6MMRPC Week 5 Report

Swift one as there wasn't all that much accomplished this week.

Got a bit more done on the cursed 15mm Confederate cavalry. Only 6 more of these to finish up before I can get basing sorted and call them done. Finally. :)

Speaking of ACW, I've been reading through Sam Mustafa's "Longstreet" American Civil War gaming rules (After reading through the multiple AAR's that the Madpadre has posted up on his blog) and I'm liking what I see. Kind of excited to get a campaign going using the rules from the book - means I need to get painting grey uniforms quicksmart though!

Also started painting a female Barbarian setting Bard mini for my upcoming rpg campaign. In true Frazetta style, she seems to have forgotten about the prospect of Winter, or even a stiff breeze and so is yet another lesson in "painting skin".

And that's it. Bit rubbish after the frenzied work sessions of my first month, but there ya go. Ebbs and flows and all that.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the Brits winning the Battle of Britain. Makes me think of my Grandfather (Though his RAF exploits were in the Middle East during this period) and offer thanks to all those brave men and women who were part of the massive undertaking to combat the Luftwaffe's attempt to pummel my home country into submission. Makes me feel like I need to paint up a Spitfire sometime soon. :)

Lastly, sad news as an old favourite of mine, Actor Omar Sharif passed away at a respectable 83 years old. There are many films in my list of favourites that would not have been so beloved were he not there to add his flair.

Let's see if I can't get some more work done for week 6.

Revenge of the 6MMRPC!!!

Last year's 6th Month Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge (Started September, my initial post for it is HERE) got me off my hobby arse and painting a fair amount of my hobby backlog. It was a great motivator and even saw this lowly blog updated at least once a week almost consistently.

Well, the organisers have decided it would be better to start the 2nd annual challenge earlier this year so as not to fall during the Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays (Sensibly) and therefore make it a little easier for people to keep up the momentum without the distractions that a run of major holidays can provide.

Not that I am all that big on cats in general, but my cat I feel deserves far more internet time than any other. (Plus I didn't have any other clever pictures around when I wrote this post up...)

Starting June 1st, the 2nd 6MMRPC begins! This is great and well timed for me. I've been feeling badly burnt out on painting for a while now after that mad dash to try to get my Flames of War British Motor Company fully painted for March's tournament here in Sacramento, but also inspired (after a couple of demo games of Dark Ages 28mm) to start my own Viking and Saxon forces so I can play some Lion Rampant. So there's lots to be painted for that project alone.

The rules for this year's Challenge have changed a little -

a. we get 3 "Jokers" instead of 2 - so some impulse buys aren't too out of the picture and you can earn further "Jokers" by completing entire projects.

b. we are allowed to pick up "that one missing piece" to complete a project without it counting as a "Joker".

c. The lovely chaps organising the Challenge have included a small painting competition with a real prize. I might enter, though having seen some of the work people posted from last year, doubt I will have much chance at winning!

Here are the actual rules copied and pasted directly from The Spider Web of History blog:

1. No purchasing of new miniatures, EXCEPT if you use a joker.  You get three jokers to use on a figure purchase.  Could be a blister pack, an ebay bundle, or a single figure...you can't splurge. The only exception to this rule is if you need bitz or A FIGURE (Singular) to complete a unit/warband etc.

1.1 - There is an opportunity to "earn" additional jokers.  If you complete an entire project (whole unit/army/warband etc.) with pictures of starting, WIP, and completion, you earn yourself a Joker.

2.  Gifts do not count against you. Holidays, birthdays etc. Also, if you're given gift cards by your hobby illiterate family or friends, you can without penalty use them on anything you want miniatures wise.

3.  Paints, terrain (or materials), and other hobby supplies do not apply to the no purchasing rule.

4.  At least one hobby related blog post and/or Instagram update a week.  If you instagram, be sure to hashtag your pic with #6MMRPC

5.  Zombtober will be part of the 6 month challenge so, Zombie related stuff during October is ENCOURAGED. Other theme suggestions are welcomed.

6.  Anyone that wants to submit a before and after picture of a miniature that they are proud of completing during the course of the challenge to dmcffd@gmail.com will be entered into the running for a gift certificate to a online wargaming store of their choice.  Judging will be by an un-biased person.  Amount on the gift certificate will be dictated by winners nationality but should work out to about $30 U.S. I (Spiderweb of History) will not be eligible to win.

So.... June 1st.... It's on. I'll be putting together a swift post to illustrate what projects I plan on showing my major goals with Draxian (TM) charts and so forth, so watch this space.

A picture of the Twits. Just because.

In other news - my blog recently hit some major milestones (Considering it's not updated all that often and that what I do post is allovertheplace topics-wise.)! I passed 50'000 views and also 101 followers in swift succession! BIG thanks to those who stop in and read my nonsense and comment on the work I showcase. Like many others who've written these type milestone posts, it's the community and their encouragement that keep me coming back and posting updates and of course in turn being able to view and comment upon your own hobby works and exploits. I've made some online mates and met others in person through this blog, so that I feel accounts for how much it has impacted my life. Thankyou all (Especially the bots, who are no doubt at blame for getting me to the 50K views by a fair majority.), I hope I can keep this place interesting enough to keep you coming back fro more in the future!

Interlude (Part 9)

No post last week due to my taking (mostly) a break from hobby-work for health reasons and so had little to report on and less to take pictures of. Add to that my frustration with my Kingforce Churchills (PSC’s instructions were not correct and so mid-way through painting, I realized that certain pieces were not indicated to be glued on and so now I have to go back, file away areas of paint and get that sorted before I can continue to paint.), so I was not in the mood to pick up my paint brushes. I did muddy up the remainder of my Late War Canadian armour and armoured cars though in preparation for….

The last tournament of the 2014 Norcal Flames of War Circuit!

It took place this Saturday at Gamescape North in San Rafael – 1500 point, 3 rounds, strict red-versus-blue D-Day themed Firestorm event. 22 of us showed up with the sides equal (Which was awesome!) and wow, what an event, easily the best tournament I've attended to date. Richard Barnes, who had until early this year (He moved to New Mexico) been a member of our Circuit, travelled back to Northern California to not only run our last tournament of the year, but also provide and paint almost all the Firestorm units required.

Each of the tables were theme’d to specific events during D-Day – Pegasus Bridge (Firestorm units available were some Brit Paras for the allies and rare air support for the Germans), Carentan (Big 8.8 AT guns for the Germans and a P-51 Mustang for the Allies), etc. All 11 tables looked great and most even played great too. (Beach-landing mats and all in some cases!)

As mentioned in my previous post, I brought Canadian armour. Only Confident Trained though, so easy to shoot and being Shermans, well, we all know how good Shermans tanks were/are at suffering German tank/AT-gun fire, right?

I played John Murphy in the first round with the Mission being No Retreat, defending the Pegasus Bridge against his truck mounted Panzer Lehr hoard. My Firestorm unit ended up being a wee platoon of Brit Paratroops (Thematic!) and after mass volleys of artillery and a far too accurate Sporadic Fokke Wulf air attack almost every turn of the game, I managed to withstand him long enough until time was called and I had defended both of the objectives and scoring a 5-2, having only seen my game MVP’s (My Bofors AA guns) finally die off.

This bridge wasn't all that far away afterall.

The Second round I faced off against Wyn Roberts. Wyn is a very accomplished player, who has attended Masters tournaments in the past too. Already I was intimidated. Add to this we were playing Breakthrough on a VERY terrain populated table and my poor tanks were finding it hard to get anywhere without being shot at by “something” as soon as they left cover. Wyn’s deployment was very well done and I just couldn't stop worrying about his Firestorm unit for the game, some Pak43’s that looked so terrifying it they messed up my whole game plan. In the end I managed to take out a platoon of his infantry to scrape by on a 2-5 loss.

Pak43 - these things are bloody HUGE!

At this point, the Commonwealth players weren’t doing all that well with 4 out of 5 of us at only 7 points after the 2^nd game. But I was one of them and so hoped I’d pull a favourable match in the 3^rd and final game of the day to come out on top and maybe even win an award.

My 3^rd game ended up being against Richard Gagliasso and his Confident Trained German Grenadiers list. ELEVEN PLATOONS of the buggers with four of them being some sort of artillery! The game was Free for All which meant that not only did I have to face all that horrid crap, but that I got to face it all at the same time as well. The game was long and drawn out. My troops killed an arseload of stuff, but only ended up managing to kill two full platoons. When time was called, I had just failed a Company morale check and I was left with yet another 5-2 loss. This meant I was out of the runnings altogether. In the end, the Germans thumped us emphatically and so our DDay landings were a total failure. 

We win Tommy!

The event was well put together and a whole bunch of fun – the best tournament I’ve been to yet, and it seems a template that future tournaments are going to be designed by, which is fine by me. The new 2015 Circuit is still in the design stages, but already there are some cool ideas being thrown about from an East Front (For which I have no minis for….) tourney, to a Tunisia theater one (Which would be perfect for my Desert Brits!).

It ain't 'alf  'ot out 'ere Mum...

This current hobby burnout will hopefully pass by quickly what with a 5-day break coming up for me for the Thanksgiving holiday two days away, so hopefully I'll have a new post up over the weekend showing some progress shots of my work. 

*edit* With all this poor hobby progress going on, I can take solace in the fact that I still have yet to purchase any new models, so the hobby pledge isn't a total loss. :)

The Pay's Alright (Part 1 - 1st Platoon Command WIP)

***WARNING - LONG POST AHEAD!!!***

Burnout krept up on me like an evil little virus and so that's why you've seen little of my hobby exploits here of late.

But I've managed to motivate myself some to get a few things done; read on if you dare......

After seeing Victoria Lamb's awesome squad deals (And shamefully putting in an order for one as well - don't tell the wife), Guard fever has struck once more and I've been slowly painting up the remaining members of the Command Squad for the 1st Platoon.
Here in painting progress are the Squad Standard Bearer, Weapons Specialists, and Voxman in various stages of painting. It's nice to get back in the saddle again with this project as there's still an enormous amount to get done, but I think in the end it'll be more than worth it, as once arrayed together, this army will be at least interesting to look at to say the least. No arms as yet and since this pic was taken I've highlighted the armours some. Am thinking that I'll not spend so much time on these so I can get through them a little quicker.

I've also been making enquiries around multiple manufacturers regarding purchasing some appropriately beefy wheels for my 4 Chimera counts-as, so 16 wheels total. So far though I've not had much luck aside from Secret Weapon Miniatures who've quoted a whopping $45! I'm not so sure my budget can handle that kind of pricing just for wheels when part of the reason I was making my own vehicles was to cut costs. I've been half tempted to look into attempting to sculpt up some of my own and push molding the rest, but I've seen people's attempts at this kind of production and it only seems to look at all good on smaller scale stuff like emblems, etc. I've also filled in all the windows and viewing ports on the vehicles with white glue (which worked out just loverly) and started fixing Multi-lasers to their turrets and random left-over-from-other-projects Heavy Flamers to their hulls. All they'll need from here is some cheeky stowage (And the aforementioned wheels) and they'll be ready for paint! No pics though as there's really little to see from the last time I showcased them.
My Flames of War stuff has suffered the most from this recent bout of burn. I think putting so much effort into that one infantry platoon really snuffed my desire to work on anything, especially 15mm uniforms.... But, I've started on my Universal Carrier patrol. Only 3 and only primed thus far. (The bases have been painted since I originally wrote this.) After playing some and getting some good advice, I've also taken a PIAT wielding trooper and shaved away his base and bent him at the waist so he can sit in one of them. This is so I won't have to buy a whole pack of PIAT Carriers - turns out that it's rather handy to have a sneaky anti-tank option in this recce unit incase the inevitable armour appears.

I also got in my second game of Flames of War against my mate Sam and his Heavy Nazi armour where once again my dice betrayed me horribly, only this time right from the very beginning of the game. No seriously, it was utter toss. I surrendered around turn 4 after it seemed that I couldn't hit anything or even roll more than a 2 on almost every occassion. I think that if I weren't laughing so hard at the irony, I'd have been quite angry. One thing I will say, I need more anti-tank units (Have already ordered a platoon of 6 pdr guns) - if what I've heard from the rumours are anything to go by, then I'll be fast buying up some Archer tank hunters when the new Market Garden book is released next year.

Here's some pics of the game, apologies for the quality, my phone camera is old and well, old.



Nazi armoured column advance down the left flank to assault the brave Tommies dug in on the objective in the trees.



After losing some half-tracks to shots from my ambushing Shermans, the Nazis assault into the woods and force my troops to withdraw.

Meanwhile on the right flank my Crocodiles are facing off against a nasty Panther platoon that had just taken out the aforementioned Sherman platoon.

Even after unloading shot after shot and spewing fire, my dice failed my miserably every time and so the panthers just had to face the terror of my smoke shots instead to try to mitigate damage. :(

A second infantry platoon runs on from reserve to try to help out the beleaguered boys in the woods.

Sadly, they arrive just in time to see 'said boys run over by Tigers and then find themselves machin-gunned to pieces by halftracks.

Lastly, apologies if I have not offered Christmas warm wishes on your blogs, there were so many festive posts that I just got overwhelmed and well, felt that it'd be easier to just offer my belated well wishes here instead. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and a safe time with your respective families. Me and my wee family had a lovely time.

I'm the devilishly handsome fellow in the red by the way. ;)

My cat on the other hand, did not see the humour in the season.

Pretty Maids All in a Row (Part 2 - 1st Platoon WIP)

A small update on the progress I've gotten done on my 1st infantry platoon. Base colours are almost done, just the browns for woods and leathers, and metallics left.

Have to say, this is the first time I've painted 15mm in almost twenty years and I'd forgotten just how laborious it is! Good lord these little fellers are fiddly. Glad I have the two tank platoons (Currently sat, primed black and ready for paint.) to switch over to in between platoons to help break up this bulk painting monotony. After I've gotten the next colours done, I'll slap on a coat of Minwax English Chestnut for shade and call them done.

Then it's time for basing. I have some spackle which I've heard is good for textured bases, though I've yet to use it in such a fashion, so am a little nervous as to how it'll work out and if I will end up messing up my already painted figs as I plonk them into the pink stuff. (it turns white when dry, strangely)

Still yet to get an urge to paint any 40K miniatures, though I am sure that will return soon. The latest podcast (Episode 66) from The Independent Characters (My fav' 40K podcast) and Col. Scipio's latest post has me thinking some on some fun ideas for my Imperial Guard and the officer models I still have to paint up.

Here's a few shots of the British Infantry to wet yer whistle.

Pretty Maids All in a Row (Part 1 - Initial WIP)

Last night saw a grand arrangement and sorting of infantry and so forth and the completion of assembly for my tank platoons aside from a little gap filling. Three infantry platoons and a Command HQ, all to be Welsh Guard, and two tank platoons which will be Irish Guard (We Celts have to stick together.). I also have the small mortar platoon to set up, but didn’t have time for that last night.




The infantry have since been sprayed with black primer and are now ready for their uniform base, Vallejo’s “English Brown” or whatever it’s called. I intend to paint these to a basic tabletop standard as I want them ready by the 30th. Or at least that’s my hope. (I can always go back and touch them up with better detail, etc thereafter.)

As to other hobby news, I’ve had a bout of burnout on my other projects. Really hard to feel motivated to get into them these past couple weeks, so they have sat unloved on my desk. Am hoping that painting a silly amount of 15mm figures won’t make that worse! :)

Interlude 2

I hope some of the viewers I get on here hopefully gave that vid a look-see in my last post? The model's been sculpted from the ground up by a mate of mine from Denmark called Jon Micheelsen. He's an amazing sculptor and this is one mini I for one will be purchasing (Just as soon as I can figure a way to get said purchase past my wife.).  and I hope some of you  lot also like the look of it enough to get one (Or more) yourselves.

No pics today, which as a person with 115 blogs to follow, I know can blow, but painting that Dreadnought took it out of my hobby energy reserves and I've been taking it easy in the man cave.

Saying that, I've not been idle. There has been some progress, it's just slow progress is all.

1. Beastmen Penitents: After getting inspired by Mordian7th's wonderful Beastmen that he's put together for his cool looking Imperial Guard regiment (Clicky!), I decided to put some work into my own Beastmen squad that had been sat on a shelf primed and neglected for far too long. Currently just base-coats though I'm getting close to be done with that stage. Like the rest of my guard though, I think I'll just stick with a tabletop quality paint job as I don't want to get bogged down with these too much.

2. Malcador Defender: A very cool fellow on the SonsofCorax forum put forth a nice article on the From the Warp blog about the best ways for painting vehicles WITHOUT an airbrush that shows a technique or two that I'm going to try I think. Airbrushes are all the rage it would seem in the "littleplasticmen" hobby scene, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay that much for something I don't know the 1st thing about how to use properly. Aside from that, the Malcador NEEDS to be painted, I mean, that driver/commander has sat there painted and ready to be glued in the top hatch now for a month or something! Some of it's metallics have been painted. I'm torn between a tan/brown scheme or just plain dirtied steel-type colour. Had thought about trying to make an effect as though the Chaos drivers had shoddily re-painted over a loyalist scheme (With parts of the old scheme showing through here and there.), but not sure my skills are up to that task.

3. Brother Captain Stern: Yet ANOTHER Grey Knight commission. And another overly detailed space marine terminator blokey. The fig's been sat on my wee shelves that sit over my painting table for a while now and I know the customer would really like to get him back sometime..... I just... have problems feeling excited about painting Grey Knights. Am I wrong for feeling this way? He's now primed black and ready for his metallics.

4. After valiantly and excitedly slapping paint on the now completed Raven Guard Land Speeder (Clicky!), I have been trying to convince myself to get back and finish off the rest of the Sternguard Vets that have sat on my desk for 6 months or something. Bolt guns and hoses are now silver and base colour for bone-helmets and emblems has been applied.

5. I also went out and bought a crapload of polystyrene from Lowes and a 2'x4' board to start making my long-planned graveyard =][=munda battle board. Have both the Garden of Morr and the Warhammer Chapel, the Forge World Roadside Shrine and am hunting down the best deal on the nicest gravestones I can find. Then it's on! This'll be my first terrain project so I'm kind of nervous I don't feck it up.

So there you have it. once the beastmen are a little closer to a finished state, I'll stick up pics. I also haven't forgotten my =][=munda project and all the remaining team characters yet to see paint, just been hard to feel inspired as my gaming group has seemed to lose interest in the game. Though I could be wrong.

The end.

Feeling the burrrn....

So after being knocked for six by whatever evil pox that had taken residence in my system for more than a week, I’ve really struggled to get any interest going in my hobby.




The big Ogryn got a little work done on him and thus far I’m kind of “meh” about his paint job, but that’s pretty typical for me. But he’s now been sat for over two weeks.



Likewise the commissions I’ve got are sat not done. Luckily they are for a work friend who has given me no timeline to get them done.



So forgive the lack of activity here, I hope that will change soon and that this current edition of Dai’s hobby burnout will soon pass on, but as it stands, “thar’s no-one here ‘cept us chikuns”.