Building Azrael - Part 3

So before I begin, I was debating whether to kind of just abandon what I know about AC130s and painting this in the three colour camo scheme it would have worn in Vietnam. The idea of painting something so big entirely black or very dark green, especially when I'm painting my TY force in MASSTER camo (I know, but it looks SO COOL) did not please me.

But once I'd put the green on, I was umming and ahhing. And then Pooch came to my rescue with a delighful image of an AC-130 with a black underbelly and underwing and a two colour camo on the top. I started with a Brown Violet base with a liberal dose of GW's Nuln Oil over the top to make sure I didn't lose any of the wing panel lines. My dodgy greenstuff work is vexingly apparent. Don't look under the wings!

First camo coat

I settled on two of my favourite paints - US Dark Green and US Tan Earth to do the two colour blobs. The instruction manual for this kit earns some brownie points at this stage for providing a number of different schemes for ways you could have painted the original Azrael in Vietnam.

I followed some of the camo guide from the instructions to put this on as I do tend to find I repeat myself with painting camo if I'm not thinking carefully. Many of my LW StuGs have very similar stripes...

So the camo is as a base coat of US Tan Earth and then a liberal coating of Devlan Magic before letting that mostly dry and carefully removing any pools before they settled into pigment rings.

Then comes the painstaking process of gently drybrushing the camo stripes on without painting in the many, many, many, many panel lines across the wing surfaces.

Finally, decals to finish the plane. The decal set for this kit is really nice and it has an excellent guide of what to put where. It's even cleverly designed that you could put decals on to cover where the weapon mounts would be if you didn't want to mount the weapons. I admit, it's not clear as to why you'd want to, but....

This decal. This. 

Here's the final assemblage:

Getting the wingtip lights on nearly broke me especially trying to do it without getting any glue on the surface of the clear plastic. I failed utterly. But you still get a sense of the red and green wingtips in the right light.

I had to be a bit creative getting the hole for the stand bored in the bottom since drilling a 5/32” hole across a vertically split hull is.....impossible. It’s not the prettiest and requires some seam puttying to make the join a bit more robust around the pin but it’s also hidden underneath so meh.

I am going to have to build a stronger base though, the upright on this one was already flexing under the weight. A proper Perspex rod and base will make for a more stable mounting but this will work in the short term.

Looking forward to getting her on the table. 

Also, a sneak peak of the test M60's MASSTER camo:

I love the way this looks and I can't wait to get a whole army done. It's been a slow progression using Vallejo Model Air (since it comes in the right colours) with a brush but it gives a really nice finish. I'm now pondering what colour to paint the infantry. Sadly MASSTER was never applied to infantry camouflage.

Building Azrael - Part 2

So when I left you last time, the fuselage was complete and about to be puttied. This time we get from there to a finished AC-130H.

First off, the wings. I hadn’t decided whether to glue on the props or not when I took this. I could just glue on the cones from the prop hub but that might look a bit lame. Gut feeling? The props will go on but it'll be one of the last decisions. Note the missing wing lights. There's actually some clear plastic bits to fill in the forward wing corners but I'll need to paint behind them before attachment to make sure they show up coloured!

The underbelly of this kit is a PITA. It's not abundantly clear from the instructions but if you want to have the landing gear up, then you're supposed to cut out the middle of the fuselage and insert two replacement bits. I realised this far too late and so have made do fitting the panels that would be used to model the landing gear down to instead model it up. Note all the armaments...

One complete plane. This will get primed and then I'll paint the windshield before it's attached. Getting the wings in was an absolute pig. The starboard wing fitted like a glove. The port wing, not so much. I spend a lot of time with the file getting it to a size that slotted most of the way there. Eventually, it didn't seem to matter how much more I filed, I kept feeling like I was going to snap the fuselage so I gave in!

A couple of comments on the kit. It's a nice looking kit, if a little flimsy in places (something that is hardly surprising given the scale) but the instructions leave a lot to be desired. They're clear on how to build the AC-130A but the kit comes with all the parts to get to an H (which is fricking awesome) and I imagine a skilled modeller could get to the J as well by using the wing pylons differently. There's also a snub nose for the Herc which I left off mostly because I couldn't work out where on the fuselage to make the cuts and, well I refer you to my comments above about the landing gear bays...

I do like the fact it comes with a really nice stand that will allow me to use it in a tabletop game and mounted doing the requisite pylon turn. That made me super happy. Speaking of which, here's a size comparison I took of Azrael alongside a Battlefront M60 who will be on table with it.

Overall, it was a fun job to assemble and I cannot wait to get it painted and then drop it on the table when I get my Marines done. I hope it will be the centrepiece of Tank's and my combined Marine force for Panzerschreck 2019 as well.

Building Azrael - Part 1

You heard it right folks, I’m abandoning my Deathwatch in order to start playing Dark Angels.

...
...

Not really. In fact, I’ve started building a model plane for the first time since 1990-cough. This is a Minicraft Model Kits 1/144 scale AC-130. Why? I hear you ask? Because! I answer, stupidly. I’ll be honest, I love the A10 Warthog. It’s silly. But when I discovered a 1/144 scale Spooky was out there, I had to use that for my TY air support. I reckon that the firepower coming out of the port side of an AC-130 is at least as ridiculous as two GAU-8s.

Azrael was an AC-130A, used in Vietnam. I’ll be building mine as an AC-130H, with a full armament of 2 20mm Vulcan cannons, a 40mm Bofors and the silliest of all, a 105mm howitzer! I’ll probably still use the sweet Azrael decal though. I’m not giving that gem away and looking sweet is a legit reason to do anything!

I didn’t enjoy prepping the holes in the fuselage for all the weapon mounts. Getting a clean edge was challenging at best and I’m still not super happy with how they came out but I think a bit of careful filing and scalpel work and I can clean up the worst of it.

I am going to have to green stuff a few seams and now that I've got the fuselage assembled and here, reader, is where I leave you until next time.

Time for a catch up.

It has been a while since I posted and I am a few projects along, probably (SWMBO would say) too many. The latest game on the scene is Blood Red Skies - Warlords WWII Dog Fighting game. I have taken on the the side of the Bosch, bringing the mighty BF 109 to battle. One game under the belt and really enjoying the gameplay and the theme.

Games workshop have been making a come back around the club and I decided to get into Necromunda. I have Orlocks from the previous incarnation and Goliaths from the starter box. The thing that really should me is the terrain - so check out the fabulous TT Combat Industrial terrain so far.

Next is my Space Wolves 40k army - a mix of second hand and new purchases. I had a lot of fun painting this up - not so much fun playing them as everyone else I play has their Codex and all their special bits - but I am sure GW will be true to their Codex creep selves and within a month or so I will have all the toys at my disposal.

Team Yankee 15mm has hooked me in aswell - Marines SEMPER FI! Finding F4 phantoms for air support and Blackhawks for transports has made this project lots of fun - and a great game to boot!

Batman - love the penguin and when I found this model I had to have it and paint it. Yet to play a game but really enjoyed the painting project.

To top it all off here is a selection of other figures I have been adding to the collection - some for Dead Man's Hand, Walking Dead and some for the coolness of the figures.

Last of all I picked up some Zulu's - at some stage we'll find a use for these.

Well that's enough for now - lots more on the painting table to do...

Where have you been lately?

That's right! This blog has been really quiet for some time now, so I thought it would be a good time for an update. Nothing major is the answer to the post's title. We've all been relatively busy with various things since last year. ValleyCon came and went with us forming the committee for that and the accompanying work load was quite exhaustive. We've been playing games (most of us have dived head first into 40k of all things!) and Mr Pocch and I have started a company (check us out on Facebook - Staghound Gardens).

Yesterday was ANZAC day here in New Zealand and it is a national holiday. What better way to spend the afternoon that playing wargames. Not wanting to stretch our feeble minds too much, Tank Engine, Scotty and I decided to play Mantic Games 'The Walking Dead' in a big three way. Random characters and equipment with a grab the most loot scenario. This is a very fun rule set!

Copyright http://shirtigo.co/the-walken-dead/

Tank Engine hosted and the great terrain and models are all his. We had a lot of fun with Scotty's Negan lead raiders snaring 6 supply caches, my Ezekiel lead group grabbing 3 caches and Tank's Rick lead survivors getting 2 (I think). 

So let's start this post with 'the tripod'. The tripod is the three fundamentals of wargaming: the fluff, the figures, and the fighting.

We all love the fighting. Club and competition games against like or just plain bloody minded opponents is our bread and butter.

But it gets better! We love the fluff, regardless of the flavour of game you play. The history of the universe, the war, or the period you dig is a big deal. No fluff, not always interesting.

And of course the figures. We love the minis.

But what's really important about the tripod? Being a dick is not part of it.

In what seems like an eon ago, at the bottom of this post I made a promise to complete an army. Well, it's been sitting there for two years while I tried to gather the courage to drill out and replace the pikes on a gazillion Warlord Games Macedonian pikes. The drama is that the pikes are really brittle, so they snap when a dice bounces off them... And this is mostly a dice hobby.

A couple of months back the call to arms went out, and I thought, "goddamn it Tibby... you haven't painted in 18 months, and those damn pikes just aren't worth the hassle."

So Nick may have been many things - in the time I knew him he was a proper mate, and not the sort of bloke to forget you were about - and forgetting about this army was getting under my skin. An order to Aventine ensued, and I set to work getting some painting done. Basically, I needed to tidy up some pretty basic, just-enough to table the army painting. For example:

The guy holding the spear like tennis racket cracks me up.

Tell you something for free. Aventine make some really, really nice minis. They're slightly cheaper than Wargames Foundry/Warlord Games, and they have more detail. The range is bigger for the period I like, and they're not bad in the historical stakes, so we get a twofer, fluff and figures.

So I noticed something in painting this army. Nick didn't dig the fluff on this period. I remember when we bought the load of Foundry minis he was a little surprised, "But... they have wangs..."

Which is fair enough, because the bloke in the front there should be in the cavalry.

Likewise, his knowledge of ancient Greek wasn't so crash hot.

Pretty sure that shield is on upside down. Unless you're assuming it's V for Victory.

Anyhow, I managed to muddle together enough figures to table an army tomorrow at Call to Arms Valleycon. Here's hoping to place in the top half. Failing that, not being in the bottom eight would be nice :D

Boltgun Nostalgia

Earlier this year, a few of the locals started talking about the impending release of 8th edition Warhammer 40K over top of a game of Shadow War I played with dirty Harlequin player Pelarel. They were all very positive. I'll freely admit to being more than a little shocked. I watched some battle reports and read some forum posts and, well, went all in with Pooch, Scotty and Tank. Delightfully, we've also drawn McBeth and Pelarel into the net of GW!

I finally played a game last weekend. It was my first game of 40K since I gave it up at the end of 2nd Edition and I can't even remember when that was. Some time in the late 90s. So 20 years (ZOMG, I have been doing this for that long....!) ago, I last fired a boltgun in anger. And it was glorious. The game is simple, mechanically, but there is plenty of complexity and a surprising amount of depth. There was a lot of complaining on all sides about various delightfully broken things but the game looked good and was a lot of fun.

Scotty, Tank, Pooch and I played a four-player game so that we could get a feel for the rules. Scotty's Imperial Bananas Fists and my Deathwatch against Tank's Tyranids and Pooch's Death Guard. The result was....a win to the bad guys, but there was half a Dreadnought, half a squad of Terminators left at the end of the game.

Some pics:

Death Guard

The horde inbound

The brave, valiant and depressingly few defenders

A wild Mawloc appears! It uses GAK! It's super effective!

The Dreadnought used Powerfist! It was super effective. Then there was no more Mawloc. Instead there were a million fricking Genestealers!

In a battle between Broodlord and Primaries Dreadnought, always bet on Yellow. 

And yes. It's been ages. We know.

You're spending money on WHAT?!?!?!!?

Club day yesterday and what a fantastic turnout we had, we literally ran out of tables! Anywho the big news of the day was McZermof and I returning to our GW gaming roots and playing SHADOW WAR: ARMAGEDDON. This is a relatively new release from GW which captures the real essence of the original Necromunda, and capture it it certainly does. First impressions are very positive. Firstly the models are fantastic, lots of the Regimenters already have figures kicking around their collections, however I had to start afresh. A couple of Tau boxes later and I was off. The models themselves are all plastic but they go together beautifully and I really enjoyed painting them.

With my Tau prepared I took on McZermof's Dark Angel Scouts. The first scenario we played was Kill Team Fight. Within the first couple of turns the Tau specialists had earned their pay by taking out the Scout Sergeant and another team member (unfortunately I had mistaken the weapon I used and it possibly may have been saved - on a six - rather than insta-death). However that didn't detract from the fun of the game and McZermof made a few well timed and accurate Bolter shots (including a Heavy Bolter) and the Tau scarpered.

The second game was Hit and Run. I had a special objective, which was to kill the Scout Sergeant, which I did again. Then all I had to do was run away. Unfortunately McZ picked me off as I was running for my life. A quick and terrific game.

We played two games and had lunch all before 12pm. We also gave the campaign rules a run through and although I lost both games I was able to keep up with McZ's advances, I even came out a little better off with two of my troops getting skills.

The conclusion from the 2 games so far is very positive. The game is completely silly but enormous fun. This is not for the serious tournament player but with a bunch of mates playing in a friendly atmosphere this will be a cracking game.

Mmmmmmm I wonder what my second kill team will be?

Bolt Action Winter Germans- Complete!

After getting my winter Germans onto the tabletop for the first time it gave me the impetus to get the rest of the force finished!

And so, with a minimum of rubbish text from me, below is a whole lot of pictures of the completed army. Click on the pictures for a closer look.

As a reminder, the miniatures are from Warlord's Winter German range, and are all based on some of the fantastic cobblestone bases from Battle Kiwi (if all of our posts recently haven't been clear enough, we really like Battle Kiwi!).

The Infantry- 2 Grenadier Squads, 1 Volksgrenadier Squad, Flamethrower, Sniper, Panzershrek and HQ

The guns- 75mm, 105mm, PaK 40, Mortar, HMG and Goliath team

The armour- Tiger, Puma, Panzer III and 4 Halftracks

PaK 40 looking gorgeous on the cobbled base

Removable crew!

81mm Mortar 

More removable crew!

LMG team on a pill shaped cobble base

75mm Infantry Gun

More removable crew!

Grenadier with a panzerfaust.

Panzer III. I am very proud of my whitewashing

Panzer Bum

Tiger 1!

Side view of the Tiger

One of the halftracks. Looking much better for having crew and a splash of whitewash

Goliath team. For when you absolutely HAVE to spend points on a next-to useless unit

Sniper team for added sniping

Medic!

The boss.

And so there you have it, a Winter Bolt Action army. There are still some things I would like to add to it, mostly in the vehicle department, but for now, it is done!

Pooch