wound (which impacts your ability to take actions in subsequent turns). Fail and you are down. The first four casualties all did that.

Over the turns 3, 4 and 5 Pel shot down another of my robots while my leader, the best shot on the board, rode his luck to take a couple of aimed shots to take out two of Pel's TechNomads while my weaker robots moved to get the last couple of loot counters. When I knocked out the fourth of Pel's Nomads, he elected to flee so we could do the post-game.

What do we like?

It looks like a game of manoeuvre and from the get go, that's how it was. Being able to wall run, leap and grappling hook around the board is cool!  We genuinely wondered if, after 2 turns of looting the board, we were ever going to engage each other. Then Pel worked out that as each counter is worth 2 VP and since there were 9 on the board, and three of those were in the middle, we were going to have to fight eventually.

Being shot at is genuinely bad. We managed, between us, to pass one armour save and one damage roll. Our dice were dire, but neither of us were all that well armoured. My boss man topped out at 17. Pel's dudes were in the 10 - 12 range and mine were 10 and below.

A couple of cool things stood out. Characters can 'summon' an extraction zone and in our scenario, they could throw their loot into that extraction zone to confirm the VPs. That was a cool little thing given that going down or bottling out meant you dropped your loot. It looks like you can also drop your dudes into that zone and be extracted from the game, which is probably a good thing in a campaign if you're wounded but not downed. Armour Piercing rounds destroy your armour in this game too. Given that your mobility especially is dependant on the suit you're wearing, that's really problematic!

Any downers?
None to speak of.

Our dice today definitely made the armour saves and damage rolls feel a lot worse than they probably are. Pel was failing 10 or less rolls on a D20 routinely. TBH, given the game is intended for campaigns and in the post-game, your characters who are down are not dead, merely badly wounded or incapacitated. They play no part in the post-game but they are not dead. Super important in a game that intended for campaign play.

Verdict?
Excellent. We'll both pick up a copy of the game when it comes out. The Kickstarter was very well funded and seems to be moving on really quickly. I'm genuinely looking forward to working out a) how to use some of my cooler Pan-O Infinity models that I've never put on the park in Infinity because they weren't good enough to make the cut and b) playing a more fulsome game and campaign.

Next Week
Some more painting! I'm working on a Command Squad for my Imperial Guard and, if I can get off my butt and finish fixing up the turret on a very old Chimera I've been trying to un-wreck, you might get to see that too.

X-FORCE - ACTIVATE

And part four of X-Force has been added to the collection thanks to a local who decided he was never going to get around to painting it! He was fun to do although the creepy as skull face is super creepy! 

Giant skull head! 

The Culexus is one of the most lunatic models GW have created in the Imperial Agents range over the years. It's rules and fluff are super disturbing and it should be an interesting challenge for some of the more psychically inclined players down at the club.

Here they all are together. I've lined up a game of 40K with a clubmate in a week or so where I'll probably roll out one of these lunatics but not all of them. That'd be silly. 

X-Force

But all that said, there's a 40K comp later in the year (October-ish, I think. I've missed registration for most of the local ones between now and then) where Pooch and I have both agreed to take our respective Guard. Mine will be rolling as either Manipulus Greyfax or Manipulus Coteaz but we shall see where I'm up to with the painting. If it's Coteaz, it'll be Inquisition, Guard and Grey Knights. If it's Greyfax, it'll be Inquisition, Guard and....something else. More Guard, maybe? I'm tempted by some Sisters of Battle but I'll wait till those come out properly.

Next time
I've got plenty of Guard to do and a couple of vehicles for my TY army (although those won't probably hit the priority list for another couple of months) and I have a massive pile of Infinity terrain that needs some repair work.

Pel and I are playing Zone Raiders for the first time next weekend, which promises to be an interesting game. It looks cool on paper and from what I can see from the free sample rules, the totality of the game looks pretty promising as a lite version of Infinity.

Walk me closer! I WANT TO HIT IT WITH MY SWORD!

The view you *don't* want of Inquisitor Karamazov 

This insane model turned up on a local trading site late last year and, honestly, I couldn't not buy it. Fyodor Karamazov is one of the coolest models ever created for 40K and for the Inquisition range.

It's an insane combination of servitors bolted into a throne on the top of a dreadnought durdling about the place shooting things with a multimelta and the man on the back (looking like he should probably have a tartan rug over his knees) then hits them with a power sword. It's vaguely reminiscent of the illustration of Mad Hamish in the Discworld book 'The Last Hero.'

One of the original greaves was missing so between my own bits box and the nice chap who fixed me up with the model, I fitted a couple of Venerable Dreadnought greaves and he looks good as new. He also wound up on one of the scenic bases that comes with the Dreadnought kit that I've never really found the cause to use.

The view you *do* want of Inquisitor Karamazov

I need to complete all the scrolls but I'm still thinking about how I want to do that. I've got some transfers to go on them, for eagles and skulls and things I can't paint, but I haven't quite designed the layouts yet.

He'll be going into a force with Inquisitor Greyfax I think. I'm quietly designing lists for all three Ordos and working through the painting lists to get there. Greyfax will bring her escort of Scions and Karamazov will be rolling in with all the crazy that I have in my collection of Acolytes now!

I also have zero idea how to transport him! This is definitely in the same category as the old Khador Behemoth - firmly in sock-jack territory.

Next Time
That's a very good question. I've got all sorts of random things on the painting table at the moment so we'll see. HMMWVs? Guardsmen? Vehicles?

X-Force - 75% Loaded

Inquisitorial Acolytes

First off, one from the archive - a classic Necromunda Bounty Hunter.

This is a classic GW late 90s sculpt. I love the legs akimbo and a weapon in both hands. It's no classic Ragnar Blackmane but it is a cool model. I've given him camo pants in the same style as my Cadians for the lols and the classic red bolters that are a feature of my entire 40K bolter-wielding collection.

Secondly, a Death Korps of Krieg gunner, delightfully painted by our very own Pooch. He looks great and Pooch has painted him to fit very well with my own painting style. He'll add some much needed firepower to one of my retinues as well.

Commissar

GW's plug and play models are amazing and this one might be one of my favourites. The pose is amazing and the detail is stunning. I loved painting the piping more than anything and that's a weird sentence in and of itself. He'll be a nice splash of dark in amongst the green of the Cadians.

Tech Priest

I have some Servitors that I picked up ages ago for grins and giggles and I decided (after reading the really fun comics that preceded the release of Wrath and Glory), as part of my Inquisitorial Task Force, I should have a tech priest.

He's a great model and I loved painting it. The servo-skull above his right shoulder is a bit fragile but overall, I'm super pleased.

Vindicare Assassin

Given my comments above about classic GW akimbo posing, I was glad to get hold of this alt-version of the Vindicare. He lacks the opportunity for colour that the other two I've done have, but he's still pretty sweet.

So now I have the metal sculpts for three of the four assassins (and am pursuing a lead on the fourth) then soon I will put the Assassin Execution Force on the table and it will be MAGNIFICENT. I'm actually really pleased with the errata that GW have released for the Assassins. Being able to effectively sideboard in whichever assassin suits my opponent is a really nice idea for matched play.

Next Time
The second best throne in the Imperium. I'll let you figure out what that is....

Pooch's February Update

I'm back, and this time, it's February.

1. Paint a new 40k Army- on track!

But wait, there is more progress here! I definitly got into the swing of painting Krieg, managing to finish up a Veteran Squad with three meltaguns and a heavy flamer, a Company Commander, a squad of three mortars, an Artillery Officer as well as a Destroyer Tank Hunter! 

The army as it stands

Company Commander

Mortars!

Heavy Flamer

 Conversions involved on most of the models, little hand or arm swaps to get the weapons I wanted, or to change from having a duplicate pose. All in all, I am really happy with how the army is shaping up.

Veterans with Shotguns!

The Destroyer was a trade page find, and is a tank I have always loved ever since there was an article about one in a White Dwarf many years ago. Plus, it has such a Jagdpanzer vibe that I can't but love it. McB provided a lovely base colour with the airbrush (so, so good) and I finished it from there.

And with that my Krieg army is a legal 400 point army! It is also pretty close to the worst imaginable 400 point army! I'd say I'll try to rectify that next month, but if you haven't already figured out, playability is low on my list of priorities.

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game- no progress (again)

Errr next month maybe?

3. Make a modular terrain piece- no progress (again)

I really don't know what I will do with this one just yet....

4. Paint a naval fleet- no progress 

I have plans to do this in March!

5. Finish something for an army I haven't used in a year and take it to a tournament- no progress

I have a new plan here, but it won't be till later in the year

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it- DONE

I had a few options for what to for this one. A Mighty Ape sale sealed it, and I bought the Gangs of Rome starter set. Part of the sales pitch was that I could add a few extras (Gladiators, dog, wizards) to have it as a Frostgrave band!

And, a sweet, sweet piece of Sarissa terrain too.

This is everyone!

This is the Temple, with the Oracle

Gladiators. One Warbanner, One Warlord Games.

Red Team!

Dog and Gaul throwing roof tiles

Blue team!

7. Paint every miniature for a game I own- DONE

Hey! I did another thing!

One of the games I have been trying to persuade others to play is the Batman Miniatures Game. It's a fun game, but I don't play it anywhere near enough to know all of the rules and that gets in the way of enjoying the game. That has never stopped me buying models, and it was time that I finished off the latest batch I had brought.

Lexx Luthor Crew in power armour

Enchantress!

My Joker Crew

The main man, Heath Ledger Joker

Harley Quinn

8. Paint a Space Marine each month- Done! 

"Brother, I am throwing a grenade"

9. Paint a stand alone force for a game- no progress

10. Update and improve a table of terrain- no progress

11. Paint something Napoleonic- no progress

Couple of sneaky ideas formulating however....

12. Finish what I should have finished last year- DONE x2!

What you should also know is that the list of things that I should have done last year is long, so I'm anticipating this one will be hit more times yet!

But, what I did finish was my Team Yankee Polish army. The biggest part of what I did this month was not the last bit of painting, it was putting decals on the many, many vehicles! 

I do like the army, it put in a great showing recently at Charicon too.

This is all of the vehicles who needed decals

Progression of wheeled vehicles

And of course, the Helicopters. So many kudos to Battlefront for having the "don't touch the tail rotor" warning in Polish!

Next month? More Krieg, boats and maybe terrain?

Till next time,

Pooch