Betty and Lug

Alright - Alright! Last time posting on these two, I promise.

Simon wanted a team pic, so here they are together. After a swift paint session last night to fix Betty's face I'm finally happy with her eyes. Not perfect, but far more "anime" than they were previously. Also added a spot of light blue in her goggles lenses and a bit of pink to accentuate her lip more. I think they make a really cool looking team.

The California morning sun is bleaching out some of Betty's colours in this pic, but it was the best I could do.

As well as adding a brown to create an iris, I aslo added some skin colour under the eye to lessen the gothy-looking mascara mess that was there before. Paint came out a little thicker than expected, but on the tabletop she'll do just fine.

Started work on a Relic Knights "Pacer" robot thing too - though I'll post more on that when it is further along. Going again with the studio scheme as I've never been that comfortable painting "pink", so we'll see how that goes!

Also got another pair of zombies swiftly painted. They just need slight blood effects and eyes dotted in. (Only 34 to go...) I'll get them finished and photographed this weekend and maybe they'll have some mates join them too.

Top Secret

Friday night saw Densmol and I make a rare trip down to our LGS to play some Bolt Action. We got there a little later than planned, so there wasn’t much in the way of “good” shop terrain pieces, but we made it work and the game was fun regardless.

The mission rolled up was “Top Secret”, where an aeroplane has crashed with a briefcase containing important intel on board and our forces were sent to retrieve the case and get it off our respective table-edge in order to win the scenario. In this case, we used a severed Buddha Statue head as our “crashed aircraft”, which caused much juvenile merriment.

The 1000 point lists that we brought were the ones we’d planned (And subsequently weren’t able to) bring to the last tournament and Densmol was dead set on bringing his newly painted Tiger tank to plague my poor Soviets with it’s “Tiger Fear” rule and nasty Super-heavy Anti-tank gun! Of course we subsequently forgot to apply the “Tiger Fear” rule until turn 4… The Tiger performed rather awfully and my T34/85 tank didn’t do much better (But at least wasn’t destroyed in the first couple of turns like in it’s last two outings!).

We didn’t take many pics of the game as it took a long time and we were repeatedly interrupted by curious passers-by asking about the rules set, etc – which we were only too happy to explain and hopefully thereby recruit some new players! So here’s a handful of random pics with a small description of what was going on at the time. I ended up winning in the 7^th turn, which was a last gasp deal and much fun was had by both of us!

Shots exchanged across the table from hilltop to hilltop. I was able to put out enough suppressive fire to keep his Heer squads pinned through most of the game. In his center, right above the Buddha head is a very nasty 6-man SS  squad decked out with  assault weapons and Panzerfausts. In our last game they tore through my poor regulars, so this time I made sure to concentrate fire on them with my ZIS-3 Divisional Gun. It whittled them down to a single soldier, but he wouldn't run away.

Our most hilarious moment all evening. That big blob of troops in the middle of this picture are my Inexperienced Squad with their Commissar next to them. Their Lieutenant (To their left) had activated them with his "Snap to  Action" rule and they then rolled to see if they'd actually obey. Of course they failed their roll. In steps the Commissar with his trusty pistol to shoot one of the poor disobedient sods in the back of the head. (This is his special rule that allows them to re-roll a failed orders test.) I picked up the dice, blew on them for luck and rolled. The pic shows what the result was - double-sixes, the worst roll and considered a FUBAR! I rolled on the FUBAR Table to see just how horrible the result of this Orders test would be. Of course I roll a one, that gives control of the squad to one's enemy so that they can Friendly Fire at any unit in line of sight. One minute I had a Lieutenant and his Adjutant, the next, both were shot through by the massed fire of 11 rifle shots... 

Top right in this picture is Densmol's Tiger. It caused a lot of worry so I tried to use my own T-34 to take it out. Both tanks were equally useless though and spent the game mostly just rolling ones and twos at eachother. In the Center, my Guards Squad has shucked off it's pins from the earlier small arms duel and managed to pick up the intel from the crashed Buddha Head!

And here is the end game - The Guards Squad get picked up by it's truck transport and the truck starts to reverse back toward my lines of deployment. Densmol's Tiger rolls up and will take a shot at them, knowing that the following Turn 7 (Had the game ended on Turn 6, it would have been called a draw) would be enough time for them to escape with the intelligence case. The Tiger rumbles forward and fires it's fearsome 88 gun! A hit, the truck is destroyed and it's occupants have to make saves to survive the fiery wreck - which enough do and make the subsequent morale test, meaning that in the next turn they were able to stumble back to their own lines having earned themselves a rest and some hooch.

Sad to say that no painting was done this weekend! I did though glue together my newly purchased Warlord Games plastic M3 Stuart tank that I’ll be adding to my Soviets in Winter Whitewash. The Lend Lease Act meant that lots of older American and British tanks were sent to the USSR to help in their war effort after Hitler kicked off Operation Barbarosa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Stuart was used up until the end of the war by the Soviet army and it performed pretty well, though as with most of the Lend Lease kit, Soviet tankers far preferred their Soviet made tanks (T-34, etc). The addition of this light tank will free up points in my lists (My T34/85 takes up a large chunk of every list I’ve made thus far!) and provide a cool little armoured asset for future games.

Blackeyed Betty

I will say this now - I really dislike trying to paint Anime style eyes. 💀💀💀

And, as you'll see below it shows. So apologies right up front for the shitty effort at painting them, I do very much intend to return to fix them at a later date when I am not nearing the urge to just feed her to an effin' blender.

Here's Betty, partner to previously shown Lug. She's a mechanic and Pit Boss to a racing team in the Relic Knights setting.That big yellow and grey gun thing she's toting is also some sort of future-tech wrench I believe. I tried to stick with the studio scheme to match Lug's paintjob and the illustration above. Painting chequers is a pain in the arse by the way when your brushpoints are all shot to bollocks.

*edit* I just realised that I forgot to paint the lenses of her goggles! 

Also picked up very affordably a Reaper Bones "Pillar of Evil", which was a stupid quick paintjob. Wanted it to look a bit like alabaster or some such. It has three sides, but all are identical. Wanted to test out Reaper's claim that their Bones plastic "needs no primer prior to painting", guess they were correct, at least on this piece. Very cool. Will make a nice rpg item of interest or something I can stick in photos of minis as background decor.

Also, after Simon posted up his lovely Dark Ages sheep at his blog from www.war-bases.co.uk, I just had to get a set. And I got a set of geese. and a wee pack of wolves. And a pair of Highland coos and their coo calf. Blame Simon and visit his blog - he churns out a lot of cool stuff and it's a varied so there'll be something for everyone's gaming blog tastes!

Lug versus the Undead

Done, in all his wasp-y finery. Lug is the 1^st Relic Knights mini I’ve painted in a rather long time. I tried to stick to the colour scheme of his artwork from his stat cards and also in the rule book as I liked how it stood out and because I hadn’t painted that much yellow at one time in a long time.

The mini was produced in horrible restic plastic, but thankfully no detail was lost or was softened (As happens a lot when minis are produced in this medium in my experience) due to Lug being a larger sculpt. The mini was primed grey like 90% of my figs and then base coated in a mustard yellow (Proper paint name escapes me.) and Codex Grey and then washed with Gryphonne Sepia Wash and Nuln Oil respectively. I built up the grey’s with successive layers of Codex grey lightened with white, and the yellows likewise with the mustard colour lightened. The black areas got a little highlight with P3 Cryx somethingorrather and then Nuln Oil wash applied on top. All green areas were painted with a Vallejo bright green/German-camo colour, lightened with white and a wash of an older Citadel green. The base is pretty simple Army Painter Gunmetal washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted with the Gunmental again, with an old Citadel Bronze here and there as spot colours.

I’ve started work on Lug’s pal, Betty as well, though progress is slow. Again, I’ve tried to stick with the scheme shown in the artwork, but goodness trying to paint those chequers is a pain in the arse! Hope to have her posted up sometime this week.

I also got time to finish the first 5 of my zombies I’d planned to paint this year. Just simple efforts, base-coats with Agrax wash and some simple Tamiya Clear Red+a drop of brown ink for blood effects. They are going to die in droves and I am not about to put that much effort into minis that aren’t going to stay on the table very long! They look good enough for gaming in my eye and made a nice distraction whilst watching Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny on Netflix yesterday. :)

Lug (WIP)

In my last post I mentioned I had started work on a couple of Relic Knights minis, Betty and Lug. These two are a mechanic (Betty) and her Chee (The sentient robots of the setting) bodyguard (Lug). In-game, they are a team you can choose to play from the Cersi Speed Racer faction (Mostly girl faction of very fast, but low armoured troop choices. Lots of bums and boobs though.) and can pack a punch in hand-to-hand combat.

This scheme is based off the studio scheme and rulebook artwork. I've found painting yellow isn't all that tricky and rather rewarding to be honest.

Just a couple WIP pictures of Lug thus far. I’ve still loads to get done on his grey parts, black stripes, green glowy bits and facial details. O and the base, though that’s going to be very simple metallic. I hope to get more painting done tonight and might even get him complete if I have enough time after working out.

Kind of wished I'd glued him further back on his base - the mini is a little front heavy. Might add some counter-weight to the underside of the base's rear area to compensate.

(Betty has also gotten a little paint on her, but the orange I had tried using left a horrible finish, so I may well have to strip her *ooo err missus* and start again.)

*O and to allay any fears to the contrary, I have NOT given up alcohol. The title to my last post was in response to the “World Book Day/week/month/whatever” posts I’d seen of late. “Five give up the Booze” is a book I’d recently finished reading based off of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series – some sort of parody novel.

Cheers.

Five Give Up the Booze - a silly business

Those astute enough to follow events around these parts will see that it’s been a little while since my last post. This is because I’ve been on holiday to visit my sister and her family in Trinidad and soak up “Carnival” whilst I was there. I had a bloody lovely time and saw so much feathered lady-flesh that I’ll have good memories (And plenty of pics, of course)for years to come. :)

Since my return my hands have not been exactly idle at my hobby desk. Whilst nothing’s been finshed, I’ve been gluing and slapping paint about different things.

1. In April I’ll be co-demoing some Regimental Fire & Fury ACW with my mate Stewart and so have started painting up the remainder of my outstanding 15mm Confederate infantry for the day. It’ll be a large game, set to take some 5 or 6 hours (I hope my neck can stand up to that sort of punishment…) with 6 players and we two as GM’s. Stewart has a modified scenario to run through and know’s all the details, I think I’ll just be there to supply Reb’s and my pretty self. No pics yet cos who wants to see boring primed minis with blue trousers? More on these later.

2.  Last year I was lucky enough to win a raffle on Facebook that involved the Bolt Action community. The proceeds went to a lovely chap, Damon Andersen so that he could afford a pricey surgery for his young daughter in the US. The prize ended up being a lovely box from Warlord games that included their new “Band of Brothers” starter set, black set of order dice, the Tank Wars supplement and some cool looking german officer with an SMG. Thus far I’ve put together and primed the German Half-track that came with the Starter Set, but also got to start work on the Hetzer tank hunter that I’d purchased almost a year ago. Project Winter Germans is on it’s way!

Half Track is a re-purposed Pioneer 251/D as shown by the storage bins along the sides. I just liked the look with them, than without. Considering adding a canvas cover over a frame for the passenger area seeing as it'll be a Winter theme'd vehicle. The cork is sporting a German Tank commander, he's just primed ready for when I actually have a tank able to stick him in. I'm thinking a Panzer iii or an 8-Rad might be in my future?

The Panzer 38T-Hetzer tank Hunter is my fav German tank. Ugly little bastard that packed a wollop though suffered terribly from unreliable mechanics and thin armour that barely stopped machinegun fire. Add to that Late War fuel shortages and how awfully cramped these things were inside and it was not a very liked machine. But much like ugly dogs, it really appeals to me. Bit shiny in the pic as it's currently drying from a coat of gloss varnish, prior to decals being added and then weathering. The red barrel is to represent that this tank is not that far from the factory floor - they didn't have time to paint it!

3. Spurred on by this jump-start to my painting mojo, I also started looking at other things, #1 were my old 3^rd Edition Blood Bowl Orcs which got scrubbed clean of that old paint job, mold lines removed and glued to new bases. Also after being tempted to jump in on the new Relic Knights Kickstarter project (And consequently reminded by self that I’d not played the original version in almost 2 years, much less painted more than 98% of the Relic Knights minis I already own…) I pulled out Betty and Lug (To be previewed at a later date) and started base colours on those. Sadly, this led me to discover that my much prized old pot of Blazing Orange had completely dried up! And so very sad, I threw that old horse (Brought all the way from the UK no less) into the bin.

That just leaves my Dark Angels Green remaining from my "old" Citadel paint collection. :(

Some more work was done on the Wintery Eastern Front buildings too, but of course, I forgot to take pics. Again, at a later date. 

Forgive me if I haven't commented on your blogs in a while. I'm trying to make my way through all of the posts backlog, but it's taking a while and those bloody things do pile up QUICK! 

In conclusion, I hope to get a new post up by the weekend so if you're so inclined, watch this space!