So. Elefants. Yeah.

 The Whole Army

I kind of love how the whole thing came together in the end. Oh, and in a most surprising and ridiculous turn of events, the package of foliage arrived on the THURSDAY night before Panzerschreck. Seriously. I was SO pleased. So the OP and the quads that will remain in the 653 formation got foliaged as well. It was still drying when we put the box in the back to go north!

Panzerschreck?

This photo basically sums up the weekend:

People getting their much faster medium armour on the flanks of our Elefants and mostly, amazingly, whiffing. We lost two Elefants destroyed, two fled and the rest survived the weekend. MVP of the weekend was the Elefant CO who took 7 IS-2s solo to hold a flank to save the one game we won. 

All in all 1 - 1 - 3 for the weekend but the highlight perhaps was we lost game 3. The last six stands of an American ARP ran through a minefield and then all the American armour opened up on the 2 StuGs and 2 Elefants on the objective. We lost both StuGs and one Elefant (shot in the side by failed-blitz, stabilised Sherman 75s on 6s, I might add) and then the two stands that surivived the minefield charged out. The Elefant shot the Bazooka and the one remaining rifle stand shoved the Elefant off the objective. It was a great game to play and a great way to lose that game. 

Thoughts?

The list was sub-par. Okay on paper but also coloured by previous Panzerschreck experiences and not in a good way. If we had our time again, the list would be: 

653 Schwere Panzerjager

Elefant HQ

2x Elefant

2x Elefant

3x Quad AA

Hetzer Company

2x Hetzer HQ

4x Hetzers

4x Hetzers

4xHetzers

Support

3x Wespes & OP Panzer III

2x Puma

Sturm Platoon 

 

We missed an infantry platoon for all the bloody minefields and also getting dudes out of buildings and the StuGs were just outclassed by all the M10s, M10Cs, Sherman 76s, T34/85s etc so Hetzers would give us 50% more hulls for no appreciable change in cost.  

 

Next Time

No idea. I suspect I need to get into the stuff I need to have painted for our next round of slow-grow 40K. I have an attack bike to do, an Outrider Chaplain and a couple of new Primaris to build out a new Primaris Kill Team. I also need to buy some things... 

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

History never repeats. Or does it?

I joined bloggers Scotty and Tank for an epic refight of one of the great naval engagements of World War II - the battle in the Denmark Straig between the KMS Bismark and the KMS Prinz Eugen and HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales. Scotty lead the Kriegsmarine and Tank took the Admiralty on the Hood while I commanded the alarmingly unready Prince of Wales.

The scenario had a few special rules - the Royal Navy didn't accurately spot the Bismark in the early stages of the engagement so Scotty would be able to swap his ships at will and manage their damage secretly unless Tank or I passed a crew quality check to spot which ship was which. We decided that we'd only do at at our ship's short range or lower and we would test every time we fired too. A successful test meant we were shooting what we thought we were, otherwise Scotty could apply damage as he saw fit. Further to that, the Prince of Wales' civilian mechanics were still on board so there was a chance that the main armaments of the battleship would fail each time they fired. The scenario also proposes that, unlike history, the cruisers HMS Norfolk and HMS Suffolk would arrive to support the Hood and Prince of Wales. 

The Kriegsmarine turned and steamed towards the onrushing Royal Navy. The game almost replayed history as the Scotty's first shot against the Hood hit, penetrated and caused a critical hit. This lead to much consternation in the Royal Navy and we accelerated to the attack. The Hood turned across the German fleet while the Prince of Wales went full steam ahead to bring it's heavier armament to bear. 

The two fleets closed with the Kriegsmarine bravely threading the gap between the two British battleships. They pounded the HMS Hood relentlessly, leaving the Prince of Wales to happily fire on whichever ship the crew thought was the Bismark at any given time. One by one, her new guns failed until only one of the front six was functional alongside the working rear turret!

At this point the fleets were at their closest! With it's front turrets completely out of operation, despite the best efforts of the mechanics on board, the HMS Prince of Wales crossed the Bismark's stern to bring it's fully functional rear turret to bear and in a couple of rounds of VERY accurate gunfire and some good spotting by the bridge crew, she sank the Prinz Eugen, narrowly evading being torpedoed for her trouble though!

With the Prinz Eugen gone, and the HMS Norfolk and Suffolk on the field, the Bismark was taking an absolute hammering while simultaneously trying to sink the badly damaged Hood and aim for some luck shots on the Prince of Wales' last working turret.  In game terms, at this point the Bismark was miraculously still seaworthy despite carrying about 15 points (of a possible 18) of critical damage but she could mostly sail. So the Bismark's Admiral decided that discretion was the better part of valour and steamed for the southern board edge, hoping to outrun the oncoming British cruisers. The Hood made the same decision, as she was also carrying a dozen or so critical damage points. In the end, the Prince of Wales fired a devastating volley, bringing the Bismark to her knees before the Hood's last working turrets struck her amidships and sank the mighty vessel.

It's a really good scenario - we had to add to a couple of rules to make it make a bit more sense and interpret some of the instructions in a way that made sense to us but we really enjoyed it. Scotty wasn't ever supposed to win it but he came very close to sinking the Hood and would probably have been able to sail away if he had as the popguns on the Norfolk and Suffolk could barely touch the Bismark, especially as by the last turn of the game, the Prince of Wales was down to three of it's original 10 attack dice with it's main guns (and I couldn't pass a repair roll for love nor money.)

I really enjoyed my first game of Victory at Sea and will be super excited to get the Regia Marina fleet painted up and on the water soon.

Panzerschreck prep

SO CLOSE.  Just so close but I honestly can't stop swearing about how enraging the Battlefront SdKfz 7/2 kit is. It's not original Katyusha bad, but aarrrrgggghhhh. So everything else is finished for the army but those last three Quads are still only half done. Oh well, I have a few days....

I need to chuck a huge thank you to blogger Pooch who sacrificed the foliage off his Panzer IVs for my Wespes and Elefants with a view to repaintings said Panzer IVs but still.  As something that genuinely adds to the coherent look of the force, I am super happy. There is apparently a new package en-route from the USA when I will repair the carnage I committed on my Nashorns and Firefly to steal their foliage too and then I'll be getting on with some more LW Flames, probably focussing on getting onto my Grenadiers. 

Next Time

I will take a photo of the whole finished army as there is inevitably a show and tell at Panzerschreck and let you know how badly we lost the five games in the weekend. I'll be glad to put these aside for a bit and go back to some 28mm with our 40K thing moving on in August so I probably need to get the rest of the army painted for the 1000 point round. Should be easy, except for the bits I don't own yet...

Holiday Productivity Fail

 Panzerschreck Prep

Going on holiday does rather dent one's productivity and with Panzerschreck a few weeks away, I figure I should get the army finished.

The foliage appears to be lost in transit somewhere between here and Wisconsin so the team in the US are sending me a replacement order. Fingers crossed it might get here in time - I can imagine spending the night before the comp in front of the TV gluing my fingers to things! 

I haven't got too much more to do but enough that'll keep me busy this week getting everything finished - highlights on the Elefants, cleaning and transferring some old Quad AA guns and then (UGH) painting the last lot of Quads.

BOOOOOOOOOAAAAATTS!

The nerds have got into Warlord's Victory at Sea and I could hardly not play the Italian fleet in this one. The game looks like a lot of fun and seems to want to deliver appropriate outcomes. Some of the pointing seems weird but hey, the boats look amazing. I've promised myself not to get overwhelmed so started with a couple of test pieces: 

The Marcello-class submarines are cute but the goal of that box was MAS Boats and MS Boats. Italian Torpedo Boats are where things are at in this fleet so I'm going to make serious use of them!

Secondly, a battleship - the Vittorio Veneto - and she's a beauty.

I need to go back and redo the dazzle lines as they're really hard to see against the hull and possibly brighten up the highlights on the AA guns but otherwise I'm mostly happy. That bow section hurt me a lot and it's mostly pretty good. The parallelness of some of those lines is a bit iffy but it gives the right impression! 

Next Time

The whole Panzerschreck army! We've also been talking about some Frostgrave 2 for a casual club day so we'll see how that goes. Maybe a batrep for once? Maybe!?!

Burninating the Countryside

 Burninators

 

While these were a bit of a rush job to get them done for todaym they came out really well. I enjoyed painting this much red again and reused the colours I used on my Legio Vulpa titans.

Deacon, Redemptor Priest, Deacon

 

 

Brethren, Juve, Brethren, Brethren

Batrep? No. 

 I know I was going to do a batrep this week but honestly, both the games I played today were pretty one-sided thanks to some abominable dice. Instead I will share a couple of photos that are more about Pooch's amazing greyscale Escher than they are about my performance:

Lessons though?

Five lessons learned today:

One - Bomb rats on Bonepickers is a bad idea. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. INT 9+ is bad for that.

Two - Faith Dice are very useful when you remember to use them. 

Three - Being able to roll 5+ and then interrupt Coup de Grace actions is upsetting for your opponent.

Four - Eviscerators are insane. Cutting things while you're already cutting things while you're setting them on fire is well worth the points. 

Five - Blaze is a powerful ability but it is 50:50 and that matters. 

 Next Time

Boats. I'll leave it at that.  

Elefants, wasps and PaK 40s....oh my!

 Something Done

I finished the painting and basing of my greatcoated PaK 40s this week. They've been sitting mostly done for ages and it seemed like it was thing I should just crack on with. 

Much to my chagrin, I have carefully packed away my weathering powder and I can't work out where I carefully packed it away to. I have a horrible feeling it's fallen down behind the bookshelf (so not carefully packed away) which will be an absolute pain to recover. But I will and when I do the helmets and gunshields will get a bit of a whitewash.

Works in Progress

FOUR ELEFANTS!  

Seriously though, four Elefants is DUMB and I love it. I've cleaned the snow off the 5th one with all his carefully applied Zimmerit and tidied up the colour and I'm really happy with how it's come up. Should blend in nicely. These four are a slightly newer (or different) sculpt to my original but not so much as you'd notice.

 Wespes are coming along too, with the crew being painted separately.

The crew has a rough base coat on it at the mo and that's it so they'll be a wee way away but I'm doing those with the crew of the truly hateful SdKfz 7/2 kit that's been assembled (and my fingers glued to things too) so making pretty good progress for the Panzershreck army, given that the event is only about a month away, I kind of need to get on with it!

Next Time

Club day. No idea what I'm doing but I'm going to *actually* try and take enough photos of whatever it is to write up a proper game report. Feels like a while since I've done that. I've also got a nice chap in the USA chasing down my foliage order so with a bit of luck, that might turn up and I'll be able to properly finish all these things!  

Don't be too proud of this Technological Terror you've created!

 It is done. Pending the odd bit that I might like to add to the army in the future, I have completed the Scarif Beach Party: 

They're now lined up for a solid week or two in the hot water cupboard. I'm now utterly convinced that the gel medium I've used for the bases isn't entirely cured given how thickly I'm putting it on. It seems to take about a week to set clear but if I get the models out and leave them in my slightly colder games room some of the bases frost up again so long curing ahead.

To get there, the two things that needed finishing to complete the Beach Party got done too, the last of them just in time for this blog post. 

Zoom zoom, pew pew!

I didn't mind painting the actual speeder bikes but those Scout Troopers are a bit ugh. The casts are a bit worn and there isn't quite the nice definition of even the Storm Troopers from the starter box. But they are done.

Black armour = moar menacing right?

On the other hand, Inferno Squad is NICE. The multi-part plastics are lovely, if not at all poseable, but it's a sweet looking unit. I think I need to do a better job on the lenses but that'll wait till they're out of the hot water cupboard.

Outings

The Scarif Beach Party had an outing against some Rebel Scum as their first full game of Legion.

Turn one-ish

 

In the first couple of turns I rolled some obscene dice and gunned down both of Pel's AT-RTs by just rolling heaps and heaps of criticals and Pel couldn't save for love nor money. I wasn't being any better with my saves though - I think I lost a single trooper from any given unit at any given time. In the end, we packed the game in at the end of turn 3. Most of the Rebels were toast for the Imperial losses of Storm Troopers, Bossk and a miscellany of other troopers. Pel did finish the game in style though:

 

You can't quite see in the background as they'd done a runner by then, but a full squad of Storm Troopers were mostly deleted by Clan Wren and Sabine and her Dark Sabre rolled in to finish the job. Which she did. Easily. Pel finished painting them this week and they look AMAZING. He is planning on painting Sabine's hair a-la Star Wars: Rebels and that will look brilliant.

It was my first full game of Legion and Pel was excellent at answering all my stupid questions about how stuff is supposed to work, as well as dealing with my disgusting dice rolling in very good humour. I paid for this in two followup games of Flames with Scotty who beat me senseless by both playing better AND rolling better dice. 

It was an interesting post-game chat too about seeing how the lists came together for the both of us. Mine felt like so many non-choices - they were so straight forward for me that even with no idea what I was really doing, the list came together without really trying. I had to tinker with the bits around the edges, but the Shores and Deaths were just sitters, along with lots of the upgrades.

I still can't get over Storm Troopers having Precise 1. Although only Imperial Storm Troopers are so precise.....

Next Time

I've decided to at least get the painting done for Panzerschreck and if the foliage doesn't arrive in time (although surely it must!) I have some backup foliage that I can apply to the Elefants which will look different and will annoy me but I'll live. So that will be the focus for the next couple of weeks. It's a lot of painting dunkelgelb so might be a touch dull but at least you won't have to hear me swearing about assembling Battlefront's SdKfz 7/2 kit.  

Pooch's May update

May is done now too? This is getting ridiculous.... 

1. Finish a table of terrain

Ooof. My plans of doing big pieces of terrain aren't really getting anywhere. But what I did do, was two sets of the Star Wars Legion barricades. That counts as progress, right?

They are barricades. Need I say more?

2. Play a game a month

This month, I played Flames of War at our club competition at Valleycon, playing 5 games over two days. I used my US Cavalry, so zoomed around Italy with Greyhounds and generally was about as effective as you would expect lightly armoured vehicles to be.

Stuarts and Greyhounds looking cool!

Some of Bob's excellent Tigers doing mean things to my Greyhounds

Overall, it was enjoyable, I do like Flames of War! It prompted all of the nerds to think about playing more FoW, which I think is a good thing.

3. Finish a 1,500 point 40k army

Probably my biggest disappointment of the month. I got a bunch of odds and sods done, but nothing really substantial. I finished....

Three Repentia- just needing their bases

Two Death Cult Assassins, repurposed and tidied from my Krieg army

Stained Glass panel from the Immolator, using Contrast paints

Some guns and bare heads

I guess the Death Cult assassins count as a unit finished, but it is a bit of a stretch! Need to make some serious progress on them next month, otherwise I won't be able to have 1000 points done for August's games!

4. Finish armies that I have part started

Ok, so not only did I finish what I needed to paint for my army for Valleycon, I painted all of the 15mm US that I own!

Six M10 Tank Destroyers

3 M3 Stuarts, 4 M5 Stuarts

8 75mm Shermans

3 76mm Shermans

I'd like one more box of Shermans, but I think these guys are done until the US later-late war book comes out sometime in the future!

5. Buy, build and play a new game

A terrible photo, but a very cool model of Asajj Ventris from Shapeways. She will be a 'counts as' Maul, for when I decide I don't want to use the double ended lightsaber loony, and instead want to use a twin lightsaber loony! 

Asajj Ventris- a 3d print from Shapeways

Not just Asajj, I also have yet more droids done!

Droidekas!

Droid Specialists!

But I still didn't manage to paint the next batch of B1 Battle Droids. Next month maybe?

You had better get painting those sisters!

Pooch

Tidal Surge at the Scarif Beach Party

 This is definitely a workbench post for the long weekend in which I am bravely attempting to stave off an urge to acquire boats for Victory at Sea and new Necromunda Redemptionists by focussing entirely on finishing all my outstanding Star Wars: Legion models. 

 Shoretroopers II

Glad to have had one of these done already as doing the second one is always easier. And now I'll have two squads to go with the two mortars! Bonus! They are nice and easy to paint though so I should be able to knock these out quickly.

Inferno Squad

What can I say, black is easy. They're not done yet but honestly, it won't be much work to get them finished. Unfortunately it's also fairly cold here this weekend and the washes aren't drying at a particularly rapid rate so everything is going slow. Del Meeko and Gideon Hask are looking sweet too.

Speeder Bikes

I was a bit iffy about doing these for ages and I've just decided to suck it up and finish the last white-armoured models in the army. I do really like the beach armour of the speeder bikes and it really does make me want to do a sand coloured AT-ST.

I'm still missing one thing I'd like to have, Iden Versio as a leader, but I'm also vaguely tempted to ask my friendly local 3D printing friend to run me off a Seventh Sister, from Star Wars Rebels, to potentially play the role of Iden Versio. I'm also basing up my Rokkrassk from our Star Wars Edge of Empire campaign to play as Bossk in Legion as well. Basically an operative that isn't Darth Vader seems like it could be cool.

 Next Time

It's club day. I don't know what I'll be doing but hopefully getting the Scarif Beach Party out for a couple of games of Legion. I'm *still* waiting on foliage from the US so I can get into painting Elefants.