Monday, May 30, 2016

A few wolves

This is going to be a quick one.  A little side project I work on from time to time is a little 40k.  Am I a dedicated child of the emperor and 40k fanatic?  Naaa.... but I'm a fan of the models and it's a good diversion when I'm between projects.  Anyways, here's a few pics.....




I fully admit that I know very little about these dudes or squad formation or anything for that fact.  However, I know Leman Russ was a badass and that out of all the Space Marine chapters, the space wolves look the coolest (IMO).

These were pretty interesting to paint.  Lots of little details and I learned that it's best not to to fully build these dudes before you start painting (ie. don't attach the heads or shoulder pads).  Lots of edge highlighting and the heads have lots of character.  They were a lot of fun to paint and I hope to paint some more.

Next update should be sooner as I'm working on some Frostgrave stuff.  I make no promises to when you'll be able to see it, but it shouldn't be a month and half.  Don't quote me on that though as my professional life is pretty crazy this year.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Adepticon 2016

I RETURN!!!!
 ::pause for awkward dramatic silence::


Sorry, I couldn't help myself.  So after my last post, I painted some wild warg riders for my nephew and got incredibly burned out in the process for some reason.  It's probably because the time table pushed me to my limits with having less than 2 weeks to get 12 miniatures done and wanting to experiment with different techniques of blending that did not go over well.  Unusually I'm at my best when I'm pressed for time as it forces me not to dally and stay focused on the task at hand.  Meh... it happens....

So what have I been up to lately?  A lot actually.  I took most of January and February off from painting.  Papa Nurgle decided to pay me a visit during that time and took me out of commission for a long time (3 weeks or something like that.....).  Yup, it sucked.  At the end of February it dawned on me that Adepticon was a month away and I hadn't gotten anything done that I planned for the two tournaments I was scheduled to play in for Bolt Action.  All the miniatures were purchased months earlier and still sitting in the packages they came in.

With a long deep breath, I dug in at the end of February, cleaned off my brushes, lubed up my airbrush, and got to work.  I spent the month of March painting every night, literally every night.  From the time I got home from work to bedtime, activity was happening on my work bench.  Whether 1 hour or 8, shit was getting done.  All the way up to March 31st (the first day of adepticon), and even then I stayed up till 4am wrapping things up and doing finishing touches.  It was rough, but rewarding.  Here are the fruits of my labor....

First up are my Panther's I won at Operation Sting last year...







And now for the Marder's.  Note that I didn't get a chance to paint the crews for them yet.  It's in the backlog for now.  They're glass cannons in the back that rock a huge punch but a glance will pretty much destroy them.






Here is the SdKfz 231 Heavy Armor Car, also known as Dracula's Coach.  Yeah, it early war and wouldn't have been included in a late-war German Grenadier force.  I just thought the model was cool.  It also filled the void I was looking for.... a cheap armored car used for annoying the opposing force.




  
 



Note that all the above armor was mostly painted with my Badge Patriot 105 airbrush (just in case anyone was wondering).

Now onto the men on foot.  Up next we have 3 of my special teams.  My medium machine gun, produced by Gorgon Studios, a flamethrower team, and a panzerschreck team.






Finally, we come to where the bulk of my time was spent.... the ground force.  I have 3 German Pioneer's (used as Assault Engineer's) mixed in there.  The flamethrower team and the dude holding the strumpistole.  They can be picked out by the blue pants.






All the above pictures is just what I got painted in March.  As far as the tournament, I used a bunch of guys I painted last year, so this is by no means the entire army I played.  Mainly I was rocking 3 squads of Regular Heer German (7 guys per, 2 Assault Rifles, 1 LMG Team, NCO with Assault Rifle, 2-3 guys with Rifles), 1 squad of Veteran Assault Engineers (1 strumpistole, 1 flame thrower team, 1 NCO with SMG, 2 guys with SMG's, 2 guys with rifles), 1 flamethrower team, 1 panzerschreck team, 1 medium machine gun team, 1 medium mortar team, 1st LT with Assault rifle with 2 guys, a Panther, and my SdKfz armored car.  The total was 1250 points on the nose.

How did I do in the tournament?  Well, my first game I got crushed.  I was taking on the Americans.  My guys couldn't hit the broadside of a barn door, and I couldn't pass any leadership test (even with 1 pin).  So I was rolling low when I needed to roll high, and rolling high when I needed to roll low.  All I could do is laugh at my terrible luck.  I missed getting a minor defeat by 1 point and ended up with a major defeat.  A great way to start a two day tournament.

My next game was another American army.  This was an attacker/defender game with 3 objectives that needed to be controlled.  I played the attacker.  It was a stalemate.  I stacked the right flank and hit a brick wall.  By turn 4, my panther was burning and my left flank was barely holding.  I did some gutsy charges and managed to take 1 objective, contest 1 objective, and couldn't get to the third.  It ended with a draw.  I blame the table partly as it was the desert island one with lots of water and shitty LOS.

My third game saw me taking on the Brits.  My opponent had 15 order dice to my 11, so I was outnumbered.  He had lots of cheap inexperienced units, and teams I've never seen before.  It was a base game where you needed to protect your base while getting guys in your opponents base.  The bases were in the corners of the table.  There was a large building in the middle of the board, and I made the mistake of charging the bulk of my force up the middle behind the building.  I was going to slit my force on turn 2.  My opponent declared he was rocket bombing the center unit and rolled a 6, taking out 2 units and stacking like 4-6 pins on everyone else.  I thought the game was done at that point.  My panzerschreck proved his worth by destroying an armored car carrying a large unit right into my base.  Managed to destroy the car and everyone inside.  My force then shrugged off the bulk of the pins, fought through the barrage of shit thrown at me, and I rammed my panther right into my opponents base on the last turn while holding the line.  It was a major victory for me.  Very fun game that could've gone either way.

My 4th game (Sunday morning) saw me in bed.  I overslept and missed it.  I still feel pretty shitty about it.  It's not like me to sleep in, but getting everything painted on time involved staying up late and took a toll on me and I slept right thru my alarms.  So I took a big fat goose-egg for my 4th game and rightly so.

I managed to crawl out of bed and get down to the hotel for my 5th (and final) game.  This one saw me taking on my painting buddy John's German force over at Plastic Legions.  It was a basic "kill the opposing force" mission, so not much thinking involved.  He won the roll off and deployed his force across his side of the board.  Being sneaky (and very typical of me), I stacked the right flank as we had 12" by 36" square along the right side of the board to deploy as well as the usually 12" on your side.  The first turn I thought I made a huge mistake as he had vets in a choke point in the forest preventing me from picking more optimal targets or even getting thru so I could get to his force.  I figured I'd sit back for a turn or two, put a little pressure on the choke point while getting the bulk of my force into a more optimal position.  He managed to get his guys over to me and it looked like I was going to get over-run when his motorcycles popped out from behind.  He had fanatics, so I didn't want to get into melee with him.  I just kept shifting my army while forcing him to change his tactics all while feeling his army out.  The last 3 turns saw the game shift back and forth a few times, but I think the deciding factor was my mortar getting a direct hit on his fanatics, forcing him to change his priority targets.  I give him credit for the ballsy panzerfaust attack on my panther.  I don't think it would've really changed a whole lot had they hit, but it brought his guys out of the choke point and allowed me to clear them off the table along with the commander.  Then again, it could've swung back to him if he'd taken out the panther as I wouldn't have been able to take out the bikes, which would've wreaked havoc behind my lines.  With it being a nail-bitter, victory being balanced on the edge of a knife, it turned out to be the funniest game of the tournament for me, and I walked away with a major victory in the end.

So I ended up with 2-2-1.  Not bad.  I think the Panther is a fun tank, but I probably should've taken a less point sink tank like a Panzer III or Panzer IV.  I think with a little tweeking here and there, I might have something really good.  I like the Assault Engineer's with the flamethrower, heavy SMG's, and will be using them from now on as my close range veteran unit.  I think 2 flamethrowers are a bit much and I'll probably drop my single unit.  I'll probably upgrade 1 of my Heer units to vets, all with Assault Rifles, and 2-3 regular Heer units.  A Panzerschreck team is now something that I will always have in my army as it saved my ass more times than I can count.  I bought 2 Hanomags at the show along with some bikes and a Kubelwagon, so I might try to fit some of that in the point gaps.

I also played in Bolt Action Tank Wars the first day of Adepticon.  While I won't go crazy into it, it's a fun game.  I ended up going 1-2 for 3 games.  I got annihilated my 3rd game, completely tabled.  Again, the Panther's are fun, but are not worth the point cost and Marder's hit hard but are weak to basically everything shooting at them.

So Adepticon 2016.  Fun as always, but it's lacking the charm from the prior few years I've been going.  It might be that it's getting too big, but it is what it is.  I look forward to Adepticon 2017, and I got my sights on Operation Sting in October.  Time to proof-read this thing and post it.  Hope you guys enjoyed it.