Pooch's goals for 2020

Well, 2019 is done and with the success of keeping some sort of record of what I was doing, I'm going to do it again this year.

So what are the 12 goals then?

1. Paint a Kings of War Army

The rest of the guys have got, or are working towards a Kings of War army. Now that I have two fully completed 40k armies, it only makes sense for me to make my long term project for the year completing a cool as fantasy army. I have an evil scheme, but you will have to wait till the end of January to find out what!

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

I need to get better at having terrain. Therefore I am carrying this one over from last year so that I keep making more.

3. Complete the 6mm Apocalypse Challenge

McZ has already laid down the rules for this one, and I actually have my first.... 4 months prepped I think?

Since McZ has shown what he is aiming for in the first month, seems rude to not do the same?

4 Leman Russ. Because... it's Apocalypse, and they are awesome.

4. Run a narrative campaign for the group

We had an absolute blast playing in the 40k narrative campaign, and importantly for me, it got me out playing games. So, I want to do that too!

There are a few options, Dracula's America could be cool, as would the Walking Dead or Necromunda. Watch this space!

5. Add a new detachment to one of my 40k armies

Don't know what this will be, but I do know there are lots of cool things dropping for 40k at the moment, so I am making sure I have some flexibility to add to the armies I already have....

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it

That one was fun this year- let's do it again!

7. Paint a Space Marine Heroes Series

"But Pooch..." I hear you cry, "...you didn't like painting Storm Lords".

Apparently finishing them gave me a new perspective. There are two other series of Space Marine Heroes, one comprised of Terminators, one comprised of Death Guard. Not sure which I will do, because both of them are pretty awesome. This one won't be a monthly challenge this time however!

8. Update a 15mm Napoleonic army for Blackpowder

A couple of us at the club have large 15mm Napoleonic armies, which haven't been used in a year or so. We had a test game of 15mm Blackpowder, and it was really enjoyable- so much so that I am keen to add the extra models and things I need to complete my armies for it. It's mostly command stands and things. It'll either be French or British- not sure which.

9. Paint a stand alone force

There is something really nice about having a force that is done. No more units to add, no more organic growth (so the exact opposite of my Krieg army). I'd like to do another of these, and perhaps use them as a painting experiment with new techniques?

10. Update and improve a table of terrain

Again with the terrain. I need more terrain, because terrain makes tables look cool. Simple as that!

11. Play a game each month, and share a photo of it

The bulk of my hobby time is in painting and modelling- but I enjoy the gaming side of things too. So I'd like to do more of that, and putting it on this list will help me stay on track.

12. Finish what I should have finished last year

Believe it or not, there were still things from last year that I didn't manage to get done, for a variety of reasons. So, I want to get them done!

And that's it!

Pooch

Morty is watching.....

Pooch's December Update and a review of 2019

Well, here we are. The last of the 2019 posts for me. Lets see how I did shall we?

1. Paint a new 40k army- DONE!

This one I have been working away at for the entire year. The Krieg army grew steadily from a few figures, to a few units, then a few detachments... until this point, where I have now actually finished every single Imperial Guard (Astra Militatium) model that I own. It's all painted, it's all done.

How much is done? Well, points wise it adds up to: 4,411 points.

This month I finished four Leman Russ, a Basilisk and a Sentinel. The basilisk and the sentinel are just stock standard kits, painted in the same grey as the rest.

The Leman Russ however are painted in the same 4 tone WW1-esque camo as the Shadowsword, and have had their main guns, and the hull gun swapped over. My goal was the get a vehicle that had more in common with the M3 Grant/Lee tank from WW2, or the St Chamond from WW1. It ws actually suprisingly easy to swap the battle cannon into the hull, it was more of an ordeal to carve back the lascannon mounting to fit into the turret. Not impossible... just... annoying....

Super happy with how it looks!

Six vehicles- 4 Leman Russ, a Sentinel and a Basilisk

A good shot of the swapped weapons

And this is the whole lot. I'll sort out a better set of photos for a future blog post

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game - DONE!

Finished this one in March, with a whole table of terrain to support the Cruel Seas game. It's more likely to get used for Black Seas now however!

3. Make a modular piece of terrain - DONE!

This one was the crashed Valkyrie I finished up last month. I had big plans to do for this one, but it ended up being a bit of a cop out....

4. Paint a naval fleet - DONE!

Finished this one in March too, this was my Cruel Seas US fleet and U-boat.

5. Finish something for an army I haven't used in a year, and take it to a tournament - DONE!

Did this one in July to expand my US army to cover both Scotty and I for Panzershrek. It was great fun running the US at a tournament, so I am actually doing something similar for Valleycon- lending a US list to another local, and expanding my US yet further so that I can run two independent 100 point US forces. Yes, it's possible I am loony.

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

I finished this one twice, first with the Gangs of Rome in February (who I will be using for our Frostgrave day today!), and the second was Aeronautica Imperialis which I finished up last month.

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

I finished up this one twice before, in February with the Batman Miniatures Game, and in November with the Mortal Gods game. Both games I am looking forward to getting into in the new year, with both Batman V3 and Mortal Gods Mythic on the horizon.

And, I actually completed this for a third time this month by finishing up my Escher crew.... that I painted most of last year...

Necromunda is a game which our wider group has all seemed to more or less buy into, but not actually play many games of yet.

Didn't stop me converting one of the Chaos cultists in the Blackstone Fortress Escalation box into an Escher with Heavy Stubber (basically just a headswap was all that was needed!) and using the Primaris Psyker from that same box as an Escher Wyrd (will be a bounty hunter I'd expect).

Space Wizard, and girl with a very big gun

8. Paint a Space Marine Hero each month - DONE!

I'll be honest, this one was a slog in October and November. I got the "the finish line is in sight and I can't seem to force myself to want to paint them" problem.

Not so in December. I had actually finished up the Krieg and everything else I 'had' to do this month within the first 10 days of the month, meaning that there was no pressure to paint the Storm Lord. And man was that refreshing!

So good in fact, that I painted two of them. the first is the final model from the Space Marine Heroes range, the Captain. The second, is a terminator from the Space Hulk boxed set. I removed the Blood Angels Icons, and had one of the locals 3d print a perfect base for him so that he matches the other Space Marine heroes.

And with that, the whole Storm Lords force is done!

9. Paint a stand alone force - DONE!

Oh man did I complete this one. The Titans for Adeptus Titanicus in March, the Gellerpox in May and I finished up a squad of rebels from Star Wars Legion for me to use in Zone Raiders this month too! I simply had to add Jyn Erso to them too.... because it would be wrong not to....

Zone Raiders is another game I need to play in 2020!

Ugly camo, and jungle style bases. So cool.

Jyn!

10. Update and improve a table of terrain - DONE!

This was my Team Yankee desert table, which I finished up in July so that I could bring it to Panzershrek. They turned out to not need it, but it will be used at Valleycon next month!

11. Paint something Napoleonic - DONE!

I am going to start this off by saying that Black Seas is a good game. I expect it will annoy hard core Napoleonic sailing nerds, but it has enough in it for me to feel like I am playing a game with sailing ships, and I can do things and make things happen without consulting many, many charts.

And so, I am really excited to have my French fleet competed! Made up of two First Rate, three Third Rate, three Frigates, eight Brigs and a base of gunboats. I didn't put sails on them so that I could easily differentiate them when I play against some of the other club mates' fleets (who do have the sails). I did rig them up, and put little tricolours on the back however!

The full fleet!

The two First Rates- the generic one, and the Orient

I took them away on holiday to do the rigging... this was them all hidden into the carrying case

Another game that I need to play in 2020. Noticing a theme for that yet?

12. Finish something I should have last year - DONE!

I did well here, finishing up two things in the first couple of months in the year- my Death Guard and the Polish for Team Yankee. Both I am contemplating expanding, but I am (for now) happy with where both are at.

Mortywatch! - DONE!

And the bonus one! I am really, really proud of the work which I did on Morty. He was a big model, and by tacking him in sections I was able to make him achievable, and actually fun to paint. Added too, I am really, really pleased with how he came out- especially his face.

Reflections

So that was 2019, with all of my goals completed. Some better than others, but they did all get done. I started doing this blog to give myself some structure for what I painted in the year, and to give my inner magpie some constraints on what it purchased. While not always successful, I was better than I could have been, and most importantly, actually finished things I started.

With that in mind then, come back tomorrow for my plan for 2020!

Morty is watching....

Pooch

Whiplash?

Looking Back...

I read back through my posts for this year before I wrote this and, honestly, I don't really have too much to say in retrospect. I'm astonished by how much I got done and still horrified at how much more I still have to do! But I did have a good time and 15 months after getting back into this, I'm still going strong.

I think I've come to two serious conclusions about gaming this year.

The first is that I think I have enough games. There's been a bunch of stuff come out in 2019 that looked cool - Cruel Seas, Mortal Gods, Star Wars: Legion and Aeronautica Imperialis are all in that bucket - that I haven't dived into. They all look cool but don't do enough to float my boat to get me to dive in for whatever reason. I may well do that in 2020 if things change, but right now, I just want to play the things I have!

The second is that I've been thinking more about what I want out of my gaming and how to get it. I've confirmed once and for all that serious competitive play isn't my jam (if it ever was) and if I'm going to go to events, I need to be in the right headspace to do it where I can take what I want from the event and still make sure the people I'm gaming with have a good time. I am however, much more interested in using those events as an opportunity for a dedicated set of games on a single thing, whether it's an escalation, a campaign or just a series of demos.

...and Looking Forward...

Well, broadly, it's this: 2020 Plans! What in there am I most looking forward to? Aside from the stupid (see below) it's probably breaking out the Matchbox cars for Gaslands and playing that with the nerds at our annual nerd weekend later in the year.

Having said that, I liked Pooch's approach to his projects for this year and reportage thereon so I've decided to do something similar with the following goals:

1. Add one thing per month to one of my 40K forces. I've got three factions and work to do for each of them so I'm aiming to get something new done each month and probably add in a few bits and bobs that I don't have yet. 
2. Run a campaign of something for the lads at the club. I'll probably aim for Necromunda at this point but I know Pooch is keen to run something like Dracula's America and hopefully Scotty will run another 1000 point 40K campaign too. 
3. Complete my FoW Australians. Originally built for a v2 FoW Morganfest game against a Japanese army of Tank's, I have pretty much all the bits to run it as a Rifle Company in the current v4 rules. So I should! 
4. Do some cunning thinking about 653 SPzJgr. The list doesn't exist in v4 Late War but there might be a way to do it. So if I can figure that out, I'll build the army and get it on the table. 
5. Complete my Brotherhood army for Kings of War 3E. The Brotherhood list got a major overhaul and has added a bunch of new druid-y bits from the Nature faction. I don't like the Mantic models but I think I can do something clever with some Wood Elves that'll fit better with the Teutonic Order I have. 
6. Complete the stupid (see below).

I'm probably not going to report on them to quite the same detail as Pooch, but they should be a reminder of what my priorities are.

...and the Stupid!

Earlier this year (maybe even last year) a gamer who was getting out of the hobby donated a whole bunch of stuff to the club asking only that we find it all a good home, which we duly did. And some of the stuff, a decent collection of Epic 6mm models, found a home with some of us. So Pooch and I spent a lot of effort looking at Epic Armageddon, Net Epic and damn near everything else until realising that the simplest option, really, was just to play Apocalypse. In 6mm. Seemingly, we are not the first people to have this idea so that's a bonus.

In order to get there, the plan is for a bunch of us to clean, rebase and paint (or repaint) Epic stuff over the course of the year and learn to play Apocalypse while we're at it. The rules are:

• 50 PL per month
• Two months of 'passing' are permitted 
• Progress should be be up here on the blog. 

We're hoping to get a game in every couple of months as well as the amount of stuff we have gets to a sensible size for armies. Here's what my first month (and second as well...) is going to look like:

Tiny daemons

The Doomblaster is subbing in for a classic Cannon of Khorne and I'm honestly having to resist pretty hard going to eBay to get some, along with the few other bits I'd really want - like a Lord of Battles, some Death Dealers and  a Bane Lord. :) The Bloodletters and Fleshhounds of Khorne are new - from Onslaught Miniatures - and they are stunning. Onslaught also do some Daemonettes and I do have a Keeper of Secrets as well. If I could get hold of some classic Steeds of Slaanesh, I might just be able to wrangle a Slaanesh daemon detachment as well!

I'm seriously looking forward to playing Epic scale again. This should be a lot of fun indeed.

Next Time
Frostgrave! We'll be playing some for McBeth's birthday this year and I'll take something fun. I don't know what yet...

Christmas is hard on the hobby!

There hasn't been a whole lot of hobby time in the run up to Christmas (surprising no one) so I haven't been doing a whole lot of hobbying as a result! But I have knocked off a couple of little things.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
I've posted the WIP of this model previously but I finally got her finished.

Saskia Waldlaufer - Amber Wizard

Saskia Waldlaufer will be an Amber Wizard for our next weekly RPG campaign which is, I think, hopefully going to be WFRP 4th Edition. But before we get to that, we need to finish...

Dungeons and Dragons! 
A lot of my hobby time recently has been going into DMing our weekly RPG group through the re-written 5th Edition of Curse of Strahd campaign. We've been making a genuine effort to get more RPG-y with our RPGs and that includes me! It's going really well too, I think, and the players are all working super hard to inhabit their characters and make decisions that make sense for the character, not the player.

I am really enjoying DMing CoS for two reasons - firstly that it's open world, but is still constrained geographically which means there is a lot less prep I need to do to be ready for where the party might go, which in turn means I can be more prepped for the places they do go. Secondly, Strahd is great. The authors have laid out what his aims for the campaign are in the introduction and so I, as the DM, actually have my own PC. And he's awesome. So far I've creeped the party out in a serious way and also punched one of them across a graveyard to express just how scary he is!

There's a bunch of really good material online to help a DM with CoS along with an amazing playthrough on Youtube that has given me some great ideas and material. It's easily been the most fun I've had as a DM in ages!

Warhammer 40K
I did a little bit of work on a couple of my Deathwatch models too. I've been doing a bit of parts shenaniganery to get a second Primaris Kill Team built and these two models got a bit cannibalised while I did it - mostly to sort out things like Terminator scale shoulderpads for the Inceptors and Aggressors. Anyway, they've now been repaired and repainted so get to be posted here. One 2020 task complete! HA!

Raven Guard Primaris Hellblaster and Black Templars Terminator

Next Time
I will be doing a bit of a 2019 retrospective and previewing a project that bloggers Pooch, Scotty and Tank Engine, clubmate BB and I will be taking on in 2020. It's really, really dumb but it's going to be so SO MUCH fun.

Post-membering December

So how did it go?

Short answer?  Not great, but 1-2 (rather than 0-3) which was nice. I played three Grenadier / Panzergrenadier armies. One with 4 88s, one with almost as many tanks as I had and one with not enough tanks to trouble me! I lost the first game assaulting into infantry attempting to win, I lost the second by being in very much the wrong place at the wrong time and won the third by being able to shenanigan my way through a lot of Panzerfausts and with a bit of steer from my opponent on how to do it!

I didn't really take too many photos of the games because they were very quick and rather hilarious but here's a few gems:

Schnell! 

Sneaky Pumas!

Amazingly, I lost this fight.... 

...and this one

Blogger Scotty's Mark IVs

Love this photo though! 

Lessons?

Even the very good FallschirmStuG is fearful in the face of the new Panzerfaust rules and the preponderance of manpacked AT that now lives in LW. When your Schurzen are useless and you hit on 1 less than your skill, assaulting into infantry platoons is a brave mans move now. In my last game against McBeth, he was cunningly using his command teams, Panzerschrecks and random infantry teams to give my StuGs what for. It was very clever and, but for some unfortunate misses, would have been very effective.

Thoughts?

55 points was pretty swingy - over 14 players, we barely managed two or three results that weren't 8-1. When you go down, you go quick and painfully. I found that my StuGs performed well against German armour and would have faced off well enough with Shermans I suspect. The 5 point Firefly was basically useless but it looks great.

I did like the list overall and I think I will look at how to expand it to 100 points. That's probably going to be using a Beach Defence company and a FallschirmStuG company together which I do find oddly appealing. Either that, or I am getting me a serious setup of Pumas...

Next Time
Hmmm.... tough question. I'm staring at the 2020 project table and pondering if I can knock something off quickly. There's some part-completed stuff there that's looking fairly promising so expect something a touch random for the second-to-last blog post of 2019!

Pre-membering December

Our annual club World War 2 competition, Remember December, is coming up in a week. Every year we take the time to remember our clubmate and friend, Nick, who left us suddenly four years ago, and play a one-day event for a trophy in his honour with the primary goal being all about not being a dick.

This year, it'll be 55 point Late War Normandy / Italy Flames of War V4 and...I didn't have much of an army. All my kit is, excepting my insane Beach Defence company from V2, is Eastern Front so it was a bit of a battle to come up with a workable list. 

Pooch pointed out to me that there is a FallschirmStuG company and, since I had StuGs for Eastern Front, maybe I should just use those. Funnily enough, this was an excellent idea and so I set to work crafting something. And then got stuck. Over and over again. My collection was not helping the design. But, in the end, I have come up with something utterly hilarious. 

So I did some new stuff first: 

I broke my Panzerschreck team off it's medium base and put them on small bases to bulk out the infantry platoon in my Remember December army. 

Pooch's other excellent suggestion was to add in a captured tank. And it just so happens he had an Open Fire Firefly kit and that fitted nicely. The kit is....not BFs best work but for this purpose, it'll do. I even had an old Panzer commander to drop into the turret. 

Most of the rest of the army. There are seven StuGs, all told, and I've got the Tank Escorts command card to put the Beach Defence Platoon able to ride into combat. That's going to go badly for me, but y'know what? I don't mind too much. The concept is cool and the way that Tank Escorts have come out in V4 I really like - a lot more than I did in V3. 

Next Time

A report on how successfully I went scoring 0-3 in Remember December! HA! And then we'll launch into the summertime projects before a bunch of us lunatics kick off some new and hilarious projects in the 2020. 

Pooch's November update!

Apparently now November is done? I am not really sure how that happened. At all.

November was a bit of a "get stuff done" month it seems, I managed at least make progress, if not finish up stuff from 7 of the 13 categories!

1. Paint a new 40k army (On track)
In the latest White Dwarf there was the rules for Inquisitors. And I had the starter for an Inquisitorial retinue lurking in my "I'll do something with this one day" box. And then GW went and released the awesome looking models in the Blackstone Fortress Escalation box. And then I thought "this would be cool to throw in that Chimera that I hadn't thought of a plan to do something with".

And so.... Inqusitorial Retinue!

The Inqusitorial part of the retinue.....

The guard part of the retinue....

The mechanicum component

And another angle on them- I swapped the grav gun on the servitor for a much more industrial heavy stubber

And their sweet ride, a Chimera will all of the bolters!

One of the other things that has been staring me in the face unfinished for like.... 6 months I think? is a Valkyrie/Vendetta to carry my Stormtroopers around in. I got two of these in a good buy/sell deal a while ago, finished the base for it like... 3 months ago and then have promptly left it untouched since then.

So this month I had a burst of enthusiasm, and finished up the magnetising of weapons to switch between a Vendetta (six lascannons!) and a Valkyrie (one lascannon, many missiles) and have it a pretty simple paint job. I liked the idea of it being a plain grey workhorse of an aircraft, but, since it's Krieg (or more accurately, it's GW) I added skulls.

Plane!

Oh, hello lascannons

Magnetised weapon options. Note, more lascannons.

And a close up of the bloat drone on the base

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game (Completed)

3. Make a modular piece of terrain- DONE!
Ok so an admission for this one- I had one plan for what I was going to do for this one, and then one of our group got himself a resin 3d printer. And printed me a Valkyrie, and some Imperial Guard in 6mm. But the Valkyrie broke on the tail.

So.... combine the two and you have a cool little piece of terrain!

Bit of a difference to the one pictured up above! Also note the few dead cadians beside it.... 3d printing is so cool

Splat.....

Suffice to say, we are all incredibly impressed by the capability of the 3d printer, and are now all plotting and scheming how we can best use it in different projects!

4. Paint a naval fleet (Completed)

5. Finish something for an army I haven't used in a year, and take it to a tournament (Completed)

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it (Completed)
This one was a total magpie purchase by me. Games Workshop selling a 40k aerial dogfighting game? Yea, that sounds like me.

So naturally I bought the Aeronautica Imperialis starter box, and managed to get it all painted up too! Getting these painted corresponded with me having more of a play with contrast paints, so the core paint colours on both the Imperials and the Orks were done by contrast.

I haven't managed a game yet, but the wider crew love it (there is much noise when the games are played) which can only be a good thing (unless you are playing a super serious game nearby on a club day....)

Purple Imperials

Orange Orks

7. Paint every miniature for a game I own (Completed)

8. Paint a Space Marine Hero each month (On track)
Ugh. I am feeling quite sick of painting Storm Lords. Maybe I should't have painted as many of them last month?

Regardless, another Space Marine, this time he has a flamer! This finishes up the Space Marine adventures box, which reminds me that I should actually look at that game now and see what it is like. And it leaves just one more month for me to paint Storm Lords, which I am really excited by, because I am bored of painting Storm Lords.

9. Paint a stand alone force (Completed)
Hey look, it's a greek army! I have always liked the look of a Greek army, and this represents the.... fourth? time I have attempted to make a 28mm Greek army. Every other time I have painted a few things, maybe a base or two, and then become immensely demotivated at the prospect of finishing up another 60+ Hoplites.

This army is based for the Mortal Gods ruleset produced by Footsore Miniatures. It's a pseudo-skirmish ruleset, based around individual units, as well as unit bases of 3 models. We have now played a few games of it, and while I don't think we quite got the points value right, it feels like a game which we are going to enjoy playing. And that's even before you mention the upcoming Mythic rules adaptation....

The force is an Athenian one, so naturally the Little Big Man Studios shield transfers I used all had to be nautical themed! This one was almost not done in time for the end of November, I was a bit late in ordering the shield transfers, but the magic of the postal system came through for me!

The phalanx of hoplites. LBMS shield transfers are AWESOME

The heroes and single characters of the force

Skirmishers with javelins

Skirmishers with Slings, and Athenian Marines with bows

One of my generals hanging out in the half finished temple

10. Update and improve a table of terrain (Completed)

11. Paint something Napoleonic (In progress)
Remember how last month I was like "I might buy ships. Ships could be cool".

Yea.... I may have bought a French fleet for Black Sails.

Boats!

I am going to do rigging on them, because it looks so flipping good and I've got a good number more to finish em up next month....

12. Finish something I should have last year (Completed)

Mortywatch!
And saving the best for last.

MORTY IS FINISHED.

Here he is in all his glory!

What a cute and cuddly face....

Wings!

Next month? Jeepers, I had better finish up my Krieg, another Space Marine and those Napoleonic French ships..... Beyond that? Who knows!