German Grenadiers

As the title above would suggest, I managed to take some pictures of my army I brought to Operation Sting this past weekend.  It's a small force, but with being done in under a month I'd say they look pretty good.  I apologize to any history buffs out there if my colors are off from how they really were.  I was following the box art as best I could.  Anyhew, here's what I managed to splatter paint on.

 

And now for individual pieces.  Up first is my armor I managed to get done... the Puma and StuH 42.  These two were actually the first time I really got to use my airbrush for the bulk of the work.

Up next is all my grunt infantry men, taken in two sets.  Some of you might have seen these guys in an earlier post, but  think with proper lighting you should be actually able to see the details.

Next is my medium mortar crew and my spotter for them.

 

 

My sniper team is up next.

And my Lieutenant and Medic....

And as a special bonus, here is my objective marker that was required for the tournament.  I'm really pleased with the way he turned out.  I thought Warlord's paintjob didn't do the model justice.  He looks so much better in browns than he does in a blue and yellow.

So that's the army.  It's a bit small for 1000 points, but with the time constraints I didn't have a whole lot of options for a whole lot of list building and customization.  I basically whatever I could grab and paint in the army starter kit, plus two metal blister packs.  I also think having a lack of understanding the gaming mechanics when I was building the army limited my selection.  I'll get more into the gaming side of this army in a paragraph or two.

The painting was a lot of fun.  A bit grueling with having to speed up my usual pace and cut corners I wouldn't normally, but I think they turned out as a high table-top quality army which is what I was aiming for.  Again, this was my first time utilizing my Patriot 105 airbrush to do the bulk work of priming and basecoating.  It really made doing large surfaces such as the Puma and StuH a whole lot easier.  Getting the right consistency with your paint seems to be the trick along with learning proper trigger control.  It seems easy when you watch a demo video of professionals using an airbrush on youtube, but when it's in your hand, it's difficult to get the feel for it.  Also, switching between colors and cleaning up is a bit of a chore.  I think if I want to start detailing models with highlights and whatnot, the patriot 105 isn't going to cut it.  Painting camo was also pretty new for me.  After a bit of research mixed with a bit of trial and error, it pretty easy to get an effective result.  All in all I'd say it's a solid looking army.

When it comes to gaming, I came into it thinking my elite infantry would never die, or they'd be able to hold they're ground against multiple units at the same time.  I loaded them up with assault rifles, and could knock off 20 rounds in a single.  What I miscalculated is with Bolt Action you could have the most elite forces on the field, but once they're getting targeted by multiple enemies, they're effectiveness  goes down considerably.  Also, a lucky heavy mortar hit can turn your unit of 10 elites into cannon fodder as simply as if they were cheap inexperienced troops.  This actually happened to me twice in a single game, and it sucked.  With tournament play, you want a more balanced force with lots of order dice.  When you get an objective mission, your small elite forces are utterly useless as it only takes a unit or two to start stacking PIN's on them while your enemy sends one of his bargain bin units to scoop up all the objectives.

The Puma was either extremely effective, or got targeted and blown up the first or second turn.  Maybe it's because I tried to be overly aggressive with it?  Probably.  I spent most of my games during Operation Sting on defense which allowed my opponents to dictate the flow of the game.  This was mainly due to the low amount of order dice.

The only game I did managed to win was mainly due to table side and terrain.  It was one of those games where you have to defend your base in the corner of your side of the table while blowing up your opponents base by getting an infantry unit in touching range.  My opponent had to slog thru almost a foot and half of rough terrain while I was able to focus a good portion of my force behind cover and in front of the objective and just slow down his advance.  He defended his base with inexperienced troops, machine guns, and other specialty troops designed to set up a shield wall around his base.  Like I said, I managed to put the bulk of my force on defense, and used one of my elite infantry squads to skim over to his side, using the terrain on the way to block most of his shots.  I managed to take minimal damage getting within a striking range, assaulting his weak troops in hand to hand combat which utterly decimated them, followed by consolidating right next to the object.  It was a really fun game.

I think when Adepticon comes around, I'll be adding more bulk riflemen, a flame thrower, and switching my HE up a little to something that's more my suitable to my army.  I really do think quantity over quality would suit my play style.  Maybe something like 11-13 order dice would allow me to have some control over the flow of game.  It's something I'm going to ponder on in the up and coming weeks.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the pictures..

Operation Sting 2015

This past weekend was Operation Sting 2015 (if the picture directly above didn't give it away).  Basically, this is the tournament that used to be Bilbo's Birthday Bash that's now the fantastic Warlord Game's WWII small squad base skirmish game, Bolt Action.  While I'm sad that Lord of the Rings SBG scene is pretty much dead in my local area, I'm happy to see another game taking it's place that's equally fun.  Don't get me wrong, I love the universe of The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit and I still think it's a very fun game, but with GW hammering the final nails in the coffin for every system other than 40k, I'm happy to see other game company's filling the voids.  I think Warlord Game's has really hit a home run with this system.  Lots of choices, easy rule system to grasp, and lots of fun to play in both a home and tournament setting.

So Operation Sting 2015.  I pretty much spent the bulk of all my free time in September and October (thus far) prepping for this tournament.  I managed to finish up everything around 4am the day of, managing a few hours of sleep then off to the hotel for registration by 9am.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this event going into it.  I had a demo game under my belt, so I was a bit shakey on the rules, not really understanding how the H.E. and armor mechanics worked.  I had read over the rule book a few times but as with most games, you have to see it in action to fully grasp the concepts (at least for me anyways).

As I walked in, I recognized a lot of faces and after my first game, I basically had all the rules down.  It took my tank and puma getting blown up a few times to understand how they work.  All the opponents I played against were great guys and it was the first tournament where I had no issues with someone arguing rules or anything like that.  Maybe it was because I was naive to the rules going into it, but all my opponents helped me when I didn't understand something and happily asked any questions I had.  Granted, I walked away with a score of 1-4-0, but hey.... at least I won 1 game.

I do have to thank my friend Brent for running an awesome tournament (as always).  He always runs an awesome event and this one didn't disappoint.

So enough blabbering.... you probably want to see some pictures right?  Well, I took a few pictures.  First up are some of the awesome tables we got to play on.

There were 12 tables total, but I only managed (remembered) to take pictures of these table.  I have to say the sub table was just amazing.  I really like the feel of the entire table.  Reminds me of something out of Wolfenstein.  It's a shame I didn't get to play on it but it was amazing to just look at.

Up next are the armies I managed to get some pictures of.  I apologize for some of the blurry pictures.  I didn't have my HD setting set on my phone when I took them.

 

 

 

I wish I would've gotten a better picture of Chris's army.  The custom built H.E. was amazing

All of these above armies looked great.  I wish the pictures I took did them justice.  The next two armies are by my two favorite painters in our local scene.

The above army is by John over at plasticlegions.blogspot.com/ . His armies are always a visual treat to look at.  The display looks amazingly professional and you could really tell he spent a lot of time on this.  You never disappoint John, awesome job!

The above army took top honors and rightfully so.  Jeremy over at chefofwar.blogspot.com/ painted this army and display.  What can be said about the above?  It's an amazing piece and like I stated right off the bat, took top honors rightfully so.  I love the mix of British and Arabian soldiers and the camo on the vehicles looked awesome.  The background mural on the display was definitely a nice a touch as well.  I have a few ideas rolling around in my head on how to de-throne you next year.  Awesome job man.

So that's it for now.  You might be asking "Where the hell is your army Dave?".  Well, I plan on doing another blog post on that in the next few days along with a deeper analysis on how to improve the army composition as a whole, so stay tuned for this.  Take it easy and keep painting!

A spark of something different

If you've read the post under this one, I pretty much sum everything "non-hobby" related, but rather important details with where I've been the past few weeks and the hell I've been dealing with.  I won't drone on about it in this post.

On to something hobby related.  Your probably expecting me to show off some awesome Stormcast Eternals or maybe Chaos-y thing.  Well, that not going to happen for awhile.  The past 2 weeks I've been slowly been working on something completely different.  "What are you talking about Dave?".  Well, let me explain.... (I know, too much text on here tonight.... deal with it.)

So there is a tournament coming up in October, and before the tornado hit, I put in an order with Warlord games.  In fact, the package showed up the day after the tornado hit.  "What game are you talking about Dave?",...... Bolt Action.  Yup, I've made yet another zig in my painting career and started painting up a "Historical" army.  So with the recent craziness, I haven't had a lot of time to get my painting groove on, but I'll show what I do have done....

 

 

 

 

 

So here we have 15 of my German Grenadiers fully painted.  I apologize for the quality pictures maybe not being up to the same quality as I usually do.  I haven't set up my photo station yet, and with trying to paint a 1000 point army in under a month, my focus is a bit scattered.  I think they turned out pretty good, and judging by the box examples, I think I matched it pretty good.

So the rest of this month will be dedicated to painting 12 more single troops, a puma, a stug, and a mortar team.  Sure, I'll probably be painting every night, but I think some of my best work comes out when my back is against the wall.  Thanks for looking guys.

Where the hell have you been Dave?

This is going to be lengthy and not really hobby related.... so skip this post if you just want to see pictures or something hobby related, because it's not going to happen, but at least you'll get hopefully an interesting story out of the deal.

If your a fan of my work, your probably asking yourself "Where the hell has this guy been?  He promised updates and the like last post... WTF man?".  Well, I wouldn't say my work would inspire anyone to be a fan, but I have a pretty good excuse. 

So as I was painting my Sigmar dudes in early August (August 2nd to be exact), it was storming pretty bad.  I figured it was your typical bad August storms with nothing out of the usual.  Well, I was certainly in for a surprise.  A tornado decided it wanted to stop by and go for a stroll in my neighborhood.  I had no idea what the hell it was at the time.  Mid paint stroke, the lights cut out as I hear a huge bang a few buildings down, followed by emergency tone howling on my phone with the message with big bold red letters saying "Imminent extreme alert", followed by "Tornado spotted, seek shelter immediately" -NWS (National Weather Service).  I barely had any time to react.  Note, there were no sirens or any other warnings besides this message.  Later, the village said "The tornado just came out of nowhere and we had no time to react".  But getting back to my story, so the lights cut out, I get this crazy message on my phone, I hear the wind roaring outside, so I grab my wife whos in the other room and as I'm grabbing the door to the stairwell and she's crying about the cats, I hear a ripping sound from above.  It sounded like something big hit the roof and was tearing something.  At this point, I'm thinking "Oh fuck.....", so I push her in the stairwell, and follow behind.

We live on the 2nd floor on top of a strip-mall.  We're the only tenants, and it's Sunday night, so everything is closed.  As an adult, I always think "What would I do if _______ happened", and in case of tornado or shitty weather that will bust windows and down trees, the stairwell is the only viable option because it's an enclosed area with no windows.  So we sit down there for about a half an hour, looking at the national weather site trying to figure out what the hell was going on.  Like I said, I still didn't know what the hell just happened. 

The wind seemed to calm down, so we went back up.  I grabbed my flashlight, and walked around the apartment looking for any visible damage.  I didn't see anything and everything seemed to be in order.  So I open the shades and watch the lightning storm (which was pretty cool).  Then, the rainstorm hits (que the dooming music).  At first, I'm watching a rather heavy rainstorm thinking "Well, tomorrow at work is going to be quite muddy", then I see water trickling in through the corner section of where the window is.  Well, it's an older building so I set up a garbage can to collect the water and figuring I'll call the landlord tomorrow and let her know.  Then I get up to go grab a soda from the fridge as I'm walking back to my seat, I hear a gurgling sound in the walls.  "This can't be good" I mutter to myself.  Next thing I know, my ceiling starts to darken with condensation, then it begins to drip water in multiple areas.  I watch it in amazement then realize all my furniture and stuff is out here in the front room and it's now raining inside thru the ceiling.  My wife calls the landlord as I start moving everything to the backrooms.  The water was only coming thru the front section of the front room.  It stopped raining, and it was still pouring in my front room.  The landlord on the phone is saying "I don't know what to do?!!", not something you want to hear from the person you pay to take care of building that's now massively leaking.  So after the landlords shock wore off, she called her maintenance guys who oddly enough arrived within the hour.  I managed to poke holes in the ceiling and funnel the water where I wanted it to go as I moved all the furniture to the back rooms.  I managed to minamize the damage to just the building itself (carpet and walls), and my futon (which I had no place to move, and was old and in need of being replaced anyways).

So when the crew comes out, they tell me about the tornado that just hit and all the damage it did to the town over.  We see emergency vehicles flying down the street to the houses behind my apartment.  They go up on the roof and inform me that "the bad windstorm" ripped the top layer of my roof off.  As I'm standing outside, I see the intersection on the corner is missing a stop light and the awning for the gas station looks like its partially destroyed.  I had my own issues to worry about, and couldn't really go venture around.  So they tarp up my roof and tell me they'll be back tomorrow to assess the damage.  I spend the rest of the night tarping anything in the front room I can't move by myself while watching to make sure that if the damage spreads I can protect the rest of my stuff.

To speak more about the tornado, they classified it as a level 1 or 2 tornado.  It fucked up the subdivision behind us.  I mean we drove thru it later on the next day and there was 50 year old trees literally ripped out of the ground sitting on houses and trampolines hanging from power lines.  It looked like a war-zone and something you've probably only seen on tv.  The one business 4 buildings down from us had the entire second floor ripped off and the bar next to it was completely demolished.  To my knowledge no one got hurt, so that's the only good thing that came out of it.  A lot of damage and a lot of tv crews and workers running around.  They had a command center set up in the parking lot across the street from us.  It was crazy to say the least.

So the next day comes, the drywall on the ceiling is caving in, the walls are bulging out, and my carpeting is completely soaked and starting to grow mold.  The kitchen cabinets are starting to buckle and the free floating cabinet fell out of the ceiling because whoever put it up there didn't drill it into the studs.  The landlord, contractor, and insurance guy comes by and goes thru the place.  The landlord informs us she's going out of town for the next two weeks, but she's sooooo sorry about what happened.  She doesn't offer to put us up in a hotel or get a moving company to help us move our stuff to the downstairs vacant office.  Nope, just a "I'm sorry" and "You'll have an even better kitchen, just be patient" and "I'll be back in 2 weeks to check on you guys".  So I play along, and start moving my stuff to the vacant office.  Not just the stuff that was in the front room and the kitchen, but the entire apartment.  I'm not under lease and haven't been for over 2 years because she's a piss poor landlord.  I never signed any papers from the insurance guy claiming anything.  I threw away my futon and a book shelf, and managed to save everything else.  I have a severely asthmatic wife who can't live there without risking serious health repercussions with mold sinking into the cross beams the very frame work.  Even the light fixtures were filled with water.  When I was moving stuff, they were ripping out the ceiling and one of the guys told me that roofing trusses weren't even attached to the frame of the building, but just sitting on top of it.  Judging by all the damage, this was at least a month long renovation with strange people going in and out and me and my wife were expected to just live there while all this is happening.  If my landlord was soo sorry and so concerned, she would've canceled her little trip and personally seen to things.  Since I wasn't under a lease (even though I've asked her numerous times to sign one), she wasn't legally obligated to do anything for us.  Fuck that and fuck her.... sorry for my language, but she fucked us on this one.  If I didn't have any money saved up for something like this, I would've been stuck there without any recourse.  Luckily, I usually plan for the worst, which was this entire situation.

So, to put a bow-tie on this thing, once I got everything we want to keep downstairs, we rented a U-Haul truck the following weekend, and we got the hell out of there.  The past few weeks I've been setting everything up at the new place and getting life back to normal.  So as I sit here in my new hobby room, I can say with confidence that things will get back on track here... well, for the most part.... you'll see next post which I'm probably going to do right after this one. 

If you managed to make it this far, I thank you.  I figured I'd rather just lay it all out there then not say anything and act like nothing has happened when for the past few weeks my entire life got flipped upside-down.