Pooch's May update

So I was so late in finishing my April update, that I was actually also able to complete most of my May update at the same time... Oops.

But, on to what I painted this month!

1. Paint a platoon for Flames of War

This month I finished up some more Shermans for my Late War US Army, which included finishing up a whole lot of additional turrets to give me options for different Sherman armaments.

The finished platoon- 6 105mm Shermans, 2 were new hulls, all new turrets

The extra turret haul! 75mms, 76mms, Jumbo turrets....

I also added some mud to the last of the tanks I had previously painted too!

Snowy and muddy

And more things that I have previously painted!

More snowy and muddy!

Next up? Not sure, probably some Infantry!

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

I have a large Adeptus Sororitas army for 40k, and we have been getting back of playing both small games of 40k using the Boarding Action rules, but also playing Kill Team. Last year I bought a box of Novitiates, so that I would be able to play the specific Sororitas Kill Team, and this month I finall got them painted!

A variety of close combat weapons

More close combat weapons!

And since I had to get the airbrush out to do the white armour on the Novitiate Superior, I also finished up a sister with a flamer to use in both Kill Team and in Boarding Action too!

Burninate.

The sub-goal of "One Marvel Crisis Protocol Miniature a month" continues, with Angela to finish off all of the Asgardians I own. Which reminds me that I need to buy Beta Ray Bill....

3. Finish up a piece of terrain

Not only did I paint up a new Kill Team, I also painted a table with which to play games of Kill Team on!

I bought the Kill Zone Moroch Box, and promptly painted it up. My painting method was a couple of cans of spraypaint grey, lots of different colours for detailing, and then oil washes to bring it into a more "grimdark" feel.

The quality of the terrain is really high- it's really modular, with clever attachment points and other things to make it super useable. I especially love the 40k radar dish, it's such a lovely sci fi element. I would not be at all sad to buy some more to make up a full 40k table!

4. Play a game a month, that was different to the last month

Skirmish gaming in the 40k universe? With a massive variety of missions, unique individuals and units? And a really fun set of mechanics?

Completing the theme for the month, it's Kill Team!

You can play it indoors.....

Sisters vs Navy Breachers

Boltgun vs Shotgun!

You can play it outdoors (on my new terrain no less!)...

Icon Bearer, on a roof. 

The Novitiates advance! They are all about to be gunned down by a demonic bolter, or killed by a Powerfist....

The dastardly forces of the Emperor's Children

Novitiate Superior vs Sorceror. She did not win....

Novitiates running for terrain in the second game!

See McZ's post for more photos of the outdoor games.

Regardless of where you play it, Kill Team is a really enjoyable game with a suprisingly large amount of depth. The Sororitas and the Novitiates kill teams play really differently- while the Novitiates have a lot more unique models and interactions, they are just so much less survivable than the full Battle Sisters- who are relying on boltguns, power armour and faith to get the job done.

Oh, and flamers, meltas and various types of bolters certainly help too!

5. Paint a Hundred Years War French Army for ADLG

The slow progress on this army continues....

Paint one Knight for ADLG

Paint one base for ADLG

I finished up the first commander for the army, none other than Jeanne of Arc herself!

Perry Miniatures knocks it out of the park again with a great sculpt!

Oh, and more peasants!

Must be time for crossbowmen?

Pooch

Kill Teaming It Old School

 The day did not start well. 

We were intending to play a game of Gellerpox vs Elucidian Star Striders and it turned out Blogger Pooch had sold his Gellerpox and I opened my model case to pack the Emperors Children before club day and then forgot to put the trays with all my Guard and Star Striders back in the case.... 

Derp. 

So we decided to play Red vs Blue and I broke out the Emperors Children - using some classic 2e-era Chaos Space Marines. We definitely had the ideal deployment with a height advantage to deploy the heavy Noise Marine and a Marine wielding a Tainted Boltgun.

From this vantage point, the Noise Marine machinegunned Pooch's Penitent (because that chainsword is SCARY) in the first turn. His compatriot with a bolter rolled some stupid dice and multi-critted, deleting another Novice. Pooch attacked aggressively, wielding only autopistols he couldn't engage in a firefight!

On my right, the Aspiring Champion vaulted the wall and charged into the approaching Novices:

 

Powerfists do 7 damage on a critical hit and Novices only have 7 health. It was not pretty. I kind of stopped taking photos at this point as in the remainder of that second turn, Pooch hauled the game back hard! On my left, the Canoness absolutely middled the Balefire Acolyte into next year and the close combat warrior was flamed to death having cut things while already cutting things. On the right, having power-fisted all of Pooch's good close combat models, the Aspiring Champion was shot in the back with a plasma pistol at full power and evaporated! The Canoness went down in a hail of shells from the Noise Marine.

Pooch's last Novice ran for the hangar door objective in my drop zone in the last turn while my Noise Marine and the Emperor's Children Marine took and held the Auspex Shrine and the Vox Antenna. This left us with a final score of 8 - 6 to the Emperor's Children, largely off the back of my completing two of my Tac Ops - despoiling the Imperial Corpses and sending the Canoness to the Emperors reward. 

We played a second game and I broke out my Phobos Kill Team and promptly forgot to take any photos. It was very close - we both dropped some absolutely savage shots into each other's warband and I found the Phobos' mobility was great for keeping ahead of Pooch's Novices. I had real trouble doing meaningful damage with only bolters, despite using Bolter Discipline almost every turn. Pooch played it really well and managed to achieve his Tac Ops where I did not and won the match 6 - 2. 

Overall, I really like Kill Team. I'd love to play it out with a more complete rostering system and a narrative view of the world. 

I painted a thing!

Given Kill Team, I figured I should paint my set of barricades. Nothing flashy - just a metal drybrush, some filth wash and some rust but they're done now! I've also been finishing up assembling and priming my Breachers so they're next on the to do list. 

Next Time

Breachers! 
 

Guns and swords

 Well, sword. 

I picked up Castellan Crowe for a couple of reasons. It's a great model and also offers a chance to run a slightly different Boarding Action with my Grey Knights (which I haven't used in a game of 40K yet!):

Mostly happy, considering I painted all the other Grey Knights in one go about three years ago. I used the Ghosty technical paints on the sword, which I rather enjoyed and played around with the runes too. I  don't love how the back banner came out and I can see I'm going to need to do a bit more work on the white especially to even it up and I think the sword needs a couple of edge highlights. I've got time for that!

Since I had the gunmetal out, I decided to sort out a model that I got from blogger Pelarel. He picked up the Star Wars Legion IG expansion and knowing I was keen for an IG-88, offered me the parts so we have one IG:

Not a complicated paint job. Gunmetal, some black, some rust and some oil. That's it. Base is still TBD since I'm trying to find the notes on how to do it again. It's been a while. But now it means my TERRIBLE Star Wars Legion list, No Disintegrations, is a go. I'll look to line up a game in June and try it out.

Next Time

Blogger Pooch and I are finally going to play a game of Kill Team using the Gellerpox and the Elucidian Star Striders. How will it go? You'll have to wait till next week to find out!

Pooch's April update

And it's here! My April update! 

Only (checks watch).... nearly three weeks late.

Oops.

At least I got some painting done?

1. Paint a platoon for Flames of War

This month was a productive one for finishing up a bunch of things I needed for Valleycon, our annual club tournament.

My army for the tournament looked like this:

Many, many shermans!

I also added some mud to a few of the things I had already painted!

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

The other nerds and I have been talking a bit about our love for 40k, which is only matched by our disappointment in the current set of rules. So when we managed to have a few games of the much streamlined Boarding Action, it was a total relief to find it was not only fun, but it was also going to have a lot of the same design cues as the upcoming 10th Edition!

So that was naturally enough to make me excited to paint up some more Sororitas, this time the Special Characters Epharael Stern and her Harlequin buddy Kyganil

This solidly cured me of any visions of painting a Harlequin army

But not only that, I have been keeping up with my "One Marvel Crisis Protocol Miniature a month" sub-goal too, this time finishing up Enchantress...

Ghostly green!

3. Finish up a piece of terrain

This month I finished up some more of the awesome 3d printed Stalingrad terrain as a commission.

Pavlov's House

Train Station

4. Play a game a month, that was different to the last month

I eluded to it with the painting I had done, but I brought out the Shermans of the 761st Tank Battalion to our local tournament, Valleycon!

Overall, they were pretty excellent, the Veteran Sherman with a 76mm gun firing HVAP rounds is really good in late war. They did however blow up alot!

The downside list wise was having no infantry, it really cost me in the two games that I lost, so adding some Winter Infantry will definitely be on my future painting table.

Shermans vs Fallschrimjager!

Shermans vs Scottish Rifles

This was a very common occurence in the games....

5. Paint a Hundred Years War French Army for ADLG

The slow progress on this army continues....

Paint one Knight for ADLG

Paint one base for ADLG

Oh no, now there are more peasants!

Perhaps more.......?

Pooch

We're back bay-beeeee!

 So it's been the best part of three months since I managed to post a blog and it's been an entirely unwelcome interruption to my hobby time. Nothing magical, just buying a new house, moving and the general life disruption that comes with not having all your stuff out where you can easily get at it. But things are starting to settle and I've managed to find all the necessary bits to get started painting again.

Back to my brushes begins with this absolute gem of a model: 

This is Angrath* Evenkeel, a Minotaur Storm Sorcerer I'll be playing in an upcoming Dragonlance campaign. I was set the challenge by our DM that if I wanted to play a Minotaur, it had to be something other than MINOTAUR SMASH which presented an interesting challenge. A bit of googling and it turns out that a piratical sorcerer was very much in the offing. He's got a complicated background to account for some of my very average stat rolling and some of the quirks of a Minotaur being a sorcerer but that's part of helping tell the story.

The model is a 3D print from Artisan Studios, printed by Potbelly Miniatures and mounted on a base printed and painted by Canny Miniatures. I'm mostly pretty happy with the paintjob although I feel a lot out of practice! 

I spent a lot of time back and forthing over the robe colour and eventually settled on a linen colour after both the look of it, but also the idea of Dragonlance Minotaurs swanning about the place dressing like they're civilised despite the rest of the Dragonlance world thinking they're anything but sort of worked out for me.

Next Time

I'm working on some models for Boarding Actions in advance of the drop of 40K 10e in a few weeks so probably a few test models from my Navy Breachers, a new Grey Knight and maybe a Khornate Jackhal too! 

*I am aware I've stolen this name from Magic: The Gathering but Angrath is a great name for a Minotaur and I'm okay with that.