Pooch's March- wait, what do you mean we are a quarter done?

So, here we are. Already a quarter done in the year, which I have not yet come to terms with. My progress towards my goals has continued well however, and it's probably about time I painted something for myself that wasn't a Tyranid....

1. Paint something bought before 2024

Tada! Look, it's not a Tyranid!

The Wurmspat are the last Warhammer Underworlds warband that I own, themed all around the gifts of Grandfather Nurgle. I decided to paint these as a palatte cleaners, I was getting really sick of the tyranid colour scheme, and a big commission that I had been completed. I just needed somethign that was small, contained and would be a chance to use a bunch of colours that I hadn't been using.

The three Wurmspat

So much tiny detail!

The first close up....

The second close up....

The third close up....

But not only that, over the Easter weekend I got my airbrush out and finished off some DAK tanks for the first time in..... months. This was to make sure I had the tank options that a friend needed when they borrow the army for an upcoming tournament.

Two Tigers, looking swish in the weathered desert scheme

One of them brought a Panzer III along as a buddy!

And two StuG D for good measure

The Tigers and Panzer III come from Battlefront Miniatures, the StuG Ds come from Zvezda.

2. Paint something bought in 2024

You didn't really think I was going to not paint Tyranids this month right? 

The Harpy. Such a great model, so very bad in the game

I'm super happy with how the wings have worked out on this!

More Barbgaunts!

Even more Barbgaunts!

Trygon!

Back of Trygon!

Norn Emissary

"Do you have a moment to talk about the Great Devourer"

I'm VERY close to the 2,000 point list that I'll be running at Valleycon in a month or so (eeek!) 

3. Play a game of 40k each month

I managed a couple of games this month- it saw the Tyranids fighting the combined forces of the Black Templars and Imperial Knights....

Canis Rex killed many, many bugs

But once the Psychophage peeled back the armoured shell, Sir Hektur didn't last long....

And then the Tyranids decided to munch on some living metal Necrons....

The Norn spreading the good news

Many Necrons!

Imhotek the Stormlord got eaten by a Psychophage. Nom nom nom

The extra special bit about fighting the Necrons was that the army was painted up by McB and I, meaning that this game was the first time they had ever been used, and was a great way to share the brand new army with the person who commissioned it!

Plus, I'd never played vs Necrons before, so it was a blast!

4. Play a game of not-40k each month

The initial plan for this was to play Underworlds, but timing didn't work. So instead, over the Easter weekend the kids and I played Gaslands! 

The kids did some extra paint jobs to some Gaslands cars I had already completed, and we played a slightly simplified (but admittedly not by much) version of the game.

The cars racing!

Missile vs Police Car was.... unfortunate for my police car.....

And that's it, on to April. Yes, April will still have more Tyranids...

Pooch

Workbench Greeks

 Progress once again rolls along for my Mycenaeans. 

Fist big job? Add the cowhides to the outside of my Impact chariots. Blogger McBeth made the recommendation after my umming and ahhing about it to do it and, given he's a very good painter (see his and Blogger Pooch's work at Staghound Gardens), I have done so and it is awesome: 

I like the pop of brightness in amongst the otherwise tan base coat of the wider army. It's definitely given me the nudge to do it for the spear bases and the second set of chariots. It keeps the Mycenaean / Minoan / Achaean bits together while the multi-coloured shields belong to Myrmidons and other similar lunatics!

I've also started work on the Medium Spear and, having done the first couple of sets of cowhide shields, I love how these are coming out:

This is the first three bases in various stages of done and the second three are in the primer. I like the way the looser formations are coming out - it makes them still visibly Spear but very much looser order than the heavier ones in their Dendritic armour.

I think I'm going to slog through this lot, then do the second set of chariots, then finish up with the Heavy Spear (which is mostly bronze so should be fairly quick, although there are 25% more models!)

Next Time

More Greeks, almost certainly.

Outflank or Outlast. Options for Italians in Flames of War?

Another test game for our upcoming club event next month against clubmate Ric and his British Paratroopers in Outflanked.  

Ric defended the left objective with a Para platoon covered by 17pdrs and the right objective with the second Para platoon. I did a bit of cheeky spearheading and split my force to give me a shot at both objectives. 

I popped the ambush by pushing my L6s forward (see 6pdrs in the top left corner) and lost three in the ensuing barrage. Ric got his Churchill reserves on in turn one and his Stuarts in turn two. Immediate reserves indeed! The Stuarts pushed up Ric's left to try and send away my M14s and the Churchills pushed into the centre starting a game of cat and mouse with the Lancia da 90s!

I started noodling around the centre with my armour seeing if I could bring enough MGs to bear on the 6pdrs that sending in the M14s on the left objective could be done. Four pinned 17pdrs took out three M14s as a response to my noodling: 

That pretty much left me with one option - I ranged in the Semoventes on the 6pdrs and left my 25pdrs smashing away at the 17pdrs for several turns. Several. On my right flank, things got moving. My Motociclisti destroyed a Stuart in assault, and blew up the second one who'd been bailed by the M14s clearing a path to the contested house by the objective: 

I floated a Lancia da 90/53 out in the wind, Ric sent out his Churchills and blew it to bits. I thought that moving 6pdrs, 4+ save, and gun shield was a tolerable risk - I was wrong. In the end I passed the Last Stand and the Blitz and BOOM! Two dead Churchills and the last one fled!

That Lancia promptly ran away the following turn and all meaningful activity on that flank stopped while the Semovente 75s and the 25pdrs hammered away at Ric's gun platoons for five or six turns. I got 1 17pdr and 2 6 pdrs in that time. OOOOOF. But on my right, the brave Motocicliti assaulted and destroyed the last Para platoon. All I needed was to get rid of a couple of mortar stands but...

They would just not die! Dug in and with Fearless morale, they were assaulted repeatedly by M14s who drove into the forest and singularly failed to hit the blasted mortar or stick around for more than one round of combat. It was ridiculous.

We stopped shortly after this:

The para mortars finally got sick of being pointlessly assaulted by M14/41s and ran off the board. The remnant Para platoon shot down the HMGs and destroyed the Motociclisti CO to occupy the house on the objective. We called the game as I wasn't going any closer to that horde of guns on one objective and couldn't assault the house on the other (although it was a matter of time before the massed 47mm guns finished the job) and Ric couldn't move his AT guns knowing that as soon as they moved out of fox holes, there'd be Italian MGs everywhere! 

It was a good game and it has led me to one inescapable conclusion....

Lessons? 

I've decided to do what I would previously have considered unthinkable and downgrade the captured 25pdrs back to Italian 100/17 guns. I'm surprised by how much infantry and AT guns have been giving me problems (given the changes in last year's Dynamic Points update this is no shock) and the 3+ bombardment firepower feels like I need it more than the extra RoF of the 25pdrs to get my tanks where I need them to be. 

Also, it's been interesting to play a list this much in advance of an event for a change. I've made a few changes and had a few thoughts about execution that have all been interesting to explore.

 Mycenaean progress?

Not much this week - been spending a bit much time on work and real life and not enough time hobbying. I have just been to prime the first three bases of medium spear to paint this week so that's exciting. I've also had a delivery from Che at Potbelly Miniatures:

 One Achaean baggage with ironic Helen of Troy on the base. There's even a mast for the trireme (that's not even to scale - Che had to scale it down to fit on a camp base. I'll put some fill down as a bit of beach and then paint the boat and then add my favourite water effects (you know the ones!) to finish that base up. 

 And just a little bonus

Blogger Pel and I ran a teaching game for new Flames of War player Duncan at the club. He was an enthusiastic student running his D-Day Tigers and he definitely gave Pel's British a bit of what for in an assault despite his incredible string of 1s throughout the game. I don't think I've EVER seen a man throw so many 1s. But the treat? He's an impressive painter. Check out the oak leaf and pea dot camo smocks:

They're SO good.  The modelling and painting work on the Tigers was also very impressive.

Next Time

I've started on the first of the Medium Spear bases for my Achaeans and the process of cowhiding my Impact Chariots so those. And maybe a preview of the Mycenaean baggage if I've cracked the plan to make it work...

One PG-13 Greek?

I have been doing a lot of work on my Mycenaeans this last week and I'm really happy with how progress is ticking along. First off, the strike wing of the pre-Trojan War list: 

The chap in the blue sash is (GASP!) Museum's model of Priam of Troy but in a twist, I decided the model was great and he'd make an excellent General. Irony of ironies, he'll be subbing in for Nestor in the Trojan War Achaean version of this list. 

Overall, I like the group but I am umming and ahhing about whether to repaint the chariot outers as cowhide in the same way I'm going to do the figure of eight shields on the spearmen, mostly to break up the overwhelming wall of tan. I think I'll do some spearmen and see how I feel about the cowhide. If it works, the chariots might get redone.

Next off, some formed bowmen: 

Unlike my skirmishing archers, these are all wearing boar tusk helmets and carrying actual swords and they look great. Once again I did the dirty on the Greeks, I subbed in the figure for Paris from the Trojan heroes pack - I like having character models in my units and this unit of bow isn't getting the full blown standard and musician (because all the generals in this army are Included) so I thought I'd use it.

Finally, and two of the bases I like most, are the two Myrmidons:

You can see Achilles in the centre of the right-hand base with the standard and musician. The chap in the centre of the other base was a bit PG when I ran the contrast paint over the skin and discovered it just kept going. 😆 I like the fact these bases add a huge whack of colour while still sticking pretty close to the tan / bronze / black palette of the rest of the army.

Achilles was the first of the Greek heroes to make an appearance. Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax and Diomedes will be used on the various Spear generals (alongside Nestor in his chariot) to add some serious amount of character to the general bases.

Next Time

It's club day and I'm helping out Blogger Pel with a teaching game of Late War Flames of War so will be helping a new player navigate how Tigers kill Cromwells. I'm also playing another test game with the Italians so will give them a burl against a MW British Para outfit with Churchills (!) I'll keep working on the Mycenaeans as well - I'm really enjoying how the army is coming together. I also need to get into some camp work at some stage...

AVANTI SAVOIA!

 AKA once again I reveal secret pre-tournament tech. Club day this week was an outing for my Flames of War mid-war army for our club competition in April. The list is: 

Compagnia Carri

•  M14/41 HQ
• 5 M14/41
• 5M14/41
• 4 Semovente 75
  

Compagnia Motociclisti

• Motociclisti HQ
• Motociclisti platoon
• 4 47mm Elefantini
• 3 Breda HMG
• 5 L6 Carri
  

Support

• Captured 25pdrs
• 2 Lancia da 90 autocannoni

They attacked Pelarel's British Rifle Company and Crusader Company in Toehold! Pelarel deployed a Rifle Platoon, his HQ, some 17/25pdr Pheasants, 81mm mortars and 25pdr artillery with some 6pdrs in ambush. Off table were his Crusader HQ, two platoons of Crusaders, a Rifle Platoon and some carriers.

Pel mostly focussed his deployment in the centre with the guns and rufles deployed around the central hill:

I decided to push both sides of the Toehold deployment because while I pondered a dedicated shove on the objective on my right (behind the village) the closeness of the two lead me to decide to make a cheeky shove on the left as well to try and split the defences. I pinged one of the Pheasants in the first turn and thought to myself "well, that should solve that problem" and mean my right hand push should be bothered. Oh boy was I ever wrong.

By the third turn, I had pushed hard forward, wore the 6pdr ambush and threw A LOT of MG dice in reply. I got three of the 6pdrs and again, thought "well, that should solve that problem." Still wrong. Pel carried on his just infinite ability to roll successful Last Stand test and his well located CO kept the 25pdrs unpinned and his remaining AT guns in the game!

His reserves all arrived on his right flank and had a pretty torrid time of it. The first platoon of Crusaders met a bad end at the hands of the Lancias from downtown and  the Rifle Platoon was reduced to below combat effective in a disastrous assault when the Elefantini and the Motociclisti scored MANY hits. At this point I tried to put as many tanks ready to assault the hill as I could and the L6s tried distracting the 25pdrs:

I missed a couple of pics from turns 4 and 5 where all of Pel's reserves were on. His Carrriers were in the village (aand the centre hill also had 5 Crusaders on it! In those two turns I lost all of my M14s, my L6s and the Lancias. In return, I got all the Crusaders. In turn 6, Pel tried to assault the infantry platoon with his mostly intact one and my defensive fire was stupid while his saves were appalling!

This is the point where the Pheasant finally gave up and ran away after I shot the Rifle Company CO off the table with my Motociclisti, Pel's infantry platoon routed and the 6pdr quit the field. The game was still very much afoot!

And yet, the following turn it was over:

Pelarel's last round of shooting with 2 81mm mortars and his carriers removed enough of the 47mm guns that the last one failed his 3+ Last Stand (AARRRGGHH) and fled and meant there wasn't much I could do to reasonably assault the objective so we called the game there. 

 Had the one gun stuck around and removed a carrier, I think I would have tried to carry the infantry assault but it would have been a tough ask to both take the objective with that infantry platoon and then hold it as Pel would have broken off any carriers who survived the assault and would have MGed my tiny platoon to death as it stood around in the open! 

It was a much closer game than either of us expected - when I'd removed most of his AT guns before his Crusaders arrived, Pel reckoned the game was mine. By turn 6 when all my armour was toast, we talked about calling it there but one round of good shooting by me hauled the game back to a contest. 

Thoughts? 

I mostly like the list but I'm umming and ahhing about the 9-point platoon of L6s. It's pricey and while I deliberately used them to distract Pel's 25pdrs so mine did the work I needed them to (noting that they absolutely did not do that....grumble grumble) I could have achieved the same with a 6-point platoon of AB41s. It's not *another* assaulting platoon but I'm also middling on whether I need that.  So a bit more thinking to do there. 

Test Wheels

I haven't had a huge amount of hobby time this week but have invested what I did have in prepping my chariots and, since the horses, bases, and actual chariots (if not crew) were ready, I thought I'd take one through from end to end to see how it came out and I'm pretty happy: 

 I realised I needed to put a very gentle wash over the metals to give them a bit of depth and given all my Heavy Spear for this list will be in Dendritic armour, like this charioteer, that's going to look much better. 

Next Time

More chariots and if hobby time allows, I'm going to get stuck into the Myrmidons and formed bowmen. Then it's just 12 bases of spear to go and this army will be done!

Playing catchup and preparing for new things!

There's been a lot of 40K excitement going around my gaming group at the mo and I've definitely enjoyed playing some 10e so have decided it's time I got in for a real game. For some reason, though, I decided that I should do it with something stupid:

 

I've repainted my original Freeblade Errant to match his colour palette with my Armigers so I have a coherent House Cadmus lance. I removed all the transfers, cleaned up the panels and replaced all the transfers. It was a fairly easy job to do but I'm pleased with how it came out. Here's the whole lance together as a 1000 point list (with Callidus Assistant Assassin):

I'd like to get this up to a full 2000 by adding a couple more big-boi knights, specifically the Cerastus knights but sweet Christmas, they are $400 a pop down here and that's all sorts of stupid.  I do have a list that is a Knight Lance getting some assistance from our favourite lazy Inquisitor too and so that might be the logical endpoint.

And since not buying a Cerastus Lancer made me sad, I did something fun. I started on my Mycenaeans:

 

First off the Light Foot Javelin. These are the key skirmishers for me as the army doesn't have any light cavalry (obviously!) so the full six allowed bases seemed like a good idea. I've put aside four of these to be chariot crew for my Light Chariot Javelin (and to make them distinct from my Light Chariot Impact.)

The second set are some Light Foot Bow and Light Foot Sling. The Light Foot Bow are mostly intended to be Support for Nestor's Pylian Spearmen in the Trojan War list but I have options in the core list for them too. The slingers were just a nice novelty.

I began with the skirmishers since they seemed like a good test of the paint scheme. Plenty of skin, boar tusk helmets on the javelinmen and linen outfits for all. They do feel a touch monochrome but I also expected that going in and it's come out pretty much as anticipated. In some respects, it's not much different to doing a Dark Ages army - I'm just working in a different palette of brown!

This is my first experience with Citadel Contrast Paint and I'm mostly pretty happy. The finish is a bit inconsistent depending on how vigorously I shook the pot, and it very occasionally produces some white spots of primer, but overall, I'm happy with the look and the speed to finished that I get with it. Also it was a chance to test out the basing - given the monochromishness of the whole thing, a bit of green seemed like a good idea.

It's not a bad effort after I took a week off last week and spent it playing boardgames with my excellent nerd friends. This is as close to tabletop as I got: 

I enjoy an occasional game of Magic cards - at least this year I got to summon the Reaver Titan, even if I didn't get to crew it or attack with it...maybe next year.

Next Time

I'm running out my Wallachians for a game or two at our next club day and we've got our club annual competition coming up in April and I'm quite keen to give my list for that a run just to make sure I'm not completely crazy.

Pooch's February update- 2024 is well underway!

So that's it, February is done too, so what have I made progress on then?

I'll give you a hint, there is still a lot of bugs!

1. Paint something bought before 2024

I promised bugs, and this month I managed to complete the last of the Tyranids I bought in 2023- which feels like quite the milestone! 

First up is a Tyrannocyte, a tyranid drop-pod-egg-thing, which I had spent a long time hating, but now quite like!

And second up is yet more Termagants- I actually finished enough to get me to 40 termagants, but decided that rather than show you just more Termagants, that I would show you the three weapon options I have ended up with, using Potbelly's awesome 3d printing services.

Fleshborer, Strangleweb and Shardlauncher!

2. Paint something bought in 2024

So, since I finished up everything I bought in 2023, that means the expansion of the Tyranid swarm is entirely new spend- not a bad thing, because it's a sign that while I am buying more things, I am also keeping up the momentum in getting them finished. 

Having a hard rule of "no playing with it until it's painted" is helping me a lot too!

Zoanthropes. Because nothing says "evil space bug" quite like they do!

A Pyrovore. Because why not have a bug that sets things on fire?

Front view of the fire spider!

The Pyrovore kit also comes with Spore Mines, which are just fun

Tyrant Guard. Slabs of genetically enhanced bulk, with the sole purpose of defending my characters

They did not skip any gym days.

A lot of these units have become key parts of my army list thinking at present, all while I iterate towards the list I take to Valleycon in a couple of months!

And with that, we are up to 1825 points painted...

3. Play a game of 40k each month

Just the one game this month, which saw my Tyranids fighting against Chaos Demons.

The game was a really interesting one- I scored really hard in the first three turns, then promptly got slaughtered and lost pretty much my entire army. But because I had gotten enough points in the first few turns, I ended up with the win! 

Tervigon and Pyrovore vs Belakor. Belakor killed a LOT of models!

More 40k to come!

4. Play a game of not-40k each month

In my "not 40k" I have continued the spaceship theme from last month, this time trying out Battlefleet  Gothic, which is making a bit of a comeback with our local group.

I took command of the Tau component of the Demiurg/Tau fleet, and we successfully introduced the Greater Good to some Khornate Chaos Space Marines. 

The Greater Good was successfully spread, but not before many ships were lost, including in some truly horrific boarding actions (I mean, Tau vs Khorne Bezerkers in the close confines of a space ship was never going to go well for the Tau!)

It was nice to come back to BFG, it has been..... more than a decade (maybe even two!) since I last played it, so was fun to come back to it and see how the refined rules play. 

Maybe I can play Tyranids for that too...... 

.....Bugs.... in..... SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE.....

Pooch