Interlude Part 7

I haven't had an Interlude post for a while and seeing as I'm at work, it's the simplest way to get something put up to help me keep track of what I've been getting up to with my hobby.

First of all, I've been getting in a higher than normal amount of games of Flames of War in of late. (ie, more than 1 a week.) I made up a Guards Armoured Recce list from the Market Garden book to become more comfortable running an armoured list. I think I lost only one game out of the 5 or 6 I got to play. Not bad at all. Cromwells are flippin' excellent tanks to move about the table, fast and an okay gun. Only time I was stymied though was when I was up against a Panther and Jagdpanzer heavy list with a slow going train track cutting through the center of the board that totally mucked up my maneuverability benefit. But there ya go. Maybe soon I'll actually get to painting these Cromwells because they really are a great sculpt.
If yer interested, this is the list I played:

HQ 1iC and 2iC Cromwells
2 Platoons of 2x Cromwells and 1 Challenger
1 Platoon of 3x Stuarts
1 Platoon of 4 M10's with 17pdrs
1 Platoon of Infantry
1 Platoon of Universal Carriers with extra MG's

I managed to get my hands on the below awesome Limited Release sculpt by Sodapop Miniatures. I jumped on their Relic Knights Kickstarter and absolutely love the Candy and Cola characters. Lucky for my, my very good mate was to attend GenCon and swiped one of these for me along with a very sexi Kingdom Death White Speaker fig that I am super excited to try to paint.

My hands have not been idle - I've been busy making my Shermans look prettier by finally adding decals so they now all have unit and squadron markings. I'd been hesitant up until now to add definite markings as it means I'll not be able to use them outside of the specific lists their markings would allow in tournament settings. But I sucked it up and knew my tanks deserved far more love than I'd already offered and now they are looking very fine indeed, along with my two Universal Carrier patrols. (Post to show these upcoming, just need to take pics.) I've also finished up painting my Land Mattress battery - just details and basing to do (A post for these is also upcoming).

A full squad of Eisenkern troops (The lovely Dreamforge sculpts) has also been put together and cleaned up, ready for priming. These minis really were a joy to get ready and I am really eager to slap some paint on them. Dreamforge Games just released pics of their amazing looking plastic Mortis Leviathan enormous robot model. I am rather keen to get my hands on one of these.

Lastly, I have for some stupid reason lost my marbles and taken on a couple of commissions..... The plastic Dark Angels Librarian from the 40K Dark Vengeance box and a 7-man Ratling squad of the most recent sculpts. Updates on these, as and when they happen.

Interlude 6

 

Quick update on what’s been going on of late.

Progress on the Warband challenge is going okay – so far have sculpted the troll a new foot, which isn’t too bad considering sculpting at this scale isn’t my strong suit. I found an old 3^rd Edition Warhammer skeleton that I plan to take apart and decorate his base with as a prior lunch or some such. For the chaos goblins I pulled out some spare Night Goblins and completely balked at the crapness that is their sculpts - Looney Toons-esque and terrible. Frantically I looked about for an alternative option and came upon some old Gnoblar bits I had gotten for no particular reason and decided they’d be perfect. So now they are cleaned and based and read for primer. The Centaurs - well, centaur right now as I’m still waiting for the other horse to arrive from the UK - are going to be a bit more extensive work. I’m trying to keep the costs to a minimum for this project so aiming to use as much stuff from my bits collection as I can. Their torsos will be made from left over Beastman Gor torsos from my prior Beastman Penitents Guard unit and I have plenty of right arms to use on them…. Just the left arms I’m out of so maybe a tentacle or two?

I have been invited to attend a Late War Flames of War tournament in San Rafael on the 23^rd. This will be my first tournament for any game in five or six years and I am somewhat nervous. My knowledge of the rules is scant at best and I’ve not had good experiences in tournament settings up until now as the typical hyper competitive attitudes I’ve experienced up until now soured me completely on the whole tournament idea. But we will see – number one concern I really should have in all this is that I have SO MANY models to paint before the event!

It’s to be an escalation deal with three rounds of play, first at 1240 points, then a middle value for the 2^nd game that I can’t remember and final round game at 1780 points. You can use different lists though they have to be made from one Company list. I am thinking I’ll go with a Brit list from the new Market Garden book, Irish Guard or Canadian. Cheesy yes (Cos they are the current “it” lists.), but my lack of experience needs a boost, especially with my horrible dice rolls! :)

So thus far I have painted my infantry Company Command and a full 3 section Infantry Platoon and also a 3 carrier Universal Carriers platoon. What’s left to be done before the 23^rd are 4 Sherman V tanks, 4 Sherman Fireflys, 2 M10 Achilles with 17pdrs (I plan to borrow two for the event to have a full tank destroyer platoon.), platoon of Heavy Machinegun infantry, platoon of 3” Mortars, a Hawker Typhoon, platoon of 6pdr Anti-Tank Guns and eventually (When they arrive from Ebay.) a 4.2” Heavy Mortar platoon. I also have two extra Shermans I can run as my IC’s if I want to run a tank company, but I’m not sure if I wan to play that or an Infantry company.

So not much to get on with, eh? So far, I have 2 Shermans and 2 Fireflys near to complete and have started on the MG platoon uniforms and 6pdr guns. I’ve no decals so I think I’ll attempt freehanding some rough unit markings on them. (Wish me luck!) 

Needless to say, progress on anything Chaos Marines related has been paused until after the tourney.

Here’s a rubbish phone-cam pic of the WIP tanks. 

 

Lastly, I got an email from Dreamforge Games that my Eisenkern troopers from their most recent successful Kickstarter campaign have been put in the post! Needless to say, I am rather excited!

One Year

Today is this blog's anniversary I believe. I also passed the 9000 views mark.

Not bad for my lazy arsed self.

Just a quick post to say thanks for coming by, offering advice and being a general all round encouraging bunch. Being the antisocial jerk that I am, it's nice to know my hobby offerings can be presented before you lot and get some fair responses.

So applaud yourself, cos I wouldn't have kept up with this otherwise. Thank you.

I managed to keep my New Years Resolution as well, having 65 total posts and so averaging more than one post a week. I call that progress folks. (You can call is modesty.)

Hopefully in the near future I'll have something exciting to post up included but not restricted to:

1. I've stuck all the RT Guard troopers on their bases aside from Heavy Weapons Squads (I have no 60mm bases - anyone know of a super cheap resource for these?). Heads will be next, then it's time to prime.

2. Creed, his Vox 'porter, the three Plague Marines are all getting wee spots of paint, though still far from done.

3. The big Mutie from the Nurgle Chaos Coven for my Inquisimunda campaign is near complete. Somehow found some enthusiasm for the model, which is nice considering it's been a hard slog to want to paint this up until now.

4. After jumping on the Dreamforge Kickstarter, I find myself now with the impending delivery of a further bunch of miniatures (Couldn't resist, they looked so darn good.) and who knows, I may well dive into the game too once the rules are released.

5. A pal of mine has been asking me to get on board with his Flames of War group. I plan to make my first attendance (For any game in a few years since Warmachine 1.0) on the 12th to see if I like it. If it grabs my attention, then I guess for my birthday (the 20th of this month.) I think I may well put some funds into that new starter set to get a British force going. We'll see though.

That's it. Go drink, paint and be merry and I'll do the same.