Kasrkin! Ho!

 So it's been a couple of weeks and I have managed to do a couple of things.

Kasrkin!

I've finally finished this squad after far too long having it sitting around waiting for attention.  How long? I found a photo on my phone when I assembled the Sergeant. In 2018. Eesh. 

This one goes in the class of great GW multipart kits. The poses are excellent, the options for building cool stuff like the aiming guy, the prepping to go round a corner guy and even enough poses to mean that I didn't have to build the two plasma gunners looking the same. I've gone with a simpler palette, in some respects, from the rest of my Cadians and elected not to go ham on the armour trim. We don't need camouflage in the Kasrkin Corps. Straight green is real mans camo. Pleased to have them finished for playing some more Boarding Actions too.

Boarding Actions

Speaking of Boarding Actions, assorted highlights from my first two games of Boarding Action. First off, my Guardsmen took on Scotty's Imperial Fist scouts and their Bladeguard escort. 

I learned early on that playing Guard in Boarding Actions is going to involve a certain amount of challenge in unpacking and making best use of both Orders and Voxcasters to really play to their strengths. The new Cadian units are really effective though with two special weapons the combo of their Born Soldiers and Shock Troopers rules help with the confined spaces.

Scotty won the match in the end as his scouts got to a couple of objectives way quicker than I could and while Bullgryns absolutely flatten Phobos Marines, I was too far behind to catch up.

 We played a second game, pitting my valiant Cadians against some rascally daemons of Khorne and Tzeentch, a most unholy pairing.

This one was both easier, because lasguns heck up daemons and less easy because Scotty kept passing his blasted daemon saves. But my Kasrkin and their Commissar bravely charged a bunch of Bloodletters and forced them to stay in their deployment zone...

...while my Bullgryn went down in a hail of Flames as it turns out 2+ saves don't really hold up against quite that many attacks. I think I won this one in the end by virtue of hemming the daemons into their side of the board with a lot of bodies.

Next Time

I'm going to finally get to work on finishing my Renaissance Spanish. 

Workbench....

 Bit of a miscellany of 28mm stuff for the last few weeks:

Lets start with a callback. Blogger Scotty has convinced a bunch of us to give the new 40K Boarding Actions a go (alongside giving the second edition of Kill Team a punt) and so I've dug out my Imperial Guard and are bringing them up to date to get into both of these. The new codex (Shocked? Me? No.) has removed heavy weapon teams from Cadian squads so I've managed to cobble together enough spare models with a rapidly approaching out-of-production Command Squad box and my bits box to make up the necessary bits. 

I've added three new special weapon troopers, the same again in regular troopers, a new model to the Command Squad (and noting that, even with new codex blergh vibes, I love the design choice to make the Command Squad an HQ unit with the officer built in) and, off to one side, a Cadian with a Needle Rifle because you can have that in Kill Team, but not in 40K! 

Secondly, I painted a unit of Bullgryns, completing my collection of Imperial Permitted Abhumans (alongside my Ratlings and Imperial Beastmen!): 

These are some of the BEST models GW has in the Imperial Guard range. I have a soft spot for the metal Ogryns that came out in 2e but I don't love the plastic Ogryns in this kit. I do, however, love the Bullgryns. The tracklink armour, jerry cans as water bottles and the sheer mass filling out the volume really gives away the sense of scale of these chonky bois. 

I took them out for a run in a Boarding Action at our last club day but I'll save the thoughts on that for next week!

I'm also working on my fourth to last (!) unpainted Underworlds Warband, The Dread Pageant. 

I'm enjoying building the palette on this one. I'm borrowing pretty heavily from stock but then tinkering moreso than usual when I do that and I like where it's going. This one looks like a really curly one to run as the models in it seem to want to hover between alive and dead for as long as possible. Should be a really interesting challenge to run. 

Next Time

My finished Kasrkin and some thoughts on Boarding Actions as a way to play 40K.

Pooch's January 2023 update

Well, here we are, the first progress post of 2023!

The perks of starting with a bit of leave means that I have made some great progress on all five of my objectives. Will this level of progress be maintained? Absolutely not!

1. Paint a platoon for Flames of War

Starting the year off with a quintessential German unit, an armoured panzergrenadier platoon for my Afrika Korps force.

The models completed this month are an add on to those previously finished- so I actually painted up three new bases of infantry, as well as the awesome plastic 251 halftracks from Battlefront Miniatures.

Not much to say about them except that I continue to be really happy with how the DAK are coming together, and I love how massive this army is becoming!

The full platoon is quite large!

Worn and weathered halftracks, I especially like the crew figures to finish them off

Next up for this category? Might be onto the US to create my army for Valleycon.....

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

First up in this category is no less than two Warhammer Underworlds Warbands, both of Stormcast Eternals. I took them each out for a game and they were..... not great. 

At least they looked cool with their Canny Miniatures bases right?

Farstriders

Steelheart's Champions

And second up in this category is my first Marvel Crisis Protocol miniature for the year. I have a vauge plan to finish up one a month, just to try and work through the back log of miniatures I have sitting there.

But first, Heimdall!

Looking menacing and awesome!

The rainbow bridge effect was created by playing with Contrast paints

But wait there is more! Thirdly in this category is a whole mess load of Thirty Years War Germans, for my Imperial German Army for ADLG-R. These have been in my "to do" pile for a good while, and over the Christmas break I genuinely put in a bunch of effort to make sure that I painted all of the models I had for this army. 

Everything that I finished this month, which included....

...two bases of Late Pike and Shot, with regimental guns....

...two more bases of Late Pike and Shot with regimental guns....

...three bases of Croat Cavalry...

...and two bases of Commanded Shot tokens!

Naturally, now that I have painted all of the models I have for the army, I have now ordered the last of the models from Khurasan to finish the army off!

3. Finish up a piece of terrain

Terrain this month is two Wild West Buildings from 4ground, part of a large order I picked up at the start of last year, that arrived very recently.

The part assembled buildings are some of my favourite from the range!

Only the first floor of Rogan's Bar is new

Sadly for me they had changed the colour of the green they used for Rogan's bar, meaning that when I was adding on just the first floor, it looked just a bit daft. Cue a repaint, and it is now looking great!

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

The game this month is our rescheduled Remember December event, with a group of us getting together to play games of Late War Flames of War, and reflect on our good friend Nick.

I brought along my 82nd Airborne paras, who were really solid. The British Shermans were largely ornamental, and I think I would have been better served in every game with US Shermans or M10s. They looked brilliant tho, so that was a win!

Jagdtigers looking brilliant

Until one Jagdtiger got itself killed by a Para bazooka in assault!

This Jeep was hit by a 128mm shell from a Jagdtiger

My Para HQ walking away after killing two Panzer IVs (or more, capturing them)

This was the Shermans not being ornamental

Defensive position of Paras!

Nick's Staghounds, well run by Bob

All in all, it was a great competition. Timing of games was challenging, 85 points of Late War in an hour in a half encourages some very fast play! 

On reflection, I should really have run tanks, but I can remedy that for the next competition!

5. Paint a Hundred Years War French Army for ADLG

And here we go on a brand new ADLG army! I didn't manage to get the light right for the photos, so I'll have to do a bit better on that front in February.

Paint one base for ADLG

I am not sure what basing I will use for the army yet (that will wait until I have finished a few more bases so I can do them all at the same time), so for now we have six foot knights, which were a great way to start getting my head into heraldry!

The first three, including "ugly rugby jersey" in the middle there.....

And three more to complete the whole base

Next up? Crossbowmen I think....

Paint one Knight for ADLG

And the first knight has been completed too. I deliberately chose a complicated-ish heraldry, I'm going to be challenging myself to get even better at painting it over the year!

Stripey lance? Weird Heraldry? Perfection

And that's it, on to February!

Pooch

Many pew!

 Been a bit of a quiet week on the hobby time front but I had some time to poke around with my paints and get my winter German SPAA done:

Ostwinds

Wirbelwinds

I really like these kits and I remain impressed that the sprue design made both turret sets and there were 24 crew models in the box to enable all the turrets to be crewed. Also, for anyone who ever assembled a Battlefront metal 2cm flakvierling these are an absolute pleasure. I might have used some words as I made decisions about assembly order but that's my fault! 

So now it's a case of digging out a fourth Jagdpanther and then it's all on! 

Next Time

I think a bit more painting time might be in my future so something else from the backlog.

Mostly fighting, not a lot of withdrawl

 Blogger Pel and I played a game of Flames as a bit of a test for our club convention later in the year where we'll be playing 111-point Late War. His list was an extended 100 point list of Comets and Paras and mine was a rapidly-revised-I-liked-the-other-version-better-but-I-haven't-painted-the-bits-yet Volksgrenadier build.

Turn one, in which I passed one 3+ roll and it was the least useful one to pass. Everything failed to Rally, despite Siegfried Moldenhauer being carefully placed to make this as easy as possible (which made me sad as there was this Para Engineer platoon loitering in the open and I have assault rifles!!) 

I popped my Brigade Panthers out of Ambush on my first turn and took a janky shot at Pel's HQ. Six shots, 2 hits on 6s. YAY! I thought. One penetrate, one glancing hit and I passed a 3+ roll on the glance to bail both tanks. GRRR.... 

I was a bit salty but, as it turns out, both our dice on this flank made this whole thing much harder.

By Pel's second turn he was aggressively threatening the left hand objective and I was not....feeling good about how this was going.

And of course my cunning plan (which involved rolling 3+ just one time again) did not come off! The Comets took out the one Panther that failed to Cross in the wood and the Paras went into the first Assault Platoon and actually, it was a surprisingly good fight - the Volksgrenadiers acquitted themselves well, but not well enough to see off the Paras. The Engineers took the top of the hill to prepare to assault my second platoon. Pel's dice caught up with him here and six Comets failed to remove one of the Brigade Panthers.

I failed to Rally the Assault Platoon (AGAIN) and so the Engineers lived a turn but the Brigade Panther remounted (!) and the radical redeployment of the Jagdpanthers continued, vexed by my stupid minefield placement. I kept Pel's 6pdrs occupied while I did it and advanced the Rifle Platoon to protect the flanks of the Jagds.

By the next turn, Pel had removed a Jagdpanther (for the cost of a Chaffee. Seems deece.) and my Rifle Platoon had NOT removed the Chaffees because hitting things on the move with a Panzerfaust is reasonably challenging and then I missed in the assault. Completely. But with no Moldenhauer in sight, not super surprising. For my accounting though, the Assault Platoon shot the Engineers out of existence, a Jagdpanther shot a Comet (YAY!) and the Para HQ repelled an assault by the Assault Platoon with five hits out of six. Sten Teams, yeah! The Jagdpanthers, amazingly, rolled over them instead. It wasn't altogether bad and I was starting to think this might be salvageable.

In his turn, Pel bailed a Panther and a Jagdpanther and destroyed three of my four PaK40s. It wasn't pretty. And then...

...the start of my next turn was where we called the game. I failed to remount or unpin literally anything and then failed Last Man Standing Tests for the last Jagdpanther, the last Brigade Panther and the last PaK40 leaving me with a pinned Assault Platoon (because of course I didn't unpin!) and a way out of position Rifle Platoon. If I'd unpinned, I'd have forced Pel's remnant Paras off the Objective but there were still 6 Comets there and I'd have been out in the wind at that point and unlikely to live...

Lessons? 

I need to deploy better and really learn to be better at minefields! Those Jagds were completely out of position for too much of the game and honestly, Comets are a bit scary. Real Panthers might have been okay in a 3 vs 8 fight but not Brigade ones. Pel deserves lots of credit for some very good use of smoke too to neutralise my PaK40s so effectively as well. This list is a bit of a hackjob and it needs work. Some recent list-building changes by Battlefront have created some challenges for me in building the list, notably with it's supports, so I need to give it a bit of a rethink.

Next Time

Maybe some painting? If not, it'll be a runthrough of our clubs postponed 2022-year-end event and how that goes!!

McZ's Recap and Plans for 2023

As we enter into fourth go at March 2020, it's always fun to reflect back on what got done in our third attempt. I really did paint and play all sorts of stuff - more Flames than anything else, I think, but also ADLG, Seven Days, Star Wars Legion, Warhammer Underworlds, Warmachine Mark IV, Silver Bayonet, Victory at Sea and goodness knows what else. It was a real mishmash and that's great!

I'm really glad we picked up Underworlds - it's a really fun game and given that we have the ability to play most of the warbands that exist in the universe so far it's been a lot of fun. It's a great little light game that, since we're only playing with Rivals decks, is much more manageable and much less serious than playing it with hardcore decks.

Like Pooch, I wish we'd made time to play more Titanicus and Necromunda but maybe those are gaps we can definitely fill in 2023. We still haven't sent our Warmasters into combat yet...

My model of the year!

What does 2023 hold?

Mostly? Finishing things before starting anything else... 

On the list of things to finish:

• a LW Jagdpanther company for Flames of War
• Some Jagdtigers for my LW Grenadiers
• My Renaissance Spanish for ADLG-R
  
• A squad of Imperial Guard Stormtroopers
• Half a dozen Necromunda models
  
• A miscellany of 28mm models for Silver Bayonet, Draculas America, DnD and various other things
  

 Anything new? 

They say that history repeats and I have rather enjoyed McBeth, Pooch, Scotty and clubmate BB talking about 100 Years War as an excuse for a new 28mm ADLG army and poking through the book at other armies of the period, I am sorely tempted by Low Countries. It was the second army I did in 15mm way back when I played DBM and I think I'd like another go at it. I've even dug out the original flag files from 20 years ago and while I'd have to draw and hand-paint them (as they're very pixellated...) I reckon that could be a lot of fun.

Secondly, I'm going to try two new games in '23 - Kill Team and Xenos Rampant. 40K has become too bloated and too changeable for me to keep up with (curse this perpetual magpie-ism!!) and I'm not inclined for the competitive scene which would make me keep up BUT I have all these models and I think I'd like to use them. Kill Team just looks like a lot of fun and will fill that same role as Underworlds as a quick game that can get a few run throughs in gaming time. XR looks like a solid, 2nd-edition-40K-sized game as well that would allow me to really just enjoy painting and playing with cool models and not worrying about codex-creep and more special rules than I can follow.

What else am I looking forward to? 

At some point in '23 I'll be running a DnD campaign for my nerd friends that takes place in one of my three favourite DnD settings, Spelljammer (we've done Ravenloft and one day, one day we'll get to Dark Sun)! It'll slot into where we are at with Storm Kings Thunder weirdly nicely and I'm really looking forward to the motley crew getting completely baffled by ships in space. 

But also with an ounce of pragmatism

There's a lot of changes at Casa del McZ at the mo and I've decided that despite managing to post a blog almost every week since 2018 (when I started painting my AC-130 for TY), I might have to let a few slide in the next few weeks just because I have other commitments and that's okay. 

Next Time

Something - it might even be worth the wait. 

Pooch's 2022 recap, and plan for 2023....

Well, 2022 is now done. And that was.... a year.

Before we get into the plan for 2023, some reflections on the year.

Recap of 2022

What am I happiest I painted or played?

I think this has to go to the two tables of terrain I finished, one for Silver Bayonet and one for 28mm moderns. Both included new techniques, lots of creativity and effort to get done, and coming from someone who hasn't really liked doing terrain in the past, it was great to actually be excited about making them!

My progress on the DAK would have to be the best miniatures I have painted this year...

It's quite a lot of desert yellow- and far from everything I own!

What am I proudest to have painted?

Tough question, I mean, I'm stoked with the airbrush painting on the terrain, the fact that I have actually finished a bunch of things, and have generally managed to make solid progress on a number of fronts, but I think the models I am happiest with are actually the 15mm Shermans, because they involved a lot of different techniques that worked out really, really well on those models.

What game did I enjoy the most?

Now this is an unanswerable question. Silver Bayonet? Warhammer Underworlds? good ol' Flames?

What did I miss out on in 2022?

I think this would go to the games that I didn't manage to play this year (like Titanicus, or Necromunda, etc etc), and for only having played one game of Marvel Crisis Protocol. It was super duper fun, and I'm looking forward to playing more of that in 2023!

And from a painting perspective… it’s not like the pile of "to paint" has gotten any smaller in 2022 I think....

Plan for 2023

Alrighty, so what's the plan for 2023 then? Well, mostly consistent with 2022 as it turns out. 

So for each month, I am going to set myself the challenge to finish:

1. Paint a platoon for Flames of War

I have still got more DAK to finish, but I also have my late war US tanks which need to be painted too.

And then who knows?

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

This worked out pretty well last year as a goal, so I will maintain it for this year. If only to keep working through my excessive backlog!

ADLG-R, more Warhammer Underworlds, and maybe a Marvel Crisis Protocol miniature each month? Who knows! 

3. Finish up a piece of terrain

This was probably the most influential goal I made last year, and so I am committed to keeping it up! 

In terms of what to expect, I have a bunch of 4ground Wild West terrain, plus a whole 15mm Vietnam table to do..... so we will see!

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

Keeping this one as is, because it's a great goal to have! 

5. Paint a Hundred Years War French Army for ADLG

So the genuinely new goal for the year. I would like to paint up a Hundred Years War French army, using the brilliant miniatures from Perry Miniatures. I'm going to go pretty stereotypical for them, so expect to see Crossbowmen, heavy knights, peasants and of course, Joan of Arc!

So cool!

Now, to make it easy on myself, and to encourage myself to do my best painting, I'll split this big goal into two sub-goals, namely:

1. Paint one base for ADLG- doesn't matter what kind, but matters that the base gets painted!
2. Paint one Knight for ADLG- just one, but this should keep me from going insane from painting fleur-de-lys, and encouraging me to give it my best painting effort!

So there you have it, the goals for 2023 are now set, I'd better get cracking!

GET. PAINTING.

Pooch

Pooch's December update

 Ok. So November is now done too? This is REALLY ridiculous now. But at least this blog is on time?

With one month left to go, how have I gotten on?

1. Paint a platoon of DAK each month

Not one, but THREE platoons this month! 

First up is a platoon of anti-tank guns. These guns are meant to have four crew per base, but I couldn't get them to fit nicely, so instead opted to have three crew per base, which also meant that I had the spare crew to make up a fourth gun crew, who are crewing a captured 6-pdr anti-tank gun!

Secondly I have finished up three mortars, meaning that I now have a platoon of 4. Why do I have a platoon of 4? Well, should I want to run my DAK as grenadiers/panzergrenadiers I now have a cheap artillery unit, and also to help Early War-proof my army.

Four 81mm Mortars, looking cool

And lastly we have an extra command base, and a transport to make up a Company HQ for a DAK infantry company. The transport is an AEC Dorchester command vehicle, Rommel had captured one and drove around in it for a while, naming it 'Mammut'. The Dorchester, and Rommel both came from a tournament objective from like.... 10 years ago that I found in a box! 

Perfect for a Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier HQ!

I'm really happy with how the worn style of my DAK translated into the more yellow tones of the British desert colour scheme- it might be the encouragement to grab another couple of tanks to be captured vehicles- but not a whole British army!

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

I finished up a couple more Adeptus Sororitas, this time a Canoness and a Repentia Sister Superior from the Combat Patrol box. I really didn't get into a good zone with painting them. Maybe 2023 will be better?

Photographing white is worse than painting white

When looking at the warbands for Warhammer Underworlds, it was only right that I got my hands on Zarbag's Gitz, the goblin warband. So when one came up on our local buy/sell page, it was a very easy task to pick them up! One quick paintjob later, we have some awesome looking goblins, ready to explore/loot/fight/run away....

It's a HUGE warband

You can't have a goblin warband without a fanatic!

3. Finish up a table of terrain

So the last piece of terrain I have finished is yet another piece of terrain for my Silver Bayonet table, this time a gatehouse. I picked it up as an MDF kit from a local seller, then added sandpaper to add a bit more texture and put some cardstock onto the roof to match the other buildings I have for my Silver Bayonet table. Airbrush on some paint, bit of contrast on the wood, then add some moss and voila, another building!

I do like the effect of the airbrush on the buildings

Need some moss remover.....

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

So I have had a secret project for more than a year now, namely to paint up a bunch of miniatures for Marvel Crisis Protocol. I've painted up a bunch of characters for it, and of course you know that 3x3 city table that I have been painting throughout the year, using those awesome buildings Potbelly had printed for me? This is what for!

Pel and I managed to get our first game in, and it was a blast! It had a really comic book feel, in all of the right sort of ways. In fact, it was so good that I mostly failed to get any good photos. Sorry!

Red Skull taking a nice walk in the park

Ultron vs Captain Marvel!

This will definitely be a game we play more of!

5. Paint a new historical army

I forced myself to hop back onto the freight train that is my ADLG-R army, this time painting up one pack of Musketeers from Khurasan Miniatures- 18 whole musketeers!

Just about 1/4 of the total number of infantry I need....

I have so, so many more to do.... Come back tomorrow for my plans for 2023!

PROGRESS IS SATISFACTORY

Pooch