The end of 2021 is nigh....

So. Here we are at the end of another year. A few painting highlights for the year included getting my Spectrus Kill Team done for slowgrow; indulging in the nostalgia of Necromunda Redemptionists; and completing my last (hopefully) experience of white armour in the Scarif Beach Party as well as getting my Victory at Sea Italians done which I don't seem to have a coherent photo. 

Gaming wise, running out the Elefants out at Panzerschreck in July was great; playing Stargrave was excellent; and our first (stupid lockdowns ruining fun) 40K Slowgrow Narrative was a hoot. 

All things considered, not a bad year.

Random 28mm models

The next of the DnD models going into a wizgang is this fighter. I picked this one out as a bit of a random collection of metals. The shield is a great collection of metal, brass, bronze and silver. I kind of like it.

I can't remember where I acquired this model or what I thought I was going to do with it so I thought I'd just add it to my DnD-style Frostgrave Wizgang. 

Byzantines

I decided I'd give some of the new toys a crack to test matching them up with the old paintwork and base a few of them to get moving on that process. First off, the Greek Fire Team. It's a sweet little set with the ammo carrier, gunner and lighter. There was a fourth model in the kit but it didn't fit and was a bit generic.

Secondly, the only base of Menavlatoi has been done. This was an exercise in remembering how I did the quilted armour in the early days. Turns out it was as lazy as it looks. It's a pretty sweet base and another HI 2HW in the list won't go astray.

I also gave my existing light horse a bit of a tidy up, painting over all the superglue frosting from the many re-glues back into saddles and reattached the bows. I repainted the flesh as what I was doing back in the 2010s when I painted these the first time were not great.

And that's got me in good stead to do the second 2 bases as well. I still haven't finished the Normans though....

2022

Well, 600-odd days into March 2020 and I'm busy working out what I'm going to do for the rest of March 2020.

Flames of War

Blogger Pooch and I are going to do a "platoon a month" to work our way through our respective backlogs of 15mm Germans. I've got half a dozen greatcoat platoons to do and hoping that, by the time I've done those, the German Bulge book will be out and I'll be able to find a few more to do! Otherwise I might just finally get onto my Puma Company.

ADLG

A bunch of us have also gotten excited about ADLG Renaissance in 15mm so that'll make an appearance in 2022 and I'm pondering a second ADLG army now that Fireforge have released Almughavars so a Catalan Company might be in the offing as well.

Others

There's some new Regia Marina ships out for Victory at Sea so I'll grab a couple of them and some new planes as well. I've got some 40K and Necromunda backlog to get through and the giant pile of random 28mm models to do is still there. I'll hopefully grind through some of that over the break. 

Next Time?

The first 'platoon a month' will be underway and probably more Byzantines. A bunch of the nerds will be getting together for some New Year games and hopefully I'll snap a few fun pics there. 

Pooch's June update

Well, we are now officially over halfway through 2021. That simple fact is ridiculous!

I wasn't too bad with painting this month, managed to get a steady stream of things progressed. So what did I finish then?

1. Finish a table of terrain

In the last club day of June, we agreed that at the first club day in July, we would play some Frostgrave 2, which meant that I had a strong motivation to get more of my Frostgrave table done!

I managed to finish up another of the TT Combat packs, this time it's the Derelict Enclave:

Better picture once I finish more next month!

2. Play a game a month

I played a couple of games this month, including a Necromunda game vs McZ, where the Escher did horrible things to Cawdor....

3. Finish a 1,500 point 40k army

Well, after a very bitsy month last month, this month I did actually get a fair whack of things progressed...

Big ol' box of airbrushing done!

Shrine for the back of the Immolator!

And managed to complete a unit, my Canoness!

Inferno Pistol and Brazier of Holy Fire. Because burninate.

4. Finish armies that I have part started

Nothing new here- after finishing all of that US I haven't made a start on anything new for this goal. I've got a few different things there ready to get working on, but not sure I will get to them next month either!

5. Buy, build and play a new game

My droids are done! Two more squads of B1s, B1 commanders and the Tank completed, which means the whole army is completed now!

The tank is absolutely gigantic, and a really nice model to build and paint too. Apparently according to the internet they are more or less essential for Droid forces. Or more accurately two is apparently a meta list. I've got one, and no desire for a second!

Tank!

Pilot option 1: B1 Battle Droid

Pilot option 2: Tactical Droid (3d print from Shapeways)

One of the squads of B1s got painted as Security Droids. Because I could.... This one also has a radiation gun!

And this is everything I have painted in addition to the tank!

Couldn't resist a quick snap of the three Sith.....

And that's it, roll on July!

Progress is good, but you'd better get finishing those Sororitas!

Pooch

Pooch's February progress

Wait, where did February go?

It promised to be the most professionally challenging one that I had ever had, and it didn't disappoint. As always, painting toy soldiers was a way for me to relax and help get my head right.

So how did I get on then?

1. Finish a table of terrain

Well, I figured that finishing one piece each month would actually be the easiest way to do this goal, so... that's what I did!

I finished up the Bell Tower from TT combat. Mostly done with spray cans, I used contrast paint to provide the stained glass look (red, because of course it's red in Frostgrave).

With Anna and Elsa for scale!

Next up? More Frostgrave terrain!

2. Play a game a month

Just the one game this month, which has already been blogged. 

3. Finish a 1,500 point 40k army

This month continues on from the start I made last month, completing my first full squad of Sisters! Equipped with a meltagun and heavy flamer, they come loaded to bear to take down the mutant, the heretic and the psyker....

The whole force so far....

Close up on the Sanctum Imperialis

Meltagun. For when you want to cook things with the power of the sun but they are too big to (or unwilling to be) put in a microwave.

And I also managed to rebase and update the Pious Vorne figure, who previously saw duty in my Krieg army to be repurposed to provide some additional faith and ferver to my Sisters!

Burning things while cutting things!

Next up? Seraphim!

4. Finish armies that I have part started

I have a particularly frustrating commission on at present, as well as wanting to do my absolute best painting on the sisters. That means that I have lots of difficult things, but no easy things to paint.

The solution then? Grab something out of the pile of shame that is super easy to give myself a break!

And lo, WW2 US is the answer, because it's tough to be more boring than Olive Drab!

I finished up four of the new plastic M8 Scotts. The new plastics are awesome, except that they only come with a single crew member for the turret. So naturally I converted up a full set of crew for each, and added some stowage to give a more "lived in" feel. Overall I am happy with them, and they definitely fit the bill for being easy!

So cute with their little snub 75mm guns....

Attempting to show off the crew, plus the pink air recognition panel

I have a bunch more WW2 US to paint, so expect to see more of these in the coming months...

5. Buy, build and play a new game

Well, less dramatic than last month, but still darn useful- a squad of B1 battle droids!

Nine B1 Battle Droids. Identical in equipment to the other two squads, but some different poses in there.

So that means I have a legal list, but probably not very good. The solution is likely more droids....

Progress on every objective? Excellent... the eye is pleased....

Pooch

A little painting and progress

 It's been a fairly hectic couple of weeks and I haven't had much of an inclination to paint all that much but with a bit of quiet time in between a weekend of yardwork, I've finished up a couple of models.

The first was  a Nighthaunt Lord Executioner:

The Lord Executioner

 

He'll step in for the Dreamhunter or the Fleshripper Large Infantry heroes in my Nightstalkers army in Kings of War. I do need to find a 20mm washer of some sort to glue under the base as while this is perfectly balanced on the base, the slightest wobble and he's over.

While this was getting done, I base-coated the Knight of Shrouds too. It's not a model I should have assembled before painting. Mistakes were made. But the base coats are down and I'll be working on him while I ponder the next step in Ghostie-army development. I've got some ideas on some Ghostie things to work on over the Christmas break.

The other model I started on was one I fished out of the Drawer of Shame realising that it'll be the second model in my new Oops, All Humans Frostgrave warband:

Pew Pew!

I honestly don't know where this model came from. It's a Reaper model, I think. I suspect I picked it up to be a DnD Ranger of some sort (there's a double-handed sword strapped to the back of the pavise) but I just loved the idea of a model in plate armour with a crossbow. He'll go into the Frostgrave warband as a Marksman.

Pooch has hooked me up with an excellent model who will serve as an apprentice to Saskia Waldlaufer, my very barbarian wizard and painting up this guy has got me enthused about the idea of a really motley collection of mercenaries to be their warband. Reaper is definitely going to be a port of call on this particular quest although there are a few others I like the look of too.

Next Time

More Gaslands! I've got a bit of a plan to try and batrep a Gaslands race. I'm not super confident it's going to work but I'll give it a blat. I'm going to start a bit of a hunt for the rest of the models I'd like to use in this new Frostgrave wizgang. I'm hoping for a real mish-mash of nonsense! I'm also rebuilding a few of my 40K Deathwatch Veterans with the new codex while preparing for some small scale campaign stupidity in 2021! 

I fought the claw...

 

...and the Claw won!  

Proud dad joke moment or not. Not sure. Anyway, Bloggers Tank, Pel and I played a game of the new second edition of Frostgrave just to see how it went. It went well for me (apparently rolling high on d20s is my special skill. Great for DnD & Frostgrave, trash for Infinity) and less well for Tank whose dice were really just not on fire. 

We played the scenario in which there are five treasures, one of which is a Genie. Each time a treasure is grabbed, we check if it's the genie and if so, it comes out and wreaks merry hell. 

The Chronomancer's minions head into battle!

All three wizgangs advanced rapidly to the centre of the board - Tank's Summoner leapt one of his warriors onto a treasure and Pel's Chronomancer teleported onto one himself.

The Undead stare down the teleporting Chronomancer

The Necromancer's apprentice attempted to stop the leaping soldier but utterly failed. His master, on the other hand, summoned claws of bone to grab the Chronomancer. And then we went into a period of failing to cast a darn thing!

The Chronomancer's wizgang meet the Summoner's wizgang

The Chronomancer spent a couple of turns trying unsuccessfully to teleport out of the grip of the claws while his troops and the Summoner's troops got into a massive scrap in the middle of the board. You can see in the photo above a Thug trying to free the Chronomancer by fighting the claws. Let's just say it did not go well for the Thug.

The Summoner summoned an Imp to the battlefield to defend himself and his apprentice but it, and one of his warhounds, were savaged by a couple of Thugs from the Chronomancer's wizgang. Tank's dice at this point were just abominable. There were odd highlights (and at least one natural 20) but they never really came good. 

 The Undead arrived in the middle of the board and over a couple of turns most of the soldiers fell in battle. The Undead cut down both the Chronomancer and his apprentice (since the Chronomancer never managed to escape from the claw!) but his soldiers felled most of the troops from the Summoner's wizgang.

Hilariously, the last treasure to be grabbed, the bottle, contained the genie! The Necromancer's apprentice opened the bottle, the genie appeared, looked around and promptly disintegrated the foolish apprentice to end the game!

The end state...

Post-game thoughts

So one game in to the new edition and the changes we ran across seemed really good:

• The new treasure token setup and table setup rules work really well.
• List building for a starter wizgang (see here for definition!) was HARD. I forgot the change to standard and specialist soldiers but it didn't matter as all three wizgangs still bulked out on Thieves and Thugs.
  
• A lot of the spell changes seem really solid - we ran through Leap yesterday and didn't find it too heinous - and the change to a minimum resist number was super relevant. 
• I cast six of the eight spells I chose and failed on the seventh. Super pleased with that. Casting a debuff was worth doing rather than just an attack spell. Great! 
  
• The maximum range for shoots and spells didn't really come up but I like that it's there, especially for Elemental Bolt. 
  

We didn't get to being able to do the post game as it was late but my initial read through of the dial-back on monetary rewards seems really nice and, combined with the changes to wizgang structure, seem like it'll be a lot less likely to have one player scream out ahead with more money and advantage.

 Some Painting!

I finished up the second base of Grimghast Reapers for Kings of War:

More Reapers

 

This one was a tougher painting effort as the selection of models for this base were a lot slimmer and getting paint onto the interiors wasn't as easy as I would have liked. But I'm happy enough with the outcome and all together they look pretty neat: 

Boo 2 - Electric Boogaloo

Necromunda Highlight Photo

Blogger Tank and I also played a game of Necromunda with Blogger Pel at the club - his first outing with his Orlocks. We played the Gang Moot scenario in which our leaders arrived to parlay and then it all kicks off. I didn't take a heap of photos but I loved the posing of these two models.

Tank's Delaque ganger charged into Pel's Ganger and backed him up to the edge of the platform. After a couple of rounds of handbags, Pel's ganger happily gunned down the poor Delaque. He did the same thing to my ganger with the big hammer too!

 Next Time

Honestly? No idea. There's loads of half done stuff sitting on my bench at the mo and I'm not really sure what I want to do. It'll be something from the rapidly decreasing pile by my painting desk. I've kind of lined up a Christmas break project but other than that it's all very bitsy. 

 

Pooch's April Update

Wow, April was LOONY. Lockdown, work was crazy, working from home and everything else that was going on.

And I am massively delayed in getting this blog post up, so sorry for that. But, I did lots of painting and preparation, so that makes up for it right?

1. Paint a Kings of War Army- In progress!
This month was pretty monumental in making progress onto finishing the goblins. Excitingly, this month also was the start of me basing them too. I used one of the Green Stuff world rollers, and a variety of other pieces to make the bases.

I am ridiculously happy with the finished product, here is my first legion of Goblins.:

The legion base, fully painted.

The base, loaded with Goblins

Close up on the 3d printed Dwarf statue

More pictures next month, when I have hopefully finished the whole army......

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

No progress, I looked at the packets of terrain I had to build, and then promptly put it at the bottom of the queue. I bought some more stuff to add to it tho.... so that counts as progress?

3. Complete the 6mm Apocalypse Challenge- In progress!
Well, another month, and again, I finished up the 6mm in the first few days. I mean, finishing it on day 3 was slow for me!

This month it is 3 Leman Russ, a third Hellhound, a Salamander Scout Vehicle (converted from a spare hull, and 3d printed crew), and a base of Rough Riders (who are ABSOLUTE TRASH).

This month's painting, I have been sure to remember to put them all in this time!

Close up of my converted Salamander Scout Vehicle

Oh, and I repainted the Valkyrie objective, and finished up a wrecked Warlord Titan head from Adeptus Titanicus!

And that's 200 PL of Imperial Guard!

But then McZ said "why don't we just paint another 50 PL? And so I did:

"It's a Baneblade!"

4. Run a narrative campaign for the group

Planning is well underway, but the whole lockdown thing means that no progress so far.

5. Add a new detachment to one of my 40k armies (In progress!)

Add to the Death Guard? Nope!

Add to the Krieg? Nope!

Add to the Storm Lords? Absolutely.

And here is the first model completed for it, a Space Marine Lieutenant. Made from a spare Space Marine hero, with parts out of my bits box. And a beaky helmet, because it is known that they are the coolest. It's missing a tuft from the base, but I am short on stock (and can't remember which tuft it is that I need to order!)

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it

Nothing further here, I haven't seen a starter box that tempts me. Any ideas?


7. Paint a Space Marine Heroes Series (In progress)

Wait, more progress here too? I managed to get my hands on 8 of the Space Marine Heroes Series 3 blind boxes, in the hope that I would get one of each of the six different variant models. I got 5 of the 6. Damnit!

Still, I painted the 5 I did get, while I wait for the 6th to arrive from eBay....

The completed 5- more yellowy in this photo than in person!

Nurgling along for the ride doing some flailing

8. Update a 15mm Napoleonic army for Blackpowder

Nothing further here.... Not even the lockdown could make me start this one yet!

9. Paint a stand alone force- DONE (again)

I have two young kids, therefore Frozen is a feature of my household. Last year I bought myself some figures to make a Frostgrave warband, loosely based off the movie Frozen. And in lockdown, I finally actually did something about it!

The whole warband!

The infantry- Fireforge Scandianvians

The unique infantry- Priest, Marksman, Ranger, Barbarian, Thief. All potential RPG characters for me, who have now found a home!

The main characters, and two very large dogs!

Elsa and Anna, who got a new ice sword to match the one she got in the second movie.

And Olaf, in the sculpting stage

And painted!

10. Update and improve a table of terrain- DONE

The Wild West town of Whisper Creek has slowly been expanding over the past couple of years as I add more and more of the exceptional 4ground models into my collection. At the start of lockdown I had a bunch of boxes of kits staring at me, and they had been staring at me for the better part of a year (if not two!), so over Easter I built everything I had to do for my Wild West town!

Here are some snapshots of two of the most impressive parts of that, the Sassy Gal Saloon, and the passenger train.

Three stories of awesome

Leadlight windows!

Interior detail!

Stairs!

Yes, you can do circles in laser cut MDF!

This is a big locomotive, and was a complex build

Carriages!

I will be getting all of this out onto the table for the narrative campaign (whenever we are both able to run it, and can schedule it in!), so will make sure to have some much better pictures then.

11. Paint a Flames of War Army (In progress)

A short update on my US paras. Basically it amounts to SIX new infantry stands painted. Not exactly monumental, but progress none the less. The issue is waiting for more models to arrive!

No new picture, because they look EXACTLY the same as the ones you saw last month....

12. Finish what I should have finished last year- DONE (again)

This one is some more 15mm vehicles, 3 Panthers in fact which I was meant to have done for the DDay game we had last year. Nice and simple!

And that's it, May will be equally big, I promise!

Pooch

Remember to wash your hands, Morty is watching.....